Originally published: April 2023
I recently watched an interesting speech by Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian academic and former politician, where he explained his primary reason for opposing Quebecois independence. He didn’t talk about economics, on which the Scottish independence debate so often centres, but on something even more fundamental: freedom of identity. He acknowledged that there would be many people (perhaps a majority) in Quebec who saw themselves as Quebecois before Canadian, but argued that within a federal Canada that isn’t a problem; everyone has the freedom to decide the extent to which they were Quebecois and the extent to which they’re Canadian. Independence doesn’t offer that.
Of course, the same principle applies equally for Scotland. As a devolved nation within the United Kingdom, any individual Scot can identify as a Scottish first and British second, or British first and Scottish second. In other words, they have freedom of identity – the government doesn’t tell them who they are.
The vision of the Scottish nationalists is to take that freedom away. In that sense, Scottish independence is not just economically irresponsible, it is actually cruel. The day Scotland becomes independent is the day ‘Britain’ ceases to exist. They would eradicate a core part of the identity of millions of people – not just in Scotland, but in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It is time we forced Scottish Nationalists to acknowledge this.
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