Coming Full Circle

In my early teens, I loved the band, The Corries and, with a little group of friends would walk around our council estate singing Flower of Scotland, that song about the defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, beloved yet by city drunks and football fans. We’d wave saltires, wear Lion Rampant flags like capes, and trying to impress upon any adults we met how important it was that our country detached itself politically from England, the land of the Sassenach.  

Even now, I can remember the lyrics of ‘Come now, Gather now’, the Corries’ Jacobite call to arms and the way I wore my Lanarkshire accent and vocabulary like a badge of pride.

But by my late teens, I eschewed such sentiment.  It was racist, I declared.  Why should we be so parochial and inward looking?  I put my education where my very big mouth was and went to study in London.  And there the conflict began.  The head of Department, who had interviewed me for my place, was the late and very wonderful Karl Millar, who spoke to me of Scottishness and what it meant to him, living and happy in England.  He was the most successful and celebrated Scottish person I had ever met, and gave me hope of belonging, in a university where too often I felt out of place and where my accent was highlighted by a linguistics lecturer as an example of ‘lower class’ speech.  When I met Karl again, much, much later, at a literary party, he confided he was ‘too old for the weather now’ or otherwise might have moved ‘back home’.  Now I wish I’d asked why he had changed so.

I started dating an Italian man while I was still an undergraduate and did so for years.  He was from the South and had the same feelings of insecurity and vague unworthiness when in Northern Italy, that I secretly harboured in London.  But we both embraced the history of the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy, without really paying much attention to the cracks left behind, and thought yes, together is better, stronger.

Circumstances, in the form of a scholarship, brought me back to Edinburgh for my PhD, and nothing really changed. Edinburgh, unlike Glasgow, which I thought of as my home city, was still very much a place of the Union.  For me, the castle, the gardens, Arthur’s seat, which I passed every day on the bus on my way to the department, were somehow British and so was I.

I still regarded Scottish Nationalists with disdain. These were people who mocked England, a country where many people I loved dearly were born and raised.  I lived in London, after my studies were completed. I loved my job. I met my (Dutch, Kiwi, Romany) husband, Alan, and saw London as my city, a metropolis which made such random chance encounters seem more likely and easier than any place I’d ever been.

But while my attitude remained steady, what the Scottish National Party represented did not. I was living in London and didn’t get a vote in the first independence referendum, but I would have voted no.  By then I’d worked in three different countries in mainland Europe and was again teaching at an English University. I was European to my core, and that to me included all of the UK.  Scotland breaking away, might also mean leaving Europe, or at the very worst a nervous waiting period when we reapplied to join.  I even said as much on a Channel 4 show when asked to make a comment.

I also felt disenfranchised.  My family was in Scotland and when not working I was there in the house I grew up in.  I spent far more time in our Bellshill scheme than the majority of people with second homes who popped over a few times a year for a holiday.  Yet they were able to vote.  

It was only then that I started to read about Civic Nationalism.  I had worked extensively with refugees and asylum seekers, those who had settled in Scotland kept in touch and spoke to me of a sense of belonging of welcoming. It wasn’t just a romantic notion but a tangible thing.  Being born in a place did not and should not really give me any particular rights; being part of that country, living there, should.   It was a concept that intrigued me. Independence was about growth and self-determination, my old ideas of Nationalism, and indeed those prevalent in the country when I was growing up, had been swept away for something inclusive and developmental.  A change had come, and I hadn’t noticed it.

And then there was Brexit.

The night before the election my husband had been working in the Home Counties and came in late. ‘We’re going to lose,’ he said.  

I didn’t believe him; it was inconceivable to me.  He told me he had driven through streets of English flags, Union Jacks and Brexit heralding.  I argued and said, come on, look at all the saltires when we go home and everyone there will still vote to Remain (no matter where I lived, or for how many decades, Scotland was always referred to as home, something I didn’t notice till a bemused colleague pointed it out to me). I didn’t know a single Scottish Leave supporter, not one.  It’s like turkeys voting for Christmas, I said.  It won’t happen.

But it did.

And there was a shift too.  While my husband who had been in the UK for more than twenty years was registering for Settled Status, Scotland was welcoming ‘new Scots’ as they affectionately called non-native incomers on social media. My job, which I loved and still do, is in Hertfordshire, but my mum was in her eighties, and I was regularly commuting to Scotland to check up on her.  Could we reverse the commute?  My husband was looking for other work, at one interview down South, he was asked if he didn’t want to ‘become British’ (he doesn’t).  My university, like many others, during the pandemic, was exploring blended learning and what could be gained from it, and the commute to teach my students would be no worse than the one I’d been making for years to see my mum.

So, we moved. To Stirling.  There was an irony that I was now living in the home of the Battle of Bannockburn, like an off-key echo of the old song I had once sung, wrapped in a flag.  My mum was half an hour away, there were dear friends to see at a similar distance, as soon as Covid permitted, and there were those vistas of hills and history, that even, months later, make my heart sing when I pass them.  I still work in England.  I have no wish to change my job and don’t see why I should, so long as they are happy to keep me.  My university is inclusive and welcoming, we are educating young people to be the best that they can be wherever they choose to call home, wherever they choose to belong.  

I still have questions. I’m unsure why people who own a house here but don’t live in it are entitled to vote. The sectarianism so prevalent in my youth, flares up still from time to time, and I worry about its effects.  I worry that an independent Scotland, might not be welcomed back into the EU, that the heartbreak of a divorce, this time an unwilling one, unasked for and unwanted, might recur.

But, and this is important, it is possible, despite the chattering of Unionists on twitter, and Brexit voters everywhere, to live in one country and work in another.  We did exactly this for four years when we lived on the Italian side of the border and worked in France and Monaco.

It is also possible to believe that one of those countries, Scotland, should have the independence that the majority of its citizens now want, that the country will be kinder, fairer, stronger, as a result.

And finally, it is also very, very easy to believe both of these things, without even a vestige of dislike for the people of England, and the rest of the UK.  Perhaps the other countries in the Union will also break away. They can enjoy the governments they choose to vote for, something Scotland hasn’t been able to do for many a year.  If the majority in England and Wales want to be separate from the EU, then, fine, let them be so.  But let us make our own choices, let the country that has grown up and away from anti English sentiment, from racism, be the adult it wants to be. It’s well past the age of consent, the right to make its own decisions.  Next time, I’ll be voting yes.

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Comments (18)

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  1. 220630 says:

    I’d add only that civic nationalism requires a much more decentralised and participatory form of public decision-making than is being offered by the current prospectus on independence. I do think we should continue hold out for more.

    1. Dougie Blackwood says:

      While I accept the necessity of supporting the SNP as a route to independence, I do feel that they have been too timid in using the existing powers we have.

      Below the level of Holyrood there is no effective local democracy. We have 32 “Local” authorities which are neither local nor democratic. They are run by a raft of grossly overpaid officials that tell the councillors what can and cannot be done.

      We need to return to real local councils run by elected local people with andinistrative assistance from some paid officials.

      1. 220630 says:

        Indeed we do. And we need the increased disempowerment of national government in favour of much smaller units of local government; that is, much greater independence for local communities in their public decision-making. But this is no part of the national government’s prospectus for independence, just business as usual.

    2. Wullie says:

      The Scottish people can have whatever they want, just vote for it!

      1. 220630 says:

        No, the Scottish people can only have what a majority of them want; and that only through the mediation of the corporate interests of political parties. Democracy seeks to disempower both the tyranny of the majority and the mediation of that tyranny by corporate interests. But democracy forms no part of the Scottish government’s prospectus for independence, just more of the same.

  2. Tom Ultuous says:

    Good piece Lorna. I remember decades ago Billy Connelly being asked what he thought of Scottish Nationalism and he replied something along the lines of “I associate any form of nationalism with the Nazis”. That really pissed me off at the time because the sort of nationalism he was describing was exactly what we were hoping to break free of and Brexit embodied exactly what that was. I think even Billy has changed his mind since.

  3. Derek Thomson says:

    Ah, Europe. The thing that dare not speak it’s name. Not once, I say again, not once have I heard any of the anti-Scottish drivellers against Scottish independence since the announcement was made mention the fact that we voted as a country to stay in Europe, but were out anyway, as what England wants, Scotland gets.

  4. ronald young says:

    I enjoyed your article but have to say that your last sentence took me by surprise. I wanted a clearer explanation
    I left Scotland in 1990 – have been living in retirement in Bulgaria and Romania since 2010.

    I’ll be coming back to Scotland in the autumn to look for a place to live.
    At my age I need to think about the health facilities.

    But I’m not convinced about the case for independence – although the one daughter who lives in Scotland is – as is my best friend – but not others
    I followed the debate around the 2014 very closely – indeed I did a little E-book which I must go back and reread
    https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZWm8HXZRSB95xfQ4TbXV6lV3zTDYfEB9jOk

    1. 220630 says:

      ‘I’ll be coming back to Scotland in the autumn to look for a place to live.’

      I hear the Highlands welcome incomers.

      1. ronald young says:

        very droll – I’m actually a political refugee – from Thatcher’s Britain

    2. Derek Thomson says:

      See when you re-read it? Can you remind yourself that only Westminster Tories use “Scottish Nationalist Party”. They’re being deliberately insulting. And can you also disavow yourself of the notion that Tomkins is an expert on anything? I could go on. At length. But I won’t. (thank goodness for that – ed.)

    3. Neil MacGillivray says:

      Not convinced? As a start find Murdo Fraser ( a Tory) inadvertantly making the case for independence on TV recently! We are a rich country in resources and people but the loss of our young – many abroad and many to London – is nothing short of disastrous. Fortunately, these are being replaced by New Scots but we need more- and not retirees from the Home Counties. Sadly, England has retreated into a past of empire and “abroad” as demonstrated by Brexit; we must escape from such a narrow nationalism in which lies danger – signs of which are already been seen in Police Bills, attempts to control the judiciary and extend control of the broadcast media, actions of a new-fascist state. We have to get out and the only way is a Yes vote.

      Let us not repeat the Unionist mantra of being too wee, too poor and too stupid and let us not argue about the nuts and bolts; let us vote for independence and then let us discuss the way ahead.

  5. Jennifer Houston says:

    This is just the same narrative we’re taught by the mainstream – nationalism bad, faceless globalisation good. We’ve been told it by unionists for centuries now, it’s the same old song. We’re now told by these people that Scottish culture is just tourist tat we need to be ashamed of, but we should embrace plastic versions of American culture along with the rest of the world. Even the buildings we see getting put up these days could be in any city of the world.

  6. David Stevenson says:

    Pretty sure people can’t legitimately register to vote on the basis of a second or holiday home that they only stay in for a minority of the time. Am I wrong there?

    1. 220630 says:

      No, you’re right. To qualify to be registered to vote in Scotland, you must be resident or deemed resident in the registration area AND a British, Irish, European Union, Commonwealth or Foreign National citizen with the legal right to remain in the UK, aged 14 or over to register, and not subject to any legal incapacity. Convicted prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less are also eligible to register to vote in Scottish Parliamentary and Scottish Local Government elections.

      If you own a second home in Scotland but aren’t normally resident there, your not qualified to register. If Lorna has any evidence of people with second homes, who pop over to her mum’s Bellshill scheme a few times a year for a holiday, fraudulently registering to vote, she should take it to the Electoral Registration Officer at North Lanarkshire Council.

      1. Lorna Gibb says:

        It’s the deemed resident that was problematic. At the time I certainly knew at least one London based family who voted No in the first indyref using their Loch Lomond address (a house they used only in summer). Bellshill Council estates, I’m afraid are not really popular as holiday home areas 😉

        1. 220702 says:

          And did you shop the Loch Lomond fraudsters to the relevant local authority? If not, why not?

  7. Norm says:

    Very well put, Lorna. Hope you are able to make the case to as many people as possible in the upcoming campaign.

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