The Big Picture and the Bigger Questions

If the polls are to be believed there is a very real possibility Scotland might vote for independence on September 18^th, but is this just another example of people ignoring the big picture?

For starters, let’s make one thing clear, this poll is actually pretty meaningless and does not under any circumstances mean an independent Scotland is on the cards.

Yes, the gap is much narrower than it was a month ago, but the lack of polling (there were more polls in Clacton in the week following Carswell’s defection than in Scotland in the past three weeks) means the margin of error for a one off poll like this is colossal.

However, what is undeniable is the Yes campaign is picking up momentum and is bridging what was seemingly an unbridgeable gap.

So how has this happened?

Essentially it comes down to the same thing which has dogged politics for many years, an ignorance 

of the big picture.

Alex Salmond has the better sound-bites, the opportunity to invoke the memory of William Wallace and play on people’s natural patriotism, but fails to address and (more to the point) has not been forced to address the really big questions.

Can Scotland be an independent country? Of cause it can. It has the people and resources to survive outside of the UK, this is undeniable, but this is the wrong question to ask.

The Isle of Wight could be an independent nation, but that does not mean it is in its best interests.

The real question is whether or not Scotland would be better off outside the UK and how would it achieve this, but time and time again Alex Salmond, the SNP and the pro-independence campaign has failed to answer the serious questions and essentially these questions are all economic.

What currency will Scotland use? Mr Salmond still insists an independent Scotland will use the pound and refuses to come up with a plan b, despite being told multiple times this is not going to happen and yet nobody seems to care.

It might not seem important what currency is in your pocket as long as you can spend it, but in fact it matters a lot, not to the person on the street, but to the businesses that employ the person on the street, Scottish exporting companies and those potential investors in Scotland.

If you want an indication of how important the currency is then all you have to look at is the effect the tightening polls had on trading value of sterling.

Will Scotland join the European Union? Again, Mr Salmond claims an independent Scotland would aim to join the EU, but has not answered the question of how long it would take to complete this process.

The EU has already stated Scotland would have to join the back of the queue, meaning the process could take many, many years, but has Mr Salmond addressed this, no.

What about North Sea oil? Mr Salmond’s claims of fiscally security are entirely based on North Sea oil being owned by an independent Scotland, but quite frankly his calculations are at best questionable, at worst deluded.

On the NHS, Mr Salmond has made the even more elementary mistake of claiming to be able to provide well-funded public services while lowering tax, the greatest and most consistent lie ever told by politicians.

While it is not fair to place all of these failures at the door of Mr Salmond, what we have ended up with is an argument over Scotland being governed by Westminster, not a debate over how an independent Scotland would survive.

All those in the No camp, Better Together campaign, Westminster establishment and Conservative party, have, in retrospect, made a mess of the referendum by taking victory for granted and assuming the serious arguments would win over the day.

But herein lays the problem, not just with the Scottish independence referendum, but politics in general. The big picture does not matter.

The same thing has been seen with the other popular ardent nationalist, Nigel Farage.

While the long-standing MEP and his party have enjoyed strong support, rising poll numbers, an election victory and look set to win its first Westminster representative, all sides of the anti-EU argument are yet to answer the big-picture questions.

Yes, the UK could survive outside the EU, after all it did for practically all of its history, but this drowns-out the greater issue of is the UK stronger outside the EU.

Like Mr Salmond, Mr Farage has all the good sound-bites and poetic licence for Churchillian oratory, but scratch the surface and his plans are at best half-baked.

At no point have UKIP outlined how the UK would go about leaving the EU, how long it would take to renegotiate trade deals, addressed the opposition to leaving the EU from parts of the business community, assessed the impact on the estimated 4 million jobs linked to European trade, or discussed why companies like Hitachi, Siemens, Nissan and Honda all state the UKs membership of the EU as a significant factor for investing in this country.

Yet again, all the really big questions are not nationalistic, but economic. Ordinary people want jobs and, more importantly, secure jobs and it is unclear if any job in Scotland would be secure if there was a yes vote, in the same way jobs would be at risk if the UK left the EU.

However, the most frustrating thing here is this comes down to an ignorance and apathy, not among the career politicians, but the voters.

The reason politicians like Mr Salmond, Mr Farage and many others (including the leaders of the three main Westminster parties) can get away with dodging the issues is because we as voters let ourselves be conned into believing it is possible to have the best of both worlds, when in fact it almost never possible.

Voters often complain about the quality of politicians on offer, but perhaps we are to blame for this because we demand so little of those we elect.

If you want any evidence of this then look no further than Scotland, where they might be about to put Mr Salmond in charge, despite the fact he cannot tell Scots what currency they will be using.

The general public are short-termists by nature. We are not prepared to wait for a decade to see improvements, we need to see them now, which in a democratic political world is never going to happen.

However, if a voter was going out to buy a new mobile phone they would not make up their mind based on incomplete facts, they would do their research and find the best deal and this is the way we should deal with politics.

Your decision of who to cast your ballot for should not be rushed, but considered and should take into consideration the facts available at the time, not opinions, but facts.

If we continue to fail to look at the bigger picture this cycle of second rate politicians filling their own pockets at the people’s expense will never end and as nations we will continue to fall behind because of it.

Perhaps we should turn to the worlds of fictional President Josiah Bartlett “we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better, and we will start this moment today.”