‘Good on you for still wearing your badge! Good on you for keeping it on!’
It’s the day after the Independence Referendum and those who didn’t stay awake the whole night woke up to a Scotland that has decided to stay part of the United Kingdom. Just about.
Watching the results come in, region by region, hope bled out. Some early small victories for Yes were swallowed up by announcement after announcement that another area had voted No. The much hoped for shove of Glasgow’s Yes contribution turned out to be more of a timid nudge. Helped along by Edinburgh’s unexpectedly large No majority (62%), we watched our hopes for an independent Scotland fall apart.
Today, tension in the air was palpable. Walking through the Meadows on this unusually misty September morning, observing people going about their daily lives, thinking, ‘Two out of every five people I can see here voted Yes. Two people out of every five in Edinburgh want Scotland to be independent – and it’s not. And I don’t know when it will be.’ Because this is the result we’ve been left with. The No campaign won the majority of votes – but what did it win? A disappointed, divided country, a future racked with uncertainties (not least whether or not we will actually receive a further devolution of powers from Westminster, something which the No campaign leaned on heavily in the past weeks), and for a what I imagine a substantial number, a feeling of ‘What if?’
What if we had woken up this morning to news that Scotland was an independent country? What would walking through the Meadows have been like then?
The tireless work of so many was not for nothing. As a grassroots activism movement, watching the Yes campaign’s rise from obscurity to the lead in an ICM poll just over a week before the Referendum was incredible. The actions and dedication of all of us who took part have been made worthwhile by the sheer extent of political awakening and discussion it provoked in our countries and communities. Faced with biased media outlets, only one newspaper out of 38 in print in the UK being pro-independence, and fear tactics from political figureheads who barely managed to cast a glance towards Scotland before this month, the Yes campaign thrived on purely people power.
Despite having no allegiance to the SNP, hearing the news today that Alex Salmond has resigned was saddening. He fought long and hard for a campaign he did not win, and while it is understandable that he felt the need to step down, he hopefully did so with some sense of achievement. The SNP is being handed over to the very capable hands of Nicola Sturgeon, signalling a new era for their politics.
Today, as I walked back towards my flat after going for a jog, a man passing by exclaimed ‘Good on you for still wearing your badge! Good on you for keeping it on!’. I was still wearing my Yes badge on my hoody. When do I take it off? Do I take it off in the name of negotiations with Westminster, in which I believe that Scotland needs to stand united in order to not leave itself vulnerable to attacks? Do I take it off because it is now somehow irrelevant – an artefact from something that almost happened, but not quite? Do I leave it on forever because I still believe Scotland should be an independent country?
Our politics can’t be identified by the badges we wear here in Edinburgh any more. Soon there won’t be those kind of exclamations from strangers in the street, or the little shy smiles you get from a fellow Yes voter you pass on the way to work. Although we don’t wear it on our clothes, all of us have been marked by this debate in some way. We’ve all had to reassess what we find important, and what kind of country we want to live in. Now that the vote has been cast, we need to work co-operatively across Scotland to ensure that a shared vision can be created that will echo in Westminster. Remaining divided makes us vulnerable to Westminster attack, and both sides know that now is a crucial time to work together. But first, give us a few days to ache for what could have been.
Spinneke 