Next week the people of Scotland, a small country to the north of England in the United Kingdom, will decide by referendum whether they want a divorce from a 307-year-old marriage with England and Wales. Until recently, the groom had seemed indifferent to the tumult in the bride's camp, if only because England had not taken separation feeling seriously. But opinion polls, which initially thought the move would be easily defeated, suggest that a yes vote is now very possible, perhaps likely.
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Strictly, the referendum has no legal effect, and the mechanics of a divorce, were it to occur, would remain to be sorted out, with some who are sentimentally leaning towards separation thinking reconciliation will occur before things go too far. The British Government did not, in the Edinburgh Agreement, commit itself to independence, or, indeed, purport to pretend that it was representing the views of the 90 per cent of Great Britain that is not Scotland. But the very question that will be asked - "Should Scotland be an independent country?" - and the manner of the campaign suggest that the momentum for a new country (or a reborn old one) would be hard to stop. Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has indicated that he would like to achieve full independence by early 2016.
It is not impossible that Salmond would find it difficult to find a Sassenach to negotiate with. Many observers in London expect that a yes vote would cause the fall of David Cameron, as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party, and of Ed Miliband, as leader of the Labour Party. In a real sense the future of the union turns on the views of Scottish voters still loyal to Scottish Labour, a party that had, in recent years, fallen back to the advance of Salmond's Scottish National Party. Labour opposes a break up, even if it has been a reasonably enthusiastic member of the devolved Scottish Assembly, which has had state-government-style powers for the past 16 years.
In moves designed to stop the momentum towards a yes vote, former British prime minister (and ethnic Scot) Gordon Brown has unveiled a promise of further devolved powers - indeed what he calls "home rule" - that London would give Scotland immediately if it votes no. Indeed, he has promised - and Cameron and Miliband seem to have endorsed the the words coming from a political grave - that these powers would be in effect by next January, a year before any full independence following a yes vote was possible.
What would happen if Scotland were to leave? It is as yet far from clear, although it is fairly certain that the UK (which would, in every sense, retain all of the old sovereign powers of the old union) would remain much the same, if about 9 per cent smaller. It would be Scotland which would have to make the vital decisions, whether about currency, defence, membership of the European Community, and relations with England and other countries. There would be many complicated questions about the financial terms of a break-up, not least of access to North Sea oil revenues. But the fact that net money has been going north for a long time suggests that Scotland would be doing well to maintain its standard of living. The Scottish economy is about the size of West Australia and Tasmania put together, with about 40 per cent more population. Put another way, its annual state output is about four times that of the ACT.
The Scots, like the Irish, have maintained a strong sense of themselves despite long years of union with England and Wales. The Scottish and English thrones became one at the beginning of the 17th century, and the Act of Union took place a century later. Scotland and Ireland were impoverished by various civil wars (with the English), Jacobite revolts, clearances, absentee English landlordism, famines and massive emigration, particularly to the US, Canada, South Africa, India Asia and Australia. Its exiles have been massively sentimental and each quasi-nation has retained strong cultural, social and educational links with home. Scotland has a special place in history as the centre of the Enlightenment, and has at times led the world in medicine, political economy, engineering and ship building, though in these post-Thatcher years it is rather better known for its football than for its industry. The oppression was real enough (which makes one wonder about the English sensitivity in using the words "home rule"), but some of the more romantic flourishes of the various Celtic legends ignore the role of the incompetence, corruption and cupidity of various Gaelic leaders of the times.
The English-born Tony Abbott, has, on behalf of Team Australia, anathematised disunion, but without much in the way of an argument as such - certainly without an argument likely to figure as emotionally as some notions of freedom, renewed dignity, and, perhaps, a freshly exposed and maybe blue bum pointing southwards. He would be quite right to point out, in a somewhat John Howard fashion, that the things which ought to unite Britons were far stronger than the issues which drove them apart, yet may not pay sufficient note to the power of emotion, sentiment, passion, instinct and conviction. Not to mention the pseudo nationalism of the football field, and the welling up of pride (apparently) at the sound of a skirl.
It does not affect the Australian national interest one jot. Another mainstream, slightly leftist social democratic party up near the Arctic Circle will not greatly alarm the Scandinavians, or much affect the identification of many Australians of Scottish descent with its fate. There might be a raised eyebrow if the Scots moved to ethnic cleansing, changed their language or began, again, attacking Hadrian's Wall or stealing English sheep as of old, but that is unlikely. But it ought to be an interesting item of study for Australians as potentially the only break-up of a first-world nation of the past century. We have no models of such a thing, and, remote as is the possibility of another, or even an Australian one, it is interesting to contemplate one in action.
Apparently settled nations have divided. Czechoslovakia split up into two states reasonably amicably. But it was always a somewhat artificial confection, of people who, thanks to the Cold War (and before it the German Wars) had quite different backgrounds. So was the split in the Balkans, virtually inevitable after the death of Tito. And while the partition of India, and the later repartition of East and West Pakistan, involved former British possessions, they were also colonies who had long arguments with their colonial master. But North America's internal borders have not changed for more than 150 years, though there was a convulsive Civil War in the US between 1861-65. West Europe (other than the aggressor Germany) has had the same frontiers for a long time.
Here in Australia, Western Australians, Queenslanders and Tasmanians occasionally express anger about being ignored, taken for granted or having their interests overridden. But even if secession were possible - and it would involve the overthrow of our constitution, probably by force - it is doubtful that the differences are so great that they create much more than mutterings. At different times, some states, such as Western Australia and Queensland, have claimed that they have been putting much more into the system than they have been taking out, but both states have, in the past, been mendicants, getting help when others suffered.
It is not, in any event, clear that the combined voice of the people in the south west corner of the state (where West Australia's population is concentrated, would have the right to secede with all of the state. In about 90 per cent of the state, Aboriginal people are a distinct majority, and that same logic which would allow Western Australia to secede from us, might apply to their right to secede from Perth.
