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Less than 24 hours after Scotland headed to the polls, the Guardian newsroom gathered to discuss the results of the Scottish independence referendum. In a talk chaired by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, the audience and the journalists explored what the no vote meant for the future of the UK.
Fresh after the fast shift of the debate from Scotland to England when the no vote was confirmed, the panel started with Westminster’s reaction.
“It was very interesting how fast David Cameron went back to business as usual, outside Downing Street,” said Polly Toynbee. “This is visceral, blood politics in the run up to the next British election. ‘I won’t betray them’ he said, but the promises are not all that clear when you look at them carefully.”
“England needs regional government,” Deborah Orr said. “We have got two houses at Westminster, one of which is unelected, one of them just needs to be dismantled and devolved out to the regions. Not so there are more politicians, but so we in the electorate are voting for politicians who are living amongst us, as well as in London.”
Phillip Inman is the Guardian’s economics correspondent. “Having been around Europe and speaking to people, you see that people believe that their politicians will be throwing away their savings for some kind of nebulous promise of growth in the future,” he said. “I disagree with Deborah; I think politicians absolutely get it. They know their constituents are very conservative with a small c. At the next general election the majority of voters will be over 55 and they’re not really going to care about young voters have to say.”
Alan Rusbridger asked the audience if they could’ve, who would have voted yes or no. The majority in the room said they would have voted no.
Guardian data journalist James Ball spoke about motivations driving the no vote, in a referendum where there was no exit poll. “People have voted with their wallets, in their economic interests,” he said. “There was only an affect of somewhere being a big SNP area if you controlled for deprivation, income, unemployment. If you did that, SNP areas were a little bit more likely to turn to yes – but not much. So people looked at the information and made fairly individual decisions but that didn’t really base it off an idea or ideology. Maybe three or four years ago when the economy was worse, it would have gone differently.”
James also addressed the high reported turnout among 16 and 17 year olds, who had been allowed to vote for the first time - based on a count that may have been misleading. “You might have heard a lot people talking about how 16 and 17 year olds really turned out and really voted for yes,” he said, “but that was based on Lord Ashcroft doing a poll which talked to fourteen 16- and 17-year olds,” he said.
The discussion moved on to the promises made by Westminster to give Scotland more powers, as well as the prospect of only English MPs voting on English laws.
An audience member suggested that the House of Lords should be moved to another city or region, or that it could be mobile. Polly said big changes would need to be made to the House of Lords for the new system to be representative of England and Scotland. “How can you have legislation that is passed by this quite peculiar breed of English-only MPS but then the entire House of Lords – some of them might be Scots- get to vote on it too? That makes no sense of all,” she said. “When you think about devolution, you begin to think about that second chamber for a different use.”
“We can’t just carve up Britain – we need areas to come forward and say: ‘We want to be a region’, but be viable. They need to be small enough for constituents to feel a sense of identity and big enough,” she said.
Originally from Yorkshire, James spoke about the feeling there. “Yorkshire doesn’t have its own media, its own political representation, it is barely covered by the media,” he said. “Its bigger than Wales, much richer than Wales and as big as Scotland. And it is nonexistent, in terms of national awareness. There a lot of places in the UK like that.”
“But would Leeds and Bradford and Sheffield want to ball their strong individual identities under one power, ruling from somewhere else?” asked Deborah.
James acknowledged there were many benefits in being a union, as well as risks in regionalising Britain. “I don’t know how we would get that conversation to work,” he said. “I don’t know if we could avoid becoming this inchoate, greedy thing. There is more there than the romance of history: we can use the union to do some really conquering, bloody good things.”
Guardian reporter Hugh Muir was in the crowd and spoke about the potential for future change – as long as the public remained engaged.
One audience member said that Scotland had a disruptive catalyst and that the prospect of leaving forced people to participate. The panel talked about John Harris’ series of videos on the referendum, which showed a high level of political engagement in homes and on streets. The Scottish author Irvine Welsh’s piece on Scotland’s “glorious failure” also argued that the Scots had reinvigorated democracy for all the UK. But Phillip said that he thought English apathy was still high.
“Speaking to charity workers, even when you’ve got money and you’ve got hope and you bring things into areas with poverty, still people are passive,” he said. “They have nothing – they will stay inside and watch DVD boxsets and won’t go to a townhall meeting. That’s not everywhere, but they report in general, England have become quite pacified and welfarised.”
Deborah disagreed that the English would necessarily remain apathetic. “In Scotland, people stopped nursing their beers and went to their town meetings, so it can be built,” she said. “What a terrific thing; that must be held on to.”
One audience member said he felt that the dominance of London ruins life for ordinary Londoners. James agreed. “Why should England get this awful shortchange deal where you get the crumbs on the table of the bits of devolution that the other place have chosen? You don’t get a second parliament, you get more bloody London. We’re sick of London. England is not happy with London for right or wrong. Shouldn’t it be a different town or institution that the English people get a say?
“London does already have some devolved powers and its own government,” Deborah said, “so should it be English votes for English people – but only outside London? London get two votes like the Scots do.”
Phillip spoke about the recent Swedish elections, where, following European trends, the far right party skyrocketed to 12.9% of the vote. “Every country is trying to find ways to maintain their income. We have this intergenerational shift and we have to be very aware of the young people. We’ve seen in Scotland where a lot of young people got involved and I’d love to see the same in England but I am quite gloomy at our ability to energise them.”
The debate concluded with a move to the bar, not before the Guardian’s deputy editor Paul Johnson revealed the cover of the Saturday newspaper to the audience ahead of print, complete with an exclusive referendum poem: September 2014, by poet laureate Carol Anne Duffy.
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