The Yes campaign should welcome home rule for the Northern and Western Isles
The leaders of the councils of Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides have announced they are to meet next Monday to discuss their demands for home rule – for autonomy from both Westminster and Holyrood.
Here are some facts to kick us off:
- Between them, Orkney and Shetland and the Outer Hebrides have around 20,000 more people than their near neighbour, the autonomous Faroe Islands (who are now discussing a move to full independence).
- 37 countries or territories have fewer people than Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides combined – they come in just ahead of Bermuda, and a long way ahead of Tuvalu.
- The Outer Hebrides (along with the Isle of Man) became a part of
BritainScotland at the Treaty of Perth in 1266. - Orkney was pledged by the Norwegian King in 1468 as a security against a dowry. Because the dowry was never paid, it has in effect belonged to Scotland ever since.
- Shetland only became a part of Scotland in 1472 – 63 years before Wales joined England (around 1535) and 135 years after Cornwall did.
- In international law, peoples have a right to self determination.
As far as I am concerned, the people who live on these islands should have the right to decide their constitutional destiny. The idea that they could be a politically autonomous unit is no more ludicrous than the idea that the Faroe Islands, or Man, or Jersey, or Tuvalu, or, indeed, China can be. They are, in fact, bigger than the Åland Islands, who gained their autonomy from Finland after it secured independence.
There is no intrinsic size for a country or an autonomous area. It is not up to anyone but those who live there to decide if they are ‘a people’ – or a collection of peoples. Anything else is imperialism.
What I fear, is this: there seem to be almost as many in the campaign for a yes vote in the Scottish referendum next year who are genuine Scottish nationalists as there are in the no campaign who are British nationalists. And this worries me for a simple reason: Scottish independence cannot, must not, be allowed to be the end point. For me, the point is to bring power closer to people.
I grew up in a unit of local government called Perth and Kinross. It is 5286 square kilometres in size. That is not a community, it is a vast region – there are two EU member states – Luxembourg and Malta – which are smaller. If my parents, who live at one end, want to drive to see someone who lives at the other end, it would take 2 hours, and be as far as Kings Cross Station to Swindon. They don’t live in the same community.
In his famous rectorial address on alienation, Jimmy Reid said this:
“Local government is to be restructured. What an opportunity, one would think, for de-centralising as much power as possible back to the local communities. Instead, the proposals are for centralising local government. It’s once again a blue-print for bureaucracy, not democracy. “
That was in 1973. Since then, the process of centralisation of power within Scotland has continued apace. Andy Wightman gives the example of Fife, in a table below I’ve copied from him.
| Years | Councils | Total No. Councils |
| to 1894 | 26 Town Councils | 26 |
| 1894 – 1930 | 1 County, 56 Parishes & 25 Town Councils | 82 |
| 1930 – 1975 | 1 County, 7 Landward Districts & 25 Town Councils | 33 |
| 1975 – 1996 | 1 Regional Council & 3 District Councils | 4 |
| 1996 to today | 1 Unitary Authority | 1 |
| Future | 0 ? |
If we are to take alienation seriously – and I believe it is at the root of most social problems – then we must consider that people are not only alienated in their work places. They are also alienated from distant, abstract state bureaucracies. And where it is possible to return powers to communities more local still than Holyrood, supporters of Scottish independence should welcome this.
Outside the Northern and Western Isles, in areas where there are no real moves for specific autonomies – we should learn from them. We should demand much more significant powers for local authorities, and to a lower level still – village councils, town councils – to the actual communities in which we live.
I don’t know what the outcomes of the discussions between the leaders of the three archipelagos in question will be. In a sense, it is surprising to me that all three would plan on joining up – Barra, the Southern-most of the Outer Hebrides – is closer to Glasgow than it is to Stornoway. But I am sure that if the peoples of these islands seek greater autonomy from Holyrood – at whatever level, then those of us who support Scottish independence should see them not as enemies of our imagined Scottish State, but as allies in our movement to bring government closer to people.
Update – 25 July 2013, John Swinney, Scottish Finance Secretary, has announced, along with the leaders of the three island councils, a ‘Lerwick Declaration‘ launching a ministerial task force to look into new powers for the Isles
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All good arguments
Here’s hoping they don’t end up a guernsey or jersey style tax haven though, and continue the tax-race to the bottom…
@Alex – well, the three council leaders are all independent, so whoever initiated it, there’s clearly some degree of traction beyond Lib Dems.
Yes, Lib Dems may havr the momentum on this now, but in the 1987, when the Orkney and Shetland movement stood in the general election, the SNP stood aside to give them a free run and they got 15 odd%, so I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss this as only a Lib Dem initiative…
Gavin – sorry re britain, corrected. But your other points really don’t address my argument. It’s up to the people of, well, wherever, to determine what level of autonomy or independence they want. Perhaps I shouldn’t have included the history stuff, it’s not really that relevant to the point, I just foind it interesting.
I don’t think that council leaders are actually proposing that Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles join together to form a devolved entity. I’m sure that the idea is for increased devolution from Holyrood to their respective councils within Scotland.
ratzo — I’m only familiar enough with Shetland as I’ve lived there and written a dissertation on Shetland language/dialect, but identifying as Scottish is a rather recent phenomenon in Shetland common only amongst the younger generation, and is still very much secondary to identifying as Shetland. The older generation largely see/saw themselves as Shetlanders *as opposed to* Scottish, English, Norwegian, Faroese and so forth; ‘Scotland’ is/was somewhere other than Shetland. Shetland simply isn’t just as Scottish as Lanarkshire or Dumfries, and it has nothing to do with DNA. Not that that should have any bearing on whether they wish to pursue greater control of their own affairs — after all, what is Scotland if not a geographical polity, an imagined state of being and a moral idea?
I agree with the principle of greater local autonomy for W and N Isles, but maybe separately (I don’t see that they have much similarity culturally or economically), and within an independent Scotland. We recognise that the Orcadians and Shetlanders value their Norse heritage. Many of the rest of us in Scotland do too, and so does our Scottish Government. Come independence, it is likely that all of us throughout Scotland will find ourselves adopting more Scanidinavian ways of doing things, with a consequent increase in contact with these countries. Having the proud and happy folks in the Northern Isles fully on board in an independent Scotland and contributing to this progress (as opposed to the enclave in Scottish waters run from Westminster that some are chattering about) would, I think, be fantastic for all of us north of the border.
“Orkney was pledged by the Norwegian King in 1468 as a security against a dowry. Because the dowry was never paid, it has in effect belonged to Scotland ever since.”
Again, like the Western Isles, the northern Isles were peopled by the same folks as the mainland of Scotland way before the Norse arrived on the scene. They only became “Norwegian” because the were conquered, as were other parts of Scotland and the rest of the British Isles (York, Dublin etc).
“The Outer Hebrides (along with the Isle of Man) became a part of Britain at the Treaty of Perth in 1266.”
This is incorrect. There was no such political entity as Britain. The Western Isles were taken by the Norwegians, and then given back to Scotland. Some of the “facts” presented are pretty weak and/or twisted to fit the argument somewhat..
Wales didn’t “join” England. It was conquered. In 1535 Henry VIII abolished Wales’s autonomous legal status.
“In international law, peoples have a right to self determination.”
This is all that really matters; all the rest is chaff. (I’d even leave off the ‘In international law’.)
Whilst I agree totally with Andy Wightman/Lesley Riddoch on their analysis of localism, and the lack thereof and I would like to see an independent Scotland solve this, you should beware this initiative which seems to have been initiated by the LibDEms in a pathetic attempt to muddy the water. They don’t support Home Rule for Scotland but now they do for Shetland. Hypocritical bas**ards
Orkney-and-shetland are not ‘a people’. Their physical territories are different (Orkney’s more like Caithness); and they are as Scottish as folk from Lanarkshire or Dumfries. We gave up projecting our politics on the basis of speudo-racialising about DNA origins last century, even if they haven’t. And they have no right to self-determination, by the way. As a commenter from Slovenia on the Herald website pointed out to all us benighted Scots that chatter ‘like wives and wabsters’ about self-determination – its a principle that applies to Colonies and Empires, not to the UK or to Scotland.