Bracing for Change on Scotland’s Border, Whatever the Referendum Result

And the people of Berwick, many of them of Scottish origin, are not too happy about it, fearing that the uncertainty and instability could disrupt a feeble economic recovery. The opinion polls are close, the debate is exhausting and the mood is anxious.

“People feel and fear that however it goes, the relationship between Scotland and England will never be the same,” said Tom Forrester, a town councilor.

"My heart tells me that most right-minded people will see that it is safer and better for us to stay in this relationship with each other,” said Liz Murray, who owns a shop that sells cookware in Berwick but lives across the border in Scotland. “But I’ve seen enough of the passion of the Scots to see that that might carry the day.”

A Scottish vote for independence on Thursday would create huge waves on both sides of the border, shaking the British government of Prime Minister David Cameron, undermining the electoral future of the British Labour Party and making it more likely that Britain will have a referendum on its own continued membership in the European Union.

An independent Scotland would raise questions about currency and finance, about where to base Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines, about border security in a period of terrorism, about whether Scotland would still get BBC television and about whether members of Parliament from Scotland, the vast majority of them from the Labour Party, would lose their seats. And then, of course, there is the question of whether the United Kingdom would need to replace the Union Jack, and with what.

It would be an enormous victory for the Scottish National Party and its leader, Alex Salmond, and would kick off a difficult 18 months of negotiations with the British government about the terms of the divorce, which would become official in March 2016.

But should the Scots vote against independence on Thursday, said Dougie Watkin, a farmer with land and sheep on both sides of the border, “half the population will be very disappointed.” The leaders of the three main British parties have promised all kinds of new powers for Scotland if the Scots do vote no. Even so, if the margin proves to be narrow, the issue of independence, as in Quebec, is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Even in Berwick, with a population of 15,000, the questions range from the effects on trade and immigration to whether small businesses would have to fill out two sets of tax forms and deal with two currencies. “If there’s independence, will I be paying income tax in one country and business tax in the other?” Ms. Murray asked. “I can’t afford an accountant, and there’s already so much paperwork now, that would put us out of business.”

Continue reading the main story What about pensions and university education, when Scotland offers free tuition and England does not? What if Scotland has a different corporate or personal income tax rate?

“What are the plans in place for all these issues?” Ms. Murray asked. “They’re not there.”

Keith Siseman, who runs an art gallery with a liquor license called Pier Red, said that Scottish independence would turn things “upside down.”

The power and influence of Britain in the world would be diminished, he said, with new questions about whether Britain could afford to keep its nuclear missiles, which are submarine-based, in a Scotland that says it wants to be nuclear-free.

Berwick is two miles from the border and is the only English town with a soccer team, the Rangers, that plays in the Scottish league, a legacy of the days when a poor railway network made the rest of England difficult to reach.

That feeling of remoteness carries on. Many people in Northumberland say they feel much the same alienation from the Westminster Parliament as the people of Scotland do.
“When the Scots say these posh boys from southern England are very far away and don’t care about them, I know just what it’s like, here in the northern end of Northumberland,” said Simon Heald, who runs a used-book shop.

The no campaign has tried to frighten the Scots on pocketbook issues, which patronizes and infuriates them, when Mr. Cameron and his colleagues “should have been pouring love up north, and not fear,” Mr. Heald said.

“You can’t put the fear of God into a nation like Scotland that’s up for a fight,” he said. “We didn’t send the Scottish battalions into war first for no reason.”

The no campaign “has been more like picking a fight,” Ms. Murray said. “Do that to a Glaswegian and he’ll head-butt you.”
Mr. Cameron and the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, have been fiercely criticized for leaving their campaign to preserve the union until too late, assuming that the no vote would win easily. And Mr. Cameron, by insisting on only one question — independence or not — has made this vote into a great gamble. Even Mr. Salmond had wanted another option on the ballot, one of further devolution of power over Scotland’s affairs to the Scottish Parliament, which already has substantial autonomy from the central government in London.

“We want to control our own country,” said Roddy Low, 47. “A lot of people are fed up with being told what to do by Westminster, and not just by the Tories. This has been growing for 30, 40 years.”
He was speaking across the River Tweed in Coldstream, Scotland, the original home of the Coldstream Guards, one of the few British regiments that now help to guard Queen Elizabeth II, and from where, in 1660, soldiers marched to London to restore Charles II to the throne.

John Dickson, who was buying lamb in the local butcher shop in Coldstream, said he had no doubts. “It’s the only chance we’ve had in 300 years, and if we miss it, there’ll never be another,” he said. “If people want to go to bed with the English, I’ll help them carry the mattress south.”

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Malcolm Campbell, 53, a pro-independence Scot who was fishing for salmon in the Tweed, said that of course there would be problems to solve if Scotland voted for independence, but that Scotland could work them out.
“They try to scare us about the pound,” he said. “But we’ll have a currency and it will work, and we won’t go back to the barter system of a kilo of tomatoes for a pound of salt. If people want it to work, it will work.”

His son, Grant, 22, also said he would vote yes. He went to Abertay University in Dundee at no cost, under legislation passed by the Scottish National Party that distinguishes Scotland from England, where college students typically have to pay thousands of pounds in tuition. “It’s almost like a thank you to the S.N.P.,” he said. “Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to go to university.”

In Scotland, which is largely left-leaning, “we have a completely different set of political principles from England,” the younger Mr. Campbell said. “We can still have a social union with the English, so I see no sadness in it.”

But in Coldstream, too, there is anxiety and a sizable number of people, like Malcolm Bolam, the owner of the butcher shop, who say they will vote no but who are keeping their heads down given the deep passions of the campaign.

“There are far too many questions unanswered for me to say yes,” Mr. Bolam said. He has two young girls, and he worries about big companies and banks moving to England, about jobs disappearing and taxes then going up in a Scotland where North Sea oil and gas are slowly being depleted. “I’ve got a lot of customers from the other side” for his pure Scottish meat, he said. “I don’t want to lose them.”
Back in Berwick, Mr. Siseman predicted further dissolution. “This is a happy family that could be getting divorced for no real reason,” he said. “And that’s scary, because it won’t end here. Because if the Scots get it, the Shetland Islanders will want it, and we’ll end up with the United Nothing.”
/SR