Scottish independence: 'Voting day could see Scottish-English tensions flare'
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Version 0 of 1. The debate surrounding Scottish independence is fuelling anti-English sentiment and “tensions may flare” when the country goes to the polls next week, a senior Labour MSP said last night. Kezia Dugdale, Scotland’s shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education, said that anti-English sentiment was a “very small part of the debate”, but that “to deny that it exists does us all a disservice”. Speaking at a Scottish referendum i debate in Edinburgh a week before the country goes to the polls to decide whether or not to become an independent country, Ms Dugdale said if she could “wish for anything other than a No vote”, it would be a decisive result in the poll so Scotland would not be a divided nation. “Feelings for many people are quite important during this, and I don’t think we should be afraid to be emotional about it,” she said, adding that she had encountered one person while out canvassing who had “screamed in my face and said that if I loved the English so much, why didn’t I go and live there”. She added: “We have to realise that tensions like that may flare next week and it’s the responsibility of all of us – not just politicians, but citizens – to respond to that in a fair and calm and tolerant manner.” She was responding to a question from i reader Jane Adams, who had suggested that there was “indisputable anti-English sentiment” among some SNP supporters and asked for the panel’s views on whether attitudes to English people in Scotland may change in the event of a narrow victory for the No campaign. In response, Ms Dugdale said the people of Scotland should recognise that “we’re perhaps not always as tolerant a country as we like to make out”. But Sarah-Jane Walls, operations manager at Yes Scotland, said she had seen no “badness towards English people” and pointed out that there were English pressure groups who wanted independence. “If you’re English or from Pakistan, wherever you’re from, Scotland is a welcoming country. This isn’t about being Scottish or English – if you’re living and working here, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are,” she said. Last night’s event, held at the Queen Mother Conference Centre in central Edinburgh, was the first live debate to be staged in Scotland by i. It was free for readers who applied for tickets, with the audience distributed evenly according to their voting intentions. Around a quarter of those present were undecided voters. A quick-fire poll at the end of the evening revealed the narrowest of victories for Yes: of the 300 people present, 117 were in favour of independence while 116 were against, with the rest abstaining. In his opening remarks to the audience, i editor Oliver Duff said that recent opinion polls showing that the race is very close had “shocked Westminster out of its complacency” on the subject of Scottish independence. Earlier in the day, David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg had all been in Scotland to show their support for the Union and to promise further powers for the devolved Scottish parliament if the country votes No. But Fiona Hyslop, the SNP MSP and Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, said the sudden trip displayed “sheer panic” by the three leaders. “The date of the 18th of September has been known for a very long time – if the referendum was that important, surely they could’ve put that in their diary a bit before now,” she added. The final panellist, Labour MP Ian Murray, spoke out on the subject of Scotland’s oil reserves, arguing that it was “incredibly dangerous” for the Yes campaign to stake Scotland’s future on such a volatile commodity. “The tax take from oil revenues in Scotland fell £4.4bn last year – that’s the entirety of the education budget,” he said. But in response, Ms Hyslop said Scotland was “the only country in the world that seems to think of oil as a problem” and pointed to estimates showing that there was £1.3 trillion worth still to be extracted from the North Sea. Chairman Oliver Duff, i editor For the No vote Kezia Dugdale, Labour MSP and Scottish shadow Cabinet Secretary for EducationIan Murray, Labour MP for Edinburgh South For the Yes vote Fiona Hyslop, the SNP MSP and Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External AffairsSarah-Jane Walls, operations manager at Yes Scotland |