A UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh debate on whether Scotland should be an independent country ended with the majority of students voting No.
The Edinburgh Union hosted its inaugural debate on the motion: This House Believes Scotland Should Be Independent, on Monday evening, which included a panel of senior Scottish politicians.
SNP MSP and government minister Ben Macpherson, independent MSP Fergus Ewing and Edinburgh student Rory Young, went head-to-head with Baroness and former Scottish Tories leader Annabel Goldie, Scottish Labour MSP Daniel Johnson and Edinburgh student Ruby McIntee.
Held in the Rainy Hall in the university's historic New College, speakers took it in turn to lay out their arguments for and against Scottish independence, with the proposition team starting first with Young, followed by McIntee.
Macpherson followed second, where he argued that there is a democratic deficit in Scotland and that, despite Scotland not having voted for a Conservative government since 1955, it has to endure one for the last 14 years, and that the current Labour Government is also adapting itself to the right to appease the far-right.
He highlighted seismic political events like Brexit and the Iraq war as examples of Scotland being “dragged” into poor decisions by Westminster, which the country “didn’t want”.
“Scotland should get the governance it votes for,” Macpherson (below) said.
He went on to add: “The question is not whether Britain is a bad place, or whether an independent Scotland would be a utopian place; it’s not that simple.
“The question is, yes, the UK is OK in some ways, but it’s really problematic in others.
“The UK is not certain. The UK has provided much uncertainty with economic catastrophe, really bad foreign policy; we could make different decisions.
“It’s not whether the UK is OK, it’s whether you want to gain the powers to make Scotland the best it can be.”
Following Macpherson, Johnson laid out the argument for Scotland to remain in the Union by stating he believed that the country was “no longer innovative” over the last 12 years, because it had been stuck in a loop over the independence debate.
“I don’t think Scotland is that beacon of innovation anymore,” he said.
“I think we got stuck. I think that since we had the referendum in 2014, going back further than that, since we had the SNP administration, this is a country that has been stuck in an independence spin, and that we have been held back by that.”
Johnson went on to quote NHS waiting times as one reason why he believed the Scottish Government had failed, but was challenged by Macpherson over child poverty figures.
Ewing set out his argument, saying that, standing in a hall at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, he doesn’t “buy” that independence is just a “crazy dream” because the country isn’t rich enough or lacks the ability.
“Why I want an independent Scotland is not for the money, it’s not for the glory, it’s not for the riches that are set out in the Declaration of Arbroath.
“It’s because of freedom. The freedom that you can enjoy your life knowing that you can go where you choose, you can think and speak what you believe with freedom of speech, freedom is something that we take for granted until it disappears.”
He then went on to address that he is most fearful of the possibility of Nigel Farage and Reform UK coming into power and that by Scotland becoming independent, it has a better chance of shutting out the far-right.
Johnson argued that Scotland would have a better chance of defeating the far-right if it stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the rest of the UK.
“I believe we can stand together, and we will stand together.
“The uneasy relationship that Scotland has had, we must admit that it has at times been very uneasy, particularly during the Iraq war, particularly when 62% of people in Scotland voted to stay in the European Union but were wrenched out of it.
“We have been uneasy and sometimes lodger, I want us to be a friendly neighbour.”
Goldie ended the speaker portion of the debate as she argued points like defence spending and how Scotland would afford to keep its own deterrence.
She went on to say that many people in Scotland feel that devolution “has not delivered what they expected” and that they have been disappointed in the Scottish Government.
The debate was also opened up to a short Q&A with students from the University of Edinburgh, who all, bar one, had questions for the panel arguing for Scottish independence.
Macpherson, Ewing and Young were asked questions around identity that some of the students felt they were proud to identify as British as much as Scottish.
There were also questions around the uncertainty of the EU allowing Scotland to rejoin if it became an independent country, while another asked if it would be too much of a gamble with the cost of living crisis for Scotland to separate from the UK.
In his closing remarks, Ewing said: "There are risks in your life. The risk when you choose a job, there’s risk when you choose a partner, there are possibilities that things may be absolutely perfect.
“It was said that the only certainties in life are death, taxes, and to that I would sadly add the Eurovision Song Contest, but what is absolutely clear is that in Scotland, our Scotland, we have a country, the oldest nation in Europe, second oldest in the world, with a proud history and tradition of success around the world.
“I’ve seen it when I was a minister, we can hold our head up high, but we haven’t got that individual freedom that I believe that we will get when that dream of independence in your lifetime becomes a reality.”
The result was 36 to the proposition, and 48 to the opposition, as Edinburgh University students returned a failed motion for Scottish independence.
