Précis

They've been together more than 300 years but for many of Scotland's fiercely proud inhabitants the relationship with England has run its course. They'd much rather be in control of their own destiny and with oodles of North Sea Oil and a reputation for thriftiness, prudence and well, canniness, they reckon they'd do a much better job than their political masters in England.

"Think of Scotland as the wife who's been taken for granted. Increasingly Scotland is feeling I might be better on my own. But what's happened is that the husband (England) just says, you're fat, you're ugly, nobody would fancy you". ALAN BISSETT Writer/performer & Independence campaigner

Like any long term relationship, calling it quits isn't easy. Domestic affairs have become deeply tangled and assumptions about who is responsible for this and who pays for that have evolved into complex equations. So unpicking this centuries-old relationship will be tricky.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The campaign for independence is having some success and support is growing but those who want things to stay the same are still holding sway.

"You're not going to lose anything by remaining British because the Scots have always had that phenomenal individualistic, quirky, adventurous, almost confrontational character that regardless of where they go, you know no one's going to eradicate that. "TESSA HARTMANN Fashion Publicist, ‘No' supporter.

Born and raised in Scotland, ABC Europe Correspondent Barbara Miller makes a very personal journey back to familiar places to see if the Scots really are prepared to stand on their own two feet.

Surely a nation that gave the world the steam engine, the television, even the architecture for free-market capitalism, doesn't want for ability - but do they have the numbers?

From her alma-mater - Glasgow University - where, over the centuries, the alumni included James Watt, John Logie Baird and the father of economics Adam Smith, through Edinburgh and onto the windswept frontiers of the Shetland islands, Barbara goes in search of opinion on a vitally important question for Scotland and for England as well.

"I think we should for all time stop this argument that you cannot be patriotic and a proud Scot if you want to stay in the United Kingdom. I think it is nonsense". DAVID CAMERON Prime Minister, Britain.

Scottish scenery/Statuary

MILLER: This is Bannockburn where 700 years ago the Scots fought a defining battle against the English. 

00:03

Music

00:09

Dougie performing

00:13

MILLER: Legendary singer-songwriter, Dougie MacLean has the crowd in the palm of his hand.

00:28

[Dougie sings]

00:35

Miller in crowd

MILLER: That includes me. Scots are a sentimental lot, and when you become an expat, arguably even more so. 

00:40

Dougie performing

[Dougie sings]

00:49

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "It's very special. It's kind of like a real --

00:57

Dougie i/v. Super:
Dougie MacLean
Singer/Songwriter

it was a real pivotal point in our kind of Scottish psyche. You know, I think if the Scots hadn't won Bannockburn, there would be no Scotland. It's that kind of... it's as black and white as that".

00:59

Dougie performs

DOUGIE MACLEAN: I couldn't not sing this wee song on this very special day... In this very special place.

MILLER: Dougie MacLean's ballad ‘Caledonia'

01:08

Crowd at performance

has long been something of an unofficial Scottish anthem. It was big in the 1970s. Now in a Scotland, daring to dream of going it alone, it's rousing patriotic spirits again.

01:22

Dougie performs

[Dougie sings]

01:36

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "You don't often get a chance to sing a song like that in a place like this on an occasion like this. And I have noticed too this year that when the people sing it, they sing it with a different kind of... there's a different vibe going on when they join in with me.

01:50

[Dougie sings]

02:04

DOUGIE MACLEAN: It's a kind of hope kind of thing, or there's some element of their singing has changed this year, which is lovely

02:08

Dougie i/v

and I can feel it when I'm actually on the stage".

02:16

Dougie performs

[Dougie sings]

02:18

Dougie i/v

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "Over the last five or six years I think, or maybe ten years, Scottish self-confidence has kind of grown, you know, and we're slowly getting away from the caricature that internationally everybody thinks of the Scot, you know, with the hairy legs and the wiggly stick and mean, and you know, funny hat with a feather in it. Scotland's a very progressive country these days".

02:52

Proclaimers YouTube video

[Proclaimers sing]

03:13

MILLER: Scotland's in the grip of a passionate national argument - yes or no to independence. The Proclaimers are Yes. So is Annie Lennox and Sean Connery has been saying it for ages. 

03:22

CONNERY: [video] "It's clearly a time for a change. All my

03:35

Connery video

life experience tells me that an independent Scotland will be successful".

03:38

Proclaimers YouTube video

[Proclaimers sing]

03:43

GFX o/lay: Connolly/McGregor/Rowling

MILLER: But No has star power too - Billy Connolly, Ewan McGregor, JK Rowling - and she gave a couple of million dollars to the No campaign. 

03:45

Proclaimers YouTube video

[Proclaimers sing]

03:56

Sillars i/v. Super:
Jim Sillars
Independence activist

JIM SILLARS: "A number of expat Scots will understand it perfectly well. For generations we've been told we're too wee and too small and have to hold the big hand of cousin England. Otherwise we'll go down the tubes. Now, we're overcoming this, too wee, too small. People are beginning to realise that they're not too wee and too small, that they're very capable".

03:58

Hartmann i/v. Super:
Tessa Hartmann
Fashion publicist

TESSA HARTMANN: "You're not going to lose anything by remaining British, because the Scots have always had that phenomenal individualistic, quirky, adventurous, almost confrontational character that regardless of where they go, you know, no one's going to eradicate that".

04:19

Flyover formation. Super:
Commonwealth Games
courtesy Network Ten

04:34

Opening ceremony
[super continues]

04:38

MILLER: [Commonwealth Games] Of course this is the big show in town right now and Scottish athletes competing here in Glasgow represent their own nation, not the United Kingdom. Any victory here is sweet, and one against the English is always particularly savoured. But many Scots have their eye on a longer game, with a grand final in September, voting yes or no to independence. 

04:49

Music

05:13

‘No' Rally

MILLER: In London, they've belatedly realised the danger. 

PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON: "This is an issue of the heart and it

05:38

Cameron addresses rally

would break my heart to see our United Kingdom break apart". 

MILLER: As a referendum day approaches, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron has been making more frequent trips north of the border

05:45

to appeal to Scots to remain part of the UK.

05:56

PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON: "I think we should for all time stop this argument that you cannot be patriotic and a proud Scot if you want to stay in the United Kingdom. I think it is nonsense".

06:00

‘Yes' Campaigners

MILLER: The polls are with him, but the gap between the yes and no vote is narrowing. 

JIM SILLARS: "This is a campaign which I would describe as the greatest civic movement Scotland has ever seen. There are literally thousands - I don't exaggerate - literally thousands of people working in every

06:16

Sillars i/v

part of Scotland who have created Yes local campaigns simply on their own. It's all happened spontaneously".

06:33

No Campaigners

MILLER: Both sides are now trying to persuade the big number of undecided voters. House to house they're also trying to cajole those who aren't registered to vote to get on the electoral roll and have a say. 

06:43

Glasgow University graduation ceremony

[bagpipe music]

06:56

MILLER: Glasgow University is a splendid place with an impressive history. The economist, Adam Smith, studied here. So did John Logie Baird, the man who invented the technology delivering this story. When I was a student,

07:06

Miller walks in cloisters

Scotland was a very different place. Its industrial heartland had been gutted and many blamed far away,

07:21

Graduation ceremony

uncaring English politicians. 
"It's been a very long time since I

07:27

Miller to camera

graduated from this university but I've always felt very at home here and in this part of Glasgow, the West End of Glasgow, many good memories for me here. But I didn't graduate with a sense

07:33

Graduation event

that the world was at my feet. I had an Arts Degree, unemployment was high and there just didn't seem to be many opportunities. I headed overseas

07:44

Miller to camera

and in some ways I never really came back. If you had asked me then, at this point when I was graduating, did I want an independent Scotland I would have said yes without hesitation".

07:52

Graduation event

08:03

These days, though, the political landscape is more complex. For a start Scotland has its own parliament with powers over health and education - unlike in England, these graduates have enjoyed free university courses and they have good prospects - but that hasn't necessarily swayed them to vote yes in September.

MALE STUDENT: "I'm voting no.

08:07

Male student

I think the union is stronger together in every possible way".

08:30

Female student

MILLER: "You've just graduated and you're going to begin a career..."

FEMALE STUDENT: "And I'll probably want to move down south as well so I would like to still be part of Scotland, if I do move for work".

MILLER: "Are you Scottish first and British second? How do you see it?"

FEMALE STUDENT: "British. I would say I'm British, yeah".

08:34

Easterhouse houses

Music

08:51

MILLER: Head across town from Glasgow University and you enter into a different world. This is Easterhouse, one of the poorest suburbs, where life expectancy is a staggering fifteen years lower than in the city's wealthier suburbs. 16 year olds

08:55

Calum

will have their say on secession, 17 year old Calum says he'll be voting Naw. 

"I'm taking it it's a no vote?"

CALUM: "Aye, obviously it's a No vote, with the Vote Naw stickers and stuff".

MILLER: "And did it take you a long

09:12

time to decide to vote No?"

CALUM: "No, it took me five minutes".

MILLER: "Do you feel Scottish?"

CALUM: "Aye".

MILLER: "British?"

CALUM: "Aye. I feel a bit of both you know?"

09:32

Male supporter with woman on street

MALE SUPPORTER: "Definitely voting Yes. I mean independence for this country is long overdue. I mean look what's happened to other countries, like Norway and things, you know? If we get independence then we can start building from certain other angles. England, they have too much say over what goes on here".

09:45

Easterhouse shots

Music

10:01

MILLER: Supporters of a Yes vote think it's in districts like Easterhouse where the referendum will be won or lost.

JIM SILLARS: "We, the Scottish working class, have got to have the arrogance and I repeat it,

10:04

Sillars gives speech

the arrogance, to tell them that we are far, far better than they say we are".

MILLER: Jim Sillars is a veteran campaigner for independence, a former deputy leader of the Scottish Nationalists. 

10:18

JIM SILLARS: "If we have voted No, we've voted ourselves back into a system - low wages, endemic poverty, high unemployment, no chance for our children - but if we voted Yes in those 15 hours, at one minute past 10, all of us in the working class can stand up and say to each other, our time has finally come".

10:33

Crowd applauds

10:11

Sillars. Super:
Jim Sillars
Independence activist

"Last year 22,000 children in Scotland were fed by food banks. That's a disgrace. You know, I'm not a proud Scot, let me tell you. How can you be possibly proud of a nation like that? One of the big investors that are taking, are involved in Scotland, are the payday loan companies charging, you know, 4,000 interest, per cent interest rates. Now they're not lending to me, they're lending, they're feasting on the poorest people in the country".

11:07

Sillars makes speech

MILLER: For Yes campaigners like Jim Sillars it's a no brainer. He says Scotland has the political capacity to run its own show and the resources to power it.

11:35

JIM SILLARS: "We're the only nation, developed nation, which discovered oil and our people got poorer".

11:48

North Sea oil rig

Music

11:54

MILLER: Oil and gas are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy. More than 40 billion barrels of oil have been extracted from the North Sea so far. The Nationalists argue an independent Scotland could legitimately lay claim to about 90 per cent of whatever's left.

11:58

JIM SILLARS: "We're rich in oil. Huge, huge resources of oil and there's still 21 billion barrels of oil in the North Sea. 40 million tonnes of oil pass through Scotland at the present time. Now we can't absorb 40 million tonnes on our own, but we can sell and we can benefit from it".

12:18

Fashion shoot

Music

12:34

Tessa Hartmann fashion shoot

MILLER: Scotland has a prosperous business sector and surprisingly many of its representatives don't see a case for change.

12:38

Music

12:46

MILLER: Fashion publicist, Tessa Hartmann, says her business would suffer if Scotland goes it alone.

12:54

TESSA HARTMANN: "I think in terms of fashion for Scotland if you like, you know we have punched above our weight to try and identify a strain within the world of fashion, but the reality is in this industry sector and retail if you think about it, that the epicentre of kind of British fashion is in London. There's nothing wrong with that. You know we're part of Britain, it's there to

13:01

Hartmann

be exploited. It's a cosmopolitan city, it's international. We need that platform to kind of increase the stability of our fashion industry because we don't have the resources in Scotland to do it".

13:22

Fashion shoot

Music

13:34

MILLER: The debate is sensitive and some who favour a No vote are staying silent. Some who've spoken out have been targeted by web trolls, dubbed cyber-nats. Tessa Hartmann hasn't been spared.

13:36

TESSA HARTMANN: "You know, I would commentate on various news programs, just talking about industry and instantly you will get, you know,

13:50

Hartmann

vile, you know, quite rude messages on Twitter. You know very offensive. I mean, you know, it's water off a duck's back to me now".

13:57

MILLER: "Do they engage with your position or are they getting just personnel?"

14:06

TESSA HARTMANN: "Both. Everything. You know, there's vulgarity in there, there's swearing in there. It's quite infantile to be honest with you. You know, all the old stereotype clichés about being blonde, about being a woman, about not knowing anything. And it's just, you know it's just kindergarten, playground tactics".

14:09

Pipe and drum band

Music

14:27

MILLER: The No campaign has been dubbed ‘Project Fear'. Scots have been warned that they could be worse off by as much as three thousand dollars a year because a new government would have to raise taxes. Also they'll have to pay off a fair slice of the UK's national debt, now a staggering two and a half trillion dollars. And the No campaign warns an independent Scotland wouldn't be able to continue to use the pound as its currency. 

ALAN BISSETT: "And what currency will you be using?

14:33

Bissett performs

Huh? Huh? Huh? The pound, the pound? If we let you. And what about the EU? Surely every other country in the world when Scotland got up to speak would go like this... la la la la la la la we can't hear you. You know why? Because we don't like your shoes or something so... piss off!"

MILLER: Writer and performer Alan Bissett's road testing his latest show in historic Falkirk,

15:05

his hometown. It's a satire on the independence debate. 

ALAN BISSETT: "And what about defence? Surely you'd be a target for every

15:32

two-bit terrorist bandit in the world without the strength of the great British Secret Service to protect you. Why, you could be invaded by Ireland". 

MILLER: "Is it almost like a divorce

15:40

Bissett i/v. Super:
Alan Bissett
Writer

that Scotland and the rest of the UK are going through?"

ALAN BISSETT: "Yeah I think that's a workable metaphor - a divorce - and if you think about it, Scotland is the wife who's been taken for granted

15:55

and increasingly Scotland's feeling, do you know what? I might be better on my own. But what's happened is, that husband just says you're fat, you're ugly and nobody would fancy you, see what would you do without me? How would you make money without me?"

16:07

MILLER: "How much of it is driven by residual anti-English sentiment?"

ALAN BISSETT: "Almost none of it is driven by anti-English sentiment. I think that's a caricature which our opposition like to present because it seems like the most obvious thing,

16:21

Braveheart excerpt. Super:
"Braveheart"
20^th Century Fox

oh where's this coming from? It must be because they hate the English. Yeah we've all seen Braveheart. That must be what it is".

16:38

Miller and Bissett walk

MILLER: "So what's it like bringing the message home to Falkirk?"

Speaking of Braveheart and it was only a matter of time before we did. It was at Falkirk that William Wallace's men were defeated by the English army. 

16:51

Battle of Falkirk plaque

"So this is to the battle of Falkirk in 1298. Who won that one do you think?"

17:01

ALAN BISSETT: "Ah, well it wasn't us".

17:08

Braveheart excerpt. Super:
"Braveheart"
20^th Century Fox

BRAVEHEART: [Mel Gibson speech] "You've come to fight as free men and free men you are. What will you do without freedom? Will you fight?"

17:10

Bannockburn Battle re-enactment

MILLER: It would be another 16 years before the Scots had their revenge - which brings us back to Bannockburn and the spectacle of men dressing up to re-enact a version of history.

17:31

"It was in the battle Bannockburn in 1314 that Robert the Bruce

17:53

Miller to camera

and his vastly outnumbered army defeated the English and sent them packing. Bannockburn is a source of deep national pride for the Scots. Now its 700th anniversary is being marked just weeks before the Scots decide whether to reject the English once again".

17:58

Robert the Bruce Actor

"How does it feel to defeat the English?"

ROBERT THE BRUCE ACTOR: "Absolutely fantastic".

18:24

Battle re-enactment

18:29

[to Tessa Hartmann] "Do you think it is a romantic notion, this idea of an independent Scotland?"

TESSA HARTMANN: "I think it's

18:33

Hartmann i/v. Super:
Tessa Hartmann
Fashion publicist

very romantic and I think if we're all true to ourselves, the idea of an independent Scotland and, you know, harking back to Braveheart, you know. Who doesn't love that idea, but you know, I love many things, but I know they are but fantasy".

18:37

Shetland scenery

Music

18:52

MILLAR: I wanted to get out of the cities to the remote fringes of Scotland, places defined by self-reliance. You can't really go much further north in Scotland than this. This is the

19:03

Miller to camera

top end of the Shetland mainland. There are a couple of more islands out that way and then that's it. Shetland is in many ways as geographically and historically close to Scandinavia as it is to Edinburgh or London and sitting here those cities feel a million miles away. But the debate over independence for Scotland or not is alive and well here. 

19:16

Shetland scenery

RONNIE EUNSON: "I think that having democracy nearer to the people is a good thing.

19:38

Eunson i/v

I think when it becomes too distant, then people stop feeling part of the machinery of government".

19:47

Eunson and Miller walk on farm

MILLER: Ronnie Eunson is a born and bred Shetlander, a self-made man farming organic beef and lamb on land he scraped and saved to buy. 

19:55

"So you've got how many sheep?"

RONNIE EUNSON: "Oh 700".

MILLER: "700. And they're all..."

RONNIE EUNSON: "Shetland".

20:05

MILLER: "They're all Shetland sheep?"

RONNIE EUNSON: "Shetland, yeah".

MILLER: He's been thinking long and hard about September's referendum on independence.

20:13

RONNIE EUNSON: "I'm 56 now, and in my lifetime I think I've become more and more dissatisfied and disappointed by national politics as defined

20:22

by Westminster. I feel that there's been too much wasted

20:34

Eunson i/v

in terms of human resources and natural resources.

20:38

Eunson and Miller on farm

I resent the fact that there's such huge disparities and inequalities of wealth in the UK. I don't think it's a very healthy society in the way that it's developing".

MILLER: "People sometimes say Shetlanders feel closer

20:42

to their Scandinavian heritage than to London or Edinburgh. How do you see it?"

20:59

Eunson i/v. Super:
Ronnie Eunson
Shetland farmer

RONNIE EUNSON: "Yeah there's quite a bit of that. And if you spend any time in Scandinavian countries you understand why they are..... a more comfortable atmosphere in them".

21:04

Miller greets Budge on farm with views of St Ninians

21:20

MILLER: Jim Budge's great, great grandfather managed this land for a wealthy landowner, a laird. Jim's father would later buy the property outright, complete with its own island, St Ninians. The farm and the island are still being passed down the generations. 

JIM BUDGE: "I'd much prefer

21:33

Budge

a No vote but if it was a Yes vote then we'll just get on with it. I mean what else can we do?"

21:51

Miller and Budge walk on farm

MILLER: "So most of the cattle end up in England ultimately?"

JIM BUDGE: "Well, yes. We sell the cattle when they're a year old and they go down to Scotland usually and they'll be finished there, they'll be fattened there on Scottish farms and most of them will end up in the processing plants down in England".

21:57

Budge i/v

MILLER: "How important is it for Scotland to get this decision right,

22:16

Super:
Jim Budge
Shetland farmer

and that would be a No vote as far as you're concerned?"

JIM BUDGE: "Well it's a once in a lifetime vote and if we get it wrong, then it'll be wrong for the rest of the time. Possibly, my heart said yeah, we should be part of Scotland - independent - but my head said no".

22:20

Shetland town

Music

22:43

MILLER: There are just 23,000 Shetlanders in a nation of 5.3 million. The ultimate yay or nay to independence won't be decided here but in the country's urban centres. Around 4 million people will be eligible to cast a ballot in September. I'm not allowed to vote because I'm no longer a resident. In fact I've been away so long I'm even starting to sound like a stranger. 

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "Do you know much about Scotland?

22:51

Millar with Dougie

I mean do you really know much about Scotland?"

MILLER: "See that's funny. Are you not hearing that I'm Scottish?"

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "No".

23:18

MILLER: "Now my Australian colleagues think I, you know, I'm sort of equivalent to Billy Connolly in terms of sounding..."

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "Scottish?"

MILLER: "... distinctively Scottish. But I've just done a whole interview with you and you didn't realise".

DOUGIE MACLEAN: "No". 

23:24

Scottish scenery

Music

23:37

MILLER: When I came here a couple of years ago and asked people about the referendum, many didn't have a strong opinion one way or the other. Now the secession issue is firmly on people's minds, the length and breadth of the country. 

23:45

Music

23:56

RONNIE EUNSON: "A lot of people my age who fear independence. It worries them

24:00

Eunson i/v

being what they would say cast adrift from the mother ship. I don't feel that. I see this as an opportunity and if they're courageous enough to take the opportunity, then they have a chance of creating a much better society for their grandchildren".

24:06

Scottish scenery

Music

24:29

ALAN BISSETT: "This moment in time for Scotland is

24:33

Bissett i/v

absolutely crucial. If we vote Yes, we become a completely different country".

24:35

TESSA HARTMANN: "In order to progress we don't have

24:39

Hartmann

to separate a union that's been three hundred years old".

24:44

JIM SILLARS: "It's about power, whether we have the latent power

24:47

Sillars addressing meeting

in our hands at the moment and turn that into positive power where we can construct a society entirely different from the one we've got at the present time".

24:55

MILLER: In all likelihood Jim Sillars' wish won't come true. Scots, he once despaired, are 90 minute patriots, the duration of a soccer game. 

Personally I'm still swinging between why bother and why not? But I've been struck by the passion of a much needed debate about the future of my homeland. 

25:08

Scottish scenery

Music

25:27

Reporter: Barbara Miller

Camera: Geoffrey Lye

Editor: Scott Monro

Research: Gavin Walker

Producer: Greg Wilesmith

Commonwealth Games vision: Network Ten

25:59