United we stand, divided we fall

Although only the people of Scotland will be able to vote in the referendum on September 18 to decide whether that nation leaves the United Kingdom, the decision will have huge implications for all of us.

A no vote would mean we continue to live as one nation but with distinct communities. A yes vote would see the United Kingdom torn apart, an end to 300 years of history as the most successful union of peoples the world has ever known.

Here in Hampshire, as elsewhere in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a yes vote in Scotland would also mean constitutional upheaval and economic uncertainty.

The rest of the UK would face costs running into tens of billions to pay for the changes forced upon us by a decision we would have had no part in making.

The price for removing our nuclear deterrent from Faslane in Scotland, as the nationalists have vowed they will insist upon if independent, would alone cost the UK many billions of pounds.

Creating a new order in the United Kingdom that removes Scotland from every part of our constitution and nation would cost many more billions. The legal bill alone would make the transfer costs in the Premier League look like petty cash.

This would be money that should have been spent on education, the NHS, welfare and other essential services here.

The damage to our world-wide reputation and fallout in economic markets and trading relationships would be incalculable.

Already, with the polls narrowing, we have seen a fall in the value of the pound and a drop in share prices.

A yes vote is likely to create uncertainty on a massive scale in the share markets. These markets on which our pensions depend would come under extreme pressure.

The financial threat to all of us in the vote on September 18 then is great.

But greatest threat to all of us is not the cost in financial terms and reduced living standards, including those living north of the border, but the emotional effect such a break-up and division would bring with it.

Peoples who have lived together as one nation for three centuries, fought together, worked together, struggled and sacrificed together, achieved together, experienced great moments of victory and joy together would be separated – forever.

The wounds would be deep, the scars would linger.

North of the border, a narrow win by the ‘yes’ campaign would leave half of the Scottish nation cut off from the 60 million of us living in the United Kingdom.

In Wales, Northern Ireland and England we would be left with the bitter sentiment that part of our family has turned its back on us.

Months, perhaps years of bitter wrangling over the family silver would follow.

It is inconceivable that all would be settled with the shake of a hand.

Bitter recriminations would lead to bitter divisions.

What were once friends and family would become the worst of divorcees.

It would take decades to heal the wounds.

The risk of further division, of republican interests in Northern Ireland coming once more to the fore, would loom large.

Should either an independent Scotland or a smaller UK leave the European Union then borders would become solid, trade costly, travel and free movement restricted.

How perverse , we could say, that the nationalists in Scotland claim their bid to breakaway is to create a fairer, more equal society .

Yet that very action by definition shows a wish not to extend that equality or fairness to the rest of the citizens they have shared these islands with for 300 years.

When did the aspiration for equality and welfare for 65 million become just the ambition for five million?

I simply do not believe the majority of Scots think this way, yet amid the flag-waving and the wail of the pipes there is a risk that wider ambition will be temporarily forgotten.

Is this really what the majority of us wish for?

Such bitterness, such division.

I think not.

Yet this weekend we face the reality that the threat to our unity as a nation is very real.

How we have come to reach this position is no longer the point.

Neither is the question of how such change can be so close for so many of us, yet we are denied any part in the democratic process, obscene as this surely is.

What if anything then can be done here in Hampshire?

Can we, so far removed from the cauldron of the referendum itself and left without a vote, still have our say in the future of our country?

I believe the answer is yes.

There is still time, just, for us, the silent very large majority of British people, to have our say – and that voice should be not couched in a threat, nor a moan of fear for the future, but a plea to our fellow citizens not to leave our family – a plea from the heart.

For while it is true that in recent weeks at least the Scots have been hearing from an array of celebrities calling on them to stay in the UK, they have not heard from the great mass of the British people who, as our own survey here in Hampshire confirms, overwhelmingly wish our nation to remain united.

We want this not because we fear for our future – indeed our survey shows that the majority of people don’t believe, I would say wrongly, that Scotland leaving the Union would affect us in any way.

This then is not a selfish desire to keep the Scots tied to us for financial benefit, but a true message from our hearts: we want the Bravehearts to stay.

And there is still time for us to get this message across to those north of the border who are wavering over whether to go.

If enough of us wave the Union Flag, that symbol of our united nations, in our homes, our offices, our stores and meeting places, our pubs and factories, our schools and colleges, then the Scots will see we care.

That’s why this paper is calling on anyone who supports the Union to wave the flag between now and September 18.

We’ve even printed one in the centre of today’s paper.

There is more we can do.

We can contact friends and family north of the border and urge them to stay.

We can take to social media and forums here and north of the border.

We can speak up now before the moment passes.

So far in Hampshire as elsewhere outside of Scotland we have been denied a voice in this decision.

To remain mute when so much is at risk is not an option.