Some thoughts on types of YESes and types of NOs.
The YESes:-
Nationalists: people who believe in the rights of nations, believe Scotland is one (lots of varieties of perspectives on how and why), and believe in national self-determination for places which are nations and that.
Nationalists often talk about civic nationalism, meaning no ethnic essentialist basis to this perspective. There are variations on the theme. Ultras believe in independence as the main thing, be all and end all - starting point of politics; some of the Nationalists would argue if a NO vote was a better deal that was Scotland's self-interest and we should vote NO. But it depends. The point is people who are of this sort are all voting YES, because a NO vote is not in the Scottish national interest, and that's about 25% or so of Scotland (although typically not a ruling class perspective, and more common in poorer Scotland - for a variety of historical reasons that are not worth going into a length here; as one nationalist put it in Scots: "Scotland for the minkers!"). Because Scotland does not have state power there are few if any ruling class voices for the Scottish national interest. Those that exist tend in the main to be exporting industrialists whose interests are at variance with London's spivland (£65billion of UK tax receipts come from the City of London: it is practically impossible for a Westminster Government to democratically win a mandate for a war economy which would allow for a restructuring of British capital which would be in those exporting and manufacturing industrialists interests).
The left: from middle of the road Herald reading social democrats to hard left Trotskyists, people who aren't social conservatives and are left of centre are increasingly voting YES because it's clear that the UK cannot provide a better social deal, or even stand still with some national consensus armistice line in the battle between classes. For many Scots the Britain they believed in started in 1945, and begun to be dismantled following the pauchlin of the 79 referendum and the defeat of the unions. Osborne is simply finishing the job, as would Balls (who pledges to stick to Osborne's plans).
Unionist attempts to create a left NO position appear to only have any resonance with the mere 5000 people who make up the ailing Scottish Labour Party. Even the likes of Ian Davidson, the 'Chair Tube' of social media opprobrium for his Westminster crusade against independence admit that the referendum is happening because the last Labour government was a crap red Tory government and that the right wing crapness is an unbroken pattern since 1979. They don't even believe their ain haivers on the left NO standpoint Lamont is pretending they have adopted.
The NOs.
Identity: "A'm British." Flags, nations, borders, glory, empire, the protestant ascendancy. Take your pick. 100 varieties of flag worship as the paramount perspective under a Butchers apron. This perspective of fealty is similar to the phenomenon of working class Republicans in the USA, or UKIP voters in England. It's not necessarily implicit that said persons are right of centre, but reason is not the cause of affiliation here. The census showed quite spectacularly how irrelevant this viewpoint is. In no part of Scotland does it clock in at more than 15% of the locals.
Big Britainism: the kind of view that identity, where you come from, is important, tells you something about yourself, but while Scotland is a nice place to live, with a colourful history, Britain is best. Again this is a fringe view, but from the various appeals from the right wing of the commentariat for the NO campaign to talk about Britain more we can fairly assume that it's a popular view in Morningside. It's certainly been speculated as a reason for some of the upper middle class' attachment to the Union (of job prospects, cheap Edinburgh to London flights, and interesting career ladders). But that's your NO voting Scottish and British right there. Your "I'm a proud Scot," sort of sophist.
Cannae-dae-its: the 90 minute nationalist is why Scottish civic nationalism is hegemonic in Scotland, but support for a YES is not. So many people you canvass will tell you how poor Scotland is (Scotland which has 60% of Europe's oil and gas, a potential of 200 gigawatts of renewables generation, an agrisurplus of between 1/5 and 1/4 per annum despite turning over 1/3 of the country into desert, a Scotland that has the world's 3rd largest fishery and comparable coastline to world powers like China). Cannae-dae-its see the ocean of poverty around them, and if they work they fear tax rises, and if they don't they fear middle class reaction against their perceived subsidies ending the high life of the JSA gravy train. Language is a factor. As is mass unemployment in Glasgow and West Central Scotland. Inferiorisation sets in with the bairn's first contact with the state, and continues for many as a lifelong passion (I have been told by a Labour activist and bedroom tax victim that the very tedious bairn's reading group book written in Scots, "Jordan's New Jaiket" is a bid to warp the minds of the young and make nationalists of them with the use of subversive "slang" - that dastardly Salmond and his banal reversal of the policy of actively crushing Scotland's native languages!). Britain's hectoring hegemony is Unionist gloom and Westminster threats 24/7 on every channel and in every publication in Scotland. But this is the chunk that could win a NO vote. The actual Britishers in Scotland number less than 30% even in assimilado Embra. The cannae-dae-its are usually want-tae-dae-its but hinna-been-convinced-we-cans.
The YESes:-
Nationalists: people who believe in the rights of nations, believe Scotland is one (lots of varieties of perspectives on how and why), and believe in national self-determination for places which are nations and that.
Nationalists often talk about civic nationalism, meaning no ethnic essentialist basis to this perspective. There are variations on the theme. Ultras believe in independence as the main thing, be all and end all - starting point of politics; some of the Nationalists would argue if a NO vote was a better deal that was Scotland's self-interest and we should vote NO. But it depends. The point is people who are of this sort are all voting YES, because a NO vote is not in the Scottish national interest, and that's about 25% or so of Scotland (although typically not a ruling class perspective, and more common in poorer Scotland - for a variety of historical reasons that are not worth going into a length here; as one nationalist put it in Scots: "Scotland for the minkers!"). Because Scotland does not have state power there are few if any ruling class voices for the Scottish national interest. Those that exist tend in the main to be exporting industrialists whose interests are at variance with London's spivland (£65billion of UK tax receipts come from the City of London: it is practically impossible for a Westminster Government to democratically win a mandate for a war economy which would allow for a restructuring of British capital which would be in those exporting and manufacturing industrialists interests).
The left: from middle of the road Herald reading social democrats to hard left Trotskyists, people who aren't social conservatives and are left of centre are increasingly voting YES because it's clear that the UK cannot provide a better social deal, or even stand still with some national consensus armistice line in the battle between classes. For many Scots the Britain they believed in started in 1945, and begun to be dismantled following the pauchlin of the 79 referendum and the defeat of the unions. Osborne is simply finishing the job, as would Balls (who pledges to stick to Osborne's plans). Unionist attempts to create a left NO position appear to only have any resonance with the mere 5000 people who make up the ailing Scottish Labour Party. Even the likes of Ian Davidson, the 'Chair Tube' of social media opprobrium for his Westminster crusade against independence admit that the referendum is happening because the last Labour government was a crap red Tory government and that the right wing crapness is an unbroken pattern since 1979. They don't even believe their ain haivers on the left NO standpoint Lamont is pretending they have adopted.The NOs.
Identity: "A'm British." Flags, nations, borders, glory, empire, the protestant ascendancy. Take your pick. 100 varieties of flag worship as the paramount perspective under a Butchers apron. This perspective of fealty is similar to the phenomenon of working class Republicans in the USA, or UKIP voters in England. It's not necessarily implicit that said persons are right of centre, but reason is not the cause of affiliation here. The census showed quite spectacularly how irrelevant this viewpoint is. In no part of Scotland does it clock in at more than 15% of the locals.Big Britainism: the kind of view that identity, where you come from, is important, tells you something about yourself, but while Scotland is a nice place to live, with a colourful history, Britain is best. Again this is a fringe view, but from the various appeals from the right wing of the commentariat for the NO campaign to talk about Britain more we can fairly assume that it's a popular view in Morningside. It's certainly been speculated as a reason for some of the upper middle class' attachment to the Union (of job prospects, cheap Edinburgh to London flights, and interesting career ladders). But that's your NO voting Scottish and British right there. Your "I'm a proud Scot," sort of sophist.
Cannae-dae-its: the 90 minute nationalist is why Scottish civic nationalism is hegemonic in Scotland, but support for a YES is not. So many people you canvass will tell you how poor Scotland is (Scotland which has 60% of Europe's oil and gas, a potential of 200 gigawatts of renewables generation, an agrisurplus of between 1/5 and 1/4 per annum despite turning over 1/3 of the country into desert, a Scotland that has the world's 3rd largest fishery and comparable coastline to world powers like China). Cannae-dae-its see the ocean of poverty around them, and if they work they fear tax rises, and if they don't they fear middle class reaction against their perceived subsidies ending the high life of the JSA gravy train. Language is a factor. As is mass unemployment in Glasgow and West Central Scotland. Inferiorisation sets in with the bairn's first contact with the state, and continues for many as a lifelong passion (I have been told by a Labour activist and bedroom tax victim that the very tedious bairn's reading group book written in Scots, "Jordan's New Jaiket" is a bid to warp the minds of the young and make nationalists of them with the use of subversive "slang" - that dastardly Salmond and his banal reversal of the policy of actively crushing Scotland's native languages!). Britain's hectoring hegemony is Unionist gloom and Westminster threats 24/7 on every channel and in every publication in Scotland. But this is the chunk that could win a NO vote. The actual Britishers in Scotland number less than 30% even in assimilado Embra. The cannae-dae-its are usually want-tae-dae-its but hinna-been-convinced-we-cans.
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