Home News Scottish Independence Referendum – Why Council Leader Andrew Burns is voting no

Scottish Independence Referendum – Why Council Leader Andrew Burns is voting no

Phyllis Stephen

September 18, 2013 9:00 am

by City of Edinburgh Council Leader Andrew Burns.

A year to go until the referendum.

I’ve a shocking acknowledgement to make – I don’t think the sky will fall in, if Scotland votes yes next year …

… even more shocking – I don’t think the sky will fall in, if Scotland votes no next year either.

Life will go on; the earth will continue to turn; the sun will rise.

Of course, the actual result will have a profound political impact on the country we live in.

But neither possible result – and I only wish more politicians would honestly admit this – will be a panacea for all of Scottish society’s ills.

Now, it won’t shock anyone to hear that I’ll be voting no.

Just type ‘devolution’ in the top-left, blogger search-box; and scan through the results, and you’ll quickly realise that I’m a (relatively) unusual – but hopefully consistent – unreformed, Labour Party (con)Federalist.

If I was to pick out one post, to illustrate my thinking, I guess I’d choose this one (and the links therein); but there are many more if you’re inclined to undertake the suggested search 😉

I have thought (rather sadly!) about these issues over several decades now, and basically remain fully committed to the cause of a Federal UK.

I completely accept that others, have arrived at a different decision – many of them may have settled on supporting Scottish Independence via a similar, constitutional (and political) trajectory to my own … that’s fine by me; I respect their view; and hope they respect mine.

366-days from now, regardless of the result, we’ll wake up and the sky won’t have fallen in; the earth will still be turning; and the sun will have risen … and we’ll need to collectively get on with attempting to make our country a better place to live in, for as many of its inhabitants as possible.

The vast majority of the people I know, on both sides of the referendum debate, are working to do just that today … they’ll be doing just that tomorrow; in a months time; and in years time.

Wouldn’t the next 12-months be a little more interesting, and engaging, if we could all just keep that in mind as we move towards the morning of Friday 19th September 2014?

Councillor Andrew Burns is Leader of The City of Edinburgh Council and leader of the Labour Group. This article first appeared here on his own blog.