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          ‘Identity politics’ is how former U.S. President Bill Clinton sums up the continuing powerful drive for independence in Scotland. He describes the growing worldwide phenomenon of identification with an ethnic or other group as a major challenge to international cooperation.

          As often, Clinton’s turn of phrase is apt. The influential former American president is right to express such concern.

          Scotland’s referendum on September 18 regarding independence from the rest of the United Kingdom represents an historic event. Recent polls showed the Scottish nationalists surging to a tie or even ahead of British unionists.  

          In the vote, 55.3 percent of those voting supported remaining in the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, pressures on London for greater freedom will continue.

          A separate Scotland would face extremely serious challenges, ultimately acknowledged by the majority of voters. Scottish nationalists assumed that the British pound would remain their currency. However, British government leaders made clear this would not be the case.

          The pound sterling is a principal international trading and to some extent reserve currency, despite the much greater scale of the United States and European Union (EU) financial systems. Britain is a member the EU but not the smaller euro currency union.

            Likewise, Scotland’s separatists assumed that British defense forces would continue to provide protection. Again, the British government in London made clear that would end. Establishing a new separate Scotland military would represent massive personnel and infrastructure challenges. EU and NATO membership would have to be renegotiated.

            Yet powerful underlying forces are driving the popular momentum for Scottish independence as well as comparable movements elsewhere. These must be addressed more effectively by the British government. Clans, tribes and other groups long predate the modern nation-state.

            Modern democracies, including the United States as well as the United Kingdom, have faced powerful ethnic and separatists sentiments. Americans between 1861 and 1865 faced a separatist challenge which resulted in a devastating war, but the Union was preserved and ultimately strengthened.

             The nineteenth century also provided major challenges to the unity of the British Isles. The Conservative and Liberal parties defined national politics and partisanship in that time. The former was and remains essentially an England party, while support for the latter and successor Labour Party have been concentrated in Scotland and Wales. The last Liberal government was planning comprehensive devolution to the regions when World War I unexpectedly intervened. Ireland independence was achieved shortly after that war.

            The dynamics of British politics were also changing, thanks to enfranchisement of working people which began in the 1880s. The Liberals collapsed, replaced by the socialist Labour Party.

            Professor Samuel H. Beer of Harvard in ‘British Politics in the Collectivist Age’ brilliantly analyzes how intense twentieth century industrial class conflict defined British politics. With the fading of class-based politics, regional concerns have again re-emerged. In response, the Labour government of Tony Blair initiated regional parliaments.

            Today’s leaders in London were surprised by strength of separatist sentiment and have been scrambling to respond. The current government is a coalition between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, successor to the Liberals.

            Liberal Democrat Menzies Campbell has spearheaded analysis and practical recommendations. The party’s commission report ‘Federalism: The Best Solution for Scotland’ lays out specific reforms, including taxing authority, to address nationalist pressures. Currently the Scottish Parliament has only severely restricted tax adjustment and borrowing powers.

            Britain’s history reflects remarkable inventiveness, skillful shrewd diplomacy, pragmatic politics, and lethal military effectiveness. All but the last must now be employed.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of ‘After the Cold War’ email: acyr@carthage.edu