Dear England

I hope you’re keeping well. I’m sure it must be a bit of a shock waking up to your newspapers this morning and realising that all of this could be about to end.

That’s certainly the impression that your newspaper columnists give. If any of this is coming as a surprise then that is frankly because your media have served you pretty poorly over the last two years.

They’ve tried to convince you that somehow this is all about you and how much the Scots hate you. It’s not about you – it’s about us. It’s about how we wish ourselves to be governed and it’s about the kind of society we want to live in.

Here is the reality of what has been going on in Scotland for the last two years. You might have read a few people talking about it, but to the best of my knowledge they’ve never shown it to you, so here goes…

This is just a miniscule sample of images that I pulled off Twitter as quickly as I could this morning. Events like these have been taking place on a weekly basis right across the whole length and breadth of Scotland for the last two years. And for every event with a turnout in the hundreds there has been a dozen events made up of just a few dozen, or even just a couple of people coming together to seriously discuss, in detail, the biggest political questions that we can possibly ask.

Just to put that in context I’ll remind you that all of this has been happening in a country with just two-thirds of the population of the North West of England. Can you imagine what England would be like if every single week crowds of 700 people or more were turning out in Manchester, in Liverpool, in Wigan, Preston, Blackburn, Bolton and Carlisle to discuss how they were going to change their country?

Don’t get me wrong. After all of this there is still a chance that Scotland might vote No on the 18^th, but if it does nothing is ever going to be the same again. The people of Scotland have made themselves ungovernable.

That is going to be a big challenge for the SNP after independence, but right now it is an issue for the UK parties and for Labour in particular. Just minutes after last nights polling results were announced the Daily Mail ran this front page.

Make not mistake about it – just by itself that one headline will instantly have added about 5% to the Yes vote. After this I will be astonished if Ed Miliband can ever set foot in Scotland again.

That should worry you, especially if your hopes of improving your country are currently invested in the chance of returning a Labour government to power in 2015.

Even if the people of Scotland vote No the Scottish Labour party are done for after this campaign. The way in which they have conducted themselves over the last two years has been nothing short of a disgrace. I confidently predict that if there is a No vote then come next May many people in Scotland will be queing around the block to give the Scottish Labour party a kicking the likes of which it has never seen before. It’ll be driven by people who, in the space of just two years, will have gone from being completely disengaged in politics to being seasoned political campaigners. If Labour think they can continue relying on Scotland to provide them with lobby-fodder then they are very much mistaken.

I have sympathy for what you are going through right now. I can already see the reactions of the rest of the UK conforming to the classic 5 stages of grief model.

1 – Denial and isolation

Just yesterday I was talking to someone in Liverpool about the referendum. I told them that the rumour was that today’s newspapers were potentially going to show Yes in the lead. Even though they were supportive of the idea of Scotland becoming independent they still refused to believe that it was in any way likely.

After speaking to them I boarded and bus and drove through the centre of Liverpool watching the crowds out shopping. For me it was a moment of existential disconnection – watching all of these people going about their daily business with absolutely no idea of what is potentially about to hit them in under two weeks.

Over the last two years I have often spoken to friends and colleagues who work between both Scotland and England. In all of that time every single one of them has used the same word to describe the attitude that they encounter amongst people in England. That word is ‘sleepwalking’.

2 – Anger

Anger is a natural reaction and I don’t blame people for feeling it. Rejection hurts, but I’ll say it once again – this is not about you it’s about us. In the days that follow a Yes vote I fully expect to see huge anger coming from the British media and establishment. The right-wing press and the likes of UKIP will be goading people into venting their anger against the people of Scotland. I implore you to stand up and resist the bitterness and division that they will seek to create. Because after anger comes…

3 – Bargaining

Following a Yes vote there will be a huge amount that needs to be negotiated in a very short space of time. And you need to be on your toes at this stage – you cannot allow your political leaders to dictate this process, and you should not believe them when they try and goad you into taking your feelings out on others.

There is something that I believe that people in the rest of the UK need to get their heads around very quickly. Your leaders will attempt to convince you that Alex Salmond is either begging you to help him out or threatening you if you don’t agree to what he wants. The truth is that the negotiating position that the SNP have laid out in Scotland’s Future isn’t just the best deal for the people of Scotland – it is the best deal that the people of the rest of the UK could possibly expect in the event of Scotland’s departure.

I have done the reading and let me tell you – the currency union model that the SNP propose benefits the people of the UK far more than it is likely to benefit the people of Scotland. If the SNPs negotiating position was purely about winning the best deal that they could for the people of Scotland then they would not even be entertaining the idea of a formal currency union – they would simply go straight ahead and establish an independent Scottish currency with it’s own central bank and a fixed interest rate with Sterling, walking away from the UK’s national debts in the process.

Here is the most important thing that you need to understand right now. The idea that a newly independent Scotland would be walking away from a share of the UK’s debts is false. Scotland cannot agree to take on the UK’s debts because such a thing is legally impossible. The UK’s debt commitments are a legally binding contract that the UK government has entered into with the investors who have leant them money. Those contracts cannot be re-assigned to another third party and even it were possible the investors who issued the debt would not agree to it because to do so would go directly against their own interests. The reality is that we are not negotiating what share of the UK’s debts Scotland will be willing to take on. What is actually being negotiated is the level of foreign aid payments that a newly independent Scotland will be willing to make to the UK government in order to help it cover it’s debts.

That is not a threat. It is cold, hard reality. In February of this year George Osbourne, backed by Ed Balls and Danny Alexander, issued an announcement confirming that if Scotland votes for independence then the UK will continue to honour 100% of its existing debt obligations. Your government have already taken the unilateral decision that in the event of a breakup the rUK will be the sole continuator state, meaning that there is not a single thing that they can do to force the Scottish Government to accept any share of UK debt. That decision has already been taken on your behalf and that ought to worry you.

It ought to worry you because that triumvirate of Osbourne, Balls and Alexander have already proven themselves to be pretty poor negotiators. On the same day that they confirmed that the UK would continue to be liable for 100% of its debts they also announced that there is no way in which the rUK would agree to a formal currency union. Over the last week we have already seen the fallout of that decision, with Sterling sliding several points against both the US Dollar and the Euro. I can guarantee you that when we see the financial markets open tomorrow Sterling will start sliding even further. The financial press are already speculating that if Scotland votes Yes on the 18^th then the minute that the markets open on the 19^th Sterling will crash.

The reason for this is simple. What investor in their right mind is going to invest in a currency when the person in charge of running it has openly declared that he intends to slash his own economy by 10% overnight?

Right now Sterling is supported by the tax receipts from North Sea oil, meaning that in the event of a currency crisis the UK can back peoples investments by paying them back in oil instead of in cash. The minute that Scotland votes for independence 90% of the UK’s oil revenues disappear and the security that they provide disappears with it. I fully expect to see the rUK experiencing a further downgrading of its credit rating, meaning that it will face yet higher borrowing costs to continue financing its existing debt.

None of this has anything to do with Alex Salmond. It is already coming about thanks entirely to the outright incompetence of your own political leaders.

Which brings us on to the last two phases…

4 – Depression & 5 – Acceptance

I imagine that very rapidly people in the rest of the UK may well start to feel depressed about where things have wound up. This is understandable. Your lives will have been changed by a process that you have had very little control over. When people feel powerless and helpless it is natural to start feeling despondent and powerless.

This is something that you need to pass through really quickly. The truth is that the people have far, far more power than politicians will ever admit. The greatest trick that the British establishment have ever pulled is conning people into believing that they are powerless.

A Yes vote will almost certainly be the greatest opportunity that the people of the UK have ever had to try and re-shape their country. But you need to move fast. Really fast.

My political experience over the last few years has taught me that any movement or campaign has a natural lifespan of around 18 months, after which people start losing faith and losing interest. During this time anything is possible, but if you fail to force through a change before the clock runs out then things settle down, the establishment are able to paper over the cracks and everything goes back to the way it was before.

If you allow your politicians a free reign in dictating terms then they will screw you. You need to move fast and you need to move hard. In Scotland those people currently campaigning for independence will be doing exactly the same thing with the SNP.

This could be the greatest opportunity of all our lifetimes. Let’s support each other to make sure that it happens.