Please don’t go

I’m pretty well known for writing from a personal perspective. So I thought a column comparing the pain I feel about the referendum to the pain of my divorce would be easy to write. maybe a little trite even. How can this compare to that kind of personal pain? Well, it does. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. I feel like a lover treading on eggshells desperate to please. I really, really don’t want Scotland to leave me. So yes, this is hard.

No it’s not the same. For a start, I’m not Scottish and I could never make the kind of impassioned argument a  Scot can about the importance of the Union from the inside. I may be at a remove, but it’s hard to feel that way today. As the status of my nation may be changed without my having any say about it.

As an Englander – in particularly as a Londoner  – one who is proud  of my own roots – I get the draw of separatism. Now when London is evoked politically it is as a land of wealth and high living. Burning twenties to light our cigars.

But that’s not the London I live in. Nor the England that I am proud of either. My London is rich and poor living together. It’s a million cultures blending to one. It’s a strong city that recognises it’s strength comes from being open not closed.  A city that recognises and loves our connection with Scotland as much as we recognise that what they have given us is mirrored in what we get from citizens originally from Latvia, Jamaica or Sri Lanka. All of whom are now a part of our nation and proud of it.

I can’t write an unemotional column today. This is not about all the good economic arguments about why Scotland shouldn’t risk independence. They exist, and personally I find them more convincing than their pro-independence counter parts. But I don’t think that will be what people vote on today.

As a campaigner (and frankly as a human being) I hate the idea of “yes for the heart, no for the head”. It is my heart that cries no! I have been missing a campaign that understood and reflected that.

I – as most British (Scottish, Welsh, Mancunian or Bristolian) lefties did – grew up with the idea of solidarity. That we have more in common as a working people across enforced boundaries than we have as individuals. But solidarity is hard. It is sometimes about understanding an immediate sacrifice for the longer and greater good. It can never – and will never – be about getting the best deal for a few of us. I don’ t see how Scottish nationalism doesn’t abandon me and the people I care about. I will never cheer solidarity for the few.

So yes I want to see the Scottish people to vote in favour of their solidarity with the people of Sunderland, Solihull and southerners like me in Leyton – we need you. Don’t abandon us, and in turn we will not ever abandon you.

But not abandoning Scotland means more than simply saying so on election day. A very good Tory friend of mine suggested that if there is a No vote, the first cabinet  of the next UK Parliament should be held in Edinburgh.

He is right.

This is the least amount of respect due to the passion that has been stirred by this debate. Respect is due and in the case of a no vote,  it ain’t just about new powers that Scotland should get.

We need to find new ways we can embrace and celebrate our nationhood and shared identity. Anyone who has been through a painful break up will know there are moments we all could have been the better versions of  ourselves. But the relationships worth saving get stronger from that questioning.

Let us develop a new way of localising power without retreating to nationalistic stereotypes. Let us forge together a new solidarity that starts with the UK but moves far beyond us to reach all our brothers and sisters. Let us be stronger together – in Glasgow and Govan as well as in Sunderland and Southwark.

I’m not a Socialist because I’m an internationalist. But I do believe that the fewer borders impeding the joint organisation of workers, the better outcomes for all of us.

I’m as London as they come. So it’s probably right I don’t have a vote today. But I have an opinion and a heart. My heart says stay. Not like an abandoned wife but as a loving partner. Not as a show of weakness, but to show you how strongly I feel that we need each other. That we really are better together.