My Facebook friend Douglas Nicholson has written a thought provoking post in response to a plea to my friends who intend to vote ‘no’ in the coming referendum. I asked these friends to explain how they thought social justice would better be served by Scotland remaining in the UK. Dougie says he is contemplating voting no, so he doesn’t really fall into the category, but I’m grateful that he rose to the challenge.
As Dougie says, there are lots of different interpretations of ‘social justice’. I think what I intended to convey was the notion of every person having not only the right but also the means to realise his or her potential within their society. For me, social justice applies to the wider global context, but also to something closer to home. While I appreciate Dougie’s point that even the poorest person in Scotland is wealthy compared to most of the world’s population, Scotland’s shame is not its average income per person, but it’s large and growing equality gap. This gap has huge impact on our wellbeing, for we are more affected by the income differences within our own society than by the differences in the average income between one rich society and another[1].
Especially shaming is that while poverty in Scotland is increasing, it is rising at an even greater level among children. It’s not only shaming, it’s an unnecessary economic waste – the cost of the long-term effects of child poverty is estimated at 29 billion annually in the UK[2]. (Of course, Scotland is no worse in this respect than the UK as a whole, but I’ll come back to that).
This is not to deny the appalling injustices affecting people in less wealthy countries and countries affected by war and wide scale human rights abuses. Will putting our own house in order by reducing the inequality gap impact on the global social injustice? There are strong arguments for believing it may: European countries with more equal distribution of wealth top the tables for foreign aid as a percentage of GDP.[3] And I suspect this is also valid at the level of individual spend and how that affects our social conscience – for the parents who have to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes the provenance of a tea bag can have little concern.
I came into the yes camp slowly, dragged unwillingly by the issue of Trident. For me, this isn’t a reluctance to have nuclear weapons in my back yard – it is a total rejection of weapons of mass destruction . And this isn’t only an issue about arms and defence – it is also about social justice. The cost of replacing Trident is £130 billion[4] and rising – against a background of cuts to essential services for the most disadvantaged in our society. And this isn’t just about moving Trident somewhere else in the UK – Scotland’s rejection of Trident is most likely to lead to the rUk pulling out of the replacement programme, with a the potential for a wider domino effect.
There are undoubtedly elements within the yes campaign and those who intend to vote yes that are utopian; that are motivated purely by a desire to selfishly grab our assets back from the UK. I abhor that approach. However, we are witnessing something bigger and better here. We are taking part in an astonishing rejection of business as usual. Whatever the outcome, politics in the UK will never be quite the same again, and that is good for working class people in the rest of the UK as it is good for those of us lucky enough to live in Scotland, as Billy Bragg says far better than I can. I’m not daft enough to think any of this will be easy nor without cost. But we have an amazing opportunity this week to make a difference. Whatever happens, I’ll wake up on the morning of 19 September 2014 as committed as I ever have been to pursuing social justice - and I know my friends on both sides of this debate will be with me.
[1] The Spirit Level
[2] Child Poverty Action Group
[3] http://www.economicsinpictures.com/2012/04/development-aid-spending-as-percentage.html
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/sep/18/trident-replacement-hidden-cost-revealed
As Dougie says, there are lots of different interpretations of ‘social justice’. I think what I intended to convey was the notion of every person having not only the right but also the means to realise his or her potential within their society. For me, social justice applies to the wider global context, but also to something closer to home. While I appreciate Dougie’s point that even the poorest person in Scotland is wealthy compared to most of the world’s population, Scotland’s shame is not its average income per person, but it’s large and growing equality gap. This gap has huge impact on our wellbeing, for we are more affected by the income differences within our own society than by the differences in the average income between one rich society and another[1].
Especially shaming is that while poverty in Scotland is increasing, it is rising at an even greater level among children. It’s not only shaming, it’s an unnecessary economic waste – the cost of the long-term effects of child poverty is estimated at 29 billion annually in the UK[2]. (Of course, Scotland is no worse in this respect than the UK as a whole, but I’ll come back to that).
This is not to deny the appalling injustices affecting people in less wealthy countries and countries affected by war and wide scale human rights abuses. Will putting our own house in order by reducing the inequality gap impact on the global social injustice? There are strong arguments for believing it may: European countries with more equal distribution of wealth top the tables for foreign aid as a percentage of GDP.[3] And I suspect this is also valid at the level of individual spend and how that affects our social conscience – for the parents who have to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes the provenance of a tea bag can have little concern.
I came into the yes camp slowly, dragged unwillingly by the issue of Trident. For me, this isn’t a reluctance to have nuclear weapons in my back yard – it is a total rejection of weapons of mass destruction . And this isn’t only an issue about arms and defence – it is also about social justice. The cost of replacing Trident is £130 billion[4] and rising – against a background of cuts to essential services for the most disadvantaged in our society. And this isn’t just about moving Trident somewhere else in the UK – Scotland’s rejection of Trident is most likely to lead to the rUk pulling out of the replacement programme, with a the potential for a wider domino effect.
There are undoubtedly elements within the yes campaign and those who intend to vote yes that are utopian; that are motivated purely by a desire to selfishly grab our assets back from the UK. I abhor that approach. However, we are witnessing something bigger and better here. We are taking part in an astonishing rejection of business as usual. Whatever the outcome, politics in the UK will never be quite the same again, and that is good for working class people in the rest of the UK as it is good for those of us lucky enough to live in Scotland, as Billy Bragg says far better than I can. I’m not daft enough to think any of this will be easy nor without cost. But we have an amazing opportunity this week to make a difference. Whatever happens, I’ll wake up on the morning of 19 September 2014 as committed as I ever have been to pursuing social justice - and I know my friends on both sides of this debate will be with me.
[1] The Spirit Level
[2] Child Poverty Action Group
[3] http://www.economicsinpictures.com/2012/04/development-aid-spending-as-percentage.html
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/sep/18/trident-replacement-hidden-cost-revealed