The Union Dividend

There is an old adage that Scotland punches above its weight because it is a part of the UK. Yet, for that to be true, Scotland would actually need to be able to compete on the world stage. Yet it cannot, because, paradoxically, it is a part of the UK. Scotland doesn’t “compete” at the UN or the EU (at least on a direct level). It also doesn’t compete at the Eurovision, or the Olympics.

In reality, Scotland can only compete on the world stage in sport and even then, only in a limited number of sporting events. It can, for example, compete in the Six Nations Rugby Championship (if only because a Great Britain team would result in the six nations becoming a pitiful four). It can also compete independently at football, although its case with FIFA for doing so may be considerably weakened with the all-English “British” team being fielded in the 2012 Olympics. It can also compete at the Commonwealth Games. Yet, this is really just the modern-day incarnation of the old British Empire Games and thus can hardly claim to be representative of the wider world.

Surely Scotland could at least have its own Olympic Team? Well you might think so, but speedy cyclist, Chris Hoy argues otherwise, and considers the idea to be “ridiculous”. Hoy states that he “would not have three gold medals hanging round (his) neck" if he had not been part of Team GB. Really? Would he have thrown the dummy out of the pram and ridden slower out of protest? No, argues Hoy, it is because Scotland doesn’t provide the resources that he requires. Which I’m presuming would be a bicycle, a bicycle pump, a puncture repair kit and perhaps maybe a velodrome.

The irony is that Scotland is actually currently building a velodrome and naming it in his honour. It will be called The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and is being built for the 2014 British Empire, sorry, Commonwealth Games. Yet, despite this, I wouldn’t expect Hoy to relocate back to Scotland anytime soon.

I suspect that the real reason Hoy does not want to see a Scottish team is because it would mean that his medals would have been won for a state that no longer competes in the Olympics (like Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia) - that somehow his achievements would be rendered obsolete.

Hoy states that he is "a proud Scot and a very proud Brit as well", stressing that the two identities are not “mutually exclusive”. Yet, during the Beijing Olympics the British team was referred to in the official Chinese (Mandarin) commentary as Ying Guó, meaning “England”. One wonders whether Hoy was aware that in China, the country where he won his medals, there is no “mutually exclusive” word for Britain and that, in the eyes of the host nation, he and his team were considered to be English? And, if he was, would he even care? Sadly, I don’t think he would.

The simple fact is that because Scotland is not independent and does not field its own Olympic team, it has not had to provide the resources necessary to support its athletes. Of course, if Scotland had been independent prior to the Beijing Olympics and sent its own Olympic team, it would no doubt have provided the resources necessary. Indeed the very reason it is currently building a velodrome is because the facilities are required. Yet, for the 2008 Olympics there would have been no point in duplicating facilities that already existed in England. Especially given the fact that England (with its considerably greater population) will always be providing the lion’s share of athletes in any British Olympic Team.

Essentially, the crux of Hoy’s argument is that Scotland punches above its weight by being part of the UK. Therefore, it would be worth considering some statistics. According to http://www.olympics.org.uk/, 26 out of the 311 Team GB athletes sent to Beijing were from Scotland. That’s about 8.3% of the total. Now Scotland has a population of about 5 million, which is about 8.3% of the UK’s 60 Million. So it would seem that Scotland is not so much punching above its weight, rather it is punching at it’s weight.

Except that it isn’t. And here’s why: at the 2008 Olympic Games, Ireland with a population of 4.4 million people sent 54 athletes; Croatia with a population of 4.6 million people sent 110 athletes to Beijing; New Zealand with a population of 4.2 million sent 209 athletes and Lithuania, with a population of 3.2 million, sent 74 athletes.

Yet leaving the Olympic Games aside, the cost of Scotland’s lack of independence is such that people throughout the world have no idea what exactly Scotland is. This is something that becomes all too apparent whilst on holiday and you find yourself having to explain for the umpteenth time that Scotland is not actually a part of England. Irvine Welsh summed it up nicely in Trainspotting with the line: “it’s shite being Scottish”. And it really is. Denmark, for example, is a country of 5 million people situated to the north of Germany. Yet do its citizens have to constantly explain that they are not German every time they go on holiday?

I came across an atlas being sold in LIDL recently. Like much of what LIDL sells, it was a German-produced atlas and made by a company called NGV. Out of interest, I looked for the map of Scotland. Now, most UK-produced maps will show Scotland’s border with England, albeit in a lighter shade than an “international” border, but there nonetheless. Yet this German Atlas did not show Scotland’s border at all, or even mention Scotland. It simply wasn’t there. All that it said was “Great Britain”, which in the wider world is as interchangeable with "England" as "Holland" is with "The Netherlands" (despite the fact that there is a difference) and to the way that the USSR, prior to its dissolution, was simply called Russia by so many. Obviously, I don’t have the resources to check every atlas in Europe, but I suspect that this particular atlas would be typical of most throughout Europe. And these are the countries on our own continent - God only knows what the rest of the world thinks.

Yet it really is little wonder that the world at large has no idea of Scotland’s existence, because, in modern day usage, the terms nation and state are really not “mutually exclusive” (to quote speedy cyclist Chris Hoy once more). To be a real nation you really have to be a state. And, as for talk about punching above our weight, it would seem that quite the opposite is true.