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http://online.wsj.com After Scotland's Vote, the Rocky Road Ahead In today's world, the options are limited for a new, small country If the U.K. ceases to exist as a state next Thursday and Britain becomes no more than a geographical expression—both real possibilities according to the polls—British democracy will still be thriving. The referendum campaign over whether Scotland should become an independent country burst to life a week ago when a lone poll in the London Sunday Times showed that the "Yes" camp, which backs independence, had for the first time pulled ahead—albeit with many voters undecided. The entire U.K., including its complacent political class at Westminster, has now thrown itself into the fray. Can Scotland afford to leave? Some of the world's most prosperous states are small. Some have oil or gas, but economists say that small countries are simply easier to govern. They don't need large bureaucracies. The parliamentary road to Scottish independence will be rocky even if the eventual destination isn't in doubt. John Kuczala Even so, they must be agile, attracting investment with skilled workforces, low taxes, good services and realistic management. After its "velvet divorce" from the former Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, for instance, closed down outdated heavy industries that the Czechs had helped to subsidize and became prosperous through market reforms. Scotland would start out with more of the requirements for growth than Slovakia, but it also has a much more onerous tax-and-regulation regime—which it wants to keep while losing London, which has subsidized it. That can't work. Assume, however, that the Scots could square that circle. They currently have markets in the European Union (which also helps the U.K. to subsidize Scottish public services) and want to keep them. If Brussels says no, then Alex Salmond, currently Scotland's first minister and the leader of the Scottish National Party, or SNP, would have to adopt a market-driven, Slovak-style economic strategy to pursue new markets. If the EU relents, Scotland would keep its markets—but along with the EU's burdensome regulations and bureaucracy. All this underlines the incoherence of the SNP's bid for independence. The party actually wants "independence within the European Union," which means that Scotland would continue to receive the bulk of its laws and regulations from Brussels. Whether that would give Scotland more or less influence over how others govern it is a nice question. But it would be very distant indeed from self-government. The Scots would do better to remain with their old enemies in the U.K. The choice, however, will be decided not by such icy criteria but by passionate loyalties and dislikes. The skillful and largely hardheaded "Yes" campaign—in favor of Scottish independence—had momentum even before that startling poll. Scotland's artists, bohemians and radicals have coalesced behind it. But it has been weakened by its obvious failure to think through what kind of currency Scotland would have on the Day After. Moreover, a faint air of thuggishness and anti-English bigotry hovers around the "Yes" camp. There have been too many stories of threats and bullying by youths with painted-flag faces. The pro-union "No" campaign has money, influence, respectability and the political elite behind it—which has turned out to be its disabling weakness. Scotland isn't alone in the U.K. in having a fierce, anti-political distaste for its masters. When all three U.K. party leaders turned up jointly to campaign north of the border this week—and did quite well—Mr. Salmond framed the conflict as one between Team Scotland and Team Westminster. It was a hard, effective jab. Though Team Westminster persuaded business leaders to hint that they would get out of an independent Scotland fast, the "No" campaign has been essentially ignoble—devoid of positive appeal, discreetly bullying, exploiting fear, pessimism and even defeatism. Its message is, "Scotland can't survive outside the U.K.," which is both untrue and dispiriting—not "Stay with a great British team." It has seemed more like a rehearsal for the campaign to keep Britain inside the EU in 2017. This low campaigning will probably just about pull the "No" side ahead on Thursday—but if they lose, that will be the reason. As Alex Massie pointed out in the London Spectator, the underlying difference between the two campaigns was that the "Yes" backers plainly love Scotland whereas the "No" supporters couldn't give a convincing performance of loving Britain. The professional "No" backers simply don't feel that Britain is a great country—the country that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, ended the international slave trade and held off Hitler. The potential end of the U.K. has no tragic feel for them. So what then? If the "Yes" campaign wins, even narrowly, Scotland will become independent and, by degrees, a different country. A push to return to the sundered union is unlikely even in the event of a massive crisis. Consider the Irish Republic: Anglo-Irish relations are great, but a reunion is on no one's agenda. The parliamentary road to Scottish independence will be rocky even if the eventual destination isn't in doubt. Legislation to implement the referendum and divide the U.K. would have to be forged in a House of Commons whose Scottish MPs, overwhelmingly from the Labour Party, will lose their seats upon completion. English MPs are already questioning the right of their Scottish counterparts to determine English and U.K. issues if they may shortly be representatives of a foreign country. Equally, if the referendum keeps Scotland within the U.K. by a considerable margin—say, 60% to 40%—that, too, would settle the issue for a lifetime or two. Scottish nationalists won't disappear, of course, and will contend for office in a system of extensive Scottish home rule. But they will want to avoid alienating voters by agitating prematurely for another referendum. So they will make constant, nitpicking trouble with Westminster—and hope for worse times. A narrow "No" victory—the classic 51% to 49%—would settle nothing and promise the most immediate instability. Frustrated Scottish nationalists would agitate for a second referendum soon. Westminster is already committed to "devo max," which the BBC's Michael Buchanan describes as "fat-free independence," keeping Scotland within the U.K. but giving it "essentially the powers of a separate nation without the need for military chiefs, diplomats and expensive embassies." A relieved Prime Minister David Cameron would want to make that devolution of powers as generous as possible. But many of his Tory backbenchers would resist an expensive policy of bribing Scotland merely to buy a little time. They would demand that if English MPs have no say over Scottish affairs, then Scottish MPs should be barred from deciding policies for England. Full U.K. federalism would then arrive on the agenda. And all these potential changes—Scottish independence, devo max, federalism—threaten to deprive the Labour Party of a parliamentary majority and thus any real chance of governing England after whatever Scottish settlement is reached in, say, 2018. The 2015 election already seemed likely to produce a very different House of Commons, with more minor parties and less stable majorities. Now Thursday's referendum promises to exacerbate the battle over how England is to be governed—and which party is to be its natural governing majority for the rest of the century. Mr. O'Sullivan is director of the Danube Institute in Budapest and a senior fellow of the National Review Institute in New York.
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