16 - 07 - 2019 / Your Story
MY VIEW CHANGED AFTER THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTION
I voted No in 2014 and totally regret that now. My thinking at the time was that I was not happy with the status quo of the UK, but not convinced by the type of independence the White Paper was offering. I saw it merely as taking all the bad parts of UK government and shifting them from London to Edinburgh.
My personal outlook has always been closer to a Swiss model, where there is clear democratic responsibility and accountability from localities upwards to council, cantons and national government.
In the end I sceptically punted that the UK was open to reforming government, improving devolution and so on, and convinced that a Labour government was possible after the shambles of the coalition so reluctantly voted No (please note that my other option was to reluctantly to vote Yes).
My view changed immediately after the 2015 general election, and vowed that at the next chance I'd be voting for Scottish independence. The way anti-scottishness was played up in that election to get people in England to vote Tory (Guardian Video from 5m 28s in)
This was obviously further enshrined by the EU ref and 2017 General Election.
I'm not sure how relevant my outlook is to a wider picture, but I'm sure you will be looking at patterns of people who have switched from No to Yes and why, but I just thought you might find my journey heartening.
Taken from The Guardian - An extract from his final 2015 pre-election report, John Harris hits the knife-edge Tory/Labour marginal of Nuneaton – the streets are alive with nervous chatter about the SNP supposedly coming for England's money. Watch the full video here - http://bit.ly/2GeIB2B