Marriage equity in Ireland: Referendum Day

Today Ireland votes in a referendum that’s the world’s first, on same sex marriage. It’s a shockingly quick liberalisation for a country that only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, but the last 20 years has seen scandal after scandal in the Catholic Church, which has fallen from its once unassailable position of moral authority to an institution too damaged to campaign prominently against equal marriage.

The referendum is being held because Ireland’s constitution charges the state with protecting the institution of marriage. Opinion is divided on whether the referendum is legally required to permit equal marriage as the constitution doesn’t define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but merely that it is defended as an institution. In the end the government erred on the side of caution and called a referendum to ensure that a move to equal marriage wouldn’t be struck down by the courts.

The Catholic Church still opposes the change and is preaching its message in churches across the country, but its conservative Catholic civil society groups that have led the opposition in practice. The argument against centres around children, with the No campaign arguing that children need a mother and a father. However, same sex couples in civil partnerships (brought in in 2010/2011) already have the right to adopt and raise children so the Yes campaign has tried – unsuccessfully – to shut this down as an argument. As many have pointed out, the No campaign’s stance on marriage being for reproduction and its insistence on the ideal family is potentially alienating for people who aren’t LGBT but who nevertheless don’t fit into the ideal.

Currently the Yes side is polling very strongly, with the No campaign only making a slight inroads over the last month. But it’s turnout that is likely to be key. It’s widely accepted that No voters are more motivated to come out and vote, whereas the mass of Yes voters may feel that their side is assured a victory and therefore it’s not quite as important to vote (and many of them may not have a lot personally riding on the result). There are also worries that there may be a “shy Tory” effect after the British elections – if people were too reticent to admit to voting Conservative in Britain, then there may be many in Ireland that have misgivings about voting Yes, but are too embarrassed to admit that they plan to vote No.

Whichever way the vote goes, the referendum is a milestone event in the birth of liberal Ireland, but marriage equality would not only be a powerful statement of the strength of modern Ireland – more importantly it will bring greater equality to the LGBT community and, after a long period of persecution, allow them to build loving families in Irish society.

Independence or Devolution?

Last week saw the first TV debate between Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling the leader of the pro-Union "Better Together" campaign in the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence. Salmond is known across the UK for being a shrewd politician and a great debater, whereas Darling, a former Chancellor, is seen as competent and dependable, but dull. So much was made of Darling's victory in the debate (according to the snap polls immediately afterwards), particularly with the Yes (pro-independence) side behind in the polls.

Darling won the debate largely because the independence campaign has stuck to a highly optimistic view of the transition to independence, so in a debate it comes across as if the Yes side aren't taking the concerns of the No side seriously (hardly a way to woo swing voters with similar concerns). And there are issues with the transition to independence: EU membership won't be automatic (though it hardly be a complicated process for a country that already complies with EU law), and creating a suitable currency union between Scotland and the rest of the UK will doubtless be a complicated task.

But the real question is whether Scotland is not only different to the rest of the UK (read: England), but different enough that full independence is necessary to properly express that difference. From education to healthcare, there's no denying that Scotland is more social democratic than the rest of the UK (though it may just be more in line with the rest of Europe than England), and the political gulf between Edinburgh and London can be seen in the lack of Tories North of the border. But does devolution (with more powers to be shifted from London to Edinburgh in the event of a No vote) not enable Scotland to give voice to those politics while also retaining the benefits of union? The fact that the independence plan would keep so much of the union, from the monarch to the currency, suggests that the "best of both worlds" argument might have some attraction yet.

Looking at how the debate has played in Westminster and how the main UK parties have dealt with it, I can see it only being a matter of time before Scotland leaves. More devolution to Scotland is great, but the asymmetric nature of the union is a big problem for its future survival. Without any debate about what the union should be about and how it should work together apart from occasional devolution to the constituent nations, the union ends up on the wrong side of history. The momentum will stay with Scotland's drift towards independence, and the central institutions of the UK will not be reformed to reflect how the UK is developing. The UK needs to stop acting like a unitary state - really, the UK should take a federal approach to empower English regions as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, re-balancing the UK away from London and the South-East and making devolution and union part of the same political narrative.

That's not going to happen. England famously doesn't like to debate constitutional reform, trusting in a flexible, "unwritten" constitution (which underestimates the danger of bumbling through decisions and undervalues the virtue of democratically facing up to such decisions rather than leaving them to a cosy elite to sort out amongst themselves). A political atmosphere where the union is increasingly an English space that the Celtic fringe gets exemptions from is not a union of equals and this leaves very little in the way of common institutions or political narrative to justify sticking together.

Scotland's social democratic vision is a very attractive one - it's one that it can achieve as an independent country, and probably also as part of the UK. Independence will give Scotland something more indefinable than what Salmond promises: the freedom to reflect on, debate and shape itself. The real weakness of the UK may not be that it isn't giving Scotland the tools that it needs to forge its own path while staying inside the union, it's that it struggles to be about more than the London-centric Westminster bubble.