突然翻到两年前上英国社会与文化课的期末论文。啧啧，怀念一下。胡扯了一下苏格兰公投的第三种可能性，真是脑洞大开呀。

Could the Scottish independence referendum be a ternary one?

　　The Scottish Independence Referendum (SIR) pushed the voters to the edge of answering “Yes” or “No”. No doubt that a binary referendum of this sort embodies advantages of simplicity and clarity. But an exception of the Scottish devolution referendum of 1997 with three options offered perplexes me: Does efficiency equals to effectiveness,that is, inter alia, with respect to the SIR, does the decisiveness of the binary referendum produce the exact results as the “No” electorates had hoped for? The answer is a big NO. The recent Guardian survey on the referendum anniversary depicted a picture of “Yes”-dominating referendum. Other than hinting an inevitable independence referendum, it haunts me that there is a third option jumping out of the two traps of “Yes” and “No” on the condition that the electorates are armed with full information. In this essay, I will explore the possibility of a ternary SIR.

 　　The essay is organized in three parts: Part one points out the third option of the referendum through empirical evidence on how the referendum question surfaced and what the Scotland Parliament truly desired; Part two discusses how likely a ternary SIR could be by questioning whether the Scottish National Party (SNP) has a say and to what degree it has a say in referendums with comparisons concerning member votes from constituencies and regional lists in the Scottish Parliament elections, as well as the strength gap between the SNP and the Labour party; Part three ends up with a supplementary demonstration emphasizing the feasibility of a ternary SIR.

Data and Methods

　　Observations are conducted to triangulate emerging findings; that is, they are used in conjunction with quantitative and qualitative analysis to substantiate the findings. Where appropriate,I will provide demographic and social-economic backgrounds, highlighting points of disagreement worthy of further investigation.

The third option of the referendum

 　　It is argued that “Yes” produces an independent Scotland, while “No” leaves the status quo. However, the third option awaits nobody but visionary people to dig out, that is, a Scotland endued with more devolution, specifically to say, ”taxation powers” (Lain 84). Two points are listed to back up my perspective.

 　　First, the referendum question itself is questionable. Little is known that the question raised by the Electoral Commission changed from “Do you agree that the powers of the Scottish Parliament should be extended to enable independence to be achieved?”(Lain 12) in 2010 to “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”(Lain 12) in 2012 and were finally hammered out as “Should Scotland be an independent country?” in 2014. Notwithstanding such a small cut, it spells trouble for the “Butterfly effect”. Conciseness strengthens tone but at the same time biases respondents. Thus whatever the result is, the legitimacy of the referendum is contested.

　　Second, expanded financial powers are what the Scottish Parliament intended to gobble up. Peeping into the Scotland Act 2012, I found that most of the provisions dealt with financial powers of the Scottish Parliament, explicitly, “the tax and borrowing powers”( Jim 62). Despite the effect of the Scotland Act 2012 came into with the result of “No”, the effort to enhance devolution and financial powers still seems a long way to go.

 　　Above all, my perspective could not be groundless given that the referendum question with the first two options is contested, and the third option satisfies the appetite of the Scottish Parliament.

How likely a ternary SIR could be？

 　　Externally speaking, the possibility depends on how strong the SNP is against its greatest opponent the Labour. Internally speaking, it depends on the will and participation of the voters and members. Whilst they both count, I will skew my attention to the latter owing to limited space.

　　It clicks me that the characteristics of the Scottish National Party (SNP) has achieved its transition from “amateur activist ”(James 84) to “professionalization”,which could partly explain the table below (James 10 table 2.1). Looking vertically,I found that 2007’s victory over Labour was narrow:47 over 46. It seems that the gap strength between them is not obvious. However, 20 increased seats of the total seats of SNP (73% growth rate by calculation) from 2003 to 2007 exhibits its great potential and triggers my curiosity: how could a party develop so fast in 4 short years? Horizontal comparison seems to give me an answer. For the increased 20 seats, regional seats account for 8,with growth rate of 44.4% (by calculation), while constituency seats account for 12,with growth rate of 133.3%(by calculation).Despite the usual domination of regional seats, due to its geographic region(James 11), the exposing speed of constituency seats deserves attention: how can the SNP generate such a great participation in such a short time? Alternatively, what is the motivation of these active members? Is it closely connected with the “professionalization” of the recruiting process, its efficient membership records or even its “decentralization?” No Wonder that decentralization sparks freedom,but along with consideration that party duties and responsibilities have to be spread (James 150), does this sort of activism has a say in policy-making? If it does, how will it influence the final result? These questions are worth further investigation considering that explanations in the book are immense but much of it lacks grounding in empirical evidence. More worthy of note is that the total seats, which were supposed to remain the same, changed from 112 in 2003 to 159 in 2007. For the 47 increased seats, besides concluding the great contribution from the SNP, what else can we sniff out?

　　Possibility things are always hard to gauge, but trend can be visible from the analysis above. With obvious great potential of the SNP, a ternary SIR is to be held as long as the SNP wants.

Supplementary demonstration 

　　While the Labour is struggling with its shifting heartlands and racks its brains to develop a responding political strategy(Gerry 92), the SNP is preparing a great feast for its predictable triumph. The SNP’s popularity has surged from less than 30% of the vote to 54% and its membership has increased from less than 25,000 last September to around 110,000 now (the Economist). No wonder that David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative prime minister, had declared the party as “the chain to Labour’s wrecking ball” for the economy (the Economist). If the SNP did not matter at the election, how would such strong language be used? If it was not a fear for the taxation powers being grabbed by the salivating SNP, what else could it be?

　　Human wisdom is nothing else than “Wait and Hope”(Alexandre Dumas). So is the case with the party. After more than 80 years’ waiting and hoping, maybe it is time for the SNP to flex its muscles in the next referendum. Ternary or binary? Time will tell.

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扯扯苏格兰公投的第三种可能性