Why sci-fi author Charles Stross is voting for Scottish independence

Why sci-fi author Charles Stross is voting for Scottish independence
(Image credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Charles Stross, author of such sci-fi classics as The Laundry Files and Accelerando, is also a resident of Scotland. Today he has a brilliant, extensive explanation of the vagaries of British history and politics that have led to increasing alienation and distrust between England and Scotland, and may well lead to their separation. You should really read the whole thing, but here's the upshot. It's dark:

So the worst case outcome, circa 2017, is that Scotland remains manacled to an England that has voted in a government of the Home Counties, who despise the Scots, and who have successfully campaigned for a referendum in which the English protest vote determines that Scotland will be dragged out of the EU in a vain attempt to wind the clock back to an imaginary vision of a 1950s conservative utopia that never was. Or Scotland might remain part of a UK, but one where when push came to shove the racist right took a kicking in the 2015 election and the softer right wing government of New Labour is back in charge and the loons are exiled to the fringes again, and the country is at least open for business.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.