This isolated community of Uig on the Isle of Skye resisted the "Clearances" in the 19th century and is once again a centre of Scottish nationalism ahead of the Sept. 18 referendum on Scotland's future. Photo: Matthew Fisher/Postmedia News UIG, Scotland — Like Quebec’s isolated Kingdom of the Saguenay, where there has long been overwhelming support for independence from Canada, the Isle of Skye is a Scottish separatist bastion.
As Thursday’s historic ballot on independence from Great Britain looms, the strongly nationalist sentiments expressed in this rugged gateway to the Outer Hebrides, including the postcard beautiful old Norse settlement of Uig, are not indicative of political opinion in Scotland as a whole. A blitz of polls published over the past week indicate that Scotland’s referendum on its future is a dead heat. Yet on Skye, where sheep greatly outnumber the 10,000 islanders and London is 1,000 kilometres away, separatists are a strong majority.
During a quick two-hour circumnavigation of the island by car this weekend it was easy to spot “Yes” signs in support of independence. There was only one tiny “No, thanks” sign in favour of the unionist cause to be seen and that was in Portree, the island’s capital, 25 kilometres south of Uig.
Among those with a Yes sign on their lawn in Uig were Ian and Irene Stuart.
“I’ve never met a person here who is going to vote No,” said Ian, a 63-year-old banker who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh, London and Brussels before retiring to Uig (pronounced U-ig), where he takes tourists fly fishing. “There may be some who support maintaining ties with Britain, but we don’t know because some people won’t say how they are voting.
“I’ve been for independence since I was a school boy. You can call me hard core.”
Skye’s unique history may explain its nationalist fervour. The island, which only was connected to the mainland by a bridge in 1995, is one of the last redoubts of Gaelic. About one-third of the population still speak the language.
At the Battle of Culloden, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, a Highland army loyal to the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie or Charles Edward Stuart, was badly beaten by the Duke of Cumberland in 1746 in the last of the Jacobite Rebellions and what turned out to be the last war between the Scottish and the English.
The bloody deaths of several thousand Highlanders at Culloden was followed by state attacks on the Gaelic culture. This occurred at the same time as the infamous Clearances, in which entire communities including several close to Uig, were expelled from their farms by landlords who wanted their lands for grazing.
Tens of thousands of those served with eviction notices were forced to emigrate. Many of those who were part of the Scottish diaspora ended up in Nova Scotia where they soon owned land and eventually prospered.
It is this bitter history that helps explain why many Scots, and especially those on Skye, are eager to trade Great Britain’s Union Jack for the blue and white flag Scot’s call the Saltire, or St. Andrew’s Cross. But there are other reasons why Scots are fed up with Britain and keen to create what Ian Stuart called “a new Nova Scotia,” and “a second Scottish enlightenment” similar to the one that for a time in the 18th century made Scotland one of the leading intellectual and scientific centres in the world.
As in Quebec and some parts of Western Canada, Scots are especially brittle about how much, or rather, how little attention their concerns get in distant capitals. Among the grievances mentioned again and again in Skye and elsewhere in Scotland is how the North Sea oil spoils are divided up and how that bounty could, instead, bankroll Scottish schools and health care. That Scotland is home to Britain’s nuclear arsenal is also a sensitive issue for many voters.
Dismissing sudden promises of devolution of political power to Scotland made last week by several leading British politicians including Prime Minister David Cameron, Irene Stuart, who sells real estate on Skye to mostly English clients, said: “They only began to pay attention to us about 10 days ago when polls said the No side might lose.”
A late conversion to the separatist cause, the 62-year-old Edinburgher said that for years she did not see the point in taking a stand. “But I have become absolutely fed up about the money that is spent in London and the fraud convictions of so many of the politicians there. We are sick and tired of being controlled by Westminster.”
Comments last week by leading Scottish and British business executives that there would be dire economic consequences for Scotland if it severed ties with the United Kingdom, amused Ian Stuart more than they annoyed him.
“They began to work on what they called Project Fear about two years ago,” he said of the No campaign as refrigerated trucks arriving by ferry from the Outer Hebrides thundered by on their way to London, France and Spain with their loads of lobsters and langoustines. “We’ve been bombarded by the shock and awe of it for so long we don’t even hear it any more. Their plan has backfired massively.
“Even in the last week there have been revelations that there are indications of massive oil reserves out beyond Skye and the Outer Hebrides.”
A canvasser for the Yes campaign, Keith Jones, who despite his Welsh name, speaks with a thick Scottish accent, had several pro-independence badges pinned to his “Yes Alba” shirt, which recalls the ancient Gaelic word for Scotland.
“I was very scared that the Yes side might lose until the banks spoke out last week for the No side,” the 38- year-old tour guide said as he waited for a group visiting the Uig pier. “They really shot themselves in the foot with that.”
William Gordon, who was born on Skye and has lived most of his life on the island, recently switched from the No camp to the Yes camp. “It took me a long time talking with people and reading a lot online to make up my mind,” said the bus driver from Portree. “To vote Yes is a leap of faith, but if you don’t take the leap, you will never know.”
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