24 hours from London: the Shetland Islands and the referendum
Getting to the Shetland Islands can be a stark reminder of their remoteness.
Our flight from Glasgow got to within touching distance of Sumburgh airport runway on the southern tip of the Shetland Islands, 100 miles north of the Scottish mainland, but the pilot decided visibility wasn’t good enough so he pulled out of the landing and we turned back to Inverness.
A dash by road to Aberdeen and then we caught the night ferry: London to Lerwick, the UK’s most northerly town, took us 24 hours.
Once you’re here the rich cocktail of Shetland’s otherness hits you.
Lerwick was settled by Dutch fishermen in the 17th century, The Norwegians held these islands until the later 15th century. It was then given to the Scottish crown.
In 1979 it was so wedded to the UK it voted 73 per cent to 27 per cent against devolution the first time that was offered in a referendum.
Three referendums later no-one knows how this archipelago of 100 islands will vote (actually only 15 of them will vote as the others aren’t populated).
The population, around 25,000, is too small to be worth polling. The yes campaign’s Brian Nugent says there’s progress for his side, but he wouldn’t want to bet on victory for the yes side here right now.
While other parts of Scotland weigh up how they’re going to vote, here the political leadership focused on what they can get out of the whole exercise.
Shetland doesn’t always see the world as Orkney does, still less as the Western Isles do.
There are few cabers or kilts here, little Gaelic spoken and no whisky distilled. But last year the three island groups teamed up to see how they could play London and Edinburgh off against each other.
They’ve agreed a joint shopping list with some individual add-ons and are determined to seize the opporunity.
Councillor Allan Wishart, like all the Shetland Council members an Independent, calls the referendum “an irrelevance” for the islands as they try to make sure that whoever wins, the islands win. You might think Councillor Wishart isn’t truly so detached from the whole things as you look at his union jack tie.
The islands want greater control of the sea bed, extra consideration for island communities in national laws and regulations which could amount to opt outs. A meeting on the islands’ progress in winning back powers took place last night.
The Lib Dem MSP Tavish Scott is one of those who has fed talk of a separate referendum for the Shetland Islands after the Scotland-wide referendum in September.
“Why should independence stop at Edinburgh?” says Ali Inkster, who divides his time between running a shop on the islands and off-shore work. But his petition for a referendum offering Shetland independence will probably get him no more than a Holyrood debate.
The islands are not so much wind-swept but wind-ravaged. Trees are a rarity, Wind speed of 177mph was once recorded on the northern island of Unst.
Painted wood houses looking distinctly Scandanavian are popping up everywhere as are floating accommodation ships to house the oil and gas industry workers. At the outset of the oil rush, the council negotiated contributions from the industry that have funded old people’s homes, leisure centres and much else.
Now they are trying to turn this constitutional moment to their advantage. The speed with which London and Edinburgh have jumped to it and competed for favour in the last months might just make them wonder if they’ve undersold themselves and could’ve asked for even more.
The SNP MEP Alyn Smith told a yes campaign meeting he thought the islands may not have been ambitious enough and should start looking at all the possible templates … “you could be the Azores, Sardinia … whatever you like” he said. Some looked quite misty eyed at the thought.
Exploring the unique identities on the Shetland Islands, we decided to film on board a Norwegian tall ship that was taking the Viking-travelled route from the Norwegian mainland to the Shetland Island.
Sadly our hired fishing boat lost engine power on its way out to greet the 100 year old Kaiser-built Statsraad Lehmkuhl and the Lerwick lifeboat was sent out to tow our boat back to harbour. We were kindly rescued by the Norwegians who sent one of their lifeboats to pick us up.
Once ashore we were surprised to find ourselves second item on Shetland Islands Broadcasting radio news.
Channel 4 News is live from Stornoway tonight and you can see the report and much more at 7pm.
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