The independence referendum sparked an interest in politics that Scotland has not witnessed in a long time, with the turnout exceeding an enormous 84%. But just how politically motivated is Scotland today?

Scotland’s voter turnout in general elections had been consistently lower than England’s for decades. It hadn’t been higher than theirs since 1983, when 72.7% of those who were registered to vote turned up to the polling station, compared to England’s 72.5%. A few days ago, however, this all changed.

In a period of utter distrust in politics, a turnout of over 70% is considered successful. England and Wales failed to reach that figure this election, with the former receiving 65.8% and the latter 65.7%. This is only a minimal increase on 2010, which is disappointing considering that many had hoped it would be considerably higher this time. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland received an embarrassingly low 58.1% turnout.

However, in Scotland, the situation was considerably merrier – we managed to overstep 70% and received a somewhat respectable (given the current political climate) 71.1% turnout – an increase of 7.1% from 2010. This was was roughly 5% higher than in England and Wales, which demonstrates that, although voter turnout may still be relatively low, we are notably more politically motivated than in England, Wales and NI. This can only be attributed to one factor: the independence referendum. If other factors were at play, such as people voting en masse to keep the Tories out, we would have saw an increase in turnout across all four nations within the UK, but unfortunately no such phenomenon occurred.

No matter which party or ideology you affiliate yourself with, one cannot deny that the referendum has inspired people to engage in politics across Scotland. Many now discuss matters regularly here, and that can only be healthy for democracy.

Despite this, there is still huge work to be done in terms of political engagement in Scotland, considering that at one time, our nation could expect turnouts upward of 75%. Particular attention and effort have to be paid to Glasgow, where one constituency saw an abysmal 56.8% turnout. Furthermore, we cannot take the high turnouts that occurred in other constituencies across Scotland for granted. However, to have such a higher turnout than our fellow nations, we must be doing something right.

Hopefully soon, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will also see similar levels of motivation, possibly stemming from the upcoming EU referendum that will take place in 2017. Until then, us Scots can only continue to discuss and debate politics, and persuade others to do so too, so that we can become a thriving democracy to be proud of.

Ryan Curran

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Statistics cited from http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm