José Cruz: How did you feel about the results of the Scottish referendum?

Charlotte Alderdice: Um, personally I wasn’t, I wasn’t too upset by it. Um, I- I don’t know. it was an interesting one, because part- part of it is sort of the people I was surrounded with. I was in an interesting situation. Um, I went to a private school (Mm hmm) for secondary school um, on a bursary, so I was one of the poorer students.

José: Oh so wait. I’m sorry, just for me to backtrack. The Scottish referend- When the Scottish referendum happened you were still in high school then. (Yes) OK.

Charlotte: But for the Scottish referendum 16 year-olds were allowed to vote.

José: Didn’t know that (Yeah) Good. That’s a (Um usually) that’s a nice little thing.

Charlotte: Yeah usually it would be 18 (Right) But 16 and above. You’re allowed to vote.

José: That’s nice. Yeah good. OK so go on.

Charlotte: So um, the school that I went to, there were a lot of very rich kids, um kids from middle to upper class backgrounds, um because Aberd-

José: This is in Scotland, eh?

Charlotte: Yes, yes. Um so, the school was in Aberdeen, which is obviously like oil capitol of Europe so there were a lot “oil kids” there. Um uh (Ah) so a lot of them tended to be of a particular political swinging niche, I wasn’t quite you know from- I wasn’t- I’ve never been particularly opinionated. I’ve been very much like, OK well I have my opinion you have your opinion. Like, I don’t need to get into a fight about. I’m not telling you you’re wrong sort of thing (Mm hmm) Um so, I personally felt that the British government um- because it’s- it’s in London right. And there are more people in the entire of London than there in the entire of Scotland. So, the government being in London, it’s going to be quite London-focused, and the further north you go the less, sort of, “paying attention” they are to those areas and Scotland while yeah, there’s not that many people comparatively, there are a lot of people there, so a lot of laws that pass are sort of, very relevant to the south of England. And they’re not bad necessarily but um, I feel that the Scottish government governs Scotland better um because you know they’re based in Scotland. (Sure) Um, so I- I was personally leaning a bit more towards, yeah you know, maybe maybe independence wouldn’t be so bad like, you don’t know until you try, I guess. (Mm hmm) I mean it’s worked for other countries. Um why not? I wasn’t you know, I wasn’t upset that we didn’t have it because it just, you know, just stayed the same for me.

José: OK, so there wasn’t any kind of a, an emotional letdown, or (No) You wouldn’t (Not particularly) have had an emotional rush if you did leave?

Charlotte: No. (Mm) Um I mean, if it had gone badly obviously yeah, I would have- I would have been a bit upset by that but um. Yeah I think part of the reason a lot of people did vote “Yes” was that um, we did think that there was the possibility of remaining in Europe (Right) Um and the way that the British government was going it did look sort of, you know there were a lot- a lot of people who wanted to leave uh the EU so Scotland was sort of like, “Oh well you know, if- if we could like, go independent and still- and still be part of the EU that would- that would be pretty cool. Um and now well obviously with Brexit, I think- I mean I don’t know, because obviously I don’t speak for the whole of Scotland, but um, I think some people who originally voted “no” were a little bit annoyed.

José: Now OK, “No” in- in which referendum?

Charlotte: Oh, who voted “No” to independence. (To Scottish independence) Yes. Because I think some people didn’t think we would be able to stay in the EU. (Right) Um because they thought, oh no, they’re not going to let us in. (Mm hmm) Like we- we’ll have to change our money and stuff, we won’t be able to use Pounds sterling and we won’t be able to stay in the EU. And then so some people I think who thought that voted to (Voted to) stay in Britain.

José: Because they thought this is the better (Yeah the better) Oh the lesser of two evils kind of thing.

Charlotte: Yes. Yes. Um and then Brexit happened. So I think some people were a bit like, “What?”

José: “What the?”