Can we with a fresh conscience now say that Britain is taking us forward? Can we say that leaving Europe, without our consent, is set to enhance our children’s lives and connect them more constructively to the world of the future? Some would say so, some unionists and some nationalists too, but a heavily majority would not, and many young people in Scotland feel they are being sold out by their own grandparents. Strangely, it is the younger ones who are more profoundly in touch with Scotland’s intellectual traditions. It is not at base a political argument, but a philosophical one, a humanitarian one, an ecological one, putting the rights of all men and women, and all children, before the fears of a class of account-holders.

Der irischstämmige schottische Autor Andrew O’Hagan in seiner Keynote-Speech beim Edinburgh International Book Festival. O’Hagan wurde mit dem Los Angeles Times Book Award und dem E. M. Forster Award der American Academy of Arts and Letters ausgezeichnet.