Who gets what if the Scots leave?
December 4 2013
Picture: Daily Record*
Here's an interesting cultural conundrum: if the Scots (or rather, people who happen to be living in Scotland on the day of the referendum) decide to leave the UK next year, then what will happen to objects of cultural importance, in relation to things like export licences?
Let's take a current case; the Van Dyck self-portrait (which, to recap, has been sold to an overseas buyer, and which the National Portrait Gallery is currently trying to buy). Let's say that the picture wasn't yet sold, and that the Philip Mould gallery (for which I work) had a shop in Edinburgh, where we kept the portrait. Now, if the Scots went for independence, the picture would overnight be lost to what remained of the UK. Would the Mould gallery then have to apply for an export licence? Or would it be too late? If we sold the picture to an overseas buyer post-independence, would the Scottish government be as bothered about Van Dyck leaving as the UK government is? And if an export ban was placed on the picture by the Scottish government, then would a Scottish museum even be able to raise the money to stop the picture leaving Scotland (answer, probably not)? It will undeniably be easier to export cultural treasures from an independent Scotland than from the UK, because the Scots (with their much smaller philanthropic and lottery pot) won't be able to match UK firepower when it comes to 'saving' cultural objects.
There's a risible little section on cultural items in the SNP's 'White Paper' on Scottish independence, which reads thus:
Question: What will happen to cultural items related to Scotland and held in UK national collections in an independent Scotland?
Answer: Scotland currently owns a share of all UK national collections.
The national museums and galleries in both London and Scotland all hold items from different parts of the UK and collections assembled from across the world. They have long-established arrangements for loans, exchanges and partnerships, which will be able to continue when Scotland becomes independent.
Clearly, nobody in the SNP has thought of this. The SNP answer to every question these days - that "Scotland owns a share of the UK's currency, air, cows, etc. (but not oil of course, because that's all Scotland's)" - won't really work with cultural assets. Does the SNP want the UK to buy Scotland out of their share of every Titian and Gainsborough in the land? Or should we chop them into bits? Or does the 'loan' answer given above mean that there will be mandatory lending of works, on some sort of rotational basis? The SNP question above asks, perhaps selfishly, only about items related to Scotland currently in the rest of the UK. But what about English-related items in Scotland?
Too many questions. Just vote no.
*By the way Alex, you can keep all the Vettrianos.
