IRVINE Welsh has said it was a “disaster” Scotland didn’t vote for independence, adding he doesn’t think “there is much of a future” for the country now.
The Trainspotting author – who spoke to an audience at the Bloody Scotland International Crime Festival in Stirling – said everywhere outside of London in the UK now seems “like a third world country” as he insisted a Yes vote would have injected energy into Scotland.
Asked by host Stephen Jardine for his view on independence 10 years on from the referendum, he said: “I think it was a disaster really that we didn't quite have the bottle just to push through and go for it."
"I was in Dublin the other week. I think it was Monday and Tuesday night I was out and it was absolutely teeming and rammed, and if you look at Edinburgh or Glasgow now on a Monday or Tuesday night it's just tumbleweed.
“I was in Leeds a few weeks ago and Leeds used to be the club capital of England, and now it's just dead. There used to be 36 clubs in Leeds and now there's two that are open.
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"And it's like London is just absolutely buzzing and thriving and heaving and the rest of Britain is like a third world country now in comparison."
It will be exactly a decade ago on Wednesday that Scotland voted to stay in the UK, with 55.3% voting No to independence and 44.7% voting Yes.
The constitutional question has dominated Scottish politics ever since with the SNP winning every election until this year when they were humbled by Labour in the General Election.
Welsh said different political parties now offered fewer options for "real change," as he spoke about a lack of reaction to the proposed closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery.
He said: “In Scotland in particular, this gap when you create a unitary state and particularly in a globalised environment... all the parties now have the same kind of line.
"People are talking about where's the outrage about Grangemouth being shut down? There's nothing because people know.
"Even 10 years ago people would have been going crazy about this. It would have been a Ravenscraig type of moment of protest.
"People know there's no point now because all you can do is threaten to withhold the vote from a party and give it to another party who are going to do exactly the same thing anyway.
"So politics now becomes about entertainment rather than about anything to do with real change.”
Welsh, 65, added Scotland would have been energised by the novelty of self-determination for 20 years.
He said: "I think that had Scotland become independent, the surge in energy, the building and the infrastructure, the money coming into the country, the novelty of it would have energised the place for a good couple of decades.
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"I think afterwards it would have fallen into the same kind of trap of that whole kind of neo-liberal empire, but I think we'd have had a couple of really good decades of economic growth and some kind of idea of the future.
"Now I don't think that there is much of a future for Scotland."
Welsh appeared at the Albert Halls in Stirling in conversation with fellow crime writer Louise Welsh to discuss their latest novels.
Thirty years after Trainspotting, Welsh's latest book Resolution sees the return of his maverick investigator Ray Lennox, the troubled anti-hero of his TV-adapted Crime series, this time set in Brighton.
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