The ‘benchies’ of Edinburgh have something to say

LEITH, UK — If you wanted opinions on the Scottish referendum last week — actually, if you wanted opinions on anything at all — you couldn’t do much better than this bird poop-splattered stretch of pavement on Edinburgh’s northern edge.

Here, in the shadow of an oxidized statue of Queen Victoria, a posse of men gathers each day on the granite and aluminum benches in front of the New Kirkgate Shopping Centre.

Locals call them the “benchies.”

It was 11 a.m. two days before Scotland went to the polls for the biggest vote in its history. Did the benchies have thoughts about that? You bet they did.

“I think it’s a pure shambles,” said Colin McDougall, 35, a pale, jittery man in a tracksuit. “The union should stay the union. There’s still no currency plan.”

“There’s a plod right behind you,” he said quietly to his friend as a pair of cops approached. Then back to the referendum.

“We’ve survived this long as a union. I think, personally, Alex Salmond” — the Scottish First Minister who resigned after the referendum’s defeat — “just wants to be president of Scotland.”

“I think he’s trying to be a dictator. I really do,” agreed Derek McCausland, 36. He had a green-and-white woven loom band bracelet on one wrist and the note “fish food” written in pen on one hand.

McCausland was voting. McDougall, who had no fixed address, was not.

“Why fix something that isn’t broken?” McCausland continued. “If we do become independent, what have we got to be exporting? It would take about two years to join the EU. Standard Life’s moving down to London. Royal Bank of Scotland. Lloyd’s. If we vote yes and something financially bad happens to Scotland, who’re we going to fall back on? How much oil’s left?”

The cops encircled. An elderly man with a baseball cap and a mouth of knobbled teeth insisted to an inquiring police officer that he wasn’t loitering, he was waiting for his wife in the pharmacy. The cop countered that he’d wait here with him for the woman to appear.

The elderly man found this lack of trust offensive. “He thinks I’m here to drink!” he fumed between discreet sips from a Styrofoam cup.

“You want a drink?” said John Thompson, 22, pulling a bottle of Sambuca from his Adidas T-shirt. “What do you think about US foreign policy on ISIS? I think Barack Obama’s foreign policy is completely daft. Don’t you think it’s going to create a vacuum?”

Thompson said he likes to watch the news while he drinks — CNN, RT, Al Jazeera.

He was critical of Britain’s decision to arm Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga (“It’s gonna be just like — who the f*ck are they called? Yeah, the mujahideen”) and the London-accented man who murders Western hostages in Islamic State videos (“The British c*nt”).

He was against independence, not least because of the effect on his social life.

“The Yes campaign, they’re a f*cking disease,” he said. “If I want to go to f*cking Blackpool for the weekend” — a fading north England seaside resort town about three hours from Edinburgh by train — “I got to get a passport.”

But no, he would not be voting. He had class that day at his technical college. He’s studying to be a patisserie chef.

The police turned their backs for a moment. McDougall passed McCausland a paper-wrapped package that he discreetly tucked under one thigh.

“You talking about the referendum?” said a cop in his high-visibility vest. “I can’t talk about that. I’m in uniform.”

Then he swept off his hat and smiled conspiratorially. “I’m voting yes!”