An independent Scotland may well be in the best interests of the Scottish people, but for the "establishment2 in Westminster, it would not be a good move.
| Alex Salmond |
On Thursday 18th
September this year, the Scottish people will go to the polls to vote
in the referendum as to whether Scotland should be an independent
country. Upon that vote, lies the future of some 5.5 million people,
many of whom have been seeking an independent Scotland for hundreds
of years.
Between now and the date
of the referendum, we in Britain, may expect an increasing level of
publicity from the “Yes” and the “No” camps seeking to
persuade people how to cast their preference.
Many “facts” (some of
them mischievous and some only partly true) will be placed before the
public in Britain in the hope that many Brits with Scottish friends
or relatives will be able to influence the Scottish national on how
to cast their vote.
It is interesting to
observe how, even at this early stage, the “establishment of the
major parties have come out firmly in favour of the “No” camp and
will no doubt employ all their propaganda machines to further that
cause. That is the establishments of the major parties not,
necessarily the party membership in the country, and not all party
members in Parliament. There are many very compelling arguments in
favour of independence for Scotland but as an English person. I have
no axe to grind either for or against as I believe that this is a
choice for the Scots and the Scots alone. However, there are vested
interest in both camps who have their own agenda on this question,
and have little concern for what may be in the best interest of the
Scottish people.
The most significant of
these vested interests are of course the political parties, or to be
more accurate, as I mentioned previously, the leadership and
establishment of the political parties. The reasons for this are
simple. In every general election, the result, under our archaic
system of voting, is invariably determined by the results of a few
“marginal” constituencies the so called “Battle Ground” where
a few floating voters determine the government of the country for the
next five years. Any proposals to challenge this cosy little status
quo will be fiercely resisted as witnessed during the campaign and
subsequent referendum on changing the voting system. Each party is
fully aware of the way in which general elections turn out to be a
case of, “Ah well. We lost this one but its our turn next time”
Imagine then the feeling of potential disaster at the prospect of a
whole nation being removed, at a stroke, from the calculations of
numbers on the government or opposition benches in the House of
Commons when determining cabinet posts, front bench spokespersons,
chairs of committees and all the other offices of state.
At one time, the Scottish
constituencies, or at least the rural ones, were considered as “safe”
conservative seats, reserved for those party hacks who would serve
the party well with donations, voting intention and unconditional
loyalty no matter what lies or distortions they had to trot out to
the media or the voters. On the other hand, those urban seats in
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the few other Labour Party
strongholds contain by far the majority of the Scottish
Constituencies.
Of the total of 59
Scottish constituencies, Labour hold 41, which provides a large block
of its voting strength in the House of Commons, regardless of who
actually forms the government of the day. Of the other seats, 11 are
currently held by the Liberal Democrats, 6 by the Scottish National
Party and only 1 by the Conservative Party.
Each of the parties
calculate, that over time, the balance of party representation will
change to their advantage, albeit with Labour retaining the highest
number of Scottish seats.
For this reason, none of
the parties in Scotland, with the obvious exception of the SNP, would
welcome or endorse any move to weaken its relative position in
Westminster by the independence of a new Scotland. Clearly there
could be no question of another independent country, having
representatives in the Parliament of the UK (then consisting of
Wales, Northern Ireland and England) influencing laws, economic
policy, welfare, health, defence and all the other elements of
society.
The added complication for
the main political parties to calculate is that, should Scotland vote
for independence on the 18th September this year, how will the
Westminster general election of 7th May 2015 be organised and
structured?
After the 24th March 2016,
there will be no Scottish constituencies and consequently no Scottish
MP's which would undoubtedly seriously effect the make up of whatever
happens to be the parliamentary balance at that time.
| Cameron, Miliband and Clegg |
What we do know even at
the start of 2014, is that regardless of whether independence for
Scotland is to the benefit of the Scottish people, it is not to the
advantage of the political establishment of the major parties.
Consequently, we can be assured that Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and
all their sycophants in politics and in business, will move heaven
and earth and will spend £hundreds of thousands (if not £millions)
to prevent it.
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