“Scotland, beware – political will doesn’t always find a way”

Scotland, beware – political will doesn’t always find a way
Tom Clark
Wednesday 17 September 2014

But when promises are made in desperation, it is as well to ask both whether they are credible and whether they cohere. And on both counts, Scots who harbour mistrust of Westminster can find ample reason to doubt.

This is one of the key issues that worries me!

Please read all of Tom Clark’s article in full! Link above.

Even where the pledges are explicit – on the permanence of the Scottish parliament and the granting of new powers to it – the lack of detail means more questions are raised than answered. It is already pretty well inconceivable that the Scottish parliament would be abolished by the UK because the politics would then drive Scotland to secede, but the traditional doctrine of Westminster’s sovereignty precludes any parliament binding its successor against having the option to scrap Holyrood. Very rare bits of legislation – the European Communities Act 1972, and to some extent the Human Rights Act – enjoy special clout in the courts, but none is above repeal. It is hard to see how the 1998 Scotland Act, which established Holyrood, could be more deeply entrenched, other than by a broader recasting of the whole UK’s constitution. If Westminster wants Scots to believe that Holyrood can never be touched, it really needs to explain how.

The ‘No’ campaign have gone on about how voting ‘Yes’ are lacking details, but what the ‘No’ camp are suggesting isn’t set in stone either.

And that, of course, introduces all manner of other uncertainties: will all of the three party leaders will still be there? Will there need to be coalition negotiations? What priority will Scotland be afforded in such discussions, and by the new leaders? Alex Salmond’s kneejerk reaction to the leaders’ pledge was to point out the one of the signatories, Clegg, has a record of infamous pledges, citing student fees. A more poignant parallel is Cameron’s pledge in the coalition agreement to democratise the House of Lords, an undertaking about another constitutional matter, solemnly given not before but after the election yet one he breezily discarded when his party refused to wear it. Could the same thing happen again?

As a graduate, the student fees fiasco along with going into a coalition with the Tories has given me reasons to distrust Clegg and the Lib Dems. Reform of the House of Lords being discarded is also worrying as a parallel.

In the case of a Conservative-led administration, it was necessary only to listen to the reaction of Tory backbenchers on Tuesday to see the dangers. Christopher Chope, MP for Christchurch, was on the BBC at lunchtime asking sharp questions and insisting that he would not vote for more devolution for Scotland, unless this were part of a broader package that contained something for England too. John Redwood, meanwhile, speaks of the need for the Commons to double-up as a part-time English parliament. There is much less agreement about any of this than there is about the Scottish side, so if English reforms have to be settled before the deal on Scotland can be finalised, that could postpone everything.

More and more uncertainty that makes me more and more nervous about a vote for ‘No’!!!

With all of this in mind, the apparent leap in the dark voting ‘Yes’ seems to be mirrored by a similar leap in the dark voting ‘No’. If the uncertainty is what has convinced people to vote ‘No’ then maybe they need to reexamine all of what has been put forward from the ‘No’ campaign as well as the ‘Yes’.

“How the media shafted the people of Scotland”

How the media shafted the people of Scotland
George Monbiot
Tuesday 16 September 2014

Perhaps the most arresting fact about the Scottish referendum is this: that there is no newspaper – local, regional or national, English or Scottish – that supports independence except the Sunday Herald. The Scots who will vote yes have been almost without representation in the media.

There is nothing unusual about this. Change in any direction, except further over the brink of market fundamentalism and planetary destruction, requires the defiance of almost the entire battery of salaried opinion. What distinguishes the independence campaign is that it has continued to prosper despite this assault.

I think this point is very interesting. The Yes campaign hasn’t needed media backing to gain 50% of the potential votes as the polls of the last week has shown.

Please read George Monbiot’s article in full, it is linked above!

In June the BBC’s economics editor, Robert Peston, complained that BBC news “is completely obsessed by the agenda set by newspapers … If we think the Mail and Telegraph will lead with this, we should. It’s part of the culture.” This might help to explain why the BBC has attracted so many complaints of bias in favour of the no campaign.

I have seen many complaints on social media about the bias of the BBC in their coverage of the Independence Referendum. George Monbiot’s point here certainly makes a lot of sense!

Living within their tiny circle of light, most senior journalists seem unable to comprehend a desire for change. If they notice it at all, they perceive it as a mortal threat, comparable perhaps to Hitler. They know as little of the lives of the 64 million inhabiting the outer darkness as they do of the Andaman islanders. Yet, lecturing the poor from under the wisteria, they claim to speak for the nation.

I don’t think it’s just senior journalists that are unable to comprehend the desire for change. I’ve seen many people attacked on social media for backing ‘Yes’. I do think independence is seen as a threat and there is a fear of change.

Despite the rise of social media, the established media continues to define the scope of representative politics in Britain, to shape political demands and to punish and erase those who resist. It is one chamber of the corrupt heart of Britain, pumping fear, misinformation and hatred around the body politic.

That so many Scots, lambasted from all quarters as fools, frauds and ingrates, have refused to be bullied is itself a political triumph. If they vote for independence, they will do so in defiance not only of the Westminster consensus but also of its enforcers: the detached, complacent people who claim to speak on their behalf.

The number of Tweets I’ve seen and the number of posts on the referendum I’ve seen on Facebook has been astonishing on both sides of the debate. I think it’s fantastic that people are so engaged in discussing this topic. I’ve been very passionate about politics for years and it’s nice to finally see other people discussing the future of our country and the government. I have began to move away from the BBC as a source of news and have become far more dependent on news from The Guardian, The Independent and have began to look at news from around the world to see what is being reported away from the bias of the UK media.

“How history turned against Tory-voting Scotland”

How history turned against Tory-voting Scotland
Tom Devine
Sunday 14 September 2014

All this presents a major intellectual challenge for the historian. Little more than a generation ago, in the 1950s and early 60s, the union could not have been more secure. The Scottish Unionist party (only becoming the Conservative party in Scotland in 1965) had won a famous and overwhelming victory in the general election of 1955. The SNP at the time was but an irrelevant and eccentric sect rather than a mainstream political party. Indeed, despite the mythology of Red Clydeside, Scotland had voted mainly for the Tories in the 1920s and 1930s. The Labour landslide victory of 1945 can be seen as an aberration in that context.

We’re always told to stop harking back to the past and that romantic idea of William Wallace crying ‘FREEEEEDOM’ with Mel Gibson’s voice. History is important though and not just the distant past.

For Scotland to turn from a pro-Unionist country to a country with an almost 50/50 split on independence 60 years later, there must have been something to cause this dramatic shift in opinion.

Please read all of Tom Devine’s article linked above, as he goes into far more detail to what I will be in my blog!

The experience of Scotland in the 1980s is a critical factor in this narrative. Between 1976 and 1987 the nation lost nearly a third of its manufacturing capacity. The great heavy industries that had made Scotland’s global economic reputation over more than a century disappeared in a matter of a few years. A post-industrial economy did emerge in the 1990s, but the crisis left behind a legacy of social dislocation in many working class communities and created a political agenda north of the border in marked contrast to that of the south of England. Rightly or wrongly, the devastation was blamed on the Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher. Scotland soon became a Tory-free zone in electoral terms. Another bastion of the union passed into history.

For my generation growing up in the aftermath of the Thatcher years, I would never DREAM of voting Conservative as a Scottish person. Heck, that quote doesn’t even mention the Poll Tax which was introduced to Scotland before anywhere else in the UK! ‘Tory’ has almost been like a swear word growing up in Scotland. The shame of having a family member vote for them is unbearable for many people.

There may well be a no vote on Thursday. But a victory for unionism will be far from decisive or definitive. Nearly half the Scottish electorate will almost certainly vote yes and may not be easily satisfied by post-referendum devo max concessions that are also likely to further fuel resentments south of the border. If the yes campaign wins, Britain will never be the same. Three centuries and more of political union between England and Scotland will be consigned to history. It’s the possible end of an old political union rightly thought by many Scots to be no longer fit for purpose.

It probably doesn’t help that devo max was taken off the table or that it has only been in the last week that the three big UK party leaders left Westminster in a panic coming to Scotland to beg the Scottish people to stay. Last week there were already postal votes being sent in! For me, seeing Cameron, Clegg and Miliband leaving it so late to take this independence referendum seriously cemented my voting decision.