Posts Tagged ‘Scottish independence’

Send for ‘effing Cameron rather than moribund Miliband

11/09/2014, 09:19:36 AM

by David Talbot

The fightback, declared the Labour leader, would start in Scotland. The newly anointed leader was speaking at the Scottish Labour conference of 2010, five months after a crushing general election defeat, but eight months before the next set of Scottish elections. Miliband was clearly eyeing a return to hegemony for Labour in Scotland. The rot, of course, had set in four years before; Labour historically losing control of Holyrood by one seat, and thereby setting in motion the frantic scenes seen seven days before the vote.

The utter failure of the Labour leaders’ words were laid bare when the SNP duly crushed a ramshackle Scottish Labour in 2011. The Prime Minister, from across the Despatch Box, duly took great delight in taunting the Labour’s  failure, though neither would take much delight in the perilous position for either of their parties in Scotland today.

Both Miliband and Cameron have waxed lyrical about their love of Scotland their passionate desire for it to stay as part of the Union. The Labour leader told the Labour conference of 2012 that the referendum on Scottish independence was of more importance to him than the general election. Whilst Cameron signalled early in his leadership of the Conservative party just how sorry he was for Tory misdemeanours in Scotland, vowing to “never take Scotland for granted”.

But as the referendum has unfolded both have largely taken a secondary role in the Better Together campaign. This is true, in part, because the main antagonists in the debate over Scotland’s independence have to be, of course, the Scots themselves. Labour leadership was originally bequeathed to the admirable and worthy, but seemingly failing, Alistair Darling, with the forlorn figure of Gordon Brown now returning to stomp around frontline politics. Miliband, until very recently, has been remarkable mainly for his absence in the Labour effort.

The situation for Cameron was all the clearer. He wasn’t welcome. The SNP dearly want to turn the referendum into a Scotland versus the English Conservatives vote, and there is only one outcome. The Prime Minister acknowledged as such when he understatedly said earlier on this year that his electoral appeal did not reach into every corner of the Union.

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The shadow of Northern Ireland looms over the last days of the referendum campaign

09/09/2014, 07:55:52 AM

by Kevin Meagher

There’s a fascinating essay in the current Demos Quarterly that looks at the various ethnicities in modern Scotland and how these cultural identities may impact on next Thursday’s vote on independence.

The study, written by Richard Webber from the Department of Geography at Kings College London and former chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Philips, draws particular attention to the reaction of ethnically Irish Catholics in Scotland.

The authors reveal that it was much to their “surprise” that “the strongest majority support for independence was not among ‘pure’ historic Scots, but among people of Irish Catholic descent”.

Given Irish Catholic-heritage voters support Labour “more consistently than any other group in Scotland” why are many of them ignoring the party’s entreaties that we’re “Better Together” and opting for independence? As the authors point out:

“When one considers that electors from the same cultural heritage form the backbone of the Sinn Fein vote in West Belfast, this rejection of Labour’s position can be interpreted as a visceral opposition to the Union, to the Tory establishment and to Westminster. Thus ‘Yes’ voters among this group are likely to have very different motivations and to be expressing very different identities than the typical voter with an English or Welsh name; in fact they are supporting independence for the same reasons that they support Labour, a historic sense of oppression. What is significant is that the appeal of independence is driven more strongly by cultural and political considerations than socio-economic ones.”

Our middle class Westminster political and media elite, so utterly bewildered at the turn of events in recent days, simply don’t understand the power of identity and historical grievance in driving working class politics north of the border. (This is, of course, why none of them cares much about what goes on in Northern Ireland).

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In a dangerous world, the UK prospers together or declines apart

08/09/2014, 02:06:21 PM

by Jonathan Todd

The British have been protected by NATO and grown richer through the EU throughout my life. Soon the breakup of the UK may drain Britain of meaning and Russian troops could be threatening a NATO member, while Martin Wolf of the FT thinks it likely that the Eurozone will remain in a  “bad marriage “, too costly to breakup but so unhappy that its members would not have chosen it knowing what they now do.

Those in the “bad marriage” struggle to find the resources or the will to meet their NATO obligations. They seem ineffectual in the face of both Putin and ISIS. Europeans alternately look to the US to solve these problems and blame them on the US, while offering precious little by way of European solutions. If we remain united, the British can be part of achieving more than this.

David Cameron – pace Owen Jones – is right to compare Putin’s tactics with those of Hitler in the early stages of World War II. He follows Timothy Garton Ash, not noted for hyperbole, in doing so. Robin Lustig, another sober and astute observer, compares events in Iraq and Syria to World War I.

As we stand on the precipice of UK breakup, accurately described by Sir Edward Leigh MP as “a national humiliation of catastrophic proportions” during the last PMQs, we face mounting dangers. This catastrophe would irreversibly weaken us. Instead of possessing a united armed forces which count for something, as David Blair notes, we will have chosen to divide them into two shrunken militaries that would count for very little.

Never again we will we speak with the authority that we possess at international forums, such as the UN, G7/8, G20, and NATO. Significantly, UK breakup is likely to be used as a justification by non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to push for this status to be removed from what remains of the UK. This rump is also more likely to vote to leave the EU if this referendum occurs without Scotland, while those EU members with separatist movements, particularly Spain, will ensure that a post-breakup Scotland is locked out of the EU. British capacity to shape the EU as it evolves in the face of the continued challenges of the Euro will be non-existent.

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Ed Miliband should resign if Scotland votes Yes

08/09/2014, 11:00:27 AM

by Samuel Dale

It’s Friday September 19th, Alex Salmond is walking onto a podium in Edinburgh with Saltires waving all around him.

The autumn sunshine glistens as the camera pans to Nicola Sturgeon’s tears of joy as the lifelong dream of Scottish independence has become a reality.

It was nail-bitingly close but the polls narrowed in the final days.

Labour voters swung it with a 51-49 victory for the Yes campaign.

The UK is in shock. The markets are in turmoil as confusion reigns over currency, the EU, debt, financial regulation, tax and much else.

Next year’s general election has been rendered almost meaningless.

The UK has lost 8 million citizens in one stroke. It’s economic power catastrophically diminished. Already the blame game has begun with many calling for David Cameron to quit.

He has presided over the break-up of the UK and already he is struggling to get a grip on the ensuing chaos.

But what more could he do? Despised in Scotland he had, rightly, kept an arms’ length from the campaign only intervening in a careful, limited way.

So what about Alistair Darling? He led the Better Together campaign, taking part in public debates with Alex Salmond.

He must take some blame for a very winnable campaign that failed.

But the most blame would have to go to one man: Ed Miliband.

It was the hapless Labour campaign for the Scottish Parliament in 2011 that let the SNP in power.
It is a disaster that Miliband oversaw but has never been fully held to account for within Labour circles.

For the SNP to gain a majority required Labour ineptitude on a grand scale.

Ever since, Labour has provided woeful opposition to the SNP in Scotland.

Since the referendum campaign began it has been crystal clear that Labour voters would decide the vote.

Unlike David Cameron, Miliband had a chance to convince his own supporters and turn the referendum.

He did not intervene often enough or effectively in the campaign.

The consequences for Labour are severe. Shadow ministers such as Douglas Alexander and Gregg McClymont will not be MPs for much longer.

Stalwarts such as Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown have no official future in the UK parliament.

Losing dozens of MPs, Labour will find it much, much harder to gain power in the UK. It’s heartlands have been moved to another country.

All this was entirely preventable if the party had kept it’s eye on the ball north of the border.
And if it provided better opposition to the SNP and convinced it’s own supporters during the referendum campaign.

Labour lost this crucial campaign and Ed Miliband should pay the price and resign.

Sam Dale is a financial and political journalist

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“Better Together” is turning into David Miliband’s campaign for the Labour leadership

03/09/2014, 07:00:35 PM

by Kevin Meagher

There’s an air of inevitability about the poll showing Alex Salmond’s Yes campaign is potentially just inches away from victory in the Scottish referendum, hitting a new high of 47 per cent. To those of us watching from the outside, the No team doesn’t seem to have any clear message, other than, well we’re “better together”.

It’s a complacent, technocratic, flat-pack Westminster standard affair. A combination of convoluted arguments about the currency – which must leave most voters cold – and the usual student politics-level stuff looking to exploit perceived gaffes. All sadly predictable and all tragically inadequate, given the way the polls are moving.

Despite their massively lopsided advantages, the No campaign’s money, organisation and establishment support are counting for little against a lesser-equipped but better motivated Yes campaign with a simple proposition.

When have we seen this happen before in our recent political history? Ah yes, the 2010 Labour leadership election. In essence, the No campaign has become a carbon copy of David Miliband’s bid to become Labour leader. An earnest, top-down effort to make the voters listen to sense and political reality, with a brusque appeal to ignore the romantic, siren voices.

Like David Miliband, the Yes campaign has the same air of presumption about the outcome. The same inability to make superior assets count. The same patrician stuffiness. The same underestimation of the opposition.

Just as David Miliband was disastrously pigeon-holed as the “heir to Blair”, so, too, the No campaign can’t seem to shake off the accusation that it’s a front operation for the business-as-usual Westminster elite. This is unfair, but it’s an accusation that sticks, given the leaders of the three main Westminster parties are effectively neutered because of their Englishness and privileged backgrounds.

Meanwhile, Labour is paying the price of fielding a B-team in Scotland for the past decade, allowing Salmond to wipe the floor with the local political class who simply aren’t in his league. Also, the famous (and often parodied) remark that Ed Miliband “speaks human” could equally be applied to Salmond.

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We need more Jim Murphy and less Douglas Carswell

01/09/2014, 07:05:00 PM

by Jonathan Todd

On two separate occasions this year I have been surprised by intelligent Scots telling me that they are considering voting yes in the independence referendum. Why would they contemplate something that seems to me small-minded and inward-looking?

When I put this to them, they both replied with words to the effect of, “there is a better way to run Scotland.” “Can’t that be achieved within the devo-max that is inevitably coming?” “What makes it inevitable?” “Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are all committed to it.”

At this point in the conversations, one of them expressed cynicism in the capacity of these three parties to deliver. Another was more accepting that devo-max would come if Scotland remains in the UK and began to lament what would become of the rump of the UK if Scotland voted for independence.

Behind both of these responses is a belief that Scotland is a fundamentally different political universe from the rest of the UK. The first reveals a view that the leading UK parties are unable or unwilling to give Scotland the powers necessary to build the brightest possible future. The second is concerned about what will become of the presumed conservative England without the anchor of supposedly social democratic Scotland.

But at the last general election, only 3 per cent fewer people in Scotland voted Conservative than voted SNP. At the three general elections prior to this, Labour would have formed the government each time had only votes in England counted. Labour can win England. Scotland does have Tories. England and Scotland are not Mars and Venus.

Somewhat similarly, the Glaswegian comedian Billy Connolly has claimed to have a lot more in common with Liverpool welders than Scottish Highlanders with agricultural backgrounds. If we accept that Scotland is not an island of social democracy in a sea of conservatism, instead sharing a spectrum of political values with the rest of the UK, and also take the leading UK political parties at their word, meaning that devo-max is a coming reality for Scotland, what remains for the yes campaign to advance their argument?

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Sofa government has ended in Scotland. This needs to happen in the rest of the UK

11/08/2014, 05:41:12 PM

by Jonathan Todd

“When this is over, I am not going back to my sofa,” said a working class grandmother, who’d never previously been politically active, of the Scottish referendum. She made this remark to Robin McAlpine of Common Weal – “a vision of what Scotland can be if it rejects the failed Me-First politics that left us all in second place and instead builds a politics that puts All Of Us First” – and he reported it to BBC Radio 4 last week. The legacy of the referendum campaign, irrespective of its outcome, observed McAlpine, is the widespread popular desire for “a politics that involves us and which we get involved in”.

The latest polling gives Better Together a 13 percent lead. While the pro-independence grandmother got active because the referendum was “too important to the future of her grandchildren”, it seems to be moving toward the outcome that she opposes. Nonetheless, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now all committed to additional powers for the Scottish Executive and Parliament. Scotland seems likely to say “no thanks” but the consensus between the political parties means that such an outcome will lead to some form of “devo-max“.

As grandmothers refuse to return to their sofas, more power will be brought closer to them within a new devolution settlement. Which is why Neal Ascherson seems justified in concluding in the current edition of Prospect that “whichever way the referendum vote goes on that Thursday in September, Scotland on the Friday morning will already be living in some form of independence”.

I have worried that post-referendum Scotland will be a fractious place, with festering grievances and bridges to be built. This might be part of the picture. But the whole picture may well contain positives: a highly engaged electorate with new powers to shape their future.

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Neil Kinnock in his own words: On devolution, #indyref and Welsh independence

24/07/2014, 04:42:21 PM

by Julian Ruck

In the second part of my interview with Neil Kinnock a great many issues were discussed, indeed far too many to go into detail here on Uncut. I have therefore tried my best to distil things down to bit-sized paragraphs whilst keeping an eye on the matters that I feel may be of particular interest to Uncut readers.

On devolution and independence:

“JR: I must quote from Martin Westlake’s ‘Kinnock, The Biography‘ where the author states, ‘From the beginning, Kinnock opposed these moves to devolution with a vehemence hard to appreciate today.’ Do you still hold this view?

NK: I was against a form of devolution, not devolution in itself. No democrat can be against de-centralisation, it’s just that we made a bloody mess of it back in the 70’s.

We’ve got it and we’ve got to make it work. But it still begs the question that we had always anticipated back in the 70’s, in Whitehall and Westminster as well as Wales, and I repeat it without fear but with realism : There is or can be, a government that owes nothing politically to Wales or Scotland or a party, say UKIP or elements in the Conservative party, that can impress English voters with the slogan ‘If we didn’t spend so much, certainly more than we gain, from Wales and Scotland, we would have billions to renovate Yorkshire, the Midlands, Merseyside, Inner London, wherever.’

Now, this is one unresolved question and it will continue to be until we have a great deal more force and growth in the economy, where Wales is concerned anyway. This is the real danger implicit in the potential for antagonism, especially when you get a combination of ant-Conservative governments, be it in Wales or Scotland, and governments that are anti-Welsh, or politically dismissive about Wales, in London.

They might not be overtly anti-Welsh or Scottish but a government dominated by ‘do we really need them? Politically they’re a bloody nuisance to us; they are a constant drain on public resources, we can get votes by saying, ‘well, if you want to go off by yourselves, you do just that,’ especially if they nominally accept the monarchy.

There is no case for independence – for secession – in Scotland and the same can be said for Wales It’s just plain daft. We live in the permanent era of globalisation, where size does count. We must be effectively engaged in the European Union because this is the way the world is heading, and the same argument applies to sustaining the UK.

To come back to Wales, if you get an almost permanent drudgery of insecurity, low economic advantage, low incomes, a sense of exclusion socially, it’s not difficult for a populist to say ‘we have never accepted this government in London; let’s elect our own government; let’s accept that our own poverty may be marginally deeper, though not that you’d notice, and make the break.’

I’m not saying this is probable or anything so defeatist. I’m saying that it’s not impossible that the argument can be postulated and get some support if there’s a sense that, in the centre in London, at the core of power, there’s not much enthusiasm for retaining the union, particularly if the message got through that a Conservative government owes Wales nothing politically, in other words, ‘you go off if you want to, you’ll save us a lot of money.’

JR: You must accept that a vibrant and flourishing democracy demands change. We’ve had 90 odd years of Welsh Labour in Wales, this cannot be a good thing, surely?

NK: Yes it does. I agree. The function of an effective politician, especially on the left, is be  ahead of the curve, what we’ve got to do is respect the past, make the present better and design and build for the future.

JR: Yes, but that isn’t quite answering my question. You must know that Wales is now run by a Welsh speaking elite, intent on an undemocratic and unaccountable Welshification process, regardless of what the majority in Wales want.”

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Hyperbole is becoming a bad habit for our political class

30/06/2014, 07:29:35 AM

by Kevin Meagher

If the Scottish referendum on independence is ‘lost’ in September it may be a tad late to reflect that apocalyptic warnings of Caledonia dystopia didn’t exactly help win the case.

Claims in February that Scotland wouldn’t be able to keep the pound – a “masterstroke” concocted by the three main Westminster parties’ frontbenches – were silly enough, leaving the electorate unmoved while playing into the SNP’s hands, showing-up the Westminster elite up as a cosy club.

Last week, however, the ‘hyper’ was well and truly put into ‘hyperbole’ when Ed Miliband floated the idea of border checkpoints if Scots opt for independence. The supplementary question are obvious enough.

Will these checkpoints come with watch towers and Alsatians? Will we see miles of unfurled razorwire stretched across the countryside, just like in The Great Escape?

Hell, why not just rebuild Hadrian’s Wall.

Why can’t we treat the Scots as rational adults?

“Sorry you’re thinking of going. We’ll miss you. There’s nothing at all wrong in embracing your nationhood, but there are a few serious practical downsides. We’ll respect your wishes, but, out of friendship, we want to discuss these and try to persuade you to stay.”

Surely that’s better than threatening them with Checkpoint Charlie?

Alas, too many Westminster politicians, schooled in that ghastly student union habit of painting debates into tiny corners in order to make broader points, think this is how you shape public opinion.

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A No for Scotland may not be as positive for Labour as we might think

04/06/2014, 09:33:15 AM

by Rob Marchant

The local and Euro-elections are done. As always happens in the unfailingly cyclical business of politics, we take a breather and start thinking about the next one.

This year, of course, our normal annual cycle is disrupted by that pesky little referendum. Yes, the one that could conceivably break apart the United Kingdom and throw politics-as-we-know it into convulsions, whose aftershock would last for decades, if not centuries.

Conceivably, of course, does not mean probably. While not impossible, it seems pretty unlikely that the Yes campaign will win (and if it does, all bets are clearly off).

Assuming it doesn’t, the scenario we might project is that Labour, which has largely spearheaded the campaign (in view of the little love the Scottish electorate at large has for the Conservative Party), comes off as the proxy winner and that that winning momentum rolls us through the following half-year until a close-run, but ultimately successful, general election result.

That, at least, is how we would like to see things. However, although we might have a pleasant moment in the sun as we enjoy having led the charge which defeated Salmond, it may also be neutralised by an effect few have even considered.

The annoying thing for us is that Cameron has, as John Rentoul observed in his Independent on Sunday column, actually done rather a good job on Scotland – it is a moment of bipartisanship, after all – and it is likely to be as much his moment as ours.

Let us now look at why he has done well (the areas of his leadership where he has done poorly are numerous enough). It is easy to say that he has done nothing; but take a look at the counterexample of his Spanish counterpart, Mariano Rajoy. Catalonia, which has had a nationalist government for most of the last forty years, is asking for a similar referendum.

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