By the end of this month either Scotland will still be part of the United Kingdom or it won't and i have to go along with the vast majority of English who don't really care one way or the other.
When i wake up on September 20th, if Scotland has voted to go independent then it won't make any difference to me, or so you would think.
I was largely ignoring the politician on the television who was setting out reasons why Scotland should remain with us, economic, politically, traditional and historical all bypassed me but his parting shot was that it would make the right wing Conservative Party favourite to win every election afterwards.
That pricked up my ears and giving it some consideration, that makes sense because a well worn joke is that Edinburgh Zoo has more Pandas (2) than there are Conservative members of Parliament in Scotland.
Without Scotland, the field of electing our Government will change and Labour will lose the seats it gains from Scotland leaving the Conservatives to win all the elections for the foreseeable future.
As it seems unfair that the Scots can rid themselves of the nasty party and we get stuck with them for the next few decades, i am suddenly firmly in the 'Stay With Us Scotland' camp and as the most recent poll showing
64% want to remain in the UK against 36% wanting to go it alone, i think they will do the right thing and not consider the ultimate sin, giving us English a right wing Tory Government for the next 30 years.
If it doesn't succeed, I'll bet they'll just have another vote every few years until it does.
ReplyDeleteIf it is close i expect that is how it will go but if it is a large and loud no, they might give up for a few decades. I will be quite shocked if its a yes though.
ReplyDeleteAre the people in Scotland really that miserable? My guess is this has to be largely about oil. I can understand Scotland wanting to become like Norway, but it's a bit late in the game for that. North Sea production is declining rapidly and by the time the Scots work out their new country thing, they might not have the oil revenue to pay for it. Plus, Norway, realizing that the oil won't flow forever, puts their oil revenues in a sovereign wealth fund with tight spending constraints. From what I've read it looks like Scotland wants to just live hand to mouth off oil revenues. That approach doesn't work well when oil production declines--just ask Mexico and Venezuela.
ReplyDeleteIt has been mentioned for decades, as long as i can remember but yes, it does seem they are putting all their eggs in the North Sea Oil basket but England are claiming most of them as within UK territory so Scotland's share is much smaller than they think. That could turn very bitter if they do go independent.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I have read that 80% of the oil would be in Scottish "territorial waters," but there's no way the UK will let them walk off with all that.
ReplyDeleteIndependence would come with extraordinary risk and very limited theoretical gain. My feeling is that someone needs to read the Scots that little bit from our Declaration of Independence about how prudence dictates that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.