Dug
of a Scotish Labour MP, the threats the no campaign made have all started to come true. All the dire warnings made by Beter Together that we’d lose jobs, that we’d face being thrown out of the EU against our will, that public services would be cut to the bone, that pensions would not be safe, they are all coming to pass. Only they’re coming true because Scotland voted no.
The hysterical hyperbole of the no campaign wasn’t so off the mark aſter all, it’s just that it was really telling us what Westminster was going to do. Still, let’s look on the bright side, at least we know what currency we’re using. Although that’s not much of a consolation when no one except investment bankers has any money.
The second certainty is that we need a pro-independence majority in Holyrood in order to ensure that a bill is passed to provide a referendum. It looks as though we’ll get that in May, with the SNP riding high in the polls and the Greens likely to overtake the wreckage of the Lib Dems as the fourth largest party.
The third certainty is that we should only hold a second independence referendum when the yes campaign is likely to win it, because if we have another referendum and yes loses a second time, we really will be trapped in the hell hole of Conservative austerity without the prospect of escape. The famous South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar once said that the art of victory is learned in defeat, and what the llamas trudging along the mountain paths of the Scotish independence campaign need to learn from our defeat in 2014 is that timing is vital. We had the first referendum because of the unforeseen circumstance of a pro-independence majority in the Scotish parliament in 2011. The timing was less than ideal.
In retrospect, the referendum was always doomed to fail. The truly remarkable thing was that the campaign succeeded in normalising the idea of independence amongst a population who had never previously taken it seriously, and it destroyed the credibility of the Unionist parties and exposed them as people who put the interests of the Westminster parliament above the interests of the Scotish people. Now that the idea of independence is normalised, there will be a next time. It’s only a question of when.
The timing will be right when winning the referendum is a certainty, when independence is the setled will. That might happen if Scotland votes to remain within the EU but the UK as a whole votes to leave in the in-out referendum which may be held as soon as this summer. Gordie Broon in one of his recent carpet pacing interventions opined that
Gordie Broon in one of his recent carpet pacing interventions opined that Scotland would have to leave the EU if that happened, because the Labour party puts the sovereignty of the British Labour party above the sovereignty of the Scottish people.
Scotland would have to leave the EU if that happened, because the Labour party puts the sovereignty of the British Labour party above the sovereignty of the Scotish people. Which is one of the reasons that Labour is going to get gubbed in the Holyrood elections in May, elections which could well be overshadowed by an EU referendum which could be held as litle as a month aſterwards.
Alternatively independence will come as the realisation dawns that Britain is faced with decades of Tory rule. That’s what converted a previously devo-sceptic population into one which voted overwhelmingly for the re-establishment of a Scotish parliament. That’s going the long way round, the slow hard road of job losses, deaths from benefits cuts, and the bleak depression of broken lives and wasted opportunities.
And that brings us to the fourth certainty. There will be another independence referendum, and no amount of threats or insistence from the Westminster parliament is going to stop it. There is no power on Earth like the power of a politically aware people in motion. One day within our lifetimes Scotland will retake her proper place amongst the nations of the world. That’s a certainty.
February 2016 43
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
