David Cameron's admission that Scotland can stand alone as an independent country will go down as one of the main turning points on the way to a "Yes" vote in a referendum.Do you think Stalin would have said "Yes, Ukraine could go it alone", Milosevic "Of course, Bosnia could make it" or in colonial times British leaders would have admitted "Oh yes, the British Empire don't really need us." I doubt it.
And they may seem extreme comparisons but I don't think so.
Many people are stupid. Sorry if any of you are reading this but you really are. Some of the most common reasons for not wanting an independent Scotland are border controls at Gretna and instant financial implosion.
For many Scots, their political masters telling them that independence is just simply not an option is sufficient. They hear this and cosy back into the depths of the UK's safe welcoming arms, insulated from not having to think about it any further.
David Cameron has put a spanner in the works now. The SNP will get a lot of mileage out of this comment from the Tory leader, in this Westminster term and the next. The reasons for blocking an independence referendum have just shortened, the minds of many Scots have been prised open a little bit more and imagination of what could be will have been fired up.
And what money the focus will now shift to Gordon Brown to make the same admission? He'll certainly look a little bit silly the next time he suggests Scotland are "too wee" to make it as an independent nation?
I read with interest a list of countries on Wikipedia. It includes the likes of Eritrea, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Scotland is not on the list.
How long will it be before Scotland will choose not just to "stand alone" but also stand alongside the other 245 countries in the world as an equal partner?
A little less longer thanks to David Cameron today I daresay.
16 comments:
Does this post confirm that you have been persuaded that Scotland should be an independent country then?
No, but it's a welcome sign that we're getting closer to the debate we need to make an informed decision.
Jeff, don't you think he said this because, ironically, he wants to encourage SNP tactical voting in Glenrothes? A thousand or so votes from Tory voters might make a big difference. In these times losing a deposit is worth Labour losing a seat, wouldn't you say?
Or, is he beginning to hint at a constitutional change, when the Tories eventually take office, that will mean greater fiscal freedom for Scotland, and at the same time appease English voters by abolishing Barnett and Scottish votes on English matters?
I've said before that it must be hard for the Tory Party the choice between keeping the Union as it stands now and the possibility of being in power in England/Wales like forever if they decide to forfeit the 55+ opposition seats Scotland means to Wastemonster, at just the cost of 4- conservative votes.
Lets not forget that independence will only trasform the British "house" in what real state agents name "semi detached".
And that common wall/garden fence is going to have plenty of doors/gates, very handy to go and visit the family "next door" and interact with them.
Lets not forget Politics is the "art of the possible".
Unfortunately nobody is interested in what the Conservatives have to say in Glenrothes.
But, if he's still holding this position when he becomes PM...
Tut, tut, I think you're being deliberately provacative here Jeff, in effect saying that anyone claiming that Scotland can't stand alone could be compared to Stalin or Milosevic.
Or at least that's surely the case applying the logic you used re Tom Harris and his Sarah Palin/Alex Salmond comparison!!
Generally, if one reads the less cultured political forums (the Scotsman/Herald) generally the unionists case is quite simple.
Breaking up the union will result in Yoguslavia Mk. 2.
They really should get out more... or at all.
"...insulated from not having to think about it any further."
It's a phenomenon I've witnessed over the years; many people will forgive you just about anything other than making them think.
They get many of life's great decisions over and done with ASAP (often before they're out of the womb.)
"Ah support Rangers [or Celtic or whoever] and always wull."
"Ah vote Labour and always wull."
"Ah drink Tennents lager and always wull."
These convictions are set in stone and inserted behind the eyes. You challenge them at peril of utter exasperation.
It was sickening to watch the nasaly challenged Glenn Campbell reporting on the Cameron walk about and ignoring the most significant comment ever made by a Tory Unionist in Scotland.
The cynical manipulation of news media in Scotland, by the unionist establishment, is worthy of North Korean admiration.
BSH
Yes, but hyperbole is an integral part of all politics; by the same token, nationalists try to make it out that with independence we'll be living in some sort of saltire-waving utopia.
Indeed, anon demonstrates hyperbole nicely; surely he wasn't SICKENED that Glen Campbell failed to report that Dave Cameron stated the obvious??
And was that really the 'most significant comment ever made by a Tory Unionist in Scotland'??
(That must make AS's recent pro-Thathcherite comment the most significant ever made by an SNP member in Scotland!)
And that's not to mention the North Korea comment!! Trying to outdo Tom Harris??!!
Stuart W said: "nationalists try to make it out that with independence we'll be living in some sort of saltire-waving utopia."
If you could be specific instead of falling into the trendy metro elite sets cringing dialogue, ie, tartan, shortbread, brigadoon, scotch mist, braveheart, bannockburn, saltire waving utopia. And then after some backslapping and sniggering, top it of with, deep fried mars bar, drunk, stabbing, wife beating,irn bru, rotten toothed dependency culture, unhealthiest nation on earth, you can bask in the warm glow of admiration from fellow cringing unionist apparatchiks.
There's agood anti Scottish racist rant on Guido today, hey maybe it was you.
You drive the juggernaut of independence even harder with your negative sneering and cliche ridden droning.
Reference an example of this saltire waving reference to utopia, by any credible person.
No serious political commentator I have read or heard or independence minded politician has ever suggested that utopia is an option.
Any person who cares for their country and wants to have it run from Scotland knows that there is decades of work to do to turn around this failing nation, after centuries of suppression by London. But turn round it will.
If you mean that people who want to govern themselves are deluded into thinking all will be well the day after UDI then like all cynical sneering unionists you seriously underestimate the potential and political awareness in Scotland.
And yes I am sickened by the sychophantic Campbell and BBC Scotland. Your attempt at smearing Alex Salmond has blown back in the face of your unionist spin meisters, since if you listen to the interview it was perfectly clear what he meant. But the unionist spin machine is clutching at any passing straw these days in their death throws. Alex later explained what was blindingly obvious to any reasonable person: "I was commenting on why Scots, in particular, were so deeply resentful of Thatcher and I think here her social message epitomised in the unfair poll tax and her comments of ‘no such thing as society’ cut against a very Scottish grain of social conscience. That doesn’t mean that the nation liked her economic policies, just that we liked her lack of concern for social consequences even less."
Not that difficult is it?
There is no utopia and your use of the word betrays your cringing subserviance to someone else so that you do not have to step up to the plate and say, "that was wrong and it was my fault." Keep you head down and you will get your allowance.
Cameron at least uniquely amongst the unionist set displays flashes of honesty. But exposes what we all know, this union is and always has been for the benefit of England, nothing else.
Hid remarks were very significant.
Hyperbole they ain't.
Utter nonsense, Jeff. David Cameron’s remarks are nothing new.
I've replied to you here.
And incidentally, Stuart W is spot on in his 8:02am post. If Tom Harris is on the ball and so inclined, he'll hoist you by your own petard.
BSH:
Please link to any one such post. Thanks! ;-)
Anon, I should perhaps retract something that I said in my post yesterday - given the tone of your response I think you are genuinely 'sickened' by Glen Campbell, but I think that's your problem, not his!
Not sure what you mean by the 'trendy metro elite set', but I'm certainly not part of it, and if I sneer at anyone it's our political class, and I don't discriminate in my approach to them, be they Labour, Tory, Lib Dem or your beloved SNP.
This leads on to some of the other erroneous presumptions in your post - I'm a pragmatist rather than a unionist or nationalist, and indeed when I was younger I was probably nearer to your way of thinking, but now these essentially political constructs I view as merely formenting division and bigotry, and your own writings are clearly symptomatic of that.
And if you think the tone of your post is likely to endear agnostics like myself to the nationalist cause then think again; but then since I'm not cringingly subservient to your ideal then clearly I'm merely the enemy, so I doubt if my opinion worries you in the slighest and indeed it provides you with ample opportunity to vent your spleen, so at least I'm contributing something positive!
Indeed, I certainly reject your accusation of cringing suvservience to any political party or concepts such as nationalism or unionism, as alluded to above, and I only need to read a couple of posts to realise that I'll certainly never be cringingly subservient to yourself either - thankfully my impression of moderate and mainstream nationalism is that you're far from representative of it, so for that we should be thankful.
As for the utopia argument, well this was to an extent my own hyperbole, but all the parties present idealised/sanitised (call it what you want) versions of what they can actually do, but in essence they're all guilty of the spin you so deride. Did you see last week's SNP PBB, for example? Granted, these political adverts are so ludicrous as to be barely worth mentioning, but you're not trying to say that the SNP are any more honest than any of the other parties in this regard?
Interesting that you say it will take decades to turn 'this failing nation' round; that's certainly not the impression I get from SNP campaigning (could you provide a specific example of this?). And are you really claiming that everything bad about Scotland is down to England, and that everything good about Scotland is down to...err...I assume you do think there are good things about Scotland, so what/who is that down to?
As for Alex Salmond's Thatcher quote, yes, the text you quote is quite clear, but it's his original quote which people questioned, and in my mind his subsequent statement contradicted his original, so he either realised that he'd been ill-judged in revealing his true feelings or that he'd simply made a mistake - after all he's a politician par excellence, so either would be unsurprising.
OK, so what precisely are we promised in a few decades time, since I doubt if I'll be around to see it. Not utopia, so just a bit better than the current 'failing nation'?
re:Stuart W.
I doubt that the SNP can 'promise' much for a future independent Scotland - just as the unionist parties can 'promise' very little for a continuing union.
It depends very much on who's in power and the prevailing economic and social conditions. Nobody is proposing a one party state in a brave new Scotland.
I, like yourself, would describe myself as a political pragmatist and, as such, see independence as the best solution, not just for Scotland, but for the rest of the UK.
Without getting into the fraught, polemic territory of why Scotland is an appropriate unit of statehood (let's just put it down to pragmatism at the moment), I think that the gross centralisation in London and the S.east is a runaway train and Scotland, unlike many similarly 'remote' parts of the UK, can make a good, clean, effective break.
This, along with powerful psychological aspects of self reliance and responsibilty, is the crux of my belief in Scottish independence.
David Park
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