Watching Alex Salmonds excellent, warm and statesmanlike performance on American TV I think its useful to step outside the shoes of a well-informed native Yes voter for a moment and consider things from the outsiders or floating voters point of view. Why indeed has it come to this, and why now? The question however, should not be asked of Scotland, but of the UK - because Scotland isnt the first nation or region within the UK to break away. The first to do it was the South East and the political moment of its secession was in 1979 when Thatcher came in and saved the South East, by creating a nation within a nation ruled by Westminster. It is not strictly true to say that Scotland was a colony of England before this point, though the rot had been setting in in some ways since 1921 within the Union - but after 1979 all other nations and regions within the UK were reduced to colonies by the South East - the North of England suffering the worst. The nation of the South East has grown in population too, bleeding populace from the rest of us, so via First Past the Post were getting taxation without representation by default. The new nation confirmed its nationhood by pumping oil from another country to savage the manufacturing base and communities of its neighbouring competitors by funding unemployment. It then introduced a poll tax in its main competitors country - Scotland. it hacked and directed the policies of its competitor nations on its Island and set all policy to prefer this new nation. Irrespective of whatever party was now voted into Westminster, as this new nation increasingly controlled the population of the Island and the votes, Westminster was now a parliament of the nation of the South East, ruling its 4 colonies. The thing was though, while the South East set up their own nation, they forgot to tell the rest of us - we all missed that memo, so they also continued to suck the lifeblood out of the rest of us. The further complication is that the new colonialism was partly a regional phenomenon, but now due to multi-national corporatism and communications, and the deregulation of finance itself which set this brave new nation out upon the high seas,the nation within a nation also included parts of Edinburgh and small pockets of other regions in trade for the poor of London - the most and truly dispossessed. Even for these small pockets, however, they found that even in an internet age geography wasnt dead, and started to find the disadvantages of not investing in nearby areas economically and also the more uncomfortable effects of having deprivation on ones doorstep. It is a historical fact that all revolutions have been preceded by a fiscal crisis - or at least its a general principle. Some commentators have put the debts of the UK now at 900% of its entire economy, with off balance sheet Special Purpose Vehicles etc countered in. At the least, its estimated normally at 1 and a half Trillion quid. The Weimar Republic, the biggest of developed debt crises was around 913%, so not long to go before another Hitler then (wait a minute, that guy Osborne in the wings...) Looking objectively then at the geopolitical instability of the UK in 1978, we can see that Scotland at that point tried to break away with a referendum in the Spring of 1979, and almost did - and the following year the South East successfully did it, with their own referendum in May 1979. The question is surely, why the complete break up of the UK hasnt happened sooner, and the pace of fragmentation has been withheld since 1979. Northern Ireland has already asked the question if they can come with us. If an early 20th century British colonialist were to carve the UK up with nice geometric lines, surely hed break off Wales along with Cornwall and the South West to make a go of it together. Hed then ask N.I. to try to forge their own way. The North of England too would be best to make their own destiny, but are disadvantaged by a lack of historical nationhood. The UK has been breaking up for 35 years - the real question is why it took this long? As all people in all other regions are waking up to this now they say to the S.E. next time, youve just got to let us know - but they arent even asking the question should we stay or go - its a f@cking obvious answer.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 21:13:56 +0000
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