I keep reading these ridiculously alarmist articles about "The Tartan Timebomb" and the imminent breakup of the UK. For what it's worth, my utterly unreflected upon and personal take is thus-
Anyone who still believes in independence, or even devolution for Scotland due to its history as an independent nation is a sentimentalist. Scotland has not done badly at all out of being united with England, and the only good reason for devolving power back up north is that it is generally a good thing if decisions are made down the road rather than 100s of miles away. If you still believe all that crap about how much Scottish industry et al has suffered then go look at Liverpool, Newcastle, the Midlands and any other part of England that has suffered from the decline of manufacturing.
Now that Scotland has its own parliament, it is only right and proper that Scottish Westminster MPs should renounce the right to vote on issues which MSPs in Holyrood actually have authority over in Scotland (the so-called "West Lothian question"). English MPs have no such double mandate, so why vice versa ?
If the issue of actual independence or dissolution of the Union actually becomes a real issue, I expect most people north of the border to brick it, basically. The scottish national spirit is one that appears only briefly, at times of international sporting events, and rapidly recedes. If it was the dormant lion rampant it's made out to be, then the Scottish population would have turned out in sufficient numbers to achieve the meager margin required in the 1979 referendum, and would have given the 1997 vote a far more ringing majority. (Maybe if Braveheart had been even more riddled with historical inaccuracies that might have happened).
When faced with the prospect of governing their own country, already characterised by farcical overspending on the parliament building, the immediate onset of graft within the Labour party and the pantomime which is the SSP, most Scots will pine for the days when they could just blame it on the English and the 1978 world cup, just like they always have done.
3 comments:
sorry mate, i cant agree with you on this one. nationalism is not always a logical thing: people want to be independant very often exactly for sentimental and romantic ideas, even against all economic logic. scotland should be seperate because it is different, and has a different historical memory.
furthermore, if montenegro (pop 600,000) can be independant, why can't scotland finally free itself of the sasannach yoke, after 300 years of colonial opression, it is...ok i am starting to sound like my father, but really, it is our oil!
Oh dear Tom, if Scotland is such a drain on dear ol' blighty's resources, then be shot of her. I don't think you'll find many of us crying in our porridge if the UK were to 'grant' us our independence (like so many former protectorates, dominions and the like who have gone before us). Scotland will just have to grin and bear being equated with Ireland, Canada, Australia, as poor, has-beens of the British Empire. I'm busy darning my sack-cloth as I type in readiness for that day when the Mother of all Parliaments (looking rather more like the Whore of all Democracies following the cash for peerages scandal) does the decent thing and puts us out of our misery, once and for all. And please insist that when we go, we are not allowed back.
Goodness me, a reader I don't know personally ! (Unless from one of my more recent forays up north). Hmm, don't recall using the word "grant" re independence. Yoke, oppression, dominion, protectorate.......powerful stuff all.
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