There have been several posts here about independence for Scotland but I would like to draw your attention to a few blogs which are currently holding interesting debates - NewsnetScotland, BellaCaledonia and Scotland Unspun.
At last it seems the SNP are awaking to the fact that an election is only 9 months away and Alex Salmond has decided to put independence top of the SNP campaign agenda. Not before time. They need to get ahead instead of allowing Labour to set the course. Often in the past Alex Salmond's party has been caught trying to deny Labour's accusations but to little effect. They've allowed Labour to 'get in first' and spent campaigns attempting to play catch up.
One lie churned out by unionists won't be heard during the next months - "We can't rely on North Sea gas much longer". How often has that been said in the past years by those who want to enhance the myth that England subsidises us? Although this is the second giant find in just a week there is talk, in oil circles, that more are expected. Surely Scotland isn't going to let our oil go to London without insisting we get our share of the spoils. As Alex Porter writes, we need to emulate Norway, not Australia.
I have hopes of an election campaign focused upon independence, oil and the fact the Westminster coalition has no mandate to govern in Scotland. The 'respect' agenda lasted all of around 48 hours so we've nothing to lose. Let's go for it.
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Thanks Rosie :O)
It's heartening right enough. Let's hope the campaign is well executed. I think a good campaign could really do some serious damage. We've never managed to get across the idea that independence is not a single issue but bound up with jobs etc. If we can do this the ground will shift!
(Please though, no more parallels with Australia Alex!)
What I do not get though Subrosa is this; you appear to be fairly level headed and good old proper conservative, perhaps not in name, but certainly by way of blogging. Common sense on this blog seems to be spectacularly (thankfully) prevalent which is great.
This is what I do no get. If you become independent, Scotland that is, it is going to become a socialist hell. The only reason the lefties have any claim to fame in the UK is because of their huge-ish backing in Scotland. If Scotland leave the union then not only will England be rid of socialism for good but you chaps will be landed with all the weirdo faux-marxists. And they will realise that you wont be able to subsidise Scotland anymore because there is no money, since that money came from England previously.
So...
Please enlighten me?
That was an excellent post Alex. I know several of my readers have Australian connections and it will be interesting to hear their comments.
@spitfire,
You have got to be taking the pi$$.
England subsidising Scotland? Since when?
Your point about socialist hell is ignorant too. Remember you're talking about the country that invented economics ala Adam Smith. Our accountants are second to none. Without the generations of being squeezed to subsidise London, Scotland can finally have an economic policy which is suited to her needs and aspirations. There are Scots in the board-rooms of many of the top companies of the world. Much of that talent will be unleished in Scotland and not have to venture abroad to realise its ambition - inhibited at home by union.
Yes, Scotland will be more left wing but that wouldn't be difficult as Britain now is practically neo-feudal.
When London collapses as it would have done already had it not been for bail-outs and free money from the Bank of England (diluting the wealth of the North once more) you'll find that England has only pop music and some foreign-owned football clubs. Without North Sea oil capital market downgrading is inevitable.
No, I think any level-headed businessman should be thinking about abandoning ship and head-quartering in an independent Scotland.
13th Spitfire
In the 1950s and 1960s Scotland, and particularly Glasgow had a very strong, what you call conservative force active in local Government and there were Conservative MPs. It was called the Progressive Party and ran Glasgow at one or more points.
What happened is that the English Conservative Party pushed/bullied the Scottish Progressives adopting the London mandate. It was all downhill after that.
Those Scottish progressives igrated to the Liberals and many in the country seats to the SNP.
The Labour party's taunt is that the SNP are Tartan Tories.
Then came Thatcher and the absolute rout of the Conservatives who now had become viewed as being "English"
The Labour Party exploited this gap in Scottish politics to dominate, impoverish and enslave their core vote.
They are finished in Scotland and need to disband and reform under a Scottish independence umbrella if they are to have a chance of surviving at all.
I paraphrase but the is an excellent history of the modern day Scottish "right" in an article by Gerry Hassan. If I can find it I will post a link.
Interesting reading which I hope to respond to but Gordon Brown was scottish and he was a complete and utter failure.
And I think you'll find that most English would like to get rid of Scotland as well, so the feeling is mutual. What I am telling you is my uneducated view (it would seem) of how people view Scotland. It is pretty much assumed that you are being subsidised (will give you a link to that in a bit) and that industry has been shot to pieces. Just to pluck something out of the air, if the UK goes so does the nuclear subs in Scotland and the bases as well as contracts for carriers being built in Scotland. It would seem odd to have a mutual navy would you not say.
As I say both very interesting posts which I shall return to, but you will also find that England of 50m people has more than a few football teams and I must say that it is rather naive to think that a tiny 'state' like Scotland could trump that of England. That is not being condescending not at all, it just economics of scale.
I cannot find it but here is an essay about the love/hate/hate relationship of the SNP and Labour.
http://www.gerryhassan.com/?p=766
You may find other essays on his blog equally as interesting.
On the other points of your post, I think Alex Porter has addressed all that is necessary.
Scotland has been subsidising England, in particular even the SE for many many years and the Treasury has been pumping out false accounting which has long since been debunked but, the Daily Rags in London don't want to know about that.
@Spitfire,
Ukraine has 50 million people. Would you set up business there or in Norway?
Thank you for your kind words 13 Spitfire. I've never voted conservative in Scotland although I would say perhaps, in today's jargon, I'm just slightly right of centre on average.
I don't see an independent Scotland from your view, but then there's a generation and a half between us. The political map of Scotland has changed since I returned over 20 years ago and I think it will change once we're independent.
The west central belt will stay firmly labour but the rest of Scotland's will be up for grabs. The tories will possibly become a new party altogether and the SNP will divide with all their more right wing members moving to the new conservative party. That will certainly make the east here tory again.
The libdems may win or lose out of it I'm not quite sure. Perhaps a libdem reader may like to give their thoughts.
So no, Spitfire, I don't see Scotland being a socialist hell. There will eventually be a balance.
That's the SNP's problem right now. They need to balance between right and left. Here John Swinney has built a reputation on his fairness etc and attracts votes from tories (this was a tory constituency for years). He wouldn't stand a chance in the west unless he radically changed his views and I doubt if he would be prepared to do that. But once we're independent there's no doubt that this area will return to being right of centre, which it possibly could be labelled even now.
Hope that answers some of your questions and I haven't waffled too much.
Whatever you think of regarding independence for Scotland, there are some issues not mentioned which needs to be raised. Regarding the North Sea Oil, Christopher Booker once pointed out to me the oil fields lie in what would become English waters should Scotland break away from the Union, in reality this is English oil conveniently brought ashore on Scottish soil.
However, debating who owns the oil is rather like two fleas arguing about which owns the dog they are living on as the EU will be laying claim to all reserves in what it will regard in the future as EU waters, just as all our fish in both Scottish and English waters are a now classed as a ‘Common resource’ by the EU giving more rights to Spanish fishermen than our own. The same fate awaits our oil.
Even if Scotland achieves full independence it will not be classed as a nation in its own right, sadly the EU regards it as merely one of its regions – which is a fate awaiting all the broken up nations of the European Union.
Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England all have a bond and close historical links, we have fought together and many died in wars for the freedom to remain as a self governing United Kingdom, it will be a sad day if we fall apart and very useful to the EU and its ultimate goal of the creation of a single country called Europe.
For those who want to read my spoof tale of the future of the EU, visit my Euro Soap blog at: http://eurosoap.blogspot.com/ You have to read what I have to predict the future is for Scotland right at the end in the 16th chapter. The weird thing about this silly tale is, a great deal of what I first penned in it between 1997/98 has since become fact. I personally think to fight the menace of EU occupation Scotland and England have to stand side by side – as we have proudly done so before.
Derek - in answer to some of your points:-
1. The oil fields do not lie in what would become English waters post-independence. For a start, there is no oil in the water, it lies under the continental shelf. The Scottish sector of the UK Continental Shelf is already defined by the co-ordinates set out for the boundary in the Continental Shelf Jurisdiction Order (S.I./1968, 891).
Around 90 per cent of North Sea oil comes from the Scottish sector. England would get the majority of the gas fields I think – which may be what causes the confusion among those who think that oil fields 100 miles north of Aberdeen would somehow belong to England rather than Scotland!
The EU has no claim to and will not be laying any claim to these oil fields.
2. If Scotland achieves independence it will be classed as a nation in its own right. That is what independence means. As an independent country, Scotland would have the power to decide her future relationship with the EU. That is why it is rather pointless debating whether or not Scotland should be in the EU now – until we have the power to enter or leave international bodies in our own right it is an academic argument.
3. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England all have a bond and close historical links. (We also have a bond and close historical links with the Republic of Ireland – don’t know why you missed that out). That is not an argument for remaining in the Union however. The Nordic countries also have a bond and close historical links but manage very well as independent countries (some of which are in the EU, some of which are not) while co-operating to further their common interests through the Nordic Council.
4. Finally, if it is necessary to “fight the menace of EU occupation” as you suggest, there is no need for Scotland and England to stand side by side on the battlefield. All you have to do is persuade people to 1. believe you and 2. vote for parties which want to leave the EU.
K, thanks for your full response to my last posting here, in which I did not mention the Republic of Ireland as that is not part of the United Kingdom.
Although I would love you to be correct in what you say, I fear you put too much trust in the EU not to grab the things it wants, it already owns our skies and has its 'Motorways of the seas' (http://ec.europa.eu/transport/maritime/motorways_sea/motorways_sea_en.htm) - it will want our oil too.
Independence for nations within the EU, as far as I see it, is a fallacy, that applies to both Scotland and England which is being broken into nine EU regions - Scotland is regarded by the EU as one region.
As the old saying goes: divide and conquer.
I think K has answered so so eleoquently Derek, there's no need for me to say more. Except to add don't believe all Christoper Booker says. :)
K, may I thank you for your informative post. Greatly appreciated from all sides of the argument I should hope.
If that's the way you see it Derek, then what does England want with a wee country - which they want their own countrymen to think they pay for- hanging onto its coat tails? Why on earth would any country want the additional burden of 5m charity cases?
Presently yes, that's the technical manner in which the EU breaks up Europe but they cannot remove Scotland's status as a nation. That's impossible.
Anyone foreign country who won power over England could call it whatever they liked, but they could not remove its status as a nation.
As K says, the decision about the EU will be made once Scotland is independent and it will be made by the people after much public debate. Presently all of the larger political parties in Scotland support it but independence will bring radical change of all sorts.
Subrosa, the way I see it is not so much one country holding on to the coat tails of another, but that of a people all of one land mass with histories that are linked. Not all our history has been good, but out of it we have formed a friendship and have done much together in the world. I just see it as sad when friends drift apart.
However, regarding the EU, you should never undermine the malice of this organisation and its willingness to destroy the nation states. When the EU has had its way there may be a memory of Scotland and England, but they will no longer be nations as far as the EU is concerned - just regions under its control.
As others have said Derek there are plenty nations with similar histories to ours but they've decided to go their own way over the centuries - the nearest to us being Scandanavia. We're not 'friends' with England we're allies in some ways but certainly not in others.
'As far as the EU is concerned'. Scotland and England will be nations long after the EU is gone.
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