I don’t get involved in politics, I don’t get involved in religion, I don’t get involved in social movements if I can help it. Sometimes it cannot be helped. I have to still see and listen to it and act. The Scottish Referendum was one of these occasions and on 18.09.14 Scotland voted and decided to stay part of the United Kingdom; what had once been Great Britain the nation that built and ruled the modern world. The vote was NO to the choice of independence by a margin of 55% to 45% and I think it was the result most people kind of knew was going to happen. While I had prepared myself for either event I had noted down my own result and I was pretty close to what occurred. I avoided putting this up publicly as I wished to stay neutral since I have friends on both sides.
So what now? Well firstly politics will sink from this blog until and unless something big happens and it will be back to fun and games and family which is what I like (I still have eighty odd prog rock albums to source and listen to for the top 100 count I blogged about last month). Secondly aside from some thugs causing problems in Glasgow city centre this weekend which frankly, take it from me, had little to do with the vote and more to do with being scum that take any chance to cause problems most people have accepted the result. Some are trying to create a ’45 rebellion through social media which is amusing since from what I have seen they on the whole seem unaware of their own history and the coincidence of the actual ’45 Rebellion and Bonnie Prince Charlie. Thirdly and most vitally I would like to follow up on the passionate speech former Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave yesterday as it links to my own feelings on what will come next. Let me tell you what I think is going to happen for Scotland and the UK over the next couple of years.
Well Scotland said NO as I predicted. The SNP were voted into power in Scotland to govern not as a signal for a thirst for separation but as a protest to the Labour Party who had been in power really forever in Scotland and had produced such failures and third raters for leaders such as Jack (now LORD!) McConnell. The same thing happened a year plus later in England as Labour was put out and a Conservative and Liberal coalition took power. Since then the financial crash and recession that followed it has shown the total lack of spine of the political classes in London, in the ‘Westminster Bubble‘. Despite putting the UK nearly to the wall not a single banker or politician (don’t forget the expenses scandal too) was jailed or even seriously penalised. The people of the UK have lost their remaining faith in the political class, of career politicians who have never worked in the real world and frankly stand for nothing as they are all ‘consensus’ and ‘middle of the road’. The end result was a scare for Westminster as this all added fire to the YES campaign but also to the rise of UKIP as a party in England on the issue of Europe and the loss of power there which again no politician will even admit never mind speak about or do anything about. So where from here. Well promises were made to Scotland for further devolved powers being granted to Hollyrood in the event of a NO vote. The BBC and the political classes have it seems already put the issue of Scotland Independence behind them saying ‘that’s it for a generation’. Trust me its not. Here we go.
If Westminster forgets or reneges on enough of these promises from September 2014 then I think the election next year in Scotland will see the SNP remain in power (they may well do since I also think the Labour Party is finished in UK politics as it stands) on a new mandate and will push again for another referendum. If that is the case then the next time the YES vote will win as the momentum combined with swinging the NO voters who believed in union who will have seen the lack of action after the last time will move to YES. It would only take a 5% swing. Meanwhile in England the voice for a devolved English parliament will continue as will the one for a Welsh and Irish one too. David Cameron will not be prime minister after 2015 regardless as to which party wins (the men in grey suits will ‘retire him’ from leadership). The Labour Party will shrink and other parties take its place. Then there is the promised vote on membership of the Euro Zone….
Pessimistic yes but based on this week I think Gordon Brown was pretty much right. This is not over, not by a long shot. The Scottish debate is a small part of something happening the UK over and actually all across the Western World too.
I am not interested in Politics beyond the local but as I said I thought I might put something out about it since its happening here and now.
GBS