A Good Time for England to Ditch Scotland?

In David Cameron’s mind, the LibDem demands for proportional representation as the price for forming a government must surely be balanced by the knowledge that his refusal to do so would force them into coalition with the Labour Party, who would then be obliged to clean up the financial mess they helped create.

This would have a number of consequences. First, Cameron would avoid having to bear any of the inevitable popular backlash against the government that has to make the essential cuts.

Second, the Labour-LibDem coalition would be massively unpopular. Labour would of course seize the chance to stay in power, but its lack of electoral or moral authority would create huge hostility in England against (1) the Labour Party, and (2) Scotland and Wales, both for their Labour MPs, and the SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs needed to prop up the coalition, if only on a vote-by-vote basis.

Due to the diversity of this coalition it would only be a matter of time before it fell on some pretext or other. It would almost certainly fail to pass a PR bill before its dithering demise - in a two party FPTP system, Labour stands to lose as much as the Tories if a PR bill were to succeed.

The subsequent election would return a Conservative government. Whether it had a majority or not is irrelevant. What is important is that this Conservative government would be under intense popular pressure to either pass a PR bill (very unlikely) or do something about Scotland so that England gets the governments it elects.

In other words, it would have an English mandate for Scotland to become independent.

Cutting Scotland loose would be a relatively simple matter. One way would be for Cameron to instruct the Conservative MSPs in the Scottish Parliament to vote with the SNP Government to pass the proposed referendum on Scottish independence. This would not need the support of his Westminster coalition partner(s). The Scottish Greens are already on board to achieve the numbers. With the Conservatives in power in Westminster (and some orchestrated support from the Scottish media) the referendum would stand a good chance of success.

Another way would be to hold a UK-wide referendum on Scottish independence. This would be hard to pass in Westminster via a coalition, but with a narrow Tory majority government would pass easily and be likely to succeed given the anticipated rise in English antagonism to Scotland, and could be pursued if the Scottish attempt failed.

Either way, the result would be England waving farewell forever to 50-odd Scottish Labour and LibDem MPs, Scots voting on English issues, and Scottish Prime Ministers.

The Conservatives could then easily form a government without any need for the wishy-washy compromise of a coalition. Strong uncompromising government - the current system of elected dictatorship that routinely shuts out minority voices - would be preserved, and the banks, City and industry would be happy.

And David Cameron would be the foundational leader of a newly independent England. An immortal name for schoolchildren to remember in the centuries to come.

The real question then, Mr Cameron, is how do you want to be remembered? One of the last leaders of a withered imperial state, clinging on to the bitter end in a cobbled-together series of toothless coalition governments, or the architect of the great English nation reborn?

Decisions, decisions…

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NOTES:

In the recent UK first past the post (FPTP) General Election, without Scotland or Wales, out of a total of 533 seats, the English result would have been:

298 Conservative (last seat to vote on May 27th)
191 Labour
43 LibDem
1 Green

A massive Conservative majority of 107 with 56% of the vote.


And for England and Wales, without Scotland, out of 572 seats:

306 Conservative (298+8)
217 Labour (191+26)
46 LibDem
3 Plaid Cymru

Still a strong Conservative majority of 89 with 53.5% of the vote.

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THE MOMENTUM GROWS:

Iain Martin, Union Between England and Scotland May Soon Be Toast, Wall Street Journal, May 8th, 2010

Minette Marrin, Cut Scotland loose – then we’ll have a fair voting system, Sunday Times, May 9th, 2010

Iain Dale, Celtic Fringes Wot Lost It Iain Dale's Diary, May 9th, 2010

Benedict Brogan, How do you solve a problem like Scotland?, Daily Telegraph, May 10th, 2010

(Labels Scotland 'a troublesome province', and believes 'England has had its fill of Scottish politicians.'

The LibLab Con Cannot Claim a Mandate, Campaign for an English Parliament, May 10th, 2010

What the Irish Result Means for Scotland & England

With the YES vote in Ireland and European Union integration back to full steam ahead, we are quite possibly living through the last days of UK sovereignty. Interestingly enough though, during these momentous times many UK nationalists can still be heard to argue that even though the UK should be independent from the EU, that Scotland should not from the UK.

The irony of this should not be lost on Scots.

England’s Future in the EU
The UK nationalist argument is that on the one hand Scottish nationalism is narrow-minded, parochial and a recent construction of the SNP, but that UK nationalism is ancient and noble and somehow the way things ought to be, despite it being entirely a creation of the years since 1707. The key to understanding this thinking is that most anti-EU UK nationalist arguments are in fact borrowed from Tory ideas of Englishness, and that almost all the UK’s anti-EU groups are also English. Englishmen are in effect trying to intellectualise what is in reality a visceral aversion to their absorption of English national identity into the EU international soup.




What will the Lisbon Treaty mean for the UK as it stands? If you want an idea of what will happen if Project EU is completed, look no further than Scotland’s history within the UK. The parallels with the UK's coming absorption into the EU collective are striking.

For some time before Union happened for Scotland, there was a loose form of union in place (regal Union in 1603). This generated much conflict with England, and serious doubts from both nations about whether to take it further. Then Scotland suffered from a financial disaster that almost bankrupted the country - the fallout of the failed Darien Expeditions in the late 1690s.

Sound familiar?

Eventually, after much heated debate and venting of spleens, England offered to compensate Scotland in return for incorporating union. The Scottish common people were utterly against it. Then a massive English campaign of pamphlets and propaganda was launched to get it over the line.

Sound familiar?

Daniel Defoe was an English agent in Scotland at the time and a key player. England spent big to bribe Scotland's political elites and, in the end, most of those who were against it changed their minds. Scotland was sold out and the Scottish parliament voted itself out of existence.

Full incorporating Union was then finally enacted, without a referendum, and against the wishes of the Scottish people. How do we know this was the case? The result was rioting in the streets of several Scottish cities.

Scotland’s sovereignty was lost but her national identity persisted stubbornly throughout the Union, during which time her political elites and much of her population threw their weight behind the British Imperial project which, as many Englishmen will admit, was heavily influenced by the Scots. In the 300 years since, Scotland was transformed beyond recognition as hundreds of thousands of Scots scattered themselves across the Empire as soldiers, governors, settlers and merchants. She entered the Union with a fifth of England’s population, and is threatening to leave with barely a tenth.

Her people helped found and populate many of the nations that grew out of the Empire. Conversely, most of her land at home is today under foreign ownership. That is the nature of junior partnership in an empire.

What does this mean for England? Her population stands today at 51.7 million, barely more than a tenth of the population of Europe. With this in mind, the question on the lips of many Englishmen is this: once we have lost our sovereignty, will our island location be enough to preserve what’s left of England’s national identity in a teaming sea of 499 million Europeans, or is our population destined for dilution and depletion as the English are scattered throughout Europe, and European migrants pour in?


Scotland and the EU
In Scotland, many Scots may be sorely tempted to say, “see how you like your own medicine”, but for us the baton change from Westminster to Brussels would be fairly straightforward. It will be something for which 300 years of union with England has prepared us. In reality, we are already part of the EU labour market, while receiving none of the benefits of direct membership. But will full membership of the EU be the best arrangement for an ‘independent’ Scotland?

Will it be a case of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’?

Personally, after independence I would prefer a transition period of about twenty years to get our house in order and enter Europe on our own terms - if ever, instead of joining as an oil-rich-but-penniless escapee from the financial basket case that is Britain today. Norway’s associate membership via the EEA and EFTA has allowed it to opt into European programs on its own terms, and – through its massive oil revenues – to build a $400billion sovereign fund, giving it one of the hardest currencies in the world (as the UK Govt predicted 35 years ago would happen in Scotland after independence) instead of propping up the Euro.

This is probably the best path for Scotland.

Unfortunately, from where we stand I don’t think EEA membership is something that can be sold to a cautious Scottish public, in whose collective mind the act of breaking away from London will be difficult enough, and for whom the idea of Brussels acts as a safety net. In other words, if we want to get Scottish independence over the line, the SNP policy of independence-in-Europe is the most likely way it will succeed.

Independence-in-Europe has long been SNP policy, and although I’ve recently had my reservations, I now realise that these will only play into the hands of those who wish to keep Scotland in the UK. Make no mistake: for those Scots unsure of independence, cold feet about the EU will not lead them to choose the alternative model of EEA/EFTA-style of Norwegian nationhood.

It will keep us locked in this godforsaken Union.

Europe may have its problems but, as the expenses scandal has clearly shown, these issues are dwarfed by the systemic venality of Westminster and Whitehall. And the suggestion of Tony Blair as EU president should be seen for what it is: a distraction. Removing the corrupting influence of London’s tentacles from Scotland should remain our top priority and can only be a Good Thing.

If the last few weeks of Irish referendum coverage have taught us anything, it’s that most EU scaremongering in the UK has been by disaffected English Tories and the English Tory media, watching as the last vestiges of their national identity – dressed up as the UK – disappear.

That same UK sovereignty has allowed the British parliament to control Scotland since 1707 and, not to put too fine a point on it, the game is up.

So it’s important for Scots not to be taken in by English Tory protests at the loss of UK nationality to the EU. As part of the UK, Scots have no nationality to lose. We already lost that three hundred years ago, and now it's time to take it back.

Norway offers us the model, but even direct membership of the EU is more than what we've got now, which is nothing.

English Independence from the EU

According to the SNP, when Scotland eventually wins her independence back, it will be within the framework of Europe – not a form of nationhood all Scots are keen on. Personally, I prefer Norway’s fringe position in the EEA, only opting into the EU programs that are to its liking. The question is, why not England too? Everyone is talking as if the resulting diminished UK would continue as a member of the EU. But what if it somehow chooses not to take up the offer of automatic successor state membership?

Is this even possible?

By virtue of Scotland’s foundation membership in the United Kingdom of Great Britain via 1707’s Act of Union, if Scotland achieves her re-independence(1) she would not be leaving the Union so much as dissolving it, much like a marriage. Unfortunately for Lesser Britain, the EU would almost certainly ignore this legal inconvenience (much as it did with Ireland’s NO vote) and treat this new state as the effective successor entity to the old UK, insisting that it fulfil its relevant treaty obligations.

But what if there was no obvious successor state? What if the rump-UK were to fragment further, each part having its own parliament? What could the EU realistically do if the new nation-states choose not to become EU members?

Legally, Scottish re-independence is therefore the easiest route for England to achieve her own re-independence, in her case from the EU. The key is for the creation of an English parliament at the same time as Scotland regains her independence. With a separate representative body to the British parliament, Englishmen could then legitimately claim that England is not the UK's successor state.

Then it’s bye-bye Brussels and England will have won back her sovereignty, free of EU laws and foreign interference.

Thus, Scotland achieving her re-independence is England’s best way of separating from Brussels and becoming a nation again. A good reason for Englishmen to get behind Scottish independence, and another reason for English and Scottish nationalists to work together.







Notes

(1) Re-independence is a more correct term than ‘independence,’ which implies that it is something new. Scotland was an independent country for more than eight centuries, during which time England was successfully conquered twice by both the Danes and the Normans.

Open Letter to MI5 and Special Branch re: Scotland

A. To the English Bosses of MI5 & Special Branch's Scottish Operations:

How are you today? Busy week at the office? Looking forward to a relaxing Sunday browsing the papers? Off to church later on?

I have couple of questions for you.

How often have you wondered why certain Scots proclaim their Britishness far more than the English?

Seriously, how much of a prat do you think the PM is? How much is he driven by the desire to strut the world's stage, to cement his legacy for posterity, and by the fight for his political survival at the next election?

Does he even care about England?

Truly, how much loyalty do you feel you owe him and his party after they tried to fit you up for the dodgy dossier on Iraqi WMD?

On the other hand, do you honestly believe that Scottish nationalists are bad people? Are you aware that some members of the SNP are English born, while others have served in the armed forces?

Aren’t English and Scottish independence simply ideas about fairness, democracy and identity?

So why do you feel the need to have your field resources monitor, undermine and discredit Scottish nationalists? Is it really worth your while running interference on Scottish independence, when it’s something more and more English want every day?

Won't what you're doing to derail Scottish independence only sour future relations between our two nations?  England and Scotland can look forward to having more in common than most other nations - a shared language, the same royal family, and stirring fireside stories about how we ran an Empire together.

Will England not need all the friends she can get?

Being a Scottish nationalist does not mean that I hate England. Only that I love Scotland, just as you love England, and that we now wish to manage our own affairs.

Without self-serving prats like Gordon Brown lording it over us both.

B. To the Scots involved in MI5 & Special Branch's Scottish Operations:

There is probably not much I can say to convince you to let Scottish independence run its course.

You are probably consumed with a visceral hatred of Alex Salmond and the SNP.

You sincerely believe your job to be threatened by Scottish independence, and sometimes feel as if you are fighting for your career, your reputation, your pension, your very professional existence.

And you feel under constant pressure to prove your loyalty to your controller and/or station chief.

Sound about right?

Now, I’m probably not too far off the truth in saying there aren’t too many MI5 resources allocated to monitoring the English independence movement just yet. In fact, many English men and women in MI5 probably share a secret sympathy for it. They probably feel in their hearts – without even realising it – that English independence would probably be the only legitimate way to break up Britain, when England is good and ready.

So ask yourself this: how many English men or women have you met who harbour the same visceral hatred of the English independence movement as you do for the Scottish version? Not many?

Why is that?

Scottish independence will almost certainly happen, sooner or later, regardless of how you are ordered to slow it down. And then Scotland will have its own intelligence service, cooperating on a daily basis with our English colleagues on international terrorism and security.

So remember this, next time you are asked to gather information on Scottish nationalists, provide dummy explosives to radical activists, or help rig a by-election:

1. Scotland will need experienced intelligence officers with good contacts in Thames House who know how to set up a state security apparatus.

2. You could play a valuable role in establishing it.

3. Scotland and England will have the same enemies.

4. Your career is not dependent on the structural integrity of Britain.

5. The Scottish security services will still swear loyalty to the Queen.

Over to you.