Davie Cameron is in denial. Scotland is gradually slipping its moorings and sailing away from the UK iceberg, but all Davie is interested in is arguing with Boris Johnson about whether it’s better to privatise the ice and sell it off as a ski resort from within or outwith the EU. Of course it’s not really about Europe at all, the real issue here is which spoiled over-privileged public schoolboy gets to be the next Prime Minister, Davie’s ex-bestie Boris or his current bestie George. If ever you suspected that British politics was nothing more than a glorified school playground spat, there’s your proof right there.
Everything else is a bit of an irrelevance, and Scotland is more irrelevant than most. After all, we don’t do Tories here, so have little contribution to make to the Davie-Boris Euro ding dong, and that is the only show in town. Scotland will settle down, thinks Davie, the SNP will be too feart to call another referendum, and the Scots will settle for Scotland-Lite.
It’s not clear what Scotland-Lite is supposed to be. It’s certainly doesn’t sound like the nearest thing possible to federalism (copyright Gordon Brown), or the Home Rule that the No campaign was promising just before the independence referendum. Whatever Scotland-Lite is, it’s a long way from the full fat federalism that Gordie Broon was going on about, and it’s not remotely close to Home Rule or Devo Max.
Scotland-Lite sounds a bit like one of those pretendy alcohol free beers which give you all the disadvantages of an alcohol fueled night on the town but without the giggles. You have to spend a great deal of time and effort getting ready, but it’s ruinously expensive, you get ignored and humiliated by people who are supposed to serve you but who are too far up their own arses to care, you have a constant urge to pee but no relief, then you end up with a hangover, and a bitter taste in your mouth, you’ve failed dismally to pull and the experience didn’t even impart any pleasure or get you anywhere. All you’re left with are shattered expectations and broken dreams and the stale taste of regret. Which come to think of it is a pretty fair assessment of the devolution settlement that came out of the Scotland Bill. Actually it’s worse than that. At least with alcohol free beer you can drive yourself, but the Scotland Bill still relegates Scotland to the back of the bus.
Scotland has been left with a bad taste in its mouth thanks to the Scotland Bill. The British government is now on notice that another independence referendum is just a matter of time. Davie is still fondly hoping that’s it’s an if, it’s not. It’s a when. The next chance of an independence referendum will depend on the outcome of the EU referendum.
Davie Cameron is hoping that the UK will vote to remain a part of the EU, and it very well might even though opinion polls show that it’s too close to call in England. If the UK votes to leave but Scotland votes to remain, we have another independence referendum and Davie is out of a job anyway.
But he needs more than a narrow victory in the EU referendum to settle the question, because if there’s a tiny majority in England to leave but the UK as a whole votes to remain thanks to votes in Scotland, there’s going to be one almighty constitutional crisis. Where’s yer English votes for English laws noo eh? Davie needs England to vote decisively to remain a part of the EU or the question isn’t going to go away and the Tory party will tear itself apart even more than it’s doing at the moment. After all, the Scottish question hasn’t gone away even though the Unionists won the last referendum.
The reason the question has not gone away is because it’s not enough to win the vote, it’s how you win the vote that counts. If you win the vote by making promises that you’ve got no intention of fulfilling, or that you’re going to pretend to fulfil, or that you phrase in such a vague manner that you can interpret them in any way that suits you’ve only created a hostage to fortune. Because if you can interpret your promises in any way that suits you, so can the people you made the promises to. All that does is create a large constituency of pissed off people who feel cheated. Like Scotland. However it doesn’t seem that Westminster is capable of learning any lessons.
But the EU referendum won’t be the only opportunity for another independence referendum. All sorts of pitfalls lie in the path of the Westminster government. With the last Westminster General Election and the likely outcome of the Scottish elections next week, the Union is being put on notice. What these votes ought to tell the Unionist parties is that the people of Scotland expect them to fulfil OUR interpretations of their promises, not the self-serving interpretations that they believe best suit themselves. But there’s as much chance of that happening as there is of getting rat arsed on a bottle of Scotland-Lite alcohol free beer.
The renewal of Trident is looming on the far horizon. Scotland is going to get nuclear missiles imposed upon us despite the fact that the vast majority of our elected representatives are viscerally opposed. There’s the continuing drive to privatisation and the threats to the NHS and the education system in England which have knock-on effects in Scotland. And there’s the appalling prospect that we could have either Boris Johnson or George Osborne as the next Prime Minister.
With every step that Westminster takes, it treads on the hopes of Scotland, and it gets one pace further away from a Union that Scotland can be a contented part of. What the Unionist parties fail to realise is that this is happening because of their own actions, not because of anything that the people of Scotland or pro-independence parties are doing. The Union is being killed by Unionists. It’s being killed by the patronising denial of Davie Cameron who thinks that we’re not worth worrying about, and who believes that we’ll settle not even for second best, but for the pathetic and damaging Scotland-Lite that is going to give the Union one almighty hangover. It’s the Union that’s lite, and it’s floating away.
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Reblogged this on pictishbeastie.
[…] Source: The Union’s hangover from Scotland-Lite […]
Dave is panicking, so he throws out these phrases believing them to be what he HOPES it will be! Next he will turn on the tears and plead to those dahn sath that he loves them that the Scots do not want them to leave the EU, so that they can all be better together and share broad shoulders in the pool of (Y) UK for all the yoonies.
He wants to make sure that England and Scotland vote Remain together so that the country according to Willie Rennie wont be divisive.
He needs Gordo, saviour of the banksters, to make a Vow and publish it in The National!
I do not think Corbyn after the humiliating treatment he gets from Cameron is going to stir himself one way or the other. Anyway, Dave is toast. He is not going to do another term as PM. He is a hobbling duck. His possible successors are waiting to pounce. He will leave Downing Street mumbling “funny old world”. If Ruth outsmarts Kez on the race to the bottom, she will get the cry to come sath and save the Party. Safe seat and be Shadow Secretary of State. Watch this space. Oh, I forgot EVEL will get her.
[…] Wee Ginger Dug The Union’s hangover from Scotland-Lite […]
Excellent
Superbly put Paul.
Westminster WILL be Westminster.
They had no intention of honouring anything and didn’t have the ability or indeed the will to follow through on their scattergun economic promises and statements made throughout the referendum.
Their campaign and the result was a sham. Time and subsequent events are a matter of public record. There is no cubby hole dark enough for the union’s champions to hide in.
They lied. They failed to deliver. They betrayed trust.
In short, the Scottish electorate owe them nothing.
When you look back on how things have been since September 2014, you see the Tories spread out in all their glorious hideousness. Vicious, spiteful, Machiavellian-lite (because they’re so obvious about it) and without a single shred of human kindness or moral courage.
BHS’s boss, who has now pirouetted off into the sunset with his buckets of hastily-snatched cash without a care for the workers now unemployed, is a symbol of everything that’s nasty about the party. Use people and abuse them. Drain the humanity and the joy out of everything, Punish people for being poor and believe that you are somehow superior to everyone because you put money and wealth above absolutely everything else no matter who gets destroyed in the process.
Ruth is part of that. She stands for Tory values. If she has an ounce of conscience, I wonder if she feels as sickened as do thousands of others watching the UK government lay waste to the 99%.
I would imagine that wee Ruthie isn’t bothered one bit. An ounce of conscience is not a lot, but I don’t even think she has that.
‘And nothing is but what is not.’
3 things to remember before you vote, according runner-up Ruth:-
1. The SNP are set to win, risking a new drive for Independence
2. Labour are in a mess, they’ve dropped opposition to Independence and are too weak to hold the SNP to account
3. Only Ruth Davidson can provide the strong opposition Scotland needs to hold the SNP to account.
but If we were all to choose vote SNP x 2 – surely the electorate can then do a pretty good job of holding the SNP to account.- bad SNP… you’re about to be held to account for all you have done for Scotland.
The Union is being killed by Unionists – all too true.
The minute they allowed Osborne to make that wretched “sermon on the pound” – they created an image of Scotland that has never once contributed anything of value to the UK. When they rallied round to cheer the GERS report – they luxuriated in the notion that we are so poor, we need to be subsidised to pretend we’re British.
whether its Ruthie mounting powerful machines or hapless beasts, Wee Wullie thinking he’s got the SNP on the run from pitchfork wielding peasants, or its oor Kezia, who hasn’t a clue what to do – the Union is dying. Drowning slowly in its own pish.
It’s not going to be a quick death. The Union is going to die ugly. We could have spared them that, but quite a few of us got suckered by the vow.
I always suspected that it would be a narrow win for the UK. But I also felt that it would be a dead cat bounce.
The reason they always bang on about respecting the NO vote? The reason they’re so miserable despite winning? It dawned on me. For many years they simply thought that everyone was content with the status quo, that we all felt like they do. Now they know differently. They also know this issue will never go away. We’re going to keep coming at them until we win. Its that simple. That’s why they angry all the time.
The union is living on Borrowed time. When they come to right the history of this, they will concentrate on three things. 1. What idiot thought Scottish labour should have been in charge. 2. What idiot thought having Osborne take a crap of Scotland was going to do anything at all for their precious “unity”. 3. Cameron really should have been bothered.
Next Thursday I hope to be reading of the resignation of the sub branch managers of the UK continuity party in Scotland. Particularly Ruth Davidson. She thinks she has what it takes. She thinks up for it. She thinks she should be heard. Her party voted to keep Three thousand children stuck in a warzone….I really couldn’t give a fuck what she thinks.
Sadly if the Tories come second next week it will give them a boost that we’ll never hear the end of. They’ll think they are winning the arguments and that we Scots couldn’t care less about austerity, poverty, Trident and kids without parents stuck wherever. I don’t want the Tories to be given any sort of boost. The best way of achieving that is SNPx2, and keeping your fingers crossed!
If the Tories take second spot next week the press will make it the story of the election, not that the SNP form a historic third term government.
Bizarrely, that will be good news twice times over.
Say the Tories make between 17-20% of the vote, having stolen disaffected unionists from Labour. They come in second and marginally form the SNPs official opposition in chambers. What message do you think this sends out to the Scottish electorate?
The political and societal choices will be made stark to the population for this coming term and the imagery apt. A picture of the the true nature of the union’s structure really is worth more than a thousand words. Oh, and Ruthie’s naked appeal for the unionist vote, stabbing her erstwhile referendum partners in the back to achieve any success, should send that message out loud and clear about the two choices available to the electorate in this next five year term.
2020s GE takes on a whole new relevance at that point.
The other unintended consequence is simply this. Union – Unionism and Britishness become intertwined with the Conservative party. To be for the UK is to be Tory.I’m sure that will work out fine.
Excellent once again Paul. Scotland-lite, that is the reality as far as the london establishment are concerned, they have skimmed off Scotland’s cream and think that we should thank them for it. No thanks.
I see that some postal votes sent out in Renfrewshire, were ‘invalid’. Let’s hope that our election will be watched like a hawk next week, because as much as dodgy dave says he is not bothered about Scotland, they will do anything to keep Scotland shackled.
SNPx2.
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