SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE - NO CAMPAIGN DOOMED : NATIONALISTS ON A ROLL

Now if you were a Scot, seriously pissed off by the way that you and your country have been treated by ten years of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Government followed by ten years of broken promises from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who are the very last people you’d want to come up to Scotland to tell you that Scottish Independence is a bad idea and you shouldn’t be voting for it! Yes, with true sensitivity to your feelings joke-joke, the political elite at Westminster have sent you the four politicians you’d most likely want to piss on if you ever had the opportunity… Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, his Coalition sidekick Nick Clegg, creepy Ed Miliband and to cap it all, Dark Gordon, he of the scowling face and strange smile! Yes, Westminster’s sent these political emissaries to you in the hope you’ll believe anything they tell you is true and that they’ve honestly got your best interests at heart. That VOTING NO for Scottish Independence from the United Kingdom is the best and safest thing you can do. That they’ve all got your best interests at heart!

Quite frankly it’s enough to make a cat laugh. Is this Westminster political elite plain stupid or something? Or do they think that most people in Scotland are stupid?

Let’s look at the situation from a broader perspective. From a historical point of view. During the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s social and economic policies devastated Scotland. The country was used as a Tory Test Bed for the Poll Tax. Her harsh economic policies caused widespread unemployment and social misery when most of the country’s coal mines, shipyards and steelworks were closed and incomes reduced to a dependence on tourism, whisky, shortbread biscuits, tartan and oil revenue that was already fast running out. Oh sorry, did I forget the marmalade! The Scots never forgave Thatcher for what she did. In previous decades Scotland sent a fair number of Tory MPs to Westminster but following her time in power their number fell to just about nothing so that today they send only one MP to Westminster.

Little better was to follow under Tony Blair and New Labour. The traditional Labour vote of Scotland’s industrial working class had already begun to collapse but New Labour with breathtaking arrogance continued to take it for granted. The Scots could expect nothing from Labour and got nothing. The mines and shipyards stayed closed with any prosperity concentrated narrowly along the East coast relying on oil and gas. That was just about it. Large sections of industrial Scotland had once been socialist but under New Labour that kind of thing went out the political window. There was to be no special preference for Scotland under New Labour or help for all the hardships they’d suffered due to industrial decline begun under the Tories. No special treatment at all. Instead, with a special kind of contempt the Scots were hung out to dry! They had their tourism didn’t they along with their whisky and tartan? And the Queen spent a lot of time there didn’t she? Wasn’t that enough to keep them all happy. After all there were only four or five million of them so what was all the bloody fuss about Scotland?

First the Tory vote began to collapse while that of Labour became confined to the slums. The Parties at Westminster were doing nothing for Scotland. They were both damaging the National Health Service so precious and important to the poorly fed Scots and both attacking and undermining the student grants system. Despite all the tourism and heritage the economy continued sliding downhill and professionally qualified Scots with any sense were fast leaving for England. It was against such a background of long term political neglect from the traditional parties that the Scottish Nationalist Party began growing along with widespread support for Independence. It was a movement that continued growing year by year under Blair’s New Labour followed by the ever scowling, impossibly arrogant Westminster Scot, Dark Gordon Brown who represented just about everything his country detested. A Westminster Scotsman gone contemptuous and a socialist gone rotten!

Alex Salmond, leader of Scottish Nationalism, doesn’t need to do much when he points a finger at the politicians of Westminster. When he talks of a Westminster political elite and their contempt for the Scots he’s not talking about any abstraction. He’s talking about the two main political parties who’ve done little to nothing for Scotland in the last forty years and his words have struck home. If he speaks with contempt about how these politicians have taken the people of Scotland for granted over so many years it’s a message that rings true in the ears of so many people. It’s why the Scottish Nationalists have come to head the devolved Government of Scotland. The Tories have all but disappeared, the Lib-Dems are less than a handful and Labour’s on the decline… yet the leaders of these Parties think that the best way to persuade the people of Scotland to trust them is to stay in a Union with Tory England and vote NO to Independence!

It’s a bit like the Westminster jack the lads, having pissed all over them for the last forty years, expect the Scots to get up and say thank you very much for coming to see us and giving us all your promises. Yes, we now feel happy that you’ve promised never to piss on us all over again!

Alas the Westminster political parties have treated the Scots with contempt. And having riled them up badly for so long they’re hoping a bit of sweet talk and a few further promises will be enough. The question is, will the riled up Scots decide to go it alone and separate from those the Nationalists tell them are parasites. If they do the consequences will inevitably devastate the politics of the United Kingdom. David Cameron and his Government who allowed the Scottish Nationalists to choose the wording of a Referendum that favours a YES vote will come under serious strain from his Commons backbenchers and may well be voted from office. Labour will lose the support of 41 Scottish Labour MP’s and may become politically unelectable as a future Westminster Government. Furthermore, any future United Kingdom will  have a potentially hostile nation on its northern border with a revised Union Jack looking more like a joke.

The idea for an Independence Referendum was originally proposed by Gordon Brown. This was later supported and facilitated by a Tory Prime Minister David Cameron. There can be no doubt that neither could have had any idea that it would become a deadly serious reality. They took a very serious gamble with the future of the United Kingdom without the idea ever entering their heads that the gamble could go seriously wrong. Never once asked themselves the serious question… what if it did?

SO WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE MAKE SUCH SERIOUS DECISIONS WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING THEIR CONSEQUENCES?

WELL I’LL TELL YOU WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE! THEY’RE CALLED BRITISH PRIME MINISTERS!

Finally a postscript.

Yesterday, David Cameron in Scotland came out with his latest clever political strategy. Addressing the people of Scotland, thinking he’d talk to them heart to heart as it were, he used the word effing… ‘effing Tories’… Such a wonderful wee touch of self-deprecation! Something that some advisor at Tory Central Office in London no doubt suggested he try out. Well you know the Scots… They’re all a bit raw… It was something that would appeal to their level! Go down well with a pint of beer and a haggis! Like that’s what the people of Scotland were really all about! That and their pockets.

Some opinion. Forget they are a people with a great cultural heritage. You could buy their NO vote with a few simple economic threats.