The referendum result is the loss of a chance to dispute the hegemony of the neo-con corporate elite in the international world. My heart is still bursting with pride that 45% of Scots – a people devoid of political autonomy for three hundred years – had the nerve, intellect and will to see through the avalanche of propaganda from the entire mainstream media, political establishment, banking sector and corporate world. I met numerous voters who had received letters from their employers – including Diageo, BP, RNS and many others – telling them to vote No or their job was in danger. I met the old lady in Dundee who was told by the Labour Party that independent Scotland would flood the country with immigrants, and a Romanian building worker in Edinburgh who had been told by the Labour Party that Independent Scotland would deport all East Europeans.
Yesterday the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mirror in Scotland all had precisely the same full page photo on their front cover – not a startling news snap, but an arty concoction of male silhouettes and union and Scottish flags. The Mirror had photoshopped it to remove the blue from the union jack, but it was the same distinctive photo. There could be no more stark example of the fake diversity of the mainstream media.
Just as the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties have been startlingly shown up as precisely the same creatures of corporate masters offering no policy differences whatsoever, merely a false tribalism. As they partied together at Better Together last night – the only party in the whole of Scotland, at which everybody present lives very, very well at taxpayers’ expense – it was impossible to tell which brand of Tory was which.
Keeping the popular momentum going, keeping all those wonderful people I met and spoke to engaged in trying to engineer a different society, is going to be a hard struggle. But we always knew that. The goal of independence must remain as a powerful unifying factor.
Through media onslaught people were convinced that a No vote was a vote for Devo Max. Actually after a fortnight of pontificating it will fall off the news agenda of the mainstream. Nothing significant will happen. The Westminster view is that we can have any powers we want at our glorified council in Scotland as long as we still don’t get the revenue from oil or whisky – and still provide cannon fodder for neo-con wars abroad, house Trident and are subject to draconian Westminster imposed attacks on civil liberties.
Anyway the dress rehearsal is over. At the next referendum – which is only five years away, after the UK has voted to leave the EU – we will not be putting forward Salmond’s Independence Lite, (I am not criticising, he carried it superhumanly far). We will be proposing a fully independent Scottish Republic, out of NATO, with its own currency, sweeping land reform to give Scotland’s land back to its people, nationalisation of railways and public utilities, a genuine minimum wage you can live on, a humane benefits system and strict regulation and controls on banks and bankers.
I am eating an excellent lunch and looking forward to it.
It’s wrong to call ourselves The45 since clearly there were many more than 45% who voted Yes. The vote was rigged. We were robbed. Democracy does not exist in the UK, and it is fanciful to imagine we can win freedom by playing fair. Waving our flags around and singing folk songs is not going to win this battle.
‘like you I agree that the proposals as a major constitutional change should be put to the electorate either through referenda or general elections – where I differ is in the view that there should be a single English parliament – the interests of the parts of England are quite different.’
I’d partly agree with that Res Diss, but I think an English Parliament should precede the establishment of any regional bodies.
You can’t possibly be accountable if your own premise is backward and from the 1970′s, commerce sadly is part and parcle of local Government, dare I say NORSE….
I don’t disagree, Nevermind. What I’m getting at is undue influence exerted by special interests on legislation which has been agreed and is being implemented differently, or being bypassed altogether, because the Deputy Under-Controller of Paperclips has been wined and dined by Megacorp Inc’s CEO and certain understandings have been reached (in the matter, let us say, of a non-executive directorship of a Megacorp subsidiary falling vacant just as the Deputy Under-Controller is planning to retire from the Department of Stationery.)
Businessmen on a democratic body which represents everyone, making democratic decisions, absolutely fine. Businessmen buying the people tasked to put the decisions into effect – not fine at all. See the ongoing Saudi bribery saga (not quite buried by Blair)…
Well if Scotland is staying in the UK for the moment, what’s to stop the Scottish assembly from requesting, tomorrow, a right of veto over foreign engagements of uk armed forces? As well as being a genuinely good idea, this would have the merit of underlining, if it’s the case, scotlands discomfort at the endless sequence of foreign wars. It would also drive a stake through the comfortable notion of a federal britain, where regions are only responsible for parochial concerns. The affection that would accrue to the scottish parliament can only help along the road to the NATO-free republic that you’re dreaming of.
Bring it on.
Simon
“Well if Scotland is staying in the UK for the moment, what’s to stop the Scottish assembly from requesting, tomorrow, a right of veto over foreign engagements of uk armed forces?”
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Well, one good reason is that even the Westminster Parliament does not, constitutionally, have such a right of veto. (The vote on Syria was a one-off which does not constitute a precedent).
A fortiori, therefore, a regional Parliament which is only empowered to legislate or act in respect of competences which have been devolved to it by Act of Parliament, cannot exercise such a power of veto.
Luckily the YES vote lost , the SNP are a bunch of Facist liar’s and Scotland will always be part of the UK, love.
Habbabkuk – “A fortiori, therefore, a regional Parliament which is only empowered to legislate or act in respect of competences which have been devolved to it by Act of Parliament, cannot exercise such a power of veto.”
Constitutions change. The point is that the claim is legitimate, and would be seen as legitimate by a lot of scots.
Wrong Bob, your doing that projection thing again laying the faults of yourself and the parties and creeps you clearly support onto the SNP. It demonstrates that your conscience is not clear, the pro-Union parties epitomise fascism (which you can’t even spell), from illegal wars of aggression to a grim police and surveillance state at home, to demonising minorities and personal enrichment, and enough who rebelled and were disgusted by it, have already admitted that their campaign was based on fear and lies. Lies about Europe, lies about Scotland’s huge wealth that bankers have already stolen with impunity, and will now continue doing so unchecked, lies about the NHS from parties whose MPs in a clear breach of trust have directorships and consultancies with private health care corporations, now sinking their teeth into the Health Service, lies about weapons of mass destruction they want to keep, capable of ending all human all life on earth, though cockroaches might survive, lies about currency and most despicable of all they lied through their teeth and frightened the elderly over pensions. UK pensions are the lowest in all of the EU, a vote for Yes would have seen the old age pension doubled or trebled in the short term, but that is still a long way off matching pensions in Germany which are just short of eight times the disgracefully low rate of UK old age pensions.
Fascist Liars? The Conservative & Unionist Party, New Labour, the LibDems, US neo-cons, the City of London, the banks, corporate giants and multinationals, the BNP, EDL, the Orange Order, Ulster Unionists, the National Front. Yes absolutely correct, they are, as are you. Which ones do you belong to ‘Bob’, I’m guessing the BNP, Orange Order or National Front and worst of them all by far, the Labour Party.