Scottish Independence

Here's the bird that never flew

Here's the tree that never grew

Here's the bell that never rang

Here's the fish that never swam

A traditional Glasgow rhyme

I NEVER WATCHED the great IN /OUT debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling on the BBC last night. But from what I have heard and seen from the highlights, the contestants ranted at and bludgeoned each other, while the audience at times resembled a seething multitude. As for the 'moderator', well, in this case the term became an oxymoron. It  must have been like sitting in a Glasgow pub downing pints of  'heavy' in the 1950s. All that was needed was for Rab Nessbit and his cronies ambling drunkenly into the room to put in an appearance waving the Saltier, and trying to remember the lines of 'Flower of Scotland'.

            

            On the evening the Scots lived up to their  English stereotype  - although, as I say, I only saw the highlights. I nevertheless saw one poor women emerging mentally bruised in front of the cameras and wondering what it had all been about. She had not understood, or learnt anything from her experience of the 'debate', such was the bellowing between debaters and audiences. It is difficult to understand some Scots even in a state of calm; but it is impossible to understand a bad tempered one.

            

             I am told that the audience was heavily weighted toward the YES campaign; although I doubt if the lack of such a bias would have made it any more endearing as a spectacle. Darling got the better of Salmond in the first debate, after which the YES campaigners were determined to silence him in the following one. I do not know, or even care, how the BBC selects its audience on these occasions; but if it is done via a questionnaire, then a lot of people were telling porky's.

            

             This fractious 'debate' has not endeared the English to the idea of keeping the Union. Indeed the English are left wondering whether they should not have had a say on this issue. For if the NO vote wins, then the English taxpayer would be subsidising the Scots through their taxes. The Scots, through devolution, now have the right to manage and finance much of their public sector, including the NHS – and if the vote goes with those seeking to retain the union, then Salmond would still win because we have promised the Scots even greater inducements as a reward for voting NO.

            

              One can imagine Salmond returning to the Independence vote in ten years time and if he suffers the same result, Scotland will accrue further powers as a reward, until independence arrives through perpetual referenda.

IF SCOTLAND CHOSE to go alone, then good luck to them. But the knot must be completely severed, tying Scotland to the rest of the UK, regarding the pound; and the three main party leaders this side of the boarders must stick by their decision to remove the Scots from the ambit of the pound; for I think Salmond is calling our bluff in the  expectation that when he wins and the English are given time to lick their wounds, our politicians will have second thoughts about Scotland keeping the pound under the protection of the Bank of England.

FREEDOM MEANS just that, and independence means freedom – total and absolute. If this is what the Scottish people want, then this is what they would have signed up to by their yes vote. The English would not tolerate any compromise that Mr Salmond thinks he can negotiate with the English parliament – the English are in no mood to be taken for suckers once again, after what they have had to put up from various European Union diktats, that now imposes on the UK's liberty as a nation state.

            

            No. If Scotland yearns for independence then they must know what it means; and I do not think that the Scottish audience tuning into last night's debate are any the wiser - so they should be careful for what they wish when they vote for Scottish independence.

           

            I believe in the Union. Britain is an island nation incorporating Scotland, a nation which has delivered a host of world renowned scientists, engineers, politicians, economists and novelists – and to use a phrase once used by the one-time British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Heard (in relation to the UK) Scotland has, throughout its history 'punched above its weight.' Scotland's contribution to Great Britain has been magnificent; and its cultural achievements in politics, philosophy, economics, science, and the arts, have spread throughout the world. The country has, often through persecution, forced its people abroad, to attain even greater success among those they settled among.

            

             This busily creative little beehive that is Scotland is to be admired by anyone who believes in civilisation, and who understands the bricks and mortar that go to make up such a civilisation…I wish Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

BUT, IF THE SCOTTISH people chose to turn their backs on us and seek to go it alone, then we members of what would be left of the Union must rearrange our lives calmly and collectively, at this historical moment in the United Kingdom's history.

            

            If the vote is YES, then the cut must be clean, and we in what is left of the UK must go about our business in the same way we do today and would have continued to do so if the NO vote had won. All talk of compromise must never enter the vocabulary of our English politicians. England, Wales, and Northern Island must manufacture their own destiny together.

            

            Scotland will become independent. As an independent nation it will have to find its own way forward. England will no longer owe the Scots any kind of support economically or politically – as they would not wish us to do.

            

            So, if the vote is YES, then farewell Scotland – it is sad to lose such a great friend and bulwark of the United Kingdom, but you have chosen your destiny, and, as with what is left of the rest of the UK, you must go it alone. But by wishing to become part of Europe, you will soon lose your national independence anyway.

            

            For if Alex Salmond seeks to become an EU member, then Scotland, as a nation state will be lost within a few decades of its very new-founded infancy. The future of the European Union is a federal union that seeks to rid itself of the nation states of Europe, including Scotland and England.

            

            European federalism is designed to usurp the nation states throughout Europe; something which no doubt Alex Salmond has not passed on to his Scottish Nationalist brethren, as he seeks an independent Scotland's entry into European Union.

            

             European federalism, or to use a more realistic term - a United States of Europe, is what the great Scottish Nationalist leader will be steering the Scottish nation toward if he wins. Scottish nationalism, like all European nationalism, will lay dead in the water. The future of Scotland will be exactly the same as that of England. If Scotland chooses the way of the European Union – then last nights debate and the whole referendum issue would have been superfluous. European federalism will ultimately triumph, to the determinant of the nation state.