The MacMercozy

THERE SHOULD BE TWO referendums held in 2012. The first should be an in or out decision by the British people on whether our relationship with Europe should be abandoned now the euro crises has caused Europe’s great unelected to talk of speeding up political and monetary union, and burying the nation state - which is snobbishly regarded as a form of tribalism by the Brussels community of unelected pen-pushers and wanna-be statesmen and women.

                The other referendum should be on whether the Scottish people wish to remain part of the union that is the United Kingdom. Our politicians fear both challenges. They see all referendum as a particularly malignant strain of bacteria preventing them doing in governance what the British people never elected them to do.

                To our politicians the people’s involvement begins and ends every five years when  they vote in a general election. This, they feel, is quite sufficient for the great unwashed; even if they do not live up to what their manifestoes and election speeches promise in the heat of an election battle.

                We were promised a vote on the Lisbon Treaty by Cameron. But he knew that whatever happened by the time he came to power, it would already have been implemented. So he included, as a proviso, that such an implementation would negate his promise if it occurred before a general election. But, for a eurosceptic public, it won Cameron many votes from a population tired of Gordon Brown and his embittered premiership.

                So, politicians from all parties fear the dreaded word referendum. For it gives the people an opportunity to have an extra-curricular say on the way this country is governed by its leaders. In the case of Europe a referendum on whether we remain in or out, would cause epilepsy in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whose civil servants sadly, still instruct the behaviour of prime ministers; despite Thatcher’s attempts at detaching them from their foreign bias that they sought historically to influence government with.

SCOTLAND, HOWEVER, is a different kettle of fish. It is up to the Scottish people to decide their particular fate. Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmon has promised his people a vote on the Union at some time during this parliament.

                It is believed that Scotland’s First Minister prefers 2014, which is the 700^th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, a Scottish victory over England which of course Scotland’s First Minister has had wet dreams about all of his life (as have all Scottish Nationalists), and he is determined to celebrate it with a vote for Scottish nationhood in 2014.

                David Cameron, on the other hand, has determined through legal advice, that Alex Salmon’s referendum vote would be illegal; and that only a British prime minister can order such a referendum to take place – as with our withdrawal from America in the  18^th century, such appeals to legal legitimacy matters little if the people themselves give their support to, in this case, Scottish Nationalism.

                Salmon will nevertheless continue to give the Scottish people a vote at a time of his own choosing, and whatever we English say to the contrary, Salmon will, he believes hold the day. If he does and the question on the ballot paper holds no contestable content in terms of its overture to the Scottish people then all well and good -they deserve what they get, and I wish them well.

BUT SCOTTISH NATIONALISM, like Irish nationalism means very little. The Scottish people may celebrate their divorce from England, but  will Alex Salmon guarantee them their national sovereignty after his country removes itself from the union? I think not; for as part of the new United States of Europe, nationalism of any kind will be frowned upon by Europe under political and monetary union.

                Scotland as a nation, after its deliverance from the United Kingdom, will have to, sooner or later, sacrifice its nationhood; just as the Irish have had to forgo centuries of suffering in order to attain their own nationhood: only to see it subsumed in what I call the ‘Borg Collective’ of Europeanization.

                Cameron says that the vote should take place within the next 18 months and have a clear yes or no, in or out question on the ballot paper. He is right to ask for such conditions but not to demand them. Salmon, on the other hand wishes a third, water muddying question on the ballot paper, around the issue of further powers to the Scottish parliament short of independence.

                This third question, if proven the most popular of the three, allows the First Minister to continue in office, and his party continue the nationalist dream. Meanwhile, the new powers that the Scottish people would have voted for as compromise between having to make a yes or no decision; would represent, as far as the nationalists are concerned, a further salami slicing leading to full independence which began with devolution.

               

CONSTITUTIONALY, these next few years will decide the fate of the United Kingdom and the nation states existing within it. We will either remain a United Kingdom, only to have taken from us by political and monetary union. Or, the nationalist’s will win, and Scotland will have its new found independence taken away from it by political and monetary union.

                So, let us have these referenda as quickly as possible so we have control over our futures, whether in or out of Europe, or in or out of the UK.

                Our politicians must let the people of these isles vote on these two vital issues. Cameron is right when he says that delaying any vote on Scottish independence to a time to be decided at the First Minister’s convenience, will cause consternation among the business community, who, like the financial markets, fear uncertainty: and what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

                Having reminded the Scottish people what uncertainty means to the Scottish economy, Mr Cameron needs to take his own advice regarding the European Union and whether the British people wish to remain in or out.

                The British people want a vote on this issue, poll after poll tells the prime minister of his people’s desire for such a vote. He cannot teach lessons in democratic procedure to Scotland’s First Minister; yet remain stubbornly distrustful of his own people. If Scotland can have ballot on whether or not it chooses to remain part of the United Kingdom; then why cannot the British people as a whole, have the same opportunity to vote on whether we remain in Europe or not?