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Monday 22 September 2014 - 09:14

London bribes victory but loses fight

By Finian Cunningham
Story Code : 411015
London bribes victory but loses fight
Sometimes you have to lose a battle or two before eventually winning the fight. London may have won the referendum battle on paper, through bribery and coercion, but in the long-run the final victory is on the side of the Scottish independents.
 
Because the pro-independence Scots are basically right in their analysis of what's wrong with the United Kingdom as a spent political entity. Thanks to their brave challenge to the existing UK, they have changed the terrain of British politics in a fundamental way. That in itself can be viewed as a victory, and time is on their side for even
greater victory.
 
First, the nationalist-majority Scottish parliament in Edinburgh can call another referendum in the future - especially when nearly half the electorate is already calling for independence from the UK. The current pro-independence campaign only got going less than three years ago. Yet, it has grown to encompass more than 45 per cent of the Scottish electorate. That mandate for change cannot be ignored now and certainly going forward.
 
As Salmond said after the referendum, "Let us not dwell on the distance we have fallen short, let us dwell on the distance we have travelled and have confidence the movement is abroad in Scotland that will take this nation forward, and we shall go forward as one nation."
 
Given the phenomenal growth in Scottish demand for separate nation status, just in the space of a few years, it is only a matter of time that they will be in a clear majority to eventually break away from the United Kingdom.
 
A second reason for why fundamental change is on the way is the pro-independent Scots have the winning arguments for necessary change. Those arguments will increase with relevance into the future. They want more decentralised political and economic power away from the traditional London seat of government. The Westminster establishment stands discredited for its doctrinaire policies of neoliberal favouritism to the wealthy elite, austerity for the majority and subservience to pro-US foreign policies, involving war and conquest.
 
The Westminster establishment includes the three main parties of Conservatives, Labor and Liberal Democrat. This "old guard" is discredited among a growing number of voters all across the United Kingdom, not just in Scotland. That's why the support for the main three parties in polls and elections are waning over decades, and why
nearly half the British electorate no longer bothers to even vote. There is nothing to vote for among these charlatans.
 
Scottish arguments for more equitable, accountable economic policies, thus, resonate with a larger constituency across Britain. The Scots want democratic control of their resources, jobs creation, industrial innovation, better public services, and free higher education and healthcare. They have rejected the relentless agenda of austerity for
the masses while the London government panders to criminal banks and the mega-rich, as well as throwing precious public money into overseas illegal wars.
 
The Scots want less militarism in foreign policy that squanders investment in social development. One of the central demands of the Scottish government is the removal of the multi-billion-dollar Trident nuclear submarine bases from its territorial waters. London imposed its only nuclear naval bases on the Scots, not the English. Without these imposed security restrictions, the Scots say they can develop proven oil reserves and offshore renewable energy sources of wind and wave energy, while also diversifying fishing and tourism businesses.
 
This is the kind of politics that embraces the real concerns of ordinary citizens. As Britain's establishment parties oversee more and more decline in British society from the yawning rich-poor gap, and from more reckless militarism, the kind of politics advocated by the Scottish pro-independents is bound to grow in popular appeal. That will place further strain on the existing United Kingdom from its congenital inability to offer any progressive solutions to the myriad problems it has created in the first place.
 
This reality of deep change is underway - despite the apparent No vote in the Scottish referendum against separation from the UK.
 
That is why the three Westminster parties moved in the final hour before the referendum to effectively bribe voters into voting No. The unprecedented intervention by British Prime Minster David Cameron to offer increased devolution powers to Scotland if it stayed within the Union most likely stole the result.
 
A week before the madcap dash to bribe, polls were showing the Yes campaign surging to take the lead. Then Cameron pulled out the stops and promised Scots with tax-raising powers and extra public spending funds. This, combined with a massive media campaign warning Scots of dire economic consequences if they voted for independence, had the desired effect of tipping the balance in favour of the No vote.
 
The British establishment thus rigged the referendum to save its skin. At the last hour, they changed the central referendum question from a choice between independence and the existing Union; to an entirely different question of choosing between independence and a Union with ramped up devolution powers. In other words, the goalposts were shifted. The result was not an endorsement of the Union; more an endorsement of a safer option for devolved power away from London.
 
This was tacitly confirmed by Downing Street as the result of the referendum emerged on Friday morning. British premier David Cameron said the new devolution powers would be invested in the Scottish parliament within months.  Cameron added, "So just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues on tax,
spending and welfare, so too England as well as Wales and Northern Ireland should be able to vote on these issues."
 
In order to win the Scottish referendum with a bribe, the London establishment is now in the invidious position of having to grant more powers to the other regions of the UK. This dynamic of devolution was set in train by the Scots independents, but now paradoxically is reinforced by London trying to avert the imminent break-up of the UK.
 
The Scots may have lost the battle for independence on this occasion. But their fight against autocratic London control is already a winning one in the long-run. The slow demise of the fundamentally undemocratic United Kingdom is inevitable. The Scots have exposed the weaknesses of the UK, not just to their own people but to many others elsewhere in the British regions and around the world.
 
Scots and other progressives are embracing the future; the British establishment and its creaky kingdom can only cling to a diminishing past.
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