Scottish Independence

[Valmy]

Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

The English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

[The Minsky Moment]

How would we have an idea before the vote? If there was a plan it would mean the unionists have already conceded defeat.

I mean: I haven't heard a clear aspirational plan from the Yes forces other than a rather breezy assumption that sterling will be taken up without much difficulty or impact.

[Sheilbh]

Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

Exactly

The English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

Exactly. It's changing now (but too late) but the only people who used to wave the English flag (absent a football tournament) were the National Front, right-wing builders and the English Defence League. Similarly celebrating St George's Day, now people are trying to revive St George's Day but, to me, it feels like an Olde English Pub.

At least St David's Day and Burns Night have some heritage and heft behind them.

I mean: I haven't heard a clear aspirational plan from the Yes forces other than a rather breezy assumption that sterling will be taken up without much difficulty or impact.

Their proposal's here:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00414291.pdf

They've said they'll be trying to negotiate currency union with the Sterling zone and input into the BofE. That seems unlikely given the BofE and the English government's likely opposition. The real sleight of hand is that Salmond has basically managed to convince enough people to either not worry about it, or that Sterlingisation's basically the same as currency union.

As I say there's at least one right-wing think tank that's actively arguing for Sterlingisation.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally reports of another poll showing the same trend and a yes majority.

Miliband has called on Scots to vote on the basis of class consciousness not national consciousness giving a hopeful reprise to the Second International. And probably one as ineffective as the last.

Gordon Brown's out prowling round Scotland (where he is more popular, but not universally adored) detailing the new powers Labour will act to give the Scottish Parliament.

George Galloway is, and I never thought I'd say this, rather brilliantly out there campaigning for the union among the leftie Labour voters who are this campaigns swing voters. So Godspeed to him.

[mongers]

Incidentally reports of another poll showing the same trend and a yes majority.

Miliband has called on Scots to vote on the basis of class consciousness not national consciousness giving a hopeful reprise to the Second International. And probably one as ineffective as the last.

Gordon Brown's out prowling round Scotland (where he is more popular, but not universally adored) detailing the new powers Labour will act to give the Scottish Parliament.

George Galloway is, and I never thought I'd say this, rather brilliantly out there campaigning for the union among the leftie Labour voters who are this campaigns swing voters. So Godspeed to him.

Really.

I don't doubt you accuracy of your assessment, maybe its just the epic ego at play,thinking he can single-handedly save the day?

[Sheilbh]

Yes, this is crucial.
To say this vote is about Scottish independence is not really correct because Scotland intends immediately to join the EU.  So it is really trading off being a significant region in a big EU state to be a small EU state.  As a practical matter, this means Scotland will have little influence on certain key external policies and on significant regulatory matters.  It will have control over certain internal matters like health and education, but it already has that anyways.

Just to come back to this, I don't think it's entirely clear what would happen - historically only the 1964 and 1974 elections would've gone a different way without Scotland.

More generally my feeling is that we're facing a while when English and British politics will be very uncertain. Right now we've got the referendum, but in about a month UKIP will probably have their first MP and the Tories will enjoy their ritual self-immolation over Europe.

I couldn't guess who'll be PM after the next election, or the result of an EU referendum, or whether we're likely to see majority rule in the Commons as a norm again. I think there's arguments within all major parties (the Economist describes it as communitarians vs cosmopolitans, Blair as those open to the world and those who aren't) and I don't know which way they'll end up going. This may be wrong and a bad prediction, but at the minute it feels like we're entering a period of uncertainty and instability in British politics - like those fifty years or so when the Irish Party rose and fell, the Labour Party emerged and the Liberals started their terminal decline.

[Sheilbh]

Really.

I don't doubt you accuracy of your assessment, maybe its just the epic ego at play,thinking he can single-handedly save the day?

Yep and I think it's his convictions

From last year:

George Galloway's one-man mission to save the Union


'If you're not afraid, you should be' — Galloway's tub-thumping makes the government's campaign look like a pussy cat
138 Comments 16 November 2013 Alex Massie 
(Photo: Getty)


George Galloway is unhappy. One of his interlocutors on Twitter has told him to 'Fuck off back to England'. Gorgeous George is in Glasgow for the first in a series of roadshows in which he sets out his case for Scotland remaining part of the Union and he's not going anywhere. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not even to England.

This will disappoint his many critics. But Galloway has a new, higher calling: saving whatever remains of the British left. To do that he must first save Britain. Which means persuading his fellow Scots they should remain a part of the United Kingdom. Like a latter-day Othello, he loves us not wisely but too well.

'If I thought Scottish Labour leaders were capable of persuading people to vote no, I wouldn't need to be here,' he bellows. Here in Glasgow's City Halls and nearly 500 souls have paid £12 (plus booking fees) to hear a fedora-sporting Galloway make his case for the Union. If few politicians could command this kind of audience at that kind of price, it still occurs to me that Preacher Galloway is needlessly limiting the size of his flock. Be that as it may, 'Alistair Darling is a nice fellow but he's no one's idea of a leader.'

Time for George, then. In one respect Galloway has a point. The battle for the Union is, in reality, a battle for the hearts and minds of Labour Scotland. These are the voters upon whom the result of the independence referendum will hinge. Many of Tommy Sheridan's former colleagues in the Scottish Socialist party are part of the yes movement; this week Sir Charles Gray, the former Labour leader of Strathclyde Regional Council, announced he will vote for independence. If the Labour vote can be split, the yes campaign may win.

So George Galloway is David Cameron's friend in this fight. Perhaps even Cameron's 'useful idiot'. Not that Galloway is a Unionist. 'My flag is red,' he says, which is why independence is an act of betrayal. Worse, it is a proclamation of false consciousness. A factory worker in Coatbridge has more in common with a factory worker in Consett than either does with their bosses. Class still matters more than bloodlines or borders.

And anyway, if you think a Cuba-on-the-Clyde can be built you are deluding yourself (reader, I confess I found this reassuring). Independence means permanent Tory rule in England. (Not true, but that needn't detain us.) A low-tax, low-regulation, low-public-spending England will force Scotland to follow suit in a 'race to the bottom'. Otherwise what business will stay in Scotland? Here too, I found myself wishing Galloway's prognosis of neoliberal doom might actually -happen.

Socialism in one small Tartan country is impossible. Of course Scotland would not 'be a Burundi or a Bangladesh' after independence. But: 'You need a critical mass of people to stand up to the vicissitudes of global capitalism. Do you really think Scotland is up for that? For being an Albania? For being a Cuba?' At this point I began to worry we might all be talking at cross-purposes. Besides, what kind of independence is really on offer? Scotland will still have a 'German queen' as head of state. It will still be part of Nato, still a member of the EU. Still, above all, keep the pound and be subject to the Bank of England's authority. If that's independence, George Galloway is a Zionist banana.

But George isn't afraid to bring a knife to a public meeting, even his own public meeting. No Roman Catholic should vote for independence, he suggests. Catholics would become scapegoats for Scottish failure. He insists an independent Scotland would be an Orange Scotland. 'If you're not afraid of that, you should be.' He hints that pogroms and perhaps even ethnic cleansing might follow.

Since the Scottish Labour vote will decide the United Kingdom's future, Galloway's old-time religion — however contradictory or barmy it may seem — is a useful, if necessarily disreputable, adjunct to the official Unionist campaign. It is a reminder that for all nationalists complain about Unionist 'scaremongering', the official campaign is a pussy-cat when compared to Gorgeous George's approach.

Perhaps a third of those who have paid to hear two hours of Galloway's tub-thumping rhetoric seem minded to vote for independence. When Galloway suggested, 'Britain is a big ship, rusting and listing but still a big ship. Getting onto a small boat on the stormy seas of globalised capitalism seems like a bad idea. I'll stay on the big ship', many of his comrades seemed ready to abandon George to his fate.

Of course, he may yet abandon us too. It was interesting to hear Galloway talk of 'you' when he might have used 'us'. But then, as he grinned, 'You can still back me to be the next Mayor of London at 20/1.'

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 16 November 2013

[mongers]

Really.

I don't doubt you accuracy of your assessment, maybe its just the epic ego at play,thinking he can single-handedly save the day?

Yep and I think it's his convictions

Sad really that such a great talent as been so squandered.

He could have become a powerful champion for the poor and downtrodden, something so need in the later half of the thatcherism era.

[merithyn]

BB I would contend there is more in common culturally between an Oregonian and an Alabaman than between you and me.

En commencant par la langue.

I'm not sure that I agree with that. If you've been to the south, you know that they often do speak a very different language. My first cousin lives in Louisiana, and it's not uncommon for us to have a very different way of expressing the same thoughts and concerns. In addition, their culture is so different that there are topics that we just cannot discuss.

Communication isn't just the language. It's often far more than that.

[Josquius]

Culture is a lot more than language. Hence Britain tending to have more in common with Europe than the us

in the uk though it's a misconception that Scotland and England are so radically different  IMO. The dividing line lies far more in the north/south divide in England. A man from Edinburgh  probably has more in cook with someone from York than he does a highlands farmer

[Zoupa]

BB I would contend there is more in common culturally between an Oregonian and an Alabaman than between you and me.

En commencant par la langue.

I'm not sure that I agree with that. If you've been to the south, you know that they often do speak a very different language. My first cousin lives in Louisiana, and it's not uncommon for us to have a very different way of expressing the same thoughts and concerns. In addition, their culture is so different that there are topics that we just cannot discuss.

Communication isn't just the language. It's often far more than that.

You're kind of proving my point.

[Viking]

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Scotland did vote, The scottish parliament and the english parliament negotiated the union agreement. There was a dynastic union, but the united kingdom is a union of two parliaments.

[jimmy olsen]

Scotland will simply be dominated by the financial, buisness and political interests of London without any regards to Scottish opinion if this goes through. Scotland will be an English colony in all but name. Could this be the most self defeating seccession of all time?

[Viking]

Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

The English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

Basically English Patriotism was way-layed by racists and they adopted it's symbols such as the flag. That's why he feels uneasy when he sees his national symbols. There has been a concious effort to re-claim these symbols but for people born before a certain date the flag wil always be associated with soccer hooligans and english neo-nazis.

[Tamas]

A low-tax, low-regulation, low-public-spending England

ok let Scotland go!