The referendum the people refused to love
Monday, 30 November 2009
So finally we have the defining moment of the SNP's 4 years as Scotlands Government as Mike Russell has published the white paper on a referendum on Scottish Independence. As I've said before I've got no problem with a referendum if parties who say in their manifesto they will support a referendum win a majority and my only conditions are the timing and the question.
But of course there is no majority and this is just a case of playing politics. When there was no majority for the Local Income Tax John Swinney declared:
"We cannot put together a stable majority to enable us successfully to steer detailed local income tax legislation through this parliament"
So the question is what has happened since? After all more business leaders have attacked the holding of the referendum and as teacher numbers are falling to add to the list of broken promises of the Scottish Government the First Minister is politically intelligent enough to know that the claim that he is playing politics with his pet project while Scotland suffers is far more damaging than any claim of other parties not believing in democracy and that he is looking increasingly ridiculous as the questions for the referendum increase as Ian Macwhirter says..
The real reason is that Alex Salmond cannot face his activists without proposing a referendum, this is the equivalent of our 1983 manifesto when you know the people don't want it but you are powerless to do anything about it.
And the FM has reason to be scared of his members. After all there was a new poll showing support for Independence at the low of 20%. As I've said before the polls show that the longer they are in Government the lower the support for Independence gets and now those who want a referendum now has fallen to 25%, or 1 in 4 people.
And you have to think what that means to SNP activists whose entire raison d'être in politics is to achieve Independence. They must have thought that a first ever SNP Government would be the start to finally achieving their goal but eventually it is bound to dawn on them that being in Government is having the opposite affect.
Far from delivering Independence, having Alex Salmond in Bute House appears to have solidified support for the United Kingdom and when SNP activists realise this they are bound to ask what the point of having the SNP in Government is and what the point of having Salmond as leader is.
And that is why we are seeing this bill published today.
On a separate point ever since the Scottish Government slashed the Glasgow Airport Rail Link they have said that Labour need to say what they would cut to fund it. Yet the referendum has not been budgeted for so surely it's fair to ask what the SNP would cut to fund it?
Oh, and as a proud Scottish patriot, happy St Andrews day!
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9 comments:
There is a real direct link between how the economy is doing and how people will look at constitutional change. The SNP promised they would bring forward propsals for a referendum just like they promised to bring forward a proposal for a local income tax.
In the case of the LIT Labour and the Conservatives said NO and the Liberals dithered. But that will come back to punish them as we still have the hated council tax which has only down to the SNP not continued to increase each year over inflation. There are no real possibilities on the board from anyone about a suitable alternative and that will punish Labour,Conservatives and the Liberals come Scottish parliement election time.
The Unionist parties will vote the referendum down that is almost a given. They will stop Scotland from making the choice. They will have to accept that will be used against them. The Economy will get better and as with the Alcohol bill just saying no gets people popping out of the woodwork who are not natural SNP supporters to rail against the Unionist parties.
The current status of devolution cannot stand it has enemies everywhere and a parliament that has no control over how it raises the money it spends is ridiculous. Calman proposals are convoluted stupidity where its Tax powers are unlikely to help Scotland become more effective economically.
I've got no problem with a referendum if parties who say in their manifesto they will support a referendum win a majority
Yousuf what I find totally duplicitous about Labour at the moment is that you guys bang on about "broken promises" from our manifesto when you know full well that our minority government is being blocked in Parliament by your "oppose for oppositions sake" drone MSPs!
So basically you are saying that you will hold us responsible despite being unable to progress bills because we're a minority - yet you will only accept us taking through contentious issues with a majority... A bizarre and inherently dishonest position.
And do you want Palistan to be part of Britain again
Ecery other country is Independent why not Scotland
It's a fair point about the voters punishing parties who voted down LiT but why not let the same thing happen with the referendum?
Chris LiT is not a broken promise just a rubbish one and if they abandon the referendum then it will be in the same category
Yousuf
I seem to recall there were two party proposing referendums after the Westminster and Holyrood elections.
One is a minority government based in Scotland who are trying to fulfill their manifesto commitments but do not have the arithmetic to succeed at the moment.
The other is in government at Westminster who have the arithmetic but appear to think that manifesto commitments count for nothing.
Independence if now inevitable all we are doing now is discussing the timing.
What is the problem with having a referendum on independence.The vote will be no and we can get on with improving devolution within UK.
V Macvean
Scotland must have the only political parties in the world that do not want a referendum or vote that they think they are sure to win.
Why do you think that is?
Do you really think Murphy, Gray et al do not want to go on TV and gloat?
The only question is what are they frightened off?
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