Following it, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg warn, the Tories are putting the Union under strain and Scotland could still opt to leave in the not too distant future.
So Scotland is now a stick for LibDem hands to beat the government with. Well and good. It’s really the EU Brexit stick, of course, but now the Tories are thirled to the in-out referendum, they’re the ones about to bring the Union down about our ears.
As I say, well and good.
But then, the old pre-independence-referendum niggle resurfaces. Fresh fears? For that matter… Fears? Why does it matter if the Scots decide to throw their lot in with the EU, quit the Union and try to change the system from within? All the old Project Fear put-downs crowd in again. Wouldn’t they be well rid of us, as the put-downs always imply (too wee, too poor, too stupid)? In any case, this in-out business has more resonance across the rUK. So, fine, take the fight to the government but please don’t wring hands and worry about us Scots.
But it’s not worry, is it? Not for us. Not after all the years of NO monstering and political shoulder-to-shouldering. If there’s any worry, I ask myself, isn’t it because they have something to lose. It can’t be altruism that makes it so. In establishment circles austerity is still the mantra of choice (despite the latest dissention in Labour’s ranks). It’s hardly altruistic.
It brings me back to the question, not what have we got to lose by our foolish pursuit of independence, but what do they have to lose? That brings me back to the UK’s spiralling debt (still in a flat spin despite Osbornomics). That brings me back in turn to oil.
For all the yah-boo-sucks about how Scotland couldn’t stand on its own two feet with today's seriously reduced oil price, the truth is, even at this price, the UK can’t stand on it’s own two feet without it. Scotland is still a net contributor to the UK economy and our money is more needed than ever.
With that in mind, now deconstruct the papery promise they call the Scotland Bill. It’s not punishment, you know. That’s a by-product. Truth to tell, the real establishment goal is to favour anything that means Scotland can only spend or invest more only by putting up taxes. It's not about offering Scotland a fairer deal in the first place.
The same goes for the shelving of renewable subsidies. A successful renewables sector would make Scotland more economically buoyant, less likely to be forced to adopt unpopular tax regimes to its political detriment. Never mind if it has a knock-on effect for the UK economy. That’s an acceptable downside because the big hitters among the energy companies and financiers aren’t into renewables. The returns are in conventional generation or, Osborne's favourite, nuclear.
So, you see, the fears are far from fresh. They're just the same old establishment night-sweat rearing its ugly head again. What’s more telling, the YES analysis hasn’t even been looked at by these former ministers. Or any ministers, for that matter. It’s as if 56 SNP MPs in Westminster are just an aberration, as if the tide must surely ebb on all the Union’s misfortunes, back to same-as-it-ever-was. Their intransigence is a blind belief that politics-as-usual is still the only game. So they go on playing it.
For them, YES is just a blip, hiss on the tape. Never mind all the commentators who say austerity is wrong, sabre-rattling global conflicts are wrong, flooding the world with refugees while their homes burn behind them is wrong, making money regardless while the climate collapses is wrong. No, the elite and their cronies just breenge on. They’re saving for their future never saving the future. They're putting by for a rainy day, ignoring the kind of rain their present actions will bring down.
They really, really just don’t get it.
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