Old Fear, Fresh Fear

‘Fresh fears over Scottish independence’ runs the headline in Common Space.

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.

Hot TTIP - Letter to Ed

Had an email from Ed Miliband. All about his £2.5 billion to save the NHS. Plus asking for money and my loyalty. Now how could I join the Labour Party after all they’ve done for to Scotland?

Ed  

Thanks for your email a week ago about joining the Labour Party and donating. I’ve been thinking…  

I watched the Party Conference with interest and the very significant announcement you mention in your email. £2.5 billion for the NHS! I’m a bit troubled, though.  

First of all, I wonder why this level of need wasn’t explored, or even mentioned, in the run-up to the Scottish Referendum. I’d have thought it was hugely important. After all, if the threat to the NHS, and I presume you mean the UK as a whole in these post-referendum days, is so great, failure to secure a £2.5 billion extra cash, or a proportion in England alone, would have had ramifications in Scotland as a result of Barnett consequentials. Why did you keep quiet? I can’t believe a politician with a social conscience would have stayed silent just for political gain.

Secondly, Labour sided with and eventually fronted the NO campaign in Scotland for the Tories. Why didn’t you put a coherent plan, a vision, before us? I waited two years to hear that and nothing emerged. Alistair Darling made much of a Plan B for currency in an independent Scotland. I suspect that was to knock down any answers he’d get. But Labour didn’t even have a Plan A. Not of your own. We had a poorly thought out pink Tory look-alike and so badly presented even the mainstream media rubbished it. Now you talk of austerity in the same vein as the Tories and support another ludicrous military adventure. HAs nothing changed? Have your roots shrivelled so much? No we have clear water at last on the NHS, but wait, there’s a problem with that.  

Thirdly, you have a £2.5 billion plan. Before we applaud the cavalry coming over the hill, lets consider. You may find that £2.5 billion lining the pockets of private US healthcare corporations. Not once did you talk about TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). You must know that’s on the horizon. Vince Cable is working on it now, in secret, I presume. The Tories have made it clear that the NHS must be part of the deal (other countries have removed healthcare from the negotiations). You must know TTIP sets out to deregulate trade between the EU and the USA and has implications for every regulation now in place, including workers’ rights, food safety, toxic chemicals, digital privacy. Expectations are that it could be finalised by the end of the year, Too late for the next election. Too late for the promises, even if kept, made to the Scottish electorate in the Vow.   

Why isn’t TTIP your top political priority? You said not a word at the conference, yet here's £2.5 billion to pay US corporations who, incidentally, will have the right to sue any successor government if their bottom line is threatened by democratic changes they introduce to limit this. 

Here are the references, if you’ve not been briefed:

• What is TTIP? | War on Want 

• John Hilary’s Paper on TTIP 

• Wikipedia  

• 38 Degrees Petition 

So, you see, I’m uneasy. You’ve just made a promise on the NHS you can’t keep unless you do something now. You’ve made a promise to the Scots you can’t keep for the same reasons. You got in bed with the Tories for what, political expediency, solidarity with the workers of the UK? I think the former, a political quickie and how they suckered you. I think you’ve lost your way, corrupted by the power you once had and so desperate for the fix, you’ll lie with the Tories, the City and turn your back on your roots.  

I can’t join you. I won’t give you money. I can’t support anything you do from here on. I’d say sorry but I’d not mean it. Actually, you should say sorry to a lot of people.  

Yours   

Ed(win)

Slack Water, Après Moi…

There's a feature of tides when the flood has reached its height, a moment, not of actual stillness but of turmoil. Slack water. Then the tide will begin to ebb…

In less than two weeks the flood that brought the referendum to its peak, nearly overflowing into independence, we've seen the same flood increase membership of the YES parties and a huge swell of undiminished commitment to a continuing YES movement.

In Westminster, slack water has been the word. In a chaotic aftermath, we've seen the Vow translated into the English question, hints that any new powers Scotland receives will be balanced by take-aways elsewhere, promises of another five years' of austerity, reductions in rights of protest (fracking), even hints that social media could be switched off to prevent uncontrolled coordination of dissent (Cameron said terrorism and criminality, but what's in a definition?). That came so thick and fast it surprised even me.


Meanwhile, Brown's timetable rumbles on, hardly spoken of. Behind closed doors. Britain goes to war again. Scotland is forgotten, even while the parties squabble between and within about it all.

And you have to wonder, is this the politics-as-usual I predicted a fews weeks ago? Is it politics-as-usual-PLUS? Using the turmoil to advantage, fuelling it, even, to set the agenda for the next step and keep most of it out of sight?

I think so.

I think they are waiting for the ebb to start. The huge political party sign-ups may be disconcerting but the old arrogance predicts it'll happen. They're waiting for it. On it depends the fudge which will be the Brown 'consultation'. Once the proposals for the Scottish settlement emerge (any minute now), the consultation begins. With whom? How? How long has it got? I can't see it being fully public, can you? No, it'll have a gloss of consultation but it will rely on the expected ebbing enthusiasm for concealment.

Image taken from the BBC. Here.

The consultation will be over by November. Go figure.

So the dynamics, post-ref. Why don't we all shut up? Why don't we accept the result? I've said elsewhere (as has Derek Bateman), you don't ask political parties to abandon their politics as a result of a defeat. The Scottish people have made a decision. 1.6 million still believe what they believed and are engaged enough to carry on. And besides, this is about the settlement we voted for collectively. This is about the deal for Scotland, as promised. We all have a stake in that, to see it's the best possible and not a half-baked fudge or a recipe for revenge after our sheer cheek to ask for something different.

So Westminster is waiting for the tide to go out. Hoping. It's true there's a period now where we look at strategies for the way ahead. We look for responses to the avalanche of pronouncements from the South and from our cohort of NO parties as they jockey for position.

I remember, and we all should, if the tide goes back, that's the way of things, and tides rise again. What Westminster needs to recall, is the further it falls, the greater the flood to come. Before the tsunami the shoreline lies bare, before the wave. Before the wave.