Tuesday 16 June 2015

How now Brown's Vow?

Fluffy Mundell says 'No' to FFA so that is it according to Westminster and its tame UK media machine, 'No means, No! You stupid sweaty jocks because I say so.' This being from a politician who held onto his seat by less than 800 votes and is Scotland's only elected Tory. Labour's sole Scottish representative abstains and the amendment to ensure Brown's Vow is met is thrown into the long grass with barely a mention from a UK media more interested in Kay Burley's latest load of old bollocks than a vote which will end the Union far sooner than most of us can predict.

You know this is a disaster for the Union when even Jim Murphy calls Tory policy on Scotland suicidal, leading to the end of the Union with increasing certainty. In my local paper the Tory constituency MSP is talking about the need for a federal solution to keep the UK intact. I wonder how he is feeling a week later, now he knows Mundell has probably written his death warrant for May 2016's Holyrood elections by rejecting the fundamental basis for Scotland to control its taxation and spending as part of a federal system.

A quick survey of my Facebook feed on this issue demonstrates a lot of Scottish anger and calls for Scotland to declare UDI, walk away from this benighted Union and take the consequences, what ever they might be, because they can be no worse than the continuing siphoning of Scotland's wealth into London and the SE of England's ever greedier maw.

The irony is not lost on me that all the Daily Heil and Torygraph writers whining on Scotland becoming a one party state, the Nazi jibes and all the rest of their ignorant and bigoted diatribes are failing to comprehend the self same jibes are exactly what is driving the SNP vote share ever upwards in Scotland. Mone the moan does not represent the thinking in Scotland over the future of the Union anymore than Fluffy Mundell's attempts at being Scotland's Viceroy and stopping the SNP do. The Bain principle is Westminster's Achilles heel, yet still they thole to it at every turn - SNP bad ... must stop the SNP!

I wonder how the 15% of Scots who say they want a new federal arrangement in the Union but voted 'No' last September are justifying their vote to themselves, as Westminster rejects their core desire for a new Union of federated nation states, a desire which has been unceremoniously binned by a party with one MP and 14% of the vote in Scotland. In any analysis of political power this truly represents a democratic deficit of staggering proportions.

In the meantime Labour should hang their heads in shame, too scared to admit they are as good as a rump party in Scotland with no new ideas, policies or stomach to meet the Scottish electorates' wish for a different UK settlement, as their abstention on the SNP amendment demonstrates.

How much longer can the STUC justify spending their members money supporting Labour's 'Scotch' branch which no longer represents the self same membership's wishes for Scotland?

How long can the big UK Unions prevent their Scottish branches breaking away to become autonomous Scottish Unions, in the light of Labour's failure in Scotland and the growth of the SNP's Trade Union Branch?


By May 2016 the SNP may well have a popular mandate to take Scotland out of the Union, without the need of a second referendum and Ms Sturgeon's wish to have such a referendum to give the SNP legitimacy will have been by-passed by history as the people of Scotland's, paramount, considered will on this issue is made very clear.

Mundell's arrogant 'No' has set rolling a political snowball which will inevitably grow in size, mass, speed and have more than enough political energy to remove Scotland from the Union, it is just he and Cameron have not realised this yet.

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