Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

18 September 2014

Today the 4.25 million registered voters of Scotland have the opportunity to vote in a referendum on whether they want to leave the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and transform Scotland into an independent sovereign state.

Those exercising their right to vote are being asked to answer “Yes” or “No” to this question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Scotland has been yoked to the United Kingdom since 1 May 1707 following the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707 passed, respectively, by the English and Scottish Parliaments.

Rather than go into the details of the arguments for or against independence, which have been chewed over ad nausem over the past few months of campaigning, we propose to list some of the prominent figures who have come out strongly against an independent Scotland.

They include:

Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, invader of Iraq and currently adviser to third world dictators.

Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister, who continued the neoliberal marketisation of the UK economy begun by Blair.

David Cameron, current UK Prime Minister and toff, who is forging ahead with the wholesale dismantlement of the UK public sector. Cameron has a personal interest in seeing off the independence movement as he will lose his job pronto if he becomes the UK Prime Minister who loses Scotland.

Edward Miliband, neoliberal leader of the UK Labour Party, who nominally opposes Cameron but in reality supports nearly everything he does. Miliband also has a personal interest in securing a vote of “No” to independence. Of the 59 Scottish MPs in the UK House of Commons, no fewer than 40 belong to the Labour Party. Without these MPs (who would  cease to exist if Scotland became independent), Miliband would have immense difficulty securing a majority in the Commons and so his craving for the job of UK Prime Minister would almost certainly be thwarted.

Nick Clegg, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat Party (in coalition with Cameron), a market fundamentalist.

Most of the UK and Scottish Press, including the purportedly left-leaning Guardian in London and the leading North Britain newspaper “The Scotsman”.

Leading banks and businesses, including supermarket chains. Banks have threatened to pull their headquarters out of Scotland in the event of a “Yes” vote,  supermarkets have warned that prices will rise.

Pop stars such as the supposedly liberal Bob Geldof (a citizen of the Irish Republic and hence having no right to vote in Scotland).

The Canadian Mark Carney, a former Goldman Sachs banker, who is currently Governor of the Bank of England, has publicly expressed doubts about the financial risks of independence.

The Queen of England, who just happens to be in Scotland on the day of the vote, is quoted as saying: “I hope people will think very carefully about the future.” This has been generally interpreted as a nod to the “No” camp.

The rightwing Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, who is scared stiff that the restive Catalan and Basque regions of Spain will seek independence if the Scots get it. Rajoy is quoted in the London Guardian today: “Everyone in Europe thinks that these processes are tremendously negative because they generate economic recessions and more poverty for everyone. [Scottish secession from the UK would be] a torpedo to the vulnerabilities of the European Union, which was created to integrate states, not to fragment them. Strong states are what’s needed today.”

Russia and China do not have a role in the Scottish referendum, of course, but they have always opposed splittist tendencies in existing states (such as Russia and China).

And, of course, the Empire itself is never backward in wading into the internal affairs of other states (whether it be Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt or, in this case, Scotland) with a view to controlling or, at least influencing, the outcome to suit the narrow self-regarding interests of the United States.

Thus, Bill Clinton, former US President, has not been slow in bestowing his blessing on the anti-independence camp.

Barack Obama, the current US President, has also intervened at the last minute in an appeal to Scottish voters to keep the UK “strong, robust and united”. This was doubtless partly done as a favour to his fellow war-mongering friend, David Cameron, Prime Minister of the most obedient of America’s satellite states.

We hardly need go on.

Basically, the elites of the world political, media and business establishment have lined up, as they invariably do, to support the status quo.

It is a no brainer, therefore, that for someone who wants a decent, just, honest and equitable society the best way to achieve this is to upset the establishment apple-cart and vote for independence.

Antigone1984:

Antigone1984 has always supported the underdog, the little man, small states, local politics and local production. Small independent states have the flexibility and freedom to decide what is best for their citizens in full knowledge of the local terrain. Unlike big states they are not enmeshed in a distant stultifying centralized bureaucracy (such as the European Union). The progressive way forward is encapsulated in the slogan “Small is beautiful”.

However, if we are asked to guess which way the vote will go, we tend towards the view that fear of the unknown, fanned by people such as those we have mentioned above, will prevail. We expect that a small majority of those voting today will opt for the devil they know and, too unconfident to venture out into the rocky waters of national sovereignty, will prefer to stay a subject nation sheltering under the coat-tails of mother England.

We hope we are wrong.

Technical note:

The “saltire” is the Scottish national flag, which consists of a white X-shaped cross on a blue background.

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 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)
2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)
3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)
4. Capitalism in practice (4 July 2012)
5. Ladder  (21 June 2012)
6.  A tale of two cities (1) (6 June 2012)
7. A tale of two cities (2) (7 June 2012)
8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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