Arc of Prosperity

Scottish Independence within the EU – with a Scandinavian Slant

media

The rUK is already another country

Ninja rat parachuting
Ninja rat parachuting by Nic Price, on Flickr.
My dear wife and I used to read The Economist and Private Eye regularly, and we watched the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday mornings. Of course we were often annoyed by the way they handled Scottish news, but by and large the reason for doing so was enjoyment rather than masochism.

However, something has changed over the past couple of years. Of course the London-based media too frequently treat the independence referendum in an offensive and contemptuous manner, but that shouldn’t in itself make the rest of the programmes and publications irrelevant.

Nevertheless, I increasingly react to news from London in the same way as news from Sweden, Germany, Canada or any other foreign country that use a language I know, namely with three parts boredom because the issue at hand doesn’t seem relevant to me, two parts perplexity because they’re approaching an interesting subject from a bizarre angle, and one part anger because they’re ignoring something which would have been very relevant.

The way UKIP is being fêted in England is perhaps the best example of this, but there are countless examples from all policy areas.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the independence referendum campaign itself has already turned Scotland and the rUK into separate countries, simply because we have now been having very different national conversations for the past two years.

This is yet another reason why we need a Yes vote in September. I simply cannot see how the UK can feasibly become reunited after a No vote; in all likelihood, the divergence would continue growing until a second referendum became unavoidable, but the years between the two referendums would be such a waste of time.

If independence is a state of mind, Scotland is already there.

12 thoughts on “The rUK is already another country

  • If we are already other countries, it shows we can be without indy. We can function as other countries with devo, ideally with the further increased devo all sides now back, while we keep a citizenship union which is called the UK, as a facility to keep citizenship and living in our separate country automatically open to all the Scottish offspring who are born in exile in rUK.

    Reply
    • I don’t agree. We’re now two different countries stuck within the shell of a single one, and that’s disastrous. As I wrote, I think independence will definitely happen, it’s just a question of whether it’ll be sooner or later.

      I really don’t think it’s a very good argument for the union that the children and grandchildren of emigrants can feel they’re still citizens of the country their forebears left.

      Reply
  • I disagree that the housing bust and the credit crunch could not have been foreseen.

    “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
    Is it not ironic that Gordon Brown had a degree in History then?

    Is the current Westminster government trying to do anything about the out of control City mob who now operate the out of control casino markets? No, and they have no intentions of doing so.

    That, to me is the biggest reason to vote Yes, because as long as that is the situation, we are simply a pocket for them to pick.

    Reply
    • I don’t remember stating that the housing bust and the credit crunch could have been foreseen! 🙂

      Anyway, I do agree that the current Westminster government (and its predecessors over the past few decades) have hardly been great governments for anybody other than the millionaires of the City of London.

      However, what I was trying to express in this blog post was that even if the UK suddenly put in place a shiny new democratic constitution and a federal system (a bit like Germany or the US, perhaps), I think it’s now too late. Five years ago, such a solution could have saved the UK, but now we have moved on.

      Reply
  • Oh dear, sorry you don’t enjoy Private Eye any more, for me it’s a vital source of background info on the corruption of the British State and the cliques that control it. And it’s a good read…

    Reply
    • Yes, that’s indeed why I used to read it, but increasingly I now think “soon that won’t be the government of my country any more — phew!” I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Private Eye, just that they’re talking about stories that I can’t relate to any more.

      Reply

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