Decapitating the Union, Seceding from the United Kingdom
By Binoy Kampmark
It is a union that has lasted 307 years. On September 18,
Scotland goes to the polls to see whether it will secede from the United
Kingdom. The polls are getting closer, and shocks have been felt with
the suggestion that the Yes vote may well get across the line.
There is much going for the Yes group. Britain suffers the curse of
centrism. London is everything, and sees itself as everything. The
great, rebarbative weapon of the south, Margaret Thatcher, destroyed the
industrial, and consequently, Tory base. (In thanks, the north sports
only one conservative member.) University education is free for the
Scots, a feature that seems positively alien in public school mad
England. While the state is still seen as an instrument of social
responsibility, down south, it is an evil in need of winding back.
The nationalists claim that Scots will be richer to the tune of
£1,000 a year if they leave. This figure is not necessarily reliable –
like all such projections, they are subject to debt obligations,
productivity and the natural resource issue. North Sea oil is certainly
touted as the great patch up, but it can only ever be temporary.
For all of this, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP),
Alex Salmond, might finish strongly, even if he won’t get the vote he
wants. Salmond caught Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together
group, napping in their second television debate. No nonchalance there.
Just a roar for the independence cause. In the last leg of this
campaign, the pro-union campaigners are starting to sweat at the social
media barrage and street canvassing on the part of the Yes campaigners.