Scottish Secession Bid Has Lit A Fire That Cannot Be Put Out

Walking my dog in this grey Glasgow morning I could see the saltires still limply dangling from the tenement windows. A few hours earlier the result of the much followed Scottish independence result was confirmed 44.7% voted yes and 55.3% voted no. The mood is very different this morning from the palpable excitement you could feel in the air in Glasgow the day before. Independence may now be off the table for the time being but it's hard not to feel like a fire has been lit.

Over the course of this long campaign I have been very critical in podcasts and articles about how independence was being packaged. I constantly argued that remaining within the European Union (EU), retaining the pound and being tied to the Bank of England and to a lesser extent keeping the monarchy made it for me not really independence, rather just some more power for Scotland while keeping the real power structure in place. After all, what good is being independent from the rest of the UK only to find Scotland just another state in an EU superstate with government based in Brussels?
 

Like every other campaign this one was riddled with lies ranging from “Vote no or there will be border guards on the border with England” to “The only way to stop the NHS from being privatised is to vote yes”. But that was to be expected, we are dealing with politicians after all. There was also many, many people making their decision based on emotion rather than critical thinking. Again, something we should expect.
 

But these criticisms aside I have to say that this debate really seemed to awaken something in the often apathetic Scottish people. I was involved with the Scottish National Party (SNP) just less than ten years ago and at that time the idea that the SNP would get into power in Scotland was a bit far-fetched and the idea of a Scottish independence referendum seemed like pure fantasy. Even when the campaigning started two years ago it seemed like the no campaign would just easily skate their way to victory. That is not what happened. Glasgow has been so transformed over the last few months, I have never seen such a level of debate and engagement in a political issue in my lifetime and that can only be a good thing.
 

The question of independence may be settled in the minds of certain politicians but it certainly is not in the minds of a huge section of the population. It's hard to see people who voted yes turning back to the three Westminster parties (Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats) in upcoming elections because they are traitors now in the minds of many people. It is equally hard to see no voters ever voting for the SNP again (many people in 2011 voted SNP but disagreed with independence and many didn't even think the referendum would happen) because I seriously doubt they ever want to go through another one of these stressful and nail biting referendums.
 

So what does this mean for the future? Well it really is anyone's guess at this point. One thing is very true, people who had no interest in politics and political theory whatsoever have been educating themselves and we all know that you cannot unlearn something. The other thing is that sixteen and seventeen-year-old's were allowed to vote for the first time and from my experience many of them were voting yes and have as such been part of an exciting political debate for the first time. We have definitely had a moderate shift in conciousness in this country and that is exciting. Don't get me wrong, most people are still socialist to varying degrees, but that's not what's important. People are talking about secession and localisation now in a way they were not before, this debate has stirred something that was lying dormant in many people and not just in Scotland, secession movements all over the world from Catalonia to Texas have been inspired by this referendum and you would make a huge mistake to assume that that feeling is just going to go away. There will be other secession movements and they will start to succeed and that terrifies the elite classes.

 

Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News - http://www.greeningoutpodcast.co.uk

The Westminster Leaders Don't Want to Save The Union – They Want To Save Their Jobs

I, like many Scots while watching the coverage of the independence referendum have been nauseated by the sight of the three identical Westminster party leaders traipsing up north to come and convince us rebellious Jocks that they are really in love with the United Kingdom and they would love nothing more for us all to live in harmony as one big UK family. However, one only has to analyse the situations of these men to realise that they are only interested in saving the union because that's the only way to save their jobs...and their parties. They are not in Scotland campaigning out of love but out of fear. Let's start with the Ed Miliband and the Labour party.

No-one really knows what the Labour party are for anymore. Many on the left see them (and quite rightly so) as the once-socialist party who have spent the last few decades betraying the working class. After the Thatcher-era the Tories became irrelevant in Scotland and Labour cleaned up so to speak. But something quite strange happened in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections. The parliament was set up in such a way that it seemed impossible to achieve a majority but somehow the SNP did just that. For me that was the point that Scots simply became sick of the Labour party. At that time the SNP presented a positive vision for Scotland that the Labour party could not match and people left them in their droves to find something different. While this was a major setback the Labour elite in London still knew that the Scots would vote for them in general elections out of fear that the Tories would get into power.
 

But now the game has changed dramatically. Scottish Labour's first catastrophic error was letting their hatred of the SNP and the influence of their Westminster bosses cloud their judgement in terms of coming out against Scottish independence. Rather than being seen as brave defenders of the union they are now viewed by many to be simply poodles for their Westminster handlers. So now we have the spectacle of Ed Miliband and all his Labour pals vigorously defending the union – they are in so deep now that they simply have to. Imagine that Scotland votes yes on the 18^th and (as many are predicting) it's a narrow victory, well then a huge portion of the population are not going to vote for the Labour party because they will hold them responsible for selling the Scots out. If the Scottish Labour party had come out as being pro-independence from the start then I believe we would be now looking at a landslide victory for the yes campaign and as such they would be in a position to wrestle power from the SNP in an election. But this is not the case.
 

So why should Ed care? Well, without the votes from Scotland the Labour party will struggle to win any UK-wide general election and as such it looks like they would be out of power for some time (if not indefinitely) if Scotland secedes from the UK. But don't think that means that life is rosy for David Cameron, far from it.
 

I have met practically no-one who believes one word that comes out of David Cameron's mouth much less his 'heartfelt' pleas to save the union. To understand why Cameron cares so much about a country who cares so little about his party we must turn to UKIP and more specifically Nigel Farage.
 

Nigel Farage is not a stupid man, far from it. Despite UKIP not being part of the “Better Together” campaign he has been in Scotland sticking his oar in. Now, he knows that he is not well liked (and in many cases detested) in Scotland, however he carries on. You may think “why bother?” but it's perfectly simple. I believe that he knows that his presence will help the yes campaign because many undecided Scots who dislike him will look at him campaigning and will be immediately drawn to voting yes. And this is what will benefit Farage. Here's why – if Scotland goes independent then it is no great loss to UKIP (they only have one European Member of Parliament (MEP) in Scotland and that is it) because without the fear of the Labour party getting into power in England (backed by Scottish votes) then actual conservatives in England will feel less obliged to vote for the Tories to keep Labour out. So with the fear taken away where might they go....hmmm...it's a tough one right enough...to...UKIP? Maybe? Of course they will. They will not pass go and not collect £200 and I think Farage is savvy enough to know this and David Cameron is terrified. Not only will he be the prime minister that lost the union but he could also be in charge when the Tories finally capitulate to the growing power of UKIP – a disaster.
 

As for Nick Clegg, well he's just following his pal Cameron around at this point, he is a man who has so compromised any principles he may once have had for a small slice of power and as such he is not worth even caring about. Sorry Nick but it is all your own fault after all.

So what have we learned? Well, the “Better Together” campaign is fear all over. They scaremonger because they have no positive vision and their leaders are only up here 'fighting' for the union because they are also scared that their parties will crumble to the new political powers that are emerging. People all over the UK are sick of the pass-the-parcel nonsense between these two parties who only have minute differences in policy. They are dinosaurs and they are dying out and guess what? Most people are happy about that.
 

I am a libertarian and as such I do not want to be part of the EU or the Bank of England and I am no fan of the SNP's socialist policies. However, I feel that the quicker Scotland divorces itself from these Westminster elites the better. They do no care about us, they are simply covering their own arses and more and more of the Scottish people can see through their lies. So I will vote yes on the 18^th but not out of fear but out of hope for a truly free Scotland – one day.

To Achieve True Freedom We Must Let Scottish Socialism Fail

During this whole farce of a Scottish 'independence' debate I have been very upset by many people I know on the left and right of the mainstream political spectrum compromise their beliefs and abandon all reason and logic in favour of emotional, nationalistic and fantasy arguments. It seems that when people (such as myself) want to put forward a case based on logic and economic reality we are shut down because we're ruining delusion for the masses. The only way I see true independence being achieved in Scotland is if we first let this socialist nightmare that is the yes camp fail. I will take some examples and explain.

In my article “Scottish Independence: What It Is and What It Isn't” I detailed that calling what the yes camp are shouting about 'independence' is at best economic ignorance and at worst flat out lies and manipulation. In that article I explained that keeping the power structure in place (the EU, the Bank of England and the monarchy) cannot be called independence. So I won't dwell on those points, important as they are. What has been bothering me is the rampant socialism and nationalism of the yes camp (hint: those two things don't go well together). So what am I actually taking about? Let me throw some examples your way (and please read this using logic and not emotion or simply don't bother).
 

Yes people seem to want the disaster that is the NHS enshrined in some kind of constitution so we can continue to have our money stolen by the government through taxation to fund a crumbling Soviet-style health system. Now in my article “A Scottish Constitution Will Not Make Us Free” I explained how constitutions are not worth the paper they are written on anyway (ask most mainstream US politicians or anyone who lived in the Soviet Union or currently lives in North Korea – all have or had written constitutions) but that's not the issue, the issue is that we would have much better healthcare if we abolished the NHS, or made it voluntary (for more detail on the NHS see my article "Time For A Voluntary NHS?") and the British Medical Association and we actually opened up the market. That statement is dynamite in Scotland right now but only to people who have never genuinely looked into the economics of healthcare. The NHS will crumble eventually.
 

But that's one point (albeit a big one) but it's not just the NHS. All yes campaign literature is packed full of talk of 'social justice' (whatever that means, usually that more money will be stolen from people who actually work to pay those who don't) and government hand-outs. What is talked about less is the fact that the Scottish National Party (SNP) will have to flood Scotland with immigrants to pay for the ageing population and all this damn spending. I personally am not against individual immigration what I am against is massive amounts of people descending on a city and causing social tensions (as I have witnessed in Glasgow) that will only get worse as more immigrants flood the city and put strains on the public services the yes people are so adamant they want to protect. Now, when a statement like that is made people automatically just shout “racist!” to shut you up. But that is not an argument and to anyone who listens to me for five minutes it is obvious that I am not racist in the slightest. But this has become a new tactic of the left in Scotland. Look at when Nigel Farage came to Scotland and was subject to abuse by leftist thugs. I'm no Farage fan but if he is such an idiot as the left claim then why couldn't they let him speak, surely then he would make an arse of himself and no-one would take him seriously? They must have been scared of what he might say to take the extreme step of shutting him down so aggressively (socialists denying people free speech, where have I heard that before...)
 

I know I have railed in podcasts and articles about the evils of central banking but this is worth revisiting. The yes camp want massive government spending in Scotland but bizarrely want to be subject to the Bank of England. I wonder if they know that the reason we have government debt that our children will inherit is because of fractional reserve banking. This currency issue would be solved if the yes folks thought about a Scottish currency backed by say gold or even competing currencies. Even if they decided to follow a debt-free government issued currency model like Abraham Lincoln's “greenback” notes that would be vastly better (although I don't recommend it personally). But no, the yes folks want to go on and on about keeping the pound as it is and basically condemning every person, their children and grandchildren to continue this farce of government debt caused by privately owned central banks (such as the Bank of England) to roll on for generations.

Another point I have only touched on briefly in the past is the Royal mail issue. The Communication Workers Union put out a good booklet explaining why re-nationalising Royal Mail can't work. There are a few reasons for this (despite the fact that nationalised industries don't perform as well as private ones). For example the universal service would be harder to keep in Scotland alone because of it's higher level of rural and hard to reach areas (this would also affect the Post Office network for the same reasons). Also an independent Scotland's proportion of Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities that are currently held by the UK government would have to be determined. A new Scottish postal regulator (such as they want to introduce) would be an additional cost to taxpayers. We don't know what would happen to shares owned currently by Royal Mail employees either. Where will this socialistic plan of nationalising Royal mail end? With many staff being laid off and a worse service for the public. And I thought the left were supposed to support the workers?

But this is all part of a common trend in Scotland. Scotland has developed into a terrifyingly state-dependent society that spends more on benefits per head of the population than anywhere else in the UK. Thinking people know that socialistic policies can't work long term because of the fact that state-planning has been shown up for what it is – ineffective nonsense. Any serious economist will tell you that price is determined in the market and no matter how much you say “No, no, no, we'll ignore economics and build a tartan utopia.” It will simply not change the facts.
 

Socialism has been shown in the 20^th century to be what it is – a dead end. If Scotland goes independent and these damaging socialistic policies are enacted then we must learn from history. Maybe it'll take twenty years but like the Soviet Union it will fall apart eventually. Every country with large welfare states and socialist healthcare will fall apart when they can no longer be propped up.
 

But I'm not in some kind of violent depression about this (despite what you may think) because I've come to realise that no amount of talking, writing and podcasting is not going to get this into people's heads. Unlike the people who have compromised their philosophical beliefs over this issue and have as such discredited themselves from philosophical debate for life I don't think short term. Like the elites in the world (the Fabians and the round table groups etc.) I have started to think long term. The only way we can move towards a truly free society is if we let Scottish socialism be enacted and wait till it crumbles and the people (red delusions completely removed) wake up and realise that socialism makes no one free, helps only the politicians and their corporate buddies and only serves to infantilize the population at large. In my view only then when this tartan socialism has been discredited will people turn their eyes towards true freedom and independence and only then will Scotland prosper.

 

Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News

http://www.greeningoutpodcast.co.uk