**This is a long one** Some of my thoughts on last night’s Referendum debate on BBC2: Anyone else notice Blair McDougall’s constant references to ‘Nationalists’? Not ‘yes voters’ or ‘yessers’ – but nationalists. Better Together have made nationalist an insult - the context in which they continually use it is meant as a put down, a jibe, a name that they can use to portray yes voters as emotional basket cases with only one mind-set. To Better Together Nationalist doesnt refer to someone who has pride in their country - it refers to someone who is an ethnic nationalist, they want undecided voters to think were xenophobic, anti-English and want independence even if it would be the worst thing that could ever happen to Scotland. This moniker, along with separatist (a term usually used in the media for the Basque Terrorists in Catalunya) is an attempt to demonise yes voters. The thing that annoyed me most was Danny Alexanders in the Lib-Dem manifesto for the 2015 GE ... seriously, does he think the Lib-Dems have any chance whatsoever of holding any power in Westminster? This bugs me about Labour too When were in charge, well do this none of them can agree to anything and theyre still playing party politics to try and secure votes for next year. I’ll get this out of the way before I get to the real meat of why this annoys me - the SNP are also guilty of playing party politics. There, I said it. The huge difference is that the SNP are in power now and they’ll be in power through the entirety of the negotiations. Their white paper is an SNP manifesto, one that many in the yes campaign don’t fully agree with – the SSP, the Scottish Greens and Labour for Indy also have ideas for an independent Scotland that differ from the white paper. Another huge difference is that, while you’ll hear of London Labour, the Limp-Dems and Tory promises for Scotland post-no vote all over the media, you never hear of the Green, Socialist or Indy Labour promises for a post-yes vote. This is because the media want you to believe that the SNP play party politics just as hard as the London based parties. The Westminster representatives and their Scottish counterparts are wonderful at making “When we’re in power we’ll do x, y and z” promises. But they aren’t in power, are they? They can make all the promises they like, but without the votes they might as well promise to lasso the moon and bring it to us to gaze upon. They don’t want to keep their promises, and they don’t have to – once they have your vote, you’re expendable. Because we’re not people to these out of touch wahoos, we’re just votes. A means to an end – and that end is stepping across the threshold of 10 Downing Street. You see, even when their eyes are on Scotland, their dreams are of that prestigious address. They’ll never get together and agree on exactly what Scotland will paid for returning a no result – all we’ll get is a very vague “Oh, you know, more powers.” With each party taking a different view of what ‘more powers really means. But I’ll tell you what they will get together and agree on – what Scotland CAN’T have. And the things that Scotland can’t have are, basically, anything that will take too much power away from Westminster. Power, it’s always about power – and that’s what makes them so removed from reality. There was a time where power was in the hands of the voters, and many would still love you to believe that, but without the right to recall (where voters can demand a politician is removed from office for reneging on policy promises or other activities that aren’t in the interest of the people) – voters are, essentially, powerless. For 5 years anyway – then they tell you you’re powerful again to get your votes. Yes, the SNP may play a little bit of party politics and as much as I’ve never voted for them (and probably never will), I do believe that they have the people’s interests at heart and not just their votes. Why do I believe this? Because the SNP, along with all of the politicians supporting independence, believe in a written constitution with the right of recall enshrined in it. Then we will have power and we can use it to elect whoever we want into office, safe in the knowledge that if they don’t keep the promises that get them elected – we can vote them back out again without waiting 5 years for the next barrage of promises they can’t, or won’t, keep.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:50:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015