My political views insofar as I have any are pretty
much in the centre. I favour free market economics, but I also favour fairness,
equality of opportunity and a society where no-one is left behind. I want to
reduce poverty everywhere, but my solution to doing so is for our country to become more prosperous. I can see merit in each of the three main parties. There are
good and sensible people in Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal
Democrats. There are people I agree with in each of these parties and people I
disagree with.
I didn’t even stay up for the exit poll on the night
of the General Election, but because I had voted Liberal Democrat I went to bed
hoping beyond hope for a Liberal Democrat overall majority. You see I believe
in miracles. The party I voted for did very badly. This is most unjust. The Lib
Dems put country before party in 2010 and have been punished for it. This
hardly encourages other parties to do the same. The UK is in a better situation
because the Lib Dems were in Government. But they have nearly been wiped
out. Oh well the Centre ground looks
rather vacant. No doubt it soon will be filled again.
My second favourite result would have been a Grand
coalition of all the pro UK parties. The UK faces an existential threat from
the SNP and we should act towards it accordingly. It is of course a democratic,
political threat. The people who are trying to break up the UK are sincere and
some of those I have met online are very nice indeed. Even those who are
aggressive or abusive are so mainly because of an excess of enthusiasm for
their goal. This is forgivable as passions are bound to run high about
existential issues. But I try always to think clearly and it is simply a fact
that the existence of the UK in its present form has never been more threatened
that in the past few years and in the next few. Our opponents are peaceful, but
recognise them for what they are. If you are in favour of the UK, if you have
any love of our shared country that has existed for centuries through thick and thin,
then you have a duty to oppose the SNP with everything that you have. When your
country is threatened it is normal to put aside party politics for the
duration. Our country is threatened. So take that seriously and act
accordingly.
My third favourite result would have been either a
Labour or a Conservative majority. I probably narrowly favoured the former as I
believe the SNP prefer the fact that we now have a Conservative Government and
I always follow the maxim of doing what your opponent least wants. But no matter,
the fact that we have a pro UK party with an absolute majority is massively
beneficial to the cause of keeping the UK intact. The one result I feared was a
Government that dependent in any way on SNP votes. With this they could have
used such dependence to undermine the UK.
I am of course disappointed that so many pro UK MPs
lost their seats in Scotland. I would like to congratulate the SNP on their
achievement. Yours really is a remarkable party. You campaign very well indeed
and have some remarkably effective politicians. You have been very lucky to
have had a leader of the stature of Alex Salmond who brought you to this point.
But if anything Nicola Sturgeon is still more effective as she campaigns with a
smile and with friendly words. I don’t try to portray opponents in ways that
are false or abusive. I’m quite sure that the vast majority of SNP MPs and
supporters are people who would make pleasant dinner party companions. I don’t
hate anyone not even those who delight in abusing me. Hatred only damages the
person who hates. It need not even touch the person who receives it.
I took part in a tactical voting campaign in
Scotland with the hashtag #SNPout. In one sense it failed. We did not prevent
the SNP landslide as we had hoped. The pity is that in huge numbers of seats
our analysis was correct. If pro UK people had put country before party, we
would have limited the damage. But I suspect more people in Scotland voted
tactically than ever before and we can build on this in future elections
especially where some sort of proportional representation will favour the
#SNPout cause. But in another sense our campaign succeeded massively. Our task
was to keep the SNP out of government. We have succeeded. They are not in
Government. Our campaign in part contributed to the mood that saw huge numbers
of people in the UK vote so that the SNP would have no influence on a UK
government. Job done.
The SNP are a party of Left, Right and Centre. They
have supporters from across the political spectrum. They only really have one goal, independence
and say and do everything in order to achieve that goal. They have destroyed
the Left in Scotland for the sake of independence. There are now equal numbers
of Conservative and Labour MPs in Scotland. When was the last time that
happened? Not only have the SNP destroyed the Left in Scotland they have pretty
much destroyed it in England too. The SNP campaign of promising to rule both
England and Scotland and propping up a Labour government has spectacularly
backfired. English voters faced with this campaign preferred to vote
Conservative rather than have Alex Salmond pulling the strings. The trouble is
that having destroyed the Left in Scotland it is very difficult now for Labour
to win an overall majority again without being dependent on the SNP. The same
logic will apply next time. Look where nationalism leads.
Labour committed suicide in 1997 when it implemented
unequal devolution. It just took 18 years for them to expire. By offering inequality of
devolution they undermined the principle of equality of opportunity. With
hindsight and with the opportunity to do things differently I’m quite sure
Labour people would revisit 1997 and think again. All parties make mistakes.
No-one can predict the future, but the root of the constitutional mess facing
the UK today is what happened in 1997.
I am in favour of devolution. But it must be done
fairly. This is the task now facing the UK. We need people from all parties to
come up with a plan that both devolves and unites. The SNP only want
independence. They are happy to make little steps towards the line and then
fall over. That way lies the breakup of our country. We must find another path.
The UK constitutional settlement at the moment is tends towards disunity and is also completely unfair. However, it will only make the situation even worse if we come up with
a short term fix. What we need to do is to go right back to 1997 and start all over again. The solution is that we have one parliament that deals with all issues
that we share and local democracy that deals with all other issues. This solves
the West Lothian question by bypassing it.
Call this federalism if you like. But we must understand federalism in
the correct way. Each state in the USA has equal devolution, indeed each county
has a great deal of local power, if not each town. But there is a strong central
government that unites the whole.
So let us devolve even further but let us at the
same time unite. The key to this is to recognise that we are one country. By a
quirk of history we call the parts of the UK countries, but we are not a union
in the sense that the European Union is a union. There is only one sovereign
and that is indivisible. If you think of the UK as a union of sovereign nation
states, you have already conceded the argument to the SNP. Of course I am
Scottish and I come from a country called Scotland. But this is just a manner
of speaking. I could equally well come from Wessex or Strathclyde. They have
just as good claims to independence as Scotland does. Anyway that argument is
finished. The issue has been decided. I expect Mr Cameron to react to any
demand for a further referendum with the answer “Sorry Nicola, you have already
had your once in a lifetime opportunity. You lost”
Scotland has not got the government that it voted
for. To be frank if you vote for a party that only stands in Scotland it is
impossible that you will get the government that you vote for. Scotland only
has 59 seats while a majority requires 325.
In every democratic country parts frequently vote differently to the
whole. The UK is such a country too. For
that reason it matters not one little bit to me if the SNP win every seat in
Scotland. Of course I would prefer that they didn’t, but it doesn’t actually
change anything.
The only thing that I am scared of now is that David
Cameron offers Scotland Full Fiscal Autonomy (FFA). He surely has learned his lesson
by now. Don’t make concessions to nationalism. FFA fatally undermines the UK.
It turns us into something resembling the Eurozone if not the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and puts us firmly on the path to breakup. It amounts to independence,
not now, but very soon. Out of self-interest English voters should realise such
an arrangement, that exists nowhere else in the world, would damage their
interests as much as Scotland’s. The UK is our country. We have defended it
together for centuries. Don’t give up on it now.
No other country in the world is so blithe about the
prospect of their nation state ceasing to exist. This is the problem with
Scottish nationalism it undermines the centuries old ties that bind us. The SNP
would be delighted if in England there were a rise in nationalism. Thus far
there hasn’t been. Despite all the provocation, English nationalism was
overwhelmingly rejected at the election. It won one seat. Be proud of that
fact.
Frankly I am delighted by the General Election
result. I didn’t get everything I wanted. But there is a government that has the
power to defeat Scottish nationalism, by putting forward an alternative of
devolution plus unity. Above all there is a government that morally and legally
can simply say No to any further attempts to break up our country. This is what
#SNPout campaigned for. This is what we achieved.
If you like my writing, you can find my books Scarlet on the
Horizon, An Indyref Romance and Lily of St Leonards on Amazon. Please follow
the links on the side. Thanks. I appreciate your support.
