Nearly 100 days to decide whether or not to keep on with the tired old union with our powerful southern neighbours or to try to set out on an adventure in building a new society based on equality and justice for everyone.
At times I am very optimistic at the prospect of a YES vote, at other times less so. The prospects are quite daunting in either event. If we vote YES then we can expect all sorts of double dealing, bad faith, threats and obstruction in the negotiations.
In the event of a NO vote we are going to be hammered by Westminster. No matter what they now say about further powers if we vote NO. If they were going to extend more powers to our Parliament then why did they actively fight against those options being on the ballot paper? Why didn’t they simply give us these powers anyway?
I am old enough to remember the devolution referendum of 1979. More than 50% of those who voted were in favour of the very moderate devolution settlement being offered by the then Labour government. Never the less because of a Labour amendment which required at least 40% of the total electorate to vote YES, the electorate were cheated. This was the referendum where everyone on the voters roll who happened to be dead in effect cast a NO vote.
All was not lost however, because the Westminster government had promised us a “better” devolution settlement if we voted no. This was Alec Douglas-Home’s contribution. He promised us a stronger settlement if we voted NO. We’re still waiting. What we got was years and years of Tory rule from Westminster and attack after attack on the working class.
It is easy to see how the present-day unionists can think they can fool us into voting for “jam tomorrow” if we vote NO. They have a compliant state broadcaster in the BBC. With a number of exceptions the rest of the mainstream media are unashamedly unionist.
The Sunday Herald stands out as an exception. Even the Dundee Courier has covered the debate in an even handed way. As an old agitator from Angus, that is an astonishing concession for me to make. With these exceptions the mainstream media is simply an auxilliary force of the NO campaign.
In the event of a YES vote we will see the nauseating spectacle of Labour MPs (Douglas Alexander will be leading the charge) seeking to join the “Team Scotland” negotiators. This should be resisted. These people are the classic gombeen men as the phrase goes in Ireland. Their principles are for sale, hell, their grannies are for sale if ermine is at stake.
Who should be on the negotiating team in the event of a YES vote? They should be accountable to the public, but one hesitates to draw the conclusion that they should be elected politicians. They should represent or at least try to represent the interests of the working class and the dispossessed.
We can be sure that the wealthy classes will be well represented on the negotiating team. We can take it for granted that wealthy interests will fasten on like leeches to further their interests.
We do need to worry about the representation of the rest of us. Of the people who will have won this referendum. The people who will have made it possible to start these negotiations.
Be in no doubt, if and when this referendum is won for YES it will be the votes of the working class who win it. That “great and respectable class, the people of no property”, to paraphrase Wolfe Tone. What will their reward be?
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