The Last Days of the United Kingdom

Glasgow's George Square had a certain balmy calm when I arrived on Friday afternoon. The late summer heat had cast a faint grey mist across the sky, and there was a certain air of poignant expectancy as I wandered by the statues in front of the City Chambers, the great Victorian building that has for over a century and a quarter housed the council of Scotland's largest city. I reflected how, with the polls becoming ever tighter, it might be the last Friday that the city would see as truly part of the United Kingdom; for even if a Yes to independence vote still leaves months of negotiations before formal separation, no one would doubt that by Friday coming everything would have changed anyhow. "Scotland on the cusp of  making history" read the news-ticker above the corner of St Vincent Place.

Reaching for the future; Glasgow 13 September 2014

And on Saturday, the relaxed atmosphere of Friday evening transformed into something else - still oddly relaxed, yet passionate and positive too. Thousands of YES SCOTLAND supporters, swathed in blue saltires, or blue and white hats, scarves (in spite of the heat), tee shirts and tops, with balloons and flags, gathered on the steps of the Concert Hall. Cheery, singing everything from Flower of Scotland through Proclaimers' melodies to Singing I-i-yippy-ippy-i, there was almost two hours of simple communion. And smiles. Even when two BETTER TOGETHER supporters made their way into the middle of the crowd to hold up their Vote NO placards, the reaction was of  mutual amusement and pantomine, not the subliminal violence that the media has darkly suggested. But that didn't stop the Sunday Times the next day characterising the campaign as just so, in spite of offering little beyond some damaged posters and an egg broken across Labour MP Jim Murphy's highly sensitive shoulders.

So much for the traditions of Scottish politics where banter and flour bombs harmlessly demonstrated the passion at their heart. My own great uncle was arrested for impersonating former PM Asquith during the Paisley by-election of 1920 in a stunt that involved driving a coach and two horses through a crowd and ended with an evening in the police station. It was tame stuff compared to some of the events of those days, but likely to have seen him demonised as a menace to public order, or worse, in our era of corporately-owned, sanitised and paranoid politics.

Now, you shouldn't get too passionate about anything, because you need to be reconciled to nothing changing. Now, with this referendum, you are to vote NO out of fear of not being able to get a mortgage/ losing your job/ paying more for your milk and bread/ not being able to see Dr Who on the TV/ your telephones not working/ being more prey to terrorist attack/ facing border posts at Gretna Green/ experiencing massive economic collapse/ oil running out/ zombie plague attack...

But in the end, it isn't actually much about Scotland being separate or not. Not really. It is about a polity, a community democratically voting to defy the wishes of the Establishment - not just the political one, but the economic, the financial, above all the Corporate one too. They could countenance Scotland going - and some Tory MPs such as Nadine Dorries have sarcastically reiterated the old myth of Scottish dependency culture to ask "Why are we paying them to eat deep-fried Mars Bars when we don't have a decent NHS (in England)?"

But what they can't countenance is the massive blow to the Establishment a YES vote would be: at least in part because what has become an extraordinary mass movement might inspire similar demands  in other parts of the remainder of the UK, and even beyond - Catalonia especially is following the campaign closely, and on social and regional media the talk is increasingly of who next? Northern Ireland seems likely. Wales, possibly. But also there are stirrings for greater local governance in Cornwall, the North East, Yorkshire, and onwards, reflecting a reaction to the messy hodge podge of half baked devolution arrangements put in place by Labour and untouched by the Coalition.

YES supporters gathered at the Concert Hall

And so, in typical technocrat fashion, a plethora of tired out grey men in grey suits trooped up to Scotland to utter a myriad of panicky promises of future powers to the Holyrood Parliament. Lots of technical details about at least three if not more possible amendments to the remit of the Scottish legislature - a timetable even for its consideration; but nothing concrete, nothing agreed. And just as their pitch has been one of relentless fear of the future beyond a Yes vote, equally they have offered nothing meaningful in return - and nothing at all to foster any notion of a shared future, or celebrate the UK's achievements. It reached a culmination in a performance today by David Cameron in which the Prime Minister pleaded on behalf of the Union - supposedly the most successful democracy in the world, stopping slavery in the 19th century and facists in the 20th. 

But no mention of now - no mention of our becoming the second most unequal society on the planet; no mention of his Government's privatisation of our health service (hobbled with tens of billions of debt by the last Labour Government's Private Finance Initiative); no mention of the tax cuts for millionaires and the continuing assault on the poor which have been the hallmarks of the Tory-Lib Dem regime, and are set to continue with Labour signed up to the same spending agenda. And no mention of the true history of the British people - of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, or the Peterloo massacre, or the Matchstick strikes, or the sufragettes, of the men, women and children who fought tooth and nail against Cameron's predecessors to wrest democratic rights and some limited form of social justice from an ever resistant elite.

And so on Thursday, Scotland's voters - people of all religions, origins and social classes -will  have a dual potency. First, to Scotland and deciding on a choice to retake their lost sovereignty; and second, to deliver a body blow to the smug, corrupt complacency of the British political class.Whatever the outcome, the political system of the UK is broken irreparably. The three Westminster parties will be - already are - in existential crisis. Fixed parliaments or not, the end of the Coalition and a General Election may be just a few weeks away.

These are the last days of the United Kingdom. However the vote goes - and it is to be hoped it will be "Yes" - nothing will be the same again. Whichever side of the Border we find ourselves on, the challenge is how we fashion what comes next and make it better for all our people, for the poor and the vulnerable, for the creative and, above all, for the generations to come. Whether Britain continues to exist as a political entity or not, surely that would truly be a legacy worthy of the best of what has gone before - the Britain of the NHS, of the welfare state, of free education and of social change?  A largely vanished Britain of compassion and progress, now little more than a finally fading memory. A golden isle set in a silver sea, a hope of what might have been, but sadly never was.

Scotland - Trust the Bankers?

The men who forgot Scotland

“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” 

- Noam Chomsky

Over a year ago in Weimar Britain and again in April this year in On The Eve, this author, like many other progressives, previewed the momentous times we are living through now. As our world and the societies within it continue to convulse and shatter in the face of the growing crises of an economic system in terminal decline, we have seen the panic of the banking collapse, the wars for oil, and the demolition of human rights to ensure control not only over terrorists but over peaceful domestic opponents as well - in particular opponents of corporate interests.

It was indeed all going as well as the Establishment could have hoped - better in fact, as the electorate continues, on balance, to be convinced by the espoused case for austerity and denigration of the public enemies of migrants, disabled people and the unemployed. With political revolt gingerly contained, even if only transiently, in the even more neoliberal Aunt Sally of  UKIP, the private island-owning, off-shoring elite has gleefully seen its wealth grow to become larger and more obscenely skewed than at any other time in British history. The "free trade" TTIP treaty is set to seal it all for good. Divide and rule indeed.

But then, last weekend, a YouGov poll put the pro-Independence camp in Scotland narrowly in the lead for next week's referendum. Of Scottish voters expressing a preference, 51% said they will vote in favour, while two thirds of those still to make up their minds were tending towards the independence option. It was just one poll, though it confirmed a trend of some weeks of rise in the Yes vote. But it slammed a Panic Button among the Establishment in Westminster and ever since, as Alex Salmond has put it, everything including the kitchen sink and the whole lounge has been lobbed frantically at the Yes Scotland campaign.

First we had the faux homage of the three Westminster leaders - Cameron, Miliband and Clegg - to Scotland on Wednesday, dramatically cancelling PM's Question Time to make apparently passionate pleas for the Union to be preserved.  

Cameron nearly wept as he begged Scots not to use the vote to "kick the 'effing Tories"; Miliband said he might even stay the whole week; while Clegg dashed just inside the Borders to promise, with the others, the exciting prospect of a timetable for proposals to give Scotland's devolved parliament additional powers, although none of them could quite explain what these would be. Labour's Gordon Brown was also wheeled out to remind people that he is Scottish too, although at least unlike John Prescott  he didn't need to remind himself that he was supporting the "No" campaign, Better Together by writing its name in biro on the back of his hand.

But much, much more has since been deployed to stop secession. The Governor of the Bank of England, a Government appointee, has warned of financial chaos for Scotland after reiterating that there will be no common currency; while Lloyd's Bank and RBS (bankers to the Tory Party) have said they will move their headquarters south if there is independence. Next, at Cameron's prompting, Asda has said its milk prices might go up in a separate country. Morrisons and John Lewis made somewhat more ambiguous statements about divergence rather than disadvantage, but the increasingly shrilly pro-Union BBC reported these as warnings of higher prices.

And yet, and yet... wasn't this entirely foreseeable? A combination of bribes and threats spawned the Union in 1707, so it seems appropriate and unsurprising that the descendants of the elite that pushed through the creation of the UK would use the same methods to prolong its existence. Even more so, in fact - there is a commonly held misconception that neoliberal capitalism seeks to minimise the state and its powers. In truth it minimises the state only in terms of its responsiveness to the masses and their needs and wishes. It maximises the deployment of coercive state power to ensure the continued dominance of the Establishment - and this has never been as nakedly in evidence in British politics as in the last few days over Scotland.

Bankers, politicians, city traders, journalists and multinational companies have come together to warn of everything from economic apocalypse to "difficulties" for Scottish viewers wishing to watch Celebrity Come Dancing on the TV. 

The bankers and traders whose sociopathic greed and lawlessness created the crash of 2008 and nearly busted the world economy; the politicians who deregulated finance so completely that the crash happened, and who then spent tens of billions of tax money and loans to bail the banks out before billing the rest of us for it; the industrialists who rage against any form of consumer or employee protection and who have plundered our society via PFI arrangements, outsourcing and tax evasion; and the journalists who, when they are not hacking celebrities' telephone messages are busy telling us all that there is no alternative to what we have got.

Yes, all the people who obviously have the best interests of the rest of us engraved on their cold, cold hearts and foremost in their absent consciences. These people are stepping forward to tell Scottish voters that they are too crap, too lazy, too...Scottish...to hope to govern themselves. And if they don't listen to their friendly warnings, there will be a less friendly price to pay. The bankers, traders, and industrialists will make sure their political puppets send the bill personally.

The message, of course, is not just for the Scottish voters. Indeed, if Scotland could be got rid off, perhaps tugged out into the mid-Atlantic and quietly sunk, many of the people currently hoarsley calling for the Union to be preserved would be first in the queue to pull the plug. However, as geography dictates otherwise, the last thing the Establishment want the rest of the UK to see is part of it defying our Masters' wishes and giving us ideas above our station. Even a mildly social democratic Scotland would not just be an annoying neighbour - it could become an existential threat to the neoliberal consensus. Hence, it must be strangled at birth - or preferrably before.

The big question is whether enough Scottish voters will be browbeaten or scared into voting against independence to stop it happening. The trend over the last fortnight has been a clear and big upswing for separation - one based on seeking a more inclusive, fairer society than the one emerging in the UK as a whole. It remains to be seen if the crisis response from Westminster and its paymasters will stem the flow, or be seen through as the insincere, last gasp blandishments of panicking machine men.

A frequent refrain from the Better Together camp is that an independent country would be moving into uncertainty; taking risks, and be a journey rather than a destination. But isn't that just life? Life for all of us. Salmond (who is no socialist but is equally no neoliberal either) has ackowledged that independence is the start of something, not the finish. Meanwhile the Radical Independence Campaign of leftwing parties like the Greens and Scottish Socialists as well as cultural groups like the National Collective positively embrace the nascent potential of such a future. 

Besides, if there are no guarantees for a free Scotland, what is guaranteed about Britain as it is? A harsh, low wage, "flexible" economy increasingly unkind to the poor and vulnerable, suspicious of strangers, and selling off what little remains of its public services? A State whose main functions involve spying on its own citizens and vying with the USA for the number one spot as the most unequal developed society on the face of the Earth?

Better together? For who?

Proud to Pay Their Taxes

A curious item pops up on social media this evening - an anti-Scottish independence group called "Proud to be Scots, Proud to be United" offers "volunteers" £25 to help out at events, plus £10 towards travel costs.
  
"Right guys for anyone that wants a quick buck we are now paying volunteers £25 to help out at events. Its very easy work (just giving out car stickers to those who want them) Let me know if you are interested!" says Jack.

It's an odd thing and you just sort of hope that these respectable adherents of the union are not getting themselves into a fluster as they try to buy their help. So a few gentle words of advice to them. No suggestion at all that they haven't already sorted all this out, but it is a potentially complicated area, so just as a wee reminder of the pitfalls of paying "volunteers"...

1. "Paying volunteers". Erm, not really - paid volunteers are more commonly known as "staff" or "employees". And while I am sure neoliberal Unionists are quite keen to do things like abolish taxes altogether and have unlimited labour from folk for £25, when you pay someone like this, it is pretty advisable to have a clear, written agreement about their employed or self-employed status, including any liability for tax and who pays it.

2. Watch the national minimum wage (NMW) - again, something the neoliberals are not happy about, but the law is the law and, for now, we have the national minimum wage. How many hours are they making these poor souls leaflet for continued communion with David Cameron and wee Cleggy in the U of K?

At £6.31 per hour, I reckon four hours or so of shouting against Wee 'Eck for 25 quid and you're right on the borders of British law (sorry folks). Unless of course you are using folk under 21 or, even better, kids under 18 - you can pay them less and get more out of them in the finest tradition of British fair play. And let's face it, with Britain the third most unequal society on the face of the Earth, these youngsters need to get used to grinding poverty if the Union continues, so they may as well start now.

Important to ask: what would Ian do?

3. Expenses - you can pay towards or even all of volunteers' travel expenses. But only if they are real. If someone spends £5 getting there and you give them £10, sorry but that's a payment, not an expense. Tax, tax, tax. (yes, I know...)

4. Benefits - do remember to advise your volunteers that if they accept payments for work done, it may affect their benefits. At times like this, you really need to ask, what would Ian D-S do? After all, he's on record suggesting that £25 for a few leaflets and you are set up for the next three days and a fourth one, up until about lunchtime. We don't want the Union being campaigned for by people in breach of social security rules, however inadvertently, now do we?

5. Declare to the Electoral Commission - I'm not fully au fait with the finance rules of the referendum, but if they haven't already, it would be a good idea to check about declaring these costs. It is a public vote and campaign. Any expenditure incurred needs to be accounted for usually. Even if its paying people to do stuff most other campaigns, charities, churches, sports groups, coffee mornings, etc don't pay for - because their volunteers work for free doing stuff they believe in.

Yes. All in all, it's quite complicated once you start paying people to work for you. Of course, give the Westminster mafia another few years with "benefits reform" and welfare to work, and I am sure it will get a lot easier to bung folks some cash and get them to do whatever you need for a total pittance. But in the meantime, the last thing we need is for some bunch of progressives to come along and point out that there are pesky, bureaucratic rules and red tape preventing the sort of entrepreneurship that wants to save the Union.

For obvious reasons.

Apocalypse Aye!

The Scottish opinion polls show the gap between yes and no camps in the independence debate narrowing ever more - the latest from ICM shows 52% against and 48% in favour of ending the Union with nearly five months to go to the September referendum.

The "Better Together" campaign (against independence) has seen its commanding lead slide over the last few weeks and its response has been criticised as increasingly negative; from the three Westminster parties "ganging up" to make clear their joint opposition to the SNP's preferred option of a currency union, to warnings about shipyard closures, membership of the EU and even what you will be able to see on TV in a new Scotland.

But a couple of weeks ago, things took a more sinister turn when former Labour Minister "Lord" George Robertson went to the USA and spoke against Scottish independence in the darkest and most hyperbolic terms imaginable. A Yes vote would, it seems, usher in a new dark age:
"What could possibly justify giving the dictators, the persecutors, the oppressors, the annexers, the aggressors and the adventurers across the planet the biggest pre-Christmas present of their lives by tearing the United Kingdom apart?"

Acknowledgement to The Point

Independence would be cataclysmic, his Lordship decreed, and the loudest cheers would apparently be heard from the forces of darkness.

Now, we know that First Minister Salmond is not liked by Robertson and his colleagues, but to imply that Wee 'Eck is in league with the Wee Man has to be a first. How long perhaps before Better Together, who are still to explain their name, start issuing their leaders with broad-brimmed hats and instruct their minions to drag pro-indy campaigners towards the horrors of the Comfy Chair? After all, isn't it self-evident that, with the Crimea in the bag, Bad Vlad Putin is eying up some real estate around Cumbernauld for his next dacha? And Assad is already packed for the Pitlochry Festival.

The Dark Arts are clearly alive and well. Yet the scent of sulphur seems somehow stronger in the hissing steam around Unionist supremo Alistair Darling and his increasingly shrill followers in their Project Fear than in the winds of change issuing from the increasingly confident independence camp.


Secret Footage from Better Together HQ 

Bowie's Britain

David Bowie, international rock star and UK tax exile, stole some headlines this week when his acceptance speech for his Brit award included a plea to Scots not to vote for independence in the referendum this September. His call was delivered in his not unusual absence from these shores by model Kate Moss. It came at the end of a rather disastrous few days for the "No" camp, where a combined onslaught by the UK parties on SNP plans for a post-independence currency union badly backfired with a strong pro-Yes reaction nearly halving the gap between the two sides.

Bowie - Not waving goodbye to Scotland

Bowie, who has enjoyed something of a comeback recently with his first album for some years, has often courted controversy before and it seems unlikely that this stunt has much more to it than a spot of publicity seeking. At any rate, if the anti-independence brigade want to laud his support for their cause, they may want to reflect on some of his past statements, albeit some time ago, about his ideas for the Britain he wants Scots to stay part of.

“Britain is ready for a fascist leader… I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism… I believe very strongly in fascism, people have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership…Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars…You’ve got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”

These were back in 1976 when the National Front was on the rise and to be fair, he subsequently did distance himself from these comments attributing them to "being out of (his) mind at the time", but it nevertheless seems unlikely that many Scots will be much attracted by the latest calls of this Manhattan resident. If they have any sense, the No camp might sensibly have Major Tom dispatched to Mars, maybe in search of the Missing Inaction Scottish Secretary of State, Brusier Carmichael.