I’ve been watching bits of media coverage of the 2014 LibDem conference in Glasgow. Danny Alexander’s (Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the coalition government) claims to ‘own’ the so-called recovery plan: “it wasn’t Cameron and Osborne (Conservative Prime Minister and Chancellor respectively) it was Nick and me” (Nick Clegg is LibDem leader /coalition Deputy Prime Minister) . Meanwhile Nick is trying to disclaim responsibility for the negative effects!  I’m sorry, Nick but “we did the good bits but not the bad bits” won’t wash. The LibDems chose to go into coalition with the Tories, not Labour, they chose to go along with policies they now find repugnant.  Now there is an election looming they are suddenly more like Labour really, all warm and socially cuddly. They are even suggesting they lean toward policies that are oddly reminiscent of Labour proposals they rejected in order to gain power with the Tories!  My late, lamented, Mum used to say “scratch a Liberal and you’ll find a Tory underneath.”: she was no fool.

The referendum on Scottish independence seems to have produced a clear majority against the proposition that Scotland should be an independent country.  It is regrettable that the post-vote analysis, the fall-out and the genuine sense of grief that some feel, is overshadowed by allegations of irregularities: vote rigging.  As I write this there has been no official response to the claims, some apparently supported by video “evidence” posted on the internet, but I doubt that any irregularities would be proved to be part of an organised and widespread attempt to fix the election.  Most likely they are the work of misguided individuals, and I also doubt if they would have altered the result overall.

What is much more worrying is the way in which the referendum was stolen by the established mainstream parties: the Westminster establishment.  It is no surprise to me that the UK Labour Party was, and is, against Scottish Independence:  it has abandoned defence of working people across the country, and has failed to offer a genuinely radical alternative vision, in pursuit of power.  The final result was undoubtedly affected by a last-minute pledge, largely driven by Labour, to deliver additional powers to the Scottish Government – more devolved powers.  As such they have fallen into the trap laid for it by the Tory party, they are now scrambling around trying to meet this commitment which is undeliverable in the context of demands by Tory right-wing and eurosceptic MPs who are demanding English devolution: having English MPs only voting on English matters.  If this happened the loss of a large number of Scottish-elected MPs in the voting lobbies would emasculate any Labour-led (even Labour majority) government.

The best thing that Scots can do now is vote for the SNP at each and every election – local, national and European – and wipe Labour off the Scottish electoral map in the way the Conservatives have been.  Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

I see that America is sending more “military advisers” to help the indigenous troops of Iraq, Kurdistan etc., fight ISIS (or ISIL).  Apparently they will now be allowed to actually fight too.  Well what a surprise!  I seem to remember the run up to the Vietnam war: America sent the first of its “advisers” while Vietnam was still Indo-China and under French colonial rule.  By the time the war started in earnest there were at least 11,000 “advisers” there.  I wonder how many of our troops are “advising”.  There are to be no boots on the ground, so they’ll all have to wear camouflage flip flops.

I’ve been struck again by the pointlessness of the current Scottish Independence debate: it’s like two flies arguing about who owns the turd on which they sit, while the owner of the whole dung heap looks on in amusement.

Whatever happens on Thursday (18th September is IN-D-Day) the fact remains that most of Scotland’s land, resources and physical wealth will still belong to the few rather than the many.  It is also true that many of those few will be absentees, domestic or foreign, and many of the domestic ‘lairds’ will have inherited, rather than earned, their lot.   Many of the most influential supporters of the YES campaign are also ex-patriat wealthy Scots for whom the idea of an independent Scotland is just that, an idea, as they will be very unlikely to return to Scotland and live with the consequences.  Whatever, when the dust has settled, most of the 5 million resident Scots (or neo-Scots) will still be in thrall to the robber barons, will still have mortgages and payday loans, will still slave away for a small part of what they create, all in pursuit of the illusion that what they do with their turd matters to the dungmeisters.

How we manage Globalisation, Climate Change, Rational and Sustainable use of Resources (including land), Water, Food and Security are all more important than where the boundaries lie.  If Scotland removes it’s instinctive, radical, left-leaning contribution from UK politics it will condemn the ordinary people of the rest of the UK to a generation, or more, of market driven, and increasingly isolationist Tory-led (centre-right Labour following) government.

In fact the single most distasteful, but curiously ironic, demonstation of the irrelevance of this vote was the sight of thousands of Orangemen marching through Edinburgh last week, with all their usual militaristic pomp and bluster, in support of the Union.  It brought the anachronistic tribalism of the campaign into sharp focus: two tribes locked in a 300 year old time warp.  Pitiful.  Time to move on guys.

I do get the gut desire for independence, especially in Scotland, but unless and until there is genuine democracy, and ‘community’ ownership of land and resources, it matters not a jot who is in power: in fact the idea of wielding power is illusiory in our globally interdependent context.  It may be that A. Salmond (a.k.a. wee Eck)  would really like to see a pluralistic  socialist republic, rather than a parliamentary monarchy but, even if he’d admit it, that’s never going to happen my lifetime or his.  Dream on wee Eck, dream on.  Wallace? “For Freedom”?  I’m afraid I think it’s Bollocks.

Pardon the Franglais, but this post is about Europe and Scottish Independence.  Today a Conservative MP defected to UKIP, citing the unwillingness of the upper echelons of Government to change things in Europe.  In Move to the Right, parts 1 &  2, I wrote about the apparent drift to the right in Europe and, consequently, in Britain.  Now jump to the Scottish Independence campaign: if the rightward drift, the anti-European drift, continues and David Cameron’s tories get re-elected, they are committed to a referendum on continuing UK membership of the EU.  If the Scots want to stay in the EU they could nevertheless very easily be dragged out by the English anti-euroists.  The ‘No’ campaign claims there is too much risk and uncertainty in a vote for independence; what about the uncertaintly for Scotland’s largely europhile people?

What the tory part of the ‘No’ campaign haven’t grasped, in fact are congenitally unable to grasp, is that the more they threaten, cajaole and especially patronise, the Scots the more likely the undecided are to say “You know what pal, youse can get tae f**k.  It cannae be worse than having tae listen to your shite”.

What they could be saying is things like “Scotland is a nation already, a proud and distinct people we love and respect, but a nation is not the same as a country.  And what the Nationalists could remeber is that country is just a political contrivance, the geographic boundaries of which rarely, if ever (if ever) coincide with ethnic, cultural or national boundaries .

My May 26th post, “Move to the right in threes”, was about the realignment of European politics following the Euro elections, in which the right of centre parties did very well.  I postulated then that the noticeable rightward shift held risks for us all, both at ‘home’ and in Europe.  Since then there has been a significant reshuffle of the UK government which, undeniably, removed a number of moderate or centre-ist politicians and replaced them with right-leaning and largely euro-sceptic ones.

Yesterday the right-wing and avowedly eurosceptic Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, declared he was, in effect, “coming in from the cold” and seeking a seat in Parliament at the next election.  It is completely reasonable to link these two events: can there be any doubt that after years of public prevarication and exile Boris has been encouraged to declare, both by the political environment and, probably, by the “men in grey suits” behind the Tory party?  He obviously feels the current of Conservatism is flowing in his direction and that his brand of right-wing Conservatism is in the ascendency.  It may well be this is part of a strategy to head off the threat from UKIP at the next election, less than a year away, and that once the Conservatives are returned with a working majority the government would return to the centre ground.  I doubt it.  I fear this reflects a more widespread shift to the right in our national life which will give comfort, if not licence, to darker forces and lead to intolerance and ugly and violent confrontations between extremes, with the rest of us caught between the hammer and anvil.

You only have to look at what has happened in Israel, and Russia, both supposedly parliamentary democracies, to see what happens when the rottweilers are unleashed, and their activities tolerated, as tools of policy (Palestine / Ukraine).  In Ukraine the so-called pro-Russian separatists are, in fact, seeking establishment of a kind of ultra-orthodox anti-gay, anti-muslim Christian theocracy.  It suits V. Putin to support them for regional strategic reasons but look at the consequences already – not least the murderous destruction of an airliner and 298 innocent lives.  In Israel, the governing balance of Orthodox vs Liberal has always been a problem.  In my opinion, despite being a parliamentary democracy, the State of Israel has never been able to separate military and executive power.  When every person must undergo military service, and maintain that as a reservist, how much more difficult is it to see gun-toting ultra-orthodox settlers as an abberation?  The lines between the governed and those who govern are blurred to the extent that a former Brigadier-General is able to openly suggest full-scale invasion and re-occupation of Palestine, and others to speak of “finishing the job”: not leaving even a child alive.  Historians know that this is precisly how Hitler came to power, and what that led to: an incremental moving of the boundary between the tolerable and intolerable until it became normal to burn shops, commit murder and, ultimately, exterminate.

I know this is a very long way from the tousle-haired Boris and his ambition to lead the Tories, but be in no doubt that even if he were the bumbling bufoon his image projects he does present a likeable personality that makes him very electable and one which the Conservative power- makers are happy to use .  He is a mask, maybe unwitting maybe not, of something more worrying and the socio-political background that is making it possible should be a concern to us all – oddly, especially to Jews who will again fall victim to the rise of the right and increasing anti-semitism.