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An indepedent Scotland would not suit the major parties.



 An independent Scotland may well be in the best interests of the Scottish people, but for the "establishment2 in Westminster, it would not be a good move.



Alex Salmond

  

On Thursday 18th September this year, the Scottish people will go to the polls to vote in the referendum as to whether Scotland should be an independent country. Upon that vote, lies the future of some 5.5 million people, many of whom have been seeking an independent Scotland for hundreds of years.
Between now and the date of the referendum, we in Britain, may expect an increasing level of publicity from the “Yes” and the “No” camps seeking to persuade people how to cast their preference.
Many “facts” (some of them mischievous and some only partly true) will be placed before the public in Britain in the hope that many Brits with Scottish friends or relatives will be able to influence the Scottish national on how to cast their vote.
It is interesting to observe how, even at this early stage, the “establishment of the major parties have come out firmly in favour of the “No” camp and will no doubt employ all their propaganda machines to further that cause. That is the establishments of the major parties not, necessarily the party membership in the country, and not all party members in Parliament. There are many very compelling arguments in favour of independence for Scotland but as an English person. I have no axe to grind either for or against as I believe that this is a choice for the Scots and the Scots alone. However, there are vested interest in both camps who have their own agenda on this question, and have little concern for what may be in the best interest of the Scottish people.
The most significant of these vested interests are of course the political parties, or to be more accurate, as I mentioned previously, the leadership and establishment of the political parties. The reasons for this are simple. In every general election, the result, under our archaic system of voting, is invariably determined by the results of a few “marginal” constituencies the so called “Battle Ground” where a few floating voters determine the government of the country for the next five years. Any proposals to challenge this cosy little status quo will be fiercely resisted as witnessed during the campaign and subsequent referendum on changing the voting system. Each party is fully aware of the way in which general elections turn out to be a case of, “Ah well. We lost this one but its our turn next time” Imagine then the feeling of potential disaster at the prospect of a whole nation being removed, at a stroke, from the calculations of numbers on the government or opposition benches in the House of Commons when determining cabinet posts, front bench spokespersons, chairs of committees and all the other offices of state.
At one time, the Scottish constituencies, or at least the rural ones, were considered as “safe” conservative seats, reserved for those party hacks who would serve the party well with donations, voting intention and unconditional loyalty no matter what lies or distortions they had to trot out to the media or the voters. On the other hand, those urban seats in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the few other Labour Party strongholds contain by far the majority of the Scottish Constituencies.
Of the total of 59 Scottish constituencies, Labour hold 41, which provides a large block of its voting strength in the House of Commons, regardless of who actually forms the government of the day. Of the other seats, 11 are currently held by the Liberal Democrats, 6 by the Scottish National Party and only 1 by the Conservative Party.
Each of the parties calculate, that over time, the balance of party representation will change to their advantage, albeit with Labour retaining the highest number of Scottish seats.
For this reason, none of the parties in Scotland, with the obvious exception of the SNP, would welcome or endorse any move to weaken its relative position in Westminster by the independence of a new Scotland. Clearly there could be no question of another independent country, having representatives in the Parliament of the UK (then consisting of Wales, Northern Ireland and England) influencing laws, economic policy, welfare, health, defence and all the other elements of society.
The added complication for the main political parties to calculate is that, should Scotland vote for independence on the 18th September this year, how will the Westminster general election of 7th May 2015 be organised and structured?
After the 24th March 2016, there will be no Scottish constituencies and consequently no Scottish MP's which would undoubtedly seriously effect the make up of whatever happens to be the parliamentary balance at that time.



Cameron, Miliband and Clegg





What we do know even at the start of 2014, is that regardless of whether independence for Scotland is to the benefit of the Scottish people, it is not to the advantage of the political establishment of the major parties. Consequently, we can be assured that Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and all their sycophants in politics and in business, will move heaven and earth and will spend £hundreds of thousands (if not £millions) to prevent it.

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