Britannia Fragmented
This week’s elections north of the Border may be one of the most important in the history of this island. If, and it is by no means certain, the Labour hegemony of Scotland is over, the SNP stand to take control of Holyrood. It is widely believed that the consequence of this victory will be that the Scottish people will get a chance to vote on independence, thus leading to the break-up of this nation, Great Britain.
What is surprising about these turn of events is not that the SNP, under the wily but slippery Alex Salmond, are set for victory, but that there is so little interest south of the border. Worse still, the only people who are interested are ones who are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a divorce between England and Scotland. And, even more dismayingly, many of these people are within the conservative and right-wing movement; spending their time berating the Conservative Party for still supporting the union, when its break-up would deal a massive blow to Labour's chances of gaining power again.
Well, there are a lot of things I'd berate the Cameron Conservatives about, but a policy where they are attempting to conserve this nation state is certainly not one of them! They recognise, as all to few of us seem to, that defending the nation as it is - a whole greater than the sum of its country parts - is of the utmost importance. It transcends debates about North Sea Oil revenues; it transcends debates about what constituency Gordon Brown will represent; it transcends petty political point-scoring; and it involves the very soul of our nation.
Hopefully after Thursday, more people will come to realise that. Let's just hope it will not be too late.
Labels: Conservative Party, Great Britain, Scotland
4 Comments:
I agree, but it is nowhere near certain that in three years time, as the SNP, Scotland will be voting for independence. Three years is long enough for the incompetence of the SNP when it comes to the economy to come through, and for the case to be made for continued participation in the Union.
What's more, it's not a foregone conclusion that an SNP government will be formed. It all depends on the Lib-Dems. The Lib-Dems have said they will refuse to support the SNP if they continue their plans for an independence referendum. It seems more likely to me that the Lib-Dems will have to prop-up a discredited Labour administration.
As an American conservative from the South, I couldn't disagree more. We had our little War when the South lawfully tried to leave the Union, and we were invaded because of it. I always support devolution and secession movements - Scottish, Welsh, Basque, Quebec, Finnish, and of course Confederate. (Lord Acton and many Brits supported Southern secession because they knew what was at stake. The Old Order fell to the New Order.) Precisely because secession IS a blow to the modern nation state is why it should be supported. The modern nation state is a post French Revolutionary concept and is a huge part of the modern problem. As conservatives, especially traditional/paleo conservatives, we should support the older concept of regionalism, blood and soil that secession generally represents.
I do support your sentiment, and I have always been of the belief that the larger the state the more it tends towards centralisation and statism.
What I am defending, however, is a sovereign nation with tradition and heritage. Moreover, it’s a nation which is under attack from those who wish to subvert all such entities into a trans-national organisation called the EU. To fight this we need continuity; the break-up into the traditional small nations would more than likely make it easier for those who argue that we are ‘too small a nation to survive’ already.
By the way, I didn't intend to be anonymous. The post above was from Filmer at Conservative Times.
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