We've hit
an interesting point, politically and historically, in the referendum campaign
for Scotland. Catalonia and any other place with pretensions to separate will
hit the same point sooner or later.
It's the
conundrum of power.
Politicians
from the three main parties at Westminster have said in the last three weeks
that Scotland cannot be independent and 'keep' the pound, join the EU, share
intelligence and safeguard pensions. We can expect more of this, and we'll be
told that we can't have the BBC, the Queen and fish from our seas.
Which
illustrates one half of the conundrum. Because these assets are ours. The
pound, the pension insurance schemes and the Beeb are (currently) the property
of all UK citizens.
But when
a politician from Westminster says we can't have them he (it is always a man)
is saying "These assets are mine, not yours. I say who gets them. Not
you." He is underlining exactly why a country would want to separate - to
win back the control it thought it had over its assets. The people who vote Yes
in September are saying "No, not yours. These assets are owned by the
people."
What else
can a Westminster politician say? His or her only strategy is to say to the
Scottish children "We'll take back our sweeties. Even if they are half
sucked." And the minute she or he says that they are caught in the
conundrum of power, trapped into admitting that these assets that we believed
were owned by the people are in fact under the sole and absolute control of
Westminster. Politically, it's checkmate.
Could it
be different?
A little
humility would be good. To say, for example, that thanks to all that Scottish
ship-building in the 19th century, and those Scottish financial brains, and the
steam engine, the television, golf and football and Silicon Glen and Charles
Rennie Macintosh and Iain Banks and James VI and the Scottish regiments and...,
that thanks in fair part to Scotland's contribution we have all these lovely
assets. And we would now like to work out how better we might share them with
the five million who live in Scotland. To accept that politicians are servants
of the people, not key-holders of the Crown jewels.
But
Westminster politicians are locked into the conundrum of power. They will not
offer humility, nor power sharing.
Everyone who votes Yes on 18 September, is
saying "no" to the arrogance of Westminster.
