Does Cameron really think Scotland will stay in the UK because he wants it?

Why Cameron is on a hiding to nothing: Many Scottish people have not forgotten how British governments have mistreated them. [Image: Ceasefire Magazine]

Why Cameron is on a hiding to nothing: Many Scottish people have not forgotten how British governments have mistreated them. [Image: Ceasefire Magazine]

David Cameron gave a speech today in which he made an impassioned plea for Scottish people to vote for staying in the United Kingdom – and if any of them needed an excuse to do the exact opposite, there it is.

He made his comments from the Olympic Park in London – which says everything you need to know about his relationship with Scotland. Was he afraid of the jeers if he travelled up to Edinburgh?

“I passionately believe it is in their interests to stay in the UK – that way Scotland has the space to take decisions while still having the security that comes with being part of something bigger,” Cameron wittered. But he has been shrinking the state. The UK as a whole is much smaller – economically and philosophically – than it was four years ago and that’s his fault.

“In the UK, Scotland is part of a major global player,” he burbled. But the rest of the world now looks down on the UK because of his unstatesmanlike behaviour when dealing with foreign powers. He has diminished the UK in the international community and the Scottish people are well able to see that.

Appealing for those of us in the other UK countries – England, Wales and NI – to apply emotional blackmail on our friends in Scotland, he gibbered: “From us to the people of Scotland, let the message be this: We want you to stay.”

Cameron must think we all have memories so short we could qualify as brain-damaged. Conservatives have historically used Scotland as the testing ground for every rotten little policy they wanted to try out – remember the Poll Tax? – because of no special quality other than the fact that there are no Conservative MPs there.

I don’t want Scotland to vote for independence because I think Scottish people have contributed hugely towards the culture shared by everybody living on the British Isles – it is possible they have added more to our society than the English who dominate our political lives.

In return, they have been treated abominably – most particularly by English Conservatives – and that is why I can’t see Scotland staying in the Union while an English Conservative is in charge in Westminster.

If Scotland does go, you should all know what will happen next: Wales will become the testing ground for rubbish Tory policies. They won’t try it on Northern Ireland because that province’s history tells them exactly what they’d get in return – and if that isn’t a good enough reason for the Welsh people to go feral and start causing havoc, I don’t know what is!

So well done, David – you have considerably worsened our chances of remaining united.

My only hope is that, if Scotland does secede from the union, its leaders keep the door open, so that there always remains the possibility of some form of reunification on terms that strengthen both countries – when (or if) a reasonable government is returned to office in the UK.

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29 Comments

  1. pennymead1 February 7, 2014 at 1:21 pm - Reply

    Here’s the thing, Cameron really does believe he is that powerful, he speaks and we will all follow, his wishes are to be carried out without question and why does he have this view? Because that is exactly what has happened up to date!

    • Mike Sivier February 7, 2014 at 1:36 pm - Reply

      One word: Syria.
      That debate didn’t go too well for him, did it? (I know it was Hague leading the debate, but it was Cameron’s policy as PM).

  2. jonjamesmcardle February 7, 2014 at 1:22 pm - Reply

    Solidarity, Mike!

    Sent from my iPhone

  3. Paul Smyth February 7, 2014 at 1:29 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on The Greater Fool.

  4. Joseph Smith February 7, 2014 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    If there was any small lingering doubts that Cameron is a dangerous fool, a liar, corrupt, a vindictive self seeking self promoting individual not fit to run a school crossing much less Britain, this speech will have dispelled them. In my opinion the Scots will now be more suspicious of the Westminster intent than before and therefore more inclined to vote yes. Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon must be feeling pretty pleased. So well done Dave you f***in clown

  5. joanna February 7, 2014 at 1:52 pm - Reply

    Hi Mike just found this is case you haven’t come across it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7lCrGW9jvE

    • Martin Downey February 8, 2014 at 2:49 pm - Reply

      Thanks for sharing, loved the last minute, Sir Dennis Skinner, I salute you :-)

  6. Rai February 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm - Reply

    Voting for independence is a total waste of time as scotland will just be an admisiterative region of the EU when the full conditions of the various treaties takes full effect, most likely to start after the May 22 elections. As for england we will be sliced up and divided up amongst our so call partners. We will be about as independent as an MP under a three lined whip.

    • jaypot2012 February 7, 2014 at 4:41 pm - Reply

      You are wrong Rai – the people of Scotland view politics and politicians in an entirely different way than others. We are strong enough to go it alone and we have the money to do it. Why the hell do you think that Cameron is running scared and begging people to phone their Scottish relatives and friends and ask them to stay in the Union?

    • amnesiaclinic February 8, 2014 at 6:17 pm - Reply

      Absolutely! It’s all a sham and a distraction to cover up what is really going to happen unless we get out of the EU NOW!!!

      • Mike Sivier February 8, 2014 at 6:21 pm - Reply

        Good idea. I’ll just go and make a tinfoil hat.

  7. […] David Cameron gave a speech today in which he made an impassioned plea for Scottish people to vote for staying in the United Kingdom – and if any of them needed an excuse to do the exact opposite, …  […]

  8. Black Triangle (@blacktriangle1) February 7, 2014 at 2:35 pm - Reply

    Solidarity, Mike!

  9. alleuropean February 7, 2014 at 2:41 pm - Reply

    Critically Cameron (and English society more generally) need to recognise the public policy gulf that is opening up. It is one thing to appeal to the hearts and minds of the Scots that we should remain part of the Union, but there needs to be a coherent case and an acknowledgement that English public opinion (spurned on by the Conservatives and right-wing press) is potentially pulling the Union apart through its views on immigration, the EU and the role of the private sector. There are plenty of Scots who share those views, but such views are not nearly as mainstream as they are south of the border. Cameron’s intervention is likely to do little good for the cause of the Union.

    • Newbigging February 7, 2014 at 3:45 pm - Reply

      Hello Mike,
      Slight correction for your piece. We’ve got one Tory Westminster MP up here. It’s called David Mundell.

      Cheers from Scotland

      Gordon.

    • Samwise Gamgee February 7, 2014 at 5:26 pm - Reply

      Don’t assume all English think alike, and the reality of “English public opinion” is more complex than the toxic, poisonous dross pumped out by the likes of the Sun and Daily Mail.

      As for politics there are many in England who would welcome Scottish independence and would wish them all the best if they get it. Speaking as one who would describe himself as an English nationalist with left-of-centre views (yes not all English Nats are Tories or Ukippers!) Scottish independence is the best of both worlds – it’s a blow to “British” Unionism and the Scottish people get to escape the horrors of the current Westminster regime.

  10. jaypot2012 February 7, 2014 at 4:49 pm - Reply

    Brilliant piece :) If we go Independent things in both Scotland and rUK will cause mayhem for a few years and then we’ll just accept things and carry on as two different countries. We’ll still be the trading partners we are, we’ll still have a huge tie to one another, but the thing we won’t have is a Westminster government telling us what to do, ignoring our needs and wishes and using us as guinea pigs!
    We have never voted for a conservative government – and we have just the one conservative MP from a country that holds 5 million people – we have no voice.
    If we gain independence we will not see our NHS split up and sold, we will get back our Post Office which should never have been sold in the first place, and as well as many, many other things, we will get rid of nuclear weapons, and that one thing alone is worth voting YES for.

  11. jaypot2012 February 7, 2014 at 4:53 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Jay's Journal.

  12. Nick February 7, 2014 at 5:43 pm - Reply

    well this government is the worse that’s ever been over my long lifetime and it’s now time for Scotland to go it alone regretfully as to try to continue with David Cameron and the likes in power would be madness

    Mr Salmond is not ideal either but at least he has Scotland at heart where David Cameron never could. if i were prime minister however it would not even be up for discussion as i would have always treated the uk as a whole and not like up to now an afterthought. so it does matter who runs a country and it’s always has mattered as getting it wrong always spells disaster for certain groups of the citizens wherever you live in the world not just Scotland

  13. beastrabban February 7, 2014 at 6:50 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
    There is absolutely no doubt that Scotland has been a major contributor to British culture. You only have to think of some of the great literary giants from north of the Border: Robert Louis Stephenson, John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott, and a whole host of others less well-known, like A.J. Cronin, and the Scots contribution to British science and engineering is proverbial. The Scots have also made an enormous contribution to political and economic theory, through writers like John Law in the 18th century and that favourite of Tory free-traders, Adam Smith, the author of the ‘Wealth of Nations’. And the Scots too have benefit from the Union, though possibly not in quite the way supporters of the Union, like myself, would always think. One of the explanations historians have offered from the emergence of the Scots Enlightenment is that after the union, a large section of the Scots political establishment moved to London. so lessening the pressure in Scotland to conform to the set intellectual limits. The Scots thus became freer than their new compatriots south of the Border to challenge these boundaries and push forward their intellectual frontiers.
    And there is also one other example of Scots good sense. When the NHS was established, it had little effect in Scotland, as many local authorities in Scotland had already set up a publicly owned medical system.
    As for the increasing demands for independence, let’s lay the blame for that – or credit, if you prefer, where it’s due: Maggie Thatcher. Her policies, and her cynical use of Scotland as a laboratory for testing policies like the Poll Tax, caused massive dissatisfaction with Conservatism in particular and the union in general. Malcolm Rifkind even wrote to Maggie to tell her she had ‘wiped out’ the Conservative party in Scotland. There was a piece in the ‘I’ yesterday that made it very clear that before Maggie over half of Scots voted Unionist, the Scottish equivalent of the Tories. This support evaporated after she destroyed their industrial base, just as she did so in so much of England as well. During Blair’s administration, the Tory papers blamed him for the demands for secession. He had, after all, given in and granted them devolution, just as he did to a greater or lesser extent to the other nations in the British Isles, Wales and Northern Ireland. Well, devolution does seem to have led to a growth in demands for full independence, but the true origin began long ago. And many of the Scots voting for the SNP don’t want full independence so much as a proper, fully functioning welfare state. China Mieville and the author of the SF ‘Culture’ novels stated over a decade ago under Blair that they voted for the SNP because they felt the SNP had better welfare policies than Labour, not because they wanted an independent Scotland.
    If Scotland does become independent, and successfully adopts a series of left-wing economic and social policies, you can bet the Tory press down here whipping up hatred against them, or trying to portray Alex Salmond as a dictator somewhere between Hugo Chavez and Joe Stalin in the depth of his evil, just to stop the English demanding the implementation of such policies down here.
    And it goes without saying that they’ll try and turn Wales into their laboratory. After all, it’s only got about 5 per cent of the total population of the British Isles, and largely doesn’t vote Tory, so as far as their concerned, no damage done if they decide they want to go it alone. But their departure, and the disintegration of the last remnants of Britain into its constituent nations, will be yet another legacy bequeathed by Maggie, no matter how the Tories may huff and puff in her defence. She claimed to stand for ‘Britain’, and made patriotism one of the watchwords of the Conservative party. Instead she’s destroyed it.

  14. Tommaz February 7, 2014 at 7:41 pm - Reply

    What about independence for England, but from what I wonder, maybe fro politicians ?
    Tommaz Jay
    Drowning in the sh** the politicians call policy

  15. Redgoblin February 7, 2014 at 8:20 pm - Reply

    I wonder if Scotland would form a union between Wales and Northern Ireland, and just leave England to its own devices.

    • Mike Sivier February 7, 2014 at 9:02 pm - Reply

      I should put that up on Facebook as a poll, shouldn’t I?

    • bookmanwales February 8, 2014 at 11:33 am - Reply

      Maybe the solution should not be a vote for independence but a vote by Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to kick England out of the union.
      A union without England would probably be far more harmonious and much more equal.
      A shared political party based on proportional representation could then take decisions based on the needs of the majority rather than on a few rich friends ?
      Wales has the water and still lots of coal, Scotland has the oil for the time being and the most potential for alternative wave energy so between us we could deal England major economic blows.

      • Mike Sivier February 8, 2014 at 1:24 pm - Reply

        I would hope that it wasn’t about dealing major economic blows to another country, but rather about being able to exist in a more just society.

  16. hilary772013 February 8, 2014 at 12:26 am - Reply

    If Scotland gets their Independence, we are moving to Scotland as we have a lot family there my hubby is from Ayrshire & unfortunately he will not be allowed to vote because he lives here & as he put it when we heard Cameron speech that’s ******** done it Scotland will definitely vote YES! now listening to that Ars****e. If we lose Scotland the Tories will definitely get back in 2015 & I am moving back home…

  17. Suzanne Ennazus February 8, 2014 at 1:55 am - Reply

    The sad thing is, the main reason Scots would vote for independence is because of how awful the Tories treat people, so Scotland can become a separate state in the EU without a Tory ever destroying people’s lives, communities, industries and the environment again, just so their tax dodging corporate donors who live in tax havens can make more money, and their upper class friends can be given a Tory safe seat to live for free off the tax payer. The whole of the UK should get rid of the Tories and stay together, instead of helping them split up the UK.

  18. […] Why Cameron is on a hiding to nothing: Many Scottish people have not forgotten how British governments have mistreated them.  […]

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