Next week, Scotland may vote to end the 300-year union with England. If it happens, it won’t just change Scotland, but England as well, and there are legitimate fears than it will unleash ugly forces that will leave the remainder of the UK far less of a green and pleasant land.
Superficially, the removal of 60-odd Scottish seats from Parliament appears to benefit the Tories, who have barely existed as an electoral force north of the border for a generation. But it’s difficult to imagine the break-up of the United Kingdom not changing the political landscape south of the border. The possibility of England lurching to the right after Scottish independence is certainly possible but is by no means inevitable.
Another possibility is that it will provoke a backlash against the same forces that were seen as driving Scotland away from the UK, and are as true for Wales and the English regions. If the London-centric ruling elites are found guilty in the court of public opinion of destroying the union just to line their own pockets, there will be blood. Hopefully just metaphorical blood, but….
If we’d had electoral reform years ago we wouldn’t currently be facing the possibility of the break up of the UK. We would not have been electing governments who could afford to ignore entire regions of the country because a handful of marginal constituencies were all the mattered in elections. And we would not have been electing governments with a mandate to enact far-reaching and irreversible changes with the support of just 40% of the electorate.
I’m a former Liberal Democrat voter who’s currently politically homeless. I have always considered myself left-of-centre but I have never trusted the authoritarianism that was never far below the surface of the Labour Party. But, whatever Scotland decides next week, if Ed Miliband promises electoral reform as a manifesto commitment, he will have my vote.
