By: ard sloc

ard sloc — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 11:25:38 +0000

I think (I hope not just wishfully that your second possibility is more likely. As George Monbiot writes in The Guardian today, the YES vote, even if it is just in the minority, represents a triumph of ordinary people against the massed NO of the Media and the Establishment. Will not the Scots inspire greater participation in politics by the English and Welsh? If so, it will be up to parties of The Left, whoever you include in that, to seize the moment.

By: James Christie

James Christie — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 19:25:46 +0000

This is a much more perceptive article than most of the mainstream media have managed. They have portrayed the Yes movement as the SNP, or “the Nationalists”. The truth is that if it had been only the SNP and only about nationalism then it would have been a walkover for No. Not even all the SNP voters are committed to independence. Many people voted them into power in the Scottish Parliament because they were seen as competent administrators.

Many Labour and some Lib Dem voters are voting Yes. However, the really interesting thing is how many people have become active who are totally outside normal party politics. The Yes campaign is genuinely grass roots, which makes it impossible to organise, control or discipline when things do go too far. The wider Yes movement is also far more radical than the SNP. All this is happening largely through social media. The mainstream press is overwhelmingly backing the No campaign, and I think it’s starting to dawn on some papers that they are now utterly irrelevant to politics in Scotland. The campaign has left them howling on the sidelines, ignored and mocked.

Although I voted yes in the end it was with mixed feelings. I tried to explain them in this article.
http://claro2.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/being-british/

Comments on: Will They Stay Or Will They Go?

By: ard sloc

By: James Christie