There’s a lot I find odd about the referendum. I hate giving up Saturday mornings for it. And the Saturday afternoons. And Sunday mornings. And Sunday afternoons. And Wednesday evenings. And Tuesday evenings. I haven’t yet gotten to the point of giving up Friday nights to canvassing (one divorce might be considered unfortunate, a second by 35 would surely be beyond careless) but I have been known to entertain guests while simultaneously preparing canvass packs for the morning shift.
But giving up my time is only one part of this. What I hate more, and find very odd, about the referendum is the way that it has upended normally comfortably familiar political relationships and antagonisms and divided allies while uniting foes. I have an abiding dislike of the Tories tempered with a grudging respect for the some of the more intellectual, if increasingly rare and often perhaps overly patrician, ones but like most in the Labour party find it deeply uncomfortable to be on the same side of the debate as them. Never mind the bloody janus faced Lib Dems1.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for the Greens though. Defending a policy platform they don’t agree with that includes the “settled will” of the Scottish people on a currency union but post-2016 policy choices on corporation tax cuts and reducing air passenger duty to encourage more flights must be very odd. Never mind promoting the strength of an independent Scottish economy based on oil and financial services which, even if we retained the latter, would encourage pro-cyclical monetary policy even with a floating Scottish currency.
Vote Green in 2016 for big booms and deep busts inextricably linked to the oil price is a platform unlikely to win them a majority of MSPs, even if they do stand enough candidates for that to be a possibility.
Sorry James and Dom (and Jef and…) but you’re campaigning for the white paper and the low tax, fossil fuel dependent monarchy it endorses.
Strange times indeed.
[1] And, by the way, to those of you who voted Lib Dem because Labour wasn’t left wing enough for you: we warned you this would happen.
#1 by No_Offence_Alan on September 3, 2014 - 8:12 am
The aim of a Yes vote in the referendum is to establish an independent Scottish parliament in 2016. After that, all policies, on Corporation Tax or anything else, are up for grabs and for Scottish voters to decide. Which is kind of the whole point.
#2 by Aidan on September 3, 2014 - 8:39 am
And all the stuff that will be decided by 2016?
Will the Greens even stand in constituencies in 2016?
#3 by James on September 3, 2014 - 12:00 pm
Nothing that requires the agreement of two sovereign governments, eg currency union, nuclear disarmament, can be decided before 2016. And nothing that requires a sovereign Scottish government, i.e. anything currently reserved, can be decided before then either.