indigopete
19th September 2014, 13:17
As many of us are absolutely gutted and trying to pick ourselves up of the floor, I'm trying to reflect on what just happened there.
I've realised that the No campaign won because they succeeded in peddling the myth that a border of political decision making also represents a cultural, commercial, industrial and institutional one.
This clearly isn't true - one look round your own home for objects that were not made in your home country will tell you that. But it worked enough to spook people into thinking that being fish in the same barrel represents "togetherness" more than evolving diversity does.
There's now speculation that the UK will start to work on revising the constitution to "absorb" Scotland into the British sovereign so that this can never happen again without the entire UK's consent. The PTB have been rattled. That would be the nail in the coffin for us in terms of a political identity.
Far from having the "best of both worlds" we've actually got the "worst of both worlds" - a half baked parliament at home and a negligible influence on industrial, military and foreign affairs (compared with a fully sovereign parliament) in London.
In other words, we can celebrate and assert our identity in the areas of trout fishing and prancing around in kilts, but when it comes to deciding on participation in wars or financial collapses or bulldozing factories - forget it.
I've realised that the No campaign won because they succeeded in peddling the myth that a border of political decision making also represents a cultural, commercial, industrial and institutional one.
This clearly isn't true - one look round your own home for objects that were not made in your home country will tell you that. But it worked enough to spook people into thinking that being fish in the same barrel represents "togetherness" more than evolving diversity does.
There's now speculation that the UK will start to work on revising the constitution to "absorb" Scotland into the British sovereign so that this can never happen again without the entire UK's consent. The PTB have been rattled. That would be the nail in the coffin for us in terms of a political identity.
Far from having the "best of both worlds" we've actually got the "worst of both worlds" - a half baked parliament at home and a negligible influence on industrial, military and foreign affairs (compared with a fully sovereign parliament) in London.
In other words, we can celebrate and assert our identity in the areas of trout fishing and prancing around in kilts, but when it comes to deciding on participation in wars or financial collapses or bulldozing factories - forget it.