Awae wi’ the lot a’ ye – ye wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beasties …
Last night I couldn’t sleep and so rose and came to my computer in time to join (listening-wise) the Stephen Nolan Show on Radio Five Live mid-flow. The period from around 10.45pm onwards was taken up with a phone-in on the issues arising from the recently-called General Election and most particularly Brexit.
Amidst all the hot air being spouted by everyone involved one of the most ridiculous contributions – as you might expect – came from a Scottish gentleman who was also an SNP and Independence supporter.
He seemed greatly exercised about the fact that the Scottish people would have little or no influence over the course of the Brexit negotiations and therefore faced the likelihood of having to accept some sort of deal (presumably, with Mrs May and the Tories still at the helm after 8th June, a form of ‘hard Brexit’) which would neither be in their bests interests nor what they would have wanted. This was apparently yet another example of how the UK government – as it had done all throughout history – deliberately ignored the interests and will of the Scottish nation.
Given my position upon Scottish independence – as an Englishman, I’d dearly like to cast my vote in a Referendum of the English, Welsh and Northern Irish nations as to whether we wanted Scotland to remain part of the UK or not, a democratic exercise which I’m pretty sure would result in a 65-75% vote in favour of kicking Scotland out – readers may understand why the posturing and blather of this example of those who live North of the Border caused me not a little irritation.
Personally, I’m not the sort to get off my behind and actually make calls to a phone-in programme to point such things out, but what did puzzle me is that nobody involved, either in Mr Nolan’s studio or out in the world of UK insomniacs with me who is in the habit of phoning in to a radio audience their thoughts upon world issues, took the opportunity to point a few facts of life about the EU Referendum and its aftermath to Mr McGregor, or whatever said Scotsman’s name was.
Which is why I’m going to do so now, in the hope that Mr McGregor might be one the three regulars readers [according to data helpfully provided by Google Analytics] of my occasional columns in the Rust.
I’m not even going to trouble myself with the whys and wherefores of the EU Referendum (the 52% – 48% result, what Brexit actually means, the Single Market, Customs Union, Freedom of Movement, European Country of Human Justice and so on, ad infinitum …), but just stick to the basics.
Let’s begin with the issue of UK sovereignty.
What all Remainers and indeed those who want a ‘soft Brexit’ – including those who want a Brexit so soft that to all intents and purposes it amounts to as close as means ‘no Brexit’ as makes no difference – are really saying is that they’re quite happy, for the next never-ending period of time (i.e. forever), to allow the EU, let us remember effectively a democratically wholly unaccountable organisation, to dictate to the UK and its population what its laws, rules and regulations are going to be.
As for those who argue that it is better to be in the EU, influencing policy etc., than on the outside – well, we’ve had over forty years’ worth of experience of what that means, viz. that the fifth largest economy in the world has but one vote amongst 28 (or is it 27?), at least half of which belong to countries that are de facto basket-cases anyway. Plus – as sure as eggs are eggs if things continue as they are – within the next twenty years that will probably become one vote amongst 35 or even 40.
In other words, we are already in the position of having surrendered our sovereignty to the whims and vagaries of the EU and, if we stay in, things in this respect can only get worse. Never mind reforming (or preferably getting rid of) the House of Lords, we might as well get rid of the House of Commons as well, lie back, forget about our version of national democracy, and just let the EU run the UK as it wishes. Because that’s what we’re talking about.
Now, let’s come to our friends in Scotland.
Their one-eyed objections to being ruled by the UK Parliament (because their wishes are allegedly never taken into account) as are nothing to the position they’d be in if somehow Scotland was able to gain independence from the UK and then go, cap in hand, to beg entry to – or in their parlance ‘assert their right to remain’ within – the EU.
That wouldn’t be independence for Scotland, despite all Nicola Sturgeon’s Braveheart-style patter to the contrary. Scotland would have about as much influence within the EU as Malta, if that.
The bald truth is that Scotland has a very privileged position within the UK, far more privileged that Wales or Northern Ireland, and far more than its numerical population [5.373 million according to The National Records of Scotland, 2015] warrants.
Not only does it have, courtesy of the Barnett Formula, a per head of population ‘totally identifiable expenditure on public services by country’ annual UK Treasury grant of £10,152 (which is 115.5% of the overall UK average) against, for example, England’s £8,529 [figures from the 2012-2013 annual Treasury publication ‘Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses’ (PESA).], but – thanks to the policies and imperative of the BBC to be impartial to all – the rest of the UK [total population – in 2015 – 65.1 million, 59.7 million of which are not Scottish, i.e. England 54.1 million, Wales 3.1 million and Northern Ireland 1.8 million – figures courtesy of the Office of National Statistics] is subject, day by day, to the incessant moaning and posturing of La Sturgeon and her supporters on our screens and over our airwaves whether we like it or not.
The fact is that If Scotland was truly independent, irrespective of whether it was in or out of the EU, it would be in a far worse position – in terms of its economy and political influence – than it is now.
Which is why I object to having to listen to the angst-ridden gibberish of deluded Scots like the gentleman who phoned in to the Stephen Nolan show last night.
