2014 David Cameron, only one day after the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, took a giant public dump on Scots by introducing English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) without consultation, which is at variance with the 1707 Treaty of Union. A position that was later toughened up to become a “veto” in the Conservative 2015 election manifesto.
But Cameron had blundered badly, having (with other political leaders) signed a public “vow” committing Westminster to substantially extending devolution to Scotland, only to slap a series of retrospective conditions on it. A huge kick in the teeth to the “no” voters in Scotland, and not wise. But Cameron had blundered and his jacket would hang from a shuggly peg from then on.
Months later, in the 2015 UK General Election, Scots responded electing 56 MPs from 59 seats available. A result which exposed the fraud exacted on Scotland by Westminster Unionists in September 2014. This was a declaration of independence.
The opportunity to declare independence was shunned by Nicola Sturgeon, the recently elected SNP Party Leader, who was basking in the acclaim of LGBTQ activists, her Government and its massive cohort of newly elected MP’s who decided to go to London and settle down gaining themselves, the SNP and those associated with it around £40 million each year plus a very generous non-contributory pension from the public purse. That is around £200 million over the lifetime of a parliament.
Sturgeon, in pursuit of agenda’s other than independence and not always within her competence studiously ignored the will of the Scottish electorate which returned an independence supporting majority of MP’s in every General Election since the 2015 landslide an undeniable fact that the 2015 declaration of independence remains extant.
Ardent Thatcherite and unionist Michael Forsyth went on to challenge the way in which Cameron played the EVEL card. He said: “Instead of going up to Scotland the next day (after the referendum) and saying ‘look we’ve got to look at this now from the point of view of the whole United Kingdom’ and started the English votes for English laws thing which was not a unionist position and that shattered the unionist alliance in Scotland against the breakup of the United Kingdom. I don’t support English votes for English laws. It doesn’t seem to me to be a very good policy to try and deal with the rise of Scottish nationalism by stirring up English nationalism. We need to find ways of binding the United Kingdom together, of binding that partnership together. Questioning the legitimacy of SNP, MPs is unwise and runs counter to the assurances offered during the referendum about guaranteeing an inclusive UK and I have limited sympathy for Labour, who now find themselves being devoured by the nationalist tiger.”
Forsyth’s views matched what I thought the morning after the Scottish referendum – that Cameron was playing a partisan game that was certain to inflame Scottish nationalism with an English betrayal only hours after the vote, damaging the Union he claimed to champion in the interests of short-term electoral gain.
But when Cameron made his play to English nationalism he did not think through what the impact would be in Scotland and was arrogant enough to assume that it didn’t matter now the Referendum was done, or insincere enough in his professed concern for the Union (which is part of his Party’s name) that he didn’t actually care as long as it boosted his chances of re-election this time round. David Cameron, fool or knave? It’s a hard choice (though there is an obvious answer).
caltonjock 