Scottish Independence

just back from Edinburgh and having completely cut myself off from my normal news sources just about the only story that I picked up on was the White Paper on Scottish Independence. I've got to say that I think that First Minister Alex Salmond has played a very smart political game over this one.

First he seeks to limit his poll to Scotland only, he can justify this with several reasons such as: his powers do not extend south of the border (which would emphasis how much power over scotland is currently outside of scotland, strengthening the emotional appeal of his course at the same time) or by claiming that it is about Scottish self determination (again emphasizing the difference of Scotland and strengthening the emotional appeal of his course at the same time). This gives him a home turf advantage.

The timing will make it in 2009, which so long as Gordon Brown does not call an early election next year to get the most out of the thank-god-Tony's-gone-bounce could well lead to a significant shift to the Tories. This would be a very real demonstration of the the very different polities north and south of the border, and could well lead to greater support for more independence for scotland because of a collective mood of 'if they want the Tories we don't want them.'

Finally there are the questions that where chosen questions:
• Retaining the present devolved set-up.
• Redesigning devolution by extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament in specific areas.
• Full independence.
Everybody will be arguing over full independence leaving the middle option (and probably his preferred option) of more powers looking like a reasonable compromise, and one that already has a lot of support.

As somebody that prefers small states with their powers devolved as close to the people as possible (preferably to the people themselves as often as possible) I have no worries about scottish independence and welcome further devolution. I only hope that should the SNP get their referendum and through it get a mandate for further powers that this time somebody will think to try and answer the West Lothian question at the same time. For us south of the border this could well be useful as well. By campaigning against the referendum on scottish independence and the referendum on the not-the-constitution treaty Gordon is going to be looking rather un-democratic. Despite the protection offered by his honeymoon period already there have been signs of how un-democartic and un-collegic his thinking is (the U-turn on the casinos without telling anybody about it for example) despite the spin.