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Monday 12 October 2015

An urgent warning

Mundell is so proud of the fiscal traps that the UK Government is laying for the Scottish Government that he can't help boasting about them. What he is talking about is an effective transfer of Scottish tax revenue back to the British Treasury's coffers. We first saw this with the Bedroom Tax. I, and many others, asked then how long it would be before we saw Son of Bedroom Tax, Bedroom Tax 2 and Bedroom Tax: The Sequel. As it turns out, we're getting all of these and more rolled up together in the latest round of inept constitutional tinkering.
 
It's actually a very simple scam. Although there will inevitably be a fog of complexity intended to conceal the true purpose of the supposed "new powers". Basically, Westminter delves into the benefits paid to people in Scotland leaving a big hole which the Scottish Government has to fill from a budget which is constantly being reduced on the grounds that the Scottish Government is being granted the "power" to fill holes left by Westminster's delving.
 
The obvious question is, where does it end? The Scottish Government has to take money from other areas in order to fill these holes. Effectively handing that money to the British Treasury. There is a limit to the resources that the Scottish Government has for hole filling. But there is no limit imposed on Westminster's power to dig ever deeper.
 
The entire purpose of the measures is to tighten the British state's stranglehold on Scotland's budget so as to leave the Scottish Government (presumed to be an SNP administration) with only three choices -
  • Emulate UK Government policies in Scotland
  • Impose their own cuts to public services
  • Increase taxation - but under constraints that make it impossible to avoid hitting the poorest
These are NOT powers. They are political and economic weapons being deployed against Scotland.

And don't imagine British Labour are innocent in all of this. They stand ready to work with their Tory allies just as they did during the referendum campaign. Just as with the Bedroom Tax, they will campaign vigorously, with the aid of the media, to force the Scottish Government into these fiscal traps. They will make ever more ridiculous demands for "mitigation" knowing full well that there is no way of funding this.
 
Make no mistake. The British establishment is out to destroy the SNP, which is regarded as a threat to the structures of power, privilege and patronage which define the British state. And they don't care what damage is done to our parliament, our institutions, our economy and our people in the process. They are determined to put Scotland back in its box. And the only truly effective means we have to resist them is to bolster the democratic mandate that we afford the SNP.
 
The British establishment recognises that the SNP is the de facto political arm of the independence movement and the most potent anti-austerity force in the UK. They know that the SNP is the agency through which the people of Scotland will express their dissent from an anachronistic political union and neo-liberal economic orthodoxies. They will stop at nothing to neutralise the SNP.
 
The various groups and parties hoping to use the Yes movement as a springboard to electoral success at the expense of the SNP should take heed. For if the British state can destroy a political force such as the people of Scotland have created in the SNP, then these others will represent nothing more than a mopping-up exercise.
 
Forget the policy agendas. They are meaningless without independence. We must fight with the best weapon at our disposal. Like it or loathe it, that weapon is the SNP.

7 comments:

  1. Sad thing is there's probably nothing can be done and there are still people in Scotland who will believe it's all SNP's fault! That lot down south have played a blinder. ;(

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  2. It never ceases to amaze me why the S.G. cannot put the financial facts, in simplified language, out to the general public. No good being noble with pratts, I know we shouldn't stoop to their level but they are just going to destroy Scotland and the No voters will be no wise

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    1. The facts are out there, Sandra. But the mainstream media either don't report them, or they present a grotesquely distorted "interpretation". The recent Audit Scotland reprt on NHS Scotland is a case in point. We have to focus on developing our own channels of communication.

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  3. Wings produced the "Wee Blue Book" before the referendum. It was put through everyone's ? door. Short and to the point with no political logos. Persuaded my 72 year old sister in law to vote yes. We need another one!

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  4. Excellent reading (and writing sir.) I pride myself on being not only up to speed but also pre emptive on The Establishment vs SNP but even I had failed to see the bigger picture painted here. SNP will not be allowed to thrive. The Indy Ref was stillborn due to the dirty trick campaign they waged.My greatest fear was their obstruction to and of the next one. After reading this chilling blog I agree they will be intent on getting 'rid of the problem' altogether. We have a fight and a half on our hands.They have the print/broadcast mass media,police,judiciary ,the great Corrie unawakened and finally the armed forces to hide behind.Saor Alba!

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  5. I think the people of Scotland deserve all they get, I truly believe the SNP should have said, "sorry people, we tried but unfortunately you can only take the horse to the water" if it doesn't want to drink you cant make it, eventually though the horse will keel over, the SNP now need to stand back and stop trying to protect the people, if the numbers are to be believed, then Scotland has made it's bed and as uncomfortable as it is, we now need to lie in it, such a shame things may have been a lot better, but perhaps now we will never know.

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  6. This is a very very great piece. I've been saying this to all those that would listen for years. Their goal is to make Scotland the enemy so we will go cap in hand to the 'UK' establishment.
    The fact is that they have been doing this continually for decades and we still let them do it to us.
    I've voted for the SNP as a way to achieve independence as I feel that the whole country needs an overhaul. Not just Scotland but pretty much all the countries that have let capitalism transform into the massively destructive behemoth that it is now. The difference is that Scotland is one of the rare countries that can afford to re-finance and re-sculpt its country.
    There are an abundance of ways this could be achieved, from new railways spanning the country to move commerce and people around. To new infrastructure for better homes, farms and businesses in and out of the cities.

    We the Scottish people have to show them that it isn't just the SNP who are the favourites but any party/independent that supports radical change and independence.

    It is the people that make each country and when you continually opress and ignore them then revolution is inevitable. When the right to peaceful constructive change is taken away that is when revolution turns violent. My personal view is that people are too lazy to actually do this but it is needed for to make real change.

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