Scotland’s referendum – are we Better Together? the myth blown apart!

You may think I have lost the plot – but please hear me out.

In a week when the BBC are out and about in Scotland asking people how the economy will affect their decision on 18 September.  At best this is stupid and an insult to the integrity of the Scottish people.  The economy varies on a daily basis.  Why not ask them how today’s weather will affect their vote in the referendum in September – that would be no less stupid!

Of course, it is not stupid.  It is very deliberate and designed to keep Scotland’s referendum in the POLITICAL ARENA.  We must drag the debate out of politics.  The referendum question is far too important to be left to politics and politicians.  Remember, these are the people who have been caught with their hands in the till; claiming fictitious expenses, homes that don’t exist and duck ponds and 0.6% of them are in prison as a result!  Do you seriously believe that all the guilty have been found out?

The referendum question is about your hopes for the future, what kind of future you want for your children and their children and how confident you are in their ability to determine their own future and build a better and fairer future for themselves and their OWN country.

IT IS TIME FOR SCOTS TO REALISE THEY ARE BEING DUPED

– and I will try to explain one of their tactics – and more importantly, how we can overcome it and rise above it.

I have been thinking about Better Together and I am very aware that in the background and the run-up to 18 September, Project Fear will try to pull every dirty trick in the book.  On their side it will get very ugly.  They will attack the YES campaign, the SNP, anyone who agrees with us, the people of Scotland, The Sunday Herald – you name it, we are on their radar.

And of course we will just let them – AYE RIGHT!

We will fight back in the way we have done so far, more of the same, much more of the same, followed by much, much more of the same – because we are consistently gaining ground – so we won’t be changing our truthful and winning argument.

On the other hand, Better Together don’t have a winning formula so they are running around like headless chickens, looking for our weak spot.  That’s good news because they will burn themselves out looking; as we don’t have a weak spot.

So back to my thoughts about Better Together – the title.

Better Together is a mutually inclusive uni-directional term.  No, I’m not taking the p*ss, there is a point to this.  An example of the opposite, mutually exclusive bi-directional term could be a ‘red car’.  Take away ‘red’ and it’s still a car.  Take away ‘car’ and it’s still red.  Car red, still works as well.

So what’s the point to all this nonsense.  Well, here’s the thing.  The term Better Together needs both words to retain it’s meaning.  But it only works in one direction?  If you are ‘better’ that does NOT mean you are together.  For the expression to make sense, first, you must first be ‘Together’, then you must be ‘Better’.  Then you would be Better Together.

If you are still with me I will try to explain why I feel this is crucially important.

Up until now, Project Fear(ties) have focused on Better.  They tell us we will be better off.  We will have more security, because they can bail us out when we get ourselves, stupidly into trouble.  In other words we are scroungers on a national scale.  We are better because we can share resources with all the UK, for all our benefits – what!  We are better off because the UK can invest in our technologies and innovations such as renewable energy – and all they want in return is the profit.  We are better off because we share the big institutions such as the BBC.  We are better off because we can get the satisfaction from knowing we share their £1.5 Trillion debt.  I could go on and on with this.  Basically, they tell us we are so much better off together – although, we don’t really feel like that!

Now remember I said they were running around trying to find our weak spot.  Well, … they forgot about their own weak spot!  Better Together only works if we are TOGETHER.

If we are not together we cannot possibly be Better Together.  So while they have been busy telling us how much better we are – they forgot to sell the all important ‘together‘.

So, the question is ‘are we ‘together’ as a nation?

Let’s see.  In the European Parliament elections England was overwhelmed by UKIP who achieved a massive swing everywhere outside London.  In London they were seen as failures because they only achieved a 6% increase in their share of the vote.  In Scotland they only got 5%.  So UKIP won the UK EP election comfortably but only managed to scrape 1 seat in Scotland.  Clearly Scotland has a very different political demography – so we are NOT TOGETHER there.

The UK is arguably the most socially divided nation in the Western world.  The wealth gap, variations in our education system, the salaries gap, value of housing, even our life expectancy varies massive between Scotland and the South East.  How many times do we hear the term ‘post code lottery’.  We look out to sea at vast oil rigs and look inward to food banks, starvation, old people freezing to death in the winter.  The UK has the greatest number of billionaires in the world yet millions of people are on benefits without jobs or prospects of work in their lifetime, and millions are working on or below the minimum wage, earning well below a ‘living’ wage.  Worse still we have vast number of workers excluded from ‘dole queue’ statistics because they are on ‘zero hours’ contracts – so we are VERY NOT TOGETHER there.

In England the population vote for their Government.  More often than not they don’t like what they end up with because they believed the picture on the tin – but at least they got to vote for them.  By contrast, Scotland has never influenced the UK general election since 1945 and spent most of that time governed by a party they had rejected as a nation.  For example, we currently have a Conservative Government (with a LDem appendage).  Scotland has 1 Conservation MP in Dumfries?  Scotland has a majority SNP Government and a LDem Scottish Secretary from Orkney & Shetlands – so we are VERY, VERY NOT TOGETHER there.

Even a basic infrastructure opportunity, HS2 for which we are expected to pitch in over £2 Billion will run between London and Manchester and Leeds.  It won’t go anywhere near Scotland in our lifetime – so we are DEFINITELY NOT TOGETHER there.

Scotland and the Firth of Clyde has had the Western World’s nuclear base at Faslane.  The people of Scotland, and some others, don’t want it and in protest, set up a peace camp opposite the base that has been continuously occupied for 30 years.  If the people of Scotland got their wish and the base was moved away, where would it go?  Nowhere in the rUK would accept it, least of all the South East – so we are VERY DEFINITELY NOT TOGETHER there.

So, if your are still with me, my message is simple.  Forget all these claims of being ‘better’; they are false anyway.  Focus on the ‘together’.  That is where their argument is weakest.

IF YOU ARE NOT TOGETHER YOU CANNOT POSSIBLE BE BETTER TOGETHER.

Finally, why would I bother to make this point, you probably know this anyway?

Well, the ‘better’ argument depends largely on facts and figures, statistics, economics, research, analysis etc;  all the things the Government have extensive access to, all the spin doctors they have in their pocket and most importantly how easily these ‘facts’ can be distorted, doctored or simply hidden.

This enables the Government to produce an argument that some people may, quite innocently, be persuaded by.  I say, don’t go there.

The ‘together’ argument is far easier for ordinary people to see.

• You can’t hide the wealth in the South East,
• You can’t hide the money in the City of London,
• You can’t re-brand the food banks,
• You can’t make someone living in a cardboard box simply disappear
• You can’t ignore the fact that successive Government, both Conservative and Labour (and of course their lapdog LDems) have lashed the less well off in the country with austerity measures to disguise their own culpability,
• You can’t miss the fact that HS extends from London to Manchester and Leeds, alone,
• You can’t miss the fact that successive UK Governments have sold off the silverware – our vital services, our infrastructure, failed to support our larger employers,
• And you surely, by now, can’t miss that the UK Government and their electorate who outnumber us 11:1 will decide whether or not we remain in the EU – despite the wishes of the Scottish people!

DO YOU STILL FEEL TOGETHER AS A PEOPLE, DO YOU STILL FEEL TOGETHER AS A UNION?

My appeal to the Undecided and the NO voters is simply this:  Look around for your own evidence of ‘together‘.  Ask yourself if you really believe we are ‘together’ as a people, ‘together’ as a nation or together in terms of our future.

IF YOU DON’T SEE THIS EVIDENCE OF ‘TOGETHER’ THEN YOU MUST QUESTION THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF ‘BETTER TOGETHER’.