Congrats to the Scottish National Party
(SNP) for their great historical victory yesterday. They are a movement whose
origins in part are due to the inspiration that Scots got in the early part of
the last century from the Irish struggle for nationhood and independence from
an imperial Britain.
Yesterday was a watershed in British
politics, an important milestone in the shaping of the United Kingdom similar
to the 1945 General Election which brought the Labour Party to power and to
1918 when Sinn Féin consigned the
once dominant Irish Parliamentary Party to the history bin and led a few years later
to the establishment of an Irish free state.
This week Labour was annihilated in its
heartland by a rising nationalism due in large part to its betrayal of its
socialist principles, its support for the hugely expensive Trident nuclear
weapon programme and its arrogance towards the Scottish people that it took for
granted over so many years.
The three principal founders (Hardie,
Anderson & MacDonald) of the British
Labour Party were all Scottish and it has been the largest party in Scotland since
the late 1950s. Until yesterday.
The Conservative Party may have won the
2015 UK general election but it could be a Pyrrhic victory. Mainland Britain now has a geographical political fault
line separating Scotland from the rest of the island. The Tories are primarily
a party of England; it has only
one Westminster seat in Scotland out of 59 seats, with SNP on the other hand holding
an overwhelming 56.
The nationalists will now campaign for the
maximum powers possible for the Hollyrood parliament under the increased powers
of devolution promised at last referendums. Furthermore, the UK referendum on
membership of the EU that will take place within the next two years may lead to
the majority of the population of England voting to leave whilst the Scots
may decide the opposite. What
happens then?
Now for an enjoyable read of What did the Irish ever do for Scotland?, click here
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