The famous Scottish comedian Billy Connolly has announced
that he will not be voting either way in the upcoming referendum on Scotland's
independence from the United Kingdom, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26233388.
This makes him one of the few Scottish celebrities to sit on the fence over
this question. Others have loudly announced that they are "'Yes' men"
like the singer Annie Lennox, the comedienne Elaine C Smith and the actor Sean
Connery. Others have spoken out against it, like rock star Sharleen Spiteri,
the tennis player Andy Murray and football coach Sir Alex Fergusson. Indecision
is often taken for weakness in this world, but should it? What right do we have
to judge Billy Connolly? He's currently recovering from cancer treatment and
looks and sounds somewhat frail in the video above; he describes himself as
"old and cold" and that he's deaf and can't walk properly. What's
more he might be one of many people who are now taking a step back from the
approaching vote and rethinking; I sincerely hope so. I suspect that those in
the public eye who have expressed a stance on Scottish independence might be
doing so for the wrong reasons, those in both the for and against camps. As
I've explained in the background articles above, I advise the Scots to vote
"No". I'm not a flag-waving British Unionist, but I think that this
offer of independence to
Scotland
is just a scam to get all the nations of the
UK
under the jackboot of the European Union.
At the moment the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond
and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and locked in a row over
what currency an independent
Scotland would have. Salmond wants
Scotland to enter into a currency union with the
UK, a "Sterling zone". Osborne has opposed
this as unfair and unworkable, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26225894.
Reading through this list of arguments makes me suspicious that at some point a
third alternative will be tabled:
Scotland joining the Euro. This would mean it could take
advantage of all the current Sterling-Euro trade deals and lift the burden of the
UK's economy subsidizing
Scotland via a parasitic relationship. In fact I suspect that
Alex Salmond's current bumbling "man without a plan" attitude is not
accidental. We've had David Cameron jumping on that bandwagon; in fact it was
he who coined the phrase. So has the former Chancellor Alistair Darling from
the Labour side, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26226618,
so once again it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government will win! The
current status of
Scotland's relationship to the EU is pretty unclear... at
least for public consumption it is... The European Commissioner Jose Manuel
Barroso is doubtful over whether
Scotland could sign up. However, as you can see in the
background links, Salmond's position is stalwart; he envisions
Scotland as being an active participating state of the EU and
members of his own government are backing him up. What we might end up with is
a new precedent in international law that could pave the way for other former
regions of constituent states becoming independent of those states and then sidestepping
all the usual wrangles of the EU membership application process. What's more,
Scotland's privileged position will be demanded by dozens of
others, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-26219385.
I think that this is why the nationalist movement in
Catalonia has escalated in recent years. And they're only one
of many; there are also the Venetian separatists, see:
http://rt.com/news/venice-protest-independence-rally-826/,
and the myriad across former-Yugoslavia. All previous structures of European
political and cultural identity are being broken up, not in order to free those
who see themselves as chattel nations of larger countries, but to fragment any element
of sovereignty that might have the power to resist forced and complete European
integration. The plan is that once
Europe is ruled under a single totalitarian bloc, the
equivalent continental authorities around the world can be united into a one
world fascist/communist tyranny. Any Scot who votes "No" in the
upcoming referendum is not a traitor against their country's longing for
freedom from the last vestiges of an evil empire, they are the exact opposite.
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