Like the battle of Waterloo, the battle for Scotland was a damn close-run thing. The effects of Thursday’s no vote are enormous – though not as massive as the consequences of a yes would have been.
The vote against independence means, above all, that the 307-year Union survives. It therefore means that the UK remains a G7 economic power and a member of the UN security council. It means Scotland will get more devolution. It means David Cameron will not be forced out. It means any Ed Miliband-led government elected next May has the chance to serve a full term, not find itself without a majority in 2016, when the Scots would have left. It means the pollsters got it right, Madrid will sleep a little more easily, and it means the banks will open on Friday morning as usual.
But the battlefield is still full of resonant lessons. The win, though close, was decisive. It looks like a 54%-46% or thereabouts. That’s not as good as it looked like being a couple of months ago. But it’s a lot more decisive than the recent polls had hinted. Second, it was women who saved the union. In the polls, men were decisively in favour of yes. The yes campaign was in some sense a guy thing. Men wanted to make a break with the Scotland they inhabit. Women didn’t. Third, this was to a significant degree a class vote too. Richer Scotland stuck with the union — so no did very well in a lot of traditonal SNP areas. Poorer Scotland, Labour Scotland, slipped towards yes, handing Glasgow, Dundee and North Lanarkshire to the independence camp. Gordon Brown stopped the slippage from becoming a rout, perhaps, but the questions for Labour — and for left politics more broadly — are profound.
For Scots, the no vote means relief for some, despair for others, both on the grand scale. For those who dreamed that a yes vote would take Scots on a journey to a land of milk, oil and honey, the mood this morning will be grim. Something that thousands of Scots wanted to be wonderful or merely just to witness has disappeared. The anticlimax will be cruel and crushing. For others, the majority, there will be thankfulness above all but uneasiness too. Thursday’s vote exposed a Scotland divided down the middle and against itself. Healing that hurt will not be easy or quick. It’s time to put away all flags.
The immediate political question now suddenly moves to London. Gordon Brown promised last week that work will start on Friday on drawing up the terms of a new devolution settlement. That may be a promise too far after the red-eyed adrenalin-pumping exhaustion of the past few days. But the deal needs to be on the table by the end of next month. It will not be easy to reconcile all the interests – Scots, English, Welsh, Northern Irish and local. But it is an epochal opportunity. The plan, like the banks, is too big to fail.
Alex Salmond and the SNP are not going anywhere. They will still govern Scotland until 2016. There will be speculation about Salmond’s position, and the SNP will need to decide whether to run in 2016 on a second referendum pledge. More immediately, the SNP will have to decide whether to go all-out win to more Westminster seats in the 2015 general election, in order to hold the next government’s feet to the fire over the promised devo-max settlement. Independence campaigners will feel gutted this morning. But they came within a whisker of ending the United Kingdom on Thursday. One day, perhaps soon, they will surely be back.
(Artículo de Martin Kettle, publicado en "The Guardian" el 19 de septiembre de 2014)
2 comentarios:
Lo de hoy es todo un logro, a pesar del resultado final. El Gobierno se ha quedado sin argumentos, en evidencia. Solo le quedaban los votos.
Enhorabuena por lo conseguido y por plantar cara a la Administración cuando hay que hacerlo y como hay que hacerlo, en los tribunales.
Me imagino que ya se habrán enterado de que esta misma semana el Departamento de Educación ha cambiado la OEP docente hasta en dos ocasiones. No voy a entrar a valorar el perjucio que la Consejería ha estado y está haciendo a los opositores a lo largo de los últimos meses, ni tampoco la asombrosa contestación que dió el equipo de la Sra. Consejera cuando en una de las mesas técnicas respondieron a los sindicatos que Dolores Serrat no sabía nada de esa sentencia (dictada en julio de 2013) hasta diciembre de 2013-Enero de 2014.
Mi pregunta es mucho más directa. A la vista de los acontecimientos de los últimos meses y la consiguiente poca confianza que nos puede transmitir a los interinos la Consejería de Educación y tras la ( supuesta ) última y definitiva OEP de este 14 de febrero de 2014 repartiendo dicha oferta entre 2014 y 2015 o 2016,¿Creen Uds. que los Servicios Jurídicos que tiene la Administración pueden estar en lo cierto cuándo afirman que existe seguridad jurídica para convocar parte de la OEP de la sentencia más allá de 2014? Visto lo visto, creo que Uds. nos pueden dar más seguridad al colectivo interino que la propia Administración. ¿Es posible que si siguen adelante con este planteamiento tengan que desconvocarse las oposiciones por no cumplir este mismo año 2014 con la oferta de al menos las 385 plazas de la sentencia? Supongo que se harán cargo de la premura que tenemos los interinos para disipar todos estos interrogantes.
Muchas gracias por todo. Saludos
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