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)
9 comentarios:
No se puede explicar mejor y más claro.
No se entiende el silencio de la prensa pero aún menos de la Dirección General de Administración Local del Gobierno de Aragón.
Del informe que tenían que emitir los letrados de la Diputación Provincial tampoco se ha vuelto a saber nada ¿qué intereses inconfesables se esconden tras esta dejación de funciones?
Van ya tres notas sobre este tema de Mallén. ¿Cuántas más nos esperan?
El silencio es clamoroso
el tema es tan grave que precisará de las 300 notas ...animo a ir adelante con acciones más contundentes que las del blog, que ya veo molestan a más de uno ¿qué tienen que esconder?..
A ver si tienen la cara de seguir todos callados.
Animo para continuar con vuestro esfuerzo en defensa de la legalidad. Está claro que molesta
El grupo popular en el Ayuntamiento de Mallén no asistió ayer al pleno extraordinario convocado para abordar el plan presupuestario 2015-2017 "en cumplimiento de la ley" tras la inhabilitación judicial de siete años por prevaricación administrativa para el cargo de concejal del socialista Antonio Asín, que sigue ejerciendo de alcalde pese a la sentencia.
"El consistorio se encuentra en una situación no ajustada a derecho", subrayó ayer la portavoz del PP, Marta Pardo Delgado, que puso esta decisión en conocimiento de la secretaria interventora suplente.
Los populares basan su postura en el informe elaborado por la secretaria titular, según el cual "la no puesta en conocimiento de la corporación de la causa de incompatibilidad de Antonio Asín y la falta de toma de conocimiento" de la misma podría tener "responsabilidades" y "consecuencias jurídicas imputables a todos los miembros" del consistorio. Estas responsabilidades podrían ser de orden penal, civil y patrimonial.
De hecho, el mismo documento señala taxativamente que "tomado conocimiento" de la privación del cargo de concejal a Antonio Asín, "el cese es automático, salvo que la Junta Electoral Central o la Audiencia Provincial comuniquen al ayuntamiento por escrito otra cosa", algo que no ha sucedido.
"En esta situación, hasta la misma convocatoria del pleno por Antonio Asín es nula de pleno derecho", afirmó Marta Pardo, que también hizo valer esta misma postura para no asistir a la reunión de la comisión especial de cuentas convocada ayer.
EPA.
Un comportamiento muy coherente.
Sigamos incidiendo en este asunto.
Publicar un comentario