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)
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Creo que será más eficaz la reacción de los Grupos Parlamentarios.
El Consejo de Gobierno de Aragón aprobará el proyecto de Ley de Transparencia en la última reunión que celebrará este mes de junio, ha avanzado la directora general de Participación Ciudadana, Acción Exterior y Cooperación, Isabel Cebrián, que ha comparecido en la Comisión Institucional de las Cortes autónomas este lunes.
Cebrián ha informado de que en la fase de anteproyecto ha habido varias modificaciones. Por ejemplo, las entidades locales recibirán apoyo en materia de participación ciudadana, las convocatorias de ayudas se realizarán mediante el procedimiento de concurrencia competitiva, no solo podrán participar en estos procesos los aragoneses, sino otros ciudadanos residentes en Aragón.
Asimismo, se incluirá un listado de temas cuyos procesos legislativos deberán realizarse contando con la participación ciudadana. Otras medidas son el reconocimiento de las encuestas y los paneles ciudadanos como parte de la transparencia y se cambiará la denominación del registro de participación.
HA.
Veremos a ver el texto que ha salido del proceso de participación.
Isabel Cebrián debutó ayer para explicar lo que tiene previsto hacer en lo que resta de legislatura en su dirección general. Anunció que la ley de participación se aprobará para ser remitida al Parlamento el próximo 25 de junio, tras incluir las propuestas de diferentes colectivos.
EPA.
Veremos lo que dice la resolución, pues la respuesta que dio en el incumplimiento del plazo de presentación de los presupuestos por parte del Gobierno fue penosa.
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