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)
3 comentarios:
Lo peor de todo es que nadie se extraña ni escandaliza por esta situación de incumplimiento reiterado.
¿Nos hemos acostumbrado a la ilegalidad?
Así se recoge esta nota en la página web entornointeligente:
La Asociación para la Defensa de la Función Pública lamenta que el presupuesto no se presente en plazo
Expansión / En una nota de prensa, este colectivo ha señalado que "parece como si el Gobierno quisiera establecer prácticas o pautas de actuación contrarias a la legalidad, al tiempo que formula propuestas de regeneración democrática, desconociendo que el primer signo de salud democrática es el cumplimiento de la ley". El Gobierno de Aragón "no se aplica esa máxima para sí mismo y considera que los plazos marcados por el Estatuto para remitir los Presupuestos al Parlamento autonómico son meramente orientativos, de manera que su respeto o cumplimiento resulta disponible por parte del Ejecutivo". La asociación ha opinado que "es llamativo, nuevamente, el silencio del presidente de las Cortes de Aragón, José Ángel Biel, en la defensa del Estatuto, cuando los incumplimientos proceden del Gobierno aragonés de coalición y no del Gobierno de España". A su entender, "el hecho de que las propias instituciones de la Comunidad Autónoma resulten incapaces de respetar las obligaciones que establece el Estatuto de Autonomía de Aragón es suficientemente elocuente del estado de salud democrática de nuestra Comunidad Autónoma". Gestión La Asociación para la Defensa de la Función Pública Aragonesa ha manifestado que la gestión presupuestaria en la Administración autonómica "se halla totalmente distorsionada tras la creación de órganos tan disfuncionales como la Unidad de Control de la Gestión Pública, que ha despojado por decreto las competencias de gasto que corresponde a los consejeros en virtud de norma de rango legal". Asimismo, ha criticado que "tampoco se ha querido respetar ni la organización interna del Gobierno −−en la que se incluyen las competencias de los respectivos consejeros−−, ni algo tan básico en cualquier Estado de Derecho como es el principio de jerarquía normativa, establecido en el artículo 9.3 de la Constitución Española". Desde esta Asociación han subrayado "el incumplimiento legal en el que ha incurrido el Gobierno de Aragón al no presentar en plazo el Proyecto de Ley de Presupuestos" ya que si bien esto "no produce efecto alguno", "no es posible aceptar que siga fomentándose, desde ninguna instancia pública, la cultura de la ilegalidad".
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