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:
Buena iniciativa!!!
Si hay que desobedecer leyes injustas, se desobedecen». Ese es el inquietante debut político de Ada Colau, candidata de Barcelona en Comú, como alcaldesa in pectore de la Ciudad Condal, en la que habitan 1,6 millones de personas de todas las creencias políticas e identitarias, razas, colores y religiones, cada una con su particular concepto de lo que es o no es justo. ¿Pero qué le está pasando a este país? No se había visto un estreno tan catastrófico desde el 5-0 que encajó España frente a Holanda en el Mundial de Fútbol de Brasil en el 2014. No puede ser que la alternativa a un Gobierno insensible y obsesionado con la economía -como si ejercer el poder fuera gestionar una tabla de Excel-, a un PSOE que cambia de discurso cada día en función de por dónde sople el viento y a un nacionalismo catalán abrasado entre el 3 %, la herencia de Pujol y la permanente huida hacia adelante, sea una dirigente política que a pocos días de asumir previsiblemente el control de un presupuesto municipal de 2.250 de millones de euros anuncie que se va a pasar por el forro cuando le pete las leyes y la Constitución. Y eso, teniendo en cuenta que para hacerse con el bastón de mando necesita el apoyo de al menos otras tres fuerzas políticas. Asusta pensar qué disparates diría Ada Colau si tuviera mayoría absoluta.
Cada uno tendrá su opinión, sus preferencias, sus filias y sus fobias, pero alguna opción debería haber en la política española que no obligue a escoger entre Rajoy, Pedro Sánchez y Artur Mas, que representan si se quiere lo de siempre, y la irresponsabilidad de esta Ada Colau que nos invita a convertir la ciudad de Barcelona en la Comuna de París, como si el tiempo se hubiera detenido en aquel marzo de 1871. ¿Va a aceptar la señora Colau que los ciudadanos de Barcelona decidan cuáles de las leyes, normas y reglamentos que ella promulgue son justos y cuáles no? ¿Va admitir que quien considere que la tasa de basuras, el IBI o el impuesto de circulación son una injusticia deje de pagarlos sin que ello le acarree ninguna consecuencia penal o administrativa? ¿O es que considera que solo son justas y obligan a todos por igual las leyes que ella promulgue gracias a los votos de los partidos que estén dispuestos a secundarla en esa suicida política municipal, mientras que las que le obliguen y afecten a ella como alcaldesa quedan a su libre albedrío?
Gonzalo Bareño.
Publicar un comentario