Well, I could be sitting on top of Scottish History. The Scotsman is reporting that the Scottish National Party has pulled ahead of Labour Party by four percentage points. If they take power, they have pledged to have a referendum on Scottish Independence within 100 days. If that passes, all hell could break loose because of North Sea oil. Oil is the only reason that England cares about Scotland. To create an independent economy, Scotland would have to claim the North Sea oil and get control of it away from England. I doubt that England is going to do that without a fight. It is one of the major reasons that that GBP is so strong.
In any case, the Scottish Executive has published a report on the proposed referendum. It says that the referendum would have to be done through London since the power to call the referendum was not devolved to the Scottish Parliament. This, of course, would kill the whole thing for the reasons above.
The major push behind this because of America sticking its rancid nose into it. The US shipped torture victims (aka "rendered") through Glasgow. Something which pissed off the Scots. The second thing that gave it a huge boost was the US shipping bombs to Israel through Glasgow during the Lebanon Conflict. This again pissed off the Scots. So, the Scottish want to get away from England because of its association with the US.
Anyway, we will see if this comes to pass. If it does, I will try to keep you posted.
posted by Chris #11:58 AM | 0 comments |
