Can Great Britain Survive a Scottish “No” Vote?

[cali]

Great article:

<snip>

That is the really interesting question arising out of the vote. For, although the unionist side seems likely to win this round, in the longer term the impact of the referendum could well be disastrous for those who want to maintain the status quo. About the best they can hope for is a federalized Great Britain that retains the word “United” in its name but is, for most intents and purposes, two separate countries. And even that outcome may prove to be unsustainable. Indeed, the English, who today are lamenting the possible dissolution of their beloved union, may well end up kicking the Scots out of it.

To understand why, you need to recall a bit of history. Thursday’s vote didn’t come out of nowhere. Scottish nationalism has been growing in strength since the seventies and eighties, when Mrs. Thatcher’s brand of free-market economics and militarism alienated many of those north of the border. In a 1999 referendum, the Scots voted for devolution of power to a Scottish Parliament, which came into existence two years later. Initially, the Scottish Labour Party held power. But, since 2007, the pro-independence Scottish National Party has been the biggest party. And, since 2011, it has held power alone.

Already, the Scottish government has the authority to set its own policies in many areas of domestic policy, such as education, housing, and health care. And it has started to exercise this power. In the rest of the United Kingdom, students now pay for their college degrees. In Scotland, a university education is still free. In the rest of the United Kingdom, people pay for medical prescriptions. In Scotland, they don’t. At the moment, the Parliament at Westminster still sets most tax rates and the level of state benefits, such as old-age pensions, for the entire country. But that is also changing. Beginning in 2016, the Scottish Parliament will be able to alter income-tax rates by up to ten pence in the pound. Scotland is also altering the way in which it taxes property sales, to make its methods more progressive, and it is taking over the setting of laws relating to speed limits and drunk driving.

That is only the beginning. Last week, in a desperate effort to persuade the Scots to reject independence, the three major parties in England—the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and Labour—came together and promised them another big dose of devolution in exchange for a “no” vote. In making this offer, Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, who is Scottish, described it as “nothing less than a modern form of Home Rule” for Scotland. Since then, the British government has made clear that this so-called devo-max policy would including granting the Scottish government more powers to raise taxes and borrow money, as well as the right to change some benefits and guarantee spending levels for the National Health Service in Scotland. The writ of Westminster, which would still have a full contingent of Scottish M.P.s, would be largely confined to defense and foreign policy, immigration, energy, and business regulation.

Many Scots might be content with such an outcome. But what about the English, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish? Going forward, would they be content to allow Scottish M.P.s to vote on policy measures in Westminster that shape their lives when their own representatives aren’t allowed to vote on similar issues involving Scotland, because those get decided in Edinburgh? This question was first posed in 1977, by Tam Dalyell, who was then the Labour M.P. for West Lothian. For many years, the West Lothian question, as it became known, was regarded as an interesting but hypothetical puzzler. But, as more and more powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it is one that takes on great urgency. Eventually, it could lead to the breakup of Great Britain.

<snip>

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/can-great-britain-survive-scottish-vote?src=mp

[frazzled]

1. A good and provocative read

What I take away from it is, whether "yes" or "no" today, the breakup of GB seems functionally inevitable.

It scares me a bit for nationalistic (or regionalistic) prospects in the rest of the world, not least of which right here in the good old US of A, whose union is less old than that of Britain, and whose regional differences might be even greater than those between the Scots and the English.

[cali]

2. kick.