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Witless Cameron offers the impossible to protect the rest of the UK from Scottish Government actions

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During indyref 1 For Argyll said that it was the Union’s tragedy that all of its major parties were led by empty lightweights who could do nothing first to save and then to reform and reinvigorate it.

That observation remains true seven months later as the Union faces, not a lesser but a greater threat to its survival; and Scotland is on the brink of translttion to a one-party state.

Anyone who has just watched Tom Bradby’s series of televised interviews with each of Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Ed Miliband at home and about, must share our incomprehension at how utterly shallow and insubstantial each of them was.

The SNP is anticipated to arrive in the House of Commons after the General Election on 7th May with up to 56 of the 59 Scottish seats in its pocket, most of them former Labour seats.

Reacting to the SNP’s threatening stance on what it will do in Westminster with this power, Prime Minister, David Cameron, has today, 20th April, made an astonishingly stupid promise in this morning’s national press.

This clearly comes in anticipation of the impact of the vastly increased powers to come to Scotland from the recommendations of the Smith Commission. This ill considered excursion is now inevitable since all the UK major parties have ‘vowed’ to get this agreement onto the statute book in short order after the election, whichever of them is in government.

Mr Cameron says that the Treasury will now annually examine the impact of all of the devolved policies on the rest of the UK – like changes to tax rates and business rates, like no university tuition fees, like the specific governmental management of public services, including transport and of major areas of responsibility like energy and agriculture.

He explained that: ‘… this is about making sure we understand the impact that devolution is having and make sure that the rest of the country never unwittingly loses out.’

OK. Sounds good? Now think about it.

The Scottish Government raises the threshold at which tax is paid, substantially benefiting the lower and middle income sectors.

This sees a significant increase in cross border migration to Scotland, particularly from the north east of England:

  • impacting on local taxes raised there;
  • impacting on the viability of some local services there;
  • reinvigorating the traditional textile industries in the Scottish borders;
  • with wages remaining low for businesses but with workers taking home more with the lower tax take on their earnings;
  • and with the hugely generous free childcare from the Scottish government already in place.

Regardless of the negative as well as the positive impacts of this fiscal policy on Scotland as a whole, it has had a markedly negative impact on the north east of England.

What exactly can the Prime Minister do to protect the north east from the greater attractions of working and living nearby, across the border in Scotland?

If Mr Cameron – in the type of measure he is clearly considering -  attempted to introduce a local income tax in the north east to combat the magnetic pull to the north, the ramifications across England would be something to witness.

Then Scotland introduces a free travel pass between home and work for everyone paid under £25,000 a year – again to raise the percentage of their stable earnings a lot of people can keep; to attract people of working age to come to live and work here; and to cut carbon emissions by taking cars off the road.

Would the UK as a whole have to do the same ‘to make sure that the rest of the country was not unwittingly losing out’?

‘Tail wagging dog’ does not come close to what the silly PM has just opened up. There is simply no achievable answer to the situation that is now certain to come about.

The rest of the UK can neither establish border controls nor tariff barriers against a fellow member of the United Kingdom.

There is very little if anything that, within the Union as it is  presently constituted, the PM can do to ameliorate the disadvantages to part of all of the rest of the UK which may result from Scotland’s use of the welter of substantial powers to be conferred upon it by the Smith Commission.

The witlessness of our current political leaders was shown crucially in the panicking rush at the end of indyref 1 to endorse former and failed Prime Minister, Gordon Brown’s unbuttoned promises [which actually swayed few, if any]; and the crazy timescale he laid down for their creation and implementation – also agreed.

Ironically, these daft pledges – which became a national vow and which were well-meaningly made to save the Union, carried the seeds of its destruction – if anyone had stopped to look. It is no consolation that For Argyll was one of the very few that did.

The reality of the impact of the powers that must now be transferred to Scotland is that they have the capacity to pull the Union apart in sheer asymmetry. Some of this will be inevitable, much will be deliberate mischievous manipulation of competitive advantage. That is politics and it is definitely separatist politics.

Mr Cameron’s mutton-headed promises this morning show that this penny has very belatedly dropped – but his remedy, if he tried it, could only accelerate the destabilisation of the Union.

Postscript

In the event of significant migration to Scotland from the north east of England, Mr Cameron wld have a potent means of stemming that flow – if he knew it existed.

He could warn northeasterners that if they move to Scotland, each of their children from birth to legal maturity will be appointed a State Guardian whose identity they may not know but whose authority over their child will supercede their own and be unaccountable to them.

That would give many pause for thought – but the UK seems unaware of this wildly authoritarian and universal statut that is already in place – so the PM is likely to be as ignorant as anyone else.


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