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Old 10-01-2012, 14:57   #7
Chris
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Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?

Scotland will not vote to split from England. Poll after poll after poll has shown that the settled will of the Scottish people is to remain in political union. Alex Salmond has a very good reason for delaying his referendum until 2014 - delaying it as long as possible is the only means he has of delivering the SNP's long-term pledge of a referendum whilst desperately hoping that something, anything, will transpire to turn public opinion around. He will also hope to complete a full five-year term in office having not spent four years of it being accused of having no legitimacy, the likely consequence of a referendum having been held and lost some time last year. Furthermore he will want to carve out a reputation for the SNP as a viable, alternative centre-left Government for Scotland so, having lost a referendum on independence in 2014 he can still go to the country in 2015 and ask for a third term as First Minister.

The electoral rules that return MSPs to Holyrood were designed to prevent the SNP from ever getting an outright majority. To an extent this suited Salmond perfectly as he is a pragmatist and a gradualist when it comes to achieving a split from the Union. He knows that the time is not now, and being able to blame a Parliament he did not control for denying him a referendum bill was very convenient. Only in the last stages of the 2010 election campaign, when an outright win for the SNP began to look possible, did the SNP start rolling back it's referendum commitment as far as it possibly could (that being a delay, not a cancellation).

It is not properly appreciated south of the Border that the SNP won the election despite their separatist agenda, not because of it. They are the only effective opposition to Labour in Scotland and the overwhelming desire on the part of Scottish voters in 2010 was to get Labour out of power in Holyrood.

---------- Post added at 13:57 ---------- Previous post was at 13:53 ----------

Useful analysis in this morning's Torygraph by Labour's Douglas Alexander:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...sh-people.html
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