Friday 4 October 2013

Scotland, we want you to stay. Well, not really.

The referendum on Scottish independence was negotiated by a Conservative PM. It is to be held in September 2014. The next UK general election will be help in May 2015 and therefore may not include Scotland, if it becomes independent in the meantime. Coincidence? Not necessarily.

David Cameron has stated that his party wants Scotland to stay. He could not really say otherwise, at least not publicly. But the facts are such that his party stands to gain from losing Scotland. The Conservative Party has most of its support south of the border: at present, it only has one MP in Scotland. With Scotland gone, the Conservatives will be in a much better position to win in the remainder of the UK. Labour, on the other hand, will be marginalized without their Scottish MPs in Westminster. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2010UKElectionMap.svg.

Despite Cameron’s rhetoric, The Conservatives may be as keen on Scottish independence as the Scots.