Why Nick Clegg just made my mind up for me on Scottish Independence - it's time to leave the union.

I have been deeply conflicted for some time now about the referendum on independence: my heart (as indoctrinated/steeped in national pride as any other Scot) has long cherished the idea but my head has been arguing against it....and then I watched Nick Clegg stand in for Cameron at Prime Minister's Question time...and it got me thinking. My arguments against independence involve fear of the nasty xenophobic, racist elements that are always lurking nearby when you go down the road of nationalism together with a general reservation about dividing up geopolitical systems into small countries - not often a recipe for anything more than conflict. The current crisis in the EU and the disgusting Little Englander mentality of Tories, UKIP, EDL, BNP etc is a case in point - a break up of the EU would be disastrous, likewise I suspected the break up of the United Kingdom. That was kind of where I've been on this for some time - Devolution was long overdue (I defy anyone who lived in Scotland during the Thatcher years to argue otherwise) , indeed it had been a feature of Scottish Labour policy since Kier Hardie's first election campaign (in my native Lanarkshire) in 1888, but full independence?.... And then along came Nick. It wasn't that he said anything memorable, indeed he answered every question the same way whether it was about the Liberals abandoning their manifesto and long promoted ideals to facilitate extreme Tory radicalism, tripling of student fees, the crisis in the NHS, wealth inequality, youth unemployment, the answer in all cases was to go red in the face and scream that everything was Labour's fault and Labour had been worse on everything. To listen to him you would think that the Coalition had only just come to power rather than approaching the end of its term of office, that they had just carried on Labour's policies instead of years of the worst record of butchering welfare and the NHS in post war history. This is the current state of the Liberals - lapdogs to the Tories. I looked at the government benches and all I could see were fat, smug, privileged, rich white men (and I mean men) defending the obscene wealth of the 1%, cutting taxes for the super rich, fighting tooth and nail to stop European attempts at the mildest of bank regulation or £300,000 caps on farm subsidies to the richest landowners, while sneering at the poor and vulnerable, blaming them for their poverty and hacking billions from the welfare budget and freezing nurses and teachers wages. And then there is the Labour Party....in a month that has seen the news break of a disabled man, his benefits removed without reference to his medical records and after a thirty minute visit by an ATOS employee, starving to death in David Cameron's own constituency do we see a party of reformers committed with socialist zeal, compassion, belief in social justice to addressing the obscene inequality and injustice of our society? No. We hear some rhetoric. We see members of the new political elite - the same tiny range of schools, universities, even courses as those on the opposite benches. We hear them talk of "fairness" by which verbal obfuscation they hover on the fringes of Tory attacks on the "work shy", "scrounging" poor. We do not hear the outrage and anger that we should. We do not hear that they will stop the cuts and the privatisation of the NHS and Education. Are they better than the Tories? Of course....but not by all that much. This is Ed Miliband's party not Ralph Miliband's.

So this is where English parliamentary politics has been for some time; the only choice offered to the electorate is between the far right and the centre right. This is not a fair reflection of the English people - I'd like to emphasise the difference between the electorate and where the power lies - but ever since Blair and his like gave us "New Labour" parliamentary elections have been a fight for the votes of the right and the centre with left wing voters lacking a candidate and reduced to voting for Labour as the only alternative to the increasingly extremist Tories. Now Scottish politics are far from perfect - I wouldn't trust Alex Salmond for a heartbeat and there is no shortage of small mindedness  and parochialism, and there are some big issues to find solutions for such as the currency position - but if the Union breaks up England is the partner most likely to end up a centre right to far right, inward looking, anti European, pro American mess where the 1% continue to have all the cake. By contrast Scotland (with all her many flaws) is politically a country of the Left, it has always been the heartland of British Socialism - all the more so after the experiences of the '80's - it is also a country where xenophobia while widespread (and as irrational as xenophobia anywhere) is largely restricted to our English neighbours (and frankly only the Southern English) pretty much all the political parties are internationally out going, pro European and already reforging old links to the Scandanavians. An Independant Scotland has at least the potential to be the bit of the old UK that carries on the traditions of the post war revolution in social justice and takes its place amongst the international community.
Admittedly my position on this is a lot like the proverbial chap sawing off the branch he's sitting on. I don't live in Scotland anymore and at the moment my personal struggle involves trying to keep hold of my Oxfordshire home and put food on the table so that I can hobble out what's left of my existence between my bed and my sofa. If Scotland leaves we could be looking at pretty much permanent Tory rule and things getting much worse for those of us at the bottom of the heap but that doesn't change the fact that Independence is increasingly looking like the right choice for Scotland.