Dear Gordon
When Gordon opens his first Prime Ministerial mail he will find an invitation to a 'Council of the Isles' meeting, from the victorious SNP leader, Alex Salmond. Relations are not good, in a breach of etiquette, Tony failed to call him to congratulate him on his success in the Scottish Assembly elections, where he managed something almost unthinkable for many years, knocking Labour off the top spot.
Alex is after independence, but has learned to play a long game. currently he's also angry about the Blair-Gadaffi Memorandum of Understanding that may lead to the Lockerbie bomber being quietly moved to serve his sentence in Libya. He also has a strategy. The first step is to bring independence onto the agenda, by forming a competent administration and getting the English on board.
The English? Yes, not necessarily the politicians but, getting support amongst the citizens. He's got two alternatives; to make the UK want Scotland to bugger off, or to show the English the advantages of Scottish independence. The invitation on Gordon's desk is part of the latter approach.
The Council of the Isles aka The British Irish Council was set up as part of the Good Friday agreement and comprises of representatives from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, UK, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man.
See who's missing? No England. But wait, aren't the English represented under UK? Possibly, but wouldn't the representative be the PM, Gordon Brown, a proud Scot? Salmond's game is to show how Scottish - and Welsh - independence will give the English representation and expect him to keep chipping away at the West Lothian question - something that is approaching the notoriety of Fermat's Last Theorem
Sabretache Blog He's a canny
Sabretache Blog
He's a canny operator alright - Alex Salmond that is - Can't wait for the real Salmond/Brown match with Gordon forced to don his 'Britishness' mantle and fawn to the hated English. That should impress his constituents eh?
"See who's missing? No England. But wait, aren't the English represented under UK? Possibly, but wouldn't the representative be the PM, Gordon Brown, a proud Scot?"
English represented under UK??? - So are the Welsh NI-ers AND Scottish - so they've each got double representation on that argument..
Here's the oath the Dour one signed on becoming a Westminster MP back in 1988 - Known as "The Scottish Claim of Right":
"We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount."
So now we can look forward to a Prime Minister who is pledged under oath and honour bound to make the interests the Scottish people paramount in all his actions and deliberations. Does he seriously suppose he's going to be allowed to get away with that? - Not by canny old Alex he ain't - and certainly not by switched on English MP's.
He's already 'vowed' to make education his number one priority - and of course he can tinker with it to his hearts content, safe in the knowledge that none of his tinkering will affect his own constituents.
Progressives should support
Progressives should support Scottish independence (or autonomy within a Federal Republic of Great Britain) because of the damage it will do to our imperialist foreign policy approach. You wouldn't see a British Army killing civilians in Iraq & Afghanistan if the Scots walked. So keep at it, Alex Salmond!