Exposing the Massive Disconnect

Mick Hall with a piece from Organized Rage on the Scottish referendum debate.

The Scottish referendum debate has exposed the massive disconnect between ordinary folk and the UK political elite.

As to the Coalition government and the rest of the UK political elite who are shacked up in Westminster and the gentrified areas of London and the home counties, in recent years they have continuously boasted about the UK punching above it's weight in the international arena, when in reality the referendum debate has exposed them as being unable to even punch their weight in their own back yard.

If ever history needs yet another example of the disconnect between the members of the Tory led Coalition government, led by David Cameron, and the overwhelming majority of those they govern, they need look no further than the Scottish referendum debate. And it's not only within the ruling Coalition where this is displayed, this total lack of empathy and an understanding about what makes ordinary people tick stretches right across the political, business, and media elites.

It's as if the germ of neoliberalism which Margaret Thatcher first let loose has infected the generation who now lead the 'mainstream political parties'. It is not an exaggeration to claim they are incapable of thinking outside of the box of what has become the dead weight of the age. Indeed it is even worse than that as they have no solutions to the UK's problems, let alone innovative ones, beyond that is more of the same. They revert to 19th century type thinking and attempt to force the population to take the pain, so they and theirs - the 5% of the population who benefit from neoliberalism - can continue to accumulate even more personal wealth while everyone else suffers, and ring fence it from the rage of the masses were it to explode.

Nowhere has the disconnect between ordinary folk and the political elite been greater than in the Scottish referendum debate.

With the LP leadership on side, (I will return to this later) the Coalition believed the referendum would have been a walk in the park, when even a glimpse at the 2010 election result should have told them they were in for a tenacious struggle, a peaceful war. At the last election just over 64% of the UK electorate voted against the Tories, and this hatred of the Tories and neoliberalism was especially prevalent in Scotland. Where only one Tory MP was returned to the Westminster Parliament making Scotland politically almost a Tory free zone.

If you add in the record of the Tory led coalition since they came to power, student fees, benefit cuts, especially of the sick and disabled, the bedroom tax, tax cuts for the rich, and more foreign wars, only a political illiterate or an arrogant fool who doesn't get out much would not have foreseen the Scottish independence referendum could lead to the break up of the UK.

Being creatures of habit who believe they are born to rule, once they saw the polls going against them, the English ruling class reached for the tools which until now have served their class well throughout their grubby and bloody history. First they tried selling the Scottish people bullshit and bluster in an attempt to get them to remain within the union, when that failed they tried threats about the currency, national debt, oil running out, and industry and commerce moving south. Which was a bit rich given it was UK governments who deliberately decimated Scotland's industrial heartlands.

Finally last weekend they tried bribes and false promises. As if these proud and independent minded people were 18th century native Americans willing to accept trinkets equal to what can be brought in Pound-land, and promises which could be abandoned by whoever is elected in 2015.

What a joy it must be to be a Scot these days

Not only are they on the brink of righting a historic wrong, during the course of the referendum debate they have come to believe in great numbers there is a better way and more importantly millions of them now have the confidence to put it into practise.

If the yes vote wins on the day, they will have a blank sheet on which to build a new nation, and in the process they will prove there is another way from the neoliberal sinkhole of low wage, low skilled economies, kept afloat by the roulette wheel spin of the markets and financial shenanigans of the Banksters. A country in which every citizen is cherished and valued equally, a society which develops the best from the past, the NHS, the Welfare state, social housing, organised labour, co-operatives, manufacturing and service industries which offer workers a decent days wage, for a decent days work, and publicly owned amenities, utilities, and services, including those which have failed their consumers so dismally since privatisation.

All this and more will be for the Scottish people to decide if they vote yes next week. What an adventure it would be, a challenge for sure, but what a magnificent prize they have within their grasp. If successful, and I believe they can be, they will make history gasp. In all probability it would finish the Tories down here in England as a natural party of government, after all the party which lost the union could hardly continue to masquerade as the Conservative and Unionist Party, its official name without being ridiculed.

As for the left, Miliband's blunder in joining the Liberal Democrats and Tories in the no campaign will also have consequences, although I doubt they will fully emerge until after 2016 when Scotland leaves the union and becomes an independent nation. With the loss of the 44 Scottish Labour MP's a realignment of the left will be needed, today there is almost as many former LP members as actual ones, most without a party political home. What is needed is a broad social democratic party which includes people from the soft left, across the political spectrum to the far left. Whether Labour can be that party is doubtful, but what the referendum debate has shown is when such a party exists, even in a modest way, it can achieve momentous things, big and small.

As to the Coalition government and the rest of the UK political elite who are shacked up in Westminster and the gentrified areas of London and the home counties, in recent years they have continuously boasted about the UK punching above it's weight in the international arena, when in reality the referendum debate has exposed them as being unable to even punch their own weight in their back yard.

Whatever the outcome on the 18th September one thing is for sure, politics on these islands will never be the same.