On a Referenda Bender

[steepholm]

I wonder what position the SNP will take regarding the forthcoming EU referendum? They're a pro-EU party, so can hardly be seen campaigning to leave; and yet, if the UK votes to leave it will give them their best shot in the foreseeable future to demand a second independence referendum, which they will almost certainly win on a Scotland-stays-in-the-EU slate.

It's an interesting dilemma for them; but certainly a lot more pleasant than the corollary dilemma faced by the rest of us, which is that of how to live in a rump UK with no EU, no human rights and a permanent Tory majority, being governed by wankers for the benefit of bankers. But such is apparently the earnest wish of many.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If the SNP, which supports membership in the EU, makes a tactical move against it in the referendum, that would be what is called in Marxist theory "heightening the contradictions," i.e. making things under the current regime worse so as to increase the likelihood of your own eventual victory. If they did that, they would certainly lose my support were I a Scottish voter. But my trust is that they won't be as ruthlessly cynical as the Communists.

I think I have already proven (http://kalimac.livejournal.com/750332.html) that the "permanent Tory majority" of the rump UK is not real. However, "governed by wankers for the benefit of bankers" is what you'll get from either party, with Labour having spent the election anxious to prove it can be more economically austere than the Conservatives. No wonder they lost. I see that Tony Blair, whom I thought nobody wants to hear from any more on any subject, has weighed in on Labour's future, opining that it needs to move more towards the centre. I agree. But Blair thinks the centre lies somewhere over to the right, whereas it seems to me that Labour needs to put considerable policy difference between itself and the Tories, which would entail moving far to the left, where they haven't been for some time. Being the only practically centrist political party is what got the LDs, despite all their handicaps, so many votes in 2005 and 2010; now they've given that up and look what happened to them.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm still depressed. And Wales continues to vote against its own existence.

[sovay]

I'm very sorry about your government. I may need to apologize for mine being a trendsetter, which nobody needed.