Friday 19 September 2014

Scotland Votes

Today, the referendum for Scottish Independence was counted as a 10% majority in favour of remaining with the UK.  This was the biggest electoral turnout in living memory.  4 electoral regions voted yes, 1 was a tie, and the rest voted no.
I see this as a forced restructuring of national politics rather than a victory or defeat. The Cameron  government now has a challenge to implement change quickly.  This may be problematical since there seems to have been such a short debate about change.  The impression I have is that the UK government seems to have expected a yes vote for Scotland to leave the UK and has been complacent about what to do in the event of a no vote.  Not everyone is aware of the "hidden agenda" yet.
The developments of the next months will be interesting to follow.  I expect to see significant in-fighting between opposing factions in Parliament.
In my fantasy world, I imagine a country where England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own governments which are elected by proportional representation.  There is a national cabinet drawn proportionally from each UK nation and the prime minister is the leader of the party with the majority vote.  Alas - the real world has control of the outcome.

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