Standard Life's statement that in the event of a “Yes"
vote in the Scottish referendum they would leave Edinburgh, forcing 5,000
employees to choose unemployment or emigration, shows up the narrowness of the
independence debate so far.
The insurance company said it would have no choice because
Westminster has ruled out a currency union with an independent Scotland which
would be denied the possibility of retaining the pound.
The Edinburgh-headquartered company’s statement serves as a
reminder of where power really lies, and the reality that political power,
whether located at Westminster or Holyrood, means nothing without economic and
financial authority.
Just as Standard Life was putting the boot, the Royal Bank
of Scotland posted massive losses for the sixth year running. The essentially
bankrupt bank announced that it has decided to pull out of some of their
riskier activities and focus on "bread and butter banking".
Is that the right or wrong thing to do? One thing is for
sure, we were not asked though we as taxpayers nominally own the bank. RBS CEO
Ross McEwan declines to say if the bank will leave Edinburgh if there's a vote
for independence in September’s referendum.
But no way can a few million Scottish taxpayers bail out
that behemoth when the next crisis strikes. They would just have to crash,
taking thousands of jobs and millions in savings with them. The same goes for the
Bank of Scotland.
The problem is there is no real transfer of power on offer
as a result of the referendum. Alex Salmond's business-loving, oil-addicted
party do not present a materially different future as a result of independence.
So the SNP has a very narrow platform. In effect all they can offer is
"Scotland ruled by Scots" and "no more Tory governments".
Given that the SNP and One Nation Labour are equally willing
to kow-tow to ruthless corporations (remember the shocking betrayal at Grangemouth
last year), that's pretty uninspiring.
The SNP had no answer to the question, what will happen if
Scotland is excluded from a shared currency? They simply called
Osborne-Alexander-Balls "bullies" and said they would never carry
through the threat.
They didn't point out the obvious, that this shows that the
three main parties are entirely in agreement on economic and financial issues, with
absolutely no difference between them. That's because the SNP share the same
ideology!
It couldn't have been clearer this week, when the ConDem
Cabinet met in Aberdeen and the SNP Cabinet met just down the road at
Portlethen. They may have been separated by a few miles, but they
simultaneously presented the same fawning, acquiescent policies to the giant
oil corporations.
This independence referendum is certainly putting questions
of democracy and the realities of state and economic power into sharp relief.
It is a disruption of the status quo that is causing huge distress,
particularly for Labour.
If the SNP cannot give any powerful reason why people should
vote for independence, nor can Labour give any meaningful reason why they
should not. A strange
scene yesterday at Westminster underlines this.
SNP MP Pete Wishart went into the voting lobby to see which
Scottish MPs had turned up to vote in a motion on the bedroom tax. Scottish
Labour MPs failed to even turn up last time, to their eternal shame.
East Renfrewshire MP Jim Murphy rushed up to Wishart
screaming "fuck off, fuck off, fuck off....." over and over again. It
was a bizarre scene by all accounts, but I would argue this unbearable tension
felt by Scottish Labour is about more than loss of seats and personal incomes.
As Labour cannot advance either a socialist case, a working
class solidarity case for the continued union of Scotland and England or
principled support for self-determination, then what have they become?
Demonstrably, undeniably, another party of big business, a process that began
with the Blair governments. Neverthless, Labour’s crisis over Scotland is an historic moment for the party of Keir Hardie.
Penny Cole
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