That most dangerous of things; democracy

Scottish Independence rolls further into view. Personally I would love to see the Scots give Westminster an electoral kicking of the like they thought unimaginable. This is what democracy looks like gentleman, after you have run out of ideological power, after you spent your agenda setting power to prevent a DevoMax option, and the decision makers are now giving you a decision you didn’t want. It’s utterly fucking hilarious.

But as Westminister rolls out the PM who lost Scotland to insist that the process is irreversible, I am reminded of the words of Tom Paine from 1789 in a very similar circumstance;

There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the “end of time,” or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it… Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it.

So stop trying to scare people. The insistence that this decision is eternal because you’ll never take them back is pathetic. What’s the plan in case of a Yes vote, Westminster? Are you going to get really drunk and listen to Cher’s ‘Believe’ at an inhuman volume?

As unwanted as ‘messages from England’ surely are, I shall give mine anyway. I am English, unfortunately, and it’s what we do between imperialistic invasions.

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin.

A Yes or a No vote on the 18th September is not the end. It is the beginning, a chance to tear apart these monuments to greed and build a new world from the broken pieces.