'New Labour is to blame for the Scottish independence vote'

[truth_seeker]

'New Labour is to blame for the Scottish independence vote'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/10715010/New-Labour-is-to-blame-for-the-Scottish-independence-vote.html

By  Ben Riley-Smith, Scottish Political Reporter

5:12PM GMT 21 Mar 2014

New Labour is to blame for bringing about the Scottish independence referendum because it abandoned the interests of its core voters, one of the party's own MPs claimed yesterday.

Ian Davidson said Tony Blair's adoption of privitisation and "cow-towing" to America drove Labour supporters into the arms of the SNP despite their separatist policies.

But he added that the current debate is being "enormously constructive" by returning devolution to the top of the agenda and forcing all politicians to think harder about the benefits of the Union.

Mr Davidson, MP for Glasgow South West and chair of Westminster's Scottish Affairs Committee, made his comments during a Daily Telegraph fringe meeting at the Scottish Labour Conference.

They appear to run against the Scottish Labour leadership's attempts to paint the independence referendum as an Alex Salmond obsession which runs against the desires of most Scots.

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Among other nationalists/ separatist movements are Quebec, Catalonia, Basques, etc.

[Oceander]

Quebec has been trying for decades; could they stand as a viable independent country?

[EC]

In short - no, at least with respect to Scotland. While it is true that most of the North Sea oil and gas comes ashore in Aberdeen at present, they don't have to. Middlesboro has a massive refinery complex run by ICI (couple of my relatives work there), off shore moles for tankers to unload and is totally hooked in the the UK infrastructure. It's a bit longer journey for the tankers but not significantly so.
Other than being an oil and natural gas conduit, Scotland basically has nothing. Can't even feed itself anymore.

Still - I hope they do it. Paying a little more for petrol and natural gas is a very small price to pay to guarantee that the Labour party is never in power again.