Another pile of utter crap from the Grauniad “remain” apologists. This time Jonathan Freedland lies through his teeth.
He argues that this referendum is much like the recent Scottish one. Well, yes, there are some similarities. However, Freedland is an arsehole when he argues that there is hypocrisy behind those in the Brexit camp who also argued for Scotland to remain a part of the UK.
Search for “the EU” in the Gove manifesto and replace it with “the UK”, swap “the UK” for “Scotland”, and the text could be republished as an SNP pamphlet. It’s the very same argument the yes side made in 2014: a nation can only truly shape its destiny when it governs alone.
Freedland conveniently forgets to mention a significant factor. The Scots send MPs to Westminster. They are a functioning part of the UK, they have elected representatives in the UK parliament. EU laws are not made in the Parliament, they are created by the commission. The UK does not elect these people. So, as Anthony Wedgwood Benn adroitly reminded us – and Freedland quotes – “how can we get rid of you?” For the Scots, they can eject their Westminster representatives at an election. We cannot, however, do anything about the unelected, unaccountable, anti-democratic oligarchy in Brussels. That’s a fucking big difference. A difference the size of a continent. A difference even someone with the limited intellect of Freedland should be able to comprehend. To liken the two situations is disingenuous to the point of outright lying.
Oh… Yeah… Silly me…
You expected truth from the remainers ?!?!?!?!?!? Blimey!
I think his other point might be even worse, it essentially says:
People shouldn’t vote to leave now because politicians can vote to leave at any time.
In other words, the little people need to shut their mouths, do as they’re told, and let their betters make the important decisions.
Always amusing, and hopefully revealing to their supporters, that the left loves democracy – right up to the point it goes against them.
Cameron is an ethnic Scot, as are Brown and Blair. So Scotland does pretty well at the UK’s ‘top table’.
Would we like the EU better if Kinnock or Mandelson were running the commission? The difference is that we wouldn’t have voted to put them there and would have no way of kicking them out.
To be fair, Scotlands position in the UK is similar to the UKs in the EU – in both cases they could vote out all the elected representatives en masse for a single minded bloc (as Scotland pretty much has with the SNP) and still have no power over who is in charge of the country in question. Its the position all units of population find themselves in if they are part of a larger entity. My council ward has one councillor in the local authority – regardless of who we vote for, if everyone else want something different, our one councillor gets outvoted. Its the inherent flaw in democracy.
The issue is, at what level does self determination become more important than other issues? I don’t think anyone would expect a local authority to be a suitable size for nationhood. But Scotland, for sure, it could be a country in its own right no problem. There’s plenty of countries of that size.
As for the UK, with the worlds 5th (4th?) biggest economy, how anyone could argue we shouldn’t be able to be a fully independent State I don’t know.
That applies at constituency level, too. It’s a case of where do you draw the line? The EU commission is entirely unelected, which is the significant issue here.