David Cameron has handed over power to the Scottish Government to hold an independence referendum in 2014 as long as the question has only two options: Yes or No.
This is great news for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it means that the Scots will finally get a vote on their independence and with a bit of luck will vote for it and secondly, the absence of a “renegotiate” option means that Alex Salmond won’t have a mandate to extract even more out of the British government at England’s expense. It should be noted, though, that the British government have already conceded most of Alex Salmond’s demands on what has been called “devolution max”.
The Scots won’t vote for independence because they can’t survive without English taxes which is a real shame because there’s nothing worse than a loveless marriage and staying together for the kids never really works does it?
Dave has however said that if the Scots vote ‘no’, he will offer new talks on devolution. If that happens, there could well be changes for England too and we will have to try to make sure that England is not presented with a new version of regional devolution without any national recognition.
£17 billion of oil and gas money going TO Englandshire, minus £9 billion so called Barnett formula ‘subsidy’ actually means Scottish people subsidise the English by £1600 per head.
So every Scottish family of four loses out to the English to the tune of 6 and a half grand.
Also , unemployment in Scotland 6.4%. England 7.1% (latest figures), so Scottish taxpayers are paying for English dole scroungers.
FACT.
£7bn of north sea oil and gas revenue (some of which is raised in English waters) goes to the British treasury where it is divided unequally in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s favour.