Why a Yes vote in Scotland would mean chaos in Westminster
THE penny is beginning to drop in boardrooms across the City. It is all too possible, though still not the most likely outcome, that the Scottish electorate will decide to vote to leave the UK. The polls still show a large lead for the No side, albeit one that is shrinking. Large numbers of voters remain undecided. Alex Salmond, the formidable politician who leads the Scottish National Party, could quite conceivably still pull it off.
Yet a yes vote on 18 September this year would trigger an immediate political crisis for the UK that would last at least 18 months. Budgets would be hard to pass, and the much needed decision on airport expansion would be postponed indefinitely. Sterling, gilts and equities would go haywire when the extent and intractable nature of the inevitable constitutional crisis became apparent.
Scotland would become independent on 24 March 2016 (these things apparently take time) – and yet a general election is due on 7 May 2015. That election would be the most preposterous of exercises; the Parliament that is elected would be a complete lame duck. It would last a mere 10 months before another election would have to be called when all of the Scottish MPs left. Imagine what would happen if the result in 2015 is a Labour-led government propped up by Scottish MPs, and that without those votes the rest of the UK would have elected a Tory-led government instead.
But even the current Parliament would be robbed of its legitimacy, starting on 19 September 2014. Scottish MPs would still be there, voting on English laws, even though they would all soon be about to leave. Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, whose seat is in Scotland, would be one of the many to face immense pressure. And what about David Cameron, the man who allowed the UK to be split up? Could he remain PM? And if not, could the coalition survive, or would we have an immediate general election, not resolving anything either? And what about Wales? Would it want to leave too? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
POLITICIANS MUST END TUBE CHAOS
Congratulations to the vast majority of commuters who made it through the strikes and managed to get to work, by hook or by crook. Transport for London says that 91 per cent of habitually used Oyster cards were touched in and out yesterday, and many of the remainder drove, walked or rode a bike instead.
It was chaos on the roads, meetings were cancelled, business was lost and London’s reputation was damaged; it is a great shame, given that confidence is rising rapidly, with 50 per cent of Brits expecting the economy to improve in the next year, the highest reading Ipsos Mori has ever recorded since it started asking the question as far back as 1978.
We can’t go on like this. It is wrong that commuters and the London economy can be held hostage in this way. It’s time to toughen up the rules. There are several options; here are a few to mull over.
The first would be to adopt Boris’ proposal to only allow strikes to take place if over 50 per cent of union members, not just over half of those who vote, back the strike. The second option would be “binding pendulum arbitration”, whereby a judge chooses between the position of the union and of TfL, and his or her decision is final. The third possibility is to adopt French-style minimum service agreements, whereby the unions agree to maintain basic services even when they strike. The most radical proposal – and one which stands little chance of appearing even in the Tory manifesto in 2015 – would be to ban strikes altogether on essential services.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the next set of strikes, due next week, are called off and that our great city isn’t plunged into disorder yet again.
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