It was 16:57, Thursday the 18th. My iphone (don’t worry about the make), dinged. It was a message on the whatsapp. It was my oga at the top, Ikechukwu Amaechi. The message was simple: ‘Wole, how’s the voting going on in Scotland?’
Rewind to 14:00 the same day, I took a walk around the high street close to me, window shopping and saw a board staring straight at me. It was on the window of one of the bookies (betting shops). The bet of day was ‘4/1 on No; 7/1 on Yes’. That was the call that Thursday afternoon. Only if I had put a £100 on No, I’d have been a few hundreds of pounds richer now! Why am I not a betting man?
Well, the die is cast now. We all know the outcome of the ‘Vote of a generation’. Scotland said ‘No’, and it was emphatic. The early hours of Friday, there were massive storms around the United Kingdom. Die-hard Nationalists were quick to jokingly attribute it to William Wallace’s anger at his kinsmen letting him down. Wallace was a Scottish landowner who led the Scots to victory over the English during the War of Scottish Independence, over 700 years ago. He was hung and quartered for all his troubles, by the English, after being betrayed by his people.
Fast track to 2014 – Scotland National Party leader Alex Salmond, the modern day Wallace, won’t get the same deal, but will definitely wonder why the Scots decided to say ‘No’ to having their destiny in their own hands.
The question now is: who won this so called ‘Vote of the generation’? I am sure the politicians over there at Westminster will be gloating over their success at this ‘great victory’, especially after accusations of ‘scaremongering’ and predicting doom for Scotland if they leave the Union. But the real victors here are the Scottish people – the Yes and the No camps. The agitation, though divisive was aimed at one thing – more power for Scotland, either through independence or otherwise. The West Lothian Question has been on the agenda for years. It asks if parliaments from outside England can vote and decide on matters concerning the same. That Question is being asked at the moment. England, as a nation is up in arms against further devolution of powers to Scotland, including power to raise taxes and decide what to do with it. Such powers are absent in England, as England has only one parliament which includes all the nations that make up the Union. As it is, Scotland will continue to have its parliament, much stronger, at the expense of the English.
Few weeks ago, with the stark reality of losing Scotland, plus its oil (a major source of income for Westminster), the Prime Minister David Cameron rushed to the Queen and laid his cards on the table. The thought then was they have to be radical in their approach to keeping Scotland. Gordon Brown, former PM and a Scot, was called in and his passionate speech (with bags of goodies) few days to the referendum swung votes to the No campaign. Cameron then gave a teary appeal to the people of Scotland, also with promises. It worked, but at a price.
The price is now leading to a constitutional revolution in the United Kingdom. Cameron faces a revolt from his Members of Parliament who now feel he went alone in the deals he gave to Scotland. To them, the Parliament should have been consulted before giving an inch to the Scots. Cameron, on his part, went on air to quickly take an offensive position by pumping up the talks of further devolution spread across the Union, not just for the English, but also the Welsh and the Northern Irish.
The PM informed he would set up a committee to set this in motion. The English seem to be ready to fight tooth and nail to see they get a much better deal than the Scots, which would definitely continue to rock the Union. They seem to have a ready attack dog in UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, who has written to Scottish MPs in the Parliament at Westminster to stay off voting on issues that relate to England. Simply put, the English do not like the new upgrade for Scotland. Scotland now looks very much like ‘iphone 6 plus’, while England and the rest of the isle remain a ‘mere iphone 6’!
For Salmond and his Scottish National Party colleagues, they have done what all the other major parties have not done since the Conservatives came to power – bring the government to its knees. The SNP might have lost the battle, but they won the war. They have done a great job at governing Scotland. They have brought the Union to the brink. But they now have their Aburi moment, by getting a fairer deal for Scotland, just like Odumegwu Ojukwu did for Biafra.
The Aburi Accord failed, with many apportioning blames to different parties. At the moment, the Cameron goodies for the Scots may just be promises drafted and ‘agreed’ by the three major political parties, but they still need to be implemented. But not in a rush, especially with this new division expected in the Parliament. The next election is next year, and it looks so practically impossible for any of the draft promises to be fully ratified in this parliament, especially with the impending constitutional imbroglio and rebellion within the Conservative party, and the threats fromUKIP.
On the other hand, the Labour opposition under Ed Miliband will have every cause to celebrate this keeping of the Union. Brown and Alastair Downing were in the forefront of the No – Better Together campaign. They are both Labour politicians.
It’s been called the ‘Vote of a generation’, but it’s very much looking like a vote to ‘dis-unite United Kingdom’, if I may borrow some of Fela’s words in his famous Beast of No Nation album.
