19 February 2014

Britannia Rues the Waves

FEB. 17, 2014



LONDON — Pity poor Scotland. Within days it has been warned that if it has the temerity to vote for independence in September it can forget about a currency union with the pound and forget about becoming a member of the European Union, two ideas Scottish nationalist leaders have presented as entirely feasible.

The first warning came from George Osborne, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, who declared that, “If Scotland walks away from the U.K. it walks away from the U.K. pound.” He added that “there’s no legal reason why the rest of the U.K. would need to share its currency with Scotland.”

The second was delivered by José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, who told the BBC it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible,” for Scotland to join the European Union because it would require the unanimous approval of other member states. That was a remote possibility given the dim view taken by some countries, notably Catalonia-fearing Spain, on secession. Spain, Barroso noted, had not recognized Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia.

“Bluff, bluster and bullying” was the verdict of Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party and the campaign for independence, to Osborne’s apparent threat. John Swinney, Scotland’s finance minister, called Barroso’s remarks “pretty preposterous.” Scots, both men suggested, would not be cowed.

The battle for Scotland is heating up 307 years after the union of 1707. A pretty successful union it has been, too, but, unthreatened and restless, Scots troop off to Norway, another small country with oil, and think, hey, why not? Some are more inclined to recall the victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn 700 years ago than Englishmen and Scots together in the trenches of World War I a century ago.

Recent polls suggest a close outcome, with the plurality that favors staying inside the union eroding fast. The refusal of David Cameron, the British prime minister, to debate Salmond has not helped the union’s cause.

The Tories are cordially disliked in Scotland. Cameron, an old Etonian, has been singled out as a “toff” out of touch with ordinary people. Scots distrust him. They are overwhelmingly favorable to the European Union, about which the prime minister has shown a fatal ambiguity, possibly opening the door to Britain’s departure.

Two points need underlining. The first is that the threats from Osborne and Barroso are ill-advised and could well rebound against them. The Scots are proud people. It is wiser to debate them than admonish them, or raise the specter of isolation from afar.

The second is that Britain in Europe, its union intact, offers the best chance for the nation to count and prosper in the 21st century. A Scottish departure, followed by rump Britain limping out of the European Union, would be a disaster. It is a safe bet that the Northern Irish question, quieted but unresolved, would then resurface with a vengeance.

Imagine the Chinese gazing at the North Sea after this fragmentation and trying to make out what the little speck of land bobbing around out there signifies.

That said, Scots must look south these days and wonder. Growing areas of England are under water, a fact Cameron has been among the last to grasp. Politicians appear to spend much of their time squabbling over how to dredge a river. Officials issue frantic edicts on “health and safety.” A barmy prince declares that “there is nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.” The world’s financial center is turning into the world’s aquatic center, its main attraction a ship of fools.

There are shades of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Chris Smith, the chairman of the Environment Agency, has become Britain’s Michael Brown, the American disaster-response director of whom President George W. Bush famously observed, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”At the helm sits Cameron drifting across the Somerset Levels. Thames floodwaters are closing in on London; his Environment Agency is a laughing stock run by a man a member of his own Conservative party has called a “little git.”

Smith is doing a heck of a job.

Scots seem to be drawing the conclusion that they would be better off by themselves. (They might, however, want to take a closer look at the balance sheets of Scottish banks before breaking away.)

“We want you to stay,” Cameron pleaded in a recent speech. The Gettysburg Address it was not. He sounded sincere even if the thought must cross his mind that the chances of Labor ever winning an election again would be minimal, absent Scotland. He might then rule in perpetuity.

That is a very sobering thought. The satirist Peter Cook once suggested Britain was about to sink “giggling into the sea.” Never has that vision seemed closer. Giggle away. The bits of Britain could go one by one.

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