Say ‘bye-bye’ to Barnett!

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I have just returned from a short break away with my children and wife to the Black Isle.

We are a family who like to spend quality time together when we can, and usually once per year we like to experience a unique holiday here in Scotland.  This year it was Yurts!

These types of holidays allow your mind to refocus back on what’s important – family!

It also allows you the opportunity to reflect further, if you are so inclined.

On our last night, the children were asleep after a hot sunny day touring the small villages on the Black Isle and absorbing the views and culture on offer, my wife and I were chatting in the dark, candles only, about everything and anything whilst having a glass or two of our favourite tipples and I discussed devolution with her.  She is politically up to date but she is far more optimistic than I.  She believes that the UK Government will be the undoing of this Union, not the Yes movement.

I agree to a point but not fully.

We have a healthy balance when it comes to political discussions – she also voted Yes despite the cornflakes woman of Better Together telling her she didn’t have a spare two minutes to make that choice.

Anyway, the discussion got me thinking about the stripping of devolution powers and the ramifications financially to Scotland.

I don’t mean FDI or businesses leaving etc. or even the Brexit chaos…I am referring to the Barnett Formula.

The way I see things unfolding leads me to believe that once devolution has been stripped back, the only other thing left for the UK Government to do to finally put the nail in the SNP coffin is to strip Barnett, or more precisely to either get rid completely or re-invent it to a point that it makes Scotland permanently poorer.

If we are outside the EU jurisdictions, the UK state can really do what it likes with no one around to stop it – Barnett, Devolution, Human Rights, Taxation etc.

Barnett is the logical next step.

If disabled people, homeless people, immigrants and rape victims can all be victimised financially by the UK state, who is to say Scotland will not be, or rather the ‘nationalist’ movement – unionists in Scotland will just be collateral.

The things is, should this unfold, the Unionist press will make on like it was long overdue and definitely fair for the rest of the UK.  The unionist voters north of the border will cheer it.

The typical 2014 No voter will be cheering for the further demise of their public services and betterment of the children’s future – in the name of a flag whilst blaming the SNP! Make no mistake, this is about a flag.  Not a way of life, culture or tangible thing – it is purely a flag and its associated mental imagery.

The Yes movement does not associate itself with a flag the same way a No voter does.  Britishness is not a real thing.  It is only real to those who do not want to be Scottish, English, Welsh or Irish – they want to be all four.

Britishness is a fully constructed notion that applies on a needs-be basis.  English when its needed, Scottish when its needed and British when its needed.

Barnett will not be a result of the stripping of devolution, it will be part of the process of quelling Scottish Nationalism, whilst promoting British nationalism.

People really should start comparing this UK political union to a marital relationship.

For those of you who are married, you may understand this better – some may even have first hand experience!

Let’s imagine for a second that you have been married for a considerable time.  The marital union was decreed on the premise of equality.  Now as time went by, one partner began to realise that financially one was better off than the other – but the one that realised was bigger and stronger.

One partner held all the financial levers and the power but dictated where the marital finances were spent, and a small portion of that was given to the weaker partner.  Over time the weaker partner became resentful, it started seeing the game being played.

The more powerful partner started spreading lies about its partner to all its friends and they took the side of the powerful partner.  Slowly, the weaker partner started finding its voice, and despite the limited money it was ‘given’ and the limited voice it had in the relationship, it started bettering itself – improving its image and gaining its own friends.

It soon began to realise there was maybe a different way to do things.  Slowly but surely it realised it had the support of nearly half the relationships friends.

When the more powerful partner realised this, it needed to find a way to stop it potentially leaving and taking its wealth with it – thus leaving the powerful partner poorer.

The best way to do this was to spew out further lies, try to hurt it financially by pulling its wealth making ability away from the things it needed to be close too and started taking away its limited powers.  The next course of action it needs to take, predictably, is for the stronger partner to remove some of those ‘given’ finances in an attempt to make it seem less able to live without the powerful partner.

This is what is happening in the UK today.

If both unions were made in ‘holy matrimony’, would it not be expected that equality would be inseparable?

Is it not right to be equal in Union?

If not, is it right to stay in that Union? Wouldn’t we all be telling the people in the Union to walk away? There are after all, plenty more fish in the sea!

I know I would!

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