Re: Will Tory government hasten end of United Kingdom?

Alan Cochrane asks this question in todays Telegraph, and I think there's a similar meeting on the Conservative fringe this week.

I post my answer below. Its a view that is just starting to gain some traction as one of Labour's former First Minister's of Scotland has suggested the same thing.

In short we need some thing positive to work towards, that respects the nations of the UK. If we don't offer it then people will eventually chose fission over the Union.

Alan,

I think joining forces with the authors of the Union's break up, ie the Lib Dems and Labour, would just make the SNP more popular. The pendulum always swings and one day its going to trigger the fission of the current Union.

That is almost impossible to avoid - appeasement (devolution) and bribery (Barnett formula) of Scots nationalism hasn't worked.

The only solution is to offer something new and positive.

Could I suggest that its a federal UK, with the home nations treated with equal intuitions and respect. ( Then Scotland will be just like everywhere else, rather than a quasi autonomous region in the waiting room for independence - as Brown and Cameron have it now ).

The signs are that the Conservative party hasn't even started considering these things ( the Clarke report is mindlessly useless ).

Its a shame I was always proud of being British, until it became a way to con the English and appease headbanging nationalists in the Scots Lib Dems, Scots Labour and of course SNP.