What do you do when you run out of scare stories? No, you don’t resign from the Better Together campaign as you love your country too much for that. What you do is to get some old ones and regurgitate them. And so it was that the business of whether or not an independent Scotland would remain part of the EU reared its head yet again. It puzzles me that folk who want a referendum themselves to say whether they should stay in or out should be so concerned that we’d be out or in but there you go.
Latvia’s Edgars Rinkevics said, “Scotland would be considered a new country and would have to apply for EU membership.”
“Told you, told you, told you…”
He continued, “the rest of the UK might not automatically inherit the UK’s membership of the EU. The European Commission is considering that question and a solid legal opinion is needed.”
“Cheeky little tin-pot b*stard. Gunboat dispatched.”
It was interesting that his latter remark didn’t make it onto Reporting Scotland that night. Funny that. I’d have expected reputable journalists to be all over it like a rash and to be ramming it down a Better Togetout’s representative on that evening’s Newsnight programme, but maybe that’s just me.
What else did that great bastion of impartiality otherwise known as the EBC have for us this week? Oh aye – they sent a reporter across to Denmark to gleefully tell us that after independence we’d have to pay much higher taxes to enjoy the same level of public services, get Carlsberg piped through to our kitchen taps and have every street filled with gorgeous long-legged blondes. Aye the whole point of this wee jolly at EBC taxpayers’ expense completely escaped me too. Where next? Off to Polynesia to sneer that a separate Scotland wouldn’t get anything like the same amount of sunshine and that our pineapple-exporting industry would be decimated?
Comparison with a Scandinavian country always reminds me of the Daylate Rectum’s online editorial a few years back where they were responding to some claim that upon independence the various parts of the UK could collaborate on common matters in a similar manner to the Nordic Council. “But isn’t that what we have now?” was their response. Well if all the Scandinavian countries send all their cash to Sweden who gives them an allowance back and calls them parasites for taking it then yes, I suppose it’s broadly similar.
So Better Togetout would have us believe that independence – sorry, separation – would Finnish us off? Faroe enough, they’re entitled to their opinions, but viking they come out with something positive just for a change? They really need to Stockholm-ing in on things like imaginary crises in the NHS, the fact that we’d be thrown out of the EU and how we just Dane‘t have the cash to set up all our own embassies.
Norway that’ll happen though. You just have to look at the leaflets they were putting out the other week – Scots pay less for their mortgages because of the UK’s AAA credit rating. Utter Magnus. They were having Olaf with that one surely? As for Darling, Helsinki‘ts a good idea to keep telling great Borg lies and trying to undermine the confidence of the Scottish people, but A-hardly think it’ll have the effect he’s looking for.
Of course according to him and his political soulmate Cameron all we have to do is vote No and they’ll keep us Swede by chucking some other as-yet-to-be-defined powers our way at some as-yet-to-be-determined point in the future. He must think we were Bjorn yesterday to believe we’ll fall for that guff. It worked once back in ’79 but they Abba-nother think coming if they think it’ll work again.
Mind you I Thor-t it was a good tactical move by them keeping Johann Lament out of the debate, especially with her approval ratings Oslo as they are. It’s a pity as she can always be relied on to make a total Lars of herself.
A Cybernat
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Hee, hee. Great stuff.
Cheers!
Dave
The banter gets better and better, Dave, and oh so true. After the recent by-election result and the Cons finding themselves even lower than UKIP (both parties, of course, a fair bit lower than the level of a snakes belly), is it possible the next UK government could be a Con-UKIP coalition? I suspect then that the UK would rapidly become the European equivalent of a North Korea, though without the scant social services that even the beleagured citizens of North Korea have at their disposal. OK, maybe being too adventurous in the hypotheticals here, but what other first world western country has such a divide between the haves and have nots? The queues at the modern day soup kitchen, otherwise known as foodbanks, are growing rapidly in length. But, Hey, we’re all in it together, and so much better together it is, or so we keep being told! (no horsemeat at the foodbank, and a choice of soups!).
So as prescription charges are announced as going up again in England (they’re free in the rest of the UK), it is a wonder that even the English don’t hanker for a government more in touch with the people and independent from Westminster. Still, that is their look out, hopefully after 2014 we can get our independence and move up the league table of sensibly run small countries, some of whom you have mentioned and watch the disintegration down south from a distance.
I suspect after the soon to come budget, and the bedroom tax demonstrations, there will be a noted increase in the support for independence, but no doubt the BBC and the mainstream press will still continue spouting the FUD and the stories will become more and more bizarre as the referendum grows closer. Ah, the ‘think-of-a-number’ brigade, and the ‘invent-a-fact’ mongers are really working overtime, is there not an easier way to gain a knighthood?
Oh, caught me on a Sunday, my day of rant!
Keep up the good work
That was a rant and a half, Stevie! I heard somebody the other day describe the UKIP as “Tories with a grudge” and with Liebour desperate to appear equally right-wing it doesn’t leave the good people of England with much choice. Time to go our separate ways methinks.
Cheers for your valued contribution as always.
Dave
Yes Scotland! We’re better together as two independent and equal countries. For in the the U.K. Scotland is certainly not equally treated with England. The “No”s like that and want it? They are using the same tactics that the English used before 1707, threats and bribes, but will the Scots remaining a conquered people bring us any benefits?
Sadly the No’s seem happy with it. No pride and no backbone.
Dave
Breaking news : Luxembourg’s foreign minister thinks its not the right time for Scotland to go for independence. This comes from a country with the highest GDP in europe from a 525,000 population within a land mass of 998 sq miles, compared to Scotland with a population over 5,000,000 and a land mass 30,000 PLUS sq miles.
All I can say is “cheeky bastards”.
In reply to myself it appears that I may have been to hard on Luxembourg, due to the BBC spining what the Luxembourg foreign minister actually said ?? , I should have know better than take what the BBC said on this subject at face value. Sorry Luxxy.
Aye, they’re not even pretending to be neutral. I need to have a serious think about paying this licence fee as I’m getting majorly hacked off with their bias. Utterly disgraceful.
Dave
I notice Glen Campbell appears to be involved with a lot of this spin of late, a willing fool? or just a fool?
I prefer to call him an utter disgrace to his profession. Just a propaganda mouthpiece. You could train a seal to do that level of journalism.
Dave