New Scottish Referendum in the Works

Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, now a Scottish National Party (SNP) member of the British Parliament, told the BBC today that “a second independence referendum is inevitable. The question of course is not the inevitability, it is the timing.” Salmond said the timescale of the vote lies “in the hands of” current SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.

He said there were three issues driving the move for a second referendum, after SNP candidates swept all but one of the seats from Labour in the Parliamentary elections, despite losing the earlier referendum.

“One is the refusal to deliver ‘the vow,'” Salmond said, referring to the pledge made by the three major UK parties before the last referendum, promising to grant more power to Scottish local government.

Second is the Cameron government’s discussion of leaving the EU. If the country were “dragged out on the votes of people in England,” Salmond argued, that would produce a “material change in circumstance.”

“The third thing emerging comes out of the budget and the welfare bill. Instead of getting devo[lution] to the max, we are getting austerity to the max,” Salmond said.

Tony Blair this week denounced the SNP as “cavemen” when asked about their declaring themselves the leading opposition to the government welfare cuts, after the Labour Party abstained on the issue of the cuts — just one of the reasons that the Blairites are getting crushed in polls for the Party elections by Glass-Steagall supporter Jeremy Corbyn.