Keeping an Eye on Scotland

The missus and I try to keep up with the goings-on in Scotland (it being the missus' home country and all). And I've attempted to explain on B&E, occasionally incorrectly, Scottish politics, which are endlessly fascinating and more than a little confusing.

We have a two-party duopoly in American politics (yes, I'm on Ralph Nader's email list, too), but in the United Kingdom they believe in a real range of political parties. To the outside observer (me), the various parties and parliaments and leaders get rather confusing. Commoners, Lords, Ladies, wigs, no wigs, earwigs... it's all a lot to take in.

And let's not even start considering the role of the Royal Family. Duke of Edinburgh? Holyrood Palace? Whaaaaa...?

I was going to link to myself for some backup information, but it's so inaccurate in so many ways, I should probably just re-summarize. At best, the following will be oversimplified. At worst, I could get some things wrong. I'm American, after all, and we like our politics black and white (or male and female).

Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament was created in the 1990s and has a somewhat limited scope. Scotland is after all part of a larger Britain (one might even call it a Great Britain--England, Scotland, Wales) and a United Kingdom (Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and various smaller islands). So Scottish Parliament can make decisions about how tax revenue is spent, for example, but they can't raise or lower the taxes on their fellow citizens. Major decisions are still made in the UK Parliament in London.

Political Parties in Scotland
Labour Party - Scotland has typically been a Labour supporter. They were traditionally considered a working class party until Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (more on him in a moment) shifted "New Labour" to the right politically. Bill Clinton was the moderate Democrat president, and Blair entered office as a moderate (or relevant, depending on whom you ask) Labour prime minister. Best I can tell, the Labour Party in Britain is closest to the current Democratic Party in the U.S.

Conservative Party - The Tories are the party of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. They've hit a bit of a rough patch in recent years, in part thanks to the New Labour movement and in part due to their own failings while governing. I've never met a Brit with good feelings about Thatcher. People must've liked her at some point (she was in office for a long time), but those people must either be dead or hiding. They're now led by a cunning fellow called David Cameron. The Tories are Britain's Republican Party.

Liberal Democrats - I don't really know, but I assume that the Lib-Dems grew in power along with New Labour (although they're still definitely a smaller party). They are to the left of Labour politically, and I'm assuming that as New Labour walked away from "old" Labour policies, the Lib-Dems started gaining support. They're led by Nick Clegg, a man I know absolutely nothing about. I'd compare the Lib-Dems to the Green Party, except that there's a pretty influential Green Party in Britain too. Really, the Lib-Dems are like FDR Democrats. If the Democratic Party left had rebelled against Bill Clinton's run to the middle and formed its own party, maybe they'd be the Lib-Dems.

Scottish Nationalist Party - The SNPs refer to themselves as a "left-leaning nationalist party advocating secession from the United Kingdom." The SNPs were founded in the 1930s by a group of nationalists, obviously, that included the missus' grandfather. Today they're led by a bloke called Alex Salmond, which is like the fish but with a "d" on the end. We have no comparable party in the U.S. Maybe if New England Democrats wanted to declare independence from the rest of the country, they'd be like the SNPs. Actually, I could get behind a party like that.

The Greens and the Socialists usually have a tiny voice/representation in government as well.

Quick aside: I love that the names of the political parties in the U.K. actually give you a good idea of what they represent/where they stand on various issues.

Last year's Scottish elections
Historically, Scotland has been very pro-Labour. Tony Blair screwed that up. Even now that Gordon Brown (a Scot) is Prime Minister, many Scots have turned their backs on Labour. The Tories don't typically fare very well in Scottish elections. In fact, the Lib-Dems have usually done better. And the SNPs have always had their supporters, but until recently, they were mostly considered a one-issue party: independence.

But Alex Salmond and the SNPs were vocally against the Iraq War before it began (the loudest voice of dissent in Scotland), and because they've been proven right, they've also gotten themselves some legitimacy.

So during last year's Scottish Parliament elections, they pulled a lot of support away from Labour and eked out a win to be the ruling party. Alex Salmond, then, is first minister of Scotland.

The SNPs don't have a majority. It's difficult for a single party to hold a majority thanks to the many parties. So the ruling party forms coalitions with parties that share their interests. In this case, the SNPs reached out to the Lib-Dems, but the Scottish Lib-Dem leader wouldn't agree to an official coalition unless the referendum for independence was off the table. They're the SNPs. They want independence. So the SNP's rule as a minority.

Based on reports from the missus' father (who very often gets things wrong) and others (including newspapers), it seems that Salmond and the SNPs are doing a good job in this role. Salmond made one misstep in his attempt to partner with Donald Trump to build a giant-ass golf course, but a couple shepherds kept that nonsense from happening. Mostly, Salmond and the SNPs are just hunkering down and doing the work of the Scottish people, proving that they're about more than just independence.

The Referendum for Independence
Salmond has been saying that once they get a couple years of ruling under their belts, the SNPs are going to bring this referendum for independence to the people for a vote. It's not clear at the moment whether the Scottish people would vote independence or not. It definitely seems to be gaining support, but there are a lot of Scots who are Unionists (support a United Kingdom). It has seemed that 2010 was a target year for the referendum.

Naturally, most of the other parties are against independence and against putting forward a referendum. No party is more vocal about this than the Labour Party. Gordon Brown's a Unionist and head of the Labour Party, and he's said in no uncertain terms that he would never support a referendum. And this was Labour's official party line.

Enter Wendy Alexander, Labour's Scottish leader. In an attempt to call Salmond's bluff, she said, "Bring it on" to the referendum, and no time like the present. But you see, Salmond's not bluffing. He heads the Scottish Nationalist Party. Salmond is thrilled that suddenly he's got Labour's support for a referendum, even if the timing isn't quite right.

And wackiness ensues...

Tory leader David Cameron is now accusing Brown of losing control of his own party. Wendy Alexander is saying that a) the referendum won't pass now and b) she's got the support of Gordon Brown for this stunt, even while Gordon Brown tries to stay the fuck out of it. Meanwhile, Salmond's inviting Scottish Labour to join him for a lively eightsome reel, possibly to distract everyone from realizing that he really would like to hold off on the referendum for a couple years.

But how crazy would it be if Scottish Gordon Brown's legacy as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was un-uniting the Kingdom and losing his native Scotland to independence? Would either the English or the Scottish let him live amongst them?

There's much more to this all, of course, and the Guardian and the Scotsman both have summaries that are a little hard to understand when I'm still getting my head around the delegate system of electing a presidential nominee within the Democratic Party of the United States of America.