Ukraine 2014, Britain 2016, Scottish Independence Could Trigger Balkanisation of UK
Politics / UK Politics Feb 21, 2014 - 03:17 AM GMTBy: Nadeem_Walayat
Peaceful demonstrations in Ukraine's capital city Kiev, of barely a few days ago are fast descending into the chaos towards outright civil war as Ukraine is literally tearing itself apart as several regions in the north-west such as Lviv declare independence, whilst the south-east stands behind its democratically elected President.
What was unimaginable a few weeks ago has now become a crisis situation of mounting deaths, where with each death Ukraine takes a further step towards leaping over the edge of and into the abyss of where the likes of Syria stands today, as the consequence of what happens when nations rip themselves apart.
Ukraine tearing itself apart has huge implications for european stability as the conflict risks sparking unrest in bordering states most of which have their own separatists movements, especially Russia which therefore looks set to intervene militarily.
Independant Scotland Debt Flash Point
Meanwhile divisions in Britain are being fostered by the likes of the SNP in its tunnel vision quest for their supreme leader, Alex Salmond to gain total power over the Scottish people, who continues to lay down demands which are increasingly seen as outrageous by the rest of the UK, such as to have a say in Bank of England Monetary policy, have joint control over the British Pound including the ability to print sterling debt (effectively parking a trojan horse outside the Bank of England), and to claim a stake in a share of UK assets outside of Scotland whilst threatening that non compliance would mean that Scotland would not take on any of its fair share of UK debt that totals approx £120 billion, that has been spent on Scotland to date.
Alex Salmond's debt default statements are akin to someone borrowing money from the bank to build a house and then declaring that they did not owe the bank anything, by rights the bank could repossess the property, and similarly the UK could seize Scottish assets on paper to the tune of £120 billion, effectively freezing the assets and thus restricting their use and resale.
Of course such an action would be seen as outrageous by the Scottish people and flame the fires of conflict as it would sow much discontent between Scots and the 1/2 million settled English in Scotland, just as is the SNP's statements of not taking on £120 billion of debt to people south of the border.
This is just one example of how the SNP and Independant Scotland would sow the seeds of conflict between North and South Britain.
The Balkanisation of Britain
Alex Salmond and his merry band of scottish nationalists quest for dominance over a small part of the Island of Britain have failed to calculate that they will no longer have Westminister to blame for this, that, or other latest socialist deficit spending induced crisis. Which implies that the first port of call for disintegration will likely be in Scotland itself, as a vote for Independence at best would only marginally carry more than 50% of the votes. Therefore the Scottish nationalist government would within a couple of years start to hear highly vocal demands from parts of Scotland to rejoin the United Kingdom, the refusal of which could trigger the start of civil conflict, which as we have seen in Ukraine and elsewhere that it does not take much for crisis to spiral out of control.
As for the rest of the UK, unfortunately Scotland attempting to tear itself away from the United Kingdom would set in motion a chain of events that would destabilise the whole Island of Britain as many separatist movements would be emboldened to exaggerate their own sense of injustice mostly based on semi-mythical histories and as remedy seek their own autonomous or even independent states, such as Wales, Cornwall, Mercia and off course heavily subsidised Northern Ireland.
Scottish independence would result in increasingly chaos across the Island, as growing civil unrest would spread as a contagion infecting many other regions of Britain.
The first consequences of the start of UK fragmentation would be in the economic arena as regions would seek to exert greater autonomy and thus increasingly implement differing rules and regulations that would disrupt economic activity that would further accelerate the breakup of the Union as regions would continuously become poorer thus blame others for their circumstances and see further separation as the solution.
The European Union fears this which is why senior EU politicians have been lining up one after another to state that contrary to SNP propaganda, an Independant Scotland would not be fast tracked into the EU, for they understand that just as a disintegrating Ukraine would destabilise the whole eastern european region so would a disintegrating UK destabilise many western EU nations such as Spain, France, Belgium and Italy all of whom have their own separatists movements.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, for Scotland to join the European Union - European commission president José Manuel Barroso
The bottom line is that Scottish Independence would open a Pandora's box that would result in a state of Britain that is far removed from the rose tinted glasses picture that the likes of the SNP are painting today, because the UK has always been MORE than the SUM of its parts. Therefore a fragmented UK will be far LESS in EVERY respects than that which the UK is today.
Source and Comments: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article44516.html
Nadeem Walayat
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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series.that can be downloaded for Free.
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