Two years ago…

…this blog predicted that the yes campaign were ‘highly likely’ to win the 2014 Scottish referendum and I take no pleasure in saying that it looks as if that prediction will come true tomorrow. For me, it’s very sad and leaves the future of left wing politics in the rump UK looking very bleak indeed.

What’s most infuriating is that the huge national discussion that we need to have about Britishness, what it means, how it should be defined, about the need to truly decentralise power in these islands is only happening in the dying days of the campaign, and, laughably, only when yes vote has moved from being a possibility to a distinct possibility. If Westminster was truly serious (and had thought strategically) about this then instead of a panic measure a national conversation should have started two years ago, in the heady atmosphere of post-Olympic inclusivity.

Now, it’s all too little, too late. A huge huge opportunity has been missed. Instead a squadron of chickens are coming home to roost for all the constituent parts of this (dis) United Kingdom. Fascinating times ahead, though.

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