The Case for English Independence

The British are meant to be content with the spectacles and dramas laid on for them. In the New Year, David Cameron told us with the pink suaveness of an ambitious young headmaster that this year we could look forward to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics. Ed Miliband wants to put on a slightly different show; imagine a chorus line of crocodiles weeping while the financial sector gets everything it wants. But they are united in their desire to hog the national limelight and avoid discussion of what goes on backstage.

The Scots don’t want to be a miniature Britain, and never have done. In the years before 2014 they will decide for themselves what it means to be a great nation. A progressive beacon, Salmond says. If the Scots create a polity where free citizens have the powers they need to secure prosperity and social justice, then the light of it will be visible to all her neighbours. And that is the last thing that anyone in Westminster, or the City of London, wants.

Read the full article over at Aljazzera Opinion.

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