Tuesday 26 August 2014

The Asymmetrical Nature of the Referendum

I've sounded off about this before, but a tweet from the great Edi Reader (yes, I am joking) about the fact that Salmond was up against Alistair Darling rather than whoever she felt she Eck should be debating with (Cameron? Boris? Satan himself?) gives me the opportunity to set out my views (yes, lucky you).
The proposition before us is that Scotland should be independent. That is, there is a proposal to change the constitutional settlement. It is proposed by the Scottish government. If it passes muster on Sep 18th, that will be enacted. If not, it falls, and we're back to the status quo.

The onus is therefore on the proposers to make the case and win a majority. In a healthy democracy we'd obviously expect interested parties to question the case being made. Need there be a 'better together' campaign unifying opposition? No, of course not. There could be three or five opposition groupings... or none, for that matter! And yet the Yes campaign are obsessed with the No campaign. Why isn't Cameron debating? Why is it called project fear? Why are they scaremongering?
That's none of the Yes business - they should be making the case and convincing people. And they are so far from doing that, that they are reduced to thrashing around at the No campaign and scorning and abusing Alistair Darling. Talk about missing the target!

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