tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3952108899218764633.post7730205415158055521..comments2024-02-28T22:03:19.609+00:00Comments on A Scottish Liberal: How do you solve a problem like UKIP?Andrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027368242570244912noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3952108899218764633.post-85347103722248483772013-08-08T17:13:36.643+01:002013-08-08T17:13:36.643+01:00"UKIP is a party as diametrically opposed to ..."UKIP is a party as diametrically opposed to our values as Brian Souter is to equality."<br /><br />True. and the gratuitous and dishonest attack on Soutar merely confirms it.<br /><br />UKIP is a traditional liberal party.<br />You pseudo-Liberals aren't.<br /><br />Having spoken at the LD conference against a total ban on nuclear plants;<br />against illegal wars and racial murder;<br />against the petty, vindicitive and illiberal smoking ban;<br />against a totaliatarian world with trade regulated to prevent innovation;<br />against state planning of the large majority of the economy<br /><br />and expelled from the party on a charge of being a traditional economic liberal I can confirm that UKIP is the current liberal party and you are totalitarian.<br /><br />So yes, liberals must be diagrammatically opposed to totalitarianism.<br /><br />neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3952108899218764633.post-14894574213364777292013-05-05T09:06:17.608+01:002013-05-05T09:06:17.608+01:00You don't mention that in the Melrose by-elect...You don't mention that in the Melrose by-election UKIP finished last with a paltry 3% of the vote. UKIP remain irrelevant in Scotland. Their appeal in England is a manifestation of how far English politics has become differentiated from that in Scotland. It also shows that the real threat to Scotland's continued membership of the EU comes from remaining fettered together with England. <br /><br />You correctly point out that UKIP want to reverse devolution. This is a timely reminder that under the current settlement, we only have devolution (along with other historic Lib Dem achievements in Scotland) for so long as England chooses to allow it. The appeal of UKIP's anti devolution policy resonates with those in England that feel that devolution somehow gives Scots special privileges that they don't have. This feeling is stoked up by a large amount of the misguided Unionist arguments such as those that use distorted figures in an attempt to manufacture a false positive case for the union. One of the most widely held of these myths being the argument that Scots are subsidised by the rest of the UK. The paradox is that the more figures like Willie Rennie employ such tactics in order to (as they see it) strengthen the union in Scotland, they only create increased tensions in the union elsewhere.<br /> <br />The UKIP phenomenon is a manifestation of the divergence between the terms of the political debate in England and that in Scotland. A yes vote in next year's referendum will resolve these tensions. If Scotland votes no, there is no reason to suppose that the tensions within the union, stoked by the unionist's own rhetoric, will do anything other than increase. Scotland as the less powerful partner in the union is the one which will inevitably suffer as a result.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com