It always seemed paradoxical to Guido that UKIP opposed Scottish independence, all the arguments about supra-nationalism they applied to Brussels rang true for Westminster from Edinburgh. The historical baggage of the Conservative & Unionist Party was more understandable, though increasingly contradicted by the observed attitude of party activists who, unlike the party leadership, are more likely to see Scotland and Wales as a burden on English (Tory) taxpayers. Emotional arguments don’t play so well with practical-minded voters.
The media frequently tells us this is a “Vote Leave” government, so Guido has dug into a recent June 2020 YouGov poll of English voters and their attitude to independence for England, which effectively translates into their attitude to Scottish and Welsh independence, given they won’t have a vote in another Scottish referendum. Their attitudes are telling…
Of those who expressed a view, over 55% of English Leave voters supported an English exit from the union, that is striking. When it came to Tory voters, the majority of Conservative & Unionist Party voters do still support the union, by a smaller margin. It is still something extraordinary for nearly half the party’s voters to reject the stance towards the union expressed in the party’s very name. The trend suggests that the English Conservative Party will soon have to consider dropping “unionist” from their name if they want to reflect the modern views of the party’s membership.
If Scotland had to stand on its own fiscal feet it would soon discover that having a Sovietised economy, with a dominant massive public sector, is just not sustainable. An independent Scotland would mean that English taxpayers would no longer have to subsidise their public sector…
