Separatists' Solidarity

It often comes to the fore during election campaigning and this year is no exception.  SNP leader, Alex Salmond, has parachuted himself into the Anglophobic landscape of Welsh nationalism to aid Plaid Cymru in the quest to broaden its vote in the principality.  The Guardian claims it is some sort of novel move.  In fact, SNP and Plaid alliances have been the feature of nationalist election strategies for at least a decade.  Mind you it is The Guardian we are talking about here.

According the Salmond, voting for parties which have the fragmentation of the United Kingdom as their primary aim will somehow strengthen the joint voices of Scotland and Wales at Westminster.  Do please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole mess of devolution (avidly supported by both parties as a 'stepping stone to independence') was supposed to augment the voices of the two constituent parts on their respective home turfs.  Westminster was to have a concomitantly lesser role in the governance of the Scots and the Welsh after 1999.  So why the need to shout from the rooftops now?

Those of us in the know are fully aware of the sort of Machiavellian politics being played out by Salmond here.  By suggesting there will be some sort of organic link between nationalist electoral success and the increasing importance of Wales and Scotland is nothing other than an attempt to maximise the vote tally for the two movements.  Then, if that is successful, both leaders can argue they have a mandate to seek the termination of the Union.  It is the same sort of nonsense played out by the SDLP and Sinn Fein/IRA in Northern Ireland.

Both Salmond and Plaid Cymru leader, Elfyn Llwyd, have their work cut out if they wish to reverse the gradual slide each has faced in successive polls.  The SNP fared poorly in the last round of Holyrood parliamentary elections, and Plaid has hardly done much better.  Unlike separatism in Ulster, the politics of the SNP and Plaid have not been indulged by mainstream British parties as their own bases of support would be eroded in the event of Scottish and Welsh independence.  The same does not apply in Northern Ireland.  Keeping the mainland Union together (whatever the motive) is the policy of all three main parties in the Commons.  They should be the ones rewarded by the peoples of the Celtic Fringe, not the lunatic policies of separation.

Comments

[Alex]

Both Alex Salmond and Elfyn Llwyd were on an election campaign programme last night hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby in Manchester, broadcast on BBC1 @ 1100 pm.

Both men certainly did not convice me that the break up of the Union would be beneficial to anyone.

However, at least they do not support and or attempt to justify mass murder and destruction to try and achieve their aims unlike the Irish Nationalists we have to put up with here in Northern Ireland.

[Chris Gaskin]

I thought Alex spoke very well, I found him witty, intelligent and persuasive.