The Northern Lights are out in Old Aberdeen

Fascinating stuff in Aberdeen today. No I’m not talking about the Dons 2-1 victory but rather on those Labour Councillors in their preparation to collude with Tories. 

In addition, although there is precedent at being unable to trust a Lib Dem, or their party as a whole, it remains frightening to see one of its councillors resign to go independent just in order to get into bed to make a threesome…just two weeks after running on a party ticket. Aberdeen now emerges as the battle ground where political parties argue the case for Union in so far as they will put realpolitik to one side. This demonstrates yet again how politically remote Scotland is from rUK (not inc. NI) which sees the emergent SNP (albeit powerful now for more than a decade) essentially create havoc amongst Scottish mainstream parties. You won’t get this in England nor Wales (the appetite for independence not being strong in these countries for obvious reasons) therefore those parties are not really tested south of the border. UKIP didn’t really test matters enough because it appealled to such a small audience in constituencies, however, nationally 4m votes from the 2015 general election is something that had garnered interest throughout the whole of the UK. Had UKIP lost the #EUref in June 2016 would we have seen an increase in support in this party as was witnessed in Scotland post #indyref? One thing is clear nevertheless, both SNP and UKIP are polar opposites, so does that mean Scotland and the rUK are too?

The mainstream parties in Scotland are continuing to fight a battle with fear, as well as obsessing about the rise of nationalism. It would seem the only way for politics to correct itself is to see the country go independent thus rendering their adversary ineffective. Until such times it would seem it very much is independence v’s union regardless what kind of election is in the offering to the voter. Instead of a Royal Rumble in the realms of Realpolitik what we have instead is more a case of SNP v’s the mainstream parties (Lab-LibDem-Con). 

What do you think?

(Photo credit: Me, outside Aberdeen City Council, April, 2017)