[Media-watch] Scots Independent April 2003

[Liz Curtis]

The Scots Independent April 2003


Opinion [shortened]
 
A MAY-DAY TRYST WITH FREEDOM
Whatever may be the long term repercussions of the US/UK war on Iraq, its
significance for British internal politics can hardly be overstated.  A war
generated by an unholy alliance of Right-wing Republicans in America and a
credulous British Labour Prime Minister has generated a sense of outrage
among a huge swathe of ordinary Scots of all ages, despite their having no
sympathy for the tyrant Saddam Hussein and his evil regime.
There are a number of underlying causes for this sense of outrage: among
them being the realisation of the democratic deficit inherent in the British
constitution - and Scotland's position within it.  Who could have imagined,
after the last Westminster election, that a new Labour Government would
commit Scottish troops to an illegal and unnecessary war at the behest of a
near paranoid Republican President of the U.S.A.? And who could have
imagined that the ultimate decision to go to war would be taken, not by the
elected Government but a beleaguered rump of its members supported by
English Tories whose writ in Scotland extends to having no Westminster MPs!
Yet another cause of Scottish outrage has been the campaign by First
Minister Jack MacConnell and his cronies to suppress and undermine Scottish
opposition to the war - even within his own party. It is he who has demeaned
Scotland's devolved Parliament by tying its deliberations...to preclude the
Scottish people from having any influence on those issues that affect the
whole basis of our democratic and moral aspirations as a civilised, if small
nation.
On May 1st...we can and must return a majority of SNP MSPs, committed to
unravelling the disastrous constitution that denies us the right to
influence international events and help secure world peace from the grasp of
deluded and power-drunk despots - whether of Eastern or Western provenance.

Note: The Scots Independent (Newspapers) Ltd was founded in 1926 and is at
51 Cowan Street, Stirling. It is produced monthly by a group of independent
journalists, MSPs and MPs who support the SNP programme for Scotland.