There is a new twist in this story but before looking at this in detail it is worth stepping back for a moment to consider what is at stake. It has been the proud boast of British capital for more than a century that it has established a secure, stable and flexible set of state institutions that have always been the 'envy of the world.' From 'the mother of parliaments' to the incorruptible civil service, British rulers have managed to crow about their historical achievements most credibly in the political sphere. Political stability; no domestic revolutions for centuries; checks and balances; ingenious compromises like the House of Lords; a well worn route for the most trusted candidates to gain access to state and judicial power via specific schools and universities; incorporation of potentially disruptive forces (e.g. women and labour); avoidance of either communism or fascism; this is the package that sells the City of London to Arab Sheiks and Russian billionaires.
Of course for centuries imperial Britain exported its corruption to its overseas possessions, along with its savage, counter-revolutionary violence and despotism. That allowed the political state 'at home' to retain its liberal fringe and meant that any poison in particular institutions was definitely the product of the odd 'rotten apple' rather than an endemic feature of the whole hypocritical set up. Britain's imperial enterprise is dying (although its wars, its financial chicanery, its slavish association with the US and its continued possession of most of the world's tax havens, still exports poverty and chaos to parts of the world.) And Britain's political system, embedded in its state machine, is beginning to show signs of wear and tear.
What to do in England, Wales and Northern Ireland after Scotland's referendum? A large part of the 1.6 million Scots voted yes because they despise Westminster politics, politicians and control. This popular mass movement generated (even in the account given by the leaders of the no campaign) a tremendous and unparalleled surge of political interest and participation in Scotland. These two facts, the rebelliousness of a significant and mainly working class section of the Scottish population and the fact that they had access to the means, at least start to carry out their rebellion, have thrown British politics into a new turmoil. Cameron short sightedly wants to make Labour pay for their devolution experiment by slicing away any potential Labour control over the whole of Westminster's business from now on. He also believes that waving the English flag will stem UKIP.
Cameron's clownish response has the potential to do serious damage to political stability by strengthening Britain's right wing in a contest to promote Englishness and the English. If he gets away with it he will have also contributed to the beginning of the dissolution of the Labour Party as it would no longer offer a route to national, institutional, political influence and thereby begin to dissolve the main raison d'etre for a large part of the labour bureaucracy. Under conditions of the likely continuation of a coalition government after May 2015, AND the EU referendum, the famous and historic British political stability, will begin to look distinctly like a thing of the past. And the City (whose base is paradoxically entirely global despite its highly valued British credentials) would consider its next move.
Britain has not been in a political crisis like this since the need for the National Government in the 1930s but this time Britain is without the immense resources available to underpin bold political manouvres and shore up the system.
The contest between Britan's classes has now very prominently spilled into the establishment's political sphere - an arena which despite, or perhaps more accurately, because of the new Labour Party, is virtually unavailable to the modern working class. The Scots have challanged all that. It is now more critical than ever that there are some voices in this unfolding crisis who, by the elections next May, have the credibility and political reach to represent those who want an end to austerity and a chance for a fresh start. We urgently need new voices to be heard from inside the new mainstream political arena as the ruler's crisis unfolds and, as Scotland shows, that will be based on a mass movement that is capable of creating its own new political reality.
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