The realities of a Tory Government in a United Kingdom

[Suff]

Continue to roll on for Scotland. As HMRC decides to consolidate and scale back in Scotland. This was one of the FUD factors being pushed about by the "alliance" for unity back during the referendum. Scotland would lose all those critical government jobs.

Java time. Under the Tories those extra 500,000 civil servants, employed by Blair and Brown, have to go. As Scotland and Wales have a disproportionate number of these jobs, they will be hit much harder.

As the price of Oil falls and government austerity bites harder and harder, all those Scots won over by the argument that being in a United Kingdom would be better than standing alone, because of the "Opportunities" the UK would give Scotland for employment, must be sitting there wondering how totally stupid they were.

As the value of Oil falls, the SNP hammer home the message over and over again, 50% of a sum ten times larger than the one the Scots get today is 4 times the money the Scots get today. Instead the Scots get 10% of the north sea oil revenues which are dropping by 50%. At the same time the Scots are carrying an increased burden of government Austerity reductions.

Eventually, out of the EU or not, this will trigger another referendum. I wonder what those clever Unionists will use to scare the Scots with the next time??? They thought it didn't matter what they said because it would close the question for a generation. Never thinking that as their lies were peeled back it would drive a SNP so powerful that they could, eventually, trigger another referendum without fear of falling from power.

Roll on the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. I'm intensely interested to see how that plays. First past the post gave SNP all but 3 seats in the Westminster parliament. I wonder how much PR will give them? 70%? It would be totally unprecedented, a world first.

[Kaz]

It will certainly be interesting to observe!

[cromwell]

It's not just Scotland. Every "region" is going to be hit.

As part of the EU's plan for the regionalisation of the EU, each post-Maastricht UK region is going to have just one HMRC office. Just as the army has been regionalised, just as the emergency services are being regionalised.

Anyway, a load of jobs are going to go and people are being advised to go online to pay tax or complain.

It may or may not be significant that the head of HMRC is a civil servant called Lin Homer.

This is the same Lin Homer who was a returning officer whose efforts to combat a vote rigging scandal that would have "disgraced a banana republic" was condemned by the Electoral Commission.

Fresh from that triumph Lin Homer then became head of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office, in August 2005. The Home Office was re-organised in 2008, with the formation of the Border and Immigration Agency, later renamed the UK Border Agency, of which Homer became the first chief executive.In 2013, Homer's tenure at UKBA was criticised for its "catastrophic leadership failure" by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.

Nevertheless, you can't keep a good 'un down and she went on to further glory as Permanent Secretary of the Department for Transport . While serving in this role, the Department dealt with the franchise letting process for West Coast Mainline rail network. Homer was among officials accused by Sir Richard Branson, head of Virgin Trains, of ignoring concerns about the letting process, whose failure is estimated to have cost £100 million.

So she has a long track record of abysmal failure.

[Suff]

Yes but the point is that nobody was telling the regions of England that they would see this as a result of a split from Scotland.

Project yourself into 2018. We've had the EU referendum. The parties and the EU have rushed in with an 11th hour "golden promise" that the EU will do everything Cameron wants plus more. They've spent all that time promising that if we leave the finance world will bug out to Frankfurt, that our inwards investment will vanish and our car manufacturing will vanish if we leave. We vote to stay 52% to 48%.

Then, come 2018, the EU passes directives which move the financial transactions denominated in € to Frankfurt as the UK is not in the €. The EU pays lip service to the promises and then reneges on them saying "we have to consider the other 27". Our inwards investment crashes, our car industry moves to Eastern Europe and our civil service is reduced because of EU wide fiscal unification.

All the while we are flooded with even more EU workers as they lose their own jobs to underpaid illegal immigrants who take over all the low paid jobs in the Schengen countries, mostly illegally.

Then tell me how you would feel.

Then you will be where the Scots are today.

[Workingman]

Breaking News: It is not about Scotland

Last night Look North carried an item about HMRC closures. Yorkshire is to lose 12 of its 13 centres in places such as Bradford, Sheffield, Wakefield, Hull, Harrogate and York all to be moved to a regional centre in Leeds.

No word on job loses as yet, though the previously mentioned Lin Homer has said that everything wil be done to keep redundancies to a minimum and to find work for those who do lose out. Now where have we heard that before?

Apparently 137 offices are to close throughout the UK, so it is a nationwide thing.

As for a new referendum. The Crankies might have to go whistle. Once the boundary changes come in and Jeremy Corbyn has done his job on Labour and with the LieDowns reduced to single figures there will not be a group big enough to tackle the Tories for decades. The SNP will be a mere 59/650 of parliament. English MPs of the Tory party will form the de facto and de jure government of the UK with no need for Scots, Welsh or NI support.

I also suspect that if either George or Boris become leader, especially Boris, the UK might be given a referendum on Scottish independence. Given the constant bellyaching from the SNP I would not like to bet on which way it would go.

[Suff]

The point is not that this is a UK wide thing. The point is a bunch of bare faced liars told the Scots that if they stayed in the UK it would not happen to them.

Nobody told the English that it wasn’t going to happen to them. So they only have the normal amount of ire for the changes which put people out of a job.

The Scots have a quite justified beef and should be allowed to bitch about it. British (read English), MP’s came to Scotland and promised them that if they stayed in the Union, then these things would not happen to them, however they also said that if they left the union then these things would happen to them and things would become much worse for them.

So far the Scots have stayed, the UK has continued to grow and things have become much worse for the Scots.

You would, seriously, not be happy either in the same situation.

[Workingman]

Always look on the bright side of life.

The final restructuring will see around 12 per cent of the HMRC staff total based in Scotland - higher than the country’s population share.

[Suff]

Works for me, the next time the referendum comes round there won't be a reason to worry about Scottish civil service jobs because Westminster will have reduced them to less than an independent country will need.....

What also works for me is the indignation. The promise was not "more than your share" the promise was "all would be safeguarded". There is nothing to be optimistic about or thankful for and Scots won't see it that way.

As far as I can see Scotland is poised for another referendum vote just about 2018. Which will be an interesting boot on the other foot because if Scotland were to tip the scales on a UK yes vote for the EU, only to leave the UK themselves, after the majority of the English and Welsh had voted to leave the EU, that would be extreme justice for me. I'd be laughing for a week.....

A vote for independence in 2018 will be in the full light of the uncovered lies and deceit of the first campaign followed by the lies and deceit of the EU referendum.... There should also have been a few more Labour by elections, reality of the fact that Corbyn is going to dismantle Labour and leave the country with majority Tory governments for a decade or more and a further distancing of Scottish Labour from Corbyn.

Just about made in heaven for another SNP independence referendum. About as far away from the last one as you could get, with most of the civil service and economic shocks done, with the economy on the upswing, with a better answer for Scottish currency and finances, I would say that separation from the UK could be hard to avoid rather than hard to achieve.

[Workingman]

The Scots can have a referendum every Thursday if they want, but they will have no status in law unless the UK government signs one off, and there is no good reason to do so.

What do the Crankies do then? Follow Rhodesia and announce a UDI?

What I would like to see is for Dave to stand up in the HoC and tell Nicola that the referendum was a once in a generation deal and that her generation blew it so she should sit down and button it.

The SNP might be the only party in Scotland, but in the UK they are a distant third. When it gets all the recommendations of the Smith Commission, as it will, there was a 'Vow' don't forget, and it starts raising taxes to 50% and begins all its (uncosted) spending plans let's see how the Scots feel.

[Suff]

The "Vow" has already been broken and the Smith Commission was a joke. Yes we promised but we're only going to give you what we want to.

As for declaring unilateral independence? What could Westminster do? Scotland is a Country not a member state. If the majority of the population vote for separation then Scotland has the right to declare that independence. Just because Scotland signed a treaty of union does not mean that the larger partner in that union then has the right, forever, to keep that union.

If Westminster did that they would be branded hypocrites for the last 60 years of their protestations to the UN.... That might be fun though.

The whole point is that if the SNP raise taxes 50% in an independent Scotland, they will get booted at the next election, just as Labour was booted for uncontrolled spending and taxation in Westminster in the 70's. It all becomes simpler when you take Westminster out of the equation for the Scots.

I have long been of the opinion that Scotland should engage more in the UK or get out, just as I have felt for the UK and the EU. Now I'm of the opinion that they should get out. What has happened since the referendum has also convinced a large number of Scots that they made a mistake and that they should get out.

So long as the SNP is voted in with a clear mandate to hold a new referendum, there is little anyone in Westminster can do about it.

Let's see how next year goes....