YOU'D THINK THAT WITH ALL HIS MONEY HE'D BE ABLE TO AFFORD SOME NEW LIES TO TELL

According to David Cameron, an independent Scotland would find itself behind countries including Serbia and Macedonia in the process of joining the European Union.

iScotland would have to "queue up" to join the EU, he said, for some strange reason, while he was campaigning in the Newark by-election in England. They care in Newark?

He also said he was disappointed that Scottish people living in the rest of the UK would not be able to vote in September's independence referendum. Although, as the referendum, by UK law, had to get the permission of the UK government to take place, and was the joint responsibility of the UK and Scottish governments in its range and methodology, it seems strange to bring this up now and not before the Edinburgh Agreement was signed. Of course it would have been almost impossible to ascertain who would have been eligible to vote, and that is why it was not seriously considered. But people like Cameron never let the truth get in the way of creating bitterness when it suits their own political ends. 

He said: "If Scotland vote for independence they are no longer members of the EU and it's become clearer and clearer since this campaign started that they would have to reapply to join the EU and as such, as an independent country, they would have to queue up as it were behind other countries - for instance those in the western Balkans that are already on the path towards membership”.

Well that’s, at best, conjecture, and at worst, lies. He must be the only person in the world who seriously believes that an expansionist organisation like the EU would disfranchise Scottish citizens, take away their passports, driving licences, and all their rights as European citizens, at the same time as removing all the rights a privileges of other EU states’ citizens to live, study, work in Scotland, and put them on hold so that countries like Montenegro and Macedonia could take precedence over them.

The scenario is too ridiculous to imagine. All EU students at Scottish Universities would immediately be obliged to either return home in the middle of their courses, or to pay steep fees for the rest of their education. All fishing in Scottish waters would stop; all projects being funded by the EU would immediately have no cash; Scottish people living overseas would become aliens in their new countries, as would all the Europeans working here. And for what?

 Scotland, as a current member of the UK, and therefore the EU, meets all the criteria of being a member of the EU. Why would they queue behind countries which are working to bring their finances, human right, etc, etc, into line with Europe, possibly taking decades to do so?

No one is suggesting it would be an overnight rubber stamping. A new country would most likely have to negotiate terms, and no one really expects that any of the opt outs, or penalties for these opt outs, currently enjoyed or paid by the UK would necessarily continue. But most intelligent and educated estimates are that, within a period of 18 months, these issues could easily be resolved. East German territories and citizens, after all, became a member overnight when accepted into reunified Germany.

On the other hand, when Greenland obtained the power from Denmark to make its own decisions on these matters, and decided to withdraw from the EU, it took it 2 years for the EU to reluctantly let it go.

Of course Mr Cameron could have sorted this uncertainty long ago. It is in his hands to ask the EU for a judgement on Scotland’s position. Mr Salmond has asked him to do this. He has refused. He prefers to be able to play on fear. That is the kind of Prime Minister that Scotland has. One who appears to be at war with the country. In short, an enemy. 

Meanwhile, almost unbelievably, this week Mr Cameron warned FrauMerkel that if the man she has backed to become president of the EU Commissiongets the job, then Britain may leave the EU. You couldn't make it up.

Needless to say Cameron continued with the usual tired old dross about hoping the Scottish people will vote to remain in the United Kingdom because we're a successful family of nations, all bringing something to this United Kingdom.  But I refer you, and him, to the video in a previous Munguin post.

For someone campaigning in an English by-election with absolutely no connection to Scotland he made a great deal of independence. You began to wonder if he hadn’t lost the plot as he rambled on about risks outside the UK. Not being able keep the pound (lie), outside the UK you wouldn't have such a strong economy with so many jobs…(another lie, as the economy in London and Oxford is entirely different from anywhere in Scotland… and the unemployment figures on a country wide basis being better in Scotland than in England). Then there was the ever reliable “banks” tale. The British taxpayer saved the Scottish banks. Except that that’s a lie too. The actual losses from banks (which might have had Scotland in their titles, but are based in, and regulated by London) in Scotland was tiny. The Scottish liability could easily have been paid. The massive losses came in London and in the USA. And the USA liabilities were, by law, paid by the USA government. 

It seems to me that if you have to rely on lies for ALL your arguments, you actually don’t have anything. Cameron must be thanking his lucky stars for a compliant press and a BBC that desperately needs his English Culture Secretary to raise the licence tax.

In conclusion with sickening predictability he said: “I think the UK has been a great success story”.

Tell that to people on the receiving end of Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Wickedness and Purgatory (DWP). Tell that to all the people forced to live on the lowest comparative minimum wage and the lowest pension in Europe. Tell that to people paying the highest fares for the worst trains in Europe, or the most money for the smallest houses, the most expensive petrol, cars, furniture etc… The list is endless. 

Statements like that remind me of the speech made by the prince of Wales, welcoming some immigrants to England where he said: “I’ve always considered myself extremely privileged to be born British.”   No seriously, he did!