[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Alex Massie and Matthew Parris discuss why the Union is in peril’ startat=55]
Listen
[/audioplayer]In the cover story for this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe, by the way!) I write that “The battle for Britain is being conducted on a wavelength which unionist politicians in London struggle to pick up.”
As if to prove my point, consider this story from today’s Financial Times in which it is revealed that government ministers in London have been pressuring defence companies to “highlight potential job losses and disruption if Scotland splits from the UK”.
Philip Dunne, minister for defence procurement, “would like to see the defence industry in Scotland being a bit more upfront in explaining their concerns to their workforce and the people in Scotland and I urge them to do that at every opportunity.”
How often does it need to be said that this dismal kind of nuts-and-bolts fear-mongering is counter-productive? Sure, the defence industry post-independence would likely contract but so what?
Are we really supposed to think that the fate of the United Kingdom should be decided or even influenced by the number of people Babcock or BAE Systems might employ north of the Tweed after independence? Is this debate so niggardly, so small as this? Is this the best the British government can do?
Apparently so.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in