By Rab Bruce’s Spider

The more you think about the EU, the less it has to commend it. You only need to consider the treatment Greece received this year for daring to speak up against neo-liberal austerity to see that the money men rule the EU and are not prepared to let anyone stand in their way. It is a shocking way to treat anyone, especially as those who will suffer the most are the ordinary Greek people who are not to blame for the irresponsible actions of their former Governments. Having seen what the EU will do to anyone who steps out of line, it gives us reason to consider whether staying in is really a good idea. What we should not forget, though, is that membership of the EU is not the same as being in the Eurozone and needing to adopt the financial constraints imposed by using the Euro as your currency.

But then there is TTIP. This is really scary and it looks as if it is going to be imposed over the wishes of the majority of European citizens simply in order to increase the stranglehold that corporate entities have on our lives.

IN short, the EU seems to be going out of its way to harm its citizens. How long people will put up with that remains to be seen but the example of Greece will certainly make people hesitant to challenge the impositions of TTIP and any similar deals that may go through. It will take a political leader with a lot more conviction than Jeremy Corbyn or Alexis Tsipras to challenge the EU Establishment and their corporate and financial backers.

Then, closer to home, there is the Stronger in Europe campaign. Oh dear. Looking at the faces involved and the arguments they have put forwards so far, this is just Better Together reincarnated. They have already made appeals to people’s financial greed, to silly fear of possible consequences on fairly trivial matters, and to British patriotism. We saw all this during the IndieRef and it was easily debunked as Unionist propaganda and lies.

Fortunately, the SNP have announced that they will run their own campaign and will not stand shoulder to shoulder with the Westminster groups who want to remain in the EU but it must be said that they will have their work cut out to make a positive case for the EU. The simple fact will always remain that the arguments being touted are the same arguments the Yes campaign in Scotland battled against last year.

As with the Scottish IndieRef, the Press will have a vital role to play and it seems that the majority of newspapers are in favour of leaving the EU. This will make the SIE group’s task even more difficult, especially if the BBC follows the lead of the newspapers. The Beeb is in a difficult situation, with the Tory Government already threatening it because it is not Right Wing enough but the BBC is expert at manipulating and editing the news in order to present a subtle bias and this may yet prove to be SIE’s undoing.

The Out Of Europe side have a lot of powerful allies and it must not be forgotten that UKIP consistently poll well in England and that many Tories are virulently Eurosceptic. Adding those two groups together will provide a large block of votes for leaving the EU, especially when you consider that many Tory voters tend to be supportive of authoritarian and xenophobic leaders and this may well sway many of them towards a vote to leave the EU. The fact that many of the arguments they will now believe are diametrically opposite to the arguments they used during the IndieRef will not matter because logic rarely interferes in the thought processes of Unionists.

But what about a logical decision for Scottish Yes voters? Can we really side with the same liars and fraudsters who opposed us last year? Can we really abide the appeals to BritNattery and the fearmongering about the dire consequences of leaving the EU? Would our own logic not be flawed if we did this?

Yes, it would if that was the basis of our thought processes. However, there is a way round this. First of all, let us hope that the SNP, against all the odds, can come up with something positive to say about the EU without adopting the pathetic tactics of the SIE group. Secondly, and more importantly, we should always cast our votes in any referendum or election based on what we think is best for the country rather than what is best for ourselves because those are not necessarily the same thing for everybody. And if you believe that it is in Scotland’s best interests to be an independent country, then a Stay IN vote is surely the most sensible thing to do because the chances are that England will vote to leave and that will be a material change of circumstances which might just persuade enough Scottish voters that we should leave the UK.

There is a risk, of course, that even this dramatic evidence that England calls the shots and Scotland must simply accept what it is told to do may not be enough to swing the Yes to Indie vote over the 50% mark but we must believe that it will be the straw that breaks the Union’s back. One additional consequence which might help tip the balance is that a vote to leave the U would probably result in David Cameron resigning as Prime Minister. His successor is likely to be one of three equally unpalatable characters as far as Scotland is concerned: George Osborne, Boris Johnson or Theresa May. Surely that would be the signal for many more people to wish to leave the UK?

Then, once we are independent, we can always review our situation as regards the EU. If it continues down the neo-liberal, TTIP-loving route, an independent Scotland could always opt to leave in a few years’ time because, after all, there would already have been a precedent for that.