{"id":8905,"date":"2014-11-14T09:05:42","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T09:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8905"},"modified":"2014-11-14T09:05:42","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T09:05:42","slug":"scotlands-obvious-plan-b-is-playing-out-as-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/11\/scotlands-obvious-plan-b-is-playing-out-as-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland&#8217;s obvious Plan B is playing out as expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2014\/11\/21\/interview-alex-salmond-plots-his-next-moves-against-british-state-283751.html\">Miranda Green in Newsweek<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"\">What they may not realise, or not fully, is the extent to which Salmond may be preparing to work from the Commons in concert with Nicola Sturgeon in Holyrood to exploit Cameron?s promise of a referendum on EU membership. In this ?Plan B? any boost to the self-government of Scotland will help. ?Nicola is preparing the ground for a blocking position. If we are in this quasi-federal position then each of the constituent parts [of the UK] has to decide to jump out together. Not one part saying ?right, I?m jumping out, you lot, you?re just coming wi?us. And you know, if Westminster doesn?t like that, there?s an obvious solution.?<\/p>\n<p>This last threat ends with the hardest, longest and fiercest glare yet ? an EU referendum in which England voted for ?out? but Scotland voted for ?in? could provoke a crisis that achieves independence by the back door.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The best of this is that almost everyone?following saw this plan coming the second Salmond stepped down&#8230; except?Westminster. If the Lib-Dems crash and burn, and Labour supporters in Scotland Swing 40 seats from Labour to SNP, you could due looking at the SNP as the third party in a hung Westminster parliament, with Alex Salmond getting two questions every Wednesday at PMQs.<\/p>\n<p>As all the good Westerns go?there&#8217;s one more mission for the warhorse running interference and blocking for?his protege?back in the homestead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miranda Green in Newsweek: What they may not realise, or not fully, is the extent to which Salmond may be preparing to work from the Commons in concert with Nicola Sturgeon in Holyrood to exploit Cameron?s promise of a referendum on EU membership. In this ?Plan B? any boost to the self-government of Scotland will help. ?Nicola is preparing the ground for a blocking position. If we are in this quasi-federal position then each of the constituent parts [of the UK] has to decide to jump out together. Not one part saying ?right, I?m jumping out, you lot, you?re just<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[25,54],"tags":[5178,5174,5176,5173,5175,5177],"class_list":["post-8905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link-log","category-politics","tag-5178","tag-alex-salmond","tag-holyrood","tag-snp","tag-westminster","tag-yes","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Gl0-2jD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8906,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8905\/revisions\/8906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}