UK election 2019: Is the scene set for a return to Scottish independence?

Thursday's UK election brought a huge majority to the Tories amid Labour's cataclysmic defeat, which makes Brexit a prospective fact after three and a half years of political gridlock. Brexit will be a long, drawn-out process, but now it will happen.

Interestingly, leaving the European Union might set into motion the dissolution of the United Kingdom.

It isn't easy to explain the election's implications for perpetually fragile Northern Ireland, although it should suffice to use the word "destabilizing" -- to say the least.

DUP and Sinn Féin under pressure to restore power sharing, by Rory Carroll (The Guardian)

DUP loses big name as voters punish parties for Northern Ireland’s political dysfunction

... Boris Johnson’s election victory, which has liberated him from dependence on DUP votes in Westminster, has added to the sense of urgency. He is expected to push through a Brexit deal that will create checks and inspections on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Mike Nesbitt, a former leader of the Ulster Unionist party, told the BBC the election’s great irony was that for decades, unionists had feared Irish nationalism as the main threat to the union. “Then more recently it was Scottish nationalists, but it’s actually English nationalism which is posing the existential threat to the future of the union,” he said.

Lots of eggshells and tightropes in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile in Scotland, things have become very interesting. The previous Scottish independence referendum in 2014 didn't favor detachment. It might a second time, given a general pro-EU opinion.

Scottish independence vote a 'democratic right', says Sturgeon, by Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks (The Guardian)

Boris Johnson rejects first minister’s call as his spokesman says result of 2014 vote ‘should be respected’

Nicola Sturgeon is to publish a blueprint next week for a new Scottish independence referendum but Boris Johnson has rejected any moves towards a fresh vote.

The first minister said the Scottish National party’s “overwhelming” election victory in Scotland, where it won 47 of the country’s 59 Westminster seats with 1.2m votes, gave her a clear and undeniable mandate to hold one.

Sturgeon said she would publish the “detailed democratic case” for the transfer of the legal powers from Johnson’s new Conservative government, which has to authorise the Scottish parliament to stage any referendum that changes the UK’s constitutional structures.

“This isn’t about asking Boris Johnson or any other Westminster politician for permission. This is instead an assertion of the democratic right of the people of Scotland to determine our own future,” she said in a short victory speech in Edinburgh, where she declined to take questions.

snip

Sturgeon said the scale of the victory proved again that a large majority of Scots wanted to remain in the EU, three years after the country voted against Brexit by 62% to 38%. The election was a “watershed moment”, she said.

“Westminster has ignored the people of Scotland for more than three years. Last night, the people of Scotland said enough,” Sturgeon said. “It’s time for Boris Johnson to start listening. I accept, regretfully, that he has a mandate for Brexit in England but he has no mandate whatsoever to take Scotland out of the EU.”

She made a direct appeal to EU citizens – a group expected to be given a vote in any independence referendum, saying the SNP would protect and champion their interests. “I will fight with everything I have to protect your right to call Scotland your home.”

Freed from the tyranny of Fitbit.

Rowing's good exercise, too. 

There was a time not so long ago when I would gauge a day's exercise by the number of beers required to recuperate later that evening while consuming platters of meat, potatoes and tiramisu.

Then along came Fitbit. For me the year of induction was 2013, and I quickly became a drone, hypnotized by the step count. Consequently, during our recently concluded holiday in Croatia, Slovenia and Trieste, I might say that we averaged between 12,000 and 13,000 steps a day and 90 or more active minutes a day. A certain number of calories were expended, too.

I might suggest it; however the exact statistics must go unverified, as I'd already concluded it was time to break the cycle of addiction to Fitbit by severing the ties of bondage with this damnable hunk of plastic, tied to sophisticated surveillance technology and contrived to sell still more useless trinkets.

Boldly opting to go cold turkey, I smashed the device with an oaken hammer, mixed the shards with garlic paste, splashed a shot glass of ouzo on the mess and buried it in the backyard.

Granted, Fitbit taught me something, although what I learned wasn't anything new. Basically, staying active is good, and a brisk walk each day lasting 30 minutes to an hour is better. To each their own, and if Fitbit helps you, that's fine and dandy. For me the experience had long since run its course, and came to the point of draining all the fun out of exercising.

Enough's enough, and I've gone back to the relative simplicity of looking at my watch every now and then to see how long I've been out walking.

Got it?

Good, so now I can divulge the actual truth, because evidently my Fitbit fell from the ol' trouser pockets at some point last Wednesday morning in Ljubljana, and having lost it, the opportunity to escape the leash was too much to pass up.

Roger's Fitbit: 2013-2019.

The cool kids can go fu ... well, you know what I mean.

The pirate looks at sixty, and the evidence is incontrovertible. Each time in my life, when for some arcane reason it seemed a good idea to try becoming a cool kid -- part of the "in" crowd, belonging to a certain trendy group, inhabiting a clique, seeking to enlist in the power elite or aspiring to a socially ascendant organization -- it always has turned out badly.

Always; without exception.

It's better to remain contrarian, an iconoclast, infidel and outsider, because staying true to yourself at least allows your dignity to remain intact. Independence is neither cool nor uncool. It is merely principled. It just is.

Not only that, but you can't become a cool kid by your own rule book, anyway. The beautiful people, those fashionable arbiters of style, have rules of their own, and if you have to ask what these are, you'll never know.

Furthermore, I'm allergic to arrogance, and the thought of abiding the inevitable group-think is enough to avoid these entangling alliances.

The so-called cool kids generally select a leader; there's a head cheese or a big dog at the apex of their pyramid, and this grand poobah usually turns out to be my intellectual inferior; often, he or she quite simply is a dreadful dullard and the ensuing idolatry makes no sense.

Accordingly the exalted boss's followers acquiesce at being sheeple, no less arrogant or exuding their in-crowd privileges, but otherwise devoid of understanding and unaware of any meaningful narrative apart from yearning to belong to something irrespective of the cost to their identities.

You can count me out.

Again and again, perhaps twice on Sunday, remorseless experience has taught me that the "cool kids" aren't cool at all. They'll always make you drink the Kool-Aid first, before there's any chance of acceptance, and then stripped of autonomy, you become one of the braying jackals.

Don't misunderstand, because remaining independent does not imply aloofness. Cooperation still serves the common good, so long as the conditions are clear. I stand ready to be of assistance -- just don't expect me to sell out.

Because you can't afford me, dipshits.

Gahan, Dickey and the Floyd County Democratic Party "inaugurate" the resistance by groveling at the feet of an unreconstructed homophobic serial bully. I'm getting the warm fuzzies just Sieg Heiling about it.

Jeff Gahan heroically hedged his bets while insulting the outgoing POTUS with the "honor" of slapping his name on a grimy industrial park road, now known as Barack Obama Way, dubbed for the sole reason that Obama gave Gahan money (economic stimulus), carefully weighed and calculated rivulets of which inevitably made their way into the mayor's burgeoning Cayman islands campaign finance coffers.

... Although the road was named for the outgoing president, Gahan said he looks forward to positive actions by the new administration — President-elect Donald Trump and Indiana's own Gov. Mike Pence, who will take office as vice president Jan. 20.

“We certainly are rooting for them to be successful, too,” Gahan said.

Of course, we already know that for Gahan, only one man can truly be accorded the status of The Way -- and it isn't Barack Obama ...

I was standing down in Nawbany Town one day

I was standing down in Nawbany Town one day

I was standing down in Nawbany Town one day

Singing... I am the way

 ... although it might yet be Donald Trump. Gahan fancies himself an artistic deal maker, too. Perhaps they'll have a summit, and Dan Coffey can continue his stunning rehabilitation by serving as emcee.

Democratic cesspool redux: Gahan, Dickey and Phipps want to remove Lorch as council counsel so Danny Boy will be happy again.

Seeing as it's the Gahanian Party now, and Adam Dickey is left to make nasty multinational java and empty bedpans, perhaps the Wizard of Westside can rejoin the Democrats in time to become party chairman, borrowing Steve Bannon to revise the platform just a tad and make it cleaner for the numerous local rank and file "Democrats," who like Coffey himself opted for Trump last November.

In the interim, 3rd District councilman Greg Phipps is directed to smile, grin and cherish Gahan's decision to fete and polish Coffey, who'll happily swing his council vote back to the Disneyites for the ridiculously low price of council attorney Matt Lorch's head on platter.

Gee, CM Phipps, we're mystified as to why the New Albany Human Rights Commission is moribund.

Let the New Gahanian revisionism begin, preferably with a semi-literate press release from the mayoral stand-in, emanating from deep within the musty bowels of the Down Low Bunker.

"Tiptoe through the tulips" wasn't an anti-gay slur at all -- it was literary allegory, that's it, and "lying piece of shit" referred to a dog turd outside on the sidewalk.

ON THE AVENUES: This is Dan Coffey, New Albany’s quintessential Democrat.

Whatever Cool Papa G wants, he gets, even if it means indulging Coffey, the most perennially corrosive force in local politics outside of Deaf Gahan himself ... and all CM Phipps has to do is coo appreciative affirmation to the Dear Leader's directives.

But it doesn't have to be this way, does it? Phipps has options, doesn't he?

When Phipps first sought office, he forcefully rejected politics as usual -- or, politics just like this. Then the junta got in the way, and Phipps strayed, but now's the ideal time for him to make good on this pledge, recoup lost time, and distance himself from a rapidly disintegrating party structure that regularly and cavalierly dismisses him.

If Coffey and Scott Blair can play the independent card, so can Phipps. Speaking for myself, I'd be inclined to support an independent 3rd District seat in 2019. Why be a Yes-Man for Ga-han when Phipps' constituents come first, anyway?

Hold on ... does anyone have a barf bag?

I feel a Democratic Party donation coming on.

Atomized: My WNAS video in easily digested policy platform chunks.

Randy has taken the full 18-minute WNAS "Meet the Candidate" video (see below) and broken it down into smaller pieces. 

Why Indie: Roger Baylor explains why he's running as an independent for Mayor of New Albany

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Transparency: Roger Baylor, the independent candidate for Mayor of New Albany, explains what he means by transparency.

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Budgetary Sanity: Roger Baylor talks about fiscal responsibility and opportunities lost.

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Economic development: Roger Baylor explains to the incumbent what real economic development consists of.

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Infrastructure: Roger Baylor tells what he will do as mayor to keep our city safe and vital. Better at the fundamentals, to make New Albany fundamentally better.

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Ordinance enforcement: Roger, the independent candidate for Mayor of New Albany, explains that ignoring our housing stock is nothing less than lunacy.

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The full 18-minute WNAS "Meet the Candidate" video.

Just remember ... we can if you vote.

Long read: Not Legoland, but Liborland.

If Liborland can achieve independence, then why not New Albany?

Thanks to W for the link.

Welcome to Liberland, the World’s Newest Country (Maybe): Travels with Vit Jedlicka, the would-be founding father of a libertarian paradise, by Gideon Lewis-Krausaug (New York Times)

Along the western bank of the Danube, more or less halfway between Zagreb and Belgrade, there rests in historic obscurity a three-square-mile teardrop of no man’s land. It is an artifact of a border dispute of long standing, and neither Serbia nor Croatia expresses a desire to rule over this unprepossessing Gibraltar-size property. The land, marshy and prone to seasonal inundation, is choked with unregulated scrub, with here and there the lone tongue of a poplar or the gentle shag of a willow. The only road is a rutted single-lane dirt track, the only existing dwelling a flimsy hunting hovel, its provenance unknown.

The absence of governmental authority on this land is due to the manipulated course of the Danube itself. By the late 19th century, the Danube was accepted as the natural border between the regions — at that point still under Austro-Hungarian control — that would become Croatia and Serbia. There, however, the river’s path was tortuous and difficult for larger boats to navigate, so engineering work was undertaken to smooth the snaking flow. The straightened Danube was a vast improvement for international riverine transport, but in the process, four large uncontiguous bulges of Croatia became stranded alone on the Serbian side, and one small pocket of Serbia, on what was now the far bank, became attached to the Croatian mass.

This latter pocket, which local residents call Gornja Siga, is the no man’s land in question.

ON THE AVENUES: It’s time to purge two-party politics and tie the community together.

ON THE AVENUES: It’s time to purge two-party politics and tie the community together.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

I’m running for mayor of New Albany as an independent candidate in order to provide voters with a choice.

It’s as simple as that.

It is my core conviction that locally, we have a two-party system standing for very little in terms of coherent platform principle, apart from doing whatever is necessary to preserve its shared monopoly of power.

Republicans have the county, Democrats the city, and while professing an inability to speak on behalf of Republicans by virtue of not being one, I can truthfully say that as a lifelong left leaner who is liberal, progressive and entirely unembarrassed about it, the upper echelons of the Floyd County Democratic Party have become completely unglued. They may say things vaguely in keeping with their professed affiliation, but actions (and inactions) always speak louder than mere words.

It took them three months to comprehend and approve a street piano. ‘Nuff said, except there is far, far more.

Again and again during Jeff Gahan’s term, I’ve waited for this self-described Democrat to do something remotely democratic, to illustrate an open and public understanding of his party’s core concepts as they pertain to the legacy of leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, of the New Deal, and the Great Society, and to pay them more than periodic lip service.

But Gahan has been a profound, crushing disappointment, seemingly viewing himself first and foremost as a celebrity, a concert promoter and a theme park operator, perhaps an amalgam of Elvis, PT Barnum and Walt Disney, seeking to buy affection by incessantly pointing to the many nice things he’s purchased on credit, to be paid by the grandchildren of his current fans.

Sound bites and catch phrases always are substituted for substance. Surrounded by a closely knit group of self-interested handlers, Gahan babbles about the “business of residency,” “ripple effects,” and “where you should be,” showing nary a hint that he comprehends to any appreciable degree the ongoing, degraded condition of large tracts of urban space comprising his imagined Magic Kingdom.

Obviously Gahan venerates Louisville’s mayor, Greg Fischer, whose shameless glorification of crony capitalism and corporate welfare handouts rival those of Ronald Reagan. If it’s not big and expensive enough to warrant a self-congratulatory plaque, it’s not worthy of a moment’s consideration. At least Fischer has the panache to play a rock star on television.

Meanwhile, Gahan fancies himself a Democrat.

What has he done to address the first fundamental need, as opposed to his laundry list of TIF-bond-funded wants?

What has Gahan’s City Hall done for the people in New Albany who need help the most?

Has Gahan exhibited the slightest indication that he knows these people even exist, apart from offering them bread and circuses?

It would not surprise me at all for a Republican to govern in this fashion, and therein lies a basic truth: Gahan has behaved in so thoroughly a Republican way that if you are a Democrat, and genuinely believe in the principles espoused by the Democratic Party nationwide, then the only candidate in this race who can be relied upon to govern as a Democrat, democratically, is the Independent.

That would be me, and to repeat, I’m running for mayor of New Albany as an independent candidate in order to provide voters with a choice. Otherwise, we have none … especially if you’re a Democrat.

As a city, we cannot afford four more years of Jeff Gahan, but the rot is considerably deeper than fiscal, and those tens of millions of dollars in bonded debt he has accumulated during his sole term.

From the inception of this blog in 2004 to the present day, the Democratic Party machine has remained pre-eminent, with Gahan himself burrowed deeply within the apparatus, and yet almost everything positive accomplished during this time has come in spite of the party machine, not because of it. It is exhausting to wrestle progress from the cold, dead hands of big fish in small ponds, and yet each step of the way, it’s been the default mechanism in New Albany.

Many of us are sick of this, and it must change.

I truly believe there are alternatives to the same tired civic rituals, practiced by the usual underachieving political suspects, and which come down to three priorities. If aggressively implemented, I contend they can tie this community together and help New Albany achieve its potential.

Transparency
Infrastructure
Empowerment

Last week I promised to elaborate on ten “bullet point” Baylor for Mayor platform planks, but after much thought, I’ve decided to stop at seven. They’re inter-related, which points to something else of importance: When government acts, it should try whenever possible to multi-task and connect its actions and aims to best achieve multiple positive results. Doing so is the best use of money and time, and it doesn’t take a business person to know it. You do it in your own homes and workplaces.

City Hall can do it, too.

Honesty in government
This is job one. Jeff Gahan’s City Hall has been the least transparent in recent memory, and the consequences have been crippling. Daily information has been safeguarded like crown jewels, and far too many decisions have been taken by appointed boards, rather than elected officials. Public input has been rendered inert, either by calculated infrequency (the aquatic center and accompanying $20 million parks bond, and the Coyle site giveaway) or sheer organizational ineptitude (the three Speck meetings). It does not help that public meetings (Board of Works, Redevelopment) dealing with important decisions are held at inconvenient times for working people, and that we do not harness widely available electronic mediums to film and disseminate them.

Consequently, in the interests of greater transparency, I’ll dedicate the necessary resources to ensure robust two-way communications and conversations between the city and its citizens. My aim is equal governance and a level playing field, and so I will promote transparency every single day at City Hall, not every now and then. Finally, I will commence a deep cleansing of management level personnel in City Hall. New thinking is needed to stimulate the “same old, same old” management culture, which is in-bred and unresponsive. We’ll take applications, interview candidates, and find new talent, because our city employees already work hard. They need bosses who work smart.

Budget sanity
I support a sane, sustainable budget, something that is not currently being provided by Democrats, and which is not to be considered an exclusive province of the GOP. I will not sacrifice long-term budgetary sustainability for short-term glitz and glitter. On the one hand, Gahan’s astronomical bonded debt will be with us for decades to come, placing an ever greater strain on his illusory budgets. On the other, a Zurschmiede administration’s budgetary model would be that of Republicans in Floyd County government: Starvation rations, bread made from sawdust and the occasional corn husk. Disneyland versus North Korea? These are not the only two choices. It’s going to take an independent candidate like me to find truth between the extremes – and I will, because our real infrastructure needs will require investment.

Fix infrastructure
Maintaining the city’s public infrastructure and effectively utilizing our physical assets isn’t sexy. It’s essential, and it’s also about every single day, not every now and then. Like much of America, New Albany has neglected these fundamental needs, and yet they are the conditions that matter most right where you live. Everything else we do as a city extends from strong fundamental physical infrastructure: Streets, sidewalks, sewers, storm water and many more similar functions, big and small. These tasks comprise the city’s bones and blood.

Two-way streets are the perfect illustration: Speck them to spec, and watch as street design and expanded walkability support and enhance other measures already aimed at bolstering neighborhood revitalization, property values and independent business success – rather than actively work against them in a cloud of semi-trailer fumes and vehicular speed. It is my contention that quality of life cannot be imposed from the top down, but must rise from the grassroots up. Without better infrastructure management, this is not possible. We’ll analyze these areas from the ground up, and plan for success by design – every day, not every now and then.

Ordinance enforcement
Equal governance and level playing fields cannot be attained without consistent and principled ordinance enforcement, as applied professionally and separated from petty politics. To cite just one example, the city of New Albany still does not have a rental property registration and inspection program in the year 2015.

Here is another: Parking ordinances are enforced in some places and not others – and no one knows where the non-enforcement line is drawn. On one block, blocking the notoriously inefficient street sweeper earns you a ticket. On the next, cars are parked on the sidewalk as we look the other way. It is hypocrisy to have laws and selectively enforce them, and it is lunacy to have no laws at all covering basic human habitation of living space. It’s time to begin moving toward a government of law, not variable political whim, and it is sad that we’ve waited this long to even start.

Local economy first
There is a “boilerplate” arsenal of economic development incentives, abatements and secret handshakes that seldom if ever apply to small, local, independent business operators, builders and developers, who have been the engine of growth in New Albany at a time when old-line companies like Pillsbury are departing, and the existence of River Ridge in Clark County is making it harder to replace them. As mayor, I will put New Albany first by nurturing grassroots economic development initiatives, and spreading risks and rewards, because I believe that economic development begins right here at home, with the empowerment of our own people and a level playing field for independent local businesses.

Locally-owned businesses activity encourage recirculation and a multiplier effect, wherein more money spent locally stays in the local economy, and for a longer period. I think we can position ourselves to thrive in the changing regional economy by exploiting market niches, but it will require thinking outside self-imposed boxes, and investing in economic development by fundamentally improving our infrastructure, not building plaque-ready water parks and pandering. It’s about priorities, after all.

Democracy & social justice
Human rights are a non-negotiable mandate, whether Dan Coffey thinks so or not. Respect for human rights and freedoms, democratic principles and social justice must start with the city’s employees and appointees, who must be accountable to the very highest standards in protecting and defending the civil rights of every person in this city. City Hall also must do what it can to be cognizant of institutional racism, discrimination, poverty, income inequality, homelessness and other social issues. We cannot pretend these problems don’t exist here, and I will not pretend to have all the answers. What I can promise to do is listen long and hard, and act on what I hear. It’s about starting a dialogue, and since the two major political parties have refrained from doing so, an independent mayor will get it done.

Two way streets NOW
Gahan’s bizarre fear and timidity aside, the arguments have been made, the overwhelming fact-based evidence presented, and the case effectively closed. There is no reason whatever not to implement the Speck downtown street network proposal in its entirety at the first opportunity, toward which purpose the use of TIF bonds actually would be a fitting and proper exercise, as two-way streets would increase safety, decrease crime, and directly assist in the revitalization and quality of life of a downtown area of approximately 120 square blocks, while not impeding reasonable use of these streets by commercial vehicles.

Once Speck’s directives have been accomplished, we can begin harnessing the same principles to the corridors within the beltway, as incorporating the city’s original suburbs off State Street, Grant Line Road and Charlestown Road. I’m often asked whether I “care” as much about Klerner Lane (as a random example) as downtown. I do. Know that my business meal ticket remains a pizzeria and brewery on Plaza Drive on the north side, and that our development patterns in these areas do not preclude connectivity elsewhere.

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This is enough for the moment, but there is so much more:

• The importance of community oriented policing.
• Infill housing to remediate intemperate demolition.
• Public art.
• Recognition of placemaking and urban design principles.
• Hiring a full-time grant writer to help fund projects.
• Internet connectivity as an aspect of vital infrastructure for people.
• The importance of historic preservation.
• Trees, shade and green thinking.

Transparency means that we’ll be having a constant conversation about the city.

Infrastructure is the fundamental propriety for things.

Empowerment is the basic prerequisite for people.

These themes are the ties that bind, and precisely because they’ve been undervalued by the two-party system, they’re ripe for improvement. It's true that as an independent mayor, I'll have no political party structure at my back, but surely this is liberating, not constraining. We'll work with those willing to work, of all political party affiliations, or none.

Thanks for reading, and your support is appreciated.

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Recent columns:

August 10: ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

August 6: ON THE AVENUES: Money is the ultimate bully.

July 30: ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

July 23: ON THE AVENUES: A citizen's eloquent complaint about the parking debacle at River Run reminds us that planners and brooms go hand in hand.

July 16: ON THE AVENUES: Louisville Beer, then and now ... and cheers to Rotary.

July 9: ON THE AVENUES: A mayoral petition as prologue to history.

"To most Scots, living under a Tory-led government seems absurd, like being forced to live under a hostile foreign occupying force."

I know the feeling. After all, the governor of Indiana is an unreconstructed Falangist named Mike Pence.

Whatever Scotland decides, the old order is dead and buried; The union will likely be gone within a decade. It’s not just the Tories in our bankrupt establishment that are to blame, by Owen Jones (The Guardian)

If Scotland votes for independence next week, it is the British establishment – and the establishment alone – that is to blame. The yes surge is not being driven by blood-and-soil nationalism, by dewy-eyed Celtic nostalgia or the resurrection of a Braveheart spirit. It is a defiant protest at a bankrupt order built by Margaret Thatcher and then preserved and entrenched by New Labour. David Cameron’s Conservatives will bear most responsibility for the break-up of the country, but the last government and a hollowed-out Scottish Labour party cannot escape the blame.

Scotland: Should it stay or should it go?

It's a fascinating topic, this potential Scottish statehood, but unfortunately the gist for me is a feeling of being ever more isolated in my own place. Independence for Indiana, Kentucky or Floyd County would stem from a fervent desire for fewer, not more, democratic values.

I'm not ready for King Seabrook and the Sheriff of Bushingham. The expatriatism option seems ever more appealing. Yuck.

If I were a Scot, I might vote yes to independence. As it is, I can only plead with them to stay, by Jonathan Freedland (Guardian)

Ignored for so long, it's little wonder so many in Scotland are straining to break away. But heaven help us all if they do

... This, then, is what's driving so many Scots to consider making the break: a despairing fear that, given the way a few marginal seats in middle England can decide UK elections, Britain will never again return to the kind of social democratic values that still find a ready consensus in Scotland. It's not that the Scots are leaving Britain – it's that Britain has left them.