It’s the Unionists That Have Been Running Scared

It’s hard to see how it is the SNP that are running scared. Apart from Wendy Alexander who, when she Labour leader for five minutes, challenged the nationalists to “bring it on” and got a right bollocking from London, all the Unionist parties have continually said that they don’t want this referendum.

Various reasons have been given over the years. The latest from Iain Grey is that, thanks to the Labour Government’s catastrophic mishandling of the UK economy, there are more important things to be getting on with. Previous to this it was some other problem caused by Labour. Never has the reason been given that the Unionist parties might actually be scared of losing that referendum.

And this is strange.

One would imagine that the combined might of the Unionists: Labour, the Tories, the Lib-Dems, the BNP, the Orange Order, the Daily Record, the Scotsman, the BBC, etc, etc, etc, might actually be enough to give Alex Salmond a run for his money.

So why not put their money where their North British mouths are.

After all, when it comes to the Scottish Elections, all the forces of the Union are wheeled out to defeat the SNP.

Ah, but it didn’t work last time.

Tory bedfellows, Lib-Dems have said fighting the election on the grounds of independence would be "welcome territory".

Methinks that they will have more to worry about – having to somehow climb out of the grave they dug for themselves when they joined the Tories in the coalition.

Had they voted for the referendum and then won, it’s hard to see how this could have done anything to help the nationalist’s position.

Losing the vote aside, what really worries the Unionists is that unless can deliver a crushing defeat to the Nationalists in a referendum then they can’s win. A narrow victory would show the country split and force the likes of Grey and Scott would to admit that that Union might not be all that they say it is.

And that’s why they’ve been running scared.