Ignatieff’s sin: accepting nationalist premises
Okay, decoding this a bit more.
1. Around the 2:30 mark: “Well, I think one of the most important political consequences of the referendum is for the Labour Party. This is the heart and soul of their electoral base, Scotland. If Scotland goes independent, I think that changes British politics — English politics — forever, and possibly consigns them to the dustbin of history. It’s that important. So my sense if you’re a Labour politician in England — you’d better come up with something plausible to say to the Scots which says not independence, but, you know, extensive devolution to meet the needs, which are clear, of the Scottish people for more management of their own affairs — effectively a state-within-a-state. I don’t see how this ends in any other way than Scotland winning more power, either through the independence route or through devolution. And it’s crucial for the Labour Party to understand that. They can’t sit this one out on the sidelines, because they may lose everything if they do.”
2. Around the 7:00 mark: “The Scots-Nats want to tell you nothing will change. They want to tell you you can have your cake and eat it too. That is, you can have all the virtues of not having Tory politicians in London bossing you around. And that would be a positive for Scotland, there’s no question. But I think over time, the two societies will move ever ever further apart. That’s I think what the Canadian example tells you. You start with the assumption nothing will change, and bit-by-bit-by-bit you discover that everything changes.” [Questioner: "Is the logical conclusion of what you are saying, that further transfers of power will end up with independence in Quebec, as in Scotland?"] “Well, the Canadian example seems to show that you can devolve power down and get those ‘Tory politicians from London’ out of your hair, and run your own affairs short of being an independent country, and it’s a kind of way-station — you stop there for awhile. But I think the logic eventually is independence. Full independence.” [Q: "For Quebec as for Scotland?"] “I think eventually that’s where it goes.”
So basically, he’s advising a course of action that he believes will fail, the internal logic of which is full independence.
Managed decline.
I think I can see why he didn’t quite inspire the Canadian centre-left.
“Join with me and I will bring you inexorable decline and dissolution… though perhaps not as fast as it otherwise would happen!”
Or something to that effect. He should stick to debating over cigars and port at Massey College.
Other people would run through that logic (which I don’t accept, but just suppose it’s true for the moment) and come to the conclusion, “And so that’s why we must not make that first concession.”
But not Ignatieff.
Sent from my iPhone