The Political Philosophy of Status Quo

Earlier this year, I decided to climb Mount Everest. I set off for Nepal with a party of mountaineers. We were led by a famous sherpa guide. However, the expedition was a failure. Most of my fellow mountaineers were almost completely inexperienced mountain-climbers. The expedition was late setting off. We failed to catch up with any of the other parties. They were well up the mountain. We hoped to catch them up, and pass them, as we hiked and yomped, and took the mountain. However this did not happen. In retrospect, we were far too optimistic, foolish and naive to think we could beat the established mountain-climbing parties, insufficiently prepared for our late-season start, our sherpa guide was carrying too much baggage, and worst of all, we really did not realize how big the mountain really was. The mountain is the SNP! There is not going to be another full-frontal assault on the mountain for a few years now. This is a good thing, because it means that there is now plenty of time to...

  To start to tell the story, of the birth of the political philosophy of Status Quo, I need to go way back in time, to the year 2014. It was in this year, that a referendum was held in Scotland, on the question of Scotland becoming an independent country, or remaining as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As this momentous referendum approached, I decided that I would accept the result, and when the result came in, I continued to hold to that position of acceptance. Indeed, as time went by, my acceptance became firmer and stronger. The more that I thought about it, the more did I adopt the position, that a referendum decision must be accepted. If a referendum is not a device for making a decision, then it is nothing. Logically then, it also follows, that not only is a referendum a device for making a decision, but to really be a decision, that decision has to be implemented. Further, that decision, cannot be reversed, nor can a second referendum be s...