It’s been a bruising and bloody week in the world of Scottish independence. Not because of anything that the Unionists have done, they’ve been sitting back with the popcorn while they watch the independence movement tear itself apart with mutual recriminations, insults, abuse, and aspersions being cast like stones. I’ve been attacked. The National has been attacked. It seems that everyone is attacking everyone else. Yet all of this was sparked off, not because of any matter of great import to the future of Scotland, not because of an existential threat to the cause of independence, not because of anything that the vast majority of Scots who don’t use social media either know or care about. It happened because someone said something on Twitter that some people took exception to.
It’s time for some tough talking here. A movement which descends into such paroxysms of anger and spite over something so trivial is not a movement which is capable of winning a raffle, never mind winning an independence campaign. This is a movement which has lost all sense of proportion, all sense of what really matters. I’m not criticising grassroots activists here. I’m not criticising ordinary people who are passionate about the cause of Scottish self-determination. When I say the movement I mean those of us who lead it. I am criticising those of us, myself included, who have public platforms and public voices and who aspire to speak for this movement.
It’s those of us who pretend to lead, we’re the ones who are letting those activists down. We’re letting down those people who staff stalls in the rain and work their socks off, those people who organise public meetings and fundraise to print leaflets, who traipse round doorways to canvass and campaign. They’re not the ones letting the movement down. It’s the fault of those of us who tweet, who write, who blog, who run national groups, who manage the “new media”. We’re the ones who’re letting Scotland down. We’re letting ourselves down. We’ve turned into passengers on a sinking ship who’re arguing about the music the band is playing instead of organising the life-boats. We’re all going to drown, but hey, at least we can be self-righteously right-on when the cold and icy water fills our lungs. We can lose The National. We can lose iScot magazine, but we’ll still have some painfully right-on blogs that no one outside a Byres Road coffee shop ever bothers to read.
It’s time to put the egos to one side. It’s time to stop being so precious about the purity of our politics. It’s time to stop competing to be more right on than the next person. It’s time to stop pretending that it’s our way or it’s no way. If those of us who have public platforms and public voices are at all serious about making this country a better place, it’s time for maturity and realism. We will not win the independence of Scotland with student politics. We’re not going to win by turning into Wolfie Smith and calling out Rick from the Young Ones for a square go. This is a game for adults. It’s time to grow up. Squabbling over trivialities is for infants.
If you’re an independence supporter who spends most of their time and energy criticising other independence supporters for having views you dislike, tactics you disapprove of, or opinions you find distasteful, you’re not helping the cause of independence. You’re only helping to perpetuate Unionism. If you want to help the cause of independence, you can put forward your own ideas and your own vision without turning that into an attack on someone else in the independence movement with a different point of view. And if your ideas resonate, if they are seen to have value, if they gain traction with the wider public, then your ideas will win through.
We will not win independence for Scotland by turning the independence movement into an exercise in being holier-than-thou. We certainly won’t win it by condemning and attacking those whom for whatever reason we deem not to be sufficiently ideologically pure. That is precisely how not to win over people who previously voted no or were undecided. This may come as a surprise to some, but not everyone in Scotland is attracted to far left politics, and we need the support of those people too if we are to achieve our goal. And I say that as someone who is himself on the left.
Right now Scotland is in a position of unprecedented danger. We are on the verge of being taken out of the EU and into an economic and political wasteland by a bunch of malign incompetents in a Tory government that Scotland didn’t vote for. They have no plan, they have no route map. The only thing for which they display any kind of aptitude is their ruthless efficiency in enriching themselves and their friends and in order to do so they will demonise migrants, the poor and the vulnerable. They don’t care if we all suffer. Our public services are facing the greatest threat they have ever faced. The devolution settlement is cracking under the strain. Meanwhile the Labour party has managed to pull off the hitherto impossible task of being even more confused and clueless than the Tories. And throughout all of this Scotland has been told in no uncertain terms that it has no right to an input or to influence the course of events.
It is the immense threat from the Westminster government and parties that the independence movement needs to be challenging. That is what we need to be speaking about – not tying ourselves in knots because a controversial blogger was controversial again. There are far more important fish to fry than what some person said on Twitter. I love this movement and this country too much to see it fail because of the egos and immaturity of a handful of loud and angry people with no sense of proportion.
For my own part I’m going to take my own advice. Twitter is for snark, cat gifs, and jokes. The most pressing task facing the independence movement right now is to articulate the case for independence, to join up the dots and to demonstrate to the people of this country that talking about independence is not a distraction from talking about health, or education, or transport. Independence is the only way to guarantee the security of our public services. It’s the only way to ensure that Scotland’s choices are respected and implemented. That’s what I’m going to spend the coming months talking about and arguing for. It’s time to be a grown up. It’s time to organise the life boats.
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Many thanks.
I’m not saying that Cat’s position should be immune from criticism. What I do take issue with is the way that certain of the more fundamentalist indy supporters criticised her. It is not acceptable, nor is it helpful to the Yes movement, to name-call and insult Cat for her views. It is not acceptable – and forgive the sexist language – to call her a “stupid cow”. It is not acceptable to tell her that she is “a waste of oxygen” or to call her a “traitor bastard”. It is not acceptable to tell her that she’s an egoist who’s desperate for publicity. When you get hundreds, if not thousands, of people piling into your Twitter feed to disagree with you, many of whom have been using language like I’ve illustrated here, that feels pretty damn abusive. It feels like bullying. And it doesn’t help the Yes movement one jot.
John McHarg of Yes 2 works his socks off for the Yes movement. The fact that we still have a grassroots Yes movement after the defeat of September 2014 is in no small measure down to the hard work of John. He has done sterling work in supporting local groups and ensuring that they have the resources to continue campaigning, and he’s done it all without seeking public recognition. Yet a week ago he felt so threatened and so besieged that he closed down the aYe Scotland facebook page and was on the verge of giving up campaigning. John and his wife both felt vulnerable and threatened because someone who describes himself as a Yes supporter has issues with Yes 2, and decided that the way to air their grievances was by threatening John and his family and publishing their home address online. I’ve advised John to go to the police about this, and by the time this blog article is published he will have. John and his family have my absolute support. I trust they will receive yours too.
What this so called independence supporter has done is illegal. I know who this individual is. And now so do the police. There is absolutely no excuse or justification for their threatening and abusive behaviour. They are not assisting the Yes movement in any shape or form. To tell John that he is a “traitor”, that he’s “Unionist scum”, that it’s just a matter of time before he “will be gone” is neither constructive nor helpful to the wider Yes movement. It’s simply an angry little person lashing out. It’s fine to disagree with people. It is not fine to threaten them. It is most certainly not fine to make their families feel unsafe in their own home. As an independence campaigner I disavow these individuals. They do not represent me, they do not represent our movement, they do not represent Scotland.
Wee Ginger Dug 