Charmless and Offensive

May31 by weegingerdug

Scotland is easily the least monarchist inclined part of the UK, where the royal events, weddings and general flummery which the BBC is hell bent on force feeding the populace with a sycophantic enthusiasm which puts the North Korean state broadcaster to shame are met with a combination of bored indifference and anger that Bargain Hunt has suddenly disappeared from the television schedules. It should be a warning sign to the British establishment that yer average Scottish punter would far rather watch someone try to turn a profit from some broken down auld tat culled from a wet car boot sale in Droitwich than endure Nicolas Witchell on our telly screens wittering on oleaginously about the latest bout of waving at the peasantry which passes for a day job for members of the Windsor clan.

The general attitude of indifference verging on mild distaste towards the royals which is widespread across Scotland is even more in evidence among that part of the Scottish population which is supportive of independence. It’s a safe bet that republican sympathies are even more pronounced among confirmed independence supporters in Scotland than they are amongst that part of the Scottish populace which simply flees to the far reaches of the EPG in search of old re-runs of Judge Judy whenever the BBC decides that the privilege and entitlement which passes for “working royalty” is going to colonise our telly screens.

Despite this however, the issue of the monarchy has never figured large in the independence debate. The general and widespread view, even among people with republican sympathies who are active in the independence movement being that the question of whether an independent Scotland should retain the monarchy or should move to becoming a republic is one that should be for the people of Scotland to decide after independence has been achieved.

Partly this is tactical, it makes it easier for the independence movement to reach soft noes and undecideds because it helps to soften any fears this group might have about a sharp rupture from the rest of the UK. It allows for a degree of continuity making the choice of independence seem like less of a leap into the unknown. However it’s also because the current independence debate is a discussion about the Union of Parliaments of 1707, not the much earlier Union of the Crowns which took place in 1603 when the Scottish monarch King James VI inherited the throne of England from his cousin Queen Elizabeth. The maintenance of this earlier union allows supporters of independence to argue that independence does not mean the breaking of all the cultural and historical ties that Scotland has with the rest of the UK.

However the recent news that Downing Street has called on the royal family to participate in a so-called charm offensive on behalf of the anti-independence cause could change all this . Some members of the Royal family might be worried about whether Scotland will continue as a part of the UK , but Prince Andrew claims he’s not sweating about it at all, although he is not noted for his charm, just for his offensiveness.

Just a few days after the Mail on Sunday reported on the royals’ pro-union charm offensive we had the second in line to the throne come to Scotland for the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland but he also made the time to earnestly tell us how much Scotland means to him, having spent some of his formative years blowing Scottish wildfowl to buggery with a shotgun. We also had the tabloid press decode his wife’s expensive wardrobe for those of us whose budgets can only stretch to Primark, because apparently it’s possible to save Scotland for the Union through the medium of designer dresses. I was all for independence, but then I saw the Duchess of Cambridge in a £2500 Alexander McQueen saltire blue pleated frock and now I’ve totally changed my mind, said no one ever.

Admittedly we don’t need to worry about Prince Andrew telling the press how much Scotland means to him, as he doesn’t want the FBI to know that he’s available for interviews.

Just a couple of days later we discovered that that the royal couple had also met with Gordon Brown, who holds no public office but who has very recently launched a new organisation to campaign against independence. Then royal aides made a cack-handed attempt to get channel4 news not to report on the meeting, claiming it was “private”. For the royals to get involved in the independence debate is a very clear breach of the convention that the monarch and her representatives do not get involved in politics.

In 2014 the Queen restricted herself to asking people to “think very carefully before voting in the referendum” an ambiguous phrasing that allowed the palace to maintain the pretence that it doesn’t get involved in politics. Afterwards David Cameron told us that she “purred” down the phone when she heard the result of the vote. So apparently did George Galloway.

After the meeting with Gordon Brown, Kensington Palace issued a press release in a clear attempt at damage limitations claiming that the Prince was merely trying to learn more about “community attitudes” to independence as though Gordon Brown was really there in his capacity as a member of the management committee of Kirkcaldy community centre. And if you believe that you probably also believe that when Kate Middleton put on an expensive designer blue frock it means that she really cares deeply about ordinary Scottish people.

The real danger for the Windsors is that they risk making the monarchy an issue in the independence debate. If they are seen to become agents of the campaign to oppose independence they merely make it more likely that an independent Scotland would seek to become a republic. Prince William will one day become king. However an independent Scotland would not be happy with a king as its head of state if that king had actively sought to prevent independence from ever happening. No independent country is going to consent to a head of state who was hostile to the creation of the state. If the Windsors want to continue to provide Scotland with the Kings and Queens of Scots, they’d be wise to butt out of the democratic process.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

In the wake of recent events I am determined that this site will not become a home for bigots and conspiracy theorists. They will not be welcome here. Moderation is the most stressful part of running a blog, but this site is going to continue to make the positive case for independence. With this in mind as of today a new moderation policy is in force.

Anyone who attempts to use this site to post hatred, bigotry, or conspiracy theories will be banned. If you attempt to insult and abuse anyone you will be banned. This site has a zero-toleration policy for homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny. Failure to respect this will result in a ban.

If you intend to spend the next four years undermining the SNP, the Scottish Government and the pro-independence parties that the great majority of independence supporters voted for, you can do so somewhere else, because you’re not going to do it here. The reminder that has regularly appeared on this site is not a serving suggestion. It will be rigorously enforced. If you don’t like this rule – there is a small x at the top right of your screen. Click it, close this page and go elsewhere.

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

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Nationalism and ‘Thatessempee’

May29 by weegingerdug

This is the fourth in a series of articles looking at the topics which will dominate the coming independence referendum campaign. These pieces are aimed at undecided voters and soft no voters. In this article I look at the claim that support for independence is nationalism and that opposition to Scottish independence is also opposition to nationalism.

Nationalism and Thatessempee – Supporting independence doesn’t make you a nationalist, opposing it doesn’t make you a non-nationalist

How many times have you heard someone say that they’re not going to vote for independence because they “hate that SNP”. Often Thatessempee is spat out as though it was a single word, and a swerrie word at that. Just as frequently you’ll hear people say that they don’t want to vote for independence because they don’t like Nicola Sturgeon, whose name has also developed a tendency among certain people to be spat out as though it was a swerrie word.

The overwhelmingly anti-independence media in Scotland has always been very keen to foster an association in the minds of the Scottish public between independence and a single political party. Most often the BBC presents discussions on independence by having on a sole representative from Thatessempee, and then “for balance”, he or she is up against a Labour person, a Tory, and a Lib Dem. The other main pro-independence party, the Scottish Greens, are rarely invited. Other smaller parties which support independence, like the Scottish Socialists who once had representation in Holyrood, never get a look in. The impression given is that Scottish independence is a party political project belonging in its entirety to Thatessempee.

The desire of the media and opponents of independence to foster the myth that Scottish independence is the sole preserve of Thatessempee is constant and unrelenting. How many times during the independence referendum campaign of 2014 did you hear the phrase Alex Salmond’s referendum? And how many times did you hear the UK being personalised by the name of the leader of the Better Together campaign as Alistair Darling’s No Campaign or Alistair Darling’s Pro-UK project? Not once, that’s how many times.

The aim of this messaging is to discourage people who do not support the SNP from engaging with the arguments for independence. Yet there are many independence supporters who do not support the SNP. There are other parties which back independence. There are even people within the traditionally anti-independence parties, particularly the Labour party in Scotland, who privately support independence. A vote for Scottish independence is not a vote for the SNP. The anti-independence parties and their friends in the Scottish media just want you to think it is.

When Scotland does become an independent country, and there’s a now a majority in Scotland who believe that it’s merely a matter of time before that happens, it will be a democracy. An independent Scotland will not be a one party SNP state. Voting for an independent Scotland is not a vote to have Nicola Sturgeon as dictator for life. In fact, voting for Scottish independence is not even a vote of confidence in the SNP. It’s certainly not a signal that you support the actions of the SNP administration of the devolved Scottish Government. A vote for independence is nothing more and nothing less than a statement that you believe that it is up to the people of Scotland to decide what course this country takes. It’s a statement that the government of Scotland should be elected by the people of Scotland and should be answerable to the people of Scotland and to no one else. Voting for independence is not party political.

The desire for Scottish independence is motivated by a recognition that Westminster governance is not allowing Scotland to develop to its full potential. It is driven by the understanding that there is a great deal that is wrong with Scotland, and these wrongs and shortcomings can best be addressed if the people of Scotland have a government which is responsible to them, and which puts the interests of Scotland first and foremost. Saying that you refuse to vote for independence because you hate Nicola Sturgeon or Thatessempee is rather like saying that you’re not going to have your toothache dealt with because you dislike a particular dentist. You’d rather have the toothache.

You may also have heard people say that they are voting against independence because they don’t like nationalism. Opponents of independence are very keen to paint the Scottish constitutional debate as a debate between nationalists on the one hand, and non-nationalists on the other. However this is untrue. The independence debate is not a debate between nationalism and non-nationalism. A vote against independence is equally a vote for a nationalist project, because by a vote against independence is effectively a vote to back the intensely nationalist project that is Brexit and to support a British state which is every bit as nationalist, if not more so, than an independent Scotland would be. In a debate between Scottish independence vs remaining a part of a Brexit UK whose government plasters union flags on everything there is no non-nationalist option.

Opponents of independence are aided in misleadingly characterising this as a debate between nationalism and non-nationalism by a deficit of the English language. The English term nationalism encompasses two very different political philosophies. Nationalism can mean the aggressive aggrandisement of an existing state. It’s often xenophobic, authoritarian, and intolerant. Brexit was driven by a British nationalism of this sort. Howeverthe word nationalism can also mean the campaign for independence by a nation which currently doesn’t have it. These are not the same political philosophies at all, and in some languages they are called by different names. Scottish nationalism is of the latter variety, and in Spanish it would be referred to by a different word, independentismo. Unfortunately if you try to adopt this term into English and call yourself a Scottish independentist, people just ask you how much you charge for orthodontic work, so it’s unlikely to catch on.

Mainstream Scottish nationalism is of the civic variety. It defines Scottishness not by where a person was born, but by where a person lives or how they choose to identify. Mainstream Scottish nationalism is honoured to accept as Scots those people born elsewhere who have come to this country, made their lives here, and have become a part of Scotland’s story and journey. Scottishness is not about where you came from, it’s about where we are all going.

Brexit on the other hand is most definitely strongly characterised by many of the features of the first kind of nationalism, the intolerant xenophobic sort. Opponents of independence seek to blur the distinction to get people to believe that by supporting Scottish independence, they are also supporting intolerance, xenophobia and racism. The claim that supporters of Scottish independence are anti-English racists is a constant refrain. However the movement for Scottish independence is no more defined by anti-English racism than opposition to independence is defined by the sectarianism, anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic bigotry of the Orange Order, or the out and out racism of Britain First, both of which are groups which oppose independence. The claim that Scottish independence is racist is a tactic designed to prevent people in Scotland from supporting independence. Yet one of the most active grassroots groups campaigning for independence is English Scots for Yes.

Even without Brexit, a vote against independence would still be a vote to support a nationalist project. It’s a vote to back a British state which is every bit as nationalist in its actions as any independent Scotland would be. In fact as a country which is quick to take military action around the globe in pursuit of what it sees as British interests, the UK is far more aggressively nationalist than an independent Scotland would ever be. Supporters of the British state do not get a free pass from nationalism just because they back the UK. Indeed, one of the defining myths of British nationalism is that it’s better than the nationalisms of lesser breeds by virtue of not being nationalist at all. It’s a comforting fairy story, but it’s not true.

The reality is that the debate about Scottish independence is not a debate between Scottish nationalism on the one hand and non-nationalism on the other. It’s a debate between two different visions for Scotland’s future. One vision puts that future into the hands of the people of Scotland, the other surrenders it to decisions made by a Westminster Parliament which is not primarily accountable to the people of Scotland. Both sides of this debate contain people who are nationalists, and both sides contain people who are not nationalists. The debate about Scottish independence is essentially a debate about accountability and democratic representation.

As we have seen with Brexit, Scotland is being subjected to a damaging and reckless estrangement from Europe even though the people of Scotland have consistently voted against it. Yet throughout this entire process the voices of Scotland’s parliament and elected representatives have been ignored and sidelined. As far as Brexit is concerned, the British Government has made precisely zero accommodations to the needs of Scotland. This is merely the latest and most egregious example of Scotland’s needs and concerns not being met by the Westminster Parliament. This happens because Westminster Governments do not rely upon Scottish votes in order to get into power, so are free to ignore Scotland’s needs with impunity. British governments are not accountable to the people of Scotland.

Over the past 50 years, Scotland has only had governments in Westminster that it voted for for a total of 17 years. As long as Scotland and the rest of the UK were on the same page politically, both alternating between Labour and the Conservatives, this was tolerable. Scotland got what it voted for often enough that we could pretend to ourselves that Scotland really was a partner in a Union. There was always another election in five years time. But that foundation myth of Scottish Unionism has been blown out of the water by Brexit. Brexit is forever, not just for five years, and the way in which Scotland was treated by Westminster during the Brexit process has proven that Westminster governments have no interest in making accommodations to Scotland’s needs or concerns.

Scottish independence is about establishing the principle that the path that Scotland takes should be decided by the people of Scotland. It is about ensuring that Scotland always has a government elected by the people of Scotland, and which is accountable to them and to no one else. If we cannot vote them out of office they will not take decisions in our interests. Theresa May or Boris Johnson have no need to consider Scotland’s interests, and so they treat Scotland with arrogant contempt. They know that Scotland can’t vote them out of power. Acknowledging that Scotland is a nation which has the right to self-determination no more makes you a nationalist than acknowledging the existence of matter makes you a materialist.

The real reason for Scottish independence is to ensure that our politicians and our governments are kept accountable to the people of Scotland. It’s to ensure that Scotland always gets governments that it elects. It’s to ensure that those politicians always operate in the interests of Scotland and that they are kept accountable to us. It’s only by keeping them close to us in an independent Scotland that we can ensure that their backsides are within kicking distance of our feet and that we can vote them out of office when they break their promises.

That’s the very nub of the argument for Scottish independence. It’s not about party politics. It’s not about nationalism. It’s about democracy and accountability.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

The car wreck of British government

May27 by weegingerdug

On Wednesday Dominic Cummings, the former senior advisor to the non-performance artiste whose stage name is Boris Johnson and one time motoring auto-optician, gave evidence to MPs sitting on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee about the British government’s (mis)handling of the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic last year. He painted a picture of a chaotic and dysfunctional government which was not only utterly unprepared for the gravity and magnitude of the situation, but which was headed by a deeply unserious Prime Minister who refused to accept that the virus represented a grave threat and that the lives of thousands were at risk. Worse than that, he described a Prime Minister who enjoyed and thrived on the chaos he created, because that chaos meant that his own power and importance could not be threatened. Johnson not only refused to accept that the pandemic was a serious threat, but according to Cummings even wanted to get injected with the virus on live TV to show that it wasn’t such a big deal.

Cummings made the worst allegation that it’s possible to make about a government, claiming that due to the incompetence, negligence and inaction of Boris Johnson and other senior cabinet members, tens of thousands of people died who might otherwise still be alive. The primary duty of any government is to keep people safe, Dominic Cummings, who was at the centre of British government decision making during a crucial period of the pandemic, tells us that it failed to do so. He said that Johnson is unfit for office, which is possibly the most obvious observation since the Judaean child protection service noted that King Herod might not have had the interests of the first born at heart. It does however beg the question of how the self-proclaimed “super- predictor” Dominic Cummings wasn’t able to predict what a disaster Johnson was going to be when he was plotting to get him into Number 10.

Of course Dominic Cummings shares with Boris Johnson and that Michael Gove who was mysteriously absent from Cummings’ account of governmental dysfunction the title of least trustworthy man in British politics, but nevertheless what he said rang true. It is not at all difficult to believe that Johnson behaved in a manner that was all bravado and show but which lacked any understanding or care for the wider consequences on the public because that is exactly how Cummings and Johnson tackled Brexit as well. It’s how this Conservative administration has behaved at every turn.

Cummings tried to call out Nicola Sturgeon for giving public briefings after Cobra meetings like that was a bad thing. Meanwhile, the Tories at Westminster were selectively briefing papers to their friends in the right wing press with the result that vital public health information was left behind paywalls.

Cummings was very careful not to throw any mud at his pal Michael Gove, in fact from his evidence you’d almost believe that one of the most powerful and influential figures in the Conservative government was actually working as a county councillor in one of the more remote regions of Mongolia during the entire period of time in question. You’d almost imagine that Dominic wasn’t so much interested in getting to the truth but in score settling and making sure that he didn’t damage his mate Mikey’s chances of sliding into the top seat one day, an eventuality which would be very convenient for Dominic’s career prospects.

It was health secretary Matt Hancock who received the full blast of his ire. Matt Hancock always gives the air of a man who would be over-promoted as the deputy manager of a Little Chef off the A1 somewhere near Barnard Castle where he had served Dominic a burnt and greasy all-English breakfast. Cummings accused Hancock of repeatedly lying and said that he should have been sacked on numerous occasions. His fury about Hancock was so intense that you almost expected the committee to ask Cummings to show them on the dolly where Hancock had hurt him. That fury was as intense as any mention of Michael Gove was absent.

In the Commons today Matt Hancock faced questions from opposition MPs about the devastating allegations made against him the previous day. He didn’t just fail to answer the question, he simply refused to acknowledge that the question had even been asked.

The UK is a state whose parliamentary arrangements allow an urgent question from the opposition about serious allegations about the behaviour of a secretary of state, which the secretary of state can simply fail to recognise, let alone address, never mind answer. Hancock’s performance was the perfect illustration of how the British government cannot be held to account. Hancock, Johnson, Gove and Cummings all know that too, which is why they could behave the way that they did. Conservative MPs, whose contempt and hatred for Dominic Cummings is equal only to his contempt and hatred for them, were perfectly happy for Hancock to pretend there were no questions to answer.

Today Johnson also brushed off the accusations Cummings had made, and like his minion Hancock refused to respond to any of the details of the allegations.

The UK has no functioning mechanisms which enable those in power to be effectively held to account. It has a partisan and heavily right wing media which won’t ask the obvious questions. According to Cummings,just ten days before England finally went into lockdown far too late to prevent many thousands of deaths, a senior government official waltzed into No 10 to declare: “I think we are absolutely f****d. I think this country is heading for a disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people.”

If the UK was a properly functioning democracy you might have expected those well paid journalists who let us know what their “sources in government” tell them to have questioned the danger that was so obvious. Instead we got the BBC and others amplifying and broadcasting the self-serving lies and propaganda of of government of chancers and opportunists who were hopelessly out of their depth – but who at least went to the “right” schools and had the “right” contacts. Meanwhile the media in Scotland eagerly sought to use the failings of Johnson and the Tories as a means to manufacture another attack on the Scottish government. The very same press which slated the Scottish government for “undermining the four nation response is now demanding to know why the Scottish Government didn’t undermine it earlier.

Today Labour leader Keir Starmer repeated calls for an immediate public inquiry, calls which the government with the aid of Tory backbenchers will continue to resist. Yet when that enquiry finally does take place, it will only report back long after those responsible for the failings have moved on. It will make some anodyne recommendations, blame some minor civil servants and advisors, and the entire corrupt and chaotic British governmental performance piece will sail on regardless. If no one can ever be held to account there can never be reform. Scotland certainly can’t reform the UK. You can’t reform a car wreck write-off, you can only abandon it and find a new vehicle.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

Reasons for independence

May25 by weegingerdug

This is the third in a series of articles looking at the topics which will dominate the coming independence referendum campaign. These pieces are aimed at undecided voters and soft no voters. In this piece I look at some of the reasons for wanting an independent Scotland

I want independence because …

There are as many reasons for supporting Scottish independence as there are people who support independence. Before I suffered a stroke and before the covid lockdowns I travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, meeting with Yes groups, talking to local activists, and speaking at local Yes organisations. What struck me most during all these travels is that no one I’ve met wants Scottish independence because they hate anyone, and certainly not because they might hate the English. That’s a nasty myth put about by opponents of independence in order to stop undecided people from engaging with arguments for independence.

Neither have I met anyone who wants independence because they believe that Scotland is better than anywhere else. No, overwhelmingly the reasons that people want Scottish independence is because they recognise that there is so much that is wrong with Scotland, and it needs to be fixed. We each have our own individual reasons for wanting independence, our own individual beliefs about what changes we’d like to see made in that Scotland once we achieve it. But what unites us all is the understanding that none of us can make any progress until we establish the principle that it’s up to the people of Scotland to decide what happens in Scotland. We can argue forever about whether we want a shot on the swings, or whether we want a go on the roundabout, but we can’t do anything until we build the independent Scottish park.

These are my own personal reasons for wanting independence. You may share some of them, you may have some other reasons of your own. But none of us can start to make any progress on making Scotland a better place until we have an independent Scotland and the power to change this country lies with its people.

I want Scottish independence … because it’s the only way to rid ourselves of the obscenity of weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. For decades we’ve marched. We’ve protested. We’ve established peace camps. Those of us who are old and long in the tooth were protesting against nukes when we were young, and now we see young kids embarking on the same journey of protest, a journey with no end, a journey that goes nowhere as long as we are subject to Westminster rule and a British state which fetishes nuclear weapons as the viagra of an impotent ex-empire. The only way to rid ourselves of Trident is with independence. Otherwise kids in Scotland will still be doing in forty years time what I did forty years ago, marching, protesting, and getting absolutely nowhere.

I want Scottish independence … because I grew up thinking that the poverty and deprivation, the inequality and lack of opportunity, which I witnessed in the East End of Glasgow in the 60s and 70s was normal. And now a new generation of East End weans is growing up thinking that foodbanks are normal. Well it’s not bloody normal. It’s an outrage in one of the richest nations on the face of this Earth. It’s an affront to human dignity that the British state prioritises tax cuts for the wealthy and turning the UK into a tax haven for drug lords and oligarchs over the provision of decent public services. It’s indecent that the poor are forced to pay for the crimes of the rich, but that’s the British way. I want Scottish independence so that we can start to tackle the inequalities and injustices which blight this country.

I want Scottish independence … because so many of us are fatalistic and resigned to our powerlessness that we self medicate on alcohol and drugs. We’ve learned that hope is something for other people, that it doesn’t matter what we say because no one is listening anyway. We’ve learned that the only way to live without hope is to anaesthatise ourselves into oblivion, a brief respite from the pain of the everyday. It’s no way to live. No way to die. We need to know that the bright light is the light of hope and a better future, not a paramedic shining a torch in our eye in order to check for a sign of life. During the independence referendum of 2014, for the first time in my life I saw ordinary working class people discovering that hope was something for them too, that they too could dream, that they too had a voice, and that voice was important and it counted for something. Independence gives us hope.

I want Scottish independence … because we’ve bred generations of Scottish people who have learned that it doesn’t matter how we vote. It doesn’t matter what Scotland’s people say that they want through the ballot box. We get what England votes for, our votes can only make a difference when opinion in England is narrowly divided. It’s only with independence that Scotland can get governments that it votes for, governments which are answerable to the people of Scotland and which work in their interests. It’s only with independence that Scotland can see the true strengths of democracy.

I want Scottish independence … because politicians need to be held to account. The British system rewards political failure. We kicked out Michael Forsyth yet there he still is, all these years later, in the House of Lords influencing our laws and deciding our futures. British governments don’t need to pay any heed to Scotland, so they make decisions without considering us, and we have no remedy against them. I want Scottish independence because politicians cannot be trusted, and we need to keep them close to us so that their arses are within kicking distance of our feet.

I want Scottish independence … because this should be a land that is welcoming. Scotland was always a shelter for people from all over the world, because for centuries it was literally the end of the Earth. Once you got to Scotland, there was nowhere else to go. This is a land of migrants, and we should honour those who do us the honour of choosing to throw their lot in with the rest of us and becoming a part of the story of Scotland. Brexit Britain is closed in, inward looking, intolerant, xenophobic. I want a kinder, gentler, more welcoming country.

I want Scottish independence … because we need to do something about land ownership. Vast tracts of our country are owned by faceless multimillionaires hiding behind shell companies. They’ve turned Scotland into a desert designed as the playground for the wealthy. The Highlands are so beautiful and empty because its people were turfed out into the slums of the Lowland cities to produce the wealth that allowed the rich to buy up the land. Meanwhile rural communities die and decline.

I want Scottish independence … because we need to unlock Scotland’s vast renewable energy resources. Scotland could be a beacon for the world, a beacon lit by energy from the wind and the waves. We need to create a sustainable economy, to reindustrialise in a green, carbon neutral and environmentally friendly way, but we can’t do that as long as the political and economic levers of our country are controlled by a Westminster dominated by Conservative politicians who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I want Scottish independence … because despite being told that this country was a partner nation in the UK we were torn out of the EU against our will and without being allowed any meaningful input into the form that Brexit took. Scotland found that the Brexit which was foisted upon it was designed and created with the interests of right wing English nationalists in mind and no one else. Only independence will allow Scotland to rebuild a relationship with Europe which is in accordance with the desires and interests of the people of Scotland. Independence represents the quickest way back into the EU, if that is what the people of Scotland want.

I want Scottish independence … because we need a written constitution that spells out the proper division of powers between the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Within the UK we have an unwritten constitution which permits the powerful to make things up to suit themselves as they go along. That has to stop. But above all, we need a written constitution in order to establish once and for all that the only sovereign body in Scotland is the totality of the people of Scotland. This is our land, independence allows us to own it as citizens, instead of being subjects within it.

I want Scottish independence … because there is so much that is wrong with Scotland, and we need to fix it. We have waited patiently for generations for the Westminster system to fix Scotland for us, only to slowly come to the realisation that it has a vested interest in keeping Scotland weak, dependent, powerless, and marginalised. We kept the faith all through the bitter years of Thatcher, only to discover that the British Parliamentary road to socialism ended in bombs on the road to Baghdad. Westminster doesn’t want to solve Scotland’s problems, because it’s only by keeping Scotland impoverished and feeble that it can tell us that we need them, that we’re too small and weak to stand on our own two feet. The truth is that the only people who can fix Scotland’s problems are the people of Scotland themselves, and we need the powers of independence in order to do so. I want Scottish independence because generations of wise Scottish women have always told us, if you want something done, ye need tae dae it yersel.

I want independence … because Scotland is a land that is so rich in resources, possesses such an abundance of talent, is pregnant with so many possibilities. They need to be put to the service of the people of Scotland, and not leeched away to enrich the City of London. It’s only with independence that Scotland can blossom.

I don’t want Scottish independence because I hate anyone. I don’t want Scottish independence because I believe Scotland to be better than anywhere else. I don’t want Scottish independence because I hark back to a rosy vision of a mythical Scotland that has never existed. I recognise the issues Scotland faces. I want Scottish independence … because I see the problems of this country with a clear eye, and I want Scotland to have the powers to fix them. I want Scottish independence … because I want Scotland to be a normal country.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

Null points for Brexit’s brand UK

May24 by weegingerdug

It was reported at the weekend that the Royal Family are to head a “charm offensive” in order to help head off calls for Scottish independence. If true this tells us two things, firstly that the British government is utterly desperate, and secondly that the head of state will get involved in politics after all. This destroys the traditional argument for a hereditary monarch and only makes it more likely that there will be greater pressure in an independent Scotland for it to become a republic. It is an abuse of the power of the monarch for the royal family to intervene in a democratic debate in the hope of influencing the outcome of a popular vote in a particular direction. That is the very definition of getting involved in politics.

What makes it all the more counterproductive is that Scotland is by quite some margin the least royalist part of the UK outside the nationalist communities of Northern Ireland. There can’t be many people in Scotland whose opinion on the future of Scotland is going to be changed because some spoiled princeling puts on a kilt and comes to wave at the public while telling us how much he loves Scotland and has many precious memories of coming here in order to blast wildfowl to smithereens with a shotgun. No one in Scotland is going to wake up of a morning and say, “Well I was concerned about Brexit and the chaos and corruption of Boris Johnson’s government and the way in which the Tories are unilaterally undermining the devolution settlement, but now that Will ‘n’ Kate have shown us some holiday snaps taken at Balmoral, my doubts and fears are totally assuaged.”

The Queen will continue to ensure that she remains in the affections of the oldest Scots by sending them a telegram when they reach a major life milestone. Although Buckingham Palace has refused to comment, these plans could only come to fruition with the express approval of the Queen. She could have said that this is a matter for the people of Scotland but if they choose to end the union of Parliaments , the union of the crowns will remain unaffected. But no. That will prove to be a serious error of judgement which will come back to haunt the palace. The question of whether an independent Scotland should retain the monarchy or become a republic is one which is rightly not an issue in the independence campaign. Rather it’s a matter for the people of an independent Scotland to decide after the fact of independence. This ham fisted intervention will only serve to boost arguments for a republic, especially after the 95 year old Queen is no longer with us and we’re faced with the prospect of King Charles and Queen Camilla – a man who selfishly broke travel restrictions early in the pandemic and with his over-sized retinue brought a case of covid infection to Deeside, depriving the local community of much needed medical resources and personnel that need not otherwise have been deployed.

After all its scandals and the exposure of its dripping entitlement the royals do not have the influence they once did, least of all in Scotland.

So far we have had Prince William muttering platitudes on a visit to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. Meanwhile it is thought that plans are also being made to reach out to Scotland’s young people, although how they are going to do this remains unclear, perhaps Prince Andrew could use the free Wi-Fi at a pizza chain in Slough to send the youngest voters a text when they turn sixteen.

Over the weekend we had another illustration that “brand UK” no longer has the appeal and cachet that opponents of independence like to tell us it does. The UK crashed to a humiliating last place in the Eurovision Song Contest, receiving the dreaded null points despite the introduction of a new voting system which was designed to make such an embarrassing and humiliating score far less likely. Now admittedly the British entry was notable solely for its blandness, the aural equivalent of eating unflavoured dry oatmeal in a beige room, but then so were most of the other entries. As the votes came in it became clear that the UK is the Billy-no mates of Europe. Some expressed surprise that “even Ireland” had failed to give the UK any points. Although after the way that the British Government has treated Ireland these past few Brexity years, that should read “especially Ireland.” Douglas Ross has released a statement saying that not getting any points doesn’t matter, the UK’s vote share didn’t decrease so Italy isn’t really the winner. Coincidentally null points is also the exact same amount as the benefits of Brexit.

During the independence referendum campaign of 2014, Better Together warned Scotland that if it voted for independence it wouldn’t get into Eurovision. What are they going to do now, tell us that if we vote for independence we won’t be able to score no points in Eurovision? Eurovision is essentially a popularity competition. The UK does poorly because people across Europe dislike the exceptionalism and entitlement that characterises British nationalism and which was the driving force for Brexit. British nationalism’s crass lack of interest in other nations was illustrated during the announcement of the result when Amanda Holden joked about not knowing the difference between French and Dutch.

The ugly exceptionalism and entitlement of British nationalism was on full display when right wing commentator and Brexit fanboy, Tom Harwood, soon to be coming to Andrew Neil’s GB News, sent a surly tweet after the result saying :”Without the UK half these countries would not be free to perform in any song contests. Arguably the other half wouldn’t either. Their thanks? Nil points.” He later followed up his soor ploom with another tweet saying: I think every year we should forgo the contest and simply hand out points to the countries that were most courageous and successful at standing up against Hitler.” So Russia, then?

They already do much better at Eurovision than the UK does Tom. Maybe he ought to reflect on why the UK is less popular in Europe than Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian kleptocracy. But it’s more likely that next year’s entry will come from Tom Harwood and the Flagshaggers when the UK will compete on WTO rules and will award itself 30 points against Mauritania.

Both the royal intervention in the Scottish independence debate and the Eurovision debacle only show us that the British brand is tawdry, devalued, and unpopular. If Boris Johnson and Michael Gove think that its supposed appeal is going to prevent Scottish independence they are in for a big disappointment. British nationalism’s brand UK will get null points from an increasingly sceptical Scottish public.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

Once in a generation: The electorate can’t be bound by a politician’s rhetoric

May21 by weegingerdug

This is the second in a series of articles looking at the topics which will dominate the coming independence referendum campaign. These pieces are aimed at undecided voters and soft no voters. In this piece I look at the claim that the first referendum was promised to be a “once in a generation vote.”

For the past year or more, Boris Johnson has been fnaugh fnaughing his way through Prime Minister’s Questions whenever the topic of another independence referendum is raised, refusing to acknowledge that the SNP and the Scottish Greens have been given a mandate by the Scottish electorate for another independence referendum.

Johnson has conceded that it’s up to the people of Scotland to decide whether they wish to remain a part of the UK, but insists that the right was exercised in 2014 and that it was a “once in a generation” vote. We’re going to hear this excuse a lot, especially now that the Scottish elections have given a victory to pro-independence parties and a large majority to parties asking for a mandate for another referendum within the five year term of this Holyrood Parliament. Together with deflections about the need to focus on recovery from the pandemic, it’s the only excuse the British government has got left.

Boris Johnson can’t plausibly argue that the SNP has no mandate from the Scottish electorate when that party won a larger vote share and a larger share of seats than his Conservative party did in the UK as a whole. He can’t plausibly maintain that there’s no mandate for another referendum when his own branch office in Scotland stood on the single platform of opposing another referendum and got its collective arse handed to it on a plate glazed with Stephen Kerr’s tears. He cannot maintain that there is no mandate when the people of Scotland elected a large majority of MSPs to Holyrood in the full knowledge that they are committed to delivering another referendum. If Boris Johnson maintains that he got a mandate from the UK electorate to deliver Brexit, the SNP has an even stronger and more convincing mandate from the Scottish electorate to deliver an independence referendum. If democracy in the UK is to mean anything at all, the choices of the people of Scotland as expressed through the ballot box must be respected.

This was a parliamentary election, not a referendum. The percentage of people voting for ostensibly anti-independence parties is irrelevant. A mandate is established when a party or parties win sufficient seats to form a majority in parliament. The SNP and the Scottish Greens stood on a platform of support for another independence referendum. They won. The Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems stood on a platform of opposition to another referendum. They lost.

The point about a mandate is unarguable, except that is if you’re one of those people who deny the existence of Scotland as a political and national entity and claim that the SNP won merely a “subset” of UK seats in a UK election. Describing the nation of Scotland, a constituent nation of the UK as a subset of Westminster seats on a par with an English city, region or county is quite possibly the cringiest description of Scotland ever, more cringey than North Britain. Even more cringey than “up there”. Scotland isn’t just any random selection of Westminster seats, it’s an ancient nation which was one of the founding kingdoms of the United Kingdom. The Treaty of Union which founded the unitary state known as the United Kingdom guaranteed the continuing existence of Scottish national institutions, and the Scottish nation itself. The very foundation of the UK itself recognises that Scotland is a distinct polity within the UK, a polity with its own distinctive political character.

Last year at PMQs, Boris Johnson was forced to concede, amidst the usual disrespectful barracking from Tory backbenchers whenever an SNP MP rises to speak, that it is indeed up to the people of Scotland to decide whether their future is as a part of the UK. He could hardly say anything else. However his admission has an important implication.

If it is up to the people of Scotland to decide whether they wish to remain a part of the UK, that right to self-determination is either conditional or it’s absolute. Boris Johnson appears to believe that Scotland’s sovereign right to self-determination as a nation within the UK to decide its own future is conditional upon a timing that he’ll decide. So it’s not really a sovereign right to self-determination at all. If it’s up to political forces outwith Scotland to decide when Scotland can exercise its right to self-determination, then it’s not a right to self-determination. It becomes a question of Westminster’s convenience and permission. A right to self-determination which is conditional upon the convenience and permission of Westminster is no right to self-determination at all. It’s simply another way of stating that Scotland doesn’t have the right to determine its own future, a Conservative PM does. And if that is indeed the case, then this is not the Union that the Conservatives and the Labour party have always told us it was.

There was absolutely nothing in the Edinburgh Agreement between the Scottish and British governments setting the terms for the 2014 referendum which stipulated that an independence referendum could only be held once in a generation. The rider that the referendum was a one in a generation affair did not appear on the ballot paper. It was not a part of the question that was put to the people of Scotland and which they voted on.

Alex Salmond described the referendum as a once in a generation opportunity, and was careful to add the rider that this was his personal opinion. Yet it appears that Scotland is to be held hostage to the opinion of a former First Minister, an opinion which has no force in law. The personal opinion of Alex Salmond is only being elevated to the lofty position of holy writ for the simple reason that Boris Johnson requires an excuse to prevent another independence referendum because he’s afraid he’s going to lose it.

The phrase once in a generation opportunity also appears three times in the White Paper on Independence published by the Scottish Government prior to the referendum. On page 3, the referendum is described as a “once in a generation opportunity to follow a different path”. On page 10 it is described as a “once in a generation opportunity to chart a better way.” On page 576 there is the statement, “It is the view of the current Scottish Government that a referendum is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

There are twos reasons why Alex Salmond’s administration took the view that the referendum of 2014 was a once in a generation opportunity. Neither of them are binding, and neither of them apply today. The first reason is that the referendum of 2014 only took place because the SNP broke the Holyrood electoral system and won the 2011 election with an absolute majority in Holyrood. Prior to this election it was not thought possible for a party to do this, and the SNP’s victory came as a surprise to everyone, not least the SNP. However the referendum campaign radically changed the Scottish political landscape in ways that were unforeseen. It is now perfectly plausible for pro-independence parties to win a majority of seats in Holyrood just as they did in May of this year.

The second reason is more important. Alex Salmond’s government took the view that they did because they had just negotiated the Edinburgh Agreement with Westminster, as a result of which both parties agreed to respect the outcome of the referendum. It was implicit in that understanding that both parties would respect the promises and commitments that they made to the people of Scotland during the referendum campaign. What is happening now is that Westminster is demanding that the current Scottish Government upholds everything that it stated during the referendum campaign, but it itself is not bound by its own promises and commitments.

Promises and commitments like telling Scotland that the only way it could remain a part of the EU was by voting no. Promises and commitments like promising that the powers of Holyrood would be enshrined in law and put beyond the ability of any Westminster government to alter without the express consent of the Scottish Parliament. Promises and commitments likes telling Scotland it was a much loved and equal partner in a family of nations, that it should lead within the UK instead of leaving it.

Indeed, it is all the more important for Westminster to uphold its promises and commitments to Scotland because it was the proposition of the No campaign which won the referendum. Yet now the SNP and Scotland are being held to ransom by a Westminster which hasn’t fulfilled its end of the bargain. If Westminster had respected all the promises that it made to Scotland in 2014, then the referendum would indeed have been a once in a generation opportunity. But they didn’t, did they. Westminster cannot insist that the SNP abide by statements that it made during the referendum campaign without itself abiding by the statements that Better Together made.

It’s Westminster’s failure to uphold its end of the bargain that has created the renewed demand and the justification for another referendum. Boris Johnson’s hypocrisy in claiming it was “once in a generation” merely highlights his own party’s failure to respect the promises and commitments that it made to the people of Scotland. When he tells us that the referendum was “once in a generation”, he’s telling the people of Scotland that we are suckers for ever believing that Westminster would keep its promises.

Yet even if there was a solemn commitment made by both sides in 2014 that the referendum was a once in a generation affair, so what? The people of Scotland have a sovereign right to decide for themselves which path Scotland will take – even Boris Johnson admits that much. That right cannot be bargained away, signed away, time-limited, or given up by any political party because it is a right that rests with the people of Scotland, not with the Conservatives, not with the SNP, not with any other party. It follows then that it’s up to the people of Scotland and no one else to decide whether or when we demand another independence referendum. In the recent Scottish elections the people of Scotland did decide to demand another referendum.

The UK that Scotland was told it could be a part of in 2014 doesn’t exist. Scotland has an absolute right to revisit the question of independence. Scotland’s right to self-determination is inalienable.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

Rebellious Scots to shush: Why Scotland needs another independence referendum

May20 by weegingerdug

This is the first in a series of articles looking at the topics which will dominate the coming independence referendum campaign. These pieces are aimed at undecided voters and soft no voters. In this first piece I look at why Scotland is justified in seeking another independence referendum.

Scotland stands at a crossroads in its history. Soon, the people of Scotland will be asked to choose what sort of country they want this to be, even though the British government is doing its damnedest to try to prevent the Scottish people from asking themselves about Scotland’s future. This refusal by itself raises an important question, just what sort of union is it where one of the smaller partners is effectively blocked from even asking itself about its role within that union because a government elected by the largest partner says no.

The truth is that if a British Prime Minister that Scotland didn’t vote for imposes a veto on Scotland’s desire to ask itself an important question about Scotland, and vetoes Scotland from having a national conversation with itself, we are justified in asking whether there is any union left at all.

In 2014 Scotland had a vote on its place within the UK, and voted against independence. The rhetoric of some politicians at the time was that the referendum was a once in a generation opportunity, but the truth is that in a democracy no politician can bind the electorate in perpetuity. Voters have an absolute right to change their minds, especially if circumstances change. Circumstances have changed drastically since 2014 and that is why the voters of Scotland chose in the recent Scottish election to give a large majority to parties promising to hold another referendum within the five year term of this Holyrood parliament.

The 2014 vote was not a blank cheque to Westminster to do with Scotland what it pleased in perpetuity, it was conditional upon the promises and commitments that the anti-independence parties had made to Scotland in order to secure their desired result. One of the most important of those commitments was that the only way that Scotland could remain a part of the EU was by voting against independence. So Scotland voted against independence, and well, we are where we are. Scotland is being told by a Conservative government in Westminster that it must suck Brexit up, even though Scotland voted to remain a part of the EU by a considerably larger margin than it voted to remain a part of the UK.

The Tories call themselves the party of the union, but they act as the party of British centralism. That was fine for decades, because unionism in Scotland rested upon the comforting myth that Scotland was a voluntary equal partner in the United Kingdom. That was, and is, the defining belief of Scottish Unionism. Scotland, they tell everyone else and themselves, is not a colony. Scotland was an enthusiastic participant in the British Empire. Scotland, they assert, was never a possession of the Empire but rather a partner in doing the possessing.

Unfortunately, this is not the understanding of the union that is current amongst the Anglocentric British establishment which Boris Johnson’s government embodies. Their belief is that the UK is simply a euphemism for Greater England. Their UK consists of England and those lesser nations which have been compelled by one means or another to throw their lot in with England.

When there was an Empire to exploit, different Scottish and English understandings of the union were unquestioned and unexamined. After the dissolution of the Empire the disconnection could easily be ignored. For much of the 20th century there was no Scottish Parliament to articulate Scotland’s political sense of itself. Scotland, like England, alternated between voting Labour and voting Conservative. As recently as the 1950s Scotland was fertile territory for the Tories. The cracks only started to appear after the demand for Scottish self government arose in the latter part of the 20th century, and voting patterns in Scotland began to diverge from those in England. The cracks only grew wider after Tony Blair’s government introduced an assymetric form of devolution.

The cracks grew wider still during the independence referendum and its aftermath, when the parties forming the Better Together campaign turned their back on the Vow and complacently thought that the No vote meant a return to business as usual. Scotland was back in its box, and could be ignored once again. But the independence movement born during the referendum campaign ensured that the lid of the box was kept loose. Scotland was not going to return meekly to the union flag branded shortbread tin.

In order to keep Scotland tied to Westminster, we were told that it was only because of the UK that we were a part of the EU. The message that leaving the UK meant leaving the EU was central to the Better Together campaign. Scots were taught that their country was poor, semi-bankrupt, and dependent on the largesse of a kind and benevolent UK. But this only provoked an unexpected reaction in England, when England started to grow resentful at what it saw as Scottish privilege that English voters were being told they paid for, privileges which were being lavished on ungrateful Scots.

All this simmering discontent with the union metaphorically exploded with Brexit. The Conservatives brought about a referendum on EU membership in order to tackle internal Tory disputes between the Europhile and Europhobe wings of that party. After a defeat in the EU referendum which the then Prime Minister David Cameron had neither expected nor prepared for, his successors continued to treat Brexit as an internal matter for the Conservative party.

Despite the fact that the vote to leave won only a very narrow victory, Theresa May set out to placate the extreme europhobes on her back benches. She set out entirely unnecessary red lines, and the definitions of soft and hard Brexit were moved ever further in one direction, in the direction of right wing Brextremism and ever further away from what Scotland could accept. This was only exacerbated after Theresa May lost her majority in the General Election she had promised not to call. She continued as though nothing had changed. The only difference was that now she required the support of the DUP.

Heavily remain voting Scotland was ignored, along with all the other remain voters in the UK. The proposal from the Scottish Government for a differential treatment of Scotland along with Northern Ireland never even got a reply. The Conservatives had never been happy with devolution, and leapt upon Brexit as their opportunity to recentralise the UK. The Brexit vote gave them a convenient excuse to undermine the devolution settlement and grab devolved powers for Westminster, all the while mendaciously claiming that they were giving Holyrood more powers.

What really happened was this. When devolution was established, the new Scottish Parliament was given control of all powers of government except for those which were explicitly to be reserved to Westminster – such as broadcasting, international relations, defence, the social security system, most tax powers, the constitution, etc. All other powers were devolved. However as a part of the EU, a number of these functions were exercised by EU institutions. In essence, these powers were still Scotland’s, but they were being held in trust for Scotland by the EU. After Brexit, Westminster took it upon itself to decide unilaterally which of these powers it was keeping for itself, and which it would allow Holyrood to keep. And then David Mundell told us that we had no grounds for complaint because Holyrood was getting extra powers.

Thanks to the Tories and the consistent way in which they have placed the interests of their party before the interests of Scotland and before the interests of the UK, the devolution settlement has been undermined, and Scotland faced the prospect of crashing out of the EU without a deal, powerless to influence events. The threadbare deal which was eventually cobbled together was devised with no input from the Scottish government. It’s a deal which didn’t even pay lip service to taking Scottish interests into account.

As a direct result, the UK is under immense strain. On the one hand the Tories have created an England which is resentful of what it sees as Scottish privilege, and whose Brexit supporters would prefer to see Scotland go than to give up on Brexit. On the other hand the Tories have created a Scotland which is resentful because it has been wrenched out of the EU even though the Conservatives told Scotland that the only way to remain in the EU was to vote against independence.

On top of all this, Scotland is seeing its precious devolution settlement being unilaterally undermined and traduced by a Conservative government Scotland didn’t vote for, even though the entire point of devolution in the first place was to provide Scotland from the depredations of Conservative governments Scotland didn’t vote for ,such as the painful and bitter experience of the Thatcher era. Devolution is failing to protect Scotland. No one can still have confidence that the devolution settlement will be able to continue in its current form in a centralising post-Brexit Britain.

All this is the creation of the Conservative party. They did this. This is their doing. In pursuit of their own short term party interests the Tories dug into the very core of the union between Scotland and the rest of the UK and destroyed its foundations. The cracks are wide and growing ever wider. The chasm between the Scottish and English conceptions of what this so-called union means cannot be papered over with some union flag posters and a spot of rebranding. It won’t be bridged by blaming the SNP and the Scottish independence movement. The tensions that the Conservatives have selfishly created can only be resolved with a great democratic event – a second Scottish independence referendum.

In order to counter their own destruction of the foundations of the Union, the Conservative government has embarked upon what is in effect nothing more than an advertising campaign. It’s too little and too late. A cosmetic exercise by the Tories won’t succeed in propping up an edifice which they themselves have brought to the point of collapse. You don’t save a structurally unsound building with a lick of paint and some new union flag themed wallpaper. It’s too late to save the UK. The Tories have exposed its true nature. They are the unwitting midwives of Scottish independence. Because of the actions of the Conservatives themselves, there’s now far too many rebellious Scots to shush.

The UK that Scotland is a part of is not the UK that Scotland was told it could be a part of in 2014. That is why Scotland voted for a large majority of pro-independence MSPs in the recent election, elected with a mandate for another referendum during this Parliamentary term. Scotland has an absolute democratic right to ask itself in a referendum if it still wants to be a part of a UK which is fundamentally different from the UK we thought we were getting in 2014.

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Independence for recovery

May19 by weegingerdug

Nicola Sturgeon has been re-elected by MSPs as the First Minister of Scotland for another five years. Given the SNP’s victory in the recent elections, her re-election was always something of a formality. Today she announced her new cabinet.

In about one year’s time Nicola Sturgeon will overtake Alex Salmond as the longest-serving First Minister since the introduction of devolution, but in her acceptance speech after being re-elected as First Minister she also clearly signalled that she wants to be the last First Minister of a devolved Scottish administration. She used the occasion to reiterate that her government had been elected with a clear mandate to deliver an independence referendum during the term of this Parliament. However she also stressed that she would exercise that mandate “with responsibility, humility, and only when the crisis of Covid has passed.”

There are two different issues when it comes to discussion about the Scottish Government’s preferred timing for another referendum. Firstly there’s getting out of the immediate covid crisis, and secondly there is Scotland’s recovery from that crisis. These are quite different and distinct, although many people conflate the two. However it’s important not to lose sight of the vital distinction between them. To use an analogy from my own recent bout of serious illness, in the immediate aftermath of the stroke I suffered, I was experiencing a health crisis. There was a high risk of suffering another stroke and I had to be hospitalised until medical professionals could be sure that my condition had stabilised. It was only after they could be certain of this that I was allowed to go home whereupon the focus became long term recovery from the stroke.

Applying this to political considerations about the timing of another independence referendum means that the Scottish Government does not wish to press for a second referendum while there remains a significant risk that covid infections could surge out of control, leading to a significant rise in cases requiring hospital treatment or cases severe enough to lead to death. This possibility means that there is a fear that the NHS could be overwhelmed and that our health services might not be able to cope. That’s the definition of a crisis, and it’s the situation we remain in for the time being.

It’s because the primary duty of the Scottish Government is to minimise this risk that there must be restrictions on people’s right to travel and to associate freely. While these restrictions remain in place it’s extremely difficult to conduct a normal political campaign. It’s even more difficult to conduct a campaign which is reliant on the kind of face to face mass participation and street campaigning which characterised the first independence referendum in 2014.

As long as we remain in this crisis situation it is unwise to press for another independence referendum. Many independence supporters are deeply unhappy about this, claiming it as evidence that the SNP leadership “doesn’t really want” another referendum. They are partially right – but what the SNP leadership doesn’t really want is a referendum which the independence movement has to fight with one hand tied behind its back and where an important strategic advantage has been conceded to those opposed to independence. After all, the point of the exercise here is not simply to secure another independence referendum. The point is to win it.

The experience of the recent election is a lesson to learn from. Alba party supporters complain that one reason their party performed so poorly was that it was sidelined and marginalised by the media and so it struggled to get its message and policies across. They have a point. However we all know that the media in Scotland is overwhelmingly opposed to independence and always seeks to amplify anti-independence voices at the expense of those in favour. The fact it behaves this way should come as no surprise. The anti-independence bias of the Scottish media has to be priced in to any independence referendum campaign if it hopes to be successful. The Scottish media will do exactly the same in a future independence referendum campaign. Any independence campaign which bases its chances on getting a fair hearing from the traditional Scottish media is a campaign that’s going to lose.

Alba’s experience ought to teach us that we cannot rely on digital and online campaigning. It’s far too easy to become trapped in a social media echo chamber and to fail to break through to the wider public. Since we cannot rely on getting a fair hearing from the traditional media and social media campaigns are not sufficient by themselves, this makes it all the more important for a successful independence referendum campaign to be able to deploy the kind of face to face “town hall” and community based campaigning which proved so effective in boosting the pro-independence vote in 2014. This is precisely the kind of campaigning that is most negatively affected by the lockdown restrictions on gathering and social interactions which must remain in force as long as the country is dealing with the crisis of the pandemic.

Once Scotland emerges from the crisis phase and starts to move into the recovery phase, that’s the time to hold another referendum. It is not a question of referendum or recovery, it’s a matter of independence for recovery. However we will only be able to make those arguments effectively once we have got out of the immediate crisis. Like most independence supporters I want independence yesterday. I want another independence referendum as soon as possible. I do not want Scotland to have to spend one single day longer than it absolutely has to under the rule of this malignant Conservative government. But I don’t want another independence referendum for its own sake, I want one which gives us the best possible chance of winning.

Much as many independence supporters dislike the fact, there are still large numbers of people in this country who are not convinced that independence is the way ahead. Not all of them are diehard unionists. Many of them could be amenable to persuasion, but only if we have an independence referendum campaign which allows us to reach them in order to persuade them. That’s the kind of referendum campaign we are going to be contesting at some point over the next couple of years, and that’s the kind of referendum campaign which is going to be victorious.

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The entitlement of British nationalism

May17 by weegingerdug

For the second time in the space of a few months, the centre of Scotland’s largest city was taken over by a horde of drunken aggressive men, destroying public property and attacking the police, passers by, and one another, and leaving a trail of destruction and chaos in their wake. Up to 15,000 Rangers fans congregated in the city in order to celebrate their team’s victory in the league. They ignored the official guidance prohibiting gathering in large groups. Few wore face coverings and there was little attempt at social distancing. The fact that Glasgow is perched precariously on the verge of a third wave of the virus and this mass gathering could have acted as a super-spreader event did not factor into the selfish calculations of those present. All that these entitled men (and they were overwhelmingly men) cared about was their own god-given absolute right to act as they pleased without caring about the consequences.

It was notable that those Conservative politicians who had been quick to condemn last week’s protest against the Home Office raid in Kenmure Street were silent when it came to speaking out against the Union flag bedecked yob violence which scarred Glasgow at the weekend. However the day before the violence the Tory MSP Murdo Fraser sought to draw a false equivalence between the Pollokshields protest and the anticipated “celebration” due that weekend. This was crass even by Murdo’s standards. A peaceful community protest is not remotely comparable to a drunken violent rampage by football hooligans. The residents of Kenmure Street did not choose for a Home Office van to descend on their street and attempt to detain and deport two of their neighbours. They were reacting in the only way possible to an unwanted event which had been visited upon them. There was no other way to prevent their neighbours’ deportation. Urgent and immediate action was vital. It is shameful, as some Conservative and British nationalist apologists have done, to attempt to draw a moral equivalence between this and drunken yobs going on a violent rampage as they assert their privilege and entitlement.

The Rangers fans in Glasgow at the weekend were attacking police officers, setting off dangerous fireworks, fighting with each other, throwing objects around, destroying public property, smashing bottles and urinating in the street. The socially distanced protestors at the marches or those responding to the attempted deportation did not do any of this. They took steps to act responsibly and to ensure that those not involved were not negatively impacted. The hooligans in George Square made a point of causing distress, upset and harm to other people.

However Rangers fans did not need to congregate in their thousands in the streets in order to celebrate their team’s victory. Far less did they need to embark upon a violent and destructive rampage while chanting sectarian hate-filled songs. If they had just wanted to celebrate, they could have celebrated at home and while obeying lockdown restrictions in the exact same way that the rest of us have been forced to celebrate important and significant life events during the course of this pandemic.

But for many of those present this wasn’t about celebration, it was something far more primitive, it was a territorial assertion of ownership. Those union flags were British nationalists telling us all that they own this city, that they own these streets. The violent and aggressive gathering was a reflection of the deep sense of entitlement of British nationalism. When you assert that “We are the people” you are implying that others are not part of “the people”, that they are somehow alien and less deserving of rights and recognition. When you accompany that with sectarian anti -catholic songs, it’s clear that you are asserting that Scots with an Irish catholic heritage are not properly Scottish at all.

However there are also institutional failures at play here. Police Scotland seemed to have been ill-prepared for disturbances which could have been predicted based upon the behaviour of some Rangers fans in March. The force stands accused of double standards, being markedly more tolerant of the misbehaviour of right wing thugs and Rangers fans waving union flags than it was of socially distanced Black Lives Matter protestors. Such double standards merely reinforce the sense of entitlement of those running riot and tells them that their bad behaviour will be indulged.

The football authorities must also take responsibility. The only way that fans will learn to behave is when they realise that their poor behaviour has negative consequences for their club. The SFA must apply severe sanctions to a club after its supporters have behaved the way some Rangers fans behaved over the weekend. The SFA has described the events of the weekend as an abomination not a celebration. But will they give meaning to their words?

The best way to ensure that this sort if thing does not happen again is for fans to be self-policing but that will only happen when fans see that their club will have to pay a heavy price when groups of fans misbehave. These sanctions should include the club being stripped of titles and trophies, clubs being forced to play matches behind closed doors, the loss of points, and in severe cases instant relegation. Fans will continue to misbehave if they think that the worst that will happen is that their club gets a slap on the wrist. I don’t care for football, I have no interest in league titles or trophies. I have no skin in this game, but the behaviour of some Rangers fans over this weekend was egregious enough that the club should be stripped of the title whose win was being “celebrated”. Unfortunately that’s unlikely to happen. We’ll get some platitudes and nothing meaningful will happen, exactly the same as the last time and all the times before that.

We have come to accept it as normal in Glasgow that anti-catholic bigotry is freely displayed on our streets. There’s nothing normal about it at all. They call themselves Loyalists but they are not loyal to the rule of law or to standards of common decency. The only thing that they are loyal to is what they perceive as their absolute right to impose themselves on the rest of us. And that is British nationalism in a nutshell. British nationalists in Scotland rail against the “divisiveness” of another independence referendum but turn a blind eye to the sectarian divisions fostered by some of their own supporters.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

The Westminster shaped sieve

May16 by weegingerdug

It was always predictable that the so-called Indian variant of the coronavirus was going to enter the UK. It’s called the Indian variant because it was first identified in India. There are now fears that this new variant will cause a “third wave” resulting in an increase in hospitalisations and the suspension of the much anticipated loosening of lockdown restrictions.

One question that many have is how new variants of the virus arise. This is an example of evolution in action. So first, a quick lesson in viruses.

A virus is only arguably alive. To simplify things considerably, a virus is a stretch of DNA and an associated protein coating. A virus cannot reproduce by itself. Instead , the coronavirus, like other viruses, hijacks the mechanisms of the cells in the body of an infected host and forces those cells to make copies of the virus. Typically during the course of an infection many millions of copies of the virus will be churned out. Every time the virus is copied there is a chance of an error taking place in the copying process and the virus not being copied correctly. The overwhelming majority of times, the virus is copied correctly, however because so many copies of the virus are made during the course of a typical infection, there’s a high probability that some faulty copies will be created.

Most of these faulty copies (which are called mutations) will be less effective at doing the virus’s two jobs of hijacking cells in the body and of being transmitted from one host body to another. These mutations will soon die out. Many other mutations will not be any better or worse at these jobs. However a small minority of these faulty copies will be more effective at hijacking body cells in the infected person and more effective at being transmitted from one person to another. These mutations have a competitive advantage over other less effective variants, and will preferentially spread. This is what happened with the so-called Kent variant which is now the dominant strain of the virus in the UK. This variant was more effective at being transmitted than the variants existing at the time, so eventually it crowded out the others.

Because millions upon millions of copies of the virus are made in each one of the millions of people who have become infected, new virus mutations are constantly being produced. There is concern that eventually one of these virus mutations might cause more serious illness or that it could be resistant to the vaccines currently in use.

New variants of the virus crop up constantly. The more restrictions there are on foreign travel, the easier it is to keep novel and potentially risky variants out of the country. Of course this must be balanced against people’s right to travel freely. It seems that in reaching a decision on this, the Scottish Government has given more weight to public health considerations than the Conservatives at Westminster, who appear to put more weight on the commercial interests of the travel and transport industries. Since the Scottish Government has no control over foreign borders, in this respect Scotland is at the mercy of UK government decisions which can undermine decisions made by the Scottish Government. The UK government delayed putting India on the red list of countries for over three weeks after concerns were raised about the spread of a new variant of concern there. Travellers arriving in the UK from India were allowed to self isolate at home instead of having to go into supervised hotel based quarantine.

The good news is that there is no evidence that this new Indian variant is resistant to the vaccines that we currently have. Neither is there any evidence to suggest that this new variant causes more serious illness in those it infects. The other good news is that if a vaccine resistant variant was ever to arise, scientists would not have to go back to square one and develop an entirely new armoury of vaccines from scratch. It should be possible to “tweak” existing vaccines so that they’d be effective against a resistant strain.

However there is concern that this new Indian variant may be more effective at being transmitted from one person to another, although it’s not yet clear just how more effective it might be. If it’s more effective at being transmitted this means that the new variant is more likely to infect people and to cause more cases of serious illness simply because there are more people who are being infected. If the virus is able to infect more people more rapidly and to reach more people who are vulnerable to serious illness, the incidence of serious illness increases even though the variant does not in itself cause a more serious illness. That could cause a significant rise in hospitalisations among those who have not yet been vaccinated. This possibility is what alarms Scottish public health authorities and has led to the loosening of lockdown restrictions being paused in Glasgow.

The big problem that the Scottish Government faces is that it has to fight the virus with one hand tied behind its back. Scotland is in the position of trying to bail out a leaky boat with a Westminster shaped sieve. Decisions made in Scotland can all too easily be undermined by decisions made at Westminster.

Without control over international borders, Scotland was left in the ridiculous position of demanding hotel-based quarantine for the tiny number of international travellers who flew directly into Scotland from “red list” countries, but the far larger number of travellers who arrived in the UK-Ireland common travel area from abroad but whose flights first took them to England or Dublin where they then caught connecting Scotland were able to organise their own unsupervised quarantine at home. The UK Government continued to allow travel from India even after it became clear that the situation in the country was spiralling out of control.

It is not unreasonable to assume that if the far stricter supervised hotel based quarantine had applied universally to everyone arriving in Scotland there could have been a chance that the entry of the new variant could have been prevented and we might not now be in the position of having to delay Glasgow’s exit from lockdown amidst concerns that the new variant of the virus is getting a foothold in parts of the city. But that’s hypothetical. We are where we are, more concerning is that even though there is clear evidence of community transmission of the new variant in parts of England, and concerns are being raised about a possible third wave, Johnson is not pausing the loosening of lockdown restrictions in England. A surge in infections in England will have an inevitable knock on effect in Scotland.

Hopefully this new variant will not prove to be markedly more efficient at transmission but if it is, and there is a third wave, it will once again highlight how Scotland’s efforts to contain and control the pandemic are being undermined by a Conservative government which prioritises financial and economic concerns above public health.

NEW MODERATION POLICY

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Wee Ginger Dug

Biting the hand of Project Fear

Monthly Archives: May 2021

Charmless and Offensive

Nationalism and ‘Thatessempee’

The car wreck of British government

Reasons for independence

Null points for Brexit’s brand UK

Once in a generation: The electorate can’t be bound by a politician’s rhetoric

Rebellious Scots to shush: Why Scotland needs another independence referendum

Independence for recovery

The entitlement of British nationalism

The Westminster shaped sieve