The surrealist remake of “Birds of a Feather” didn’t cut much mustard with BBC4 executives…
This independence thing is at serious risk of leaving a nasty aftertaste in the mouth. I went to Tesco at lunchtime to pick up a sandwich and a paper for a work colleague – an old guy was standing next to the paper rack, pondering the typically reactionary, alarmist headline on the front of the Observer. “Independence will leave Scottish economy in tatters” – or something like that. He sees me coming over, points to it, and in an estuary vernacular mumbles “eeeeh… bloody serves ‘em right” in my general direction.
For a split second I thought about pretending to be Glaswegian (I can do a pretty good accent) just to see the look on his face – and find out whether my caledonian character would have been met with furious backpedalling, questions about where my loyalties lay or a curt “piss off you jock git!”. In the end I smiled a wry “you’re a cock-end” smile and walked away. We’ve heard plenty of accusations in recent weeks and months of anti-English sentiment amongst the Scots helping to drive the Yes campaign’s poll ratings up and up, but we’ve not heard much about the palpable and very real anti-Scottish sentiment emerging in England – or at least in the patch of south-east England that I inhabit.
John Major blames Labour* for permitting devolution to go ahead in the first place when they set up the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Hang about – in the first place? Was there or was there not a vote in 1979 to devolve some fairly modest powers to a Scottish parliament which wasn’t endorsed?
* It’s only fair to warn you that this link will take you to the Daily Express website – I cannot be held responsible for the reams of psychopathic fury that lies within.
How in the intervening years did we come to a position not only where devolution was introduced to Scotland by overwhelming popular demand but where we’re now standing on the brink of Scotland walking out altogether in order to pursue it’s own path in the world? There’s a one-word answer: Thatcherism.
“All your base are belong to us” crowed the Iron Lady. “Your oils too”.
We now stand at a crossroads where one simple division is crystal clear – England wanted Thatcherism and as far as we can tell will probably want to stay Thatherite for the foreseeable future; while Scotland didn’t want Thatcherism, still doesn’t want it – and never will. In divorce-speak, this is what is known as an irreconcilable difference, and it serves to highlight something that I’ve been saying for some time – keeping the union together, if that’s what we want to do, means big changes in England – not just in Scotland. David Cameron attempting to lovebomb Scotland won’t change a thing in this regard. In this wavering marriage, the fuming spouse doesn’t want to hear “I love you”, they want to hear “I’m sorry, I was completely wrong, I totally fucked up and I won’t ever do it again”. The fate of the union rests as much on the ability of the English electorate to recognise and atone for past political mistakes as it does on the Scottish desire to stay or go.
If the knee-jerk intranisgence of the average bloke in Tesco is any measure, the union is doomed.
When the historians look back on this vote, it will be portrayed as the passing of a verdict on a union dominated in almost every way by England and English interests. Until the 1970s, English and Scottish interests were largely synonymous with each other – bound together by social solidarity, post-war optimism and prosperity. The schism that’s now ruptured wide open was held closed by a strong sense of social and economic solidarity from Land’s End to John O’Groats – but that was back in the days before Margaret Thatcher crushed the unions, closed down most of British heavy industry (which hit Scotland very hard) and tried to convince everyone that they should borrow more instead of fighting as a collective for higher wages and better conditions.
Yes, division is bad and I don’t wish to see the country cleaved in twain. However, when the prospect of staying together is conditional upon the prevalence and dominance of a toxic ideology of individualism, you could make the case that solidarity on a smaller scale within four different countries is preferable to the homogeneous false pretence of a “union” in which everyone is ultimately expected to look out for number 1. Solidarity is a two-way street. It requires English people and politicians to care about the fate of Scottish people (and vice versa) to a degree that hasn’t been seen in this country since Jimmy Reid led the work-in at UCS in 1971. I for one would love to go back to those days, I just don’t see it happening – and the main barrier is the attitude of the bulk of the English electorate.
Left-wing firebrand Jimmy Reid became a prominent SNP supporter in the later years of his life.
Bits of the UK have upped and left before – but not within living memory. The last time a piece of British territory broke away and gained independence was almost a century ago when Ireland freed itself from London rule. However, that was no passive referendum; it took two and a half years of guerilla warfare between 1919 and 1921 for the Irish Free State to come into being. The fact that Scotland could leave the union simply by ballot rather than armed insurrection countered by state oppression in which hundreds or thousands of people would be killed is at least some kind of marker of political and social progress.
And Regardless of the outcome of next week’s vote, things will never be quite the same again. The enticements now being offered to Scotland in the event of a “no” vote, will necessarily impose the kind of sweeping changes on the political architecture of this country that haven’t been seen centuries. We will be in new, uncharted territory for the UK – other countries of course will be much more familiar with the dilemmas we’ll face as a good number of them will have grappled with these issues throughout the 20th century. Our unwritten constitution will strain to adapt to the new political reality and we may well see a written one ratified in the not too distant future.
Whether you agree with Salmond’s desire to see an independent Scotland or not, you have to acknowledge that if successful in his aim of securing independence for Scotland, he’ll have pulled off one of the single greatest politicial achievements in over a century. I’ve disagreed with many of the things that Alex Salmond has put forward for Scotland – a currency union with the rest of the UK makes no sense, and the SNP platform includes a number of tax changes which invite a race to the bottom – but I’ve thought for quite some time now that in terms of sheer political ability, Salmond is probably the most gifted politician in the country, easily able to run rings around Clegg, Cameron and Miliband.
Nigel Farage recently took time out of his busy schedule of impersonating Larry Grayson to unexpectedtly praise the political abilities of Scotland’s first minister.
The only real challenger Salmond has for that particular accolade – albeit for very different reasons – is the UKIP leader Nigel Farage. The differences between these two leaders represent better than any of the three main parties what’s actually driving the surge in support for Scottish independence. One’s a relatively moderate social democrat and the other’s a hard-right zealot. Scots look at Farage and see a glimpse of the future of English politics. Can you blame them if such a large proportion want to leave as a result?
