Pre-Amble:

Shortly after publishing this blog I was sent and read an article by economist and former SNP MP George Kerevan who looks at the competing forces re-shaping both the Scottish National Party, and the broader independence movement.

The article was very insightful, enlightning and thought provoking even if the title was somewhat misleading.  George makes reference to the ‘existence’ of the broader Independence Movement but not much else.  George Kerevan is a student of Political Economic – the key word being ‘Political’ and this is why he, probably unintentionally misleads.

By contrast, my first blog, long before 2014 and subsequent blogs has attempted to, but failed to make the point that calling this Independence is WRONG, progressing the campaign as political is WRONG and to a great extent Alex Salmond was a hostage to fortune.  As the SNP became more credible and significant and to a greater extend financially funded, the INFLUENCERS this attracts had to remove Salmond, who was too popular.  The magnitude of this background Civil Service as depicted by Armando Iannucci shocks, and suddenly a sex scandal around Salmond (that will do nicely and of course the Civil Servants were front and centre).

In a sense the Influencers were right, this was not about Politics.  They, no doubt, saw this as business, perhaps a bit of Foreign Policy to spice it up and …. he’s gone (as we now know, unjustly).

But the Influencers were wrong – they were right in themselves, but wrong for the people of Scotland.

The problem the people of Scotland are not seeing is not the one they call Independence.  Let’s give it a name.  In 1707 after more than a century of issues, the people of Scotland lost their –

LIBERTY

Liberty is not the same as Independence.  Independence is a dangerous concept.  Give your dog independence and it will end of running in front of a car.  Independence conveys a sense of letting go, that’s me off. Liberty conveys a sense of freedom to make your own decisions, your own mistakes, your own accountability.  This was what we lost in 1707.  The people did not like it, were not consulted and had to be militarily constrained … so let’s go:

Restitution of Liberty (not Independence)

Let me begin with a challenging thought:

Restitution of Liberty is a Human Right, Politics is a CAREER

(Wonder why SNP are sitting on their hands?)

We may be edging closer to the break-up of the Union of the United Kingdom.  Many people in Scotland and some further afield speak, debate, dream or even anticipate Scottish Independence.  I call this The Independence Trick, the poison chalice.

Make not mistake I want Scotland to control it’s own destiny-But, I don’t want to wait and HOPE it will happen.  We must MAKE IT happen.  If we cannot make it happen, then, sadly, we are not ready.

Perhaps we are on the right course, perhaps there is an inevitability about the conclusion.  Now there is a word that scares the hell out of me, INEVITABLE.  I would define it as something that is bound to happen, cannot be stopped, only a matter of time, then suddenly … nothing .. it does not happen.  Suddenly everyone jumps on the next bus.  It is inevitable it will happen the next time … really?

Right away we see a problem with terminology.  Actually, our problems are far worse.  In Scotland we have the passion, the vision and the hope, but frankly, not much else.  We have some very basic problems so I want to drop my little truth bombs in the hope this will resonate with some people and perhaps draw attention to some serious deficiencies, so …

Here goes:

The fact that Scotland has edged past 50% in favour of what we call Independence is a disaster.  Given the state of Scotland, the assets being stripped out under our noses and the total absence of a future for our kids and yet almost 50% in Scotland, tells me we are in serious trouble.  Is the Union and media tampering with stats? perhaps. Could this be brainwashing or Stockholm Syndrome affecting the population? perhaps.

WE MUST GET THAT NUMBER WELL PAST 90% AND PRETTY DAMN QUICK.

Does this sound unreasonable, unlikely over-ambitious or too difficult? – OF COURSE NOT, THIS SHOULD BE VERY VERY EASY.

THINK CATALONIA??

When the SNP achieved 56 from 59 MP surely people must have thought at the time my 90%+ was very far from over-ambitious.  This must have scared the bejesus out of Westminster hence their massive, illegal overspend and manipulation of voting in 2019 to recover some of this position.  Given that, an opposition with the caliber of Ruth Davidson, Richard Leonard and Willie Rennie and their pathetic minions speaks volumes to how wrong this is.  But make no mistake, Scotland breaking away from the Union, the hegemony, would be the biggest disaster ever and I mean ever, to befall England.  They will do absolutely anything and everything to stop us.

WE BETTER BE ON OUR ‘A’ GAME FROM THE GET GO.

WHAT MUST WE DO?

First of all the problem that is impossible to fix, is the one you don’t know you have.

I think we need to understand who and what we are, a little about our history, the incorrect terminology we carry around like an albatross and the total absence of a Success Plan.  Four things and I want to tackle them one at a time.  I will keep this as simple as possible because I am prone to ramble on more than a little, sorry in advance.

WHO ARE WE?

Scotland and it’s people are a very long establish, peaceful (ish), social leaning, caring and empathetic people.  Our attributes make Scots one of the most loved peoples on earth.  We are a big big family and like all families we squabble, we bitch and we disagree and fight with each other.  That is not our weakness.  We are not and never have been, as a nation, complacent – that is our strength.  We take nothing for granted.  Up until the 1700s we existed.  We had a tough life, but we managed.  The country was a collection of very powerful Clans.  There was a monarch who really should have pulled everyone together , but we really never had one of them.  We did some foreign trade, mainly with the Dutch but that worked for us.  We had very little else going for us.  However, we had one serious problem, we didn’t realise this at the time.  WE STILL DON’T REALISE IT.  Put simply, King James V1 of Scotland, and 1st of England.  From the Union of the Crowns in 1603 we had be dealt a TICKING TIME BOMB.  More on that in a bit.

In the 70s Scotland, like the rest of the UK was struggling.  Our economy was tanking.  Post WW2 the lack of inward investment to rebuild and future proof our industries and infrastructure was taking a very heavy toll.  Too many kids inherited our industrial base, peddled the assets, extracted the equity and traded this for the good life in St Tropez.  Just as all hope seemed lost we caught the spin of the dice.  We discovered we were sitting in the middle of a massive oil field.  Over the years, our fortunes have double up and doubled up.  We had assets in Scotland beyond our wildest dreams.  Aside from sheet geographic beauty, we had oil and gas aplenty, fresh beautiful water, forestry, fish, totally renewable energy in many forms, we had technology, food, whisky and incredible people as demonstrated by the sheer magnitude of the Scottish Enlightenment of 18th Century; predicated on our incredible focus on education.  Arguably we were and almost certainly still are one of the richest countries in the world, both in real terms and per capa.  Oh, I forgot, we had one other thing:

ENGLAND

So just to recap, we had …oh!.. bugger all. England scoffed the lot.  In fact they are still feeding on us.  Let’s park that for now.  If you need to hammer nails into a piece of wood to relieve the stress this would be a good time.

A LITTLE HISTORY

I said earlier that up to the 1700s we were doing ok.  Bits of troubles, but generally ok.  We had poked the Romans in the eye and forced them to do a Trump – they called it Hadrian’s wall.  However, it kept us out and that suited the Roman’s – we were trouble.  Actually, we were IN trouble.  Nothing to do with us.  Once again the problem was:

ENGLAND

Good old England.  They always had to be at war.  They were even at war with themselves in the War of the Roses.  But mainly it was Europe.  England had to go to war, to steal other people’s stuff and to grab their land.  Spain and Portugal loved to do a bit of piracy on the high seas and England waded in there, never far from a bit of hostility.  Why would that bother Scotland.  Simple, our main trading partner was the Dutch and England’s perpetual wars were a physical block to trade – and of course there was no love lost between the Dutch and England.

Add to this, Scotland like Ireland especially had some very lean years prior to 1700 and in fact famine had pretty much wiped out 25% of the population – the called the Seven Ill Years.  I suppose in desperation a number of the upper echelons of Scottish  Society allowed themselves or more likely driven by greed, saw the Darien Scheme in Panama a quick fix, or get rich (again) quick scheme.  Totally, ill conceived and not helped by England’s broken promise to provide Scotland with Naval support, the Darien ‘White Elephant’ Scheme sucked up their funds and spat out debt; lot’s of debt.

Never slow to spot an opportunity to exploit a situation, England had a serious concern and the plight of the the Scottish Rogues was such an opportunity.

But what did Scotland have to offer England? sheep, tartan, haggis? perhaps ginger weans .. Scotland had nothing of value for England.  Actually, not quite right, we did have something that valued, albeit in a negative manner – we had a shared Royalty; throw back from the Union of Crowns.  James 6 and 1 was Catholic and Catholicism was anathema to England – that was it?  England had an intense hatred of Catholicism – even the mention of the word meant you had to self isolate for 2 weeks – see how I brought that right up to date – in fact I needn’t have bothered – it persists to this very day.  England’s paranoia was manifest.  They were concerned about James’s successor Mary, they were even concerned a protestant might conspire against them – everything Protestantism?  This was the background to the Act of Union 1707!

The Union of Parliament [follow the link] was first struck in 1706 signed off by Scotland (or rather the Parcel of Rogues) with the negation of a Catholic Monarch written into Law.  In exchange, or rather inducement, ok, let’s call it a bribe.  England agreed to a sweetheart ‘Equivalent’ payment of almost £400k to Scotland to cover Scotland’s share of England’s ongoing debts.  Presiding over this ‘windfall’ was the Duke of Queensberry.  The Duke of ‘Darien’ made sure the thick end of this money was trousered and distributed to his fellow Darieneers.  OK, Scottish taxpayers would pick up the tab in taxes going forwards – but, somehow, nothing changes.

You may ask whether this was a ‘Fair contract’ – well you may ask?  let me think? NO NO NO.  In fact this ‘Deal or Union’ was so unpopular in Scotland that Martial Law was immediately imposed to quell  uprising.

Some may call this a Union.  This was not, never was, a Union – this was a sell out or even an invasion of a people.  We became enslave to a Political Institution where the English version of democracy meant we could never have a say in anything.  At that time we were outnumbered 5 to 1.  That ration is now 11:1 and will only get worse.

Some in Summary, our relationship with England morphed from anti-Catholic to Asset Stripping.

TERMINOLOGY – Our First and Biggest Mistake

This is Crucial.  We roll on the term Independence.  Independence is a bait word.  It conveys a sense of isolation, on our own, and ‘oh boy’ how England has used that term to great effect.  How can you exist on your own, you need us to exist you need to DEPEND on us INDEPENDENCE BAD.

Sorry to reign on anyone’s parade but Scotland never was an Independent Country.  Pre-Act of Union we had a great trading partnership with the Dutch.  We were dependent on that trade and they were dependent on our our trade – we were in an inter-dependency.

We had the Liberty to be Inter-dependent

I continually bang on about political involvement in what was called the Independence Movement.  This should never have been – it never was a political question, it was always a Constitutional question.  So let me explain why I think this.  I will define the THREE important terms, and where they fit and what in order:

CONSTITUTION, INSTITUTION and RESTITUTION .

CONSTITUTION – The First Step (always) 

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INSTITUTION

Definition and functions of a Political System

Parties, Trade Unions, and Courts

Political Institutions, in Brief

Types of Political Systems

The Function of a Political System