If the SNP want to persuade people of the need for independence, don't tell us what you love about the British state - tell us what is wrong with it, and what makes Scotland different

Someone pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago that my little gang of stalkers in the Wee Ginger Dug comments section were claiming that my blog, of all things, is to blame for the fact that the Yes vote isn't even higher than it currently is.  I forgot to look up the comments at the time, and it's long enough ago now that I'm unlikely to find them. But let's assume for the sake of argument that these barking mad comments were actually made.  I think I worked out once from my stats that Scot Goes Pop reached approximately 2% of the Scottish population in one calendar year - which is not at all shabby for a one-man blog, but nevertheless a lot of those are people who just visit once or twice in a year, perhaps because they've followed a link from social media.  The idea that I could have a transformative effect on the independence debate, whether in a positive or negative direction, is pretty fanciful.  But it's not at all fanciful that Nicola Sturgeon and her Scottish Government ministers, who are on our TV screens every day of the year, could have either a positive or negative transformative effect.

Let me gently remind my stalkers that during the remarkable period from mid-2020 to early 2021, every single opinion poll (including three that I commissioned myself) showed a pro-independence majority.  Nicola Sturgeon quite rightly received a huge amount of credit for that, and many of her cheerleaders argued that it was total vindication for Ms Sturgeon's cautious strategy of continually kicking the referendum can further down the road.  It would be crazy to change a strategy that is plainly working, they said.  But then when the Yes numbers started dipping again, suddenly Nicola Sturgeon and her government weren't responsible at all.  A few individuals (naming no names, but Mark McGeoghegan) absurdly tried to blame it on the Alba Party instead (!), and when that inevitably failed to stick, the next claim was that it was all down to some mysterious force of nature that was holding Yes back.  "Scotland is inherently a conservative country and won't be ready for independence for some time yet!  This is total vindication for Nicola Sturgeon's strategy of delay!"

Hmmm. Isn't it remarkable that, no matter whether the Yes vote goes up or down or remains static, it's still proof that endless delay and prevarication is a great idea?  Scientists might say that there's an issue of 'falsifiability' here.  If you're claiming a certain turn of events as proof that delay is desirable, then if the opposite thing happens instead, it really ought to be proof that delay is a bad idea.  But mysteriously it doesn't seem to work that way.

When Russia invaded Ukraine a few months ago, there was self-righteous anger in many quarters if anyone tried to draw any parallels at all between Ukraine and Scotland.  In the hope that we might have more of a sense of perspective by now, let's take a deep breath and have a look at a few of the similarities and difference between the countries - because there are both.

* Scotland has a much longer history as a sovereign state than Ukraine does.  Scotland was internationally recognised as an independent country for several centuries prior to 1707.  By contrast, Ukraine's history as a sovereign state is mostly confined to the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and to a handful of years after the October Revolution in 1917.  At other times, Ukraine has generally been part of a Russian Empire in some form or another, albeit while being recognised as having a distinct culture.

* As in Scotland, millions of Ukrainians natively speak the language of their larger neighbour.  Millions of others have Ukrainian as their native language - which is analogous to the Scots language, because it has roughly the same degree of close similarity to the Russian language as Scots does to English.

* There are very close family ties between Ukraine and Russia, just as there are between Scotland and England.  During the indyref campaign, it was often claimed that 50% of Scots have family in England (although of course that would mean 50% don't), and in a similar way there have been countless stories of Ukrainians trying to explain the reality of the war to their disbelieving fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in Russia.

* Because of the immense historical, political, family and linguistic connections between Ukraine and Russia, it is often claimed that the two countries essentially make up the same culture, the same country.  Exactly the same claim is made about Scotland and England.  In both cases, those who disagree are accused of "the narcissism of small differences" (by Michael Ignatieff, for instance) and of causing trouble for its own sake by ripping families apart and creating artificial distance where there ought to be closeness.  In particular, both Ukrainian and Scottish "separation" is supposed to create a "security risk" - and it would be hard to dispute that the point has been proved in Ukraine, even though it's categorically Russia's fault rather than Ukraine's.  In Scotland's case, the idea of a security risk seems rather more fantastical.

And yet in spite of all this, what is sometimes referred to as "the international community" is fully behind Ukraine's defence of its national independence, while it is neutral at best and hostile at worst to the idea of Scottish self-government.  Why would that be?  Well, admittedly to a large extent it's because of Ukraine's good fortune in already being a sovereign country.  When it comes down to it, the international community regards the abstract concept of sovereignty as far more important than the rights of peoples to determine their own future.  

But could there also be something more?  Even before the war broke out, Ukraine's leaders were not exactly squeamish about talking up their country's differences with Russia and talking down the similarities.  Zelenskyy even said last year that Ukraine had "nothing in common" with Russia - and remember he's a native Russian speaker who owes much of his career as a comedian and actor to success in Russia, just as so many Scottish creatives owe their careers to success in England.  But he's plainly not a slave to the "narcissism of small differences" argument, and it would be a bit hard to argue that he'd be more effective as a national leader if he was.  If you believe the threat to Ukraine's independence is an emergency, if you believe that Ukraine needs to be independent from Russia, then there's plainly an imperative to remind people of what makes Ukraine and Russia different from each other, not what makes them similar.

That's a lesson that it appears the SNP leadership have yet to learn.  They go to royal concerts in London and sit behind Prince Charles, taking selfies of themselves in front of Union Jacks.  They enthusiastically talk of their love and support for Emma Raducanu - not because they like her brand of tennis but specifically because she is British.  They wax lyrical about what a "cherished" institution the BBC is - even though by Nick Robinson's own admission, it exists to "bring Britain together" and thus by extension to oppose our country governing itself.  They insist on "four nation", ie. London-led, approaches to the most serious challenges such as Covid.  They ally themselves with middle-class pan-British liberal movements and seem to care far more about gaining approval from The New European or Guardian leader writers than from working-class people in Scotland (the "Cringe" in a nutshell).

All of this begs the obvious question from voters: if you like the British state so much, why do you want to leave it?  And how on earth do you expect to persuade us to leave it if you keep telling us how great it is?  And why should we tell pollsters that we want an independence referendum with any great urgency when you don't seem to think it's particularly urgent yourselves?

If WGD commenters really want an explanation for current polling numbers, I'd suggest that's the kind of direction they should be looking in.

Nothing beats Nicola (selfie) Sturgeon with her phone out in the Royal box surrounded by Union Jacks. pic.twitter.com/BtGUt2BYoT

— Tim Cooke (@sqlblues) June 5, 2022

@NicolaSturgeon delivering independence from the Royal Box outside Buckingham Palace at the Jubilee Celebrations pic.twitter.com/vfdcrDdfsL

— The Ornithologist (@ornithologist90) June 4, 2022

And this is the organisation that claims it can *and has* reported the Scottish independence debate fairly and even-handedly.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything. As Nick Robinson says himself, the BBC's objective is to "bring Britain together".https://t.co/teUyKKkTcE

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) June 5, 2022