I'm a bit tired today, because I was up to 3am last night as a result of the director of a Labour think tank (or technically the Labour director of a 'non-partisan' think tank, which is probably a distinction without a difference) having a five-hour long temper tantrum at me. This is the sort of wacky incident that makes my life so thrilling, you guys really don't know what you're missing out on. Sunder Katwala's claimed justification for the intensity of his anger (he literally said that one of my replies was "the most offensive" thing he had ever been sent) was that he believes it is "racist" to suggest that Scotland is subjected to London imperialism, because that somehow trivialises the experience of "real" colonies of the past.
However, given his anger was self-evidently disproportionate to the mild-mannered nature of my tweets, it seemed pretty clear that the convoluted claims of racism were a distraction technique and that he was actually deeply uncomfortable with the points I was confronting him with. Like many Labour people in England (and indeed in Scotland), Sunder imagines himself to be an anti-imperialist and a supporter of liberation movements all over the world, and yet will not apply the same principle to Scotland. And we all know why - it's got nothing to do with conviction or with logic, and everything to do with Labour self-interest and the imposition of internal discipline within the party in furtherance of that self-interest. So people have to tie themselves up in knots trying to explain why Scotland is, for example, fundamentally different from Ireland - even though Ireland was (and part of it still is) an integral part of the United Kingdom, and thus technically exempt from some people's definition of the word "colony" in exactly the same way Scotland is. Push them far enough and they'll get to the risible point of arguing that the difference is that Scotland shares the same island with England, and Ireland does not. Yeah, as if there is no other example anywhere in the world of one country sharing a landmass with another.
Essentially Sunder was trying to "pull rank" on me by praying in aid his mixed race background, and saying that he therefore gets to set the parameters within which Scottish pro-independence discourse may exist. If we step outside those parameters, ie. by suggesting that Scotland's current relationship with London is colonial or quasi-colonial in nature, we are being "racist". I must say it's rather convenient for an English Labour supporter who actively propagandised for a No vote in 2014 to believe he should be universally recognised as the legitimate setter of ground rules for Scotland's national debate. When I challenged him to identify what was remotely racist about any of the dozens of replies I had sent to him last night, the best he could come up with was the word "visceral" and the phrase "close to the bone" (ie. I had said that his reaction to being confronted with his cognitive dissonance about Scotland was "visceral" because the points being made were "close to the bone"). I then challenged him to explain exactly *what* was racist about those words, and he was curiously evasive for half an hour - before finally blurting out that in his view they were synonymous with the word "coconut". That's just about the most fantastical, desperate line of argument I've ever encountered. His final tactic was to argue that it didn't matter if I was using the words according to their plain dictionary definitions - what mattered is that he had "received them" in a completely different way and I should therefore apologise to him for what his own mind had generated!
Unfortunately for Sunder, the visceral reaction I noted in him has nothing to do with his ethnic background, and everything to do with his party affiliation and the British Nationalist dogma that is part and parcel of that affiliation. I've encountered exactly such a reaction in the past from many white Brit Nats, most notably when I used to post on the Political Betting website (aka Stormfront Lite) and pointed out that the United Kingdom is essentially "Greater England". The heat of the fury generated was quite something to behold. They felt their country was being compared to Nazi Germany, because Hitler's conquests were known as "Greater Germany". But was the characterisation accurate? After all, Wales was conquered by the Kingdom of England and then annexed. Ireland was conquered by the Kingdom of England, which then imposed a puppet regime which eventually voted through a de facto annexation against the wishes of the population. Scotland is the odd one out because our own homegrown independent parliament did vote through the Treaty of Union, but it wasn't exactly the freest of choices given that there were military threats and heavy personal bribery involved. As in Ireland, the general population was opposed - dare I say 'viscerally' opposed - to the London takeover, and certainly by the time you get to the consequences of the Jacobite defeat at Culloden, with the suppression of the Gaelic language and culture, and the genocidal characteristics of the Highland Clearances, it's murderously difficult to argue that the treatment of Scotland did not resemble in at least some respects that of other colonial possessions of London.
And now in the modern day, we have the UK Supreme Court and the UK Government declaring that Scotland has no right to determine its own future. On that point, Sunder was last night totally behind the London line - he would only support independence once Scotland had voted for it, but Scotland would not be allowed to vote for it and therefore he would never have to support it. The justification for denying a democratic vote was his own personal opinion that Scotland does not want a vote. When I pointed out that the last two Westminster general elections and the last two Holyrood elections had all produced pro-referendum majorities, he started muttering stuff about opinion polls, which apparently he believes have a higher status under the British constitution than actual election results produced by real sentient human voters resident in Scotland. When I then pointed out that a Redfield & Wilton poll only this month showed a majority of the Scottish public want an independence referendum within the next year, he fell silent, although it does appear that opinion polls with the 'wrong' results also have considerably lower status under the British constitution than opinion polls with the 'right' results. Bloody flexible constitution we've got, I must say.
Don't want to be accused of imperialism and/or colonialism? It's really simple, guys: find for us the democratic mechanism by which Scotland can choose to leave the UK without external permission, and then by all means we can have a chat about your fragile feelings.
PS. The funniest part of the whole exchange was when Sunder mused that a "member of my own tribe" would probably be having a quiet word with me to 'explain' why the director of a Labour think tank does actually get to decide the parameters of our discourse and that if we stray beyond those parameters we are being "racist". I don't think he was aware that my "tribe" is now Alba, and that half the members of Alba joined specifically to get away from the insufferable SNP thought police represented by the Fiona Robertsons of this world.
Scotland doesn't share an island with anyone - no more than all land masses in the world are islands.
ReplyDeleteScotland (the mainland part) is a peninsula.
Using that logic then both Wales and England are also peninsulas.
DeletePersonally, I think "sharing an island" is a better fit.
Germany shares an island too. The island identity and narrative is a Brit concept.. Wales is a peninsula too albeit with a proportionately larger adjoining border. England is not.
DeleteVery well argued here James. The only thing I'd take issue with is that of course suppression of our Gaelic culture began long before the Union of Parliaments -this policy was prosecuted viciously by the Scottish state itself (e.g. Statutes of Iona 1609). The anti-Gaelic attitude of the Scottish state really started with the arrival of the blessed Saint Margaret of Wessex. It's been doonhill ever since I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteThe racist card: played when you've just lost your beer money to a much better player and you realize bluffing isnae your strongest suit.
ReplyDeleteExpect Humza Yousaf to play the same frayed card soon.
Well said.
ReplyDeleteVery simple, if Scotland wants to be independent, how do citizens of Scotland put it into being?
Frankly if Ireland is allowed to be independent, why shouldn't Scotland? What, we've to resort to bombs have we?! Hardly. Because we're peaceful this to to be held against us? Scotland is as much a country as Ireland has ever been (and then some). To agree with one and not the other is plain nonsense.
Tell me some examples where a State has let a territory separate peacefully, excluding some post Soviet entities that were kept together during communism like Cecoslovakia..
ReplyDeleteWe are indeed a colony
Norway ending the union with Sweden in 1905? Always a wee bit risky going to wikipedia but its article "Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden" seems fair.
DeleteHere's a helpful map:
Deletehttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/List_of_countries_gained_independance_from_the_UK_Flag_version_3.svg
Not all of these were bloody. Especially come the 1960s, 70s and 80s. They just elected local governments who were determined to bring about independence, and acted on it. Democracy is an amazing thing when it works.
The Irish declared independence after the Siinn Fein victory (no.of seats) in 1918 election. The English Parliament then decided to militarily crush the Irish Republic. After a 3 year conflict and with international opinion (US in particular, see 1920 Washington Naval Treaty and WW1 debt rescheduling) against them they conceded the 1921 Anglo-Irish treaty but hamstringed the Irish state economically and with partition.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of Scots want independence, they always have and they always will. Something Yoons need to understand.
ReplyDeletewell they vote for fake yes (SNP, Green) or actual nawbags (English parties). So, they better hurry up and vote Alba or we're phukt as English are moving here in huge numbers and are 80% nawbag - an impact that dwarves the minuscule youth yes effect.
DeleteThe majority of Scots want independence, they always have and they always will. Something Yoons need to understand.
DeleteIf that's the case it's pretty impressive that No managed to get 55%
You are soooooo naive, Keaton.
DeleteOk
Deleteit's also a colony getting actively colonised by people hostile to the very notion of a Scottish nation, of course not in all cases, but the majority as I was made well aware of in Tobermory last week. It had an effect on the last ref, and even with Brexit will on the next indie vote, so stacks of trouble the logger we procrastinate with vague gestures.
ReplyDeleteIt really would have helped us if they'd just voted for it, then, in 2014!
ReplyDeleteThat No vote is still the obstacle between us and recognition, by the Brits or the outside world. Last time Scotland was asked (which was also the first time ever), we said No. Since then we've had 10 years of demographic shift away from elderly unionism, and Brexit and Johnson and Covid and all the rest. Yet what have we done about it? Very evidently nothing.
I think that's the point, and why we aren't taken seriously abroad. We put up with everything that's thrown at us, without any more protest than our impeccably behaved AUOB marches, and we ritually elect politicians who do bugger all about any of it.
If we really wanted indy, we'd be angry and we'd be doing things to get it. Clearly (to everyone but ourselves) we are not.
Have a read at "Mike Russell: SNP's plan for independence is 'not complicated'" in the National, it is an interesting read - not for the article itself, but for the title and the comments section. If you have to tell people a thing isn't complicated then it is. It is that simple: if you have to explain or excuse then you didn't communicate correctly - aka complicated. The comments section is interesting because many good people are still holding out with their fingers crossed that there is a chance of this leading to independence - it won't. Lines such as "...a win ... will strengthen Scotland’s case for independence internationally and the democratic right to negotiate. It will be much more difficult for Westminster to deny..." This is not just positivity but HOPE, just where I was last lie round. The problem with all these scenarios is that WM will just say no or ignore, why would it do anything different? GB never plays fair, as I said a long time ago on here and on WGD when it used to be an open forum 'they are not going to let us go.' We lost that chance in 2014, they got a fright and they will never make that mistake again. We actually need to take control of our destiny and I'm afraid that the SNP politicians haven't the heart, the mind nor the guts to do that. They truly are the feeble fiftyish odd (emphasis on odd).
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more.
DeleteOn its own even the "de facto referendum" election isn't going to get the job done: because Westminster are still just going to ignore it, guaranteed. Hoping it will lead to either a S30, or WM throwing up their hands in the air and saying "well, the SNP have dragged us to the negotiating table, time to work out the end of the Union" is just wish-casting, just fantasy. As it stands Humza's ploy is so muddled it'll be easy enough to brush it off even if it gets more than 50%+1.
The de facto approach (preferably a single line in the manifesto that says nothing else other than a vote for a pro-indy party is taken as a vote for independence, no more, no less, nothing else needed) still needs to be coupled to a second (main) part of the strategy - WHAT WILL/CAN/DO YOU DO WHEN WM INEVITABLY STILL SAYS NO EVEN WHEN YOU WIN YOUR "DE FACTO" ELECTION.
That's what the de facto ref needs to be for - to provide you an unequivocal, unambiguous mandate, on a clear majority of the electorate voting solely for independence, so that when WM still refuses to cave in to political pressure then it gives you the cover to say "screw you" and take what will almost certainly be illegal steps in the eyes of HMG.
It's naive to think Westminster will finally succumb to this "fair play" notion of respecting political mandates if, say, 52% vote for an SNP "de facto" mandate. The SNP would need to know what they would do THEN and they'd need to say that BEFORE any such election for any de facto referendum strategy to really carry any weight. Otherwise, all it ends up being is yet another way of trying to use an election mandate to ask the UK government to pretty please let us hold a proper referendum on independence.
ReplyDeleteIs Scotland a colony?
MI5 has an annual budget of £4 billion. While there’s no breakdown of how this is allocated, it would be reasonable to assume that a substantial portion is attributed to undermining the cause of Scottish independence. This isn’t the stuff of tin-foil-hat conspiracy, the charted given to MI5 is to protect the British State.
In 2019 after a number of years in dormant status, the John Smith Centre for Public Service became active as Kezia Dugdale resigned her seat at Holyrood and became its first Director. The JSCfPS is a charity that has never published accounts. It is a political influencing operation that hides the sources of its income. All of this is scrupulously ignored by the media.
The “big daddy” of our media is of course the BBC. In the run-up to IndyRef I, the BBC commissioned Tory MP and ex-spook Rory Stewart to produce a two part “history documentary”; Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middle Land. This flight of rhetorical fantasy extolled Stewart’s bizarre, amateur thesis that the border between Scotland and England was an artificial construct. The work of professional archaeologist Dr. Ronan Toolis proves the Solway / Tweed has been a cultural dividing line since before the Roman invasion of Great Britain.
The BBC is of course the propaganda arm of the British State.
Then there’s the proposition that the SNP has itself been infiltrated by assets of the British Security Services. Here, there is substantial circumstantial evidence that a number of influential individuals close to the upper echelons of the SNP have been drawn under the influence of the US State Department. The State Department is likely acting here as a deniable cut-out between MI5 and the tight knit, cadre that exercises cult like control over the SNP.
Could the announcement effectively be a return to the position back in the 70s/80s when a majority of Scottish Westminster seats was accepted as the starting point for independence negotiations?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, why should it have to be a majority of the votes when a majority of seats is all it takes for a Westminster parliament to refuse a referendum repeatedly and at odds with the mandate provided by the Scottish voters?
FPTP Is admittedly flawed but why not use it to possible advantage?
There's nothing remarkable about the sustained majority for independence. It's Brexit and the Tories that are causing it.
ReplyDeleteIreland is an island with 2 countries on it (created by Westminster)
ReplyDeleteTo use the word Tribe could be racist, I mean if you said that to him for example, telling him to consult his TRIBE. he'd be up in arms!
Finally, I was led to believe that when the treaty of union was signed that Scotland's distinctive law was to remain seperate, therefore the establishment of a supreme higher court that can overrule our seperate legal system was not built into the terms of act of union and was created only recently and therefore this violates the act of union, and under any treaty if there's an alleged violation we can seek arbitration and try to find a solution, if not satisfied then withdraw from the act legally
What I'm saying is that we should seek all other violations to the original act of union over the years and seek to withdraw from it using international law
As I understand it; House of Lords used to adjudicate over Scots Law, by sitting as Law Lords, until Blair’s government created the Supreme Court to replace that function.
DeleteThe treaty of Union has been broken many times, so I’ve heard, right from the start. The world does nothing about it because we do not ask. Someone with legal “standing” needs to take that one up, as it would be one extra-parliamentary route to independence. A serious independence minded Scottish government would be working on it, given last October’s disgracefully anti-democratic judgement against the sovereignty of Scots.
In the colony of Dominica the main party got the majority of seats with just 46 % of the votes and this was considered enough to start Independence negotiations that were successful shortly after, nobody even at the United Nations objected the legality of the mandate.
ReplyDeleteSo what's the fuss about
I don’t like to blame everything on oil, but in this case…
DeleteCameron and Salmond established the convention that if you lose a referendum on sovereignty: you resign. Cameron was ready to resign if Yes won, and Salmond duly did when we lost. Naturally, Cameron then got his comeuppance with Brexit, leaving us all in the lurch. But the public expects politicians to leave the stage when they lose a pivotal democratic event like this.
I fully expect Scottish independence is a career ender for any British prime minister. Tory or Labour: they have to avoid it like the plague. The blow to “national esteem” (English esteem) would be fatal. Losing Scotland is unthinkable for them.
We get the same treatment here in Wales. Apparently a country that was invaded, conquered, had its language suppressed and its natural resources stolen isn't a colony, and its racist to suggest it. The justification for this seems to be that because we were largely fine with all this between the Battle of Bosworth and the establishment of Cymru Fydd towards the end of the 19th century, that means we can't be a colony.
ReplyDelete