This time six years ago, the people of Scotland had national self-determination.
While the polling stations were open, they controlled their own destiny.
This was the first time that had happened in history.
The 1707 Hanoverian Anschluss had been confected between a small group of privileged men.
This time the entire adult population resident in Scotland (which included 16 and 17-year-olds) had an equal voice in a momentous decision.
I was in Scotland that day and had been so for moist to the previous six weeks.
My main interest was the explosion of new media outlets on the Yes side of the debate.
For the most part, the professional polling organisations showed the NO side to be ahead by a comfortable enough margin.
Then the YouGov poll put Yes ahead 51 to 49.
It was what the pro-Indy folk had been waiting for.
They seized hold of this one data point and ignored all of the others.
For them, it was a glorious moment.
However, in the end, it meant nothing.
Had the Scottish people not succumbed to Project Feart then today they would have been fully independent.
As a mark of their newfound freedom from the clutches of the British State, they would still have the Pound Sterling and the Saxe Coburg crime crew lording it over them.
I recall in 2014 considering this as a rather ersatz type of independence.
However, even this low-fat freedom was rejected by the Scots six years ago.
I’m not aware of any other country being offered independence in a referendum and rejecting it.
There might be one, but I can’t think of any.
I was at the election count through the night, and I wasn’t shocked as the votes for No came through.
In the end, the polling organisations had called it reasonably accurately.
I stood in the count centre and watched Prime Minister David Cameron stating that there would be some changes afoot after this Scottish question had been settled.
English Votes For English Laws (EVEL).
With regional assemblies in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh the English are, in effect, the largest stateless nation in Europe.
Consequently, the unanswerable West Lothian Question remains just that-unanswerable.
He also let it slip sometime after that when he told Frau Saxe Coburg of the vote she had “purred down the line”.
I do recall the Yes folks in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 vote.
Unsurprisingly, they were crushed and shattered by the defeat.
They had convinced each other that they were going to win.
I recall the exuberance of the Yes folks in the centre of Glasgow in the run-up to the day itself.
There was even some international support from Catalonia.
The entire vibe was enthusing.
Although I was there as a journalist, I have the siul eile of an Irish writer.
Consequently, all of these sights and sounds formed part of my stage play “Hame”.
During the weeks leading up to the count itself, the No side was rather absent from the public space.
However, I suspected that a lot of folks would quietly vote for the status quo when it came to it.
At several Yes pressers and in a couple of interviews, I had put the same question in the hope of an answer.
Here it is:
What will you do if you lose but get 45% of the vote?
This admittedly loaded question from the Irishman was deliberately ignored each time.
I did remind a couple of these fellows in the days after the vote about my unanswered d question.
It was appropriate then to tell them why I had delivered such prescient inquiry to them before the votes had been counted.
Had they answered me that the time with an honest “no idea what we will do in that situation!”
Then there would have been a follow-up question:
“Will you be able to form a genuine independence movement out of that substantial minority of the electorate?”
That is a question that remains moot.
The No side told Orwellian lies and the lies worked.
Although on the winning side of the constitutional argument in 2014, it proved to be a pyrrhic victory for the leading unionist party in Scotland.
The site of senior Labour politicians embracing Tories in triumph was too much for many previously loyal voters.
Since then Scottish national have electorally dominated Fair Caledonia in a way that the oil-fired SNP of the 1970s could only dream of.
Two years after Prime Minister Cameron enjoyed the victory in Scotland, he tasted defeat in the deserted wastelands of Northern England.
Brexit has changed everything, and it opens the door for Pro-Remain Scotland to exit globally isolated Ukania.
The IndyRef 55/45 split in 2014 has been flipped.
Moreover, it is not a trend in the pools and not a one-off like the YouGov poll that so excited the Yes folk six years ago.
If the SNP win the Holyrood election next year on an IndyRef2 platform then, by any objective standards, they will have won a democratic mandate for a second independence vote.
However, they will have to ask Westminster for permission.
The legal instrument is a Section 30 Order.
Boris and the chaps are likely to refuse, and the SNP MPs will counter with some fine speeches.
Indeed, at the moment, some of the most compelling orators at Westminster are SNP members.
Here Brendan O’Hara gives the chaps on Middle Britain a wee history lesson.
My only problem with his contribution is that what he did to get there.
By that, I do not mean that his constituents elected him, but that he bent the knee to the British Monarchy and accepted the legitimacy of Westminster.
The chaps there have been listening to flowery oratory from the “Celtic Fringe” since the time of Parnell.
Ultimately it rarely matters not a jot because of the Parliamentary arithmetic.
The man called “the uncrowned king of Ireland” failed.
Next year, no doubt Brendan and his SNP colleagues will lambast the refusal of Boris to allow the regional assembly in Edinburgh to hold a second independence referendum.
The answer will still be no, then tartan tumbleweed…
I have put this scenario to several SNP stalwarts, and they can’t come up with an answer that this Fenian cannot demolish in 30 seconds.
For the avoidance of doubt here is the problem they are facing:
They send MPs to Westminster who pledges fealty to the Saxe Coburg crime crew.
In fairness, they are well rewarded for their public act of submission.
However, you cannot create a legitimation crisis in the British State from a position of loyalty to the…British State!
I deploy the same Irish Republican logic at the likes of SDLP leader Colm Eastwood who sits on the backbenches at Westminster.
In reality, in being there, he’s really at the back of the bus.
Still, the money and expenses are pretty lavish.
I rarely get involved in Twitter spats as I find the mute function very handy.
The following interaction with James Dornan SNP
He took exception to the observation that, despite the marketing spin, he was elected to a regional assembly.
Interestingly, it started when I replied to his tweet about the people of Barbados deciding to become a republic.
I didn’t mention to Mr Dornan that in the colonial period many of the British State’s senior functionaries on that Caribbean beautiful island hailed from Fair Caledonia.
Of course, that historical reality does not fit in with the fluffy SNP narrative about ethical Scotland and nasty Tory England.
It is an undeniable fact that the British Empire often wore a kilt.
The British people, including the Scots, have yet to go through their own post-Imperial Vergangenheitsbewältigung.
If they embark upon those uncomfortable conversations then perhaps, finally, they will face up to how their Irish Xarnegos were so casually disregarded for generations.
That does not mean that the project of an independent left-leaning progressive Scotland is not an impossible dream.
The junior partner in the British Empire can step out into the community of nations.
What that requires, in the first instance, is leaders who are willing to give up well-paid sinecures in the British Parliament for the greater good.
I rather suspect that Boris et al lose very little sleep over the Scottish question.
The Catalans have proved that they have leaders who are willing to put themselves in a prison cell to force the hand of the Spanish State.
Voters in Scotland have their own programme.
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The bottom line in all this is that, in the SNP cabinet and party leadership, I don’t think there is even one person who would be prepared to risk facing a British firing squad over the issue of Scottish independence.
Of course, firing squads are a thing of the past, but nevertheless that is the level of resolve someone must possess to achieve their goal in a situation like this. You need to be prepared for the possibility of a blood sacrifice, to demonstrate resolve and create heroes, as the Irish recognised with their Easter rebellion.
Methinks too many of the SNP hierarchy are quite happy with things as they are. They remain ever popular despite an ever woeful record. Their local opposition is largely inept. They are largely untouchable – look how Sturgeon protected predator Derek McKay so that he could collect a pay out of 10s of £1000s, and how quickly and easily he has become anonymous and how quietly this was acceptable by the media and society. Their major problems stem from their own incompetence and infighting.
Sturgeon knows that if she loses a referendum, that’s it over for her. I doubt they will make her a Peer 😛 She is only 50, not old, and so could still have two good decades in politics. as a minimum. She has no family of her own and her husband is also heavily bound up with the SNP, such that he and the party probably blend into one. She had no job or life experience before entering politics, she did 1 – 2 years of voluntary work in law after graduating. And so there is no fall back career or non-political network out there. Politics is all she has and this is not the profile of someone who prepared to slip into a private life where there might not be too much waiting for her (never mind a firing squad).
Granted I am a Scottish unionist, but I just cant see the attraction of an independent Scotland. Its not as if we would become “more Scottish”. However, we would become political minnows in the world, compared to being part of a prominent and influential United Kingdom currently.
Separation potentially threatens things like mortgages and pensions, yet what is the plus side for individuals? In all honesty, I think things like Independence, environmentalism and BLM etc are all to some degree a manifestation of people searching for meaning In their empty lives. They all attract committed zealots, with only the most flimsy details.
I am uncomfortable with what an Independent Scotland might be like, a political monoculture with a hive mind affecting the whole nation. That is how I perceive modern Ireland, when you consider the near universal enthusiasm for the EU and the fact that the main difference between the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail parties is in fact their names.
When you look at history, you see that the removal of British influence is invariably a major destabilising event for nations. Rare it is that the British will give up a territory without the need for violence. Also, the move from British Governance to a power vacuum almost always results in a civil war (with the British lavishing munitions on whatever side is most appealing to them). All of this is true of the USA and of Ireland, for example.
I really have no appetite for any of this in Scotland and would prefer we all got on with enjoying our privileged and comfortable lives in a stable and prominent nation.
Probably Westminster knows that it can ultimately prevent independence, just as Madrid has done with Catalonia for so long. But its not good enough just to be intransigent and negative, continued union should rather be the fruit of positive choices and a desire for solidarity between peoples.
The only thing Spain has in its favour here, in contrast to the Uk Govt, is that it can count on the silence of the EU regardless of how brutally it supresses Catalonian desires. After all, Spain is one of their own. We have seen that already in recent years.
The SNP have benefitted from the virus situation, with Sturgeon broadcasting into homes on a daily basis and the party cynically making money off their leaders rules (via selling branded masks). Scots cant seem to look past the Queen of Waffle and see the UK money and frameworks which have helped Scotland in this period, not least by protecting jobs with the furlough scheme.
However, I don’t think the Union is lost yet and perhaps the key is thinking outside the box, as would be needed to defeat what is essentially a single issue party. Perhaps we are starting to see this from Unionists now, with the notion of allowing Scots who live in England to vote and also the Shetland Islands indicating they might not wish to be part of an Independent Scotland. Certainly, if I was in Westminster I would be seeking to defeat the indy movement by looking for opportunities to carve off unionist parts of Scotland.
Scotland would have been Independent but for two things, First off the vote was meant to be a yes or no, Salmond, for some inexplicable reason, allowed Cameron to add Indy lite.
Then the dreaded vow, a document written by people with no power to do so. They had no power to enforce it and everything they promised slowly disappeared.
Had Salmond stuck to the simple yes or no, YES would have won, too many were seduced by the thought of Scotland with huge powers but still having the backing of Westminster.
Then the vow, a worthless piece of paper that should have been binned before it was printed. Too many believed worthless politicians, who they would never have listened to before, allowed this scrap of excrement to be waved in their faces.
Independence for good or bad should have been, and many who allowed themselves to be seduced by the dark side later regretted how they voted.
When the next Scottish elections are held, it will be a good indication of whether Indy is still an issue. Should the SNP win a large majority Boris can’t ignore the will of the people unless he wants another Irish situation right on his border.
It was a ‘Yes/No’ vote and no Indy Lite/Devo Max was an option!
Also ‘The Vow’ was a pretty clear tactic that the Unionists would deploy if they thought the vote was going against them.
To not prepare to counter this is a poor indictment of those leading the Yes side.
I would expect the Unionist side to play far dirtier next time but I see nothing to indicate that the SNP will successfully counter this.
The lead for Yes is quite healthy but that can disappear like ‘sna aff a dyke’ with some well crafted smears, disinfo etc that the SNP seem wholly incapable of addressing.
The year is 2030 and an Independent Scotland has just been cordially invited into the European Union.
7 years have since elapsed and Ireland now a Nation United post Brexit after its historic Vote sanctioned by Westminster ( saving the UK Treasury £10bn a year losses) that finally ended Britain’s control of its last Colonial outpost looks out to the Sea at an approaching Scots Armada…
A great many Unionist utterly dismayed at the betrayal of their brothers in the klan who only too willing cut their ties with the UK to stay within the European Superstate voted for Unification of the land of their birth instead.
Blood really is thicker than water you see.
Scotland now awash with fervent ,bitter Unionists,controlled by Tartan Clad Thatcherites now rush head long into an eternity of Neoliberalism in a Union built on Private Debt and controlled by the Worlds Bank and ultimately the Elitist who control it.
A new generation of Scots now look on as the age old curse of Sectarianism raises its very ugly head on the Streets of Glasgow,Edinburgh and every town who opened their arms to the Ulster immigrants who came in on the Larne Ferry.
Unionists who spent a life drawing the dole in Belfast,Larne and Lisburn now frequent the busy Job Centres in Paisley,Ayr and Greenock.
The Scottish Economy now utterly vibrant of course having severed ties with the Landlords in London turns its gaze to Europe as Brussels runs its hands and salivates at the thought of getting a slice of the Scottish Gas action.
Fishing boats now free to land their Uber stringent quotas off the coast of Scotland are barely making it home with the weight of their catch.
Nets bulging with so much fish you would thing Jesus himself was the Captain.
A modern Nationalist miracle if you like.
The sound of Industry almost deafening as 5 million keyboards process Amazon and Online betting slips
drown out the constant daily beat of the Lambegg Drums as yet more Kulcher stomps down nearly every Street with a Chapel on it in free Alba.
Fully backed up and Supported by their brothers in blue of course in the Police and on the Councils.
The boats that once carried the seething faces of Unionism in now full with the disconsolate faces of those born of the Diaspora of the 1800’s in Ireland head back to their Ancestral home…
“Sorry lads were full up,we’ve a £10bn hole in the economy and all the homes left vacant by the Brothers grim have been filled with cheap Labour from Estonia ,Latvia,Bulgaria and Sevconia.
Try Greece or Brussels …”
And they all lived happily ever after as all Nationalised Industry is Privatised,Workers rights are brutalised and the their Economies sanitised by Europe’s chosen Elite.
The Rothschilds meanwhile somewhere in a sealed Vault in the US of A have a wee cèilidh to celebrate…
On a dance floor made of solid fools gold of course.
5 to 6 foot thick like the nuggets who ultimately paid for it.
The speakers belt oot a favourite dance number Set Me Free by En Trance
Your “Ulster immigrants” will have no need of a ferry. The “game is afoot” as Holmes might say.
“Government officials have already started work on plans for Boris’s £20 billion bridge linking Northern Ireland and Scotland despite the economic crisis sparked by the Corona virus”
I reckon William will be crowned King before that Bridge is ever built.
There’s is no money or time to build it.
Northern Ireland is already haemorrhaging £10bn per annum without chucking another £20bn at it to build a Bridge 100 years too late in Ireland.
Independent Scotland is an abstract and to make it a reality it will take many years of conflict in this divided nation. Do we really want that just so that we can call ourselves Republican. Re-read the history of Collins and de Valera. The latter set up a reluctant Collins after becoming aware of the British gov.t’s limited offer of Home Rule and the former even knew the trouble the outcome of the signed treaty would cause. Collins in turn attempting to pacify the nation resorted to violence and civil conflict against his former brothers-in-arms. Classic British divide and conquer and I genuinely believe, perhaps naively, that that was the reason for hanging on to the six counties. Do you actually think Scotland will fare any better and that we have politicians who are smarter than Collins and de Valera who will be able to negate any possible violent repercussions and present a united front with one vision of an independent Nation?
oh my god!….pseudo intellectual clap trap aimed at putting people off voting for independence……this is vomit inducing!
Your reply reminds me of a couple of couplets from Yeats’ brilliant Poem ” The Second Coming”.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
My question to anyone voting for a Left leaning Independent Scotland is how are you going to achieve it under a Party who is about as left leaning as one of Laura Kuenssbergs blue dresses?
You seem to complete miss the point. Once Scotland become Independent there will be elections, The REAL Scottish Labour and the REAL Scottish Tories etc will all have to produce a manifesto, the people will then vote in the party they want to run the country , whether that is left wing or right wing or God forbid Liberal, is neither here nor there.
You seem to be struggling to see beyond the rim of yer Tartan Bunnet pal.
It will be irrelevant if the SNP get their wish and rejoin the EU.
Handing ultimate control to the Neoliberal machine in Europe ensures only one thing.
It will be Thatcherism for eternity ( well as long as the EU lasts anyway) like it or lump it regardless of who is in control at local level.
You can take that to the Central Bank
Guaranteed 👍🏼
Opinions when stated by someone ‘only partially informed’ are usually of no great substance hence me sitting on the fence,keeping very tight lipped.
I can say this much,I missed the show and really wish I hadn’t,this is the hot topic atm
Good luck🍀 to you Phil,you’re having to bat quite a few away,although,you’re very well informed and ready for them all🇮🇪
Brian black is one of the historical illiterate that you mention every now and again Phil
I look forward to your sevco updates, and find your other articles interesting too but i disagree with the views you express here, whether people like her or not at this time the queen is the legitimate monarch of Scotland, (House of Stuart would not be favoured by the majority of Scots) so up until we gain independence and decide otherwise i don’t see any issue on that score, unlike Catalonia where there is a clear voter mandate for independence Scotland is still split down the middle and any vote could go either way, though personally when push comes to shove i believe there would be a slight majority for the Status quo. An M.P. is supposed to represent their constituents and and be their voice, so Westminster is the correct place for this in my opinion if i thought the majority of voters in Scotland wanted independence and Westminster was thwarting that goal i may then want to elect an MP who refuses to take their seat but for me that would be a lot farther down the line and certainly not appropriate at this time…
You sir are nowt but a fool who will take any rubbish from you masters in the south
What is politically and socially “possible” in Scotland will change over the next year with the effects of Brexit and Covid-19 still to be felt economically. If anything I was taught about economics was true (and I have doubts myself) then we should be looking at an economic meltdown of historic proportions over the next eighteen months. Things could be volatile all over the globe
I think that is probably very true.
It is still far too early to call the long-term unforeseen consequences of Brexit and Covid.
Phil, why are you so intend on denigrating the UK? You made your choice to relocate to Ireland, but seem increasingly bitter to the point we can no longer expect composed reportage. Instead, we have a different flavour of the churnalism you regularly lay at the door of the Scottish mainstream media, but perhaps with more sinister undertones. If and when the need arises, Scotland will participate in a democratic process to determine its future. Sadly, you’re passive coercion, aimed at a very specific demographic, is increasingly familiar in this period where ‘truth warriors’ seek only to promote their cause, and to hell with objective comment. I’m Scottish, I live in Scotland and have been a season ticket holder at Celtic Park for nearly 20 years. Like many, I’m increasingly sick of your thinly veiled propaganda. Your narrative is boring, so give us peace and stick to the football. We can’t expect morons at one side of the city to desist if you continue to feed the beast at our end. Also, there’s no need for a sarcastic ‘I’m smarter than you’ response either.
If that is your view of the output here then you should stop reading.
That would be the smart move “Ian”.
Phil,
This is getting monotonous. You want to live in Ireland, fine. Sod off telling us back home what to think. You will have your supporters, ok. But don’t treat the rest of us as idiots. You may get your clicks and donations but for most of us this is real. I will decide whether to back independent ref 2. But the SNP are not perfect. The others are just making them look good.
Steve
If you detect monotony then no one forces you to read this blog.
Don’t trust the SNP; am I wrong or did not William Wolfe, leader of the SNP stand shoulder to shoulder with Ian Paisley in vociferous opposition to the Papal visit to Scotland in 1982?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/letters-reveal-snp-crisis-over-presidents-anti-catholic-diatribes-jsl7b3xbb0m
However, the anti-Catholic element within the SNP of the early 1980s is largely a thing of the past.
Phil, I would like to think you are correct, (honestly) but the smart and wealthy “peepul” will attach themselves to whomsoever can provide their needs. They will not go away after independence should that happen; they’ve had aeons of influence and access and I’ve no reason to believe that won’t continue.
Ah Phil, your a good man.
I love this blog and i enjoy all your articles and odd time I contribute too.
I disagree with your viewpoints on Indy but that’s how these things go.
For me despite the darkness worldwide atm, there’s a better future out there. I have so many friends and associates down in England, I don’t want them to be foreign to me.
I don’t class my friends and associates in the Republic of Ireland as foreign, but obv when it comes to the nitty gritty they are, they are proud of that too obviously.
However i feel status quo here on my island is best. It may not be within the view of many of the folk on this forum but that’s my view.
I respectfully disagree with you, but that’s life.
Always enjoy the content as ever, however much I agree or disagree with it
HH
what a sad, sad day that was.I cant help think we were cheated on many levels, but so many Scots shat it!….completely bottled it!….still think the Wallace monument should be removed from Stirling, and rebuilt in Dundee or Strathclyde Park!….but my heart and head tells me our fabulous younger generation don’t share the cowardly faint hearted or loyalist subservient genes of so many older ‘scots’ and will have the courage and self belief to grasp independence the next time!….they will win us the day!
Let me explain the reality of politics in Scotland to you. The vast majority of people in Scotland don’t really care that much about the independence debate whatever side they favour. They certainly won’t lose any sleep over the Scottish question. Whatever does happen will be achieved peacefully and without the need for violence. We leave that option to others.
“…without the need for violence.”
Oh dear, you get the strawman award for today “Brian” (whoever you really are)
At no time have I written about Scottish independence and mentioned physical force.
Generating a legitimation crisis a la Catalonia can be done be exclusively peaceful, democratic means.
No run along anonymous hero.
Raise a whole raft of difficult points there Phil, particularly around the degradation ceremonies in London and Edinburgh.
Personally, I think the only way forward is going to be to turn an election into a defacto referendum, standing on a single issue – independence, and then refusing to sit in rhe seats won – legitimately we could claim UDI, but we Scots, I don’t know if its partly Stockholm syndrome, but either way, 6 years ago, we held up a cowering hand and said to the world we are a bunch o Sh*te bags, so I’m not holding my breath for something like this…
What’s more likely is SNP are in holyrood long enough for things to fall apart and they get the blame and so independence is kicked into the long grass once more….
If the folks in the SNP are serious about independence then they have to create-through democratic means-a legitimacy crisis in the British state.
At the moment they are doing the opposite.
Boris et al have little to be concerned about.
Why is it that people who vote for indepence are brave hearts, those who don’t are feart? I know lots of people who vote either way and they do so having thought long and hard about what they believe is right for Scotland. Bravery or fear does not enter into it for them.
This may say more about me and I will probably be damned for it but the fact she uses phrases such as “dug’s abuse” should exclude Mhairi Black from being an MP.
God help us if the Scotland ever “attain’s” independence. Catholics and Irish Catholics in particular are only tolerated in Scotland and there will be no outside influence such as Europe or Westminster to mitigate the fallout.
One example of their “brilliance”, it took £5,000,000 for a court to convince John Swinney, what everyone else knew already, that his half-baked idea like a pedophile, (the first woman nominated was arrested for child offences) I mean “named person”, for every child was wrong.
People like Ms Black should be called to account at every turn while we still have the freedom to do so.
Apologies: The legal cost was £500,000
An interesting assessment. However I think what swung the issue finally was The Vow. That full front page of that morning’s Daily Record. That alongside other promises became the 30 pieces of silver. The lies told to that significant voting group, the wrinklies meant we were always pushing into the wind. The demographic has changed but there won’t be another referendum. The British State will never allow one the can’t win by fair or foul means. Glad to see an article without a picture of Mhairi Black. Yes she made a stupid utterance in her younger days. Will you cast it up against her forever? It does damage the good points you make.
As you mention Mr Black and “her younger days” -she was 22 and an MP.
As for “stupid utterance” allow me to translate- it was a racist jibe.
She has not acknowledged that, despite being given plenty of opportunities.
Maybe so but we all do stupid things. It was I’ll advised. But I just think you do yourself a disservice and it damages your articles through constant reference. If the peace process has taught us anything it is the importance of reconciliation. Anyway it’s just a suggestion from an admirer of your work.
“stupid things”.
That’s twice you have Britsplained her racism.
She was punching down to a socially excluded ethnic minority in Scotland.
She’s on safe ground in doing so and your apologia provides it.
Shameful.
I hope when the time comes we have MSPs as brave as the bold Gerry Kelly, willing to climb on the Saracens to protect their communities and nation