Nudging the future can be quite a novel approach

It goes without saying that 2012 was a bad year for the Ibrox klanbase.

Indeed, these days they kind of pretend that it didn’t happen at all.

I think that I know why.

Only two years after their original club snuffed it something else rather momentous occurred in Glasgow

The citizenry of the city that is home to the stadium that John Brown played for voted to leave the United Kingdom.

When IndyRef was defeated the klan turned up in George Square to do their thing.

For may in the Yes movement from that moment onwards they were very clear who their enemy was.

Last year the klan was back in George Square to celebrate Sevco’s first-ever topflight title win.

I wonder if the emergency services considered that they had been “wowed” like the people of Seville apparently have.

Now, today, and worth a thousand words, is an image that must generate nightmares for the Ibrox klanbase.

The First Minister of Scotland (SNP) meeting with the First Minister-elect of Northern Ireland (Sinn Féin) must be as welcome an image for The People as Aaron Ramsey stepping up to take that penalty.

Dear reader, history takes a long time and it often needs a nudge.

There was a time when the idea of people from my ethnic background in Scotland voting SNP was considered something of a tribal betrayal.

When this Fenian first saw the light of day in the 1950s the Labour Party was the natural political home of the Irish in Scotland.

On a brief sojourn in the city of my birth, your humble correspondent was temporarily in the nudging business.

Today, I messaged the journalist who wrote that piece in 1987.

He agreed that the image of Michelle O’Neill meeting Nicola Sturgeon was straight out of a political thriller that he recently had read “in 24 hours”.

We concurred that this response in particular could have been lifted from the pages of Native Shore.

He got an early copy of my latest work because he had assisted me in the early stages of the manuscript.

That debt to him is recorded by me in the acknowledgements.

For the avoidance of doubt, the manuscript, which was started in the spring of 2018, was submitted to my publishers last summer.

Since then I’ve been increasingly…well…nudged by how events are catching up with the plot!

Strange process this writing lark.

Full details on the availability of Native Shore will be here next week.

Of course, First Minister Sturgeon was correct to extend all appropriate courtesies to her Irish colleague in Edinburgh today.

After all, they are in the same business of dismantling the United Kingdon in its present form.

A key part of that tribal re-orientation that I mentioned was for my community to imagine a Scotland where their sense of themselves would be afforded parity of esteem.

That’s a very useful term, from the Peace Process.

Back when the Derry Girls were still under the rule of Sister Michael it meant a future where Unionist supremacism was a thing of the past.

Of course, Nicola Sturgeon still has a bit of work to do if she is to fully pass muster as a politician who fully acknowledges and values the Irish in Scotland.

For starters, she probably still needs to have a word with one of her Westminster MPs.

That said, I think Scotland’s political leader does grasp the historic significance of her situation.

Now, here’s another troubling image for The People.

One of the signatories of the Proclamation was born very close to Bute House.

I’m sure that some kindly soul will tell Ms Black MP that there was nothing plastic about James Connolly.

Moreover, the Irishman from Edinburgh would never swear an oath of loyalty to the Saxe-Coburg crime crew.

When I look at this mortifying image I’m reminded that the SNP still have a ways to go before they fully grasp the importance of a legitimation crisis.

Hopefully, these friendly contacts with Sinn Féin will assist with their learning.

What is beyond doubt is that both political projects are opposed by the same subculture.

The Ibrox klanbase are on the wrong side of history and, for many of them, either in the Northeast of this country or in Fair Caledonia they face the prospect of being in the wrong polity.

It is part of the tragedy of these islands that the future that terrifies them will be immeasurably better than the status quo that they currently cling onto.