Native Shore part four

The featured image is a clue, dear reader.

Native Shore is now on sale in any branch of Waterstones in Scotland.

This was snapped by a buddy last Saturday in the Sauchiehall Street store.

This little taste from Chapter Two of Native Shore might hint at a degree of prescience by this writer.

Especially, since it was written in the summer of 2018.

For the avoidance of doubt, the following is at the start of the book:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events
and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination
or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

That said my publisher is rather chuffed at the immediate topicality of Native Shore.

As with most things in life, timing is rather crucial.

Here you go:

 

Jeanette Laird sat at her desk in Bute House in Edinburgh. She was

poring over the most recent private polling figures. The company the

SNP had hired was very good, and very discreet. Discretion in this was

vital. She had been getting conflicting advice – nothing new in that –

from her closest advisors. She knew that if she called this wrong that

even as a young, healthy fifty-three-year-old, she would not live to see

an independent Scotland in her lifetime. No pressure then, Jeanette.

There were two schools of thought in her kitchen cabinet and in the

party. There was the ‘just get it over the line as soon as possible’ faction,

and then there were the long-haul types who wanted to wait until it

wasn’t up for debate that Yes would win; and win convincingly.

She knew that the adverse effects of Brexit hadn’t really kicked in

yet. The economic forecast that had been prepared for her said that it

wouldn’t be felt by the general population for another twelve to eighteen

months. However, there was a minority opinion, equally well-qualified,

that there might be a Brexit mini-boom. She knew that that would be

seized upon by the Unionists to prove that ‘Global Britain’ was where

the action was and that the Scots would be mad to leave the United

Kingdom just as this golden age was about to open up in front of them.

She had applied to the UK government for a Section 30 Order to hold

“IndyRef2”.

It had been haughtily rejected with some flourish by the Prime

Minister the Rt Hon Rupert Stafford- Critchlow.

His electoral base in England loved every word of his refusal speech

and the pro-government press piled in over the next few days.

Many in the wider nationalist movement were outraged and wanted

the First Minister to go the “Catalonia route”.

However, those scenes of violence in Barcelona in 2017 had shocked

her.

Then there was the ‘Ulster Factor’. The demographic research had

shown that the Unionist majority in Northern Ireland was over.

Then the results of the 2021 UK census had confirmed it. This had sent

shockwaves through the people in Northern Ireland who identified as

British. It was all their worst nightmares and a few more besides. The

Northern Ireland Protocol, which was part of the Brexit Withdrawal

Agreement had created the vista of a semi-detached Northern Ireland

being pushed by London into an economic United Ireland against the

will of the Unionist community. Although it couldn’t be counted as

an exodus, there had been a steady stream of people from Northern

Ireland uprooting and then resettling in Scotland, mainly along the

west coast from Ayrshire up into Glasgow. These self-defined “Ulster

Scots” could only be described as uber-British, and though their votes

might not tip any future independence referendum on their own,

there was the danger that they were energising other Scots who shared

their world view.

Match days at Ibrox Stadium were now full-on anti-independence rallies;

and opposing the SNP government in their constitutional objective was now an

article of faith among the Ibrox faithful.

This dovetailed in with their traditional hatred of Catholics, and Irish Catholics in particular.

Jeanette Laird thought to herself that every avenue she explored had problems and pitfalls.

She missed her father.

He would have known what to do.

He always did.

 

Ok, I hope that you enjoyed that.

Signed copies of Native Shore are available directly from the publisher with free postage to anywhere in the UK.

Alternatively, you can go into any branch of Waterstones.