I saw some friends last night. The situation in which it arose is far from political: I do not spend my whole life isolated from real life and real people.
Give that this is East Anglia I was ribbed about the election result. There was a sense of gloating on some parts, but by and large the subject is avoided: it is known I can hold my own.
But then the SNP came up. This was obviously considered non-political. There was revulsion at the fact that it had so many seats. There was claim that this was not democratic. There was active dislike of Nicola Sturgeon - echoing Mail lines. And there was sentiment that they had no right to state their position in parliament matched by a clear claim that Scotland was 'ours'.
I offered the opinion that I thought Nicola Sturgeon the star of the election, and the politician with the best message, because she believed it (actually, add in the Greens and Plaid to that, but it did not come up).
I made clear that a 'one party' Scotland worried me but I could not see that surviving in Holyrood after devolution of powers or independence.
The one party theme was however picked up very strongly on the basis that this was the Scots trying to dictate terms to the English, and how dare they do that?
So then I pointed out the East Anglian election result (Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex):
I made clear, how did the Tories dare to dictate terms in a similar way?
This did not go down well. This was entirely different, it was said. Those were English MPs elected by English people.
And so I came to the reluctant conclusion that what I was witnessing was racism. These people would have been horrified at the suggestion. I decided not to make it, although I regret that now. But what else can it be when what was said was "We are English: how dare the Scots try to dictate to us?".
Maybe because I have never felt English (I have Irish and British passports) and maybe because I do genuinely think Scotland is entirely entitled to its view, and maybe because I greatly admire the energy in Scottish politics, and maybe because I do think Nicola Sturgeon an honest and capable politician, and maybe because I believe that the Union we have is based on equality, and maybe because I cannot discriminate on such bases as those I was with were doing I was saddened by last night.
Almost as much as the night before.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Perhaps racism is not quite the right term, but just nationalism? Since the referendum there has been a sharp portrayal by the Tories and Murdoch press particularly, of division, of them vv us, which has broken the union psychologically if not yet financially. Now it has separated politically and ideologically, all that remains is the financial arrangements for an acrimonious divorce. I honestly don’t think the Tories wanted that result, but that is where their actions have led.
No, let’s not beat about the bush.
This is personal and based on ethnicity linked to a place
This is racism
It’s not a definition I share – but science doesn’t consider that different human “races” actually exist, in a biological sense. Only characteristics exist, in different combinations. So the term, for me, should have a biological (mis)application and shouldn’t apply at all when something different and culturally specific is meant. Things should be called by their right names and it seems postmodern in this context.
As someone of slightly more distant Irish extraction, opposed to the British Army’s decades-long intervention, it never occurred to me once that the kind of anti-Irish stereotyping claptrap that the British press used to spew all day long was “racist”. But on reflection – it came remarkably close. Vile though it was, behind it lay more calculated interests. Money and power, division and rule, and all the time-tested tuned instruments of the Imperialist State combined in each situation to try to crush the expression of dangerous opinion and behaviour. These, I suggest, are the wellsprings that feed the attitudes of your companions.
Obnoxious though the behaviour of your friends may have been, wouldn’t it be better described as xenophobic? Or Chauvinist? Or just plain Colonialist? I’ve come across a lot of utter twaddle written and spoken lately by people who apparently think that Scotland and Wales are colonies of England, “theirs” to control until the last trumpet sounds Amen. And they’re not.
Long ago, I concluded that with friends like these, enemies are sufficient.
Racism is invariably motivated by a desire for economic oppression
And this is not a scientific issue: it is a cultural, economic and psychological one
The law defines this as racism for that reason
Richard
No it isn’t. You are so VERY VERY wrong on this.
Firstly, as I think was mentioned already, there are no clearly defined “races” within the human race.
Secondly, you must understand that true “racism” can only exist where people believe that there are such
clearly defined “races” within the human race. Racism isn’t the same as prejudice. English people often say how much they dislike, say, the Welsh, & Welsh people how much they loathe the English but I don’t think either would, seriously, suggest the other less than human.
There have been 2 genuine catastrophes inflicted by humans on other humans, the slave trade & the Holocaust.
In both cases the behaviour was, in the real sense, racist.
The slave owners, the transporters, the parliamentarians who oversaw it, the clergymen who approved it, all saw no problem because blacks aren’t, really, human are they? Not like us Europeans. The founding fathers saw no problem declaring that all men should be free while keeping slaves because, to them, blacks weren’t men they were apes,
Look at the diaries etc of the Germans who herded people into trucks to the industrialised slaughterhouses of Bergen or Auschwitz & you’ll see how disgusted they’d have been if they’d thought this was inflicting harm on a human being. Fortunately, for them, they weren’t human only Jews.
That is racism. Calling prejudice or bigotry racism is much worse than annoying. It is unforgivable.
It is forgetting history.
I hear what you say
I think the issue much more subtle than you do
Perhaps we will have to disagree
Cameron’s response that he was a ‘One Nation’ leader was as disingenuous as it was divorced from reality. A glance at the electoral map shows that there is a divided nation within a divided nation and a Government that is as unrepresentative as it is now powerful. You companions did not spare a thought for the citizens of the North West/East/Bristol/Inner- London.
I will keep clear of politics round where I live-the ‘pocket-borough’ Tory increased his majority despite being known as a land and property rentier who is a ‘part-time’ MP who was embroiled in expenses issues. Cllearly things need to get a lot worse before they get better -maybe we need to wait until inequality is so great that the middle class start to notice that they are reaching the other side of the ‘S’ bend.
Good comment.
I live in East Anglia too. Reading Simon’s description of his MP, I’m wondering if it’s the same constituency. Not only have council taxes been reduced for two years running by a percentage, which means that those with the biggest houses have had the biggest reductions, but those who formerly didn’t have to pay council tax have had their share increased – unless they’re pensioners (however rich). Practical help for those in difficulty – school uniform grants, school travel, subsidised bus routes, day centres, crisis loans, etc etc – are practically non-existent.
A significant number of the electorate is disenfranchised because it has no representation any level – national, district or parish.
You’re quite right, people think that’s OK because the decisions are being made by other English people.
I keep an eye on the Council Tax band rates in Kensington and Chelsea. I was bemused to realise that their bills too have gone down two years running. The owners of those £100bn mansions now have to pay just £2,124.66 pa. I believe that the tories pledged that they would freeze Council Tax. I wonder whether, instead of clapping their hands, residents might see the connection between their low property taxes and the cost of housing.
But Scots are not a different race, Richard! Although its true that, under the United Nations convention, there is no distinction between the terms racial and ethnic discrimination – so perhaps your point holds. Its certainly irrational.
Actually, I do think the Celts are ethnically different
Others may not agree, but I think history is very clearly with me
Well here is the untold truth about the SNP. They are a sectarian party. They have minimal support among Catholics and many of them have tweeted anti-Celtic comments which they have subsequently deleted. Which is ironic as of course their NI brethren are the arch-unionists. But there is a big subtext to the SNP that is currently not reported. Or so I am told by the Scots I know.
I am not here to defend the SNP
I am commenting on its success
BUT 50% of people did not vote for it even so
A bit like East Anglia and the Tories, near enough (although I suspect the Tories exceeded 50% overall here)
You have suprised me with that comment. It’s dangerous and leads to division moreover counter productive to your goal. Whats the difference between the poor of the Celts and the English
As I have already noted: culture
What a depressing article. I really do think the Union is doomed, but it needn’t have been like this. I think your encounter demonstrates just how ‘divide and rule’ negatively affects everyone involved. The Labour Party are already trying to pin the blame for their massive defeat on the SNP vote when in reality they were the architects of their own downfall. Instead of castigating the Scots for voting in their own interests, they should be looking at why people all over the country didn’t believe in (or even know) what they were offering. They also have to realise that they have been staggeringly complacent for a long time and that has now come back to bite them. We have seen the SNP being portrayed by certain sections of the press and by many UK politicians of all colours in a similar way to immigrants: as a threat, as somehow ‘other’, a danger that has to be snuffed out. It’s a classic tactic and for the Tories, it worked beautifully. Thinking longer term however it sows seeds of resentment and creates wounds which will deliberately be allowed to fester. This does not bode well for the United Kingdom and for those who believe we are ‘better together’.
The racism Richard, not your point. And I agree with Simon above.
You say Scotland is entitled to its view, but East Anglia isn’t?
Labour tried to offer a little bit of the Courageous State you suggest – and democracy, the kicker that it is, said no thanks. Clearly in England, offering more of it, isn’t going to be a winner.
Scotland seems to be very open to your position, alone it’s not in a position to fund it though.
You are hopelessly wrong: Scotland can fund the state it wants
It has to decide how
The necessary understanding on how to do so has not yet been created
It has decided how it’s funded, it’s going to try and get it from the rest of the Union.
That is such nonsense
You face being deleted if you continue to write divel
It’s a consequence of our ignorant battery-farm existence – how do you get people to repeatedly act against their own interests? By making them conceited about it. What you witnessed is an inevitable consequence of that conceit.
Tacitus had a handle on this (from the Wiki);
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Because they didn’t know better, they called it “civilization,” when it was part of their slavery.
Book 1, paragraph 21
Variant translation: Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.
As translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
This was from Tacitus’ book on his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, I should point out. ‘De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae’. He was the first governor-general Rome sent over here who really made a good job of the role.
Some things never change. Could the same tactics be used for something more positive?
If Scotland has some sort of moral authority to demand an end to austerity within its borders then the results you are using suggest that had there been a Labour government the East Anglia region would have the moral authority to demand Tory policies within its borders.
There appears to be a pretty legitimate argument that when powers have been devolved a Scottish MP shouldn’t be exercising power over those issues in the rest of the UK. If this is a thorny issue there is a very simple solution. As long as Scotland has 9% of Westminster MP’s the rest of the UK should be able to appoint 9% of Scottish MSP’s.
Any MP has the moral authority and right to demand what they wish
But your logic of appointment is about undermining democracy
That’s the real agenda, isn’t it?
Reviewing my comment I did actually mean elect, although I used the word appoint which could be misunderstood. I see no problem with the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland electing 9% of the Scottish Government as long as Scotland elects 9% of the government at Westminster and they are able to vote on issues that have been devolved.
Do you think the people of the south east should also appoint Lancashire Council?
That would appear to be your logic
Why?
Do you understand the concept of “No taxation without representation”? For as long as England spends from UK wide taxes then that principle must apply. Only an English budget allocation can change that.
I get really tired of this drivel.
The problem is not the Scottish parliament. The problem is that you do not have an english parliament. Apparently the majority there do not want one, and that is entirely their choice. What is not ok is to pretend that you do have one, and that it is called Westminster.
All UK MP’s are elected in the same way to do the same job. They have equal rights and equal responsibilities. That is the position and if you want to reserve matters for decision by members of an english parliament you will have my full support.
I cannot see why that simple fact is so difficult for you and many others to understand. English people never seem to stop whining, and seeing themselves as the victims of something or other. Then they project that unappealing trait on to others.
Scots have been ruled by tories they didn’t vote for a great deal of the time. Didn’t hear the outcry from you then ( though if you were vocal I apologise: you didn’t do it anywhere I was reading);and didn’t hear any of this self serving claptrap in Scotland, either. What I saw in Scotland was dissatisfaction with that situation and so we did something about it. It was not easy, under FPTP: but it is not impossible as this GE result shows.
Scots want an end to austerity, yes. The rise of the SNP is predicated on social justice and it nothing at all to do with ethnicity. It is nothing to do with independence, either: that is shown by the result of the referendum and the result of this election.
Many would seriously prefer to make a better UK: I would. But I no longer believe that is possible and so I will seek independence. More and more here are coming to the same conclusion, though not yet a majority.
Attitudes like yours convince me I am right.
Fiona
I can vouch for the fact that people whom I work with are highly satisfied that by not voting for Labour, they have stopped the SNP from influencing English legislature.
This problem did not exist before the Tories made a big issue out of it after the Scottish referendum.
Having worked and lived amongst the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English all my life, I know that each race has its opinions of the other and harbours some ill thoughts. Mostly I’ve seen these exchanged as banter and jokes at the other’s expense. But these feelings can become more aggressive and mean especially when they are exacerbated by politicians who manipulate them cynically to their own ends.
Look at the history of England and Scotland. We English essentially pacified/subjugated Scotland in the most brutal way. Are you telling me that those old attitudes do not stalk the halls of Westminster today? I think that you are wrong.
Fiona,
Spot on comment about Westminster.
That David Cameron presumes Westminster is the English parliament is an outrage.
Why does no one in the media speak about this? Could it be because it is so English-dominated themselves, the BBC etc. are blissfully unaware of Cameron’s breathtaking arrogance of claiming the mother of parliaments for the English?
The difference, surely, is that the Tory candidates they voted for in East Anglia were not standing on a policy of independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. Their manifesto was an inclusive one whereas the SNP one is not. It is perfectly valid that the Scots should overwhelmingly vote for a party that wants independence, but somewhat inconsistent with a narrow vote, not that long ago, for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom. What do Scottish voters actually want?
I disagree
I think the candidates elected in East Anglia were elected on a non-unionist platform that knowingly ignored the needs of Scotland
How can you say otherwise?
I don’t think the voters of East Anglia had the interests of the people of Scotland as their first priority when they voted, but “non-unionist”? I suspect (but we don’t know, as they have never been asked) that the voters of East Anglia support the union, whether that is accompanied by an unattractive undertone of English nationalism or not.
I made clear they support the Union – they do
But on neo-colonial terms
You haven’t read the SNP manifesto, have you? Independence isn’t in there and that wasn’t what this election was about. Best not to believe the Daily Fail’s scary myths.
I have, and the meaning of the paragraph headed “Delivering Home Rule for Scotland” was pretty clear to me. Of course, the SNP did not make the push for independence thaeir majot theme at this election – how could they, given the recent referendum result? – but to suggest they have lost interest in the idea is, well……….
Nicola Sturgeon’s performance was one of leader who knew that she could stand by her principles and not even the Murdoch press could harm her where it really mattered, with the Scottish electorate.
The Murdoch press supported the SNP all the way down the line. As Private Eye pointed out, there is no line line about media ownership in the SNP manifesto, and not one SNP candidate has promised to take Murdoch on. As you already know, Murdoch repaid the favour by supporting the SNP in Scotland, even if it slagged them off in England. After all, all Murdoch needed was for Labour not to get a majority, or a hung Parliament with the SNP.
Oh dear. The Murdoch press supports first its own agenda; and they want a tory government. Second it support the winner. Nothing more to it than that.
But the media was overwhelmingly opposed to the SNP and to independence: not least the BBC. The positive message is that the media is powerful: but not nearly as powerful as it thinks it is: SNP landslide could not have happened if it was.
You make an interesting point. The way that by implication Cameron attacked the SNP and how much more vividly and overtly his press lackeys took it up was that they were evil. Hell and devils were mentioned, I recall, and Salmond was shown on huge posters as a pickpocket.
Clearly there is nationalism among many in the SNP (though I’m not convinced that’s what lies behind its success), but I don’t think it was nationalism which prompted the apparent response of English voters. They after all weren’t thinking as English nationalists, merely as punters scared by the rhetoric. And since the rhetoric was so close to that used in the past by racists – the one exception being that I can’t recall anybody suggesting the SNP were out to rape our women – then perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it was racism.
I could wish we heard less about all the things that scare the english. I do not believe they are a uniquely cowardly people. Why do they think it of themselves?
We are not cowardly – far from it – but we also easy to manipulate – perhaps we are no different to many of the people? Human beings have strong opinions about things that they keep under raps because they are rather personal.
However, an agent looking to make use of these opinions (as the Tory election campaign has done) can have a field day making use of them because they are there.
The poster of Salmond pick- pocketing was almost reminiscent of the way the Jews were portrayed in pre war Germany as rapacious thieves depriving the Germans of their money – and that was certainly racist !
And I live in East Anglia and am Scottish and was offended by those posters.
Agreed
Excellent point
Maybe we can, eventually, separate the UK into its [relevant] constituent parts:
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the part that matters to tories: The City of London
The reality is that outside the Pale of London the rUK is a relatively materially poor peripheral EU state
That is the tension with which we live
How to do so us the next big issue
Beyond the Pale – very apposite
Are those friends as unhappy that Scotland has had years if not decades of Tory Westminster governments despite having no more than a handful of Tory MPs and latterly, famously, having more pandas than Tory MPs? Why is it ok for English Tory MPs to dictate to a Scotland which has repeatedly rejected them?
The hypocrisy is demanding the right to Scotland and denying its right to a voice
And on the basis that ‘they’re Scottish and we English won’t be told what to do by them’
This is the inevitable consequence of politics that seeks to divide to rule
What amazes me (as a non-SNP voting English-born Scot) is this sense that voters in Scotland should not be allowed their democratic voice at Westminster if we don’t choose the preferred voice of voters in England.
The English outrage and grievance voiced, and the stereotypical, xenophobic abuse hurled, far outweighs anything I’ve ever seen or heard directed at the English in my 24 years in Scotland.
I entirely believe you
The snp should end the desire for independence, change their name to the progressive labour party, then your cousins in the north of England could join you. We have a history of solidarity against the right with the birth of the unions that has enhanced the lives of millions of working class people. This struggle is still prevalent today, I was happy with the no vote for this reason. Divide and rule, the vulnerable of England and would suffer greatly with Scottish independence
I think you are missing the point of the SNP
But it’s not racist, It’s xenophobic. It’s Chauvinist, It’s imperialistic, even. But, scientifically, and that’s the truthful definition, regardless of socio-legal convention, it’s not accurate to define being anti-Scottish as racist. Sorry, it’s simply just not.
I do not share your belief that science can determine such issues
That same media makes vastly overblown claims about what they call “cybernat” abuse and alleges anti-English hostility and even violence. Thee are some idiots who have attached themselves to the pro-independence movement but there a at least as many on the other side. It pales into insignificance compared to what appears in the Mail, The Sun and the telegraph. Often they run different versions in England and Scotland.
Richard – you are quite right I’m afraid to say this and I take no pride in using the ‘r’ word elsewhere on your blog since yesterday. People coming to work next day at my place were full of the joys of stopping the Scots having a say in our Parliament but seemed unconcerned that the Tories’ policies could cost them their jobs! I’m not joking!
It is not just based on place but history too – the fact that ‘We beat you in a war, so we are superior to you’ and is close to the way in which too many Brits think about say, France (You lost a war – we didn’t, so we are better).
Simon – you are right about Cameron and what a manipulative b…, sorry – man he is: he opened the stable door to racism, nationalism and discrimination against the disabled and he thinks that he can just put the horses that bolted back in.
My view is that he can’t, but also, having seen these fissures in society open up and help him get into power, he won’t; but he will say he wants to and many will believe him. But he and his ‘friends’ will feed the beasts he has unleashed make no mistake. The Bullingdon Boys are going to have loads of fun in the next 5 years.
The Tories know the British people very well indeed. They know where every boil of resentment and jealousy is and when to lance it and let the poison flood out. In a perverse way you have to admire them. But I also damn them as well.
As for things getting worse before they get better – bank on it getting worse but not on getting better. Take into account another factor (there is not just one factor at play yesterday – but many). Us Brits are stoic and resilient to the point that when an opportunity to change things for the better comes along, so comfortable are we in knowing that life is shit, change looks too frightening and uncomfortable. Possible? I think so. Check out the theory of path dependency or maladaptive cognition.
Much to think about.
“People coming to work next day at my place were full of the joys of stopping the Scots having a say in our Parliament but seemed unconcerned that the Tories’ policies could cost them their jobs!” 🙂 I refer you to my comments above concerning ignorance, conceit and persuading people to act against their own best interests. One suspects Tacitus would be splitting his sides today 🙂
Well, I’m not lying – that it what I saw and heard. I was and still am incredulous since as a registered social landlord, the Tories want to sell our properties through RTB which will mean the end of us an organisation.
I think that we should restart the home internationals in football and play each other at rugby more often too. Maybe it will give a more acceptable expression of our rivalries in the country between the Scots, Welsh and English.
The boiling of frogs springs to mind – again.
You have suprised me with that comment. It’s dangerous and leads to division moreover counter productive to your goal. Whats the difference between the poor of the Celts and the English
I am talking culture
I think there is a cultural difference
If you read The Courageous State you will find I think culture matters, quite a lot
I don’t identify with your experience of the Brit/ English believing they are superior to others, in fact quite the opposite. it has for many years been politically incorrect to be vitriolic about Britains historical battles.
I’m sorry James, I do not agree.
This is not what I have experienced over the years. This nation has been encouraged to play down its history – true enough – but a simmering resentment and a need for self aggrandisement in the face of our real economic and social decline has been left behind, growing like a dormant volcano until people like Cameron and the Daily Mail/Sun shake it up.
Just purchased your book the courageous state. Our cultural differences should be celebrated , but our commonality much more
Thanks
I hope you enjoy it
Very broadly you are much more right than wrong. It is xenophobia rather than racism but in terms of the perception of the dominant outlook there is little difference. I am Scottish with a significant Welsh heritage. I have heard many people from England say how much they like Scotland but equally a great many who say this but have no interest in Scottish people or Scottish traditions. English people have no interest in Scottish History or Culture but we are expected to lap up English History and Culture. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Richard II and III are English traditions which have very little to do with us north of the border. However we get re-treads of this endlessly. The Tudors, Wolf Hall, 600 year-old burials, films about Elizabeth…yawn, yawn, yawn….
It may not be apparent to English people but when you watch local news up here you notice how many Scottish institutions are run and manned by English people and how often English people who live here offer their opinion about all things Scottish with little awareness of cultural sensitivities. You even get many radical people who say they want to come and live in Scotland because things might get so bad in England. Scotland is not a de-populated version of 1770s America. Now many who might read this might think I am giving an anti-English diatribe but this hierarchy of English people up here doesn’t actually receive much comment. However as soon as a Scottish person gets any prominence down in England then wow you soon here about that. I was actually watching and cheering for England in the RU World Cup Final in 2007 in an Oxford pub and was shocked to the core to hear the abuse levelled at the TV when Gordon Brown appeared at the match supporting England. I had to assume an English accent that night just to stay in that pub and I felt frightened in a way I have never experienced.
This is just one anecdote and there are obvious examples of anti-English abuse and sometimes violence up here but many, many English people just do not get the subtleties of the ethnic make-up of these islands and they don’t want to understand how to navigate these. It won’t matter to England in any way if Scotland were to govern itself but why do they, the Enlgish elites, have such difficulty in letting go? What is the mentality behind it? This needs as much analysis as anything happening in Scotland but I’m sure it doesn’t even really register. I wonder why.
So to avoid any misunderstanding let me emphasise that I am generally an Anglophile but the UK doesn’t work politically or economically. It has to end and pretty quickly.
I think if were done were best done soon
There is an agenda here. Not sure I like it
Sorry – what are you saying?
Richard, I’m English, and I “feel” English, too, if that’s the right term for it. Indeed, having lived in Wales for a couple of years, and experienced many people there’s pride in being Welsh (and having been ribbed regularly while there about being English), I have always felt it important to state that I am English (for example, on official forms, passport applications, etc) or British/English, as opposed to British/Scots, or British/Welsh. From a personal and cultural identity perspective I think it important to do so.
On the basis of various discussions I’ve had or heard this week I agree with you about attitudes to the Scots. If it isn’t racism then it’s certainly bordering on it. In the cases I’m referring to (in a pub and at the barbers) the people concerned were, I’m absolutely sure, informed and egged on by what they’d read in the press – in the case of my barbers The Sun is the staple read. Add to that the fact that on Wednesday evening every house in the area I live (which was a potential marginal, though our long serving Labour MP actually held on to his seat, and the local authority also stayed Labour), and thus I assume more widely, was leafleted with a poster that had pictures of Miliband with Sturgeon and Salmond and the headline “SNP gets Miliband into No.10” and then three outrageous claims about what would then happen to England, then I’m not at all surprised we are now a good way down the road to outright suspicion and hostility between the peoples of the two countries.
But lets not forget that this process simply builds on a situation the independence referendum kicked off. Until that period and event I never previously heard this level or depth of suspicion and hatred (except perhaps amongst some football fans on the occasion of England playing Scotland). But once those seeds of suspicion were planted by the likes of the Mail and Sun, and with a contentious and deeply divisive election following so soon afterwards, and with such an ideological division between the governments of England/Wales/NI (the UK?) and Scotland so obvious (and thus fodder for much more tabloid stirring), I can now only see the situation getting worse.
Agree with your conclusion
I suspect Cameron us going to offer federalism, including to NI
But I can’t see it working
SNP reaction will be interesting
And, federalism only works with an English Parliament and a UK senate
But I bet he will not go there
Real power will be kept in London in any offer
And that will undermine any ‘solution’
There is a need for sincerity but little chance of it
Nicola Sturgeon negotiating with Miliband alarms me a lot less than hedge fund managers paying £15,000 for a dinner with Tory ministers and ‘suggesting’ to them that they introduce the power for employers to sack people on the spot with no appeal and other ‘re-structurings’ of the economy.
Ignore my last comment, I got wrong end of stick with something I read
Ignore last comment, I got wrong end of stick with something I read
Re my last sentence. I should have said ‘the government in Westminster’, of course.
I think this is not dissimilar to Niggle Farage’s claim that UKIP are entitled to the same representation in Parliament as the SNP, as they collected about the same number of votes.
Superficially it makes sense. When you realise the SNP put up candidates in 59 seats, and UKIP put up in – what, 600-odd? – it looks merely silly.
It’s called PR
I am for it
Hmmmm.
SNP: 1.45m votes.
UKIP: 3.9m votes.
Hardly ‘about the same’.
Richard, I entirely agree with you that this is racism – part of the “colonial” mind-set that doesn’t quite see the “natives” as being on a par with “real” people. It was, after all, EXACTLY such a colonial mindset that saw Thatcher try out the poll tax on the poor benighted “natives” of her Scottish colony – something that came back to bite, and destroy, her in England, driving her out of power (thank goodness: I for one will continue, to my dying day, to rue the day she came to power, and drove the United Kingdom up the neo-liberal political and social cul-de-sac we now find ourselves in – apt term, given that “cul” is actually a quite coarse French word for backside, for that is where society is now, consuming its own entrails)
However, your experience in this meeting is also a perfect example of the Conservative rules of combat that I’ve referred to before, so forgive the repetition. The first is the argument from nature: Conservatism isn’t really politics, it’s just common sense and human nature, with all other political views being contrary to nature, so deviant. So “politics” is by its very nature “deviant”, and to be frowned on. Don’t believe me? Test the difference in being a Tory Councillor and a Labour (or any other non-Conservative Party) Councillor, or Trade Union rep, and you’ll soon see how taking time off is treated differently.
The second operational Tory rule is that of ” the double double standards ” – is, “We’re allowed double standards, because we’re Tory; you aren’t so allowed, because you’re not!”. So, it was PERFECTLY OK for a Tory Westminster Government to impose the poll tax on the Scottish colonials, but they are not allowed to have any say in return on how the UK, or even England, should be run. Had the Scottish Experience been Tory, of course, with a Labour Westminster Government (not likely, I agree, but I pose it as a hypothetical situation) and the people you were having this discussion with would have had QUITE a different answer – for being Tory Scots would have quite absolved the Scottish Executive from the ” sin” of being colonial, turning them into “real” people, with a right to criticise a “deviant” Westminster Government.
East Anglia, I recall that in the late 19th and early 20th Century a substantial number of Scots migrated to both agriculture and industry for various reasons. Quite a lot of their descendants have forgotten or do not know this part of their families. Rather further back the area was home to the Scotti tribe some of whom, troublesome perhaps, were packed off north to take land from the Picts. However, the Scott surname remained, notably in Great Yarmouth, where they were mariners and merchants.
Demetrius: In the 17th century, East Anglia was a centre of resistance to the Divine Right of Kings and provided the core of the Parliamentary Army. Some of the modern Tory attitudes show the same contempt for those who do not come from same ‘tribe’ as them. The area still provides a doughty opponent of these attitudes : he edits this blog.
I believe that this is exactly what happened to my descendants – I hail from Scotland originally and my family ended up in East Anglia, working its way back through Lincolnshire and eventually Nottingham.
Have you seen Paul Mason’s take on that?
None of the major parties has accepted the faultlines emerging between Scotland, the asset-rich south-east and post-industrial Britain.
Full text here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/29/three-new-tribes-of-voters-will-dominate-this-election
It’s pretty clear that you (or rather, your neighbours) live in a blue political bubble, defined by Mason succinctly:
There is a distinct south-east English identity forming around a persistent economic fact: asset wealth.
It is in the nature of such bubbles, that those with it cannot see outside it, do not think outside it, and cannot empathise outside it: and their attitude to those outside it falls readily into stereotypes and prejudices, uninformed by fact and poisoned by a lack of empathy, negative and patronising and all too ready to descend into invective.
Racism, as you would put it.
Poke them with a bland remark about metal-bashers in Sheffield, and see if they exhibit a similar cultural colonialism.
Agree with all that
Most here would not know where Sheffield was
I remain astonished that I am one of very few people I know who has been to very county in the mainland of the UK barring the Northern Isles (must go) and, I think, 30 in Ireland
The lack of awareness of our own country is staggering
what’s going, it’s not about England v Scotland it’s about have and have nots
To some degree
But do not deny there really is an England v Scotland debate – let’s not deny that
SNP hmmm! As I see it this situation has arisen as a result of the Scotts wish for greater self determination as Westminster government has not really taken into account the hopes and aspirations of the majority.
I will therefore put this thought forward if I may, it has taken 40 years since Margo McDonald for the SNP to reach this point. So if Westminster governments and oppositions of what ever colours continually ignores the needs and fails to trully address the fears of the majority in the UK we can only expect the continuing rise of a party along the lines of UKIP, by that I mean a party bearing greater self determination.
For the moment Cameron must bear in mind he now has a majority therefore no hiding place!
Well said Richard. Most English folk are unaware that the English parliament was dissolved in 1707 and hasn’t been seen since. People in Scottish constituencies have every right to return MPs of any party to Westminster as it is just as much their UK Parliament as any other peoples of the home nations. The English haven’t had much interest in English Nationalism because they think the whole of the UK is English. Let’s hope they will now wake up, find their nationalism and start talking about some form of federalism.
The comments at your dinner party last night may have been disagreeable (and were no doubt made after the odd glass had been downed), but let’s not pretend the reverse has never happened at Scottish dinner tables.
No: the reverse scenario is not possible
You are ignoring that
When the Scots demanded a Scottish parliament, which excluded politicians elected in England, was that racism?
To me it’s a matter of democracy. Scottish MPs have a right to vote on reserved/UK matters but on issues on which the concomitant legislation has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament the Scots should have no say. The English NHS, Education, etc should be a matter for the people of England, the people who’re directly affected.
Reading through the comments it seems that you have a particular fixation on race and ethnicity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a black, white, yellow or brown Englishman, having politicians from outside England’s borders voting on England’s domestic policy is undemocratic.
The Scots wanted independence
That was nationalism
And no, it was no racist
They were not asking to subjugate another country
England has a rather long and unfortunate history of doing so
The Scots were enthusiastic imperialists.
If a Scottish Parliament is Scottish nationalism, then so is English Votes on English Laws. It’s not racist to object to MPs elected outside England having a say on English domestic legislation.
Did you read what I wrote?
Please do so again
Or are you deliberately missing the point?
Not half!
you clearly have no idea what you mean by “democracy”. If you want an english parliament then vote for one. Stop assuming you have one. You don’t.
All of your “reserved matters” are paid for from my taxes, as much as from yours. None of the things you list are english only matters, for the money spent on them determines the budget for those things in Scotland. Do you really not understand those things? I doubt it. I think you understand perfectly well.
I will vote for an English parliament when I get the chance, just as I voted SNP when I lived in Scotland.
I don’t claim that we have an English parliament, that’s the problem. If we did have an English parliament then there would be no question of democratic legitimacy hanging over Scottish MPs because the English domestic matters would be legislated on by politicians accountable solely to the people of England. That would be democracy, unlike what we have now.
Nationalism, like patriotism, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. When Cameron and the Tories played that card, they showed yet another dimension of the ‘nasty party’, prepared to sacrifice the Union to hold onto power. Murdoch acted perfectly as their agent, castigating Scots in the Sun and supporting SDP in Scotland with the simple objective of weakening Labour. Though Labour have been capable of doing that all by themselves.
I’m happily British, with English, Scottish and possibly a touch of Irish ancestry with roots in Cumberland and the far North West of Scotland, though I have lived and worked in the South for years. I completely understand the resentment felt in Scotland and the North towards the South and the City in particular. The emergence of the nationalist strand has been predictable, though it could have been handled far more effectively if anyone South of the Border had cared or paid attention. My gut feel is that with genuine, substantial devolution, the Scots might still vote to stay in the union, though I have no confidence in the Tories willingness or ability to deliver. And as others have said, the SNP are about far more than independence, being a primarily a centre- left party. Milliband missed a huge opportunity by rejecting the possibility of working with them
I’m spending next week in the Outer Hebrides – will know better after that
What a refreshing debate this is, from both sides of the border, after watching the vile behaviour of the British Nationalist establishment over the last few months. I watched David Starkey ranting on Newsnight last night about how Scottish history was a ‘confection’ of myths rooted in failure. Our institutions apparantly just ape English institutions and even our language is English. We don’t exist according to Starkey. He was flanked by Simon Schama, another ‘ historian ‘who peddled similar ignorant and insulting nonsense during the Referendum campaign. The stunning thing is that the BBC think it’s ok to network this stuff without authoritative Scottish participation from someone like Tom Devine. We are discussed and insulted in our absence by people wheeled out as authorities on our history and affairs. It happens all the time on the BBC and is a subtler and more insidious version of the tabloid racism, and it reflects long standing attitudes in England which Cameron is exploiting. Scotland was never a colony, it was an active coloniser along with England, but the last two years have exposed attitudes in England which were previously only suspected.
I have to agree with you – from way south of the border
On the importance of culture: Some events are so enormous in their impact that the lessons learned (or narrative adopted, if you prefer) are culturally transmitted. We have views about the meaning of events in history which are tied to that type of transmission, if we are not historians: and those are part of national self image, but also of tribal or class or gender identifications.
Each group has their own story and they are not necessarily shared. Thus, for example, in the UK the generally shared perception of Winston Churchill is that he was a great war leader: beyond that some groups believe he was a great man in wider ways, and they point to his various achievements in other fields: in the writing of history, for example. Others do not believe that, and in their story his books don’t matter at all: what matters is that he shot the workers in 1926: this means he was an unmitigated bastard, despite his wartime achievements, and that is how he is perceived. Obviously this is not to do with historical reality: I merely use this example to illustrate the fact that such stories are handed down through cultural transmission and they stand in parallel with “history” as normally understood. They matter. The comedian Jeremy Hardy has a very funny take on that kind of thing when he takes those stories which are important to the UK population and mixes them all up: the same kind of self deprecating humour about our national tales is intrinsic to “1066 And All That”, so Hardy is carrying on a tradition of poking fun at this kind of transmission and the impressions it leaves on us all. But they are not monolithic.
The depression of the 1930’s is one of those stories: but it is not shared equally by all. Nor is it promoted in the way that the Battle of Waterloo, or the defeat of the Spanish Armada, is: as unifying concepts which foster national identity. The depression is not a unifying story, and so it is not in the interests of the nation to incorporate it when “socialising” children: a lot of education is designed to make little brits or little americans out of children with no national identity: and all states have a mainstream tale to transmit which furthers that aim. Some big events are in that tale and some are definitely not: but the people have their own tale which is slightly oblique: and that depends on other kinds of identification.
Small correction – I’d see them as ‘English’ nationalists, not British. Or possibly City/ Kensington&Chelsea/ChippingNorton nationalists… Abusing their power to play a nationalist card and create division.
Donnie
Precisely my point above and why Richard is correct to use the term racism.
As an Englishman I am ashamed; as an ancestral Scot I am outraged.
Mind you, Scotland has some strange historians too: have you ever see (gulp) Niall Ferguson? Ouch!
That would be the author of The Ascent of Money, in whose many pages he manages to completely avoid the fact that money is created from nothing by banks, making the entire tome an exercise in misdirection, some might think. Another and arguably similar exercise is his recent article for the FT http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9dd9c7ee-f71c-11e4-99aa-00144feab7de.html#axzz3ZlTUOIAY entitled The “UK Labour party should blame Keynes for their election defeat”. No, really. It is 🙂 the content of which you might accurately guess at I’d think and he’s getting criticism on Twitter already for what it’s suggested are obvious and in some cases basic errors in it. THAT Niall Ferguson. Yes, I know of him 🙂 He’s interesting to me as it seems to me if he knows as much as he obviously does then he must have decided at some stage to be no more than an Establishment mouthpiece, a tame expert who’ll espouse the party line and churn out any old nonsense if it stands a chance of impressing that party line on the economic illiterate. He’s wealthy too, I hear. Coincidence, I wonder? 🙂
What is fascinating to me (a Black American living in the US) is how so much of England has turned on Scotland as White America did on Black people during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (and the post-Civil War Reconstruction period). The narrative: things were fine before “they” got uppity and no longer “knew their place”. Catastrophic visions of White politicians being beholden to Black voters (and harming White citizens) filled the newspapers. If Black people wanted their rights, then, by God, they weren’t going to have access to White taxpayers’ money to fund them (even though African Americans, like the Scots, had been paying more than enough into that “kitty” for quite some time).
And it is interesting that so many of the English are now clamoring for an English parliament (well, a Parliament without the Scots)–to punish Scotland for democratically electing MPs committed to their interests.
So we can disagree about what to call this “thing”–racism, xenophobia, cultural bias. But let there be no mistake: we are witnessing an assumed inferiority (and English superiority) because of the circumstances of birth, and nothing less. This belief is in no one’s interest, and quickly-clasped diversion is a caustic, pernicious genie that will not return easily to its glass cage.
I think the Scottish results do show the power of a dream, in a way this is heartening as it is not the usual appeal to material possession. And Nicola Sturgeon came across well on TV and obviously well with the locals.
But she did not do herself any favours, given the fact that her end objective is Independence, that she constantly slagged off “The Tories” of another country i.e. England.
My complaint is why we regard Scotland more important than other regions of the UK. England has far more population and economic activity than Scotland,Wales
and N Ireland put together. That’s why I believe in some kind of federal solution-on the German model perhaps.
Stephen
The Tories fought every seat in Scotland
You are, as ever, just wrong
Richard
So England is a country, but Scotland a region?
Says it all really.
I consider that many people are ignoring the large build-up in resentment towards Scotland..
We seem to have arrived at a point where the two almost have to go their separate ways.
Scotland seems to have a different health service to the remainder of the UK; Universal free prescriptions, a different benefit system and also a different [almost] education system. Many in the UK consider the Scots to receive more than their due.
Not to worry. The next few years are certainly going to be interesting. With the arrival [soon] of massive increases in state surveillance upon its own people, I wonder if the state is also going to legislate to end the widespread social media ´commentary´ that accompanied the election campaign (with the media almost totally one-sided due to the total ownership of media by the right)
For once, newsthump seems to have elected to be non-humerous (I enclose the url as information, but as a tinyurl because of the wording, which may insult peoples sensibilities!)
http://tinyurl.com/kdh29tk
Feel free to not include any or all of the above!
Scotland has different institutions because it is a different country. Beneath the level of the parliamentary union Scotland remained, in all its institutions and in its civic society, completely separate and was left to essentially run itself. The only brief break in that was with the British nationalised industries and the British Welfare State, both now dismantled.
If you took the trouble learn some basic facts about Scotland you might learn, for example, that the Scottish Health Service predated the English and was created at the instigation of the medical profession in Scotland rather than in the teeth of medical opposition as it was in England. That tells you a little about attitudes in the two countries. Scotland has different benefits because it chooses to use its budgets in different ways, which reflect Scottish tradition, the University fees being a prime example. They reflect a universal education system predating England’s by centuries, which is totally different from England’s, and whose basic principles and philosophy were adopted by the rest of the world, partly via the USA. England’s system by contrast is virtually unique for all the wrong reasons
Many English people resent the legitimate Scottish political dimension from an assumption that the UK is the property of England, that Scotland’s institutions are somehow derivatives of England’s, and we should be grateful for their largesse. The ignorance and entitlement in some quarters are staggering but hopefully not universal.
Donnie – you are on form!
Personally, I’ve always thought that the Scottish legal system is superior to our own – a bit fairer? What do you think?
Dear oh dear.
“Scotland seems to have a different health service to the remainder of the UK” Nope. The rest of the UK does not share a health service either.
“a different benefit system”. Nope. Benefits are not devolved.
“a different [almost] education system” Not sure if you mean that scots almost have an education system or whether you mean it is almost different. Assuming the latter, it is completely different and it has been since before the treaty of union
You don’t know much about this, do you?
Probably I will have to read different news publications!
But, probably, it will make no difference.
See below, far below.
Just to throw a small stone in the pond, just as ‘England’ is not one homogeneous place, with the views and problems of say the North East being very different to those in the South East, my experience has been that Scotland too has its differences. Oft times I’ve heard the view expressed from friends and relations in the North West and Isles, that rule from Edinburgh was little better than rule from Westminster and in some ways just as remote. After all, Edinburgh was the home of RBS and HBOS, Scotland’s own version of the City with some of the same attributes. And Alex Salmond was an economist at RBS…
So I’d support the view that this is more about the have’s and have nots, both power and wealth, over-centralisation of that power – and of course much more – be it North or South of Hadrians. The similarities are greater than the differences as others have observed.
PS Anyone else read about the preponderance of Celtic genes South of Hadrians Wall…?! A very healthy influence I’d say
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764
PPS At the camp site run by my relatives in Tongue, it used to amuse them that they had far more French, Spanish – and yes English – than Scottish visitors!
There are parts of Scotland further from Edinburgh that Edinburgh is from London
I accept the point
I’ve heard it, in Scotland
But from SNP supporters, nonetheless
Please tell me why Scotland is different from, say, the Midlands or any other region of England. As I have said before I have both Scottish and Midlands relatives,I can’t tell the difference between the two sets. I therefore don’t have dislike of the Scots- I just do not see why they should be treated any differently from other regions of the UK.
As you said, the Midlands are a region of England – they are English. Scotland is Scotland, another country with the institutions of a European state which predate the Union and which have continued to function since 1707. Do the midlands have their own legal system, education system – their own national football team ? Did the midlands transform the world during the Enlightenment. Scots see Scotland as a country, not a ‘region’. We happen to be in a parliamentary Union with England, which we are at liberty to dissolve if we see fit. We are not Englishmen with kilts.
The obvious answer to the question whether Scotland is ‘different’ is the result at the ballot box. There are things in common, as there are things in common across Europe, but Scotland, as a country, has an option which the midlands do not, and it is using that option.
I like England, but the sheer ignorance, the complacent condescending assumptions about Scotland, say a lot about where England is in the world, the failure to come to terms with its decline, the hubris which allows a country with a 17th century non constitution to lecture Iraqis on democracy, and its bunker mentality over Europe.
For the love of God go !
Donnie, as an Englishman living in SE England, on the verge of London, I have every sympathy with you and the SNP wanting to be free from the grip of Westminster, and the appalling economic and social policies it produces. Given, from the comments noted above, that part of the Conservative election victory was achieved through the divisive tactics of anti-SNP scaremongering, how the hell can they have the nerve to say they are the party of the union, and drape themselves in the Union Jack?
Utter dishonesty, cynicism and hypocrisy as usual. When Scotland becomes an independent country, I’d like to leave and join you.
The fact that you can’t see something does not necessarily mean it isn’t there.
Are you completely unable to recognise that it doesn’t matter a jot whether you think Scotland is a region: Scots don’t. And that settles it, frankly
Well, it just goes to show that democracy is only a good in so far as it serves Progressive aims. When it delivers the wrong result, we need to take to the streets as the youth have just so boldly done.
The sooner we get a written constitution that carves the foundations of the Progressive State in stone, the better.
In respect of the Scottish/English question, an English parliament must be resisted at all costs, since the English do not vote progressively enough. This would upset the current devolutionary settlement designed to ensure Progressive control over as much of the UK as possible, irrespective of how the English vote.
An english parliament is devoutly to be wished, IMO. At present a great many english people seem to imagine they have one, and that is a major problem for democracy in these islands. It is absurd to say that the english “do not vote progressively enough”: enough for whom? How they vote is entirely up to them, just as it is for everyone else.
What gives you the idea that the “current devolutionary settlement [is] designed to ensure progressive control over as much of the UK as possible”? Designed by whom to achieve that end? Are you serious?
I am genuinely puzzled by what you seem to be saying
As I have said, better to focus on the real arguments, but if Scotland truly want to govern itself then so be it, I’m tired of the English bashing on this blog.
Sorry James, but I am not aware of English bashing here
There is no english bashing. As ever those with a great sense of entitlement do not just want the same freedoms as everyone else: they want approval for how they choose to exercise them, and anything less is seen as an attack.
Maybe I over reacted, but I really struggle to see the difference between the Scots and the English in our everyday lives, it really is about divide and rule and it always has been in both countries.
The Scots do not struggle in that way
That you cannot see it or hear it means you are not listening. Not even to your inner voice
Scotland is a separate country. There is absolutely no doubt about that so far as Scottish people are concerned. Really, none.
England is a separate country. There is absolutely no doubt about that so far as English people are concerned. Really, none.
If you doubt the latter statement then think how your “evidence” applies when considering the French. Do you think that the day to day life of people there is much as yours and mine is? Do they get up each morning and eat breakfast then go out to work or to school? Do they come home and eat and clean their houses then watch tv or play bridge or go to the pictures, or for a drink? I think you will find that they do. Does that make you French?
For myself, I want Scottish independence, but I have no strong national feeling about that: it is separate from my sense of identity and largely unrelated to it. From where I am sitting it would make a great deal of sense for an independent country to include a fair bit of what is currently the north of england, because economically they have much more in common with Scotland than with the south east. There is just one problem with that idea: the english who live there are english. So they do not, for the most part, see that as a viable option (though I gather there is a small movement there who are currently advocating that).
World citizenship is a lovely idea: but it is a lovely idea with very few supporters. There is a reason for that. We all start out as narcissists when we are babies. The process of maturing is from one point of view a process of learning that other people exist; and that they have value; and that they matter to themselves as much as we matter to ourselves. We learn that in stages: first we recognise the independent existence of our carers; then siblings; then perhaps neighbours or class mates; then peers. The circle of those we recognise as fully human widens as we grow and the process can be halted at any stage of our development. Only saints continue to grow enough to genuinely include the whole of humanity, though that is the aspiration for most of us, I hope. We don’t get there because it is hardly possible, given the nature of the human animal. But it is profoundly arrogant to pretend that the limits of empathy and identity formation are ideally represented in your own achievements in that sphere; and it is profoundly stupid to deny that you have such limits
#TakeUsWithYouScotland
We a part of a union of sovereign nations, Englang, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I would argue the most successful union in history. My hope is for society within the union to prosper and bring wealth and well being to all. I believe this can be achieved if peoples from these individual sovereign nations come together and fight for this cause. Our different cultures and traditions preserved, but United against the ruthless, uncaring corrupted capitalism.
Fiona, I’m a electrician from Barnsley, south Yorkshire, son of a miner. My sense of entitlement is no different to anyone else’s. I’m as far removed from the English elite as it gets.
@ james s.
I made no comment on your background, since obviously I know nothing about it. I am not talking about a sense of entitlement as something which derives solely from class, though that is one source. In this instance I was responding to your professed inability to see or hear what is perfectly evident. You cannot see that national identity is an important part of how people see themselves, apparently. I challenged you to turn inwards a little, because I do not think that you consider yourself to be French, though on the basis of what you have said you really should, at least as much as I should consider myself to be english.
You say this union is the most successful in history. How are you defining union and how are you defining success? That seems like a soundbite to me, and I have heard it repeated endlessly in the course of the independence referendum. Perhaps it has substance: what is that substance?
You say “My hope is for society within the union to prosper and bring wealth and well being to all. I believe this can be achieved if peoples from these individual sovereign nations come together and fight for this cause.” On that basis the whole world should form a union. I have no objection to that, and welcome international law, insofar as it exists. But you do not appear to understand the term “sovereign nation”, or at least you have not made your meaning clear. We cannot be in the union and yet have component parts which are sovereign nations. It is a contradiction in terms.
My impression is that you have not given this much thought, and I am sorry if that sounds offensive: it really is not meant to be. I suspect you are where I was some years ago, and I am in no position to criticise, for at that time I had not really thought about it either, though I did not know that then. Much of my position was fed by a left wing family tradition and by the unquestioned assumptions which accompanied that stance: I did not have much understanding of how the conclusions had been developed or the arguments and assumptions which underpinned them. Most things are like that: we cannot research everything and what we choose to spend time on is affected by our individual interests and our education and our circumstances and the events around us.
Most people in Scotland have given this an awful lot of thought. That is the legacy of the referendum debate. It was a very, very wide debate, and all the better for that.
Would the Scottish working class people be better off if Scotland was an independent country or together shoulder to shoulder with the of the rest of UK?
Impossible to say
Independence does not, of itself, have anything to say about whether they would be better or worse off. What it does do is allow Scotland to pursue a different economic and social policy, and that means that there is a chance of a more equal society. That is what most people here want. That is what I firmly believe an independent Scotland will pursue. And since I believe that a completely different approach is eminently possible, I believe it will result in something more like the kind of society I wish to live in.
The notion that we can work “shoulder to shoulder” with the rest of the UK is just not plausible. It is not that most Scottish people do not have any idea of the kind of solidarity and internationalism much beloved of the socialists. A great many of us were brought up on such ideals and subscribed to them. Speaking for myself, I believed that to the extent that it was difficult move to support for independence and I know that it was hard for many more of us to actually make that change. But the argument has been made in Scotland for a very long time, and it is perfectly obvious that the kind of question you raise is awash with assumptions which bear no scrutiny at all, from a left wing perspective or any other. The left has long supported movements for independence in practical situation; and to the principle of self determination as a value as well. There is no tension whatsoever between self determination and international solidarity. Never has been
But the fact is that Scotland has been very patient and there is no effective partner within the rest of the UK to work with. For whatever reason,- media manipulation, electoral system, fear, whatever- there is no left wing or social democratic voice in england at present. I am tired of jam tomorrow and it seems that a lot of us now see no reason at all not to try to make our country better on grounds that other people do not wish to do that.
As it happens (while recognising that the neoliberals have enough global power to scupper the attempt in all likelihood) I believe that the only hope for working class people in England is to show them it doesn’t have to be this way: too many accept TINA, and while that obtains they are paralysed. A Scotland which makes any progress at all in the right direction may be the only means to revive hope everywhere in the UK. It probably won’t, for all I ever hear from the english is “oh there is someone getting something I am not getting: that is not fair, take it off them”, rather than “I want some of that”. But it might.
Either way it is not my responsibility what happens in England for I can make no difference there since that population do not appear to want what I, and most scots, want. I have no wish to force things on other people: but I see no reason to accept the reverse and that is what we have had for far too long. It is time to part
https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/how-different-is-scotland/
Fascinating and recommended to others
Think it says what I’ve been advocating throughout this blog
@JohnM
That article seems to me to completely misunderstand what is happening here, though I realise there are many views about that. But from my own point of view it assumes a great deal which just is not in evidence, at all. I do not know if it is worth going through it, but I will make a few points:
1. “the Conservative Party began to lose support in Scotland when its role as a Protestant party of the Union and Empire waned in the early 1960s. In 1964, it dropped the title Unionist, in favour of the anglicised Conservative. As Devine recounts, it steadily lost the skilled Protestant working class, as Britishness and sectarianism lost their appeal, while its Clydeside industrial class leaders were replaced by anglicised lairds and aristocrats.”
The thesis of the article is that Scotland is not different. So what does this passage mean? It is actually incoherent, though I realise it may read better in context. As it stands it is not clear what the claim is: does the author argue that the conservative party used to stand for the union and empire, but does not any longer? First, I see no such change. Second, if that is a change then it would have the same effect over the whole UK if the central thesis is correct: working class people in england would be equally alienated. Are they? The evidence suggests they are not. Third, the author seems to suggest that the conservative party was led by Industrialists and that they lost support when those were replaced by aristos. Well I see no shortage of aristos at the head of the conservative party at any point in its history: nor do I see industrialists in leadership roles in the party in england. So why did the loss of support not happen there to the same extent? This part is simply implausible, but more importantly, if it is correct then the Scots are indeed different contrary to the argument being made
2. The article does not appear to understand what “left wing” means in this context. The SNP is not left wing, in the sense that I understand that term. It self describes as social democratic, and that is precisely what it is. Those of us who genuinely want a left wing alternative are well aware that the SNP is not it. But I do not support the SNP for reasons of “patriotism”, nor because I believe them to be socialists: I am not patriotic in the slightest and have no respect for the concept at all: many do support the SNP for patriotic reasons: but not most of the people who voted for them in 2015, IMHO. The reason they garnered so much support is far, far simpler. Scottish people generally (with all the usual caveats about making sweeping statements) are looking for a return to the post war consensus. That is what the SNP offer, and that is what people like.
The post war consensus did not deny that there are opposed interests in society. Quite the contrary. It did not pretend that “we are all on the same side” in its many variants. That is always and everywhere a right wing lie, and it is a lie designed to further the power of the elite. After the war there was a recognition that we genuinely do have opposed interests, and that if we are to make a decent society we must all compromise. No class or interest group can get all it wants, and the trick is to find a balance we can all live with. The “consensus” is a misleading term: It did not refer to a situation in which we all wanted the same things; rather to one in which we agreed that we could not have what we wanted, and acted accordingly for the greater good. That obtained throughout the UK from 1945 until the late 1970’s. I think it obtained all over europe, and lasted rather longer there, though it is steadily eroded by the neoliberal advance.
3. The tory party lost support in Scotland largely from 1979. That is when the great divergence from english voting patterns happened, as the graph shows. It is true it was diverging before that; but not much. It so happens that from about the mid 1970’s the post war consensus broke down, and the neoliberals replaced the “one nation tories” who had understood the need for and nature of that consensus. That is no surprise: laissez faire capital is always waiting in the wings and retreats when it must as a tactic: but never dies. It takes its opportunities when it can: it is the nature of the beast. But in Scotland the neoliberal version of the tory party was not accepted as it was in england; scots remained social democrats in favour of that consensual politics embodied after the war.
As it happens I believe that that aspiration is also the aspiration of a great many in england. I do not believe the values have changed all that much, though more than in Scotland. I notice that the rhetoric has not changed enormously, though the practice of politics is radically different. Watch what they do, not what they say. Yet it is telling that words still pay lip service to that consensus even after decades of relentless narrative promoting a very different vision.
5. There is no comparable comparative graph for labour support over the period and that is unfortunate. But I believe that it would show that support for labour in Scotland has declined compared to that in england from 1997, when the labour party overtly adopted neoliberal policy and values. It took a lot longer for two reasons; tribal/sentimental attachment to the party’s history: and lack of an alternative which accounts for the decline in voter participation, imo.
6. The SNP have given the scots an alternative and that has led to strong engagement, reversing the decline which is lazily attributed to “apathy” in the media and by politicians. That merely absolves them of any responsibility for what they claim bothers them. The recent experience in scotland demonstrates that this is not apathy: it is realism. It goes away when the voter believes they can make a difference.
7. I do not know anyone who believes the SNP is the nation, though no doubt some do. I do not know anyone who believes that after independence the SNP will remain dominant on the political scene in Scotland. To suggest that this is a “liberation” phenomenon which will lead to a democratic one party state is frankly laughable. Nor is the assertion that it took fewer votes to elect an SNP politician than any other kind true: much less significant. In the same vein the observation that “50 percent of the vote was enough to turn the map yellow.” of any relevance at all that I can see. SNP worked under the same conditions as every other party and 50% is remarkable anywhere in the UK. But again the argument is odd: we have a one party democratic state where 50% of the people did not vote for that party: how can you hold those two ideas in your head at the one time?
I agree with the author to a limited extent, in that I do not think Scotland is that different in many ways. But I cannot prove that, any more than the author can, because it rests on a belief that there is a strong social democratic constituency in england as well as in Scotland. If they exist they have nowhere to go, and so we can only assume their existence. We cannot demonstrate it at least in electoral terms
But the article is incoherent tosh, for the most part. For many of us this is not about Scottishness: it is about the kind of society we wish to live in. The one party state is the UK. They should look to it.
Fiona, my concern is for equality and being apart of the UK is the best way to achieve this. You think differently.
What has equality got to do with the UK? It is one of the most unequal states in the developed world, and that has increased by design under both main Westminster parties, with the collusion of the Lib Dems. That is what the rUK has voted for again, so I agree that being apart from the UK is the best way to reverse that 😉
But without Scotland it would be worse, but Scotland in its own could be a fairer society, but that’s debatable.
If, without Scotland, it would be worse, then that would be the choice of the english electorate. Scotland has no mandate nor remit to interfere with that, and it has no responsibility to “save” other countries from their democratic choice either.
Scotland on its own might not be a fairer society, that is down to the Scottish electorate and how they vote after independence. I think a majority will vote for a social democratic party, judging by past voting patterns: but of course they might not. That, too, is democracy. I am in favour of it.
You said above that the article most recently linked was saying what you have been saying. Can you not see that “without Scotland it would be worse” concedes that there is a difference between what the two populations want? If, on the other hand, an independent Scotland does not vote for a fairer society, then your idea that without Scotland it would be worse must be wrong?
somehow you can drive a wedge between two countries that for me on the whole are very similar. I will concede though and accept defeat on this issue.