A slightly different version of this was printed in The Shetland Times published on Friday, in print only. I tweeted on Friday, when one irate offline reader described it as ‘utter shite’ on social media, that I would not be blogging the piece until after I’d finished my weekend run of Morton Through (To) Midnight radio shows.
So here it is. Three days have passed since the column’s original publication; Sunday saw an old friend resign as writer for the local magazine I edit, Shetland Life, appalled by my ‘rant’. Judge for yourself. Oh, and there’s a piece by Ian Smart which covers similar ground here: http://ianssmart.blogspot.co.uk/
It’s been interesting, over the past couple of weeks, to see some of the most strident MacMeeja Yessivists cautiously modifying their public stances as the quiet majority for ‘No’ becomes more and more evident.
Even in the event of a ‘No’ vote, Scotland has changed, changed utterly, seems to be the emerging line. A new political discourse has been born, and we are in the glorious sunkissed uplands of a country irrevocably bound for alteration. Just...not yet. Because there is the beginnings of an acceptance that on 18 September, Scotland will vote to remain part of a United Kingdom. The cover-up of exposed backsides, and their ‘Yes’ tattoos, has begun.
Still, some established chatterers are convinced that the Great Turnaround achieved by the SNP in 2011 could repeat itself, that the bookies’ odds against ‘Yes’ are a delusion offering potential profits to the daring (currently, we’re looking at 1/5 to 1/9, averaging at 1/7). I’m fairly sure the wishfully-thinking Yessers are confusing a low-turn-out PR protest vote with a (hopefully) high-turn-out yes/no referendum. Also, remember the way the SNP focussed that 2011 vote on Alex Salmond as an individual? It’s notable that personalised Salmondism has waned drastically and the ‘Yes’ campaign has tried, strenuously, to keep his profile low. It’s surely the contemptuous giggle which offends most.
But more importantly, I think the trumpeters of a ‘Yes’ victory have been deluded by something else: They have confused debate with the sheer blaring noise generated by their own internal conversations. They want it to be so. They say, loudly and at interminable length that it shall be so. Everyone on their online social media feeds seems to agree with them. Therefore it must happen. But those social media feeds are curated by their owners, with numerous blockings and dismissals. They’re all ‘friends’. And so the separatists have listened to their own chatter, deafened to everything else by their own static.
In the physical, public-hall-world, the so-called ‘debates’ have been packed with disciplined, briefed, crib-sheet armed Yessists. The ‘pre-discussion show of hands’ approach has frequently been traduced by those pretending to be ‘don’t knows’. The people who will vote ‘no’ have not bothered to turn up, are too bored by the whole thing to comment either audibly or online, or have been scared into silence. Either by sheer, unreasoning, bullying shoutiness or - a nod-and-wink official 'Yes' policy, I’m certain - by personal vilification: if in doubt, play the man (or woman), not the ball.
Please, don’t tell me ‘it’s just as bad on the other side’. As recipient of some foul-mouthed gibbering from The Worst of Separatism, and a long-time online observer of both camps, I can tell you it isn’t.
Of course, all the firepower, most of the action, has been in the central belt of Scotland. As one ‘Yes’ campaigner said to me, ‘that’s where the votes are’. It was predictable that English journalists sent north to witness Scotland’s wasting of energy, resources, time and money on the independence ‘debate’ would be seduced by the Youth-Fellowship-come-and-have-a-caress evangelistic rhetoric. Much of it comes from shiny-cheeked organisations with ill-advised, all-too historically resonant names such National Collective and Common Weal, Yestival (Smiley Face!) and, God help us, ‘The Third Force’. Does no-one read history books? Or see the parallels with mindless, happy-clappy fundamentalist religion? If you’re creative and arty, comes the message, hands in the air, sway gently! You MUST support separatism. And if you don’t, better shut up or you could find it tricky getting a gig, especially in Oor New Caledonia. Cuddle and carrot, sanction and stick.
I had a journalist up here recently (one of many, it should be said; everyone’s fascinated by The Shetland Question(s), to which the answer is always, always no, we don’t want a separate Salmondland, and no, we don’t want to be part of £100-a-pint Norway). He was genuinely appalled at my conviction that there will be a ‘No’ vote, probably near the long-standing Scottish UK/Nat percentage split of 60-40. That was not his impression from talking to, well, other nationalists. And besides, remember 2011. Freedom!
He’s right in one sense. If those who have all along quietly supported a United Kingdom get complacent, if they fail to turn out on 18 September, there is a risk that the NatMachine’s ruthless ability to mobilise its central belt supporters could actually bring us close to an irrevocable vote for separation. So it is absolutely crucial that those who hate borders, who stand for equality and justice for everyone, irrespective of creed, race, education or geographical location, comes out and votes ‘No’. And actually, I do not believe that those Labour supporters who failed to turn out back in 2010, opening the way to Salmond’s appropriation of power, will fail to stand with the party’s policy on social justice for all. Which is, for me, the one moral choice.
Also: As the likelihood of a ‘No’ vote grows, elements on the lunatic NatFringe have begun muttering about (a) vote rigging and (b) preparing for ‘direct action’. This is (a) the empty posturing of the daft, and (b) threatening behaviour which clearly implies, under Scots Law, a Breach of the Peace.
After the ‘No’ vote, there will doubtless be sackcloth, ashes, rending of garments, petulant screeching. There could be closures of and mergers of newspapers and doubtless, a few flouncings-off to holiday homes in the Dordogne and Algarve by huffy pop stars and pundits alike. The SNP Holyrood administration will be exposed as a one-issue campaigning sham, and I expect that any ‘completely altered political environment’, will come down to an utter loss of appetite for the dangerous romantic delusion that is nationalism.
