Alex Salmond and Isabel Fraser: Independence - The Question(s)?

It’s that indy thing–ye cannae rattle a Nat

Every time Andrew Neil questions a Scottish Nationalist politician, it's worth 1000 votes for independence. Gordon Brewer knows, understands, but has to go through the motions of Paxo-like faux naivety.

But the metropolitan media just don't get it, and persist in the same ludicrous, simplistic questions.

You can't rattle a Nat, Andrew. Historical inevitability - and their country - is on their side. But keep it up, please, you're doing a fine job for the independence of your country - that was Scotland, wasn't it? Or is all that long forgotten?

An academic's view of independence - and a nationalist one

The clips speak for themselves...

It's full

independence as

a nation for the

First Minister

and the SNP.

Let the Unionists

make their case

for lesser options.

 Let the people of

Scotland decide.

Saor Alba!

It’s that independence thing … Letters to The Herald

I haven’t written to The Herald is some time, but a letter yesterday from Alex Gallagher of Largs on the definition of independence and devo max, focusing on the recent Newsnight Scotland programme featuring Stewart Hosie and George Kerevan caught my eye. Since I had clipped this programme and offered blog comment on it already, I thought I’d try a punt with a reply.

It didn’t make it into today’s paper for the good reason that Iain AD Mann, a prolific and formidable contributor to The Herald Letters page, who has argued in an always erudite and informed way for Scotland and independence over many years, had offered his reply, as had another contributor, and the ratio was two to one on the SNP side of the argument, which was well covered.

The anti-SNP letter today from John Milne was interesting, not for its content, but for the fact that he had submitted a closely similar letter to The Scotsman yesterday. Insofar as there is an etiquette in these matters, it is not the done thing to submit essentially similar letter content to two papers at the same time. Of course, the newspaper has no way of knowing this has been done until after the event if the letters are published on the same day, but I would have thought that the Herald might have been aware of what The Scotsman Letters page carried yesterday.

Anyway, here is my unpublished reply to Alex Gallagher, for what it is worth …

UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO HERALD – sent 18th October 2011

Dear Sir,

Let me offer some help to Alex Gallagher (Letters 17 October 2011) with the definition of independence, and also UK unionist politicians who seem to be having trouble with a concept the rest of the world understands clearly, and has done so since time immemorial.

Independence, in the context of an individual or a nation, is freedom to run one's affairs - all of them, within a framework of freely entered into - and freely exited - relationships and agreements. Stewart Hosie, who speaks for the SNP, gave a concise and absolutely clear response to every question about independence put to him. So-called devo max is a colloquial term, meaning loosely full fiscal autonomy but without independence, within the state of the UK. George Kerevan made a dog's breakfast of trying to define devo max. Kerevan is a member of a political party and has been identified with it in the past - this would also describe most commentators and journalists in Scottish politics. He was on this programme in his commentator/journalist capacity, and is not a spokesperson for the SNP, anymore than say, Bernard Ponsonby of STV is, or I am ,or Lorraine Davidson of The Times (a former Labour spin doctor) is for Labour.

The SNP wants independence - that is the party's raison d'etre, and the First Minister is totally committed to that objective. He also realises that not every one of the voters who gave his party such a decisive majority last May want full independence. Some will undoubtedly wish to remain in the UK, and must be given that choice: some may want more autonomy for a devolved Parliament while remaining in the UK. The referendum is at least two, maybe three years or more away. A considered debate is taking place in the Scottish Government and in the SNP about what choices the Scottish people should be offered in the referendum. That debate is in marked contrast to the near-hysteria and increasingly contradictory demands emanating from the unionist parties.

What is abundantly clear is that the electorate do not want to be buried alive in the detail that necessarily will constitute the negotiating agenda after a YES vote to independence. Neither do I.

As a Scottish voter, what I want is crystal clear - to the opportunity to vote for a completely independent Scotland, free to do everything that any independent nation in the world is free to do, within a framework of cooperation with our near neighbours and long-term friends in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including sensible sharing of resource and defence commitments, but with a firmly non-nuclear context for Scotland. Such agreements will extend to Europe, with Scotland as an independent member of the EU, and the world, with Scotland having a seat in the United Nations.

Like any independent nation, Scotland will be free to make agreements and treaties, and to terminate them under agreed terms when they no longer meet the needs of the people of Scotland. We made one such agreement in 1707, not entirely freely, not unanimously, but under threat, intimidation and bribery. Nevertheless, we made it and have honoured it, and paid a price in blood for 300 years. Now is the time to end it, in my view. I hope my fellow Scots agree.

yours faithfully,

Peter Curran

DEVO MAX - The Union’s last throw of the dice

Devo Max will give Scotland everything

except that

We won’t control our foreign policy

We won’t have the revenues from our own oil

The UK Supreme Court can still overrule our own Scots law and our own judges

We will have no seat at the United Nations

We will have no independent membership of the European Union

Our voice will be stifled, marginalised, ignored in international forums

The UK Parliament will still be sovereign, and can revoke devo max any time it likes

The UK Parliament will still decide when our young people are sent to die on foreign fields

We will still be forced to have nuclear weapons of mass destruction in our waters

Scotland won’t a be a nation in any real sense

EPITAPH

Scots had their chance and they blew it

RIP Freedom

Devo Max is the Union’s last throw of the dice to keep Scotland as a subject nation, to be bled of its resources and talent

If you vote for it, you will never again be allowed to vote for independence

 

Scots know exactly what they mean by independence – the UK Government knows exactly what it means by subjection and sovereignty

The Scottish Unionist parties know exactly what they are complicit in

HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH AS A FREE SCOT - REJECT DEVO MAX

 

 

Keep the Union and learn to love the Bomb! – happy tweeting time

 

moridura Peter Curran

Independence? Scots can have whatever they want, except defence and foreign affairs. Devo Max? Nae problem! Just leave the UK with the WMDs.

 

moridura Peter Curran

What must a Labour or Tory mediocrity do? Get a defence post ASAP. That's where the power and money lies. It's the nuclear honeypot, stupid!

 

moridura Peter Curran

Labour and Tory politicians get into defence and the war game as fast as possible like money-seeking missiles. Scots can have their devo max

 

moridura Peter Curran

The UK - a state whose operating principle is war. That's where real money, real power lies. The Blair Factor: War = power,influence, riches

 

moridura Peter Curran

Why are unionists committed to devomax? To retain the nuclear war core of UK, control of foreign policy. That's where the money and power is

 

moridura Peter Curran

All unionist parties are committed to devo max. What's left of the Union after devo max? WMDs, foreign policy, defence - the war core of UK.

 

moridura Peter Curran

If the West and Israel had no WMDS, would I support invading other countries to stop them having nuclear weapons. I'm thinking about it ...

 

moridura Peter Curran

US/UK line - our WMDs deter mad dictators elsewhere. They don't know a lot about mad dictators, wherever they are. Dr. Strangelove is alive

 

moridura Peter Curran

Multilateral nuclear disarmament is a smoksecreen for US/UK and Israel keeping their WMDs and trying to stop anyone else having them.

The Union and Kenny Farquarson

Kenneth Farquarson – now there’s a resounding Scottish name.  Kenneth, a  Pictish forename (Cinoid) linked to the Goidelic Cináed, meaning firehead or born of fire. And Farquarson – son of Farquar, the dear one.

The Farquarson clan were Jacobites, staunch supporters of the Stuarts, and fought in many battles against the British state, including  Culloden.

One might expect that those bearing this great name might put Scotland first, but strange things happened after the Union, especially among the High Heid Yins of the clans.

The present chieftain of the Clan Farquarson is Alwyne Farquharson of Invercauld, and sports a nice coat of arms with heraldic lions, a couple of daggers and two coniferous trees. But where is his seat – the seat of the clan chief? Why, it’s Valley Farm, Norfolk!

But he has a nice little business in Invercauld, one that the family have owned since before 1432 – a sporting estate in the Cairngorms, with all the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ and holiday cottages and properties for sale and rent. Chief Alwyne was educated at Eton and Magdalen College Oxford, served in the Royal Scots Greys. He has been around a long time, born in 1919. He is on Person page 8051 of Burke’s Peerage.

With that pedigree, my guess is that he is not a supporter of Scotland’s independence, but it’s only a guess …

Coming right up to date, our very own Kenneth Farquarson, Deputy Editor of Scotland on Sunday is not a supporter of independence either. He is a Unionist, and here, I don’t have to guess, since Kenny amiably and articulately argues his case for the Union in trenchant articles in SoS, and on Twitter. He is the kind of unionist one can have a rational debate with, one without acrimony, but vigorous nonetheless. I think, despite our political difference, that the New Scotland needs people like Kenny – so there …

I’m sure Kenny did not become a Unionist because of his clan chief – he is not fond of all that old emotional history stuff, and neither am I. If Scots followed their clan chiefs’ politics these days, the Tories, not the SNP would be in power, and Annabel Goldie would be well on her way to being a Baroness, or maybe a Dame – there is nothin’ like a dame!

Why do I cover this ground before coming to Kenny’s article in SoS last Sunday – Why Union’s fate depends on Fraser ?

Because the opposition to Scotland’s independence can only be understood when one looks squarely at that powerful, entrenched bastion of privilege, unelected and undemocratic – the British Establishment – and the Scottish dimension to it, to fully appreciate the forces that have everything to lose and nothing to gain from independence.

The Scotland on Sunday article

Kenny proposes that the fate of the Union hinges on whether Murdo Fraser gets elected as the new ‘Tory’ leader or not, a proposition that he recognises will be greeted with scepticism, if not derision, by many. Well, not by me …

I think that Murdo’s decision to face facts about the Tory Party and the future of the centre right in Scottish politics was brave and principled. A politician who does not take big risks when the game demands it is no politician at all. I hope he wins, because I think it is unhealthy for the centre right not to have a significant voice in Scotland, because without that voice, we head for the extreme right and neo-fascism.

I also understand and agree with most of Kenny’s analysis of the situation, with qualifications. The unionist parties are moving inexorably towards devo max – greater autonomy from the UK, both in constitutional and party terms, with a greater focus on Scotland and Scottishness. Labour, of course, is moving more slowly than the Murdo camp, but if we listen to Tom Harris, they’re pretty well there too.

Kenny says that the election of Murdo Fraser would recalibrate Scottish politics, a phrase that exactly captures what the consequences would be. The LibDems don’t really matter much, but to the degree that they do, they are a federalist party, so they are basically devo max as well.

KF says that his friends in the SNP (by that I assume he means MSPs or party insiders) assure him that Alex Salmond is still determined to offer voters three options – independence, devo max or status quo. Since I have no insider information (the party are wary of independent bloggers) I can only take what he says at face value.

So it seems assured that Scotland will – at the very least – get devolution max, with the enthusiastic cooperation of all parties. What is devolution max and how does it differ from full independence?

These are easy questions to answer for a supporter of full independence, or for a supporter of the Union, but not only do unionists not answer it, they carefully avoid the question. Home Rule, an ancient phrase from my childhood, now is in vogue again, to deflect attention from this real, crucial difference.

And Kenny is no different – nowhere in his article does he say just what it is he and other unionists are trying to preserve after devo max, not because he doesn’t know, but because it starkly exposes what the Great Game is all about.

It’s essentially defence and foreign policy – the ability to send Scots to war and to die without the consent of their devo max Parliament, or their first Minister, or Scottish voters, or Scottish mothers and fathers.

It’s the ability to make war with weapons of mass destruction called the ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent, one that is patently not independent, since we need the instruction and consent of the US to launch it.

It’s the ability to continue with a Ministry of Defence where incompetence often cloaks corruption, one that enriches favoured politicians and armaments manufacturers, the merchants of death,  a Ministry with a revolving door to lucrative directorships and advisory consulting posts for some of its salaried officials.

It’s the ability to allow political mediocrities to strut on a global stage, to interfere in the affairs of nations far from the UK, and to become obscenely rich in the process, while the democracy that elected them goes to the dogs.

This is the unionist vision, masked by sentimental nonsense about Britishness and shared values. This is the ugly, lethal, venal, inhuman heart of the Union that’s left after devo max. This is what those who profit from it will defend to the death – someone else’s death, preferably a Scottish soldier.

I want no part of it – I want to live in a truly independent Scotland, one where the SNP, the Scottish Labour Party, the Murdo Centre Right Party, the Scottish Greens, and the Scottish minority parties are all Scottish parties, with only the interests of the Scottish people as their primary focus, but a Scotland that cooperates in fully and intimately with its newly free neighbours, the great nations of England, Wales and Ireland, and exercises its international responsibilities through free association with the free nations of Europe and the world.

That’s the Scotland I want to see – that’s the Scotland I will vote for. I hope enough of my fellow Scots agree with me to make it happen.