In Dundee and Angus, we keep returning massive numbers of independence-supporting politicians at every single level of politics.
In Dundee the city council is SNP controlled. Angus as well, where the SNP have nearly double the number of elected members of any other party.
At Holyrood Dundee East and West are represented by elected nationalists, ditto the two Angus seats.
And of course we bundle off our mob of SNP politicians to Westminster too.
Just about every constituency in Tayside has a representative elected on a platform of securing independence for Scotland.
Yet we are told no.
We had a referendum in 2014, and that’s the end of the matter.
We’ve hud wur tea, an we’re no gettin ony mair.
Brexit referendum nudged Scottish politics towards independence
In the wake of the Supreme Court deciding that Scots don’t have the right to self-determination under Westminster legislation, opponents of independence were clucking with pleasure.
One London paper ran a column saying “to paraphrase Churchill, we may permit ourselves a brief period of gloating over this day of days.”
Paraphrasing Churchill! Like they’ve seen off an enemy at the gates.
Down in Westminster they are trying to pretend that it is the obsession of a single person.
Worse – of a single, hysterical woman – Nicola Sturgeon.
She wants the political legacy of independence, and she’ll run roughshod over the wants and needs of the Scottish people to get her way.
This is of course nonsense.
As explained above, we keep voting in massive numbers for parties offering pathways to independence.
And we have done so with greater fervour since the madcap Brexit vote sent the UK into a nosedive from which it will not recover.
This is a shared political will, and it will find a way to be expressed.
Scottish politics has been stalled since 2014 referendum
I absolutely accept that many Courier readers prefer to avoid the risks of full political independence. That’s legitimate.
But a few weeks ago I was on BBC Debate Night, and a member of the audience hit the nail on the head.
He had voted No in 2014. He’d be inclined to do so again in another vote.
However, Scottish politics has been utterly stalled since 2014 and we need another referendum to get things moving again.
That’s not the view in Westminster. Their news has already moved on.
The Westminster bubble is so thick it’s bomb-proof, and as far as the people who notionally govern Scotland from London are concerned, that’s the independence hassle kicked into the long grass for a bit.
But the issue is not going away. And it’s not going away for a very good reason.
Independence is not a political project constructed by the SNP, or the Greens, or ALBA.
It is the natural result of a seismic shift in Scottish culture over the last five decades and more.
In essence, we now have a situation where, should it ever wish, England could unilaterally secede from the Union but Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland can't. How can that possibly be fair?
— David Greig (@DavieGreig) November 23, 2022
Scotland has become culturally independent. Now we expect and demand that our political system changes to reflect that.
Scotland is changing, its politics will too
This has emerged organically.
Cultural independence is partly related to the collapse of Empire.
In those days we were Scottish and British, as others were New Zealander and British, or Indian and British.
We could express our distinctiveness within the supra-national Empire organisation.
Just like we’ll be distinctly Scottish within the EU soon enough.
When the Empire caved in on itself, what was left was a UK built around norms of Englishness.
There was no room for meaningful Scottish input, and so naturally all that cultural distinctiveness of ours has been bubbling away, creating space and identity for us as a modern, separate place.
Stay alert, stay outraged, remember this insult
The census showed that Scots feel the least British of anyone in these islands, by a big margin. No surprise there.
Anyone who thinks independence is somehow a Sturgeon hoodwink, or some national grievance to be salved with some slight uptick in Westminster spending, is away with themselves.
Politics follows culture, it follows identity.
And Scotland has changed radically over the last 50 years.
The way we think about who we are, and the faith we have in ourselves and our languages, music, cities and future has all been overhauled.
We trust ourselves to take decisions on things like schools, hospitals, membership of the EU, attitudes to migrants wanting to make Scotland their home.
We demonstrate this faith in ourselves through our regular re-election of individuals and parties that seek to secure our full political sovereignty.
We’ve been telt. https://t.co/K5aYZRA3IX
— Kathleen Jamie (@KathleenJamie) November 23, 2022
Westminster doesnae work for the English. Covid showed that. The Tory inflation crisis showed that.
But if it doesnae work for them, it absolutely doesnae work for us.
So stay alert, stay outraged, and remember this insult.
We’ll have another crack at independence soon enough, and we’ll need to be ready to take it this next time.
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