I DO not think I am giving many secrets away when I confide that I have found the last couple of years immensely frustrating.
Scotland voted to remain within the EU. We won, and won handsomely, everywhere, despite a lacklustre and half-hearted campaign and a blizzard of UK media nonsense. We were told, just a few years previously, that the only way to guarantee EU status was to stick with the UK. That we should lead, not leave. That we would be guaranteed new amazing fantastic powers. Yet at every turn since the narrow UK vote to leave the EU we have been belittled, ignored, slighted and even mocked by a Tory party that seems hell-bent on using something we did not vote for – Brexit – to reverse something we actually did – devolution.
While the Tories are busy fighting like ferrets in a sack on everything else, when it comes to Scotland they’ve managed to speak with one voice alright. They have turned Donald Dewar’s devolution settlement on its head, in the teeth of opposition from every party at Holyrood but the Tories. The Scottish Tories have shown themselves to be the voice of the UK Government in Scotland, not the other way round. Even last week one of them referred to Scotland, his constituents, as “they”, a psychologically revealing turn of phrase I cannot imagine anyone from any other party using.
While the Tories have been desperate to pretend that the SNP and Scottish Government have been manufacturing grievance, it is obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that we have played by the rules. We have engaged in good faith and offered practical compromises yet at every turn in every possible way we have been told to get to the back of the bus and shut up. Every other day I’ve felt I have been howling into a void, I know there’s plenty of our folks in other parliaments feel the same.
But they’ve reckoned without one thing. That the people of Scotland have actually been paying attention. Not the breathless ‘here this morning gone by teatime’ psychodramas on Twitter and the like, but the length and breadth of Scotland, people who were unpersuaded in 2014 and have been quietly watching everything since with close attention.
When the SNP team at Westminster walked out of the travesty the Westminster parties colluded to pretend was a debate, there was much harrumphing from the metropolitan commentators, but it struck a chord with the people of Scotland. This was no stunt. It was a genuine overflowing of visceral frustration that Scotland was not getting a fair kick of the Westminster ball. Better yet, it cut through the carefully concocted maelstrom of spin and nonsense for everyone to see that Scotland has been comprehensively disrespected.
So when Murray Foote, former editor of the Daily Record broke his silence with a coruscating article on why he now backs independence, the timing could not have been better. If you have not read the article yet, find a way to do so, because I think he speaks for a large chunk of Scottish opinion. This is the man who drafted The Vow, the promise of more powers, the front page that I think was one of the main reasons why Yes was not successful in 2014. Not because in itself it persuaded anyone who was already decided, but because it persuaded those genuinely wavering, agonising, over their choice, that there was a safer option to give a bash instead. That he has now in the light of subsequent events and a comprehensive change of circumstances changed his mind is, I think, of huge significance.
It also encourages me that we are indeed on the right track. On Brexit and everything else, we need to go through the gears, try to find the compromises, find the solutions, be clear to our principles and do what’s best for Scotland. It would be easy to retreat to bitterness and frustration, muttering “its not fair, we was robbed”. But people need and rightly expect better than that, they’re getting it and they’re coming our way.
As I’ve said before, we are each of us an ambassador for the cause of Scotland, and what we say and do matters. If we are not attractive then we cannot hope to attract people. So can I ask whoever thought it was sensible to come to the Bannockburn rally with a “Tory scum out” banner to just not bring it to any more? Aside from the fact it is no way to conduct politics, I cannot stress strongly enough just how counterproductive such a stupid thing is. It makes the rest of us look like loons, which we clearly are not, and allows this most hopeless, vicious and weak UK Government to play the victim when it is assuredly the bully.
Something is stirring in Scotland, the EU referendum vote has proven to the people of Scotland that we are not the same country as the UK, and everything the UK Government has done since has proven what they think of us. The people of Scotland are watching. Let’s not do anything to discourage them.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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