’TIS true I am no stranger to four-letter words.
(I am a journalist FFS!) But the one I fancy deploying in the run-up to indyref2 is hope. As the late, great Nelson Mandela was wont to say: “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
It’s a mantra the politically late David Cameron now admits wishing he’d deployed during the 2016 battle of Brexit. “We made some big mistakes in the [Remain] campaign,” he writes in his autobiography, out this week. “I should have done more to mix criticisms of the EU with talking about its very real achievements,” he writes.
There is a painful truth in that admission. It’s only now, as the bold Boris treats cherished democratic norms like irritating, minor and disposable inconveniences, that we begin to realise the full enormity of what stumbling naked out of the EU club will cost us.
Not just the logistical horrors outlined in the UK Government’s own Yellowhammer assessment, scary enough as they are, but the full panoply of human and workers’ rights which we have long been able to take for granted.
Gove, IDS, and the risible but dangerous Farage can witter on all they like about joyous new post-Brexit freedoms, but the stark fact is that we are ditching hard-won personal rights and liberties in exchange for the less than seductive prospect of doing deals with the house racist in Pennsylvania Avenue.
READ MORE: Ruth Wishart: The new Prime Minister and the press
His predecessor, Barack Obama, with whom the contrast becomes ever starker, ran a hugely effective campaign on the back of hope and positivity. YES WE CAN became more than a T-shirt slogan; rather a stoking up of personal belief in Americans longing to recapture the great American conceit that be you ever so humble you can aspire to the greatest office in the land. (These days that only holds good if you can also lay your mitts on tens of millions of campaign dollars.) You might think that Donald Trump’s victory eight years later suggests that Obama’s victory was a temporary aberration.
But remember The Donald also pressed the same button on his campaign trail of the little guy making good. This, remember, was the candidate who was going to “drain the swamp” of Washington corruption and insider privilege.
The fact that he restocked that very same swamp with a bunch of crooks and chisellers, some of whom are currently restocking the penitentiaries, appears not to concern his more rabid base camp followers.
There are lessons here for us as we gear up to our own rendition of Yes We Can. Five years ago the Better Together coalition played very much on our fears rather than our hopes. Some, such as a muddled position on currency and the wider economic future, not entirely unfairly. Others, like cynical shroud waving over pensions, just plain mince. (It’s a technical term.) But many of the scares they relentlessly mongered can now be cheerfully flung back on egg-splattered faces. Not least how voting No was the only possible way to protect our status as citizens of Europe. Yeah. Right. While much work has and is being done on managing the economy. So my fervent aspiration is that this time round we, too, will benefit from the fact that in the lexicon of successful elections “hope” – and “change” – are the most potent terms to win over those fearful of an independent future for our smart wee country.
A smart wee country with 10 times the population of little Malta who, prior to joining the EU 15 years ago, was laughed out of court for suggesting for a nanosecond that it could ever be self-sufficient. They are one of nine other current members considerably smaller than Scotland, while Slovakia, Denmark and Finland are roughly the same size.
By accentuating the positive in indyref2 I don’t mean reciting a list of Scottish inventors, and historical light bulb moments important as these achievements were.
READ MORE: Ruth Wishart: Principle on which we base the state pension is flawed
What we need now is to shine a light on the very good story we have to tell about 21st century Scotland. Not just the breadth of its products and services and the continuity of its innovatory skillset, but the kind of country which has been shaped by the freedom bestowed through limited self-government.
Twenty years of devolution under different administrations has seen Scotland forge a different ideological path from its southern neighbours in a whole range of social, health, and educational initiatives. We get some things wrong, we underachieve in others.
But I would argue that throughout these two decades we have begun to see the shape of the modern, outward-looking, socially just nation we aspire to be.
Just yesterday I heard Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council until 2014, suggest that Brexit had altered European perceptions of Scotland’s bid to join the EU as a nation state in its own right. In his carefully precise way, he said he wasn’t arguing that breaking up the UK was something he favoured, merely in that eventuality much would have changed since 2014.
It already has. The UK is at a dangerous tipping point. But that very danger may persuade a critical mass of Scottish voters that they have the chance to jump off the Boris bus before it takes them over the cliff edge. Just don’t tell them this time to hope for the best. Tell them that the best is yet to come. Viewed from within the current Westminster bourach, it’s no more than the truth.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel