Distraction and diversion

I started to write a piece yesterday about what I mean when I talk of 'New Scotland'. Despite being an ancient nation, there are numerous ways in which the Scotland which comes into existence on Independence Day will be a 'new' nation. For example, never in all its long history has Scotland been both an independent and a democratic nation. Having known Scotland only as the annexed territory of England-as-Britain, post-independence Scotland will be new to all of us. You take my point, I'm sure. Having stated that point so succinctly, I wonder now how I ever thought it could be spun into a 700-word article.

In the end, it didn't. But not because there was no more to say on the matter. Having written the first paragraph, I paused to think about where I would go next. While taking this wee break (I call it 'planning') I popped over to The National website to see if there were any responses to below-the-line (BTL) comments I'd submitted the previous day. As I did so, I paused to read some other BTL comments on this story about Nicola Sturgeon's "off the radar" remark re a new referendum. What I read depressed and disheartened me so much I abandoned what had been intended as a rather upbeat take on the constitutional issue. By my own standards, at least.

There was the usual scattering of idiots whose only response to any novel or critical take on the constitutional issue is to label the author a 'yoon', along with the bog-standard accusation that anybody not singing from the [insert name of party] songbook is 'doing the Unionists job for them'. That drivel has become so tediously repetitive that, as with Facebook ads, my mind simply edits it out of my attention. The people constantly spewing that crap on various platforms lack intellectual acuity. They are just fucking stupid. If you needed to explain to a visitor from some other planet what stupidity is, you need do no more than point at one of these buffoons.

What really threw me, however, were the comments frantically flogging the same 'supermajority' nonsense as was being peddled by Alba prior to the 2021 Holyrood election. You'll be familiar with the spiel. The 'both votes SNP' strategy is, if not the work of Satan, certainly part of some Unionists plot in which the SNP is a willing participant. All that's needed to get independence is that everybody gives their constituency vote to the SNP and their regional (list) vote to one of the other 'independence parties'. Gaming the system in this way, goes the claim, Swathes of list seats previously held by the British parties will fall to one or other of the (nominally) pro-independence parties. There would be a (nominally pro-independence 'supermajority' and then we'd be independent.

It's a superficially very appealing argument. But like many things that are superficially appealing, it's not so great when you peel of the varnish of sense to find what lies beneath. Proponents of the 'supermajority' strategy insist that the numbers don't lie. Which is true. Numbers themselves don't lie. But neither do words. But just as words can be arranged so as to mislead, so can numbers. I went through all this in a couple of articles written prior to the 2021 Scottish general election which you will find here and here.

The flaws in the 'supermajority' idea are many. And they are obvious, if you are looking for them! For one thing, it requires a level of of voter coordination and participation which would be regarded as miraculous were it ever achieved. And the whole thing is pointless, for at least two reasons, There is nothing you can do with a majority of 30 that you can't do with a majority of 3. A majority wins. Whether it is one or one million matters not at all. Most votes in the Scottish Parliament are decided on a simple majority. Some require an absolute majority. A few require a super-majority. They are not directly relevant to the constitutional issue.

What really makes the 'supermajority' strategy pointless, however, is the fact that it is solely about getting people elected. It takes no account of who these people are or what they are proposing to do. The whole thing is founded on the simplistic idea that simply electing a very large number of people from (nominally) pro-independence parties is enough to make independence happen. It isn't, of course. The people elected have to actually do things that make independence happen. They have to do the right things. There has to be a process.

This is where the whole 'supermajority' thing falls apart. Because as things stand, none of the people elected would have any proposals for taking the necessary action. And no commitment to taking the necessary action supposing a process is identified. For nearly eighteen years we've had a parliamentary majority of (nominally) pro-independence MSPs, and absolutely nothing has been achieved or even attempted on the constitutional front because that majority of (nominally) pro-independence MSPs has included not a single one with either the wits or the will to do what is required.. Now we're being told that the solution is to have even more (nominally) pro-independence MSPs with neither the wits nor the will to do what is required! Which is just as imbecilic as it sounds if you say it out loud.

That a pro-independence parliamentary majority is required goes without saying. A bigger majority may look more impressive while being no more useful. But no majority is useful unless all the MSPs who are part of it are committed to implementing an effective process. As things stand, there will be no such commitment to any process. But the proponents of the 'supermajority' strategy don't care. Their first priority is not the restoration of Scotland's independence but the election of people from whatever party they support. It's about securing a win for their team and not a win for Scotland.

I would love to think voters aren't going to be taken in by this scam again. But reading BTL comments in The National leads me to suspect that the 2026 election is set to be a disaster for Scotland's cause.