The disjuncture between what is promised by conference and what is delivered by SNP governments may be the reef on which Swinney founders. Increasingly, the post-Salmond leadership has been content to bask in the warmth of standing ovations prompted by big policy announcements that are forgotten before the delegates sit back down. Simon Barrow, the national secretary of the SNP Trade Union Group, doesn’t mention the constitutional issue. Which may seem odd to some onlookers, given the fact that implementation of any radical policy agenda is heavily contingent on restoring Scotland’s independence. Until then, cosmetic tinkering and “short-term mitigations” are the best we can expect.
There is only so much mileage the SNP can squeeze out of baby boxes. Even now, if you want to parody an SNP politician on the stump, you need only mention baby boxes. The what-have-you-done-for-us-lately effect will soon hit even things like the Scottish Child Payment and Scotrail nationalisation. Sooner or later, it all comes back to the constitutional issue. Which is, from Swinney’s perspective at least, unfortunate. Because there is nowhere he is weaker than the constitutional issue.
Sooner or later, it all comes back to the constitutional issue.
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but it is pertinent still. The #ScottishUDI strategy traces its origins to the period leading up to the 2021 Scottish general election when Geoff Bush and I set up a Facebook group calling itself SNP Members for Independence. A title that may have been entertainingly cheeky back then but is only wryly humorous now.
As part of this venture, we set about trying to fashion a manifesto commitment on the constitutional issue so pared back to the essentials that it could be supported by every party, organisation, group, and individual purporting to be pro-independence. The idea was to strip away everything relating to specific policy agendas so as to leave only a ‘pure’ Manifesto for Independence.
The project later split, as such initiatives tend to do. Geoff went off to work with a group that, from my perspective, was defeating the purpose of the exercise by adding back in a lot of the policy-related material we had so painstakingly removed. I stuck with the Manifesto for Independence, seeking to polish it to as near perfection as any mere mortal might hope to achieve.
What eventually emerged was the #ScottishUDI strategy which most of you reading this will be familiar with. Forgive me if I go off at something of a tangent here, but there is a point worth making here.
If I were better at organising and archiving my writing over the period since 2011, it would show a clear developmental curve as I acquired new knowledge and insights. I was decolonising my mind. Although early on I don’t think I recognised what was happening. This would correspond to a gestation period with #ScottishUDI being the neonate. What I find interesting is that I seem to have reached an endpoint. A point at which my thinking on the constitutional issue is as developed as I can achieve.
What I find interesting is that I seem to have reached an endpoint.
Which is not to say my thinking on the matter is perfect. Only that I am unable to improve it. Or, to put it another and more apt way, the process which led to the #ScottishUDI strategy has slowed dramatically. I don’t know where it goes next. You might suppose that I’d take some satisfaction from this. You might think I’d be pleased that the task was completed. But no! I find it very frustrating. I will not be easily persuaded that the task is completed. If it seems so, then it can only be that I am missing something. And I have no idea what that something might be.
The danger always is that in striving to perfect an idea, one risks crossing the line separating development from embellishment. Rather than making the proposal better, one is merely hanging decorations on it. Invariably, for the purpose of making the idea more appealing to some part of the audience. It is in the nature of things that what is appealing to one part is anathema to another. So, more decoration is added in the hope of appealing to those who are dissatisfied with the previous version. And down the rabbit hole we go!
It is in the nature of things that what is appealing to one part is anathema to another.
Ask almost any creator, and they will tell you that there comes a point at which you have to call a work finished, whether or not you are entirely happy with it. Embellishment can all too readily obliterate the intended message. A line must be drawn somewhere
How is this relevant to Simon Barrow’s remarks regarding the disconnect between what is decided at conference and what is delivered by government? The radical policy agenda of which he speaks is by way of embellishment. It is decoration hung on the core idea of restoring Scotland’s independence. There are many others. There are so many visions of what Scotland will be after independence is restored that the idea of restoring independence is all but totally obscured.
That is what happened in the campaign for the 2014 referendum. The essence of the nationalist message was lost in a fog of assertions that independence must be for this or that purpose. Purposes which were often incompatible or contradictory. Every policy agenda and hobby-horse issue tried to hitch itself to the Yes campaign. I recall attending an event in the Usher Hall where successive speakers each insisted that the Yes message must appeal to workers, pensioners, the young, the elderly, the trade unions, the business community, and so on. The only possible conclusion was that the Yes message must appeal to everyone.
The essence of the nationalist message was lost in a fog of assertions that independence must be for this or that purpose.
This is no easy task. But one thing is certain, and that is that the more complex the message, the more likely it is that some part of it will deter some voters. In the midst of all this embellishment, it is vital that someone holds fast to the thing that is left when all that embellishment is stripped away. That thing is justice. In the final analysis, I want Scotland’s independence restored because it is right. That is all it needs to be.
What is wrong with a campaign message which says simply this — that the Union is wrong and independence is right? The Union is wrong because it is inherently unfair. It is wrong because it so massively disadvantages Scotland. Independence is right because it ends this injustice. It is right because it restores to us that which is ours. That which should never have been taken from us.
Without genuine political leadership, most people will wander around aimlessly, like unknowing sheep. Unfortunately, National Parties/mere colonial administrators, such as the SNP, generally make an unwritten, wholly unofficial peace-pact with their metropolitan oppressor so as to remain in guaranteed, lucrative employment. A vote for the SNP is a vote for constitutional-stasis, and will remain as such. Where is the Party of National Liberation!?
Postcolonial theory reminds us that 'colonialism is based on psychology' (Cesaire) and also that 'independence is a cultural emotion' (Fanon). But what does this mean for Scottish independence:
1. it means that the solidarity of an independence movement is mostly dependent on the oppressed ethnic group, i.e. in our case people who are culturally (and linguistically) Scottish and identify as such, and who tend to vote Yes;
2. it means that the more colonially/culturally assimilated native groups (elites, bourgeoisie, 'most pampered elements' etc) tend to oppose independence;
3. it means that people of other cultures/identities may also tend to oppose independence.
Anti-colonial organisations therefore need to understand how a colonial society is structured and the cultural impacts of colonialism, e.g. assimilation, population displacement/manipulation etc.