Weary but thrawn

I was not at yesterday’s march and rally in Edinburgh. I am not physically able to do that kind of thing any more. But I wouldn’t have attended even if I had been fit to do so. It was my dodgy knees and hips that put me off. What deterred me was the thought of marching alongside the same people I marched with twelve years ago, listening to the same senseless chants as we made our way to listen to the same voices giving the same speeches and revelling in the automatic enthusiasm of the crowd whose buttons they now press with practised ease.

I’m done marching and getting nowhere. I’m done listening to the same speeches year after year. I’m done with the independence industry’s empty rhetoric and unfulfilled promises.

I don’t denigrate the people who continue to participate in these events. I try hard not to pity them in a way that can only be uncomfortably condescending. It is something akin to pity, the embarrassment and anger I feel on behalf of these people who are so blatantly being exploited by doyens of the independence industry such as John Swinney and Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, among all too many others.

I know many of the people who were in Edinburgh yesterday. I cannot bring myself to condemn them. I do, however, unflinchingly condemn those who defend the self-serving cabal that has hijacked the SNP and the independence movement and bent both to its own purposes. Scotland’s cause is ill-served by such people and the dogmatic bigotry that bids them rail against any and all dissenting voices. A glance through below-the-line comments on The National site is illuminating, even if not in any way edifying.

None of the nominally pro-independence parties are pursuing a route to independence. That’s why we’re not getting anywhere. They’re all pursuing a route to elected office and the rewards that this entails. They’ve been getting away with this for years. If you want to understand why, just look at the responses to my comments pointing out the hard truths.

I was driven off Facebook not by Unionists, but by people who unabashedly style themselves the vanguard of the independence movement.

What the politicians and those spitting childish jibes at me have in common is that their heads are all stuck in 2014. They haven’t moved on from the thinking of that time. They have learned nothing from the campaign for the 2014 sham referendum. Most of them don’t even realise – or refuse to accept – that it was a sham. They know nothing of the new thinking on the constitutional issue that has developed over the past ten to fifteen years. They flatly refuse to hear any fresh perspectives. They can’t even conceive of the reframing of the entire issue that is necessary if progress is to be made.

The independence industry feeds off these people while insulating them from the gritty realpolitik of a liberation struggle. I stopped going to marches and rallies, not least because I wearied of hearing the same voices making the same speeches year after year. Not only because I was embarrassed and angry on behalf of the people who clapped and cheered on cue and never for a moment wondered why they were still plodding through this performative ritual after so many years. I stopped going to these events when impenetrable barriers were erected to ensure that no dissenting voice was heard. A direct parallel across the independence industry-dominated part of the movement with what happened within the SNP.

A dispassionate observer would surely be shocked or amused according to their temperament to see how backward the larger part of the independence movement has become. How it has sealed itself off from what free discourse is yet to be found in places like the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group (SSRG) and Independence Forum Scotland (IFS). They might well be impressed that dissenting voices are still to be found despite the forces ranged against them.

We’re not on a route to independence. That’s why Swinney and the rest are so reluctant to show you the map they are using. They haven’t got one! What’s worse, they don’t want one! They are perfectly content with the well-worn circular path they’re on. The independence industry has created for itself a relatively opulent—certainly very comfortable—merry-go-round of elections and other events that they have no interest in coming off.

We must, I fear, resign ourselves to the fact that this coming election will do nothing for Scotland’s cause. Nothing good, that is. We can only hope that the harm proposed by John Swinney can somehow be mitigated. This implies that we must consider what our next move must be. When I say ‘we’, I mean Scottish nationalists such as myself who are not shy about calling ourselves Scottish nationalists. I refer to dissenting voices such as my own and organisations such as SSRG and IFS, which strive to ensure there is still a space for those voices. A space which simply does not exist in events organised by Believe in Scotland or, sadly, All Under One Banner (AOUB).

I confess I am strongly tempted to throw in the towel. Weary is in constant battle with thrawn. Thrawn tends to get the upper hand, ironically encouraged by the #WheeshtForIndy mob’s efforts to shout me down. But what to do? What can be done?

In my more optimistic moments, I imagine the aftermath of the 2026 election prompting an epiphany for many in the independence movement and provoking something of a backlash against what I have termed the independence industry. I suspect Professor Alf Baird would intervene at this point to stress the importance of educating—you might prefer to say informing—the people regarding the true nature of our liberation struggle. Of course, that is precisely what I and a handful of others have been doing for a decade and more.

It has to be said that efforts in this regard have been piecemeal and spasmodic and less effective that they might otherwise be. I wonder if there is any point in launching a new initiative to try and bring a bit of coordination to what we might call the radical independence movement to contrast it with the decidedly conservative independence industry.

I know what you’re thinking. Not another ‘initiative’!!! I sympathise entirely with that. We are all suffering from initiative fatigue. But let’s not dismiss the idea out of hand on that account. If Scotland’s cause is to be rescued from the corrosive, destructive actions of the independence industry, we must do something. How pathetic that phrase sounds—we must do something!

Perhaps we can make it sound a bit less pathetic with a couple of practical suggestions. Rather than a new initiative, we could relaunch the New Scotland Party and/or the New Scotland Movement. That might provide a platform from which to launch a campaign to educate/inform the independence movement and the general public.

Alternatively, we might devise some form of online collective for the same purpose. something similar to Common Weal or the original Radical Independence Collective but without the leftist ideology and policy agenda.

We could revisit an idea I’ve been toying with for some time. Namely, a one-off convention or series of conventions in various locations solely focused on the practicalities of restoring independence. The ‘how’ of restoring Scotland’s independence. I know IFS attempted this last October (see above), genrously affording this dissenting voice an opportunity to be heard. But for a number of reasons it didn’t really work.

And that’s it! I’m out of ideas! Fortunately, mine is not the only mind working on the problem of how to get the new thinking and the reframed constitutional issue in front of Scotland’s people. As I say, there may be an opportune moment when people begin to realise that they’ve been duped yet again by the independence industry in the months following the election as it becomes clear that no progress has been made or is being made or is going to be made. If we are to make use of this moment, we should start preparing now.

As ever, your thoughts on the matter are welcome. I endeavour to read every comment and respond as appropriate. Dissenting voices are encouraged in this place.