What's missing?
'Independence first, everything else later’ is a straw man. It is a risibly simplistic misrepresentation of the arguments against an excessive focus on selling independence like a holiday destination while being unable to explain exactly how you plan to get people there. It falsely portrays as a simple binary choice what is actually a far more nuanced argument for getting the balance right between vision and process. It fails to address the contradiction inherent in Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp's preference for the 'glossy brochure' approach to campaigning on the constitutional issue - on the one hand saying independence is about the right to choose while on the other laying down a prescriptive agenda that pre-empts almost every choice.
Gordon would also have us ignore the fact that the 'glossy brochure' approach is the orthodoxy which has dominated campaigning since 2011 or even earlier. To the extent that there has been any independence campaign at all over the last decade, it has predominantly been of the 'glossy brochure' sort. I'm sure Gordon would respond with great indignation to the suggestion that there has been no campaigning. Indeed, it is part of his schtick that Believe in Scotland is the biggest campaigning organisation. He would certainly not accept that Believe in Scotland has been idle. And Believe in Scotland is all about the 'vision' thing. It follows that the campaign over this period has also been all about the 'vision' thing. And it has been signally ineffective in terms of increasing support for independence.
Gordon has spent the last ten years making his glossy holiday brochure vision of independent Scotland ever glossier and more replete with brilliantly coloured pictures of what it will be like. And nobody is booking!
Basic logic bids us conclude that this approach is wrong or inadequate. I would plump for the latter. It is certainly not wrong to postulate a better Scotland once the onerous burden of the Union is lifted form her shoulders. But it is not enough to present even an honest, unenhanced vision of future Scotland. People may love the vision. But they need to have confidence that it can be realised if they are to actively support it. They may see the 'glossy brochure' depiction of independent Scotland as their dream destination. But unless they see a plan for getting them there, it will remain nothing more than an idle reverie.
The 'glossy brochure' approach also undersells independence as a mere means to an end. An end, moreover, which is predetermined and not left to the discretion of the people of independent Scotland. In reality, independence is an end int itself. I stress AN end, not THE end. It must be so because the restoration of Scotland's independence is a matter of justice. It is rectifying the ancient and abiding wrong of the imposed Union. It is decolonisation. It is liberation.
Support for independence will start to rise when people stop seeing independence as something that might be nice if only we were allowed to have it and start to understand it as something that is essential and something which must be taken. something that is theirs, but which is being withheld from them. Support for independence when people are roused to cold, determined anger by the injustice of the Union. Support will increase when people are persuaded that restoring independence is a realistic possibility by being given a clear, detailed explanation of the process by which it will be done.
A prospectus without a plan is just a wish list.
Indeed. I think the days of the glossy brochure are gone. We still need some sort of carrot and stick approach. I fear (and I do mean that) that the populist movements, whom I anathematise, have the approach with their emotive non specifics. However the moment that we steal their most effective lever - the demonisation of named and unnamed groups of people we’ve lost it aathegither. Perhaps we could cherry pick the surrounding layers?
As I was about to write and switch off GBNews i saw the protests and riots in Liverpool re migrant hotels..it looks nasty. Loads of police and police horses ..arrests by police dragging one guy away with others following and taking pictures.The police not looking good as they try to hide the guy arrested. This is my hope for the toxic union as it creaks at the seams... it looks like the foreign english might just do it for us. It says the riots are across the country.
Your point about the glossy brochure fallacy. I have to agree ... I used to think ..Independence then we'll be free. We all have our pipe dreams..but reality has to kick in at some point. Shutting the border..great and then? It will be a long and painful process as Scotland must recover from 300 years of tyranny and it won't be easy. I am sure dark forces will be at work to try and sabotage our 'new found freedom'..whatever that will be.Unpicking our relationship with the hostile neighbours and setting up our own government.etc etc...a nightmare awaits. But at some point we have to gird up our loins and get stuck in ..no doubt many of us will be long gone before Scotland is back up on her feet again...but we should start it for those Scots waiting way down the line to come into a free Scotland.
No-one is able to say ..you do this and then you do that....Scotland will just have to feel her way along making mistakes as she goes..but it must be done.We'll only see the very beginnings of it
and hope that all goes well for Scotland in the future.
However to finish on a happy note..The foreign english are revolting ( you knew that).. I mean they are up on their hind legs biting at their government....how wonderful. I always hoped they would break up the union...keep yer fingers crossed...Of course the Bruce would have shouted ..'take them now..they're busy.'..another pipe dream!
For OUR Scotland and her weans.