THINGS FALL APART
It was if we all woke Sunday morning to find the world had
changed, that the state that I grew up in was about to disappear. The feeling
of disquiet was overwhelming. The polls were suggesting a narrow lead for
Scottish Yes campaign in the upcoming vote on Scottish independence. Suddenly
Scotland breaking away became a real possibility, a possibility I found
profoundly unsettling and I was not alone.
I find myself deeply conflicted about the prospect of
Scotland separating. As a decentralist, a democrat and believer in equality and
social justice I should be happy about a turn of events that sees power being
taken from ‘the Westminster Elite’[1]
and being placed in the hands of the Scottish people. Moreover the process has energised
and revitalised electoral politics north of the border breathing life back into
a democracy that feels so withered and jaded here in England. There is much to
be excited about in the political ferment created in Scotland. A constitutional
change to the Union of the scale of Scotland breaking away would radically alter
the political landscape in England.[2]
I should therefore, like many on the
left here in England, be a cheer leader for Scottish independence, but I am not.
There are moments when your reaction to political events
feels visceral, it was just such a moment for me on Sunday morning. The reason
can be found in the last paragraph in the phrase ‘north of the border.’ At present that border is soft, porous, cultures
flow back and forth enriching both countries, combining with Welsh and Irish
influences to create the reality that is the UK. It is in so many ways a border
more of the mind than of reality. Independence would change this profoundly and
for ever. Of course Scotland will not suddenly become overnight as foreign as
France, or even the Irish Republic, but it will have taken a step of
separation. The divide will grow as the wall solidifies and as the cultures
steadily grows apart.[3]
Underneath all that is positive in the Yes campaign, - and I
would be lying if I said I did not see the attractions of new state founded on
social democratic principles freed from the neoliberalism of Westminster and
the South East, though I seriously question if this is the state that will
ultimately emerge, - lies the continuing and enduring myth of ‘the nation
state’ as the answer to all problems. That this myth should be so powerful and
enduring in spite of all the evidence to the contrary is one of the great
mysteries of the age. In short underneath it all is good old fashioned 19th
Century nationalism, nationalism that reduced Europe to ruins a hundred years
ago.
Not that the Yes campaigners are all a crowd of flag waving
jingoists, there might be a few of this sort, but they are definitely in the
minority. The majority, as I have recently been told are deeply sincere people
passionate about independence. I believe this to be the case, I just believe
them to be wrong. As for passion I have never understood why this should be
expected to impress me, whether it be the Prime Minister saying he feels “passionate
about the Union” or Alex Salmond talking about his passion for Scotland.
Passion is good, passion can move people to action, get things done, but in and
of itself is not a particular indication of just beliefs or just action, indeed
it can often be the very opposite. The last century is littered with the
corpses of those who died passionately for bad causes. All too often, as Yeats
once witnessed;
“The best lack all conviction, while the
worst
Are full of passionate
intensity.”
As to those on the left in Scotland who are advocating
independence as a means of throwing off the shackles of London centric
capitalism, what they are saying is that they have found the fight too hard,
preferring more local victories; this is not how wars are won. This is also a strange
form of solidarity, Keir Hardie spins in his grave.
In truth now things are changed for good, the status quo is
dead. On Wednesday the Westminster parties panicked and made promises of
further decentralisation, which if followed through and extended to Wales and
the regions offer the possibility of democratic renewal to the whole of the UK.[4]
Whatever the vote next week things can never be the same again.
If Scotland does go I will wish it well, though decoupling
will be difficult and I fear much ill will has been sown by the debate, and
this will take a long time to heal. And if Scotland is lost to the rest of the
UK I suspect it was lost in the dismal and cruel days of the early 1980’s, as
Scotland felt the full force of the cavalier Thatcherite ideological
experiment, reducing great swathes of Scottish industry to rust and decay. Now
another cavalier politician is conducting a campaign of permanent destruction,
indifferent to truth or consequences. Thatcher began the process Salmond now
seeks to finish the job. Salmond and Thatcher, bookends, who oversaw the
destruction of the Union?
I am now on Twitter, @alextalbot116. Hope to meet you there.
[1]
Alex Salmond’s favourite phrase.
[2]
Though electorally the left would be disadvantaged by the loss of Scottish
votes. Indeed the silliness of some on the left in England, cheering on the
break-up of the United Kingdom as this “will give a V sign to the Westminster
Elite,”(Peter Tatchell), reducing a constitutional change on this scale to an
agit-prop performance, is unfortunately very much to type.
[3] If
Scotland operates a significantly different immigration policy to the rest of
the UK this raises the very real possibility of border controls between the two
countries.
[4] In
over a hundred years Britain has been unable to reform the second chamber and
yet the governing structure of the union is altered overnight, plans sketched
on the back of an envelope.
