There is a frankly bizarre article in today’s HuffPost UK by John Wight claiming that the independence campaign in Scotland is foundering.
“It would be fair to say that Alex Salmond, the SNP, and the YES campaign for Scottish independence have had better weeks than the one just past since launching the White Paper setting out their vision for an independent Scotland in November 2013.
Two of their major policies – a sterling currency union with the rest of the UK and EU membership – have hit the buffers, calling into question both the vision embraced by the SNP for independence and their ability to deliver on it should the Scottish people vote Yes in the referendum on September 18.
Regardless, when you separate out the issue of a currency union from the political posturing involved in the back and forth between both camps, it is undeniable that Salmond and the SNP have got themselves into one almighty pickle.
As if the debacle over the currency wasn’t bad enough, up pops the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, in a BBC television interview at the weekend, during which he casts serious doubt over the ability of a newly independent Scotland to enter the EU.
As it is, Alex Salmond and the SNP – adherents of neoliberal nostrums when it comes to monetary, economic, and fiscal policy – have come up against a neoliberal private members club that has just declared it is not currently accepting new members. This may leave them increasingly reliant on the emotional argument in favour of independence, based on empty symbols of Scottish nationalism such as the Saltire and the depiction of England as the auld enemy trampling over the rights of the Scottish people.
It is a dangerous path to tread.”
Just to clarify.
The pro-independence Yes side has recorded a jump in the latest poll, a survey of voter intentions which came after most of the events referred to in the HuffPo article. Furthermore that result is in line with other polls which have recorded a narrowing of the percentage gap between the Yes and No camps.
The Spanish authorities have explicitly stated that the decision by the British government to acknowledge the right of the Scots to national self-determination is a matter for the UK and that they would make no objection to an independent Scotland continuing its EU membership or reapplying for it. Madrid has also stated with force that the legal matters around Scotland and Catalonia are unrelated. They see no comparison between the two regions since the Spanish do not accept the right of the Catalans to national self-determination or accept that Spain’s “regions” have any constitutional rights to sovereignty should they choose to exercise them (in contrast this is something that the British have accepted in relation to Scotland).
Scotland is a defined and recognised member region of the European Union, its people are citizens of the EU with elected representatives in the European Parliament. Scotland cannot be ejected from its membership of the EU or its population stripped of their EU citizenship and parliamentary representation by a Yes vote on independence. The referendum is about membership of the UK not the EU. Nor does Scotland need to use the euro to be a member of the Union. It can share the sterling with the UK or issue its own currency (does anyone really believe that all of these positions are not up for negotiation between Edinburgh, London and Brussels?)
The ignorance of some British commentators on Scottish and European matters is quite extraordinary. Do they even share the same island or continent? Even more extraordinary is the determination of those on the Left of British politics to oppose the right of the Scottish people to nationhood. The censorious attitudes are summed up best by this piece of anti-pluralist double-think:
“I will be voting No in this year’s referendum on Scottish independence. I will do so as a statement of solidarity with working people throughout Britain.
Nationalism, unless rooted in national oppression, is a regressive ideology. It obscures the real dividing line in society – namely class – offering instead an abstracted analysis of the world through a national prism that takes zero account of social and economic factors, thus offering nothing but more of the same under a different flag.
Our nationality is an accident of birth. It means nothing. You can’t eat a flag. A flag doesn’t heat a home or put food on the table. Nationalism offers a largely mythologized history in the process of inviting us to embrace a national interest, one that can only relate to the world behind false divisions of national, ethnic, or racial differences. Even when it comes to culture, the term ‘national culture’ obscures more than it illuminates. The traditional culture of the Highlands in Scotland, for example, means little to me as a Lowland Scot. I can appreciate it, of course, but not anymore or with more feeling than I do any other culture.
A patchwork of smaller states plays into the hands of global capital, as it means more competition for inward investment, which means global corporations are able to negotiate more favourable terms in return for that investment. The inevitable result is a race to the bottom as workers in one state compete for jobs with workers in neighbouring states. In this regard it is surely no accident that Rupert Murdoch is a vocal supporter of Scottish independence.
As a consequence, my No vote in September will be both a rejection of nationalism as a progressive alternative to the status quo and a statement of solidarity with all who are suffering under this Tory government – not only in Scotland but throughout the United Kingdom.”
All of which sentiments are typical of some on the Far Left of European politics who worship at the metropolitan altar of centrism, uniformity and homogeneity. Let us all think the same, speak the same, act the same. Preferably while wearing those bland Mao suits once favoured by apparatchiks in the Chinese Communist Party and their Western acolytes. How very 1970s.
Meanwhile in another part of Europe another people find their democratic wishes stifled (and rightly so as some authoritarians on both the Right and Left might think). From the Irish Independent:
“The Spanish Parliament has overwhelmingly rejected plans by the powerful north-eastern Catalonia region to hold a referendum on whether it should become independent or remain part of Spain.
A motion rejecting the referendum was approved today by 272 MPs from the country’s mainstream parties against 43 votes from Catalonian nationalist groups and some leftist politicians.
It calls on the government to ensure compliance with the law and the constitution, under which only the central government can call a referendum.
The Barcelona-based regional government of Catalonia plans to hold the referendum on November 9 but the Spanish government has made it clear it won’t be allowed.”
So much for a Europe of the peoples…
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
My far left friends across the water back independence for Scotland http://socialistresistance.org/3490/scotland-why-socialists-should-back-independence. Mind you their wing of left politics tends to be sympa to oppressed nations and nationalities.
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Thanks for the Comment, Jim. I do try to say “some” on the Far Left since it is only some. However in Britain, or more specifically England, that “some” seems quite widespread. Left-wing politics should be absolutely about bread-and-butter issues. However it should also be about much more than that. Sharing and celebrating our diversity of languages, cultures and ways of living. Taking joy in the uniqueness of both individuals and communities. I simply cannot understand why some on the Left fear “nationalism” so much when it can be a force of good when given the right guiding hand and inspiration. Why not a form of nationalism where care for the young and the elderly is part and of its weft and weave? Why not a form of nationalism where the environment is held sacrosanct? Why not a form of nationalism were the secular is held to be the only just form for civic society and where religious belief is for private contemplation and adherence?
When socialists and social-democrats walk away from nationalism they leave the field to those who would turn it to evil. Personally I say let’s take the positive cultural traits of the Swedes or Finns and make them our own! 😉
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One of the thoughts that I have had for a while now is that many of the so called do-gooders who are on the left saying stuff like ‘Nationalism is regressive’ or ‘It’s better for us to all be one’ say this and yet which “one” do they advocate people abiding by? Almost always the major power in this case Britain. It’s the same with Irish people who say stuff like ‘Oh Irish culture and language and the whole idea of separation is an old fashioned mentality’ and yet what culture and language do they indirectly suggest that Irish people should abide by, and which language speak? English!
One of the things I have actually argued with people over in Ireland is that all people are in a culture of some sort and if you don’t have your own, you will have someone else’s. Culture does not have to be a strict and old fashioned regime of any kind, it is simply quoting a dictionary “the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group:”.
With all of the talk that people throw, especially at those of us who make an argument for the nourishing and maintenance of native cultures, such as Irish or Scottish, claiming such ideas are regressive and even apelike, the culture that they would have us then embrace is the one which is dominant in our and Scotland’s case English.
I would far prefer honesty from people and have them say ” Look English is just better culturally and language wise and far better than any primitive thing we have ever done ” which is the feeling I get from an unbelievably large amount of Irish people and even some people who are Scottish or live in Scotland.
Although this may sound primitive and simplistic one of my strong beliefs is that an Irish man will never be as good at being English as the real thing, nor will a Scottish man or Welsh man. Therefore what they are left with is a perpetual second place in a society that reveres a foreign nation as an authority on all things cultural, linguistic and constitutional. This is why Scotland needs Independence and is why Ireland still needs independence from the mentality that the culture of our neighboring land is good, effective and proper and our own is regressive and pointless.
Until then I feel no matter what the Gaelic nations do, we will always be in the shadow of Sasana.
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Jack, another excellent analytical comment. Completely agree with you. If you feel like expanding on it in an article of whatever length (long or short) send it on to my email on the blog homepage and I will happily publish it.
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Thanks Séamas- I will definitely look into doing that if you think it would be worth it.
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Absolutely 🙂
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Many people are saying something like: “I don’t speak Irish, but I am Irish”.
In Latvia that would sound like a crazy talk.
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Some Finns speak Swedish as their mother-tongue (and speak Finnish rather poorly) but are 100% Finns – or would you see it differently ?. Even Mannerheim himself struggled in the Finnish language.
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In Latvia it’s simple – if you don’t speak Latvian – you are not a Latvian.
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And that’s why those who speak Irish are more Irish in my eyes.
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I’ve heard the same said of the Basques by someone who ought to know. If you speak their language, no matter what your origins, then you’re one of them. Trouble is, once a language gets seriously threatened there’s a danger that it will take on a seige mentality, so that outsiders are not welcome. I.e. “They’ve taken everything else, now they’re even trying to take our language!” This is understandable, but in the long run counter-productive. Then there’s the other problem, definitely there in both Ireland and Wales, where what has been a peasant language is taken up by a section of the middle class, and can then be seen by ordinary non-speakers as the preserve of self-serving elite. I.e. they get all the jobs reserved for speakers, send their kids to the emersion schools, etc. More a perception than a reality, at least I hope so, but still something that must be gone through.
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Two of their major policies – a sterling currency union with the rest of the UK and EU membership – have hit the buffers
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Well, they can’t just demand a bilateral currency union with England.
They have 3 options:
1. Introduce their own currency.
2. Join some other currency union.
3. Use the GBP unilaterally – like Montenegro uses the Euro.
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A currency union would be best for both countries and therefore the SNP negotiating position, for now. I imagine they’ll stick to it until negotiations begin, which will be after a ‘yes’ vote. Until then it’s all politics and posturing. When asked they say the range of options are set out in the White Paper and they’re offering the best. If the English finally refuse this, well more fool them to turn down a generous offer. Any alternative would hurt England more than Scotland, might even be better for Scotland, but the point is they can’t be blamed for any problems that England suffers. Really it’s the same trick they pulled over the ‘second question’. The English are too arrogant to see how they’re being manipulated.
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