Just as the SNP sweeps to utter domination of the Scottish presence at Westminster, the future of Scottish nationalism must move to a rejection of Westminster rule as illegitimate. That is the victory paradox.
There is no doubt that this is the best possible election result for achieving Scottish independence in the near term. The one thing that I believe might have postponed independence for decades, was a Labour Party government of the UK with SNP support, governing as Tory Lite but making the dreadful repressive UK state that little bit less openly vicious, the abuse a little bit more disguised, the wealthy corporate elite less openly triumphalist.
I know that Tory rule is going to be dreadful for many decent people who are struggling to make ends meet, that the heartlessness of benefits sanctions will cause despair and suicide, that asylum seekers will be detained and abused. But Scotland has absolutely rejected the entire Tory system, and the scene is now set for the kind of extra-parliamentary resistance that we saw to Thatcher’s poll tax. We have to refuse to let Westminster do this to people. In this circumstance, those SNP MPs are relevant insofar as they use their platform to help build the popular resistance, not in terms of anything they do in that appalling haw-haw club.
Labour would have lost and we would have a Tory government even if Labour had won every seat in Scotland. Labour’s abject failure was in no sense caused by the SNP, whatever the appalling journalists of BBC Scotland may say or imply. And Labour is now going to underline, still more than the Tories, the urgent need for Scotland to be independent. The airwaves are already buzzing with London comment that Labour’s problem was that it was not right wing enough for English opinion. The next Labour leader must be more Blairite, they say. Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper or Chuka Umunna are touted to fit the bill, they suggest. This is completely a false analysis. If England were given a chance to vote for an SNP style, more left wing, offering then very many of the English would vote for it. But it will not happen. Labour will lurch ever further to the right and it will become undeniable that the Scottish people can only express their political aspirations through independence.
Even the best people are still human, and I have to confess that I am absolutely delighted that the SNP leadership have been neatly removed by this election result from any temptation. Exercising power within the United Kingdom state can be heady and addictive. An insidious agenda was quite blatantly propagated by Alex Bell in Bella Caledonia, a man who has been very close to the party leadership, and who actually celebrated the idea that:
The fascinating story of this election is how the SNP is ‘Britishing’ itself, gently playing down the big constitutional stuff in favour of real power over the austerity agenda.
Mr Bell goes on to make the ludicrous proposition that to support the creation of a small state is in itself a conservative agenda. He is profoundly wrong. To dismantle an aggressive imperialist state is not a remotely conservative agenda. I have frequently expressed the fear that there is a careerist core in the SNP who are more concerned with troughing in the political class and being big-wigs in the UK than with achieving independence. Bell’s insidious unionism – very lightly disguised as support for “utilitarian nationalism” – had the potential to be much more corrosive to the cause of independence than anything which the Tories can do. Fortunately Bell’s thesis is totally stuffed by the election result, and his pseudo-intellectual rationalisations of the status quo can now be safely confined to the dustbin of irrelevance. The SNP has no “real power over the austerity agenda” and has zero chance of gaining any within the United Kingdom.
There is now no course to take but root and branch opposition to the consequences of a Tory rule which Scotland has just declared anathema. The only way forward is now independence and the only route is through a mounting extra-parliamentary opposition over the next few years. I am absolutely delighted for all those SNP MPs, of whom a large number are personal friends. But if you want to remain relevant, you have to forget about Angus Robertson telling you what suits to wear or how to put an approved knot in your tie (yes, that really happened), and you have to inspire the street in the way so many of you did during the referendum campaign.
JimmyGiro – sounds like your MRA is spilling over into misogyny. Don’t any women have their own mind, in your book?
@JohnGoss, 12.54. What an excellent article. Such a pity Pres. Roosevelt expired when he did…
Roderick Russell
09/05/2015 2:26am
[RR]: Yes, I have had a little experience as the but end of at least some freemasons.
[JSD]: Very sorry to hear that. Freemasons should not use their fraternity to mistreat any person: it is a betrayal of the principles of Freemasonry.
[RR]: Certainly it is not an organization that believes in rule of law and fair play.
[JSD]: At their initiation it is made clear to Freemasons that they are never to disgrace the name of Freemasonry, that it is founded upon moral principles, and that it is in no way incompatible with their civil, moral, or religious duties.
[RR]: and I have grave doubts as to whether secret societies like freemasonry are compatible with democracy.
[JSD]: “Members are expected to be of high moral standing and are encouraged to speak openly about Freemasonry…Freemasonry instils in its members a moral and ethical approach to life: its values are based on integrity, kindness, honesty and fairness. Members are urged to regard the interests of the family as paramount but, importantly, Freemasonry also teaches concern for people, care for the less fortunate and help for those in need…Freemasonry, as a body, will never express a view on politics or state policy. The discussion of politics at Masonic meetings has always been prohibited.” (United Grand Lodge of England).
Kind regards,
John
@Jon,
German’s have their own mind, but Nazi’s don’t.
Women have their own mind, but feminists have abdicated personal belief for the ‘fashion’ of the collective uni-thought.
Of course feminists are not the same as the German Nazi’s, because the Nazi’s were given a democratic mandate to represent German’s; but feminists are placed into our parliament on the back of ‘equality and diversity’, thus dodging democracy by mzrepresentation.
If the cat had kittens, the SNP would get the blame!
I am sick of hearing Scots Nats cheering at the thought of handing the poor, the sick, the disabled, the vulnerable in England over to the vile Tories. But that is nationalism for you. It rejoices in the distress of the “enemy”, even the most defenceless enemy.
Peacewisher and Mark Golding. Thank you both. It is a good article.
I am fond of Binyon’s famous words from For the Fallen which is repeated each Remembrance Day. Binyon came from a Quaker background and did not fight but served in hospitals of France in the First World War. He wrote those powerful words on cliffs in Cornwall.
There is a quote in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.
“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
Enoch
I joined the SNP four years ago, before anyone (including me) thought they would become so powerful.
“Your posts are copied and sent daily to the SNP. You might be allowed to remain, but don’t count on it.”
Even for a right wing nutjob like you, that is funny. My posts are sent to the SNP!!! Err, actually you don’t have to send them, they can read them anyway – it is called the internet. Many thousand SNP members read them every day, of course including some in the leadership. I am hardly hidden – I literally live next door to Party HQ. That really is the funniest attempt at being threatening I have heard for a long time.
Correction.
I am fond of Binyon’s famous words from For the Fallen which are repeated each Remembrance Day. Binyon came from a Quaker background and did not fight but served in hospitals of France in the First World War. He wrote those powerful words on cliffs in Cornwall.
Paul Barbara
“Well done, SNP. Pity Plaid Cymru didn’t take Wales.'”
They were far from it. The Tories scored their best result in Wales for over 30 years and UKIP’s share of the vote knocked Plaid into fourth place with a huge surge of support in the Valleys.
For someone who has time on his hand (giro) to spend on thinking, this clearly shows that his thinking has been contracted out.
Feminism or more to the point; oppressed fighting backism, on behalf of all the oppressed, has been hijacked and made into a platform of misandry, fashion, and universally pathetic thinking trend that discounts the realities and instead focuses on irrelevancies, the same fate the befell; socialism, and higher ideals of human cooperation and coexistence.
Read up on feminist theory; a fight for equality for all men and women, regardless of their locality, creed, colour (pathetic 21st century still harps on the notions of the twelfth century).
Craig, You clearly don’t understand views in England. Whilst the Scots have fully endorsed the SNP and their anti-austerity message (even if their numbers don’t match it according to the IFS) , I can tell you that a material element of people voting Tory in England was due concerns that the SNP would hold sway over a weak labour minority government. The SNP have both triumphed and failed – roundly supported by the Scots, roundly rejected by the English. For all their desire to create an anti-Tory majority in Westminster, we have by a large margin an anti-SNP majority.
I would now support the Scots being given full fiscal responsibility – so long as Scottish spending plans are fully matched with Scottish taxation. The Scots can then create the country they want (high spending, high tax) and the English can have what is clear they want by a large majority – deficit reduction, controlled spending, lower tax.
And everyone will then be happy .. . . 🙂 (as if 🙁 ).
Jimmy Giro. I know.
My comment seems to have appeared in the middle of the Guardian extract.
I said: ‘Will these female MPs when voting for the promised £12bn cuts remember that it is women who bear the brunt of the effects of such cuts?’
The rest are the Guardian’s.
Briar.
If only you could count.
Regardless of who we vote for in Scotland, it is what the majority in England vote for, that we get. It is only a coincidence if we vote for the same Party.
Do the sums Briar.
If you have a prejudice against our win this time, get treatment for it, please.
Richard,
I would certainly support Full Fiscal Autonomy, provided it included ALL revenue raised in Scotland – ie the hydrocarbon revenues from Scottish seas and the duties from Scottish whisky – and excluded ALL infrastructure spending outside Scotland.
At the moment oil revenue and duties are both classified as “national” income not allocated to Scotland for accounting purposes. Transport projects like HS2 and Crossrail are “strategic national” and 10% of their cost allocated to Scotland. If full fiscal autonomy really is full fiscal autonomy then I 100% support.
I say to you agent David Cameron, having used time at the Cenotaph acknowledging the German surrender and listening to a speech by Winston Churchill, why, WHY are you not with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping remembering the lives of at least 27 million people killed (out of a total of 55 million fatalities in WWII). A time when Russian cities, towns and villages lay in ruins.
My victory paradox is the absurdity of backing attempts to rehabilitate Nazism and militarism in Ukraine by Britain and the exceptional United States of America.
That is the logic and your judgement Mr Cameron, subservience, at the mercy of the ‘special relationship’ and the march to global dominance, control, dominion, power and wealth while trampling on the lives and deaths of the many.
Agent Cameron you are an empty suit, a paper tiger now inimical to the resolute people of Scotland whose battle cries can be heard echoing through the English border.
http://9may.rt.com/
I am fed up with remembrance ceremonies attended by royal and the current crop of pocket political warmongers.
Ob Radio 4 Today, Sarah Rainsford reported from Moscow and St Petersburg (aka Petrograd/ Leningrad).
The infinite sacrifice of the USSR (20 million of their citizens) was acknowledged but ‘Western leaders were not attending’ because of Russian annexation of the Crimea and its involvement in the Ukraine.
There was no mention of US troops (over 1000 I am told), who with the British there, are ‘training’ the thugs. No mention of the ‘defensive’ weapons supplied by the evil empire or of the increasing number of political assassinations. You can almost hear the sound of the spiv’s and the Uncle Toms’ lips being licked for war.
0845
Victory Day in Moscow, the 70th anniversary, to mark the end of WWII, is a massive deal for the Russians. Up to 28 million Soviets died in the fight vs fascism. Western leaders have refused Putin’s invite to attend the parade, because they don’t want to be at a display of Russian military might whilst the war in Ukraine is going on. Sarah Rainsford is BBC Correspondent in St Petersburg.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tbf5f
Fouled up again in replying to Jimmy Giro. I blame it on watching too much TV. Yesterday seemed as long as a weekend and it’s only Saturday isn’t it? :}
s/be I know how you think.
Hi everyone,
Am not being lazy, but I am leaving this as the top article for a while because I hope it is really important and a lot of people will read it and digest it.
Having just re-read it, I must say it is pretty lucid given it was written at 9.30am when I had not had any sleep all night and had drunk really seriously large quantities of alcohol. When in the FCO I was well known for being able to drink literally all night and then produce perfectly coherent and detailed work. But not something I have tried to do for many years. I confess to feeling quite chuffed that I have still got it! 🙂
“If full fiscal autonomy really is full fiscal autonomy then I 100% support.”
Excluding even the English taxpayer’s expense of picking up starving Scottish refugees floating down the Tweed in coracles?
Lesley Docksey in Dorset lets off steam.
Britain: No Longer “Great” but Doomed to Another Five Years of Pain
by Lesley Docksey / May 8th, 2015
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/britain-no-longer-great-but-doomed-to-another-five-years-of-pain/
and Jonathan Cook who got out from the Guardian, comments from Nazareth.
The Real Lessons of the Tory Victory
by Jonathan Cook / May 8th, 2015
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/the-real-lessons-of-the-tory-victory/
“When in the FCO I was well known for being able to drink literally all night and then produce perfectly coherent and detailed work. But not something I have tried to do for many years. I confess to feeling quite chuffed that I have still got it! ”
Ha ha, Craig. Well done! I believe they call it a functioning alcoholic.
Talking of which (well almost) , I see poor Charles Kennedy lost his seat to former investment banker, Ian Blackford, of the SNP. I’ve always had a measure of respect for Charles.
We laughed in their faces at their scare tactics, we laughed in their faces at their belittling of us, we even copied it to ourselves, for a laugh, ha ha ha.
It never put us off from our goal.
We did it our way, and we won.
Pity the English caved in to the fear tactics, from their own.
Maybe the next five years will teach them a lesson, not to be afraid of their own politicians.
I sincerely hope so. They deserve better.
There is to be an inquiry into the polls carried out by the BRC.
http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/officers.html
Prof Curtice was frequently employed on the BBC throughout the proceedings in between Ms Raworth’s coloured tiles and the idiotic Jeremy Vine’s gyrations. More like Playschool.
Sky’s election coverage was rated the best. They employed Michael Thrasher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Thrasher
The new SNP MPs will be a breath of fresh air in the pollution of Pugin’s Palace.
On Radio 4 Today they had on a new SNP MP from Skye. Alert and eloquent. A banker with Deutsche Bank!. Cf with the ghastly Kennedy. Chalk and cheese.
0810
Nicola Sturgeon will speak to the new SNP Parliamentary group here in Edinburgh today, the 56 MPs who will be the biggest Nationalist group in the House of Commons since the Irish Party at the end of the nineteenth century. Tom Bateman is a reporter for the Today Programme. Ian Blackford is SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
Mary
09/05/2015 11:41am
My one chance to name-drop. Doctor (now Professor) John Curtice was my Politics tutor in 1985/86.
Nice man, typical mad professor. Conducted tutorials in an tiny office stacked with piles of books that fell over regularly. Fair-minded, very liberal, in no sense left-wing.
Kind regards,
John
The link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tbf5f
Craig – absolutely. Scotland should keep the revenue from 80% or so of the oil in Scottish waters. And England keeps 100% of the revenues generated in England – like the City of London, ports, stamp duty on London homes, etc, etc. Scottish oil revenues going to England are at least matched by revenues from the City going to Scotland (CEBR analysis) and that was with oil revenues much higher than they are now.
Agree on HS2 – waste of money – no-one should pay for it.
R
I have confidence Mary the BPC will expose any wrongdoing in the 2015 General Elections.
President Professor John Curtice is I believe a fellow of the British Council, a charity of particular truth and conviction to the cause of the humanities.
http://www.britac.ac.uk/