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The biter bit.
Having laboured for well over 30 years in the vineyard (?) of the Scottish Press, I recently had the interesting experience of seeing things from the other side.
The redoubtable nationalist and independence activist Paul Scott and myself have just edited a short but I hope powerful book on the case for independence, simply called The Independence Book.
Last month the publisher, Gavin MacDougall, of Luath, organised a prepublication briefing for a few selected journalists in an Edinburgh hotel. I don’t think the event was a huge success.
One senior political journalist, a man I genuinely respect, picked up the book, held it disdainfully as if it was something the cat had brought in, flicked through the pages with a pained expression on his face and then at last started to read – the very last page.
We waited.
Well, he announced, after a few seconds, I think this is a bit glib. And he read out the book’s very last sentence.
One sentence (the last) and he’s making judgments already. Apart from the fact that I think most people still read books forwards rather than backwards, I found this a depressing experience.
It made me wonder how often sincere and well-meaning people have been patronised by sniffy journos.
More importantly, I wonder if this points to a serious problem the independence movement has. Most operators in the Scottish media are going to be either sceptical (fair enough) or downright hostile (not fair at all, it they are predisposed to that position).
The questioning that followed, led by our friend who reads backwards, focussed almost entirely on micropolicy in an independent Scotland.
It’s a pity he and his colleagues had not even bothered to look at the (very brief) introduction to our book.
Let me quote from it: “The case for independence is what this book is all about. ..…But it is most definitely NOT about what would happen in an independent Scotland, because nobody knows. That is the whole point. The people of Scotland would be empowered to decide what their country was to be like and the direction it was to take. At the beginning, there would be an open book…..”
I think this deals honestly with the trap the naysayers set. They demand detailed and specific answers to questions on what exactly would happen in our independent Scotland. Would we need passports to go to England? Would we lose our Scottish banknotes and have euros? Would we be allowed to buy English owned newspapers?
OK, I made that last one up. Some of the questions are pertinent, others are just scaremongering silliness. But these enemies of independence well understand: definitive answers to most of their questions cannot yet be given. You can say: “almost certainly not” or “that is highly unlikely” but you cannot say exactly what our first government would do, or not do.
I’m pretty confident that I know the answers to most of the questions that are asked, but the point is that it’s not for me to say. You can make the case for Scottish independence, honestly, passionately and sincerely, without being able to talk about every last decision that the first (and following) governments of Scotland would make.
The case for an independent Scotland is a moral, just and idealistic case. It is not yet about the details of policy.
So there is a cunning playing upon fear here. Most people are naturally conservative. It is easy to raise bogeys and worries.
I pop down to Leeds every month to see Aunt Jessie; how difficult would that be when I have to cross a proper border? How do I know nobody will want to look at my passport? And so on. The trouble is that is it’s impossible to deal with all these myriad miniscares because we cannot say definitively what will happen. Many matters will have to be negotiated, not least with England; much will have to be left to our first government, after independence is achieved.
So this is a crafty and devious tactic of the unionists, and their negation –peddling satraps. Constantly demand answers to questions that cannot be answered. EG: What would the level of income tax be in an independent Scotland?
Of course we cannot answer the question, but if mischief makers ask it in a seemingly innocent way, the honest inability to answer looks weak and confused.
How to deal with the tactic? Well, I reckon we have to bang on about the essence of our case, which is decent and irrefutable.
The case of independence is blessedly simple; We are a nation – a proud and well defined nation with a distinguished history. We have our institutions and our traditions. But we are not a state, because over 300 years ago we lost our statehood and were subsumed into a much larger state. What this is about is giving Scotland, already a nation, the status of statehood. It’s as simple as that.
Maybe the way to allay people’s fears is to point to the sheer consistent responsibility of the SNP. I am not a member of the Party and probably never will be. But the SNP has bent over backwards to make it clear that in today’s complex global world there is no such thing as perfect, pure nationalism.
That is, there is no nation-state that is free from dependence on other powers, organisations and nation-states. In today’s and tomorrow’s world, no state, not even the most powerful (today the US, tomorrow China) has or will have the ability to achieve perfect independence. The citizens of our planet all live in a world of instant international communication and ever growing interdependability. It is a world of powerful supranational institutions.
So nobody is arguing for insulation, for putting up fences and walls. Quite the opposite. We just want to play our part in this developing and changing world like other countries do. We want to be a proud state as well as a proud nation. Tell the unionists: it’s as basic and decent as that.
And to come back to the question of what exactly the first government of this new independent state of Scotland would do --- well, we cannot begin to debate such matters till we have our first proper Scottish general election campaign. We can say what the first government could do, but not what it would do.
I look forward to that blessed time.
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