Two cases of culpable homicide (1)
Kenneth Roy
Two cases of culpable homicide (2)
Bob Cant
Now here’s a question to ponder. Why do those who seek to break up the United Kingdom hate to be called separatists? I have recently spoken to two strong, committed SNP supporters who will vote for an independent Scotland but who say they are not separatists. They told me that they support an independent Scottish state with all that goes with that, but they do not believe in separatism. How come?
After all, other movements calling for opt-outs from existing states have no problem with being labelled separatists. The Quebecoi, Basques, Catalans, Flemish and a host of other breakaway ambitionists say what they are. I concede that for the last referendum the Quebec separatists said their objective was ‘sovereignty association’ but they never resiled from being proud separatists.
So why do my two SNP friends reject the term? Why do the cybernats who still flood the web with their bile go berserk when they are called separatists? Could it be that the term is so accurate and so potent?
Separating Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, where it has been for three centuries, is what it says. The creation of a separate Scottish state with its own stamps, anthem, army and uniforms, embassies and warships, its own DSS, DVLA, HMRC, Broadcasting Corporation, Competition Commission, Financial Services Authority, Foreign Office, Passport Office, Defence Ministry, Trade Ministry, Energy Ministry, job centres and 1,000 written relationships with other foreign countries, is a very serious operation. Neither easy nor cheap and certainly not quick.
For one of my previously mentioned SNP pals to say he believes in independence but not separation because a new Scottish state would remain part of a ‘social union’ is for the birds. You are either an independent nation state or you are not.
But, as the old saying goes, the Scottish people did not come up the Clyde on a bike. A separate state is a separate state is a separate state. Even if, by paying a fee, you can watch ‘Eastenders’ and the royal baby will still be king or queen of Scotland, the trappings and the harsh reality of being a separate state will still bite.
Over jobs, companies, institutions and livelihoods big questions still have to be answered. And most of them can’t. For many, and they are at the core of most people’s lives, they can only be answered after the detailed negotiations take place following, and only following, a ‘yes’ vote. And even then some cannot be answered until the new state’s government is elected. That’s a long, uncertain time to get to know if your job will exist.
It is just not honest to pretend that breaking up Britain is a mere technical exercise in this modern interconnected world. It is not ‘scaremongering’ to ask about assembling the paraphernalia of a separate state and manage the dismantling of 300 years of political, economic, industrial and indeed personal integration. It is plain dishonesty to claim that those who point out the consequences of breakup are simply inventing or exaggerating potential difficulties. These difficulties are real, and serious and they represent a huge risk for future generations.
And of course most of us defending the union and determined to avoid separation today would, like most of the people of Scotland, prefer to be thinking and debating what Scotland needs to do to fit its population for the massive challenges of today’s world. Instead of another year and a half of sterile, unproductive exchanges on the constitution we need to focus on what is needed to fit the working population to what lies before us.
We need, as Johann Lamont has bravely flagged up, to examine all the universal benefits we can afford to pay today because we certainly will not be able to pay them tomorrow. We need to look at our education system – once the best in the world but now struggling. We need to look at the balance of our infrastructure and establish if it is fit for the rest of the 21st century.
Pretty well all the levers for facing that future are in the hands of the Scottish Parliament. That was what the devolution settlement of 1998 was all about. And these powers were reinforced and added to last year with the new Scotland Act. Constant complaints about the lack of vision of those who protect the UK ignore the inescapable fact that the vision is there for the making. Innovation and imagination in modernising our education system, or our health service, or our tourism strategy are not limited by Westminster cash. They are limited by a ruling party fixated on only one policy, one objective and one date.
I saw a lot of the world in my time at the Ministry of Defence and NATO and I never lost my pride in and optimism for my country. But now a party which polled 45% of a 50.1% turnout of electors (that is 22.5% of those eligible to vote) lets Scotland slumber while they, Micawber-like, wait for the separatist dream to be delivered. In the meantime the challenges and the needs of a great people are put on hold.
And the separatists obsess about being called separatists.
George Robertson, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, was Labour MP for Hamilton, Shadow Scottish Secretary, UK Defence Secretary and Secretary General of NATO
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