No words for Tory insolence

(I meant to post this a few weeks ago. So there will be a lot to add to my post. Please excuse spelling and grammar as I'm writing this hurriedly.)

The Scottish Tories' campaign this year as last year is all centred on one thing: who will stop Indyref 2. Quite understandably last year they had conceded that the SNP were going to win without doubt. The question was who would form the effective opposition and that for them was all about who would be most vocal against another independence referendum. They proved to be very good and took a lot of seats with Labour doubtlessly losing votes to the Tories.

SO then they took their campaign against independence to a new level and dragged it into an election where it was quite simply irrelevant, the council elections. Ruth Davidson and her party were complaining that the SNP were obsessed with independence and that the people needed to elect Tories back on May 4th to stop the SNP's "second decisive referendum" because that was what they were "obsessed with." And yet it was the SNP who were actually out campaigning with regard to the local services that mattered to local people and producing leaflets that outlined their programme for the local council if they were elected and formed an administration. So who was it that were really obsessed with independence during the local elections? Ruth Davidson and the Tories!

I would say that this could only make cynical voters wonder more if in fact it's time for local councils to actually be non-partisan with elected independents running the councils so local issues don't get caught up so much in wider national arguments. I might find some agreement there from the likes of Lesley Riddoch.

Then there was two years ago when we living in the immediate post-indyref climate and we then had to turn our attention to the 2015 General Election. I was of course dissapointed with the result of the referendum but a large part of me then thought that maybe this was really a blessing in disguise because it would really test the convictions of what the Unionists argued during the referendum.

Vote No to stay in EU. Vote No to gain more powers. Vote No to lead the UK not leave it. All this pointed towards the need post-referendum to make sure Scotland's voice was heard and tolerated at a UK level. And so that was what the new First Minister of Scotland was focussed on making sure the SNP set out to do by campaigning for SNP MPs to be elected. If we were really voting No to make sure Scotland 'punched above its weight'

I accept that Ruth Davidson is trying to protect a union that she loves for whatever reason like, well, identity. Nothing like a bit of nationalism that doesn't self-identify as nationalism to combat the progressive forces of civic nationalism. I wouldn't expect anything less from a party who's very purpose is to defend the Union of Great Britain. So her party's inevitable complaints about the First Minister unveiling plans to hold a second independence referendum sometime around the end of the Brexit process was just something I shrugged my shoulders at.

But in the weeks after Nicola Sturgeon announced plans to move towards holding another vote, with the circumstances changed how the Tories were allowed to get away with castigating Nicola Sturgeon over acting as an ambassador for Scotland in the World I will never get my head round. Shortly after her big announcement about the second independence referendum she jetted off to America to do what anyone leading a country should do, attempt to make responsible trade deals with other countries. It also included the signing of a pledge with the democratic governor of California to pledge to work together on tackling climate change, one of the biggest issues of modern times and something Donald Trump is all too keen to sweep under the carpet. She also attended the Women in the World summit where she was interviewed in front on a sell-out crowd and was well received by those in attendance. The Scottish COnservatives however, instead of actually considering the common ground they should surely find with the SNP on the need to make sure Scotland is selling itself to the World, chose to carry forth their their accusation of Nicola Sturgeon supposedly neglecting her post of FIrst Minister and 'grandstanding' on the World stage. The demands of Tory MSPs John Lamont and Annie Wells that she 'got back to her day job' were all that they could come up with in response to an important trip that happened, not during parliamentary time, but during recess. Yet in the same recess David Mundell was in Burma and SIngapore promoting Scottish whisky, technology, oil and gas. Were they complaining about that visit? Of course not! So to John Lamont and Annie Wells, what was the difference between the Scottish First Minister visiting New York and the Scottish Secretary visiting South East Asia on similar trade missions? Nothing except the fact that one was SNP and the other was Conservative. What's more Sturgeon's visit to New York coincided with Theresa May visiting Saudi Arabia to continue with the usual business including arms dealing with a country that has an atrocious human rights record. Why was that okay but Nicola Sturgeon's progressive trade visit to America not? 'Blah blah tax payer's money, blah blah grandstanding, blah blah get back to your day job.' No don't give us that bullshit!

The Tories moaning about Nicola Sturgeon's visit across the North Atlantic was as petty as it was demeaning. It was demeaning not just to the role of the FIrst Minister but I felt more widely to the nation of Scotland. What was the point in spending the No campaigning talking up Scotland 'being a proud nation, punching above it's weight in the World' when you don't want its very leader to promote Scotland in the World and then talk about shutting her out of the Brexit negotiations? They told us to 'lead the UK not leave it' yet seemingly that didn't apply to single biggest issue that affecting the UK right at this moment. The mask is slipping and it's quite clear that the unionists are more interested in shouting down the SNP and antagonising its supporters than actually offering a vision of how the UK can work in harmony with the Scottish Government in the best and diverse interests of the people of Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon kept everything on the table including Scotland staying in the UK but keeping access to the single market. That was until the fight to defend Scotland's interests fell flat against a UK Government keen only on its own hard-Brexit agenda. And when the Conservatives hand round leaflets complaining about a second divisive referendum and indeed when WIllie Rennie and Kezia DUgdale do the same it is THEM who are being DIVISIVE just by talking about it. And given the three of them were all too glad of a snap general election which meant weeks more of heated political debates only two years after the last general election and a year after the Brexit vote who are they to preach about the causes of division?

The thing is of course, that when all they can attack their opponents for is a plan to hold a one-day exercise in democracy that may only involve a few weeks of campaigning, you can't help but wonder what it is they're actually trying to deflect from. Well we know full well, because it's the Tories. £12 Billion benefit cuts, an NHS under pressure with doctors struggling under contracts, cuts to police numbers, council cuts, the Dementia Tax, the Rape Clause, government debt, the list goes on. So perhaps I'll just leave this link with you from an article in the Guardian a few days ago.

Along with all the other crap we're having to deal with from the Conservatives people should keep in mind the insolence of unionist politicians when they cast their vote. A vote for the SNP is a vote for Scotland to make its own voice heard within the UK and taken seriously. I just hope Jeremy Corbyn realises that the party led by Nicola Sturgeon and Angus Robertson is Labour's natural ally against more years of a nasty Conservative government.

So allow me this once to repeat a recurring cliche among those of us on the anti-Tory side:

Make June the end of May.

The beautiful game - but an ugly establishment

Happy New Year! Am I a little late saying that? Well anyway, how was the old year for you? A lot worth talking about, eh? Well it's fair to say 2016 was a terrible year for English football. The 'home of football' as it is so affectionately viewed, England nonetheless has not had the easiest reputation in the beautiful game. And if last year is anything to go by a lot of the current issues reflect very badly on the FA themselves.

Okay, so lets start with something positive - Leicester City, 5000-1 outsiders and look what they achieved. Premier League glory! Yes, that's starting to become a distant memory now with the same team dangerously close to the relegation zone. I hope for them they survive but it goes to show when you suceed where others wrote you off, live in the moment because far from being the start of a golden era it could just be a one off, something womderful to savour before normal service resumes. But a lot of other teams will take inspiration and say 'why not also us one day?'

So Leicester was England's pride for 2016 because the national team's humiliation against Iceland in Euro 2016 is one few of us will ever come to terms with. Far from hoping for the big prize we should have just looked at a quarter-final match with France as a decent enough place to exit being that the host nation was playing impressively enough. A friendly victory a few months earlier against arch-rivals Germany had shown us massive potential that we all thought could be put together in the finest England team for a generation. But once again we were to be dissapointed and worse against a team we were supposed to beat! It raises questions about how well our grassroots system prepares young footballers for their career ahead but also how far they manage to go in a league system which maybe stacked against them compared to other countries. After Germany won the 2014 World Cup the pundits were commenting on just how developed their academy system but there is something even deeper about Germany's clinical approach that has made it one of the most successful teams in the history of both the Euros and the World Cup. It is fair to say Germany does a lot of things better than England, I could go on all day about that, something in a country's mentality makes all the difference.

So out went Roy Hodgson and in came Sam Allardyce. I looked at his philosophy and his approach to training and couldn't help feeling we were on to something. This was surely the man to rescue England from abyss, the man who had been waiting in the wings for so long. But then it was all over so soon in a shock revelation about Big Sam's dealings caught on a hidden camera. What a fool, the man had let us all down and now, as Alan Shearer said, we're a complete "laughing stock"! How much lower could England go? Well, we have Gareth Southgate now and whatever his flaws our trust in him isn't likely to be tarnished anytime soon.

Outwith the national England's football establishment itself, the FA, has shown recently just how retrograde and stuck in the past it can be. In the autumn several former professional footballers bravely waived their right to anonymity to reveal that they were sexually abused when they were young players. No doubt we can expect the FA to do something about the predators in the system but we have to ask the obvious question: was there something they could have done earlier but didn't? Even when no victim comes forward surely somebody in a position of authority should have been able to spot the warning signs and also be able to properly vet people apply to work with children and young people. We know only now in recent years that this has been a long running problem in other areas of the establishment like the BBC and the damming thing there has been that the controllers should have picked up on the allegations early and acted appropriately. And the FA is the latest institution thaat will need to confront this issue so it is seen to act when it matters the most.


This article will be updated later. I can't be asked to finish it just now.

Three times Olympians got folk telt at Rio.

I meant to post this back after the Olympics but as it's now Sports Personality of Year, here is a small selection of Britain's Olympic personalities at Rio hitting back at some total eejits:

Bradley Wiggins pricking the conscience of Piers Morgan

After winning a team gold for Team GB the legend that is Bradley Wiggins, being the dude he is, poked his tongue out to help prevent him and his team crying on the podium. Piers Morgan however was not impressed and tried shaming him for not singing God Save the Queen. But Wiggo, as Colm Quinn, was quick to remind him where his moral responsibilities really should lie:

Andy Murray correcting John Inverdale who forgot about the Williams' sisters

What a year Andy Murray has had! In fact I'm writing this just as Gary Linekar is talking to Andy on SPOTY. Anyway, when being interviewed by John Inverdale who congratulated him on being "the first person to win two gold medals in tennis", Andy Murray managed not to let his moment of glory cloud his memory so he could remind John Inverdale that Venus and Serena's achievements shouldn't be rewritten.

Callum Skinner telling the Leave campaign not to hijack his success.

Callum Skinner makes the point perfectly. While political campaigns are welcome to voice their support for athletes they shouldn't then start using that to promote their agenda. That's what the Better Together campaign did in 2012 during the London Olympics to try and use emotion against Scottish independence and it was repugnant. It's no different with the more recent referendum campaign that flew the Union Jack so passionately, Leave.EU. The rhetoric of those promoting Brexit was hideous enough without it drifting into the very arena where we should have been able to escape from it all.

If you can jog your memory and remember others with such personality from Rio 2016 drop a comment below and tell us how they got someone telt!

The monarchy can fund itself

I have an admission to make: I don't really mind the monarchy. As far as I care the Queen can remain Head of State as long as we have the right political system for a fair and progressive society. It's perfectly possible to be such a country whilst retaining a royal family, think of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, all with a King or Queen as head of state yet all considered among some of the most progressive countries in the developed world. Meanwhile we have France, Russia and America with executive presidents but these are not exactly the best of countries for liberal politics at the moment. Of course we also have Iceland and Finland as progressive republics. And then we have Spain and Britain with constitutional monarchies but political elites that leave a lot to be desired. So what can we really draw about a country based simply on what system it has for the head of state?

But whatever we think of the monarchy in this country, how it's funded is always going to be a source of controversy. The latest issue to emerge is that of the maintenance bill for Buckingham Palace, a whopping £370 million for the taxpayer. We can argue the exact technicality of the funding arrangement that will pay for this - the sovereign grant drawn from the crown estates - but it's still an issue. The crown estates should be full public property while the monarch's actual properties, Buck Palace, Balmoral, Windsor Castle and so on should all be paid for by something other than the public purse. There is little reason why the monarch and the rest of the Royal Family couldn't be privately funded. The Royal Family is known for being most popular among the wealthiest people in the country. If they are all keen to keep the monarchy and funding them by donations is the only option then they surely won't hesitate to do so. Buckingham Palace recieves around half a million visitors which isn't going to be enough to cover the costs of the bill but crowd-funding and not-for-profit heritage contributions ought to go some way.

What we ought to do is get politicians to back a bill that ends all public funding to the monarchy and its assets. We may only give them less than £1 a year per person or we may give them much much more. But we have to think about public perception here. When the Royal Family are rich enough, giving so much as an extra penny to them is not a savoury thought when there are many other families across the country in greater need. When there is legislation that specifically states public funding should not go to fund the monarchy, that's when public perception of the Royal Family on the side of its skeptics might begin to change. But even then that's not really going to make a difference to people's overall opinions.

The thing is, the debate about the Monarchy, whether we should have it or not, is really less of a financial debate and more of a discussion concerning either how sentimental we are about the institution or how much it is a matter of democratic accountability. Because after all, an elected head of state still has to be paid for and that would generally be done by taxpayers. I'm not arguing for one moment that the monarchy makes any net contribution to the economy, that's more or less negligible. But if it is entirely self funding or funded by donation we could end contributing far more in public funding to the office of President of the United Republic (and wouldn't there also be a small cost involved in having to change the country's name?).

United Republic OKay? All I can say to the designer of that flag is U-ROK!

All the Royal Family needs is the support of wealthy donors, possibly the selling-off of its private assets to be enjoyed by the public in free museums, regular high-end jobs that as prominent public figures they're in a prime position to be offered or just the good old tapping into their bank accounts. If the reigning monarch is so enthusiastic about undertaking his or her role as head of state, a lack of salary isn't going to be a put-off - it's still going to feel like a privilege to be in that role.

I really don't do football tribalism

One weekend, about two months ago, there were two footballing derbies played out in two of the great  cities on this island. I've often had reason to compare Glasgow and Manchester with the civic grandeur of both their centres born out of a seismic 19th century industrial landscape that has become the cultural and economic heartland for many millions of people in the nation/region of which it is the biggest city. And likewise both have inevitably come to each have two big teams playing in some of Britain great cathedrals of football. Yet there is still something of a difference between the Manchester Derby and Old Firm derbies in the reputation of each rivalry.

I do not support either Celtic or Rangers though I may make an exception when it comes to the big European competitions in which case it becomes a matter of Scottish national interest whoever gets there. But I generally prefer to stay out of it and away from the politics of committing myself to an Old Firm club. Yes, I do have more of an affinity with the traditional fanbase of Celtic whose general political leanings are to the left - anti-establishment, anti-imperialism, socialist ideals, Irish reunification, Palestinian solidarity etc. The broad-left is where my political home lies but it does not give me any reason to support Celtic. Because when you have a footballing rivalry as big and divisive as that I want no part of it. The team I support is Liverpool while here in Scotland my allegiances lie more with local teams in the South-west - Queen of the South and Stranraer, both of whom could bring something of a boost to their clubs and local communities if they advance further in the leagues. In the Premiership, if there's any team I want to win it then it will be anyone but the Old Firm. So my support goes to whichever club can end the dominance of Rangers or Celtic. Last season that was Aberdeen who sadly missed out on beating Celtic to the top-spot, this season so far its looking like Hearts might be the contender. But I'm just sick to death of Glasgow's dominance in the top tier of Scottish football, unless Partick Thistle were to come along and steal the Old Firm's thunder.

More of this would be nice

Of course Celtic and Rangers have been good business for Scotland to an extent though the cost of policing them makes for a heavy bill. As football clubs they have their fair share of fans who are there just because they love football and have found their place in the family of one club or another. For them and many Celtic and Rangers fans across Scotland it isn't about sectarianism or ideology. They just support the clubs for similar reasons to why other people support other clubs be it a local connection, a family connection or maybe even a classroom influence among peers. Sadly however, at the heart of Scottish football lies this most tribalistic of rivalries. How about considering other rivalries for a change? Like one between Celtic and Hearts to echo the less acrimonious rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh, though that would probably just end up like another sectarian derby. It seems there's actually one between Rangers and Aberdeen that started relatively recently in a single match. But how about people just put aside their religious or political bias in finding their club of affinitiy? The thing with the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is that the bigotry really cuts both ways. In the showdown between the two at Parkhead in September, a number of Rangers fans went and trashed the toilets while someone in the Celtic camp had the wise idea (n.b. irony) of hanging a pair of dolls possibly to symbolise what they saw as a club who died in 2012. We can call all this banter but it's really hard to know what to make of it. Certainly such behaviour can be highly provocative.

Europe: More control when you're in the room than knocking on the window

We are now in the middle of the month when we are talking about little else but Europe, whether that's the football or something more important, a certain referendum that is less than a fortnight away. As someone on the left and a supporter of Scottish independence, the European Union ought to be the sort of thing I despised as a bureaucratic corporate centralising force with its  unelected headquarters in Brussels. Yet the main advocacy of Britain's exit from this club, a 'Brexit', is coming from the right and perhaps feels too jingoistic for comfort.

Twenty months on from the independence referendum it's easy to see the parallels emerging. The Brexit side saying "we are strong enough not to need dictating to by a foreign power" while accusing the other side of "Project Fear". But for me this is quite a different referendum needing quite a different debate. I personally favour remaining in the European Union and so it feels weird to find myself on the same side of the debate as David Cameron and George Osborne. Nonetheless we will be singing from completely different hymn sheets. The British Unionists are still having a dig at Alex Salmond even when they both agree on continued EU membership because we are contemplating another referendum especially if Britain as a whole votes to leave the European Union. We even have the cheek of Willie Rennie suggesting Alex Salmond should leave the Remain campaign because "he's an embarrassment". Talk for yourself mate! Not only that he thinks we "nationalists" will be voting to leave to ensure Britain gets taken out of the European Union so it would create the grounds for that second referendum. Well anybody with half a brain would realise how stupid that would be when the whole point with arguing for a second referendum in the event of a Brexit is because there is a strong Scottish vote for remaining in. So on that basis what we in Scotland should be campaigning for is a very strong vote north of the border (and in the short time we have before the referendum it is best for most politicians and campaigners to focus on one part of the UK when campaigning, whether Scotland, Wales, Wessex or Yorkshire) and let the rest of Britain decide for itself. The simple truth is that polls suggest there's going to be a strong vote to leave south of the border while in Scotland it will be quite the reverse. But Nicola Sturgeon is expressing strong support for a vote to remain in the EU not just within Scotland but across the UK. I certainly don't want the future for a Great Britain of three independent countries to include an England that is detached from the European Union while all its Celtic neighbours are committed members. But if it comes to the rump of the UK choosing to stay out of the EU then I would want an independent Scotland as soon as possible in order to bring the European Union back to at least part of our island.

A RISE vote is an unwise vote

It's nearly that time of year again. Hard to believe almost 12 months have passed since that historic day when the SNP achieved a near clean-sweep of Westminster's 59 Scottish seats. A day that saw a number of familiar faces from the Yes campaign, some having only joined the SNP since the referendum, gain their spot on the (in)famous green benches. One of those was of course particularly remarkable - a 20-year old politics undergraduate called Mhairi Black unseating Douglas Alexander one of New Labour's stalwarts who had been there since the girl who would become the youngest MP for some three hundred years was still in nursery. I think I felt my age when I remembered back then in 1997 I was revising for exams that I would be sitting at the grammar school in Penrith!

It was easy to feel some gleeful schadenfreude with the enormity of Labour's collapse in Scotland - served them right for how they behaved towards us during the referendum! Yet that feeling soon gave in to a sense that actually Labour were finally eating humble pie and realising what was wrong with themselves. They weren't the great victors of the independence referendum that John McTiernan had so pompously predicted a few months before but rather the lambs that had sacrificed themselves to protect the union by a swing margin of just 5%. They sound like a shadow of their former self but the tone of humility they seemed to adopt wasn't going to make me forgive them anytime soon. They were well and truly tarnished by standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories in 'Better Together'.

One set of seat predictions for May 5th

Now the time comes for their painful reminder. Whilst last year we could take nothing for granted in the pro-indy camp where most of us were united behind the need to vote SNP, the result this time is pretty much in the bag. The SNP will win the Scottish Parliament elections this coming Thursday and most likely they will increase their majority. But alongside this already-won contest for first place there are another two battles in play. The Tories fancy their chances to be the main opposition party ahead of Labour (I'd hardly be looking forward to that!) and the Greens sense a real opportunity to make a bigger impact on the back of their own increased membership since the referendum with the possibility of winning a few more seats and replacing the Liberal Democrats as the fourth party in Holyrood.

A guaranteed basic income - surely its time has come

Writing in the Guardian back in February last year on the subject of work-life balance Channel 4 correspondent Paul Mason wrote about the possibility of a guaranteed basic income of £6,000 and how this could benefit many working class people. I only came across this article the other day and so thinking that it had only just been written I wondered why he wasn't mentioning Finland taking up this initiative in recent weeks but that was of course before I realised it was written way back three months before the UK General Election when there was still some hope Labour would be the party in government.

8 million gold coins dropped in a Swiss square to celebrate the successful petitioning for a referendum on BI.

The idea of a guaranteed basic income where you are unconditionally handed a government sum of, say, £6,000 a year for basically doing nothing is of course a wonderful thought just by the mere thought of it. What's not to like about that? But naturally anyone hearing this proposition for the first time would be quick to ask the serious questions about how exactly this would work, how much would it cost, what would be the economic effect of it on the country and so on. I myself went through this idea and its associated questions carefully in my mind before becoming convinced that I was onto something.

When should we have another referendum.

2021. At the earliest.

Didn't think I'd answer it so quickly did you? Or directly? The referendum was of course now just a year ago and is still pretty recent. Not that there hasn't been a great deal of change since then of course we can now enjoy a strong SNP presence in Westminster, higher approval ratings of the party with a leader that even Alex Salmond must secretly envy in terms of popularity and now the gap between Yes and No is starting to narrow according to opinion polls. But should we really rush the second referendum?

I think we have to be patient and I believe Nicola Sturgeon will be able to work out when the time is right to include it on a manifesto. I have made this very comment recently on Facebook feeling that although I very much look forward to the day we win the campaign for Scotland to stand on its own two feet, the case for independence will need a bit more time to be won. And it appears someone picked up on my comment because soon an article appeared in Bella Caledonia reading:

"Such ideas will naturally draw critical responses and these are welcome, but too often in recent months a tiny but vocal minority have sought to silence any criticism of the SNP and its strategy, by telling many of us to ‘be patient’ and put our faith in leaders who ‘know what they’re doing’. This is a curious development considering that throughout the referendum we were actively encouraging people to think critically about power and leadership. In fact, those who were very active during the Yes campaign will readily tell you that the best strategies were not devised by ‘experts’ in Hope Street but by activists in the housing schemes and high streets across Scotland. I can think of no greater deterrent against independence than the prospect of a country where criticising politicians is frowned upon or worse, regarded as disloyal. "

I'll put my hands up and admit my guilt in response to this. I don't want to be mean to the author of this, he is of course one of many making a valuable contribution to the whole independence movement and I only wish five million people in Scotland shared his view! But unfortunately at the present moment just over two million people don't share his view and that is very unlikely to change significantly any time within the next couple of years. Which is why there is no point in staging another referendum so soon if we're unlikely to win it.

Let me set the record straight here. I am a member of the SNP not because I see it as the sole vehicle in the Yes movement but because that is what I feel is my natural political home. I am not quite as radical as others, the SNP fits with my more moderate pro-independence views. But I don't just have a follow-the-leader attitude and there is much I question in the SNP's leadership. I'm really glad I was in the SNP in 2012 when the Conference debated NATO, I was one of the delegates that voted against. Now that 100,000 new members have joined from the Yes campaign there is a much greater chance of policy being influenced in a radical direction not simply in terms of what will appeal to hardened unionists. I'm also growing to be increasingly sceptical of value of a single police force and now have my doubts about whether or not it should have been one single force or instead four large forces.

Of course I shouldn't have inferred that everyone on the Yes side, if that's what came across, is an SNP supporter or that Nicola Sturgeon was a leader for everyone in the Yes movement. And yes, it is activists who should be determining the direction of movement for the Yes side. But does my own voice count in all this? If I believed we could win the referendum convincingly were it to be held next year then I would demand it be held then. But what is the point in holding another referendum if we are unlikely to win? Truth is I trust Nicola Sturgeon to decide the suitable timing of the second referendum because it will fall to her to decide whether it is included in the SNP's next term and I know she's a cautious politician, she won't be perfect but I believe she is as canny an operator as Alex Salmond. Contrary to how it sounded my comment to 'be patient' is not submissive, it was, believe it or not, meant to be a statement of confidence. Confidence that the case for independence will only grow with time, give it a few years and we will have a consistent majority in the polls. Is the hunter lion in the Savannah crouching, hiding in wait for some time really timid just because he's not going straight in for the kill? No. He is waiting for the right moment to strike, if he is too hasty, the prey may be in a position to run away before the lion can catch him. If he waits too long the prey will also end up beyond reach. That is all I mean when I advise we take our time over the staging of a second referendum. If we hold it too soon, opinion won't have shifted much in our favour. But yes, hold it too late and our opportunity will pass.

Spontaneous grass-roots activisim is important of course. But good strategy is crucial. I don't think a second referendum should be in the 2016 manifesto because it will only play into the Unionists hands and we won't win, that is me being realistic not pessimistic. The SNP keeping the referendum off the table for a few years will tranquilise the opponents in their anti-independence tirades. Either that or we will expose their hypocrisy if they bang on about an independence referendum that isn't even part of five-year term having had the audacity to tell us to 'move-on'. Including the referendum on the 2021 manifesto will be a great idea. In the weeks after the 2014 referendum one of my work colleagues reiterated his opposition to independence being quite passionately 'British' (as if being British is somehow dependent on being part of the UK) yet was surprisingly quite generous in terms of the timing of a second referendum saying it should not be held for another ten years (others would say fifteen). So here's where it gets interesting. If every unionist was like my colleague then the inclusion of a referendum on the 2021 manifesto would really test their convictions. Would they want the referendum held straight away like they did in 2011? Or would they want it to wait three and a half years like last time so they could have their wish fulfilled that another referendum is only held after ten years. We could alternatively test unionist opinion on the timing of a second referendum to the max by pledging it in the 2026 manifesto instead, that way 15 years will have passed if again we wait three and a half years. But 2026 is way too far in the future, so the second referendum should be pledged on the 2021 manifesto and held within a few months hence. By holding it reasonably soon after the election anyone complaining about a long period of uncertainty can be reminded of the referendum's short timetable.

My advice that we should wait six years or so for the next referendum is not me telling people to cease in their general everyday activism until that time. Quite the contrary. All the good work done by activists should carry on as normal in all the years leading up to the next referendum, gaining more and more people's trust in our cause. The media won't pay much attention to it but that will largely be a good thing as the grassroots campaign can operate under the radar and not be so subject to the hostile media. With opinion polls shifting in our favour the unionist parties will have to address the inevitable sooner or later or they risk losing support. They will have to face up to the fact that accussing us of being 'nothing but vile cybernats' will serve no good whatsoever. The unionist media, especially the likes of the Daily Record, will also have to change their tune as they watch sale figures plummet. We don't ask of the mainstream media to take our side, we just ask them to be balanced.

I'm sorry if people thought my 'be patient' view was a call to lay off from campaigning, it wasn't. But my warning is clear. Whenever you hold the next referendum the likelihood is that will be it not just another six years but for a lot more than ten years. Can we wait another twenty years for the referendum that will win a Yes vote? Certainly not. Can we wait six years? Yes we can! Six years is exactly what we need to shift public opinion. So please please please folks, do not mistake my advice for partisan loyalty. I want to win the next referendum no less than you do. But we cannot afford to get the timing wrong.

Who else but Jez?

It has fast become 2015's answer to last year's Independence Referendum in terms of the 'Big Vote'. But only because of one man, Jeremy Corbyn. For too long Labour has taken the centre ground in order to win elections and in 13 of the last 18 years has been in power as New Labour, the party of big business. Granted Labour under Blair and Brown was never as callous as the current Conservative government in the way it has treated benefit claimants and Blair had his diplomatic honeymoon period in the late 90s when he oversaw the Good Friday Agreement and the birth of devolution (though that was in a large part thanks to the late Donald Dewar). But the overall direction of Labour has not been positive, sacrificing principles only to end up rejected at the ballot box by the millionaire bankrolled Tories.

At last we see someone from the left of Labour willing to challenge Labour's establishment and relieve Keir Hardie from a nauseating spin in his grave. Jeremy Corbyn is the lone baby boomer among the candidates in the Labour Leadership race the other three being from Generation X. They are all old enough to remember how horrible Margaret Thatcher was but only Jeremy is just old enough to remember the coronation and rationing. He may not have youth on his side but he has all the right ideas for running an opposition force in British politics. He wants an end to austerity. He wants to ditch Trident so the money can be better spent on frontline services like the NHS and schools. He wants to renationalise the rail network so money isn't being channelled by the greed of private franchises and large profits get spent instead on improving the service. He wants a more compassionate benefits system and an end to the bedroom tax.  And he wants to seek peaceful conflict resolution and an end to Britain's involvement in unjust and illegal wars.

But these things just scratch the surface of what Jeremy Corbyn promises as leader. What he will do is seismic for the Labour Party, it will mean a wholesale shift in how the party tackles the malice of the Tories. Opponents will talk about the 1970s, a decade when I wasn't born and even my big sister is unlikely to remember (though if she has memories of being an only child she will!). Those on Labour's centre, the Blairites as we call them, constantly warn of being 'locked out of power for a generation'. But how can they be so sure? And should the party really be seeking to win power at the cost of principles? Surely the whole point of a political party is to seek to influence the political landscape in favour of its grassroots membership not be part of its elite. Should we be worried about another Tory victory? Yes we should but we shouldn't just replace the great whites with hammerheads. It is clear the grassroots of the party are more and more in favour of Jeremy Corbyn and so this is what a real Labour Party should stand for, the ordinary members, a lot of whom will come from poor and working class backgrounds.

So if another group in the Labour Party, chiefly the career politicians who have for too long dominated the party, want to try and win power at whatever cost I suggest they do so in their own space. Perhaps they should set up their own political party or maybe join forces with the Liberal Democrats who have shifted further into the centre in the last five years. If that really is the way power will be won good luck to them. But most likely they will need a coalition or power sharing agreement with Jeremy Corbyn's party next time and then they will have to make concessions to the left. Labour were left with just their most working class constituencies in May but only a few more constituencies won would have prevented a Tory majority though there might still have been a pact with UKIP and the Unionist parties in Northern Ireland. Notwithstanding the support of kippers and Belfast bedfellows Mr Cameron would have struggled against an opposition of left or would-be left parties. In the case of the 'would-bes' all we need is the genuine left-leaning politicians to be representing them on the green benches.

And what about the Scottish dimension. Well Jeremy is no fan of independence I understand that. He is opposed to a second referendum anytime soon and even to the transfer of certain new powers to the Scottish parliament. But that hardly makes him a red tory when his heart is in the right place on so many other social issues. And perhaps his opposition to independence is much more in touch with the solidarity argument that the actual red tories kept cynically throwing around during the run-up to last year's referendum. For Scottish Independence would rob parliament of Corbyn's greatest ally - the SNP. If the contribution Angus Robertson's team makes to Westminster 's progressive anti-austerity lobby is the reason Jeremy Corbyn doesn't want Scotland to leave the UK then we ought to treat that as a compliment unlike those who campaigned against independence but with a hatred of the SNP.

Don't get me wrong, I still want independence for Scotland and another referendum before long so it I am somewhat disappointed with Corbyn's indifference to the cause. And we really don't need Labour up here in Scotland anymore when there is a strong alternative. But who else among Labour's leadership hopefuls is going to help England in its own journey towards better social democracy than Jeremy Corbyn? Just about everyone among the radical left down south of the border is looking at him with great hope. This is the man who, if he is successful less than a week from now, will challenge the very foundations of the establishment and will remind his party of their own founding values. But his message should also be this: No fakes. If you're truly with the party on our values you can stay, otherwise please leave.

Then the party that calls itself Labour will once again be the party that Kier Hardie, who lived until almost one century ago, dreamed of. It's not likely to be an easy ride for Corbyn if he's elected but one thing's for sure, he has inspired a new generation of political activists who will be standing firm behind him to help ensure he lives up to expectations.

Keir Hardie

A senate with proportional representation is needed as the last line of defence

Yet again a long time has passed since my last blog update. I should first take the opportunity to express my sadness at the loss of Charles Kennedy. We ought to remember that at the end of the day politicians are human beings like us and life after the end of a remarkable career isn't always going to be easy to adjust to. Yet Charlie had a life beyond Westminster to look forward to and when it came to arguing for the UK to remain in the EU, he would have been there a formidable debater taking our country, maybe even finding more time to lead the Yes to EU campaign. We'll never know.

There was a time before I properly followed Scottish politics, when UK-wide politics was higher on my radar. That was 2006 and earlier when Charles Kennedy was leading the Liberal Democrats at the height of their popularity and when I would have voted for them in Westminster elections. Under his leadership they represented the voice of progress, the party I really wanted in Government and it was because Charlie broke ranks with his own party to argue against the Iraq War that it seems he won over so many fans. When news broke that he resigned as leader in 2006, coincidentally as I remember on the same day the Observer started to resemble a tabloid, I felt very disappointed. When I would next get to vote for the Lib Dems Kennedy would no longer be in charge. Needless to say though, it was the SNP I voted for at my next opportunity. But I continued to feel that through Charlie's warmth a sense that this was a politician who was a real people's man. During the referendum campaign, I felt sure that Charles' voice was the one that stood out from the scaremongers quietly arguing positively for Scotland to remain part of the UK. But it seemed drowned out though by cacophony of Project Fear.

He was a proud Scot but more specifically he was a proud Highlander. Charles Kennedy will be missed by everyone and Scottish and UK politics is all the poorer for him not being here. My thoughts remain with his family and friends.

On the subject of electoral reform, the Conservative majority despite being the minority of the popular vote makes the case for electoral reform unanswerable. Except from the Tories point-of-view of course. Even Nicola Sturgeon, who benefitted by 95 percent of Scottish MPs being won by only 50 percent of the popular vote for the SNP, remains committed to the case for electoral reform. However, there's another elephant in the room, the House of Lords, and it could be argued that this is what should be sorted first because the second chamber is the difference between legislation being passed and it being rejected.

I have been in favour of a proportional system for the House of Commons through the use of the de Hondt method. But it is hard to see how such a system would work without either increasing the number of seats to accommodate additional list members or increasing the size of the constituencies so fewer constituency members are elected to allow space for the additional members. Of course we could use the PR system used for European elections but that means we could only really have regional MPs and fear with that is that a bigger constituency for members means the fear certain local issues would end being sidelined in parliament for 'more important' regional ones. And importantly people value the element of direct local accountability in a size of constituency where their voice is most likely to be heard in front of the Government in the House of Commons.

Far better in my opinion is to sort out the chamber which acts as the last line of defence against unpopular government policies, the upper house, currently the House of Lords. If you have a fully proportional composition of members in this chamber then ultimately legislation that the majority of people in the country didn't vote for doesn't get passed because that majority is properly represented.

It normally follows that the party with the largest share of the popular vote ends up with the most seats because usually the majority of constituencies each represent the country as a whole at a miniature level - the average constituency if you like. It makes sense democratically that the party with the most seats in the Commons gets the first opportunity to form a government, but it would only be able to form a government if it can get a Queen's Speech past both houses. Then it doesn't matter too much that there's not a proportional representation in the lower house if that's the price for direct local representation. The point with a revising chamber is that it is just that - a place for revising legislation. Yes the government has had more or less its own way in the lower chamber but now it's time to test that against the assumed opinion of the country as a whole. I say 'assumed opinion' because its assumed that the opinion of the party represents the opinion of the people that elect them if they are following through on their manifesto pledges.

If such a second chamber, lets call it a senate, is fully proportional and elected properly at the same interval as in the general election it would be a more respectable component of our legislature. And the members, the senators, would be more acutely aware of their responsibilities and the accountability at which they are held. When they turn up to work they actually have to get some work done and if you have them up for reelection every two years like in America then they really have no time to sit on their butts. The Government would have to regularly make sure that whatever laws they are trying to craft they have to be sure they can command the majority of the both houses.

One thing's for sure. The new intake of Peers announced in the dissolution honours list a few days ago taking the total to well over 800 makes a real mockery of democracy with these people having either stood down at the last election or been voted out by the public. And 826 is too many. Lets bring that number down to a size that can actually all fit onto the seats at the same time (without allowing any spaces for them lie down and doze!)

Why we cannot vote Labour after what they did in the referendum

I know this is my first post of the 2015 and in fact the first one since the end of September, a month we'll never forget.

I've been absent from here because I don't know what I can add that hasn't already been said by one of the many other people who campaigned for a Yes vote. In the weeks after the referendum I couldn't help feeling that a huge step had been taken backwards and now our goal was as far away as it was back before the election of 2007 when the SNP were only just seeking to enter their first term in office. A lot has changed since then but it will be just as many years if not more before the next independence referendum comes upon us.

However, there must still be a purpose for everyone who became engaged and energised by last September's campaign. There has to still be something we have worth fighting for. Well we do. There is a General Election coming up in less than forty days time and for the first time ever it is conceivable that the SNP could have a real influence on Westminster politics.

 

Of course the naysayers will as usual tell us that it is unthinkable that a party 'wants to run the very thing it wants to break up'. Which leads us to ask the question why did they want us to stay so badly in a 'family of 'equal' nations'? We were told Scotland brings added value to the UK that it brings something special to Westminster politics. Yet now it's looking like they don't want us to make a contribution to Westminster politics if we decide we want the SNP to represent us. It's clear there's no love lost.

But what is also clear is just how much Labour has alienated the Scottish population over the last four or five years. It seems like only yesterday that it was April 2010 when Labour could still happily claim Scotland as their own territory, that tactical voting to keep the Tories out seemed justified. Not this time though. Labour's current mantra - "vote SNP get Tory" - is no longer convincing. And it's ironic because what are Labour now but, well, the Red Tories. If Labour so badly wanted Scotland to banish the Tories we had that golden opportunity to make it so and make it permanent last September!

But my dislike of the Scottish Labour Party is far deeper than that. They just didn't respect the ordinary people who voted Yes. They couldn't appreciate the real concerns that motivated us to aspire to a different Scotland through a Yes vote. And whilst presenting erratic counter-arguments they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tories and the Lib Dems to try and unfairly blacken our name. So folks don't vote Labour. Vote SNP. And do it for these reasons:

• This is justice. Disputing our case for independence is one thing - trying to smear us quite another. Remember how all these Labour politicians tried to suggest we were all abusive cybernats? Okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but when a small number of abusive online activists attacked No voters it was all that was needed for Labour, Lib Dem and Tory politicians. They simply couldn't resist using the situation against the rest of us who were NOT responsible for what got said by those so called 'cybernats'. And yet they turned a blind eye to all the occasions when some of their own supporters metted out similar abuse against people who were voting Yes. I agree online abuse is wrong whichever way it comes from. But if you're going to condemn it you condemn BOTH sides and not just one side in order to try and bolster your side. The SNP went out of their way to condemn abuse on both sides but Labour tried to make it sound like a problem exclusive to Yes supporters. I am still to this day seething with fury over Labour's attitude on this matter, it was one of the biggest injustices of the whole campaign and just on that I will not forgive them! I accept the referendum result quite willingly even if it is not what I wanted as I accept people voted No in good faith. But I will struggle to come to terms with Labour tarring us all with the same brush. Of course I am equally annoyed with the Tories and Lib Dems but I reserve my biggest anger for Labour, the party who is feebly trying to win back Yes voters without so much as an apology.
• Additionally lest we forget how Jim Murphy's predecessor, Johann Lamont, tried to call our cause 'a virus'. You're hoping to be the next first minister and you effectively call a third of your own compatriots a virus? Is this the woman we were supposed to look up to? And then Jim Murphy himself using his Irn Bru crate tour of Scotland to call us 'nosiy nationalists' - now he's trying to reach out to us. It's laughable.
• Labour stood with the Tories to campaign in Better Together. They could easily have run the campaign without them but instead they invited them to take part. The result? A common message based on an anti-SNP theme. They may have won the referendum but the path they trod to try and maximise support will soon backfire on the party.
• When it comes to policies Labour are little better than the Tories anyway. To have given the Tories support for the UK austerity programme means they have endorsed cuts in their desperation to overturn the deficit. The consequence will likely be more unemployment and more of our vital frontline services at risk. For what? Some sort of better economic outlook one day in the distant future? They must realise that when some of their own MPs including Dianne Abbott and Katy Clark (an Ayrshire MP) rebelled something is a miss in this programme. The SNP on the other hand voted with their conscience alongside Plaid Cymru and the Greens to join the few brave Labour souls. The bill was passed with fewer MPs voting against than years I've been alive and I'm still a young man!
• Voting SNP means Scotland getting a far better voice fighting our corner in Westminster. Simple.
• It may actually be a blessing in disguise for Labour if they face annihilation in Scotland to the SNP. If they are to stand any hope of getting more MPs than the Tories they will have to win in England. Which means taking more centre ground possibly more than they would prefer. And then at least they could be willing to scrap some of their more regressive policies to get the votes of the SNP and treat it as a concession they had to make. I don't think the SNP will particularly mind taking the 'blame' for scrapping Trident.
• Contrary to Labour's arguments that the party that wins the most seats has the exclusive right to seek to form the next government, it is all dependant on whether or not the party with first priority (granted that's the party with the most seats) can get the first Queen's Speech passed. The party with the most MPs elected may feel cheated by a deal between two smaller parties but if the collected weight of their shared policies is good enough for parliament it's good enough for forming a government. There's a small chance Labour will win more seats than the Tories but if they don't they can be assured there'll be a good majority against Tory policy. Ed Miliband being Prime Minister is not a thought to savour. But if the SNP MPs we send to Westminster have enough influence then Miliband would only be occupying the floor of Number 10 while dancing to our tune! He may have ruled out a formal coalition with the SNP but if Ed Miliband is serious about gaining the keys to Britain's most coveted front-door an informal agreement with the SNP will be almost if not entirely unavoidable.

The prospect of Labour winning an outright majority repulses me. But the prospect of another Tory government fills me with horror. Fortunately we don't have to choose. We can instead elect to as many of the 59 Scottish seats as possible, an swarm of SNP MPs who will prevent Labour attempting to gain a monopoly of power in Westminster and still help them to form an anti-Tory majority.

And if unfortunately the Tories do emerge with the most seats then my message to Labour is clear:

Don't blame us, the people of Scotland, for your party's misfortunes. We only voted for the party we wanted to have fighting our corner, the party we felt represented us. If you can't win more seats than the Tories then look at yourselves not us. It can only be your fault, Labour, if you don't make enough effort to win over the hearts and minds of voters in the places where you're actually fighting the Tories. We accept no responsibility for Ed Miliband's ineptitude and if you walk away from any post-election talks of an anti-Tory alliance simply because you've lost then that is your problem. You will be the ones in the end letting the Tories in through the back door.

Game on!

 

Scotland's referendum: what went right, what went wrong and how we will win it next time

What a long, long month September 2014 has been - and yet we still have a couple of days of it left! During this time I have been to two job interviews, been given one job, had to give it up to start the other and of course been as fully involved in the last two weeks of campaigning including one trip to a border tea party in Berwick as well as helping out at street stalls and then back to Newton Stewart for the big vote itself. Followed by great disappointment but then the renewed determination of the great defeated. It has been a dramatic, highly charged few weeks.

We came very close to winning a Yes vote in the independence referendum with 45%. Only another 200,000 of the swing voters who eventually went for a No vote could have been enough to win it for the Yes campaign albeit by a very slim majority. In the most deprived areas of Scotland we achieved our highest vote - Glasgow, Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire. This could only have been testament to the great work put in by the Radical Independence Campaign which made sure people realised this was a huge opportunity for change. But I believe that threats made by big banks and businesses, threats they didn't need to make and threats given extensive coverage by the mainstream media lost it for us.

However dejected we feel about the result, the fact that the Yes campaign grew support for independence substantially is a huge achievement. We were always the underdogs, yet in Glasgow we polled in a majority of those who turned out to vote. I will always feel proud of Glasgow for that support despite the Daily Record being so against independence. The ball is now firmly in Westminster's court, they have to deliver or face a loss in support for the Union - and the politicians down there clearly realise that. As the 45% we can help make sure they are fully held to account for what they do and don't deliver in the way of enhanced devolution.

It is hard to say if we made any mistakes in our campaigning, we could only really do our best but we certainly proved we were capable of doing our best. I think next time we will definitely need a bolder vision of independence because on certain issues we were ridiculed for not going all out in a break from the UK. Most notably was the question of currency. The SNP's preferred option of keeping the Pound Sterling put us at the mercy of Westminster who could and did say no to a currency union. And the Unionist politicians were able to use to Pound as a pawn in the argument in such a way that it was as though Scotland needed the English balance of payments into the Pound rather than the other way round. If England, Wales and Northern Ireland didn't sign up to a currency Union they would lose a important contrituion to their own currency by Scotland not being part of it and then they would have to pay all of the UK debt because they are legally responsible for it. In other words it would be the rUK, rather than Scotland, that loses out as a consequence of no currency union taking place. The pound would weaken without oil and other exports being a part of the economy. A separate Scottish currency would certainly be a strong currency as Jim Sillars has pointed out. So my view is that next time, we go the whole way and argue that an independent Scotland should use its own currency. This would put Scotland in a far better negotiating position at a future independence negotiations with Westminster.

I also think we made a few other mistakes in our arguments mostly where we were seemingly trying to soften the blow of independence. One of them was the idea that 'we're not really leaving the United Kingdom, because we'll still be part of a united kingdom with the Queen as head of state.' I don't think this was a very wise argument. The United Kingdom is a clear concept that refers to a particular sovereign state as governed currently from Westminster rather than all the countries with the Queen as head of state. Otherwise we might as well regard Australia, Canada and New Zealand as 'part of the UK.' If people say they 'like the idea of being part of the UK' then we have to challenge why they like it and why they wish to be part of the UK when it is as it is a state that doesn't work for everyone. For many of them its simply personal, a sort of nationalism, so we can't really do anything about that. But if they say 'we like Scotland being British' you have to challenge them as to what they mean by 'being British'. Why do we need to share a common sovereign state to feel like our fellow citizens and family south of the border are still very much are fellow citizens and family? And why should British only be the adjective for the UK when it is also thought by many to simply be the adjective of a place called Britain regardless of whether that's the UK or Great Britain. It's just those two definitions become unpegged with Scottish independence. I should say however that being British 'because we're part of the British Isles' is not a very good argument either because the name British Isles is contentious in the Republic of Ireland where there is no basis either political (UK) or geographical (Great Britain) for being considered British. I for one believe 'the Anglo-Celtic Isles' would be a better name for these isles where it lacks a rather imperialist set of connotations and seems more appreciative of different cultures within the isles.

Similarly I think we should have been willing to accept Scotland as a secessionist country rather than a co-continuation of the UK. I can understand the co-continuation argument but I think it reasonable for people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to feel that their own countries would form the outright continuation the UK in the eyes of the international community. The principle of co-continuation would mean we automatically remained part of the EU instead of having to reapply. But soon that principle could be unnecessary as the UK leaves the EU and so in any circumstance Scotland would have to reapply. We should be able to wholeheartedly embrace the idea of a new sovereign state emerge with an institutional blank canvas to paint up our own new internationalist society. Let South Britain and Northern Ireland be the continuation of the UK, we have our own agenda up here. UK is not OK.

It has been the most fantastic and unexpected response from 45% who didn't win that the SNP has suddenly enjoyed a sharp rise in membership numbers with people turning to Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon's party from often socialist backgrounds. This gives the SNP fresh blood that could help move the party in a direction towards a more radical vision of independence. I certainly hope that very soon we could see a revote on NATO which would overturn the prospect of joining such a controversial organisation. A reenergised SNP should also see a discussion had between radicals and moderates in the party about the what approach to taxation is the best to ensure Scotland is both a successful economy and a progressive society. Add to that the promise of a referendum on the monarchy and the thought of entering the European Union as our own state independent of a country that will probably be leaving it in 2017 and you have a very attractive vision of a new radical independent Scotland.

The important difference between ethnicity, national identity, citizenship, residency and where you're born

For many people, it's nice and simple. You're born in a single country and in that same country, specifically the same region as your birth, you grew up, were educated and still live. Both your parents were born and grew up there as did many of their preceding generations. You therefore have the local accent and of course the citizenship of that country. You are quite unmistakably of that country specifically of that region.

But for many of us it really isn't as simple. Yours truly is a case in point. I was born in Oxford to an English mother and Norwegian father (whose father was Swedish). I grew up in a corner of southern Scotland called Galloway from the age of three, though spent some of my formative years in Penrith and the Eden Valley. That said my accent was the one my Mum and older siblings spoke, a southern English accent. I suppose that was awkward because everyone else in my class at Primary School had the local Scottish accent and even at school in the north of England my accent stood out no less. In relation to my father's side of the family, we regularly went on our summer holidays to Scandinavia to our cottage in Sweden where we saw all of my father's family and that helped reinforce my sense of being part Scandinavian.

A cottage in Sweden reminiscent of summer holidays

I'm not Scottish. I do not consider myself to be Scottish. I still live in Scotland but what I am in terms of national identity is quite different to where I call my home. Because national identity is an aspect of personal description while my home is a matter of location and where I feel I belong. So while my home is Scotland, I am English. My national identity relates to my parents' backgrounds and I have identified one of those backgrounds as my primary nationality, the one I give if I can only state one or only feel like stating one. That primary nationality is for me determined through a stronger sense of association with that background than the other. If I had grown up anywhere in Scandinavia speaking their language I probably would have given my identity as Norwegian so in some respects my upbringing does determine my primary nationality in terms of choosing between English and Norwegian. But I grew up on the west side of the North Sea speaking English as a first and only fluent language meaning I felt more English than Norwegian. So ironically I'm English because I grew up in Scotland. Strange isn't it?

I don't particularly like the word 'national identity' used for individual people. It's supposed to be a collective thing - the national identity of Scotland is about an overall image and character of a nation. But people within any nation are highly diverse culturally and you can get someone born and bred in Edinburgh who has more in common socially and culturally with somebody from Auckland, New Zealand than someone living just next door. When I say "my national identity is English", it is merely a statement of my association with the country of England than me being a microcosm of the English national character, whatever that might be. Still the term 'national identity' is a word used on individual basis' so I guess I will have to use it. So my national identity is English. Or to be more precise I am English first. Then I am Norwegian and then I am Swedish. And distantly I am equally Scottish and Irish but I have little knowledge of the ancestors they refer to so I don't really feel they're part of my national identity.

 



The border between England and Scotland. I grew up in both Galloway and Cumbria.

 



Ethnicity is deeper than that. It is about race, genetics, skin colour and so on. This is when I do take into account more distant generations. Broadly I am white Caucasian. Specifically I describe my ethnicity as Nordic Anglo-Celtic, in other words, Northern European. My ethnicity split on this side of the North Sea, Anglo-Celtic, considers the fact that as well as being English, there is also I understand traces of Welsh along with my Scottish and Irish roots. Nordic takes into account ancestry from any of the Nordic countries, not just Scandinavia. It is also thought that I have some distant Russian ancestry because of my nose and cheekbones!

This is why I objected to one particular Unionist complaint. When a couple of years ago they started going on about a supposed false choice between Scottish and British I did a bit of google research to investigate the origin of the complaint. Blow me - the offending question about ethnicity drafted in 2008 for the Scottish Government's 2011 census. The multiple choices included Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish, British and so on and you could only choose one. You also had an 'Other' box with a space to write in the term you use to describe your ethnicity. The cause of offence was that if you stated Scottish you were saying you were not British. But this was to misunderstand the question. It asked you which best describes you ethnicity. Not your national identity but your ethnicity. Many people who are Scottish in all lines going back several generations would have chosen 'Scottish' because they don't know of any other ethnicities in their background but people who tick British do so usually because a number of their family lines are also ethnically English, Welsh, Irish or a mixture so the word British is used as a means of combining them all. The reaction from the unionists seemed to suggest people should have be an additional 'Scottish and British choice'. For one thing this would betray many people's feeling that to say you're Scottish is to actually say you're British. A lot of people in England feel that stating you're 'English' is stating you're 'British' because quite simply England is a nation of Britain. Likewise with Scotland. The suggestion was that people on either side on the constitutional divide are somehow divided by ethnicity. Such a suggestion would be both unwise and absurd because ethnicity is nothing to do with political preferences. Lets just for argument's sake take the Proclaimer twins. Imagine Craig Reid converted to being pro-union while Charlie Reid stayed firmly in the pro-independence camp. Does Craig Reid suddenly have a different ethnic background to the very person with whom he shared the same zygote? I think not.

Now for nationality, the official kind, that is to say citizenship. Yes in case you haven't realised there's a difference between nationality and nationality. Two definitions of nationality, one being official (citizenship), the other being unofficial (national identity) and often based on the subjective. I would gladly take up Scottish citizenship but that wouldn't make me Scottish by the concept of national identity that I explored in an earlier paragraph. My national backgrounds would continue to be English, Norwegian and Swedish. But I would now be a citizen of the Scottish state and so would be officially saying I have trust in that state to look after me. It will be a much more notable statement when, despite being allowed to keep British citizenship in duality with Scottish citizenship, I renounce British citizenship in favour of just Scottish citizenship. I haven't yet decided if I'll actually do that but I'll think about it. But I can tell you that despite all my pride in my Norwegian heritage I'm absolutely glad I never held Norwegian citizenship. If I had done so I would have been required to do national service at the age of 18. No way would I have wanted that! So for me citizenship is about the sovereign state to which I choose to belong and be protected by.

A Scottish Passport as it might look. This is something I look forward to owning one day.

Residency is about where I live and is an unofficial kind of citizenship. Because there is no such thing currently as Scottish citizenship the franchise of a referendum in Scotland can only pragmatically be determined as the people living there and therefore making the most directly contribution to the Scottish economy and Scottish society. So a Scottish resident may or may not be Scottish by origins or self-identification but he or she is considered one of the Scottish people when it comes to determining Scotland's future.

Where you're born? That's surely the easiest thing to understand. But the country of your birth could be anywhere, you could be born when your parents are on holiday abroad for example. Many people feel a certain bond with the country of their birth regardless of its relevance or irrelevance to their parents' national backgrounds. If I had been born in say, Yemen, I may have been tempted to have describe myself as Yemeni for the novelty factor. Incidentally someone who was born in Yemen was Eddie Izzard although he would generally describe himself as English. Still I think many people would make a case for the entitlement to citizenship of the country of your birth if you choose since it is listed on your own passport and birth certificate and if you're born in 'Yemen' you're 'born Yemeni'. Fortunately for me I don't have that confusion, I was born in England so my primary nationality is also my birth nationality.

As for the question 'Where do you come from?' for me that is a bit ambiguous. Are they asking me my nationality (national identity) or my country of residence? Well if I'm being asked that question in my country of residence, Scotland, I would usually say something, South-west Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway or Newton Stewart, depending on how well they might know the places around Scotland. However, they may enquire further about my accent so I would mention that my family are from Oxford originally. If I'm somewhere abroad, like Italy, India or somewhere else where they're quite chatty and I'm asked the question of where I come from then my simple answer would be 'Scotland'. What they're interested in knowing is the country where I live for most of the year, the country which was the starting point of my journey to that destination where I'm talking to these very friendly people. They want to know about where you live because that's the place you know the best, that's your home. If however I'm being asked what my nationality is, well that's different, then I say 'I'm English' because they're asking me about my national description not about where I live. But normally the people I get talking to ask me where I come from so that's okay.

Oxford, where I was born

So there you have it - the difference between birth, ethnicity, nationality and so on. They are all different ideas, each with their own meaning. And for people like me their descriptions are hugely mixed up but the more I explore them the more I understand what's what. Is there anything in there that's a source of pride for me? Not really. Except for my Scandinavian heritage because that means I've had somewhere truly wonderful to visit during Summer holidays. And I also like the fact that my English Great-Grandfather drove the Flying Scotsman (though only from London to York). I feel privileged to have lived in Scotland most of my life and now I feel a I have a massive chance to help shape that nation's future and determine the sort of place it becomes. But different aspects of my personal description I treat as individual subjects which may or may not be relevant to a debate about a country of 5.3 million people and therefore 5.3 million different identities.

What Scottish independence could mean for Ireland

There has been much talk lately about the possible effect of Scottish independence on other parts of the UK. The obvious questions being asked are 'will Wales be next?' and 'could we see a united Ireland?'.

I'll come on to Wales in another post. But on this occasion I will shift my focus some 30 miles across the North Channel to a province with a turbulent history. It is of course no surprise that many Irish Nationalists will be eagerly watching what happens in Scotland on 19th September because it may help to galvanise their own objective for a Northern Ireland free from British rule and reunited with the Republic of Ireland.

In respect to Northern Ireland it's an awkward issue to try and read. Broadly speaking I would be in favour of a united Ireland. More immediately I feel that the province's political association with the UK is toxic. The union with Great Britain may have been suitable in the past when there was heavy industry like before 1970 when the Troubles began. From the perspective of people in Great Britain itself , Northern Ireland is an embarrassment. The Unionist assertion of 'British identity' is as far as I'm concerned an Ulster brand and therefore ironically an Irish brand. Most people in England, Scotland and Wales are not interested in going on marches dressed in orange wearing sashes, bowler hats and twirling batons. They'd far rather do things like go and watch a football match, go for a ramble, go ten-pin bowling, go to gigs, go to pubs or whatever other random thing I can name. Basically the people of Great Britain like to just do something exciting. So if all these Union Jack fanatics want to be 'more British' how about they be more like people on 'mainland Britain' - like, well more fun?

The matter of Northern Ireland's future should be debated a lot more on practical and economic matters rather than being a debate simply between two counter-nationalisms. I would love Northern Ireland to have the debate that Scotland is having, that is to say a civilised debate where not a bullet is fired and no blood is shed. What I feel would be reassuring is incidentally for more and more Catholics to come out in favour of the union with the UK while more and more Protestants aspire to reunification with the rest of Ireland. The debate then becomes more secular as Catholics and Protestants unite on the same side on both sides.

Cave Hill near Belfast

The Northern Irish debate would be somewhat different to the debate in Scotland for obvious reasons. The debate would generally be about a choice between two unions - the British and the Irish unions. As Scotland becomes independent Northern Ireland now becomes an exclave of the UK and, other than flying, the only way to travel to the mainland UK without going through a separate sovereign state is to take the longer boat journey to Liverpool. Which means the British Unionist argument in Northern Ireland about 'not wanting to create borders' would be, in contrast with the equivalent argument in Scotland, much weaker and rather laughable considering the elephant in the room which is the border with the Republic created as a result of Unionists wanting Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. Oh the irony! Scotland, as the nearest part of Great Britain to Northern Ireland is a key cornerstone in the Unionists' attachment to the British state. Many of them are of course Scots by descent. So they may well begin to question the purpose of a union of which Scotland is not part especially when there's the European Union. I wouldn't be surprised if more and more of them see a union with the Republic as making more sense especially as the economy in the South starts to improve.

However, to get from one union to the other, Northern Ireland would possibly have to secede first. The people of the Republic aren't necessarily that much in favour of absorbing the North and Northern Ireland, if it does vote for Irish reunification, will have to ask the Republic's permission which they can't take for granted. There are some sections of Northern Ireland's population that would favour an independent Northern Ireland (or 'Ulster') but they're much smaller in number and mainly in the Unionist community who would want Northern Ireland to remain as an entity distinct from the rest of Ireland. Most people in Northern Ireland however would likely not see any economic viability in an independent Northern Ireland while a united Ireland with provincial devolution would be more ideal. As a new generation that has never known the Troubles grows up and they in turn produce another generation many of them will be more concerned with their own job prospects and their personal finances than any politics of identity. Whether they stay part of the UK or rejoin the UK would mainly be an economic debate for them.

The Northern Ireland - Irish Republic Border

It's fair to say Northern Ireland and the Republic do have their superficial differences as a product of their political difference. If you've ever gone by car to the Republic from the North you'll immediately notice that the road-signs look completely different, not just that they're bilingual in the Republic but they're of a different format altogether as are the road markings. The registration plates on cars in the Republic are also different to those on cars in the North. It therefore raises the question of how Northern Ireland would be effectively integrated into the Republic when the North's infrastructure may need a large overhaul and people across the province would have to spend time adjusting to the new-look highways. All that could cost money but many may see it as a small expense if they feel they would be better off as part of the Republic of Ireland.

I look forward to hearing such a debate unfold but only if it is a peaceful debate. A unified independent Ireland looks to me like a natural and sensible arrangement but what I would like to see more than Irish unity is Northern Irish unity. The debate about Northern Ireland must transcend the province's traditional sectarian divide and be an enlightened discussion. Scotland's current debate could go a long way to inspire such a discussion.

 

Thanks to Game of Thrones, Northern Ireland enjoys a more favourable reputation these days as a filming location.