union – Observations and Misunderstandings

It appears Bojo came north of the wall today. He mingled with those pesky wildlings he ordinarily has no time for. When I say north of the wall, I mean nearly as far north as possible. He went all the way to the Orkney Islands. One suspects this wasn’t because he loves Scotland so much he wants to see as much of it as possible of course, it’s a lot easier to avoid the baying crowds when they consist of Angus and his dog than what they would be were he to brave Edinburgh, Glasgow or just about any place with a population capable of creating an angry mob.

He finally visited Scotland on the one year anniversary of his still slightly inexplicable rise to power. If that was supposed to fill us with some sense of honour that he would bless us with his presence on such an important day, all it did was remind us it’s taken him so long to come north. It took him one whole year despite the fact there was an actual election midway through the year. Perhaps his no show in that time was down to his love of the Union and the damage his presence would do to it.

Undeniably there is truth in that. The latest polls, and there’s more than one of them, puts support for independence at 54%. Nicola Sturgeon may try and take credit for this but when a country votes in droves for anyone but the man elected as leader yet has this very man foisted upon them it’s quite easy to see why opinion polls are only moving in one direction. When you see a country being dragged out of the European Union despite voting to stay in it, then expecting to be forced to endure an inevitable ‘no deal’ Brexit as the zealots in government return us to Year Zero and the ashes they hope to grow a new and glorious society out of, it’s fair to say the Scottish people want nothing to do with it.

Even the coronavirus has played it’s part. Nicola Sturgeon herself is very divisive, usually down the Independence / Unionist line in all fairness, but compared to Boris’ fumbled mumbled approach in confusing an entire nation on what’s expected of them while not actually doing anything himself, she has looked decisive and strong. She didn’t even have to really do anything, just be clear about what she meant when she did make a statement. Clearly there is something dark going on in the corridors of Whitehall and Number Ten, it’s no surprise more and more Scots are wanting out.

As Sturgeon said;

“I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that“

It says a lot for a man that the opposition openly admit he does them more good than they do themselves. There is no way for sure to say one way or another whether Scotland becoming a free state would work in the short, medium or long term, and while it’s dangerous to suggest or believe that happiness is just waiting around the corner, let’s be honest anything has got to be better than this lot right now.

I remember the day after the independence referendum in 2014, I was in France picking grapes and I barely said a word all morning. I was infinitely disappointed that a people had rejected not the opportunity of independence because what is that really, but that they had rejected the chance to even attempt improving their lot. A people chose fear over hope. But who knows, there may just be light at the end of this tunnel of a horror show after all.

I’m going to attempt to recreate the main points of a conversation I’ve just had with my Dad. For context he is both pro-Brexit and pro-Union. These ideas discussed have come up in the past but seemingly have taken a step further with recent events.

The Tory party in the UK won a stonking majority of some forty seats and in Scotland the SNP won an equally stonking forty-eight out of a possible fifty-nine seats. Both of these result can be and have been spun in numerous ways but arguably what it does do is give a mandate for Brexit and a mandate for a second referendum in Scotland on independence. It is hard to argue against either of those things when Brexit and Scottish independence were the main priority of both parts respectively. However as with everything in politics this is not as straightforward as it seems. We in the UK have a voting system called First Past The Post, which allows for people to win seats once they get a certain number of votes but which for numerous reasons too many to get into here, creates a voting system which arguably favours the larger parties, creates a two party system like we have in the the UK and in the US too and which often allows for a larger percentage of seats that percentage of the vote.

The point is that while this may have been a Brexit election the Remain supporting parties actually received more votes in total than the Brexit supporting parties yet received vastly fewer seats. The same can be said for Scotland which has so many tight marginal seats that can be won by less than one hundred votes, the SNP received a far fewer percentage of the vote than percentage of the seats, which also equated to fewer pro-independence votes than pro-union. The argument made by my Dad was that the SNP don’t actually have a mandate because were there to be another referendum they would lose it because of this share of the votes but it is also an argument which can be made back in regard Brexit.

Put simply; the unionists want to maintain one union while breaking up another while the separatists want to break up one union while also maintaining another. The unionists believe they have the mandate to break from the EU because they hold a resounding majority in the UK parliament but not break up the UK because the majority of those voting in Scotland voted for parties not pushing for independence, whereas the separatists want to break from the UK because they hold a majority of Scottish seats in parliament but maintain the connection with the EU because the majority of Scottish voters voted to remain. Confused? You should be.

Ultimately that is the more ridiculous nature of politics and power. We pick and choose what we want to see and believe depending on what fits our narrative. We have a belief, we see facts, numbers, ideas which support this belief and fervently repeat them even in the face of contradictory points we choose not to see. I don’t doubt I do this too and hope one day to develop the self-awareness to stop. It’s just both amusing and depressing to see both sides using the same argument against each other and being oblivious to the fact its exactly the same argument. And whats worse, this road of obliviousness appears to stretch from one horizon to the other. This madness has always been, the question is then, will it always be?

Tag: union

Bojo The Wildling

A Union of Secession