A ‘Call to Arms’ for De-alignment (After Independence!)

I have recently been wondering whether I consider myself a Nationalist or a nationalist; an SNP supporter - a defender-of-the-faith, ‘toeing’ the party line - or an SNP voter – a voter balloting specifically in order to gain independence. I have become more and more convinced that the second wins out. There would be nothing sadder to see than the current Scottish National Party, for all its strengths and wisdoms, become the ‘establishment’ party in an independent Scotland; a party with a legion of ultra-aligned supporters who have become a symbol and a propagator of the reality ever-present and so detestable in modern politics – unabashed and unrepentant partisanship.

For I have become convinced that politics here is beginning to resemble that of the United States. I genuinely think that the hatred, and I mean hatred, between the SNP and Labour in Scotland would give the Democrats and the Republicans a ‘run for their money’. Thank our lucky stars we don’t have legalised guns!

Of course the situation is undisputable. In order to gain independence, not only are you compelled to vote for the SNP, but in electoral and opportunistic terms, the position of the Nationalists is very healthy - and very promising. This 4th Scottish Parliament marks an unprecedented opportunity to achieve what we’ve all been after - the separation of Scotland and the United Kingdom.

The opportunity is most certainly‘knocking on the door’. Although, as the latest Ipsos-MORI poll suggests, there’s plenty of work still left to do.

I used to think that economics would be the ‘be-all/end-all’ of the independence campaign, the key to winning‘hearts and minds’, and indeed the key reason behind my own support for secession from the Union. And I still believe that the economic reasoning holds water. But now I feel it in much simpler terms. I just want independence. I feel Scottish, not British. I think the four countries would be governed better apart. I feel no sense of pride or loyalty to the State of which I am a Citizen. The environment in and around Westminster, and the structures of the British State, are not fit for proper government.

Political life at Westminster is tiring, irksome, jaded and outdated. How many hours a year must be wasted in the Houses of Parliament by Members addressing each other as “The Right Honourable” or ‘”The Honourable Member” for wherever’? What time-wasting! What is wrong with addressing someone by their name? It’s a personal and endearing quality. And you have to question how much longer British voters can carry on listening to the same old tripe year-after-year from the main UK parties. Maybe the problem is the system itself.

And although the party politics of Westminster is, for me, one of its fundamental problems, the exact same is increasingly true for political discourse ‘North of the Border’.

Whilst I have voiced my dislike of the Labour Party in many ways over the years, finding myself drunkenly ‘cursing their name’ when nobody cares, maybe I’m beginning to empathise again. Labour really was left ‘bloody-nosed’ after the elections in May. When the Labour Party loses 4 of its 7 Constituency Seats in Darkest Lanarkshire, you really need to sit up and take notice. I couldn’t help but delight when the SNP’s Alex Neil out-polled the Labour candidate to take the Airdrie and Shotts constituency! Indeed by the end of that night, Glasgow itself was painted largely in Yellow. But who knows, it could be the Nationalists who are left licking their wounds next time round.

I don’t think we should be so quick to knock our opponents when they are down.

It was Labour after all that gave us nationalists a great opportunity; an opportunity to change –devolution. And it looks as though the old adage that Holyrood is just a ‘stepping-stone to independence’ might well come true. Whilst ardent Nationalists are often keen to point out that Labour, for so many years prior, had opposed self-determination and home-rule, I will not be so ‘stingy’. After all it is better to have finally attained devolution than never to have attained devolution at all. And what a success story it has become.

Since devolution was formally established in 1999, the political arena in Scotland has undergone many bright changes. The very idea of coalition, so alien until recently in UK terms, has breathed new life into Scotland. Consensus has (again until recently) been the‘order of the day’, and has been relatively effective in displacing the confrontational style encouraged and indeed enhanced by the ‘set-up’ of the House of Commons.

Devolved government itself has introduced many practical changes, from free prescriptions to the smoking ban (introduced under Labour I’ll add) - to name but a few. There is little doubt that Scotland is better governed today than it was in the near-three-hundred-year period from 1707 until the re-establishment of the Parliament.

But in post-independence Scotland, the political scene could be even more vibrant. It is exciting to imagine a new kind of politics where coalition government comes ‘back-into-play’, as it most likely will in Scotland [independence or not] and where the SNP, the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems compete, tussle and alternative in successive progressive Governments - although there’s no doubt that the Lib Dems will take years to recover from their association with the Conservatives. The scope for voters to alternate between parties would be a welcome change to today’s arrangement.

I’ll forever be grateful to Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon for what they’ve done to the SNP, and more importantly, the greater nationalist cause-at-large. They have contributed massively in changing the SNP from a party of protest to one of power, as Gerry Hassan has termed the transition. Since they were first elected in 2007, the Scottish National Party have shown that they are more than adept at running the country, with their competence - coupled with the popularity of Alex Salmond - identified as key reasons behind their solid progress and successful re-election four years later.

But in a Scotland post-independence, where no-one can ‘second-guess’ what the political landscape will look like, I’d like to see a change away from the current circumstances of extreme partisanship – however idealistic that may seem. Nowhere is this tediousness more evident than in the hatred between the SNP and Labour. When both parties turn their guns to take aim at the Tories, accusing them of being the One True Enemy, I have a hard time believing them. For two fairly centre-left parties, the animosity is staggering. I’ve been as guilty of this ‘ultra-alignment’as anyone, and it’s something we’d all benefit from by changing.

After all, unashamed party politics and ‘falling into line’ with the Whip is a flaw best exemplified by that big talking shop on the Thames!

After Independence, maybe the Greens deserve a shot.

Ross Croall, @croall89