Scotland and Independence
We like to think that earthly orders are permanent. To be fair, some geological features are - or, to the human eye, might as well be. But anything which can be changed, generally is changed or is constantly “on the list” for being changed at some point in the future. Virtually nothing that is within the realm of human influence will escape it. Very, very few things actually last forever, or even much time at all - a matter of years for some, decades for most, centuries for the very resilient, and millennia for only a tiny, tiny number of man-made artefacts.
Change in the world is how we mark, not progress in our collective being as we like to claim, but in fact the very passing of time. If nothing has changed, has any time really passed at all? There is a sort of ADHD quality to this; we would not trust our senses if they told us things are as they have always been, and it’s okay.
Then there are the actors of the world, the agents of change, the people who ache to make their mark on history. Their motivation is often simple ego, but sometimes a radical social vision or the prosaic desire for justice (as they see it), or just blind impatience with the way things are.
“The way things are” can be defended (and attempts to change it stymied) when there is a point to it. For a long time, there was a point to the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. Let us be honest: there isn’t any more.
We can talk about economic prosperity, cultural ties, a common language, lots of inter-mixing, shared genetics… but fundamentally, there is a spirit of England and there is a spirit of Scotland, and they are two distinct things. Any order which compels them to act in concert has to be an impressive one - and the United Kingdom no longer is. Its empire is gone and is now a source of intense shame. The Commonwealth is a characterless phantom that nobody understands or cares about. The Royal Family probably died, to all intents and purposes, with Queen Elizabeth II and was unpopular in Scotland even during her reign. Meantime, the UK political parties and, even more so, the Westminster Parliament where they live, are loathed by the Scots.
Critics of the Scottish independence drive like to mock Nicola Sturgeon for seeking a second referendum on the issue so soon after the first one. But the very fact that she could do this and not meet with derision from the Scottish public should tell those critics that they are out of time. They are like the conservative chuckling at the “stupidity” of the leftist who is, meantime, destroying everything the conservative cares about. Lofty disinterest might feel clever but it will not save you.
Scottish independence is coming whether you and I like it or not. The referendum which decides it may be in 5 years from now or 50, but it is going to happen and by the end of this century the United Kingdom will be Scotland-less (if it exists at all).
The question is not whether Scotland will be independent, but whether it will be Scotland. Having broken away from England, Scotland will not remain separate, independent or sovereign: all of the forces pulling it away from England are also pushing it towards Brussels, and into globalism more generally. (Of course, England is also in the same condition, but the two countries separated will be easier to manipulate, threaten and coerce.) So nobody should believe that IndyRef2 would mean a Scotland gleefully free to pursue its own destiny. On the contrary, it would become an even more vulnerable slave to globalist forces than it is as part of the United Kingdom.
Scots may complain about the United Kingdom as a “parent power”, but it did, to a large extent, allow Scotland to remain Scotland. Globalism will not be so kind. We can see what it does with every nation under its purview: it nullifies it as a culture, as a genetic profile, as an economy, as a political arena, as a sovereign entity. The nation’s population is shamed, misrepresented, and radically diversified with mass immigration from everywhere, anywhere, from as many places as possible and in whatever quantities can be physically imported. Its culture is demonised, distorted, mocked, and simply replaced with multiculturalism. Its history is rewritten to suit contemporary globalist purposes. Its economy is made dependent on global trade controlled by giant corporations, its local resources plundered by the same or else made non-viable by bureaucracy sponsored by the same. Globalism destroys everything, and not by accident but by design.
So the question is to what extent a Scotland independent of England will be independent of globalism. Unfortunately this isn’t really a question, because the answer is already clear. A large percentage of the Scottish people loathe Westminster, but love globalism. They love the European Union, not particularly for its own attributes but for the globalism it represents. And globalism, for them, means openness, possibility, cooperation, and prosperity. The more air-headed among them would add to that definition: diversity, multiculturalism, equality, and freedom. They don’t care about freedom of speech, but they imagine they do (and that they have it), but this is more a matter of virtuous self-image than any real-world political intent; when freedom of speech is curtailed, the average Scots indy activist will cheer on the oppression. I can make such declarations because, just as Brexit largely split across left/right lines, the Scots independence issue did as well, only the opposite way around with the Left, liberals, progressives and Marxists feverish for independence.
It seems absurd that a people would resent being in a union of 4 countries but fervently desire to be in a union of 27. That observation is well-worn and trite, but it speaks of a truth and that truth bears examination. I believe the matter pivots on the question of coercion. The Scots indy activist believes Scotland was coerced into the 1707 Union, or at any rate was, latterly, coerced into remaining. Meantime, it was not coerced into joining the EU but was coerced into leaving it; 62% of Scots voted to stay and were therefore compelled to leave by the English vote. Then the character of the respective unions: they see the United Kingdom as an oppressive force (the seat of the colonial racist classist British Empire), and they see globalism as a force of freedom. The former is a coercive power obsessed with oppressing wherever it can, the latter is not.
Now, you might see all of this very differently. You might think:
the United Kingdom is a good thing, or at worst, neutral
the British Empire had some merits
globalism is a force of evil and it will destroy Scotland just like it destroys everything it touches
the worldview of the Scots indy activist has been entirely constructed for him by globalism, implanting into his head the notion of equality and the belief that Africans are only illiterate because the racist English oppressed them. He has been thoroughly befuddled by a new oppressive force (globalism) which persuades its subjects to despise and shake off its predecessors so that it can oppress them more fully and freely
while the Scots indy activist fondly imagines that an independent Scotland will be free of a racist England, in truth England is just as progressive as Scotland is or will be. The two nations are unnecessarily pitted against each other because they have been captured - in spirit if not yet in letter - by a force that is implacable, and is as unconcerned for their futures as it is unmoved by their histories.
That is certainly what I think.
But in the end… globalism has, however blurry and silly, a vision for the future with which it can impress people, while the United Kingdom does not. Its vision for the future is “the status quo”. At root, the UK offers “not change”, while globalism offers “change”. The second offer is more interesting for people, even when the exact attributes of the change are not specified, because fundamentally they are restless and unhappy with the way things are.
Apart from anything else, the way things are does not make sense to people, because there is no justification for it. Whatever benefits the UK can offer Scotland are bested by those offered by globalism, and since the UK is bound by globalism’s precepts, it daren’t offer anything but the products at which globalism can easily outmatch it: diversity, jobs, investment, progressivism.
I am against progressivism, I hate diversity, and I don’t think that a nation’s future should be decided on the basis of economics or foreign investment. For these reasons and more, at the time of the first Scottish independence referendum, I voted against it. But today I would vote for it. Why?
The first reason is that I have lost a lot of the faith I used to have in the United Kingdom, or rather Great Britain, as a concept. What is it for? It is a very artificial thing, after all. Merging the English, the Welsh and the Scots is a strange thing to do, really. The real reason it happened was, I believe, to form a seat from which the British Empire could be financed and coordinated.
Now, I think there were merits to the British Empire. I think that most men yearn to be involved in some great enterprise, some crusade or war or mission, and that the Empire, for all its faults, was such a thing. But it is over now. And, as soon as an international enterprise ends, the seat of it (in this case the United Kingdom) becomes pointless. Worse, it becomes harmful to the nations involved. Now that their collective enterprise has ended, they should calmly and gently separate and return to their own existences. England should be England, so that the English have their home. Wales should be Wales, so that the Welsh have their home. Scotland should be Scotland, so that the Scots have their home. Continuing instead to see ourselves as British prevents us from doing the healthy thing of reconnecting with the local, the organic, the ancestral and the deep.
If I had my way, the United Kingdom would break up and its nations would greatly lessen their ties with globalism, so that they could nurture their own industries, their own cultures, their own peoples. I would cut immigration from outside Britain, especially non-white countries, to zero. Public building projects would be handled by Scottish companies, always. I would teach children Scottish history, as far back as our knowledge stretches. I would encourage them to think of Scotland as their birthright, their duty, their responsibility and their opportunity, and nobody else’s. I would encourage them to think of Scotland as something that is not as good as it could be, and of themselves as the natural and rightful inheritors of the task to make it better, the only people who can, or ever could, handle such a task.
That is what I would do. But of course, in the real world that we unfortunately live in, an independent Scotland will do nothing of the kind. Fully globalistic in mentality, the only reason Scotland today would teach its children Gaelic is to detach them from the English - but it would also teach Gaelic to the refugees who just arrived last week, so that they “are” as Scottish as anyone else. Utter nonsense.
That was my other reason for opposing independence in 2014. It was clear what kinds of people would be in charge of an independent Scotland: globalists and Marxists. This remains just as true - even truer - today.
And yet, I would vote for independence. Unlike in 2014, I no longer see the United Kingdom as an entity that it is right to preserve. I believe that, more generally, the Scottish independence issue is one that will never rest, because it is time for change.
I mean that in an almost cosmic sense. To be clear, I don’t want change, and I don’t think the change will be for the best, in fact I am positive it will make everything worse. I just think it is futile to resist. After a certain time, one just has to accept that there is no point “pissing into the wind”. I see my fellow Scots as a bunch of people who are going to make a terrible mistake, one so terrible that it might never be recovered from… but they cannot be dissuaded and would only hate me for trying (assuming they could hate me more than they already do). So they will just have to learn this lesson the (very) hard way.
As for the cosmos, it granted the United Kingdom birth, but made no guarantees of any particular life span. It is the folly of humans to believe that the earthly orders they are born into should be permanent. Like the old building which should be there where the barren rectangle now is, or the big old tree whose loss still pains you many years later, the United Kingdom will be gone, and you and I might lament it… but nothing lasts forever. While that sounds like a platitude, it is a truism.
It seems to be a fact of life that some things are unnecessary and unwise, yet inevitable. It is the only way we know for sure that time has passed at all.
A well structured and interesting piece, Colin. As a fellow Scot with ancestral links to your home town I take a different view, however. I'll invoke a little about I have understood about our history and what some modern archeological and genetic research has been revealing.
The people we refer to as the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish are not so different. We are all North-West Europeans and many of our perceived differences are artificial. In this I exclude the 20th-21st century new arrivals for they are not, and never can be, British.
The peoples who coalesced to make the modern British nations are Celtic, Brythonic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Norman with a smattering of the Flemish and Balts. Their genes are present everywhere in these islands with the single exception that the Romans did not get to Ireland or the Scottish Highlands (apart from the battle at Mons Graupius).
That the ancient kingdoms of Scotland and of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy came together to make two seperate kingdoms on the mainland of Britain is due entirely to ancient power struggles between self-interested rulers which were settled at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 AD. The peoples had nothing to do with it. Had Aethelstan or Constantine II and their respective allies fought to a conclusive outcome two separate kingdoms would never have existed and Britain would have been one for well over a thousand years.
The various 'invasions' in our history have not substantially altered the genetic inheritance of the people, merely changed the ruling class. It was so with the Roman invasion which incidentally may or may not have introduced some North African or Middle Eastern genes between AD43 and AD 410. The Anglo-Saxon invasions took place over centuries, not years or even decades. They are thought to have changed the gene-pool of the population by only 15% making the modern English much more Romano-British or Celtic than they think they are. It is interesting that a genetic link has been proved between people living today around Cheddar Gorge and the famous 'Cheddar Man' who is thought to have lived there in the 9th millenium BC. Likewise the Viking incursions made little difference nor the Norman invasion in 1066. The Vikings became a temporary ruling class but the Normans (who were Vikings really) became a ruling class which some say persists to this day. Of course there was inter-breeding between the incomers and natives but it is mitochondrial DNA inherited from mothers which reveals the truth. Peoples' origins can be traced way back through it.
Turning to Scotland, much of what people believe about Scotland's history is myth written by the rulers. Who controls the present controls the past. Who controls the past controls the future. Wise words from Orwell, I believe. William Wallace, Hero of Scotland bears a name, Wallace, which derives from the Anglo-Saxon Waleas meaning foreigner. It's what they called the people who lived in the territories which became known as Wales. The Welsh of course prefer their own Cymru and Cymraeg. This is etymologically linked to Cumbria, the North West of England or 'The Old North' in Welsh literature. So William was 'William the Welshman'. It's interesting to note too that the earliest Welsh literature, 'Y Gododdin ' from the Book of Aneirin was written between 7th and 11th centuries, in Din Eidyn (Edinburgh) which in those days would have been Brythonic (Welsh) speaking.
The other historical Scottish hero, The Bruce, was Robert de Bruys ( pronounce it Rho-ber in the French manner). He was mostly Norman. He was also Earl of Huntingdon. The War of Independence he fought can be seen as nothing more than a baronial turf-war because he didn't wish to bend the knee to Edward 'Longshanks'. The people again had nothing to do with it except to provide, as always, the poor bloody infantry. The self-aggrandising Rho-ber's concern for them was as his serfs.
We all know that the kingdoms were united in 1603 under James VI and I and the parliaments 104 years later after the Darien disaster. What people don't understand is that attempts to unite them go as far back as King David I of Scots whose Queen was Margaret of Wessex or that James IV's Queen was Margaret Tudor, sister to Henry VIII, who became Regent in Scotland after James IV was killed at Flodden. Her grand-daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, briefly Queen of France, wished to unite England. Scotland AND France. You could make a case that the Union of England and Scotland was a Scottish project from the start.
Turning it personal, I know my own ancestry. I'm 72% Scot (lowland with a dash of Hebridean heritage), 25% Irish, 3% English. My wife is Welsh and my offspring therefore Scotto-Welsh. She is married to an Englishman with some Welsh ancestry. We are BRITISH. I cannot in the light of this knowledge of our origins and history see the modern United Kingdom as an artificial construct. Rather it is the separateness that is artificial. Divide et Impera. Divide and rule.
In any case, it would not be independence for Scotland because Scotland is not, and never has been, a colony or overseas territory. Rather, it is secession from a highly successful 316-year-old political union which has benefited generations of us. The Union was the making of Scotland and put it on the world map. Prior to it and the enlightenment which followed Scotland in the 17th century was Afghanistan. Murder, mayhem, religious persection, poverty and disease abounded. I'm not saying it would return to that but ending the Union would be an absolute disaster for Scots for they would not find a sympathetic ear for their woes among the globalists. They would be bought, controlled and flooded with migrants and our beloved Scotland would be no more.
We must strive with all our fibre to prevent it, not give in.
Very thoughtful and well-written essay.
I’ve always wondered why Scotland seems to be so all-in with the leftist and progressive agenda; I think your explanation is probably the wisest one. It’s a shame, though, and makes me very despondent about the future.
I guess globalism is like a drug in that way—we know it’s bad for us, but we’ve become addicted to it. And of course some among us don’t even acknowledge its danger.