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The Yes campaign needs to
become proactive in getting across a more positive message on the merits
of independence, writes Jim Sillars
Twenty-three per cent for independence, at a time when the central
mantra of unionism –that Scotland needs the embrace of the big,
economically successful United Kingdom – is laid bare by facts of
decline, poverty, collapsing pillars of the British state, and economic
weakness and failure. How come?
Better Together, a claim waiting to be dismantled by an unrelenting
public examination exposing the realities of the life Scots face as part
of a state able to offer only years of austerity. UK national debt is
heading towards £1.5 trillion. The real cuts are still to come. The
political elite at Westminster are elite only in the sense of their
self-perception, when in fact they are clueless and incompetent.
Confidence in the UK economy can be measured by the conduct of corporate
UK: it is sitting on £750 billion cash in hand, holding back investment
because it sees no prospect of growth and profits. Without that
investment there is no way out of the dismal growth/recession scenario.
Scotland’s future in the UK is one of misery: pay-day loan company
expansion, more food banks for the poor, and the only way out of
unemployment for thousands of young people the door marked “emigrate”.
Why is it that Better Together, a sick joke, is away ahead and not
independence? The answer is an ineffective campaign by the Yes side. In
the contest between Yes and No, there is a vacuum where pro-independence
information should be, but it is being filled by the latter with its
poison of baseless allegations forecasting gloom and disaster if we have
the temerity to separate from the rest of the UK. All we get from the
Yes side, including that part formed by the SNP government, when
confronted in public by allegations designed to suck the self-confidence
out of the nation, are vapid responses that carry no conviction. The Yes
website is a series of assertions and, on the European Union, mere
opinions that, however eminent the authors, carry no legal or political
authority.
Educate, agitate, organise. The Keir Hardie edict still stands in this
age of Twitter and Facebook. Indeed, it should be even more effective
with the ability of the social media to educate, agitate and organise
proven in so many countries. Of course, that “education” part of the
equation comes first, as it must, and it here that there is a clamant
need for action both by the SNP as a party, and government, and the Yes
group. Time after time, I have met people asking: “Where is the detailed
information to back support for independence?”
Better Together is the world’s greatest oxymoron. Poorer together is the
reality. The outstanding feature of the No campaign is its failure to
provide evidence of just how Scotland within the UK is going to prosper,
how it is going to produce the high-paid jobs, or even any jobs at the
levels required, and how the poor are to be rescued and the gross
inequality that scars society is to be eradicated.
Outside of trashing the ability of Scots, and sowing the myth of our
inadequacy, Better Together says nothing on how we are to avoid more of
the same. Scorn is poured upon the notion of a Scottish defence force by
people who are cutting the British armed forces to a level that creates
a dangerous disjunction between the desire to project force
internationally, and the ability to do so. An aircraft carrier without
aircraft! They, not we, should be the butt of derision.
Scots are forecast to plunge into poverty on independence by a unionist
establishment that has brought countless families to the brink of ruin.
The lies of the 1970s about oil are repeated now. We are told to hold
fast to British values at a time when the last vestiges of social
solidarity are being torn asunder as the inequality gap widens. Our
competence is questioned by people who, themselves, can’t even run a
railway.
The consistent low poll rating for independence is a testament not to
the skill of the fearmongers, but to the inability of the Yes campaign
to provide convincing in-depth information on why we must choose
independence if we are to break free of an England in decline. The Yes
leadership report card to date reads “nice people, intelligent, mean
well, but need to do better”.
Part of the problem seems to be that the Yes campaign has become
entangled with the SNP government, and appears to be like one of the
submissive branches of the party that we are all now familiar with –
echoing whatever comes out of Bute House.
Independence is not about the SNP. That party has been a vehicle to
bring us to the point of decision on our future, and its efforts should
be recognised and applauded, but it is not necessarily the future. If
Scotland votes Yes, the political scene will be transformed. Scottish
Labour, for one, will be freed from the unionist intellectual trap that
has determined the boundaries within which it thinks. Europe is a good
example of the entanglement. The Yes campaign simply repeats that SNP
assertion that we will be in full membership of the EU on independence,
and so is besmirched with the tar that now adheres to that SNP policy.
Where is the thoughtful paper for volunteers in the campaign that
explains why Scotland is not a beggar at the gate of Brussels? A paper
that examines the issue of what being “at the heart of Europe” means –
joining the single United States of Europe, with the total loss of
sovereignty that the referendum is supposed to give us? A paper that
points out the alternative, the European Free Trade Area, if we find
that the Franco-German driven direction of more integration is
unacceptable? And a paper that reminds us that we have two years between
2014 and 2016 to decide where we might want to go?
Where is the detailed paper that volunteer activists can use that deals
with the issue of the currency, setting out the options to the SNP
government’s position? They do exist. Where is there information
available that shows the balance of the Scottish economy between
manufacturing and services, as opposed to the imbalance south of the
Border? Where is the ruthless analysis of the inadequacies of
devolution? Above all, where is the penetrating, scathing, scourging
analysis of the state the British state is in, and why it is in this
state – showing the future for Scots if they remain with failure?
There is nothing to be afraid of in a Yes campaign that reveals the
weakness of what the No side is asking us to abide with, and nothing to
be afraid of in engaging with people on the range of issues, and the
options available, that differ from those proposed by the SNP.
Scots need information, not just assertions. We are a mature,
well-educated people who should be treated as such. The Yes side should
show us respect, and arm the volunteer activists with the material they
are desperate for, and which can form a genuine national conversation
and debate. Those who run the Yes side should understand that you cannot
campaign without a solid base of information – something that, so far,
is missing.
Jim Sillars is a former deputy leader of the SNP
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Reply by Dr. James Wilkie
2:22 PM on 29/01/2013
I am in complete agreement with aitsch on media bias, but the malaise
goes much deeper than that. It is also gross incompetence that
professional political commentators have been unable to analyse what is
really happening in Scotland - and remember that the SNP is only a
symptom, not the cause.
Take, for example, devolution. It was forced on the UK by diplomatic
pressure, because the international authorities could not enforce
pluralist democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights in the
reform countries of Eastern Europe while tolerating the colonial rule of
Scotland and Wales by Secretary of State in an established Western
country. The evidence in Hansard and the Council of Europe records is
more than sufficient to justify full-scale investigative journalism of
vital and indeed sensational facts that the Scottish media had a
positive duty to report. The story was killed by the mainstream media,
even after its revelation in the new electronic media. That is more than
simply bias; it is positive manipulation of the news.
Then take the example of the Scottish Democratic Alliance (SDA)
mentioned by Alastair McIntyre and Ron Greer below on this thread. The
founding of a significant new Scottish political force is clearly
sensational enough to justify widespread reporting, but once again the
mainstream media have killed any mention of it, although its advanced
think tank role, backed by worldwide intelligence at the highest level,
puts it into a class of its own in the Scottish political landscape.
We will see what happens when the SDA puts up candidates at the
forthcoming elections, but by the standard of the reporting of the
abortive unionist Scotland's Voice project it would have to be given
very detailed coverage. As I wrote, we'll see what happens.
There are a lot of imperfections to be ironed out in Scotland before its
government will be capable of handling the transition from a devolved
administration to the governance of a sovereign state within the global
system of interdependence. On present showing the deficiencies of the
SNP outside its domestic policy heartland are far too great to encompass
the change. That vacuum in the Scottish political spectrum will have to
be filled, and I must say that the mainstream media are doing virtually
nothing to help fill it.
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Reply by aitch
12:32 PM on 29/01/2013
The problem Jim is that the mainstream media wholly and comprehensively
give coverage to every single "issue" (scaremongering tactic) that the
BritNAT parties raise and never or very rarely give any coverage of the
positives for Independence.
Because of this I can well understand why much of the general public are
still in the No camp.
The 'Yes' campaign really needs to raise their game to counteract this,
however if the bias of the last year is anything to go by no-one could
ever raise it enough.
I'm sure active involvement with someone like yourself with Blair
Jenkins would be a great benefit to the campaign....its always easy to
shout from the side but active participation is invaluable.
How about it?
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Reply by Ron Greer
8:50 AM on 29/01/2013
AlastairMcIntyre: The SDA have now moved on to become a poltical party
and are supporting the YES argument in principle, but raising the
potential after independence, of Scotland joining EFTA instead of the
United States Of Europe through the EU transformation that is in
prospect and indeed unfolding.
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Reply AlastairMcIntyre
4:00 AM on 29/01/2013
I don't know why more attention is not being given to the SDA (Scottish
Democratic Alliance). For those that don't know they have been a Think
Talk on how Scotland could be run as an Independent country. They have
produced a number of excellent papers that educate. The two papers that
really changed my own views were "Scotland in the Word" and "Scotland in
Europe". In was in the "Scotland in Europe" paper that I for the first
time learned of how EFTA would be a more natural choice for an
Independent Scotland. So do educate yourselves by reading some of their
papers as both an education and as an example of how the YES campaign
could do better. |
