Professor John Davis says the Scottish independence movement must move beyond the Yes/No frame
SINCE the USA election, televisions pundits have talked about the rise of the right wing across Europe as if it was an unchallengeable certainty. Yet, there is little statistical evidence for the claim that the right wing or the left wing can amass populist majorities across Europe.
Amid all this flawed punditry, political commentators seem oblivious to the potential for the emergence of a truly populist post-Brexit independence movement in Scotland.
In 2015, some writers connected the emergence of popular left movements in Europe to the ideas of Argentinian born academic Ernesto Laclau and Italian politician Antonio Gramsci (see this link) such as hegemony (a predominant discourse/debate), ideology (organically developing ideas stemming from political rather than economic structures) and populism (the gathering together of diverse discourses into a political agenda).
Amid all this flawed punditry, political commentators seem oblivious to the potential for the emergence of a truly populist post-Brexit independence movement in Scotland.
In 2016, such ideas were re-heated by the mainstream media to promote the popularity of rightwing movements. Both the 2015 and 2016 claims ignored criticisms of Laclau’s work as producing smoke and mirrors that masked the rise of more sinister and anti-democratic neo-liberal economic systems (see link here).
Laclau saw politics as a war of continual positioning that drew on discourses of "equivalence" (the combining of divergent demands into a unifying language of the masses) and "antagonism" (the promotion of the sovereignty of the people and the challenging of parasitic elites, vested interests, power, privilege and the status quo).
Laclau, to some extent, argued that the flow of discourses of equivalence and antagonism were more important to politics than economic issues.
Equivalence can be related to the terms "the Yes movement" and "the butterfly revolution" which, in 2014, were elevated to represent the creative, progressive, freedom-seeking, peaceful, diverse and multifaceted nature of the Scottish independence movement.
Commentators claimed that the USA election involved a populous movement, yet, the election was only won with a 47 per cent vote. Similarly, Brexit was won with a vote of only 52 per cent in the UK and 54 per cent in England.
Yet, the Yes campaign was out-"equivalenced" by the No campaign’s "better together" slogan which became synonymous with low risk and the status quo. The Yes movement succeeded in making independence more popular (moving from 25 per cent in polls to a 45 per cent vote) but it did not elevate independence to become the popular will of people living in Scotland.
Laclau argued that there was no guarantee people would constitute around a progressive message – the young supporters of the Yes campaign had to endure this painful lesson.
Commentators claimed that the USA election involved a populous movement, yet, the election was only won with a 47 per cent vote. Similarly, Brexit was won with a vote of only 52 per cent in the UK and 54 per cent in England.
In Europe, the popular vote tends to be split with opposing groupings holding a half, a third or a quarter of the vote. For example, in 2016 Unidos Podemos gained 24.5 per cent of the vote in Spain versus the centre right People’s Party’s 28.7 per cent; in 2015 Syriza gained 36.3 per cent of the vote in Greece versus the New Democracy centre right party’s 27.8 per cent; in 2015 the Labour party gained 29 per cent of the vote at Westminster versus The Tories 36.1 per cent and this weekend the supposedly resurgent Austrian far-right lost with around 46 per cent of the vote.
The two major Catalonian independence parties hold 48 per cent of the vote, the Scottish pro-independence parties gained over 50 per cent of the vote in recent Westminster and Holyrood elections.
To become a successful popular movement, the independence movement (in Scotland) needs to reach out and draw in the 25 per cent of people who, in 2014, were dissatisfied with Westminster (and could have voted Yes) but chose, in a risk averse way, the false promise of federalism.
The mainstream media tends to call those figures populist. Yet, to become a successful popular movement, the independence movement (in Scotland) needs to reach out and draw in the 25 per cent of people who, in 2014, were dissatisfied with Westminster (and could have voted Yes) but chose, in a risk averse way, the false promise of federalism.
The 25 per cent are there to be won over with a campaign that connects a positive strategy for togetherness with an antagonistic narrative which pinpoints the failings of the UK’s London-centric economic system.
The message will be clear: Tory Brexit politics made the pound a devalued currency (an £8 increase on an imported bottle of aftershave for Christmas), Tory austerity depressed wages (by 2020 wages will not have surpassed 2007 levels); Tory incompetence strangled the recovery (the slowest for over 100 years), and Tory cuts ensured the UK massively missed their deficit reduction targets (by between five and 10 years).
In 2014, the SNP failed to produce a coherent economic narrative on the currency, Yes campaigners were subjected to simplistic claims about a Scottish budget deficit and the Scottish people were threatened with price hikes at the shops.
Come indyref 2, the currency, deficit and price narrative of austerity and Brexit economics will silence the 2014 narrative, but antagonism with the Westminster economic system is only one piece of a successful independence jigsaw.
Come indyref 2, the currency, deficit and price narrative of austerity and Brexit economics will silence the 2014 narrative, but antagonism with the Westminster economic system is only one piece of a successful independence jigsaw.
The other piece is a credible economic model that involves Scotland having its own currency. Antagonism is also unhelpful when it leads politicos to play the person rather than the ball.
A mass popular independent movement can only be based on a clear understanding of why so many of those who could have voted Yes, in 2014, chose the status quo. We need to approach every one of that 25 per cent (and the other 30 per cent who are firm unionists) as a prospective partner in the movement for change – not because we crave their vote but because they are our fellow Scots.
We need to move beyond thinking about Yes and No, to thinking about how we in Scotland (the progressive 75 per cent) can become a united movement that opposes the arrogance, discrimination, insensitivity, superiority, egotism, condescension, superciliousness and failed economics of current Westminster politics.
We need to approach every one of that 25 per cent (and the other 30 per cent who are firm unionists) as a prospective partner in the movement for change – not because we crave their vote but because they are our fellow Scots.
In so doing, we can reclaim the better together discourse to unite around the belief that we can be (and are) a truly confident, outward-facing, progressive, inclusive, cohesive, diverse, unified and independent nation.
It is not an accident that Nicola Sturgeon emphasised the word inclusion in her speech to the SNP conference – it’s the word that is key to an independence majority.
The movement to achieving 75 per cent support for independence will require politicians to be honest about the ambiguous nature of the future and to admit that the paths to a post-Brexit Britain and an inclusive independent Scotland involve similar economic risks.
In so doing, we will be able to connect our honesty about the tricky economic road ahead to the political truism that: if we vote for an independent Scotland we will get the government that we voted for and (unlike the current Westminster governments) we will be able to vote out any subsequent Holyrood political parties that fail to meet their economic promises or fail to, inclusively, represent all the people of our country.
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