CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says Scotland can build itself into a truly modern nation while the old order withers away
2017 ISN’T even two weeks old and already there are signs that might give independence supporters jitters. But while there really are things to worry about, we also need to keep a focus on what there is to feel positive about.
Because as long as we take seriously the worrying things, there is plenty of optimism to hold on to. And we may well need it in the months ahead.
So where are the worries? The first is that in getting us to a place where we can fight another referendum, rather a lot of weight has been placed on external factors – and they’re not delivering.
The union most Scottish unionists campaigned for (a kind of anti-parochial ‘civilising Britannia’) is on the verge of no longer existing.
I’ve heard a lot of people who have pointed to external factors they hoped would be decisive for Scottish independence. Brexit is the obvious one, but also things like the collapse of the Labour Party in England raising the fear of a permanent Tory UK, the impact of austerity, poor economic performance of the UK, antagonism at betrayal of the ‘vow’ and so on.
The problem is that none of these are working. Or, more accurately, the impact they might have had is being offset by other external factors like the drop in the oil price, a degree of disillusionment at what looks like a rather timid domestic agenda, the alienation of Yes-Brexit voters and so on.
Next week Common Weal is going to publish a detailed analysis of all the data we can find on public opinion over the last three years. It’s certainly not all comfortable reading. That’s the thing about external factors – they seldom only work in one direction.
The second is that the messaging on independence is still all over the place. A little bit like watching a child falling off a bike, it leans one way, seems to lose confidence, leans the other way to compensate, seems to lose confidence and so on.
After seven months of almost weekly ‘it’s on, it’s off, it’s on, it’s off’, people are starting to get confused. There are two camps of people – those that think this is all shrewd and well planned, and those that don’t. If my instincts are right, there’s a really quite substantial migration from the former to the latter.
I’ve spoken to unionists who aren’t completely sure they like the Britain they see ahead. Britain is a mess.
And the confusion has led to a kind of strange ‘Kremlinology’ (for younger readers, the business of trying to guess what the Russians were up to in the Cold War by trying to interpret every little thing down to a coffee stain on an official memo).
Does that raised eyebrow mean it’s happening? Or does it mean it’s not happening? So today I read that Nicola Sturgeon definitely doesn’t want an independence referendum any time soon and is only using it to get a Brexit compromise. Which is different from Sunday’s certainty that she wasn’t bluffing. What to think?
A third cause for a jittery start to 2017 is the state of the movement. My instincts are that Bella Caledonia will be saved, but it’s not certain and it reflects how fragile some parts of the independence campaign are.
Lots of us manage on a shoestring budget – or no budget at all. Almost all of us only get anything done because we over work. And while we all accept that unpleasant personal digs from ‘the other side’ is part of the game, the increase of internal name-calling is really morale-sapping.
Lots of people assume that the many people who have burned the candle at both ends will just keep doing it forever. Others assume that ‘when necessary’ it’ll all just magically come to life again. I hope so too – but I know enough from people who’ve kept organisations going through sheer willpower not to take it for granted.
The White Paper Project Common Weal has been developing has had quite a profound effect on me – I’ve learned an enormous amount (and am not ashamed to say that I am no longer satisfied with what I knew during the last referendum).
And that’s all just the last two weeks.
But that’s nothing like the end of the story. There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful.
First, unionists just don’t look that cocky, and with good reason. The union most Scottish unionists campaigned for (a kind of anti-parochial ‘civilising Britannia’) is on the verge of no longer existing. I’ve spoken to unionists who aren’t completely sure they like the Britain they see ahead.
Britain is a mess. Reading the UK media you might get the impression it’s mainly to do with whether the financial service sector will maintain its privileged position. But as someone who’s had a chance to spend a bit of time in the north of England of late, for once the world isn’t revolving around ‘the City’. There are serious social and geographical divisions.
Which leads to a second factor which is making me feel optimistic (this week at least). I am now sure that it is possible to design a Scotland which just looks much more attractive than that Britain.
I really do believe that if we do things properly this time we can jump out of a failing 19th-century state into a modern 21st century one.
The White Paper Project Common Weal has been developing has had quite a profound effect on me – I’ve learned an enormous amount (and am not ashamed to say that I am no longer satisfied with what I knew during the last referendum).
When you ask difficult questions like “how do you go about setting up a new currency?”, you discover that it’s a lot of work, but very clearly achievable and quite exciting if we can get it right.
When you ask an apparently banal question like “what would you replace a National Insurance Number with in the 21st century” and you end up down a surprising path on which you start to see a vision of a nation state which has properly answered the question of the relationship between citizens and their data, it’s exciting.
(OK, I find it exciting.)
I really do believe that if we do things properly this time we can jump out of a failing 19th-century state into a modern 21st century one. And that’s not just rhetoric – if you could redesign the systems of any nation state now you wouldn’t replicate what we have.
And that’s not just rhetoric – if you could redesign the systems of any nation state now you wouldn’t replicate what we have.
People assume that 2014 was the best case we’d ever be able to make for independence because of high oil prices and so on. I no longer agree. I think there is a much, much better case right in front of us if we put some effort into building it. And I think it will be popular with people who might not have looked at independence last time.
And there’s a substantial third reason why I feel optimistic about the year ahead for the independence movement – and it’s that we’ve reached a kind of ‘critical mass of frustration’ which looks like it’s about to convert itself into action.
The Scottish Independence Convention ‘Build’ conference this weekend has stimulated a lot of discussion and exploration. While I don’t want to pre-empt anything, most people now realise that there has been no independence campaign since 2014. And they now really want there to be one.
There’s a way to go before we know exactly what it’ll all look like, but almost universally there is now a will simply to get started. I expect to see a substantial and effective collective campaigning organisation of some sort in the near future.
And virtually no-one is talking about plodding out and doing ‘the same stuff we always did’. There is a pretty sharp focus on getting ready to win.
While I don’t want to pre-empt anything, most people now realise that there has been no independence campaign since 2014. And they now really want there to be one.
The fact that we’re not going to have a snap indyref this year is a great relief to me (though I think that constantly linking the holding of a referendum to Brexit and offering to cancel independence in favour of ‘free market economics’ is a massive blunder).
Right now, 2017 has no narrative. It is a blank slate. In Britain (where Brexit fall-out is likely still to be the story) and the wider world (where the Trump era will surely be the farcical centrepoint) there’s not a lot of positive story I can see to get people through.
In Scotland I don’t see the domestic agenda as offering a positive narrative for the year. But I can see the shifting sands of how people are currently seeing the future as a real opportunity to create a new story.
It would go something like ‘the old world order is in grinding to some kind of end and it may not be pretty. Scotland can redesign itself as a nation fit for a new era.’
There’s a way to go before we know exactly what it’ll all look like, but almost universally there is now a will simply to get started. I expect to see a substantial and effective collective campaigning organisation of some sort in the near future.
So I start the year with my eye on reasons to be cheerful – and I think there are a lot of them. We have no national story about where we are or where we should go (at some later date I’ll write on why Labour hasn’t understood federalism and why it isn’t going to offer a compelling answer). But we can create one.
No, this isn’t the 2017 I dreamed of in 2014. It’s not even the 2017 I wanted to see a year ago. But in among the mess is hope. And that’s a precious commodity. Once again, it’s up to us what we do with it.
Picture courtesy of Robin McAlpine
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