I have watched with rising concern the polarisation of politics in Scotland; how pro-union voters desperate to hold Britain together are being driven to vote for a party that until recently seemed anathema in Scotland, and which can reasonably be acknowledged to have caused serious damage to the UK. How pro-independence voters are by and large digging their heels in by persisting in using the SNP as a vehicle through which to achieve their goals, despite what many of us see as fairly lacklustre, cautious policy – certainly not the truly radical change most of us voted Yes for.
This is the polarisation of voicelessness, and it’s preventing our country from moving forward. We are stuck in a seemingly endless constitutional loop; every election since the referendum has been dominated by the independence debate, every vote is being cast with the issue in mind – either in the hopes of securing a second referendum, or of invalidating the mandate achieved in 2016 to hold one in the event of Brexit against the Scottish vote.
The refrain on both sides has been “well that’s democracy” – we tell each other to put up and shut up, because a mandate at the ballot box is unarguable and must be respected, no matter how unpleasant to however many people. The huge problem with this is that the ballot boxes in the UK, and the whole concept of a winner takes all referendum aren’t actually terribly democratic; they are blunt tools of majority rule, and more often than not these majorities are wafer-thin, leaving far too many citizens without a voice.
Over and over again we see it happening – voted Yes to independence, and got the Union? Put up and shut up – that’s democracy. Voted No and got the 2016 SNP mandate for a second referendum? Put up and shut up – that’s democracy. Voted Remain and got Brexit? Put up and shut up – that’s democracy. Voted progressive in 2017 and got the most vicious right-wing government in history, propped up by homophobic extremists with a history of terrorism? Well, you get the idea…
We have got to stop expecting our fellow citizens simply to swallow any and all outcomes in the name of democracy, when our democratic model is so utterly flawed. And I include my own movement in that. It should be crystal clear now to the pro-independence population, that resistance to Scottish independence simply hasn’t melted away with Brexit as we had hoped. It should also be equally clear to the pro-Union population that the Yes movement’s resistance to the Union isn’t going to melt away any time soon either.
We need to try somehow to meet in the middle. We all have to admit, that right now, nobody is going to get what they want; and the longer we go on without trying to move forward constructively, the more damage we are going to do to each other, our relationships and the future of the country as our politics stagnate.
So what can we do, to make everybody (or at least *more people* feel heard? In the context of the independence debate, the obvious answer to that is Devo-Max*, or Federalism – crucially with proportional representation (although I would also love to hear other ideas on how we could compromise). Devo Max ticks a number of boxes for the Independence movement, without breaking us away from the UK altogether. Both sides would have to make some pretty hefty compromises, but at least we are moving forward and *trying* to understand and accommodate positions on either side. Whether this is achievable under the new Tory/DUP alliance is questionable, but with a teenyweeny margin of power, and another general election by no means out of the picture for 5 years, it may not be completely impossible either.
So as a properly rabid Yesser, who will genuinely never be convinced that remaining in the UK is in Scotland’s best interests, this is what I have to say….
- I want people on both sides of the debate to feel heard and represented, rather than frustrated and voiceless.
- I want people to be able to take back their votes from tactical loans that are not achieving any meaningful progress for the purposes they were lent.
- I want to start Scotland moving forward again, and rescue our political debate from interminable constitutional wrangling.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results, we have to take steps now to steer ourselves away from madness. It’s so clear now, that neither “side” is going to have a sudden epiphany and concede that their opponents have been right all along; the best we can do right now is to fight the polarisation of voicelessness, and try to reach some sort of acceptable compromise.
Could a majority of us commit to putting our exhausting Indyref differences aside, and agitate together as a larger and stronger bloc for Devo Max instead?
I reckon I could; and whilst I have serious reservations about it as a political model (not least the whole continuing WMDs in the hands of Westminster thing…) I can’t deny it’s a heck of a lot more attractive than the alternative.
What do we all think?
Ps: any ideas on how to reconcile Remainers and Brexiters also welcome – that one has me totally stumped at this time!
*For clarity, I am using Devo Max here to describe home rule for Scotland, whereby everything except Defence and Foreign Affairs are managed by the Scottish Parliament, but we still remain part of the UK.
The F-MoB 