open Democracy News Analysis - Scottish independence? No fear!, Jimmy Reid Alasdair Gray Christopher Harvie - Comments

AMRYFORM on "Scottish independence? No fear!"

AMRYFORM — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:08:14 +0000

As an English man I fully support (and so apparently do 68% of the English population)Scottish independence.

It should happen now in order that we the majority in these islands can also enjoy our freedom from the Scots, Welsh and the Irish. Independence for Scotland would free us from this unholy alliance in one foul swoop. Go for it Scotland..........

joe.middleton on "Scottish independence? No fear!"

joe.middleton — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:05:09 +0000

This is an excellent article and independence is the defining issue in current scottish politics.

There are now numerous different political parties and organisations which support independence and more information about them all and the history, politics and culture of Scotland is provided in the Scottish independence guide website http://www.scottishindependence.com.

Whether you agree with the authors political opinions or not independence is still a good idea because it is about normal powers for Scotland, nothing more and nothing less.

It will be up to us Scots (ie all the people currently living in Scotland) to choose whether we want a socialist, social democratic or low tax right of centre conservative type Government after independence.

At the moment this choice is made for us by our next door neighbour, a country ten times our size.

At the same time Scottish based MP's (who are not actually interested in Scotland) are imposing legislation on England that their own countrymen have decided they don't actually want.

This is unfair and with independence for Scotland and Wales England would also rule herself without the small group of self interested power mad party hacks from the Labour party who currently control Britain.

England is (mostly) a conservative leaning country and the English based parties reflect that however Scotland is (largely) a left leaning country and the parties which best suit English public opinion are not appropriate to Scotland.

All the Scottish based parties, the Greens, SSP, Solidarity and SNP all support independence as do a majority of Scots according to the opinion polls. The time is right therefore to retake our independence on the 300th anniversary of the British union.

The new cross party (and non party) political groupings, Independence First (the referendum campaign) and the Scottish Independence Convention give the opportunity for all independence supporters to work together in a spirit of positive co-operation.

This is what the Scottish public want to see and the only way independence will definitely be delivered next year.

756-385-372-736-907 on "Scottish independence? No fear!"

756-385-372-736-907 — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 00:05:29 +0000

The call for independenace for Scotland is wider than the SNP - with other parties equally engaged. It's important that the case for civic independence for Scotland is neither solely predicated on nationalism nor on any particular party featured on the 2007 ticket.

daveacgrant on "Scottish independence? No fear!"

daveacgrant — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:44:08 +0000

The opinion poll you link does NOT say "more and more Scots now accept independence as inevitable"; it says a mojority believe it to be desirable - not quite the same thing, is it? The question is NOT 'when' but still *whether* - or has it escaped your collective attention that this question hasn't actually ever been put to the Scottish people? And that the reason for this is that the Nationalists have never succeeded in gaining the majority they need in Parliament to present this question in the first place?

"We need independence, and soon, to debate the choices open to us, make alliances with other lands in and outside Europe, and make the sort of Scotland we want."

Make the sort of Scotland *you* lot want, you mean. A banana republic - except without the bananas and the sunny weather. 'Bring it on' indeed! What else to say in response to an article that unironically repeats the political wisdom of Billy Connolly? Words fail me.

Scottish independence? No fear!, Jimmy Reid Alasdair Gray Christopher Harvie

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Before a major general election in 1966 an "independent voters' initiative" was launched by German writers and artists supporting Willy Brandt's challenge to the federal republic's Christian Democrat government. Brandt's campaign success strengthened democratic institutions and defeated what looked like becoming a neo-Nazi revival.

The election to the Scottish parliament on 3 May 2007 is a comparable challenge to Scotland. It occurs exactly 300 years after the Act of Union, passed by the last independent Scots parliament, made Scotland part of England's expanding empire. The loss of that empire after 1997 allowed Tony Blair to give Scotland what Billy Connolly rightly called "a wee, pretendy parliament." Since then the London government has made that term apply to Westminster by using docile Scots Westminster MPs to carry through legislation against majority English and Labour opinion.

Christopher Harvie is a historian who was professor of British and Irish studies at Tübingen University, Germany. His homepage is here

Alasdair Gray is a novelist and artist. His website is here

Jimmy Reid is a journalist and broadcaster

Result: ever-angrier Anglo-Scottish stand-offs, and the functional and moral collapse of local Scottish Labour parties whose main work nowadays is selling public property and giving well-paid jobs to its members. More and more Scots now accept independence as inevitable. The question is: when?

Do we want a new generation of nuclear-power stations, or of Trident nuclear submarines? Does Glasgow need a super-casino? Does Scotland need another corporate golf course? Must the country's local hospitals be closed so that most invalids must travel long distances to a few super-hospitals? Must the Scottish executive's plan to help local authorities sell off chunks of our public parks to private businesses succeed? Is Scotland's only social construction plan to build big work-spaces for global corporations to lease cheaply, though after a few years the corporations pull out because they can hire workers more cheaply in third-world nations?

New Labour has sold itself to private business at every level, cutting deals with individual, corporate and multinational wealth as enthusiastically as the John Major and Margaret Thatcher governments it replaced, promising only (but failing) to rule us more honestly. We want instead a land whose government encourages local businesses of different kinds, and enterprises whose goals are not just profits, but support for innovation and cooperation.

New Labour's economics are fraudulent - an indiscriminate growth of gambling, retailing and fast food, financed by borrowing, arms-dealing and social inequalities, with the bill yet to come in. We need independence to start sorting our country and making it a nation with a voice in world affairs. The approaching fuel crisis has been brought nearer by Tony Blair's foreign wars, making Scotland's North Sea resources even more valuable. These oilfields won't last for ever, but Scotland could use them as collateral for an independent government and technology for an eco-hi-tech future and responsible international role.

We accept the view of Tam Dalyell - an honourable opponent who in some respects we agree with - that devolution was a motorway to independence without an exit. It is time to go down it, making our own decisions and not blaming others when things go wrong.

We need independence, and soon, to debate the choices open to us, make alliances with other lands in and outside Europe, and make the sort of Scotland we want. It will be years before we get another chance.

Leadership matters. At a time when New Labour has weaved and dodged through the ambiguities of devolution, wrapped in a tattered Union Jack, Scottish National Party (SNP) leaders Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have shown an articulate social democracy, weak on spin and strong on principle. What matters to them is not a party victory but our empowerment as the community of Scotland, again exercising that "freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life."

We ask you to support this appeal for what has been called the "Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Republic".

Alasdair Gray, Christopher Harvie, Jimmy Reid

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