'Constitution' by See-ming Lee.
The British left south of the border took little interest in Scottish politics even after the SNP became the government, seemed unconcerned about the agreement to hold a referendum there, and then largely ignored the campaign. With the exception of openDemocracy, Red Pepper’s openness to invention and creation, and the New Statesman under Jason Cowley, who grasped the profound cultural impact for Britain of somewhere that was alive and not Westminster, the Anglo‑British left patronised the whole experience. It was petty nationalism; the priority is for working-class solidarity across borders; we know better than to be diverted from the ‘real’ issues – all the mind-numbing, thought-suppressing clichés that condemn the left to the comforts of futility came wheeling out.
But in the course of the summer of 2014 it become clear that, in addition to Greece and Spain, another country was giving birth to a popular politics of opposition to neoliberalism. It was as if, when viewed from space, the English left was as much in the dark politically as North Korea can be seen to be in terms of electric light – while north of Hadrian’s Wall, far-reaching argument was lighting up cities, towns and islands and an entire country was visibly alive.
How to account for this exceptional, intelligent release of political energy across Scotland? The lesson is surely the importance of the shift from one level of politics to another: from the level of policies, legislation and parties to the more foundational level of political structure, in effect the constitution. Not in its legal and specialist form, but with respect to the nature of government, the relation between government and citizens and how these relations are organised in a democracy so that the people can genuinely hold power to account – issues of equality, therefore, the nature of rights both social and individual, the nature of sovereignty in the modern world and what kind of country one wishes one’s country to become.
This shift came about because, in effect, the future of their constitution as a whole was put to the people of Scotland, for real, in real time, with a process that had a beginning, middle – a long middle that allowed all the issues to be considered – and a decisive conclusion. That this happened was thanks to the skill, popularity and relative lack of corruption of the SNP and its leader Alex Salmond. But what then happened took even him and his party by surprise.
