Friday, 19 September 2014

How can Scotland heal itself?

So - Scotland will not be independent.

55 % will be deliriously happy and relieved
But
45% will feel hugely bitter and disappointed.

To understand how to heal, one needs to understand the problem - to have a diagnosis.

54% voted for the status quo
But - Why did 45% want independence.

Salmond very cleverly appealed to many different groups – all with different axes to grind.
1. He was attractive to all those who were anti the establishment - for whatever reason.
2. He was attractive to all those who had nothing to lose – or were too ignorant and blinkered to see otherwise.
3. He was attractive to drawing room/champagne socialists
4. He was attractive to those romantic few who have always wanted an independent Scotland
5. He was attractive to those who thought they could use him and his party to advance themselves
Etc

Of these groups the largest was
2. Those who had nothing to lose – or were too ignorant and blinkered to see otherwise.
This group comprises Scotland’s poor, uneducated, unemployed underclass as was demonstrated by the YES votes in Glasgow and Dundee. Similar populations are found in all big cities throughout the UK.
These people have nothing to lose (they think). Salmond offered them hope and change for the better. Who in their situation would not be attracted by that? When those with knowledge and intelligence tried to warn them of potential financial problems for Scotland, associated with independence, they instead believed Salmond’s outraged denials and cries of scaremongering.
How cynical of Salmond who, as an economist, must have known that his independence plans risked the money required to pay those people’s benefits.

So was the vote mainly between those in Scotland who had nothing to lose – the have nots  
And
Those who had much to lose – the haves
Perhaps

My family certainly would have lost a lot. Most of what we would have lost was not financial - it was about family; Children being forced to move with their job to England and thus we would lose contact with them and our grandchildren. My family would be split up and have to live in different countries. For our other children, the threat of job losses and the threat of property purchases falling through and for others the loss of essential funding for jobs. All on top of a fear of losing our pension
For us – a YES vote – would have meant very real anxiety and loss

However for someone living on a Glasgow estate, unemployed, on benefits and trying to survive -  today’s vote will mean the end of all hope of change and a better life. That also is a real loss.

Salmond – in his quest for power- has caused huge problems for Scotland.
He has caused massive disappointment amongst the poor with his unrealistic pipe dreams.
He has caused a huge divide between rich and poor and between the educated and the uneducated he has caused a huge divide between those who speak posh and those who don’t and
He has caused a huge divide between those who speak with an English accent and those who don’t

People are talking about the “Silent majority of NO voters”
Why were they silent?
1. Because of their accents and
2. Because of the aggressiveness of the opposition and
3. Because of the impossibility of having a rational argument with the opposition

I am Scottish through and through but I am educated and posh (or at least brought up posh)
It would have been quite impossible for me to enter the debate verbally because of my accent.
Scotland has many many people like me. All we could do was to watch in agony
We were many of the educated part of the community – the ones who should have been out there contradicting Salmond’s lies. We were powerless. Just as David Cameron didn’t dare intervene, neither did anyone else who didn’t have a broad enough Scottish accent to appear Scottish to the uneducated.

What is to happen now in Scotland?  Even well before the referendum we knew of one young man, who preferred to talk with a Spanish accent in the pub to disguise his English/posh accent, to avoid being beaten up.

I believe these 2 issues must be addressed
1. Hope and change must be offered, with a real outcome, to the poor in Glasgow and Dundee and elsewhere
2. The issue of Scotland’s anti English/ anti Toff racism must be brought out into the open and addressed








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