The Confidence To Say No

Alex Massie writes:

We hold this truth to be self-evident: we are not an oppressed people. We have some liberty to chart our own course. We are, after all, choosing our path this week.

We do not crave self-determination because we have always had that power. And many others besides that significant liberty. We are a free people.

This is obvious yet also something worth recalling in these final hours.

I have my own reasons for voting No on Thursday and, in truth, they have little to do with very much that has been said by the official Better Together campaign.

But this kind of choice, this kind of referendum, inevitably prods one towards endorsing one team or the other.

It is Rangers or Celtic and, in the end, there’s no room for Partick Thistle or Queens Park or anyone else.

I think, like Peter Jones, that the economic prospectus peddled by the Scottish government is a fantastical, deplorable, deception. At least in the short-to-medium term

 But that’s, perhaps, only what one might expect from a campaign that has to promise the earth. A necessary reason to vote No, you might think, but not necessarily a sufficient one.

So it comes down to mood and feel and gut and heart and all these other intangible prompts. What kind of country are we? What kind of country should we wish to be?

For many Yes voters this is an easy matter.

Scotland is a country; it should be a state too. A simple view, easily-grasped. And not an idiotic one either. 

Yet it does not, in the end, quite persuade me. Perhaps because I don’t much care for borders (while being fiercely partisan towards the Borders).

Perhaps, too, it’s because I see little prospect of my preferred kinds of politics thriving anywhere that I’m unimpressed by appeals to vote this way or ‘tother to advance any specific political end or sentiment. I hanker for a reason to vote that’s bigger, less self-regarding, less-convinced-of-its-own-righteousness, than that.

In any case I can condemn the No campaign’s imaginative deficit without being required to accept the Yes campaign’s rosy-hued alternative. Especially since that alternative is not always so cheerful in any case.

I was reminded of this by reading the Yes campaign’s official twitter feed.

It paints a picture of a land I scarcely recognise. A land half-in-love with the daftest scare stories peddled my the more witless members of the Unionist coalition; a land that too often settled for the comforts of victimhood.

Consider these examples, culled from just the last couple of days.

Here’s Alan Cumming, as promoted by the Yes campaign: Fed up of being told you’re not good enough by people who are not good enough and have failed you?

It is, of course, a neat trick to call for assuming responsibility for your glorious future while absolving yourself of any responsibility for the inadequacies of our present condition.

They have failed You and all that remains is to decide if you wish to be an accomplice to their – and your – failure.

Their failure is so great it even covers those parts of public life – some 60% of state spending, no less – that are the responsibility of the Scottish parliament.

Above all, however, here’s a ressentiment that craves a certain kind of oppression. Who are these people telling Scots they’re not good enough?

Not David Cameron. Not Alistair Darling. Not Gordon Brown. Not even wee Nicky Clegg.

The idea Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to make a decent fist of independence is almost entirely a myth created and propagated by people who will vote Yes.

It is not a straw man, more of a straw bairn.

Cumming is not alone. Yes Scotland also ask if we are Tired of being told what Scotland can’t do?

Not really, though some of us are tired of being asked to believe that we believe Scotland is some poor and feeble backwater that can never hope to amount to anything.

Tired of it because we know it is not true. Tired of it because we ken fine well that, as the Yes campaign keeps telling us, Scotland is a prosperous country that can, in the long-term, cope with the challenges of independence.

Just as, you know, we can cope with the challenges – and shortcomings – of the Union too.

But what about the future?

Ah: A ‘No’ risks a Tory-UKIP coalition with 49% of the vote. No it doesn’t. Still, good to be reminded of the positive case for independence.

That positivity is infectious: If we vote Yes David Cameron is part of our past. But if we say No he is part of our future.

Don’t, however, make the mistake of thinking the campaign has anything to do with Alex Salmond or even the SNP. That would be personalising the issue and we’ll no be having that.

Of course we don’t object to David Cameron. Only to his views.

After all, Tory views will be welcome in an independent Scotland. They may even be necessary. At the very least the centre-right can look forward to a revival after independence.

We want to run some Tories out of Scotland but others may yet be welcome. So is it the man or his views that are the problem? It is hard to say. Perhaps it’s both? Perhaps it’s his nationality too.

Remember: A Yes vote is not Nationalist or anti-English. It’s our one opportunity.

Of course, though I can’t help but wonder if some Yes votes might be nationalist and a few might be anti-English too.

Meanwhile, admire the optimism of contrasting our one opportunity with the implied pestilential future that awaits us if we vote the wrong way.

Because, you see, Team Westminster doesn’t work for the people of Scotland. Another spin on the victimhood merry-go-round.

Not only do these people – a number of whom may be English – not work for the people of Scotland they very possibly deliberately seek to harm Scots. Other people too, perhaps, but chiefly Scots.

Still: Nationalists? We’re the people’s movement. Which leaves open the question of who are your opponents? Not the people, evidently.

And if they’re not the people, they must be trampling upon the peoples’ hopes.

Not that we are nationalists, of course, merely the voice of the people. Not like those Other people. Though, of course, it’s not about Them and Us. Except when it is.

After all: Scotland must never ever again get governments the majority of us rejected.

Perhaps not, though it depends upon who us is. After all, just as David Cameron was elected on a minority of the vote so was Alex Salmond.

But the rules are the rules and we agree to abide by them.

The democratic-deficit argument is superficially persuasive until you realise is also demands independence for Wales and lord-knows-what for Northern Ireland.

Sure, Scotland is a country but so is the United Kingdom.

So there’s no need to Imagine a country where our leaders are here all the time because we have such a country and it is called the United Kingdom.

In fact, my leaders (if you must call them that) are here all the time in both my countries.

Chafe against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by all means, imagine a different, more glorious future all you want but at the very least – and it should not be a large thing to ask – recall, just for a second, that your opponents are not motivated by a willingness to sacrifice Scotland or do her down or oppress her or lead her to some kind of dystopian future.

Deep down most Yes voters know this.

Deep down they know that if Scotland is a half-decent place to live today it will remain a half-decent country on Friday even if Scots vote No.

If it is large and smart and rich enough to be independent it is also – must, in fact – be large and smart and rich enough to remain a part of Britain.

Confidence, in other words, is a two-way street and while there are a hundred, even a thousand, reasons to vote Yes or No it remains the case that many Scots are confident enough in our collective future to vote No.

Don’t let them tell you what to do is all very well and good but it rather depends on whom you mean by Them.

We are not a small people and don’t let them persuade you otherwise.

OK?