Post by om15 on Sept 16, 2023 19:49:22 GMT
Scotland may never recover from the SNP’s venomous nationalism
A very good article by Zoe Strimpel, it is unarguable that the SNP has damaged the structure of Scotland, the relationship with England and the future prosperity of its citizens.
A very good article by Zoe Strimpel, it is unarguable that the SNP has damaged the structure of Scotland, the relationship with England and the future prosperity of its citizens.
As an outsider – someone who, though born in London to British parents, grew up in America until the age of 16 – my sense of connection to Scotland is weak. I’ve been just a handful of times, and I loathe Edinburgh, a cold, cruelly-grey looking city whose legendary festival has become a woke excrescence.
So when the referendum for independence came round in 2014, I could not join my English friends in high displays of emotion. They were utterly distraught and terrified at the idea that their beloved Scotland might leave, splintering the Union and changing the whole essence of reality as they knew it.
I marvelled at their feelings of warmth and attachment, their good-faith belief that we were all better off together.
As the years have marched on since the referendum, with Scotland’s perverse obsession with independence still enshrined in SNP power, it has become clear that feelings of affection remain far from mutual. Not only that, but Scotland’s almost insane, own-foot-shooting zest for nationalism (or at least yelling about it) has sunk to the level of the very crudest anti-English sentiment.
Last week provided a spectacle of this at the Hampden Park football match between Scotland and England. England won 3-1, but the attention was on Scottish fans who venomously booed God Save the King. This was insulting enough, in a schoolyard thug sort of way, but what really raised eyebrows was the SNP leader Hamza Yousef appearing to smirk while it was happening.
This is a man who was invited to the Coronation, and has been treated with nothing but the utmost respect by the Scotland-loving Royal family. It seems unlikely that he simply forgot that God Save the King is also Scotland’s official anthem.
The long history between these two nations may contain battles and power struggles that rankle with some Scots (including Scotland’s loss in 1650 of the Anglo-Scottish war, aka the Third Civil War) but for more than 300 years, Scotland has arguably been as essential to the idea of Great Britain – on both sides of the border – as England.
By the late 17th century, it was, of course, the Scottish elites who were keen to form a union with their mighty imperial neighbour, because of the possibilities for trade and economic benefit. In that regard, little has changed – Scotland still depends on, and benefits from – the union with England.
In 2020, 62 per cent of Scotland’s exports went to the rest of the UK, while 67 per cent of Scotland’s imports originated from the rest of the UK, according to the Scottish government’s own data.
What is different is the aggressive denial of its ruling elites that this is so – a key part of the SNP’s strategy for sowing the lowest-grade, most ill-founded anti-Englishness.
Booing God Save the King is only the most recent show of this depressing attitude. During Covid, when Nicola Sturgeon was lorded over draconian regulations – always with an eye to showing Scottish superiority over her neighbour – Scots actually appeared on the border demanding that English travellers turn around, as if they were witches.
It’s no surprise, then, that Conservative members of Moray council have said they receive more complaints of Anglophobia than cases of Islamophobia. Not to mention that last year, a BBC reporter was called a traitor outside a Conservative leadership hustings.
The fact is that bad ideas and bad behaviour attract each other, and the SNP excels with the former.
Beyond independence itself, there’s the loony climate politics, including a Climate Justice Fund (the first in the world, as the SNP boasts), which seems to be yet another useless sink for taxpayer money.
Their obsession with reaching net zero by 2045 includes such laughably trivial measures as giving free bikes to kids, as if there weren’t other crucial priorities, such as health care, drug deaths, violence, education and growth. Incidentally, polling over the summer showed that half of Scots thought Yousaf was doing a bad job as First Minister.
Yet the nationalist worm has burrowed in so deep that it seems there’s nothing that could dim the SNP’s light in the eyes of its supporters. Despite the humiliating police investigation into the party’s finances, leading to the arrest of Sturgeon, who was released pending further inquiries, the SNP is still maintaining its core support. Meanwhile, support for independence continues to hover at around 40 per cent.
Yet, while the SNP lives on, Scotland itself may never recover. For where there is Anglophobia, other nasty prejudices are to be found.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities noted in 2014, the year of the referendum, a large spike in anti-Semitic incidents in Scotland, which it linked to the conflict in Gaza. And while criticism of Israel is legitimate, the number of motions relating to Israel in the Scottish Parliament is bemusing. In 2014, it was reported that in the previous three years there had been no fewer than 50 members’ motions relating to Israel, out of a total of 260 that relate to countries outside the UK.
Malawi was second with 14 motions. Syria, South Africa and Iraq were joint third with 12. No other country is in double figures.
There had apparently been eight Scottish government statements about Gaza in the space of two months alone.
Given that there is no shortage of crises that Scotland itself faces, why is it so obsessed with criticising or booing other nations?
So when the referendum for independence came round in 2014, I could not join my English friends in high displays of emotion. They were utterly distraught and terrified at the idea that their beloved Scotland might leave, splintering the Union and changing the whole essence of reality as they knew it.
I marvelled at their feelings of warmth and attachment, their good-faith belief that we were all better off together.
As the years have marched on since the referendum, with Scotland’s perverse obsession with independence still enshrined in SNP power, it has become clear that feelings of affection remain far from mutual. Not only that, but Scotland’s almost insane, own-foot-shooting zest for nationalism (or at least yelling about it) has sunk to the level of the very crudest anti-English sentiment.
Last week provided a spectacle of this at the Hampden Park football match between Scotland and England. England won 3-1, but the attention was on Scottish fans who venomously booed God Save the King. This was insulting enough, in a schoolyard thug sort of way, but what really raised eyebrows was the SNP leader Hamza Yousef appearing to smirk while it was happening.
This is a man who was invited to the Coronation, and has been treated with nothing but the utmost respect by the Scotland-loving Royal family. It seems unlikely that he simply forgot that God Save the King is also Scotland’s official anthem.
The long history between these two nations may contain battles and power struggles that rankle with some Scots (including Scotland’s loss in 1650 of the Anglo-Scottish war, aka the Third Civil War) but for more than 300 years, Scotland has arguably been as essential to the idea of Great Britain – on both sides of the border – as England.
By the late 17th century, it was, of course, the Scottish elites who were keen to form a union with their mighty imperial neighbour, because of the possibilities for trade and economic benefit. In that regard, little has changed – Scotland still depends on, and benefits from – the union with England.
In 2020, 62 per cent of Scotland’s exports went to the rest of the UK, while 67 per cent of Scotland’s imports originated from the rest of the UK, according to the Scottish government’s own data.
What is different is the aggressive denial of its ruling elites that this is so – a key part of the SNP’s strategy for sowing the lowest-grade, most ill-founded anti-Englishness.
Booing God Save the King is only the most recent show of this depressing attitude. During Covid, when Nicola Sturgeon was lorded over draconian regulations – always with an eye to showing Scottish superiority over her neighbour – Scots actually appeared on the border demanding that English travellers turn around, as if they were witches.
It’s no surprise, then, that Conservative members of Moray council have said they receive more complaints of Anglophobia than cases of Islamophobia. Not to mention that last year, a BBC reporter was called a traitor outside a Conservative leadership hustings.
The fact is that bad ideas and bad behaviour attract each other, and the SNP excels with the former.
Beyond independence itself, there’s the loony climate politics, including a Climate Justice Fund (the first in the world, as the SNP boasts), which seems to be yet another useless sink for taxpayer money.
Their obsession with reaching net zero by 2045 includes such laughably trivial measures as giving free bikes to kids, as if there weren’t other crucial priorities, such as health care, drug deaths, violence, education and growth. Incidentally, polling over the summer showed that half of Scots thought Yousaf was doing a bad job as First Minister.
Yet the nationalist worm has burrowed in so deep that it seems there’s nothing that could dim the SNP’s light in the eyes of its supporters. Despite the humiliating police investigation into the party’s finances, leading to the arrest of Sturgeon, who was released pending further inquiries, the SNP is still maintaining its core support. Meanwhile, support for independence continues to hover at around 40 per cent.
Yet, while the SNP lives on, Scotland itself may never recover. For where there is Anglophobia, other nasty prejudices are to be found.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities noted in 2014, the year of the referendum, a large spike in anti-Semitic incidents in Scotland, which it linked to the conflict in Gaza. And while criticism of Israel is legitimate, the number of motions relating to Israel in the Scottish Parliament is bemusing. In 2014, it was reported that in the previous three years there had been no fewer than 50 members’ motions relating to Israel, out of a total of 260 that relate to countries outside the UK.
Malawi was second with 14 motions. Syria, South Africa and Iraq were joint third with 12. No other country is in double figures.
There had apparently been eight Scottish government statements about Gaza in the space of two months alone.
Given that there is no shortage of crises that Scotland itself faces, why is it so obsessed with criticising or booing other nations?
