If the Scottish National Party succumbs to this crisis – as it may well do – then we are looking at independence being cast a considerable distance into the future. Either the SNP will have to rebuild and regain trust or – having untangled independence from this one party – we will have to start afresh from the beginning with a new party or parties and work ourselves back up to the level we are now at. During all this time the British state will be constantly at work against us.
Progressive Politics and Independence
Progressive politics is a package deal. It is a political set menu with cult-like or at least communitarian characteristics. It is a tribal political identity rather than a series of beliefs and policy ideas people can weigh up and decide on based on their individual merits. Defending the rights of racial and ethnic minorities is both progressive and objectively right. The same is true of cutting carbon emissions and seeking greater economic justice for the poorest people in society, but the same cannot necessarily be said of other complex legal and social issues.
Conflict and Independence
Listening to people in the “grassroots” of the independence movement, as opposed to those who have styled themselves the political, cultural, and intellectual leadership of the movement (the kites and the crows), we hear other objectives. There are those who want independence “for their children and grandchildren,” “for the future,” “to end austerity,” “to put power back in the hands of the Scottish people,” and so on. This is not the independence envisioned by Sarsfield, the leaders of 1798, nor indeed Ireland’s campaign for Home Rule.
Frontline Report: SNP Civil War
Yes, you read that right. According to the unionist media in Scotland a “civil war” erupted in the SNP last Friday following the resignation of Alex Salmond. It didn’t matter that no one in the SNP and no one in the wider independence movement noticed the outbreak of hostilities; fake news is just that – fake news. Yet, to mark the occasion – even as the BBC’s political editor Brian Taylor, “journalist,” tried to downgrade the fictitious infighting to “turmoil” – independentistas took to social media to juke it out with the hashtag “#SNPCivilWar.”
Random Public Journal 