This year I concentrated on other things and
‘blogging’ took a back seat. I opened up my FB page to friends, family and old
‘online’ friends. Almost every one who is here is also there. It’s a great way
to keep in touch with little one-liners and a bit of banter every now and again
but; with every one from my daughters, grandchildren, cousins and assorted
distant relatives picking up my every thought; there is stuff I just can’t say
over there. So here I am again looking for somewhere to put down my thoughts
and vent a little.
The Referendum, where to start?
I’m proud to be part of the 45%. As soon as the number
45 was out there many of us were cynically reminded of another 45, the 45
rebellion (Jacobite rebellion of 1745) when the (then) Westminster government
was so totally pissed off with those pesky Jacobites they resolved to end the
threat forever. They were ruthless and brutal in their rounding up, torturing
and killing of anyone and every one who had any connections to the rebellion.
That’s just a stray thought. I don’t actually believe Westminster is going to literally hunt down
and exterminate all of the 45%, it’s just an ironic coincidence that the same
number is attached to both attempts to leave the union. However I do believe Westminster will find a
way to punish us and attempt to ensure we are so deeply embedded into the union
it will be impossible to escape. Just as in the original 45, they seek to end
the threat forever.
If you rewind to the beginning of this referendum
debate Westminster
categorically refused to allow a third question on the ballot paper. We were
offered two choices, do we agree that Scotland should be an independent
country, answer yes or no. Alex Salmond, along with thousands of others, wanted
the third option of Devo Max, or maximum power to the Devolved Scottish
Parliament included on the ballot paper. Cameron gave an emphatic NO to that
suggestion, and ultimately we were only allowed a YES or a NO answer.
Cameron & Co were blissfully happy with his yes/no
option until early September when most polls put the Yes campaign ahead for the
first time. Until then the polls had shown support for independence increasing
from 30% in January 2013 to 50% by the end of August 2014.
On September 6th
the polls put the YES campaign in the lead and by September 14th,
with less than a week to go before the referendum, the three leaders of the main
Westminster political parties, the David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband,
signed a pledge promising Scotland more devolved powers and protection for the
NHS if we voted to remain in the union. I believe this was always intended. I
believe the plan was to fight for an outright NO with out any additional powers
to Scotland
and then, if support for independence reached critical level, they could offer
just enough to win back support for the NO vote. It feels like throwing crumbs
of appeasement to the masses.
The very fact that the yes campaign battled its way to
a predicted 51+% win by September 6th
is nothing short of a miracle considering the unfair, bias, hostile and
downright aggressive media campaign waged against independence from the onset.
It’s easy to make snide remarks about ‘sour grapes’ etc but all I can say is
‘you weren’t here’. As far as I know I’m the only one of the few people who are
likely to read this who has actually lived through it. Can you imagine how
isolating it is to be constantly bombarded with negative reporting about the
thing you and half the population believe in? I’m not just talking about the
BBC, ALL media reporting was bias, only exception was the Sunday Herald and even they took a while to come out in support of Independence. Every time any one from the YES campaign
appeared on TV or in any newspaper they were subject to hostile interviewers.
Not once did I see, hear or read an interview that allowed Independence campaigners to be any thing
other than defensive. It was attack, attack and then attack some more. In this very
town there was a political gathering which attracted hundreds of YES supporters
and maybe 30 NO supporters. The media handpicked a couple of YES and a couple
of NO supporters and made it look as if it was an equal divide. Then they were
more sympathetic to the NO supporters than to the YES ones. This same tactic
was replicated all over the country. The one thing I can say about FB is that
there are plenty of groups to belong to where you get to talk to the real
people who are actually involved and who tell you what is happening as it
happens. All of our newspapers are owned by mega rich media men based in England who
support the union, and it showed. Its difficult to pick out the specifics, there
was just so much of it but one thing that sticks in my mind is the constant
reference to EU membership. The NO campaign told the people of Scotland they would be out of the EU if we voted
to leave the Union. They accused the Yes
campaign of having no defining answers to the question of EU membership. I
fully believed Scotland
would have no problem remaining in the EU, why would Europe
kick us out?? But the reason there was no defining answer was because Scotland, as part of the UK, had no official way of asking the EU for
confirmation and the UK
government, who could have asked, flatly refused to do so. So we had the
situation of Westminster being the only body allowed to ask the question,
Westminster refusing to ask the question, and then Westminster sneering at
Scotland because we didn’t have the answer !! And so it goes on. And then there
was the never ending attack on the currency issues. Alex Salmond answered the
same question over and over and over and over again, he gave numerous examples
of successful shared currencies from the past and present and then he gave
several different options just in case of the highly unlikely event that a shared currency wasn’t possible. I’m pretty
sure we would have had a shared currency; that’s exactly what happened during
the first few years of Irish independence and that worked out ok, the bank of
England said it would be ok and for us to share sterling and most
importantly, NOT to share sterling would
have been disastrous for what was left of the UK. So why would they refuse? The
way Cameron & Co offered extra powers to Scotland at the last minute shows
how they only negotiate when they absolutely have too. Currency, like EU
membership was just another weapon to keep us in our place.
In the last week of the campaign we had more Westminster politicians here in Scotland
than ever before, they arrived in their droves protesting true and everlasting
love and affection for the people of Scotland and begging us not to
leave. By this time they were desperate, they had spent the best part of two
years bullying us into submission, and when they saw the possibility of us
actually leaving, they changed tactics and told us how much they value us. The
sight of Cameron & Co tearfully begging us not to go reminded me of the
abusive partner who finally realizes they may have gone just that tad too far.
In fact I know others disagree but I think the marriage
analogy is a good one to make. I remember seeing something called a “Power and
Control Wheel” used by self help groups to understand where things have gone
wrong in relationships.
This wheel could just as easily be used to show how
things have gone wrong in the relationship between Scotland
and Westminster.
I think this relationship of ours ticks every box in that wheel.
Its not only Westminster politicians who have arrived
here in their droves, we’ve had a wonderful array of bigoted, fascist, right
wing, English, Union Jack waving thugs as well. UKIP would be proud of them as they
celebrated Victory for the Union in their own
unique way. We have also seen the Orange men come across from Ireland and
march provocatively through the areas where support for independence is
greatest. Yep, if nothing else we have certainly had lots of visitors, lucky,
lucky us.
When, in the early hours of September 19th
it became obvious that we had lost, you would think the lies and misrepresentations
would stop, but no, the media were not done with us yet. In George Street, Glasgow
groups of Union Jack waving pro union supporters turned on and attacked yes
supporters. There were ugly, violent scenes which were described by the media
at the time as ‘groups of people from both sides fighting’. I was online at the
time and was watching video footage as it was taken, I could see how the Union
Jack waving thugs were attacking yes supporters, I heard the revolting bigoted
things they said, I saw them chase young girls down the street and rip away
their yes badges. And even at this late stage of the game, the media was bias.
I’ve
never really believed what you read in the newspapers or see on TV, but neither
did I expect the lies and deceit to be so all consuming. I don’t know why I’m
shocked but I am. I know the truth about police corruption and media lies re
Hillsborough, going back even further I know how Maggie lied to us about the
miners. I know there are a million other incidents before during and after those
events that we have been deceived over, but even so, I’m left feeling overwhelmed
by the enormity of the power of the establishment to manipulate the truth. This
leaves you feeling that no matter how hard you try, you can’t win because the
system is too powerful and the odds are stacked against you. I don’t know where
we go from here.
Having said all of that, I discover this, a post referendum statement which says it all so much better than I could
A post-referendum statement from National Collective:
"We know that you are completely exhausted and utterly heartbroken. We are too.
On face value we lost, but there is more to the result than meets the eye and this was anything but a fair
fight. Two years ago, we started off with Yes on a poll of 25% and yet
we ended up with 45%. The sheer resilience of the Yes movement in the
face of the full might of the British state, corporate and media power,
that was designed to demonise, smear and alienate anyone who chose to
side with it will not die down. We’ve been looking straight into the
eyes of the British establishment, and we don’t think much of what we
see sneering back at us.
From the very beginning, the then
‘Better Together’ turned ‘UKOK’ turned ‘No Thanks’ campaign threw every
toy out of the basket, played every dirty trick in the book, and ran a
campaign based on negativity and scaring the population into thinking
that we were not actually capable of running our own affairs. What we
were faced with was a campaign based on stifling engagement, dumbing
down politics and deadening thought whilst portraying a No vote as the
rational, educated and realistic option.
One of the most
heartbreaking moments in the campaign will be a familiar one for many.
Knocking on doors and being confronted with an elderly person who had
postal-voted No because they were told that they would lose their
pension. The No campaign had shamelessly managed to convince people
that, in the 14th richest country in the world, we could not afford
pensions. The fear tactics employed were sickening. They threw
everything under the sun at us, but not once did it dampen our spirits.
We canvassed, we danced, we wrote, we sang, we campaigned. And we will
continue to do so.
Aside from the fear tactics, this was a campaign aspiring to deaden thought, simplify politics and close minds. #PatronsingBTLady
proved an excellent illustration of such, as was the ‘I love my family,
I’m saying No Thanks’ billboards, and let’s not forget the
‘independence stresses me out’ stress balls handed out at freshers
fayres. This is how they see us. They think we are passive,
disinterested, selfish and stupid. In contrast, National Collective
toured the country on Yestival, Radical Independence knocked on tens of
thousands of doors in a day on their Mass Canvasses, tens of thousands
of activists reached out to apathetic communities through local groups,
Generation Yes ran open platforms on social media where young people
could ask us anything – the entire Yes movement was about encouraging
people to think and imagine.
Despite the ‘Better Together’
campaign being what is unquestionably one of the most incompetent
political campaigns in the history of British politics, what hindered
the steady surge to Yes was a largely compliant mainstream media. For
example, a Guardian journalist sent us sarcastic e-mails refusing to
publish details of a list of 1,300 prominent artists and creatives who
had signed a letter backing a Yes vote, Dr John Robertson’s academic
work proved the evident systematic bias of the BBC, and we were
constantly demonized as anti-English separatist nationalists and, at
times, ‘fascists’ despite many of us being English, and some of us
knowing the journalists personally. If they cannot win through an honest
factual campaign, what does this say about their case?
Aside
from the blatant smearing of anything Yes, the press did something
significantly more sinister. They controlled the dissemination of
information, closed the space for Yes voices to be heard, and thus
facilitated and legitimised the scaremongering onslaught from the No
campaign. How many times did you hear that ‘there are just too many
unanswered questions’, despite the questions being answered? How many
times did you hear that people were voting No because they didn’t like
nationalism, despite us not being nationalists? To suggest that British
identity is in no way nationalistic derives from a neo imperialist
mindset. How many times did you see Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond
compared to Dennis Canavan? How many people do you honestly think were
aware that Salmond wasn’t the leader of Yes? This was most evident
during the last week of the campaign, when we saw the Telegraph stating
that voting Yes was an insult to dead soldiers and their families. The
establishment’s compliant media was the cherry on top of the cake; a
systematic abuse of power.
Did we let this deliberate
misrepresentation and demonisation take us down? No. We became the
media. Stephen Paton released his #IndyRef
weekly reviews, websites like National Collective and Bella Caledonia
became a space for underrepresented Yes voices to be heard, and we took
to social media to overcome the smear and spread our progressive
visions. We should point out here that the Sunday Herald, in supporting
Yes, demonstrated courage throughout this movement. It’s not easy to go
against the tide of mainstream media opinions and portrayals. The Yes
movement should be incredibly proud of our ingenuity and tireless
determination and we mustn’t let it dwindle.
Within the
political landscape of the No campaign, Scottish Labour provided the
front whilst the Tories pulled the strings and supplied the funds. If
they were honest democrats, Scottish Labour should have held an election
within their party regarding which stance to take on the referendum.
The Scottish Green Party for example voted on it, and maintained that
members who supported No could speak freely on the matter. This was the
first indication that Scottish Labour were about to ostracise those
demonstrating autonomy in their party. And boy did that happen. They
were openly seen and heard mocking Yes supporting Labour members at
their party conference.
Despite Scottish Labour supporting a No
vote, around 38% of their voters supported Yes. The Scottish Labour
Party ignored their own supporters, and instead blindly persued an
agenda that panders to the Labour Party in Westminster, a party that is
out of touch with the people of Scotland and one that they have
overwhelmingly rejected. One of the results of this is that we are now
witnessing memberships of the SNP, the Scottish Green Party and the
Scottish Socialist Party skyrocket overnight. Scottish Labour have
risked alienating 38% of their own vote in Scotland to preserve a
failing Westminster elite. This highlights how little regard they have
for the Scottish political landscape. True power, they believe, lies at
Westminster.
Taking all of this into consideration, and
acknowledging that we were challenging the full force of the British
establishment, their corporate might and their compliant media, we did
bloody well. If we were at the forefront of a campaign with that level
of influence, power and money, we would see a 55% as an international
embarrassment.
Part of the reason that we saw the groundswell
of grassroots activism that we did is because there was a deadline, a
common shared goal for September 18th 2014. Although the deadline has
been removed, we still have that shared aspiration. The question now is
how to we encapsulate and maintain the momentum of this progressive,
diverse, grassroots movement?
The first means of achieving this
is clear. The vast majority of the mainstream media have demonstrated
their complete lack of autonomy and level of compliance to the British
establishment and the corporate elite. We need to create and preserve
alternative media channels. But there is little point in creating them
as a protest to the mainstream media. These alternative channels must
become the mainstream. To do so requires working together. There are
some utterly brilliant and resourceful people in this movement. It’s
time to unite.
Secondly, we need to organise ourselves with the
common aim of holding Westminster accountable to the promises that they
made to us. This starts with their pledges for further devolution. We
expect that this won’t happen. 1 in every 4 No voters casted their vote
under the promise of further devolution. If these promises fail to
transpire, we will seek to secure a date for the next referendum on
Scottish independence. We have various options as to how we can help
make this happen, and we will update you on this later should it be
required.
Thirdly, as stated above, the Yes movement seeks to
make people think. It is our duty to continue to create a politically
engaged, educated electorate. What Westminster want is a Yes movement
that is so utterly deflated that it regresses into the shadows, it stops
dreaming, it stops imagining that another Scotland is truly possible.
There is a reason why the likes of Rupert Murdoch expressed concern at
the influence of progressive Yes groups in Scotland.
We simply
cannot afford to let our beautiful movement regress. 1.6 million of us
stood up and dared to dream. We lost by the equivalent of the population
of a small city. We can win this, we must win this, we will win this.
When you get a popular revolution driven by hope and optimism like this,
that energy will not dissolve into nothing. It can only grow. In the
aftermath of a normal election, the losing party is disheartened and
their supporters deflated. The difference here is that the whilst the
official No campaign has finished and will no doubt try to delete all
evidence of it ever existing, people still make the Yes movement and we
will continue to campaign and dream. We will always put hope over fear.
National Collective had made plans to continue the Yes movements legacy
of a politically engaged and educated electorate, regardless of the
result. We will be announcing details of this shortly.
Keep imagining a better Scotland.
National Collective"
The highlight of my painting year has to be
the Auchmithie Arts festival. Auchmithis is a tiny village on the top of cliffs
overlooking the North Sea. Every two years
they open the village up to Scottish artists. Many artists live there and open
their homes to the public but the villagers who don’t paint, offer exhibition
space to non resident artists like me. I literally took over this house for a
weekend and had all my paintings displayed in my hosts living room. 
