Indeed, over the past 15 years the SNP leader has gone out of his way to emphasis an almost Burkean continuity with the United Kingdom, preserving whichever features of the ,ancien regime he judges Scots voters, however patriotic, are reluctant to sacrifice.
From the election of Gwynfor in 1966 up to the devolution referenda of 1979, the Unionists (to use Mr Torrance's all inclusive phrase) built up an independence straw man: If Scotland or Wales were to become independent they would be like Albania or Cambodia, cut off from the rest of the world economically, socially, culturally and in every other respect.
The nationalist response was always that such a claim was complete and utter tosh; an independent Scotland or Wales would become individuals in the family of nations and would retain strong links with all the nations with whom they had bonds prior to independence, including England, and that some of those bonds would be strengthened through independence.
Nothing has changed in the nationalist camp. We were saying forty years ago that many countries had shared currencies, the Irish Punt and the US dollar being typical examples at that time. We were saying forty years ago that many countries allowed foreign forces to have bases in their territory for the sake of mutual protection (like Greenham common!) We were also saying forty years ago that after independence Scotland and Wales had the option of being part of the Commonwealth of Nations and retaining the Queen as our titular head, as many other independent countries do. Alex Salmond is singing from the same old hymn sheet as his predecessors sang from in the 60's and 70's!
What has changed is the Unionist attack. Salmond is now derided for only wanting Devo Max or Independence lite, rather than the full blooded Albanian isolationism that he and his party were wrongly accused of supporting in the 60's and 70's.
The funny thing is that Plaid has had a squeaky bum period of being frightened of mentioning the I word preferring to talk about full national identity, the evolution of devolution and such like; terms that are not dissimilar to the Scottish Unionists Devo Max and Independence Lite!
Another example of the British Parties parking their tanks on Plaid's grass?
Spot on!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I want to vote for a squeaky bum party though. Hopefully that era is coming to an end.
maybe Uk lab's think tank
ReplyDeleteThe unionists are rattled. Their core beliefs have been challenged, and they don't know how to react. There is no intellectual gravitas to their position, so they have to attack the idea that we could be a co-operation of independent nations instead of a centralised union . And, so far, they have shown themselves not very good at all at putting that argument! One almost feels sorry for them!
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