Just get your boots off our necks, Westminster
Speymouth
In an interview with The National newspaper, the actor Alan Cumming, who currently hosts the US version of the popular show The Traitors and who is outspoken in his support for Scottish independence, demanded “Get just get your boots off our necks, Westminster.” He made the powerful call for Scottish self-determination in connection with the decision of then Scotland Secretary Alister Jack to veto the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill, which had been passed by the Scottish Parliament with cross party support after a lengthy period of consultation and which was modeled on similar legislation in other countries where it has been implemented without the catastrophic apocalypse warned about by some of its opponents in Scotland.
Personally I supported the bill and still do, but the crucial point here as far as independence and Scottish sovereignty is concerned is not about the legislation itself, it’s that a bill which was within the competence of the devolved Scottish Parliament was vetoed by a Westminster government which opposed it even though that government had no democratic mandate in Scotland. If you claim to support Scottish sovereignty and independence but cheered on Jack’s veto because of your opposition to the bill then you don’t really support Scottish sovereignty and independence at all, you still support Westminster’s colonialist droit de seigneur over Scotland. Even some of the fiercest critics of the Gender Recognition Reform bill, such as former SNP MP Joanna Cherry, decried Jack’s veto and and argued that those who support independence but oppose the bill must seek a solution to their objections within Scotland. That’s how democracy works.
Supporting independence but only if Scotland makes the choices you happen to agree with is not support for independence. Scottish independence is about the collective sovereignty of the people of Scotland as a whole, not about an individual’s desire to impose their own will on the people of Scotland without having won a democratic mandate to do so. We already have that in the form of a British Prime Minister imposing his or her will on the democratically elected Scottish Parliament.
But the vetoing of Gender Recognition Reform bill is far from being the only example of Westminster undemocratically forcing its will on Scotland, overriding the democratic choices of the people of Scotland, and in the expressive phrasing of Alan Cummings, putting its boots on our necks.
One of the most blatant examples is the UK Supreme Court ruling that prevented the Scottish Parliament from fulfilling the democratic mandate given to it by the people of Scotland in the May 2021 Scottish elections.
As we all remember, but Anas Sarwar et al would like us to forget, the issue of a second independence referendum was the defining issue in the 2021 Scottish election campaign. The Tories campaigned on the slogan vote Conservative to stop another referendum campaign. Labour and the Lib Dems likewise campaigned on their opposition to another independence referendum. Yet once the votes were counted and the anti-independence parties were trounced, the election campaign was ret-conned and we were told by the likes of the Lib Dem’s ego on a stick Alex Cole-Hamilton that the election campaign had not really been about an independence referendum after all.
To its eternal shame and disgrace the media in Scotland abandoned its supposed role of holding power to account and colluded with the parties which had just lost an election, assisting them as they ensured that they got their way anyway, riding roughshod over the mandate given to the Scottish Parliament by the people of Scotland. This is the greatest political betrayal in modern Scottish history, the Scottish media was so determined to keep Scotland under Westminster’s hegemony that it was prepared to traduce democracy itself. The Scottish media of the early 21st century will not be positively remembered when the future history of Scotland is written. Far from holding power to account, the Scottish media was adding its weight to the boot on Scotland’s neck. Their attitude is deeply paternalistic, colonial even – we’ll tell you what is good for you because you’re not capable of deciding that for yourselves.
The Scottish Government then went to the UK Supreme Court which unanimously ruled that Scottish democracy doesn’t matter. Whether the people of Scotland are to be allowed to decide the future of their country is in the gift of Westminster, effectively it’s up to a Prime Minister who may not enjoy popular support in Scotland. Yet Westminster continues mendaciously to insist that this is a voluntary union even as it refuses to say how that supposedly voluntary nature can be put to the test.
This week Starmer made a bizarre intervention, threatening to impose nuclear power plants on Scotland while dismissing the Scottish government for “consum[ing] themselves with yesterday’s arguments on independence.” In a clear sign that the man has lost the plot, Starmer framed his obsession with nuclear energy as “time to reclaim our heritage” Eh? you what? Nuclear heritage? Glow in the dark Morris dancers? Radioactive National Trust country mansions?
Scotland neither wants nor needs nuclear power. This country already produces more than enough electricity to supply its own needs yet due to Westminster’s rigid control of energy policy Scottish consumers are forced to pay some of the highest domestic energy bills in Europe.
Starmer doesn’t want nuclear energy in Scotland for Scotland’s benefit, he wants it so that Scotland can export energy for the benefit of consumers in the south of England while leaving Scotland as a dumping ground for Westminster’s nuclear fetish. You can safely bet that the radioactive waste these plants produce won’t be disposed of in the Home Counties. It’s another example of Westminster’s boot on Scotland’s neck.
A call to get Westminster’s boot of Scottish necks is powerful and evocative but its main strength is in its appeal to those of us who are already convinced of the need for independence, it reminds us what we are campaigning for, but it’s not phrasing which is likely to get through to soft no voters or the undecided. Nevertheless it’s a valuable reminder that independence will give Scotland the freedom to breathe and to move. We can’t do that under a Westminster which has literally cost Scots their freedom of movement by imposing an unwanted Brexit upon us, perhaps the greatest example of Westminster’s boot on Scotland’s neck, crushing our dreams and aspirations.
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