Author: Grace

Dear Angus,

In response to your article this morning about how older people find change difficult, yes, sadly, the mere mention of the word ‘change’ makes some people feel uneasy, especially the over-50s. We all like the familiar and don’t want to be moved out of our comfort zones. We don’t want to be forced into making decisions that we don’t feel equipped to make. We are all after certainty and composure, but what we forget is that the nature of life itself is change! And the biggest changes we have to make are within ourselves.

When it comes to big changes, being in denial, as long as it’s not a permanent state, is not necessarily a bad thing and may be a necessary phase of the journey to something new. When we face any change in life that’s uninvited and threatening, denial is often the first phase of the process of dealing with it. It helps us to get used to an idea gradually without being overwhelmed by the chaos of it.

I agree with you that we shouldn’t give up on the older generation. I believe that some may just be taking longer to come to the decision that independence will be a genuine force for the good in Scotland. After all, not all caterpillars yield to the cocoon at the same rate. When the moment to spin the chrysalis arrives, some of them actually resist and cling to their larval life. They put off entering the cocoon to the following Spring, postponing their transformation for a year or so. This state of clinging is called the diapause, and maybe it’s where a lot of older people are finding themselves as we speak.

Ironically though, some of those who found it difficult to vote for the uncertainty of an independent Scotland, might have been quite happy to fall for the xenophobic Brexit line of ‘taking their country back’ – a deliberate tactic used by the Leave campaign to appeal to older, less flexible people.  They knew full well that the millions who believe the tabloids – who have been deliberately fed anti–EU rhetoric for decades – would only be too keen to return to the myth of the good old days, where we did things without ‘Johnny Foreigner’ and things were so much better.

By now they will know how badly they were duped.

The falling pound – at an all time low- may be good news for the likes of HBSC and GlaxoSmithKline, who love volatile markets and are all seeing nice boosts to their share prices, but what about normal families and pensioners? Very soon the weekly shopping bill is likely to be much more expensive due to the increasing costs of imports, as will high street prices. The more the pound depreciates the bigger impact on families.

The Great-British-Bus-Lie, which promised 350 million a week to the NHS was just a ‘mistake’ as Farage said the day after the referendum. No extra money will be going the way of the NHS. In fact many now believe Brexit, with its right-wing power grab will leave the NHS more vulnerable to privatisation than ever before.

I wonder how many of them know that the Conservative Party clearly stated in their manifesto that staying in the single market was a priority?  I wonder how many of them know, despite the relentless lies by right wing tabloids, how very well we have done out of Europe and that since the formation of the EU, Britain has had the highest cumulative growth of any country in the EU – 62 % – compared with Germany at 35%?

I wonder how many of them know how much our financial services depend on operating freely in the EU and how the UK benefits from exporting tariff-free to every EU country? And that this is now in real jeopardy.

I wonder how many of them knew how little control we would actually have over immigration? When Theresa May was asked by Andrew Neil the other day if it would be significantly lower after Brexit, she couldn’t give him a straight answer, because, as she well knows, reducing immigration comes at a real cost to Britain and it’s one we can’t afford. Like it or not, we don’t produce enough people in the UK to care for our elderly population. If you reduce the numbers to tens of thousands, as she claims to want to do, it means lots of women will have to give up their jobs to look after elderly relatives.

I wonder how many of them knew that voting for Brexit would undo all the incredible good done in the last 40 years of European co-operation such as manufacturing, financial agreements, scientific partnerships, cultural and educational exchanges, scholarships and grants.

I wonder how many would have voted to leave if they actually had known that they were voting for the great Repeal Bill – in other words giving the extreme right wing carte blanche to decide the future of the UK undemocratically, without recourse to parliament?

How many who voted out of Europe in Scotland understand what we are set to lose in funding and grants from the EU? Key university funding will dry up. The European Investment bank which helped fund roads railways and hospitals is under threat of being withdrawn. Scottish councils are poised to lose 46 million pounds a year after Brexit. That money will not come our way from Westminster after Brexit.

When people were asked to vote in the EU referendum, they weren’t asked what they wanted to get into, but only what they wanted to get out of. It was a campaign fought on misinformation and deliberate skewing of facts by a leave campaign that actively misled the public and fuelled irrational fears. Those of us who voted to remain did so not based on a plan set out by the Brexiters because there wasn’t one. We voted with our guts to remain because the Remain arguments were by and large evidence based and rational and because we had a good idea of the value added to the UK by the EU.

Thank Goodness we still have time in Scotland to come to our senses. We have another chance at a fairer society. We have a chance to rid ourselves of the worst excesses of neoliberalism that have dogged us for the last 30/40 years – the narcissism, entitlement, tax evasion, corruption in high places, unequal division of resources; in short, the political ideology that has continually put markets and money before people.  We need governance that is able to address the real issues of the 21^st century, not some isolationist imperialist backwards empire which only works for the rich.

We need a society that works on the principle of “I – thou” mutuality; one that works for the many and not for the few and one that minimises wealth inequality. I sincerely hope those over sixties who fought the inevitable last time will be able to change their minds for the sake of our collective future in Scotland and help to make Scotland the kind of outward looking, progressive, fairer, more inclusive and more equal country that our children and grandchildren can be proud of in the 21^st century.

Grace S

 

 

 

 

I’m heartened to hear some positive press about Nicola Sturgeon, even if I have to read your blog on political economy and fair tax to get it, because it certainly doesn’t come through on the National Press.
I agree with you about the quality of the SNP team at Westminster and how they go about their business. Indeed they are a capable lot and there are many more of them in the Scottish and European Parliaments. As you say, so many of them have previous life experience and it shows. It just amazes me that, despite massive opposition from the establishment, we are sitting at about 50/50 in the polls. This despite the relentless ‘attitude of studied weariness’, as Lesley Riddoch calls it, emanating from lazy journalists trotting out the same old objections to the same stale arguments. The opposition, such as it is, prefer to hark back to 2014, as though nothing has changed in the interim. Meanwhile, as they well know,everything has changed in the interim.

Having been frankly disenchanted with politics for most of my life, I woke up a couple of years pre-2014 when I knew I had a big decision to make. Given that my grandchildren would have to live with the result, I wanted to make the most informed choice that I could. As someone who’s internally motivated with a lot of self belief, it didn’t take me long to back the principle of independence. After all, why would anyone refuse self-determination? It’s a bit like saying you don’t want to grow up. I knew there would a lot of work ahead and so I embarked on a course of self education. It has been a rapid learning curve but I’m not alone. The Independence movement has a lot of grass roots activists who are thoroughly engaged with the issues we will face as an independent country. We are none of us hopeless romantics, but passionate self-starters, pragmatists who believe in our fellow Scots and their collective problem solving ability. We relish the prospect of shaping our future together in a modern, outward-looking democracy.

It surprises me not one jot that most of England is out of touch with Scottish politics. It’s no wonder they have such a skewed opinion of the Independence debate and the Scots in general. The BBC is bound by its charter to promote the union. 70% of the media is owned by 3 news companies.  This obviously creates conditions in which wealthy individuals can set the agenda for what we read, wield huge political and economic power, and distort the landscape to suit their personal views. This is not in the interests of democracy. Instead of quality journalism in the tabloids, there’s a deliberate dumbing down, promoting the kind of escapist attitudes and sensationalism that ultimately reinforces the political status quo. The cards have been stacked against us from day one and the sooner we concede that it’s David versus Goliath the better. (I like to remember how that story ended though and it fills me with hope rather than fear.)

One of the main problems is that the English have a very poor understanding on nationalism in general. In the interests of clarity, we are the Scottish National party -for the whole nation- not the Scottish Nationalist party; a fine distinction granted, but an important one.
To understand where the SNP are coming from, we should make the distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. The SNP believes in the latter.
Ethnic nationalists, as far as I can see, emphasise exceptionalism, ‘born into’ citizenship, common roots, blood inheritance and so on. Perhaps the emphasis is less on shared political rights and more on pre-existing ethnic characteristics. This would certainly fit the Brit nat mentality. One can see how it readily unites people against a common enemy–as we saw during wartime – or more recently, ‘foreigners’ with the isolationist culture that has taken root in the far right. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help people overcome divisions such as race, gender, class or division of resources. This is diametrically opposed to the ethos of SNP. The last thing the SNP are promoting is exclusivity. If the SNP are nationals, then they are civic nationals. Civic Nationalism emphasises rule by consent, democratic pluralism, liberty and strength in diversity. It provides the framework in law, legislative possibilities and political participation to reconcile differences.

We in the SNP are deeply concerned about Brexit and not just on the economic front. We are worried about the cruel new culture of xenophobia and isolationism that has been unleashed. We welcome and need our European nationals. (I’m embarrassed that I even need to make that statement because it shouldn’t even have to be said.) We are alarmed that we are entering a world that has seen a new and worrying war against human rights with Le Pen and her party’s history of fascism and racism and we are determined to resist the tide of hate. The turn of events in Europe and the US should be a rallying cry for progressives in all parties and none. If we don’t defend our values then they are no better than meaningless.

For those who think the SNP is anti-English, you must think again. This is a deliberate lie carried out by certain sections of the media who are hell-bent on stirring up division between Scotland and England and putting Scotland in its place. We in the SNP, (and we are not the only political group who want independence ) whether we are Scots, English, Canadian, French, German, Dutch, Indian, Irish, Pakistani or any other nationality, believe in progressive politics of inclusivity and the value of interdependence among nations, a view that runs counter to the fear-filled sentiment of the exclusive nationalism of Brexit and the right wing press who dominate the news. Not only that but the extraordinary remarks of the London Mayor at the recent Scottish Labour conference, where he likened Scottish Nationalism to racism, had our collective mouths dropping in utter disbelief. This is mischievous in the extreme and simply fuels further ignorance among the ill informed.

We are going in different directions Scotland and England. We seem to have very different ideas on social justice, from a market driven tax haven, to the privatisation of the health service, we just don’t want any of what Brexit promises. The hand holding between Theresa May and Donald Trump was the last excruciating vision of dystopia. We can do so much better than that.The SNP do not believe that we in Scotland are ‘better’ than any other nation, but just that we can think of ourselves as ‘as good as’ any other nation, something that our masters in Westminster seem to find very difficult to get their imperialist heads round.

In my opinion, siding with ‘Better Together’ and the Tories was a massive mistake for Scottish Labour. Had they joined forces with Nicola Sturgeon they could have lived to tell the tale in Scotland and may have even won back their grass roots after independence. I see some of them have broken ranks and started a Labour for Independence movement. Good on them.
Finally, it’s quite extraordinary that Kezia Dugdale’s father is a member of the SNP. Talk about cognitive dissonance. Not sure I’d like to be around that table for Sunday roast!

sincerely, Grace Sutherland