An excellent article which deserves a more erudite response than I will give! I agree with Prof Mitchell; when I had a working brain I did a (passable, not brilliant) Masters dissertation on Implementation, a process which remains very weak, often absent, in our governance. Politicians come up with "ego-ideas" and then leave an enormous mess to be sorted out as they didn't consider implementation, cos its detailed and boring, like balancing your accounts. The SNP? Now an insipid bunch of mediocre career politicians who just want to stay in power. Independence? Intellectual capacity? Zilch! The National? Apart from the external contributors, the editorial output is SNP tosh, the counter-weight to Scottish Daily Mail/Express drivel! My intellectual analysis? Total s***e!
I believe their civil servant “advisors” have convinced the SNP leadership on the veracity of Thatcher’s “there is no alternative”, and, as a result, can’t see any way that Scotland could be solvent under independence. That is why they are rushing to get under the EU umbrella asap. They have no clue on the workings of a fiat money system and ignore all who try to point them in the direction of relevant academic proofs. The “political” independence sought by the SNP since Salmond will result in a Scottish economy akin to Mali or Niger - asset stripped and resources exploited. The sooner this Swinney cabal are sidestepped, and sold a dummy by the movement, the better. There is a better future out there for Scots. An alternative we just have to act on and claim. It starts at home and build from the basic services that the UK fails to provide. An open goal.
It’s the word “allowed” that is the problem. What is it SNP leaders don’t understand about the term “self-determination?” The fact that the leaders accept they have to ask permission basically states Scotland is not ready for independence. They should be building all the institutions required now, setting up trade deals now and building resilient sovereignty now if the SNP had any desire for independence
The civil service in Scotland is the U.K. one, reporting to Westminster. I do not believe the SNP leadership is unaware of this. Salmond convinced them to be impartial during indyref. The U.K. response was that they'd "gone native". After 2014, that was clamped down on, hard. And technically London is within its right to do that, as its own civil service cannot be impartial on independence, or any reserved issue: they do the U.K. govs bidding on those. Genuinely pro Indy politicians being allowed anywhere near even devolved power was also clamped down on hard. As they promised in 2014 - they bayoneted the wounded. The problem was they used the SNP and its supporters to do it.
Do we really believe Scottish media (including BBC and STV) would give anything like the sympathetic coverage, they've given to Andy Burnham, to an SNP speaker? The best media critiques of Andy Burnham seem to be found in Wales, not closer to home.
Postcolonial theory tells us that native intellectuals on "the pro-independence left has a special duty" to better understand and communicate to the people what independence actually means (i.e. decolonisation) and why it is necessary (liberation from colonial oppression).
The truly sad thing is there was an independence party and movement, urgently making the case for independence. It was all in and around Alba and "SNP supporters" spent years attacking it along with the unionists, and attacking anyone in the SNP seen to be a "Salmond supporter". That was the only thing giving many of us hope that independence could be put back on the agenda and the SNP re-captured for it. The glee with which supposed Indy supporters tore that and Alex down, even as they were campaigning for SNP1, is not something that will ever leave me, tbh.
An excellent article which deserves a more erudite response than I will give! I agree with Prof Mitchell; when I had a working brain I did a (passable, not brilliant) Masters dissertation on Implementation, a process which remains very weak, often absent, in our governance. Politicians come up with "ego-ideas" and then leave an enormous mess to be sorted out as they didn't consider implementation, cos its detailed and boring, like balancing your accounts. The SNP? Now an insipid bunch of mediocre career politicians who just want to stay in power. Independence? Intellectual capacity? Zilch! The National? Apart from the external contributors, the editorial output is SNP tosh, the counter-weight to Scottish Daily Mail/Express drivel! My intellectual analysis? Total s***e!
I believe their civil servant “advisors” have convinced the SNP leadership on the veracity of Thatcher’s “there is no alternative”, and, as a result, can’t see any way that Scotland could be solvent under independence. That is why they are rushing to get under the EU umbrella asap. They have no clue on the workings of a fiat money system and ignore all who try to point them in the direction of relevant academic proofs. The “political” independence sought by the SNP since Salmond will result in a Scottish economy akin to Mali or Niger - asset stripped and resources exploited. The sooner this Swinney cabal are sidestepped, and sold a dummy by the movement, the better. There is a better future out there for Scots. An alternative we just have to act on and claim. It starts at home and build from the basic services that the UK fails to provide. An open goal.
It’s the word “allowed” that is the problem. What is it SNP leaders don’t understand about the term “self-determination?” The fact that the leaders accept they have to ask permission basically states Scotland is not ready for independence. They should be building all the institutions required now, setting up trade deals now and building resilient sovereignty now if the SNP had any desire for independence
The civil service in Scotland is the U.K. one, reporting to Westminster. I do not believe the SNP leadership is unaware of this. Salmond convinced them to be impartial during indyref. The U.K. response was that they'd "gone native". After 2014, that was clamped down on, hard. And technically London is within its right to do that, as its own civil service cannot be impartial on independence, or any reserved issue: they do the U.K. govs bidding on those. Genuinely pro Indy politicians being allowed anywhere near even devolved power was also clamped down on hard. As they promised in 2014 - they bayoneted the wounded. The problem was they used the SNP and its supporters to do it.
Do we really believe Scottish media (including BBC and STV) would give anything like the sympathetic coverage, they've given to Andy Burnham, to an SNP speaker? The best media critiques of Andy Burnham seem to be found in Wales, not closer to home.
Postcolonial theory tells us that native intellectuals on "the pro-independence left has a special duty" to better understand and communicate to the people what independence actually means (i.e. decolonisation) and why it is necessary (liberation from colonial oppression).
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/wp.towson.edu/dist/b/55/files/2022/05/The-Socio-Political-Determinants-of-Scottish-Independence.pdf
The truly sad thing is there was an independence party and movement, urgently making the case for independence. It was all in and around Alba and "SNP supporters" spent years attacking it along with the unionists, and attacking anyone in the SNP seen to be a "Salmond supporter". That was the only thing giving many of us hope that independence could be put back on the agenda and the SNP re-captured for it. The glee with which supposed Indy supporters tore that and Alex down, even as they were campaigning for SNP1, is not something that will ever leave me, tbh.