Just as the SNP sweeps to utter domination of the Scottish presence at Westminster, the future of Scottish nationalism must move to a rejection of Westminster rule as illegitimate. That is the victory paradox.
There is no doubt that this is the best possible election result for achieving Scottish independence in the near term. The one thing that I believe might have postponed independence for decades, was a Labour Party government of the UK with SNP support, governing as Tory Lite but making the dreadful repressive UK state that little bit less openly vicious, the abuse a little bit more disguised, the wealthy corporate elite less openly triumphalist.
I know that Tory rule is going to be dreadful for many decent people who are struggling to make ends meet, that the heartlessness of benefits sanctions will cause despair and suicide, that asylum seekers will be detained and abused. But Scotland has absolutely rejected the entire Tory system, and the scene is now set for the kind of extra-parliamentary resistance that we saw to Thatcher’s poll tax. We have to refuse to let Westminster do this to people. In this circumstance, those SNP MPs are relevant insofar as they use their platform to help build the popular resistance, not in terms of anything they do in that appalling haw-haw club.
Labour would have lost and we would have a Tory government even if Labour had won every seat in Scotland. Labour’s abject failure was in no sense caused by the SNP, whatever the appalling journalists of BBC Scotland may say or imply. And Labour is now going to underline, still more than the Tories, the urgent need for Scotland to be independent. The airwaves are already buzzing with London comment that Labour’s problem was that it was not right wing enough for English opinion. The next Labour leader must be more Blairite, they say. Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper or Chuka Umunna are touted to fit the bill, they suggest. This is completely a false analysis. If England were given a chance to vote for an SNP style, more left wing, offering then very many of the English would vote for it. But it will not happen. Labour will lurch ever further to the right and it will become undeniable that the Scottish people can only express their political aspirations through independence.
Even the best people are still human, and I have to confess that I am absolutely delighted that the SNP leadership have been neatly removed by this election result from any temptation. Exercising power within the United Kingdom state can be heady and addictive. An insidious agenda was quite blatantly propagated by Alex Bell in Bella Caledonia, a man who has been very close to the party leadership, and who actually celebrated the idea that:
The fascinating story of this election is how the SNP is ‘Britishing’ itself, gently playing down the big constitutional stuff in favour of real power over the austerity agenda.
Mr Bell goes on to make the ludicrous proposition that to support the creation of a small state is in itself a conservative agenda. He is profoundly wrong. To dismantle an aggressive imperialist state is not a remotely conservative agenda. I have frequently expressed the fear that there is a careerist core in the SNP who are more concerned with troughing in the political class and being big-wigs in the UK than with achieving independence. Bell’s insidious unionism – very lightly disguised as support for “utilitarian nationalism” – had the potential to be much more corrosive to the cause of independence than anything which the Tories can do. Fortunately Bell’s thesis is totally stuffed by the election result, and his pseudo-intellectual rationalisations of the status quo can now be safely confined to the dustbin of irrelevance. The SNP has no “real power over the austerity agenda” and has zero chance of gaining any within the United Kingdom.
There is now no course to take but root and branch opposition to the consequences of a Tory rule which Scotland has just declared anathema. The only way forward is now independence and the only route is through a mounting extra-parliamentary opposition over the next few years. I am absolutely delighted for all those SNP MPs, of whom a large number are personal friends. But if you want to remain relevant, you have to forget about Angus Robertson telling you what suits to wear or how to put an approved knot in your tie (yes, that really happened), and you have to inspire the street in the way so many of you did during the referendum campaign.
In a country where the banks have been revealed to have been committing fraud in every possible way for decades, why do the British people trust election results that give them more of the same slow-boiling torture that they have endured for the past decades? The leadership classes control the polls and the voting system. Do you really think you voted for more of the same?
Craig, apologies for sort of going off post again. I do so because I don’t feel qualified enough to comment on your post here. Instead, the declaration for Paisley & Renfrewshire South, with Mhairi’s acceptance speech…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aKbCuCIldQ
I’ve lived through ten general elections and I’ve never seen anything remotely like this. I don’t just mean that with regard to what’s going on in Scotland, but also south of the border with the wipeout of Labour.
Once again, the left down south may be on a low ebb today, but just look at what’s happened in Greece and Spain, and how quickly it happened, and of course what’s now just occured in Scotland.
I will remind folks that there is a child sex abuse scandal hanging heavily over Westminster, and a lot of it centers around the Tories. The Establishment have tried to keep the lid on it, but might not be able to do so for much longer. If it breaks it will bring down this new Tory government faster than I can click my fingers.
On top of this there is all the financial corruption (which Wikileaks continues to publish, pesky sods that they are), which once again can bring down this new government.
The left needs to organise and get ready for the moment.
Although it would help if people actually had a party to vote for…
“Dave
7 May, 2015 – 10:47 pm
Oh my god, is this tit still posting here?”
Rather than engaging me on what I had to say, Dave, how imaginative of you to instead employ the time-worn, misogynistic tactic of reducing me to the part of a woman’s anatomy that you most like to wank over.
I hope you remembered to wash the other hand you used to jerk off with when you no doubt one finger-typed that cyber sexual assault on me the other day.
Also, please do remember not to try so hard next time. After all, you wouldn’t want friction burns on the cheese-reeking, foreskin of your shrivelled lil’ Aryan wiener already, would ya?;)
Please dont expect me to engage you in conversation, you disgust me far more than i could ever express in words and you could never say anything to me or about me that would make my opinion of you any worse.
End Israel.
Re Craig’s comment “the future of Scottish nationalism must move to a rejection of Westminster rule as illegitimate”. I wonder? The Scots people recently had a referendum where they freely chose not to reject Westminster rule, but to stay on as part of the UK. I regretted this choice myself. I thought it was the wrong decision, but it was democratic.
It seems to me that time will have to pass before there is a second referendum. In the meantime the SNP would expect to be judged on the quality of government they give to Scotland and on the quality of their representation in Westminster.
On my way to town this afternoon for comfort food (having been a LibDem voter) I met a Tory voter who was of course quite happy with the result. When I explained my reason for voting LibDem (influence for moderation) he understood, but said that as far as he was concerned, they had failed to keep promises. I said that being in a coalition would have tied their hands to some extent. He understood, but suggested that they should have promised less!
Maybe that’s a lesson for the LibDems in the future, but here’s something to think about: could the criticism against the LibDems by lefties when they entered into coalition, have influenced voters towards the Tories, and contributed to the result today?
I’ve got my doubts about the legitimacy of the result. I have voted Tory in the past but still don’t understand how a man like Cameron, reviled by many in his party and without having obviously attracted floating voters, could win outright and defy the polls so completely. This was apparently on the basis of an autopilot election campaign against a perfectly passable Labour leader, and while losing a good proportion of four million votes to UKIP.
As with so much about Cameron, this feels fake. I don’t feel his victory matches the mood of the country, as Major’s did in 1992.
“Oh my god, is this tit still posting here?”
Yes Dave, I’m afraid so.
@Tom
8 May, 2015 – 9:11 pm
We now live in a mass surveillance society, and as such the integrity of everything is open to question, including elections (think about it).
However, the UK 2015 GE does seem to be genuine, as far as I can tell.
bbc: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32650742
This general election performance follows the performance of the polls in the 2014 Scottish referendum where the choice was simply binary and yet all the polls were out by between 4-6%.
Something is wrong. A lot of us would like to know what it is.
Mary
08/05/2015 2:15pm
“It’s a wonder he didn’t do a re-enactment of Thatcher’s ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.’ paraphrasing St Francis of Assisi apparently.”
This beautiful prayer, much of which can speak to nontheists as well as those of faith, was commonly attributed to St Francis of Assisi in the past, but is currently thought to have originated in France in 1912. The first known English translation appeared in 1936.
It was in appallingly poor taste that such a bitterly divisive figure as Margaret Thatcher hijacked it for her own purposes.
“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.”
Kind regards,
John
@ Juteman,
CanSpeccy wins the prize for lack of understanding of what actually happened in Scotland last night.
Yes, I was in error when I said the SNP members of the Westminster Parliament will accomplish nothing. In fact, I am sure that they will collect their pay checks and submit their expense claims, which is accomplishing quite a lot for a person of the general capability of an MP.
Very well said, Craig. Your analysis makes perfect sense. The SNP have been painted as bullyboys by the UK media, and once fear is projected through each new bulletin it is only a matter of time. Nick Clegg suggested that fear was a major factor in the changing E&W voting intention, and of course, he is right.
Where do we all go from here? Austerity will be stepped up. Scottish, Welsh, and NI budgets will be slashed accordingly. As far as Westminster is concerned, there will also be a referendum on UK and the EU. There will be pressure to make the referendum in/out, UK wide. The SNP need to work with fellow separatists in Wales and NI to ensure that the vote is on a country-by-country basis, giving each country the option to stay in the EU if they so wish. That itself will be quite a fight. Only after a successful EU referendum, 2018?, could another Independence vote be contemplated and timetabled.
This below is incredible news. I can hardly believe it. 😉
‘Shares and pound surge on election outcome
5 hours ago
UK shares and the pound have jumped after the Conservatives won a parliamentary majority in the election.
The FTSE 100 rose 2.32% to 7,046.82, with shares in banks and energy companies seeing big gains.
On the currency markets, the pound was up more than two cents against the US dollar at $1.5460.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32644523
@John S-D: It was disgraceful for Margaret Thatcher to choose this as her entry into Government, when what she had in mind would surely bring about great division. But she continued for 11 long years. Nothing surprises me in politics.
Chris, 9.34p.m. Yes indeed-something is badly wrong. Whether we will find out what it is remains a matter of conjecture.
@Mary: it was entirely predictable. The markets don’t like (a) socialism (b) instability. The threat of each of these were removed, “at a stroke”.
@Porkfright. It is the fear factor. Looks like it affects about 5% of people.
Peacewisher
08/05/2015 10:09 pm
One of the most dishonest persons ever to go into politics, which is saying something. As Hunter S. Thompson said of Nixon: “so crooked she needed servants to help her screw her pants on every morning.”
But why hash over old grievances – there’ll be plenty of new ones coming.
Kind regards,
John
@John: Yes, you’re so right. The prospect of lies about “free schools”, productivity, law and order, privacy, health and welfare comes to mind immediately.
It Doesn’t Quite Feel Right
The British Election Result
by Binoy Kampmark / May 8th, 2015
So fell spin doctor par excellence Alastair Campbell on the BBC’s commentary regarding the exit poll from the broadcaster. The temperature in various party rooms wasn’t quite right either. According to the Beeb’s prediction, the Tories would be increasing their numbers to 316 seats, with Labour getting a reduced 239 when all the results would be in. Another prediction then followed: the conservatives would be able to govern in their own right, heaving past the majority line. Others suggested that the exit poll was “incredible” and “unbelievable”, a sort of forecast from distant Narnia. Treat it with “caution”, claimed the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.
[..]
What, then, did this election signify? In the optimistic analysis from Josh Allen in Jacobin magazine, it proved that there was, in fact, a generative response to austerity and conservatism in Britain. “The coalition government’s austerity agenda has fertilized an entire ecosystem of activism that is focused on providing a sustained challenge to neoliberalism, market fundamentalism, and ultimately, capital itself.” That challenge will evidently have to continue.
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/it-doesnt-quite-feel-right/
Peacewisher. I was attempting to be ironic there. 🙂
Did you see Gideon arriving in Downing St. earlier? Very chipper and pleased with himself and quite a spring in his step.
Porkfright, 10:10 pm
Chris, 9.34 pm
What is wrong is the inherent non-linearity in the translation of votes to seats in the stupid UK electoral system. What is the minimum number of votes required to create a swing of thirty seats from Labour to Tory?
https://fullfact.org/uk_election_swing_voters_marginal_seats-45052
Essentially, the overall win or loss of any UK general election may carry no democratic meaning. Pointless, useless system. Not fit for purpose.
From the tragically debased New York Times, now an abject glavlit organ, comes confirmation that the Scottish mandate is not approved by Britain’s CIA administrators. In the NYT’s front-page article the Scottish mandate was mentioned with studied indifference in the third or fourth graph and derided in the same breath by comparison to soccer hooliganism. The remainder of the article fixated on likely Tory stratagems.
This is written by the fine journalist who was sacked by the Guardian.
How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections
by Nafeez Ahmed
The Conservatives have won the 2015 elections with a slim majority. Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffered unexpected crushing defeats, prompting their leaders, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, to resign. And despite winning a significant percentage of votes, UKIP only managed to win one seat, with its leader Nigel Farage also resigning after losing to a Tory MP.
But the Tory victory reveals precisely why British democracy is broken.
The ultimate determinant of which party won the elections was the money behind their political campaigns — the winning and losing parties correlate directly with the quantity of funding received. Yet there is also compelling evidence of another factor — interference from Britain’s security services.
/..
https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-big-money-and-big-brother-won-the-british-elections-2e8da57faac4
Meant to say that Craig is quoted in that piece – towards the end in the section headed ‘MI5 and SNP’.
If 200,000 critically placed votes could influence the outcome by a swing of over 100 seats, think how few fake, critically placed votes it would take to achieve the Con +24 Lab -26 seat change of this election.
Edward Snowden revealed that modern mass surveillance is implemented through corporate systems, so commercial concerns may be nearly as capable as GCHQ at identifying voter intentions to locate the critical constituencies for ballot-stuffing.
Note that I’m NOT saying that this has necessarily happened; I’m just pointing out what is possible. But if we really care about the integrity of our democratic process, surely we should implement a system that translates votes to seats more proportionally. The current system is literally irrational.
Mary
08/05/2015 10:54 pm
‘But as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan and longtime Foreign Office (FCO) official, Craig Murray, remarked about the alleged memo, “both sides of the alleged conversation categorically deny it was said. Nicola Sturgeon denies she said it and the French Embassy deny she said it.” ‘
“That the attempt to destabilise Nicola Sturgeon originates with the UK government and the Telegraph should give everyone pause. It is very obviously a security service effort. How otherwise is an account which the French Embassy says is completely false, contained in an official memo to be leaked? This episode raises very serious questions. But they are not questions about Nicola Sturgeon. They are questions about the subversion of democracy by the security services, and the willing complicity of the corporate media.” (Craig Murray).
Having had occasion to look into this matter in detail, I know that Craig’s comments (and therefore Nafeez Ahmed’s reporting) are not accurate. The “French Embassy” did NOT assert that everything that was quoted in the Telegraph was completely false. The French Consul General stated that one part of what was reported was not accurate and refused to comment on whether or not a second part was accurate.
I will try to make Ahmed aware of this.
Kind regards, John
Much to consider. Interestingly, the number of SNP seats made no difference, Labour did terribly in England as well. A lot has been made of this ‘wave of nationalism’ and such like, but it looks to me like Ed just didn’t persuade enough that he was PM in waiting. Nice chap, bright and thoughtful. But not reallly PM material I’m afraid.
Also Cameron still has a majority even if Labour had won every seat in Scotland. True they stoked the anti-SNP mood in England, but I’m far from convinced this was the main factor in the result in England. Labour basically didn’t persuade, and there is also the anti-EU vote to consider, given that Cameron has promised a referendum. As to Labour, already the pundits are talking about the mistake of abandoning the centre, and going left. That’s total horse-shit, the Labour Party have been as blandly centre-ist as Blair and his cohorts. I’d argue that a shift to the left would have helped, one of the many reasons I could never work as a journalist.
So here we go, 5 more years. It’s going to be unpleasant I’m afraid. I recommend people consider emigrating. I did.
@Abe Rene
Clegg is a Tory who chose to operate via the LibDems.
Not only has he denied all memory of his Conservative membership at Cambridge, he was employed by Leon Brittan as a speech writer and described by his acquaintances as a Tory who was pro Europe.
His speech was typical nonsense crafted to impress those who can’t think past soundbites and assertions.
Scotland voted overwhelmingly for social democracy, having been exasperated by the Labour Party’s promises for 60 years.
Clegg propped up the Tories for 5 years.
therefore Clegg = generosity and hope?
That’s an inversion of reality.
Do the maths.