The Slow Creep of the SNP is wrong

Paul Kavanagh https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/ has a very interesting article in The National today ‘ Time to get radical is after we get rid of the Union’ . Paul rightly points out that the SNP are not a left wing socialist party, Paul calls them a mildly socially democratic party, which again is very true for many members. I tend to see the SNP as more of a centralist party. A party with a socially just theme running through some of their policies which is more about trying to capture the left in Scotland or at least the soft left. Paul points out that the SNP path to independence is by a slow and steady demonstration of competence, certainly the amount of votes the SNP get in Holyrood and at the General Election last year would appear to support this and who am I to disagree with Paul whose writing and blog are excellent.

But I do.

The article goes on to point out many of the problems that Scotland faces today and I feel is a good example of what I was trying to get across in my blog https://grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/after-309-f-years/ but where I disagree with Paul is that I just don’t think we have the time. I am more in line with Jim Sillars in his call for the YES movement to campaign for independence after the May elections, Jim points out that “The lesson is quite clear. Unless you campaign consistently for independence, you don’t build an independence vote.” While I would not go as far as voting for RISE as they come across as shambolic and appear to have a lot of issues going on, I do think the slow creep is a dangerous path to follow.

As I pointed out in my blog, things are bad and I believe are going to get worse, much worse. The UK is a busted and corrupted flush. Just look at recent days with Tata Steel and the fact that it is the Tories who are blocking the EU from putting in safe guards against cheap heavily subsidized Chinese Steel. Look at the limited information from the Panama Papers where Cameron is implicated but it’s a private matter with little or no real pressure put on him from the sad excuse of a media in this country and the continued ineffectiveness of Labour in England to press home any advantage.

The Conservatives, on behalf of their rich masters and the City of London, are sucking the life out of this country and therefor Scotland. Their agenda hasn’t changed, they are for the few and for themselves, they do not give a shit about you or me. They don’t give a shit about local services because in the main they don’t use them. They don’t care about the NHS because they can afford not to use it unless it’s election time, they don’t give a shit about the poor because they don’t know what it is to be poor and never will. They don’t give a shit about poverty and crappy poverty stricken housing estates because these are things they drive past.

The slow creep of the SNP is a dangerous strategy for me. As things worsen, as people get poorer, as services become non existent, as people become even more beaten down, more desperate, is there a risk that the we have an even bigger Stockholm Syndrome than we do now or appear to have. The Better Together Campaign used the Stockholm card perfectly, the Stockholm Syndrome is described as a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. Is that not the lies of the United Kingdom, of Better Together, of the Naysayers and the Yoons.

We cannot sit back and wait or hope on the slow creep taking us to the magic number for a YES vote in any future referendum. We cannot allow things to get so bad that people are so beaten down and afraid to lose what little they have and therefor still sympathize with the lies of Better Together and an elite who have shown us over the years that they do not have our best interests at heart. Only their own.

The SNP are wrong, and Paul is wrong, in my opinion, when he says he is happy to stick with the slow and steady path, and he actually sums it up in his blog today why we can’t afford to wait too much longer or believe in the promises of Better Together.

Shear the sheep don’t fleece the people

I’m not saying we are ready for another referendum tomorrow because we would lose, but what I am saying is that Jim Sillars is correct in that the campaign for independence has to be every day, all the time. We have got to continue to show how broken and unfair the UK and the Union is. We have got to show how bad things are and how better they can be if we only reach out and take it. The SNP and the YES Campaign got it wrong in so many areas during the referendum like currency, like the EU, and the Head of State, but they can’t put these things aside to continue to only demonstrate competent governance in the hope that this alone will change minds. We don’t have the time anymore, we don’t have the luxury because if we wait too long there will be nothing left to fight for and too many people might just have no more fight left in them.