IT’S THE SNP conference this weekend and the halls packed with more delegates than the other main parties combined are demonstrating yet again that Scotland gives lie to the belief that ordinary people are disengaging from the political process. The rude health of the SNP proves that ordinary Scots remain very much engaged with politics, even though Westminster would probably rather we weren’t. They’re relying on Scotland being sick and ill in order to keep us in the Union.

A sick Scotland is a Unionist Scotland. The SNP delegates meet in a city whose Labour council has announced 1,500 job cuts in the year ahead. Scotland’s budget is squeezed by Westminster, yet Labour blame the SNP for the Tory cuts that Labour did nothing to resist. Labour in Glasgow blame the SNP for Tory cuts even though more than half the amount that Glasgow raises in council tax goes to service the private -sector debts contracted by the Glasgow Labour Party. A sick Glasgow is a Unionist Glasgow, but Glasgow’s days of Unionist administration are numbered. A fresh wind is blowing through George’s Square. It’s time to take the cure.

A Unionist Scotland is a sick Scotland. That’s why the usual suspects reacted with such glee to the annual GERS figures released this week. Only in Scotland does the supposed weakness and indebtedness of the economy become something to celebrate, at least that is if you’re a Scottish Unionist. A weak and impoverished Scotland is a Scotland that depends on Westminster for support. Let’s all be happy and glad we’re so weak and powerless that we can’t stand on our two feet because Westminster has cut them away from under us. Take that, independence supporters!

The message from the Unionist parties is like telling a mugging victim that now their money and trousers have been stolen they’re too poor to get away so have to hand over their underpants as well. And then we’re supposed to be grateful to the mugger for leaving us naked and exposed to the cold winds of austerity. But even that’s not enough, we’ve also got to give the mugger our pay packets for all eternity, and our children and grandchildren’s pay packets, and to thank him for being so kind as to take them from us.

Modern Scottish Unionism isn’t a political belief; it expects Scotland to engage in the kind of behaviour you normally only find amongst adherents of controlling cults, up to and including mortgaging our children’s future to the misplaced belief in the magical powers of the Westminster Parliament. And that right there is the reason the Unionist parties so often characterise the desire for independence as a cult; it’s because that’s exactly what they’re doing themselves. Unionism is a cult led by an economic Rev IM Jolly.

Unionism is psychological projection writ large. Scottish Unionism demands that we celebrate a poverty of spirit and a lack of imagination. It wants us to be proud of poverty and revel in helplessness. Scottish Unionism tells us that the only thing we’ve got going for us is a Tory-dominated parliament and a Labour Party that has to ape the Tories in order to get elected in England. The very best that Scotland can aspire to is a second-class ticket on an overpriced privatised train service to London. We must be the only country in the world where the emigration of our young and talented due to a lack of opportunities at home is lauded as a benefit of Union.

Let’s be perfectly clear here. If Scotland is facing a £15 billion black hole in its budget, as the GERS figures claim, if we’re facing penury and the decimation of the welfare state, if we’re looking at a pensions shortfall and the axing of public services, that’s Westminster’s fault. It’s Westminster which has managed Scotland’s economy for these past 300 years. It’s Westminster which has had its paws on the levers of macroeconomic control. It’s Westminster which has determined taxes and public investment. It’s Westminster which has taken the raw material of a prosperous and resource-rich northern European country and turned it into a begging bowl supposedly more indebted than Greece. That’s not Scotland’s doing. Look on Westminster’s works ye disempowered and despair, because this is what the Union has done to us. Isn’t it marvellous, crow Kezia, Ruth, and Wee Wullie.

This weekend in Glasgow, SNP members will be gathering to discuss the heretical notion that Scotland can be a normal country. Here in Scotland it’s the people who say that poverty and weakness should be challenged and overcome – not celebrated and indulged – who are the dangerous radicals.

The Unionist parties love Scotland’s weakness. They love their budget black holes and Scotland’s supposed dependency on Westminster largesse. It’s only by keeping Scotland weak that they can keep Scotland in the Union.

A Unionist Scotland is a sick Scotland. But Scotland is taking the cure.