Anti-Scottish bigotry is rooted in the mentality of the British Establishment

In 1822 when Sir Walter Scott arranged the visit of King George IV to Edinburgh he presented the monarch with a vision of a loyal and devoted populace many of whom were decked out in tartan for the occasion, as was the king himself, albeit with pink tights – nothing commando about Oor Geordie.

The event had been staged by Scott, a committed Establishment man and it marked a complete turnaround in the depiction of the Scots within British society. The fact that there were more people in the Lowlands than the Highlands was just something that could be ignored in the rush to present a glorious spectacle of supposed Scottish society for the entertainment and edification of his most Royal Highness.

Various clan chiefs – the vast majority of whom were by now no more than rapacious lairds screwing every penny they could from what had once been the ancestral lands of their entire kin group, or clan – had been prevailed upon to come to Edinburgh with up to a dozen be-kilted and be-sporraned tenants or employees aping the ancient tradition of the traditional clan chief’s “tail” or following.

The whole occasion was conducted as if the recent events of the 1820 Rising had not taken place. That somewhat farcical but utterly tragic attempt by Radicals from the common folk in the west of Scotland, to do something about the lack of democratic accountability throughout Scotland had resulted in executions and transportations to Botany Bay. Three men were executed for their part in the fracas which had been stage managed by government agents provocateurs since the start.

Two of the men executed were hung at Stirling, then decapitated, their heads being held up to the assembled thousands with the executioner declaring, "This is the head of a traitor.” The third one was similarly dealt with in Glasgow, all of their corpses having been spared quartering, or being chopped into four pieces, which was part of their original sentences.

What was perhaps even more shocking to some is the fact that the trials had been conducted under the English legal process of Oyer and Terminer, with not a squeak of protest from any of the functionaries (flunkeys?) of the famously independent Scots legal system. This process had no standing in Scots Law but our judiciary, then and now, knows exactly where they stand. This process was laid down in the Treason Act of 1708 which rationalised the process of treason trials between England and Scotland, one year after the Treaty of Union and in blatant disregard of it. It was a core part of the arrangement between what were two sovereign nations that Scots Law maintained its independence.

This blatant undermining of Scots Law and effectively the Union itself established the process by which Scotland has always has been understood at Westminster as having been effectively incorporated into England. The spin in the presentation of British history since then has of course been that both nations were now part of a mutually agreed system of mutual support and respect which the Treaty of Union had purportedly pretended to create. Aye right. The Treason Act is still on the statute books.

For the royal visit of 1822, Scott’s presentation of a loyal and sedate Scotland and his choice of tartan-clad Highlanders as the epitome of this, goes beyond irony, given the rape and pillage visited upon the Highlands by the British Army after Culloden, and the subsequent military occupation of virtually all of Scotland till the mid 1750s. Throughout the 18th century in England, Scots in general, and Highlanders in particular, had been a byword for savagery, often being compared to the benighted natives of far-off continents who were being “civilized” by the expanding British Empire. Such poor ignorant savages were being dragged into a modern mercantile world of thorough brutal repression and economic exploitation which was, of course, good for them.

A general term for a Scot amongst the English of the period was “Sawney”, a reference to the probably fictional Sawney Bean, whose family were supposed to have been a gang of murderous cannibals. Many of the extremely graphic cartoons of the period depicted Sawney in Highland dress, despite the supposed location of his murderous gang being in the south west of Scotland.

When it comes to vile racism, factual accuracy is of little note. Such virulent xenophobia was well-entrenched in English society and the bilious outpourings from contemporary members of the MSM shows it has never quite gone away. Historically this must be set against the reality that until the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent sell-out of Scotland by the “parcel o rogues”, our country had for centuries been used to a series of invasions from south of the border as English Kings tried, and failed, to annexe us.

Invasion was an ever-present threat and the massed armies of the English at the Border and in Northern Ireland in the early 1700s were there to remind the Scots that, having lost our army and navy after James I and VI flitted to London,

we were really in no position to refuse to merge the separate kingdoms into a new state. Bribery, corruption and force majeure – well it is the British way.

It is par for the course that demonizing people is accompanied by accusing the targets of unacceptable behavior. This is what is behind the shrill bleatings about “cybernats” to which we are so regularly subjected today.

The real emotion behind this is one of utter horror that these uppity Jocks should dare to believe that they have any rights at all, other than those the Establishment and its minions care to bestow upon them. "Gie’s yer votes an dae’s yer telt" has long been the hidden mantra of the mainstream British political parties in Scotland, despite all their pathetic protestations to the contrary.

By their deeds shall you know them. For their words are worth little indeed, as the Vow has explicitly shown. Yet it seems they think they can still lie to us with utter abandon. Despite so much evidence to the contrary, we remain uppity enough to believe that democracy not only can work, but is worth fighting for.

Now whether you see Walter Scott as a sad plaything of the Establishment or a conflicted man trying to do his best for Scottish culture without effecting his own, considerable, standing, matters little. He was only the most prominent member of a whole class of people doing very well under Establishment patronage in Scotland. Their direct descendants, the gatekeepers of the Union today, all too often installed by Labour apparatchiks whose behaviour suggests a deep-seated inferiority-complex, are themselves now in danger of becoming conflicted.

The democratic will of the people becomes clearer with every vote and their devotion to the cause of the Union becomes ever more problematic. Their desperation can only increase as they seek to find a new Establishment structure to cling to. It is necessary for those of us fighting for a new Scotland that we are aware of the dangers of simply re-creating a new form of Establishment for the future, for make no mistake the rich and powerful are ever ready to change horse in mid-stream if they believe it to be to their advantage.

WITH the Curriculum for Excellence the SNP made a major step towards a clearer and better understanding of Scottish culture, language and history being developed amongst the coming generations, a process which can only serve to diminish the sad, knee-jerk McEnglishness of so many of our central institutions.

This has grown under the management of generations of gatekeepers who like Scott, saw, and still see, their own best interests served by a slavish adherence to the Union, with all its problematic consequences for a proper understanding of Scottish history and culture. Yet we must also remember that in a real democracy everybody must have the chance to vote for who they want, and that includes Tories, of whichever persuasion.

Which leads me to something that speaks of hope, for a better life, particularly for the many damaged by the vicious austerity of the posh-boys and their camp-followers and fellow-travellers.

What has been truly magnificent in Scotland’s recent past has been the rise of the Yes movement. March after march is attended by thousands of positive, happy people, reveling in the community of protest that is leading the surge towards the revival of the Scottish nation.

While there is much in our past that needs exposed, there is no great surge of anger, however justified it might be, and no greetin-faced sense of victimhood amongst those fighting for a better future for us, our bairns, our grandbairns and the generations to come. The MSM would have us as whingeing, subsidy-junkies but the AUOB marches ring with laughter and song, from native-born and new Scot alike, the latter appreciating that asserting our nationhood is in no way anti-anything or anyone, other than the current constitutional set-up that has seen Scotland’s voice reduced to a sideshow for over three hundred years.

And yet time and again we are accused of being insular, inward-looking and petty-minded in the media. This is the same media that created the political careers of Farage and Johnston with their sad Little Englander beliefs and fantasies of an Empire reborn – just how often was Farage on Question Time? A media happy to push demagoguery and deceit in their worship of vacuous celebrity has served democracy ill, and not just in Scotland. Dark Money, Fake News and Dirty Tricks are the stock in trade of the populist demagogues both here and in America.

And as independence comes ever nearer it is likely there is more deviousness and dishonesty to come, but the strength of a people who know their time has come, can overcome just about anything.

When Walter Scott welcomed the king to the pageant that he had created, he presented Geordie with a show that was a pastiche of his country’s history. The idea of the Highlander in particular as a kind of noble savage, led astray by the machinations of a dying dynasty was never close to the truth. In the 18th century many Highlanders, like many Lowlanders, were highly educated, well-travelled and multi-lingual. It was long hidden that the flowering of the Enlightenment in Scotland was accompanied at the end of the 18th century by a Radical movement that drew its members from all parts of Scottish society and was democratic to its core.

Scott ushered in modern tourism, with all its current attendant ills, and laid the basis of the shortbread and tartanry that has bedeviled our nation since, by packaging his nations’ history as a showpiece for a monarch. However successful that packaging has been up till now, the continuing interest in and development of Scotland’s history is driven, like the Yes movement itself, by a true sense of belonging to a nation whose future can, and will, be a lot different from its immediate past. And at the heart of that sense of identity is not only the fact that we know we are all Jock Tamson’s mongrel bastards, but also that though we claim to be better than no other country or people, there are none better than us and we are our own masters.