Ruth Wishart: Time to bring an end to this uncivil war and focus on independence

I try not to make the mistake of ­believing that social media should be confused with the real world. Nevertheless what is ­tweeted and posted has a nasty habit of ­being ­endlessly recycled with scant regard for facts or consequences.

The warring factions inside the ­independence movement are kidding ­themselves if they think a puerile post, or a witless tweet will in any way shape or form bring a Scottish nation state closer.

The devil always finds work for idle hands they say, and those hands idling over their Twitter feed, Facebook, Instagram or latest Tik Tok mini epic, might be rather more usefully employed addressing hesitant Yes voters, or 2014 unbelievers.

What should be civilised discourse has become increasingly rancid. The most ­vicious exchanges take place between long standing SNP members and those who ­defected to Alba. Can we remind ourselves that the rationale for creating Alba was to bolster the indy cause?

READ MORE: Carrots dumped outside SNP MP Pete Wishart's Perth office in Alba protest

I’m at a loss as to how badmouthing the First Minister of Scotland, or accusing her supporters of a Diana style cult falls into that category. Nor does it help when the SNP members respond with ­withering ­insults about the worth of the “one ­percenters”.

Those of us in the broad Yes family can only watch this constant self immolation with mounting dismay and despair.

Cards on the table here. I too am more than impatient for a full blown indy ­campaign. Never more so than when my government is forced to go cap in hand to the treasury for the wherewithal to combat the latest threat to public health in the way its own instincts say it must and should be done.

It is beyond frustrating to have this ­campaign derailed by Covid related ­problems, and, before that, by the ­insistence on waiting for Westminster’s ­formal ­permission to activate a referendum. I ­really do get that.

And I get too that all kinds of launch pads like the Brexit vote were allowed to come and go without fully utilising their potency.

What I didn’t, and don’t get was the ­belief that the best way to address this ­caution was to set up another party and, from its ramparts, chuck boulders at the ranks of fellow independenistas.

Meanwhile, it is more than ­wearying to find yourself labelled ­transphobic and ­toxic when your “crime” is to voice ­concerns about the Scottish ­Government’s current policy on GRA and self ­identification.

Individual responses to the ­consultation on this have not been published, but the latest polling suggests that the world at large is not as pre-occupied with this issue as elements in the Scottish Government appear to be.

Regardless of which, the tone of the “debate” has been reprehensible. No ­argument tends to succeed when the ­battle cry is little more than “my way or the highway”.

Amongst the people ill served by the ­vitriol thrown around are the trans ­community itself, many of whom see ­little merit in their situation being appropriated by self styled activists who, frankly, are often pretty late additions to the human and civil rights movements.

Again, regardless of the merits of the ­arguments being advanced, what is ­beyond doubt is that every sour ­squabble is only greeted with anything resembling glee by those who will grab anything ­going to bad mouth the Yes camp. If you are itching for a fight, try not to pick on your own side.

There is another very powerful reason for not getting embroiled in battles which are largely irrelevant to the push for an ­independent Scotland. We are only a ­couple of days distant from a shocking by-election result in England. Nothing scares MPs more than the thought that their ­jaiket may be on a shoogly nail.

And nothing is more clear that ­“pricing in” Boris Johnson’s manifold lack of ­ability and commitment – not even to mention his serial mendacity – is any longer a defence against an electorate who have finally got the PM’s number. They know he’s not up to the job and on Thursday last he got well and truly telt.

​READ MORE: Alba urged to draft defence and foreign policy strategies ahead of national council

Many Conservative commentators share the belief that Johnson is only safe so long as his troops think he’s a winner. The fact that 100 of his MP’s refused to sign up to his latest policy initiative the other night is indicative that those who believe he can save their seat and their ­political skin are a shrinking band.

In Scotland there are many people who have reservations about the ­performance of the Scottish government in various ­policy areas. It is thus with all ­governments, most especially those which have been around for what, in parliamentary terms, is an extraordinarily long time.

I would ask them this. If they look to Westminster and those who make policy on their behalf, are they content with that performance?

Are they content with a justice ­secretary who is hell bent on denying natural ­justice? Do they have respect for a Home Secretary who wants to throw asylum seekers in jail for the crime of not joining non existent safer routes to their new life?

Are they sanguine that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an immensely wealthy man, finds it acceptable to take £20 from the poorest families whilst making no real effort to crack down on rampant tax ­evasion and avoidance?

Do they really believe that Liz Truss, the woman who gives vacuity a bad name, is the best the UK can do for a foreign ­secretary? Are they happy that the ­Defence Secretary is creating a ­Union army? Do they think that their own ­parliament’s future is safe in the hands of the Machiavellian Michael Gove?

WHILE Boris has been a disastrous Prime Minister, he has constructed a cabinet in his own mediocre image. Our tragedy is that there is nobody of stature to replace him.

As for Johnson himself. Can anyone seriously believe that he is other than hopelessly miscast? Where we needed a serious man, with a serious mind, we got what the French have correctly characterised as a clown.

When we needed a great ­communicator, we got a blusterer. When we needed a leader in whom electors of all stripes could trust in a major emergency, we got a proven liar with a scandal strewn back story.

​READ MORE: Boris Johnson inaction is making the 'best case for independence', says adviser

Only in the last couple of weeks have all his massive errors of judgement ­produced a drop in his party’s polling. His ­opponents have an electoral ­mountain to scale. For Labour to get into government the world would have to be full of North Shropshires.

I rather doubt that will prove to be the case.

Yet in truth, I’m only really pre-occupied with the Scottish dimension. Labour in Scotland has shrunk to what would previously have been an unthinkable ­single MP. Its troops in Holyrood contain several people of merit, but so long as it refuses even to address the democratic imperative of a new indy vote, I believe it is doomed to electoral irrelevance.

The Liberal Democrats, once home rule stalwarts, are reduced to a taxi load. The Scottish Tories have voted for many of the Johnson government’s policies which have impoverished or skewered their own constituents. Yet still they can’t bring themselves to break free from London.

The SNP is not a perfect government. But it IS the government. Realistically it is the only party which can deliver ­independence. That is a political and ­arithmetical fact of life.

If you believe otherwise you are ­whistling in the wind. And getting in the way of the end game we are all supposed to support.

This uncivil war has got to stop.