Gerry Hassan: 10 lessons Yes needs to learn 10 years on

This does not mean that the 10-year point is not ­significant. Rather it is a time to pause, to draw breath and reflect on what has passed, on the bigger context and forces changing Scotland and the UK, and what the future may look like for Scotland and independence.

The vote in 2014 was a watershed and ­transformative ­experience. It needs to be put in its wider ­historical context to fully understand what ­happened and what it means. This requires looking at the longer history and factors that led to 2014 and not just, as is often the case, examining the ­immediate causes – the SNP victory, Labour decline, and contest between Unionism and nationalism.

Scotland’s “Velvet Revolution”

AN underlying dynamic on the road to 2014 and the indyref was the dramatic changes and shifts that post-war Scottish society have witnessed. These are so profound and all-encompassing that they often pass unstated and unexamined.

Scottish society, in the decades up to 2014, saw a profound shift in how Scots saw, related and behaved towards authority and power. Once upon a time, probably up to the 1950s and 1960s, Scots had in many (but not all) regards, a relationship to authority and power defined by deference, tradition and even a degree of fear and foreboding.

Large parts of public life and institutional bodies were shaped by punitive authority, taboos, no-go ­areas and discrimination. Organisations such as the Kirk and Catholic Church had a moral authority and voice. Linked to this was a wider culture which saw a whole host of no-go issues in public and political debate, many around issues of sex, gender, sexuality and the body.

As has been written, Scotland up to the 1950s was “a moral state” with a proscribed, controlled idea of citizenship. To add to this, there was ­continued ­discrimination against Catholics and anti-Irish ­prejudice, and a widespread belief that ­authority – from religious to secular – knew best and that ­professionals, planners and experts were best placed to make decisions in the name of people about their lives.

This past Scotland, while showing these ­characteristics, also had counter-trends such as a powerful trade union movement, and cultures of dissent and non-conformity. But the above were the dominant set of forces. And critical to ­understanding 2014, the present and future, they have declined ­dramatically.

Authority and power in Scotland are now ­significantly questioned, scrutinised and ­doubted. Traditional forces of authority like the Kirk, ­Catholic Church, the BBC and Labour Party have all lost their central place and anchoring in society and the ­authority they once held has dissipated. A ­central strand running through most of authority ­until ­recent decades was that it sat as part of a liberal and Unionist establishment, with a belief almost as a ­matter of faith that Scotland’s place was best served in the Union.

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As these forces have declined, so they opened a space where Scots could talk about the kind of ­legitimacy and accountability authority, ­institutions and public bodies should have. By so doing this ­created the political space which enabled Scots to debate whether they wanted to be an independent country.

Caledonian Dreaming: The Quest For A Different Scotland, the book I published in 2014, posed the above and suggested the notion that the SNP were riding a wave that they barely knew and understood. That wave was the transformation of Scottish society described above and which historian Tom Devine ­described as “Scotland’s velvet ­revolution”.

How the SNP rode a wave they did not understand ONE stark example of the SNP’s lack of comprehension concerning the huge shifts from which they benefitted before 2014 occurred just after the vote. I was speaking to one of the SNP’s senior ­strategists and compared how football fans reacted to the liquidation of Rangers FC in 2012 and what happened in the indyref.

In the Rangers case, fans ­self-organised to stop the football authorities just ­continuing as normal post-liquidation and instead forced the club to start again in the fourth tier of the league. I posed that this was an earlier precursor to what we witnessed on a bigger scale in the ­indyref with the flowering of ­self-organised groups mostly on the independence side.

My SNP strategist made it clear he had never thought of such a connection, ­commenting about my Rangers analogy: “You are not talking about football, are you? You are talking about power.”

The point is that he had never made this link before and understood the indyref in this broader context as being about the shifting nature of authority and power in Scotland. Which tells you a lot.

Another strand in contemporary ­Scotland’s sense of itself is the myths and mythologies we tell and that we believe characterise us.

Relevant to this is the Irish experience, when the “Celtic Tiger” imploded in the 2008 banking crash, provoking Irish writer Fintan O’Toole to write Ship of Fools: How Stupidity And Corruption Sank The Celtic Tiger. This argues that the Irish idea of being a proper republic was largely a myth to conceal elite power and the conceited assumptions which still ran modern Ireland.

The same is true of modern Scotland. The Scottish story of our differences and different traditions is based on the myth of popular sovereignty, democratic ­intellect in education, and being a more socially just, equal Scotland.

The first, to take just one example, ­stresses that historically, the Scots as a ­people are sovereign rather than ­Parliament, something that we can ­ultimately assert. This is not law or ­codified, but a foundational story of ­Scotland based on contemporary ­interpretations of the Declaration of ­Arbroath in 1320 with its powerful call for “freedom”.

This is not to knock or dismiss the role of myth in societies; rather they are ­fundamental. Yet the Scottish story of popular sovereignty has grown in allure and romance for at least two generations but is not one that we have chosen to use as a defining principle about how we ­govern Scotland.

As it has become more central to our collective stories, we have not decided to run our country differently whether local government or the Scottish Parliament; rather, like the Irish myth of a republic, we have hidden behind it. Instead, if this is who we want to be, we need to cut the illusions and act upon it.

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Alongside the changing nature of ­Scotland is the long-term trajectory and state of Britain. The collapse of the ­post-war managed capitalist ­settlement, the dramatic curbing of the welfare state and trashing of the social ­contract between government and citizens, ­combined with the hollowing out of ­public services and the public realm, has ­dramatically changed Britain.

Moreover, this change has shifted the UK ­structurally with ­record inequality, ­ideologically to the right, and led to the collapse of any sense of good stories about Britain in the ­present and the ­future – all of which is having an impact on Keir Starmer’s ­Labour Government whose limited ­agenda can be seen as a response to this.

Yes needs to understand not just 2014 but the many shades of No

THIS is the big picture and longer story upon which we seldom have time to reflect – a history we have in part made, and a history we are still living through and experiencing. Also relevant is the legacy of any post-mortem on the indyref by the forces of independence to address how and why Yes lost and what could be learnt.

This conscious act by the SNP ­leadership at the time was to keep ­control of the narrative and prevent ­supporters from asking difficult ­questions. Much ­easier to reinforce a whole set of ­self-serving myths, for example, that Yes lost because of “The Vow”, BBC and ­Gordon Brown.

Not having a post-mortem still has consequences. It weakens present-day ­independence – “you cannot build a house without securing the foundations” as one independence supporter put it.

One seasoned political campaigner pointed out the disastrous impact ­elsewhere in Scottish politics when ­someone else failed to undertake a ­post-mortem.

“The last lot before 2014 who never looked at why they lost and needed to change was Scottish Labour in 2007” they observed, continuing: “That didn’t work out too well for them with just ­under 20 years in the wilderness.”

Yes lost because of concerns over its economic offer, the currency issue, and anxiety about the risks inherent in ­independence which many voters ­believed the Yes camp were not being honest about. But Yes did not just lose; the forces of No won and this is too often forgotten by independence supporters.

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They won because enough Scots ­worried about the risks of independence across a range of issues, but also because of an attachment to the UK and its shared history and tradition, and belief that ­Scotland “had the best of all worlds” with devolution in the Union.

One pro-independence supporter ­reflected now: “The focus on why Yes lost and believing it was ‘stolen’ from us by some kind of treachery prevents ­independence realising where it fell short”. They made a wider point: “Even more, this ignores that there is an appeal to the Union, a rationale which too much of independence has chosen to ignore to their ultimate disadvantage.”

Moreover, this lack of post-mortem, the political control by the SNP, and the wider vacuum post-2014 has forced independence into a cul-de-sac. Some ­independence supporters still do not think that their cause has work to do or detail to produce; or that Scotland can just declare independence without ­asking the people or that there is no case at all for the Union (which means that two ­million Scots can be easily hoodwinked!).

A road map of the next 10 years

HOW will the next 10 years pan out for Scotland and independence? Here are 10 possible pointers to the way forward.

1. The Scottish question is not just about Scotland. It is about the big ­questions in the world – from the role of government to the nature of society and how we make collective choices and trade-offs in an ­interdependent world.
2. Central to the Scottish question is the descent of the British state, and pivotal to its maintenance is how England is misgoverned. England is the only part of the UK – indeed the only part of the Western world – which is a nation without a parliament and government of its own. The undemocratic way in which England is governed is one of the primary pillars holding up the Westminster ­political ­system and eventually will ­crumble and collapse. That will be a defining ­moment in the history of these isles – the ­emergence of a self-governing England.
3. Starmer’s government has already shown its lack of vision, policies and ­project to address the long-term ­problems of Britain. At its heart, it has a huge chasm – where there should be a ­strategy of ­economic reconstruction and ­investment – but sadly as Rachel Reeves clings to Treasury orthodoxy, there is none of this. The structural, economic and ­social ­failings of Britain are not ­going to be ­addressed by Starmer and this will have long-term consequences.
4. The eventual fate of the Starmer government and its inability to reform the UK will open the door further to the politics of the populist right – either in a Tory or Faragist version. Whatever its form it will be ugly, nasty, punitive, and dehumanising of immigrants, foreigners and any group that can be stigmatised. ­Scotland will not be completely exempt from its influence; Nigel Farage’s Reform having already taken 7% of the vote here in the recent Westminster election.
5. Language and tone matter in our politics, particularly when we inhabit a world filled with invective, bigotry and hate. Scotland’s independence debate has to have respect across the political spectrum. It should not be completely reduced to a simplistic binary choice. We are not two camps of Unionists versus nationalists; terms like the “Ulsterisation of Scottish politics” are an insult to both places. Rather Scotland is a country of many shades between these two camps, with people who define themselves in other ways such as left, right, green, ­feminist and more.
6. 2014 brought independence into the mainstream of society as an idea, ­representing a huge shift in our ­politics. But it is also true that having a binary choice referendum between Yes and No restricted the parameters of debate. It narrowed the choice to two options and pushed to the margins differing ­options of self-government that also need ­discussion, and hence restricted our ­political imaginations, ideas and future.
7. This binary choice has preserved the ideas of independence and Union in aspic – as unchanging and absolutes for some. This is a misnomer. Moreover, the forces of independence have then, and since, portrayed themselves as the ­unchallenged champions of change. This has willfully ignored that the Union ­itself is also ­continually changing, often for worse, sometimes for better. And to ­assume that the Union is never changing and static is historically and politically a mistake. How else did Scotland get a ­devolved Parliament in 1999 but through a ­changing Union? Similarly, Welsh ­devolution and the Northern Ireland peace process and power-sharing. Independence cannot make the fatal assumption that it alone represents the forces of change; rather this is a continual contestation where the Union, for all its flaws, should not be under-estimated.
8. Independence has to be about more than process but should embrace good processes. A major point in this is how Scotland triggers an indyref. A newly published Glasgow University Centre for Public Policy paper by Kezia Dugdale and Stephen Noon laid out the case for ­Scotland having an agreed procedure for another vote – such as Northern ­Ireland has for any Irish reunification poll which is contained in the Good Friday ­Agreement. After any first vote on a subject as big as Scottish independence, it makes sense to lay out and agree upon the terms by which any subsequent vote could happen, ­rather than the charge and counter-charge of Scotland post-2014. Scotland is clearly not held “prisoner” in the Union against its will, as some independence ­supporters claim. That is the mindset of the echo chamber. But equally, if the UK is the “voluntary Union” that it professes to be, there must be agreed paths for exiting it by democratic consent.
9. The why of independence – ­often rhetorically cited by independence ­supporters – is seldom looked at in any real detail. Underpinning this is the ­strategic terrain that independence needs to ­address which, in a UK post-Brexit, is more acute now than in 2014. As John Curtice summarised, one of these huge choices can be posed as between “an ­independent Scotland in the EU and a Scotland in the UK but outside the EU”. This is reflected in how post-2016, the independence vote has become much more overwhelmingly pro-EU, ­presenting Scotland’s future as the advantages and disadvantages of each respective ­political union – one larger and wealthier, but ­looser (EU), and the other, nearer and more integrated (UK). This choice ­cannot be ducked, yet for all the ­pro-European rhetoric of the SNP and successive ­leaders post-2014, little substantive work has been undertaken on this subject.
10. Across the Western world, ­mainstream politics is not just fraying at the edges, but obviously failing and ­under challenge from a host of political players. Scotland is no exception to this. For too long there has been an element of a self-congratulatory tone around ­Scottish ­politics telling ourselves that we are egalitarian, democratic, inclusive and champion social justice. This has come to be the official story of mainstream Scotland politically – the account that Labour and then the SNP claimed to represent. If you look around modern Scotland, we fall pitifully and embarrassingly short compared to such rhetoric.

Aiding this, the SNP have coalesced into articulating the twin peaks of this – social democracy and civic ­nationalism. Yet the first is centrist, cautious and catch-all – always vague and ill-defined and ultimately not that centre-left, ­redistributionist or taking on vested ­interests. The second is a nationalism and, hence like all ­nationalism, has its own ideas on the limits of the political community it claims to speak for.

The point is that these outlooks have little to offer in guiding us into the ­future and need to be critiqued and ­superseded. A post-social democratic, ­post-nationalist Scotland would begin to make this ­explicit. It would acknowledge that across the West, social democracy has been ­hollowed out and compromised by the forces of capital and reaction, while bourgeois nationalism offers no road map for a future Scotland.

The next 10 years must be understood in the context of the long view and the change that Scotland has gone through – and is still going through. In 2014, there was an unstated division in ­independence.

The SNP presented a bright, new, shiny Scottish state – our very own version of modernity and progress. At the same time, the traditions of self-organisation, self-government and DIY Scotland (mostly but not exclusively coming from younger voices) said that “we do not trust the state because you have not been there for us in the past 40 years”. These two traditions were incompatible then and will be even more so now and in the future.

Scotland’s future and the next 10 years involve facing up to and embracing these choices. That is what self-government ­ultimately means. It requires recognising the threadbare nature of what passes for much of our mainstream politics and the traditions defining them.

This entails embracing change, new voices and forces in our country, and nurturing that second tradition of self-determination of communities and places rather than just career politicians emptily invoking the notion.

Some will find that threatening and scary, but the world is about change, ­disruption and autonomy – and if ­Scottish independence has the ­imagination to ­embrace and reshape and re-form these forces, it can be the genuine vehicle for change that defines our ­collective future.