Bernard Argente is a parliamentary researcher and campaign confidante to former MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston.
So it appears another independence referendum for Scotland may be inevitable.
The SNP are pushing for Indyref2, and the self-proclaimed opposition and leader of Reform UK, Malcolm Offord, who must have been struck with the same guilty conscience as Sophocles’ Neoptolemus, told Parliament he accepts the Conservatives calling him a ‘closeted nationalist’. Following that, Offord stated, “Reform UK has members who previously supported independence”.
If this wasn’t kowtowing to the SNP enough, Reform, on their first day, were “already hitting the abstain button”, as Jamie Halcro Johnston put it regarding the vote against the appointment of SNP ministers. Whereas the Scottish Conservatives “had voted against the appointment of bad SNP ministers”, wrote Craig Hoy. Hoy had previously noted, “If this is what the ‘fox in the hen house’ looks like, then the hens win hands down”.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, has critiqued Westminster, calling it ‘broken’. As far as we can tell by attempting to understand his vague remarks, he wishes to decentralise power from both Westminster and Holyrood. So, with a new Labour leader, an SNP Government that wants to divide the United Kingdom, and the 17 Reform MSPs — not a single one of whom has a constituency seat, and who have a sort of clandestine adoration of the SNP — one may fear what will happen to the future of Scotland.
Andy Burnham did tell John Swinney they’d have to agree to disagree on Scottish independence, which may be considered by some his only non-prevaricating remark. Sure, Labour under Keir Starmer has lost its red colour, some may say, but I doubt you could call them fence-sitters. Though for Andy Burnham, inasmuch as we’ve seen him, he has been Humpty-Dumptying on major policies whilst keeping the U-turning idiosyncrasies of the former Prime Minister. One of Burnham’s U-turns, for example, is U-turning on the outcome of the killers of PC Andrew Harper.
Andy Burnham went from telling us the killers of PC Harper would be released, along with many more, to facing backlash and saying they’d stay in prison. From that, I can gather Burnham would be best suited for the Liberal Democrats insofar as he is afraid of his own public image and will change his mind to whatever is popular. I’m sure many people, such as — I don’t know — Sir Keir Starmer, wouldn’t be so happy to see the Labour Party become ‘populist’.
A prime minister U-turning on something as important as whether these killers can be released or not, especially at times when the police are vulnerable, sets a highly dangerous example. Even philosophically, looking at it through the lens of Immanuel Kant, the original decision universalises a maxim that these killers would have stayed in prison whilst others could be let free, and thus under the framework of the categorical imperative, it was morally wrong.
Though the priority isn’t Andy Burnham’s U-turns, the categorical imperative, or a delve into retributivism — or even that there’s a warning from prison officials that this might lead to more early releases — it’s that Burnham’s one-day U-turn is similar to the one-day Athenian U-turn. The Athenian U-turn is compared later to Scottish independence, which goes to show everything is connected and has unity. And because of unity, I ought to anchor the topic back to the Union and the SNP’s fanaticism.
It’s important I also clarify the distinction between jingoism and patriotism. Jingoism is defined as blinded nationalism with connotations of violence, whilst patriotism is a healthier and perhaps more conservative love for your country to thrive. I find this important to clarify as I’ve seen SNP members arguing in bad faith to justify the embezzlement of their own money by Peter Murrell; it is truly bizarre to me.
To SNP members, Scottish independence may feel like a utopia, but the etymology of the word is actually a double entendre. Sir Thomas More coined the word utopia by combining two Greek words: “eutopia”, meaning “a good place”, and “outopia”, meaning “no place”. We can deduce that the word utopia was created as a warning that no such perfect place exists. I am reminded of Bram Stoker’s Dracula or the song “Hotel California” by the Eagles, a place that seems perfect but turns out to be a trap, which is a common theme in Scottish politics. Thus, I find that I must now address the issue: this would be no utopia, but rather a dystopia made beautiful by the beguiling rhetoric of independence advocacy.
As Andrew Neil argued, if Scotland were to gain independence, it would not be able to automatically rejoin the European Union as Mairi McAllan promised. Scotland currently has an 11.7 per cent GDP deficit, and the European Union requires its member countries to have 3%. Another reason that I think Scotland wouldn’t be allowed to join is because of political factors. There is a risk that Spain could veto Scotland joining because of its own affairs with independence movements in Catalonia; Scotland joining the European Union might embolden other communities in Europe that want independence, such as parts of Catalonia.
And while independence sounds like freedom from England, the only country in the United Kingdom without its own parliament, it unfortunately isn’t. The telos for the SNP isn’t Scottish independence; rather, it’s the Balkanisation of the United Kingdom, fuelled by their hatred of England. The fact is the United Kingdom wouldn’t be the United Kingdom without Scotland: its poets such as Robert Burns, the picturesque landscape, the father of modern economics Adam Smith, the discovery of penicillin, the improvement of the steam engine, and of course, Sherlock Holmes. I could go on and on. Instead of wanting to leave one union for another, why not attempt to reconcile with each other?
The English and Scots are interwoven; they cheer for both Scotland’s and England’s football teams, they drink Irn-Bru and tea, they eat haggis and fish and chips. Most importantly, we are stronger together culturally, politically, and even economically. I am no Keynesian, but I agree with the phrase “beggar thy neighbour, beggar thyself”. We should work together and not hinder each other. This isn’t my own unique opinion; 55.3 per cent of Scottish voters agree with me. I believe that if the SNP calls an indyref2, it wouldn’t be democratic.
Allow me to elucidate on why I believe this. Another Scottish referendum is expected to cost £20 million, and by continually holding referendums, people will eventually sign in the most undemocratic way. Psychologist Leon Festinger argues that when one is pressured in such a way, as in the example of signing a paper, or perhaps if you are familiar with accepting cookies on a website, it causes induced compliance. Ergo, to end the pressure, they would eventually agree to signing and perhaps, over time, convince themselves that they had that belief all this time to rectify it internally without even knowing it, to resolve cognitive dissonance.
This is why hosting a second referendum could potentially lead to a rabbit hole of non-consensual signatures, as I’d put it.
This happened during the Peloponnesian War when the Athenian citizens called for a second assembly to recall their original vote. The original vote was to slaughter all Mytilenean men. Whilst this was good from a moral standpoint, it highlighted the political instability in Athens, to which Thucydides used this event to critique post-Periclean democracy as it caused instability and emotional rhetoric. Thus, just the following day, citizens felt metanoia and cognitive dissonance, just like how Scottish citizens may in the future if another referendum is called and now looks more likely.
I also feel a sense of disdain for the European Union, notably the ‘Troika’, which crippled Greece and left it dependent on the EU. This would have made the Philhellene hero Lord Byron nauseous — truly unforgivable.
The SNP are also, in my opinion, wrong to support the ECHR. While Winston Churchill supported it, it had strict and honest criteria to prevent the tragedies of the Holocaust, it now follows a living instrument doctrine. Take a look at the legal case Hirst v. United Kingdom. John Hirst challenged the United Kingdom about prisoners’ voting rights and not to blanket ban all convicts. Hirst lost the case in the High Court and took it to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. The court accepted Hirst’s claim. Thereafter, its unelected committees in Strasbourg, using the ECHR, attempted to force the democratically elected United Kingdom parliament’s hand and encroached on its sovereignty to pass a bill. Parliament, of course, voted no and rejected the bill, thus preserving its sovereignty. But I am indeed baffled as to why SNP members want independence and also want to be shackled to the likes of the European courts and Union.
To conclude, I think it would be fitting to end with a fragment of the poem ‘Two Million Steps’ by the Irish poet Charlotte Higgins (not to be confused with the classicist), as it sheds light on this article.
“On the road down South,
there isn’t even a line –
the miles fall away,
replaced by kilometres on the road signs
and underneath the English, Irish names
Dún Laoghaire, Dún na nGall, Baile Átha Cliath –
but the landscape doesn’t change
the brooks don’t flow through fields of gold
the grass still blows
not a blade more or less free
because we call this blade home
and that one another country
Between Scotland and England
is it not the same?
We have built up walls
inscribed new names
but walk from Gretna to Carlisle with me
tell me that we have changed countries
from Land’s End to John o’Groats there are
two million steps in all
point me to the one where England falls away
and Scotland rises in its place
tell me how much has changed”
Bernard Argente is a parliamentary researcher and campaign confidante to former MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston.
So it appears another independence referendum for Scotland may be inevitable.
The SNP are pushing for Indyref2, and the self-proclaimed opposition and leader of Reform UK, Malcolm Offord, who must have been struck with the same guilty conscience as Sophocles’ Neoptolemus, told Parliament he accepts the Conservatives calling him a ‘closeted nationalist’. Following that, Offord stated, “Reform UK has members who previously supported independence”.
If this wasn’t kowtowing to the SNP enough, Reform, on their first day, were “already hitting the abstain button”, as Jamie Halcro Johnston put it regarding the vote against the appointment of SNP ministers. Whereas the Scottish Conservatives “had voted against the appointment of bad SNP ministers”, wrote Craig Hoy. Hoy had previously noted, “If this is what the ‘fox in the hen house’ looks like, then the hens win hands down”.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, has critiqued Westminster, calling it ‘broken’. As far as we can tell by attempting to understand his vague remarks, he wishes to decentralise power from both Westminster and Holyrood. So, with a new Labour leader, an SNP Government that wants to divide the United Kingdom, and the 17 Reform MSPs — not a single one of whom has a constituency seat, and who have a sort of clandestine adoration of the SNP — one may fear what will happen to the future of Scotland.
Andy Burnham did tell John Swinney they’d have to agree to disagree on Scottish independence, which may be considered by some his only non-prevaricating remark. Sure, Labour under Keir Starmer has lost its red colour, some may say, but I doubt you could call them fence-sitters. Though for Andy Burnham, inasmuch as we’ve seen him, he has been Humpty-Dumptying on major policies whilst keeping the U-turning idiosyncrasies of the former Prime Minister. One of Burnham’s U-turns, for example, is U-turning on the outcome of the killers of PC Andrew Harper.
Andy Burnham went from telling us the killers of PC Harper would be released, along with many more, to facing backlash and saying they’d stay in prison. From that, I can gather Burnham would be best suited for the Liberal Democrats insofar as he is afraid of his own public image and will change his mind to whatever is popular. I’m sure many people, such as — I don’t know — Sir Keir Starmer, wouldn’t be so happy to see the Labour Party become ‘populist’.
A prime minister U-turning on something as important as whether these killers can be released or not, especially at times when the police are vulnerable, sets a highly dangerous example. Even philosophically, looking at it through the lens of Immanuel Kant, the original decision universalises a maxim that these killers would have stayed in prison whilst others could be let free, and thus under the framework of the categorical imperative, it was morally wrong.
Though the priority isn’t Andy Burnham’s U-turns, the categorical imperative, or a delve into retributivism — or even that there’s a warning from prison officials that this might lead to more early releases — it’s that Burnham’s one-day U-turn is similar to the one-day Athenian U-turn. The Athenian U-turn is compared later to Scottish independence, which goes to show everything is connected and has unity. And because of unity, I ought to anchor the topic back to the Union and the SNP’s fanaticism.
It’s important I also clarify the distinction between jingoism and patriotism. Jingoism is defined as blinded nationalism with connotations of violence, whilst patriotism is a healthier and perhaps more conservative love for your country to thrive. I find this important to clarify as I’ve seen SNP members arguing in bad faith to justify the embezzlement of their own money by Peter Murrell; it is truly bizarre to me.
To SNP members, Scottish independence may feel like a utopia, but the etymology of the word is actually a double entendre. Sir Thomas More coined the word utopia by combining two Greek words: “eutopia”, meaning “a good place”, and “outopia”, meaning “no place”. We can deduce that the word utopia was created as a warning that no such perfect place exists. I am reminded of Bram Stoker’s Dracula or the song “Hotel California” by the Eagles, a place that seems perfect but turns out to be a trap, which is a common theme in Scottish politics. Thus, I find that I must now address the issue: this would be no utopia, but rather a dystopia made beautiful by the beguiling rhetoric of independence advocacy.
As Andrew Neil argued, if Scotland were to gain independence, it would not be able to automatically rejoin the European Union as Mairi McAllan promised. Scotland currently has an 11.7 per cent GDP deficit, and the European Union requires its member countries to have 3%. Another reason that I think Scotland wouldn’t be allowed to join is because of political factors. There is a risk that Spain could veto Scotland joining because of its own affairs with independence movements in Catalonia; Scotland joining the European Union might embolden other communities in Europe that want independence, such as parts of Catalonia.
And while independence sounds like freedom from England, the only country in the United Kingdom without its own parliament, it unfortunately isn’t. The telos for the SNP isn’t Scottish independence; rather, it’s the Balkanisation of the United Kingdom, fuelled by their hatred of England. The fact is the United Kingdom wouldn’t be the United Kingdom without Scotland: its poets such as Robert Burns, the picturesque landscape, the father of modern economics Adam Smith, the discovery of penicillin, the improvement of the steam engine, and of course, Sherlock Holmes. I could go on and on. Instead of wanting to leave one union for another, why not attempt to reconcile with each other?
The English and Scots are interwoven; they cheer for both Scotland’s and England’s football teams, they drink Irn-Bru and tea, they eat haggis and fish and chips. Most importantly, we are stronger together culturally, politically, and even economically. I am no Keynesian, but I agree with the phrase “beggar thy neighbour, beggar thyself”. We should work together and not hinder each other. This isn’t my own unique opinion; 55.3 per cent of Scottish voters agree with me. I believe that if the SNP calls an indyref2, it wouldn’t be democratic.
Allow me to elucidate on why I believe this. Another Scottish referendum is expected to cost £20 million, and by continually holding referendums, people will eventually sign in the most undemocratic way. Psychologist Leon Festinger argues that when one is pressured in such a way, as in the example of signing a paper, or perhaps if you are familiar with accepting cookies on a website, it causes induced compliance. Ergo, to end the pressure, they would eventually agree to signing and perhaps, over time, convince themselves that they had that belief all this time to rectify it internally without even knowing it, to resolve cognitive dissonance.
This is why hosting a second referendum could potentially lead to a rabbit hole of non-consensual signatures, as I’d put it.
This happened during the Peloponnesian War when the Athenian citizens called for a second assembly to recall their original vote. The original vote was to slaughter all Mytilenean men. Whilst this was good from a moral standpoint, it highlighted the political instability in Athens, to which Thucydides used this event to critique post-Periclean democracy as it caused instability and emotional rhetoric. Thus, just the following day, citizens felt metanoia and cognitive dissonance, just like how Scottish citizens may in the future if another referendum is called and now looks more likely.
I also feel a sense of disdain for the European Union, notably the ‘Troika’, which crippled Greece and left it dependent on the EU. This would have made the Philhellene hero Lord Byron nauseous — truly unforgivable.
The SNP are also, in my opinion, wrong to support the ECHR. While Winston Churchill supported it, it had strict and honest criteria to prevent the tragedies of the Holocaust, it now follows a living instrument doctrine. Take a look at the legal case Hirst v. United Kingdom. John Hirst challenged the United Kingdom about prisoners’ voting rights and not to blanket ban all convicts. Hirst lost the case in the High Court and took it to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. The court accepted Hirst’s claim. Thereafter, its unelected committees in Strasbourg, using the ECHR, attempted to force the democratically elected United Kingdom parliament’s hand and encroached on its sovereignty to pass a bill. Parliament, of course, voted no and rejected the bill, thus preserving its sovereignty. But I am indeed baffled as to why SNP members want independence and also want to be shackled to the likes of the European courts and Union.
To conclude, I think it would be fitting to end with a fragment of the poem ‘Two Million Steps’ by the Irish poet Charlotte Higgins (not to be confused with the classicist), as it sheds light on this article.
“On the road down South,
there isn’t even a line –
the miles fall away,
replaced by kilometres on the road signs
and underneath the English, Irish names
Dún Laoghaire, Dún na nGall, Baile Átha Cliath –
but the landscape doesn’t change
the brooks don’t flow through fields of gold
the grass still blows
not a blade more or less free
because we call this blade home
and that one another country
Between Scotland and England
is it not the same?
We have built up walls
inscribed new names
but walk from Gretna to Carlisle with me
tell me that we have changed countries
from Land’s End to John o’Groats there are
two million steps in all
point me to the one where England falls away
and Scotland rises in its place
tell me how much has changed”