Why our neighbours think we’ve gone crazy
I’M just back from sunny yorkshire. And it was sunny actually, the sort of weather I’ve been craving all summer, and as effortlessly friendly as the first sip of a warm pint in a beer garden. Which is exactly what we had, along with sausages on the barbecue in the dwindling twilight, a stroll through a pretty, red brick market town and a heated discussion over whether a morning roll should be referred to as a ‘bread cake’ (Answer: No).
Gosh, I’m jealous of the english these days. How nice it must be to live in a land where people actually seem to get along with each other. even post-Brexit, and particularly in the heartlands of yorkshire – prime Brexit country, after all – there is an understanding about the direction in which the nation is heading and a feeling of unity that I have not really felt in Scotland for several years now.
When theresa May announced, on the day she became Prime Minister, that ‘Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a success of it’, she knew exactly what she was doing. that certainty has become a powerful tool south of the Border.
Does anyone know what the future holds? of course not. But the knowledge that everyone is going in the same direction brings with it a certain clarity. It’s done. We’ll deal with it. Let’s move on together.
No such clarity in Scotland, though, where we are instead stuck in presecond referendum limbo, with the SNP bleating about special Brexit treatment from europe and the ever present threat that one day soon we may once again be asked to go the polls to vote on something we thought we’d put to bed almost two years ago.
earlier this week, Scottish Secretary David Mundell urged the First Minister to call off the SNP ‘fanatics’ demanding a second independence referendum; pointing out, not unreasonably, that Scottish businesses are suffering under the uncertainty of a looming round two in the seemingly endless battle for Britain.
I’m not surprised. It must be awfully difficult to do business with the rest of the world when you have no idea how you will be able to do business with them a couple of years down the line.
Scottish businesses suffered terribly during the first Scottish referendum – and the prospect of yet another one to weather must surely have some wondering whether it is time to pack up and go somewhere, anywhere, other than home, in order to make a decent fist of things.
And yet, as we learnt from the wise sage that is Nationalist MSP John Mason last week, who revealed he is boycotting Scottish firm Barrhead travel because its founders voted No in 2014, none of that is important when petty, small-minded politics is involved.
And yet the divisive politics that now rule this country continue to seep into every corner of our lives.
this week, composer Sir James MacMillan rightly criticised the Scottish cultural scene as ‘venal and parochial’ and ‘weaponised by political voices’. A country where politicians turn down invites to the opera because it is seen as being elitist, where Alasdair Gray must be viewed as greater than James Joyce.
the shrill Nationalist chant is trickling into every part of Scottish society – and it is causing deep uncertainty. relate these stories south of the Border and people look at you as though you have horns. they simply do not understand how we got ourselves into this position. they think we are mad. I’m starting to agree with them.