The faithful few ironed their Saltires and blocked the roads, but millions more had far better things to do...
I’M not saying Humza Yousaf’s a snake oil salesman but if he’d told the crowd at yesterday’s nationalist rally in Edinburgh that independence would cure all maladies while providing vim and vigour, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
Like a wild west huckster, the First Minister offers a simple cureall. Regardless of what ails you, breaking up the United Kingdom will provide instant relief.
Yesterday, Mr Yousaf promised those in attendance that independence would put right the damage caused by Brexit. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, just a single dose of secession would mean Scotland being granted a seat at the ‘top table’ of the EU.
The crowd – unsurprisingly – lapped this up despite it being absolute nonsense. After all, if one’s opposition to Brexit is based on the belief that it makes no sense to separate from a long established social and trading union, then the idea of Scotland breaking from its oldest and most fruitful relationship makes no sense at all.
But then nationalism and logic don’t necessarily go hand in hand. To Mr Yousaf and those who marched with him through the capital to the Scottish parliament yesterday, there is no social ill nor political predicament that cannot be cured by breaking up a successful union that has endured – and from which Scotland has benefited – for more than 300 years.
Tellingly, one of the groups behind yesterday’s event calls itself ‘Believe in Scotland’. Like all other faiths (or cults, depending on your tolerance for these things), Scottish nationalism requires that its adherents put belief before all else. Anyone who dares raise entirely legitimate questions about the economy, currency and the Border is a wretched heretic.
And so Mr Yousaf told his congregation: ‘Friends, independence allows us to put right the historic wrong of Brexit.’
Westminster, he added, was taking Scotland down the wrong path. ‘It’s not just that we are facing a cost of living crisis,’ he said, ‘Scotland is facing a cost of Westminster crisis. But by taking Scotland’s future into our own hands, we can get back on the right track. We can rejoin the world’s largest trading bloc.’
OF COURSE, Mr Yousaf ignored the fact that England is, by some margin, Scotland’s biggest trading partner. He also ignored the fact that Scotland, plunged into financial chaos by independence, would not qualify for immediate entry into the EU. Rather, his break-up plans would isolate Scotland while hitting the poorest in society hardest.
What made the First Minister’s attendance at the rally especially pathetic was that he knows that such events do nothing to advance his cause. If anything, they’re a turn-off.
There is no Scottish voter as yet undecided on the constitutional question who might be persuaded if only more people would clog up the streets with flag-waving displays. While those in attendance might have believed themselves part of a joyous democratic celebration, others find these events irritating, even sinister. The historical record of nationalist movements is not, after all, a good one.
Yes, several thousand people ironed their Saltires and closed roads across Edinburgh yesterday, but there are millions more who wouldn’t dream of participating in such a jingoistic display.
The actor Brian Cox was scheduled to take part but illness prevented his attendance. Consolation was available, however, in the form of Green Minister Lorna Slater who, despite being unable to organise a simple deposit return scheme, remains convinced of her ability to help build an independent Scotland. Even the most devout nationalist must, surely, have questioned their faith when she spoke.
There was, I’m afraid, a deep pathos to Mr Yousaf’s appearance at yesterday’s rally. Having, through a lack of fresh ideas or vision, exposed himself as our dog-that-caught-the-car First Minister, he is reduced to preaching not only to the converted but to the nationalists’ core supporters.
SINCE Alex Salmond set about modernising the SNP in the 1990s, senior party figures have accepted they will not win independence by talking to themselves. Rather, they know success depends upon them reaching out to the sceptical and making a plausible case. In common with his predecessors as SNP First Minister, Mr Yousaf tells his followers that independence is getting closer, that it’s almost within their grasp. Yet recent polls show support for both the SNP and separation is slipping.
This is hardly surprising. After all, recent months have seen the SNP plunged into chaos and scandal. The arrests of former leader Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell as police investigate claims of fraud have created a crisis of unprecedented proportions within the party.
Bearing this in mind, the First Minister’s attendance at yesterday’s carnival of cranks tells us that he’s feeling desperate. If Mr Yousaf truly believed the independence movement had real momentum, the last thing he’d be doing would be marching with the partisans. Instead, he’d be focusing his attention on those Scots whose support he must win in order to make independence a realistic prospect.
Just four months after he succeeded Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Yousaf is the subject of speculation over his future. His party is split not only over independence strategy but on policies such as gender recognition and environmental protection.
For Mr Yousaf, yesterday was not about advancing the independence cause but about shoring up his own position.
Weak and devoid of fresh ideas, the First Minister’s real message was ‘Believe in Humza Yousaf’.