Come on, even the most naïve of 16-year-old Scots know independence is pie in the sky |
As young Scots drift from stale mainstream politics, the Greens may be capturing disaffected idealism with authenticity, housing pledges and sharper purpose, says Dani Garavelli
When all my sons still lived at home, we used to co-ordinate our diaries and head to our local polling station en masse. Had we been a different ethnicity, Reform might well have cast doubt on our motivations, implying a degree of coercion.
But we just liked the ritual and hoped we were fostering an engagement with the democratic process.
It began with our eldest, our devo baby. Born just before the 1997 referendum, we named him Jamie after the Scottish kings and parked his pram close to the booth as we placed an X in both Yes boxes.
That devo baby’s own first vote, at the age of 17, was in the independence referendum.
The voting age for Westminster being 18, he was too young to take part in the following year’s General Election, but he printed off a constituency map of Scotland and coloured it in as the results were announced. As it turned out, it was almost all yellow.
Back then, the SNP could sort of claim to be an insurgent party. Although they had been in government for seven years, they were still subversives, intent on disrupting the status quo.
It is the nature of young people to crave disruption, especially when the status quo has failed them.
In 2015, the SNP was energised, progressive, and cared so much about the opinions of 16 and 17-year-olds it gave them the opportunity to express them at the ballot box. No wonder so many were seduced by its siren call.
In the 12 years since the referendum, the SNP has become the party of the establishment (though there are those who still cleave to its rebel past).
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The party has been in power for two-thirds of our eldest son’s life, and the entirety........