The independence dream that Labour voters once shared has been betrayed |
What drew many Labour supporters to independence in 2014 — and what has happened to that promise in the years of SNP dominance that followed, asks Kevin McKenna.
It’s rarely mentioned now why so many Labour voters came out for Scottish independence in 2014. More than 30% of us did so.
A motley suite of reasons are cited for this migration, including the simplest one: that some were beguiled by the romanticism of being in at the birth of a newly-independent nation. I suspect though, that the overwhelming majority of us saw in independence the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for creating a Socialist Republic.
None of us would have voted SNP in normal circumstances. For us, nationalism too often begat exceptionalism and attracted some who were motivated by anti-Englishness. Even so, the SNP itself seemed leftish enough and had in their ranks some politicians of genuine stature and ability, not the least of whom was their leader, Alex Salmond. And so, we viewed the SNP as the relatively harmless vehicle for achieving independence, to be discarded as soon as the missives were concluded.
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Now, nearly 12 years on from the first referendum, it’s become clear that independence has become a side-issue for the SNP, to be dusted down and polished immediately prior to a Holyrood election. John Swinney’s declaration last week that a pro-independence majority would provide a mandate for a second referendum had all the depth of a tweet on Donald Trump’s Truth Social.
What you’ll see over the next four months is the five-yearly natural phenomenon of SNP hack politicians dutifully peppering their social media........