The madness of Jenny Hjul

A catalogue of distortion, lies, ill-informed comment and mindless hatred. Or. as it is otherwise known, an article by one of the more bitterly fanatical British nationalists, Jenny Hjul.

I read vile diatribes such as this and I am put in mind of the kind of demonising propaganda pumped out by the British state on the all too frequent occasions when it is seeking to justify some murderous overseas military adventure for the purposes of "regime change".

In tone, if not in the precise detail of language, Hjul's rant is barely distinguishable from the British establishment's fulminations against Saddam Hussein, or Muammar Gaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad. Or, in an earlier era, Mohandas K Gandhi, or any of many others subsequently acknowledged by the world as honourable and brave leaders of the struggle against brutish imperialist domination and exploitation.

Some will dismiss the comparison. But, apart from the stylistic parallel between Hjul's bilious bombast and state-sponsored hate-mongering, there are valid similarities in respect of the motivation for such intemperate vilification. In all cases, it is primarily about protecting the interests of the ruling elites of the British state. What the episodes of demonising propaganda have in common is that all are mounted against perceived threats to the structures of power, privilege and patronage which define the British state.

Jenny Hjul is clearly not clever enough to realise it, but the one thing that is clear from her rancid raving is that this is a political union which cannot possibly last. No union in which one of the parties is subject to this level of abuse can conceivably survive. It is not a matter of whether the union ends, but when.

And how. The SNP and the wider independence campaign have sought an orderly, amicable dissolution of the union in which those aspects which are commonly valued may be preserved, in some form and as far as possible. A break-up of the UK brought about by pedlars of hate such as Hjul is a very different matter. And a prospect relished only by those on the extreme lunatic fringe of British nationalism.