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Tuesday 22 March 2016

The blinkered Brit

What David Mundell needs to learn is that his inability to comprehend something doesn't necessarily make it "odd". The problem may well not be with the concept that is perplexing him, but with his own intellectual capacities.

Mundell's comments suggest that he makes no distinction between the UK and the EU. Both are political unions. Therefore, to his evidently limited way of thinking, they are the same. Thus, he is left utterly confused by the notion that people might want to end one political union, but preserve the other.

This is not a problem for people who understand the nature of the EU and the UK. But, like other British nationalists, Mundell has no idea what the UK is. He doesn't understand it,because he has never questioned it. He has never even thought about it. His attachment to the British state is more instinctive and emotional than intellectual and pragmatic.

This is why the anti-independence campaign was no more than that - an entirely negative anti-independence campaign. There was no pro-union campaign. There could be no positive case for the union because, in order to formulate such a case, unionists would have had to reflect on the question of what the union is. And they simply can't do that.

I doubt if Mundell has any better idea of what the EU is. So it is, perhaps, unsurprising that he can so easily fall into the simplistic folly of equating it with the UK. So, the SNP's position of independence in Europe is bound to be incomprehensible to the poor soul.

He is not alone. Many people make the same mistake. Those on the Yes side in Scotland's constitutional debate are generally people who have questioned the whole concept of the political union between Scotland and England. They are the ones who have scrutinised this constitutional arrangement. And they have found it to be profoundly unsatisfactory.

Yes voters are people who think for themselves. They get behind the propaganda and beyond the sentiment and they look at the reality of the union. Pretty much everybody who does this ends up supporting the restoration of Scotland's rightful constitutional status.

The lever that moves No voters away from their unthinking attachment to the British state is the question that prompts them to start thinking about it. That may well be a different question for each. There is no one 'magic question' that will do the trick. But once the barrier of blind allegiance is breached, the process is self-fulfilling. And there is rarely any going back. Once the illusion is broken, the structures of power, privilege and patronage which define the British state cannot be unseen.

The political union between Scotland and England is an arrangement that we, the people, had no part in creating or sanctioning. It is an anachronistic, disfunctional, corrupt union which serves none of the people off these islands well.

It is a union which was always intended to serve the purposes of the ruling elites. A union which, in that regard if no other, has not changed one iota in the last three centuries.

It is a union that sucks the human and material resources out of our nation and in return gives us government by parties that we have emphatically rejected at the polls.

It is a union that imposes policies which are anathema to our people. Policies which have been rejected by our democratically elected representatives.

It is a union which, were we being given that option now, not one of us would vote to join.

For all Mundell's inability to appreciate the fact, there is no meaningful similarity between the UK and the EU. For all its defects - and there are many - it is a modern, democratic organisation. Not perfectly democratic. But the perfectly democratic organisation doesn't exist.

The EU is, in its essence, a bold and largely successful experiment in post-imperial international arrangements. Politicians and bureaucrats may have buggered-up bits of it. But the fundamental idea is sound. Far more sound than the underpinning concept of the UK - which is, basically, just the latest formulation of the 'Greater England' project.

Seeing things as they are dispels confusion. Scotland is a nation. The EU is an association of nations. The UK is more like a cartel dominated by an entrenched clique.

All we seek for Scotland is the right to freely negotiate the terms on which our nation associates with others - be that England, the EU, or any other nation or international organisation. British nationalists are determined to deny us this right. The EU does not. That, if nothing else, is a difference that should be apparent even to a blinkered, dogma-bound unionist ideologue like David Mundell.

10 comments:

  1. Someone who does not know but will strive to ken is more than perfectly acceptable for that is the mark of the open-minded common man and woman and scholar. However, the Mundells of this world, in their willful, gutter pig-ignorance and imposed measures to make their pig-ignorance the rule that binds humanity must be opposed and deposed.

    He and his Unionist cohorts are now being made subject to the re-ignited Enlightenment of the Scottish citizenry enquiring and striving after the repatriation of their liberty and sovereignty enhanced exponentially.

    Tae the democratic tumbrils and tumbrels with this lot, and may their names go down in the annals of not only Scots but human history for their sly, thuggish, bone-headed, bovine attempts to subvert the fabric of Scottish democracy and freedom of mind and
    will of the citizens of Alba.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ROFL oh Peter you excel yourself this time, this latest blog is straight out of Animal Farm 'Two legs bad, four legs good'!

    So while Nicola Sturgeon stomps around Scotland extolling the virtues of being in a union, good for trade, movement of people and finance, no trade barriers.

    Wee Peter then tries to make out that unions are bad.

    Of course everything wee Nicola says about the EU, can be applied to the UK, with whom we have far more in common than we ever will with Berlin or Brussels.

    I wonder when Peter will realise that he is a blinkered Nationalist?

    You could always ask the Greeks or Cypriots their views on the EU Peter, and how democratic they think it is, let alone the Italians who had an EU backed Government imposed on them.

    But in Mr Bells wee parochial world, Westminster Bad, Brussels and Berlin Good!

    As just how 'Independent' in Europe would Scotland ever be?

    Perhaps Peter might care to ask Jim Fairlie about that, but I'm guessing he won't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am content to let your increasingly demented comments testify to your character and intellect.

      Delete
  3. Peter A Bell24 March 2016 at 11:28

    I am content to let your increasingly demented comments testify to your character and intellect.

    Et tu Peter, et Tu-:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh dear, oh dear Peter....

    https://twitter.com/JimFairlie/status/714465207125426176

    "If "sovereignty of the Scottish people is in the DNA" of the SNP, why are they prepared to surrender it to the EU?"

    I wonder how Paraochial Pete will answer this comment from Jim Fairlie...?

    *Tumbleweed*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I ever meet this "Parochial Pete" character, I'll be sure to ask him. I suspect that, like myself, he'll laugh his arse of at the dumb hypocrisy of a British nationalist fanatic talking about 'parochialism'.

      And, supposing your imaginary friend is of normal intelligence, he'll be aware that the UK and the EU are totally different forms of political union. Who knows? He might even have the patience to try and explain these differences to a cretin like yourself.

      Delete
    2. I love it when you talk dirty to me Peter-:)

      Your talent for comedy though has hitherto largely gone unrecognised, I think I will put this forward for the comedy gold of the day award.

      "Seeing things as they are dispels confusion. Scotland is a nation. The EU is an association of nations. The UK is more like a cartel dominated by an entrenched clique."

      Obviously Brussels is not run by an unaccountable clique of bureaucrats, and the EU is not dominated by Berlin.

      As for Scotland being a nation, have the UN recognised this?

      See what I mean Peter?

      But then who to believe, an obese blogger from Perth, or the former Deputy leader of the SNP?

      It's a touch call to make...

      Delete
    3. That you descend to referring snide remarks about a medical condition with which I am struggling is probably a better window on your obnoxious character than the remainder of your inane comments.

      This in not social media. I will not have contributors to this site subjected to the kind of ignorant abuse that appears to be your sole form of communication. Say something sensible, or you're gone.

      Delete
    4. Peter, don't waste your time on this twat. Anyone who ignores the analysis and then resorts to offensive ad hominem remarks is not worth talking to.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete