At this moment my personal life is reflecting my political one: Scotland voted No on the 18th of September and I am currently unemployed. Both situations are weighted down with melancholy and frustration. As a recent university graduate I stumbled forth into post-uni life with a mixed bag of fear, apprehension, excitement and hope. After a few months of job hunting the latter two emotions seem to have vanished entirely. The endless possibilities that raced through my mind have retreated and in their place all that is left is the cold clinical regard of ‘Great’ Britain. Its gaze is not kind. Like many Yes supporters I awoke the day after the vote feeling as if I’d just lost a part of myself. I cursed, I shed a tear or two, I sat in silence trying to wrap my head around what my country had just voted for. On social media I lashed out angrily towards the No voters: “Call me not Scottish for the name is filled with cowardice. Call me Glaswegian or Dundonian. Those names are filled with pride and courage.” Looking back at tweets such as these brings a slight sense of shame. Insinuating that No voters were cowards was petty and a disservice to those who voted No because they believed change within the U.K could happen. We all say things we regret from time to time. The referendum result was one of the most difficult things that I’ve experienced and my reaction fitted those extreme feelings. Before the referendum I was politically apathetic; I didn’t care for British politics one iota. The Yes campaign inspired me; for the first time in my life I believed radical change was possible. The No vote had snuffed out all my hope and belief. I watched Westminster get back to ‘business as usual’ so fast you would be forgiven for thinking the referendum – in all its colour, vibrancy and reach – never happened. Now I’m not in a terrible situation in my life just now. I may be unemployed but I am not starving. I am lucky enough to have a family to rely on and while that comes with its challenges – having lived away from home for six years and coming back requires no small degree of adjustment – it puts me in a better position than many. Despite all of this, being unemployed is not a great position to find yourself. Much like the despair after the referendum result, each rejection letter received saps you of your self-worth. Every application that goes unanswered robs you of your confidence and with each passing day/week/month you retreat further and further into yourself. Then the doubts creep into the back of your mind and poison any attempt at positive thinking. The future looks bleak and no matter how many times you tell yourself things will get better, you don’t believe a word of it. For me, one of the highlights of the referendum was how it brought to light my own values and beliefs. Social justice, equality, welfare, renewable energy and the living wage are just a few areas which held little interest for me before the referendum but are now so rooted into my view of the world that they have become part of who I am. I was looking at Britain in a completely new light, seeing the corruption, the broken systems, the apathy, the restrictive class structure and the stagnant and at times regressive politics of Westminster. I believed a Yes vote was a step towards tackling all of these issues and that an independent Scotland would be an example to the rest of the United Kingdom: this is how you get people back into politics, this is how you bring about change. Now Scotland is stuck in the strait-jacket that is ‘devolution within the United Kingdom’. As soon as the vote had been announced, the Tories and Labour went back to each other’s throats, the ‘Scottish problem’ was solved and it was now time to focus on important matters: England. We went back to being an irrelevant nuisance and the majority who inhabit the House of Commons have shown the barely-contained contempt in which they hold us. We had our referendum nonsense, now it’s time for Scotland to go back in its box. The Yes campaign received its rejection letter with Scotland’s soon to follow. It turns out we aren’t as much of an ‘integral part of the Union’ as the No camp tried desperately to make out that we were. The No vote has knocked us back a step. We have to accept the referendum result as the democratic desire of the people of Scotland. That doesn’t make it any easier and being unemployed, faced with a country that is quickly travelling down the path of foodbanks, workfare, zero-hour contracts, benefit sanctions and poverty wages, makes it even worse. I feel for those who don’t have a safety net, who are on the edge, who will be the first in line to face George Osborne’s new rack of cuts. The poor and the working classes will be squeezed even more while MPs’ salaries increase, we shell out £3 Billion for a bombing campaign, and tax avoidance and evasion remains the nightmarish mythological beast that’s rumoured to haunt Westminster halls on dark winter nights. Business as usual. Despite all of this the Yes movement has shown a resilience that was unthinkable before the vote. Slowly but surely we are picking ourselves (and helping pick each other) back up. The referendum result was a gut-punch that sent us down on one knee but it didn’t stop us. Independence was not the end in and of itself. A Yes vote was merely the catalyst through which the radical social and economic change we desired could best be achieved. Those desires have not went away; if anything they are stronger now than they ever were. We stood face-to-face with everything the British Establishment could fling at us and we did not flinch. What makes them believe we will now? The fact that we lost does not mean our campaign to create a fairer society ends. We need to continue this fight, to hold Westminster to account, to try and inspire others and to grow the Yes movement beyond the boundaries it found itself within during the referendum. The onus is now on the No voters. To those who voted No in the belief that radical change can be achieved within the U.K, I say ‘take centre stage’. It is now your responsibility to act on the beliefs and arguments that you put forth during the campaign. If you truly believed that this ‘Great’ Union is for turning then mobilise. From what I’ve seen though, there doesn’t seem to be an appetite for radical change among our Better Together friends. Time may tell otherwise but at the moment it seems the only intact, cohesive and robust group in Britain that has the ability to enact social and economic change is the former Yes campaign. The irony is probably lost on most. For all the set backs, for all the despair and hurt and anger, those of us who campaigned for a Yes voter cannot throw in the towel now. We may have been handed our rejection letter but it simply means we must try harder. We need to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the Yes campaign; what were the areas where we were successful, where did we struggle and why? Before we move forward there must be a period of reflection, of self-evaluation. Scotland voted No so what does the post-Yes movement stand for? What are our aims and goals? We still have the momentum. The question is: what is the best course of action to utilise it? I could easily slink back into political obscurity, relying on others to carry on the fight but something stops me. Call it ‘political awakening’ or ‘democratic engagement’ or what you will. I’ve peaked behind the curtain and there is no going back to business as usual. I know the face of the enemy of the working class people in these islands. I’ve seen its power and I know that there are no depths to which it will not sink. I can’t turn away from that. Continuing the fight that Yes began no longer seems like a choice; it is a civic responsibility. If the post-Yes campaign does not fight for radical change throughout the British Islands then who is there left to take our place and carry the torch?The Labour party? Such jokes lay heavy on the heart. I’m unemployed and I feel the despair and misery clicking at my heels more and more often of late. The series of blows, both personal and political, have overwhelmed me in ways I can barely describe but I cannot go back to the political apathy, to the disinterest and selfishness I once harboured. I cannot turn from the path which we have walked down. We have come so close to achieving the impossible. If I turned my back on all of it, if I gave in to this culture which seeks to bend me to financial slavery and nothing more, then I don’t think I could forgive myself. We owe more than we own or earn. The Yes message was always about putting ‘all of us first’. The choice we face is not a choice at all. We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back into this fight, any way that we can. Westminster will not change by itself, it will not even entertain the notion without outside pressure. It is up to us to keep that pressure on, no matter how many knock-backs we receive, how many hurdles we must jump through, how many obstacles we must overcome. We cannot afford to lie down any longer. The alternative, a country where the Tory/Labour/UKIP trinity run amok with next-to-no resistance does not bear contemplation, too horrific are the implications. We must make it be heard loud and clear: we are not going anywhere and this movement, this democratic revolution, this reawakening of our nation, it is not yet done.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 08:07:36 +0000
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