The referendum result did nothing to diminish the SNP’s belief that destiny is on its side The English and Scottish football teams meet at Celtic Park on Tuesday, the 112th “Home International” match. Wikipedia records that England has so far won 46 such games and the Scots 41. But frankly, who cares about the numbers? The actual football has always been a largely secondary aspect of England-Scotland games. In a contest between two nations whose precise relationship remains unsettled after so many centuries, what matters isn’t so much the result of the match as the memories. So while the Scots won the match at Wembley in 1977 by two goals to nil, the game is remembered for Scottish fans tearing down the goalposts in a pitch-invasion that convinced many English watchers that the Scots remained a wild and violent tribe, beyond the civilised pale. Likewise that goal by Paul Gascoigne in 1996, and the triumphal English celebrations that many Scots saw as further proof of their neighbours’ irredeemable arrogance. England won the game, but lost the battle of memory. Suppose that when the whistle blows on Tuesday night the Scots have lost. How should the vanquished react? Beaten sides usually skulk away quietly to lick their wounds while the winners parade around in glory. Sometimes, the defeated slide into recrimination: who’s to blame? Generally, what beaten teams do not do is run a victory lap of the pitch amid echoing cheers, spraying champagne and talking about the thumping margins by which they will plan to win their next three games. Likewise, you don’t expect to see the winners scuttle back to the dressing room in shame and confusion. Yet on the political playing field, that is what has happened in the past two months. This weekend, a joyful Scottish National Party gathers in Perth for what looks remarkably like a victory rally, a surprising mood for a party whose existential aim of Scottish independence was bluntly rejected by the Scottish people in September’s referendum. A casual observer would hardly know the Scots had voted No. In Perth, the Yes campaign is even selling 2015 calendars. It may strike English observers as curious, but the SNP’s good cheer is justified. The party now routinely polls above 50 per cent and has around 84,000 members. Given the size of the Scottish population, that’s the equivalent of the Conservatives or Labour having close to a million. In fact, neither currently exceeds 200,000. In a move as astute as it is ambitious, the SNP will now allow non-members to stand as candidates at next year’s election: the Nationalists are trying to grow beyond party politics and become a national movement. Even as the members acclaimed Nicola Sturgeon their new leader, they lionise the man she replaces. Alex Salmond, driven by referendum defeat to resignation, has lost none of his swagger. Having promised to accept the referendum result as binding for a generation, he now predicts independence in his lifetime (he is 59) and ponders a return to Westminster at a general election he says could easily return 25 SNP members, or at least enough to give the Nationalists real clout in a hung parliament. He may have lost the fight of his life, but he resembles nothing so much as Alec Guinness’s Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, taunting his imperial conquerors: “You can’t win. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Those conquerors, meanwhile, are in disarray. Scottish Labour (official membership: 13,000) has no leader and faces grievous losses at the general election. The Scottish Conservatives are no more popular and, unforgivably, some senior Tories in London are even privately celebrating the SNP surge, since it comes at Labour’s expense. The Unionist parties agree that the response to Scotland’s No vote is to devolve more powers to Scotland. Far from celebrating Scotland’s continued Britishness, the referendum winners are widening the differences between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. It’s not just politicians who are capitulating to the narrative of Nationalist triumph either. The Royal British Legion has announced that it will henceforth be known as “Legion Scotland” north of the Border. Scotland entered the Union in 1707 willingly, only later remembering itself as hoodwinked by the aristocratic elite that Robert Burns – writing in 1791, mark you – called “a parcel of rogues”. Likewise, this year’s 55 per cent – 45 per cent referendum result matters less than the story Scotland tells itself about the vote. The SNP’s version of history currently prevails, a tale of a proud nation bullied and tricked into rejecting freedom by a roguish parcel of corporate interests, a biased media and the Westminster elite. Because of the way the Unionists mismanaged their campaign and their victory, the referendum vote did nothing to reverse the trend towards Scotland imagining itself as increasingly different, separate. It has its own media, especially the dominant BBC Scotland, and its own political class. It may soon have its own tax rate. England, too, is drifting away, its brief moment of familial affection for the Scots giving way to misunderstanding, resentment and – most of all – indifference. The English FA has returned 2,000 of its 7,000 tickets for Tuesday’s game, unable to interest English fans in the fixture. The political debate in Scotland since the referendum is largely unknown to the English. Scotland may have voted to renew its marriage vow with England, but the couple still feel as far apart as ever, strangers sharing a bed.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:17:46 +0000
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