If independence is the logical next step for Scotland, this book contains few convincing arguments for it, writes David Torrance
SUPPORTERS of Scottish independence have never been short of self-assurance, an unshakeable belief that if only doubters' eyes could be opened, they too would fall in behind the "big idea".
Thus The Independence Book has added to already bulging "
Scottish Interest" sections in bookshops. Edited by Paul Henderson Scott and Harry Reid, and subtitled "Scotland in today's world", its five essays seek to preach to the converted and win over sceptics. Alas, this tome contains little to convince that independence is an idea whose time has come.
First a note on my provenance, necessary (although it ought not to be) to mitigate against inevitable cybernat-bashing. I worked for a Tory MP, but I am the son of a long-standing and passionate SNP activist and have no ideological or emotional difficulty with independence. I just despair at the dearth of compelling arguments in its favour. In the book, compelling arguments limp lamely behind rhetoric.
The first essay's contention is simple: "the British state is spent". Harry Reid recounts many of the UK's failures: poor education, "increasingly self-indulgent" behaviour and welfare-dependency, but crucially, he observes: "constitutional change cannot of itself solve these issues, but it can act as an enabler. It can provide the platform for significant revival."
I remember similar arguments being made for the creation of a Scottish Parliament, not least by Reid's old newspaper the Glasgow Herald. But while it is difficult to refute his belief that an independent Scotland would at least stand a chance of solving the nation's ills, he is conveniently silent on exactly how and why that "significant revival" would necessarily develop.
Reid is unapologetically idealistic and "simply cannot believe that an independent Scottish state would ever send its troops to invade a far-off land". He may be correct, but the point is that an independent Scotland state could, depending on its government, do precisely that.
The essence of Reid's vision rests – perhaps too heavily – on the shoulders of radical educationalist R F Mackenzie. Here, he says, was a "brilliant man" with an immense amount to offer Scotland, but "was left sidelined and disgruntled" by the UK establishment. Reid's point? "I'm certain that a free Scotland would have found a positive way of harnessing this exceptional man's idealism and aspiration." Why independent Scotland would respond to radicalism more positively than the UK is not adequately explained.
All becomes clear on reading the next essay by writer and diplomat Paul Henderson Scott. The Scots are, he contends, innately superior to the English, who have suppressed Scottish potential via education and broadcasting – which "have largely ignored our own history and literature" – for several generations. In this sense, Henderson Scott's arguments are anachronistic; this cultural vacuum may have existed in his youth, but it is unrecognisable in 21st-century Scotland.
History is important to Henderson Scott and rightly so, but his lingering obsession with the Act of Union labours many points (with which other historians of 1707 disagree) and often becomes esoteric. While Sir Walter Scott would no doubt be flattered to find five pages devoted to whether or not he was a unionist, it hardly shores up the modern case for independence. All too often he confuses his own enthusiasms – "the democratic intellect, philosophical thought, scientific discovery and international relations" – with those of Scotland in general.
Academic Neil Kay also fails to acknowledge that Scottish education has moved on from the classical schooling he had in the 1960s, and dwells on Scotland's lost industrial glories as if the Union were to blame rather than global recession. Kay identifies many economic problems associated with the Union, but fails to offer many remedies.
"If we did not already have a Union," he writes, "few would suggest forming it".
That also appears to be the contention of Tom Nairn. So sure is he of the case for independence that he does not even bother articulating it. Instead we are offered a baffling survey of international relations and the impact of globalisation. But then, he believes independence is "inevitable", an assertion conveniently free of a time scale.
"It's no longer enough to aspire vaguely towards 'democratic nationalism'," Nairn writes, unconsciously criticising much of the book's content. He at least recognises the limitations of independence as a panacea for Scotland's ills, conceding that "although not in itself a cure" it may be a "necessary condition of redressing the overall balance that serious therapy requires". What constitutes "serious therapy" is glossed over.
Betty Davies' essay, "An English Voice in Scotland", is the most personal of the five and thus mercifully free of economic and theoretic contextualising. But her critique of the UK Government's failings amounts more to an argument against the Labour Party than the UK itself. Each essayist fails to explain how independence would improve the lot of Scots at the bottom of society and sustain everyone else in an economically fragile world. This may not prevent what the book calls an "inescapable imperative", but it will mean that when Independence Day comes – and for long thereafter – Reid, Henderson Scott et al will have an awful lot of explaining to do.
• David Torrance is a freelance journalist and broadcaster. The Independence Book is published by Luath Press
The full article contains 907 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
