YouScotland - Guest Blog

Independence - A Movement as well as a Party

Ian Ross lives in Bridge of Weir in Renfrewshire and has just turned 80. A lifelong campaigner for Scottish independence, he reflects on the strategic challenge facing the new SNP led Government at Holyrood and the need to broaden support for constitutional change.

The Scottish National Party deserves to be congratulated on emerging from the wilderness despite a hostile press and a hostile establishment and managing to form a government in the Scottish Parliament if only a minority one. After a long succession over the decades of Secretaries of State and First Ministers, all taking their cue from London it is truly remarkable and almost incredible to have a First Minister  who actually cares about Scotland, loves and respects Scotland and is prepared to speak up in its defence when necessary.

But excessive optimism would be rash if one looks hard at the composition of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish National Party stands for government of the Scottish people by the Scottish people and for the Scottish people. The Scottish Labour Party stands for government of the Labour Party by the Labour Party and for the Labour Party. The Scottish Conservative Party stands for government by London. It is difficult to discern exactly what the LibDems stand for. Rumour has it that their ability to coalesce with a party most of whose views they do not share and their refusal to coalesce with a party most of whose views they do share is bound up with the furtherance of the United Kingdom political career of Sir Menzies Campbell.

The mixture of opinions among the Scottish people is equally unreassuring. It is well known that only about 25% favour independence, the raison d'être of the SNP.  Three hundred years of union with a country ten times bigger has produced a population of provincials diffident about declaring their Scottishness and apprehensive of shouldering responsibility for their country. Many people express pride in their Scottish ancestry only to follow this hastily with an assertion that other things are more important. Scottish attributes - accent, clothes, home address - tend to be treated as fashion  accessories to enhance social attraction, not simply to be enjoyed and loved. Home Rule appears to be essentially a financial matter, GERS, Barnett, figures not adding up etc. A neighbour discussing
independence coldly asked "Can we afford it?". as though discussing the purchase of a new fridge. The change of one of Scotland's oldest institutions from the Bank of Scotland into "HBOS" does not seem to shock anybody. Might it be imagined that one day Edinburgh Castle will be taken over by PC World for use as a warehouse and bits of old junkvlike the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone will be sold off to an American museum? Is it conceivable that Bannockburn, Flodden and Culloden might be supposed by teenagers to have been venues for football matches? It is perhaps this absence of national self assurance that forces people to seek fulfilment in bleak sectarianism, , tribalism and obsession with football.

Let us be quite clear about the situation in which Scotland finds itself. Little point in repeating ad nauseam the economic arguments produced by either side. Scotland forms part of Britain which, let's face it, is a euphemism for Greater England. The attitude of Westminster to Scotland and all things Scottish is one of contempt or at best indifference - as recent events testify. In its treatment of Scottish resources it is rapacious. It smiles benevolently at quaint provincial attributes but is outraged at any suggestion of nationhood. Tony Blair dismisses scornfully what he calls the politics of grievance but then proceeds to demonstrate his complete lack of respect for Scotland's First Minister and its legal system. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the wellbeing of Scotland will be best served by severing the link with Westminster and replacing it  with a good neighbourly relationship. We do not need a penny of English money but we must insist on having every single penny of Scottish money. But there is another thing to be made clear. The Scottish people must be made plainly aware of the realities facing them. A means must be found of restoring awareness and pride in the national identity and infusing the will and the courage to do something about it. Without this being achieved, without positive, conscious, full blooded support from the Scottish people, the core policy of the Scottish National Party will be meaningless. It should not be forgotten that the SNP's electoral success resulted not from a desire for independence but from disillusionment with the Labour Party. The Scottish National Party has the task of putting over a message which is as yet not understood and which the average political party is probably ill equipped to perform.

The SNP might widen its appeal by making overtures to other interests, other facets of Scottish life - universities both teachers and students), school teachers, churches, the Islamic community, the Poles etc. in search of a wider diversity of talent and a sensitivity towards principles and loyalties which perhaps the Scottish people may have lost. We need a proper St. Andrew's Day. We need a proper national anthem, not a football ditty but something like Finlandia or the Deutschlandlied or the Norwegian national anthem to inspire a sense of national loyalty. Scottish history should be taught properly and attractively and the syllabus for doing so should be properly thought out and not left to chance. Scottishness and Scottish nationality need to be made fashionable, not something to be dodged or swept under the carpet. The Saltire should also be made fashionable. What about a table top Saltire to adorn a mantelpiece or have a place at SNP conference tables; something attractively (and, yes, expensively) designed. With a bit of financial help would this not be a job for the Saltire Society?

A possible alternative might be the development alongside the SNP of a Movement, something of a more or less cultural nature using propagandantry that Scotland is and could become.Our homeland is not just a matter of bens and glens. I am fascinated by our magnificent Firths, the amazing and exciting variety of scenery in such a small country, the gracious urban tenements to be found all over Scotland, the dignified classical style of many Church of Scotland churches (I am a Catholic myself) and the French Renaissance style characteristics of some of our great houses - redolent of a time when we were part of Europe and not just a fag end of greater England. I suspect that a movement of this sort cannot be readily engineered by a political party organisation unavoidably preoccupied with votes, fund raising and the bread and butter interests of constituents.

There remains the position of the Scottish establishment. Nations are destroyed not only by military defeat or destruction of their physical resources. Their cultural identity can also be destroyed by the elimination of their cultural treasures - objets d'art, buildings, cities and also the personalities who guide and direct the nation and give it expression.. The Nazi Germans were adept at this especially in Eastern Europe but, even in the UK, their invasion plans included a kind of Baedekers Guide of all the famous people - writers, artists,politicians, professors etc. - all of whom were to be rounded up and removed. Scotland has suffered signally in this respect though not in the methodical Nazi fashion. The rot may have started as early as 1513 at the battle of Flodden when Scottish spears were no match for English halberds and the King and virtually all of his nobility lay dead leaving an orphaned nation. In 1603 the Union of the Crowns led to the departure to London of the bulk of the Scottish nobility in search of fleshpots. No doubt the Union of 1707 led to a similar exodus. Thomas Carlyle described the Scottish nobility as a set of famishing ferocious hyenas from whom the country had at no time and in no way derived any benefit whatever. Hopefully this draconian description is now out of date but it does seem in our present time that there are not as many people of real clout in Scotland as there might be and who could play a positive role in the nation's affairs.

One wonders if it might be possible to consider - very cautiously and very carefully - the setting up of a kind of voluntary "Second Chamber" to complement the Scottish Parliament. It could be a kind of club that met at intervals and held debates rather after the manner of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Perhaps the Church of Scotland would make their Assembly Hall available. Perhaps the Royal High School could assume something of its originally envisaged role. The members of such a body would approximate to the Scottish "great and the good" and might contain representatives from the Churches, Islam, immigrant communities, universities, industry, business, etc. Such a body would of course have no statutory status but if it contained the right people and conducted its debates suitably, it might well constitute a valuable voice and a potent expression of Scottish opinion.

We live in what may turn out to be one of the most significant moments of Scottish history. The time may possibly have come when the Scots rediscover who and what they are, learn to walk tall, rejoice in the beauty of their homeland and take pride in their ability to exploit its rich resources. The French writer, Renan, described nationalism as the memory of having done great things together and the desire to go on doing great things together. To paraphrase the words of General de Gaulle, addressing the crowds of Quebec, Vive l'Ecosse! Vive l'Ecosse libre!

John Drummond

John Drummond. founding member of the Constitutional Commission explains why it is now time for a New Constitutional Convention and how you can help.

Who wants a Constitution? Well, actually Scotland does. Indeed we have never been in greater want of a constitution than now. Put simply, a constitution tells you what a body (a country, a social club) stands for, as well as what it will not stand for. Granted, some constitutional discussions may seem dry and boring - until the time comes when you need to look to your rights and responsibilities. Could you say right now what these are? Assuming you could figure out what rights you have; do you know what safeguards exist to protect these rights?

Let’s say the state decides to go to war, and you don’t. You choose to live in a democracy so you accept that you are bound by the majority view. So what constitutes a majority? One vote, one hundred, a thousand? After all this is a major decision. A vote taken where? In parliament; which parliament? An opinion poll? A million people on the streets?

None of this is new and various states have tackled it in different ways and come to a variety of answers. Few, however, have taken the peculiar route travelled in the UK and ended with an unwritten constitution.  It’s no secret that unwritten constitutions are deeply unfashionable - and for good reason. (Taken to its extreme there is nothing to prevent the UK parliament deciding by a single vote that having red hair is unconstitutional.) Or it could abolish the Scotland Act, maybe deciding that devolution hasn’t worked as intended.

That’s OK; you say, we have checks and balances like the House of Lords. In the light of the cash for peerages row, one is reminded of the old description of the Chicago police force as: “the best that money could buy”. So you see this is serious stuff. And it goes on. For some time the UK had two Prime Ministers - GB and TB. Who is really in charge? Who knows? The only guide seems to be press reports, and the media says it is difficult to decide because there are no precedents. You mean it isn’t written down somewhere who is in charge? And who decides? Nope, the decision appears to rest on the fact that it was done this way once before, so it must be fine.

Lest we forget too, Prime Minister Blair was elected by a minority of the electorate and chose to hand over to someone else in mid term and at no stage were the governed consulted. This is so crude and unsatisfactory that the terms ‘banana’ and ‘republic’ come readily to mind.

Soon the Conservatives will announce their latest round of constitutional tinkering with the odd Grand Committee here and a review body there. And this will be followed, as sure as night follows day, by a response from another political party. The outcome will be minor refurbishments to a crumbling edifice that is well past being ‘fit for purpose’ for the 21st century. Moreover, with a minority government in Scotland the likelihood is that constitutional issues will intensify. And we will be in the front line of these constitutional meanderings. Do we really want all these essential matters dealt with on a piecemeal basis?

Go to www.constitutionalcommission.org , if you agree that this is no way to run a country. There you’ll find a description of our appeal to have all constitutional matters affecting Scotland debated and decided in this country and how we‘d like to help determine a written constitution. Importantly we want to do this by asking the people. The usual form for constitutional debates is that the politicians decide what’s best and put it to the rest of us. We’d like to reverse this process. You can help. Join us.

John Drummond lives in Kinrosss, is the Managing Director of good corporate governance consultancy Integrity Works, and is a founding member of the Constitutional Commission. He was also recently elected to YouScotland's Advisory Group.

Fiona Sinclair

"I warn you not to fall ill, not to be old, not to be disabled or poor" - Neil Kinnock, speech of 7th June 1983

- And most certainly not to be autistic, or to love someone who is autistic, in a state that is hell-bent on social control.

Fiona Sinclair is the founder of Autism Rights, and mother of an autistic child. Now living in Ayrshire, she is a longstanding community activist, and successfully led a campaign to close a major waste incinerator plant near Inverness.

It is not just ID cards that threaten our  civil liberties, it is a whole array of legislation and policies that mount a cumulative assault on some of our most cherished ideals about the society we live in. In the long run, all our lives will be deeply affected by the legislation and policy that I have outlined in Autism Rights' Briefing Paper `Incompetent, Abusive, or both?" read here 

This paper makes a devastating case against a Scottish Executive that has indulged in the most asinine regurgitation of Westminster policies of control. While the London-based press has lifted the lid on many of the individual pieces of regressive legislation, specifically the policy and legislation on databases and the Mental Health Act, the Scottish media has virtually ignored even these. However, the really nasty stuff is in the interaction between a number of legislative and policy changes that clearly have been inspired and directed by the UK government, but have been pushed further and faster by the Scottish Executive.

Scotland's Mental Health Act, which was introduced after much controversy in 2003, enables the enforced medication in the community of people (i.e. adults and children) with `mental disorders`  under Community Treatment Orders.  The Westminster Department of Health's own research review recently concluded that these CTOs would be wholly ineffective.  The Scottish Executive has classed ASD as a `mental disorder`, and has thus categorised mental illness on a par with autism, which is a disability. SIGN, who publish clinical guidance on behalf of the Scottish Executive, are expected to recommend the `treatment` of people with ASD with dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, that are currently marketed for the `treatment` of children and adults labelled with ADHD.

The Scottish Executive's conference on ASD in November 2005 gave tacit backing to this guidance, in spite of evidence demonstrating the benefits of dietary change and nutritional supplementation, as against inadequate research into the effects of drugs such as Risperidone on children with ASD, and a scaling up of the official warning on the adverse effects of such drugs, which have been directly implicated in fatalities amongst children.

Place all of this in the context of a situation where parents may be threatened with the withdrawal of educational provision for their children if they refuse to drug them and where threats of the initiation of  child protection proceedings may be made, when parents push for services in healthcare and education that they believe are more appropriate to the needs of their children. At the tip of an iceberg of ignorance, wilful incompetence and intimidation, a disproportionate number of parents of autistic children will find themselves accused of Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy (MsbP), where it is claimed that they are using their children to seek attention, mainly from health professionals.

The UK government has compiled guidelines on MsbP, which overlap with the international clinical criteria for ASD.  At the lower end of the iceberg, professionals frequently accuse parents of being responsible for their child's autistic behaviours or genuine medical problems, even where a diagnosis of ASD has been made. This is bad enough, you might think - but the absence of standards appropriate to the needs of people with ASD, the absence of enforcement of legislation or regulation  that support service provision, the general crass ignorance of ASD amongst education, health  and social care professionals and wilful incompetence within officialdom at both local and national levels all conspire to create the kind of hell that has culminated in suicides and other deaths of mothers and their children and widespread stress to people with autism and their families . Why would any service provider budget properly for services for people with autism and their families, when there are so many disincentives ranged against this?

Of course, some of these disincentives don't just apply to people with autism -  they also apply to other people with disabilities, carers, the elderly, the mentally ill and the poor.  Yet more shoddy legislation and policy reinforces an already oppressive situation:- The Adult Support and Protection Bill gives a local authority the power to take a vulnerable adult out of their family home against their will and without the right of appeal. It also includes the power to imprison any family members that resist such a measure. Thus, the very local authorities that are charged with assessing and providing a service, and who so often prove to be totally resistant to fulfilling these responsibilities in any competent fashion, have acquired powers to `punish` families who disagree with the provision on offer, or who are battling to achieve any provision at all.

The Scottish Executive's proposals for  `reforming the children's support system` make provision for `data sharing` on all children. but hold particular concerns over the way they will collate and distribute professional opinion on children with disabilities, because of the conflation of `child support` with `child protection` within these policies. Given the clear association that government is making between autism and pseudo-medical diagnoses such as MSBP,  there is a very clear threat to families with autistic children.

Although, in their totality, these legislative and policy changes have a worse effect on people with autism and their families, a number of these changes impact just as badly on other groups within society. The Mental Health Act makes specific mention of the all-embracing diagnostic label of `personality disorder`. Not only is this a contested diagnostic label  (even the psychiatrist behind his profession's diagnostic `bible` admits that most psychiatric labels cannot be scientifically verified),  it should be recognised as the Stalinist's all-encompassing solution for quiet disposal of a government's  `awkward squad`. We should take heed when `researchers reveal` that 1 in 20 people has a `personality disorder`, the incidence of which is much higher if you are on a low income or are unemployed .....

The choice for our future is clear – do we want to rebuild a civilised Scottish Society, or do we want to march relentlessly towards a Stasi State?

Go here for for more information on Autism Rights and how to get invoved in the campaign