Commentary

A curious paradox is occurring within the SNP and the broader Separation movement. The more secession becomes impractical, and even prohibitively so, the more they are determined to talk about it. 

The SNP have failed to stop Brexit. Their alternative offers even more disruption. Their vaccination policy is lagging behind other parts of the UK, even though they claim the opposite. The COVID payouts they are responsible for have failed to materialise; the E.U. has rebutted their advances and their prized First Minister, their only person of note, is facing a civil war and a fight for her political existence.

When? It’s the perpetual separatist question. A question that seeps from every utterance. When will our ‘independence’ come? When will we be ‘free’? When will we get a second referendum?

I was asked recently, when I believe it is the right time to hold a second referendum and I gave it some thought. I said that I didn’t believe it should be this year or, for that matter, this decade. Perhaps after then?

For those who, unfortunately, spend their time trawling through the endless toxic abuse and conspiracy theories that make up secessionist Twitter, you may have, aside from the usual whataboutery and false comparisons, noticed a common retort to questions on how exactly a separated Scotland would establish its organs of state.

Many of these supposed “examples” reference the nations which were established after the collapse of the USSR between 1989 and 1992. A period of turmoil, economic collapse, uncertainty and even bloody warfare in many parts of the former union, the scars of which are still keenly felt in places such as Armenia, Azerbaijan or Tajikistan.  

I have met a few Scottish nationalists, certainly a minority, who acknowledge the upheaval, to put it lightly, that the first decades of Separation would inevitably bring. They acknowledge the financial, social and political risks, the defence issues, the global and local problems - and to them, it is still worth it.

They are willing to undergo all that may happen because they fundamentally believe their sacrifice is required for Scotland to break away from the United Kingdom. They do not hide away from the difficulties and do not attempt to conceal them, and in such, I have no problem with them. We are each entitled to our own opinions and beliefs, at least until Humza Yousaf’s hate speech law comes into force, and it is in no way my prerogative to deny them the expression of their honestly-held beliefs.