Generation Yes and Better Together’s Broken Promises

In truth Better Together of 2014 was more of a jump scare than a referendum campaign. My favourite piece of Unionist propaganda was when Defence Secretary Philip Hammond suggested that Scotland would be more vulnerable to attack by aliens if we were to become independent. The No campaign veered between love bombing from Trinny and Susannah to routine threats of harm. As many noted, it was like being in a coercive relationship.

At this distance I was interested in reflections (Where Scotland Stands) on why yesterday’s tenth anniversary seemed so muted. Gerry Hassan wrote: “The ten-year anniversary of our date with destiny has been a quiet, understated affair, and this is understandable. The pro-union forces do not want to dwell on this near-death moment for the union. The SNP as the largest political pro-independence force is not in the greatest shape to commemorate or reflect on what was ultimately a defeat – even though it felt at the time like a victory and shifted independence as an idea into the mainstream.”

I think that’s almost right. It’s certainly right that the SNP “is not in the greatest shape to commemorate or reflect on what was ultimately a defeat” but I’m not sure the pro-Union side is so shy. The remarkable triumphalism around Keir Starmer’s landslide victory and Scottish Labour’s comeback has led to a sense that ‘all is well with the world again’. We have been thankfully returned to default settings and all of that terrible nationalism has just gone away forever. But this smug comfort zone was punctured this week with Opinium polling that showed Scottish Labour is retaining just 76% of those who voted for them in July. This poll suggests that in a general election (i.e. UK), Scottish Labour would lose 21 seats, including: 5 Glasgow seats (East, North, South, NE, SW) 2 Edinburgh seats (East, SW) Falkirk Livingston West Dunbartonshire:

🚨 POLL: Scottish Labour vote plunges, SNP leads.

🟨 SNP 32% (+2)
🟥 LAB 25% (-10)
🟦 CON 14% (+1)
🟪 REF 11% (+4)
🟧 LD 8% (-2)
🟩 GRN 7% (+3)

Via @OpiniumResearch, 5-11 Sep (+/- vs GE2024) pic.twitter.com/OnlGJZoJNP

— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ (@LeftieStats) September 18, 2024

This isn’t a party political broadcast. This isn’t being pro-SNP. We’re way beyond that.

But it is suggesting that the idea that ‘all this’ has conveniently gone away and we are in some new era akin to Blair’s landslide in 1997 is clearly nonsense. A poll this week showed 57% of Scots think the country should have a second referendum on independence. If the same rules applied as they do in Northern Ireland, the Ian Murray would be obliged to hold a referendum. So we’re not going anywhere, and, as I argue in the forthcoming Ten Years of a Changed Scotland if Scotland hasn’t as changed as much as we thought through the referendum process, Britain has. The idea of ‘Britain’ (not just the specifics – we’ll get to them) has completely changed. We were sold Britain as a model of legal and economic stability, and of multiculturalism – a progressive link to the wider world. The less said about how this actually panned-out in reality the better.

But two or three very specific lies put forward by the Better Together campaign stand out. The first is the lie that the only way to remain in the EU was to vote No. In reality Scotland voted to remain in Europe, with every local authority voting to remain. Westminster took away our EU membership, and gave us blue passports and Boris Johnson instead.  The second is the idea of Britain as a place of economic security as opposed to the dangerous and experimental idea of a sovereign Scotland. We were specifically promised lower energy bills. Instead we have experienced skyrocketing cost of living and grotesque levels of (growing) poverty and inequality.

The third – and unarguably most egregious lie told ten years ago – was that voting NO would lead to a better constitutional settlement and much stronger devolution. This came very late in the day, in blind panic. It was a cynical move expertly promoted by the BBC and loyal media forums. It was cynical because the referendum had specifically ruled out ‘Devo Max’, a potentially popular choice that would have been favoured by people who wanted more Scottish democracy but remained unconvinced of independence.

In 2014, Gordon Brown promised “as close to federalism as you can be” if Scotland votes no. In 2014 Gordon Brown urged Scots to vote No for “faster, safer, better change” within the UK. A “modern form of Home Rule” that’s the “closest thing to federalism”, with Holyrood “handed equal status to Westminster.” “This is a promise we will keep,” he said.

There are a lot of misquotes and partial quotes out of context, so this is what he actually said:

“The British constitution has to reform, it’s broken, it needs to change. We are going to be as close, within a year or two, to a federal state as you can be in a country where one part of it, one nation, has 85% of the population. For centuries we held to this idea that Britain was a unitary state based on Westminster sovereignty, based on parliament being able to do what it wanted. None of that makes any sense any more.”
– Gordon Brown 2014

This was a straight lie from someone who had no means to deliver it. But the lie went on (and on). As late as 2021 Chris Deerin in the New Statesman would write with a straight face: “Keir Starmer has asked Gordon Brown to develop plans to devolve more power across the UK and to rejuvenate the party in Scotland. Both in London and Edinburgh, there is hope that a distinctive new offer, which strategists are calling “radical federalism”.

Gordon Brown groupies across print media (north and south of the border) continued the stage-hypnotism that ‘constitutional change is just around the corner’ for years. In fact it’s only just petered out in the last few months out of shear embarrassment – and the idea to switch to the new ruse that Labour’s ‘Mayor’s would represent some form of great new devolution from above.

In fact not only were these promises not delivered, we are hurtling backwards.

As I wrote last month – the attacks on devolution – Labour’s proposed direct rule means that “Labour are abandoning the institution they created, an institution that was supported by 74% of Scots who voted for a devolved parliament to take control of Scottish affairs. They are breaking the Sewell Convention, The Smith Commission, and the Scotland Act of 2012.”

There are two other reasons missing from Hassan’s analysis of the muted nature of the 10th anniversary commemoration. The first is that some people were just broken by it. Some sections of the Yes movement were broken or burnt-out by it. These people haven’t necessarily left the country but they have left the movement. That is a combination of activist burn-out, feelings of betrayal, or despair at lack of strategy (or all three).  That human cost shouldn’t be ignored.

The second reason why the turnout for the independence rally was so lacking in young people – as it was the Tom Nairn conference earlier this year – despite the figures of support for independence among young – is obvious. The Yes movement has been lead, configured and shaped by people in their fifties, sixties and up. The forums, content, and forms of delivery are off-putting and need to change radically if we want to make room for a new generation. Many young people don’t know that ‘Yes’ even means any more nor would recognise the silver-haired notional leadership from their grannies.

Finally, the world has moved on since 2014, and not in good ways. When Believe in Scotland didn’t want to turn up in George Square for the anti-fascist rally, it told us a lot. The climate catastrophe has been unfolding before us in the last ten years and yet elements of the independence movement – such as ALBA – act as if its 1974. The challenges and context of 2014 is completely different to what we face today. England, Britain, Europe and global geopolitics have morphed into new and darker forms.

Yes needs massively updated, overthrown, re-imagined and re-conceived.

The litany of lies and broken promises by Better Together can laid out before us like a shroud. But the Yes movement needs an overhaul that’s more radical than anyone is talking about (yet).