Surrender or Adventure

SURRENDER OR ADVENTURE: From The Province Of The Cat by George Gunn.

The future of Scotland, in relation to the Union, is either surrender or adventure. Why is this? Well, on current evidence the managers of the UK state – from herein known as Ukania – would readily do away with democracy, given half a chance. If we stick with the Union are we are in danger of losing what vestiges of our hard-won democracy that we still possess and surrendering our Claim of Right. If we go for independence it will be an adventure, but at least our destiny will be in our own hands, even if no-one knows just where the adventure may lead. Ukanian politics has rendered us blind constitutionally. Yet we must adopt an attitude to this – we cannot afford not to – or we will be stuck in the political no-man’s land we are currently in and Scotland, as a consequence, will be taken apart even more rapidly, bit by bit, acre by acre, emigrant by emigrant. This is what colonialism does. So which way will we go? 

In Scotland we are encouraged to build the case for independence. In England the Westminster government is daily destroying the case for the Union. Between these two conditions the truth will emerge. Whether this is what the Fates decree or a case of hope over experience – experience, the name men give to their mistakes, as Oscar Wilde put it  – will be revealed in due course. 

The Unionists expect the Scottish nationalists to be like Tutankhamun – to save the world every night: King Tut must bring back Ra the Sun god, every morning.  No matter what we do, we must do it again. Nothing we do is enough. None of our freedom proposals are within the law. In reality nothing is going to save Ukania from itself, from the cold morning light of reality, or from the whisper that says that Scottish independence is inevitable. This whisper of freedom may increase in volume or it may remain the quiet singular voice from the chorus. But whatever it is, it is there – heard in the public forum and as the polls repeatedly and inconveniently show, it is not going away. 

Is the alternative independent future for Scotland going to be an actuality of the possible as possible, to mangle both Aristotle and James Joyce, or is it to be the forever nothing and sometimes something or other of devolution; the system of government which is neither a system or government, but merely administration disguised as autonomy? You can nail any sign you like over the byre door and call it “government”, but it is still the place the cows go to get milked. 

On the other hand, it is a mistake to compete with the Ukanian government, with its corruption, prejudices, restrictions and its anti-freedoms – the proscribing of Palestine Action being the latest and most nonsensical addition. Rather, it is wiser and in our longer-term interests for the Scots to wish for a better place, even a better world, for those who will follow us and will make that better place. This present generation, at least, has dreamed of it. This is no idyllic fantasy, but an act of defiance and a risky vision, yes, but the world is in a drastic place and Ukania, under Starmer, is heading into the mire. In Scotland, at the very least, we can avert that disaster and create an alternative. We have the ability and we certainly have the necessity. Direct political action springs from both. 

The English ruling class – in the past both Tory or Labour, and now an amalgamation of both – may think that with the Supreme Court ruling on 23 November 2022 the issue of sovereignty lieing with the Crown in (the Westminster) Parliament is laid to rest, that it is settled for good. It is not and it cannot be. It is merely their latest trick. The fact is they do not recognise the question: do you think Scotland should be an independent country? They do not understand it. It is beyond their terms of reference. The real question is: how can we be free? Westminster, despite its pomp and arrogance, cannot stop us from working towards a clear comprehension of the object of our efforts – which is independence for our country – so that we can, eventually and by a process of our own devising, accomplish that which we must accomplish. 

We cannot simply, blindly, wish independence into being. But we must think about it clearly. If we do so we will win what we desire. Make no mistake; the powerful forces at work in Westminster want to crush the Scottish independence movement into dust. It has been proven, time and again, that the Ukanian government, of whatever hue, will accept no form of words from us which outlines our case and the process by which we can assert our freedom. That was what the Supreme Court business three years ago was all about. Everything they have, including language, is stacked against us. We are told that the increased support for independence in the polls does not equate with support for the SNP. This is the usual divide and rule tactic employed by every oppressor, the Ukanian state being both the local and the latest. It is trumpeted daily through the media. Which begs the question: just how, politically, are we to achieve independence if not by voting for the SNP? If we are to play the parliamentary game then no other party is capable of delivering independence, even if that party’s leadership is currently asleep at the wheel.

The BBC, despite evidence to the contrary, are gleefully predicting years in the wilderness for the SNP after the next Scottish election. They can hardly wait for them to lose their majority. They are still expecting, despite even more evidence to the contrary, a Labour victory. This is because the BBC has gone from a national broadcaster to being a state broadcaster. They are part of the ruling class of Ukania and as such are hostile to Scotland and they are so because power is always frightened of those they oppress. It is the old relationship between master and slave and as time marches on it becomes more defined in Scotland. 

You can see this in Labour’s enthusiasm for nuclear power when there is absolutely no need for it in Scotland. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has raided £2.5 billion from the £8.5 billion GB Energy budget to develop small nuclear reactors that are not commercially viable anywhere in the world. The technology used to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants is the same technology for enriching uranium for nuclear weapons. This is what the Scottish Labour MP’s are so desperate to site in Scotland. However, their enthusiasm are selective. You never hear a cheap out of them about the global financial system being rigged, designed as it is to keep wealth in the hands of the few, while climate impacts, debt, and poverty spiral for the rest of us.  

In 2025 kindness is seen as being radical. This is because most people, as Naomi Klein has pointed out, have “learned to lead contented lives with ambient genocide.” We live in an age of self-interest. On TV occasional adverts for poverty relief in Gaza, Sudan, or for donkeys in North Africa, are slotted in between endless celebrations of material comfort, holidays, gambling, murder as a mystery and war as entertainment. Cynicism fuels these brain-dead juxtapositions. Who doesn’t love a good genocide, right? All this climate activism gets in the way of a good game of golf, don’t you think?

Surrender or adventure? Which way will we go? This the choice we have because not only are we blind constitutionally, we are also blind to the future. We are reduced, by the disregard, cowardice, incompetence and malice of our leaders, to ignorance. We are told by Westminster – and to a lesser extent by Holyrood – that we must accept our situation, even if it is bad, even if they say it is good – how are we, actually, to know the difference? The worst and the bad have not been defined in terms of an already set out ideal – no managerialist politician will ever do this – because if they were then we could determine just what are our possibilities as an independent country and we may conclude that stealing from the poor to reward the rich is not a good policy. But we don’t, because we can’t. Therefore, we will accept anything the Ukanian state imposes upon us because, somehow, we are glad that it is not as bad as it could be, even though it is. This is how we are blind. This is why, for Scotland now, the choice is: surrender or adventure. Either we forget about independence or we go on the adventure of creating a modern, compassionate and empathetic country. What have we got to lose?

 

©George Gunn 2025

For more information on how to resist the UK Supreme Court’s ruling and how to move forward go to https://www.liberation.scot/ and https://liberation.scot/coms/June18-2025/Advance-Notice.pdf and https://salvo.scot/