The Problem With Life

God is an Englishman

When it comes to criticising others, the British are right pains in the ass.

Mustn’t grumble – that seems to be the old adage of Britons when confronted by life’s difficulties, whether that’s poor service, overbearing officialdom or that most British of inventions – the never ending queue. However this reticence in pointing out deficiencies doesn’t seem to apply when our eyes are cast beyond the channel.

Recently the amount of hectoring of those abroad for their perceived and, in many cases, real failures has reached farcical levels, all egged on by a national bipolar superiority/inferiority complex that perplexes much of the rest of the world. In most cases, whether intentional or not, it just comes across as whinging and mean-spirited.

Leaving aside all the Eurobashing, witness a couple of key news stories of recent weeks/days:

Many outlets report that England’s World Cup pitch is unplayable, covered in fungus, groundsmen are painting it green yada yada yada – that’ll be the reason England lost!
France it not a full democracy, according to the BBC, citing the Economist Intelligence Unit (from a country where a party with 30% of votes can form a majority in parliament!)

Yawnorama

In fact, bring on any international event or news hook, cue the British press (normally Panorama, it’s always bloody Panorama) with some investigation showing corruption/mismanagement/oppression etc. Even in clear-cut cases of countries with dubious attitudes to human rights, it’s not as if we don’t already know much of what is reported. Thus, when the Eurovision Song Contest went to Azerbaijan, we had a special report on the political machinations behind a regime that’s well known for its authoritarian rule. And the pre-Sochi carnival of stories didn’t really seem to inform us of anything more startling than in a country with a President with a mild disregard for what we would consider the norms of democracy some dodgy dealings might have taken place.

But it’s the hypocrisy in relation to our near neighbours where things really start to grate. Whether blustering about Brussels bureaucracy or continental meddling in the economy, double standards seem to be the norm – it’s not as if dealing with government here does not cause one to weep with frustration. And yet all we have is story after story and political posturing denigrating a pampered political class with a vested interest in the status quo (the Brussels elite) emanating from journalists and politicians from our very own pampered political class with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (public school, Oxbridge, the city/the media/ Westminster).

Hunky dory

So why has this hypocritical boasting become such a problem recently? If in doubt blame the coalition — and that’s exactly what I intend to do:

The worst thing about entering into a pact with the Conservatives wasn’t that Nick Clegg destroyed the Lid Dems (who cares?) , but it’s in the platform that he’s given to the nuttier elements of the Conservative Party (the ones who sound like UKIP), who have used government as a megaphone to broadcast their agenda. And given that we have a Prime Minister who insists on leading from the rear, he’s retrospectively validated every bandwagon that claims British superiority, whether that’s the view Europe should follow our economic example (brilliant – an economy flying on a single engine of London-based financial services), or that we should become less bashful about Britain’s merits (oh yeah – we’re really shy about that).

So if your leaders keep telling you how hunky dory things are and how cr*p everything foreign is, it’s not surprising that after a while this becomes an accepted premise everywhere else.

I love the Scots, I do.

The pro-union camp, even while embarking on a more positive campaign, is still stuck speaking in the voice of middle England, not the central belt.

You didn’t need to be a genius to realise that Better Together, the pro-union, anti-independence campaign, was on a road to nowhere over the past few months. Their strategy of lining up nearly everybody they could think of south of the border to tell Scots how daft they’d be to leave the UK, and to threaten them with all kinds of dire consequences (no pound etc.) was just going to get people’s backs up rather than endear them to the idea of remaining in the UK.

Those more sensible members of the No campaign now seem to be breathing a sigh of relief that Better Together is now trying live up to its name, and make a positive case for the Union. The problem is this tweaked strategy has as much chance of success as the old one.

The reason – they are making the classic political mistake (just as they did with the recently pulled “no pound” strategy) that assumes that because something makes sense to you and speaks to your core beliefs, it ought to make sense to your opponents (Margaret Thatcher in her memoirs said this was a vanity of liberals – it’s not. Both left and right are vulnerable). Unfortunately, Better Together have real form on this: my first leaflet from them a few months back started off with a warning that Scotland would be forced into the euro if we voted yes – the message might as well have come from Nigel Farage. And the latest utterances from the No side shows they’re still stuck speaking to the heart of middle England, not the central belt of Scotland.

Bloody looneys

So the previous “you’d need to be a bloody looney to vote for losing the pound so let’s bombard you with threats over sterling” strategy has now moved to the more positive, but just as alienating, “the Union has been a great idea for the past 300 years, didn’t we face down the Jerries in two world wars, etc”. Telegraph blogger and historian Tim Stanley evoked our past successes while pleading with Scots to stay within the Union on Question Time recently.

Talking about the wonders of Britain in the past and heroics during the wars of the 20th century and “didn’t we come through so much together” has zero resonance with the voters they’re trying to win over and instead evokes the kind of postcolonial, “one World Cup and two world wars” whimsy Scots Yes voters find a real turnoff. If you don’t like something – and Scottish Yes voters or those tending towards Yes quite obviously don’t like the UK in its present form – keeping on telling you how wonderful Britain is or was isn’t going to make you change your mind.

In short, anyone who wants to save the Union has to accept that the Union of the last 300 years is finished, done for, dead. The only strategy that will work for the No campaign is for them to articulate how Scotland can help build a new United Kingdom. This will not only assuage the problem that Yes voters have with the present Union, but also inadvertently help the English, who at present are fast descending into anti-immigrant, anti-anything-not-English naval gazing.

Independence within the UK

So what should the No campaign be saying? It’s all about disentangling the argument from prejudices aligned with the words “union” and “independence”, with a focus on forgetting the former and claiming ownership of the latter. It needs to be seen to be wholly on Scotland’s side, and backing the concept of” independence”, but stressing that we can be independent within the UK. Independence surely is deciding what you do and in that case, the Scots already have their independence by virtue of having the vote this year. How they choose to use that independence is up to them. They can stay within the structure of the UK, with substantial alterations, or they can choose to go it alone outside.

The one message the No camping have actually got right is that independence outside of the UK might be more restrictive for the Scottish nation than “independence” within the UK. Given the limits placed by global markets on our fiscal plans, we might be more “independent” by staying within Britain. Independence outside of the United Kingdom brings the uncertainty of fiscal challenge, a possible separate currency, and the need to raise debt on international financial markets that might not be sympathetic to the new Scottish nation. A No vote for “independence” within the United Kingdom, with devolution set to max and the Scots essentially just sharing defence and monetary competencies, might be the best option for nationalists.

In order to let this happen we need the help of those progressive forces in the No campaign, who are probably finding it somewhat uncomfortable being in bed with some on the outer fringes of Better Together. Those more open-minded elements of the Liberal Democrats, Labour and even the Conservatives need to distance themselves from the more reactionary and right-wing parts of Better Together, who couldn’t bring themselves to espouse such a philosophy (even though it’s very much in the British tradition of constitutional evolution).

Now is the time for Labour and the Libdems to say that they will deliver a more federal United Kingdom should they gain power in the 2015 UK general election (whatever David Cameron promises, I don’t think giving Scots more power will be his priority after a No vote – in fact, even a very small margin for the status quo will be claimed by some on the right of his party as a ringing endorsement of the narrow, UK jingoism Scots seems to despise.)

A combination of Scottish Nationalists who recognise that Scottish independence may be best deployed within the United Kingdom, together with progressive forces in England, may be the best hope of keeping some sort of United Kingdom together. And here’s the real irony – Simon Schama in a recent article in the Financial Times outlined how the UK was originally a Scots invention. Why not let the Scots rebuild the UK in a form fit for the 21^st century? A more federally orientated UK would also help the long suffering regions of England stand up to the dominance of London, whose gravitational force does indeed suck the lifeblood out of the rest of the UK. Scotland, by remaining in the UK and aligning itself with progressive elements down south, may just save England from its rapid decline into a bigoted, UKIP-inspired, Euro-hating nationalism.

The problem with grumbling

The problem with Better Together