politics - Scottish independence and left-wing dinosaurs.

While we are talking about ‘flapping lips’ (see my previous post re Christine Jardine) I see George Galloway has been flapping his, again!I It seems he is willing to work with the Tories to stop the SNP. Now, I can accept a supporter of the Union trying to stop the SNP, but for a far left socialist like Galloway to advocate working with the Tories is simply beyond belief. He would, it seems, rather see the people of Scotland under Tory rule than see a left of centre, independent Scotland. This says volumes about Galloway and I find his position nothing short of staggering and despicable. Any respect I once had for Galloway’s socialist credentials have been totally destroyed (this, of course, assuming he actually said what it’s reported he said).
While on the subject of socialist dinosaurs I also see that Brian Wilson continues to spout his bile via articles in, at least, The Scotsman. Wilson, like Galloway, is one of the many aging Scottish socialists who finds it impossible to credit the SNP for anything while ignoring the fact that his cherished Labour Party failed to carry out the many improvements the SNP has achieved over the past thirteen years. I am not claiming that the SNP government has been perfect (it hasn’t) but it has achieved many beneficial changes for Scotland - all of which the likes of Wilson refuse to recognise. I am quite sure that if the SNP was to adopt a policy demanded by Wilson that he would, some way or another, find some way to attack them for doing so.
What those dinosaurs fail to understand is that just about every time they flap their lips they only add to the SNP’s support.

Of course one has to wonder why those left wing dinosaurs are so vitriolic in their attacks on the SNP. From a purely political perspective Labour are far closer to the SNP than they are to either the Lib-Dems or the Tories but their attacks on the latter two are far less angry than they are towards the former. This is difficult to comprehend. To be clear, I can understand those supporting the Union attacking the SNP but while the Tories and the Lib-Dems do attack the SNP they do not do so with the same degree of anger and bile that the left wing dinosaurs do. I find it difficult to comprehend why those left wingers would want to support the remaining core of an empire which subjugated, and stole the wealth of, countries around the world in the way that the British Empire did instead of supporting the creation of a left of centre, independent Scotland.
Some will claim this is because the SNP withdrew it’s support of Callaghan’s minority Labour government in 1979 which ushered in Thatcher and nearly twenty years of Tory rule. But that was just as much the fault of Labour MPs (many, if I remember correctly, from the north of England) who forced their own Labour government to adjust the rules of the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum such that at least 40% of the total Scottish electorate had to vote in favour of the creation of a Scottish assembly - a degree of support which was just about impossible to achieve. Despite this, over 51% of the Scottish electorate did vote for the setting up of a Scottish assembly, which was, as a result of this rigged referemdum, denied to them. This forced the SNP’s hand as they would have appeared weak and useless in Scotland if they had not, as a result, removed their support for the Labour government. Also, it must be clear that the trade union leaders, in the years prior to that, acted more like capitalist captains rather than the socialists they were supposed to be, to the extent that socialism was severely discredited by the time of the general election of May 1979. The SNP may have shot itself in the foot by doing this but Labour, just as much, shot itself in the foot by rigging this referendum in the way it did. We also have to keep in mind that a general election would needed to have been held by October of 1979, anyway. Following ‘the winter of discontent’, along with other negative factors, Labour was heading for defeat in a few short months, anyway. So the SNP withdrawing their support for Callaghan was not the cause of Thatcher coming to power as that was going to happen regardless only a few short months later.
Some will say that it’s because the SNP are nationalists and anti-English racists. True, there are some anti-English racists who support the SNP (and that was probably more the case in 1979 than it is now) but they are dealt with, by the SNP, pretty drastically and the SNP’s policies are clearly pro-Scottish as opposed to anti-English - and those left wing dinosaurs, if they have the political nous they claim to have, are fully aware of that. Maybe they are just excellent thespians and all their extreme anti-SNP rethoric is all just an act?
However, I have to say that I well remember the sixties when the SNP first started to struggle into national recognition (if only to a very small extent). Even in those days the anti-SNP vitriol expressed by Labour was displayed time and time again. I suspect those left wing dinosaurs were looking for a permanent Labour government in Westminster and that they knew that a Labour majority in Scotland was a requirement to achieving this - and that an independent Scotland would scupper their chances of this ever being achieved. They are like a dumped lover who can only attack their ex’s new lover rather than taking a long hard look at their own failures in their previous relationship. It would make more sense for those dinosaurs to look at their own failings rather than just attack the SNP and the independence movement in general. The voters in England have ended up rejecting Labour (unless, like Blair’s government, it swings to the right) and clearly want a more right wing society - while the voters of Scotland have rejected Labour because of this failure to create a more left wing UK. In other words, Labour had several opportunities to correct how the UK was run and maybe stop the independence movement in it’s infancy - but they failed to do so. Those dinosaurs should maybe look more closely at their own failures rather than attack the SNP for proposing an outcome which would be more suitable for the people of both England, who clearly want a more right wind society, and Scotland, who clearly want a more left wing society.
In closing, I am not saying these old, left wing beasts should stop attacking the SNP and independence - they are, after all, entitled to their views on independence - but what I am saying is that it would be good if they stopped employing misrepresentation, half truths and outright lies when doing so and instead stuck to political and economic arguments. It would also be good, given that they are left wingers, if they aimed any bile and vitriol (they still felt forced to express) at the Tories and other right wing parties instead of at a party and movement which is closer to them politically than those other parties are. However, the ‘old’ are usually pretty set in their ways and I do not expect to see such a change of direction in their rhetoric.