The Mulder and Scully of Scottish nationalism

Trust no one. Especially not Patrick Harvie and Nicola Sturgeon.

This is my sketch of the joint press conference on independence held by Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

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There’s going to be an independence referendum, don’t you know?

Yes, another one. And, get this, unlike all the other times in the past eight years, she means it this time. She’s actually going to call one.

Probably.

Possibly.

In theory.

Nicola Sturgeon held a press conference yesterday to reveal a glossy booklet on independence and her language was apt for this kind of shiny corporate sell.

She said: ‘The refreshed case is about how we equip ourselves to navigate the challenges and fulfil our potential now and in the future.’

I’m not sure what any of that means but I did feel the urge to buy her motivational speeches on tape.

The question as Sturgeon framed it was whether we stayed ‘tied to a UK economic model that consigns us to relatively poor economic and social outcomes’ or ‘lift our eyes with hope and optimism and take our inspiration from comparable countries across Europe’.

Total public spending in Scotland last year was £99 billion, which might be classed as a relatively poor economic outcome, but only if you’re the Emir of Qatar.

Still, walking away from £1,700 per head more in annual public spending than England is certainly taking inspiration from other European countries. Specifically, Greece circa 2009.

‘After everything that has happened — Brexit, Covid, Boris Johnson — it is time to set out a different and better vision,' the First Minister told assembled reporters.

If this sounded familiar, it was because she had given this speech many times before, swiftly followed by a climbdown citing some excuse or another for why she couldn't set out her vision.

First it was the Leave vote, then it was the pandemic, then it was Ukraine. Another climbdown is on the cards. The only question is what the pretext will be.

Sturgeon’s approach to constitutional politics recalls The X-Files, that sci-fi series about maverick FBI agents searching for proof of alien life.

Every year, the show would promise to unravel its many mysteries and, every season finale, Mulder and Scully would arrive just a second too late to see a spaceship zoom off into the night. The audience was thrown into the thickets of fresh plot intrigue and the truth was still out there.

Now, this mob wouldn’t know the truth if it crash landed outside Bute House in a flying saucer. As for ships from outer space, they have enough trouble building ships for the Outer Hebrides.

But the X-Files dynamic is very much at work here. The First Minister launches another drive for independence, promises to reveal her big referendum, leaves the Union on a cliffhanger… then pulls off another clever plot twist to string her supporters along a little longer. She can only keep this up so long before she runs out of storylines and her show gets cancelled.

Speaking of little green men, Patrick Harvie contributed to proceedings by complaining that Holyrood was ‘held back by a hostile UK Government’.

This he said at a press conference on the unsanctioned referendum his government claims it is preparing to hold.

Hostile? When the Catalan separatists tried the same gambit a few years back, Madrid put militarised police on the streets. The harshest pushback the Scottish Government is likely to face is a politely-worded tweet from Michael Gove.

Harvie revels in the meagre pomp of his lowly ministerial office, deluding himself that it confers political stature on someone who would be Deputy Head of Gender at Water Voles Against Austerity if this devolution racket hadn’t come along.

He urged us to stop ‘hanging onto the Etonian coat tails of the UK Government’ and, acknowledging the Scottish Government's proposals ‘won’t be the only vision for the future’, encouraged ‘everyone to have a say in what an independent Scotland looks like’.

Okay then. My preferred vision is for Patrick Harvie to be bundled into a TARDIS and zapped into another dimension. Failing that, I’d settle for a government that stops talking to itself about itself and has a go at running the country.

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Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on June 15, 2022.