Am I alone in having difficulty dealing with the torrent of idiocy and mendacity gushing out of the British political elite like effluent from a burst sewer? Am I the only one who struggles to relate what these British politicians say to observable reality? Does anyone else entertain niggling doubts about their own mental state as they listen to the increasingly brazen lies and the ever more fantastical claims? Do you, betimes, catch yourself thinking, is it me?
I surely can’t be the only one experiencing the sensation that truth and facts are being so eroded as to have become ethereal and elusive. The world is shifting and crumbling under a barrage of delusion and dishonesty delivered with such easy conviction as to make one momentarily doubt ones senses and ones intellect – and even ones sanity.
I listen to Jeremy Hunt talk about negotiations with the EU and have to constantly remind myself that there are no such negotiations. As he claims to be qualified to conduct these negotiations, I find myself on the verge of disputing this in a way that would imply acceptance of the reality of the negotiations. I am in danger of becoming submerged in Hunt’s delusion and must push my head out of the cloying mire to gasp a breath of truth.
There are no negotiations with the EU. There is no remotely realistic prospect of such negotiations. But Hunt’s delusion is so complete in its construction as to take on the qualities of reality. I understand how easy it would be for this manufactured reality to supplant actual reality as the former steals the attributes of the latter. I see how truth is diminished as it is pillaged for materials from which to build lies. I have to peer ever more intently to distinguish one from the other.
It is not just truth and reality which are under attack. Discharge from the festering pit of British politics is corroding the very concepts which underpin civilised society. Concepts whose concreteness we rely on – and all too often take for granted. Concepts such as justice and democracy are in danger of disintegrating as arbitrariness, expediency, imperiousness and authoritarianism are normalised in a calculated perversion of political discourse.
Nested within the intertwined fantasies of further negotiations and “orderly transition” and an advantageous Brexit ‘deal’ is a denial of fundamental democratic principles so nonchalantly delivered as to give the impression that those principles have no value – and never did. It’s not that democracy is being discarded so much as it is being erased, eradicated. Just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia not Eurasia, so it has always been the case that the criterion for selecting members of bodies such as that which forms part of Jeremy Hunt’s delusion is, not democratic legitimacy, but devotion to the structures of power, privilege and patronage which constitute the British state.
That British state is the place where truth and democracy go to die. It is the place where it is normal to discount any kind of democratic mandate and denigrate the very idea of parliamentary authority. It is the place where political leaders are anointed, not elected. Where political authority derives, not from the people, but from a divinely-ordained monarch whose powers are wielded by an executive answerable only to forces unseen and unaccountable. It is the place where reality is whatever serves the interests of established power. It is the place where truth belongs to the ruling elite; theirs to shape using the tools of tame mass media.
For Scotland and its people, the British state is a daily more alien and threatening place. It is a place where we don’t belong. A place where our needs, priorities and aspirations count for nothing. Where our democratic choices are dismissed. Where our political culture is despised and derided. A place of insult and iniquity.
Scotland is shackled to the British state and all its corruption and dishonesty and incompetence and deluded imperialist pretensions by an archaic, asymmetric, anomalous Union. The people of Scotland hold the key to those shackles. We can free ourselves from the chaos. We can choose not to be dragged down by the British political elite.
We can choose truth over lies. We can choose the reality we make for ourselves over the the demented fantasies constructed in the diseased minds of ‘One Nation’ British Nationalist fanatics. We can choose to #DissolveTheUnion.
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Peter A Bell 
Every major upheaval in human affairs is a battle between ‘progress’ (the future, however short-lived) and ‘reaction’ (however embedded). The British/English Nationalists are reaction personified. Think Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and their regime; think the crumbling Hapsburg Empire; think The Tsar of All the Russias in 2016. This is how all reactionary regimes respond to challenge. First come the arrogant disbelief and contempt; then come the threats and self-righteous anger; then come the belated attempts to pull back from the edge and relent ever so slightly. All too late to make the slightest modicum of difference. The real difference is that we are not calling for these reactionary fools’ heads; we are not going to drag them down and parade them before the populace to face the hoi polloi’s rage; we are not asking for them to be shot at dawn. They should quit while they are ahead. Really they should. That they won’t is etched into the very bones of human civilization and history. That we will be forced eventually to pull down their disintegrating edifice, the UK, is also part of that indelible history that must be played out to the bitter end. This game is as old as human civilization itself, and we learn nothing, not because it is not patently evident what the bitter end will be, but because the entitled and the privileged in every stratum of human society utterly refuse to see reason and concede some of that privilege, both for utilitarian reasons and timeously; it must always be wrested from them; and they must always do maximum, pointless damage, like raging bulls, before they are brought low – but brought low they will be.
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Lorna – from what I remember from History, the only way these regimes could be brought down was by force. I see you are not advocating that. What is the alternative?
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Mr McGowan: you are right. However, the UK is uniquely weak right now; this is also the 21st century. I do fear another NO vote because there will be no way back from this one, I think, leaving future Scottish independists no choice but to use force of arms in any future independence bid precisely because we failed to take our independence when we could have. In each of the examples I gave, there were always people who saw clearly how it would pan out. Their warnings went unheeded by the fools who would not listen until it was too late. We have this unique opportunity to reverse the Union of 1707, however we do that, and it will not come again in the same way. No, I would never advocate violence; but I would advocate civil disobedience if Westminster carries on in this ridiculous and pathetic manner, if it refuses to even contemplate that we might have a very powerful case. Even the Chinese are wary these days of sending in the troops against protestors in Hong Kong. There is always a point when it is possible to salvage the situation, but it is wafer-thin. I have heard a number of English voices recently who are saying the unsayable, that Scotland has a right to withdraw from the UK, but they are few. No one South of the border is saying that the Union can be repaired by wholesale political reform, and English acceptance that it is their own sense of themselves that they need to repair. That does not augur well for saving the Union. It is doomed. More and more are beginning to understand that. If, like Jo Swinson, they cannot see the wood for the trees, they will be swept away.
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Great post – and yes, my wife and me now frequently check out each other’s sanity. “Did I really hear that”? “Did she really say that”? etc etc. New lows seem to occur with monotonous regularity.
Never thought I’d see the day when I would consider thanking Ian Dale for his (relatively) robust questioning of Swinson.
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We are watching the death of the Age Of Reason.
It took some of the greatest minds in history to bring it into being and we are giving it up for a bag of beans. History will condemn us…and rightfully so.
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Peter,
I think you need to flip this argument.
As it is written, the post’s argument is:
…..”politicians be crazy” lets try our own.
All Unionist need to do is say your politicians are just as crazy.
Where as what we are looking at is machinations of a state that can not be trusted. All their claims to morals and political norms have now been revealed to be fake – they will cast them aside in an instant to get what they want. Hence these were only ever tools to beat down the unruly.
Scotland can not align its sovereignty in such a Union. There are no protections in this union and these people are self-serving snake-oil sellers. However, it is worse, to get to the top, they are turning over the whole apple cart – hoping to be the last person standing in the chaos Its like they are crazy drunk and trying to get to the drivers seat….Scotland needs to get off this death trap and let them at it….England will wake up with a hell of a hangover but Scotland can manage that later.
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Not “politicians be crazy”. Politics be crazy! Specifically, British politics. The politicians are crazy because they are products of and servants to the British political system. My argument is, not “let’s try our own” politicians, but let’s do our own politics. Not make our own politics. We already have a distinctive politics in Scotland. But we continue to let it be dominated by British politics. Crazy politics.
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THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS ALIVE AND THRIVING IN ENGLAND
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