Playing the fool

This could be seen as a highly controversial statement, but Jackson Carlaw may not actually be an idiot. Calm down! I’m not saying he’s particularly clever. Only that it’s possible he may not be as daft as you would assume just from listening to him. He might be a man of normal intelligence. How would we know?

You see, as a British Nationalist politician, Carlaw is obliged to say really stupid things. It’s the same for all of them. They all have to behave in public as if they’re in an episode of ‘BritNats say the craziest things!’ They all have to act stupid, whether or not they actually are. Take Richard Leonard, for example. (In case you don’t recognise the name, he’s the nominal ‘leader’ of a particular British Nationalist clique calling itself ‘Scottish Labour’.) He has to pretend that, despite having been an MSP (Central Scotland Region) since 2016, he still doesn’t know which powers are reserved and which devolved. He must be aware that this makes him look woefully ill-informed and not very bright, but he happily accepts the sacrifice of his dignity in the name of the British ruling elites to whom he owes unquestioning loyalty.

They’re all at it. All the British politicians squatting in the Scottish Parliament have to act stupid as required by their sole mission to preserve the Union at whatever cost to the nation and people of Scotland. Some, like James Kelly, play the fool with effortless ease; unfailingly giving a performance that is utterly convincing. Quite how he does that thing with the slack jaw and the blank eyes is a mystery, and must be the envy of stars of stage and screen from the great method actors to Nicolas Cage.

So, when you hear Jackson Carlaw banging on about a non-existent “commitment” that the 2014 independence referendum was a “once in a generation” event, cut him some slack. He’s probably just hamming it up for the cameras. And go easy on him when he compounds this idiocy by insisting that, having made a decision on the basis of what they believe to be the circumstances prevailing, the people of Scotland should not be permitted another opportunity to exercise their right of self-determination for forty years. That’s eight parliamentary terms. Potentially eight different governments. To put it in some kind of perspective, there was only a little more than forty years separating the first powered flight and the breaking of the sound barrier.

A lot changes in a lot less than four decades. Someone who is just old enough to vote in the coming UK general election will be 58 years old by the time Carlaw thinks it appropriate for that person to make a choice about their nation’s constitutional status. It is, whatever way you look at it, a ludicrous proposition. Made all the more ludicrous by the fact that there never was any “commitment” such as Carlaw refers to. It never happened. There were a few instances of phrases such as “once in a lifetime”. But, unless you’re genuinely stupid or unfamiliar with the English language, it is clear from the context that these phrases are being used idiomatically and hyperbolically to describe the opportunity and not literally to describe the event.

What you will not find is any reference to “once in a generation/lifetime” in the Edinburgh Agreement or the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013 or any legislation or concord which would constitute a “commitment”.

It may well be argued that the SNP administration at the time gave a hostage to fortune when they used that phrase. Maybe they should have seen how British Nationalists might take a common expression and weave around it an entire script to be parroted by British Nationalist politicians doing their ‘village idiot’ routine. (A script that has to be kept simple if it is to be used by such as James Kelly and Boris Johnson.)

It could be said that the SNP acted foolishly on a few occasions. But that is a very different thing from acting the fool constantly, as Jackson Carlaw and his fellow British Nationalists are wont to do.

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