Last Monday I saw something I didn’t ever think I’d see. In Dundee, I saw people queuing up – and it wasn’t a short queue, it was a long queue – to register to vote … almost reminiscent of scenes in South Africa from 20 years ago when people queued up to vote in the first free election.
– Alex Salmond
For all his undoubted talents and qualities, Alex Salmond is no historian. If he were, perhaps he would be more respectful of the inequity and barbarity suffered by millions of South Africans whose government inflicted upon them white supremacist rule.
This criminal lack of perspective, one that equates the institutions of modern Britain, however imperfect, with those of racial domination, is part of a wider pathology that characterises Scotland’s present and historical relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom as one of utter servitude.
Such an interpretation pays no attention to the prominent role played by Scots in the imperial project, also ignoring the predominance of Scottish intellectuals and politicians in shaping, and running, Britain’s political and economic institutions over the last two centuries.
Unsurprisingly, this narrative conveniently also ignores the very existence of that institution over which Mr Salmond exercises supreme authority, the Scottish government.
And here in a nutshell is the single biggest deceit of the Scottish National party campaign, in that a campaign that portrays itself as anti-establishment is being run by members of that very same establishment.
If your own independence white paper really only contains one redistributive tax policy and a corporation tax cut which rewards big companies, you are not running against the establishment, you are running for it.
And if your own members of parliament in Westminster cannot bother to turn up to vote against a tax as cruel and unfair as the bedroom tax, then you are not anti-establishment insurgents, but its apologists.
The support of the world’s most powerful media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, someone Salmond has courted in secret and praised as a ‘remarkable man’, should perhaps serve as another reliable indicator of where the SNP’s true priorities and allegiances lie.
Equating the independence campaign with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa is either delusional, or more likely another indication that Salmond is willing to do or say anything to achieve his aim of separation.
In an unguarded moment, Salmond once admitted that to him the ends justified the means. He should not, however, diminish the suffering of the South African people by using such grotesque and inaccurate comparisons.
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George Foulkes is a member of the House of Lords. He tweets @GeorgeFoulkes.
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Photo: Ewan McIntosh
Well, since the massed antisemites of the media, plus the BDS, compare Israel to apartheid South Africa, when Israel is the only country in the Middle East the offers equality to ALL its citizens (one fifth of whom are not Jews) I am not surprised at the use of this disgusting metaphor with
which to blacken anyone whose identity or politics you do not like. I live within walking distance of Smithfield, Mr. Salmond, where one of your predecessors, William Wallace, met a sticky end.
salmond is an unreasoning fanatic. And to such people embracing any policy, progressive or retrograde, is judged solely in terms of his personal quest for power and to build his (pernicious concept) legacy. He is quite indifferent to the character of an independent Scotland – all that matters is that it flies his flag.
So he may not be able to say whether Scotland will be a republic or a monarchy, in NATO or out of it, using the Pound or the EURO (and he has said all of these things). His one consistent message remains unchanged – a quest that is essentially destructive, and deeply selfish.
The main Media/TV coverage of this debate has now descended into personalisation and trivia. Salmond has shrunk it into anti- Tory, anti-Cameron rant. Solid analysis especially of the economic implications has evaporated from the BBC etc., Meanwhile the FT has run pages of anxious stories about the Scots currency, Scots Banks, capital flight, disappearing jobs, companies going south, Scottish debt and deficit and the implications for their future spending, the future of the oil resources. When the BBC covers any of this we will up pick our selves up off the floor. The next Labour government must review why the BBC’s London bubble has descended into such weak coverage of the major issues affecting this nation – economic, political and sociological. Analysis has now gone as stories are presented at a kind of level worthy of the Daily Mail and Daily Express- a mid to low brow mish mash of utter juvenile crap.
The problem with Salmond is like with many politicians when they over reach themselves he is beginning to believe in his own spin, self importance and believe himself to be very special. The quote about South Africa is deluded ,and you wonder if the strain and self belief is out of control. Perhaps he will now offer the chance to show his supporters how he can walk across the Clyde before the vote next week .