I’ll let you into a little secret…I’m enamoured of all things Scottish…
It is true that I’ve actually never set foot in Scotland; before Covid hit, it was supposed to be our holiday destination last June. Through the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse at the Philip’s maps and guidebooks sitting in my library, begging to be wisked away and taken on a long journey through the Scottish Highlands. We had dreams of basking in…well…all things Scottish.
If I think back to when this all started, it must come from my life in my birth-city: Toronto. A walk through its streets and you’ll discover Scottish namesakes on city road signs and high school buildings, and for those who love a parade, they’re almost always headed by the official Pipes and Drums Marching Bands of the Toronto Police and Fire Departments. Toronto has the unmistakeable imprint of Scottish heritage, extending back to the early 1600s when Sir William Alexander was granted territory in Canada to the east- Nova Scotia.
When I arrived in Tuscany and began my job at the University, lo and behold, more Scots. We have a healthy community of ex-pats right here in Siena and Florence, and they’re some of my closest friends. Actually, 70,000 to 100,000 Scots live in Italy, while the last census in 2019 revealed that 5.4 million Scottish souls are scattered all over the EU. They seem to be the parsley in our cultural risotto.
So when Scotland left the European Union, something unbelievably profound tugged at my heart: a sense of loss and saddess at seeing our friends go. I know that sounds incredibly corny, (my apologies to greater authors out there, subjected to this newsletter) but it’s true, and if I think back on that moment, I simply tear up.
Ever since then, I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on Scotland, hoping it can find a way to come back into the fold of EU nations, and what the EU is doing on its part to ‘leave a light on’ for our good friend. This is the principle focus of my up-coming chat with MP Alyn Smith of the Scottish National Party, and I hope we can also get into other issues, like foreign affairs, owing to the expertise he has in this field.
Besides First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, I can’t think of anyone who is advocating Scotland’s return to the EU more than MP Alyn Smith. He’s a child of Scotland and of Europe. A glance at his education and life experience reveal that after his studies in Law and European Law in Leeds, he spent a year in Heidelberg on Erasmus, and then went on to do his Masters in Euopean Studies at the European College in Warsaw. The following year saw him in Brussels on the Scotland Europa project. But the love affair didn’t stop there: he was elected MEP back in 2004 and continued this work right up to the moment of Scotland’s forced departure from the EU.
If you all remember, the Scottish desire for independence didn’t start with Brexit: Scotland had already sought to break with Westminster in 2014, but this option was rejected by 55% of those who voted in the Referendum because they thought that by doing so, it may have threatened their position in the European Union.
That happened anyway, and the Scottish National Party is doing its best to put the Indy Ref back on the table. One of the burning questions floating around the halls of Westminster and beyond is this: will Westminster ‘grant’ Scotland another go at independence or can Scotland simply hold a referendum without Westminster’s green light? The short of it is no, but being a lawyer, I’m sure MP Smith can walk us through the legal battles that lay ahead as well as the timing for the referendum.
Since the SNP and the referendum can no longer be ignored, Johnson is desperately trying to cook up some sort of reform package on federalism in order to lure stray Scots and increasingly wayward Welsh brothers and sisters back into the halls of Westminster. As part of his ‘charm’ tour, Johnson made a trek to Scotland this week for a series of sanitised photo-ops, underlining how much the Union had given to Scotland and what a bright future there was in Great Britain. I’ll be asking MP Smith about Johnson’s visit, but something tells me that the Scots aren’t buying his particular brand of vacuous political performance. The polls show us that every time Johnson does go up to Scotland, instead of bringing the Scots towards Westminster positions, he achieves the opposite effect: the SNP increase their consensus.
Besides the socio-economic pros and cons of rejoining the EU, and how Scotland intends to face the challenges posed by the climate crisis, we’ll also touch on Scotland’s outlook on the world, especially towards authoritarian nations like Russia and China. While they’re both a cause for concern, Russia is our immediate focus: we all witnessed the criminal poisoning of Alexei Navalny at the hands of the FSB, his subsequent arrest by the authorities upon his return to Russia and his sham trial, sparking mass protests on Jan 23rd from Yakutsk to St Petersberg, Putin’s home city.
In the past, the West “looked the other way,'“ says Vladimir Kara-Murza, “as the Kremlin leader went after Russian media and the political opposition, tamed parliament and rigged elections, oversaw a mammoth spiraling of repression, and challenged democracies all over the world.”
Today, political opposition leaders and activists in exile, like Kara-Murza, are asking the West to wake up from its slumber: what amounts to de facto appeasement simply isn’t working. The West should sanction specific state actors (not peripheral lower-ranked officials), refuse to acknowledge the up-coming September Duma election results unless they’re subjected to the scrutiny of international observers, and reach out to the Russian people, and talk of the benefits of future cooperation.
Although Scotland’s road to independence may be a long way off for the time being, should it materialise, Scotland would enter the world of international relations on its own. Questions of future security arrangements and alliances should certainly be part of the discussion on independence.
The more I think of Brexit, the more I think: man…the Brexiter Tory and Lexit Labour voters really screwed up. What were they thinking? After all, they had a good thing going. But that’s the past, and now Brexit Britain will have to live with the fallout. In a recent op-ed, MP Smith made this clear:
The repercussions of Brexit on Scots’ rights and opportunities will be far-reaching and have a significant impact on Scottish lives. The Scottish National Party does not want to see Scots worse off as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the EU. We believe the best way forward is for Scotland to re-join the European Union as an independent nation to allow Scots to continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms that they have had for years as EU citizens.
Now widen these repercussions to include Northern Ireland and Wales: Brexit may bring about the collapse of the United Kingdom. While Northern Ireland isn’t legally part of the European Common Market, it still has close economic and financial ties to the Republic of Ireland. This economic and financial relationship could bring about a closer political union, if not outright re-unification, and in all honesty, it would make sense.
Should Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the Union, and Plaid Cymru win the May 2021 election, then Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price says he would have the political weight to demand a referendum on independence as well. What Adam Price fears is that “Wales [will] be left behind as part of a rump United Kingdom, in a new England-Wales formation- which would be the ultimate worst of all worlds.” According to the most recent polling on the issue, a majority of Welsh citizens are with him on this even if the dream for Welsh independence does seem quite a ways off.
As seen from the north, Brexit had always been an expression of English exceptionalism: it was not the desire of the Scottish or the Northern Irish who voted resoundingly to remain in the EU. The final nail in the coffin to the Union, however, may have been hammered in by PM Johnson and his government’s dismal mishandling of the Covid pandemic. While Johnson’s waffling governance was certainly clear to anyone looking on, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been formidable in her leadership. She’s been tested in a time of crisis. Could she and the SNP not lead Scotland into a better future?
Along these same lines, it seems the mishandling of the pandemic has also opened a few eyes in Wales, and in December, Leader Adam Price said as much:
It’s implicit in the present Covid crisis- the sense that something new and better must come out of this. Next May, electors won’t just want to carry on with the Old Wales. They will be looking for a new direction, one that offers hope, vision, and ambition. It is our job in Plaid Cymru to provide that hope, that vision, that ambition for real, radical change.
The fallout from Brexit provided the initial impetus for independence, but the Covid goverance has been the catalyst for bolder, decisive action on the part of Scotland and Wales. As I look onto the merry band of Westminster Brexiters, I just scratch my head and think: it took a particular brand of entitled stupidity to have come up with this brainchild.
I’ll be recording the interview with MP Alyn Smith on Jan 29, so look in your inboxes towards the weekend for the pod.
When you read something that stops you in your tracks…
Edward Lucas, “Marching into No-Man’s-Land,” CEPA, Jan 24, 2021
This week, I’m bringing you bits of this contribution written by Edward Lucas because as I sit and ponder on the state of the protests in Russia and Belarus and wonder how they’ll turn out, Edward Lucas has already analysed the weaknesses of their actions and provides advice on a way forward.
I’ve been particularly attentive to and supportive of the fight for free and fair elections in Belarus and for justice in Russia, but as Lucas says “[b]ravery and idealism are necessary but insufficient conditions for fighting tyranny.”
He rightly observes that if the protesters base their action soley on ‘photo-ops’ by exiled opposition leaders and continue to march in the streets, they risk the same fate of those who have come before them in Hong Kong and Venezuela. Instead, they should learn lessons from the protests against the Soviet regime in the 70s and 80s: ‘strategy’ is the key.
Those trying to topple autocratic regimes, whether from outside, from below, or (even) from inside, need flinty determination. They need to muster resources, set priorities, win allies, make demands, consolidate gains, manage setbacks. Public protests can be a vital part of that strategy. But not a substitute for it.
A big missing ingredient is the hard, determined political work that builds networks of trust and solidarity between thousands, then tens of thousands, and finally millions of people. Limited victories form the foundations of bigger ones. That, particularly, is what Belarus needs.
When it comes to Russia, Lucas doesn’t mince words: this is what we should be demanding of our elected officials and those who could have an impact on decision-making n foreign policy:
In Russia, grassroots activism will help too, but the regime’s weakest point is that its performative anti-Westernism belies its dependence on the rich democracies. Kremlin-linked companies list their shares in London and sell gas to Germany. Their bosses holiday in France and save money in US dollars. Western governments, if they choose, can destroy the Putin regime by freezing and seizing its assets, banning its cronies (and their families) from traveling abroad, and vitally, deterring the kleptocrats’ concierges: their bankers, lawyers, and accountants.
We in the West can make that happen. If our cowardice and greed mean that we choose not to, then the fate of brave, idealistic people is on our conscience.
I couldn’t just leave Edward Lucas’s contribution in my virtual library, and if I rifle through the work of so many others, he’s not alone in denouncing the West’s willful inertia and weak response to the regimes in Russia and Belarus. For my modest contribution, I’ll keep writing about it with a renewed realisation that democracy is a long road, untaken with a spirit of determination and constant vigilance.
So…I’ll stiffen my resolve…and keep my eye on the ball….
What I’m working on…
The world of right-wing extremism and the nature of its transnational relationships.
What is ‘the great reset’? What has come out of the World Economic Forum?
The great challenges ahead in foreign policy: Russia and China
Up-coming pods on CTP…
Jan 30: Hon Alyn Smith (SNP)
Feb 5: Marco Cappato
Feb 9: Samantha Kutner
Feel free to comment here or DM my on Twitter @MoniqueCamarra.
You can also write an email to: coffeetalkpolitics@gmail.com
My heartfelt thanks to Davide Cortese, CTP’s senior researcher.
Thanks for reading!
Mo