HOULDUST N


preserve the political union will ultimately fail – with the probability that other aspects of the union between our nations will be severely and perhaps irreparably damaged in the process.


This is a price that the British


establishment appears to be willing to pay in order to preserve the structures of power and privilege that define the British state.


We see confirmation of this readiness to


sacrifice the social, cultural and economic unions, which largely work to our mutual benefit, in the increasingly shrill and confrontational stance of the UK Government and the British parties.


For decades the union has been held


together by a noisome potage of lies, deceit, bribery and ever more uncomfortable compromise. Various things have served to dissolve this unreliable glue – the reconvening of Scotland’s Parliament, the rise of the SNP as a political force, and the burgeoning of


A


internet communication being major factors.


The political union is done. It is now only


a question of how much we can salvage of the rest of what has been developed over the past three centuries. Unionists seem hell bent on destroying all of it in a fit of pique.


ND that is one of the reasons why Scotland must be independent. We simply cannot afford to let the


forces of reactionary ultra-conservatism triumph. We must not allow the ruling elites to destroy that which is ours by any measure of natural justice in order to preserve that which they regard as theirs by divine right.


There is another reason why Scotland


must be independent. It is, I am convinced, the consideration which will ultimately persuade those still swithering as they stand with pencil poised over ballot paper that they must vote Yes. Or,


5


By PETER A. BELL


that they must not vote No. It is the consideration of what a No vote means. What will persuade many in that eleventh hour is the thought of the consequences for Scotland of voting No.


Addressing a meeting in Dundee


recently I asked the sixty or seventy people in the room to think about whether we would ever be able to look each other in the eye again if Scotland voted No. I asked them to think about the question we are being asked in the referendum. The question which, in reality, we are asking ourselves.


Should Scotland be an independent


country? I asked them to try and imagine that


question being asked in any other country? I asked them whether they could conceive of the people of any other nation even considering the possibility of answering No to that question?


We must vote Yes even if for no other


reason than that the alternative is unthinkable. Voting No is an admission of inferiority that will blight our nation for decades – perhaps forever. It is a failure to grasp the opportunity that we have won for ourselves which will bring down upon our heads the bitter curses of future generations – not to mention the deserved contempt of our neighbours and the world in general.


If we vote No then we will be the nation


that threw away its independence, not for any sound, rational reason, but out of craven timidity.


If we vote No we will be the people who


held our sovereignty in our hands and chose, through fear of shadows and phantoms, to hand it back to the ruling elites who have treated us with nothing but sneering disdain.


Forget about the tawdry trinkets of


“more powers” being dangled before you by the British parties in the hope of persuading you to abandon both pride and enlightened self-interest to vote No!


The idea that the ruling elites of the


British state might voluntarily relinquish power is ridiculous at the best of times. That they might do so having, in their own eyes, just triumphed in a battle to preserve their grip on that power is a notion so ludicrous as to border on the insane.


It is obvious that we can be independent!


It is easy to understand why we should be independent!


It is vital we realise that we must be independent!


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