Perth protestors are a product of toxic Scottish politics

For those of us who witnessed the Scottish referendum eight years ago, claims by independence supporters that the campaign was characterised by joyful political engagement have always seemed preposterous.

Those on the Yes side went as far as describing their movement as “buoyant” and “celebratory”, with a party atmosphere at gatherings and a positive vibe that was absent from the fear-mongering of the Better Together unionists.

Before their defeat on September 18, 2014, Scottish nationalists were the most upbeat they’d ever been, believing victory was in their grasp. But that did not transform them into the cuddly, progressive force talked up by their more imaginative cheerleaders.

The uglier truth was evident in defaced “No” posters, the physical attacks on pro-Union politicians such as then Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, the rise of Cybernat abuse and the creation of a bitter divide in Scottish politics that has yet to heal.

Anyone who stuck their head above the parapet to denounce the flaws in the nationalists’ argument can attest to the nastiness of a certain breed of hardcore separatist.

This species has never gone away and was manning the barricades in Perth this week, ahead of the Conservative Party leadership contenders’ Scottish hustings.

Along with their “Tory scum” banners, spitting and egg throwing, the mob singled out BBC reporter James Cook, branding him a “traitor”, “scumbag” and “liar”.

Tellingly, one of the secessionists asked the journalist how long he had been in Scotland — the implication, that he had no right to be there if he was not Scottish (he is, as it happens), exploding the myth that Scottish nationalism is of the civic, not English-loathing, ethnic variety.

Naturally, the SNP has tried to distance itself from the unedifying scenes in Perth, broadcast for all the world to see. Nicola Sturgeon condemned the treatment of Cook as “disgraceful” and said the protestors did not act in her name.

She also, as she always does, said she and her fellow Nats were the targets of harassment too, but nothing on this scale or ferocity ever emanates from the unionist camp. 

In fact, her party has long had a problem with unhinged extremists and she has done little to curb their more aggressive tendencies. From the hounding of unionists online to nationalist vigilantes threatening English motorists on the A1 during the pandemic, separatist outliers have for years been giving the SNP a bad name.

Following the outbursts in Perth, there seems to be a belated recognition among party organisers that not all independence enthusiasts are an asset to the cause.

With SNP membership dropping by a fifth between 2019 and 2021, and the party’s dire record in government coming under increasing scrutiny, there is a rising sense of panic over grassroots anarchy.

The SNP-supporting National newspaper reported on Wednesday of renewed calls for a code of conduct in the wake of the Perth protests.

Alan Petrie, of the Aberdeen Independence Movement, told the paper: “All movements across the world have extreme fringes. How we deal with ours defines us, and we must never let our civic Yes movement be defined by those who offer nothing but abuse and bile.”

Keith Rae, the equalities officer for Young Scots for Independence, meanwhile warned that “Unionist media have the chance to pigeonhole our movement with this behaviour and we can’t let them”.

Is it fear of losing ground or disgust at the brutish elements in their ranks that is motivating this eleventh-hour demand for calm?

Bigotry is never far from the surface of Scottish nationalism — of all nationalist movements that elevate national identity above all else.

“What happens when a country becomes so consumed by its myth of selfhood that it forgets its own people?” asked C.J Sansom, the author of Dominion, a “what-if Hitler had won the war” reshaping of 1950s Britain. 

His focus was Nazism but in his novel post-war Scottish nationalism doesn’t fare very well in the fight for democracy and British values.

That was fiction, but the fact is that today in Scotland the tone and rhetoric of the nationalists’ leader have fomented a toxic political culture.

Sturgeon, in the build-up to what must be her last-ditch bid for a second referendum, has upped the invective, encouraging her fellow Scots to hate the democratically elected government at Westminster.

She is pushing for a plebiscite that is outwith her power to deliver and therefore challenging legally binding protocol and urging her supporters to do the same. If some of them get carried away, she only has herself to blame.

It is too late for the SNP to recast Scottish nationalism as something more vanilla, with the kind of broad appeal that will bring currently reluctant voters on board?

Perth reminded us how campaigning nationalists behave, how damaging they are to Scotland, and why successive prime ministers have been right to resist a further referendum.