We are delighted to host a second guest post from North East SNP MSP and Holyrood Health and Sport Committee member Mark McDonald.
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Back in the 1970s, while suppressing the McCrone report, the parties who now make up the No campaign told Scotland that it would be as poor as Bangladesh if it voted to become independent.

Withholding the true extent of Scotland’s potential oil wealth to construct a narrative of a nation incapable of running its own affairs was insulting to Scotland then, and it persists now.

But the comparison was also an insult to Bangladesh, and her people. By using another nation to construct a negative narrative, you are by definition looking down on that nation, sneering at it if you will. There is no doubt Bangladesh faces serious problems of poverty, but I would be willing to bet that her people are still fiercely proud of their independence, and would view an attack on their nation’s integrity in a very dim light.

And yet this contemptuous attitude to other members of the community of nations continues unabated from those opposed to Scotland taking her own path. The desire to undermine the cause of Scottish independence appears to be so overpowering that diplomatic niceties go out the window.

This weekend, the No campaign, with little concern for the UK’s relationships with other nations, made Denmark the target in a bizarre quote from a UK coalition source, when trying to explain why Scotland’s interests were best served as part of the UK in Europe:

“At these European summits, you see all the key players moving around, the French, the Germans and the British. But where are the Danish? They’re nowhere. It’s not that Denmark is not significant, but it’s not as important as these other nations, simply because of its size.”

I suppose the UK Government won’t be banking on any support from the Danes in European negotiations any time soon.

Over the last few years Ireland and Iceland have taken the brunt of the anti-independence campaign’s international insult offensive. The gleeful use of the ‘Arc of Insolvency’, coined by smug anti-independence politicians in 2008 – despite the fact that the UK was somewhat goosed at the time as well, and that those self same anti-independence politicians were in part responsible for the UK’s plight – hardly helped international relations. Now while Ireland and Iceland may well have faced significant difficulties, we know that they went through those difficult times as independent nations, and are recovering well as independent nations. How galling for them it must have been to look to their near neighbour, the UK, with whom they might have expected to find some solidarity in the face of financial adversity, to instead be faced with politicians laughing at them and calling them names in order to achieve some form of political one-upmanship in their own constitutional debate.

This behaviour appears regularly at First Minister’s Questions where we have seen Iain Gray and Johann Lamont stand up and openly do down other nations for the sake of trying to undermine the arguments for independence. From Namibia to Montenegro, Ireland to Togo nations are brought up to draw an unflattering comparison. In the unlikely situation that Johann Lamont becomes First Minister, imagine her first meeting with the Namibian ambassador: “Hello ambassador, your country’s a bit rubbish isn’t it?”

You see, this is the crux of it all. I don’t want Scotland to be independent because I think we are better than any other nation, or because we are bigger or richer than any other nation – which is essentially the narrative being cultivated by the No campaign in all of the examples above – I want Scotland to be independent because we are just as good as any other nation.

I want us to take our seat at the EU top table, alongside the Danes and the Irish, and any other nation the No campaign wishes to insult. We may not have size on our side, but it isn’t about how loud you shout, it’s about what you say.

I want to sit at the UN and make common cause in pursuit of international peace and tackling poverty and inequality with nations like Bangladesh, Namibia and Togo, because I believe an independent Scotland can be a force for good in the world. Togo, in fact, was one of the rotational members of the Security Council in 2012-13.

And above all else, I want to see a Scotland where we make our own decisions, on the issues that matter to our people. Just like every single one of those nations the No campaign look down their noses at.

To paraphrase Winnie Ewing – Stop insulting the world, Scotland wants to get on.

Today we have a gratefully-received guest from Dan Phillips. If you cast your minds back Dan last wrote for us on the Edinburgh Council elections last year. Having quit the media and moved back to England but still an electoral obsessive he’s now turned his attentions to Eastleigh. Dan has his own blog on liberalsellout.wordpress.com

I can only imagine the icy stares, the barely concealed hate bubbling under between Conservative and Lib Dem activists in Eastleigh, back in May 2010. As sure as Clegg and Cameron exchanged furtive glances across the Rose Garden a few days later, there were metaphorical daggers thrown in Huhne’s back by Maria Hutchings in an anonymous hall. The Conservatives had lost a ‘naturally Tory’ seat once again.

Eastleigh isn’t famous for much. Benny Hill and the naked rambler are from there, but that’s about all. But up until 1994 when their Tory MP died in, well, unusual circumstances, it was True Blue. The Liberal Democrats, pouncing on an unpopular Major government and using the pluck of the underdog won it and have been there ever since. As you’ll have no doubt heard, it is also the only place in the country where every returned councillor has the yellow birdy pinned proudly to their chest.

But it is by no means a fortress. That majority has see-sawed from over 9,000 in 1994 to a mere 568 in 2005 to the current impressive but not impossible to overturn 3,864. The Lib Dems have to work hard to keep this seat each time, and they had the troops to fight the ground war in 2010. But as Michael Portillo is apt to point out, the Conservative Party hasn’t won an election outright since 1992, the very same time this little pocket of Hampshire last dabbled in Toryism. This battle between the two halves of the Coalition Waltz is a battle of existentialism for both parties.

For the Lib Dems, Eastleigh is the chance to disprove the prevailing theory, and the depressing facts since those halcyon days of the first flush of Coalition love. If the headlines are right the Lib Dems have been sapped of those very activists that keep Eastleigh and many of their Southern seats in their talons as membership has imploded. And there is of course the small matter of the opinion polls that have read more like a roll call of the dead than evidence that there’s about to be an uptick in fortunes. Win this rearguard action and electoral annihilation is no longer the certain outcome the pundits are predicting.

But if they fail you don’t have to look too hard to see the implications for them. That electorally yellow foot of the South West is at risk of a domino collapse. Mid Dorset and North Poole has a mere 269 votes majority. Or how about Wells where Tessa Munt ousted a Tory with just 800 votes spare in 2010. There’s many more where careers hang on a wafer thin majority.

Equally, for the Conservatives, if they can’t recapture the home of Benny Hill how can they ever expect to govern with a majority ever again? Snuff out those helpful liberals in the South West and there’s less work to be done in the Labour-Tory marginal war zones. But here’s the rub for Cameron: what would a Maria Hutchings win say about his leadership?

She’s not exactly on-message. Against gay marriage, wants out the EU and allegedly misquoted as saying Labour’s ‘done more for immigrants, the gays and bloody foxes‘ than disabled children back in 2005 she’s not at the vanguard of the modern Conservativism he claims to espouse. Indeed, in a byelection fight with the Lib Dems I can scarcely think of a Tory less likely to garner votes from that quarter than Hutchings. So if she were to win, what would Cameron gain? Another rebellious backbencher?

Her candidacy, albeit in place in since 2010, is probably more likely to signify their own defensive strategy: mute the Ukip menace by having a Tory that walks the very same walk. But should she be returned, Hutchings will be held up as the shining evidence for a more rightward shift.

The opinion polls that exist deliciously contradict each other. The two-way duel could yet turn into a four-way royal rumble if Labour and Ukip can strengthen their hand. This battle is emblematic of the Lib Dems’ future fortunes, and the frothing faction in the Tories have a chance to recapture ‘their’ seat. But if Clegg’s party are to prove they are a Phoenix and not a Dodo, Eastleigh is a must.

Much has been made of the SNP’s watertight party discipline and the remarkable binding that a shared belief in independence can bring. Last year’s NATO debate is the only significant issue in the recent past that I can think of that has torn the party in two, and even then it was conducted so professionally and respectfully that other parties must surely have looked on in frustrated envy.

As a result, and in order to pull layers off the SNP (and Yes Scotland by association), the press and opposition have had to play a clever game. 

Rather than wait in vain for party disarray to fall into their press releases and front pages, a more proactive approach has been taken. A noticeable and increasing trend recently has been for the voices of Yes Scotland’s internal critics to have their arguments complimented and their voices amplified by friendly unionists, resulting in the bigger picture getting lost and unwittingly ending up effectively batting for the other side.

It can arrive via the temptation of having a go at Salmond amongst the ‘other’ parties or the temptation to be ‘reasonable’ for those in the SNP, but the ramifications of a lack of solidarity across Yes Scotland should not be underestimated and the reasons for it happening should be scrutinised.

My concern, pure and simple, is that too many in the pro-Yes camp are getting played by a disingenuously chummy opposition. 

Behaviours are influenced to the pavlovian extent that if you criticise the SNP you’re being objective and if you praise them you’re a cybernat, a Yes voice lost in the crowd. It’s a gloriously subtle and highly effective way to damage the Yes cause. If a bigger reaction is gained by being a wee bit controversial, and journalists will give you a slap on the back, then you could be seduced into selling out your side more often than you should. 

I know, I fall for it regularly, whether I ultimately catch myself or not, not that I’m a member of any political party any more so there’s precious little risk of damage. 

The fairly regular DMs from unionists (from low level activists right up to high level MPs) complimenting my ‘reasonableness’ when I’m critical of the SNP,  is some evidence of what is going on out there. I wasn’t naive enough though to fall for one journalist’s ‘friendly’ email offer to run blog posts past him for advice before I posted them, back in my SNP Tactical Voting days. Nice try (not really).
 
As I say, I’m not a member myself, but it’s quite clear that the phrase that may do the most damage to Yes Scotland over the coming year or so is ‘I’m a member of the SNP but…’. 

There are plenty of individuals who do it, I could list off a few across the Nationalist spectrum, but I’ll only name Jim Sillars as a classic example, his dubious contribution is after all at another level altogether.

It’s not clear whether Jim truly believes he’s being helpful to the independence cause when he is seemingly duped into providing juicy headlines such as ‘Sillars warns SNP that Yes campaign is on the ropes‘ and ‘Jim Sillars: SNP a ‘totalitarian’ and ‘intellectually dumb’ party‘. I could continue. As, I sadly suspect, will Jim.
 
Those genuinely seeking a Yes vote would do well to privately agree to disagree more often than they publicly disagree to agree. This isn’t silencing dissent, it’s simply smart politics to aid a wider cause in the face of an understandably ruthless opposition. Who wants to squabble their way to a 74%- 26% defeat, regardless of how many RTs they get or hits they get on their blog?

The rather brutal oppression of supposed Cybernats is, for me, part of the same game. If some idiot spouts something stupid online, they should be ignored, it should not be front page or even middle page news, and nor should Callum ‘Judge Dredd’ Cashley’s attempts to sort them out. Offence taken in these stories is almost always exaggerated and the message to those ‘reasonable’ Nats cleverly delivered: ‘Look what we ‘ll make of you if you get too wrapped up in this independence business’. What a Cybernat is actually defined as remains conveniently unclear. 
 
Furthermore, the press will have no hesitation to rapidly promote someone to ‘senior activist’ (blogger) or ‘prominent politician’ (councillor) if they can get a good SNP or Yes Scotland rift story into the press. Don’t be an idiot of course, but don’t be afraid to wear your pro-independence opinions on your sleeve either.

Not that this game is limited to individuals. Broadly speaking, if the SNP criticise the Greens for not being Nationalist enough or the Greens criticise the SNP for not being environmentalist enough or the Socialists either feel excluded or exclude themselves, the joint venture of Yes Scotland is simply not going to take off due to prevailing winds. 

If I can compare the alliance to a hot air balloon (crack your own Salmond jokes now), the entity only gets off the ground if each side is appropriately balanced and has enough activation energy pulling it upwards. The Yes balloon is a bit wobbly right now, and whether each stakeholder is puffing in the same direction remains to be seen.

A symbolic incentive to work together has already been presented to the Yes alliance though. The Holyrood 2011 election results yielded 50 odd % of the votes for independence-favouring SNP + Greens + Socialists + Margo. These weren’t votes for independence many will be keen to point out, but a majority of voters have voted for independence-minded parties and whose to say they won’t be persuaded do so again?
 

Criticism is healthy and necessary for both campaigns and Yes Scotland’s greatest risk remains acolytes nodding Salmond into a crushing defeat. However, even though the SNP can just about survive with the fundamentalist vs gradualist tension  continuing to bubble under the surface up to Autumn 2014, adding the amplified consternation of internal detractors into the mix will probably stretch Salmond’s big tent politics too far, and ultimately to the unionist’s delight.

Or maybe I’m just being unreasonable…

The political news today is dominated by the Scottish Government’s timetable for the year and a half after a Yes victory in the looming referendum. This has, of course, invited charges of hubris and complacency from many in the press, not to mention comments that the SNP is happy to say when ‘Independence Day’ will be (March 31st) but not the actual referendum date.
 
These are all fairly low brow objections. The precise date of the referendum is not occupying the minds of anyone save perhaps the odd antsy journalist, and despite the suggestion that the SNP is planning ‘parties’, there is no such mention in the report released today. The Electoral Commission found that the public were uninformed as to what a Yes or a No result would mean and the SNP, for its part, is doing something about that.
 
Of course, one clear offshoot of today’s news is the indirect invitation for Scots to consider what would happen in the aftermath of a No victory. The unionist camp may be cleverly trying to paint this referendum as a choice between full independence and further powers, but there’s no Devo Max option on the ballot slip and it’s not difficult to imagine the current status quo remaining the status quo long after 2014 is done and dusted, the needle returning to the start of the song and us all muddling along as before.
 
Comparing and contrasting with the hint of national jubilation after a Yes vote, the extra bank holiday and the feel good factor of having delivered change may be seductive for many. Even the sight of Yes supporters proudly wearing their Yes t-shirts (once the weather warms up a bit) might start to turn a few minds. Will there be No t-shirts in parks up and down the country? Would that even be good PR if there was? It’s nice to feel like you are a part of something and it’s difficult to get excited about being part of ‘No’, irrespective of what that No entails.
 
So by laying out a post-referendum timetable to independence and subtly challenging our ambitions, the SNP is keeping up its positive agenda today and once again pushing the unionists onto the backfoot. After all, it begs the question, how would Scotland celebrate a No victory?