Introduction

Introduction e are now all Jacobites, thorough-bred Jaco - bites, in acknowledging George IV,” pro - claimed the Edinburgh Observer on the occasion of the monarch’s state visit to the city in 1822. The journal’s comments were its verdict on Sir Walter Scott’s stage-management of the royal visit. “ScottW had taken the themes and imagery associated — rightly or wrongly — with the Jacobite movement of the previous cen - tury, stripped them of their political content, and welded them back together again to help create an image of Scotland which was to prevail almost unchallenged until well into the next cen - tury. That image was one based on the historical reinvention and rewriting of a number of overlapping themes: the Highlands, tar - tan, the kilt, ancient clans, martial skills, bravery, virility, loyalty to the monarch (albeit sometimes the wrong one), and a cen - turies-long struggle for freedom which had fortuitously come to fruition under the reigning monarch: “Hark! the pibroch’s martial strain Ca’s the clans to Lothian plain: Scotland’s got her King again, Welcome, Royal Geordie!” The result of Scott’s endeavours was a welcome for the monarch which amounted to an historical absurdity. Most of the tartans were invented for the occasion. The kilt (not to be confused with the traditional belted plaid) was a relatively recent invention. The Highland “chiefs” who wore them were simply Highland landowners (albeit very wealthy ones). The Edinburgh bourgeoisie who were obliged to wear the same apparel would have associated it with cattle-thieving rather than with the glories of Scottish history. And King George himself was the ruling British monarch — not, as he was proclaimed in the official toast, “the chief of the chiefs”. Scott’s portrayal of Scotland as a repository for the romanti - cised memorabilia of Highland Jacobitism was a prime target of the writers of the Scottish Renaissance of the 1930s. “Sham bards for a sham nation” was how Edwin Muir summed up the phoni - ness of such imagery and its exponents. Paradoxically, the contemporary version of Scott’s approach to Prince Charles Edward Stuart — Bonnie Price Charlie, the Scottish history is now the property, albeit not exclusively so, of Young Pretender sections of the Scottish left. Mimicking Scott’s approach, but lacking his literary talents, the rates — medieval fascists by any other name — created an impe - pro-independence Scottish left has gutted the history of post- rialist warmongering society more sharply divided by social class Union Scotland of its real historical content and replaced it with than any other in Europe at the time.” ( SSV , 243). a mixture of recycled leftovers of Jacobite anti-Union propaganda A comparison of Magna Carta with the Declaration of Arbroath and contemporary “anti-imperialist” verbiage. serves to illustrate the inner historical essences of English - But whereas Scott’s enterprise in historical revisionism had ness/Britishness and Scottishness: been profoundly Unionist, the contemporary left version is ob - “The Magna Carta was a grovelling letter written in 1215 by sessively anti-Union. fearty Anglo-Norman nobles addressed to a tyrannical Anglo- This approach to Scottish history might be on a par with the Norman monarch. You can’t get much more English than that. historical absurdities concocted by Scott. But for its exponents it This Magna Carta thing … couldn’t wipe the historical arse of the has the merit of serving as an ideological justification for incor - Declaration of Independence that was signed in Arbroath in 1320. porating the demand for Scottish independence into the socialist The two are like comparing a servile English whinge up against programme — the sham bards for a sham nation have been re - a Scottish clarion call for national freedom.” ( SSV , 270) placed by a sham anti-imperialism for a sham socialism. Echoing the Jacobite anti-Union propaganda of the early eigh - If this verdict seems overly harsh, one need look no further teenth century, the driving forces behind the events of 1707 are re - than the occasional forays into history to be found in the pages of duced to a matter of bribery and betrayal: the Scottish Socialist Voice (SSV ), the paper of the Scottish Social - “The vote (by the Scottish Parliament in favour of the Treaty of ist Party (SSP). Union) was won through epic bribery, military threat and the The English nation, the reader discovers, “was forged follow - pursuit of venal self-interest. The Earl of Glasgow was supplied ing the Norman invasion of 1066. The Normans, incidentally, with the relatively colossal sum of £20,000 sterling, with which to were a mere footnote in both French and European history, but buy votes, influence and spies. And while the Scots ruling elite within England this highly organised army of land-grabbing pi - seamlessly transformed themselves into the North British ruling THE PAST, WE INHERIT THE FUTURE, WE BUILD 1 rather than a beneficiary of the British Empire, with any alterna - tive view portrayed as a propaganda ploy by pro-unionist histo - rians: “Pro-unionist history then suggests that, a few teething probs notwithstanding, the churlish Jocks soon settled down to enjoy the glory days of the British Empire. Yes, while Glasgow hammered out the steam locomotives and warships that kept the imperial vision afloat, the nation’s young blood stained the map of the world pink.” ( SSV , 292) But although a few may have gained from the Union, the ma - jority of the population lost out: “We are calling time on 300 years of a Union which has benefited only the empire-builders and the warmongers, while marginalising the people through the mo - nopolising of power by Westminster.” ( SSV , 303) Scrapping the Union of 1707, when “a ‘parcel o’ rogues’ par - celled us up to form the UK, whether we liked it or not” ( SSV , 276), will put an end to the imperialist British Behemoth: 2007 was “the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Union which set the imperial ball rolling. It provides a key opportunity at the Holy - rood poll to begin the process of its liquidation. Now there’s an anti-imperialist act to get excited about!” ( SSV , 280) The inherently “anti-imperialist” nature of putting an end to the Union is sufficient justification for demanding independence for Scotland: “If there was only one argument for independence, surely it is this: we must disengage ourselves from the UK/US war machine, through breaking up the British state.” ( SSV , 292) This is more urgent than ever in the light of Britain’s sub - servience to unending US military aggression: “We are now seeing a permanent state of war developing with no US military adventure too much for Blair. Nothing could more eloquently illustrate the case for breaking the power of the British state which is the most imperialist and militaristic in Europe. The Left can make a major contribution to weakening that state by supporting Scottish independence both as a democratic demand and an international necessity. Scotland out of Britain and Britain out of Bush’s pocket should be our urgent demands.” ( SSV , 250) Through achieving independence for Scotland “we can make of ourselves a new nation, … (independence) will deliver greater democracy and could pave the way for a people-led transforma - tion of our society” ( SSV , 292). “Real independence” is “the es - Playing card depicts Queen Anne as the enemy of Catholicism sential stepping stone towards socialism in Scotland.” ( SSV , 276). and France — the Pope and the French monarch are being Independence is “the first step” “to a Scottish socialist republic” trampled underfoot (SSV, 270). It is “a necessary stepping stone” towards “a socialist republic” ( SSV , 303). This might not be serious history. But at least it has a happy elite, ordinary people across Scotland rioted in rage and burnt ending. In contrast to the Walter Scott version, however, the copies of the despised Treaty.” ( SSV , 292) happy ending lies in independence rather than in Union with In another echo of the same propaganda the economic impact England. of the Union is portrayed as a matter of national ruination: After 300 years of subjugation to the Union, brought about by “The 1707 Union created a democratic deficit that gave us a the venal self-interest of a parcel of rogues, Scotland arises, Thatcher government when we voted for a Labour one, crushed phoenix-like, from the ashes of the British Empire, regains its in - our industries, ruined our health, impoverished our citizens and dependence, and thereby takes the first, necessary, essential step saw our children slaughtered in one pointless unforgivable war towards becoming a socialist republic: “Scottish independence is after another.” ( SSV, 292) on the horizon. If we fight for it, socialism is there too.” ( SSV , 276) The “subjugation of Scotland into the Union” ( SSV , 270) which When Marx and Engels wrote that the history of all hitherto occurred in 1707 was the mechanism through which the “impe - existing society is the history of class struggle, they meant pre - rialist warmongering society” of England was consolidated at the cisely that: history could not be divorced from class struggle be - level of the post-1707 British state: cause they were one and the same thing. And there was no caveat “Being British means being a mercenary for President Bush, suggesting that this did not apply to Scottish history. dispatching our youth to colonial frontlines in Afghanistan and But in the pro-independence left’s version of Scottish history Iraq, and rendering ourselves the most dangerous and aggres - — and also in its vision of a future independent Scotland — the sive state in Europe today.” ( SSV , 292) category of class and its corollary of class struggle are virtually in - The “infamous Treaty of Union” created “a British state which visible.

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