December 30, 2020 - 4:41pm
Given the prominent role given by modern Scottish nationalism to the themes and iconography of Mel Gibson’s 1995 film Braveheart, it should not be surprising that shoddy history and clumsy myth-making play an important role in the SNP’s project.
A harsh spotlight was cast on this tendency this year when evidence emerged of how the Scottish Government has been skewing the school history curriculum — to the extent of propagating demonstrable falsehoods about the deployment of “English troops” to Glasgow — in order to peddle a narrative of “800 years of English oppression”.
That figure will be immediately familiar to anyone with a passing history of Irish nationalism, and makes the object of the SNP’s agenda very clear: to extricate Scotland from any culpability (as they see it) in the British project and recast it as another Celtic victim of “the English”.
Speaking against the Prime Minister’s deal with the EU in the Commons today, Ian Blackford rooted himself firmly in this ignoble tradition. His efforts to paint Scotland as a thriving European trading nation which was somehow hamstrung by the Union were, to put it kindly, deeply misleading.
Take his claim that Scotland played a “central” part in the Hanseatic League, “a trading alliance that forged connections of commerce from the North Atlantic, the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics” in the 1400s.
Doubtless Scotland was on the Hanse routes. But even a cursory search reveals no evidence for its having been at the heart of the League, whose Encyclopaedia Britannica entry doesn’t mention it once. The Wikipedia page is likewise silent, although another page reveals that Scottish merchants’ involvement in piracy actually led to them being embargoed by the Hanse. Twice. For a total of twenty years.
Blackford’s allegation that the Treaty of Union “ended many of the privileges” enjoyed by Scottish merchants is, if anything, more misleading still. It tries to present the creation of Great Britain as hobbling Scottish trade when it did precisely the opposite.
In fact, Scotland’s political leaders only agreed to the Union because the ruinous failure of the Darien Scheme, their effort to build a separate colonial empire in Central America — in part because the English cut the colonists off from support from their own colonies in the Caribbean. This not only placed them in urgent need of financial assistance, but also drove home that it was vital to Scottish interests to enjoy unfettered access to England’s nascent imperial network.
That Scotland became both an enthusiastic participant in and beneficiary of the British Empire that subsequently emerged is beyond honest dispute.
But then Scots have always been found in the vanguard of British nationhood. It was James VI of Scotland, upon acceding to the English throne as James I (and bringing plenty of Scottish advisers into the heart of the London court) who first tried to forge a united “British polity”. And it was Scottish colonists in Ulster who built the plantation in which a shared, Anglo-Scottish “British” identity first started to emerge and laid the foundations for the subsequent creation of Northern Ireland.
The story of the United Kingdom is a Scottish story — and more often than not, a success story. Hence the SNP’s ceaseless efforts to draw a white-and-blue veil over their nation’s actual past.
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SubscribeBlackford is disgusting, just disgusting, even by the standards of the SNP. That aside, one rarely meets a Scot who knows anything about the Act of Union and the Darien Scheme etc. They all seem to think that the English somehow ‘conquered’ them.
To his eternal credit, the otherwise revolting Billy Connolly was fully cognisant of the Darien Fiasco and the ludicrous pretensions of Scotch Nationalists.
As to Blackford, an obese creature of limited intellect, who should be pitied rather than vilified.
I don’t mind Connolly so much, but the most revolting thing about the programme was the constant adulating and sycophantic referral to that other truly revolting creature Russell Brand, plus ‘others’.
Yes indeed. What was the name of that rather large female, ex NHS worker who thought it was so funny to throw battery acid in people’s faces?
I was astonished to hear she still appears on the BBC.
Jo Brand, who is funny in inverse proportion to her weight.
Thank you. No relation to Russell I presume?
I am not sure. I doubt it though, as he seems to be funny in direct proportion to his weight…
Maybe the odious Russell is the unfunny Jo’s love child?
Why astonished? She’s just their kinda gal.
She has that protective Lefty aura. If they “let her go” the Beeb would be accused of just about every kind of prejudice you could name so they keep up the pretence that she is retained due to popular demand rather than fear of Lefty displeasure.
We are a very naive lot up here in the highlands of Arcadia I’m afraid.
However I take your point and you are absolutely correct.
If I recall correctly, about the time Ms Bran was advocating chucking battery acid in people’s faces another Comedian fell foul of the ‘Media’.
An elderly male Comedian, who ‘posted’ a photograph purporting to be that of the birth of a new royal baby, was summarily sacked.
The photograph in question showed one of the Royal Princes (I forget which) holding the hand of young Chimpanzee on the steps of the King Edward VII Hospital.
Well, I certainly thought it a rather amusing, but could understand how others found it offensive. But a sacking offence? Surely not?
The whole thing stinks of double standards, forgiveness for the Bran creature, the “Pit of Eternal Stench” for the other.
The people they call ‘the English’ were a mix of English, lowland Scots and even a few Highland clans. In those days conflict was dynastic, not national. I wonder if they teach that in Scottish classrooms.
My understanding is that they no longer teach anything but Sturgeon Studies in Scottish classrooms. No wonder they keep slipping down the international tables for reading and mathematics etc.
The link to the article referenced above in the Spectator. It highlights that there are flag out lies taught by Education Scotland to children in school!
If the reverse was the case it would be all over the news and disgust from every commentator. Actually in fact I can’t even imagine it being tried anywhere else in the UK! Silence as usual instead.
Quite… the projection of ideas now onto History is so common among nationalists of any country or time it should serve as a form of identifying nationalists.
Apart from the challenges presented by the geography, the weather and the interference of the English in the financing of the project, which resulted in the under supply of the ships, the English led by King William, conspired with the Spanish to scupper the Darian developments. Prior to that, acts of Parliament limited the Scots from trading and having their own navy; which of course followed a few hundred years after Edward Ist caused years of mayhem to an erstwhile and relatively peaceful and prosperous sovereign nation. Oh and he did the same to the Welsh.
What have you got against punctuation?
Ah how nice to have a comment from someone who is not at all interested in the discussion and simply tries to discredit it with a lesson in English.
I wasn’t trying to discredit you. It was really only about the run-on sentence. I was unnecessarily harsh. Sorry.
Ah ok. Apology accepted but you were correct as I wrote it in a hurry once again and on revising it concur.
Edward I never visited Ireland and certainly didn’t cause any mayhem there. Ireland was left more or less to itself for the 150 years following King John’s death.
You are of course right. I wrote this in a hurry and meant Wales! My apologies!
And there’s me thinking the Darien venture was all about inappropriate equipment for the climate, insect-borne nasties and impenetrable jungle.
Indeed that was a factor but as I suggested, much of it as a result of interference by other nations and the might of England.
The second wave of settlers who sailed off to doom went off without any news of the success or failure of the first wave of Scots who went over.
That really sunk both the hopes of a Scottish Empire and the ability of the country to continue.
Before the Act of Union Scotland was routinely led up the Garden path by other countries in Europe as a diversion in their own struggles with England..and after , in the case of the French promises of support, and minor support, given in the two Jacobite rebellions.
Scotland remained very poor, and as well as the financial ruin following the Darien Scheme collapse Scotland had endured famines more than once in the 1690s…taking 25% of the population in some places and around 7 to 8% in general…in 21st century terms on a population of 5.45M that would be around 400,000 people dying.
After the Act of Union, and the final defeat of the Jacobites, who weren’t Scottish patriots for Independence but Catholic Stuarts wanting to take over the throne of the two Kingdoms, this all ended.
Within a few decades Scotland was able to enjoy the renown and achievements of the Enlightenment in which Edinburgh played such a major part, and after that the benefits and wealth of, and played a major part, indeed overweight part in population terms, in the British Empire.
Updating this analysis the SNP have been able to revivify (temporarily I feel) a lost Independence campaign by conflating it with Brexit, tactically a path of least resitance, strategically a mortal error.
They have been happy to work with Tories, (Remain tories),LibDems and europhile Labour members, and flattered by kind words from European allies while they were seen as useful in trying to force a second referendum.
Sadly, as in the past, they will now drop from view in Europe as the continent turns to tackling it’s own emerging problems.
The Spanish finished off the project that was already disintegrating into chaos because they saw the Scots as a rival , nascent colonial force. This is an entirely natural point of view, indeed shared by Scotland itself, as it was trying to establish a rival colonial empire.
At the end of the day the Scots tried and failed dismally to establish a colonial empire themselves, and when that ended in disaster they joined the union and so succeeded.
One final point is that Scotland continues to this day to enjoy the benefit from colonialism under the guise of the Scottish diaspora and the constant supply of New Zealanders, South Africans and North Americans who qualify for the National Rugby team (something that benefits Wales, Ireland and England as well of course).
@ri@unherdlimited-eca4ab852e3adfc863d6ebac95b612e6:disqus
Please dont think that the idiot snob Blackford is representative of the majority of Scottish people, because he is not. I can understand where you are coming from, but believe me there are many more Scots that beieve in the Union
And more Scots voted for Brexit than voted for the Scottish National Socialists. Even a third of the SNP voted for Brexit. “To be dragged out of the EU against their will…”
The SNP could fairly be nicknamed
,”ScotNazis”
Just Fact checked BBC for numbers.
2016 Brexit
Scotland Leave 1,018,322
2019 GE
SNP 1,242,380
Incidentally more people voted to STAY in 2016 than voted for Conservatives in 2019.
2016 Brexit UK Stay 16,141,241
2019 GE Conservative 13,966,451
That’s because, contrary to the black & white opinion of Returners, those who voted Leave come from a wide spectrum of political leanings. Just as many Conservatives voted Remain.
McGoebbels’ misrepresentation of history is laughable, but it is perfectly aligned with the SNP’s victimhood narrative. Tragically, it will be lapped up by the faithful and will go unchallenged by the media in Scotland. As a Scotsman living in England, it is deeply worrying.
I have yet to know a good argument against enfranchising Scots in the UK but outwith Scotland.
They could be easily be identified by a Scottish place of birth.
(Remember the Scottish National Socialists plan to allow 16 year olds to vote, an extraordinary policy but also a real dirty trick, typical of them)
That the SNP have any remaining credibility is beyond me. Their unashamed, naked, desire to do anything, and everything, to try and promote discord in the Union, even if it means the utterly risible flip flopping back and forth on their stated aims is beyond parody.
At least one benefit of destroying, the once vaunted Scottish education system, is that it’s so much easier to lead dumb animals by the nose in the desired direction.
A Perty based on Anglophobia, even hatred, in very many supporters.
Part of the problem is the lazy and imprecise – but dangerous – ideological blob that has captured so many institutions, such as the BBC. The BBC thinks nationalism is terrible, unless it is Scottish or Palestinian. It infects the body politic on that basis because so many people still take the BBC seriously (I take them seriously, but as a plague, not as an authoritative interpreter of events).
If you think the BBC is favourable to the SNP you need to check discussions on twitter like those by @MSM_monitor. I can only presume that your view is based on your English BBC broadcast rather than our BBC Scotland view.
Nicola Sturgeon has posed and preened as competent in her handling of Covid19 and that has been a large element in the party’s recent popularity.
(In 2017 in a pretty disastrous GE for Conservative’s generally the SNP vote share fell to under 39% from the 44.7% of the referendum 3 years earlier)
She has had fun in taunting the Trump administration in the USA for their clownish buffonery and pronounced that his handling of the crisis has cost lives.
Scotland enjoys *smaller country advantage* in handling Covid19 effects (though this hasn’t helped Belgium or indeed Netherlands ALL that much) and likes to compare itself to places like Norway, Denmark and Finland.
If the 5.45M population of Scotland is grossed up to the USA’s 331M then Scotland’s 6,200+ (obviously figures change daily) grosses up to 372,000 or so compared to the USA’s actual 320,000 or so.
The competent Nicola Sturgeon has presided over a Covid Crisis where proportionately Scottish deaths are over 50,000 WORSE than the Bufoon Trump.
This sort of grotesque perception building has been possible because a) the Scottish media is, on the kindest reading, so hollowed out and thinned down (like much regional media across the UK) it doesn’t have the capacity to hold her to account.
The UK media since 2014 have seen the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon as a supply of soundbites and bullet points to fuel their own obsession with Brexit.
That may weoll now end and I hope the UK media start to subject Nicola Sturgeon to the consistent and forensic treatment that they obviously subject Boris Johnson to.
There are many such failures as the Covid19 crisis where the gap between perception of Sturgeon and the SNP and reality are separated by a chasm.
More likely to die of COVID in Sturgeon’s Scotland than Trump’s America. Great job with the figures, sir.
As a wee bonus, you could throw the heroin deaths in there. With 1264 in Scotland that would equate to about 77,000 in the USA.
Absolute paradise Nicola’s running up there…the lassie can do no wrong!
The man is an embarrassment: a clod of the first order.
You didn’t think the SNP would let the truth get in the way of a good story did you ?
This absurd little man is Sturgeon’s best weapon. He is so unbearable that most English people are tempted to say “good riddance” to Scotland, just to shut the clown up.
I’ve actually worked in both Edinburgh and Glasgow and found very few people who wanted to break with the union. Perhaps they realise how important the UK listed financial services in Scotland are in providing a career for them and a living for their family. Blackford is an overweight greedy little millionaire and his interests are for his ego only. And you notice that he has never committed himself on the ‘Currency’ issue – Scotland would go down the pan and most Scots realise it. As for joining the EU- him and Sturgeon are deluded by vanity.
If he really is a millionaire, how did he make all his money? Please don’t tell me troughing at the public trough, because that will ruin my current good mood
Equities (research?) at Deutsche Bank, apparently. On that basis you’d think he would be sufficiently analytical and market aware to realise the impossibility of an independent Scotland on pure economics alone. That he might well be, yet blusters as he does, says everything about the mendacious, reckless and dishonest aims of the SNP.
The SNP regularly use *Not denying* as a tactic in relation to many crazy claims made regularly and routinely by their social media platforms (official and unofficial) and alongside the idea that *currency* is just a picture on a piece of paper, are things like the Whisky Export Tax (yes, a taqriff we impose on ourselves), the allocation of all Scottish export value to English Ports they actually leave the UK from (thus Lowestoft becomes the richest city in Europe..not), the *fact* the UK will have to pay Scottish pensions after any inde because of the *pot* Scots have paid into…(Correct, there is no pot of course..we pay for the pensioners pensions with our taxes, and cometh the day current taxation will pay for ours.
So he, Sturgeon and the rest allow these and other similar lies to circulate that they never, ever mention.
He knows to do so and not outright deny them would make him an even bigger laughing stock among the global community than he now, is to the niche audience of his thud blundering performances of Tartan Pooterishness week after week.
Ian Blackford (born 14 May 1961) is a Scottish politician serving as Leader of the Scottish … Council had proposed closure. Blackford is the chair of Commsworld plc, a telecoms company, and a millionaire. He is a supporter of Hibernian F.C.
Reading this article and the linked Spectator article just makes me angry.
Is there nothing that can be done to contradict the myths being perpetrated in the SnP’s quest to destroy the United Kingdom?
The thought that history is being factually adjusted smacks of indoctrination and the creation of a one-party state.
Clearly the next Scottish election will be an attempt by the SnP to gain a mandate for independence. The parties in favour of the Union should put their political differences aside to fight this threat on a seat by seat basis to maximise the Unionist vote.
How times change – 48 years ago when I married my husband – who was a Scot, I am English, the sectarian divide was Catholic/Protestant….Celtic/Rangers. Although not religious, his family would not have accepted me had I been a ‘fenion’ – a term still used then despite originally relating to Irish catholics. My three children now in their 40s are Sco/Eng and the current calibre of Scottish politicians makes me ashamed of their Sco part of their heritage. It is pure hatred of the English that gets Sturgeon out of bed in the mornings and Bunter Blackhead is one of the most vile disgusting characters ever to enter the House of Commons, not to mention his party colleagues, most of whom should bring an interpreter. The old sectarian divide has now morphed into Unionist/ Separatist, the result of the SNP rhetoric being to alienate the English who – given the chance – would now vote for Scots independence.
Why does ancient history have to be brought into issues of today – in the US many are still fighting the Civil War, when I lived in South Africa many had not moved on from the Boer War, heroes of yesteryear are judged by today’s standards and values – what does it matter which tribes were fighting over a bit of land in the 14th century? Let the past stay in the past, forget it and move on.
The European Unionist, Ian Blackford?
That is how he should be addressed/responded to every time he speaks in the commons or in the media. Eventually, that should be shortened to Unionist. He’ll love it!
We should review the extent to which powers have been devolved to the Scottish Assembly. If they can’t be trusted to teach history in a fair and balanced manner, without bias against other parts of the UK, then perhaps the UK government should have a stronger voice in Scottish education…
If there were to be a UK wide referendum on Scottish independence I for one would give a big yes. Sick to the back teeth of the SNP whinging whilst the English subsidise them.
The SNP doesn’t speak for Scotland.
Unfortunately democracy says otherwise!
Strange thing democracy isn’t it?
The separatists speak only for themselves. Of
Probably true, but the SNP claims it does indeed represent the views of Scotland. The only people who can help to correct this mismatch are the voters in Scotland. If they choose to install an SNP government, they only have themselves to blame.
I wouldn’t. That is what the SNP want you to do. That is why they rile you up.
At the time of the “Indyref” I remarked that it seemed very odd than an English leader was recommending the union while a Scottish leader was recommending independence apparently the complete opposite of the respective majority views of their constituents. A straw poll around my office, at the time staffed equally by Scots and English following a recently forced company merger, had revealed that my English colleagues favoured independence while the Scots amongst us favoured union! That our conditions of independence would have to include taking their two failed Banks with them may suggest my profession!
Subsequent pub conversations revealed that anecdotally this opinion was more common than I had believed, at least in this part of the north (Leeds).
I must stress that these views are wholly unscientific, completely anecdotal and based upon a VERY limited sample.
The thing they don’t tell you when they tell you the Scots are subsidised is that we are actually one of the least subsidised economic region of the UK. All but two (London & SE England) are more subsidised than Scotland (even if you believe those stats)
The Scottish National Socialist rewriting of British history is similar to the Austrians captured at Stalingrad who attempted to blame everything on the Germans, and that as Austrians it was nothing to do with them (ignoring, of course, where their commander in chief came from).
(As an aside, I know it was fiction but I have long enjoyed the idea of that little sh!t, Rolf the post boy from the Sound of Music, ending up in Stalingrad…)
Austria was disproportionately well represented in the senior ranks of the Nazi Party, as was its neighbour Bavaria.
All that racial stuff, mixed up in a heady cocktail of Wagner, Lederhosen, Bierkellers etc, made the perfect elixir for the Teutonic beast.
Paradoxically the Prussians to the north had little time for such farcical histrionics.
Has anything really changed?
.
Austria was disproportionately well represented in the senior ranks of the Nazi Party, as was its neighbour Bavaria.
Austria was disproportionately well represented in the senior ranks of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party as was its neighbour Bavaria.
My apologies for having to repeat and expand this, but I stupidly used the dreaded ‘N’word in the first draft.
Austria was disproportionately well represented in the senior ranks of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, as was its neighbour Bavaria.
All that racial stuff, mixed up in a heady cocktail of Wagner, Lederhosen, Bierkellers etc, made the perfect elixir for the Teutonic beast.
Paradoxically the Prussians to the north had little time for such farcical histrionics.
Has anything really changed?
Blackford is a bigot. His existence has one good result; it reminds us that the Northern Irish are descended fom the same stock and share his bigotry. Let them all have their independence – wish them well and await the inevitable chaos which is bound to ensue…
Yes, succinctly put!
‘Fat Blackboard’, as he’s known in our (Scottish) house.
It is very hard indeed to point to any historical British military campaign that did not involve either Scottish regiments or senior commanders.
Or, even more likely, both.
I don’t carry a particular flag for Mr Blackford or the SNP, but if you are going to write an article labelled ‘fact-check’ it might be best to actually check your facts beginning with the assertion made in the second paragraph. Best to do your own checking rather than rely on an inaccurate article in the Spectator.
How about UnHerd listing the BMI of their writers so we may better judge their veracity and, dare I say, the weight of their opinions. Body shape is clearly of great relevance in colouring the views of many commenting here.
The BMI is a flawed methodology and solely a quick and convenient tool that enables your practice nurse to chide you for being ‘overweight’. Using the BMI many (most) sportsman score as ‘overweight’ if not clinically obese, as is the case with top rugby players. I don’t think I would care to call Itoje a ‘fat git’ without a good head start! Other methodologies such as skin fold testing give a far more accurate assessment of body composition, although I doubt the scribblers on this site would play ball with that one, and the thought of carrying out the same on Blackford really doesn’t appeal much either.
The SNP have made claims about Scots membership of the Hanseatic League a quick Google brings up ” The involvement of Scottish
merchants in piracy resulted in embargoes on Scottish traders by the
Hanseatic League in 1412″“15 and 1419″“36. However, trade with Danzig,
Stralsund, Hamburg and Bruges continued. The staple was moved to
Middelburg in Zealand several times in the fifteenth century.
Mr Blackford lays claim to Catholic links which were rejected by many as they often burned traditional herbalists as witches.
He is a pantomime Dame. Like Danny la Roux has been in a fire.
A badly crafted Winston Churchill impersonation.
Ironic that we’ve had virtual Scottish government under Blair, Brown and with Lib Dem figures in the Coalition’s cabinet. Staying in the union gives Scots their best chance of influence in Westminster, Gove being one example.
Be
Maybe Sturgeon has no desire whatsoever of rejoining the EU and is just saying she does to attempt to gain the votes of Scottish EU remainers who may have voted against independence in her last referendum?
A bit disappointing as I took “Ian Blackford’s shoddy history…” to mean the balloon’s personal record. Was looking forward to a litany of gaffes and misdeeds.
Toy Town political party, with a perfect petty demagogue in charge. We really should have ALL had the vote in 2014, then we’d long have been shot of Scotland. Which would also be bankrupt.
I see there has been a gathering of unionists under the banner of this article. As always a misuse of the internet as it shows complete bias and little fact and simply swamps those undecided folk with misinformation in order to sway them. Just like telling everyone in 2014 that Scotland would loose the BBC and would see enormous tax rises if a vote for independence was successful.
When it comes to misinformation, deliberate vagueness and downright lies, the Yes campaign and the SNP won by a stretch in 2014. It’s still unclear on many of the key issues (£?!), but one thing outwith their one party state propaganda machine’s control is abundantly clear: the EU couldn’t give a f*ck about Scotland, which on account of its bloated public sector and level of indebtedness wouldn’t even qualify for membership.
In this craziest of times, the fact that people actually want to vote themselves into penury beggars belief.