I read former Tory MSP, Thatcherite, ex PR man for Michael Forsyth, and keen raving Brexiteer Brian Monteith’s latest effort in that bastion of unionism ‘The Hootsmon’ with more than a smidgeon of teeth-grinding incredulity. In fact if anyone wants to dig a trench the length of the Saltire Bridge I’ll gladly give you enough shovelfuls of skepticism back about Monteith’s rambling considerations that you’d be able to fill the thing back up again.
Monteith asserts in his opinion piece that SNP ministers have their hands in Scotsman readers, and presumably everybody else’s, wallets, a headline which is the predictable outcome of someone who holds his opinions opening his gub and letting his belly rumble.
Oh woe that some people in Scotland who earn more than the majority are going to pay a wee bit, with the emphasis on ‘wee’, extra in their taxes to help fund vital public services. Social responsibility? That’s for mugs and socialists. The SNP will squander your contributions. The stifled disgruntled ”wealth creators’ won’t be able to trickle down, there will just be the very occasional dreep, which is very bad, and will destroy the dangerously rocky Scottish economy totally.
Yawn. Heard it, we all have, many many times. No, that’s not the part of the article that caught my attention. The tax question is secondary.
It is very clear from his writing that Monteith hates the SNP with an unhealthy passion. His accusations that this political party, and by association, anyone who believes in Scotland returning to its rightful position as an independent state, are blood and soil nationalists, are simply untrue.
I know many people who are members of the SNP, I know many more who are not members of a political party or SNP voters who support independence for Scotland. Amongst all of these people I know no one who considers Scots born in Scotland to be better than anyone else, I know no one who considers anyone originally from elsewhere in the world who chooses to make a life for themselves in Scotland as any less Scottish than any other Scots.
Monteith suggests that ‘As long as the SNP has existed Westminster-a dog whistle for England-has been blamed for everything and anything”.
There we have it. The old simplistic howl at the moon Scottish nats hate English people drivel once again. This type of vile division-mongering is as nasty as it is worn out and insipid.
He suggests that the Scottish government is trying to cleanse Scottish state institutions of sentimental attachments to Britishness, to ramp up differentiation, to accentuate the differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
What is this Britishness that he writes about? Is it the Britishness of 19 September 2014, when hundreds of rightwing thugs gave nazi salutes whilst waving union flags and singing ‘God save the Queen” in George Square?
Is it the Britishness of a horrible extremist ingratiated into mainstream politics and BBC political shows, a man with a clear belief in British exceptionalism, having his photo taken in front of a huge poster of lines of hungry refugees fleeing wars in which British forces are party to dropping bombs on their cities or selling guided missiles to others that do, the poster suggesting Britain is full up, and doesn’t care?
Is it the Britishness where hard on the heels of the Brexit result a Polish social club in London frequented by relatives of those who defended Britain’s shores and skies in WW2 was vandalised and daubed in racist graffiti? Is it that kind of Britishness he means?
These examples of Britishness and many more that we could all point at are the actual blood and soil nationalism that exists in the United Kingdom, and they are not anything to do with a movement or a political party that only wishes one thing, the ability to be like any other country in the world and govern itself.
itisintruthnotforglory 
Just one small rebuttal of Monteith’s SNP being anti-English drivel – my local SNP branch has almost as many English members as it does “native” Scots.
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But you see the Scottish government SHOULD “cleanse Scottish state institutions of sentimental attachments to Britishness”, that ‘Britishness’ that stole food from Ireland in the depths of the Famine, that let millions of Indians starve to death in the early days of WWII, that had torture camps in Kenya, that STILL has hundreds of thousands of stolen artifacts in the British Museum. It is a Britishness that has been weaponised to cause Scots to despise their own culture and heritage. The sooner it is ‘cleansed’ from state institutions the better.
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The component parts collectively of the UK do have plenty of reasons for feeling ashamed and disgusted at previous and current acts of Brutish imperialism and exceptionalism , but I as a Scot along with many others no longer want to be associated with this barbaric and psychotic mindset , disguised in the main as British patriotism , I am Scottish first and always , my country is Scotland a significant part of the geographical region known as the British Isles , I do not consider nor am I willing to accept that ancestors unrelated to me and with a sense of entitlement undeserved of them have the authority to give away my nationhood or my country , due to their stupidity , ignorance or self preservation .
This is the 21st century and history is ever changing and progressing and I and significant number of my countrymen no longer wish to be constrained or subjugated by a country , England , who have continually and constantly ignored and denigrated the aspirations and needs of a nation , whilst forcing their views and values irrespective of objections
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