Blessed are the certain, for they are pure of heart. Nothing can tarnish their dreams, no one can match their commitment to the cause and their righteousness is beyond dispute or, as Alex Salmond might put it, peradventure.
This, I reflected over the course of a rain-soaked Hebridean holiday, is the curse of our times. There is a fatal weakness at the heart of most of our political discourse these days, and that weakness is the certainty with which opinions are held. Doubt and scepticism, which should be thought strengths, are instead considered evidence of debilitating infirmity. Certainty and unfalsifiable conviction are no longer reckoned invitations to hubris but, on the contrary, are seen as stout-hearted common sense.
Worse still, political convictions have been fused with questions of identity. On the two great matters of our time — Brexit and Scottish independence — the earth has been inherited by the pure of heart. Nothing good will come of this.
Brexiteers continue to comfort themselves with the delusion that all will be well. According to YouGov, 61 per cent of Leave voters believe that “significant damage to the British economy” is a price worth paying for bringing Britain out of the European Union; 39 per cent think Brexit would still be a good thing even if it caused “you or members of your family to lose their job”.
You might be shocked by these discoveries but I am not convinced you should be surprised. Just as an alcoholic is defined by the pattern of their drinking more than by the amount of liquor they consume, so fanatics are more clearly revealed by the manner of their thinking than by the actual thoughts themselves.
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The Brexiteers are hardly alone in rejecting pallid utilitarianism for the comforts of bracing and colourful existentialism. In Scotland we are familiar with this pattern of thinking, too. There is an irreducible hard core of independence supporters who would thirst for national liberation even if that “freedom” resulted in national immiseration. We might have to live in caves, but they would be our caves.
Understand this and you begin to understand the agonies presently endured by sections of the
pro-independence movement. More than half of the SNP’s supporters feel personally affronted if their preferred political party is criticised — a touchiness matched only by Ukip supporters — and, if we consider the broader Yes movement more generally, we discover that for many of them, being Yes is a vital, indeed sometimes even dominant, part of their sense of themselves.
And Yes isn’t going anywhere right now. Imagine the crushing disappointment as it becomes clear that after five years of furious activity and McMomentum-building independence is no nearer now than it was the morning after the referendum. Imagine discovering that. Imagine realising, if only dimly, that, at least at the moment, the cause is not enough. This is a moment of lull and a time for taking stock. A boring but necessary time, in other words.
This helps explain, I think, the febrile atmosphere apparent in parts of the pro-independence movement. Most of this is online and most of it involves people of whom most people have never heard. Nevertheless, the divide between those who see independence as a means of building a better house and those for whom it is, fundamentally, a question of cave-ownership is growing. The former think it possible to do some things now, even with independence postponed; the latter consider this a waste of time and effort and are prone to saying things such as — and I kid you not — “the best chance of reducing misogyny is through independence”.
Acting as a referee in these skirmishes, Robin McAlpine, director of the Common Weal think tank-cum-pressure group, wrote: “There is no part of the independence movement that I do not recognise as a thread of the wonderful tapestry that makes us what we are.” This is a revealing statement on many levels. First, it acknowledges the reality of what we might deem the “zoomer” faction; secondly, no one is beyond the pale provided they pledge allegiance to the cause. Think on that and the multitudes of fanaticism it allows and, indeed, encourages.
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As an old Covenanter tells Balfour of Burley in Old Mortality, Sir Walter Scott’s great novel of politics and fanaticism: “It is a sore trial for flesh and blood to be called upon to execute the righteous judgments of heaven”. So it is. But that is the task the Yessers have set for themselves and they will pursue it unto the ends of the earth. As the Covenanter explains: “We are called upon when we have girded up our loins to run the race boldly, and when we have drawn the sword to smite the ungodly with the edge, though he be our neighbour, and the man of power and cruelty, though he were of our own kindred and the friend of our bosom”. Strong stuff, by any measure, and blissfully simple too.
But for most of us, politics is more complicated than this. It is an intricate game of trade-offs; a series of contracts and transactions, the terms of which are always subject to modification. Progress is incremental, not revolutionary. Be wary, in other words, of those who think every knot a Gordian one, solvable by a single, swift swing of a sword. Life, like identity, is more complicated than that.