Letter from Denmark..EXILE

Another fine article from Peter Young of IndyScot News in Denmark.

Letter from Denmark. Exile. By Peter Young.

“The police were here today,” my London landlady said. “They wanted to see you and Liam.”

“The police?”

“It’s okay. When we told them you were Scottish they said they didn’t need to speak to you.”

It was early in the most violent year of ‘The Troubles’ – 1972. I’d just turned 16 and was on my first foreign exile. Another runaway on the overnight Glasgow to London bus.

After a few weeks staying with a Scottish friend in Streatham I found a room to let. This coincided with a job advertised in the pages of a London newspaper – ‘Wanted: Trainee Sales Representative’, a euphemism for a dogsbody as it turned out.

Fellow lodger, Liam, was a ‘person of interest’ to the authorities, not because he’d done anything wrong. His crime was being Irish. With hindsight, the Aldershot bombing in late February 1972 was probably the reason for police searches of lodgings. That deadly attack brought the violence across the Irish Sea to England. 

I was oblivious to the events in the north of Ireland. But I soon learned the 1920s British partition was in flames. Catholic civil rights marchers were treated in much the same way as black Americans – with extreme violence. Some plummy-voiced politicians in London imagined Finchley to be as British as Fermanagh. It isn’t.

As Liam faced a wave of anti-Irish sentiment, I merely had to come to terms with a city where no one talked to fellow passengers on buses and where my Scottish currency was shunned.

A poignant part of my job was emerging each day onto the “Firefly platform on sunny Goodge Street’ as Donovan described it in his lyrics, “Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine”. Well, there were hash-smokers but none of them violent. The view of the Post Office Tower was stunning as I headed through the alien streets to my office supplies employer. My task was “to help promote a new table-top photocopier” – by leafleting other offices! “My, my,” they sigh”.

These events came back to me while listening to the audiobook version of ‘Killing Thatcher’, a fascinating insight into ‘The Troubles’. The violent world of the high-unemployment, sectarian state seems as surreal now as it did them. A bit like Easterhouse or Castlemilk but with riots, shootings, and army occupation. The only comparable event here in Denmark is the Nazi occupation.

On this sunny day in 2023, Danish cycle paths are probably smoother than most roads in Scotland. Just as well, as I’m on a very long two-wheeled voyage to the city centre. All the cycle lanes seem broader than I remember. They have doubled their width in many places and the space for cars has been reduced.

In central Copenhagen my daughter shows me around the third floor offices of her media company employer. She’s just got her first full-time contract. It’s well-paid and secure. With no debt or student loans, thanks to the generous Danish student support ‘SU’ (Statens Uddannelsesstøtte), and part-time jobs, her start in life is without debt of any kind.

With Denmark’s national revenues under the complete control of Copenhagen, this nation can afford to prioritise its youth, and, incidentally, those of other Nordic states. This is due to reciprocal Nordic Council agreements. Imagine independent Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in a small nation co-operation council that granted equal work and economic rights to citizens of each country. The only thing Nordic citizens can’t do in each other’s countries is vote in general elections or referendums. It follows naturally, that if you can’t vote you can’t stand for election either. That’s reserved for citizens only. Of course, this doesn’t stop political careerists, but it does put a break on the type of non-native grifters and careerists of which Scotland has more than its share.

We lunch at one of the numerous outdoor cafes. I’m aware of being surrounded by young people, dressed sharply, chatting happily. Here on Sankt Annae Plads the pavements are broader, cycle paths wider, cars fewer. The quality of urban life has gone from good to better. It never ceases to amaze, how much a small independent country, just east of Scotland, at 55 degrees north, can look so good, so clean, so well-maintained. As the crow flies, Edinburgh is off to the west, a mere 624 miles from here, but you could be on another planet.

In the world of 1972, Liam and I were both exiles, both Celts. In the colonial capital, I was a ‘Jock’. Liam though, was a ‘Paddy’, and viewed with deep suspicion. I knew nothing about anti-Irish racism but I began to sense it.

I’ve met many Irish exiles since then. The ones I met here in the Nordic region during The Troubles were reluctant to talk about the old country. I suppose they, like me, had come here to distance themselves from the land of their birth. To forget.

A high number of exiles results in a declining population. This has been a feature of the Celtic nations. For Ireland, though, that may be about to reverse as it becomes more prosperous. Political intrigues aside, and there are many, Ireland has come of age as an independent nation. A republic, with European links, an elected head of state, and with their dream of a re-united nation far more likely than any constitutional change in Scotland, what’s not to like?

The huge outward migration of Scots, generation after generation, is tragic. We exiles are not always abroad by choice. Circumstances beyond our control – domestic, economic or even emotional led us to forsake our home.

There’s only so much national oppression a people can take before they fight or simply retreat. And to be honest, a retreat into exile must look like an attractive option to those Scots who’ve had it with the British state, its colonial broadcaster, wall-to-wall London-centric press, and sneering Unionist parties bragging about ‘Britishness’ – as they facilitate the plunder of our nation’s wealth to the English capital.

How much of a national-betrayal ego trip do you have to be on, to think the title ‘Dame Jackie Baillie’ is a badge of honour? She could be a direct descendent of the Scottish Commissioners who took English bribes in 1707.

Scotland is a failed state in Union. We have omnipresent poverty, lack of investment in infrastructure, the selling off of our public-asset crown jewels. But worst of all, we’ve had generation after generation of failed politicians. Tory, Labour, and Lib-Dems – the triumvirate of servile teuchters – now channel Northern Ireland style British loyalism, without the Belfast bonfires. The most painful betrayal, though, is by the party every independence activist gave their time, money and energy to. It has proved to be no less treacherous than the ‘yoons’.

The 56 out of 59 SNP MPs ‘settled in’, despite their election being the greatest mandate to end the Union since 1707. Consquently, they managed to achieve the sum of nothing for Scotland’s cause. They allowed themselves to be doormats for the Smith Commission. But a few did find new partners after high-profile ‘inappropriate’ behaviour. Others indulged in sexual deviance. A huge number employed their pals or family members. All of our so-called liberators became rich within the structures of the British state they told us they were determined to leave.

Back in Scotland, we’re left to view the constitutional wasteland bequeathed us by Sturgeon – the failed lawyer, catapulted to an office beyond her abilities.

A patter merchant and monumental non-achiever, she was chosen to follow our most successful First Minister – and, perplexingly, with his blessing. We all admire Alex Salmond to bits, but it’s not heresy to suggest that this was his greatest political mistake and a catastrophic error of judgement.

And what of Scottish law? Professor Robert McCorquodale excepted, where are the independent legal minds standing up for our nation’s distinctive legislation? Why are the breaches of the Treaty of Union not a burning issue? Our current Lord Advocate is as much a disaster as the previous. As Craig Murray pointed out, you could be forgiven for thinking she was on the side of the Union in the Supreme Court, during the ‘designed to fail’ indyref appeal promoted by Sturgeon. That was the penultimate act of scorched-earth policy by the Murrells on the independence movement – the final one being the rigged leadership ballot, which ensured a compliant and hopelessly useless successor.

I was convinced Scotland would vote Yes in 2014. I had imagined returning. I could easily have moved my work across the North Sea. Scotland as part of greater Scandinavia was within our grasp. But we chose to remain ‘greater England’. Of course, later studies showed a majority of we Scots did vote Yes. But our obsession with ‘civic nationalism’ opened our franchise to people who had no interest in our nation’s constitutional future. Their interest was pragmatic, and entirely selfish. For them it was about the here and now, about keeping the status quo for as long as their stay lasted. Many have no doubt left since. They’re back home in their own countries, where we Scots would never be given an automatic say in their constitutional issues.

The naivety of those who fixed the 2014 franchise bordered on criminal. They clearly lacked the inherent belief that we are a distinct people. Why else would you allow settlers, many with a colonial mindset, a vote on our nation’s future? In 1707, our birthright as Scots was traded away for bribes. In 2014, we gave it away – for the misguided and ill-thought-out concept of civic nationalism.

I finished the book ‘Killing Thatcher’ on my long cycle ride home from city centre to my rural location, about 40 kilometres north. There were cycle paths the entire route, all safe, most well removed from traffic. The sunshine and coastal scenery was in stark contrast to the bleak story of an Irish liberation struggle, turned violent. ‘Killing Thatcher’ is a tense whistle-stop tour of Irish history. Much of it focuses on the Brighton bomber, the hunger strikes, and national resistance. One thing you do learn from it, as a Scot, is that the Irish have a ‘fire in their belly’ that we Scots don’t. Even today, in the fading sectarian state, they have their own laws on postal voting. These are hugely restrictive for obvious reasons.

Meanwhile, we Scots accept the colonial voting commission rules, see no issue with postal voting, and obsess about civic nationalism, as though everyone else’s constitutional needs must be given precedence over our own. There were an eye-watering 800,000 postal ballots during the 2014 indyref. Both Ruth Davidson, and John McTernen one week before the referendum, were convinced the postal votes would clinch it for London. They clearly knew something. Of course, all ballot papers were hurriedly destroyed after the no-exit-poll plebiscite. Question the result, however, and you are a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Ironically, that phrase was invented by the CIA in the 1960s to help cover up its own very real conspiracy, an act of treason in November 1963, from which the United States has never recovered.

The ultimate indignity for Scotland is the current First Minister’s embrace of continuity Sturgeonism and its servile surrender to the May, Johnson, and now Sunak veto, on our nation’s right to amicably exit the Union. His party is now a self-perpetuating patronage machine for spivs and amoral hangers-on. It may only be a matter of time before some scandal envelopes Humza, too. SNP dissidents, and they do exist – with huge potential power and leverage – don’t appear to have the civil courage to resign, cross the floor, or create a new party. It’s enough to drive you into exile.

MY COMMENTS

We have lost so many through emigration. The cost to us is broken families and heartbreak, perhaps a bit easier today than yesteryear give the technology advances that allow regular face to face contact over the internet through FaceTime, Skype etc but no matter this techno contact it is no substitute for a kiss or a hug from a loved one. I think a lot of our exiles would have returned if we had voted Yes, instead the No vote was an international sign that we lacked confidence in our ability to stand on our feet in the modern world. It did Scotland no favours and we can hardly condemn exiles for not uprooting their lives for the “old country” when too many in Scotland lacked faith in our country’s own ability. We really need to understand why those attitudes persist in Scotland and do much more to eliminate them. Having greater pride in our country, our culture, our languages, our achievements would be a good place to start.

I am, as always

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