Many of us in the 4.7 million Scots Diaspora in Canada are anxious at the real possibility of Alex
Salmond (memorably characterised in a recent newspaper spread as the ‘ultimate snake-oil salesman’)
persuading a majority of voting residents to throw off the UK and the nefarious
‘English’, and so consign our long and world-changing shared history to the
dustbin.
As one whose heritage reflects both of the founding cultures
of modern Scotland, the Gaelic on my Anderson/MacDonald/McKeddie side and the
Lowland Scots/Northumbrian Anglian on my Watson-Weatherburn side, I find the
“Kilticisation” and “Braveheartism” of the SNP campaign both deceptive and
hypocritical. Unlike Ireland, Scotland was never oppressed by the ‘British’
after the Union of the Crowns and many of the regiments that fought for the
Hanoverian dynasty during the Jacobite rebellions were Lowland Scottish or
Highland clans. There can be little doubt that firstly Tony Blair, with his
cynical belief that a Scots Parliament would support Labour, and then Cameron
by allowing himself to be thoroughly outfoxed by Salmond, bear a great deal of
blame for the coming debacle. Whichever way the vote goes, the hornet’s nest
has been stirred up.
