Kenny MacAskill: Jacobite toast about Union rings true today

The National

12-05-2025

But now it's being part of the UK which is damaging the Scottish economy, undermining our international trade, threatening us all with annihilation and opening us up to global condemnation for collusion with Israel in the Gaza genocide. It's another reason why, with a second independence referendum denied, action needs taken now and a plebiscite election must be used. The need is great, and the time is now.
Had there been a referendum back in 1707, the Union would have been comprehensively rejected by the Scottish people. English gold bought many Scottish lords, showing that some things remain constant throughout Scottish history.
With the economy struggling after the Darien folly, assisted in no small measure by English actions to undermine it, and denied access by the English fleet to new markets in America and the Caribbean, the Union was seen as the solution to financial woes.
The Scottish establishment in church, law and education went for it. The people had no say.
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Scotland had historically been allied with France, although the Reformation had loosened the Auld Alliance. But Jacobitism remained and was both greatly supported within Scotland and backed by the French crown.
As historians such as Murray Pittock have explained, support for the Old and Young Pretender was not in the main predicated on religion but on politics. The options were joining a Union under the Hanoverians or a Scottish Parliament under a Jacobite crown, and something more akin to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Jacobite toast was: 'Prosperity and No Union.' But England wanted to secure its northern border and hence would have moved for an invasion had the treaty not been signed.
But that was then and the factors now are reversed. Today, the economy, trade and the international situation all dictate that Scotland would be better served outwith the Union.
Far from benefiting from the supposed broad shoulders of the British economy, Scotland is being exploited and deindustrialised, the North Sea run down and its last oil refinery closed.
Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster, and trade deals with the US and India are far more likely to harm than help an economic revival.
Access to markets in America and the Caribbean were what was sought back in 1707 and to be fair Scotland in due course benefited, whether through tobacco, sugar or other mercantile trade. But in recent generations Scottish trade has reconfigured to Europe and that is where the future lies.
The Union in 1707 was about opening up markets as the empire grew. Now it's closing down our options and strangling trade for many sectors. Trade with India is infinitesimal and the deal with the UK certainly doesn't have Scotland at its heart. But Starmer's Labour can't decide whether the UK's future lies with Europe or with the US, and Scotland's interests don't merit even a nanosecond of thought.
As ever, when you try to ride two horses you fall between them. Any realignment Starmer negotiates with the European Union will still preclude access to the single market, and Brexit harm will continue. Scotland and the UK are far from promising places to start, let alone run a business. Even Northern Ireland is offering greater benefits never mind lands on the Continent.
The economy is, of course, far more complex than what existed in the 18th century but the ability to decide critical factors for your own interests remains a constant.
The trading arrangements being agreed by the UK Government now are to our detriment. They are being imposed from another country with a different economy and society, and that is deeply damaging.
In the 1980s and beyond, not just the Scottish economy but the UK's suffered through the desire to maintain the supposed strength of sterling. Yet keeping the pound artificially high simply undermined the industrial base here and south of the Border.
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Scottish and UK manufacturers unable to compete and sent to the wall, creating misery and hardship for communities not just individuals.
Now that folly has been supplanted by high energy costs. As people in Scotland struggle to heat their homes, businesses both sides of the Border struggle to survive. Hotels and hospitality are cheaper to operate in Ireland, not just the Balearics, and heavy industry almost entirely priced out.
Energy-intensive industries are too expensive to operate with the highest fuel costs in Europe. That's why despite our renewable energy bounty, businesses and jobs are not following in their wake. We're just a resource to be exploited, with the benefits to be enjoyed by others.
In 2014 we were told Britain would be a force for good. Instead, it's craven to Trump and colluding with Netanyahu. Scotland's interests rest in being in Efta or the EU, not seeking some mid-Atlantic status, or being a US onshore aircraft carrier.
Ireland has shown how an independent country can play a part internationally for peace and speaking out against injustice.
We were lied to in 2014. Our economy, trade and geopolitical situation now show the Union to be positively harmful. We were denied a referendum in 1707, and we don't need one now. A plebiscite election is what's required. Paraphrasing the Jacobite toast: 'For Prosperity, End the Union.'