IRELAND YES, SCOTLAND NO: From The Province Of The Cat by George Gunn.
Last week The Mage of Kirkckaldy gave us this. “Yes. Well, of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united.” And this, “Scotland’s got to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries, and independence would not be the right way forward. We’re geographically, economically, socially, culturally linked to the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it’s Wales, England or parts of Ireland.” [‘I don’t want to be a backseat driver’: Gordon Brown on Burnham, billionaires – and his vision for a better Britain | Gordon Brown].
So that’s a Yes for Ireland and a No for Scotland. For some reason best understood by the mystics of Unionism Scotland is singularly of all the nations of the world incapable, somehow – which is never explained – of becoming or being a normal country. You could just take the word “not” out of Gordon Brown’s first sentence about Scotland and it would be a reflection of reality. If you inserted “not” between “will” and “be” in his pronouncement on a united Ireland it would be a projection of fantasy.
For those who are wondering what a “Mage” is – well, it is, more or less, someone whose application of beliefs, rituals and actions are employed with the intent to manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces. It is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices sometimes considered separate from both religion and science. When Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Prime Minister, it was apparent that a lot of his beliefs and practices were indeed separate from what was good for everyone, whether that be religion or science. As a son of the manse perhaps this was his revenge.. There is no room here to list his many anti-achievements which led to the financial carnage of the banking collapse of 2008. Who, in their right mind, would buy a used car from Gordon Brown? Yet The Guardian (Sat 29 Aug 2026) print his verbal effusions as if they were the wise words of a Mage and not those of a Radge.
This only has any interest because The Showman PM, Andy Burnaham, has been roving his greater mayordom – not Scotland – informing the Irish that a referendum on a united Ireland is “off the table”. Maybe he hasn’t heard of the Good Friday Agreement? He also pays no attention to Scottish democracy because he has already informed us that as far he is concerned an independence referendum is “off limits”. How awkward for The Showman that the Scots keep stubbornly voting for parties that desire Scottish independence. How easy it is to keep saying “No” to a political consensus of which you do not approve. It will just go away. This, truly, is magical thinking. Something Gordon Brown could never achieve. He was more a Croesus than a Midas. The former lost his empire after consulting an oracle, the latter tuned everything he touched into gold.
There is a story Dave Allen tells of a sermon given by Ian Paisley in which he lambasted the congregation in good old Presbyterian style about how they were all doomed and bound for hell where they would meet hot boiling oil and the gnashing of teeth. A wifie in the second row shouted out “Doctor Paisley, I hevna got any teeth!” To which the thundering minister replied “Teeth will be provided!”
A succession of Ukanian Labour leaders such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer and now Andy Burnham – to list the Tory bunch produces what in Scots is termed a “yaukin pine”, or severe pain or agony – has reduced Scotland politically, economically, socially and culturally to a shadow. They have provided the teeth. Everything that is possible in a country like Ireland or Norway is – mysteriously, magically – impossible in Scotland. Everything that should be going forwards is going backwards. We are no further on, to achieving independence, than we were in 2014, when we were close.
This despite the SNP being in power for twenty years. But that’s the catch, isn’t it: the SNP are in office but hold no meaningful power. The Scotland Act of 1998 sees to that. For example, the more energy we produce the poorer we become. The Scots are expected to pay more for everything and receive the lowest wages in Ukania. The result: people get poorer. This is particularly true in the arts. The genius of Scotland is wrapped up in the Union Jack and whatever you say, say nothing. Especially if you are a creative who supports independence, because you will not get cast, recorded, produced, published, exhibited or performed. Tragically, the majority of Scots do not notice, or care. This is what they think is normal. How else could it be any other way than the way it is? There is no way out. The Union is a prison.
All art is political. It is political because it is produced by human beings in a particular society st a certain time. So all art reflects that society and that time. Artists cannot be censored, although they can be killed or ignored. We need art so that we can learn how humanity works. We need art so that we can know what we don’t yet know and to understand what we so far have failed to comprehend. We need art to feel what we are reluctant or somehow powerless to feel and to grasp it without fear. In other words, Scotland needs a vibrant creative culture so that we can have a vibrant political culture. We need both to prevent us from despairing, even if despair is part of consciousness. Despair is understandable when we exist in a constitutional Groundhog Day that forever keeps us from realising our enormous potential. But we cannot afford despair. As Raymond Williams famously put it,
“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing”
When a nation truly despairs it usually finds itself at war. Better for Scotland to practice the poetry of optimism rather than the blood sport of conflict. Better still would be for the SNP politicians to be brave and actively pursue their governments draft independence bill and get it on the legislature. The people need something to believe in. We don’t need dictators telling us what is of off the table or off limits, What Scotland needs is a functioning democracy and that is something, as things currently stand, we do not have. Voting for something that is never going to happen because a government in another country will not allow it is not democracy. It has a striking resemblance to a pathocracy, which is a normal peoples democracy taken over by psychopaths. Politicians like The Showman PM of England cultivate a façade of normality. They are shape-changers; deceitful; scheming and unscrupulous; and most importantly and destructively they are unwilling to accept any accountability or responsibility for the negative impacts they cause. In short, they care nothing for anyone but themselves.
This is the social and psychological legacy of Thatcherism: look out for number one, that there is no such thing as society. The Scots romantically believe that we, of all the welded component nations and peoples of Ukania, are the exception. That we are generous, caring, empathetic and believe in a good society. We are Jock Tamson’s bairns, the Tartan Army an a’ that an a’ that. If that were ever true – and we must believe it is – then the prospects for those fine values surviving do not look good. Our education system is designed for our children to pass exams. Nothing else matters. Once the necessary information has been acquired and the qualification achieved, it is discarded. Attention without feeling is only a report. The portable surveillance device in your pocket, commonly called a smartphone, ensures that its owners attention is elsewhere – on advertising, gambling and endlessly scrolling through the backwaters of hi-tech oblivion. The digital revolution has gone the corporate and authoritarian way it has is because of the lax attitudes of politicians like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to corporate power. They swallowed wholesale the sterile and bloodless world-view of Thatcher and failed to limit industries influence over government and the political system. They ignored all warnings about the emerging automated state. Big business now buys the “democracy” it needs – which is as little government as possible. That is how oil companies can accrue obscene profits in a time of two major wars. The top five oil and gas giants have collectively cashed in over $48 billion in profit in the last three months alone; that is May, June, July 2026.
Under devolution Scotland is not emerging, it is submerging. Holyrood has little fiscal purchase on the corporations, like Exxon-Mobil and Amazon who operate in Scotland. The Scottish Government only controls tax on earned income. It doesn’t control the rates on investment income, corporation tax or capital gains tax and, so far, there is no such thing as a land tax. Contrastingly Ireland took in the equivalent of £28.2 billion in Euros in corporation tax.. Last year £7.8 billion was raised in corporation tax in Scotland, all of which went to Westminster. This is another instance of Ireland yes, Scotland no. Ireland is not perfet, but Scotland is a colony.
The companies behind the rash of data centres planned for Scotland are conspicuously silent about their endgame. They will all be owned and built by companies out with Scotland with the profits going abroad. There is an argument that these proposed energy and water sookers are already obsolete with new initiatives driving AI into local computer devices and away from hyper-scale data centres. Whether this is the case or not – and the technology is ever evolving – the question is: when did we stop believing, if we ever did, in both democracy and the liberal nation-state? Are we subscribing, despite our better judgement and against our humanity, to a corporate hi-tech digital vision of a world requiring no controls but a keyboard, a mouse and a stock exchange?
There is a Gaelic word for the feeling you get when you are content, securely housed with plenty of food, surrounded by your family and all the people who love you and you love. Yet there is still something in your heart which is turned towards a place you may never see again. The word is cianalas. An English translation would be homesickness, which sounds like a grievance, or nostalgia, which sounds like a weakness. Cianalas is neither. It is not a longing for a particular time but for a specific place. More exactly, for the version of yourself that only exists in that place. It does have a shade of grief to it, but this is not surprising. Gaeldom has understood from the first evictions and forced emigrations that some wounds of exile do not heal. They are the psychological reality of who you are. Scotland, at this particular time, is experiencing a collective cianalas. Ireland has had hers. Moved through it. Matured. Scotland is in the cianalas of now. Again, it’s Ireland yes, Scotland no.
©George Gunn 2026