British Aid Making a Difference

Image Credit: DFID via Flickr cc

     Great Britain is great for many reasons. One may think of its history, culture, people, economic and political clout, among other things. However, there is one thing that tends to get overlooked, and that is Britain’s contributions in the realm of foreign aid.

     Foreign aid is of course controversial in Britain as it is in America, with opponents claiming it to be a waste of taxpayers’ money, a boon for dictatorships, and a cycle of dependency which prevents developing nations from getting on their own two feet. At times, the debate gets boiled down to bean-counting and the critics believing that the money spent overseas should be better spent at home, especially during economically austere times.

     This, I believe, is a zero-sum game which does not take into account the benefits – both short and long-term – of what foreign aid can do when properly and efficiently administered to help people in need across the world in a variety of ways, so that they may have better life outcomes and go on to attain many of the things many of us take for granted – the basic necessities of food, clean drinking water, shelter, clothing, and life-saving medication. However, this is not just about giving things to people; it’s also about economic development through means such as education, aiding the creation of a civil and open society, respecting human rights, and opening people up to the world around them, so that they may become better-informed, well-rounded, and more able to make wise decisions for themselves, their families, and communities.

     Developed countries such as the United Kingdom are well-positioned to lead the effort to assist developing countries and their citizens with humanitarian aid and economic development, and to this end, the UK Government has committed itself to spending 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) per year in this area.

     Again, this is controversial for some people, and several newspapers ran luridly negative articles about UK Aid being wasted and simply given away (as if dumped from a helicopter) to dubious individuals and causes. In response, the Department for International Development (DFID) released a document to rebut such claims and to show how the money is being used effectively where needed on the behalf of the British taxpayer who underwrites it. This report, along with other research I’ve done, ought to be an example of how the UK is a generous country and that the efforts by the government ought to make everyone justifiably proud to be British.

     People ought to take some pride in the fact that their country was at the forefront in the fight against Ebola in Africa. Many of us remember the level of international concern about this deadly virus and how it could have become a massive global health crisis, but it did not advance far and was contained thanks to the efforts of the UK leading the way on the ground against it. The massive response involved 10 governmental departments, four other public bodies, and several non-government organizations (NGO’s) and charities.  In Sierra Leone, this effort resulted in reaching a 42 day target period during which there were no new Ebola cases in the fall of last year, and while there is still work to be done on several fronts, the highly coordinated effort in halting the spread of Ebola undoubtedly saved countless lives throughout the world and – in the UK national interest – was “the single most important way of preventing Ebola from infecting people in the UK.”

     This is good enough in and of itself, but it only marks the end of the five year period during which the United Kingdom made great strides with the use of its foreign aid and international development resources, and can stand tall and proud with what it has accomplished.

     In terms of wealth creation, UK Aid has provided 68.9 million people with access to financial services to help them work their way out of poverty, so that they have the tools to improve their lot and become self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency is aided by efforts to increase access to education, and in this area, the UK has been responsible for supporting 11 million children in primary and lower secondary education, so that they can have better opportunities and life outcomes, and such outcomes are largely dependent on factors like health, water and sanitation, and nutrition.

UK Aid being delivered in Dubai.  Image Credit: UK Department for International Development via Flickr cc

      Again, the UK played a significant role as it assisted in alleviating hunger among 28.5 million children under five and pregnant women through nutrition-relevant programs and ensured that those women could give birth (to the tune of 5.1 million births) safely with the help of professional medical staff., which have saved the lives of women in pregnancy and childbirth, as well as newborn babies. Britain also invested in vaccines, drugs, and 47 million insecticide-treated bed nets which have helped to contribute to malaria deaths falling by 60% in the last 15 years, as well as supporting efforts to increase access to clean water, better sanitation, and improved hygiene conditions to 62.9 million people. Thanks in part to Britain, 43.8 million children have been immunized against preventable diseases the Gavi Alliance, 13.2 million people have been given access to vital treatments for tuberculosis through its contibutions to the Global Fund, and it has helped the fight against AIDS – saving lives every day.

     Additionally, there has been the general provision of humanitarian need such as emergency food assistance to 13 million people, helping 15 million people cope with the effects of climate change, and engaging in critical scientific research which helped to eliminate cattle diseases and develop a new disease-resistance crop which has increased food production and security for around 3 million people. UK Aid also helps to build civil societies by enabling better governance and security by supporting free and fair elections in which 162.1 million voted, as well as funding organizations which work to defend freedom of expression and the free flow of information. Among these are BBC Media Action, which encourages the opening of societies by using the power of media, along with ADD International, SightSavers, and other organizations dedicated to the rights of the disabled.

A breakdown of what the UK has done in response to the Syrian crisis. Image Credit: DFID via Flickr cc

     Indeed, this is quite a lot that the UK has been doing year after year, and yet it still does more during emergency situations such as dealing with the effects of war and natural disasters. This is seen in its response to the plight of people displaced by the Syrian Civil War, who have been the recipients of nearly 20 million food rations that have been distributed by the United Kingdom, in addition to sanitation needs, water, medical care and other relief items. UK Aid has also been helpful in assisting 200,000 Syrian refugees back into school after being uprooted from their schools back home.

     In the aftermath of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal last year, Britain helped in the recovery and relief of that devastated country by delivering shelter kits which have helped to house over 280,000 people, British humanitarian workers were among the first to descend on the Philippines to help out after a typhoon hit, and UK Aid also assisted in the effort to safely remove landmines from places ravaged by war such as Afghanistan, so that farmers can use the land that have without fear.

     With regard to women and girls, the UK has taken action to substantially improve their lives in areas where they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of war, poverty, and cultural traditions. It has worked to help child brides get out of forced/arranged marriages and into school, so that they came be empowered to take control of their lives and go on to become doctors, educators, engineers, lawyers, business professionals, and other professions and occupations. Britain has also taken action to combat against women and girls, as well as female genital mutilation (FGM) by getting various tribes to abandon the awful practice and to campaign against it themselves. More generally, it has worked to increase access to essential medical care, modern methods of family planning, vaccines, food and water, clothing, improved security and justice, and shelter for woman and girls.

     All of these things are important because it makes it more likely that women and girls will marry later, have higher incomes, take part in decision-making, escape poverty, and have fewer but healthier children who end up going to school themselves. As such, they will also be less likely to contract diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, undergo FGM, die in pregnancy and childbirth, or have children who die in infancy. These are significant achievements in the name of the British people.

     In an overall sense, these actions by the UK Government are about getting developing countries on their feet by improving the lives and life outcomes of the people who live there, so that they may go on to help build their communities and improve their countries from within. From global perspective, it is about using the UK’s substantial expertise in science, research, and development to combat scourges such as disease and violence so that they may be contained and eliminated. In the long-term, it seeks end the cycle of poverty, disease, and war which has prevented people and countries from reaching their full potential, and it speaks to working in the UK national interest, because all the aforementioned issues are the root causes of insecurity, lack of development, wide-scale public health risks, and general instability, which is not in the UK national interest.

     To this end, the government has outlined four objectives for foreign aid and international development:

• Strengthening global peace, security and governance: the government will invest more to tackle the causes of instability, insecurity and conflict, and to tackle crime and corruption. This is fundamental to poverty reduction overseas, and will also strengthen our own national security at home.
• Strengthening resilience and response to crises: this includes more support for ongoing crises, including that in Syria and other countries in the MENA region; more science and technology spend on global public health risks such as antimicrobial resistance, and support for efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
• Promoting global prosperity: the government will use ODA to promote economic development and prosperity in the developing world. This will contribute to the reduction of poverty and also strengthen UK trade and investment opportunities around the world.
• Tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable: the government will strive to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, and support the world’s poorest people to ensure that every person has access to basic needs, including prioritizing the rights of girls and women. This will build security, stability and opportunity that will benefit us all.

     In addition, the government has outlined the need for ensuring that there is value for money in all of this for the taxpayer, so there will be a focus on particularly stressed and fragile states, while also driving development in countries and regions where the UK has strong historical, cultural, and diaspora links, such as Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia, as well as honoring commitments in British Overseas Territories.

A young woman standing outside a UK Aid tent in the Philippines following a Typhoon. Image Credit: DFID via Flickr cc

     At the end of the day, all of this is being done with strategic objectives in place to provide help, relief, and development, and not doing it out of a sense of post-imperial guilt, but because it’s the decent, moral, and right thing to do and because it is in the national interest of the United Kingdom. Hence, the phrase at the beginning of the government report: “Tackling global challenges in the national interest.”

     Now, what do the British public think of all this? Well, a recent survey shows that far from the heavily negative and hostile attitude perpetuated by some in the press, the people of the UK actually do believe in the value of helping people in developing countries and 86% believe that the government should keep good on its aid promises. Not only that, but the British people have also expressed their generosity through the donations from their own pockets to the tune of 1.1 billion pounds to the Disasters and Emergency Committee alone, as well as over 20,000 churches coming together for Christian Aid week in May.

     So the British people are a generous people through the actions of themselves as private citizen and through the actions of their government, and even SNP MP Mhairi Black – committed as she is to the break-up of Britain – praised the UK Government for its role in providing critical aid. She said that such assistance has been used to help educate people on the basics of things such as preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and noted that in one case, “drugs British aid has funded” was the reason for an HIV-positive woman named Mary along with her children still being alive after her husband had infected and abandoned her.

     Black further stated:

“It’s very rare to find me praising the Government but Britain is one of the better countries in terms of commitment to foreign aid…and having seen the difference it makes to people’s lives, I think it’s highly important that we maintain that level of support.”

     Indeed, Britain does have one of the largest aid budgets in the world, which fluctuates year-to-year according to how much gross national income (GNI) is generated. What’s interesting is how the Department for International Development (DFID) is one of the smallest among Whitehall departments, spends the second-smallest amount on administrative staff, and spends only 1% of its salary-related costs on consultants and temporary staff, compared to 6-8% in other departments. Together, it has a staff of around 2,000 to conduct such important work, and all of this may be a model of efficiency and value for money which other departments should seek to emulate.

     Again, the money spent and the role of foreign aid is controversial, but in a world where soft power is increasingly important to the building and shaping of international relations, the United Kingdom’s deployment of soft power is second to none in the world and overseas aid is a significant part of that. If done correctly and with a stated strategic purpose, it can result in long-term dividends to make the world a better place for all of us, and can count as one of many things for which Britain is a force for good as a significant world power. Indeed, there should be some satisfaction in seeing people around the world receiving much-needed help in form of a tent or food package with the Union Flag and the words “UK Aid – From the British People”.

     This is the face which Britain would do well to show alongside its military and diplomatic abilities on the world stage as a country what is compassionate, generous, and willing to do its bit to help others with the resources it commands.

St. George's Day

Cross of St George - the flag of England.

     Today is St. George's Day, and it is the feast day for Saint George, who is the patron saint of England – one of the four patron saints of the British (or Anglo-Celtic) Isles, with the other ones being St. David for Wales, St. Patrick for Ireland, and St. Andrew for Scotand.

     He was born in the late 3rd Century to a noble family in Lydda, Syria Palestina in the Roman Empire (which is now Lod, Israel). His father Gerontios was an officer in the Roman Army and also came from noble stock, as well as did his mother Polychronia. Both were also Christians and so brought up the young man in the Christian faith while naming him “Georgios”, which is a Greek man meaning “earth worker” or “farmer”.

     During his teenage years, George lost his parents and subsequently went to Nicomedia to appear before the Roman Emperor Diocletian so that he could apply for a career as a soldier like his father. The emperor had remembered his father as one of his finest soldiers and welcomed the young George with arms. By his late 20’s, George had risen to become an imperial guard of the emperor at Nicomedia with the rank of Tribunus, and seemed to have a promising and long career ahead of him.

     This changed on February 24, 303 when Diocletian, who had been tolerant of Roman Christians for the first half of his reign, was persuaded by Co-Emperor Galerius to issue an edict which began the last and most repressive persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. It mandated the arrest of every Christian soldier and required everyone else to convert to traditional Roman religious practices and offer a sacrifice to Roman gods. George objected and stood before Diocletian to profess and defend his Christian faith, but Diocletian did not wish to lose one of his valued tribunes and son of his finest officer, so he offered George gifts of land, money, and slaves in exchange for his conversion. Already a wealthy man from an aristocratic background, George could not be swayed by mammon and refused to convert.

Stained-Glass image of St. George at The Church of St Mary the Virgin, South Darley, Derbyshire. Image Credit: St George via Wikimedia Commons cc

     For his actions, George was condemned and Diocletian ordered his execution. The young man gave up his wealth to the poor before being ruthlessly tortured, beheaded before Nicomedia’s city wall on April 23, 303, and buried in his ancestral home of Lydda.

     In later years, the story would be told about George and the dragon. This emerged from the 11th Century iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church and developed in Western Christianity into a narrative in which a dragon takes up residence at the spring which provided water to a city in the Holy Land and the citizens must offer the dragon either sheep or a maiden for it to move when they the people needed water. When a princess is selected and offered for the sacrifice one day, George appears while on his travels and proceeds to slay the dragon and rescues the princess, which causes the people to renounce their paganism and convert to George’s Christian faith.

     This is of course legend, but the historical George did become a martyr for standing up for his faith. Emperor Constantine I consecrated George to a “man of the highest distinction” and he was canonized as a saint by Pope Gelasius I, who – probably in acknowledgement of the blurry lines between the myth and reality of George’s life – remarked that he was among those saints “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God.” In time, he would become revered, if not venerated by other faiths, including Islam and Judaism, and in Beit Jala, the Chapel of St. George is a shrine dedicated to him where people of all three faiths pray and look for a cure for insanity.

     But it was George’s martyrdom for the Christian cause that him legendary and he became venerated as a warrior saint among the Crusaders. The red cross against a white field associated with one of the Christian military orders, the Knights Templar’s, also became associated with St. George, and this was further cemented when Genoa made George its patron saint and eventually adopted the flag in his name as their own. His martyrdom for the Christian cause in the 4th became legendary, and tale of Saint George was brought home to crusading countries like England by their kings who became devoted to the cult that surrounded the saint.

     Richard I (the Lionheart) personally adopted the saint and his cross during the Crusades. But it was not until the reign of Edward I that the red cross of St. George became the standard issue for the clothing of English soldiers. In particular, accounts in 1277 show a purchase of cloth for the purpose of manufacturing pieces of uniform in the shape of St. George’s cross, making it a national symbol of England. Later, Edward III would establish the Order of the Garter in 1348 and make St. George its patron saint. The Garter was the highest order of English chivalry and by making Saint George the patron saint of the order, he also became firmly established as the patron saint of England. He was said to have been invoked by English armies during the Hundred Years’ War with France, and perhaps most famous telling of this was via Shakespeare’s play Henry V with the battle cry of “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

     As such, St. George’s Cross was also firmly established as England’s national flag, which in turn became part of the Union Flag of the United Kingdom.

     St. George’s Day was celebrated on a scale like that of Christmas as a national holiday and was the day on which Charles II was crowned as King in 1661 following the Restoration. However, its popularity waned following the union of England and Scotland into Great Britain, but in recent years there has been an effort to revive the feast day and make it a popular holiday on par with the patron saint days of the other parts of the United Kingdom, as well as to make it an official bank holiday.

     Traditional customs on St George’s Day include the wearing of a red rose on one’s lapel and the use of St. George’s Cross in some fashion – flying it from homes, businesses, cars, government buildings, pubs, and churches, as well as festooning it in the form of bunting and garlands. In churches, cathedrals, chapels, and other places, it may be customary to sing Jerusalem, the song preferred by many to be England’s national anthem (alongside the one it shares as part of the United Kingdom, God Save the Queen). There may also be the consumption of traditional English food and drink.

2014 St. George's Day Parade on Westminster Road, Stone Cross in West Bromwich. Image Credit: Æthelred via Wikimedia Commons cc

     In addition, observances also include parades, dancing, and other activities. Crowds with gather in a red and white Trafalgar Square in London for a William Shakespeare-themed St. George’s Day festival, which is appropriate not only because he is the national poet, but because he passed away on this day 400 years ago. There will be parades in several towns and cities, including West Bromwich – home of the biggest unofficial St. George’s Day party – and activities include Morris dancing, mummers plays, Punch and Judy shows, brass bands, pig roasts, falconry displays, and medieval jousting up and down the country. With today being a Saturday and coming off of the Queen’s 90th birthday, hopefully it will turn out to be a great, fun, and exciting experience to celebrate "this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

     Happy St. George’s Day!

Enough Neverendum, Please

     Over the weekend, Nicola Sturgeon once again talked up the possibility of another secession referendum if the people across the United Kingdom vote to end the country’s EU membership without a majority of Scots backing it. Once again, she used the emotive language about Scotland being taken out of the EU “against our will” and just as well, she cited this as a “significant and material change” that should trigger a second referendum despite the last result on this matter not even being two years old. Other than this, she said that a referendum would be held “if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people.”

     The problem for the SNP is that this does not appear to be case now and does not look likely to be the case for several years, if ever. Facing this, Sturgeon appeared to put the brakes on a second referendum at the SNP’s main conference last November by stating that another referendum would not be called until “strong and consistent evidence” of a change in public opinion occurred, and it has been suggested that support for independence would have to be at or around 60% for a sustained period of time in opinion polls. Such polls have showed that despite the surge in support for the SNP since the referendum, there has not been a corresponding rise in support for separation – with most surveys either showing a tie, a pro-Union majority, or something within the margin of error.

     If the First Minister called for a referendum under these circumstances and lost, it would truly set the SNP back for decades, so one would have thought that the SNP would put their signature issue to one side and instead, focus all energies on governing Scotland under the circumstances handed to it by the voters in September 2014 – that is, Scotland as part of the United Kingdom, and if the polls significantly changed in favor of independence, then the SNP would get its chance.

     But this is the SNP and at the top of their party constitution is its commitment to independence; they can’t be content with governing Scotland under the current arrangements because separation is their raison d’être, and for many of its supporters, the idea of an SNP not focused on “The Cause” is inconceivable.

     So, at the party’s spring conference in March leading up to the Scottish Parliament election in May, Sturgeon announced that instead of a firm referendum commitment, she and the party would seek to launch an initiative this summer to “patiently and respectfully” convince those who voted No in 2014 that Scotland should secede from the Union on the basis that it “really does offer the best future for Scotland.” This would not be, she claimed, about browbeating anyone or disrespecting those who continue to support the Union, but about listening to what people have to say and addressing the concerns they had from the last time around.

     Last Sunday on Twitter, Ms. Sturgeon reiterated much of this in a video announcing the launch of the SNP’s campaign manifesto for this year – talking about the initiative starting in the summer and encouraging people to be a part of it, so that a majority for secession can be built. One can only assume that the First Minister hopes that such a majority (and a sustained one, at that) will exist within the next five years before the end of the parliament which will be elected in May – in effect, so that she can call that referendum that she cannot lose (and at her party's manifesto launch on April 20th, she said she would "very much" like to hold a second independence referendum within the next five years).

     So much for once-in-a-generation/once-in-a-lifetime.

     Alongside these plans for a renewed separation push are the continued threats regarding the EU vote and its outcome if Scots vote for the UK to keeps its membership in the bloc, but the British people as a whole vote for the UK to end its membership, with the added proposition that Holyrood ought have the ability to call a referendum in such circumstances. Indeed, such threats makes it appear as though Scots have no voice or vote on the matter; the “against our will” rhetoric suggests that Scots literally do not have a vote on whether UK remains a member of the EU, so that the people of England, Northern Ireland, and Wales have the right to vote in the June 23rd referendum, but Scots do not.

     Nothing could be farther from the truth as the people of Scotland will have a vote just like any other Briton throughout the United Kingdom. All votes will count equally and only the overall UK result matters regardless of how the vote plays out in different parts the UK, and this goes for nationalists north and south of the border because only the United Kingdom (and not its constituent parts) has membership of the European Union.

     With regard to the SNP, their push to keep separation and the constitution at the forefront of politics, as well as talking up the possibility of another referendum, amounts to what appears to be an obsession which gets increasingly tiresome and wearisome by the day.

     Many people expected that the decision of the Scottish people would be respected and would stand for years if not decades to come, so that people of all stripes could move on and focus on the challenges that Scotland and the UK in its entirety face and must tackle. Instead, the SNP has treated the result as little more than a speed bump, and are arrogantly moving along as if the referendum never happened, or at the very least, as if the result is irrelevant despite the terms of the Edinburgh Agreement which both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon signed, and despite both of them claiming that the referendum would be once-in-a-generation/once-in-lifetime. Some of their acolytes patronizingly claim that the result from September 18, 2014 was merely provisional or temporary, and that the voters either didn’t know enough or were too “scared” to cast an informed vote. They also say that people’s opinions and attitudes can change in the course of time.

     This may be true, but wait can’t the SNP wait? Why can’t they show some respect for the fact that Scotland voted No and not treat the people as if they were misguided children who will soon learn the error of their ways?

     If the objective of the SNP was only to achieve that best governing/constitutional arrangement for Scotland, then they should be committed to focusing on what they can do under the present system as well as the new settlement that is gradually being phased-in. However, it appears they are not even giving time for the new settlement to work; it’s almost as if they are afraid that it will work and show that secession is not necessary, as the SNP and their supporters would have people to believe – not as though it was ever needed to begin with.

     More likely perhaps is the sense that the party needs to keep the separation conversation going and prevent it from being overtaken by more important day-to-day issues such as health, education, transportation, welfare, housing, taxation, economic growth and opportunity, and a host of other things which can be dealt with as Holyrood acquires powers akin to that of – perhaps more powerful than – a province or state in federal system, such as in Canada, the United States, Germany, and Australia. They can’t let it go because this is what motivates the core of their base. If anything, it would appear that the SNP is more concerned about its internal party management than anything else – holding the core which wants separation at all costs along with those who vote for the SNP for other reasons where separation is not the most important issue.

     And of course, the SNP also need to appear in near-constant mortal combat mode against (big, bad) Westminster. Why focus on governing and make tough decisions when they can blame others for their problems and further claim that only breaking up the UK will solve those problems?

     Indeed, it feels as though the referendum has never ended. Before the weekend following the referendum was over, independence supporters were claiming that media bias, voting fraud, and other supposed “misdeeds” were responsible for their defeat. Others shouted foul play and “betrayal” by Westminster over The Vow (which has been delivered), whilst still others turned their rage toward the three main pro-Union parties – Labour and the Liberal Democrats in particular – and joined the SNP to defeat them in the hope of bring about another referendum. At the top, Alex Salmond made suggestions about separation being achieved through other means, such as UDI – a unilateral declaration of independence. His successor has downplayed this scenario, but she has done her bit to unnecessarily fan the flames of discontent along with other SNP politicians and supporters – stoking division and resentment with the rest of the UK, which have not been helpful in healing referendum wounds or achieving political stability or certainty.

     Since the referendum campaign itself began in 2012, Scotland has been in a near constant state of political campaigning – with the referendum itself and the EU elections (which functioned as a pre-referendum proxy) in 2014, the UK general election in 2015, and the Holyrood election and EU referendum this year. Next year will come local elections at which the SNP is likely expected to do very well and extend their post-referendum dominance to council chambers throughout Scotland.

     After this, providing that there are no snap elections and no other referendums, Scotland will have about two years free of significant political campaigning.

     Regardless of how the votes fall this year and next year, there will be many Scots who I suspect will be pleased at the prospect of having some time without an election or referendum on their minds, as well as perhaps the day-to-day and wall-to-wall campaigning which have become regular features over the past several years with back-to-back elections and referendums (with the added bonus of focusing on Team GB at Rio 2016).

     To repeat, it probably cannot be expressed enough how quite wearisome and tiresome it has become – all the years of claims and counter-claims, arguments and counter-arguments, debates, advertisements, rallies, social media postings (and the drama they can generate), broadcasts, speeches, polling numbers, and everything else under the sun with seemingly no end in sight.

     With regard to the SNP in particular, their insistence on keeping up talk – in various modes – about independence and future referenda is very wearisome, because again, it’s almost as if the referendum never came to an end.

     Simply put, people are getting tired of this; they've had enough of the upheaval and wrangling of the last several years, and desire a break from it - at least 15-20 years - because it does feel as if their lives and all of Scotland have been put on hold by the SNP's obsession. Furthermore, and speaking as an impartial observer, there is a possibility that all the talk of trying to build support for independence may well hurt the SNP because there will be a perception that the party is putting independence first, rather than Scotland first, and the two are not the same.

     At some level, the people will have enough of the constitutional obsessions of the SNP, especially with the enhanced powers of Holyrood which will be available for the SNP to use. Prominent independence supporters such as Darren “Loki” McGarvey have voiced their displeasure at the SNP’s timidity and lack of progressive action on several issues, and have said that in the grand scheme of things, it’s not all about independence.

     Indeed, some have said – explicitly and implicitly – that so long as Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, the SNP ought to do all it can with the powers it has to improve the lives and prospects of the Scottish people and should not wait for independence to do it. More to the point, it should prepare for the prospect that Scotland will never become independent and that each year it excuses itself by claiming “well, if only we were independent…”, it will only hurt itself and “The Cause” in the long term as the clarion calls for separation become increasingly stale.

     On this point, I would go farther and say that it should be the duty of any Scottish Government of any political stripe to work toward delivering positive outcomes for the people and if need be, it should do so with assistance from the UK Government. We already see this with the city deals for Glasgow, Inverness, and Aberdeen, and I believe that there is much potential for greater cooperation for the benefit of Scotland and the United Kingdom in its entirety.

     However, in order to achieve this potential and to truly move Scotland forward, the constitutional debates must be put aside for the time being. The people of Scotland need to decide whether they want a party that offers little more than continuing down the road of obsessing about independence and perpetuating a neverendum. The SNP had its chance and it’s time to move on. Enough is enough.