Spooks, Nats and Oil
The SNP's Christine Graham MSP has an interesting article in the latest Scottish Left Review.
She looks at some recent revelations regarding state monitoring of the Scottish National Party and draws some interesting conclusions about what went on and what is STILL GOING ON.
"The use of informants and surveillance operations against the principal democratic political opposition in Scotland should be abhorrent to all true democrats. It is clear such tactics are being deployed against the party and I know from my own police insider that these files are `current and active'. What I'm trying to determine is the extent of this activity. It could well be that what we're seeing is directly connected to the options the British Prime Minister (Harold Wilson) and successive unionist governments of both Tory and Labour considered and implemented back in the mid 1970s; a strategy aimed at taking the `wind out of the SNP sails'. Ironic really given that it was Wilson's own well founded paranoia about the reach of the security service and covert intelligence which resulted in his introduction of the Wilson Doctrine, a convention which banned covert surveillance gathering by MI5 on MPs and which incidentally does not extend to cover MSPs. Indeed very recent reports show clearly that the real powerbase of the British establishment, the senior military generals and senior select Royals, both of whom had an arm lock around the neck of the Wilson administration for its duration, were quite prepared to use military force to ensure the sovereignty of their class and their view of how Britain should be. The SNP clearly had the capability to upset that apple cart and potentially still does.
The notion therefore that we are dealing with some benign and tolerant British establishment which cares neither one way or other whether Scotland goes its own way is a complete illusion. The reality is quite different and a long way from the cosy consensus politics we are so familiar with in Scotland today. The cosy politics ignores the true nature of the British establishment figures and organisations that are racked against Scotland and any attempt by us to see real social justice and prosperity redistribution take place. Amongst the documents that Kenny MacAskill uncovered was the thinly-veiled threat that the rump UK would have to use armed force to secure `its' strategic economic interests if Scotland chose independence. Professor Noam Chomsky described that disclosure as a'bombshell' and concluded that genuine democrats across the world, including those in the US, would be rightly horrified to learn of it."
:: | 11:24 am |Save This Page | |
|
0 Comments:
This is an archived story. See current posts here!