Among the many superstitions of the SNP is that the reorienting of Scottish politics around the constitution has been a ‘joyous’ and ‘civic’ affair. Far from pumping bitter political and national sectarianism into the public square, dividing the population into nationalists and Unionists has facilitated a great intellectual contest in the very best spirit of democracy.
Kevin Lang might have to disagree with that. Lang is the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Edinburgh City Council. Yesterday, he was delivering his newsletters in South Queensferry when he was assaulted by someone described as a ‘nationalist’. He posted on social media:
I’ve been doing politics a long time so I’m used to shouty, angry people but today is the first time I’ve ever been physically assaulted. I was simply out delivering my councillor newsletter when a man came out of his house, grabbed me by the throat and stuffed the newsletter down my shirt, using all kinds of profanity as he did so. I’ve obviously reported it to the police. No matter what divides us, this kind of intimidation and abuse of people you disagree with has no place in a free and democratic society.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton described Lang’s experience as ‘a politically motivated assault by an SNP supporter’. He added: ‘The guy in question can now explain his particular brand of civic and joyous nationalism to Police Scotland.’
It is not the first time opponents of Scottish nationalism have found themselves on the receiving end of violence or intimidation. During the 2015 general election, Labour councillor (and now MSP) Paul O’Kane was chased by a man with a chainsaw while out canvassing. The chainsaw-wielder shouted ‘Red Tories get out of here’ and ‘I’ll cut your head off’.
That election also saw an ugly campaign against Margaret Curran, the Labour MP for Glasgow East, including pro-independence campaigners who spoke of ‘hunting’ Curran by following her around and filming her as she spoke to voters on their doorsteps. The SNP candidate and eventual winner in that constituency described Curran as a ‘fair target for community justice’.
Scottish Conservative offices in Aberdeen have been spray-painted with swastikas and the letter ‘Q’, believed to be short for ‘quisling’, a term frequently applied by hardline Scottish nationalists to their opponents. During the debates over how to leave the EU, Stirling MP and Brexiteer Stephen Kerr arrived one morning to find his constituency office daubed with the word ‘traitor’.
In 2019, a Scottish Tory MP told the Commons how two men had turned up at his constituency office, where his assistant was working along, banged the windows and shouted at her: ‘I can’t wait to come and drag you from this office and get you to the noose.’ She was also told: ‘In an independent Scotland all of you will be hanging and we will be at the front cheering on.’
The SNP keeps winding up its supporters and some of those supporters are already more tightly wound than others. One of these days, one of them is really going to snap.
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