Yesterday I was watching an interview with a man from the snp, and I found myself agreeing with most of what he had to say. I think their stance on trident is a good, valid one, and I definitely prefer their policies on welfare to those of the tories. The thing is, while he was outlining problems faced on both sides of the boarder, he only wanted to solve the north of it. We need to work together, as one people, to get ourselves out of this Tory-dug hole. Instead, reasoning that most Scots voted Labour or snp in the last election, the snp want to reinvoke the ancient border and care only about themselves rather than seeing themselves as part of a bigger whole and combatting our problems as one. Their stance is a selfish one, for if Scotland breaks away, Labour will loose seats in Scotland and we down here will have a perpetual winter of tory rule. The scots might be okay, but they would have left us to suffer.

The problem is a rhetorical one: who should one care for, and what defines ‘us’? The snp just see themselves as scottish, so they just seek to do what is best for Scotland. This ignores the fact they are part of a bigger group of people – Britain, and indeed europe – whom they could work with to improve all our lives. They use the same right-wing logic as ukip: they dislike the rest of the group, think they don’t represent their views and therefore want to break away. It’s like Greenwich and Woolwich wanting to break away from London because they are Labour areas and London is tory-controlled. Democracy, liberalism and socialism all mean working together for the good of all, not putting up barriers because you disagree or dislike what others say; it’s about seeing oneself as part of one big group, equal to all, where everyone can contribute regardless of where one lives. It is a case of how you perceive yourself, and the snp want scots to see themselves as separate and different, as ukip do the brits; and therein lies the folly.