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As you grow old
in this Party you have to learn that the political questions change.
The old have to learn to face up to new questions; the young, for
their part, should at least make themselves aware of what the old
questions were, because it is all too easy to believe that because
questions now seem to them absurd they must never have been asked.
That does not follow.
Take for instance the
experience which Robert McIntyre used to recall with a puzzled sorrow.
When he went to the House of Commons he had quite an active first week
or so before coming home to attend a National Council. Though not
looking for raptures of praise it did seem fair to
expect a reasonable show of pleasure
and warmth from the colleagues whose reputation and prestige had
gained from his election. On the contrary, he was met by angry oratory
condemning him for bringing with him his "Westminster ways". He was
understandably saddened by the injustice of the episode to the end of
his days.
Certainly the all too common
factor of personal malice was partly to blame for what had happened,
but there was an underlying problem too. Because the Parliament was
England’s Parliament — a
ruling which Robert’s election had in fact produced from the
constitutional lawyers —many supporters of Home Rule decided to
ridicule and reject Parliamentary methods as such. "Bletherin’ Ha" as
a later Nationalist polemic put it, was how Nationalists ought to see
Parliament. That is a dangerous road to go down and our party has
never taken it, but impatience with the whole parliamentary procedure
has surfaced from time to time.
Probably, even yet,
there are occasions when the merits and virtues of a political
movement are characterised as being greatly superior to those of a
mere party. A movement was so much more romantic and was less
likely to require discipline, funding, structure and other dull
practicalities. Members could simply express support for their own
individual reasons, stay as long as they preferred, and flounce out
whenever something gave offence. There was of course a good side to
it. A movement had a kind of nobility of self-denial. It was not about
winning power and office. It was not likely to reward careerism with
prosperity. For years the objectives of our "movement" were so
ill-defined that one constant question at election meetings — remember
them? — was "What will happen to the SNP if you get Home Rule?" The
public found some attraction in an answer which accepted that when the
goal was reached the party would disband, its members presumably
letting themselves be absorbed into the other parties which were of
course "mere" parties with economic self-interest, class based, as
their inspiration.
This case can be ridiculed
because of its wistful regard for political purity, so attack it if
you will but do not disbelieve that the case was once, and for a long
time, seriously argued. You don’t have to be all that old to remember
the slogan "Lend us your vote". Such an approach did mean that our
public representatives would appear free of the ambition to become
successful professional politicians. We could present ourselves as
amateurs in the best sense of the word, like Queen’s Park, playing the
game for the game’s sake, or taking inspiration from Garibaldi,
freeing Naples and Sicily and, leaving power to others, going home
with a bag of seed corn as his only reward.
Many Nationalists had this image
of themselves and their party and their collective purpose. I’m glad
it is part of our tradition,
going back to the days before "you’re
just/we’re just another party" became such as frequent and widespread
criticism. But, like so much else, in the past it must remain
innocent, admirable, perhaps even in its way magnificent, but not
politics such as we have been compelled to practice.
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