Richard Wilson

As an outsider, you trust those in academic posts. You trust that they will present things in a way which is honest and straightforward. Obviously, the bias of authors can shine through. There is no requirement of impartiality, but I do usually at least expect honesty. This book is not well written- it is clearly written by an individual who has too great an emotional connection to the subject matter. I can almost imagine the adrenaline rushing through his veins as he sat and typed this book - the anger and upset. It trots out wild caricatures of the ever-present evil "Nat" threat, and employs clunky and dated tropes concerning the Union. Some factual claims made are astoundingly dishonest -ranging from statements that are "just-about-sort-of-based-in-truth" to downright falsehoods. The text makes virtually no attempt to realistically analyse or sensibly understand the "why" in all this (which is fundamentally what I was most interested in as an outsider). Why did nearly all Labour supporters - and a majority of progressive/left leaning voters ditch them/Westminster parties in favour of the SNP? is it really just populist nationalism? Is it just brainwashing? Did circa 50% of voters just suddenly decide to become evil? Prof’ Gallagher presents this idea that the SNP and associated forces essentially represent a dark , deeply nationalist, divisive, nasty, fundamentally evil movement which risks impinging the bright white moral glow of the United Kingdom and its manifest destiny as the best and most pure country on earth (but he’s not a Nationalist! No not our Tom!). The Union of Scotland and England is the most astonishing and wonderful conception ever to occur to the minds of men. But that belief isn’t "nationalism"...because...well..look it’s just not. This bizzare contradiction/dichotomy ("my nationalism is better than your nationalism") underlines the "analysis". Any sort of belief in the economic or political case for independence is nothing more than dogmatic dark divisive nationalism. Any sort of belief in the economic or political case for the Union is internationalist, globalist, anti-nationalist even. Any belief in the moral primacy of the British state is just common sense - not nationalism. His analysis is painfully simplistic, and reads as if it’s written by someone experiencing a great deal of anger/grief. The author is not even prepared to meaningfully consider the arguments against the effectiveness of the U.K./Union - for his fear appears to be that to even deign to do so legitimises his opponent. In conclusion, I felt a little irritated. I was expecting a fair/honest (albeit probably biased/agenda-driven) analysis of the paradigm changes experienced in Scotland. As I said, it’s something I just don’t understand and would love to have gotten an insight into. Instead, it was pretty obvious that this text was not an analysis; instead it’s a tour de force of silliness and petulance. It didn’t take long to debunk some of the more outlandish claims made. That’s not to say that every factual claim was wrong. But I don’t want to have to spend time second guessing which parts are based in truth, and which parts are based in the author’s trauma. If you possess a deep irrational loathing for everything SNP/independence related, you will lovingly devour this book (provided you can forgive the writing style). You only have to look at the other positive reviews for this book to get a sense of what I’m talking about.