AS is now blatantly obvious, neither the Tories nor Labour mean a word they say, nor do they even pretend to stand by their previous commitments, such as manifesto promises or policy statements they now find inconvenient. In other words they are pathological liars, and by that I mean there is a sickness that permeates them, rendering them incapable of being truthful.

This sickness has a cause and, as I have written here before, it is found in their commitment to what is known as free-market economics. Free-market ideology is totalitarian and – as it does not operate in a vacuum, but in a political and social environment – that sickness spreads into the whole body politic, infecting the political and social structures of society.

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Free-market economics refuses to recognise constraints on its activities and demands total freedom of action. To achieve that it seeks to destroy and eliminate all economic, political, and social constraints on its activities, such as rules and regulations that restrict its freedom, trades unions, opposing points of view, etc. To do this it must centralise political power and initiate authoritarian policies such as banning protest, eliminating dissent, demonising alternatives such as forms of socialism, trades unions, and organisations such as the SNP, as well as people like immigrants, the sick and disabled, the unemployed and anyone who may impose an economic cost that reduces their never-ending quest for ever-increasing wealth.

Thus, just as the free marketeers will not accept constraints on their activities and pursuit of wealth, their political equivalents will not accept constraints on their activities, including rules, regulations, conventions, moral and ethical considerations, and most alarmingly, the law itself – they simply will not be held accountable. By this process society becomes increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic.

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Through their centralising control of the media and the political process, the free marketeers, through unrelenting propaganda and demonisation of opponents, convince the majority that their vision of society is the correct one, and because it is correct, the damage that ensues cannot be their fault, it must be someone else’s; that the damage inflicted by their policies are the results of outside factors that must be removed, such as the European Union, immigrants, the Scottish Parliament etc. As a result, freedom of the market means the destruction of other freedoms.

As the carnage becomes ever more apparent, just as the politicians responsible refuse to admit to their mistakes, so do the electorate who put them in power. They also refuse to accept their responsibility and therefore look for scapegoats. As the consequences of their actions become more apparent and entrenched, and in their refusal to accept that they share the blame, the electorate become more authoritarian as well, and we end up in the situation we now find ourselves in, with a political class and a majority electorate in total denial of reality and quite happy, indeed enthusiastic, to vote for demonstrable liars, incompetents, and lawbreakers.

Britain ceased to be a democratic nation with Thatcher’s castration of the unions and local government, and it has gone steadily downhill since. Elections have become an appeal to the lowest common denominator and our basest instincts. But they have not only imperilled democracy, they now imperil life itself. Independence is not only a political imperative, it is a moral imperative. Unless Scotland can determine its own future, it will fall into the economic and political abyss that Britain is now destined to reach – an authoritarian and immoral abyss that Unionism seems to welcome.

Peter Kerr
Kilmarnock