Alastair McKay: Scotland’s new nationalists leave this Scot cold

Yesterday, you may not have noticed, was #YesBecause day. Scots who intend to vote for independence in the September 18 referendum were all over social media explaining themselves. It was, to those who think like that, an inspirational moment. The National Collective, a grouping of pro-Yes artists, hailed it as a demonstration of the “unfiltered reality” of the campaign.

So how real was it? Well, mostly, it consisted of sweet aspirations; permutations of the following. Scotland can be a power for good. Westminster has failed. Scottish people should make decisions for themselves. Austerity is bad. David Cameron is bad. Ukip is bad. The Labour Party is bad. Scotland is great.

We can all agree with some of that. And it certainly seemed to cheer up the Yes folk, who have grown tired of the “filtered reality” presented by the forces of reaction, which include the BBC and all but one of the Scottish newspapers. But it didn’t do anything for me, as a Scot exiled in London, wondering how this watery nationalism took hold.

Why am I not Yes? Because, from a distance of 400 miles, the debate has been extraordinary, and quite alienating. I can admire the expressions of good faith, and I recognise the architecture of the argument. Many of my friends, with no previous history of nationalism, have become enthusiastic Yes campaigners, and I respect them enough to concede that had I stayed in Edinburgh, I might have gone the same way.

But I didn’t. Partly, this is because of the way London is caricatured in Yes propaganda as a cesspit of corruption in which everyone is a billionaire, when it feels, on the ground, like a tough, exciting city that welcomes diversity. It is weird, too, to hear how every social problem in Scotland is Westminster’s fault, even when the relevant power is held by the devolved Scottish parliament. In recent weeks, Yes has spiralled into negativity, so that independence is now about saving the NHS from Tory cuts, even though health is fully devolved.

More broadly, the Yes offer is a carousel of contradictory impulses — scrapping Trident but remaining in Nato; higher public spending and avoiding state debt; going green but basing the economy on oil; quitting the UK yet keeping the pound.

Of course, I’m being negative. And Scotia is in a state of rapture, seduced by an echo chamber of affirmative voices, entranced by its mirror image, declaiming that of all the nationalisms in the world, the Scottish one is the most benign, because it is inclusive, and not nationalism at all, unless you live in the rest of the UK, in which case you, we, are invited to sit back and admire the brilliant example set by this reborn state.

It’s embarrassing to relate but radical Scots now suggest, with no hint of embarrassment, that the country can be a beacon of progress for the world (and for Billy Bragg). As if no one had ever thought of that before. I would cringe but that, too, has been outlawed.

Granted, it would be exciting to feel the hand of history on my sporran. But from here, the clamour sounds like the end of a neighbour’s Hogmanay party. They’re singing Auld Lang Syne, and declaring their love, and choosing to ignore the unpredictability of the new dawn.