Allan Massie: Patriotism applies to all parties
Divisions of opinion are natural in any society, natural and quite common in families too. Sometimes they may be reconciled in conversation; sometimes we may agree to differ. Parliamentary democracy is best understood as a national conversation, a means of, among other things, making the unwelcome acceptable. Most of the time this works quite well. Losers accept the legitimacy of the result. “The people have spoken, damn them”, as defeated candidates have been known to say.
The result of last September’s independence referendum was clear. Scotland voted No. The SNP leadership has, correctly, accepted the result, while reserving the right to call for another referendum if circumstances seem favourable. This is reasonable. And, I would say, quite proper, even though last year, in their efforts to galvanise their troops, SNP leaders spoke of the referendum as a “once in a generation” opportunity. Some may even have said “once in a lifetime”. So indeed it might have been if the margin of defeat had been even greater, if for instance, the Yes vote had fallen some way below 40 per cent.
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