Michael Kelly: Sorry, Mr McBride, but you’re talking nonsense

I am as keen as the next home-rule unionist to prevent the creation of a state, socially, economically and politically inferior to the one in which we currently enjoy living. But the debate that will culminate in the promised referendum – whenever the First Minister deigns to allow us to have a say – must be conducted through honest arguments based on evidence.

McBride has produced no facts at all to support his provocative views. Discrimination against Catholics has been diminishing decade by decade until at present it is confined to discrete, identifiable areas mainly centred on football in west central Scotland. This improvement did not come about as a result of the moderating influence of English tolerance but because of the growing maturity of Scots. And it continues. McBride’s thesis conjures up a scenario whereby Scots bigots have been driven to boltholes from which, on independence day, they will emerge to wrest control of the new institutions to pursue anti-Catholic policies. It’s total nonsense.

The mistake he makes is in assuming that Scotland is still a Protestant country. It’s not. Secularism is rife. And in the face of this materialistic onslaught, the Christian churches are coming closer together. It is inconceivable that members who meet for interdenominational services on a Sunday should walk into recruitment interviews on a Monday with a sectarian box that has to be ticked by the applicants.

So it is disturbing that the eminent Professor Patrick Reilly should go along with this fiction by claiming to “know that some people feel safer being part of the United Kingdom”. If he were a social scientist rather than a student of English literature, he would rely less on anecdotes and speculation and present facts. . This kind of loose talk is dangerous. It is inevitable now that, however unfounded, it will be exploited again by cynical candidates in democratic strongholds such as Larkhall and Coatbridge to help win elections.

One group that will not be party to this deception is (paradoxically, it may seem) the Orange Order. However its members might feel about voting for candidates who they know to be Catholics – and they always know – the official position is that they see the Labour Party, despite its traditional strength among Catholics, as being the main political hope of defending the Union. They have not been seduced by the prospect of an independent Scotland closing down Catholic schools, because they know it is nonsense.

Another paradox that baffles Nationalists is the stance of Irish Catholics driven by the cruelties of the British government from one part of the United Kingdom to another. Here, they have never demanded the same political changes that were eventually effected in Ireland. The explanation lies in the appreciation of those ordinary men and women that it is not the political organisation that matters but how the system treats individuals. In Scotland, they found that successive Labour administrations, both local and national, shared their social values, their aspirations and ambitions. They are indifferent to nationalism because it never offered an answer to the questions they asked of society.

Further evidence to undermine the McBride case comes from the close relations that the SNP has established with the leaders of the Catholic Church. This has produced electoral fruit, as the Church has been increasingly emboldened to speak out against Labour on social policies that conflict with Catholic teaching, yet it maintains a confessional silence when it comes to criticising Alex Salmond. It is well known that, unofficially, lines of friendly communication exist between the Scottish Government and the Catholic hierarchy. Is the fact that the Church has not been bombarding Holyrood with petitions against the proposed sanctioning of same-sex marriages evidence that it has already been given assurances that any attempt to change the law will be kicked into the long grass by the Scottish Cabinet?

The attention that has been focused on sectarianism has not brought us any closer to a solution to this diminishing problem. Yet it was the First Minister who switched on the spotlight with his failed summit. That failure, instead of warning him off, sent him further down the same road and led to the flawed anti-sectarian law that still might find its way back to the floor of Holyrood.

Celtic and Rangers, while both still playing lip service to supporting the principle of the legislation, have serious but different misgivings about its provisions. Celtic sensibly point out that the law is likely to criminalise supporters simply because they are supporters – that behaviour which would otherwise be legal becomes a crime when they “participate in a football environment”. That could mean watching a game from your hospital bed or watching it in Comet!

Rangers’ criticism is less easy to justify. They want the law extended to cover nasty songs about fans who died in the Ibrox disaster and pro-IRA ones. While these lyrics are to be deplored, this proposed law already threatens freedom of speech. To extend its scope would inevitably ensure the failure of prosecutions. Unless a list of prohibited words, phrases and song are produced, the law will be unenforceable. Publishing such a list will expose this law for the farce it is. It should never be brought back.

Yesterday’s verdict in the Lennon case suggests how difficult successful prosecutions will be. It has led to the prominence the current debate has attracted, which has not been healthy for Scotland when the last vestiges of sectarianism were being removed by quiet, effective community work. It has provoked all kinds of rubbish. Catholics have nothing more than any other Scots to fear from independence. No anti-Catholic institutions would grow up, no discriminatory laws would be passed, no old prejudices would be revived. To suggest otherwise is to denigrate the vast majority of Scots who reject bigotry.