For Many SNP Voters it is Psychological not Political

Scotland’s economy would shrink by at least £11bn a year if it became independent

 

There have been many reports outlining the economic costs to Scotland of becoming independent. As reported in the Guardian recently:

"Scotland’s economy would shrink by at least £11bn a year if it became independent ... a team of economists has forecast.

The report from the London School of Economics and City University of Hong Kong found that quitting the UK’s common market would hit the Scottish economy two to three times as hard as leaving the EU, just counting the impact on trade alone.

Suggesting that the worst economic effects would take several decades to take hold, the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance said the impacts on its trade with both the UK and the EU would shrink Scotland’s economy in the long run by between 6.3% and 8.7%.

That was equivalent to a loss of between £2,000 to £2,800 per capita a year: with Scotland’s population estimated to be nearly 5.5 million, that puts the losses at between £11bn and £15.4bn."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/03/independence-could-cost-scotlands-economy-11bn-a-year-forecast-suggests

 

Why are SNP voters blind to economic arguments?

So why are SNP voters blind to economic arguments?

The short answer often given to this question is "Because they are in a cult", and this answer is to some extent true, but needs further explanation.

Core SNP voters and members appear impervious to economic arguments or to arguments about the misuse of power by the SNP executive in Scotland, in fact they are impervious to any argument at all

I would suggest that the reason these voters are not affected by empirical or rational argument is because they do not support the SNP for political reasons. Their support is fundamentally a psychological phenomenon!

SNP Followership is Psychological not Political

 So many SNP followers adore Nicola Sturgeon! They say so frequently on social media and in interviews. And adoration is not a rational choice, it is a psychological state.

SNP followers have their very self identity bound up in 'the cause'. This means that arguments that challenge 'the cause' threaten their self identity and strike at the very core of who they see themselves to be. This makes reaching them with reasons or facts or arguments  almost impossible.

One might see this kind deep psychological investment more typically in some fanatical football supporters - not the normal fans, but rather the 'ultras'.

 In addition to their psychological self identification with 'Indy' , SNP followers have been encouraged, in fact almost brain washed, to hate the enemy!

 If one's idol (Nicola Sturgeon in this case) not only gives you permission to hate

▪ 'The English'

▪ 'The Tories'

▪ 'Westminster'

▪ 'The Yoons '

but also rewards you for doing so, then irrational hatred grows.

And we have seen the results of the SNP encouragement of hatred in Scotland. For example in the "Aye Right" video where

"Scottish nationalist podcasters said ‘there’s going to have to be a confrontation between Scotland and England’ involving the police and one also that they would ‘happily take them out with a high powered rifle’ at the border." [Italics added]

 

 

 (The video is deleted from 'Aye Right', but available here: SNP podcasters discuss shooting English police )

Hate is an extremely powerful emotion as we have seen from the mid 20th Century. And providing a 'boogie man' allows people to blame all the failures and shortcomings not on their idol, Nicola Sturgeon, but on the amorphous enemy.

For some SNP supporters the provision of an enemy to hate also removes their own responsibility for failures and disappointments in their lives - it is never their fault but the fault of 'The English' that they don't have a job or have made nothing of their lives.

 This latter ‘benefit’ of having a boogie man to blame can be very psychologically attractive; it allows people to feel better about themselves. Trying to point out that the conditions about which those SNP supporters are so aggrieved, lie in the power of their idol to remediate and are not the fault of ‘the English’ is doomed to fail.

Such factual argument is doomed to fail because the psychological cost to the SNP supporter is too high; it involves destroying their feeling of self-worth!