Vote Yes to break the walls of cynicism

by Mary Lockhart, Labour and Co-operative Party member, feminist activist Others have written of the political and structural reasons for their decision to vote Yes. With some of these reasons, I wholeheartedly agree. But deep down, I have come to realise that they are not the reasons most important to me. All my life, people who have had ideals and ideas have been sneered at. They are “idealists”, “believers in a land flowing with milk and honey”, and they are told to “get real”, because “without power, you can change nothing. And you can’t have power and purity.”

I think this has created a great wall of cynicism, on one side of which the people are denied even the right to dream, and on the other side the impure people with the power just keep adding more barbed wire and broken bottles, whilst changing nothing but the fashion in political logos and soundbites. I want to live in a place where when people have ideas and ideals they are not told they are chasing a unicorn, but where, with others, they are encouraged to work out how to approach the unicorn until it comes to them.

There is no class solidarity in Britain in any way which is meaningful (except of the people and parties in power). There is no shift or move towards allowing people to imagine and join in working towards a future based on the best, the brightest, and the finest. We are so discouraged from reaching for the stars that we no longer bother even to reach for the top of the hills.

I don’t believe there will be a mass class struggle in Britain unless and until the people in one part of it are set free to imagine. To redefine and set course for the ideal, recognising and accepting the sacrifice which the journey towards it will entail. I think that the hope which is sweeping Scotland that such a journey is possible will spread. And with it the conviction that there is nothing wrong with having a vision of Utopia, provided you strive to create it. I am proud to dream, and ready to strive!