A unicorn removed from a crest,
Leaving a single lion resplendent and defenceless,
The trident and untested method,
The arms of a man who never had a majority,
Voted in by a country’s equal hate,
And using this to his advantage pulled in a mate who changed every policy the second his fate was sealed.
But the lion’s pride became a demeanour of fear,
Politicians herded north to the people they hadn’t wanted to hear,
Breaking a vow of silence they’d held through three long years of campaigns.
‘Guys,’ they’d said, ‘let’s just stay the same’
The same.
A three hundred year or so status quo,
Joined in 1707,
104 years since the catalytic burst –
James VI became James I
And he stopped speaking Scots and wrote in English,
And all the books were printed in English
And all the power became English.
And a long tradition of Scottish kings,
Through the James the Donalds and Malcolm became lost in the greatness that would become Britain,
And Scottishness became Walter Scott’s vision of heather and MacIvor,
Shortbread tin pictures that ignored the reality.
People cleared out for sheep.
People killed for speaking their ain tongue.
People cleared out for hunting.
People cleared out of ship yards.
The cheviot, the stag and
Oil black scars on a map made of jute
Politicians lie,
Statistics can lie,
A secret x marked in a box marks the rejection of a thousand serpent promises,
Pumping venom through the heart,
Democracy is the antibody where whatever the outcome denotes change.
You can ignore a silent majority,
You can make policy changes for the disinterested,
But you cannot ignore this turnout.
You cannot ignore hard figures etched in blood and black ink,
You cannot ignore mature debates happening from Princes to Buchanan Street
Because one nation we still stand,
Just because we don’t want independence doesn’t mean we will back down,
This is a vote that said,
‘Listen to us,
We are one nation
Hear our rampant lion roar.’