All your compassion,
and progressive talk,
means little or nothing to us
when we are not heard.

Ultimately, you listen only to
those who agree with you,
deriding and demonising ‘others’
for being on the wrong side of your identity politics.

You claim to be ‘progressive’,
yet your dogma depends on forcing people apart.
You give us government of the “we know best”,
whatever the cost to the rest of us.

With deft spin and unapologetic guile,
you mask shortcomings and failures
that would end most governments but not yours,
with its support based more on faith than reality.

No matter the pain for the rest of us,
you are determined to get your way,
setting aside generations of positive interdependence
in favour of the narrow vision of nationalism.

You have made clear we do not matter,
as you claim Scotland as yours alone,
leaving us living in a country in which
we will no longer be welcome.

What kind of progress will it be,
as you celebrate tearing half of Scotland apart from our
families, friends and all those we prefer to remain with,
leaving us cast adrift in your nationalist nirvana?

Keith Howell, Sept'20