The Labour MP and No campaigner Jim Murphy is back on his soap box or rather Irn-Bru crates and continuing his tour of 100 Scottish towns in 100 days. He was due to make appearances in Edinburgh and Musselburgh yesterday and hoping to receive a more cordial welcome than that given to him in Courier country last week.
A seasoned political operator like Mr Murphy is not put off by a few hecklers or even eggs propelled in his direction, but the organised abuse at his rallies in Dundee, Montrose and Kirkcaldy, and earlier in Wishaw, Ayr and Motherwell, forced him to abandon his platform for three days.
The shadow international development secretary said the fracas was not “run-of-the-mill heckling” but “co-ordinated” and “sinister” disruption, involving hundreds of people at times.
We don’t have to take his word for it because there are plenty of videos, and plenty of witnesses. Courier reader Peter Flanagan said he “watched in horror as the Yes supporting bullies harassed and abused” the member for East Renfrewshire.
Mr Flanagan, of Montrose, said the public was prevented from hearing the MP or from asking questions: “This is our referendum to decide our future and our children’s future, not just the SNP’s. We are entitled to hear both sides.”
There have been other ugly incidents and other victims; tables have been overturned, pensioners sworn at and, on one occasion, a photographer was targeted because he was English, according to Mr Murphy.
This is what the referendum campaign looks like in its final fortnight and this is how it will be remembered. The Yes camp have made a great song and dance about the energising, positive grassroots movement that has galvanised the politically uninitiated, but the scenes in Dundee and Montrose represent a different reality.
Separatists organising themselves on a local level are directly to blame for the intimidation meted out to Mr Murphy on Yes Kirkcaldy’s Facebook page, activists were apparently encouraged to make the politician’s visit “one to remember”, a far from isolated example of social media incitement among militant secessionists.
Not all Yes volunteers behave like thugs and most, hopefully, will be appalled at the foul-mouthed demonstrations that are taking place in their name. But condemnation from senior nationalists has been notable by its absence.
Alex Salmond has refused to disown the rogue elements within his campaign, and with each increasingly rancid episode, he trots out the mantra that abuse is unacceptable from either side of the political divide. Of course it is, but there has never been any evidence in the No camp of the orchestrated bullying emanating from Yes.
His response to the harassment of Jim Murphy, a parliamentarian exercising his democratic right to free speech, shamed the office that he holds. Instead of upbraiding the separatist zealots for their intolerance and threats, he launched a personal attack on Mr Murphy.
It appears that the message is that any kind of campaigning is okay with the nationalist high command so long as it achieves the desired result on September 18. This may be a mark of their desperation but it does not bode well for Scotland’s future.
The Labour MSP Jenny Marra, who was with Mr Murphy in Dundee last Wednesday and has talked to voters on their doorsteps, said the respect that Scots have always had for opposing views was precious: “If we let that slide, we won’t get back to normal post-referendum.”
But while the intimidation of a politician makes the headlines, these are people, as Mr Murphy would admit, who have developed thick skins. Of far greater concern is the intimidation of ordinary folk.
It is telling that No billboards, from Perth to Dundee, have been defaced and destroyed, while Yes ones remain intact, and disturbing that No voters, as Better Together canvassers report, worry that their windows will be smashed in if they put up posters.
Those who have followed recent events, and the feeble reaction from our so-called leaders, must wonder what kind of a Scotland the nationalists would preside over if they got their way: a country where the mob rules, where hardened businessmen can be cowed into silence and where dissent from the government line is deemed unpatriotic.
So much for Mr Salmond’s fairer society.