Jim Sillars’ threat of a ‘day of reckoning’ exposes the darker side of nationalism

Only yesterday, Jim Sillars was being paraded by Alex Salmond as a nationalist heavyweight who has been taken back into the fold. He had once fallen out with the Alex Salmond but the two were, apparently, good friends again. A photoshoot, above, consummated this reconcilliation. Sillars is a former SNP deputy leader but now not part of the apparatus-  so he can speak freely. All too freely, as it turns out. Here’s what he has said today.

“This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks. The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a ‘yes’. BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have forced to be.