JK Rowling has claimed that she is “open” to being persuaded to support Scottish independence in response to allegations she opened a “rift” in the gender-critical movement.
The Harry Potter author issued a statement on the independence movement and the 2014 referendum in response to posts from Wings Over Scotland – blogger Stuart Campbell – accusing her of “ripping open old wounds”.
Rowling had used her book review of Nicola Sturgeon’s Frankly to describe the 2014 referendum campaign as a time of great division, claiming “No voters … were being threatened with violence, told to fuck off out of Scotland, quizzed on the amount of Scottish blood that ran in their veins, accused of treachery and treason”.
Responding, Campbell’s Wings Over Scotland – a vocal anti-trans blog – said the review had “ripped open an old wound between a bunch of gender-critical people who were getting along just fine”.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter/X, Campbell added: “Thanks to Rowling ripping open old wounds, … we’ve got a nasty, needless rift in TERFery. Sturgeon’s last gift to us all. But of course, Sturgeon was only first minister at all because Scotland voted No. She’s on you guys.
“You won, okay? You actually had to debate the merits of the Union one time in 300 fucking years, boo hoo, and helped only by having all the money and all the power and all the media on your side, you WON. It’s been 11 years. FFS, quit whining about it.”
Sharing a screenshot of one of the Wings Over Scotland posts, Rowling, who in 2014 donated £1 million to the Better Together campaign, said she was “always (and remain) open to persuasion on independence for Scotland”.
“I voted against it in 2014 because I believed the inevitable economic destabilisation and upheaval was being seriously underplayed by the SNP, and that the impact would be felt, as it always is, by the poorest and most vulnerable. I still think the SNP had no good answers to serious, good faith questions, and Sturgeon offers none in her book.”
Rowling went on: “Did pro-Union people behave badly, as well as nationalists? Yes, without a doubt. In any binary contest, you will look around and find a lot of people standing in your camp you don’t have a single thing in common with except on a single yes/no question.
“There’s a reason, though, that far more nationalists than Unionists look back fondly on the run up to the referendum time. Pro-independence politicians were happy to impugn remainers’ motives in very ugly ways, and plenty of elected MPs and MSPs contributed enthusiastically to online toxicity.”
The Harry Potter author said that the 2014 referendum has seen “people who call a country home and love it … called traitors and Quislings by their own elected representatives for having questions about currency unions and sterlingisation”.
She added: “I used to see the Saltire in such a positive way. I felt it belonged to everyone; it was a flag with no negative associations whatsoever. Then 2014 happened and I realised my naivety, because I was told (along with millions of others) that it didn’t belong to me, that I had no right to it, that I was insufficiently good and Scottish to be included beneath it.
“I know very well those sentiments weren’t shared by everyone in the Yes camp, because, as stated above, I admire and indeed love certain Yessers. The fact remains that a lot of people on the No side came through that referendum with certain illusions about Scotland shredded …
“Lots of us were persuadable, but if the knee-jerk response to common sense questions is ‘you’re a Unionist traitor, a scaremonger and no true Scot’, don’t be surprised if the questioner becomes sceptical about the inclusive, egalitarian, welcoming utopia independence activists swore we’d be living in once they were in charge.”
"You were campaigning AGAINST change, because you liked how things were," he went on.
"That isn't intrinsically BAD, and I never said it was. You're entitled to make your own judgment on what was best for the country, and when you donated £1m to the side that already had all the money and power, I said 'Kudos to JK Rowling for trying to make a civilised case.' (I then expressed a view that I think stands the test of time pretty well.)
"But it IS intrinsically NEGATIVE, so of course you enjoyed the campaign less than us. You never wanted it to happen at all.
"We'd waited 300 years for even a CHANCE to restore our country to normality, so it's a bit shitty to still be sulking, 11 years after you won, that we dared to enjoy that brief moment of hope."
