A Guest Post by Hazel Lyon (Techie)
Across history, we can see how elitism in movements causes setbacks because grassroots energy isn’t fully embraced.
Elitism in political movements shows up when supporters place disproportionate trust or hope in a small group of “chosen” leaders, experts, or personalities rather than in broad, grassroots participation. Instead of believing that change comes from collective action at every level of society, elitist attitudes assume that only a select few are capable, worthy, or legitimate enough to deliver results. Here’s how it manifests itself.
1. Leader-Centric Focus – Supporters often elevate a single figure (or small group) as the only “serious” agents of change. The movement becomes about who leads, not what is being done collectively. Sound familiar?
2. Gatekeeping of Legitimacy – Ordinary grassroots activists might be dismissed as “not strategic enough,” “too radical,” or “not respectable.”” Only voices with status, credentials, or establishment recognition are seen as credible. Sound familiar?
3. Top-Down Expectations – Supporters expect solutions to be delivered from the top (UN Parliament, Courts, official negotiations) rather than built up through local organising, mutual aid, or mass participation. Sound familiar?
4. Selective Inclusion – Some groups within the movement are valued more highly (academics, professionals, prominent public figures), while others (working-class activists, young people, community campaigners) are sidelined or ignored Sound familiar?
5. Disillusionment Cycle – When the chosen leaders fail to deliver rapid results, supporters often become disheartened or cynical instead of redirecting their energy to grassroots resilience and long-term organising. Sound familiar?
At its core, this elitist attitude treats politics like something that is “done for” the people by capable elites, rather than “done by” the people through collective effort. It tends to produce fragile movements because energy is concentrated on individuals’ performance rather than sustainable, distributed structures of participation.
Key lesson for Scotland:- Movements that over-rely on elites (party leaders, parliamentary negotiations, media figures) become vulnerable to stagnation, compromise, or betrayal. By contrast, when grassroots movements retain independence, they can pressure elites rather than simply waiting on them.
Elite-Driven: “Wait for permission” slower, more controlled, but risks permanent delay and disillusionment.
Grassroots-Driven: “Act as if independent” messier, harder to coordinate, but generates energy, ownership, and international visibility.
A hybrid is also possible: elites providing institutional cover (e.g., Parliament, holding referendums, negotiating), while grassroots keeps up pressure and expands public buy-in. Without that pressure, elites tend to stall.
There is a grassroots path to independence. Shift independence from a party-political issue back into a mass people’s movement. It’s messy, unpredictable, and requires sustained grassroots energy but it avoids the trap of waiting endlessly for political elites to negotiate with Westminster. Instead, it builds facts on the ground until elites are forced to follow.
Liberate Scotland is a grassroots organisation. There is no elitism, no messiah. The stated aim of this coalition of independence parties and people believe in outcomes, not incomes.
Independence, Nothing else, Independence, Nothing less!
The grass roots Independence movement started to build momentum in 2014 but certain control freak political figures panicked about tone control and stifled it
This is my point in the article but not only from then, we are seeing it today. Some groups and organisations get revered because of names attached to them from Indy Ref. I’m not saying they shouldnt be but there are many new groups and organisations that have emerged with voices and good ideas. They are ignored because it’s not familiar names. How the hell do we move forward if we’re stuck in the past putting all our faith in the same people and not embracing the new? We already had a small group control the direction of the movement shaping what we did. That’s Elite-Mass Theory and dystopian.
I agree, I was just putting forward my own experience of 2014 as an example. Locally the most disadvantaged were starting to see that there was something that might work for them. They could finally see the point of getting involved and were doing a lot of the leg work.
BUT
They were blunt and not always exactly ‘on message’. This spooked the professionals who then tried to control and police things.
Genuine mass movements are messy and often stifled by those ‘leaders’ who cannot cope with that untidiness.
I agree that this has continued
Irrespective of one’ views on the politics of yesterday’s London march the numbers attending were absolutely immense.
Looking at aerial video of the utterly huge numbers it is not unrealistic to say that there could well have been a million attending.
The BBC and police said a mere 100,000, but as we know from Indy marches tens of thousands become s few hundred and a hundred thousand becomes a few thousand.
Interesting too how the police yesterday did not try to suppress the pitical mesaage by arresting hundreds and hundreds on trumped up charges. That’s reserved for peaceful septaugenarians and octagenarians. establishment.
Mass protest works and demands a different response. Taking out leaders off line being the way, And we certainly know about that – Alex Salmond, Mark Hurst, Grahame Lineham and many many more.
But yes, irrespective of the sentiment of yesterday’s huge march, the police and governments low key response shows just how the elites fear mass public sentiment.
And that is why Alex Salmond, the Yes Movement and the SNP had to be neutralised.
I was thinking about this similar point, The climate change and “net-zero” narratives are textbook examples of what happens when academia, media, and corporate interests align to push a political agenda rather than pursue truth.
The “consensus” we’re told exists is manufactured through funding incentives, peer pressure, and the systematic exclusion of dissenting voices. Researchers who question the narrative risk their careers—defunded, deplatformed, and discredited. Meanwhile, studies that support the desired conclusions are lavishly funded and amplified. This isn’t science; it’s rent-seeking disguised as righteousness.
The net-zero agenda, in particular, isn’t about saving the planet—it’s about centralizing control, dismantling national industrial bases, and ushering in a new era of feudalism where energy consumption is a privilege granted by elites. It’s no coincidence that the same nations pushing hardest for these policies are also the ones outsourcing their pollution to developing countries while enjoying the benefits of modern energy themselves.
True science welcomes debate, scepticism. What we have today is a secular dogma, enforced not by evidence but by social and financial coercion. It’s a shame that institutions meant to pursue knowledge have become factories of propaganda, but it’s a pattern we see repeated across many so-called “settled” issues.
There are so many examples of how our lives are controlled from the top.
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I entirely agree, but we are operating within the prevalent, extremely broad and influential capitalist-mode-of-production and its ideological paradigm, which has created many of the problems that you speak of. Not a helpful point to make, I’ll agree, but essential to take onboard, nonetheless, in my humble opinion.
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I think you’re right Hazel, but I’d also extend it into the ideas these groups are having.
I suppose it’s a strength of sorts, but Unionism has a knack for throwing a lame roadblock in front of the Indy Juggernaut, but never moving beyond it. Think 2014, and “Ah, but what currency will you use?” It didn’t matter that the issue was countered repeatedly, it was continually thrown in our path like Gandalf on repeat saying we cannot pass.
Call me pessimistic, but I can see the battlelines for SALVO already being constrained by the Unionist mantra the “UN is powerless to intervene” tripe. Their minds are closed and unwilling to contemplate any argument or persuasion based on fact or reality, because they’ve already got their catch-all sky hook deployed. I can see it now, every Question Time, News, Leaders Debate etc, etc, etc… The UN can do nothing! Blah! Blah! Blah!
Well, if we can see it coming, I’d like to see SALVO / Liberation developing more meat on the bones. Say for just one example, debunking the UN being powerless.
Now I know the UN isn’t going to steam in and liberate Scotland on our behalf, that’s not what I’m saying, but what ‘can’ the UN realistically do?
For example, if Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is even disputed, (long before recognition that is, just disputed and no more than that), then what are the real world ramifications for Westminster’s habitual plunder Scotland’s resources?
If Westminster’s sovereignty over Scottish oil is formally disputed, then might not London be denied the use of that revenue pending the constitutional issue being resolved? If Westminster is selling Scotland’s oil unconstitutionally, then that will be contrary to International Law, and thus, might not other nations be encouraged to embargo the sale or purchase of “UK” oil?
We need the notional Constitutional arguments which we know can and will win, to have real world consequences that are blunt and succinct, and can be shouted over a barricade. What can the UN do? Stop you profiting from our oil and whisky for a start. Pretty sure that would get Westminster’s attention.
The UN maybe is powerless to do anything, but it’s Scotland’s Constitution and Sovereignty which will do all the heavy lifting. The UN is just the Umpire who is there to monitor the probity of the rules applied. Bring it on.
We need preparation, and have our pro-Indy arguments as succinctly black and white, just as the Unionists have their roadblocks on speed dial. We don’t need the whole story, just caltrops, an area denial weapon, for all the Unionist baloney…
I suppose it’s kinda Wee Blue Book territory, although I’m not sure where Rev Stu’s head is right now. He doesn’t seem persuaded by SALVO.
I also think this was behind the success of Wullie MacRae’s Scottish UN Committee… No credit of course, but it “won” Devolved Government for Scotland, because Scotland didn’t have the requisite representation it should have had. As I understand it, it was flawed and unconstitutional procedures being tested. Westminster was obliged to concede, but being Westminster, they then made it all appear like the whole was their idea, and tied Scotland up with their bullshitty and unconstitutional Scotland Act.
When the writing is on wall, Westminster doesn’t like it, but usually reads it. See Joanna Cherry reigning in Boris Johnston PM over the unlawful prorogation of Parliament.
If we cannot gather the clans into one united body, (sigh), then we CAN unite them behind solid, succinct, indefatigable arguments.
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Thanks for this post Hazel NOT only does it sound familiar it is what did happen and continues to happen, politicians BELIEVE they are the messiah we have to ensure that mindset changes , they are after all ONLY employees ,well paid employees but employees whose employers are sick and tired at the ongoing incompetence and suffering our citizens are having to endure
All comments above are relevant and correct but Breek’s is on target , in 2014 the continuous “Ah, but what currency will you use?” ” It didn’t matter that the issue was countered repeatedly, it was continually thrown in our path like Gandalf on repeat saying we cannot pass”
The one thing I disagree with in that is that it wasn’t countered repeatedly or effectively , there was NO PASSION or CHALLENGE in it’s refutation NO counter argument or THREAT that made them wary about using the terminology , EXACTLY the same as the GROVELLING acceptance of GERS which has plagued Scotland and Scots since
The biggest promoters of LIES and MISINFORMATION is the Pravda uk government mouthpiece bbc who are allowed to invade our homes on a daily basis excreting their unchallenged lies without any formal action being taken against them by a supposed Scottish government
The shower of clowns currently infesting HR (Of all parties but especially the snp) couldn’t blow the skin off a rice pudding , there is NO PASSION or ANGER motivating them to actually FIGHT for independence , they are an insipid and bland collection of fuckwits
Good point Twathater.
Better Together and the rancid UK Media were colluding throughout as champions for the Establishment, and they were in total command of the 2014 narrative. The rational and informed debate that would enlighten the population was never allowed to happen.
No surprise really; wherever rational debate actually did take place, (typically on blogs where Cybernats were everywhere), it invariably produced a surge in YES voters and eroded soft No’s.
That same distortion and mainstream manipulation will happen again, it’s what the UK media does day in day out, UNLESS we have our Constitutional arguments boiled down to instantaneous simplicity.
It needn’t be pretty, but our message must be persuasive and emphatic. We cannot afford a re-run of 2014.
If the Parties are weak and disjointed, then the message must be crystal clear and become the thing which unites and binds us. This is where we need to invest time, resource and really do our homework….- “The Message”.
Good recently published book on precisely this theme: Luke Kemp — “Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse”.