In a Scotsman thread today, a regular forum poster known as Guga II writes:

Scotland is ... of no importance or consequence to London, other than as a source of funds from the exploitation of Scotland, to subsidise England.

So he’s claiming malicious intent towards Scotland on the part of successive British Governments. His vilification attempt is only one small step beyond the SNP’s assertion that – in their own words – “the UK Government want to exploit Scotland’s natural resources for their own financial gain”.

The only development of the SNP claim in Guga’s comment is that he seemingly wants the reader to make an association with London, with England.

The exploitation idea has no foundation. But time and again, we see nationalists – convinced of their own moral unassailability – attempting to portray their political opponents as morally inferior. There's a deep parcel o’ rogues mentality within the nationalist psyche, through which their political perspective becomes, to them, some kind of righteous cause. Some examples of vilification follow.

Winnie Ewing has described the unionist parties as “enemies of Scotland” and “traitors”.

Alex Salmond has spoken of “Whitehall's duplicity and trickery in its desperate desire to cheat Scotland”. Kenny MacAskill has made claims about successive UK governments “blatantly lying and deceiving the Scottish people”. Before last May’s election, Christina McKelvie implored us to “vote out these warmongering criminals” and to “teach the liars a serious lesson at the polls”.

Stewart Maxwell has referred to “the struggle for Independence” and Alex Salmond has used the phrase “our fight for independence”. John Swinney has referred to independence as “national freedom” and Ian Hudghton has spoken of the need to “reassert our right to independence”. From which oppressor, gentlemen? Which enemy? Whom do you imagine to be denying your rights?

Taking it even further, Angus MacNeil said that the inconclusive cash-for-honours probe sent out a message that “the UK is not a wholesome place”, and Rob Gibson, after calling for the “Blair regime” to be “indicted for war crimes” said that “the writ of British rule” must be “removed from our way of life”, thereby using such vilification to promote the SNP’s separation agenda.

Such remarks are almost always delivered in impersonal, institutional terms: the Government, the Unionist parties or even the UK as a whole. Never the English, Welsh or Northern Irish, of course. But wittingly or otherwise, the subtext is there, and CyberNats like Guga II often pick up on it.

So, in various of his previous postings to newspaper comment threads, he has had no qualms about referring to Scotland being oppressed by the “jackboot of English colonialism”, accusing the English of “raping and pillaging” Scotland, calling them “our colonial masters”, “foreigners” and “neighbours from hell”, saying that there is “no good reason to try and keep on their good side” and that “we actually need an ASBO against them, in the form of independence”.

I sometimes wonder if the so-called “civic nationalism” claimed by the SNP is, in fact, oxymoronic.