When I was really young I joined the Union and soon became an office bearer, low level one in Scotland. I was sent on all sorts of courses where I was surprised to find a lot of the Union activity was two factions fighting it out for control. I wasn't really in either camp, made friends in both maintaining my stance I was there for the members. The longer I was there the more pressure there was to join one of these factions and after thinking long and hard I said fuck it, neither was where I wanted to be and resigned from the position.
Pre devolution I worked with both the big parties, low level stuff, and have to say wasn't really impressed with either from a Scottish perspective. Scottish legislation was Westminster stuff with English references cut and Scottish references pasted in. The Torys I met were generally arrogant pricks, the Labour folk generally a happy lot happy to leave legislation responsibilities to down south and enjoy the role of Minister.
That changed after devolution although when it was Labour in both parliaments the changes were negligible, Departments in Scotland worked closely with their English counterparts. There were old school Ministers who were a pleasure ish to work with but the new boys were a bit arrogant.
I was against Scottish independence at this point and was an avid Labour voter.
Que the SNP getting in at Holyrood. The SNP had a very different approach. Instead of imposing legislation there was a collaborative approach with folk and it worked better! There as a clear divergence from Westminster and to all intents and purposes their officials stopped working closely with us.
Scotland is now quite different to what it used to be. The needs of Scotland are very different to to what's on offer from Westminster. The latest Scottish Labour leader doesn't seem to get this. To me it's almost like the days of Braveheart when English Lord's were imposed on Scotland, the "Rebellious Scots to crush".
Don't even get me started with the lying, self serving Tory bastards.
I'm now a SNP voter and fully behind the independence cause.