PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR THEIR SHAMEFUL THEATRICS
PERHaPS the 35 Nationalist MPs are enjoying life at Westminster so much, and are so complacent in their professional existence, they’ve forgotten what they are there to do.
It certainly seemed that way during yesterday’s humiliating theatrics. The pantomime dame, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, flagrantly disobeyed the Speaker and was asked to leave the chamber. on cue, like extras from the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the rest of the SNP group followed.
In doing so they silenced themselves, meaning their application for a specific Brexit debate could not be accepted. They also missed the chance to hold the Prime Minister to account on matters of their choosing – the whole point of PMQs.
They might have wanted it to look like a spontaneous reaction, that they had been driven to this measure as some kind of honourable last resort. Unfortunately, they had not sufficiently rehearsed the scene.
a formal statement issued by the party just minutes later, and an immediate endorsement from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Twitter, aroused many suspicions that this was deliberately pre-planned and orchestrated.
and one Nationalist MP really fluffed their lines, by leaving the grievance-riddled script behind on the benches, meaning the whole world could see right through this shameful plan, complete with manufactured ‘outrage/disappointment’.
It was designed to achieve one thing – get themselves in front of the TV cameras and stoke up more grievance in the process.
cynically, they wanted viewers in Scotland to see Scottish MPs being victimised in big, bad london, and them behaving admirably in the face of such an intensely unfair and intimidating environment.
Instead, they looked like amateurs; student politicians who wanted to put their own political egos ahead of the critical matters at hand.
and, of course, the people of Scotland, including some who voted SNP, will see elected representatives who are not working in the best interests of their constituents nor the country.
They will be embarrassed at supposedly responsible adults, sent from Scotland to represent this country in one of the world’s most famous and revered parliaments, behaving in this way.
If they are not serious about being Members of Parliament, they should pass the responsibility on to someone who actually cares and will take the job sufficiently seriously.
Yesterday’s walkout may have had the shock factor but we should not be surprised.
To understand the Nationalists’ approach to Brexit you have to remember that, at every step of the process, they are working to move the prospect of an independent Scotland closer at the expense of all else.
They do not care about an orderly withdrawal from the EU, nor respecting the result of the 2016 referendum (hardly surprising, given their contempt for the one two years prior). and they certainly do not care about working with the UK Government to make Brexit work for the people of Scotland.
It is an error of misjudgment the SNP has displayed from the moment the ink dried on the official Brexit result.
NIcola Sturgeon thought she was playing a blinder when she took to the stage on the morning of June 24, 2016, to announce, such was her dismay at the outcome, that she had ordered civil servants to get the ball rolling on a second referendum to break up Britain.
That tactic backfired spectacularly, resulting in numerous lost seats at the subsequent general and local government elections.
Voters were sick at the idea of her using one instance of uncertainty to start agitating for an even more severe one. Why would she jeopardise the UK internal market, which is four times more important to Scotland than the EU internal market?
Why would she want to drag us back to the bitter, divisive campaign of a few years before, with all the tension and uncertainty it brought to business? Yet still the SNP do not get it.
They clearly do not realise that people would feel more positively towards them if they accepted Brexit was going to happen and got round the table with their counterparts in Westminster to make the best of it.
after all, a number of opportunities – as well as challenges – await our departure from the EU. It’s a chance to sort out farming subsidy to make our rural communities more financially viable, and to reduce prices to make local produce more attractive and affordable.
It’s a chance to get a significantly better deal for our fishing communities, which would breathe life into Scotland’s coast and countryside.
and it’s a chance to help more disadvantaged students from Scotland get a place in university, something that would close the attainment gap and reduce the inequalities which exist in our more deprived areas.
These are all things SNP politicians could be focusing on, and indeed could have asked about at PMQs. Instead they were hunting camera crews on college Green.
Rather than working in Scotland’s interest, the SNP are acting in a shallow, naïve and pathetic way. Their walkout was a shameful dereliction of duty which has embarrassed and undermined Scotland.