Boris is charging north to fight for the Union’s future

BORIS Johnson will use a high-profile visit to Scotland to lead the fightback for the Union following a surge in support for independence.

The Prime Minister will focus on how the UK Government has played a critical role in protecting Scottish jobs during the coronavirus crisis.

Mr Johnson has been warned by senior advisers that his Government has not done enough to make clear that it has delivered for all parts of the UK – and that being part of the Union has helped protect Scotland from the pandemic.

He is also expected to unveil new efforts to help Scotland’s economic recovery during his visit north of the Border on Thursday.

He will today be given a direct warning by senior Scottish Conservatives that the Union is in jeopardy following a series of polls showing a spike in support for independence.

In a ‘frank and honest’ presentation by Scottish Conservative director

Mark McInnes, Mr Johnson and members of his Cabinet will be told how support for independence and Nicola Sturgeon’s own popularity have soared in recent months, with sources saying there is a need to ‘put a firework up their a*** about the Union’.

The decision to put the issue high on the agenda of the first Cabinet meeting which ministers will attend in person since lockdown, is seen as a further sign of his desire to refocus on the issue in the run-up to next year’s Holyrood elections.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Mr Johnson has made ‘levelling up’ the UK and strengthening the Union among his top priorities.

He will use his visit north of the Border to champion efforts to help Scotland’s hard-hit economy, amid a renewed focus on how the UK Government operates here.

A senior Downing Street source said: ‘There have been issues around the “devolve and forget” culture that has creptin, reinforced by nationalists, to make devolution a wall rather than what it is meant to be, which is a step to make sure power is closer to people.

‘That is why there is work going on in the (Downing Street) Union Unit and across government with the Cabinet sub-committee that was set up to make sure we are bringing-up the priority of the Union and making sure that the UK Government is acting in a UK-wide capacity as much as possible, rather than England plus other parts, which is kind of where it started to drift.’

Mr McInnes, Baron McInnes of Kilwinning, will today present Ministers with an analysis of data showing the threat of an SNP majority in next year’s Holyrood elections and the rise in Miss Sturgeon’s popularity since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as low ratings for the UK Government in Scotland.

A recent Sunday Times poll revealed that support for independence had hit 54 per cent, with the SNP set to win a majority at next year’s Holyrood election. It is understood that Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw will not attend today’s meeting in Downing Street – but is due to meet Mr Johnson during his visit to Scotland later this week.

The visit to Scotland was originally due to happen in March and sources refute suggestions that the UK Government is ‘in a panic’ about the Union but admit there are ‘more focused minds now’.

‘The UK saved the Scottish economy’

DID you miss the national round of applause for Nicola Sturgeon’s 50th birthday – maybe you sent a card instead? Many of her most ardent supporters viewed her half-century as a pivotal moment in Scottish history.

The First Minister celebrated in low-key fashion with a stroll along an Ayrshire beach on Saturday with husband Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive. She gave a softsoap interview last week in which she argued it was ‘inappropriate’ to blame the SNP for the high number of coronavirus care home deaths.

Yesterday she tweeted that Boris Johnson had given her a belated birthday present – by announcing he’s coming to Scotland.

It’s long been a central tenet of modern-day nationalism that Mr Johnson is a gift to their cause, because, well, he’s an English toff.

And, so they believe, Scots loathe posh English people; it follows logically the more we see of him, the more we’ll hanker for ‘freedom’.

The polls provide a bit of ballast, at least superficially, to this thesis, as they show the SNP is popular and the independence vote is rising. But consider the context: day after day, Miss Sturgeon has used her coronavirus briefing to stray offtopic for party political gain.

Last week there was a comic moment when she switched from insisting she would talk only about the virus to attacking the UK Government for its (mythical) bid to deprive the Scottish Government of post-Brexit powers.

Crisis

Opposition politicians haven’t been afforded the same advantage, but it’s also true that backing for Scexit has increased in recent months partly because uncomfortable questions, for example about currency, haven’t been asked.

This isn’t the time to talk about the details of independence, we’re in a crisis, Miss Sturgeon can (and does) argue. But it seems there’s no bar on her railing against the iniquities of Mr Johnson’s powergrabbing administration.

The First Minister wants to have her birthday cake and eat it, but now there are signs of an overdue fightback as Mr Johnson wakes up to the fact that – however incoherent or indeed non-existent it may be – the drive for independence certainly isn’t losing votes.

He starts from the strong position that he’s already ruled out another referendum, and there’s no reason he should row back on that.

But he has to listen to those senior Scottish Tories now telling him this is no time to be asleep at the wheel.

It’s true Mr Johnson, who contracted the virus himself and is now trying to prevent full-scale economic calamity, has a lengthy to-do list. But the tactic he’s adopted thus far of allowing devolution to run its course, and staying out of the way bar the odd cameo appearance north of the Border, won’t wash any more.

These visits have to be a bit more meaningful than photoops – it’s the substance of what Mr Johnson says that will form the basis of the judgments most Scots will make.

By far the greatest advantage of the Union this year has been the furlough scheme that prevented nearly 800,000 Scots (doubtless many devoted Nationalists among them) from joining the dole queue.

The default opposing argument Nationalists are keen to deploy is that plenty of other nations furloughed workers, so why couldn’t an independent Scotland?

Some making this point were also admitting, not so long ago, that independence would carry a price-tag, and may even lead to austerity, but there’s no gain without pain.

So on one hand we’d be in the midst of economic turmoil after independence, but we’d have just enough cash down the back of the sofa to pay the wages of nearly one million Scots from the public purse?

The less palatable truth is a debt-ridden fledgling independent Scotland wouldn’t have been able to consider furlough on the same scale as Rishi Sunak’s scheme, let alone enact it.

‘We’re much better on our own because we’ve made a better job of controlling coronavirus’ is also a bit of a threadbare gambit. Scotland doesn’t have a city the size as London, for starters, so the comparison is distinctly of the apples and pears variety.

Ultimately, it’s not hypotheticals that will help to decide the fate of the Union so much as concrete action – literally concrete, in the form of huge infrastructure investment.

Mr Johnson, when he visits this week, is expected to outline plans to revive the Scottish economy after the ravages of coronavirus. Last month he vowed to invest billions to rebuild Britain and strengthen the ‘incredible partnership’ of the Union, unveiling £5billion of projects to attempt to avert a Great Depression.

It will include upgrades of schools, hospitals and roads, and plans to finally deliver on dualling the A1, linking Edinburgh and England.

By contrast, Miss Sturgeon has directed more effort towards undermining cross-Border relationships – by threatening to quarantine English visitors.

Protests

Sinister masked activists took her words as a call to arms and staged protests warning off English visitors – at a time when income from tourism has never been more desperately needed.

Cash will help, of course, and on any sane reckoning the past few months have shown the Union at its best: pooling resources and expertise, while allowing for variations in approach between nations.

But there must be a parallel appeal to the heart as well as the head (and the pocket). Ahead of the 2014 referendum, the No side was criticised for being too negative, while Yessers

were, by their own account, full of dynamism and ‘can do’ attitude.

They were state-makers intent on forging a socialist nirvana, but that act of creation in itself would have entailed an act of destruction: tearing down a centuries-old alliance. Anyone who was terrorised by those same Yessers online, and branded a quisling for daring to oppose them, might not remember much about the positive aspects of the independence campaign.

Unionism must always call out that ugly prejudice, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be relentlessly positive, and it needn’t be solely about pounds and pence.

There are more than 300 years of shared history and collective endeavour underpinned by family ties and uninhibited commerce.

Being British is, and should be, a source of pride – and doesn’t preclude being a proud Scot. Decisions about the long-term destiny of the United Kingdom shouldn’t be based on a like or dislike of a Prime Minister who won’t be around forever.

Nor is it healthy to place unquestioning faith in a ruling elite which seeks to marginalise and humiliate critics, and which takes power for granted after 13 years in office.

Mr Johnson’s trip should be the start of a determined campaign to shore up the Union’s defences. But he must also remember the UK can only flourish with constant vigilance – and the knowledge its enemies will exploit any sign of weakness to prise it apart.