The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Opposition coalition notion
Abit like the Kardashian phenomenon, you know you are meant to care about Brexit, but struggle to find the energy. Much as the words of the Kardashian’s – big bum, transgender, Instagram – can be rearranged into any order to form a story, so too the Brexit words – Boris, Mogg, DUP, chaos and May – can be randomly connected to make any article of the last two-andhalf years.
Clearly, the ideal story would be if a Kardashian offered an opinion on Brexit, then we could all retire having “solved” the news.
However, struggle on we must – not with the Kardashians obviously, we have some standards.
Tory rebels think they can get a better Brexit deal, while Nicola Sturgeon thinks she can improve it too, as does Labour.
The resistance is clearly sincere on one level.
Everyone has different ideas about what Brexit should be – and the deal meets very little of these.
We don’t want politicians who simply give up and go along with things because they are tired or bored.
If Sturgeon, Jeremy Corbyn, or whoever, think they can play the game of politics such that they can change things, they are obliged to do so.
Yet, there is the smack of am-dram about this.
A whiff of the Nativity play where nobody got cast as Mary, and they are making the best of being third palm tree.
The EU clearly think they have made concessions and have stated that’s it – take it or leave it.
Europe is under no obligation to please us, and we are free to walk away without paying a penny or signing up to a word.
There is, then, no incentive for the EU to see this as a drama that involves them.
Instead, it is what it is, a bad decision by Britain which the Brits must come to terms with.
This idea that our confusion is somehow gripping Europe is like the bird that sits on a crocodile’s tooth imagining it controls the jaw.
Labour’s position is confused, but Corbyn wants an election – why, who knows, as the latest polling suggests he’s set to lose seats in Scotland, but there you go.
Sturgeon does not want an election, but her position is also questionable.
The First Minister thinks she can muster a coalition of the opposition to either improve the terms or hold a second referendum – yet can point to no evidence that the EU would renegotiate, or any substance for the people’s vote mechanism.
She says SNP MPs will vote against the deal because a better agreement is possible and she wants Scotland to enjoy the same privileges as Northern Ireland in relation to the EU.
She set out demanding that Brexit should not take the UK out of the customs union and single market.
Theresa May’s deal may fall short of that demand as an absolute, but it is pretty close.
The transition deal would keep us as close to Europe as is possible while still satisfying the notion of Brexit.
What’s more, if the invitation to extend the transition to 2022 or beyond is taken up, then Scotland would still be “in” much of the EU by the time of any second indy referendum.
For Nationalists, this is important. An Indy Scotland would have to leave the EU and re-enter, but that seems a lot easier to achieve if it hasn’t yet properly left as part of the UK.
A Scotland that signalled it understood the pragmatism of the moment, understood that the EU was trying to help, but despaired at the pickiness of British politicians, might put Edinburgh in a more constructive light if it were seen to support this current compromise.
What doesn’t make Scotland look constructive is to compare itself with Northern Ireland.
Our first and fantastically unsuccessful colony, Northern Ireland is Scotland’s shame.
We came, we picked a fight, and we didn’t let go.
To start claiming that we should be treated the same is disingenuous.
There is a very obvious geographical reason why Northern Ireland is different – a land border with the EU – and an equally unambiguous sociopolitical reason to do with religion and history.
What if the SNP said it would support the May deal in return for greater assurance and protection over the return of powers to Edinburgh post Brexit? That would honour the democratic will of the 2016 referendum, for a Brexit.
It would signal to Brussels that Scotland isn’t just another Brexit in waiting – another shambles of nit-picking and awkwardness when it came to rejoining the EU post independence.
It would give the SNP some leverage with Theresa May.
It would be make the Tories look even more like snakes in a sack.
What is more, it would settle the terms for Scots farmers, business people and citizens, in so far as we would enter a transition, and avoid a no-deal exit.
Sturgeon rejects this framing – May’s deal or no deal – but until she can point to an alternative of substance, that’s exactly where we stand.