A mature nation? More like an angry adolescent with issues
SO, if you can’t persuade the Scots to leave the United Kingdom, what do you do? It would appear that if you are in the SNP you now try to persuade the rest of the UK that Scotland should leave and deny Scots the choice.
That is what the past week has been about.
Ian Blackford’s stunt of flouncing out of Prime Minister’s Questions was as flawed as his argument.
Upset at the arcane rules of the House of Commons that restricted debate on Brexit and Scotland, he tried to use arcane rules to bring the parliamentary setpiece of the week to an end. The modern equivalent of saying ‘I spy strangers’ to expel the public and the press from proceedings.
But his argument is based on a lie. A basic untruth. That there is a power grab. That devolution is being undermined and powers being taken away from Holyrood.
They aren’t, indeed the opposite is true. The Scottish parliament is gaining more powers.
Yet let’s not allow the facts to get in the way of a political campaign. Incapable of persuading pesky entrenched Scots into leaving the Union, Mr Blackford had promised that our representatives at Westminster will do all they can to disrupt proceedings whatever the cause. Until everyone else in the UK is just fed up with Scots. Let’s just get angry, shall we?
THE SNP likes to think it is Scotland but it is not making Scotland look terribly grown up. Less of a modern nation with a future and more an adolescent with issues. Now there are things upon which I agree with the SNP. I don’t like Brexit. It is the result of misplaced nationalism that somehow sees sharing sovereignty with your neighbours as a sign of weakness.
Yet the SNP’s remedy to Brexit is to demand we stop sharing sovereignty with our neighbours whatever the cost to Scotland. The answer to misplaced nationalism is more misplaced nationalism. Compounding a problem, not confronting it.
The cynicism of the ‘power grab’ claim is as breathtaking as it is well worn.
It is a modern truth that Mrs Thatcher used Scotland as a laboratory to try out unpopular policies such as the poll tax. Except it is completely untrue.
Anyone who actually remembers the time will recall that Scotland revolted at a rates revaluation and actually asked for the community charge to come to Scotland first.
But if you tell a lie often enough, it can become the truth to some.
That is the ‘optimistic’ SNP’s hope. The Tory Government is not handling Brexit well and is worthy of deep criticism. But in this one the people showing the greatest contempt for the people of Scotland is the SNP.
The Nationalists are peddling a lie in the hope they can needle the chip on our national shoulders until we self-harm. Yet most Scots don’t have a chip on our shoulders. No desire to self-harm.
Most Scots thought that the 2014 referendum was a ‘once-in-ageneration’ opportunity and that its result would be respected.
Now we pay the price for Nationalist denial. Those who claim to champion Scottish opinion actually cannot cope with it so they are reduced to stupid stunts. I asked one senior Nationalist this week what powers were being grabbed and the only answer they could give me was to say that Brexit means that the NHS might be privatised. For Olympic nonsequiturs, that gets gold.
Another convert told me they didn’t want Jacob Rees-Mogg to run the country. Neither do I.
But it seems strange that the country that still sings about standing up to Edward Longshanks is prepared to run away from an Old Etonian with a hedge fund.
What is happening is actually more profound than our constitutional future.
This debate has turned family member against family member. Friendships have been lost. The country is divided, not united. But what is worse is that truth has been lost along the way and it is now acceptable for the ruling political class who claim to represent Scots to treat us as mugs. That happens to be the SNP. The country of the enlightenment seems not at home to reason.
There is a case for independence that is not being made – instead what triumphs is the belittling hope that Scots can be aggravated into separation. That is not an appealing prospectus.
AGAME is being played rather than a nation being made. Strutting out of the House of Commons in a prepared stunt may well gain headlines for a week. It might make lesser men such as Ian Blackford feel happier than the better men like Charlie Kennedy, who he displaced, would have felt.
But while it might advance their cause for a few days it does not advance their argument.
Arguments work best when they appeal to our better selves, not our worst selves.
Ask Scotland to be proud and forward looking.
Don’t lie to us and ask us to do your bidding out of a misplaced sense of being aggrieved.