Why has rail plan for the royal coffin been ditched?

CANCeLLING proposals to transport the Queen’s coffin by royal Train will deny huge numbers of people the opportunity to pay their last respects, it was claimed last night.

Under plans leaked in 2017 for the eventuality of the monarch dying at Balmoral, codenamed Operation Unicorn, she was to make her final journey by rail.

It was expected that the train would travel slowly through as much of the country as possible on its way from Scotland to London, allowing the public to say goodbye from platforms at railway stations or at viewing points along the line.

Instead, however, under a different contingency plan known as Operation Overstudy, the Queen’s coffin

‘Would have liked to say goodbye’

will tonight be flown to the capital on a military aircraft ahead of her lying-in-state at Westminster hall.

No official explanation has been given for the U-turn, with some experts speculating it could have been the result of security concerns about protesters blocking the line or health and safety fears for crowds trying to catch a glimpse of the train – although royal insiders say it was to avoid disruption to other rail users.

But last night rail industry figures and MPs said the move will deny many – particularly those who cannot easily travel to the capital – the opportunity to pay their respects.

One northern MP said: ‘My constituents have written to me to say they’re disappointed. They would have liked to have said goodbye.’

Tory MP Martin Vickers, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on rail, said: ‘It’s rather sad and it would have been nice but I suspect there are justifiable reasons.’

Tory former minister David Jones said: ‘ People from the North who would have liked to pay their respects probably won’t go to London because the train service is so bad.’

he added that there was little prospect of the royal Train being disrupted. ‘ People would have been quick to clamp down on anybody trying to cause trouble,’ he said.

Nigel harris, editor of rail magazine, criticised the ‘major blunder by Government, Palace and railway’ to stop people paying their respects.

rail expert Christian Wolmar said: ‘everything possible should have been done to maintain this rather special way of enabling people to make their farewells without travelling to London.’

A royal source said: ‘The decision was made for practical reasons including avoiding disruptions to the public.’

For a perfect illustration of the chaos into which the cause of Scottish independence has been plunged since the death of the Queen, consider these two quotations.

In January, Nicola Sturgeon claimed to her fellow MSPs that Scotland was being treated like ‘something on the sole of Westminster’s shoe’.

It was a typically ungracious remark from a woman who — however much she imagines herself as an international stateswoman — often resorts to petty political mudslinging.

Jump forward to the shock of the Queen’s death last week, however, and Ms Sturgeon’s deputy, John Swinney, found himself uttering words that I never thought I’d hear from a separatist’s lips.

In an interview on Sunday, Swinney — an avowed nationalist — referred to Scotland’s ‘central constitutional position within the United Kingdom’.

Respect

He continued that ‘right at the heart’ of the Accession Council in London was ‘the significance of Scotland’s place within the Union’. Well said that man!

The truth is that the SNP is deeply split on the issue of the monarchy — and even they cannot deny that Scotland plays a key role when it comes to such weighty matters of the British state as the accession of a new King or Queen.

What’s more, when Scots gather around the throne that they share with the English, support for independence seems to wane. This has been obvious in recent days.

Look at the pictures in today’s Mail of the Scots who turned out in their thousands yesterday to line Edinburgh’s royal Mile and pay their respects to both their late Queen and their new King and his family.

or consider the extraordinary scenes on Sunday as, for 175 miles and over six hours, grieving Scots lined the roads as Her Majesty began that long journey south.

Scots of all ages and social backgrounds rushed to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying the Queen’s coffin — with hardly a protester in sight.

The truth — which Sturgeon and her ilk surely know — is that both north and south of the border we have witnessed a glorious and heartening groundswell of love for the monarchy in recent days.

And this shatters the vain hopes of those nationalists who believed the Queen’s death would somehow deal a fatal blow to the Union itself.

The outpouring of affection for the late Queen and King Charles is a setback for Sturgeon and Co, who had — until this week — hoped to downplay the issue of the monarchy in their life’s work to secure an independent Scotland.

Some nationalists support the monarchy while others do not. Exposing these tensions is a crucial approach for unionists.

But supporters of the Union should take heart: this week is shaping up to be the greatest setback for the Scottish independence movement in a generation.

Back in 2014, just before Scots voted by 55 to 45 per cent to remain in the Union, the SNP promised that the Queen would continue as head of state in an independent Scotland.

There was, naturally, wailing from some quarters of the party that this represented a betrayal of the republican cause. How could Scotland, they demanded, be both separate from the Union and retain the Crown?

They betrayed their own ignorance, of course. The British monarchy long predates the political union of Scotland and England.

It was a Scottish king, James VI ( known as James I in England) who was invited to sit on the English throne in 1603, in what became known as the ‘Union of the Crowns’.

The political union — when the Scottish and English parliaments merged — came a century later in 1707.

So the shared monarchy has been an unbroken link between Scotland and England since the time of Shakespeare: a history Britain surrenders at its peril.

What’s more, all the signs are that, contrary to what the most fanatical SNP activists may say, Charles is proving just as popular north of the border as his mother was.

Needless to say, most Scots recognise that the King’s Scottish roots are strong and deep. And his devotion to Scotland and its people is equally fierce — as exemplified in 2007, when the then Prince of Wales bought and saved the great Palladian Dumfries House in Ayrshire as a gift to the nation.

Scotland has always been deeply special to the House of Windsor — and the Scottish people appreciate that.

Kinship

It is hugely significant, for example, that the Queen took her last breath in the comfort of her favourite home, Balmoral Castle.

Sturgeon, canny as ever, recognises all this — and does not want to alienate the millions of Scots who value the monarchy.

Yesterday, the First Minister even conducted the first reading at the service of prayer and reflection for the Queen in Edinburgh’ s St Giles’ Cathedral.

But she is playing a difficult balancing act.

The fact is that the longer the Scots feel a kinship with the monarch they share with the UK’s three other nations, the more they feel a subconscious but powerful tie to that Union.

So, in the wake of the Queen’s death, how close is Scotland to breaking away?

Earlier this year, Sturgeon announced that she would fight to hold a second referendum in october 2023. A ruling by the Supreme Court in London on whether the SNP has the legal right to hold such a contest is imminent.

If, as seems likely, the court rules that the UK’s constitution is an issue for Westminster, Sturgeon will surely face a pivotal — perhaps existential — moment for her leadership.

New Prime Minister Liz Truss has made it clear she will reject a bid for ‘Indyref2’.

Assuming this is how it pans out, Sturgeon will have a decision to make.

Desperate

Will she concede what she is thought to have been told long ago by Scottish government lawyers but refused to admit publicly: that her repeated promises to her supporters of a second referendum were worthless? This would be political suicide.

or will she revert to her Plan B, and unilaterally declare the next UK general election — expected in just two years — as a de facto referendum on independence?

Many Scots would not tolerate such fast and loose nationalist game-playing — but her desperate position might offer her no alternatives.

Certainly, time is not on her side. And the Queen’s death has renewed appreciation in Scotland for the great shared traditions and history with our neighbours south of the border.

It was Her Majesty’s mission to unite us: to ‘think very carefully’, as she put it, about independence.

Yet Nicola Sturgeon seeks to divide us.

The Queen’s last gift to us all may be that we witness Sturgeon fail.

TOM HARRIS was labour MP for Glasgow South from 2001 to 2015.