Misdirection by Boudica of Brexit
THERESA May’s obsession with dragging Britain out of the EU came to the fore again yesterday as she addressed the Tories’ annual Scottish conference.
She also did her usual “defence of the Union” schtick in a vain attempt to breathe some life into the cavernous Clyde Auditorium.
The great irony, of course, is that Theresa is the biggest threat to the Union – by ignoring the wishes of most Scots in hurtling headlong towards the hardest of hard Brexits.
The PM’s fixation on the constitution had the ranks of Tory diehards clapping like seals waiting for a particularly tasty fish at feeding time. Meanwhile, in the big world outside, real life goes on.
And as the Daily Record reports today, life in Tory Britain is getting increasingly hard for many people.
Almost one million people are now stuck on zero-hour contracts – they don’t know from one week to the next whether they will have enough wages to live on.
At the same time, Citizens Advice Bureaus are being flooded with desperate people left with nothing due to the botched benefit crackdown.
What does Theresa intend to do about these real-world issues – where actual human beings are being forced into unending poverty by a system that gives too much power to the rich and powerful? The answer is simple: she doesn’t care. We know this because while this storm of plummeting living standards rages around her, her primary focus is destroying Scotland’s long and precious relationship with our European neighbours.
But it takes some cheek for May to present herself as the Boudica of Brexit Britain’s precious Union when she is empress of zero hour contracts and queen of a failing universal credit system.
Nothing could be better designed to drive Scots to back independence than an increasingly right-wing, uncaring and Europe-hating Tory Government.
May did take time out in her speech to demand more of Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP Government.
She called them out for failing on education and rightly pointed out problems with the NHS in Scotland. But what’s Theresa’s solution to these problems?
Cutting taxes for her millionaire pals in the City and pulling us out of Europe won’t improve your local schools and hospitals.
The sad fact is that May is wrapping herself in the Union Flag in the hope we won’t notice the destruction being wrought by Brexit.
Those of us who live in the real world are only too aware of the crisis in our midst. And no amount of Rule Britannia rhetoric will make us look the other way.