Focus on separation masks SNP failures
A YEAR on and the ‘once in a generation’ question of Scottish i ndependence remains a running sore.
The country is still crippled by the Yes/ No divide because of the duplicity of the SNP. Granted, Nicola Sturgeon is a First Minister of a very different stamp from the previous incumbent, yet she is not above sophistry on independence.
She tell us she ‘ respects’ the 55/ 45 rejection of independence at the ballot box – all the while polishing a timetable for a rerun.
Alex Salmond is now a lowly MP and not even leader – at least officially – of his party’s bloc in Westminster. Yet he is insolently laying the tripwires that would trigger this second bid to break up Britain.
The unilateral red lines he has identified include renewal of Trident (which will be debated in Parliament and on which the SNP’s 56 querulous MPs will have a say. So the SNP seems intent on usurping that vote, too, if the result isn’t to its liking). Miss Sturgeon says the people of Scotland will decide on the timing of a second referendum, trying to sidestep the inconvenient and incontrovertible reality that two million Scots have already unequivocally r ej ected t he SNP’s separatist agenda.
And we are constantly assailed with the SNP’s claim that a newspaper front page, cooked up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was some sort of legally binding contract which the Great Satan of Westminster has reneged on.
The so-called Vow is a distraction, not a l egitimate alternative to the Smith Commission plans for more powers for Holyrood
The SNP maintains, too, that its electoral landslide in the General Election means Westminster must cede yet more power to Edinburgh. It means no such thing – the election was not fought on constitutional issues.
The trouble with the SNP is that it listens only to its noisy but narrow band of supporters and so genuinely believes Scotland is yearning to leave the United Kingdom. The reality is that the majority of us put up with years of sound and fury over independence in the expectation that September 18, 2014, would settle the issue decisively. Some hope.
But Scotland does want a new politics: a politics in which the Government tackles what matters – health, education, justice and jobs.
The SNP knows these are its vulnerable points and so rehashes the constitutional wrangle to disguise its failings.
If Miss Sturgeon truly respected the settled will of the Scottish people, she would buckle down to the difficult but everyday business of government and stop building separatist castles in the air which foment ongoing Yes v No bile.