Grubby deal shames SNP and gives lie to Sturgeon’s ‘progressive’ posturing

WITH breathtaking cynicism, Nicola Sturgeon suggests the complexity of Brexit can be resolved by yet more constitutional turmoil. Her solution should surprise no one: the centrepiece of her party’s manifesto is a call for another independence referendum.

The pledge to put ‘Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands’ is in fact a promise to maintain the SNP’s pursuit of its over-riding objective – breaking up the UK.

Its threadbare prospectus provides more incontrovertible proof of an administration that has run out of meaningful ideas.

The Nationalists are also demanding another Brexit referendum, and – unlike their proposed re-run of the 2014 plebiscite – they claim that no confirmatory vote would be required.

These are utterly untenable policy positions, riddled with incoherencies and contradictions: while the Brexit result in 2016 is up for debate, the outcome of another Scottish independence poll would be beyond question. The rest of the manifesto is a collection of half-baked proposals, with demands for more powers over employment law, migration and transport to be transferred to Holyrood.

The need for further devolution is unclear, because the Nationalists have made a spectacular mess of implementing the powers they already have, from taxation to the creation of a new multi-billionpound social security agency.

On a host of other measures, the SNP has presided over a string of failures. Child cancer patients have died in a flagship super-hospital at the centre of concern over contaminated tap water.

A legal guarantee to treat patients within 12 weeks has been breached – and indeed the ‘guarantee’ itself has been exposed as a sham. Figures from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have shown Scots pupils lag behind peers in South Korea, Vietnam and ex-Soviet bloc countries Estonia and Slovenia on key skills. New statistics next week are expected to reinforce fears over a slide in classroom standards fuelled by the SNP’s botched schools curriculum. A shrinking economy means Scotland is teetering on the brink of another recession, as an oppressive tax regime strangles any prospect of much-needed growth.

In the midst of this unfolding calamity, the SNP proposes to wrench us out of one of the world’s most successful economic unions, ditch sterling and either adopt a stratospherically expensive homegrown currency – or the euro.

As we saw earlier this week in a disastrous TV interview, Miss Sturgeon is desperate to avoid being drawn into discussion about the granular detail of plans that crumble under the slightest scrutiny.

Splitting apart the UK is held up as a panacea for every conceivable problem despite copious evidence, often from the Nationalists’ own experts, that it would lead to years of division, uncertainty and hyper-austerity. But independence remains the overarching goal of the SNP hierarchy, and it is banking on a hung parliament – which remains a strong possibility – to put Miss Sturgeon in the position of king-maker.

For that reason, when the First Minister speaks out against Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to tackle rife anti-Semitism in his own party, it is clear that her condemnation is highly conditional.

While she claims the Nationalists will not be ‘signing any blank cheque’ to Mr Corbyn, voters know she would back him in a heartbeat to secure another Scexit referendum. And yet this week we have seen the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, voice alarm over the Labour leader’s track record on challenging the ugly growth of anti-Jewish bigotry in his own ranks. In the Mail yesterday, Paul Edlin, of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, said Miss Sturgeon would be doing a ‘deal with the devil’ if she propped up a Corbyn-led administration.

Another Jewish campaigner in Scotland, Elliot Davis, warned the SNP leader would be throwing the Jewish community ‘under a bus’ by sustaining a minority Labour government in return for another Scexit vote.

A recent poll showed 47 per cent of Jews would ‘seriously consider’ emigrating if Mr Corbyn wins on

December 12. Other faith groups and religious leaders – from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Muslim Council of Britain – have backed Jews who have sounded the alarm over the dangers of a hard-Left Corbyn regime.

For his part, in a car-crash TV interview with Andrew Neil on Tuesday, Mr Corbyn refused four times to apologise for his handling of the anti-Semitism crisis – and said the Chief Rabbi was ‘not right’ in accusing Labour over the issue. Meanwhile, Barry Gardiner, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, furiously attacked a journalist yesterday for daring to ask Mr Corbyn about anti-Semitism. The Labour leadership has shown itself to be wholly incapable of ridding their party, and indeed the wider movement, of the poison that eats away more of their credibility by the day. What more evidence does Miss Sturgeon need that helping the Labour leader get into No10 would be a gross abdication of moral responsibility?

While she rightly ‘deplores’ his failure to root out anti-Semites from his party – which is under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission – voters are entitled to judge her not by her words, but by her deeds.

Giving her blessing to a politician who is so patently unfit for the highest office in the land would send an unmistakable signal to Jewish families, and indeed other minorities, that the Nationalists’ supposed adherence to ‘progressive’ values is little more than a charade.

The SNP’s claim that it would act as a bulwark against the excesses of Corbynism is also extremely dubious. On the one hand, Miss Sturgeon wants to convince us of her contempt for Mr Corbyn, even suggesting she would be happy for him to be replaced as Labour leader.

But on the other she is ready to propel him into Downing Street in order to pave the way for a second independence referendum next year, only six years after 55 per cent of the Scottish electorate voted to keep the Union.

Moderates within Miss Sturgeon’s own party now face an important test: are they willing to put pressure on their leader to ensure this squalid pact never becomes a reality? Given the SNP’s reputation for refusing to tolerate internal dissent, it would be inadvisable to hold your breath awaiting any such intervention. Voters will see through Miss Sturgeon’s self-serving stance, which allows her to indulge in virtue-signalling bouts of opposing Mr Corbyn, while actively preparing to prop him up as Prime Minister.

The choice for Miss Sturgeon is clear: either she drops her support for Mr Corbyn – or sets aside her misgivings about him in order to further the separatist cause.

If she follows the latter path, then she must be in no doubt that it will cause enormous anxiety among a community that had hoped she would prioritise moral leadership over her party’s narrow political agenda.