Forget everything else: Brexit is now the only show in town

future be subject to a rigorous tariff if all trade agreements break down amidst protectionist hubris. Perhaps President Trump will sign a beautiful new trade deal with a post-Brexit European Union. He might guarantee unfettered use of the phrase, in exchange for a licence for French words like “entrepreneur” or “chauffeur” to enter everyday American English.

Pork-barrel politics means the Government giving preferential treatment to one lobby or constituency, for reasons of expediency. Ironically,

Mrs May handed the DUP a big fat barrel of the stuff for votes which she could probably have relied upon anyway. If there is one thing less likely than the DUP turning up at a gay marriage in East Belfast, it is that they might vote to bring down the Tories and help usher Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street.

But it ill behoves politicians of all stripes to condemn each other for special treatment and resorting to metaphorical pork. Here in Scotland, whose politics are fast resembling Lilliput, it is all about pandering to audiences, and more particularly their prejudices. Since last year, and the EU referendum, Britain has followed suit. Politicians no longer deal in facts, realities, statesmanship. Voters have become averse to facing realities. We demand pork, even when we know it is not real and may taste very sour indeed.

So when Nicola Sturgeon declares whatever she said this week about a second referendum, her message translates instantly into whatever listeners want to hear. Formally, it means her current priority is not a referendum. But if you are a supporter, “resetting” just means it will come soon enough. To an opponent, her new commitment is not clear enough and is therefore unacceptable. Neither side actually listens to the other.

The reality is that Ms Sturgeon miscalculated the impact of last year’s Brexit vote. Because the Remain vote in Scotland was 62 per cent, she assumed that support for independence would rise as Scots realised the implications of an English vote to leave. Unfortunately for her, a lot of Remainers are also No voters: they do not want big changes at all, whether at UK or European level. Why would she call a second referendum when the polls tell her she would lose it? The First Minister’s further miscalculation was to mistake the positive response she received to her initial critique of Brexit as support for her overall commitment to Scottish independence. A second referendum is her strongest political weapon, her nuclear deterrent. Rather than keeping it as a silent but threatening presence, she had it out on the table and bandied about almost from day one. Her less than convincing demands for a separate EU settlement for Scotland may have kept her supporters happy – although even that is doubtful – but it did absolutely nothing to improve support for independence.

What of her opponents? Ruth Davidson has proved herself adept at wrapping herself in the flag – or the uniform of an honorary colonel – and playing the anti-independence card loud and long. It helped her party to achieve an extraordinary 13 Scottish seats. However, talk of Ms Davidson moving into Bute House and lording it at Holyrood are premature. Sooner or later the honeymoon period will end and she will have to actually answer questions about Tory policy on poverty, housing and public spending as they affect Scotland, without waffling on about a referendum that nobody has called.

Then there is Scottish Labour, whose under-performance this month has escaped much examination. If the SNP was going to lose as many as 21 seats, why did so few fall to Labour? As the party in England rose on the Corbyn surge, why was it running an expensive campaign here to “tell Nicola Sturgeon to get on with the day job”, a message that played to the advantage of the

Tories and no-one else?

Scottish politics is becoming countercyclical to the UK. The Tories rose in Scotland as they faltered in the south. Ms Davidson’s new gang of 13 turn out to be less important lobby fodder than her leader’s new-found friends from Northern Ireland.

British politics is little different. Mr Corbyn’s greatest asset is Mrs May’s increasingly-obvious failings as a prime minister. Crowds may chant his name at Glastonbury, but his economic strategy is largely unexamined. It can be described broadly as being all things to all people. Austerity? Forget it. Jam for all, absolutely! Tuition fees, public spending, you name it, we’ll sign it off.

There is a long list of potential culprits for all this make-believe, fantasy economics, and the infantilism that has substituted proper debate. The banking crisis taught people that no matter the depth of duplicity, failure, incompetence and fraud, some will always get a bailout. Special interests prevail, so let’s all make ourselves “special”. If we have learned anything at all during the last decade, it is that we are definitely not “all in it together”.

British politics is mired in a crisis from which the country may not survive intact. Its economy faces free-fall, with many jobs in peril and a nervous, confused electorate divided, at times bitterly, over what happens next. In Scotland, we can talk ourselves to death about the need or otherwise of a constitutional response. But for some time yet there is only one issue in town: it’s all about Brexit, stupid.