Labour pains

So, after 21 months as leader of the opposition at Westminster, it seems that Sir Keir Starmer may have finally found the guts to take on one of the most corrupt and malevolent Westminster Tory governments Scotland has ever had to endure. But wait – the Labour Party’s solution is to offer Eu-supporting Scotland a “make Brexit work” strategy !

Apart from the obvious fatal flaw, there is also the fantasy that anyone in Scotland actually cares much about the British Labour Party (the head office of the misleadingly titled ‘Scottish Labour’), which for all its years of power in urban Scotland achieved very little of lasting consequence. Whether its Gordon Brown and his broken vows or Ian Murray, egged on by his wee pals in the Lib Dems, trying to fool us that a ‘fully federal UK’ is an actual possibility (federalism only works in countries with roughly equal constituent parts, like Germany or Canada), Scotland has moved on from this obvious nonsense.

There is also the fantasy that the British Labour party will automatically get an equal chance to form a more progressive Westminster government often enough and for long enough – and therefore protect Scotland from the permanently pro-tory UK.

Despite the apparently reinvigorated Sir Keir, the fact is that, as part of the UK, Scots face both this Conservative administration (with or without Johnson) until 2024, and subsequent Conservative administrations to 2030 and beyond. This simply isn’t good enough – either for our country or for democracy.

D JAMIESON Dunbar, East Lothian