Boris Johnson is apparently set to travel to Scotland this week to launch a campaign to keep the United Kingdom together. I must say it's very hard to imagine a person less qualified to do it. He is terribly unpopular in Scotland and he will be trying to argue the reverse of what he has argued on Brexit. Consistency has never been his strong point I know, but claiming being part of the European Union was stifling Britain but for the Scots, being part of a union with the auld enemy is somehow better for Scotland, is not going to cut it north of the border.
Shane Brennan of the Cold Chain Federation had a nice tweet about it:
You cannot credibly flip from arguing sovereignty trumps economic interest for #Brexit, to telling #Scotland that their economic interest trumps their sovereignty - you just can’t and if you don’t see that - you have no hope
— Shane Brennan (@ColdChainShane) January 24, 2021
Yet this is precisely what he is intending to do and presumably sees nothing wrong with it. He denies there is any downside to undoing our close relationship with Europe but for Scotland to do the same would create havoc apparently.
I seem to remember Johnson once saying Africa's problems are "not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more” which entirely misses the point of democracy. He genuinely seems to think everything would be better with a bumbling Old Etonian running things. He also said that British aid “has been treated as some giant cashpoint in the sky” in relation to some African countries but seems to have no problem with transferring money to Scotland and constantly reminding them of it.
Scots will look at Ireland which was once a poor relation but now enjoys a per capita income far beyond the UK after forty years in the EU. It's independent and prosperous and an equal with 26 other members of the EU. Indeed they will see how being a full member allowed Ireland to keep the upper hand throughout the last four years of Brexit negotiations. Ireland's voice was heard at all times.
In the UK, Scotland's wishes are routinely ignored. I think it was P G Wodehouse who said "It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine" and Johnson is soon to find that out. The SNP are going to learn how Vote Leave did it in 2016 and use all his old tricks against him.
Scotland is already lost and Boris Johnson will have to bear the responsibility for it just as Lord North did for the loss of the American colonies.
The SNP talk of going to the electorate in May to get a mandate to hold a referendum sometime afterwards. With Johnson's 'help' they are likely to get it with a landslide. It may not be a legal referendum and it may have no force in law but it will have much greater political force. No British prime minister could ignore it and this is what Johnson fears. Unfortunately, it's far too late, he should have heeded the warnings years ago.
I also see Hugo Rifkind has written a piece for The Times: Stop whining, Remainers, and save the UK
"South of the border, though, perhaps it’s time to get past all of that. For an English Remainer, it makes bluntly no sense to have fought tooth and nail to prevent your country from leaving one stable, peaceful multinational union while being unable to manage more than a shrug at the prospect of it leaving another one. I’m not asking you to swap your terrible blue EU beret for a tartan one with orange hair at the back but I am asking you to get over your pique at losing in 2016. Think about how much of a fuss you’d be making right now if it were English nationalists lobbying for secession from everywhere else. Come on, you’d be going nuts."
Rifkind doesn't get it does he? Yes, many remainers do want the SNP to succeed because they see it as further isolating English nationalism and I think that is a worthwhile goal. If the Scots want independence and to remain part of the grand European project what's wrong with that? If Scotland and NI were to eventually rejoin the EU it would leave England and Wales alone in Europe outside all EU structures and would surely lead eventually to our rejoining.
I was against Scotland leaving in 2014 but I support the SNP now and I see no contradiction in it.
The row over the status of the EU's ambassador to the UK rumbles on. We want to downgrade him to the level of the man from The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation, while every other country - 143 apparently - where the EU has a diplomatic presence treats EU envoys as having the same status as other national ambassadors. The IfG have a nice explainer HERE.
Nick Gutterdige at The Sun claims there is growing anger in Europe:
Member States have discussed UK refusal to grant EU embassy in London full status. Foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell: 'It's not a friendly signal, the first one UK has sent us immediately after leaving the EU. If things have to continue like this there are no good prospects.'
— Nick Gutteridge (@nickgutteridge) January 25, 2021
Nobody can understand why we are doing it. Johnson seems intent not only in separating us from the EU but to needlessly keep poking Brussels in the eye. It cannot end well.
I give this argument no more than three months to be resolved in favour of the EU.
