IT looks like political Armageddon now for Labour in England after their wipe out in Scotland in 2015. And with that Federalism2 is a non-starter. May is going to do what none have done, except the SNP, and eliminate Labour as a political force, but this time in England.
Yet, the “branch” have options after June 2017. As its “head office” is likely to lose relevance, here in Scotland it can continue within the Scottish body politic and gain its goal of a Tory-free Scotland being ruled by a Tory-dominated Westminster.
Labour has to see that north of the Tweed it can be Tory free and MayHem free.
The Union after June 2017 will be irrelevant to Scotland. All dissent will be crushed by May’s Tories. The nasty party has just dropped its mask and is becoming a fledgling dictatorship aiming for uniformity and total dominance.
May wittered on in her speech about the opposition forces challenging her diktats. That is what happens in a democracy. Absolutism is not benign.
The snarl with which May delivered her speech outside No 10 is a grim foretaste of the boot which will follow in the political arena of “fortress-UK”, defying not only the Europeans but also those who do not adhere to May’s form of uniformity-which-will-be-good-for-you.
Will we discover Kezia calling for independence or Labour for indy breaking away? Post-Brexit UK will be a grim, austere place indeed as May is going for broke and a hard Brexit.
Loyal adherence to the Union come what may, no longer a “broad shoulder to lean on”.
John Edgar
Blackford
THE naked opportunism was brazen as a windswept Theresa May announced that she was calling a June election.
Firstly because she had only a short time ago ruled out the prospect of such a vote until her Damascus-style conversion in rural Wales.
Secondly, from a Scottish perspective, how she and her party can kick the notion of a Scottish independence referendum into the long grass, yet call an election to secure a hard Tory Brexit is utterly galling.
In respect of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, the Labour Party were unable stop haemorrhaging support in Scotland, when it was suggested they had a real chance of forming a government in 2015.
Now they have no chance of getting the keys to No 10 thanks to an ineffectual leader and petty infighting, do they seriously expect that voters will come back to them in June to resume normal service of Scotland as their obedient fiefdom?
D A Millar
Alexandria
THE Prime Minister calls an election because she cannot cope with opposition in parliament. It seems strange when that is how democracy is meant to work.
When every political party, including some of her own MPs, have the temerity to oppose her adamantine Brexit, she needs to grasp authority with no opposition for another five years.
Meanwhile, Scottish Conservatives are glad of a distraction from their recent woes. Everything must be about Theresa May, Brexit and the sort of unity normally reserved for wartime.
Pity the poor, the disabled, “just managing” families, the environment, health, education and the UKs wider commitments to climate change and to the starving and dispossessed.
John MacLean
Rutherglen
THE shameful treatment of the Zielsdorfs by the UK Home Office – Theresa May’s former patch – once again emphasises why we should be free to run our own affairs (Canadian family face dportation from Highlands, The National, April 19).
How many more dedicated entrepreneurs must Scotland lose before we are able to loosen the dead hand of Westminster from our future prosperity? Another asset stripped from us. Time for change.
Wendy Sharp
Address Supplied
HOW about a joint SNP-Green candidate in Northern Isles?
That would knock Alastair Carmichael right out of the running.
James MacDonald Reid
Edinburgh
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