IT SEEMS that the process of finding a credible figure to lead the Better Together campaign in the second independence referendum has become a game of Russian Roulette. All the big Unionist beasts are happy to talk endlessly about the benefits of being a coat-tail country forever reliant on the largesse and protection of a bigger nation. Curiously though, no-one is stepping forward to lead the campaign to keep Scotland craven.
The Scottish Labour Party has recently declared its undying commitment to maintaining the Union in a dismal race to the bottom with the Tories. Yet no-one remotely connected with the Labour high command will risk assuming a leadership role in Better Together. The spectacular demise of the party in Scotland these last three years is directly linked to the serious errors of judgment it made in defending the Union in 2013 and 2014.
The spectacle of Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and Jim Murphy screeching in the language of the Tories was the most sickening aspect of the campaign for many Labour supporters. Labour people I’ve spoken to recently are still delusional about their party’s conduct during the first independence referendum.
No-one could begrudge the Labour Party in Scotland for favouring the Union; it was the way in which they did so. It was quite unnerving at times to observe Messrs Brown, Darling and Murphy speak with such ferocious passion about Scotland’s place in the UK and the plagues that would be visited upon Scotland if it opted to become an independent nation. Very few of us had ever previously heard these senior Labour stalwarts speak with such passion about the social injustice that Labour was formed to fight. Since then Darling has become a Lord and both he and Brown now work for financial conglomerates that specialise in advising very rich people how to become even richer. Murphy’s soapbox antics led to the destruction of his political career and a job in one of Tony Blair’s personal enrichment, sorry global goodwill schemes.
Many of us were also taken aback by the sheer venom and hostility some prominent Labour people had for the SNP. This was evidently far stronger and more deeply felt than anything they felt about the Tories, the party that wants to pull down everything that Labour seeks to uphold. The party in Scotland has now paid a very heavy price for its serious errors of judgment; the hypocrisy of its old guard and its eye-watering hubris. It has now been overtaken by the Tories and is all but destroyed as a meaningful electoral force in Scotland. So you can understand why no Labour figure will want to lead the campaign.
For the Tories, it’s a simpler dilemma. They are the natural party of Union and are still preening themselves that their customary evisceration at Holyrood elections wasn’t quite as bad last year as it usually is. There is nothing Ruth Davidson or her agent would like more than to lead the campaign that kept Scotland in the Union once and for all. Every celebrity quiz show in the UK would be clamouring to touch her hem. Nevertheless, Davidson knows that Toryism remains a toxic brand in many areas and would convert tens of thousands of reluctant No voters last time around into firm Yessers this time.
So who are the runners and riders out there who could raise the British standard for the second independence referendum?
JK ROWLING: The famed children’s author has become the Union’s most fervent defender on social media and has several prominent right-wing opinion-formers fawning all over her in the hope that they might be invited to eat cake with her in a Morningside tea-room. She has created a magical kingdom of wizards and witches that has captivated half the world. She is the empress of make-believe and gentle deception. Thus the Unionists’ make-believe world of myths and legends in the forthcoming independence referendum will be one that is not unfamiliar to her.
NIGEL FARAGE: The Ukip leader once again finds himself leader of Ukip on account of this party’s inability to find anyone else in the party who doesn’t have a habit of howling at the moon. However, everyone knows he wants a real job hence his auditioning to be Donald Trump’s bell-hop following the US presidential election. Like JK Rowling he is also well-versed in making myths and creating false realities. During the first independence referendum Lord Darling and Jim Murphy often seemed like poor facsimiles of the Ukip leader. In Farage, at least Better Together would be getting the real thing.
GROUNDSKEEPER WILLIE: The rebarbative Simpsons cartoon character shocked political commentators on both sides of the Atlantic by coming out for Scottish independence last time around. I was suspicious about this though, and feel that Groundskeeper Willie was a Unionist plot to scare President Barack Obama into backing the Union. Willie’s bursts of anger at imagined enemies and the bogus places of his Scottish birth all sounded to me as though they were more typical of a Unionist. I expect him to show his true colours next time around.
THE QUEEN: Many people have been conditioned to believe that Her Majesty is supposed to be the very epitome of political neutrality, a concept so ridiculous that the only succinct response to it is: “Aye right.” Lately, though, she has let her guard slip. As she enters her tenth decade the veteran monarch has obviously thought: “To hell with this for a game of soldiers, I’m sick of pretending I’m a democrat.” During the first independence referendum, sources close to Buckingham Palace were leaking like a burst sewer to the effect that Elizabeth was horrified at the prospect of Scottish independence. More recently it seems she was a firm supporter of Brexit. The Royal Family stands alone as the most exemplary and exquisite symbols of raw entitlement and unearned privilege. Who better to front the Better Together campaign?
SIR PHILIP GREEN: The billionaire luxury yacht owner and expert tax avoider also single-handedly destroyed BHS. In doing so thousands of honest, tax-paying workers were flung on to the street with no pensions. According to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling during the first independence referendum, Scotland’s pensioners would be safer in the UK. Sir Phillip would have appreciated such nonsense. Sir Philip has built his empire on inventive tax planning and commercial sleight-of-hand. He has been accused of being a bad advert for capitalism. Such an attribute though, would be ideal for preserving a Union that protects the privileged and gives succour to the corrupt.
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