AS you might have expected from a Theresa May speech on the importance and future of the Union, there were some cracking lines. We’ve picked out 10 of the most blatantly cringeworthy examples.
READ: Theresa May's full speech in Scotland on the Union
1. “First, our Union rests on and is defined by the support of its people. It is not held together by a rigid constitution or by trying to stifle criticisms of it.”
Yes, those words really came out of the lips of a Prime Minister who refuses Scots a democrat say through indyref2.
2. “The UK Government has been able to take unprecedented action to support the oil and gas sector following the decline in the international oil price.”
Forget the McCrone report. Forget the UK squandering our oil wealth. Apparently, we should be grateful to the Union for this. PS. The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund reached $2000 billion this year.
3. “Successive Conservative and Conservative-led governments since 2010 have strengthened the devolution settlements.”
Three words: Brexit power grab.
4. "There have been several reviews into how devolution works. But we have never thought deeply about how we make the Union work."
“We have never thought deeply about how we make the Union work.” It’s nice to see the Tories admitting this, at last!
5. “And as we look to the future, and the questions it will ask of us, we can take confidence that our Union is built on rock-solid foundations.”
The rock-solid foundations are, apparently, losing ground in the polls and fatal blow courtesy of Boris Johnson on the near-horizon.
6. “Respect for multiple identities also includes respect for those who do not identify as British.”
This would certainly be nice, but it was only this week a South African business-owner in Arran was being told to leave Scotland by the Home Office despite a huge community outcry. And this paper having to report on Home Office U-turns seems an almost weekly occurrence.
7. “The BBC, providing bespoke services in every part of the UK, broadcasting in the different languages of the UK nations, but also sustaining a common, UK-wide conversation.”
This came after May described the “shared institutions” that hold our “social Union” together. Forgive us if we don’t quite see the BBC as a reason to back off independence.
8. “When Gordon Brown recently said that he fears the Union is ‘more imperilled now than it has ever been’ he voiced the fears of many.”
A nice throwback to the old days of Better Together – when independence wasn’t surging in the polls.
9. I have learned that while other parties can be relied on to work with the UK Government in good faith to make devolution a success, an SNP Scottish Government will only ever seek to further the agenda of separation.
May seems to have forgotten the manifesto on which voters elected the SNP, calling for indyref2 if there was a change in circumstances such as Brexit.
10. "At every level, there is an alchemy inherent in our Union – the achievement of something greater because our four nations worked together.”
Cringe.
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