GEORGE Galloway intends to return to Scotland to take on the SNP. George was infuriated by the threat that the Scottish Government might block travellers from crossing the Border, and he was determined to show that he would not be blocked. Which is ironic given he’s blocked most Scottish Twitter accounts.

Scottish social media was abuzz over the weekend with the news, at least for a given value of “abuzz” that is. What it really means is that a small number of Scotland in Union types were hailing the news as though it was the Second Coming of the Messiah – and everyone else was laughing at them.

If George Galloway is the new Saviour of the Union™ then the British nationalists could just save everyone a whole lot of bother and concede Scotland can be independent right now.

They really need to face up to it. The only reason the indefatigable George Galloway could appeal to Scottish Tories, British nationalists, and the staunch mob in Scotland is because the leader of the Scottish Tories, Jackson Carlaw, or Surname Surname as he’s known in these quarters, is so God-awfully pants. Far from restoring the fortunes of the Scottish Conservatives, the party face substantial losses in next year’s Holyrood elections, on top of the seven seats it lost in last year’s Westminster General Election. Surname Surname has been reduced to attempting to make out that the Scottish Government is doing worse in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic than the utterly woeful mishandling by his colleagues in Westminster. Something which he can only do by claiming that the fact the death rate in Scotland is markedly lower than it is in England is “subjective”. Not even the normally British nationalist-inclined Sky News was having it.

Surname Surname is so bad that he’s provoked a rare outbreak of unanimity among the other parties in the Scottish Parliament. Which is a bit like Donald Trump’s niece saying that the president isn’t such a bad guy once you get to know him. When even the other British nationalist parties turn on the Tories on a matter concerning the constitutional settlement, it’s a sign that not only have the Tories lost the plot, they’re no longer in the same universe as where the plot can be found.

The Conservative Government at Westminster has announced a plan to introduce legislation to put the hems on the devolved parliaments once the UK has exited the EU transitional period at the end of this year and has left the single market and customs union. The plan is supposedly aimed at protecting the “integrity of the UK internal market”, but it really represents a naked and undemocratic power grab by Westminster at the expense of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The plan would establish a committee composed of unaccountable political appointees chosen by the Prime Minister who would have the legal right to veto legislation passed by Edinburgh, Cardiff, or Belfast if they deemed that the new legislation impinged upon the lower consumer, agricultural, and environmental standards which the Tories might agree to in a new trade deal.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon blasts Boris Johnson's all-out ‘assault on devolution’

The plan would mean Scottish legislation, such as free tuition for university students, minimum pricing for alcohol, or the introduction of the smoking ban before the rest of the UK could have fallen foul of this unelected panel of Tory appointees. Legislation passed by representatives in a democratic chamber could have been struck down by the unaccountable beneficiaries of Tory patronage.

The change will mean Scotland could be forced to accept chlorinated chicken, insect parts in chocolate, or the lower food standards of the US if the British Government agrees to them as a part of a trade deal.

WHEN Surname Surname was asked about this during that interview on Sky News last week – when he expressed the view that the lower death rate in Scotland was “subjective”, only to be corrected by an incredulous interviewer – Surname Surname also told us that it was absolutely right that the British Government should introduce measures to overrule the Scottish Parliament on devolved issues.

The Conservatives have zero chance of winning control of the Scottish Parliament by democratic means, so they are determined to do so undemocratically. They’re going to assert their policies over the Scottish Parliament on the back of their support in the Westminster Parliament. A more blatant assault on Scottish democracy is difficult to imagine. The Tories constantly harp on about the need to respect the 2014 referendum and the 2016 referendum, but they’re not too keen on respecting the 1997 referendum which established devolution, nor the promises they themselves made in 2014 to enhance and entrench it.

The Tories have never liked devolution. Its entire purpose was to provide Scotland with a measure of protection from the malign effects of Conservative Governments in Westminster which Scotland didn’t vote for. The devolution settlement was born out of the long and bitter experience of Scotland during

the Thatcher era.

The Tories opposed it then, and they’re opposed to it now. They’re intelligent enough to realise that simply abolishing Holyrood would generate such a political clamour in Scotland that it would make independence inevitable in short order, so instead they have resolved to hollow out Holyrood and the devolution settlement from within.

It’s a nasty, cynical, and deeply undemocratic form of politics. The Conservatives have no interest at all in respecting the will of the people of Scotland, they only care about what is good for their own party.

The Conservatives have delivered the worst of all outcomes in their mishandling of the pandemic. The UK has the highest death toll in Europe and is forecast to have the worst affected economy. They are compounding the damage by recklessly taking the UK into a hard Brexit at the end of this year even though the EU signalled it was willing to allow an extension because of the coronavirus.

And now the Conservatives are undermining the devolution settlement in order to ensure that Scotland can’t protect itself from the effects of their avarice, stupidity, and careerism. Yet all they are doing is hastening the end of the precioussssss Union that they claim to love.

If devolution isn’t safe, then there’s nothing left for Scotland in the UK. Independence is beckoning and the Tories are only driving even more voters in Scotland to support it.