WHEN Boris Johnson was first elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he gave himself the grand title of Minister for the Union – and like every other governmental task he was able to get his grasping hands upon, he has done his very best to bumble it into the ground.
Up until September, the position of Minister for the Union had no actual associated responsibilities, according to the UK Government’s own website. In a way, there couldn’t be a better metaphor for Boris Johnson’s approach to his tumultuous relationships with the devolved nations of the UK: zero responsibility. He has driven a wedge through devolution with his undemocratic Internal Market Bill, not to mention his reckless comments about “disastrous” devolution being the biggest mistake Tony Blair ever made.
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However, rather than take responsibility for the fact that the Tories’ own behaviour is playing a critical role in the demise of the UK, the Johnson administration instead seems hell-bent on countering one nationalism with another.
It’s for this reason that I’m morbidly anticipating watching Downing Street’s latest attempt to set up an anti-independence Union Unit go up in flames. What could be considered “Scottish nationalism”, a phrase that seems to apply to both nationalists and non-nationalists alike, is a very different beast to the exceptionalist, narrow thinking that comes with British nationalism. It’s a fool’s game to think that a national movement dedicated to the simple democratic principle of self-autonomy will be swayed by a few more Union flags hanging about.
Yet since 2014, Conservative administrations have approached the conversation around Scotland’s constitutional future as a battle of nationalisms that can be won by whichever side can wave a flag with more enthusiasm. Does anyone even remember the Scotland Office’s 2015 “Our United Future” campaign?
The media blitz, set to hustle wayward Scots back into the box, was a resounding failure and quietly binned after no time at all. One of the key features was a Tumblr site set up to let members of the public ask questions around devolution. It was used just 16 times in total, and one of the questions asked was “why has this Tumblr site been created?”
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At the same time that the UK was running websites that attracted only marginally more interest than your average Fringe performance (remember the Fringe?) they were also rolling out their “Funded by UK Government” scheme. This was the plan to shunt up a large Union flag next to infrastructure projects that had received UK Government funding, seemingly as a constant reminder of how grateful we’re all supposed to be for the benevolent hand of Daddy Westminster.
What they would like you to forget is that these projects do not come at the benevolence of Brittania herself, but rather from our own tax money and collective debt, given back to us in the form of a new bridge or tunnel. Despite Johnson’s comments, devolution has been a great success for Scotland. It’s clear that between the UK and Scottish governments, one of these institutions is more competent than the other. So what else can Westminster do but stick a flag on what little they have accomplished to remind us they are still relevant?
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the new Union Unit shamefully tried to get the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine labelled with an image of the Union flag. The great ship UK is sinking while MPs dance to Rule Britannia on the deck.
As part of the new Union Unit, two full-time press officers will be working with government advisers to undermine the case for independence by briefing against the Scottish Government, presumably because they too know that the case for the Union itself is such a train wreck that it will be easier to go after a different target.
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I think they’ve perhaps overlooked a key part of how the British press unfortunately functions. If there is one thing the Murdoch news empire hates more than an inquiry into phone hacking, it’s betting on the wrong horse. With over a dozen consecutive polls showing independence to be the majority position in Scotland, I suspect that many newspapers will be taking press releases from government sources with a little more caution than they may have done in 2014.
There’s an old adage that you should never stop your enemies while they are in the middle of making a mistake. I write these words confident that even if a copy of this column somehow made its way to the Prime Minister himself, he would still be incapable of changing his approach.
The UK Government website now lists the role of Minister for the Union as being responsible for ensuring “that all of government is acting on behalf of the entire United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales”. This is a laughable premise for anyone living in Scotland who can see clearly that our interests are repeatedly sidelined, ignored and seemingly deliberately and maliciously countered.
Johnson can pitch a tent in Scotland as many times as he likes, but his little PR stunts will never address the root and file issues of the United Kingdom. Soon, there won’t be a flag big enough to hide all the problems of the UK.
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