LIKE Baldrick in Blackadder, Keir Starmer has a cunning plan.
The Labour leader is offering a “fresh and tangible” alternative to the Scottish people in a “bold” new devolution revolution.
Yes, Baldrick’s plan is to “take us over the top”, with no new ideas on how to stop Johnson and the Officer Class playing fast and loose with our lives.
Excuse the lack of excitement north of the Border. Labour have been missing in action when it comes to attacks on devolution from the law-breaking Internal Market Bill. Their 2014 Vow lies in tatters, disavowed umpteen times as they fail to stand up for Scotland over and over again.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer: 'It would be irresponsible for Boris Johnson to grant indyref2'
The proof is in this Christmas pudding of a proposal from Starmer – it’s the same old same old and it means nothing of any concrete purpose. Appointing Gordon Brown as chair of their Constitutional Commission shows just how out of touch they are with Scotland and just how little they’ve got in terms of real radical change on the ground.
Federalism is a joke to Scots and Brown is the punchline.
The question is, who do Labour actually think they are speaking to and for? Because it certainly isn’t to the majority of Scots who want another independence referendum and it certainly isn’t to the 40% or so of Scottish Labour voters who support independence. It certainly isn’t for the betterment of Scotland or respect for our democratic choice to stay in Europe, keep devolved power at Holyrood and hold a referendum in order to choose to stand on our own two feet free of the stranglehold of Westminster.
I’ve got a suggestion for Labour – if they really want to know what Scotland thinks rather than foist their opinions on us, they could examine and review this very well-known democratic process called voting, casting your ballot, sticking a “X” in a box.
In the last few elections in Scotland we’ve voted for the SNP, we’ve rejected Labour, we’ve lambasted the Tories, we’ve forgotten about the irrelevant LibDems – we’re on an utterly different page. Elections are supposed to “push power closer to people” to use the Labour leader’s own phraseology, it’s called democracy. It’s just not for the people of Scotland, in Starmer’s view.
You can’t say on one hand that Brexit must go on, despite the absolute horror show that we find ourselves in as a virulent new strain of Covid has made the world close its borders to Britons, and despite the gross incompetence of this UK Government which has meant we are at the witching hour of Brexit with No Deal looking very likely and the subsequent food and medicine shortages we will face because of it, and then on the other hand say that a second independence referendum during this crisis is inadvisable at such a “precarious” time. It makes no sense.
The chaos and the panic are already here, and Scotland wants out of it.
READ MORE: George Kerevan: After 300 years of servility Scots have decided to get up off their knees
Our message to Keir Starmer is get with the flow. While you’re busy trying to smother our democracy, Rome is burning.
Look around you. This disunited kingdom is in disarray because of Brexit, because of the divorced bully boy Toffs at Number 10, and their deliberate and arrogant emasculation of the smaller nations within it.
We are in the biggest crisis of our lives and Starmer has no imagination to come up with a fair alternative that respects the constituent nations and will protect citizens from economic catastrophe.
Finally, someone needs to remind Starmer that he’s not in a position to offer Scotland anything. He’s got one Scottish MP in Westminster, and Johnson has a huge majority.
Lord Percy and his daft buddies are too busy dissing Unicef and falling out with the French to bother themselves with the little red-haired natives in Scotland. Meanwhile, Bojo Blackadder Goes Forth, in what will go down in the history books as “The Cavalier Year”’.
Scotland, “now” is most definitely “the time” to say No to empty federalism and Yes to our future in our own hands. Let’s make 2021 the year of our independence.
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