NOW that the predictable triumphalism surrounding Brexit is over, like a damp squib, let Scotland look to the future away from Westminster and the scourge of the Tory-Ukip right.
However, let our friends in the EU see a clear distinction between Britain/England and Scotland. Let the jaded and saddened Anglophiles there, brainwashed by their Anglo-centric school textbooks for learning English, know that Scotland is not part of England, that the Union Jack is not the English flag and, above all, that we are not English!
The EU politicians, in particular from Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands in 2014, were utterly disgraceful towards Scotland. They swallowed the Cameron line. Then the vote in 2016 showed that Scotland wanted to remain in the EU. The subsequent refocussing of the overseas media on Scotland, Holyrood and their increasing interest in the rising support for indyref2 is encouraging – and not before time.
Perfidious Albion at Westminster means what it describes. It seems now that more lorry parks are being added above the white cliffs near Dover. The locals now know what taking power back means, diktat from Westminster.
The holiday lull gives the impression of normality post-December 31, 2020, yet the chaos is about to be wound up in conjunction with phase two of Covid-19 mayhem for England as the UK Government splutters along.
It is amazing how UK journalists are usually ignorant of issues north of the Border, yet Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian poses the question about the UK rejoining the EU. As usual, he deliberates on the GB-UK almost ad nauseam, but at the end he adds the point that the UK has already breached its own “Fortress Britain”, with uber-British Gibraltar now in the Schengen Agreement.
Freedland adds: “But politics moves faster now. The case for a second Scottish independence referendum is looking increasingly hard to resist, less than seven years after that issue was also supposedly settled for a generation (if an independent Scotland rejoins the EU alongside a Northern Ireland that is already half in, then the question will press on England and Wales all the harder).”
Nicola Sturgeon has put down the marker that “Scotland will be back soon, Europe”. No doubt this time, in 2021 and beyond, the EU will take note and put its former Anglophilism to rest.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
THE UK will not be missed in the EU. For every single major piece of legislation the EU passed, the UK sought exemptions. I did my PhD research on Europol shortly after the Treaty on the European Union came into existence, with its three pillars, including justice and home affairs, which covered policing, the courts etc.
It very soon became apparent that the UK was in it for nothing more than what it could get out of it. It was happy to take from the system, but not happy to be bound by the rules that all the others were.
For example, it refused to sign relevant data protection legislation, yet wanted access to all the intelligence; it refused to recognise the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (in any legislation whatsoever) yet wanted to enact police collaboration upon which it was based. It refused to recognise the European Social Chapter, which included such basic employment rights as a minimum wage and a minimum of four weeks holiday per annum. Even that was too much for them.
No, the UK will certainly not be missed. It will be bid good riddance, and rightly so, after nearly 50 years of throwing a spanner in the works of every major project. The culmination has been the deviousness in which it carried out its negotiations to leave. Every EU leader will be sick of the sight of the UK, and rightly so.
When Scotland rejoins as a modern independent country in its own right, the EU will see a completely different member – one like Finland, Denmark or Ireland – one that fully embraces EU values and plays a full and active role as a small nation.
There is hope – that is if the UK Government does not abolish the Scottish Parliament first. It has already given itself the power to postpone general elections for at least a year, a year it could spend sidelining Holyrood with directly funded projects, making it a meaningless talking shop.
The SNP Scottish Government should beware of this tactic. In fact, all pro-independence parties should beware of it. The time to start ramping up the case for independence is now! Make the 2021 election the independence election.
Alastair Naughton
via email
I HAD a dream. I was driving my hydrogen powered hypercar. The speedo was touching 200. I saw two billboards in the distance. I slowed in order to read them. The first stated in large letters: “GET INDEPENDENCE DONE.”
The second was a centrefold from The National which had the heading “What Westminster has done for Scotland:
- We have captured Scotland and we will not be letting her go. Her lands, her resources, her people are ours to do with as we wish
- Stolen and squandered Scotland’s oil
- Stolen a large area of Scotland’s North Sea.
- Made sure the Darien scheme was a failure.
- Foisted Nuclear Weapons upon her.
- Removed the human rights of all Scots to live and work in European countries.”
And in a flash I was past before I could read any more of the extensive list. I put my foot back on the gas (hydrogen) and luxuriated in the surge of power which would last for 1000 miles.
John Vannan
Peebles
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