Ruth Wishart: Disunited and not a country – the reality of a failing state

So the constant use of the word ­country to describe the UK – by all UK ministers and most broadcasters – is simply not ­accurate.

Then again accuracy is not the name of the game here. What underpins this ­constant misuse of the language is the ­naked attempt to pretend that the UK is all one big happy family, over which ­Westminster can rule without let or hindrance.

This is what we technocrats call ­complete mince. For starters all the devolved nations and regions have control over parts of their policies – none more so than Scotland. This ancient nation of ours has its own discrete legal system, and the original deal for ­Holyrood stated that outside of foreign affairs, defence, and macro economics ­everything not on the reserved list would be devolved to the new parliament.

It’s matter of sorry record that the ­current Westminster administration has done ­everything it can think of to ­dismantle that settlement, riding roughshod over ­Holyrood powers and ignoring the ­explicit requirement to ask its consent when it strays into devolved territories.

Just this week Dominic Raab (above) refused to confirm to Joanna Cherry MP QC he would seek Holyrood’s consent before ­meddling with the Human Rights Act. (And you thought the Justice Secretary was ­dangerous as Foreign Secretary!)

And Mr Gove, (who always manages to exit stage right any time the solid ­matter hits the fan), has spent no little time of late dreaming up ways to bypass the ­Scottish parliament with direct funding of pet ­projects prominently parcelled up in the Union flag.

He is that unlovely creature, a Scots born man who echoes Samuel Johnson’s belief that “The noblest prospect which a ­Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”. There’s a few of them about in my own trade.

Not the least of the Govian ironies is that he is simultaneously banging the drum for more devolution to English regions and counties, whilst bending every sinew to kill off the existing devolution in other nations.

The bald fact of the matter is that ­Westminster plays the “all one ­country” card when it suits them, but goes its own sweet way without consultation or ­approval when it chooses to diverge from decisions taken in Cardiff, Edinburgh or Belfast.

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The current row over Covid restrictions is a case very much in point. ­Broadly speaking, the Welsh Senedd and the ­Scottish Government have chosen a very much more cautious approach than a UK legislature in thrall to its libertarian right wing.

The sudden conversion to the Tories’ Plan B, and the raucous intra party ­warfare which ensued, merely proved that you can stay cautious and keep folks ­onside, but that applying caution ­retrospectively is rather trickier. Most especially if your party thinks ­protecting public health is not that much of a ­priority.

Rarely has there been greater confirmation that a fish rots from the head than the behaviour in both public and private of team Johnson. Whether you’re running a primary school or a government the tone is set by the person in charge.

If that person is in possession of a strong moral compass, and those around her or him are made aware that neither corruption nor mendacity will be countenanced then those who prosper and gain promotion will be those who conform to that ethic.

As we have witnessed, the opposite of that proposition also holds good. Many of those around the current cabinet ­table in London have broken several of the 10 ­political commandments in terms of ­failing to be honourable, reliable, honest or trustworthy. Most of them are only ­defenestrated because of falling foul of the 11th – “Thou shall not get caught”.

This would be quite alarming enough if they were clever rogues, but it’s more than we should have to bear that so many are as dim as they are despicable. And where they are not dim – see Gove – they are even more dangerous.

This fictionalised “country” of the UK is a very strange land indeed. From time to time some Tory will say, always more in sorrow than in anger, that if only the other parliaments would step into line all would be well. If only they would pop through our open door and talk to us.

How offensive is this garbage? Let me try and count the ways. Not only was there no open door during the hamfisted Brexit negotiations, but ministers from the devolved administrations were unable to find a seat outside in the corridor.

Even where there was a very specific area of interest like the Scottish ­fishing and seafood industries, or the Welsh and Scottish farmers, there would be no ­question of involvement. The reason for their being no meaningful conversations was that London chose not to talk to any of its supposed “partners”.

Thus did Northern Ireland – who also voted Remain – find itself royally ­shafted by a government who promised no ­border and no hassle. Then contrived to deliver both. And then, adding massive insult to serial injury, assured the once ­devoted Northern Ireland Unionists that they were lucky to have the best of both worlds. Still part of the EU; still part of the UK. Not quite the pitch they were making elsewhere!

The same has been true of the ­pandemic. In vain the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland sought high level meetings to try to march in some kind of lockstep as they were being publicly urged to do. In private they were given the coldest of shoulders. Please desist from getting ideas above your station.

CURIOUSLY this attitude – daddy knows best – has had almost the opposite effect from that intended. Locked out of the decision making process, the devolved governments have had to come up with their own policies predicated on their own needs and instincts. Nothing has more clearly defined national differences than the clumsy attempts to deny they exist.

So as Wales and Scotland often made common cause in terms of Covid ­related policies, it was England which was to prove out of step, often with its own public’s opinions. When Sajid Javid, one of the few grown ups left in the cabinet room, tries to get these belated new ­restrictions through the Commons it will not be a pretty sight.

The monster raving loonies who began life as the European Research Group, whose sole purpose was to force through Brexit, have now morphed into the Covid Recovery Group, whose sole purpose is to make sure commercial life can continue unchecked. Presumably even if the bodies DO get piled high.

It was telling this last week that the ­under-employed Prime ­Ministerial spokesperson, Allegra Stratton (above), felt obliged to resign having been caught on camera laughing at a question about the party-that-never-was. No such moral ­dilemma troubled the leader of the Commons.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has made something of a hobby of laughing off Covid ­concerns. And, as chap whose own wealth has come to absolutely no harm during the ­pandemic, he has much good personal fortune about which to chuckle.

Yet Old Etonians don’t do resignation – that’s for the lower orders. Provided you can stand up and give a bool in the mooth assurance that your behaviour has been impeccable, that absolutely nothing ­untoward happened and, if it did, you ­certainly weren’t there, all will remain well.

Except that maybe it won’t. Maybe enough of the electorate which put you in power have serious buyers’ regret. Maybe they know that a con in an upper crust accent is still a con.