How Labour and SNP governments are both trying to deceive us – Brian Monteith
Politicians in Edinburgh and London aren’t telling it like it is about Scottish independence or the Brexit ‘reset’
Like the proverbial bad penny that always turns up, our politicians repeatedly seek to deceive the public using the debased coinage of false narratives. Sadly, we have two examples in front of us right now.
In Edinburgh, our First Minister will bring forward a motion to parliament, with the Green party’s moral support, calling for further moves towards Scotland’s secession from the United Kingdom. John Swinney and his supporters will claim that there is a nationalist mandate across the two parties and that powers for Holyrood to call a referendum should be forthcoming from Westminster.
In London, our Prime Minister is working tirelessly to align the UK more closely to European Union laws and institutions on the basis that he won a mandate for a reset laid out in his manifesto for the 2024 general election. Both are using a false narrative and both deserve to be exposed for their duplicity and repudiated without reservation.
It cannot be said often enough: support for parties that promote secession is not growing but shrinking. The turnout of the Holyrood election where the First Minister called for a mandate provoked a fall in turnout. It was the electoral equivalent of the voters turning a deaf ear to Swinney.
If there had been a real growth in backing for Swinney’s dream, one would expect the SNP’s vote share of a declining turnout to rise – but it fell. The result was that the number of SNP MSPs was reduced from 64 to 57.
Yes, there was a corresponding rise in Green MSPs, primarily through the regional lists, but from the fall in SNP votes between the first and second ballot papers and quantity of Green votes in the latter we can see this was the result of SNP voters giving the Greens their second vote. Many would know that a second vote for the SNP would be unlikely to result in any SNP MSPs being elected, this made political sense.
The purpose of the second vote for a regional list of candidates is to provide a more proportional outcome while preserving the direct link of voters to a constituency MSP. What we experienced is the gaming of the system contrary to its intentions. Such manipulation could be eliminated by counting the total constituency votes over a region to select the list members.
This would mean parties such as the Greens would have to field a candidate in all 73 parliamentary seats. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, however, so the prospect of any change in Holyrood’s defective voting procedure will not happen until the beneficiaries of its manipulation are voted out of power.
READ MORE: Why Andy Burnham could be the Prime Minister who kills off Scottish independence – John McLellan
Meanwhile in London, Keir Starmer claims his government is negotiating within the red lines in his general election manifesto designed to reassure Brexit-supporting Labour voters the UK would not rejoin the EU’s Single Market, Customs Union or introduce freedom of movement.
We now know this is a sham; the purpose of his reset is to breach his red lines as he is willing to make countless concessions to adopt EU laws, regulations and institutional oversight. By the time we get to the next general election, Starmer (or Burnham et al) will say: “Well, we already accept all these EU laws and judgments without any say in their drafting – it would be far better if we formally joined so we could have a say in them.”
If Labour managed to then win a majority, alone or in concert with the Greens and Liberal Democrats, this would be taken as a mandate to rejoin the EU without a referendum. For these politicians, a general election (with many other issues at stake) would be enough to overturn the outcome of the largest democratic vote in UK history.
We now know Starmer’s officials secretly suggested the establishment of an EU-UK single market in goods – but that the EU rejected the idea because it does not want to create incentives for other member states to reduce their relationship.
The EU Commission is playing a long game and thinks the UK can be encouraged to rejoin on its terms – which means paying some £28-£34 billion a year, accepting the Schengen open borders, and financial convergence that would bring membership of the euro (which would have to be accepted in principle).
When British voters are asked if those terms would be acceptable, they are no longer attracted to rejoining the EU. The narrative is built on a deceit.
Already a halfway house to freedom of movement is being prepared through a youth exchange programme for the under-30s (hardly just youths). They will be attracted by our higher minimum wage and relatively lower youth unemployment (although that is fast becoming worse).
We are told we need to adopt various foods and veterinary laws to help us export more and yet we are a net food importer and do not have the spare capacity to grow our food exports beyond the cost of the new laws. Worse, it has been estimated the adoption of EU laws on what crop protections can be used will reduce potato yields by up to 6 per cent and wheat by up to 16 per cent, pushing food prices up.
Likewise the adoption of the EU’s detailed packaging laws (right down to no sauce sachets or hotel toiletries) will impact on prices. The Bank of England estimated the EU’s packaging laws alone will add 0.5 per cent to UK food inflation.
The narrative that the reset will help relieve the cost-of-living crisis is a lie – it will make it worse. Be it Edinburgh or London, we are being repeatedly lied to.
Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org
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