I’VE been reflecting on the UK General Election result and am beginning to wonder whether our leading politicians are - not quite sure how to put this delicately - not very bright.
You will no doubt assume I am thinking of Mrs May and she is a good contender. Robotic delivery, trying to win an election by attacking her core supporters, blows “strong and stable” credibility by doing a tyre-scorching U-turn, blows remaining reputation for straightforwardness by pretending not to have done a U-turn. A good effort, bringing with it it’s just reward of failure - but only worthy of a silver medal.
The gold medal goes to our very own First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. The person who above all should act in the interests of the people of Scotland.
The Scottish economy is doing persistently badly. Growth here is consistently below that of the UK as a whole. Our annual fiscal deficit is proportionately much bigger than that of the UK, our company birth rate is too low as is our economic participation rate. We face, along with the UK as a whole, a threat - and it is a threat - from Brexit. The First Minister goes on and on and on about this threat and its effect on jobs and prosperity. She therefore shows that she can analyse - she exaggerates - but she can follow that removing the UK from the larger economic area of the EU with it partly effective single market and useful customs union is unhelpful to economic activity in Scotland. It is; she is right.
Where her daftness comes in is not being able, or more probably willing, to follow through on the logic of her analysis of Brexit. She tells us endlessly that removal from the European Single Market, in place for not much more than a couple of decades, flawed and still very much work-in-progress, is a catastrophe. Yet at the same time she asserts that removing Scotland from the UK with its well-functioning single market of more than 300 years standing will be not just a breeze but positively good for us. The proposition is absurd, ludicrous and a cruel deceit. Ripping Scotland out of the UK would be Brexit on steroids - a genuine economic disaster for wealth creation, jobs and public services.
To this nonsense we need to add the not listening problem. Scottish business and the wider economy need as much certainty as they can get to plan and invest for the future in order to create prosperity. At every turn our First Minister tries to keep the prospect of a second Referendum on Independence open despite the very clear message from Scottish voters that they don’t want it. That is not leadership that is obsession. The vote for parties who stood for the Union in the General Election was very similar in percentage terms to the Remain vote in Scotland in the EU Referendum. The first is ignored and the second constantly pushed down our throats as a mandate for an action the country plainly does not want.
If Nicola Sturgeon actually wants to do the sensible thing, what she should say is that uncertainty over Brexit is enough for our economy and any discussion of another Independence Referendum should be left until after the next Scottish election in 2021. By then the picture on Brexit and its aftermath might be clear enough to make sensible judgements. As important, whether she really has a mandate to seek another Referendum will have been specifically affirmed or rejected by the voters of Scotland. Until then just constructively engage with the UK Government on Brexit and get on with your actual job.
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