WHEN the UK Tories begin their talk of levelling up you find yourself living inside a Marx Brothers movie.

“Can he live in New York on three dollars?”

“Like a prince. Of course he won't be able to eat, but he can live like a prince.”

A similar sense of the absurd envelopes you when they talk about how much it means to them for Scotland to remain part of the Union. It’s just that, well … they have a funny way of showing it. Throughout the entire process of Brexit, Scottish Government ministers were kept well away from negotiations.

Such affectionate behaviour towards Scotland has continued in recent months in preparation for the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, a UK production in which no effort has been spared in ensuring that the Scottish Government plays no significant role.

When Michael Gove seeks to dispel any thoughts of a referendum on independence you’re transported again into a Marx Brothers script. Especially when he talks about what constitutes a mandate.

“That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause.”

“You can't fool me; there ain't no sanity clause.”

Two Scottish elections; three Westminster ones; a European election and a local authority ballot have all taken place since the first independence referendum. All of them have returned overwhelming victories for the main party of independence.

Meanwhile, even the staunchest Unionist would concede that two of the main pillars on which the Better Together argument was built – membership of the EU and the long-term protection of the NHS – have been destroyed.

The UK Government’s commitment to health fell at its first great test: the coronavirus pandemic. Effectively, they privatised a nationwide threat to the health of the country and sold it at auction to the highest bidders. “Make us a decent enough donation to party funds and we’ll make sure you get a piece of the Covid action.”

Privatising the NHS will be a cinch after this. Indeed the kenspeckle, online auto classifieds site could be asked to start selling off NHS equipment and services to start-up companies in the lucrative medical supply sector as a means of Building Back Better.

What’s puzzling about the UK Government’s implacable refusal to entertain a second independence referendum is that they might never have a better chance of winning it. Though the stakes would be high, the rewards for this most English of Prime Ministers would be great: the right to be described in eternity as the latter-day Lord Nelson who stepped up to save the United Kingdom in its hour of need.

In 2021, the SNP are wretchedly ill-equipped to fight another referendum. This year sees the party fighting losing battles in every sector that matters in Scotland. In the delivery of healthcare the Scottish Government has lost the confidence of all of its territorial NHS chief executives. The prevailing opinion is that the Covid Recovery Plan has neither detail nor ambition. Not only do they feel that it isn’t fit for purpose but that Humza Yousaf, the Health Minister, simply isn’t up to the task.

This feeling has intensified with the perception that he’s putting constitutional politics ahead of the need to declare emergency measures for several NHS authorities who are at breaking point. “He just doesn’t think it would be a good look if he were to do this,” I was told by one senior health professional this week.

Across the entire education sector head-teachers have been aghast at how little they were consulted in the Scottish Government’s approach to letting pupils return to the classrooms. One told me: “We were the last to hear about any movement on lifting restrictions from people who clearly knew nothing of how a modern school operates.”

The office of Lord Advocate, the highest public law authority in Scotland has become a pantomime joke as the cost of chaotic prosecutions in the liquidation of Rangers FC has reached £35m and is expected to rise further still. Neither did this office emerge unscathed in the dark and troubling conduct of the Alex Salmond trial and its aftermath.

The inappropriate behaviour of the former First Minister and his refusal to offer a full apology for aspects of his personal conduct in office have masked the inescapable fact that a black ops operation was effectively being run from the office of his successor. Ultimately it failed all of the women who have made complaints of sexual misconduct while employed by the Scottish Government.

Perhaps most damaging to the cause of independence is that a state of vicious and poisonous civil war is now openly raging within the SNP. This has been caused by a party leadership who have managed to achieve what would have been considered impossible a few years ago: the alienation and marginalisation of feminist activists who choose to believe in the scientific truth that a trans woman isn’t a woman.

Many have been so sickened by the hate campaign being waged against them from inside the party that they would find it impossible to campaign on the same side as Nicola Sturgeon in a second independence referendum. Several of them have told me that they would actually feel safer within the UK than in an independent Scotland run by their aggressors.

Over the course of a short election campaign these fissures can be bridged by the broad appeal of independence. In a long and gruelling referendum campaign though, the SNP’s record of domestic mismanagement and outright incompetence will be brutally exposed. It’s then that they may come to rue their ill-treatment of female party loyalists.

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove will awake soon to the fact that now is the time to call Nicola Sturgeon’s bluff and strike boldly for a referendum. It perhaps explains her acolytes’ failure to work on the currency and the border with England and the absence of any urgency in striving for a second referendum. The status quo, after all, has been very lucrative for those who continue to use ‘independence’ as a vehicle to top up their pensions.

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