There’s been a Broontervention. This one was distinguished by one thing only, no one was trying to pretend that this was the first. Not even Reporting Scotland. This time the last living dinosaur was broontervening on a range of topics, which is a polite way of saying that he was lashing about all over the place without much in the way of a train of thought. The theme, such as it was, uniting his speech was that the UK was at risk of going to hell in a handbasket if it didn’t listen to him. Since the UK ceased to listen to Gordie quite some time ago, and he has spent the time since in an almighty sulk, it’s understandable that he might not have noticed that the UK is already a long way down in its descent into hell in a handbasket.
According to the reports in the press Gordie was mostly broontervening about Nigel Farage’s funding and the dangers of right wing populism. You have to rely upon reports in the press whenever there’s a broontervention, because the event itself invariably takes place in a closed and shuttered secret venue in front of an audience of individually invited and carefully vetted Labour hacks from the Cretaceous wing of the party and a smattering of press persons. Apparently that’s what makes it public.
It never manages to cross Gordie’s mind that one of the reasons so many people are, unfortunately, attracted to snake oil salesmen and charlatans like Nigel who rely upon dodgy funding from shadowy and powerful sources is that they’ve already been disenchanted from traditional politics by politicians like Gordie and the New Labour project who turned out to be snake oil salesmen and charlatans who relied upon funding from shadowy and powerful sources.
Naturally Nigel responded by pointing out that New Labour’s own fundraising strategies were not exactly devoid of controversy. He also claimed, with the rampant paranoia and sense of victimhood that characterises Brexiters, that it’s all a dastardly plot by the elites to do down the little guy. Nigel’s claim to represent the little guy against the elites would have rather more traction if he wasn’t a middle class stockbroker with an MEP’s salary who is living in a multi-million pound house in Chelsea with a personal driver and a luxurious lifestyle funded by his millionaire backers, but don’t expect consistency from the Brexit party. Don’t expect a manifesto or any policies either. The Brexit party is populism in its purest form. By promising nothing except a howl of outrage against claimed victimhood, they can appeal to everyone. And no one can claim victimhood like those who fear that their privileges are under threat.
The claims and counter claims about Nigel’s funding does raise a question. The question is, is it more or less morally reprehensible to fundraise from shadowy and hidden business interests in return for unknown influence, than to fundraise from business people in return for peerages and unknown influence like New Labour did. Discuss. Actually, there’s no reason to discuss it much since they’re both equally bad, and both equally demonstrate the moral vacuum at the heart of British politics. It’s not much of a defence to point out that you’re just as bad as the guy who’s accusing you.
The other part of Gordie’s broontervention was an attack on the SNP for wanting independence. It’s not a proper broontervention unless Gordie is telling Scotland how crap it would be at governing itself. It might not come as a surprise to many the revelation that the SNP wants an independent Scotland. It does however appear to have come as a surprise to Gordie. He’s shocked to discover that the SNP want what he describes as a hard independence, which is his description of the possibility that an independent Scotland would move to adopt its own currency after a period of using Sterling unilaterally. His shock and horror would be more understandable if it wasn’t for the fact that he was one of the people ruling out a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK. So what exactly was he expecting? Presumably that the SNP would say, “Oh well. We’ll just give up on all this independence malarky then.”
Meanwhile back in London the real and pressing reasons for Scottish independence were being articulated in a speech by Theresa May. In a last ditch desperate attempt to rescue her deal that’s already been rejected repeatedly by the Commons, Theresa announced that she wanted a Brexit that works for everyone. Which is a bit like saying that you want to be murdered nicely instead of horribly without recognising that there’s the option of not being murdered at all. She presented what she was pleased to call a new deal, and said that she’d been listening to everyone. Well everyone except Scotland and the 48.2% of the UK electorate which voted to remain. She offered concessions to a Northern Irish Assembly which hasn’t sat for two years, but nothing at all to a Scottish Parliament which has rejected her Brexit plan by a large majority.
Her new deal includes some new waffle on the Irish backstop. It includes a promise to have a vote on another referendum providing the deal passes first. It promises a few enticements for the DUP, a few more for Labour leavers. It promises rainbows, unicorns, and butterflies.
Crucially what her new deal didn’t do was to make it conditional on a confirmatory referendum. That would have ensured its passage through the Commons, but it’s too toxic for her party. Even now, even at this late hour, Theresa May is still continuing to put the interests of her party first. This new offer is an attempt to get the DUP and Labour MPs from Leave voting constituencies to bail her out. That’s not going to happen. Labour has already ruled out supporting the deal because it doesn’t offer a permanent customs union. In an interview Jeremy Corbyn said that Theresa May hasn’t changed her red lines, which was the reason that talks between Labour and the Conservatives broke down.
She’s left it too late, and she’s not going to be around to deliver any sort of deal even if by some miracle she manages to get it through Parliament. It was telling that all that the journalists wanted to ask her when she took questions after her speech was about when she was going to resign. The reaction from Tory MPs in the immediate aftermath wasn’t positive. The usual Brexiter suspects lined up to say that they’d not support it. But it was even worse, some Tory backbenchers like Andrew Percy and Simon Clarke who voted for the deal the last time say that now there’s no way they will support it. If Theresa May’s new offer is alienating even those who supported her last time there is no hope for her. She promised a game changer, she got game over.
Brexit, she said, was a great time to be alive. It’s like that Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times. But here we can agree. Brexit is a great time to be alive if you believe in Scottish independence, because Brexit represents the final fall into senility of the ageing and decrepit British state. It’s a descent into the reveries of nostalgia, a claim to victimhood from a former empire that wants to believe it’s being treated like a colony by the EU. We’re now looking at a no deal Brexit, no Brexit at all, a referendum, or a general election.
The reason for that belief is entrenched deeply within the political structure of the UK. In Westminster politics there are only winners and losers, there are those who dominate and who command and those who are subordinate and who obey. There is no place for compromise, no understanding of collaboration. If the UK can’t dominate the EU, then it must be the EU’s colony. That’s the only paradigm that British politics understands. British politics is the ABBA song writ large, The Winner Takes It All. Whether Brexit happens or can be forestalled, Brexit and the sense of British victimhood will continue to dominate politics in the UK for generations to come.
Brexit teaches Scotland that since it cannot dominate the UK, then it is to be subordinate, subservient, and submissive. That’s our place in this so-called union, and that’s why the only escape route from Brexit and the BDSM fetish that is British politics is independence. No number of broonterventions will alter that fundamental truth.
My new book has just been published by Vagabond Voices. Containing the best articles from The National from 2016 to date. Weighing in at over 350 pages, this is the biggest and best anthology of Wee Gingerisms yet. This collection of pieces covers the increasingly demented Brexit years, and the continuing presence and strength of Scotland’s independence movement.
You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free, and for the next ten days Vagabond Voices are doing a special offer, giving you two pounds off the cover price. You can order here –
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