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Scotland couldn’t have been clearer in its outright dismissal of Brexit, and yet the arch-yoon Murdo Fraser demands that the Scottish National Party come up with the plan that will make our economic and cultural execution a success.
Murdo Fraser, the man who’s convinced fracking is an excellent landscaping improvement, has insisted that the Scottish National Party begin outlining “how it’s going to make Brexit a success.” Fraser, an ardent supporter of the democratic decision of Scotland on independence, has failed to notice that the people of Scotland resoundingly rejected the chaotic notion of leaving the European Union back in June. This is just it for Tories like Fraser and their ilk, democracy is only ever a good thing when it gives them what they want, and in this case Scotland refused to deliver the xenophobic and economically suicidal desire of Britain’s political right. So no, the National Party – following the mandate it has been given by the people of Scotland – does not have to make Brexit a success. What it has to do is the opposite; it has to ensure that for Scotland Brexit is a failure.
Conservatives pride themselves in being the party that assumes the correct position apropos the demands of big business, and so it must be considered staggering that the Tories are now getting behind the idea of leaving Europe in spite of the havoc this move will wreak in the British economy. Hard or soft borders with the EU, it is clear that the UK – in whatever form that takes by the time the Article 50 negotiations are concluded – will face increased trade tariffs with all its neighbours. May and her cabinet are stalling for as long as possible in the hope of salvaging at least some trade agreements, but Brussels has made it crystal clear that there will be no access to the free market without the free movement of people – the fundamental objection of the Brexiteers. The United States too has said that its “special friend” Britain will be getting no special treatment. What London faces here, and what Murdo Fraser wants the Scottish government to make a success, is absolute commercial isolation and economic ruin.
What Murdo is trying desperately hard to ignore is that the SNP does have a plan, the same plan that it has had since its inception in 1934; full independence for Scotland – leaving the London government to sleep in its own bed. Between now and the end of the Brexit talks this and only this should be the national priority of the SNP, for escaping the folly of Brexit will be a touch more difficult once the Tories have dragged us out the EU against our will. That’s not to say that independence will be impossible after Brexit, but it will put us at a disadvantage, what with trying to access the free market and all.
Historically Scotland has always found its greatest security in its relationship with the continent, and the union of 1707, as was the case with Ireland’s, was about securing England from the enemies it had a habit of making over the Channel – and this union has always been viewed by Westminster as Scotland’s absorption by England. Scotland needs Europe – and friends in Europe – as much now as it has always done. Our economy is smaller and more fragile than that of England, and it has always been a British priority to keep Scotland weak. Now we have a chance of breaking free from this, and people like Murdo – convinced as they are of our inferiority – don’t want this chance to be a state on our own account. Thankfully people like him are a shrinking minority.
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