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Britain’s Prime Minister has made it clear that Scotland will do exactly as Westminster tells it to do, and that Scotland will not have a place at the table when its future is being sent up in smoke. We have 30 months to get out of this mess.
England’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, has laid down the law. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be triggered by the UK government no later than the end of March next year. This means that the clock is ticking, and that we in Scotland have to get busy and prepare ourselves for our own exit from this broken Britain. May knows that we have no intention of following her down the deep, dark hole of Brexit uncertainty, but she has made it crystal clear that she will not tolerate Scottish dissension from the plan laid down for us by the English government:
We will leave the European Union as one United Kingdom. There’s no opt-out from Brexit, and I will never allow divisive nationalists to undermine the precious union between the four nations of our United Kingdom.
– Theresa May, Conservative Party Conference, 2 October 2016
When she referred to “our United Kingdom” at the Tory Party Conference, in front of an audience of hundreds of faithful English Conservatives, she was not including us. We are divisive nationalists. We are the problem. She was talking with friends, and she was reminding them of their ownership of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Theresa May was reassuring her rank and file that she intends to keep us – or what we are worth – and drag us, kicking and screaming if need be, out of the European Union to share the folly of England. Mrs. May was also reminding us that indeed the clock is ticking, and we had better get our act together.
Exiting the EU, she made clear, was not the job of the House of Commons or the Lords. It was the job of the government – the Westminster government, and the “government alone,” to negotiate with Europe the terms of leaving the EU. This is a clause we must pay careful attention to, because what she was saying was that the Scottish government will not have a seat at the table. London will speak for Scotland in a process the people of Scotland resoundingly rejected, and it is this she calls her “one United Kingdom.” Scotland will not have a say in the talks because she knows that Scotland has friends in Europe. May’s government will stand for no division on her terms.
“The authority of EU law will end,” she proclaimed to a mix of rapturous applause and faces pale with dread, making Britain a “fully independent, sovereign country.” In saying this, as Alex Salmond pointed out in my interview with him yesterday, Theresa May has made it clear that when she campaigned to remain within Europe she was doing so in the knowledge that her Britain was not an independent country. Her contradiction here beggars belief. England – the nation that is now telling Scotland what it will and will not do regardless of its democratically expressed will – has a Prime Minister who, in her own words, acted against the sovereignty and independence of her own country. This is the person who will be speaking for us in Europe after March next year.
One more time: The clock is ticking. Scotland was emphatic in its decision to remain part of the EU; with our social, political, and economic partners and friends on the continent, and now Scotland must be resolute in its commitment to that democratic decision. Scotland will not be bullied or coerced by any foreign power, and we must now make that clear – and in no uncertain terms – to the London that pretends now to own us and speak on our behalf. We have no more than 30 months from today to ensure Scotland’s full separation from England – and by any means necessary.
Theresa May announces Brexit plan at Conservative Party conference
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