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By Jason Michael
What May’s Brexit agenda has exposed is the reality that Scotland has no power whatsoever to protect the interests of Scottish people. This will always be the case unless we can secure another referendum and win for ourselves real power.
Scotland has been hoodwinked into continuing with a political union that is now pursuing a Brexit agenda that both threatens the wellbeing and mocks the democratic decision of our nation. We were told that the only way to guarantee our continued membership of the European Union, safeguarding our rights and our economic interests, was to vote in 2014 against independence, and we were promised that in exchange for this we would be rewarded with the most powerful devolved parliament in the world. Nothing of this vow was delivered; nothing of real significance was delivered, save for the most cosmetic of gestures, because from start to finish it was a lie. Powers delayed are powers denied.
England’s decision to leave the EU has set the agenda of the British government’s policy, and the Prime Minster has determined that the will of England will dictate the future of Scotland regardless of what Scottish people want. In doing this, after legal challenges through the High Court and now the Supreme Court, the reality of Scottish power has been laid bare – Scotland has no power. We are familiar with the idea that it is we, the people of Scotland, who are sovereign, but the reality of the Union is such that Westminster has never recognised this, and because it still refuses to accept this fundamental tenet of our law Theresa May continues to insist that we voted to leave Europe as “one country.”
It is this assumption of our oneness with England in union that contains within it the true existential threat to Scotland, and if we at any point accept this assumption as a political truth then we will forever subjugate ourselves to the political will of London. We do not accept this and so we are challenged to achieve a parliament with real and meaningful power, the power that gives Scottish people the freedom to determine our own future. Some are arguing that this can be gained over time with ongoing negotiations with Westminster, and this progressivist approach has been how we have been doing things to date. Yet with Brexit looming it is now clear that this is not enough.
The British government has repeatedly used the promise of more powers as a way to pacify Scotland’s national aspirations, and even through the process of devolution Westminster has used the rules to ensure that this power will always be just over the horizon, and time and again events like Brexit will always damage Scotland to the benefit of England’s agenda. There is only one way that we can have the parliament and the power that we require to deliver to ourselves what we need and that is full separation from Westminster. Every effort has to be made now to make this a reality, another referendum has to be called if we do not want to end up permanently shackled to something that has never been good for us.
The Vow Was A Lie
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