AMIDST the predictable anger surrounding the recent utterances of the UK’s entitled and unimaginative Prime Minister, major questions need to be asked about such as who actually writes the drivel he delivered to the nation, and about his political judgement.
Doubtless he has been panicked into turbo-defence mode following the crippling Tory losses in the English local elections and a seemingly open season in defections to the Labour Party, but his performance will be remembered principally as the last act of an emasculated and desperate man so far out of his depth that his own party colleagues and media allies have all but abandoned him.
READ MORE: Extremism expert debunks Rishi Sunak attack on 'Scottish nationalists'
Mr Sunak’s speech, which placed the dangers of immigration and threats to democracy at its forefront, hearkened back to familiar fascist and communist themes of the past and indeed would appear to have been taken from their playbook. Branding predictable national foes as enemies of the state is an attempt to pacify the xenophobic right wing of his party, but seeking to similarly attack those seeking a peaceful and democratic path to independence in Scotland is risible.
A man who has staked his political future on dumping asylum seekers in Rwanda, a country described euphemistically as having a dubious record on human rights, and who has repeatedly refused to stop supplying arms and expertise to the IDF, thereby enabling the ongoing genocide in Palestine, has no interest in ethics or values or even common decency.
Whilst aiding and abetting in robbing the most vulnerable people on earth of their dignity, safety and lives, Mr Sunak attempts to vilify and stigmatise those he believes are feared or loathed by his party’s core support, irrespective of the veracity or morality of his statements. He truly is an appalling little man in every sense of the word, and though his premiership is now in its death throes I have little hope that any future Labour administration will improve the moral or political landscape of the UK.
As a supporter of Scottish independence I am happy to be branded a subversive by Sunak and his amoral chums. Such an appellation may be erroneous but it certainly sounds more exciting than being a Tory.
Owen Kelly
Stirling
SO the UK PM, Rishi Sunak, has opined that Scottish nationalists/Scotindy supporters are extremists-separatists who are threatening the status of the fractured Union and the failed Brexit project that he and his shameless Tory cohorts (plus the Unionist Labour Party and unionist LibDems) don’t want to talk about any more, ie the status quo remains ad infinitum.
In effect, he has stupidly “lost the plot” and tried to demonise well over 50% of the Scottish electorate who support Scotindy or are still interested in the prospect of Scotland “going it alone” as a re-energised, independent sovereign nation divorced from the negative influence of Westminster politics and interference in Scottish affairs.
READ MORE: LBC's James O'Brien tears into Rishi Sunak over Scottish nationalism comments
For a man in such an important British government position, discretion was the route to follow – in other words, SHUT IT!!! What an idiot!!
This politically aggressive response reminds me of the same extreme reaction that was taken in November 2023 by certain right-wing newspapers after the full house “Break-Up of Britain” symposium at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh in memory of the late philosopher/writer Tom Nairn. It proves once again what we are up against in the quest to finally attain self-determination and get away from the toxic politics of Westminster.
What’s the next step by these charlatans who can’t get their heads around the fact there is a huge Scotindy movement that is still active and gradually picking up momentum? Criminalisation of any nationalist thought/opinion and the forced closure of indy-supporting newspapers such as The National? That’s how to really undemocratically “stir it up” and finally create civil strife/extreme protest in Scotland.
Bernie Jap
Edinburgh
DOES anyone know what the British identity according to Rishi Sunak is? If he is talking about the four individual countries that make up his precious Britain then okay, at least three of the four countries have a cultural identity, namely Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Having lived in England most of my life, I have never been aware of an English cultural tradition.
Sure, there are regional differences which do not, altogether, make for an English culture. The north of England has several different cultures, as have the East and West Midlands, the West Country, Norfolk and the south east. But an English culture?
READ MORE: Shona Craven: When Rishi Sunak refers to ‘us’, Scottish voters are ‘them’
Once upon a time, in my 1950s school years, there was a perception that the English style of dress was a pinstripe suit, bowler hat and rolled-up umbrella. How daft was that!
Rishi Sunak, and his Tory controlling government, is the one who is attempting to impose his notion of so-called British behaviour onto the people in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
I wonder, also, how much he knows of English history, let alone whatever his notion of an identity is. That is a real mystery to me.
He has surely lost the plot by grouping Eastern countries together along with Scotland, plus the individual very different protests that happen, as an “abuse of our liberal democratic values of freedom of speech, the right to protest,” and worse, “to intimidate, threaten and assault others”.
He has listed just about everything his own government is trying to ban taking place, especially in Scotland. Such a contradiction from Sunak is unbelievable. As I said, he has totally lost the plot. The rest of the world will be watching and noting his methods of government with amazement, as when Johnson dragged the UK out of the European Union via his Brexit.
Sooner rather than later, not only Scotland but Wales and Northern Ireland will walk away from Sunak’s disunited kingdoms, leaving England to fend for itself along with its own form of identity.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
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