TOMORROW, Nicola Sturgeon will do what Davie Cameron refuses to do – have a debate with Boris Johnson, one of the leading figures in the campaign to get the UK to vote to leave the EU. Davie refused to debate with Alex Salmond during the Scottish independence referendum campaign, claiming that the vote was a matter for Scots alone, although this didn’t stop him sticking his oar in at every available opportunity. The real reason was of course fear that he’d have his backside handed to him on a plate like roasted bacon.

Boris Johnson has an approach to politics like the Roman historian Tacitus doing comedic pratfalls, oops there goes my toga. It’s Roman gladiators with custard pies as a distraction to make us all giggle while the powerful throw the poor to the lions, and Davie’s brand of oleaginous PR schmooze just can’t compete in the attention getting stakes. This time his excuse for refusing a debate is that Davie debating another top Tory would only make the media focus on Tory disputes, and not on the EU issues at hand. He doesn’t want anyone to intrude on the Conservative Party’s private grief as it rips out its own intestines, despite the fact that this is easily the most entertaining part of the EU debate for most of us.

In other words, for Davie, the interests of the party trump the interests of the country, a tale that’s been told of both the Conservatives and Labour over many decades. But then the only reason that this referendum is being held is to settle the internal Tory dispute over Europe and as a proxy party leadership contest. It was always party before country, and always will be. It’s how the Westminster system works.

Because Davie won’t debate his old school chum Boris, Nicola Sturgeon is going to have to do the job instead. Already the apologists for demonising the poor, beating up the unemployed, and kicking away the crutches of disabled people – otherwise known as the right-wing press – have been wondering aloud how it can be that the SNP supports one Union, the European one, yet is so firmly against the British one.

You can be certain Boris is going to bring that point up, quite possibly in connection with an obscure classical reference. But then the man who once claimed that a pound of government money spent in Croydon was more valuable and useful than a pound spent in Scotland really ought to have worked out for himself why it is that so many of us north of the Border are less than enamoured with right-wing British nationalist politicians like Boris Johnson. We could just as easily ask why it is that politicians such as Boris or Michael Gove, who stride the stage pronouncing that they think it’s unfair that a country has laws imposed on it by people that it didn’t vote for, don’t also support

Scottish independence.

Funnily enough, the right-wing commentators who ask rhetorically why the Scottish Government supports the EU but wants independence for Scotland never stop to ask themselves that question. The answer to that inconsistency is, of course, British nationalism. They don’t think Scotland is really a country, just a region that should trot along while important national politicians such as Boris decide where to spend a pound of our tax money.

Claiming that it’s inconsistent to support Scottish independence while remaining a part of the EU is a bit like claiming that it’s intellectually and morally inconsistent for a person to like marmalade but hate Marmite, even though both can be spread on toasted baked goods and start with the letter M – although in the case of the British Union it might be more accurate to describe it as a bitter, rancid, and unhealthy paste which clogs Scotland’s arteries, leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and has long since passed its use-by date.

The EU doesn’t set our budget and tell us how much we have to spend on public services. It doesn’t determine our retirement age or pensions, our benefits or social security. The EU doesn’t collect our taxes and give us back what it tells us we’re entitled to. The EU doesn’t impose nuclear weapons on us and site them just outside our largest city. The EU doesn’t tell us that we’re going to invade some Middle Eastern country that many of us would struggle to locate on a map. The EU doesn’t control our broadcasting and refuse to allow us a national public service broadcaster of our own. The EU doesn’t make our representatives second-class in its parliament even though the UK has opt outs on many areas of European legislation. Westminster does all these things despite the fact that Scotland is represented in the UK Government by a single solitary Tory MP. Likening the control over the UK that the EU has to Westminster’s control over Scotland is like comparing attendance at a nightclub with having your neck held tight in a stranglehold while the breath is choked out of you.

But the biggest difference of all is that the EU is a union of sovereign states which have agreed to pool sovereignty in certain restricted areas for the common good of the union as a whole. The United Kingdom is an incorporating union in which all sovereignty rests with the Westminster parliament. The member states of the EU are recognised as sovereign entities by all other EU members. The member countries of the UK are not recognised as sovereign entities by the UK parliament or politicians like Boris. The other members of the EU cannot force the UK to remain a member of the EU against its will, but British politicians like Boris and Ruth Davidson believe that the rest of the UK should be able to force Scotland out of the EU against its will. It’s even easier to put party before country when you affect not to believe that the country exists.

Tomorrow, Nicola Sturgeon will remind Boris Johnson that Scotland will make up its own mind about its membership of both the EU and the UK. If Boris wants Scotland to remain a member of the UK he’s going to have to show this country more respect than he has so far.


http://www.thenational.scot/comment/ Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: Abhorrent claims on the EU referendum are destroying discourse. 18537