Dear Theresa,
Thank you for your begging letter. However let’s not be too churlish, congratulations are in order. The UK was divided as never before, fearful of the future, angry and anxious, and against all the odds you have managed to unite this disunited and dysfunctional kingdom. Everyone thinks that your deal sucks.
You ask for everyone to get behind you. That’s pretty rich. You started Brexit negotiations by deciding to ignore the wishes of that half of the UK which had voted to remain, and by deciding unilaterally that those who had voted to leave wanted the hardest possible Brexit. At every stage in these sorry proceedings you were motivated first and foremost by your own career interests, and then by keeping your miserable and fractious party together. Your plan was, and is, to do whatever it takes to further the interests of the Conservative party, and now you have the nerve to write to the people of the UK begging us to get behind you in the national interest.
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You began in bad faith and have continued the same way. You initiated the Article 50 process without having a clear plan other than wishful thinking and the unshakeable belief that the EU owed the UK its cake and its cherries because Britain is special. You activated Article 50 when you did because local elections in England were looming. Securing a greater number of Conservative councillors in the shires of England was far more important to you than this so-called national interest which you’re now pleading with us to get behind.
You compounded our view that you were acting purely in your own selfish self-interest by embarking upon an entirely unnecessary general election at a crucial point, at a point when the UK should have been framing a coherent and cohesive set of Brexit plans. Instead you decided that it was an ideal time to try and get one up on the Labour party and secure a large majority for your visionless Brexit, your blank Euro cheque. And you failed. You ended up losing the majority that you did have. The people of the UK told you plainly that we didn’t want your hard nose Brexit that pandered to the Tory right, and yet you ploughed on regardless. Nothing has changed.
Throughout this entire sorry and miserable past two and a half years, you have acted selfishly and mendaciously. And now you wonder why we’re not prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt.
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You speak of your precious Union, but you’ve done the square root of hee haw to demonstrate that you understand what a Union means. To you, this precious Union means that Scotland is under your thumb. We have watched you Theresa. We have seen how you revel in power, how you seek control, how you avoid accountability. We know what you mean when you tell us how precious this so-called Union is to you. It means that you believe Scotland to be your possession, your toy, a pretty bauble of a nation that allows you to pretend that your xenophobic foreigner blaming British nationalism isn’t nationalism at all.
You were amongst those telling Scotland in 2014 that this country of ours could only remain a member of the EU by voting to remain a part of the UK. In 2016 Scotland voted to remain a part of the EU by a much larger margin than it voted to remain in the UK. You insisted that the UK took the EU vote as a whole and would leave as a whole. You insisted that no part of the UK was going to be treated differently. Throughout the past two and a half years you have ignored the Scottish government, you have treated Scotland with contempt. You have demonstrated that Scotland being a part of this so-called precious Union means that Scotland doesn’t have a voice, Scotland doesn’t get a say, Scotland’s needs will not factor into your calculations.
We’ve seen Northern Ireland getting a special deal. We’ve seen Gibraltar being treated differently. Both of those parts of Brexitland have an independent state putting pressure on your government and standing up to you. What that tells us in Scotland is that the British government will only listen to the will of the Scottish people if we too have an independent state standing up for us. Because you sure as hell won’t. You don’t know the difference between member nation in a precious union and a satrapy. We’ve seen how Dublin has been in a position to dictate terms to you Theresa. We’ve seen how you’ve marginalised, sidelined, and ignored Edinburgh. So we look to Dublin and we think to ourselves – we could do with some of that. As it stands all we have is a David Mundell who hasn’t resigned yet. There are stuffed Hielan coos with tartan bunnets in airport gift shops who do a better job of representing Scotland than him.
Even worse than that, you have used Brexit as a tool to undermine the entire devolution process. You have unilaterally up-ended the principle of the devolution settlement, against the express wishes of the Scottish Parliament, a principle which the people of Scotland voted for overwhelmingly in the referendum of 1997, a principle which the people of Scotland reinforced in the referendum of 2014 when the British parties assured us that a no vote meant stronger and better devolution. What was that about respecting the will of the people Theresa? What was that about respecting the result of the referendum? It seems that no longer applies when it stands in the way of the Conservative party getting what the Conservative party wants.
At every step in this Brexit process, your government has been characterised by selfish self-interest, by mendacity, by greed, by stupidity. You’ve spent the past two and a half years negotiating with your own party. The UK interest hasn’t got a look in, never mind the interests of Scotland. And now you want Scotland to get behind your deal Theresa? Well in your own words: now is not the time.
Now is the time for us to prepare to have a vote on our own future. Now is the time for Scotland to learn the lessons of Brexit and put them into effect. And what we have learned Theresa, the lesson that you yourself have taught us, is that you will only listen to Scotland, you will only pay Scotland heed, you will only treat the people of Scotland with respect, if Scotland is represented by the independent government of an independent Scottish state. Now is the time for Scotland to decide what path it’s going to take. It’s not the path that meekly follows you. Now is the time for Scotland to say, we’ve had enough.
You’ve brought this upon yourself.
Signed,
Millions of angry Scottish people
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