I FELT it was time to produce the second part of my trilogy to forecast what will happen in the post-apocalyptic Brexit world of Scotland and the UK.
In the first part I predicted the emergence of Boris and his strategy to bolster the Union and undermine the Scottish devolution settlement. It is clear this strategy has already started.
I must now turn to post-Brexit Britain. To understand the future I need to summarise what happened last week in relation to Brexit itself. With the spectacle of Boris Johnson’s proclamation – that he has been able to broker a deal with the EU, the contents of which should now be accepted by all sections of the House of Commons – a sense of unreality now pervades not only the political classes in the UK but has also seeped into the EU political establishment. To watch all the smiles, backslapping and bonhomie being expressed by the leadership on both sides of the Channel, you would think at last now all will be well. This of course is total nonsense – at best it is a fudge, at worst it has left the so-called United Kingdom in a perilous state!
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How so? Well, it still has to be ratified by the Westminster and European Parliaments. A mere formality? Perhaps for the Europeans, because there is little doubt that our Boris, a man of no principle or scruples, has helped the EU by conceding the backstop and ensuring a borderless Ireland with a border now in the Irish Sea being regulated by ports on the British mainland (eg Stranraer) and the UK becoming an EU tariff collector! Add to this Stormont every four years will have the right to vote to remain in the EU single market or not, and note the DUP will have no veto! Little wonder the Irish PM welcomed the agreement with open arms, as Irish unification just took a step closer.
Let me now move on to the future! I believe this deal will pass Westminster because of expediency, MP deselection, the potential loss of their jobs and sheer fatigue. Now let’s have a General Election!
Only the issue of Leavers versus Remainers will be the battleground. All Leavers, regardless of party allegiance, will return a Conservative and Brexit Party majority. This will ensure the two-year EU transition negotiations will be very hardline. The SNP will achieve 50-plus seats, and this will mean little or nothing to the Johnson/Farage government.
The Brexit debacle will leave front stage and the UK will enter the most destabilised political and economic environment since the 1930s. We will have the biggest alliance of right-wingers and reactionaries this country has ever seen. Once they get their way with Europe they will then set about, firstly, the Scots, who will lose their devolution status and be “put back in their box”. Northern Ireland, once they see the direction right-wing England is going in, will clammer for unification (it’s in the Good Friday Agreement!).
This right-wing alliance will carry out the biggest assault on the public sector ever seen in this country. We will be open to unbridled free-market economics never seen before. The big investors, the speculators, the monied classes will have a field day. The effects on Scotland and its growing social democracy will be catastrophic. We will have been taken out of the EU against our will, Northern Ireland will be favoured with a competitive advantage due to single market and custom unions status, and further erosion of our sovereignty will continue at pace within a crumbling Union.
In this cauldron of chaos I see a shining light and I saw it at the Aberdeen SNP conference. Here was a united party, with a clear vision for our country with a proven record of social democracy with its citizens at the centre of its vision and mission for the future. The imperative now, before the broken Westminster juggernaut gets into the hands of the reactionary Tory/Brexit Alliance, is for the Yes movement to harness its energy and resources and indicate to the Scottish voters the real threats they face, and ensure that they have the opportunity to enjoy a better more secure future by voting for Scottish independence.
Dan Wood
Kirriemuir
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