PREPARATIONS for a second independence referendum are to step up a gear with the First Minister's announcement that next week the Scottish Government is to publish the first in a series of documents setting out a "blueprint" for an independent Scotland.
The document is the first part of what is promised to be a "detailed prospectus" for independence which is being prepared by a team of civil servants tasked with assisting the Scottish Government in progressing the manifesto commitments of both the SNP and the Scottish Greens to deliver an independence referendum within the term of the current Scottish Parliament.
The document is expected to be published as early as next week. A second document in the series is expected to be published before the end of the present parliamentary session, which ends on July 1. The Scottish Government has one senior civil servant and 14 other officials working on the white paper for independence in the Constitutional Futures Division of the Constitution and Cabinet Directorate.
The news comes amid increasing evidence that the institutions of the British state are failing in their primary duties to uphold democracy, hold power to account and deliver an acceptable level of public services.
As the UK is confronted by the worst cost of living crisis in decades – a crisis which has been exacerbated by the Conservatives' reckless and ideologically driven pursuit of the hardest Brexit possible – the British Government is solely fixated on preserving in power a law-breaking serial liar of a prime minister whose government is so bereft of ideas that it has been reduced to scraping the bottom of the policy barrel in order to resuscitate policies abandoned by previous Conservative governments as being impractical and infeasible.
For example, this week's announcement of the extension of the right to buy to the tenants of housing associations in England – an idea first mooted and then rejected by George Osborne. The move would deplete even further the already much reduced stock of affordable and social housing and serve to transfer many of these properties to the private rented sector.
Meanwhile, the two big flagship policies of the British Government – sending asylum seekers to Rwanda and unilaterally ripping up the Northern Ireland Protocol – have been denounced as being clear breaches of the UK's legal commitments under international law. They are both also immoral, and in the case of the Rwanda policy, cruel and despicable, and they serve only to further tarnish the already battered reputation of the British state abroad.
This British Government is continuing its attacks on any independent sources of power and authority, trashing the devolution settlements in Scotland and Wales, making many forms of peaceful protest illegal and neutering the Electoral Commission and bringing it under government control even as it introduces obstacles to exercising the right to vote.
Corruption runs rampant as lucrative government contracts are awarded to the associates and cronies of powerful Conservatives, politics is fuelled by dark money and dodgy donations.
Meanwhile, the UK is forecast to have the lowest economic growth of any of the G20 states with the sole exception of Russia, where the pariah regime of Vladimir Putin has caused that country to be subjected to the most severe economic sanctions in the world.
The fastest growing sector of the UK economy would seem to be foodbanks, which, if they are very lucky, can get an immensely rich and privileged royal to come and visit while smiling and waving at people who have to endure difficulties and challenges that she will never know. Even now, the British establishment treats foodbanks as photo opportunities for them to burnish their public image when, in fact, the existence of foodbanks is a shameful indictment of the failure of the British state.
Even Scottish Conservative MP Andrew Bowie has been forced to acknowledge his party and government's poverty of any ideas beyond ensuring the short-term political survival of a prime minister who is manifestly unfit for the office he holds. The need for Scotland to escape this failing British state has never been more obvious.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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