HE’S still in Downing Street. It's entirely typical of Johnson that his resignation turned out to be a non-resignation.

It's a familiar pattern from the Conservative Party. After the 2017 General Election when Theresa May lost her majority, she carried on as though nothing had happened. Although he has not – yet – lost a confidence vote, Johnson has clearly lost the support of a majority of his parliamentary party. It has forced him to acknowledge that there will be an internal party leadership contest to find a new Conservative leader, but he has not stepped down as Prime Minister and is carrying on as though nothing has happened.

Even when Johnson does finally go, his replacement will have been chosen by Conservative MPs and the frothing right-wingers of the Conservative Party membership. He or she will be every bit as contemptuous of democracy and accountability, just perhaps be somewhat less brazen about it. His successor will come from among those top Tories who enabled and defended Johnson and who are complicit in all the insults to decency and honesty in public life which this miserable regime has inflicted upon us. 

The Conservative Party will still be corrupt and mendacious, and the sclerotic Westminster system will still be fuelled by privilege and patronage and be incapable of ensuring decency and honesty in public office or holding power to account.

We will still see whichever careerist wins the most seats in an unfair electoral system being awarded almost unlimited power. Johnson's successor will change nothing – he or she is being installed in office so that things can stay the same.

Then once they get into Downing Street, this new boss who is the same as the old boss will enjoy a honeymoon period thanks to the media and will call a snap General Election in order to keep the Tories in power for years to come. 

In Scotland, the glaring democratic deficit looms even more stark. Among the other offences against democracy of this appalling regime, the Conservatives have destroyed both the convention that Westminster will not meddle with the devolution settlement without Holyrood's consent, and the traditional cornerstone of Scottish Unionism – that the UK is a voluntary partnership of nations.

This latter affront to Scottish democracy has been enthusiastically adopted by the Labour Party, whose leader had the gall this week to refuse to answer a question on the democratic route for Scotland to get another independence referendum, saying that it was for independence supporters to come up with an answer. Starmer doesn't think Scotland voting for a Parliament with a clear mandate for another referendum suffices, but won't say what will.

Scotland is now in the ludicrous position where we are trapped under the rule of a Westminster Parliament in which Scotland's representatives are a small and permanent minority and where the parties which lost a Holyrood election can appeal to that Westminster Parliament in order to overrule Holyrood and ensure that they can still implement what the Scottish electorate explicitly rejected.  Under such circumstances, it is legitimate to ask what the point is in voting in elections in Scotland. As long as Scotland remains a part of the UK, it gets the form but not the substance of democracy. The democratic deficit that Scotland suffers as a part of the UK must be a central issue in the independence campaign that lies ahead.

One thing is certain: Scotland can never enjoy true democracy as long as the parties that lose the popular vote in Scotland can appeal to Westminster to get it to overrule the will of the people of Scotland and the mandates they have chosen to give the Scottish Parliament.

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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