SECRETARY of State for Scotland is a curious role under the Tories. Because it should be about promoting Scotland in the Union and yet it seems to be much more about putting Scotland in its place in the Union – ie, at the bottom of the pile, with very little democratic say, in this disunited, dysfunctional family of nations.

The current incumbent in this position, Alister Jack, despite plenty of rhetoric to the contrary, made this abundantly clear at the Urgent Question session this week at Westminster, called as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that Holyrood does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence.

Despite this being a ruling of the court, Jack made a big show of making what was a legal decision a very political and rather personal one, bringing in willing henchmen from the Tory benches to have a right jolly poke at the majority of Scottish pro-independence MPs who have the “audacity” to fight our democratic corner.

However, I’m not sure their Unionist glee was founded on quite the win they had been hoping for, as it turned out to be both a revealing and exposing debate, far more for the Tories than for Scotland and the desire for independence. Because it exposed the essential magical thinking that lies at the heart of this UK Government – in fact, at the very core of the Tory Party.

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It’s the same magical thinking that has brought the country to its knees with the Brexit juggernaut of economic failure, the same blinkered, silver-spooned vision of the world that has crushed the working poor and children into poverty and destitution, hollowed out our public services and wreaked the worst economic recession in decades on the UK.

And it’s the same exceptionalism and arrogant isolationism that thinks the UK has never had it so good out of Europe, while the rest of the world laughs at the Brits on their knees and so very, very far out of their depth.

For years, the Tories have been telling us that we have one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world at Holyrood. Jack hilariously even spoke of the Tories as being proud “custodians of the devolution settlement” with one of the world’s most “successful political economic unions”, working together to be “safer, stronger and more prosperous”.

He mustn’t have got the memo from the OECD that the UK is facing the lowest growth of any OECD nation over the next two years, or that Brexit has cost us £100 billion a year in lost output, and that the City of London has lost its top equity market status to their French counterpartsthe French.

He must have missed the fact that out of all of Scotland’s seats at Westminster, more than three-quarters of them are SNP, the actual party of independence, and that Holyrood is on its fourth consecutive SNP government.

And that, despite this enormous democratic show of confidence in the SNP from the Scottish electorate, since his former colleague and PM, David Cameron left the hotseat in disgrace, each subsequent Tory prime minister has told us Scots that “now is not the time”.

Jack knows fine well that the Tories acting as “custodians of the devolved settlement” would actually involve Rishi Sunak coming to the negotiation table with our First Minister to reach a consensus where Scots can determine our own democratic future.

This would be the ideal way to sort out this impasse: to wake up to the reality that Scotland wants another independence referendum whether they like it or not, that maybe now is the time to be working out a more amicable divorce so we can still trade with each other and pool resources beyond the break-up, like good neighbours/exes do.

That grown-up way of doing things through a democratically agreed referendum is now off the table.

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Ultimately, this state of denial, this head in the clouds la-la land, is unsustainable for the UK Government, whether it be blue or red, no matter what Sunak or indeed Starmer says. The Supreme Court has made its legal decision clear, and we must take that and move forward, with all roads now leading back to the original plan B, which is a de facto election on independence.

Because the Supreme Court decision has shown us, in no uncertain terms, that there is nothing equal or voluntary about the four nations of the Union, when one nation cannot leave on its own terms, trapped forever with our condescending “custodians”.

So, here is the reality check: as of 10am on Wednesday, the Union as we know it is dead and democracy is on life support in the UK. Now is the time for the Scottish electorate to have their say.

We need to come together and build a coalition of the willing to see our exciting vision of a future independent Scotland through to its ultimate conclusion. Let’s do it!