WHEN the keys to the UK Government’s new flagship political hub in Edinburgh were handed over to its new residents in 2019, the then secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell, beamed that he was delighted that the building would share a name with the head of state.

Speaking to the press, Mundell said the royal title given to Queen Elizabeth House – a sprawling 190,000 sq ft office in the heart of Scotland’s capital – was “hugely fitting”. I couldn’t agree more.

Like the monarchy, both have shown themselves to be a fundamental waste of taxpayers’ money, representing a form of politics that would best have been left in the last century – detached, repressive and entitled.

The new hub was to be a home for HM Revenue and Customs and the secretary of state, featuring a specially built Cabinet room – the first of its kind outside of London – that Mundell was “very much look[ing] forward to inviting the Cabinet to meet in … once it is open for business.”

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Whether or not Mundell actually believed the UK Government could live up to the shining symbol of mutual respect that it had fashioned for itself is, of course, something only he could know. I imagine he was pondering this himself when, less than 10 days after waxing lyrical on the relationship between Scotland and Westminster, he was unceremoniously canned by Boris Johnson – despite the leader of the Scottish Conservatives reportedly begging to keep him in the role.

Before that fresh paint smell could even fade on this shrine to collaborative working, the Conservative UK Government had already reminded the Scottish Tories of their place in the pecking order, and killed Mundell’s dream of one day hosting a Cabinet meeting in Edinburgh … not that remaining as Secretary of State would have done much to actually change that.

A report in July from the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee revealed that the purpose-built space “does not appear to have been used to host the Cabinet to date”. The same is allegedly true of a similar room built in Cardiff.

Enter Alister Jack (below); a Scottish Secretary who has done much to cement the image of the UK Government as a contemptuous force in Scotland. In the years since his appointment, Jack has stumbled from authoritarian diktat to aloof indifference with ease.

The National:

It was at his behest that the Scotland Act’s nuclear Section 35 button was hammered – a UK Government veto that could be activated in the unlikely circumstance that the Scottish Parliament tried to legislate outwith its competencies.

Jack has been responsible for blocking two key pieces of legislation recently, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, and plans for Scotland’s deposit return scheme.

Both areas legally appear to fall within the remit of the Scottish Parliament, both are already functioning well in neighbouring countries – and both present an ideological challenge to the Conservative Party and the culture wars that it revels in for relevance.

Rather than a symbol of mutual respect, Queen Elizabeth House increasingly resembles a fortress in which Jack can hide away from scrutiny.

On both gender reforms and deposit schemes, the Secretary of State has dodged scrutiny, refusing to meet with committees to reasonably explain his undemocratic intrusions.

The overriding mantra seems to be: Because I said so.

Most recently, however, the UK Government hub in Edinburgh was one of the few locations that flew the flag of Israel even as Scottish Government buildings nearby rightly chose not to display the flag of a state committed to the bloody ethnic cleansing of civilian populations in Gaza It may seem a small detail, but to me, it is a rank reminder of Scotland’s enforced complicity in British foreign policy. Even while the Scottish Parliament takes a humanitarian position, still the UK Government presses its imperialist ambitions into our spaces, uninvited.

It is the lack of autonomy over foreign policy that has always, to me, been the strongest argument for Scottish independence over so-called “devo max”.

In world affairs, the UK has a dire record that seems more a product of its political class than public lobbying. Tories or Labour, both have rushed without hesitation into justifying war crimes in the Middle East with recklessness and inhumane disregard.

It makes sense, then, that even as Scotland’s political institutions sought a nuanced, humanitarian position on the Israel-Gaza conflict, here was the British state primed and ready to do what it has done so well for centuries; sticking a flag into a mess of their own making.

Wasn’t Queen Elizabeth House meant to show that the UK Government was trying to be better, if we could just give them one last chance? It seems no matter how often the Government repeats, repeats, repeats this talking point, their actions always speak louder.

Civil service unions in the building itself have said much the same. Four years on from the UK Government nestling into its new digs, and it seems more of a ghost town than a symbol of four equal nations in harmony. Cabinet minister visits seem more like scheduled public relations efforts than work events, with one member of the union saying: “The impression that I get is of people going around the office saying, ‘Thank you; aren’t you doing a good job?’ rather than actually working from the office.”

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The Queen Elizabeth House in 2023 seems a shallow, broken place; a symbol of the British political state that is determined to impose its will in Scotland while muddying the carpet as little as possible.

All for the newly revealed price of nearly one million pounds of taxpayer’s money every single month.

In a dark sense, the Conservatives really did get what they wished for; a perfect representation of the Union as it stands today.