Botchland Uber allies

That didn’t last long did it. The Conservatives’ newly found Brexit unity has gone up in flames faster than a Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Despite the claims on the Tory benches on Friday that Theresa May had won a great victory for Britain by conceding everything that the EU had been demanding in the first place, by Saturday the EU was saying that there is as much chance of Britain getting a special bespoke preferential trade deal as there is of Michael Gove getting awarded Best Friend of the Year Award. Mikey is such a backstabber that he can’t even get a Tesco loyalty card. The ink wasn’t even dry on the EU agreement before Mikey was telling everyone that voters could elect a future government that could negotiate different terms. Presumably he was referring to a government in which he plays a leading role. And there’s a reason for Scottish independence all by itself.

Brexit is like being stuck in a lift with that guy from the breakaway Unionist froth group Unity going on about the fantastic opportunities Scotland’s got in the Union, horribly wrong on so many levels. That’s the guy who recently put out a wee video responding to the slagging off he was getting online which basically boiled down to saying “Stop hiding and come and have a chat face to face, foul separatists”. Or in other words, meet yese behind the bike sheds if you think you’re hard enough. No wonder he was just one froth too far even for the spittle flecked corporate lobbyists of Britain in Union.

The best bit of the video however was his gloriously delusional belief that people who are supporting Brexit are opposing the elite. That’s the Brexit which is supported by Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, and Michael Gove and the right wing of the Tory party. You know, those challengers of the global elites. As for likes of yours truly, I’m too busy hiding behind my real name and globally eliting up a close in the East End of Glasgow to have any sense of what might truly be exercising ordinary working class communities. Still, at least a right wing dysfunctional post-Brexit Britain where the only people to flourish will be the owners of global taxi companies which insist their employees aren’t employees at all can have a new national anthem, Botchland Uber allies.

The real problem for the British state is that the people who actually have power and influence aren’t any less delusional than some random guy on the internet. Former Territorial SAS sodgie David Davis already had the kind of reputation that you can only get when your sole area of expertise is garotting Her Majesty’s enemies with piano wire, but only at weekends. Now he’s also got a reputation that makes Walter Mitty seem like a hard headed realist. Just a few days after the deal was reached with the EU, the one that the entire Tory cabinet was lauding as the greatest political achievement since Theresa May managed to get through a speech without howking up phlegm, David is saying that after all Britain maybe won’t have to pay the £39 billion that it has agreed to cough up to the EU.

The Brexit secretary doesn’t think that the deal reached last week is legally enforceable. Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning, Dave said that the deal was just a serving suggestion. Directly contradicting the Chancellor Philip Hammond who described the financial settlement as an obligation, Dave insisted that both the financial settlement and the Irish border agreement are conditional on Michael Gove getting a Tesco loyalty card and the UK getting that bespoke preferential trading deal which the EU is insisting is an impossiblity.

This kind of Perfidious Albionness is precisely why the Irish government had insisted that the agreement reached between the UK and the EU last Friday needed to be “politically bullet proof” and “cast iron”. The Irish know better than anyone else that the British government can’t be relied on to keep its word. It’s not for nothing that the Irish have always claimed that the only reason that the sun never set on the British Empire was because God doesn’t trust the British in the dark. Now David Davis has proven that the British government can’t be trusted in the daylight either.

But then here in Scotland we’ve learned that lesson the hard way. Remember that binding and legal commitment that the permanence of the Scottish Parliament was going to be enshrined in law so that no Westminster government could change or alter the powers of Holyrood without the consent of the Scottish parliament? Remember the Vow? Remember all the promises of jobs and security and stability? Remember how we were told that the only way Scotland could remain a part of the EU was by voting to stay a part of the UK? Oh how we laughed. The UK still fondly imagines that in its dealings with Ireland it can act in the exact same way that it has acted with Scotland. It likes to think that it has all the power and all the cards, and the Irish like the Scots have no option but to put up and shut up and bow to Her Majesty’s government. The delusional Brexiteers are in for a very big disappointment. In these negotiations the Irish are backed up by the other members of the EU. They won’t be fobbed off with a Vow.

The lesson for Scotland ought to be clear. As a part of the UK our voice can be silenced, we have no redress when the British government goes back on its word. If Scotland wants to get something out of the British government, the only way to do so is from a position of strength, and that means as an independent state which can form partnerships and make allies with other states in its own interests. We’ll get precisely nothing as a satrapy of Botchland’s Uber allies.

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