Time for the stars to shine

Oh dear gods. Oh all the deities that anyone has ever worshipped. Oh anthropomorphised personification of an impersonal and uncaring universe. I’m fed up. I’m fed up with the wibbling wankwits dribbling drivel and calling it wisdom. I’m fed up with the mendacious mouth-breathers. I’m fed up with the self-serving and the selfish stupidity. I’m fed up with the dishonesty, the duplicity, and the deceit. I’m fed up with the arrogance of arsewiping addlebrains. I’m fed up with the harebrained scheming of heartless scumsuckers. I’m even fed up with the artful invention of alliterating insults. It’s that bad. This is what happens when you pay attention to British politics and the British media.

The UK is a mess. If it was a horse it would be shot. If it was a cow it would be the patient zero in a foot and mouth epidemic. If it was an earthworm it would be lying shrivelled on a hot pavement and not even a ravenous crow would think it was a tasty morsel.

Today, at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Branch Office manager Richard Who He stood up and perorated in a dull monotone that made even Iain Gray seem like a charismatic and amusing after dinner speaker that people in Scotland don’t want a referendum. Richard gave no evidence for this assertion, but presumably he’d read it in the Daily Record and has been hearing Ruth Davidson repeating it at every opportunity for the past four years, so it must be true. After all, who needs democracy when you can have baseless assertions and the occasional opinion poll in the pages of the anti-independence press. So because of this, Labour is going to include a manifesto commitment in the General Election which will give Jezza a mandate to refuse to allow any future indy ref in Scotland. That’s you telt, uppity Jocks.

It doesn’t matter what Scotland votes for. It makes no difference if there is a Scottish Parliament with a mandate for another independence vote and a majority of MSPs who support it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pro-indy party which gains the largest number of seats and votes in a future Westminster General Election in Scotland. Jezza will be able to opt for the Partido Popular solution to referendums because he’s Prime Minister on the back of votes in the rest of the UK.

Labour has just destroyed any pretence that it’s a party which supports the Claim of Right underpinning the devolution settlement and Scotland’s place in the UK. That all by itself counts as a material change of circumstances as a trigger for another independence referendum. Labour can no longer pretend that the UK offers Scotland what Scotland votes for. Labour has turned its back on the principle that the people of Scotland have the sovereign right to choose the form of government best suited to their needs. Labour has abrogated that right to itself.

Meanwhile, despite the very clear evidence that a huge majority of Labour’s own members want another referendum on Brexit, Labour has instead decided that two faces are not enough for the party leadership. You can have a referendum, says the Labour leadership, just not a referendum on what you want to have a referendum on. Instead you can have a referendum giving you a choice between a no deal Brexit or a crappy deal Brexit.

Labour has just destroyed itself in Scotland. It’s opposed to any future independence referendums, alienating that large segment of the Labour vote in Scotland which supports independence. And it is opposed to any revisiting of the decision to leave the EU, alienating that even larger segment of the Labour vote in Scotland which wants to remain a part of the EU. The Jezzagasm has proven less conducive to a last relationship with the Scottish electorate than a blind date who turned out to possess the engaging wit of Richard Who He, the numeracy of Jackie Baillie, the colour and charisma of James Kelly, and the sex appeal of Gordie Broon.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems continue to provide a lesson in the meaning of the word hypocrisy, demanding a second Brexit referendum but refusing a second Scottish independence referendum, even though both claims to a second vote are based upon the same grounds – that voters were lied to and those who won have not delivered their promises.

The Tories continue to be their usual repugnant selves, the only two things that they’re competent at are being vile and fighting amongst themselves. Today the arch Brexists of the European Research Group had another press conference to present their plan for Brexit since the last plan they presented at a press conference was ridiculed. The new plan is exactly the same as the old plan, and largely consists of the assertion that everything will be fine because we’re British and we won the war. The ERG wants to rip up European standards on food, workers’ rights, and environmental protection in pursuit of seeking trade deals. Because clearly the UK will only be able to compete if British workers have similar levels of protection as those in sweat shops in South East Asia, where they munch hurriedly on chlorinated chicken sandwiches during the five minute lunch breaks that they don’t get paid for halfway through their twelve hour shift. We can look forward to more backstabbing, infighting, and manoeuvering for position from the careerists of the Tory party at their conference in Birmingham next week. What joy.

All this is bad enough. It’s worse than bad enough. It’s at times like that that a country is desperately in need of a press which forensically dissects the claims and pretensions of British political parties. But what we’ve got is a highly partisan media that specialises in stirring up hatred against minorities, migrants, and the marginalised. The EU’s justice commissioner Věra Jourová, who was brought up in the totalitarian Czechoslovakia under Communist rule, has compared the British press to the media in 1970s Czechoslovakia in its single minded pursuit of xenophobic nationalism and desire to spread hatred.

I’m fed up, because the politics and press of the UK are broken and they can’t be fixed. I’m fed up, because there is no remedy, there is only escape. I’m fed up being told to wait, being told to trust, being told to hold back. I’m fed up, because patience is a finite resource and even a saint runs out of it eventually. I’m fed up sailing through the long dark night without a star to guide me. It’s the SNP conference the week after next, and I expect the party leadership to take note. It’s time for the stars to shine.

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