Farage Will Burn Down the Union
Nigel Farage is leading in UK wide polls, but not in Scotland. The prospect of Farage entering Downing Street with a massive majority is no longer a far-fetched sideshow; it may happen.
Scotland does not want him. A new poll shows that support for independence is at 54%. With Farage as PM it climbs to within touching distance of the 60% tipping point that would make refusal of a second referendum unsustainable.
That will be good news for independence supporters - but an independent Scotland would prefer to have a better neighbour.
Reform tries to divide working class people by promoting the idea of a separate ‘white working class’. This framing excludes immigrants, no matter their background or contributions to where they settle, and weakens solidarity.
Farage and his cohorts are creating a false bogeyman type immigrant archetype as an excuse to go after the universal human rights that are supposed to protect all citizens against the arbitrary exertion of state power. These rights underpin the settlements between the four nations of the British isles - yet Scotland doesn’t merit even a footnote in media discussions about striking down the European Convention on Human Rights.
Farage's message marginalises all immigrants, and although we are not saying all immigration is good, anyone within touching distance of reality must understand that without immigrants the NHS, the Care Home, Hospitality and Tourism sectors would collapse and take the economy with it.
The last step on the road of political divergence
The election of Farage would be the culmination of a long process of political divergence which began in 1970 when for the first time England and Scotland voted differently. That government destroyed the four shipyards of the Upper Clyde, as Business for Scotland recalled last week.
Under the long years of the late 20th century, UK governments (Scotland didn’t elect) sold off the birthright of every citizen. They hived off electricity, gas, the national grid, ports, steel, aerospace and much more to vulture capitalists. The energy sector they created is rigged against the people. Scotland could only watch.
Then, under the influence of Farage and his ilk, the UK government tore Scotland out of the EU in defiance of how the people voted in a referendum. They took away our rights to live, work, travel and study in our neighbouring countries.
Next they are coming for the universal human rights that were once said to be the bedrock of the treaties England makes with its neighbours.
The assault on Scotland’s settlement
Farage plans to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He regards this as the best way to deal with the problem of small boat immigrants who make up a tiny fraction (8%) of the total number of immigrants in the UK.
Scotland has five million people and one third of the land mass of this archipelago and desperately needs immigration for its NHS and tourism sectors to function but merits not even a footnote in this debate.
Leaving the ECHR - which all the 46 members of the Council of Europe are signed up to - would mean that Scotland’s Parliament would be stripped of protections written directly into the Scotland Act of 1998. Those rights - crafted after the Second World War by Scottish lawyer Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe - in the document we know as the ECHR were intended to guarantee fairness and justice against arbitrary state power.
Removing them without the consent of Holyrood is not just an attack on rights. It is an attack on Scotland’s democracy itself.
The Northern Ireland warning
And this isn’t just Scotland’s fight. The ECHR is also written into the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act. MPs on Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs Committee have warned that any UK government withdrawing from the Convention would knowingly breach that peace settlement. Legal experts have said it would disrupt cross-border policing and trigger a formal review of the Agreement, forcing London and Dublin back to the table.
No voters were promised the devolution settlement was secure
Farage’s plan isn’t a “restoration of sovereignty.” It’s a recipe for destroying the democratic settlements England has reached with the other nations of this archipelago.
Those who voted “No” in 2014 were promised that devolution was secure, that Scotland’s rights were protected, that the Union was built on shared respect. If Farage becomes Prime Minister, those promises are shattered.
Farage may yet walk through the black door of Number 10. If he does, he will light a fire that burns the Union down.
