Top Secret Speech Leaked

This blog has received a top-secret leak of Nicola Sturgeon’s forthcoming speech on IndyRef2. Here’s the draft:

Journalists, and people called ‘Ruth’, ask me every day whether I will give up on a second independence referendum.

I’d like to give a simple, direct, once-and-for-all answer:

No.

Let me explain why.

The clue is in the name of the party I lead – the Scottish National Party. The SNP is here because we believe in independence for Scotland. Our primary purpose is to let the people of Scotland govern Scotland.

There are many ways that might be achieved. It might be via a brief Act of Parliament – that was how Canada became independent in 1931 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931), and Malta in 1964. Or it might be via a treaty, which is how the Philippines became independent in 1946 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)). Or it might be via a referendum. All of these ways can be democratic, fair, representative routes to independence.

So, no. 

I am not going to give up on a second independence referendum. Or on any of the other ways in which the country I call home can, finally, return to the fold of independent, democratic states governed by and for the people who live here.

I am especially not going to give up on any of the ways of winning independence in the middle of the Brexit negotiations. The Tory party has chucked Britain to the dogs, destroying jobs, driving many of the migrants who contribute to our economy out of the country and cutting our universities off from funding. David Davis will use everything we have – our fisheries, our farming, renewable energy, our whisky and our tourism – as pawns in a negotiation that is designed to save Tory skins, and to keep London’s all-powerful financial industry alive. It is the biggest constitutional and economic change of this generation and will have repercussions for our children and our grandchildren. The people of these islands are resilient and resourceful, but they will need every ounce of that resilience to survive and then adapt to the changes that Brexit could bring.

Two specific changes illustrate the problem. The first is a dramatic change in the way that we are governed. Scotland has a devolved parliament at Holyrood. There is much that this parliament lacks, but within the strict limitations laid down by the devolution settlement it does give the people of Scotland a measure of autonomy.

That is about to change. When the UK departs the EU, powers that are currently held at Brussels (on food and packaging for example) will be brought back. But not to Holyrood. They will stick – as Theresa May has made clear – in Westminster. The new ‘UK single market’ will be dominated by the interests of London, not those of Scotland. This will be bad for all of us, but perhaps especially bad for the fish industry in Scotland (see https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/internationalpublicpolicyinstitute/ourblog/march2017/brexitpowersandthescottishparliamentthecaseofagricultureandfisheries/). 

The people of Scotland are about to see their parliament dismembered by Brexit.

The second change is worse. Because it will affect, one way or another, every family in Scotland. Brexit will smash the economy. We will lose the EU grants that have helped to pay for our roads, ports and infrastructure. Our universities will lose research funding, and we are already suffering from a brain drain and a carer crisis as EU nationals look for jobs in countries that allow freedom of movement. Our workers will lose the protection that EU safety and workers’ rights legislation has brought them. And, ironically, our hospitals and care centres will lose the EU migrant staff who provide a bedrock of care. Companies will lose the ability to recruit specialists across the wide EU talent pool – and that will mean a further erosion of productivity for Scotland’s businesses.

All of this because David Cameron could not bring his Tory party round to understanding the benefits of EU membership. Perhaps now he realises the damage he has done. Then again, given the Tories’ instant conversion from ‘Remainers’ to ‘Leavers’, perhaps not.

How can Scotland escape from the turmoil and damage of Brexit? We can't. We will be hit just as badly as our friends and families in England. But we can allow ourselves one glimmer of hope. A tiny light at the end of the dark Brexit tunnel. That light is shining on an independent Scotland, able to stand up and take its own decisions on how it wants to be, how it wants to relate to our many friends across the water in Europe. 

So no, I will never give up on any of the democratic, transparent, honest and fair means we have of winning for the people of Scotland the right to govern their own country. It is, truly, the light at the end of the Brexit tunnel.

Turncoat Theresa

Do you trust her? With the Brexit negotiations?

Imagine; negotiate with 27 countries, each with their own cultures, beliefs, politics, priorities and pressure groups. Deal with thousands of issues from the big ones like fishing and energy down to the tiny details like animal vaccination (the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has warned that Brexit will mean a shortage of trained vets).

Meanwhile hold back the hostile hordes at home; the UKIPpers, the City lobbyists, the unions and the warring factions of the Tory party. Och yes, and construct Empire 2.0 too. And create the low-tax, no welfare Singapore of the North Atlantic while you are at it.

All of this would be a lifetime challenge for a Prime Minister with a clear vision and the charisma to lead the people of the British Isles into this bright new future. 

But Theresa May?

Theresa May of the policy wobbles? Theresa May who has – this from the Financial Times – made nine (yes, 9) significant policy U-turns since she came into power? Theresa May of the double speak; Turncoat Theresa who said she would help the ‘Just About Managing’ JAMS and then introduced the Rape Clause, which means that if a poor working woman has a third child she will have to ‘manage’ with £2,500 less.

I don’t trust her. And she is asking me to trust her with my life – my life as an EU immigrant here in Catalonia. (Actually, she is not, because the Tories broke another election pledge and did not give Britons living in the EU the right to vote. So I can go hang, as far as Turncoat Theresa is concerned.)

But you, who can vote. Do you really want to give your vote to Turncoat Theresa?

Poor Evidence

When Mrs Thatcher came into power in 1979 she, with Sir Keith Joseph, introduced a set of policies which are now known as ‘neoliberal’. The core idea was to cut back on government and reduce tax for the wealthy to encourage them to invest more in business. The wealth would ‘trickle down’ to the poor.

Westminster governments since then have all followed the same policy. Whether they were Tory or Labour, they continued to believe that government should be cut back – and that tax on income was bad for the country (they meant, bad for votes…)

So by now, 38 years of neoliberal policies later, you’d expect to see some pretty good results. You know, evidence that wealth had in fact trickled down.

The data on wealth and income inequality from the Office of National Statistics goes back to 1978. The key measure is the ‘Gini coefficient’ https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/datasets/nowcastinghouseholdincomeintheuk . 

The Gini coefficient is a measure of the way in which different groups of households receive differing shares of total household income. A higher Gini coefficient means greater inequality of household incomes, a lower Gini means more equality.

In 1979, when Mrs Thatcher came into power, the Gini coefficient for non-retired households in the UK was 24.5. Since then it has risen steadily, and in 2014-15, the last full year of data, it was 33.2. That is more than one third (35.5%) more inequality than at the start of the neoliberal experiment.

Failure. The neoliberal experiment failed. Wealth did not trickle down. It floated up. (You don’t need statistics to tell you this. Spend an afternoon at one of Scotland’s busy foodbanks and you’ll see the real human suffering behind the Gini data.)

You would think that decent, honest politicians would admit the failure. Confess that Tory and Labour neoliberalism has not worked, and admit that they are looking for an alternative.

Wrong. Brexit Britain is built on neoliberal policies. The ‘Singapore’ model is low tax, little government and little welfare. And a ‘Hard Brexit’ means more austerity because (a) Scotland will lose its currently relatively generous EU grants and (b) the UK will lose businesses, and thus tax income, to the EU.

In heading for Hard Brexit, the Tories are not only condemning people in Scotland to more and deeper poverty. 

They are also fighting the failure of their 38-year experiment.

Brexit and the Bomb

The Tories may or may not be the Nasty Party, but they certainly cost a bomb.

The Financial Times analysis today suggests that the Brexit bill will be €100 billion. This is the beginning of negotiations, so you can expect that figure to drop, a bit. But it is now up there with Trident, the real bomb, whose replacement (another costly Tory promise) is £100bn.

The Trident estimate is at the start of the process, so we can expect it to rise. Overall, on these two items alone the Tories will spend £200 billion.

No wonder the Tories are making no promises about taxes (expect them to go up) or pensions (expect them to fall.)

The Tories are the Costly Party. Only vote for them if you are feeling rich. Very, very rich.

The Rape of Logic

The "rape clause" is abhorrent. It requires women claiming Child Benefit for a third or subsequent child to prove that the child was conceived by rape. Introduced by George Osborne in 2016, the clause was spotted by the SNP's Alison Thewliss MP, who has led a growing campaign to have it scrapped.

The rape clause means that a woman claiming Child Benefit will have to relive her rape each time she changes​ her claim or circumstances, when she moves home or work or has her benefits reviewed. 18 years of remembering and reminding officialdom of the violent event that changed her life.

It will be poor women who will suffer most. Women of wealth can avoid the trauma of proving rape by simply not claiming the benefit. But women with less wealth or none need the £2,500 a year, the money that was meant to help them and their children. When you remember that there are 500,000 women and girls living in poverty in Scotland you get an idea of the scale of the problem.

The rape clause attacks the poorest women. It was imposed on them by David Cameron and George Osborne, then the alpha males of the Tory party, so like the subject it touches it is about male power over women.

But the rape clause runs against Tory logic. Isn't the Tory party, the party of the traditional family? The party of the family has ensured that traditional families whose children are conceived in a loving, caring relationship are less well off. It's a tax on larger loving families. What was George thinking of? Going against the traditional family values of the Tory party?

George, like David and now Theresa May, has an utterly cynical, selfish view of power. Ethics, or a moral line in favour of the family, just don't appear on his mental map. Selfish power, weilded through the neoliberal policy of screwing the poor to soak the rich, is his primary interest.

And Theresa May's announcement of elections in June is in the same, cynical, power-building line of thought. Theresa wants a dominant position for her right wing neoliberal Brexit branch of Tory politics, so she is grabbing the chance to crush the weakened Labour party.

This is the degrading state of Tory politics at Westminster. Selfish, greedy Tories dominating a parliament that has lost any sense of caring for people in need. A Tory parliament that defies its own beliefs, its own logic, to hit poor women who have been raped.

Scotland must free itself now from the shackles of cynical Tory power. At the local and now General elections vote till you boak. And sign the Scrap the Rape Clause petition.

Prawn and Ships

The European Union's Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, was interviewed in yesterday's La Vanguardia, the leading Catalan newspaper. Asked by Anna Buj of La Vanguardia about Brexit, Ms O'Reilly said: 

"People have the right to no surprises at the end of the two years of negotiations, and as far as possible they should know how the conversations are going." [I am translating back into English from the Catalan, so this is not a precise quote, but you get the gist.]

When Anna Buj asked whether people would be able to have easy access to information on the negotiations, Ms O'Reilly said:

"It's interesting: Michel Barnier - the EU's chief Brexit negotiator - has said that the negotiations will be very transparent, while the Prime Minister, Theresa May, says the reverse. In recent months she has been saying that the negotiations will be in private and that there will be sanctions against anyone who leaks information. Transparency will be used as a tactic during these negotiations because in the UK many politicians are strongly in support of Brexit, some want a hard Brexit and everyone will be following the negotiations closely. If they see compromises being offered in areas that they don't like, they will put pressure on the Government. Transparency will be a challenge for the British Government."


We are at the start of two years in which we, and everything we have and do, are topics for negotiation by Westminster. Scottish fisheries, Scotland's renewable energy, her oil, her industry, her population, her worker's rights, her financial system, data protection...all of these are topics that David Davis and Theresa May will throw into the negotiating pot. I, and the other 1.2 million Britons living in the rest of the EU, are pawns in this game, with no vote, and no influence over outcomes that will shape our lives, forever.

Despite Michel Barnier's promise of transparency, we can be sure that much of these negotiations will take place without our knowledge. We will not know for thirty years what actually happened, and even then we can expect that all sorts of back-room cloak-and-dagger stuff about armies and spies and secret exchanges will not be released, ever.

So it comes down to our confidence in the government at Westminster. How much will they bother about Scotland, in Brussels? Will they hand over our prawn and ships in exchange for passporting rights for the City, or market access for Toyota cars?

Well, yes. Because the interests of Westminster are aligned with the City and big business. The City of London has had a lobbyist inside the House of Commons since 1571, and you can be certain that companies in everything from financial services to private health are wining and dining and quietly, subtly, persuading the Government to favour this or that profitable end. 

You can also expect a lot of shiny, bright lights during the negotiations. War with Spain over Gibraltar is just the first of many, amplified by a willing media led by Murdoch's Sun-Sky media empire, and by the Barclay twins' Telegraph. These bright lights are designed to distract you from what is really going on.

There is one politician whom I trust to fight hard for our interests in Europe: Nicola Sturgeon, our First Minister. She has played a blinder so far, outflanking the blundering Westminster government at every step. Lang may her lum reek. 

But even Nicola Sturgeon will have a tough time playing any significant role in these talks. Scotland is too wee, too poor to be of the least interest to Westminster. We, our industry, our fisheries, our oil and our people, are just chips to play for. Holyrood, with the collapse of the Sewell Convention, cannot intervene.

Brexit has shown us that Scotland is just a midge on the back of Imperial Britain. We are not worth consideration, and we are going to be the losers in Brexit...until we are independent. Then we can stand up and decide for ourselves how we want to work with Europe and the rest of the world. 

Then, we will be a sovereign people. Only then.