Make the fourth of July Scotland’s independence day

Isn’t it bloody typical. It seems like every time I decide to take a few days off for the good of my mental and emotional well being, some big political story breaks. And here we go again. After a day of increasingly fevered speculation, Rishi Sunak has announced that there will be a Westminster general election on Thursday the fourth of July, which entirely coincidentally is the day before the Euros cup final, when the British media expects to be jizzing itself in anticipation of the England team playing in and winning the cup. Those of us in Scotland can fully expect both Labour and the Tories to spend much of the election campaign competing to outdo themselves in ostentatious displays of Engurland Engurland patriotism.

There was a live feed on the BBC and Sky News of Downing Street broadcasting a rainy lectern. We all waited in anticipation for a rain drenched Sunak to announce the loss of his own job, not even the Tories expect him to win this election. Not so much Things Can Only Get Better as Things Can Only Get Wetter. As he stood in the pouring rain, Sunak was soaked by just about the only water in England not contaminated by human excrement.

As he made the announcement Sunak seemed to be speaking from some parallel universe in which everything in Britain was just wonderful and that this is not an island literally surrounded by a sea of shit thanks to the Conservatives privatising the water companies in England and Wales and where public services are crumbling and underfunded, record numbers of children live in grinding poverty and the gap between rich and poor has become a yawning chasm.

Given that Labour is so far ahead in UK wide opinion polls, it is more likely than not that Keir Starmer will become the next British prime minister. It would be easier to take pleasure in the political demise of the odious Conservative party if it wasn’t Keir Starmer who was Sunak’s likely replacement. Starmer has broken every promise he’s ever made and is willing to say or do anything in order to get into power. He has taken the Labour party so far to the right that hard right Conservative MPs are happy to defect to it. Even as he made his election announcement Starmer lied again, saying that he’d changed Labour to make it respond to the needs of ordinary people. The only voices he pays heed to are those in City of London boardrooms.

Most of us want a general election, millions are desperate to see the back of this hideous Tory government, a bunch of English nationalist Brexit loving, lying corrupt, chaotic authoritarian flag wavers who have created misery and spread despair. We want to see the Tories not merely kicked out of office but utterly and comprehensively destroyed at the ballot box. Sadly it only means that a new set of English nationalist Brexit loving, lying corrupt, chaotic authoritarian flag wavers will come in and create misery and despair of their own.

Making predictions in politics is a mug’s game, but I’m prepared to put my neck out here and say that Keir Starmer will indeed become the next British prime minister but that he will very rapidly become very unpopular indeed as it becomes apparent that the change he claims to represent is no change at all. The Labour leader cannot hide from his many lies and U turns when he is in office the way in which he can as an Opposition leader.

In Scotland it’s a contest between Labour and the SNP, despite what Labour will claim, the party absolutely does not need to win in Scotland in order to get the hated Tories out. Replacing an SNP MP with a Labour MP does absolutely nothing to reduce the number of Conservative seats in the Commons. The SNP is markedly further to the left than Labour, which admittedly is not difficult. Starmer will not even commit to abolishing the utterly loathsome two child cap on benefits. The only ‘change’ that Keir Starmer really stands for is replacing himself for Rishi Sunak, he will not undo Brexit, he will not alter the deeply undemocratic Westminster Parliament which is based on an unfair and unrepresentative electoral system, and he will not give up the immense power of patronage a prime minister possesses. Nothing of substance will change.

If you are an independence supporter in Scotland the only realistic vote at this election is a vote for the SNP. Thanks to the Westminster first past the post electoral system, neither Alba nor the Scottish Greens have enough popular support to see their candidates returned as MPs. A vote for them will only split the pro-independence vote and allow a British nationalist party to win. You might not like the SNP for not being forceful enough in the pursuit of independence. What exactly do you think a Labour or Tory MP is going to do to help bring about independence or another independence referendum? Labour will seize on every victory in Scotland as ‘proof that Scotland has rejected ‘nationalism’ even as Starmer wraps himself in the red white and blue and panders to the basest instincts of xenophobic Anglo-British nationalism.

This is going to be a difficult election for the SNP, the party has been buffeted by crises in recent months and there is no clear pathway to independence even though support for independence remains undiminished by the SNP’s troubles.

We stand close to the end of a fourteen year nightmare, but on 5 July we are not going to wake up to a better and brighter country, Keir Starmer’s promise of change is another of his many lies. He offers more of the same Pentagon pleasing pro privatisation right wing corporatism, all wrapped up in an authoritarianism English nationalism. There’s only one way to attain real change, but there will be no meaningful change unless the SNP and the wider Independence movement can defy the pessimistic prognostications of the opinion polls and use the fourth of July to assert Scotland’s independence day.

Remember that thanks to the Tories’ voter suppression laws you need photo ID in order vote, a driving licence or passport or another accepted form of ID. If you don’t have any you can apply for a voter authority certificate instead.

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