Visits from space aliens

You may not have noticed, on account of doing something far more engrossing, like de-fluffing your navel, but last week Scotland was ‘graced’ – I use the term advisedly – by a visit from Russell Findlay’s boss Kemi Badenoch, a woman who makes the notoriously ill-tempered and uptight deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tetchy, seem like a laid back perma-stoned 1960s hippy by comparison. Badenoch is more than capable of starting a fight in an empty room, which is ironic given that her McMinions in Scotchlandshire are constantly bewailing the supposed divisions in Scottish society the blame for which they lay at the door of the SNP.

Differences of opinion – what Scottish Tory branch manager Russell Findlay is pleased to call ‘divisions’, are an integral part of the democratic process. In the normal course of things in a properly functioning democracy, these differences of opinion are resolved in healthy democratic debate and then ultimately through the ballot box. They only become unhealthy divisions when this process of debate, discussion, and voting becomes blocked. Then positions become entrenched and real divisions arise. Russell Findlay and his Conservative party, along with the democracy blockers in the Labour party, are those who are responsible for blocking the democratic process in Scotland and preventing a resolution being reached on differences of opinion on Scotland’s future and thus turning normal and healthy differences of opinion into ‘divisions’. So if Russell Findlay wants to know who is really responsible for creating divisions in Scotland, he should stop blaming those he disagrees with about the future of Scotland, and go and look in a mirror.

But of course what is really getting the goat of über-Unionists like Findlay is that Scotland is no longer the country of their union flag bedecked childhood, when middle class golf club bores like Findlay could pontificate at length without fear of being challenged about how crap and incapable Scotland is and so utterly dependent on the imaginary greatness of Britain. What Findlay and the Tories are so upset about is that they no longer set the narrative on Scotland’s place in the world.

The Tories, Labour, and Reform UK all long for the days when Scottish independence was not a serious and mainstream political position, but was safely confined to the margins of Scottish politics. They hope that by making use of the political heft of MPs elected in other parts of the UK they can continue to squash the legitimate political demand in Scotland for another independence referendum. In pursuit of this they send their party leaders on trips to Scotland to tell us what our “real” priorities are. Recently we had the disastrous visit by Reform UK’s Richard Tetchy when he couldn’t remember the names of the two former Tory councillors who had defected to Reform UK at a press conference he had called to introduce the defectors to the media.

Last week, we had an equally disastrous trip to Scotland by Conservative leader Kemi Bad Enough.

This is Badenoch’s first visit to Scotland since becoming the leader of the Conservatives 131 days previously, the longest delay of any new Tory leader in visiting Scotland since Stanley Baldwin, who became Tory leader in 1923. When Badenoch was asked why it had taken her so long to visit Scotland, she first ignored the question, when it was repeated, she imperiously responded, deigning to give her attention to someone she believes is far beneath her: “So I think the question you’re asking is actually extraordinary, and the fact that you think I didn’t answer it is interesting.

“It sounds like you think I’m some sort of alien who’s just popped up from space. And I would remind you that Scotland is part of the UK, and I’m the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK.

“I’ve been Scotland [sic] many times. I used to work for the Royal Bank of Scotland. I visited here during my leadership campaign, but there were other places that I hadn’t been to either, and I went there first, and I’m here now, and I think that’s important.

“But I also think that the constant trying to present the Conservative Party leader, or probably the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as something alien to the country, is quite wrong, and we should stop doing that.”

An alien from space would have been much more welcome, and probably much more polite. You will notice that her answer essentially boiled down to – I went to other places that are far more important than you, and you have some considerable nerve not fawning in gratitude that I have taken valuable time out of my busy schedule to come and patronise you now. She can hardly complain, Badenoch was indeed acting like an alien conqueror from outer space landing on our planet, both expect mere humans to bow down before their new overlord. But in most sci-fi, aliens come in peace, something which cannot be said for Kemi Badenoch.

The Tories are doomed when their leader makes a dalek seem approachable. Daleks also have far greater intel on the planets they seek to conquer. Had Badenoch been remotely briefed, instead of just remote, her aides might have informed her that the great majority of the Scottish press is knee-jerk Unionist and is stuffed full of Conservative commentators out of all proportion to the political views of the Scottish population.However Badenoch gives the strong impression of being a woman who doesn’t listen to her staff, or indeed anyone else. She must be a nightmare to work for. You could almost feel sorry for her staff, almost. They sold their souls to Satan years ago.

Badenoch indulged herself in her favourite right wing culture wars tropes, and insisted that her party would beat Reform UK in next year’s Holyrood elections. That’s how far the Tories have fallen, they are reduced to claiming that they’re not going to come in in fourth place, and people still don’t believe them. This is political delusion on Anas Sarwar “I’m going to stand up to Starmer” levels.

Badenoch gives the strong vibes of a Tory leader who was chosen by a rudderless party still in shock from a heavy defeat, like the equally charisma free Iain Duncan-Smith. If as expected, the Tories perform poorly in this year’s local government elections in England and next year’s elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, she is likely to join Duncan-Smith in the political obscurity of the Tory back benches.

Badenoch is the most right wing Tory party leader since the catastrophe that was Liz Truss,  and equally bereft of the human touch, proving that the Tories learn nothing. She may yet be unseated as party leader because the Tories do not think that she is right wing enough.

It’s not just the Tories who are tacking ever rightwards. Keir Starmer’s supposedly Labour government is also shifting alarmingly far to the right. On Sunday, in connection with Starmer’s plans to cut benefits for the disabled, something even the Tories had rejected as being too extreme, the Observer quoted an anonymous senior figure in the Labour party who said that Starmer is doing is “awful” and lacking in any Labour values.

He went on to describe Starmer as “a passenger in his own government”, meaning that the Prime Minister seems to have been captured by rightwingers in Downing Street who are now running the domestic agenda – presumably Morgan McSweeney and the dismal Labour Together, the influential pressure group once dismissed as a ‘fringe group’ by Anas Sarwar in another of his many lies.

With both Labour and the Tories being captured by the right, and the looming spectre of the far right Reform, the real division in Scotland is between those who are content to see Scotland’s future dictated by an increasingly intolerant right and those who still long for decency, compassion, empathy, and humanity. It’s clearer now than it has ever been that we can only hope to achieve those values in our government with Scottish independence. Otherwise our future will entail an eternity of bowing down before our right wing alien overlords.

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