Ian Merrilees, a former teacher in European law, examines new prime minister Theresa May's approach to Scotland and Brexit so far
THE opportunists, liars and back-stabbers that make up much of the Conservative party have said and retracted so many things since the eve of the Brexit referendum that it would be naïve to expect them to hold the same opinion two days in a row.
But even by the low standards of modern politics, Theresa May is taking duplicity and double-speak to abysmal depths. In the abortive Tory leadership campaign, she developed the mantra 'Brexit means Brexit', a form of tautological drivel to which the only deserving response is 'gobbledygook means gobbledygook'.
In the time between the referendum result and her unelected arrival in Downing Street, she promised the voters of England and Wales, at least those who opted for the wretched isolation of Brexit, that she would honour their choice.
Just three days into her new job as prime minister of the UK, May displayed a sudden concern and affection for Scotland and dashed to Edinburgh to chat with Nicola Sturgeon.
Not a single word in the Tory leadership campaign, from her or her short-lived rivals, addressed the concerns of people in Scotland who were left wondering whether anyone noticed or cared that an overwhelming majority of them, 62 per cent to be precise, had voted to remain in the EU.
Perhaps May's silence on Scotland was a calculation to win the support of the little Englanders in the Conservative party whose contempt for foreigners was at heart of the entire Brexit fiasco. After all, in the 2015 Westminster election the Tories fought a campaign that vilified Scots in the same way that they demonised Turks and eastern Europeans in the Brexit referendum. Remember those posters depicting Scotland as a nation of thieves trying to subvert democracy because opinion polls showed many intended to vote SNP?
Just three days into her new job as prime minister of the UK, May displayed a sudden concern and affection for Scotland and dashed to Edinburgh to chat with Nicola Sturgeon. Before going in to the meeting, May's spokeswoman was telling everyone that another Scottish independence referendum was forbidden.
However, when May came out she was saying something very different. "I’ve been very clear with the first minister today that I want the Scottish Government to be fully engaged in our discussions," she said, "and I will listen to any options they bring forward".
So Theresa is going to listen to any options put forward by Nicola? Even the independence option? And how much engagement does Theresa have in mind? Will she and Nicola be going to Brussels carrying the message that Brexit means England and Wales leave, and Scotland – and possibly Northern Ireland – will remain?
May's statement in Edinburgh was full of intriguing promises and possibilities, but the best came when she added: "I won’t be triggering article 50 until I think that we have a UK approach and objectives for negotiations."
May's statement in Edinburgh was full of intriguing promises and possibilities, but the best came when she added: "I won’t be triggering article 50 until I think that we have a UK approach and objectives for negotiations."
It sounded as though Theresa was postponing Brexit until her new best friend Nicola agreed to it. Many commentators spent the following days trying to work out exactly what she meant. Was she really giving Nicola Sturgeon a veto on whether the Brexit process should ever begin? Even Sturgeon seemed bemused by it.
In the television studio for the BBC's Sunday Politics programme, she and her interviewer, Gordon Brewer, discussed May's remarks like a couple of literary scholars trying to pin down the meaning of some ancient riddle.
Although the tragedy of the referendum and the Westminster farce that followed beggar belief, it is too far-fetched to think that Theresa May is going to tell the Commons she can't proceed with Brexit because the Scottish Government won't let her.
That would simply provoke a revolution in the Conservative party and boost support for Ukip at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives. It is more likely that Theresa May has acknowledged that the EU referendum is further evidence of divergence between Scotland and England.
Although the tragedy of the referendum and the Westminster farce that followed beggar belief, it is too far-fetched to think that Theresa May is going to tell the Commons she can't proceed with Brexit because the Scottish Government won't let her.
The demise of the union (the small one between England and Scotland, not the big one that links most of Europe) will come sooner rather than later if she maintains the fatuous view of David Cameron and other members of both the Labour and Conservative parties, that the UK voted as one big, united constituency to leave the EU. In Scotland, 62 per cent voted to remain. That demands respect.
So what May said in Edinburgh is perfectly sensible. She is going to wait until people in Scotland decide once and for all, presumably through another referendum, which of the two unions they want to stay with. And if the Scots choose to sever constitutional ties to England, then May appears to have opened the way for Nicola Sturgeon to sit next to her in Brussels and negotiate the terms on which Scotland stays in the EU while May arranges for the departure of England and Wales or whatever remains of the United Kingdom.
Unionists will inevitably dismiss that benign interpretation of May's Edinburgh statement as fanciful, but it was corroborated less than a week later by Angela Merkel. After her Edinburgh trip, May went to Berlin. Both were widely described in the media as "significant" first business trips for the new PM (Edinburgh was the first trip outside London, Berlin the first overseas. The mere fact that May made the effort to go to Sturgeon's place impressed the London media).
It is possible that May is merely using Scotland as a convenient excuse to delay starting the Brexit process. But even so, a pattern is emerging.
But what was really significant was that after the Berlin meeting Merkel made a statement consistent with May's summary of her discussion with Sturgeon. Merkel wanted to allow the UK to delay the Article 50 letter that triggers exit negotiations on the grounds that "it is completely understandable that only a few days after the referendum, the [UK] government will have to take a moment first to try to seek to identify its interests and also have to talk about the other parts of Great Britain." (Merkel offers May breathing space on invoking Article 50 divorce clause Financial Times, 20 July 2016.)
It is possible that May is merely using Scotland as a convenient excuse to delay starting the Brexit process. But even so, a pattern is emerging.
What May says in England is simple and designed to appeal to the English nationalists braying for Brexit. What she says elsewhere is more subtle and acknowledges that negotiating departure from the EU will be long, difficult and require her to prepare for the dissolution of the United Kingdom.
Picture courtesy of First Minister of Scotland
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