Some quick thoughts on the EU elections, then.
Despite in some ways being the most tumultuous election result in UK history (in terms of the near-destruction of the two main parties), it also changed almost nothing.
…for the EU election results, a reminder of days gone by.
Inexplicably, the Scottish Tory manifesto for the 2014 Euro election forgot to include the paragraph saying “Of course, if you vote No this September, then England votes to leave the EU in the most catastrophic manner possible, Scotland will be dragged out too no matter how it voted, and we’ll just tell you to shut up if you complain about it”.
It was probably meant to go in that space at the end, but you know how it is, mistakes happen. No harm done, eh?
This video is 20 minutes long, and most of you won’t watch it all the way through. But you really should.
Because the UK is changing, and it’s changing fast.
Almost nine in ten Scottish voters now back a second referendum on independence. This rather startling news was brought to us at the weekend by an unlikely source, in the form of walking brain vacuum Annie Wells MSP.
Wells was absolutely unequivocal that NO other vote this Thursday – not Labour, not Lib Dem, not Brexit Party – would constitute opposition to a second indyref.
(She emphasised the point by RTing a tweet from the Scottish Tories’ boorish and obnoxious head of media Adam Morris which described both Nigel Farage and Vince Cable as “weak on Scotland’s place in the UK”.)
So how are those numbers looking?
We watched the whole of the Labour shadow Scottish Secretary’s interview on this morning’s Sunday Politics Scotland, and can confirm that this is a wholly accurate representation of what she said on it with regard to Labour’s position on Brexit.
So for those of you keeping score: Labour does NOT support a second referendum, does NOT support the current deal, does NOT support no deal, but WOULD vote for the current deal if it included a second referendum, and would INSIST on a second referendum on any alternative deal.
Honestly, we have no idea why anyone’s still confused.
The Herald has a story this morning about the Secretary of State for Scotland, a man who readers may recall promising that Scotland would benefit financially from the UK government’s £1.5bn bung to the DUP (which then didn’t happen), and threatening to resign over Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement (which he didn’t do, then denied ever saying), and promising to do everything he could to oppose a no-deal Brexit but then abstaining on a vote to rule it out (and refusing to resign despite being a government minister who had refused a government whip).
Older readers may also remember Mundell as someone who voted against the repeal of the homophobic “Section 28” legislation in the Scottish Parliament despite being a closeted gay man at the time, and who voted to effectively ban IVF treatment for gay couples but now works for a lesbian mother.
But demonising Boris Johnson? Who would ever do such a monstrous thing?
Ruth Davidson led on numeracy (or as Tories call it, “numberacy”) at FMQs today.
And we can see why she’s concerned.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
