It is now almost certain that Liz Truss will be the
next Prime Minister. Unless something very strange happens, Sunak has already
lost. Her first task is to protect the
United Kingdom. Any Prime Minister whose action or inaction leads to the break
up of the UK will be remembered for that and that alone.
The UK is threatened in two ways one threat comes from
the SNP the other threat comes from Ireland and Sinn Féin. Truss’s task is to
neutralise both.
The Northern Ireland Protocol is an existential threat
to the UK, not immediately but long term. This is why Ireland and Sinn Féin are
so concerned to defend it.
Brexit means that the UK will gradually diverge from
the EU. Indeed, ideally, we should diverge as much as possible and undercut the
EU wherever we can.
This gradually makes Scottish independence harder to
achieve, because it would mean Scotland would have to diverge greatly from the
former UK in order to join the EU. This would make issues such as trade and the
border between Scotland and the former UK more problematic than if the
divergence were small.
But because Northern Ireland remains in effect a part
of the EU and has to follow EU regulations, any UK divergence from the EU
increases the divergence between Northern Ireland and the other parts of the
UK.
At some point Northern Ireland finds itself so closely
aligned with the EU and so divergent from the UK that it depends economically
on its relationship with Ireland. At this point Northern Ireland de facto unifies
with Ireland, because they each follow the same EU regulations. The next step
becomes a matter of course.
The task therefore is to ditch the Northern Ireland Protocol.
It must be treated as an existential threat to the UK and treated accordingly.
Truss, I think understands this. Ireland and the EU will threaten and perhaps
act on these threats, but it is necessary to realise that the British
Government must fight on this issue or else lose gradually and completely in
the end.
Ireland at least at the moment cannot afford Northern
Ireland. The withdrawal of British money from Northern Ireland could not easily
be made up by the Irish taxpayer.
Truss needs to explain carefully to the Irish
Government that the UK Government would abolish the Common Travel Area if Northern
Ireland ever left the UK and would put relations between Ireland and the former
UK into the deep freeze. Any troubles arising from Irish unification would be
the responsibility of Ireland alone and the former UK would see Irish
unification as a victory for terrorism and that the Irish state had taken
advantage of that terrorism.
It is an advantage that Truss spent part of her
childhood in Scotland. Most English journalists and politicians have little
understanding of Scottish politics, because they have only visited Scotland on
holiday.
Truss will have experienced in Paisley the foundation
of Scottish nationalism. As a little girl she would have been told by all of
her friends that there is one preeminent quality “being Scottish” and you don’t
have it.
She would have experienced that every adult, every
official body and every television programme and newspaper was united in belief
that the solution to every problem is to spend more public money on it and for
it to be more Scottish.
Scottish nationalism doesn’t depend just on the SNP,
it depends on the conformity of opinion in Scotland that there are only
left-wing solutions and that the state is responsible for looking after Scots
and that we are never to blame for anything because Tories are to blame for
everything. Even the Scottish Conservative Party believes this.
Because she grew up in Scotland Truss will know that
Paisley is not a bit like Oxford and that the mentality of the people in the
prosperous cities of southern England is not a bit like the mentality of people
in Dundee, Glasgow or indeed Paisley. It is because of this difference in mentality
that these people are poorer, with less hope and fewer chances. It is why they
kill themselves with drugs, or junk food or Buckfast. It is why life expectancy
in parts of Scotland is worse than Syria and Sudan.
As a little girl Truss would have believed in
socialism. Her parents were socialists. She therefore will understand better
than most the attraction of left-wing thinking. It attracted her. She will also
understand better how to counter it.
London and the South East are more prosperous than
Paisley because the people there are Conservatives. They believe in working
hard, getting good qualifications and being entrepreneurs. In Paisley and most
of Scotland business is a dirty word. People who are successful and earn large
salaries should have as much money as possible taken away from them by the
state. No wonder Paisley is poorer than Palmers Green.
But Conservatives can only persuade people tempted by
socialism if Conservatives make us richer. Truss’s first task is to rescue the
economy. If two years from now we are no better off then why not give Starmer a
chance?
Just as Northern Ireland is on the Liverpool Pathway
to unification unless Truss revokes the Protocol, so too Scotland will inevitably
at some point leave the UK if you continue down the present path of increasing
devolved powers and eventually allowing an independence referendum when the SNP
wants one.
Even Truss who is better on this than most is merely telling
the SNP that you will have to wait a generation. But it’s already been ten years
since the last referendum. After another ten we would be getting close to a
generation. Ten years in the lifetime of the UK is little more than an instant.
Truss must do more than say not now, she must work on
integrating the UK in such a way that it becomes practically impossible for Scotland
or Northern Ireland to leave.
Use British public spending to integrate each part of
the UK so that it depends on every other part. Make trade deals which it would
be disadvantageous for firms in Northern Ireland or Scotland to ditch. Do everything
you can to treat the UK as one country rather than four. It is for instance
senseless that the UK has four teams at the Commonwealth Games. Scotland is not
a member of the Commonwealth, neither are the other three.
Gradually Truss needs to change the political
convention whereby it is seen as just that if the SNP wins an election that it eventually
gets an independence referendum. If you do that for a hundred years you might
win four times, but lose the fifth.
There is no democratic right to secession. No other
country thinks there is. Nor should we.
The UK will never be fully secure until someone has
the courage to state that we are one nation indivisible, just like the United
States, and that we will use all means at our disposal to defend our
territorial integrity. Perhaps, just perhaps, Liz Truss is the person with the
courage and the insight to turn this statement into law and to face down those foes
whether foreign or domestic who might try to break up our country.
