The U.K. will have a general election on December 12, creating a new parliamentary dynamic. Of course, it remains to be seen what this means for Brexit. It also remains to be seen what it will mean for the union.
“GENERAL ELECTION 2019: WE HAVE SIX WEEKS TO SAVE SCOTLAND” reads the front cover of Wednesday’s The National, Scotland’s obsessively pro-independence paper. But who’s “we”? And save Scotland from what or from whom?
Once again:
- Scotland has the worst rate of drug-related deaths in Europe, which has increased by 27 percent since 2017.
- The Scottish NHS is doing considerably worse than its English counterpart, despite being the greater spender.
- Scottish education is a national joke, with exam results at a new low for the fourth consecutive year.
- Social mobility is stunted. An OECD report on “Improving Schools in Scotland” found that “it is worse to be poor in Scotland than in any [other] part of the UK.”
And who is in charge of these things? Is it Boris Johnson and Westminster? No. As a matter of fact, it’s Nicola Sturgeon and Holyrood who seem to be hoping that people will forget that because of — well, Brexit.
In addition, the British Labour party seems to be flirting with the idea of a second Scottish independence referendum and has been accused of making a “backroom” deal with the obsessively pro-independence Scottish Nationalist party . . . Let’s just hope that the Brits will kick these muppets out of parliament on December 12.