4 days ago
Independence isn't going away no matter how much Keir Starmer wishes
A GROUP of leading pro-independence campaigners have written to Keir Starmer about his diktat that there will be no second Scottish independence referendum even if Scots choose to elect a pro-independence majority of MSPs at next year's Scottish Parliament election.
Writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, Believe in Scotland (BiS) founder Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp and Common Weal's head of policy and research Dr Craig Dalzell are all amongst those who have signed the letter as have former BBC Scotland presenter Ken Macdonald and Dr Tim Rideout, the convener of the Scottish Currency Group.
The group wrote: "So this is a statement of our intent to keep campaigning for independence, an option currently favoured by more than half the Scottish population in recent opinion polls, and for the democratic right to choose – something embedded in legislation for Northern Ireland but repeatedly denied to Scotland."
The group continued: "The Labour leader may think he is simply challenging the SNP before a critical by-election this week and Scottish elections next year. But Scotland's future is not an electoral game.
"By denying a second referendum regardless of the 2026 election outcome, the Prime Minister is snubbing democracy, devolution and the many Scots who once viewed his party as the best democratic option to the Conservatives at Westminster."
The group added that Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK "clearly offer no democratic resolution to Scotland's constitutional impasse".
The letter concludes by saying that this is "precisely why we restate our determination to keep working towards independence".
Of course, Starmer will file this letter in the bin, he pays attention only to focus groups stuffed with Reform UK-leaning voters from England, but it's still useful to remind a man elected on one third of votes cast in last summer's Westminster General Election that he cannot indefinitely deny the 54% or more of Scots who want independence the right to a say on the constitutional future of their country.
The issue of Scottish independence is not going to go away, no matter how much Starmer and his allies in the Scottish branch office might wish it would.
Back to genocide-enabling business as usual
It's just over a week since Foreign Secretary David Lammy stood up in the House of Commons and told MPs that the British Government said, "tsk, tsk," to Israel over its genocide in Gaza, and its withholding of food supplies as a tool to assist in the ethnic cleansing of the territory, although of course Lammy couldn't bring himself to utter the G-word. Lammy announced that the UK was suspending trade talks with Israel in protest over the genocide that must not be mentioned.
Yet within a week of Lammy's statement, Labour peer Ian Austin, who is the UK Government's trade envoy to Israel, was seen on a visit to the country where he said he was going to "meet businesses and officials to promote trade with the UK". The UK Government insisted that despite the suspension of any new trade talks with Israel, the UK still has a trading relationship with Israel.
In other words, Lammy's statement was purely performative, like telling a naughty child that you're very cross with them, but then giving them money for sweeties anyway. Only in this case the naughty child is slaughtering tens of thousands of people in a genocidal war of destruction and is openly advertising its intention to ethnically cleanse two million Palestinians and permanently remove them from their homeland. Instead of giving money for sweeties, the British Government is continuing to supply Israel with the weaponry and intelligence and logistical support it needs to complete its destruction of Gaza and render it uninhabitable.
But it's back to genocide-enabling business as usual for Labour. A group of Labour MPs have visited Israel on a lobbying trip as the country's brutal assault on Gaza intensifies. The party's most prominent pro-Israel group, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), sent a delegation of parliamentarians including chair Jon Pearce, as well as fellow Labour MPs Cat Eccles, Kevin McKenna, Peter Prinsley and Mark Sewards. The group has been accompanied by former Labour MP and House of Lords member Luciana Berger.
During their trip, the group met with Israeli politicians who have insisted it is "legitimate" to withhold food aid from Palestinian civilians. These include Yair Golan, leader of Labour's sister party, the Democrats.
In October 2023 Golan said: 'I think that in this battle, it is forbidden to allow a humanitarian effort. We need to say to them: listen, until the [captives] are released, from our side, you can die from starvation. It's totally legitimate."
At Prime Minister's Questions today, SNP MP Brendan O'Hara confronted Starmer with the revelation that UK Government lawyers arguing in the High Court had said that 'no genocide has occurred or is occurring' in Gaza.
O'Hara said: 'The Prime Minister has repeatedly told this House that it is not for him or his government to determine what is and what is not a genocide. But that position is no longer tenable because at the High Court recently, the Prime Minister instructed his lawyers to argue that in Gaza, and I quote, 'no genocide has occurred or is occurring'.
'So the truth is, his government has made a determination. The question is: does he have the courage of his convictions and will he repeat from that despatch box what he told his lawyers to argue in the High Court? That he believes that no genocide has occurred or is occurring in Gaza?"
Predictably, Starmer did not address the point the SNP MP had made, and retorted with an adolescent and irrelevant gibe at the SNP's opposition to nuclear weapons.
Starmer said: 'I have said that we are strongly opposed and appalled by Israel's recent actions, I've been absolutely clear in condemning them and calling them out; whether that's the expansion of military operations, settler violence or the dreadful blocking of aid, it's completely unacceptable.
'We must see a ceasefire, hostages must be released and there must be aid into Gaza.
'But he talks about peace and security, their party, as I understand it at this moment of global instability as we go into a new era, what do they want to do? They want to get rid of the nuclear deterrent, the single most important capability that we have to keep the UK safe, harming the industry and harming the country.'
