Scotland’s last chance to escape English nationalism

In July 2025, Keir Starmer’s Labour party was elected on a promise of ‘change’, a suitably vacuuous slogan which allowed voters to impute to it whatever they liked. Most hoped for a change from the pettiness, self-serving cronyism, callous cruelty and corruption which characterised the previous Tory government. A year on, it’s clear that all that has really changed are the names and faces of those presiding over the pettiness, self-serving cronyism, callous cruelty and corruption. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This supposedly Labour government has proven itself to be every bit as authoritarian and nasty as the Tories it replaced, prohibiting a direct action protest group as a “terrorist” organisation, leading to the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators for the terrorist crime of holding up a placard protesting against genocide, a genocide which the UK Government continues to support militarily and diplomatically. Labour vies with the far right in its enthusiasm for flag shagging and the demonisation of migrants as it chases the tail of Nigel Farage, normalising the politics and talking points of actual fascists in the process.

Under Starmer, the UK isn’t just drifting towards fascism, it’s hell bent on driving there at top speed while waving flags out of the window. We are witnessing the implosion of the British political system. The destination is either authoritarianism or, for Scotland, and possibly Wales too, independence. This so-called Union cannot survive the capture of the institutions of the British state by far right English ethno-nationalists. But instead of challenging the far right Anglo-British nationalists who drive Reform UK, this Labour party privileges them, legitimising them at every turn. There’s a stark contrast between Starmer’s eagerness to pander to the hard right and Brexit supporters and his marginalisation of the larger number of those on the liberal left who support stronger ties with the EU. The fact that polling consistently shows that a clear majority of people in the UK believe Brexit was a mistake is ignored by Labour, the Tories, and of course by Farage’s fan club.

Presiding over all this is the charisma free zone that is Keir Starmer, robotically intoning platitudes, driven solely by whatever the latest focus group has told him he needs to say. To say that Starmer is inauthentic is an insult to waxwork dummies which barely resemble the celebrity they are supposed to represent. Starmer is so lacking in emotional intelligence that he is incapable of realising that everyone perceives his lack of authenticity and that his words are hollow and performative, so he ploughs on continuing to dig himself, and everyone else even deeper into the grave that Morgan McSweeney has dug for him.

Following the defenestration last week of deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor, Starmer embarked upon a wide ranging reshuffle of his government, because apparent one year on after being appointed because they were ideal for their jobs, they are no longer ideal for their jobs. Given that we are talking about dozens of individuals here, and the one common denominator is Keir Starmer, who clearly must have made some serious errors in judgement just a few months ago, the obvious conclusion must be that the person who is unfit for their job is Keir Starmer.

In Scotland Starmer has ousted Ian Murray as Scotland Secretary, and replaced him with Douglas Alexander, a man who is loathed by much of Labour’s Scottish branch office. Alexander is a man who was prepared to stab his own sister in the back in order to ingratiate himself with his then boss, Gordon Brown. Wee Dougie’s only commitment is to his own career, as such he’s a perfect fit in Starmer’s not-Labour-any-more party.

He’s joined in the Scotland Office by Blair McDougall, the man responsible for Better Together’s campaign of lies and scaremongering – the original Project Fear – during the 2014 independence referendum.

The appointment of this pair of morality-free opportunistic has-beens to the Scotland Office tells us that the Labour party in Scotland has learned nothing at all from its long years in the political wilderness following its decimation as the reality of Better Together’s lies dawned upon the Scottish electorate in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum.

They are emblematic of the crisis of empathy, competence, and decency which is the real political crisis in Britain, not the manufactured artificial ‘crisis’ of immigration which dominates the media and the British political parties. Politicians never suffer meaningful consequences even when booted out by the electorate. Cronyism reigns supreme. You can be quite certain that had Dougie Alexander failed to get himself re-elected during the 2024 general election, he would like his sister Wendy and Magrit Curran, that other discredited has-been from the lies of 2014, currently be making his padded arse comfortable on the benches of the House of Lords.

This real crisis is not the crisis that Reform UK, a name as emblematic of political lies as Better Together, has the slightest intention of addressing. Should Reform ever take power, the public anger and disappointment at their lies and deceit will be orders of magnitude greater than that which ensued following Starmer’s election victory. However, Reform will wreak huge damage on public services, institutions, and human and civil rights, taking advantage of the UK’s non-existent constitutional checks and balances to entrench themselves in power.

One of their likely targets will be the Scottish Parliament. Farage and Starmer have much in common, both refuse to countenance any challenge to their power and authority. Labour has always portrayed itself as the party of devolution and this hampers any desire Starmer might have to undermine or diminish the powers of Holyrood and the scope of devolution. There are no such brakes on Farage, who leads an Anglo-British nationalist party which fundamentally believes in the existence of a single ‘British’ nation and which is openly hostile to devolution . Many Reform members make no secret of their desire to return to the days prior to 1999 when Westminster’s writ reigned supreme across Scotland and Wales. Farage knows that openly espousing the abolition of the Scottish Parliament is electoral suicide in the run up to a Holyrood election, but should he achieve a majority in Westminster following the next Westminster general election, he will have no need to be so reticent and can give unleash the basest instincts of his English nationalist party, abolishing both the Barnett Formula and Holyrood on the spurious grounds of “fairness”.

The Scottish Parliament which we elect in May 2026 will be the Scottish Parliament which is sitting when the next Westminster general election comes around. That is why it is imperative that next year, Scotland elects a Holyrood with a pro-independence majority. We may never get another chance. The Holyrood elections of May 2026 are Scotland’s last chance to escape the nightmare of English nationalist authoritarian hard right.

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