Hardeep Singh Kohli: Time for Scotland to back ourselves in politics

130 v 56.

99 v 1.

53.4 per cent of England voted to leave. 62 per cent of Scots wished to remain.

160,000 members of the Conservative and Unionist Party will decide the next Tory leader, ergo the next prime minister to lead this rickety and disunited Kingdom into Brexit. Only 9,000 of that membership are Scottish.

There are just 100 shopping days until Brexit (should the favourite, BoJo continue his winning streak). After the summer recess, the new PM will have just 56 days to sort his or his shizzle out.

And finally, Jay-Z had 99 problems with misogyny more than likely to be one.

England has been consumed in the constitutional chaos of an increasingly bastardised Brexit. Parliament has been pushed and pulled, poked and prodded. In the final (but not quite final) analysis the gaping gulf between the electorate and the elected has never seemed so insurmountable.

It is as if we have spun the clocks back, reverting to the halcyon days when Britannia, standing alone, ruled the waves. The Little Englander epidemic, laden with lies, wrapped in wrong-headedness, has brought on a fever of falsehood.

Democratic deficiencies are abundant. One hundred and sixty thousand Tory members will decide the fate of their party and so the country’s. That is the combined crowd at Ibrox, Parkhead and Hampden. Yet the paltry Scottish Tory contingent able to vote wouldn’t even fill Partick Thistle’s Firhill Stadium. And this happy band of right wingers couldn’t be less representative of the 65 million people their decision will impact. More than half are aged over 55; 70 per cent are men; and all but 1 per cent are ethnically white. Less than a half of 1 per cent of the UK population will crown the man tasked with the trickiest, most troublesome and trying manoeuvre in British constitutional history.

According to YouGov more than half the Tory party membership would sacrifice the future of their own existence at the altar of Brexit. More than six out of ten believe Brexit should happen even if it led to 1) significant damage to the UK economy and 2) Scotland leaving the Union. (It’s worth noting that membership of the party in the last year leapt by more than a quarter, many of these new members thought to be hardliners). And our own Tories lurch one day from describing a Boris victory as a disaster for the future of the Union to backing the blond bombshell the next.

And it looks like it will be Boris. The blond will lead the bland…

The current political age is defined by equal doses of division and dichotomy. The two main parties, looking more anachronistic by the minute, are operating in a parliament that looks increasingly unfit for purpose. In keeping with the adage reflecting the inability to get inebriated at a building designed to brew alcohol, Corbyn’s Mr Magoo-styled leadership barely sees him pull away in the opinion polls from the self-sabotaging shambles that the Tory party has always threatened to embrace. On the government benches, Oxbridge Etonians fight it out amongst themselves, watched over by the double breasted ghost from many Christmases past, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Never has there been a greater need for genuine, centre ground Liberalism; but only the dirtiest dozen Lib Dems find themselves elected and the party, taking the adage of starting a fight in a vacuum, will no doubt get a wee bit internecine as they elect a successor to cuddly Vince Cable. Only Oor Nicola seems to be able to hold together her party and hopefully the country.

The top seven constituencies in favour of remaining were all in London. But rural England was a different matter. You can walk from Penzance to Penrith, Bournemouth to Berwick without a foot ever leaving a leave constituency. Those over 65 were twice as likely to have eschewed Europe when compared to those yet to turn 25. Shockingly, seven out of ten voters with only GCSE qualifications or lower led the charge to free themselves from the bonds of Brussels; almost the same percentage of university graduates opted to Remain.

And while the myth is propounded that it was “just” racism that propelled many communities to want to leave Europe, it’s worth remembering that the most Brexit place, Boston, has seen its cultural fabric change dramatically in a little more than a decade. Urban centres like Birmingham, Liverpool and London have had gradual immigration over decades. The critical mass of the host community was big enough to subsume the newcomers. But Boston is no sprawling metropolis. Eastern European casual workers, those prepared to do the back-breaking work on the numerous farms around the Fens, were drawn to the town mid last decade. The credit crunch and subsequent austerity halted any infrastructural changes while the European workers kept coming. Foreign-born citizens have trebled since 2014; these younger families have school-aged children, one school counting over 60 per cent of pupils with English as a second language. It’s difficult to find much negative about these incomers; local flower growers rely almost completely on their labour. And one fruit and veg trader reckons that the town’s market would have shut down were it not for their custom. It’s not that the folk of Boston hate the immigrants; but one can’t help have some sympathy for the dramatic change in the town.

And, with the independence referendum of 2014 now feeling like a short, terse disagreement over a parking space, possibly the most significant division in this surreal political landscape will finally see the restoration of the Scottish nation. While the last referendum was predicated on all things economic, I feel a groundswell of change. I look south, to the country where I spent half my life, and I recognise so little. Xenophobia and a deluded sense of self-importance, added to by the outright lies of the Leave campaign and some deeply dodgy dealing from the dark side, beckons what has always been inevitable.

So here’s where we find ourselves. We are two Tory prime ministers down. We’re on our third Brexit secretary, no doubt with a fourth to come soon. Putting aside the unprecedented defeats and deal-doing in the mother of all Parliaments, the disconnect between the people and the political classes, the chasm that many blame for causing Brexit sees little hope of being repaired. This very august newspaper in a recent Panelbase poll showed that, while we may all feel “referendumed-out”, the appetite for independence has never been closer, 49 per cent for and 51 per cent against; neck and neck. What’s absolutely fascinating, however, is how that same constituency of voters reacted to a BoJo prime minister. In this case those wishing for independence leaps to 53 per cent.

And this is probably where we will find ourselves. Boris Johnson will take the helm as an un-mandated prime minister, presiding over a political party harder to placate than a playgroup full of Hyndland toddlers. He is promising a 31 October Brexit come hell or high water, threatening to prorogue Parliament to force through the issue. Think about that for a moment. Those that exhorted us to “take our country back” and reclaim the “sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament” are fully prepared to body swerve that much-vaunted sovereignty.

There’s every chance that this may well usher in the complete implosion of the current British political system. I’d be astonished if Boris lasts until the Boxing Day sales. But our destiny lies in our own hands. Again. It is the Scots that will be sent homeward, tae think again. Let’s hope this time we back ourselves…