Quote of the day 4th May 2021

"In an interview, the BBC's Andrew Marr put it to Sturgeon that the only way to avoid a hard border between Scotland and England if Scotland joined the EU would be a unique let out from the requirements of the EU single market or for the UK to abandon Brexit. Neither is likely to happen, he observed drily. Sturgeon, always articulate, responded with the classic "we will negotiate", despite knowing that neither of her prospective negotiating partners could or would meet her demands.


"Under Sturgeon's leadership and with opinion polls at their back, the SNP is expected to retain power at Holyrood elections in May and claim a mandate for a second independence referendum. Boris Johnson has ruled out granting one, but that simply adds another grievance to the nationalists' well-stocked quiver.


"Scottish politics resembles a ball kept aloft by a water fountain. The ball is the SNP which is dedicated to leaving the union with England. The fountain is composed of the Scottish electorate's credulity and the party's constant of happy talk about Scotland's golden future if it can escape its oppressive ties with England – and the fantasy that inescapable obstacles are escapable. The SNP needs a majority of the Scots to believe the fantasy until after independence when the consequences would prove its untruth but be irrevocable."


Start of an article by Donald Forbes on Comment Central, which you can read in full here.)

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