A few days ago we were blessed to have the umpteenth rehash of Gordon Brown’s plans for Scotland. Not much has changed since he was first writing about this in the 1970s.  He wants Scotland to have just enough power to keep the natives quiet, but not enough to threaten the political establishment in London so beloved of Labour and Tory alike.

What does he want this time?  He wants basically the same as he promised back in 2014 when arguing along with the Tories that Scotland should vote no. Do you remember? This was how we were going to stay in the European Union.  It was how we were going to have decent pensions and how Scotland would benefit from the strength of the UK economy.  He promised a lot more powers, including economic powers, to the Scottish Parliament. He even called it the VOW.

Of course, he never delivered any of it when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and later as Prime Minister his amnesia helped him forget about every promise to Scotland. He has been making and breaking promises to Scotland for almost 50 years.  

But you might say, there are some new ideas this time.  The biggest of which is Labour’s commitment to abolish the House of Lords at some unstated time in the future.  You know, the same promise made as far back as 1887 by Keir Hardie. We have already waited 135 years for this promise to be fulfilled, so why not just promise it again? Can we trust Gordon Brown to get Keir Starmer to deliver this? If you think so, can you explain why the same Gordon Brown during his short period as Prime Minister appointed no fewer than an additional 34 Lords on top of the hundreds already there!

And what else can we deduce from Gordon Brown’s latest thoughts? Well, he does not want Scotland to have the power to re-enter the European Single Market, let alone re-enter the European Union.  He doesn’t want Scotland to have full economic powers. He doesn’t want to allow Scotland to have control of its own immigration system to ensure we can attract the skilled people we very much need such as  doctors, scientist,  nurses, engineers and farm workers to name only a few.

And of course, he doesn’t want the Scottish people to be able to decide their future.  In Gordon Brown’s world you have to be denied a vote on Scotland’s future.

Corruption

In other news, the huge corruption that has alledgedly involved Tories from Baroness Michelle Mone to Michael Gove sheds further light on the need for Scotland to get away from the current political systems. Millions upon millions of pounds have been taken from taxpayers during the Covid 19 pandemic for the purchase of medical equipment that never worked but instead allowed Tories to enrich themselves at your expense.  Unsurprisingly of course Michelle Mone, Michael Gove and others all campaigned for a No vote back in 2014. Why would they want Scotland to have the power to clean up the corrupt system, they benefit so much from?

Time for a change, and no wonder support for Scottish Independence is rising!