Thrive by Lesley Riddoch sampler
Why won’t Scots simmer down? Why batter on about independence when folk voted No a decade back? After all. Scotland’s not as populated as Yorkshire, nor as wealthy as London. But it’s also not as Conservative, as keen on Brexit, or as willing to flog public assets to Tory party pals. So does Nicola Sturgeon’s departure terminally damage the case for independence? The answer, with all respect to her legacy, is no. Scotland has bigger fish to fry. In this book, Lesley Riddoch makes an impassioned call to action, weaving academic evidence with story, international comparison and anecdote to explain why Scotland is ready to step forward as the world’s newest state.
Why won’t Scots simmer down?
Why batter on about independence when folk voted No a decade back?
After all. Scotland’s not as populated as Yorkshire, nor as wealthy as London. But it’s also not as Conservative, as keen on Brexit, or as willing to flog public assets to Tory party pals.
So does Nicola Sturgeon’s departure terminally damage the case for independence?
The answer, with all respect to her legacy, is no.
Scotland has bigger fish to fry.
In this book, Lesley Riddoch makes an impassioned call to action, weaving academic evidence with story, international comparison and anecdote to explain why Scotland is ready to step forward as the world’s newest state.
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36 Introduction<br />
And that’s because they keep better company – progressive<br />
Scots not Braverman, Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man<br />
so patriotic he pays almost no tax, moved his business to<br />
Ireland, holds an Irish passport and is registered for tax in<br />
the Cayman Islands.<br />
Scottish Labour is also more progressive than its British<br />
counterpart, but can’t or won’t go the extra mile on any radical<br />
policy, lest it shows up Keir ‘Middle England’ Starmer, validates<br />
Scotland as another country or whets the Scots’ appetite for<br />
more. Scottish Labour should be outflanking the SNP right<br />
now, pushing for Home Rule – complete control over taxraising,<br />
public spending, borrowing, energy and immigration.<br />
But the Scottish party has delegated custodianship of the<br />
constitution to Gordon Brown – a former premier who’s now<br />
more interested in building English regionalism than the federal<br />
Britain he promised in the heat of battle. The era of respected,<br />
senior Scottish Labour MPs able to push the London party for<br />
constitutional change ended with David Cameron’s election, a<br />
decade of austerity and the rise of the SNP. Labour now has just<br />
one solitary Scottish MP. Why would Keir Starmer upset the UK<br />
apple cart to appease the Scots (not) with a federal structure for<br />
the UK – so unpopular in 2004, that even the highly-distinctive<br />
Geordies rejected the idea of a North-East assembly?<br />
Nope. Scotland doesn’t much matter to UK Labour and<br />
contrary to assertions there have been only four elections since<br />
1918 where Scottish votes changed the UK outcome. If Labour<br />
wants to win at Westminster it needs to win in England.<br />
So, John Smith’s settled will hasn’t gone into deep freeze,<br />
but his party will not support its continuing growth. A bit like<br />
disowning a puppy when it becomes a semi-mature hound or<br />
abandoning a child when it becomes a teenager, Scottish Labour<br />
only champions ba<strong>by</strong> steps for Scotland, and that’s not good<br />
enough. There are smart people of good conscience in the party.<br />
But they can’t explain why progressive Scotland must wait<br />
(endlessly) for conservative Britain to catch up and cotton on.<br />
The last ten years have demonstrated something to one and all.
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