by Rab Bruce’s Spider

So every Scottish Political Party was in favour of remaining in the EU and maintaining membership of the Single Market. Until it came to actually voting on a Holyrood resolution. Then, in accordance with their inability to vote for anything the SNP suggests, the Tories and Lib Dems voted against the motion, while Labour abstained.

The vote was won by the SNP and Greens, but that in itself is not hugely significant. What really matters is that the Unionist Parties have shown that, when it comes to acting in Scotland’s interests, they will always put the UK first. Their pro-EU stance lasts only as long as it takes the SNP to suggest actually doing something about maintaining membership. They have totally ignored the result of the EU referendum in Scotland, gone against the wishes of the majority of their constituents, and voted to stick with Brexit no matter what the consequences might be for Scotland.

If there still happened to be anyone who was in any doubt as to where the allegiances of these Parties lie, it must surely be clear to everyone that it does not lie with the Scottish people. Their tribal instincts and allegiance to the UK come first every time. It is Nationalism par excellence.

Yet they will deny being Nationalists of any sort. They heap scorn on anyone who describes themselves as a Nationalist, always using the term to imply a link to Hitler’s Germany, and conveniently forgetting that virtually every other country in the world is run by Nationalists. Nelson Mandela was a Nationalist, as were many other famous world leaders who are almost universally admired.

What the BritNats seem incapable of understanding is that having pride in your own country does not mean you must hate people from other countries. The reason they struggle with this concept is because British Nationalism is founded on the myth of British superiority. This has produced the unfortunate result that it is actually British Nationalism which is beginning to most closely resemble the antics of 1930s Germany, Italy and Spain, although it must be admitted that the USA is now competing to see who can get there first.

But the projection of one’s own traits onto one’s opponents does not stop there. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser attacked the Scottish Government for having no clear plan on how to deal with Brexit. Yes, that’s right; a Tory attacked the SNP administration for having precisely the same lack of policy as his own Westminster Government, conveniently overlooking the fact that the Scottish Government can hardly be expected to make detailed plans until they know what Westminster proposes.

There have been other examples of this projection tactic. Some commentators are attempting to equate the rise of the Scottish Yes movement to the rise of Far Right ideology when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The SNP may well be more Right Wing than they often like to claim, but they are only a little to the Right of what used to be the Centre Ground, and are certainly well to the Left of the Unionist Parties who have all now openly declared, through their voting record in Holyrood, that they adhere to UKIP’s stance on the EU.

Ruth Davidson has been one of the prime proponents of this projection tactic, using reports on the state of NHS England to attack the Scottish Government over NHS Scotland’s performance, and we can expect this tactic to continue because the better Together Parties cannot rely on expounding their own policies since all we need to do is look over the Border to see the results of Tory rule.

As for the Lib Dems, Tim Farron recently boasted that they are the only pro-EU Party left, again conveniently ignoring the SNP. Willie Rennie and his handful of fellow MSPs put the lie to that when they voted against Scotland remaining in the Single Market.

As for Labour, all they can do is abstain, confirming their virtual irrelevance to everyone in Scotland except the BBC.

Post-Truth politics has come to this. Devoid of any real plans other than to maintain the rule of the wealthy elite and multi-national corporate entities, all the unionist Parties have left are lies and smears. They will attack their opponents for doing precisely what they themselves are doing, they will rely on a tame media to repeat the slurs and they will endeavour to keep the general public as misinformed as possible.

The trouble is, many people will fall for it. Don’t be one of them.