by Rab Bruce’s Spider

It really is hard to remain positive about politics in the UK at the moment. We are witnessing a fascist takeover of both the UK and the USA, and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop it. Some people may be unhappy at me describing the current regimes as fascist, but if you know only a little bit about the history of the 20th Century, you will see that is exactly how they are behaving.

It now seems inevitable that we are heading for a hard Brexit crash out. The only thing that could stop it is a genuine coalition of opposition parties, but that seems unlikely unless someone puts the interests of the UK ahead of their own party politics. The SNP have been trying that but, in accordance with how UK politics works, they have been snubbed at every turn.

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader who is essentially a Tory who wants to appear reasonable, has been attempting to arrange such a coalition but, being a closet Tory, doesn’t want a Labour leader.

Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, is having to put up a pretence of wanting to stop Brexit even though he’s in favour of it, and is using Swinson’s red line on leadership as an excuse not to become involved. In one way you can understand this. As leader of the opposition, agreeing to subordinate himself to the position of follower could appear like weakness. Others might argue it could appear like genuine statesmanship. But he won’t agree anyway, because any coalition will need the involvement of the SNP if it is to gather sufficient numbers of MPs, and Labour will not countenance that.

Which leaves the SNP in a bind. They have been following the Wait and See strategy for a long time and, while it seemed sensible last year, it is difficult to understand why they still persist in it. By all means allow their Westminster MPs to continue to play the Westminster game in their efforts to appear sensible compared to the madness surrounding them, but surely it is time that the Scottish Government realised there is no future for Scotland in the dystopian nightmare of post-Brexit UK. I know some people will argue that it will require the shock of food and medicine shortages before some Scots wake up to the fact that we have an alternative, but waiting until that shock hits us will, I fear, mean we are too late. If Johnson and his cronies can prorogue the Westminster Parliament, does anyone seriously think they will not hesitate to dissolve Holyrood? If that happens, all chance of IndyRef2 will be gone.

We face a crisis in our history, and we need some strong leadership. So far, all we’ve seen are some strongly worded Tweets.