by Rab Bruce’s Spider

I must be a bit sad. I was having a bit of family time on Monday evening, but I kept checking in on social media to find out the result of the vote of No Confidence in Boris Johnson. I had previously dismissed this as a bit of a non-event when someone mentioned to me that the Prime Minister might be forced to resign. I was fairly confident that the Tories would keep him because they have no other really viable candidates, and Johnson seems able to bribe enough of them to have been fairly sure of keeping his job.

There was always a slight chance I might have been wrong, but the Tories stuck to their extremist views and voted to keep the lying narcissist in place.

Not that a different outcome would have made much difference to Scotland. Any successor to Johnson will still be an ultra-Right Winger, and will continue to push policies which will be indistinguishable from those an outright fascist Government would enact. A new leader might not be so overtly corrupt, dishonest and venal, but that will be all surface, a mirage to present a better image to the public.

Worst of all, the big thing that will not change is the English voting public’s apparent belief that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, having the Tories in power is the best way to run their country. I know there are many voices, some of them very articulate, who show up the UK Government for what it is, but far too many people, predominantly although not exclusively in England, seem to have been trapped into dreams of past glories, of Empire 2.0, and xenophobia on an industrial scale.

Some may argue that the current farce of a Government will lead to a Labour victory at the next General Election. However, that election is still some years away, and under Sir Keir Starmer (Knight of the Realm) Labour will be almost as right wing as the Tories. Indeed, the lurch to the right has been so dominant in UK politics that voters who want a genuinely socialist Government have no prospect of finding a party which has any chance of gaining power.

And, for the sake of argument, let’s say Labour did win, and Sir Keir starmer (Knight of the Realm) did go against his principles and begin to undo some of the damage the Tories have done, history shows us that the media would turn on him, and the Tories would be back in power before very long. Sadly, too many people still seem to defer to social class and wealth rather than ability when selecting their political leaders.

Scotland can, and must, do better than this. Our politics is certainly not perfect, but our voters generally believe in a far more democratic form of Government than Westminster will ever provide. Most of all, if we were a normal country, we would be able to vote out an incompetent or corrupt Government. At the moment, even if there is a change of Government in Holyrood, the over-arching power of Westminster means that the Scottish Government will still be hamstrung.

If nothing else, the result of the No Confidence vote should make more Scots realise that there is only one way of us avoiding yet more harm to our nation.