by Rab Bruce’s Spider

I suppose it’s a bit petty to quibble over reasons people give for switching allegiance to Yes, but the latest poll on Scottish independence shows once again how fickle voters can be. It seems that more than half of Scottish voters would support independence if Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister. On that point, it seems almost inevitable that he will because, like Trump, his supporters don’t care what sort of person he is, so allegations about racism, lying and abusive behaviour are unlikely to have any detrimental impact on his campaign.

What I find a little disappointing is that people’s view of whether Scotland should become a normal country seem to depend on which particular British Nationalist is UK Prime Minister. The case for self-determination should stand or fall on its own merits. It really should not matter who the UK Prime Minister is, Scotland should be like nearly every other country in the world and be able to decide its own future for better or worse.

Having said that, we should not spurn anyone who decides to vote Yes (assuming we ever get the chance), and perhaps seeing Brexit wreck our economy and having a self-serving Right Wing extremist like Boris Johnson in power at Westminster is what it will take to make some people realise what many of us have been saying for some years now.

Of course, this tendency for voters to make decisions based on a single event or on their attitude towards a single person is widespread, and it does show why political slogans and lies on the side of a bus have such an impact on how people vote. There is very little examination of facts, nor much scrutiny in the media, and a great many people vote based on emotive reasoning. This is what the likes of Johnson understand, but now it is perhaps going to come back to bite them. How delightfully ironic it will be if he discovers that his supporters have heard the Scottish subsidy junkie story so many times that they actually believe it. Will the Tory membership put pressure on him to ditch Scotland in the same way they want him to leave the EU no matter the consequences? That’s the sort of short-term, blinkered thinking I’d be in favour of.