Nicola Sturgeon’s Brexit reality check – stop wagging the dog

By Ian Wishart

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is a skilled politician.

I know this, because of all the hand-wringing and angst that’s emerged in the wake of the Brexit vote, hers takes the cake.

Given the quality of the competition, that takes some doing.

You’ve got the young people bleating their futures were robbed – an empty claim when we find out only 38% of them even bothered to vote.

Then you’ve got three million people – including 77,000 from the ‘Vatican’ with a population of a thousand – demanding the right to another referendum. Even if they got 18 million signatures, constitutionally it is tough luck: a vote is a vote. On the day, the winner takes all.

Which brings me to Scotland.

Sturgeon thinks she has some kind of moral and political right to wag the dog and veto the UK’s withdrawal from the EU because of its impact on my ancestral homeland, which voted at 62% to Remain in Europe.

But let’s look at the numbers. Scotland had one of the lowest voter turnouts in Britain – just 67%. Sixty-two percent of those people voted for Remain. That means only 41.5% of eligible Scottish voters actually could be bothered voting for Remain – hardly a ringing electoral mandate. Yet that’s the thing about elections – the winner on the day claims victory, no matter how low the turnout.

So I have no problem with Scotland taking a stand based on its vote. What does not compute, however, is the logic underpinning Sturgeon’s next leap of political faith when she then declares that Scotland could stop the rest of the UK from brexiting, stage left.

Here’s why: if an aggrieved minority has the right to wag the dog, then surely the regions of Scotland that voted leave could claim a right of veto over Sturgeon’s efforts to Remain? After all, where do we draw the line?

Scotland can steer its own ship, if it wishes, out of the UK and into Europe. But as a minority loser in the Brexit vote, it has no moral mandate to enforce its will on England and Wales.

After all, that would just be imperial, and we couldn’t have that. Could we?

As for all those “shocked” at the “unexpected” result, it only came as a shock because your friends in the daily media mislead you. If you only ever listen to those you agree with, you will never know the plans and the power of those you disagree with.

The old adage, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ is a truism taken to heart by victorious generals and transcendent politicians. Invariably the less intelligent operators think they can safely ignore it.

Equally invariably, they seem to be the first up against the wall when the revolution eventually comes.

In this case, Brexit was an example of British voters rejecting two generations of social engineering to prepare them for global government, and throwing a spanner into the machine while they still could.

What the world saw on Friday was nothing less than a very British coup. Fictional prime minister Harry Perkins would never have been foolish enough to be on the wrong side of it.

Ian Wishart is the author of the bestselling book on plans for global governance, “Totalitaria”

https://www.amazon.com/Totalitaria-What-If-Enemy-State-ebook/dp/B00GAN74WS