State of Chaos is here ! Episode one here now if you fancy some early morning adrenalin, or on @BBCTwo at 9pm https://t.co/yGM00ntsc6 – more on @BBCBreakfast and @bbc5live in a bit…

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) September 11, 2023

By stewartb

The BBC is promoting an upcoming three part series called the State of Chaos presented by Laura Keunssberg (first part on BBC 2,  11 September at 21:00). Now I’m really not inclined to promote any BBC output on news and current affairs but there’s something quite ‘sweet’ in the article Ms Kuenssberg has written to give a sense of what to expect from her series. (See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66755345)

Given the author – a former BBC political editor undoubtedly sympathetic to and perhaps even an apologist in the past for the UK/Westminster political establishment and reputably to Tory governments too – and the pro-Union broadcasting organisation involved here, the language used is notable. It is especially telling when viewed from a Scotland perspective, from somewhere that’s had the message of ‘better together’ within this greatest, this ‘precious’ Union rammed down its democratic throat!

Reflect!

When those with votes in Scotland read Ms Kuenssberg’s piece, four things should be foremost in the mind:

• A majority of voters in Scotland have consistently rejected the political party responsible for the ‘chaotic, high-stakes soap opera’, rejected it since the mid 1950s – but that rejection made little practical democratic difference
• A majority in Scotland voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, the catalyst of the chaos, which involved a referendum called by a party in government we in Scotland had rejected – but again the democratic expression of Scotland’s majority expressed through a ‘remain’ vote made no difference
• A democratic mandate has been given by voters in Scotland on multiple occasions to hold a democratic event to enable voters of Scotland to decide on the constitutional future of their country, and to react to the damaging chaos that Keunssberg describes – but these mandates have made no practical democratic difference, political parties we reject deny Scotland that democratic opportunity.

And what of the prospect of reforming how the ‘chaotic’ way that UK has been governed e.g. by changing the electoral system? From a Scotland perspective, the nature of any reforms and the timing of any reforms of this UK – if they happen at all – will be determined by voters in England and the political parties dependent on England’s votes. What England wants Scotland gets!

Here are ten choice extracts from Ms Kuenssberg’s article which speak to the claim of Scotland being ‘better together’ in this ‘precious Union’ (with my emphasis).

1) ”We lost our minds.” That unforgiving assessment is how a former government official who had one of the most important jobs in Britain, sums up the huge political turbulence that engulfed the UK between 2016 and 2022. It was, as she sees it, a collective meltdown in a country previously known for stability.’

2) ‘One resident of No 10 Downing Street even broke the law, and just about every unwritten rule too.’

To summarise, throughout all of this a majority of voters in Scotland had the good sense to reject at the ballot box those responsible – but that rejection made no practical difference!

Keunssberg asks: ‘So why did our politics turn into a chaotic, high-stakes soap opera that left the civil service exhausted and the Conservative Party struggling to move on? How close did the British state come to implosion, and how did the conventions, checks and balances that have held it together for centuries come through their most prolonged stress test in a generation?’

3) ‘.. what became obvious is how the pace of events got faster and faster, the controversies wilder and wilder. The clashes of Theresa May’s time, boiled into deliberate controversy and bust-ups across Whitehall under Boris Johnson, accelerating into the calamitous high-speed implosion of Liz Truss’ ridiculously short time in charge. While our leaders were fighting amongst themselves, with Whitehall, or trying to get elected, they were often distracted by the politics, even though the practical challenges were vast.’

So the party in government, which a majority in Scotland consistently rejects, was failing to govern well – to put it mildly – and the Westminster ‘system’ could do little to mitigate the damage.

4) ‘The decision then required the government and civil service to work out how to unplug the country from the framework it had followed for many decades, without a plan, and without political clarity.’

5) And on Covid: ’Then along came a genuine national emergency …’.  … ‘It might have been impossible for even the most harmonious government to keep calm through all of that. But the backdrop to it all was the screaming divisions inside the Conservative Party itself. Successive Tory governments walked into these challenges riddled with grudges, hurt and frustrations from the referendum campaign, including – on the Remain side – a deep sense of disbelief in quarters that the country had really voted to leave at all. The campaign made the splits ever more public and painful, carving the party into two deadly rival camps, and dragging in the whole country.’

Leaving aside the ‘country’ reference so typical of the BBC, it’s Unionists that accuse those who wish Scotland to take full responsibility for the government of Scotland, who wish self-determination, to be the ones sowing division!

6) ‘There were days in Westminster where everyone felt like an enemy. It was striking how many of our interviewees, looking back, burst into tears at the awful memories …’

7) ‘Trying to ram the Brexit result through Parliament was like trying to mix oil and water – a binary yes or no, stay or leave, did not compute in a system designed to amend, to tweak, to make gradual change. The country saw Parliament failing to find a way through, night after night, obscure disagreement after obscure disagreement.’

8) ‘.. to actually take the UK out of the EU, Boris Johnson and his team concluded the only way was to force everyone in the Tory party to pick a side, and to treat anyone who disagreed as an enemy.’

9) ‘Liz Truss went even further, overtly rejecting what she called the “orthodoxy”, slamming the previous governments that even she had been part of, trying to change the course of the Conservatives at a hundred miles an hour. Her spectacular crash and burn was the logical end point, perhaps, of six years of chaos when the Conservatives so often turned in on themselves – and turned on each other.’

10) ‘With the governing party at war with itself, there was a desperate hunt for any weapon that would do, and creating controversy became a more and more convenient choice’ and ‘Elements in the Conservative Party made targets of the civil service, the law, Parliament (where it was actually in charge), and the “elite”, even though that was essentially blaming their reflections in the mirror.’

Ms Kuenssberg ends: ‘… we will reveal just how close the political system came to falling apart, and how conventions were smashed to bits.’ 

‘Better together’? Not for the first time since 2014 it now sounds like a scam – a sick joke – played on Scotland’s electorate!