THE SNP are off again . . . or rather, they would like to be.
After last week’s elections, the nationalists managed to get the most seats in the Scottish Parliament. They were just short of a majority but added to their previous tally. By one seat.
According to Nicola Sturgeon this is a great, historic victory. And a decider. The SNP claim that since they got the most seats in Edinburgh, they now have the right to rip apart the United Kingdom.
Throughout the campaign, Sturgeon claimed a vote for the SNP had nothing to do with a second independence referendum — only to pull this stunt after the votes were in.
Scottish voters were lied to. And voters across the whole country should hope Sturgeon and her nationalist party do not get what they are after. It is easy to get caught up in the games the SNP plays.
Much of the media portrayed the recent elections as a stunning victory for the First Minister. It was no such thing. In fact, her party has fewer seats in Edinburgh after this election than in 2011 under Alex Salmond.
But whatever happens at the ballot box, the SNP always claim they have a mandate for Scottish independence.
The same applies to their argument about the 2016 EU referendum. The SNP claims the fact most Scottish voters did not vote to leave the EU means Scotland needs a second referendum on independence.
That is ridiculous — and oh so cynical. Does anyone think the SNP would have shut up about independence if we had voted Remain in 2016?
The SNP’s reasons for doing so are a bag of lies. But these lies have proved nicely adaptable over the years.
At times, the SNP claim that independence for Scot-land makes sense because they say Scots get a bad financial deal from being in the UK.
In fact, Scottish taxpayers get an unbelievably good deal from being in the UK. On average, the tax collected per head is £308 lower in Scotland than in the rest of the country.
Yet public spending is £1,671 higher per head in Scotland than across the UK as a whole. Scots would be mad to throw away that advantage.
The main economic case for the SNP went down the khazi years ago. They used to claim an independent Scotland would become rich off North Sea oil.
They pretended awful Southerners had been stealing their oil. And they seemed to imagine an independent Scotland could be like the oil-rich states of the Middle East . . . with worse weather.
In recent years, as oil prices plummeted, Sturgeon and Co haven’t changed their tune. They have stuck to it.
Today, whenever she is asked how Scotland would finance itself if away from the UK, she admits the party haven’t revised their figures since 2014.
Their economics were pie in the sky at that last referen-dum. Today, they aren’t a fantasy — they are a LIE. And Sturgeon knows it, which is why she tries to ignore it.
Indeed, the SNP won’t be drawn on any details of their plan. They won’t explain how they will pay their way.
They won’t explain what currency they will use. (They won’t be able to use the Pound.) They won’t explain how applying to join the European Union with a population the size of Slovakia’s will put Scots in a better position than when the UK was one of the largest contributors to the EU budget.
And of course, they can’t explain how this newly independent state will defend itself. Or whether it will even bother. For years, the SNP have got away with the politics of la-la-land.
It is time everyone who cares about our country helped burst that bubble.
The SNP have bored on about independence all our lives. They had a referendum seven years ago and lost. Now they want another.
Hearing them rave about the same old thing, year in, year out, is enough to make people lose patience.
But that has always been the biggest risk to the Union. Not that Scotland would leave of its own accord, but that it would leave because of indifference from England.
That would be a tragic mistake. We have so much more to gain by staying together than if we allow bitter nationalists to rip us apart. The Union that Scotland campaigned to get into in 1707 has served everyone well.
Together, we made ourselves prosperous. Together, we helped enrich much of the rest of the world, through the businesses and ideas that have poured out from these islands for the past three centuries.
Together, we fought off the great evils of the 20th century. And if today we were pulled apart, it would pull apart that legacy. It would set Brit against Brit, neighbour against neighbour and families against each other.
Our Armed Forces would be vastly depleted. Our nuclear submarines would have to find a new berth. We would have to take a passport and provide ID at huge new trade borders to visit friends and family within what was once our own country.
That is why Sturgeon and her crew should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing.
Their answer to everything is “independence”. But polls show, as they did in 2014, that it is unlikely the SNP would win a second referendum.
Sturgeon is trying to goad Boris Johnson and dictate the political weather.
Well, here’s the thing: Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister. Not of England or West- minster, but of the UK.
Sturgeon speaks, as the SNP always have, for a minority of Scots. There is no justification for a second referendum — not now, not ever.
The UK faces more important challenges in the years to come. We should face them together.
