It’s time, Boris, to come out fighting in defence of the Union

DID you miss the national round of applause for Nicola Sturgeon’s 50th birthday – maybe you sent a card instead?

Many of her most ardent supporters viewed her half-century as a pivotal moment in Scottish history.

The First Minister celebrated in low-key fashion with a stroll along an Ayrshire beach on Saturday with husband Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive.

She’d given a soft-soap interview last week in which she argued it was ‘inappropriate’ to blame the SNP for the high number of care home deaths during the pandemic.

Yesterday she tweeted that Boris Johnson had given her a belated birthday present – by announcing he’s coming to Scotland.

It’s long been a central tenet of modern-day nationalism that Mr Johnson is a gift to their cause, because, well, he’s an English toff.

And, so they believe, Scots loathe posh English people; it follows logically that the more we see of him, the more we’ll hanker for ‘freedom’.

The polls provide a bit of ballast, at least superficially, to this thesis, as they show the SNP is popular and the independence vote is rising.

But consider the context: day after day, Miss Sturgeon has used her coronavirus briefing to stray off-topic for party political gain.

Last week there was a comic moment when she switched from insisting she would talk only about the virus to attacking the UK Government for its (mythical) bid to deprive the Scottish Government of post-Brexit powers.

Opposition politicians haven’t been afforded the same advantage, but it’s also true that backing for Scexit has increased in recent months partly because uncomfortable questions, for example about currency, haven’t been asked.

This isn’t the time to talk about the nuts and bolts of independence, we’re in a crisis, Miss Sturgeon can (and does) argue.

But it seems there’s no bar on the First Minister railing against the iniquities of Mr Johnson’s power-grabbing administration.

She wants to have her birthday cake and eat it, but now there are signs of an overdue fightback as Mr Johnson belatedly wakes up to the fact that – however incoherent or indeed non-existent it may be – the drive for independence certainly isn’t losing votes.

He starts from the strong position that he’s already ruled out another referendum, and there’s no reason he should row back on that.

But he has to listen to those senior Scottish Tories now telling him in forthright terms that this is no time to be asleep at the wheel.

It’s true that Mr Johnson, who contracted the virus himself and is now trying to prevent full-scale economic calamity, has a lengthy to-do list.

But the tactic he’s adopted thus far of allowing devolution to run its course, and staying out of the way bar the odd cameo appearance north of the Border, won’t wash anymore.

These visits have to be a bit more meaningful than photo-ops, but it’s the substance of what Mr Johnson says that will form the basis of the judgments that most Scots will make.

By far the greatest advantage of the Union this year has been the furlough scheme that has prevented nearly 800,000 Scots (doubtless many devoted Nationalists among them) from joining the dole queue.

The default opposing argument Nationalists are keen to deploy is that plenty of other nations furloughed workers, so why couldn’t an independent Scotland?

Some of those making this point were also admitting, not so long ago, that independence would carry a price-tag, and may even lead to austerity, but there’s no gain without pain.

(PM and FM: Boris Johnson and nemesis Nicola Sturgeon)

So on the one hand we’d be in the midst of economic turmoil after independence, but we’d have just enough cash down the back of the sofa to pay the wages of nearly 1million Scots from the public purse?

The less palatable truth is that a debt-ridden fledgling independent Scotland wouldn’t have been able to consider furlough on the same scale as Rishi Sunak’s scheme, let alone enact it.

‘We’re much better on our own without the English because we’ve made a better job of controlling coronavirus’ is also a bit of a threadbare gambit.

Scotland doesn’t have a world city the same size as London, for starters, so the comparison is distinctly of the apples and pears variety.

Ultimately, it’s not hypotheticals that will help to decide the fate of the Union so much as concrete action – literally concrete, in fact, in the form of massive infrastructure investment.

Mr Johnson, when he visits later this week, is expected to outline plans to revive the Scottish economy after the ravages of coronavirus.

Last month he vowed to invest billions of pounds to rebuild Britain and strengthen the ‘incredible partnership’ of the Union, unveiling details of a £5billion package of measures to attempt to avert a Great Depression.

It will include upgrades of schools, hospitals and roads, and plans to finally deliver on dualling the A1, linking Edinburgh and England.

By contrast, Miss Sturgeon has directed more effort towards undermining cross-Border relationships – by threatening to quarantine potentially disease-ridden English visitors.

Sinister masked activists waving black Saltires took her words as a call to arms and staged protests warning off English visitors – at a time when income from tourism has never been more desperately needed.

Cold hard cash will help, of course, and on any sane reckoning the last few months have shown the Union at its best: pooling resources and expertise, while allowing for variations in approach between the four nations.

But there must be a parallel appeal to the heart as the well as the head (and the pocket).

Ahead of the 2014 referendum, the No side was criticised for being too negative, while Yessers were, by their own account, full of dynamism and ‘can do’ attitude.

They were state-makers intent on forging a socialist nirvana, but that act of creation in itself would have necessarily entailed an act of destruction: tearing down a centuries-old alliance.

Anyone who was terrorised by those same Yessers online, and branded a quisling for daring to oppose them, might not remember much about the positive aspects of the independence campaign back then.

Unionism must always call out that ugly prejudice, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be relentlessly positive, and it needn’t be solely about pounds and pence.

There are more than 300 years of shared history and collective endeavour underpinned by family ties and uninhibited commerce.

Being British is, and should be, a source of pride – and doesn’t preclude being a proud Scot.

Decisions about the long-term destiny of the United Kingdom shouldn’t be based on a like or dislike of a Prime Minister who won’t be around forever.

Nor is it healthy to place unquestioning faith in a ruling elite which seeks to marginalise and humiliate its critics, and which takes its power for granted after 13 years in office.

Mr Johnson’s trip should be the start of a determined campaign to shore up the Union’s defences.

But he must also remember that the UK can only flourish with constant vigilance – and the knowledge that its enemies will exploit any indication of weakness to prise it apart.

*This column appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on July 21, 2020.