PM’S WAKE-UP CALL ON UNION

As first poll in last 39 shows slim majority for independence...

BORIS Johnson has been given a ‘wake-up call’ on the threat to the Union after a bombshell poll showed an increase in support for independence since he became Prime Minister.

A survey published yesterday revealed majority support for scottish independence for the first time in more than two years – after the previous 38 consecutive polls all put the pro-Union vote ahead.

Nicola sturgeon quickly hailed the poll as ‘phenomenal’ and claimed that it shows the Uk Government’s opposition to an independence referendum is ‘unsustainable’.

her reaction to the poll led to critics accusing her of having ‘warped priorities’ after a series of major issues in the Nhs, business community and on the railways emerged over holyrood’s summer break.

The findings suggested 52 per cent of scots would vote for independence if there were another referendum, while 48 per cent would vote to stay in the Uk.

it sparked calls for the new Prime Minister to step up efforts to strengthen the Union.

The poll, carried out by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, also showed Mr Johnson is more popular in scotland than Jeremy Corbyn, while the Liberal Democrats and Greens stand to make gains if there is a general election. senior Tories played down the

findings and suggested that the SNP will be privately disappointed that there was such a ‘small bounce’ in support for independence in the first poll since Mr Johnson entered Downing Street.

A Scottish Tory source said: ‘Polls like this aren’t actually the worst things in the world for the Union cause. It rallies the troops, reminds people not to be complacent, and also reminds people that the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon will never ever stop pushing this.

‘And it will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for Boris. He’s made a good start in prioritising the Union but the message needs to be rammed home.’

The Lord Ashcroft poll, carried out for Holyrood magazine between July 30 and August 2, asked 1,019 Scots how they would vote if there were a referendum tomorrow.

It found that 46 per cent said they would vote Yes and 43 per cent would vote No, while 8 per cent did not know and 4 per cent would not vote.

When ‘don’t knows’ and those who would not vote are stripped out, there would be a 52-48 advantage for Yes. It is the first poll since March 2017 to put the Yes side ahead.

When he entered Downing Street, Mr Johnson promised to strengthen the bonds between the ‘awesome foursome’ of nations that make up the UK. But his critics fear he will play into the hands of the SNP. Ian Murray, Labour MP for Edinburgh South, said: ‘This poll needs to be an urgent wake-up call for Boris Johnson and the Tories that the Union is at risk.

‘The Tories are as big a threat to the Union as any Nationalist. A No Deal Brexit would jeopardise the UK’s future, and the answer to Brexit cannot be Scexit. Breaking up successful economic and social unions does not work.

‘But the poll is also a reminder to all of us that we must continue to make the positive case for the Union, because the SNP will never stop trying to divide people and break up the UK.

‘We are stronger together as part of a Union that is worth fighting for every single day.’

The Lord Ashcroft poll also found that 47 per cent of Scots felt there should be a second independence referendum within the next two years, with 45 per cent against the proposal.

It also found that, asked whether the EU or the Union was their priority, 45 per cent said remaining in the EU, while only 43 per cent said remaining in the UK.

In more positive news for Mr Johnson, 29 per cent of Scots said he would be a better Prime Minister than Mr Corbyn, compared to 23 per cent who said the Labour leader would be better.

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: ‘Taking Scotland back to another divisive referendum on independence is not the way forward and the Scottish Conservatives will oppose it every step of the way.

‘It is time for us all to focus on what matters – growing our economy and sorting out the mess the SNP is making of our education system and the NHS.’

In a statement released minutes after the poll was published yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘This is a phenomenal poll for the independence movement – showing that more and more people think it’s time that Scotland took our own decisions and shaped our own future as a fair, prosperous, outward-looking nation.

‘A broken Westminster system means Scotland is being dragged towards a No Deal Brexit, regardless of the heavy price we’ll pay for lost jobs and lower living standards. That project is being led by Boris Johnson – a Prime Minister Scotland didn’t elect and who has no mandate to tear Scotland out of Europe with all the damage that will entail.

‘The Scottish Government, by contrast, has a very clear mandate from the people of Scotland – to give them the choice of a better future with independence.

‘It would be a democratic outrage for any Tory government to deny that, and this poll shows such an anti-democratic position is completely unsustainable.’

The poll showed that 20 per cent of those who voted No in 2014 would now vote Yes if there were a referendum tomorrow, while 12 per cent of those who voted for independence would now vote No. Miss Sturgeon said she suspected Brexit was the reason on both sides.

She added: ‘In an independence referendum, I’d be fairly confident of being able to persuade many of these people, when it comes to it, to vote for independence.’

Critics pointed out that Miss Sturgeon has not reacted in the same way to other major issues during Holyrood’s summer recess, including figures revealing Scotland has the highest rate of drug deaths in the developed world and problems which have delayed the opening of a £150million children’s hospital. It also emerged that ScotRail is still failing targets, a rising number of businesses are closing down, tourism targets are set to be missed and Scotland’s prison officers are preparing to go on strike.

A Scottish Tory source said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon was nowhere to be seen during the drugs deaths crisis or the multitude of problems the NHS is facing. Yet one poll showing a slim lead for her cause and she’s all over it. That’s predictably opportunistic behaviour from a narrow-minded First Minister. Nicola Sturgeon has warped priorities.’

Pressed yesterday on why she was quicker to highlight an independence poll than figures such as drugs deaths, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Don’t make the mistake of confusing social media with the totality of what I do in a day – I do things other than speak on social media.’

‘The message needs to be rammed home’ ‘A narrow-minded First Minister’

GUeSS who once said ‘the chaos and the fiasco of the last couple of years have shown that the worst thing for Scotland is to be thirled to Westminster’.

It sounds a little like a certain former First Minister, who was fond of the odd Scots reference, and styled himself as the ‘Richt honourable Alex Salmond’ in official government literature.

But in fact it was Nicola Sturgeon who recently used the word ‘thirled’ – an old Scots term broadly meaning ‘bound’ or ‘yoked’ – no doubt hoping to bamboozle english commentators (and a lot of Scots).

highlighting the fact that we speak different languages north of the Border underlines the injustice of preserving a political alliance that allegedly seeks to marginalise our unique culture.

That’s the Nationalist thesis, anyway, yet how many of us truly feel ‘thirled’ to an oppressive UK state – particularly as the Tories cut taxes south of the Border, while in Scotland they’ve risen?

You might feel more than a little scunnered to find guid Scots words being misappropriated for political reasons, in the same way that the SNP has tried to hijack the Saltire for its own ends. But it’s also ridiculous, and bizarre, to present Scots – as many of its supporters do – as an entirely distinct language, with its own vocabulary and grammar.

Treasure

There is a rich treasure trove of highly evocative Scots words and expressions, but attempts to formalise those as a language which one can learn in the same way as French, Spanish or Gaelic, are hare-brained – or, if you prefer, glaikit.

Now we discover that some within the SNP are keen to promote Scots – which they have always seen as a poor cousin to Gaelic – by the setting up of (what else?) a quango.

Quangos are the ‘go to’ solution for any perceived ill in public life under this administration but, even by its standards, creating a bureaucratic organisation with the specific aim of encouraging greater use of Scots is beyond certifiable.

A motion has been pencilled in for the SNP’s autumn conference demanding that the language should play a bigger part in public life and education, arguing that it must be ‘more widely’ taught and learned.

This would be spearheaded by a new quango, similar to the Bòrd na Gàidhlig – which promotes Gaelic and costs the Scottish Government more than £5million a year.

Scots enthusiasts, some of whom spend much of their time translating english classics, including Roald Dahl children’s novels, into Scots (The eejits rather than The Twits, for example), claim that almost a third of the population speaks a form of Scots.

The provisional conference motion – signed by MSPs Alasdair Allan, Stuart McMillan and Richard Lyle, as well as MP Martin Docherty-hughes – insists the party ‘recognises the importance of the Scots language’.

One particular bugbear of the Scots language lobby is that, for many years, children were told off for using Scots (such as ‘aye’ rather than ‘yes’) in the classroom, as it was seen as slang.

The official campaign to breathe fresh life back into the language, or dialect, is an over-the-top response to those long-held concerns, as children are now widely encouraged to write and learn in Scots.

Back in 2012, the Scottish Qualifications Authority observed that in higher english there was a ‘small, but often impressive, submission of imaginative writing partly or wholly in Scots’.

In one primary school project, the pupils named body parts – or ‘boady pairts’ – using Scots words such as ‘oxters’ for armpits and ‘keekers’ for eyes.

According to school inspectors, children ‘respond very positively to opportunities to communicate in Scots’.

But most parents would settle for their children mastering basic english – which they’re more likely to use in, say, job interviews.

After all, recent Scottish Government figures show one in four primary school children is failing to achieve expected standards in reading and numeracy skills.

even if you believe there is a burning need for Scots usage to become more widespread, it’s far from clear that a quango is the best method of achieving that aim.

With expensive tiers of management and administrators devoting most of their time to costly Scots translations, it would surely reduce rather than bolster public support for the project.

Scots is already recognised at holyrood, with the official website making clear that ‘ye can write til a Memmer o the Scots Pairlament (MSP) in ony leid’.

It states: ‘Gin ye hae a question anent the Scots Pairlament or the MSPs, ye can speir at the Public Information Service in ony leid bi post or e-mail.’

Roughly translated, this means you can get in touch with the parliament in any language – ‘ony leid’ – but isn’t it telling that I had to reach for Google to double-check what some of this meant?

Daft

From the context, it’s reasonably clear that ‘gin’ is ‘if’ – but there aren’t many Scots who would use the word ‘gin’ for anything other than ordering the drink you traditionally have with tonic.

Those who do use it to mean ‘if’, and expect to be widely understood, are daft, and likely to be bores. If you were to ‘speir’ (ask) them about Scots, you’d rue your decision, and within seconds would be reaching for the gin – possibly a double.

We can be entirely confident that a new quango would lead to an explosion in this kind of nonsense.

One wonders what it would be called – perhaps the Scots Development Authority? According to a reputable online dictionary, in Scots this would be ‘Scots Development Authority’ – which may not have quite the desired ring…

Once instituted, there would be no limit to its interference, as it pressured councils and health boards to ensure they had devised Scots language development plans, and perhaps imposed financial penalties for failure to comply.

Scots language road signs would be a priority: ‘Stap!’ for ‘Stop!’ and ‘Ca’ canny!’ for ‘Drive With Care!’

Perhaps what we really need is a quango to monitor the growth of needless political vanity projects that eat into scarce public funds and take civil servants away from their core duties.

The heid bummers – bosses – at the top of government, and its associated bureaucracies, are likely to oppose such a scheme (at least until they are offered well-paid jobs running it).

In old Scots, my trusty online lexicon advises that they might be branded ‘sloongers’ (‘loafers’) – leaching funds from the taxpayer as they issue draconian diktats in a bid to ‘normalise’ the Scots tongue.

Scots words should be cherished, but beware of linguists, and politicians, bearing gifts: the very last thing Scotland needs is to be ‘thirled’ to another quango hectoring us about how to live our lives – to further a political agenda most of us have rejected.