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It is time for good people to unite

Geert Wilders and Marine le Pen at a meeting of nationalists in Koblenz at the weekend, a gathering Alex says we should be fearful of.
Geert Wilders and Marine le Pen at a meeting of nationalists in Koblenz at the weekend, a gathering Alex says we should be fearful of.

London to Edinburgh is around 400 miles by train.

Go in the other direction and its about 420 miles from London to Koblenz, a city on the west side of Germany.

The political traffic between London and Edinburgh is all about the constitution.

In Koblenz at the weekend, nobody much cared for the structural bits of governance.

The flow of ideas between the UK capital and Koblenz was all self-congratulatory back-slapping about taking power back from the elite.

Populism was the mood as the leaders of right wing parties from around Europe gathered to celebrate the Trump presidency.

To be clear, no one from the UK Conservatives was in attendance but those who were there took inspiration from Brexit.

Of these two – the focus on constitutional jiggery-pokery and the rise of popular politics threatening personal liberty – one clearly outweighs the other.

In London the Supreme Court gave a predictable verdict that Westminster is sovereign and therefore must be consulted on triggering article 50.

Prime Minister Theresa May has responded by promising a white paper on negotiation aims.

There was also no surprise that the same ruling said the devolved assemblies had no authority on the matter.

Outrageous

That didn’t stop another round of the rather trying “surprise” from the Scottish Government that somehow thought this ruling contradicted justice and was therefore outrageous.

It wasn’t and Sturgeon knows it wasn’t. She has a legitimate purpose to represent a nation which voted to stay in the EU but has yet to find a credible constitutional argument to resist beyond leaving the UK altogether.

My fear is that while we are fiddling north of London, Europe is burning to the east.

Reports say that Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s Front National, used the gathering in Germany to hail the Brexit vote and election of Trump and promise that continental Europe would soon follow suit.

“2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up. I am certain 2017 will be the year when the people of continental Europe wake up,” she is reported to have said.

The leader of the Netherland’s Freedom Party and the largest bloc in the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders, celebrated the end of “political correctness” and talked of making nations “great again”.

In attendance were people from the German AfD party and the Italian Northern Leagues.

These movements have in common a resistance to immigration, a desire to return powers to national borders and a rejection of an EU elite.

The Europe of the last half a century is under threat. It happens to be a Europe which is much loved by many.

It stands for peace, the free movement of people and ideas and the rejection of discrimination against others on grounds of sex, gender, race or religion.

It is flawed, evidently, else Koblenz would not have hosted such popular parties but that is not to say it is wrong.

The gathering in Koblenz should give everyone in Scotland pause for thought. In response we have to ask – what is useful and what is not?

There is still some utility in pressing for a Scottish single market deal but it would be more credible if not conducted with endless threats and false arguments.

The bigger and more pressing issue is the drift to the right by developed societies which threatens women’s rights, social equality and a peaceful Europe.

Scotland finds its energies and time consumed by the mechanics of referenda and constitutional interpretation, to the exclusion of a wider debate about how we as a people resist the fatal populism of elsewhere.

The Scottish Government asserts that immigration is a good thing – when it’s clear some Scots disagree.

With no space to discuss this, we have no chance to persuade people that Scotland is better off as a welcoming nation than a protectionist one.

With a rhetorical reliance on denigrating others while not providing information on its own proposals, the Scottish Government fails to set the higher example to which it clearly aspires.

The mistake of the European elite was to assert high values while not listening to the people. We should fear the Scottish Government is making the same error.

There is more than one battle to fight. The constitutional one seems to be running out of energy – we are snatching at ashes in the air when what matters is the fire that is burning.

Real issues

Engage with the real issue – right wing populism – and you may find the case for independence follows. It doesn’t work the other way round.

Time spent engaging with Scotland to define what we like and fear about the future and how our nation can be a bulwark against the populism of the continent might be a more assured way of asserting our identity.

There is a darkness rising which a change in our borders alone will not affect.

It is time for good people to unite and fresh arguments found for enlightenment.