This is an unusual election for UK voters.
What do you care about most, normal things like the NHS and tax rates or Brexit?
For voters in Scotland it’s even more complex – your dilemma has the ever-present overlay of the possibility of another independence referendum. What do you want or, more likely, what do you really not want?
The odd thing about the SNP manifesto is that it is irrelevant. There are 650 seats up for grabs and they are putting candidates up in 59 of them – we can safely say they are not going to win.
Every promise is just a posture, pre-positioning for the election which really matters to them, the 2021 election for the Scottish Parliament.
Irrelevant except for one thing, independence. Gone is the pretence that a twice-in-a-lifetime vote is required because of Brexit. That is now shown for what it was – an excuse – a back door.
The plan now is nakedly opportunistic. Westminster and the Tories are not to be trusted even if democratically elected.
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What Nicola is after, if she can grab Jeremy Corbyn by, he hopes, the throat, is the transfer to the Scottish Parliament of the power to call a referendum whenever it likes. Jeremy’s backbone has already turned to jelly – to the horror of sensible people in the Labour Party in Scotland – and he has as good as said he will give her what she wants in order to get into Number 10.
So, it’s crystal clear, vote SNP if you want Scottish independence and enjoy regular referendums, otherwise don’t.
The Greens are fun if you’re in Brighton, the Brexit Party is irrelevant. The LibDems misjudged the appeal to voters of President Swinson and their undemocratic plan to ignore the inconvenient Brexit referendum result. Their support has plunged to the point where they seem a tactical voting option only. Imagine if sensible people were running Labour – they would romp it. Blair, Brown, Balls, Cooper, anybody called Miliband would all be in with a chance.
Gone is the social democratic party of New Labour, which understood wealth creation was the key to providing a better life for all.
This is a Labour Party which thinks East Germany was better than West. This is a Labour Party which thinks real socialism – despite its record of miserable failure around the globe – is the way forward. This is a Labour Party of envy, control and class warfare.
This is a Labour Party which, if you are in business, you should be afraid of, which will fine you if you don’t toe the line and thinks the profits you make are something inherently wrong rather than a reward for efficiency and enterprise.
This is a Labour Party which thinks it sensible to throw £60 billion at a group of women because they are no longer able to retire earlier than their male counterparts. Free broadband, reduced transport costs, free just about everything – somebody else will pay. The Labour Party would break our country if it got into power.
What about the Conservative manifesto? Is it a bit thin and unambitious? Yes, but why do we think Government can cure all our ills – history shows that’s just not true.
Is Brexit a bad thing? Yes it is but not the disaster we are told endlessly it will be – we will survive, we can prosper. What the Conservatives do offer is a way out of this bog – not comfortable or quick but a means to move beyond the Brexit paralysis which is more damaging than Brexit itself.
The sensible Labour Party has left the field. If you don’t want economic ruin you’ve just got to live with Boris I’m afraid.
Guy Stenhouse is a Scottish financial sector veteran who wrote formerly as Pinstripe.
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