Tony Blair had a breakthrough moment in the mid-1980s. As an opposition frontbencher, he observed that UK politics was paralysed by Margaret Thatcher. The Conservative party were in awe of her and Labour were mesmerised like a snake in front of a mongoose.
Politics was binary: are you for or against Thatcherism? Tony realised that the open ground in UK politics was what happened after Mrs Thatcher. Thus was born the ‘third way’, which smashed right through the sterile binary debate.
Scottish politics today is similarly gripped by a barren and futile dichotomy: are you for or against a second independence referendum? The question is, on the face of it, irrelevant to elections for a devolved institution, since the constitution of the UK is reserved to Westminster. The desire to place this question at the heart of the elections to the Scottish parliament is driven by nationalist politicians leading a country through the Covid pandemic – Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson.
Anas Sarwar is being given the chance to box off the constitutional question and project a positive future
It’s obvious why the Prime Minister and First Minister want to focus on indyref2.
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