Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP

Boris Johnson is in Scotland today and once again this counts as news. This is intolerable to everyone. Intolerable to Unionists because a prime ministerial appearance in Scotland should be as routine as a prime ministerial appearance in the Cotswolds. It should not count as a newsworthy moment. And it is intolerable to Scottish nationalists because, well, because everything is intolerable to Scottish nationalists.

The Prime Minister’s visit can hardly be deemed ‘essential travel’ in the current circumstances even if it is also essential that Scotland never becomes a no-go area for Johnson or, indeed, other cabinet ministers. Making it seem such, chipping away at Johnson’s legitimacy, is one small front on the SNP’s long, attritional, struggle against the British state. Johnson, like his predecessor, should be understood as an alien, invasive species, very much not welcome north of the border. This must be resisted and so Boris Johnson must come to Scotland even if he also shouldn’t.