The Scottish parliament returned from its Christmas recess today and held its first debate of 2023. Take a guess what it was about.
Yes, independence. Holyrood occasionally touches on other matters – the NHS, the educational attainment gap – but these are mere throat-clearings in a never-ending dialogue between the SNP government and its hardline followers.
This strategy, though counter-intuitive, has thus far proved pretty useful to Nicola Sturgeon: the more she gins up her supporters with talk of breaking away from the UK, the less they seem to notice that she hasn’t taken them a single inch in that direction in eight years as SNP leader.
Today’s debate was tired and predictable, both sides re-rehearsing the same arguments they’ve been re-rehearsing since 2014. However, one contribution stood out. It came from a first-term Labour MSP, Michael Marra. Unlike other opponents of independence, he didn’t dismiss that cause or its adherents.
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