Nicola Sturgeon: We Must Kill Britain to Save Britain

It is often said that the case for the United Kingdom needs to be made in a positive fashion. This is reasonable. Less remarked upon is the SNP’s cheerful use of negative arguments for independence. Today, for example, there is the sillyness of Joan McAlpine’s suggestion Scotland is somehow analagous to some ill-treated wife and, rather more importantly, Nicola Sturgeon’s assertion that the Union is a threat to the welfare state. So here’s another Scotch Irony: the advocates of change are the fiercest defenders of the status quo.

Speaking last night, the Deputy First Minister promised there would be none of that reforming-the-NHS nonsense in Scotland and, no, there’ll be no tinkering with welfare either. Not at all. On the contrary:

“[T]here will be no privatisation of the National Health Service” in an independent Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon said: “Unlike its counterpart in England, the NHS in Scotland will remain a public service, paid for by the public and accountable to the public.