This is what we must do to make Scotland heard in this election

This is not unconnected with the fact that the people of Scotland feel that this is yet another election in which our future will be decided south of the Border, and Scotland is merely the passive victim of a tragedy which we can do nothing to avoid. The electorate is aided in this perception by the majority of the media, which is doing its utmost to ensure that this election campaign sidelines and marginalises Scotland.

The evidence of this is abundant, witness the shameful decision of ITV to exclude the leader of Scotland’s largest party and the third largest in the UK from its leaders’ debate. To its credit, the BBC gave equal time to both Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson in its party leaders’ Question Time Special. Yet even though – or perhaps more accurately because – Nicola Sturgeon was hailed as the clear victor in this encounter with the public, she was strangely glossed over in BBC Two Newsnight’s coverage of the event.

But the clearest evidence of all comes in the way in which the media in the UK, and for the most part within Scotland, colludes in the notion that the decision to allow Scotland to hold another independence referendum will be a decision made in Downing Street and not in a Scottish ballot box. Within the UK, Scotland is to be a passive observer of its own fate, and the Scottish media is quite fine with that.

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What we don’t see in the UK media, and what we rarely see in the anti-independence media in Scotland, is any suggestion that Scotland can and should be the mistress of her own destiny.

It’s a basic tenet of democracy that if the people of Scotland vote for a party or parties which support another independence referendum, then that is what the people of Scotland should get. Yet all we get from the media is the repeated assertion that the legal power to authorise another referendum rests with Westminster. Scotland, shut up and do what you’re told.

We heard nothing at all from the media in Scotland about the reality that the Scottish Parliament already possesses a mandate for another referendum.

There is no outrage at the way in which the democratic will of the people of Scotland is being ignored by the anti-independence parties. There’s no anger at the insistence of Labour, the Tories, and the LibDems that it doesn’t matter if Scotland elects many more SNP MPs in this General Election, there is still no mandate for another independence referendum.

Despite her impressive performance, Nicola Stugreon was ignored in coverage after the BBC Question Time Leaders' Debate

Yet there should be anger. Because what those parties are telling Scotland is that Scotland’s vote doesn’t matter in a UK General Election. It is in an election to the Parliament those self-same parties insist that it’s vitally important Scotland remains governed by. That is the fundamental hypocrisy of British nationalism in Scotland, and it should be called out for what it is.

You cannot argue that it’s imperative that Scotland remains a part of the Westminster system, while simultaneously arguing that it’s legitimate that the result of a Westminster election in Scotland can be ignored. However that’s precisely what all the anti-independence parties are doing.

Yet if the outcome of a Westminster election in Scotland on a particularly Scottish issue can be ignored, then what precisely is the point of a Westminster election in Scotland?

Because what it tells the people of Scotland is that issues which affect and concern Scotland, even issues which are specific to Scotland, will be decided by voters elsewhere in the UK. It tells us that we’re not a partner in a union at all, because as far as UK elections are concerned Scotland has as much influence at a UK level as an English county.

In this election campaign, the “Britishness” of the election has been repeatedly reinforced and reiterated by the anti-independence parties. For reasons which they have not been called upon to explain or defend by the majority of the Scottish media, the subject of an independence referendum is not to be dealt with in this election. It is, they tell us, a matter for the Scottish elections in 2021.

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Yet even though it is highly likely that those British parties will perform poorly in this coming election, that result will not be taken either by the anti-independence parties nor a British media as any reflection on Scotland’s attitudes towards the Britishness that they’re spending this entire campaign ramming down our throats.

The only way in which this narrative can be countered is for the voters of Scotland to turn out and vote. It seems that with the collapse of the Brexit Party under the weight of Nigel Farage’s ego, the Brexit vote in Scotland is coalescing around the Conservatives.

We need to ensure that opponents of Brexit coalesce around parties determined to oppose Brexit, and to vote for a party which is committed to giving Scotland a say irrespective of what the rest of the UK decides.

That means that if you are an opponent of Brexit who lives in a Tory seat, you need to vote SNP even if you are opposed to independence or undecided on the subject. Right now, the immediate priority in Scottish politics has to be proving this country’s opposition to Boris Johnson’s disastrous Brexit, and asserting that if Brexit does go ahead, then Scotland has a right to consider its own future on its own terms.

Because if you allow in a Conservative, you’re both conceding to Brexit, and giving the Tories permission to ignore Scotland’s needs and demands.

Voting Tory in this election is a vote to make Brexit happen within a few weeks. Voting SNP in this election isn’t a vote to make independence happen within a few weeks, it’s a vote to make Scotland’s decisions count and a vote to assert the right of Scotland to have a say.

Anyone who opposes independence but who believes in a true union as opposed to a unitary British state ought to be comfortable with that.

Despite what the media and the anti-independence parties tell us, this election is a Scottish election, and it needs to be won on Scotland’s terms.