BORIS Johnson may be trying to blame everyone but himself for the current saga engulfing Westminster - but he should take credit for fueling the case for Scottish independence.
For those of us who sat through the two hours of the Prime Minister being questioned by MPs on Monday afternoon, one thing was resoundingly clear - he isn’t going to resign and he’s going to drag as many people down with him as he can.
It was already clear from the speech we were promised a grand Office of the Prime Minister to cajole those rowdy spads and civil servants who partied while thousands died.
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Any calls for the PM to speak to his personal actions were dismissed easily, as he told MPs to wait for the outcome of the Metropolitan police.
Those who asked for a resignation were immediately met with a simple "no", and Johnson began to keep his answers short after MPs repeatedly told him to stand down.
You would be forgiven for thinking you’d slipped into groundhog day, as the PM has parroted the same line while we awaited the civil servant Sue Gray’s report in the previous weeks.
And that’s just it, there will always be something in the way that’s stopping Johnson from “getting on with the job” or whatever line he decides might buy him an extra day or two.
But what is crucial, and what is clear, is that the Westminster system and House of Commons are just not fit for purpose.
Johnson has been able to weather the storm through this because there have been absolutely no repercussions for him in parliament.
The fact that he is still in post is a damning indictment of how badly the Westminster system has failed.
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He has misled, dodged questions, went so far as accusing Labour leader Keir Starmer of refusing to prosecute Jimmy Saville, cited dodgy statistics in front of MPs, claimed he “got Brexit done”, and the list goes on.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford was forced to leave the Commons on Monday because he refused to back down and withdraw his comment that the PM has “misled” MPs, with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle asking him to change the wording to “inadvertently misled”.
It was somewhat like watching a pantomime, all of us in the audience are in on the joke, but the players on the stage act as if they are oblivious.
It’s a simple question - why do we not have the power to remove a Prime Minister who is currently under investigation by police? Why doesn’t the parliament intervene?
Instead, we have to wait for a group of Tory MPs to decide if they will send a letter to the 1922 committee - who at this point will only do it for self-preservation. If it was for honour, decency or respect for the electorate then Johnson would be long gone.
Yet again Scotland is forced to watch as politicians in Westminster, mired in sleaze and corruption allegations, pretend everything is fine and cling on desperately to power.
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Johnson is going to get away with it - let’s not pretend otherwise.
Westminster won’t hold him accountable, Tory MPs won’t hold him accountable, and yet his decisions will directly impact on Scottish voters.
With disturbing voter ID laws, the Nationality and Borders Bill, his newest Brexit Bill announced this morning with strange timing, the National Insurance hike amid inflation rises and a cost of living crisis, amongst many other policy decisions affecting the public - it’s evident Johnson is a man made in Westminster and its toxicity. He does what benefits him, and not those who voted for him.
Previously, a Tory peer said that Johnson resigning would ‘save the Union’, and we wrote at length how it wouldn’t. But one thing is for sure, the public’s eyes are being opened to the sham that is Westminster and it can only bolster support for independence.
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