THE right-wing think tank the Centre for Policy Studies has published a collection of essays entitled Strength in Union: the Case for the United Kingdom by Conservative Thinkers, and Andrew Bowie and Alister Jack as well.
The essays present nothing new, just the familiar nostrums about being better together and punching above our weight which are so familiar from 2014. We get all of Better Together's biggest hits, so for example we are told how Scotland requires the bloated and self-important military pretensions of the UK to protect it from the cruel and hostile world into which it would thrust friendless and alone as an independent country.
Andrew Bowie's contribution is notable only for the number of meaningless platitudes which it manages to cram into a few short pages. He tells us about his pride in his British identity and how he feels just as much at home in London or Cornwall as he does in Scotland as though this were somehow a justification for the Conservative Government which he is a part of unilaterally undermining the devolution settlement without so much as a pretence of obtaining any sort of mandate from the people of Scotland to do so.
Alister Jack's piece speaks of the border between Scotland and England as being nothing more than a signpost by the side of the road as though it had no more significance than a signpost pointing the way to a tourist attraction or motorway services. He either ignores or is woefully unaware that the Scottish-English border represents the geographical limits of Scots law, the status of the Church of Scotland as an established church and the unique Scottish education system, all of which are guaranteed by the Treaty of Union which established the Union in whose defence Alister Jack is writing.
If this is what passes for an intellectual argument for the UK, Better Together MK II is in very deep trouble indeed.
This piece is an excerpt from today's REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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