THE Labour Party is basing its entire electoral pitch on the one-word slogan "change", but it's now abundantly clear that if you want genuine change, you won't get it from them. 

Yesterday evening during a debate on ITV, Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner confirmed that a government led by Keir Starmer would never take the UK back into the EU Single Market or Customs Union. 

Starmer claims he's going to "make Brexit work" but he offers no concrete proposals for doing so other than hinting at the vague hope that the EU might offer the UK a better deal out of the kindness of its heart. It's more of the same British nationalist exceptionalism that we saw with the Tories. 

The EU is not a pick n mix counter, no matter how much Starmer might tell you otherwise. Labour's promise to "make Brexit work" is yet another of Starmer's many lies. 

Brexit cannot be made to work. It was an act of national self-harm, a lie on a massive scale sold by charlatans. Yet on this topic, as on so many others, Starmer is not being honest. He can only play that trick in opposition and that is why he will rapidly become very unpopular indeed within months if not weeks of taking power. 

Also speaking during the ITV debate which was attended by Rayner as well as the hard right English nationalist populist Nigel Farage, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn branded Labour's position on Brexit shameful and said: "Do you want to know the biggest problem facing the UK economy right now? 

“It's his [Nigel Farage's] pet project - Brexit. £40 billion in tax receipts gone. 

“And do you want to know what makes it worse? The Labour Party back Brexit, as outlined by their manifesto today - shameful." 

SNP EU accession spokesperson, and candidate for Stirling and Strathallan, Alyn Smith said: “It's now clear the Labour Party is wedded to Brexit forever - and voting SNP on 4th July is the only way to escape Brexit and secure the closest relationship with Europe, including rejoining the EU and single market. 

“Brexit has been a disaster - costing Scotland billions of pounds, increasing food prices, choking off economic growth, reducing trade, and damaging businesses and the NHS. 

“The Labour Party cannot claim to offer change when all it offers is the same damaging policies as the Tories - Brexit, a cost of living crisis and £18billion of cuts to public services. 

“Brexit is the biggest problem facing our economy - and one of the main drivers increasing the cost of living and reducing staffing in the NHS. It's shameful the SNP is the only party confronting the elephant in the room and offering an alternative.” 

Labour is determined to court constituencies in the North and Midlands of England which supported Brexit in the referendum of 2016, and which turned to the Tories in the 2019 Westminster general election. It's those seats which are crucial to Starmer's path to Downing Street, not constituencies in remain-voting Scotland, no matter the cant from Sarwar and Starmer about how important it is for Labour to win Scotland to unseat the Tories. 

Judge Labour by what they do not by what they say, and what Starmer is doing is to introduce a raft of policies designed to appeal to Conservative leaning leave voters in England, Scotland doesn't get a look in. 

Reform are now ahead of the Tories 

In an alarming sign of the extent to which England is in thrall to hard right snake oil salesman and English nationalist populist Nigel Farage, an opinion poll from YouGov put Reform, Farage's privately owned company acting as though it were a political party, ahead of the Conservatives for the first time.

There was predictable glee from Starmer and from his cheerleaders on GB News. The right-wing channel is three years old this week; like all three-year-olds it talks gibberish, is prone to temper tantrums, and breaks everything it touches. 

Farage is crowing that his vanity party is now the real opposition to Keir Starmer. However, other opinion polls continue to put the Tories ahead of Reform. Nevertheless, this poll will almost certainly spook the Tories into moving even further to the far right, and Labour will no doubt try to play right wing catch up as it habitually does. 

Farage has made no secret of his wish to take over the Tory party and to transform it into a version of Reform. Far right politics are here to stay in the UK. Remember how during the independence referendum campaign Better Together warned that Scotland needed Westminster in order to fend off extremism in politics, but now we see that it's Westminster and the British media, not least the BBC, which have normalised hard right authoritarian English nationalist populism and brought it into the political mainstream. 

Scotland needs independence in order to protect itself from hard right English nationalism. The idea of Prime Minister Farage is no longer laughable, it's frightening. 

I’ve already had one stroke, I don’t want to risk another 

The BBC’s Question Time, AKA the Nigel Farage Show, had its right wing British nationalist preferences on blatant display last night when it was broadcast from Edinburgh. 

Host Fiona Bruce shamelessly interrupted Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes repeatedly while allowing Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar to pontificate uninterrupted. 

Anas Sarwar was allowed to deny without challenge that his party will usher in a new era of austerity despite a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies warning that Labour will do just that. 

I don't watch Question Time anymore. I've already had one stroke; I don't want to risk another.