Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Also I agree with the always great Esther Webber's assessment:

Esther Webber
@estwebber
This is... not a bad select committee session? Only a few self-serving questions and as forthright a witness as you could hope for

It is genuinely enlightening, there's not been too many cul-de-sacs and my impression is he's giving honest evidence from his perspective/vantage point.

Edit: And this is extraordinary - Cummings' photo of the Number 10 whiteboard on, I think, 13th March (or maybe the 14th) when they realised they'd have to lockdown:


Which gives an indication of the state of planning. He said he was still doing daily ICU stat updates (obviously a lagging indicator) on the whiteboard through March - they'd only built a data dashboard in the space of a month by April.

Edit: Also one other point is that on March 13th he said that at the start of the day they were working on the pandemic and then everyone got distracted because Trump wanted to bomb some country in the Middle East (I think Iraq) and for the UK to join in so all of Number 10 got sidetracked into that (plus, he says, the PM's girlfriend was furious over some press coverage) which is something I've either completely forgotten or wasn't public.

It makes me wonder how many times in the last four years various countries political leadership had to deal with x crisis or even a seemingly normal day being suddenly sidetracked because Trump wanted to bomb someone

[Tamas]

Cummings saying if he was in charge there would have been harder lockdown, border closures, mandatory masks etc from then. Johnson disagreed

i.e. he had perfect (h)in)d)sight but the boss who fired him was consistently wrong. I mean, it can be true but he is a twat so who knows.

[Zanza]

Fintan O'Toole: Bamboozled Britain dishes out Brexit blame

Last Updated: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 09:33

If Brexit is so wonderful, why does anyone have to be blamed for its consequences? Because performative victimhood has always been at its heart. One thing has never, ever, been in doubt: it would all be someone else's fault. The very things that Britain demanded and negotiated would be reconfigured as the perverse malignity of foreigners – the Irish, the French, the EU in general.

In May 2013, a British newspaper columnist wrote that "If we left the EU . . . we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by 'Bwussels' (sic), but by chronic British short-termism . . . a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure."

Thus wrote that great enemy of easy gratification, Boris Johnson. He was inadvertently predicting the very dilemma that Brexit would create for British, and indirectly for Irish, politics: what do you do when "Bwussels" can no longer be blamed?

The short-term answer is: blame it anyway. For both the Tories and the DUP, the habit is too deeply ingrained to be broken. The Northern Ireland protocol, which they created, is all the fault of Dublin and Brussels.

It is hard, admittedly, to figure out how much of the current discourse about the protocol among the Brexiteers is rooted in genuine ignorance and how much is a cynical pretence not to know what it meant.

The first possibility can never be discounted. I was watching last week's appearance before a House of Commons committee of an unelected bureaucrat of the kind that Brexit was meant to overthrow. Lord Frost, never elected to anything, has been appointed Lord Brexit.

Boris Johnson's EU minister, David Frost, says he will not rest until the protocol is torn up.

The part of his evidence that attracted attention was his tragicomic announcement that the British government is seeking an outside expert to help it identify the benefits of Brexit. A bit late, no? But there was a moment that was even more gobsmacking.

Sincere witlessness

A Tory MP, Richard Drax (aka Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax), actually asked Frost this question: "How are you getting on with bilateral agreements with other EU members? . . . Are you having any success in those?"

Frost seemed embarrassed by the apparent belief of an MP that EU member states could make their own deals with the UK, so he just waffled that "I would say there is some way to go in that."

Drax then said this: "Oh dear. Actually, part of my question was whether individual EU states were able to do bilateral agreements. I think you are hinting that perhaps they cannot with Big Brother sitting on their shoulder. That is a shame, but hopefully in the months and years ahead that will disappear – I am sure it will under your leadership, Lord Frost." So genuine, unaffected, sincere witlessness cannot be ruled out.

There are fishermen who voted for Brexit now genuinely stunned to find that a consignment of shellfish being sent across the Channel needs health certificates in three languages. There are pensioners who voted for Brexit who cannot understand why they can't go and live in Spain or France without having to fill out bloody forms.

This kind of ignorance is understandable. Brits have been told for decades that "red tape" was all the fault of "Bwussels". The truth that Brexit means vastly more of it does not compute.

But there is also fake ignorance, a faux naivety being performed by Frost and Johnson. Normally, senior political figures would be ashamed to claim that they did not understand a treaty they negotiated, signed and hailed as a triumph.

Wily foreigners

Not this time. There is a strategic deployment of gormlessness to avoid the even worse option: taking responsibility for their own actions.

To keep alive the idea that someone else is to blame, there has to be a story of artless, innocent Britain bamboozled into signing things it did not understand. In this narrative, world-beating Great Britain becomes a guileless ingenue taken advantage of by wily foreigners.

Thus, as Frost told the Commons committee, the EU "seems to want to treat goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK in the same way as the arrival of a vast Chinese container ship at Rotterdam. We did not anticipate this when we agreed the protocol."

This is not ignorance: pleading stupidity is deliberately disingenuous. The British government's own explanatory note on the deal in December 2019 states: "Any processes normally required on goods entering the EU will be implemented at the Northern Ireland/rest of world border."

The British sense of being deeply wronged is always marked by the obsessive return to the second World War. Sure enough, last week, counsel for the unionist parties in Northern Ireland claimed in court that the operation of the protocol "can be likened to the position of the Vichy regime which was relied on to do the bidding of the occupiers".

The Nazis made us sign the protocol. Makes a change, I suppose, from the Irish. But the bad news is that this stuff is not going to go away because it is rooted in the deepest emotion of Brexit: self-pity. It is all about imagining Britain as a victim. It is, of course – not of "Bwussels", but of its own home-grown delusions and deceptions.

What a bunch of losers. Can't even own their decisions.

Makes you wonder why the English would vote for them in an even bigger landslide now.

Maybe because there is no English opposition. What was the name of the red party? Do they even still exist?

[The Brain]

There was some noise a while back about an oppositon party, it was something about antisemitic leadership. Can't recall the name though.

[Josquius]

More brexity rumblings that haven't really hit the news yet coming from my contacts in construction.... Lumber shortage is picking up. Prices expected to go up 40% or more this year.
And this is on top of a long standing brick shortage.
Nothing to do with the vast majority of our lumber coming from Europe of course.

Actually the reason is massive demand from the US as lumber is scarce in Germany as well as our lumber is exported to the US as it fetches much higher prices there. Nothing to do with Brexit.

Oops, missed this.
Thats the trouble with these things and how the cult keeps telling themselves everything is fine, nothing in the world is down to a single factor. There are other reasons to blame like covid, suez, the post-covid reopening of economies.
Though the UK seems to have this particularly bad with the mess around our borders causing extra pain. I've just got off the phone with my dad, he says he spoke to a relative today, a manager at a building supply firm, and he outright said brexit as the key reason. Lots of stuff getting held up at the border and seemingly random extra bills coming his way.

[Zanza]

This stuff from Cummings is a fascinating insight into how dysfunctional our governments approached the pandemic. I am sure similar discussions were held elsewhere, although Johnson struck me as particularly feckless even then.

[Josquius]

This stuff from Cummings is a fascinating insight into how dysfunctional our governments approached the pandemic. I am sure similar discussions were held elsewhere, although Johnson struck me as particularly feckless even then.

Apparently this stuff is getting a fair bit of attention outside the UK too?

[Tonitrus]

Maybe I exaggerate the impact  in my head, from an outsider's perspective...but I wonder how much COVID restrictions, in how they've really neutered the spectacle of PM's Question Time, has been of fantastic benefit to Johnson and the ruling party.

[Zanza]

This stuff from Cummings is a fascinating insight into how dysfunctional our governments approached the pandemic. I am sure similar discussions were held elsewhere, although Johnson struck me as particularly feckless even then.

Apparently this stuff is getting a fair bit of attention outside the UK too?

Sure, why not? The UK is an important country, Germans dislike Jihnson and it is a juicy story. We even had something on his wallpapers recently. Now that Trump is gone, Johnson is a partial stand-in.

[Tamas]

Maybe I exaggerate the impact  in my head, from an outsider's perspective...but I wonder how much COVID restrictions, in how they've really neutered the spectacle of PM's Question Time, has been of fantastic benefit to Johnson and the ruling party.

What is fascinating for me is people's short memory span. The vaccination program has gone really well so discontent I think is pretty much gone. Never mind the 130k dead, at least half of which could have been saved if the government was less incompetent.

Also, thanks to heavy tax breaks the only economic indicator which matters, property prices, are soaring, so all is good.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe I exaggerate the impact  in my head, from an outsider's perspective...but I wonder how much COVID restrictions, in how they've really neutered the spectacle of PM's Question Time, has been of fantastic benefit to Johnson and the ruling party.

PMQs doesn't really have much impact I don't think. It mainly helps with morale in each parlaimentary party, but that's about it. So William Hague almost always had the better of Blair but lost in a huge landslide.

Also, thanks to heavy tax breaks the only economic indicator which matters, property prices, are soaring, so all is good.

That's not true - furlough worked, generally so did the other economic measures. All of the forecasters are now estimating that the unemployment peak will be far lower than they were thinking even six months ago and that the economic recovery will be far quicker and V-shaped.

I think there's three areas the government got right - vaccines, testing (but very late) and the economic support program.

What is fascinating for me is people's short memory span. The vaccination program has gone really well so discontent I think is pretty much gone. Never mind the 130k dead, at least half of which could have been saved if the government was less incompetent.

I don't think it's a short memory span. I think it's a view that the pandemic was like a natural disaster and any government would have struggled and possibly failed as well. I think that is probably fair about the first wave. I think it's far too generous about the autumn and winter wave.

The best summary of his evidence that I've seen - I think the news will focus on the stuff about Johnson and Hancock which is explosive. But I hope both this parliamentary inquiry and the public inquiry also look into his comments about the failures of planning, the civil contingencies legislation, the groupthink etc - there is lot for people like the Institute for Government to think about:

Naivety, complacency, panic and lies: Dominic Cummings reveals all
Oliver Wright and Eleni Courea
Thursday May 27 2021, 12.01am, The Times

It is hard to think of any occasion in modern British politics when someone so close to the centre of power has turned so spectacularly against a serving prime minister. During nearly seven hours of evidence to MPs yesterday Dominic Cummings eviscerated Boris Johnson's character, motives and competence. His testimony shed extraordinary light on a government trying to cope with the biggest peacetime crisis the country has faced.

January and February: heads in the sand

Cummings painted a picture of naivety and complacency in government as the virus spread from China and into Europe in the early months of last year. He claimed that Johnson regarded Covid-19 as a "scare story" and the "new swine flu" while ministers and officials unquestioningly assumed the UK was well prepared. "The western world including Britain just completely failed to see the smoke and to hear the alarm bells in January, there's no doubt about it," he told the committee.

Cummings said he became involved in the crisis in late January when he told Johnson's private office that he wanted to look at pandemic planning and texted Matt Hancock, the health secretary. "I said to what extent have you investigated preparations for something terrible like ebola or a flu pandemic. Hancock replied, 'We've got full plans up to including pandemic levels regularly prepped and refreshed. We're stress testing. It's our top-tier risk register'."

But as Covid spread into Europe Cummings said the government "was not on a war footing in any way", with many people, including the prime minister, on holiday. "Lots of key people were literally skiing," he added.

He said Johnson refused to take the threat seriously and that officials thought it best to sideline him. "The view of various officials inside No 10 was if we have the prime minister chairing Cobra meetings and he just tells everyone, 'It's swine flu, don't worry about it, I'm going to get Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus so everyone realises it's nothing to be frightened of, that would not help serious planning".

March 12-14: change of heart

Cummings's account of the days in mid-March when the government began upending its coronavirus strategy painted a picture of Downing Street in chaos. He described his own sense of "mounting panic" about the pandemic response and said he texted Johnson setting out his concerns on March 12.

"We've got big problems coming. The Cabinet Office is terrifyingly shit — no plans, totally behind pace."

The plan was to discuss coronavirus immediately but instead it developed into a "completely surreal day" with attention diverted by a potential war in the Middle East and a row over the prime minister's dog.

First, he said, national security officials announced that Trump wanted Britain to join a bombing campaign, then Carrie Symonds, the prime minister's fiancée, reacted furiously to a story in The Times which said that she and Johnson were having second thoughts about their adopted dog, Dilyn. "So we had this sort of completely insane situation in which part of the building was saying are we going to bomb Iraq, part of the building was arguing about whether or not we're going to do quarantine [and] the prime minister has his girlfriend going crackers about something completely trivial," he said.

The next day Cummings recalled sitting with Ben Warner, a No 10 adviser, in Johnson's private office discussing how to tell him he needed to rethink the approach. While he was in the room, Cummings said that the deputy cabinet secretary, Helen McNamara, walked in and said: "I think we are absolutely f***ed — I think this country's in a disaster and we are going to kill thousands of people." On March 14 advisers told Johnson he would have to lock down the country, according to Cummings, but there was no plan for how to do so. He likened the situation to a scene from the sci-fi film Independence Day "with Jeff Goldblum saying, 'The aliens are here and your whole plan is broken, and you need a new plan.' "

March 20: lockdown

A full lockdown was announced a week later on March 20 — a delay that Cummings suggested was responsible for thousands more people dying. He claimed that "groupthink" in Whitehall had led officials and politicians to conclude that it was impossible to contain Covid and it was better to allow a first wave in the summer rather than a risk a second peak in the winter when the NHS was always under pressure. He revealed that Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, suggested that Johnson go on television to explain the herd immunity plan by saying it was like chicken pox parties.

"We're sitting in the prime minister's office [and] the cabinet secretary said, prime minister, you should go on TV tomorrow, and explain to people the herd immunity plan, and that it's like the old chicken pox parties. We need people to get this disease. And I said, Mark, you've got to stop using this chicken pox analogy and he said why? And Ben Warner said because chicken pox is not spreading exponentially and killing hundreds of thousands of people."

He said that Hancock was "completely wrong" on March 15 to say herd immunity was not part of the plan. "That was the plan. I'm completely baffled as to why No 10 has tried to deny that," Cummings said. He admitted that in retrospect it was a "huge failure" on his part not to "hit the emergency panic button" earlier.

April: paralysis and failure

When lockdown was finally imposed, the chaos at the heart of government only increased as Johnson and Cummings contracted Covid.

Cummings described a state of paralysis in early April after the prime minister was admitted to hospital and then intensive care: "The core of the government kind of collapsed when the prime minister got ill himself because he's suddenly gone and then people are literally thinking that he might die."

Cummings praised the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, for taking over but attacked Hancock for using Johnson's absence to make a pledge to raise tests to 100,000 a day by the end of April. "When I came back [to work] I started getting calls saying Hancock is interfering with building of the test and trace system, because he's telling everybody what to do to maximise his chances of hitting his stupid target," he told MPs. "So we had me and No 10 calling round frantically saying, 'Do not do what Hancock says, build the thing properly for the medium term,' and we had Hancock calling them all saying 'Down tools on this, do this, hold tests back so that I can hit my target.' "

He added of the health secretary: "It was criminal disgraceful behaviour that caused serious harm."

Summer: re-opening

Cummings told MPs that even early on in the pandemic Johnson was far more concerned about the economy than he was about the health risks. As restrictions began to be eased Johnson was determined to get the economy up and running again even if that meant risking a second wave. In particular Cummings attacked Johnson for not following the model used by countries such as Taiwan and Singapore to quarantine all arrivals into the UK to prevent reimporting cases.

"Fundamentally, there was no proper border policy because the prime minister never wanted a proper border policy," he said. "Repeatedly in meeting after meeting, I and others said, all we have to do is download the Singapore or Taiwan document and impose them here. Essentially, at that point, he was [saying] 'We should never have been locked down. I should have been the mayor of Jaws. Now I'm going to be. Open everything up. Get on with it.' "

It was put to Cummings that he must take some share of the responsibility for the decisions that were made, but he insisted that by this stage Johnson was no longer listening to him. "The whole idea that I was the second most powerful person in the country was just completely wrong. What happened is, fundamentally the prime minister and I did not agree about Covid after March. His lesson to be learnt was, we shouldn't have done the lockdown, we should have focused on the economy. I thought that perspective was completely mad."

Cummings said in July he told Johnson he had made a decision to leave the government by the end of December at the latest. "He [Johnson] asked why and I said because this whole system is chaos, this building is chaos. You are more frightened of me having the power to stop the chaos than you are of the chaos, and this is a completely unsustainable position for us both to be in.

"He laughed and said, 'You're right . . . chaos isn't that bad, chaos means that everyone has to look to me to see who's in charge.' "

October: second lockdown

Cummings painted a damning picture of Johnson as a prime minister determined to keep Britain open in the autumn even when it became clear that the UK was facing a second wave.

For the first time he publicly confirmed that he heard Johnson say he would rather see "bodies pile high" than impose another lockdown. "I heard that in the prime minister's study," he said. He said Johnson had also vetoed a circuit-breaker lockdown in September and decided to just "hit and hope".

Cummings claimed at the time modelling showing the NHS was going to get "smashed again" but Johnson was unmoved. Cummings said there was a "great misunderstanding" that because Johnson nearly died of Covid he must be taking the virus seriously.

November: resignation

Cummings told the committee his relationship with Johnson had taken a "terrible dive" after the second lockdown in October and by then his departure was all but inevitable. "The prime minister knew I blamed him for the whole situation and I did . By October 31 our relations were essentially already finished."

He added: "The heart of the problem was fundamentally, I regarded him as unfit for the job. I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought were extremely bad decisions and push other things through against his wishes. He had the view that he was prime minister and I should just be doing what he wanted me to."

He said that with hindsight he should have resigned in September but had stayed on "because it was clear that we were heading for another disaster".

"Various people said to me 'The autumn is going to be a disaster, he's in complete let-it-rip mode you've got to stay and try and control the shopping trolley. Otherwise . . . God knows what's going to happen.' " He added: "If I gambled then and said I will basically call a press conference and blow this thing sky high. And then he'd caved in, you know tens of thousands of people would now still be alive. We could have avoided the whole horror of the delays and the variants and Christmas and the nightmare that the country's gone through. I think I made the wrong decision and I apologise for that."

But Cummings was in no doubt who was ultimately responsible. Asked whether Johnson was a fit and proper person to lead the country through the rest of the pandemic he replied: "No."

[garbon]

Recall, Tamas, Sheilbh is our resident torypologist on the pandemic.

[Sheilbh]

Recall, Tamas, Sheilbh is our resident torypologist on the pandemic.

I got it very wrong and you and Tamas were right. The only thing I got right was wanting us to send people to Taiwan and South Korea to learn what they were doing. But I think lots of experts got it wrong - I think there was a groupthink that basically herd immunity was inevitable (as I say our flu strategy is based on an assumption of 300k deaths which is insane - that's the strategy). I keep thinking about that Channel 4 News debate between Professor John Edmunds of LSTHM v a tech bro who wrote a Medium post - the tech bro was right and I deferred too much to status and expertise.

I didn't think Western countries could lockdown in the way China did because we don't enough police to enforce it - it turns out people were overwhelmingly compliant (and FWIW - in another shared view with Tamas - Cummings said he thinks the behavioural scientists are basically charlatans). I definitely thought there'd be lockdown fatigue - which was wrong.

My main point, in the first wave, is I think all of those points applied to what was happening in government too. Again if this was some moral failure of the Tories - I'd expect different decisions and results in SNP-led Scotland, Labour-led Wales and DUP/Sinn Fein-led Northern Ireland. As I see it the options are all of those parties with their different political interests and ideologies chose to ignore the evidence in the same way, or they were receiving substantially the same advice that turned out to be wrong but resulted in the same policy decisions.

The other waves are entirely on the government because they were predictable and predicted. I think probably about two-thirds of the deaths are on them. Trying to understand why voters aren't showing any great desire to pubish them is not the same as thinking they shouldn't

And as with Brexit - I think a lot of the blame for people not punishing the Tories lies with the opposition because they're failing at their job.

Edit: And incidentally it'll be interesting to see the Commons today because the Speaker's given Labour an emergency debate/urgent question for Matt Hancock. It'll be particularly striking to see what he denies specifically v vaguely; in the same way as Johnson in the Commons has not denied the "let the bodies pile high" comment or the thing about only 80 year olds dying.

[Zanza]

#takebackcontrol

The British people probably had more say on trade deals affecting Britain through their MEPs than now through their MPs. 

But at least the government gets a friendly headline in The Sun. I wonder if the EU could have gotten more out of Johnson craving a good headline. 

[Sheilbh]

#takebackcontrol

The British people probably had more say on trade deals affecting Britain through their MEPs than now through their MPs. 

But at least the government gets a friendly headline in The Sun. I wonder if the EU could have gotten more out of Johnson craving a good headline. 

I mean in our system a restoration of parliamentary sovereignty is a concentration of quasi-monarchical power in the hands of the prime minister. That's how it works. The entire point is it returns strong governments with a solid majority and effectively fuses the executive and the legislature.

On this point though - I'm not so sure it's as easy as that. The reason is I think it's only really about formal influence/power.

But we've seen repeated fights between Parliament and the government over human rights and trade deals, which has been a fairly big story and has forced the government to start accepting amendments on their powers. Also the recent Australian deal was the subject of a big cabinet fight, with factions within the Tories pressing on it and again media coverage and campaigns.

If anything I think we are seeing the re-politicisation of trade from something technocratic that happens in Europe to something voters actually influence and have a say on - I think if UK voters took the European elections seriously and voted on their feelings about the issues the European Parliament had a say on it would be much of a muchness. But they didn't, European elections were always just about UK politics and normally a sort of mid-term challenge.

But I suspect that trade and trade policy may actually end up being a salient political issue - especially in, say, farming areas. My general view is politicisation is good and I think that's a positive thing - I think in theory that would've been possible on European trade policy in the UK, but in practice not unless you changed the entire media, voting system and political structure

Interesting thread I totally agree with from Robert Saunders - I've always thought we need PR (it even explains my youthful flirtation with supporting the Lib Dems ) but I think this shows how essential it is for the long-term health of the union. The other slight point I'd add is that from 2005-2010 Labour had lost its "majority" in England and, due to devolution, was to a large extent governing England by relying on Scottish MPs, by the end, backing a Scottish Prime Minister and Chancellor - I think that is an important element in Cameron's success especially (and English resentments of Scotland). That makes me think it's probably not just PR you need but also some form of federalism:

See new Tweets
Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
One of the biggest dangers to the Union today is the Westminster model at its core: a "winner-takes-all" contest between two overwhelmingly English parties, propped up by an archaic electoral system. If we want to rebuild a Union of consent, we should start here. [THREAD]
2. Britain's "winner-takes-all" system assumes two broad parties that alternate in govt. Until 2015, Scotland mostly fitted that model. The "Big Two" usually won >80% of MPs, & in 11 out of 18 elections from 1945-2010, the biggest party at Westminster won the most Scottish seats.
3. Scotland had a visible presence, not just in the governing parties at Westminster, but in Cabinet. Scotland supplied Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Foreign & Defence Secretaries, including major figures like Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Malcolm Rifkind, Donald Dewar and John Smith
4. Yet "British" and Scottish elections were slowly diverging. When the Scottish Tories were wiped out in 1997, the immediate beneficiary was the other Westminster party: Labour. But when Lab fell in 2015, the connecting link between Scottish elections & British cabinets snapped.
5. Since 2015, neither the Govt nor the main Opposition party at Westminster has won more than a handful of seats in Scotland. In consequence, the UK is now governed largely by English politicians, competing for English votes. That is not a stable basis for a Union of consent.
6. Scotland retains, of course, a full quota of MPs. But the Westminster model concentrates power in the hands of govt. MPs are increasingly shut out of decision-making & treated merely as an electoral college for the executive. That offers little role for non-governing parties.
7. Ironically, the decline of the Westminster parties in Scotland has been exaggerated by First Past the Post. Unionist parties won more than 53% of the Scottish vote in 2019, but returned less than a fifth of Scotland's MPs. 1 in 4 Scots voted Conservative. 1 in 5 voted Labour.
8. In 2015 First Past the Post gave the SNP 95% of Scotland's MPs on <50% of the vote. It wiped out the Unionist parties a year after they'd won a referendum. In 2019 the SNP won 81% of MPs on 45% of the vote. This isn't good for democracy, & it's certainly not good for the Union
9. Under a proportional system (on 2019 votes), Scotland would currently be represented at Westminster by 26 SNP MPs, 15 Tories, 12 Lab & 5 Lib Dems. MPs for Scottish seats would be more likely to hold positions in government, while all MPs would have more influence in Parliament
10. So long as Westminster concentrates all power in the Executive, it will offer little to voters who don't back one of the Big Two. So long as its electoral system locks out Scottish Unionists, the UK govt will look ever more like an English activity, conducted by English MPs.
11. If Johnson truly wants to rebuild consent for the Union - rather than simply denying permission to leave it - he needs to stop hoarding power in an Executive in which Scotland is barely represented. And he needs to reconsider an electoral system that's pulling the Union apart
12. It's easy to boast about "our precious Union"; it's harder to make changes that go against one's party interest. But as a Victorian MP once put it, Toryism has to decide what it truly exists to "conserve": its own electoral supremacy, or the Union it claims to revere? [ENDS]