CHRIS Law MP is an honourable fellow and, most agree, an indefatigable champion of the underdog, with his protests against the Spanish Government’s efforts to blockh the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, notable criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi following the Myanmar Rohingya refugee crisis and his repeated calls for her Freedom of the City of Dundeet to be rescinded.

However, as a man of principle he needs to be careful of making idle threats and ending up in Fluffy Mundell’s La La Land with its almost constant reprise of “here’s a threat of resignation I made earlier”.

An indefatigable Yes campaigner, his Spirit of Independence road tour in a refurbished Green Goddess fire engine is part of indy folk memory. Unfortunately, however, his gesture of threatening to tear up his TV licence is almost as naive as King Robert in the Outlaw King shaking the hand of Aymer de Valence on a tomorrow duel only to be overwhelmed by the subsequent treacherous night-time attack and the battle of Methven.

Surely for a man of the world, he’s bound to understand that if you threaten to make a protest it can’t be a mere gesture.

On June 13 2018, Prime Minister’s Questions descended into pandemonium after SNP MPs walked out en masse in support of their parliamentary leader claiming that Scotland and Holyrood were “being treated with contempt” by Westminster.

Now that was a protest. And it resulted in SNP membership rising by more than 5,000 in the 24 hours following the walkout.

After months of a very phoney war we now have the indescribable abdication of responsibility by both the Conservative and Unionist Party and Her Majesty’s loyal opposition to the interests of the population beyond their cliques.

David Cameron’s pitiful attempt to head off opposition from the Ukip bandits led by his nemesis Farage, and fix the internal squabbles of his ever ethno-centric Tory party, compounded by the hapless May, has led us to within a whisker of our destiny. The English establishment have demonstrated that the United Kingdom is no more and the independence lifeboat awaits.

We’ve now moved beyond the yoonyinists’ mantra of “now is not the time”, and with the relentless ticking of the Brexit clock need to put our national interests front and centre. The end of reasonableness is now.

According to Alex Salmond, February 2 2017 was “a day that will go down in infamy when the [then] single Tory in Scotland voted against Scotland’s interests to pass the government’s European (Notice of Withdrawal) Bill”. Unfortunately days of infamy have been ten a penny since: no mention of Scotland in the Brexit agreement, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland trumpeting the advantageous status of the province in the Brexit deal, and “whatever we do, let’s not get the First Minister of Scotland involved in any televised debate on the matter” for starters. We now have all the evidence we need that we are second-class citizens in the democratic processes of a once United Kingdom.

If Chris Law wants to make a protest, he and his 34 colleagues could make the ultimate democratic protest by lodging 35 applications to the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and of the Manor of Northstead, that quaint resignation device so beloved of Westminster. The subsequent 35 by-elections would then be fought simply on independence for Scotland under the long-held convention of a majority of Scottish MPs being elected to negotiate terms.

Now that would be a real protest, and Scotland would be done with Brexit, hard Brexit, or even no-deal Brexit because we would be free and charting our own way in the world.

Iain Bruce
Nair