The UK Government was stamping its feet with impatience due to the continuous disregard of the Scottish Government in following its Foreign Affairs “rulebook”.
The UK Government announced that if the Scottish Government doesn’t invite it to meetings it arranges itself, it will simply not turn up or help set the meetings it wasn’t invited to from being set up.
You may need to read that a few times. The UK Government has indeed threatened to pull support from meetings that it was never involved in.
Oh well.
The fact remains it’s a bluff, the UK Government does operate considerable diplomatic resource and is particularly effective, it would be a loss, but not an unmanageable one. However it won’t pull support – for a bigger reason.
Scotland to become independent will at some point require its own diplomatic apparatus, and it will need to diverge from UK Government foreign policy. This is not particularly novel, all countries around the world handle this challenge, in unique and bespoke ways.
However that is the nut of problem for the UK Government. It does not want Scotland to gain its own unique voice – because that voice is recognition. Recognition that would one day be provided to a newly independent Scottish state. Thats the real issue at stake here, that people abroad may recognise the unique, divergent, and different voice.
For as bold as ‘SUPREME COURTS’ are when considered with “ACTS OF UNION”, the truth remains if a number of countries around the world recognise that unique Scottish voice as an Independent Scottish voice – it becomes fact and as history has shown – there is not a lot the UK can then do about that.
From Humza Yousaf and his partners tours and speeches on world politics, its very clear this particular power couple have their eyes set on more international politics following what is likely to be a short stint at the top of Scottish politics. This leaves the inescapable conclusion that Humza is likely to continue to speak to whomever he likes.
The UK Government will complain and flail but likely won’t pull support or risk going blind to the scant details they currently get, and they need to maintain the plausibility they still have control behind the scenes. Just don’t look behind the curtain.
The whole point is rendered somewhat silly when you consider on the same day that David Cameron is writing letters to Angus Robertson asking him to rein in Humza Yousaf and ensure officials are in the room from the UK Government – the other Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnston is telling a covid enquiry that they forgot to check with any health officials in the middle of the largest pandemic in modern lifetimes if sending everyone as a herd into restaurants would be dangerous.
Officials are clearly not that important to the UK Government while it breaks its own laws and rule books. They certainly aren’t required to be medalling in Scotland establishing its own voice.
