A guid new year tae ane an aw!
2018 was a very stressful year – Brexit got madder and madder while the Scottish Government kept acting as if their Westminster counterpart were sane and rational, and as a result they achieved very little. Of course there were good moments, too (like for instance the huge independence march in Edinburgh and the successful court case about how Article 50 can be cancelled) but at the end of the day I do feel we’re in a worse position now than we were a year ago.
It would be nice to think that things can only get better, given how dire they are, but unfortunately 2019 could turn out to be even worse. If we’re very lucky, Brexit will get cancelled and a new independence referendum will get closer. Unfortunately, the uselessness of most of the MPs makes it quite possible they’ll have to choose between May’s Deal and a No-Deal disaster in March (and who knows what side they’ll come down on?), and that Nicola Sturgeon keeps waiting for Westminster to agree to a new referendum, although it seems extremely unlikely they’ll ever do that – what’s in it for them?
Much as I appreciate Nicola’s warm words to New Scots, I’m afraid they’re not really that useful if she isn’t going to anything concrete to protect us. If your landlord wanted to evict you from a flatshare, of course you’d prefer your flatmates to be sympathetic and supportive, but when eviction day comes, you’ll be just as homeless as if they’d been hostile. Of course the UK Government won’t throw all EU citizens out, but they’re clearly intent on putting us on the same footing as other immigrants, which means we’ll get hit by their “hostile environment”, which is likely to create endless problems for us, as well as the occasional deportation.
I love Scotland and want to stay here, but if the Scottish Government cannot protect me and my family from the UK Home Office and the hostile environment, it gets tempting to leave before they make our life unbearable here.
So I’m not in a very festive mood today. The Tories and the Corbynites seem hellbent on a hard or even a no-deal Brexit, and the SNP seems to have lost its mojo at the worst time possible.
Hopefully I’m too pessimistic, and in a year’s time we’ll look back on 2019 with happiness and satisfaction, and not as an annus horribilis.
A guid new year tae ane an aw!