Neil Mackay: Scotland’s future: either PM Farage or left-wing populist independence

The future is here and it’s up for grabs. The protocols and ideas which dominated the West from 1945 now exist only in the minds of centrist politicians.

The notion that a select cadre of middle-class professionals, safely ensconced for life in a handful of political parties, have the right to govern is dead.

The people don’t care about the rules any more, because the rules haven’t worked for them.

Since the millennium, there’s been fundamentally no difference between ruling parties in the West. Centrist governments adhered to an economic doctrine which crushed living standards for the poor, dismantled middle-class ambitions, and protected the rich.

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Astonishingly, it became the far-right, the hard-right, the populist-right, which saw the opportunity to fill the gap - and sometimes, like Donald Trump, swallowed failed governing parties. Today’s Trumps and Farages offer rage and blame. That’s worked.

The left, which, theoretically at least, exists to help the poor, just abandoned its mission. Keir Starmer’s Government now swims against the tide of history. In an era when politics is bloody, he’s bloodless.

Starmer took power simply because there was no alternative. Venality drained the Tories dry. So people voted in despair for insipid Starmer and his gutless manifesto.

Once he fails, where does Britain turn? There’s nowhere left but Reform.

For an electorate desperate for change, for help - for a revolution in how we run society - Starmer merely presents a more managerial form of went before.

Essentially, little will alter under Starmer. Corporations will still suck us dry, the poor will see living........

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