Celtic Nations Join Forces To Pressure Union

Westminster's time as the center of power in Great Britain is coming to an end. That's according to the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and the North of Ireland who for the very first time are also the leaders of the three nation separatist parties. Pleum's Reena Pure, the SNPs John Swinny and Shinfane President Marylu Macdonald and Northern Ireland's first minister Michelle O'Neal met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a cooperation agreement to work together towards independence from England. The memorandum of understanding signed by the three leaders said this. Momentum is behind our movements. We believe that constitutional change is coming. No Westminster government has the right to block democracy or undermine the principle that our people will decide their own future. We call for the British government to prepare for plan and facilitate constitutional change in each jurisdiction. Now unlike Scotland and the north of Ireland, Wales is seeking devolution rather than revolution. At the signing, Reapure said what he would require from the British Prime Minister Andy Bernham. What I've said is that I want to have a positive relationship with him. I believe he wants to have a positive relationship with with me. My job is to get him to really understand what devolution is to Wales and what Wales's needs are moving uh forward. These are early days in our relationship. I want to keep it positive. I, you know, I think it that's in the interest of the people of Wales, but but I think he understands that he has a lot of learning to do about what how devolution to a nation is rather different to a devolution to a region or a city of England. The country nearest to devolution is of course Scotland. After the summit, John Swinny was asked about the strength of language in that statement. >> You're all very bullish about this and I and I I noted the the language in the memorandum of understanding. Westminster's time is coming to an end. That's a pretty bold statement. >> I think it's a statement of fact because we're in a completely different situation now because of what happened in the election in May. And I want to advance that argument because the people of Scotland have elected a Scottish Parliament that's got the largest number of members of the Scottish Parliament committed to independence and the holding of a referendum. That's a a seismic change in the the landscape. It's also it's it's it's reinforced by what's happened in Wales and what the situation is in Ireland. >> But you're much b more bullish today as well. You're talking about a referendum in the course of this parliament. That means by 2031. That's exactly how you going to do that. Well, it's got to be delivered because the people essentially elected a parliament to deliver that in May. And >> you said before the election they had to elect an SNP majority to deliver that. They didn't do that. >> No, no. I what I said was an SNP majority was necessary to unblock the objurate position of the UK government. >> But they didn't get that. So you haven't unblocked. But the people but well the the people elected a majority that's committed to the holding of a referendum on independence and committed to independence made no difference and we hope we have a different constitutional landscape now because across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we have first ministers who are in place that support a change to the constitutional structures of the United Kingdom and I intend to advance Scotland's argument within that context. Mary Lou Macdonald, president of Shinfane and leader of the opposition in the Republic of Ireland, told Times Radio she hoped Andy Bernham would be the last UK prime minister. This is her explaining why. >> I know that uh for English people the same as Scottish and Irish and Welsh. All of us want a good future for herself and for our kids. I want that for everybody. But I will tell you that the only way forward that we can achieve our best opportunities and our best outcomes is for Ireland to be reunited and that means an end to British jurisdiction on our island. It means those referendums happening and it means the preparations happening now. I can't speak for the Scottish people or the Welsh h but I would absolutely defend their complete right to self-determination just as we enjoy that too. >> First minister in the north of Ireland Michelle O'Neal also had a few words for Andy Bernham. We've had very disappointing comments, albeit we shouldn't be too surprised by the British Prime Minister in recent weeks whenever he visited Belfast where he told us Irish reunification was off the table, but very much today the message that he needs to hear from all of us collectively that it is very much on the table. We voted for the good Friday agreement. We voted for all of its parts, including the referendum and the question being put to the people because of course at home the constitutional position will only ever change whenever the people vote for it. That's the job of the politics of all of us who want to bring about unification. I think this can be such a positive journey because the one thing that we'll be talking about today with pled comry and with SMP is that shared objective. The fact that Westminster never we're always an afterthought. They will never serve our people well. And the message that we want Andy Burnham to take very much from our gathering today and from the fact that we're coming together in common purpose is very much that it's his job to plan and to facilitate a referendum. For our part, it's fulfillment of the Good Friday Agreement. Macdonald and O'Neal may well have been boyed by some recent comments from US President Donald Trump who visited Ireland last week. >> What's your view on? >> Well, I don't want to cause any problems, but I will tell you I'd love to see it unified. I have friends on both sides. Great people. They're Irish people. How could they be bad, right? I'd love to see it unified. I think it would be a great, you know, a great feather in everybody's cap. Is that happening? It's going to happen eventually. M, you know what? The way I look at it's going to happen eventually. Might as well happen now. We're talking about it and you got the right man over here to get it moving. But, uh, yeah, I'd like I think it would be a fantastic thing. Now, the UK will have something to say about it obviously, but I think it would be a great thing. I mean, how could it be bad? Finally, something for Trump and Biden to agree on. Now, not everyone has been so happy about the meeting. Reform's deputy leader in Scotland, Thomas Kerr, also an MSP, said this to Swinny on Twitter. You're a national disgrace coing up to extremists with links to terrorism to keep your dying cause relevant. Scotland does not want nor need another decade of division. I predict how United Kingdom will remain intact long after your career is ended. First Minister, early today, I spoke to Laura Webster, editor of The National. I began by asking her whether the breakup of the UK is really around the corner. >> It depends on on where you're coming at it from. Honestly, I think it depends on which nation we're looking at it from and depending on whichever leader you paid attention to yesterday. There's quite different stories at play here. So, in Northern Ireland, there is an awful lot of determination to push forward with a referendum on unification. And this has been especially spurred on by Andy Bernham's quite offensive comment um that a referendum would be off the table. It's really not his place to say that. And it demonstrated a lack of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement, which really sets out that the Northern Ireland secretary shall agree to a referendum to be held should it look like there would be majority support. And in recent polling, it does indeed look like there's majority support. So I think the reunification situation is on the cards maybe potentially sooner than Scottish independence. If you listen to John Swinny yesterday at the press conference, he sounded uh a little more cautious than Michelle O'Neal and Mary Lou McDonald. Um, definitely a lot of talk about allowing the Scottish people to decide and and he personally believes that Westminster's time is coming to an end, but I don't think that he was as guns blazing as the Irish leaders there. And then if you listen to Runapworth, h he's extremely cautious. He definitely doesn't want to spook people in Wales. Um, in Wales, the support for Welsh independence is quite a bit lower. Um, we're maybe looking at kind of the mid30s. Now, of course, once a campaign gets called, as we have seen from the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, that support can grow very, very quickly. And so, people in Wales on the independent side believe that they have a lot of potential to win people over and should a campaign happen, things could absolutely start to change. So, yeah, that you've got three different leaders. They have the same aim, which is to get the recognition of their right to self-determination from Westminster, but they're in incredibly different positions at incredibly different stages of their journeys towards self-determination. And I think that's what makes it so interesting that they're working together and actually makes their working together more significant. You know, they they are understanding that there are differences politically, culturally here, constitutionally as well because of the involvement of the Good Friday Agreement, but they are all working together towards that common cause. And I was thrilled to to see that press conference yesterday. I've got to be honest, it's the kind of momentum that we in the Scottish independence movement have needed for a long time. And I absolutely love that it forces the media to pay attention. Honestly, the fact is when John Swinny or Runa Pworth or Michelle O'Neal make a statement uh individually about independence or reunification, it's so easy for the media to ignore it. And we've seen that time and time again. But the media kind of has to go, "Oh, look, it's Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. we're going to cover this. We're going to make people listen. And that has led to just a stunning amount of engagement on this subject today. There were people on the digital side of the S&P saying they don't think there's been as much organic natural online conversation about independence since 2014. So I think that really demonstrates how significant a moment this is. Now, obviously you mentioned there the level to which that there is kind of support for independence across those three different nations in so far as I mean it seems like there's always seems to be on the cusp indeed when it comes to yes no polling and when it comes to Scotland there's obviously a lot of more tension when it comes to North of Ireland and in Wales it's kind of in the background of a lot of discussion whereas as you say plug mostly focusing on governance first and foremost and then independence is is one of their ambitions that they're trying to as you say get to the elector via these kind of meetings and these kind of memorandums that they've been signing. But what is the risk given how this has made it another high-profile conversation of driving and fermenting anti-independence support because of that high-profile nature of this discussion? >> Sure. I mean, I think there's always going to be unionist commentators who are going to come out of the woodwork and and say something whenever anyone dares to suggest the UK breakup, right? You've had Steven Daisley today suggesting that we need to find a way to make it completely illegal for there to be these kinds of conversations. I mean, some of the reaction has been just totally ridiculous and and it's out of touch. Frankly, it doesn't respect the fact that so many people are looking for an alternative to the established union and so many people are waking up to the fact that the union does not serve their interests. And so I think part and parcel of this is that there are going to be high-profile people, perhaps powerful people who are going to come forward and make their opposition to any change to the union very clear. Uh again, there was Rupert Low from Restore saying this would be his trigger point for their new policy on rolling back devolution. Do you know what? So what? We are up for the challenge. We are up for the fight. The independence movements in Scotland and Wales. uh we we know what's going to get thrown at us and and in here in Scotland we have experienced it already. We saw it in 2014. We saw the businesses scaremongering people. We saw the politicians lying and we we stood up to it and we still achieved 45% of the vote. And if you look at how much has changed since 2014, how much of a worse position the UK is in, how we were lied to about our position in the European Union as well. I think a lot more people will vote for independence this time when we get the chance to vote again and I believe we will get the chance to vote again. >> Now, when it comes to that backlash that you mentioned there, one piece of backlash in particular caught my eye, which was Reform UK's deputy leader Thomas Kerr, who responded to John Swinny and accused him of uh ping around with extremists with links to terrorists in a kind of veagal reference to Shinfane. How does that kind of language go down in Scotland? >> There's plenty unionists who have examples of uh working with extremists on the other side of the argument in in Northern Ireland. So, I think sometimes it's better for them to to stay away from that kind of conversation unless they might be accused of hypocrisy. But I think yeah, I've seen there has been media coverage suggesting that the SMP should not work with Shinfane, that John Swinny should be ashamed to be talking to Michelle O'Neal. I think realistically people understand it's 2026. we're in incredibly different situation to where we were decades ago. And it's it's a pretty outofouch approach to suggest that, you know, these historical factors mean that we can't work together now um for a better future for our nations. Um yeah, I I think most people can kind of see through that argument. Michelle O'Neal is the democratically elected first minister of Northern Ireland and the first minister should engage with her just as he should engage with any democratically elected leader. >> Yeah, as always the there made the very very clear point that Shinfane is indeed a legitimate political party and whatever's happened in the past and whatever links people may have, they are democratically elected right now and that's what's important. Although when it comes again specifically to kind of the Scottish issue here, uh Andy Burnham has said whilst this kind of storm of English devolution has been going on uh in uh down the south of the border, he said that Scottish independence was quote off limits. How has that kind of gone down in terms of the reaction? I think pretty badly to be honest and he keeps making these statements consistently that demonstrate his kind of lack of awareness around independence or the constitutional issue in general. yesterday his spokesperson's response to the Celtic Alliance meeting was along very similar lines like I'm focused on dealing with the cost of living crisis. I'm not interested in these constitutional debates. The truth is it doesn't really matter what Andy Burnham is interested in when the leaders of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are all interested in having this conversation. There's only so long that he can get away with saying that for. And it's really interesting as well. I don't know if on the show you guys have been talking about what the prime minister said at PMQ's last Wednesday, which was he again kind of demonstrated a bit of a lack of awareness on this where he said that Scotland should have the same kind of mechanism to getting a referendum as Northern Ireland. Now, as I've already mentioned, the Good Friday Agreement states that the Northern Ireland Secretary can or shall hold a referendum should it look like there's majority support, which then therefore would mean that Andy Bernham thinks that the Scottish secretary should or shall hold a referendum in Scotland when it looks like there is majority support. Now, that is actually quite a massive change from the the government saying things like independence is off limits, independence is off the table. And so there is a bit of a perception now in Scotland among independent supporters that Andy Burnham has set the challenge. He has set the test for what we have to achieve in order to secure that referendum. Of course, he's kind of w that back uh maybe after PMQ's got some angry phone calls from the Scotland office or something or from his advisers at number 10. Um but he has said that it's on the record. It's in the parliament. It's unanswered for anybody to go and see. And so I think that is something for people to focus on and rally around. We haven't had a prime minister say anything close to that um since the referendum and so why not try and rise to that challenge and try and get independent support up and and I think that's what the pressure will now be on John Swinny here in Scotland. Uh people want to see what action is going to be taken to capitalize on this moment to make the most of this momentum and to really push Andy Burnham into sticking to his word. The one of the things in the run-up to the the elections in Hollywood earlier this year was the them essentially the SNP stating that they would use it as a mandate to drive the uh the argument for independence or to try and find a mechanism to be able to gain independence. Do we do we see how that might play out at all or is it this one like the first step on a long road do you think? >> Well, if I'm going to be really really frank about the mandate that the S&P set for themselves before the election, I think it was a mistake. um they said that only an S&P majority would quantify as a mandate for a second referendum. And I mean for for listeners who might not be aware maybe the S&P got around 37 38% in that Hollywood vote and they certainly did not secure a majority. Um even though there was a pro-independence majority, the largest ever pro-independence majority the Scottish Parliament's ever seen. But the support for independence in the polls is sitting at around more like 52%. So that's a huge gap between people who want to vote S&P and people who would potentially vote for Scottish independence. So therefore making the mandate for a referendum totally tied to the fortunes of one party and under the control of one leader is is a mistake. uh there are other pro-independence parties available in Scotland and of course there are many people who are not affiliated with any party who would vote for independence and so those people have to be included. Um how we go about making people work together is a whole thing. The independence movement much like leftist movements or you know progressive movements is incredibly factional. There are many people who will not work with other people because of their associations with you know Alex and Nicholas Sturgeon whatever it may be. Also gender issues play unfortunately a rather large role in the kind of factionalism in the independence movement in Scotland. So I think we have a huge hurdle there of how we get people to actually work together uh towards a referendum. Um but regardless John Swinny is going to face a lot of pressure at the S&P conference uh next month. uh the members are pushing for uh this particular motion at the conference. They would like to see uh an independence delivery unit set up. They would like to see a national campaign set up to try and move towards what we've talked about as the standard set by Andy Burnham. Uh we'll have to wait and see if that wins support, but I think uh regardless of what happens at S&P conference, there has to be more of a move towards the independence movement coming together um and not allowing any one party or or individual to control the narrative here. >> Aaron, I want to get your take on this memorandum in a moment, but first a story from Wales broke just before we went on air. Sarah Koopa, who is elected to the Senate as a reform MS in May, has quit that party to join PL Cry of all things. That's quite a switch from Wales's most right-wing party to its most progressive. Explaining in a statement why she's jumped ship, Koopaath said this reform has no interest in the work I came here to do. They are not serious about governing Wales. Therefore, more interested in division, opposition, and headlines than in finding solutions. There is a real appetite in the group to want the government to fail and no interest in what that failure would mean for the people that we represent. She went on to say this. I cannot support reforms attacks on people seeking sanctuary or other vulnerable groups. I particularly reject the way minorities have too often been used as political targets. The party centrally has no interest in Wales. The Senate group is staging post in the effort to get Naja Farage into Downing Street and that was glaringly obvious at its conference this week. Uh, was it not obvious the whole time? I mean, I guess what do you make of this radical move, Aaron? I'm not that surprised. You know, I went to Cardiff and I went to Murtha Tidfield before May, before the elections for the Senate and I met quite a few reform voters who were voting reform just to give them a chance and their view is that well the Conservative party has collapsed and the Labour Party is discredited and I'm not I'm not a Welsh nationalist so I just vote for these guys. You know, some people also then voted for the Greens in the other side, but it was very much, okay, well, what happens when the two- party system collapses? And I think that can often lead to quite incoherent outcomes, which is not to say that the majority of reform voters are like this lady. I she's saying about sanctuary. I presume she's talking about refugees. Very strange. You know, she wasn't just joining reform as a member. She was standing for office. But in any case, I think particularly in the context of Wales, the collapse of both major parties, um because remember it was applied reform one two there kind of explains this. Uh and that's maybe where we're heading, maybe less so now with Burnham, but in England as well. You know, I don't think Labour, even with Burnham, even if they perform out of their skin, are going to get the same percentage they got in the last general election with Kharma. I could be wrong. Um, and by the way, with a lower percentage, they could still form a government because of reform doing better uh than last time around as well. So, I'm not that surprised in the context of Wales. In terms of the other stuff, we'll talk about that in a moment, but it does feel very much like um everything's to play for. And my worry with the left is, and I don't want to criticize the left, but look, we're on the left. I don't care what the right or the center right are doing, you know? I don't want to criticize them because let them fail. My worry with the left is often that, you know, if you aren't part of our side in a highly legible, codified way, well, we're not interested. Believe me, there are millions of people like this whose votes are up for grabs. Millions. I'm not I'm not exaggerating. But it's worth pointing out as well on that note, reform got huge amounts of their voters at the last election and continually to have it pled in terms of their vote share. It's coming from non- voters, people who did not vote at the last election. These are politically, you know, people with a low propensity and they're being spoken to in a certain way and parties of all stripes could potentially engage with their vote. Isn't, you know, our reform offering something specific that, you know, engages a certain part of the electorate. But that doesn't mean there are other people who are non voters who couldn't be engaged in different ways. >> Yeah. They feel heard. There's two parts to that. So, the most right-wing people that I've encountered while doing these, you know, documentaries around the country, um, we've not been to Scotland, but we've been to Northern England. We've been to the Midlands, the South, obviously, and Wales. The most right-wing people, the the kind of craziest right-wing people I speak to, almost always say they won't vote, which I find really fascinating. So, I'll even say, "Well, Farage wants to be the prime minister." They'll say, "No, he's just like the rest." There are quite a few people like that. And I think reform have that in the back of their minds. you know, we can't form majority unless we win over a critical mass of Tory voters, right? But we also activate these people. That's really hard. That's a really hard political thing to do. Secondly, um that's very very true. If you look at propensity to vote, um it correlates with income quite significantly. Uh that wasn't the case until about 1987, 1992, but I think 87 was the last election where it was was, you know, not really true. In other words, you could be earning £10,000 a year or £200,000 a year. You were just as likely to vote more or less within the margin of error. Okay. So, this is quite a new phenomenon. >> Property democracy. >> Yeah. Exactly. And I I think it's something that absolutely the left should be taking on. And by the way, when you're talking to somebody who's not voted for 15 years, who who may not be that well off or lower middle class even, yeah, again, they're not going to have the most coherent politics of all. But like I say, I do think there's something quite specific with Wales here. So there'll be lifelong Tory voters. The Tory party's collapsed. Well, I'm not going to vote Labour because that's been the party of the country for 100 years in Wales until May. >> And I'm not a Welsh nationalist. I'm not going to vote. So I I'll go for reform. There'll be there'll be quite a few people like that. When I was in Mera Tidville, I met quite a few reform voters who have to be honest were quite nice people. They probably voted well. They told me I voted Lib Dem in the past. Uh but I'm not going to vote for them now. And I'm obviously never going to vote for Labor because that's the negative polarization thing there is so real. You know, you meet lots of tribal Labor voters, but also people who define themselves by not voting Labor. And I think that really is a lot of reform people over there. >> Yeah. And I think what reform has in my mind, you know, when I've watched I've watched so many vox pops now at this point, right, from you know the four or five years of streaming whilst reform have been a political movement in this country and the thing I hear the most from reform supporters is we need a change, right? It's not even necessarily an ideological predilction towards what reform are offering, but they they everything's getting worse. They see no solutions and they're hitting the chaos button, right? They're saying whatever has been going wrong has been, you know, predicated on the Union party being in office. Therefore, I need to shake things up. And that's what reform represents me. And the left wing party can certainly be that. I mean, Jeremy Corbyn was that in 2017. That's what 67% voter turnout more than years more than they had in years. One of the most remarkable things about the 2017 general election was the best data suggests that bear in mind um reform rather reform's predecessor but one UKIP got almost 4 million votes in 2015 I think it was about 3.85 85 million votes. >> 12 12% of the vote or something. >> Yeah, this is UKIP in 2015 and they just win one MP. Quite an extraordinary moment. The best data suggest that in 2017 in terms of where those voters went, the break for the Tories and Labor was about 50/50. It was maybe marginally greater for the tries. In other words, the person standing on the most left-wing platform of any British politician, you might argue since the Second World War, certainly since Michael Foot in 1983, um was attracting just as many UK voters as Theresa May, the home secretary who, you know, who who who made it a big part of her agenda to target and isolate um uh migrants here both who are undocumented but who also overstayed visas. So, it's not as, you know, it's not as set in stone as um as we're often led to believe. And by the way, this idea that people are ideologically coherent and they believe this or that and they'll never believe this and they won't change, that is so central to the agenda of the mainstream media. They love elections which are 4951, 52, 48. They love them. Why? It keeps you gripped. And if one party's doing too well, well, we got to boost this side. Oh, well, they're flying at the moment. We need to find some dirt. Bring them down to earth. they they want that. Um, and so, you know, I think in terms of judging our fellow voters out there, do not take your prompts uh from the likes of the BBC or Sky News or GB News or ITV. Make up your own mind. >> At the end of the day, I think my kind of maxim on this is that voters have concerns, right? They have a a list of concerns that they want to be addressed by politicians and they don't have, you know, preconceived notions of how those things might be solved, but they're looking for politicians who are offering solutions to those issues. Those issues may be in line with what you're saying. They may be out of line with what you're saying, but as long as you can speak to them and convince them that your solution is best for those issues, then they'll vote for you. You look at Mandali in New York City, for example, where he's talking about cost of living and there are people there literally. There's a a direct quote from a Voxbot with somebody saying, "I voted for him because I thought he was a conservative because conservatives talk about bringing the cost of things down and that's why he was running on wouldn't believe that they were a socialist." Again, it's about the issues being solved by policy rather which is why again the video format of explaining policies to voters was so powerful and has been powerful for Andy Burnham is because it's not necessarily about how it's done or the ideological position that get them. It's about making sure that those issues get solved. >> Yeah. You know, and sort of adjacent to this is a big difference between Burnham and Star and how they do politics. KAM will say I am allocating 2 billion pounds to transport budgets which is a good thing. Good. Burnham will say I'm capping bus fairs at2. So Burnham is talking about the outcome. Star is talking about the process. You know, you can you can put five billion into transport, but it can be misspent. It could be wasted. And again, this is something that I think it's kind of like a it's a reflex from the sort of post 1989, postcold war, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair technocratic center that we need to just move a million miles away from. Like I say, talking about cost of living or getting cost down for businesses, that is not rightwing. That is not rightwing. If those businesses are worker owned or if it's a family and the the the staff are paid 20 quid an hour and the community depends on it, that is not a right-wing thing to do to care about their energy costs or to care about their bills on XY Z or their supply costs. That's that's a very progressive thing to care about. And and like you say, Mandani superb.