‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ said Churchill. And it seems the SNP have taken that maxim to heart, judging by the alacrity with which they’ve sought to exploit the current rumblings over Ukraine. Alyn Smith, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, was straight out there in a fuel-guzzling jet at the beginning of the month, accompanied by several party cronies who smelt an opportunity in the east. None of them have any role in UK government foreign policy whatsoever.
Smith, a man who has never met a camera he didn’t like, duly clipped himself standing solemn in front of the country’s foreign ministry, gravely intoning about the ongoing crisis – as if the poor Ukrainians hadn’t suffered enough already. Having butchered the pronunciation of ‘Kiev’, the Stirling MP claimed he was there to ‘see what’s happening on the ground’ as ‘it’s a sensitive time and we need to make sure we calm down any excess hysteria.’ And who better to do that than the famously self-restrained SNP?
The MP, whose party has been led by some men with, er, outspoken views, claimed that ‘the SNP will always stand four-square in the defence of international law’ – wildcat referendums are presumably exempt – because ‘international law is more important for smaller states than bigger ones, and as an aspiring member of the international community, Scotland takes this seriously.’ Narcissism or folly? Talk about a time and a place to make a political point.
Indeed, as others have pointed out, Scotland is already a member of the international community via the United Kingdom and has played a part in writing the very rules Smith and others now claim to uphold. Those in the Kiev parliament no doubt appreciate this point: after all it was the Union Jack, not the Saltire, they chose to wave in the chamber.
Mr S just wonders what on earth the Ukrainians were thinking as they met separatists from another country…
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