Stephen Daisley

As someone who has been banging the drum for Westminster to legislate to secure the Union, it might seem churlish to gripe when legislation is proposed. In my defence, I am Scottish: churlishness is my birthright and griping my national pastime. So allow me to explain my grievances with the referendum act, which the Sunday Times says Liz Truss will introduce to ‘wreck the campaign for Scottish independence’. For one thing, I’m a traditionalist in these matters. I prefer the wrecking of the campaign for Scottish independence to be left to the experts: campaigners for Scottish independence. For another, passing a referendum act plays into the nationalist narrative that another referendum, or even independence itself, is inevitable. It is not.

When a nationalist mob descended on the Tory leadership hustings in Perth recently, those of us who criticise the SNP’s degrading of Scottish political discourse seized on the ugly scenes as another example. However, extremism is not limited to one side of Scotland’s constitutional divide. Last week, as she was attending an event at the Edinburgh Festival, Nicola Sturgeon was protested by a group called ‘A Force For Good’. Their number would generously be characterised as a handful and there is no suggestion they engaged in the sort of behaviour reported in Perth. In videos posted by the pro-Union outfit, a man can be heard shouting at Sturgeon, asking her to ‘apologise for damaging Scotland’ and asking when she will resign.

Yesterday, 1,295 people arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats. That is the highest daily total since current records began being kept in 2018. More than 6,000 people entered the country this way in the first three weeks of August and more than 22,500 in the first eight months of the year. That is almost double the numbers seen at this point last year. From a video of the latest arrivals, there seem to be quite a number of young, fit, unaccompanied men. As an immigration liberal – someone who believes in safe, sustainable, legal immigration – it continues to baffle me that my fellow liberals are so relaxed about this. Supportive, even. These numbers are bad for us. There can be no liberal immigration system if there isn’t a system at all.

You probably think you’ve heard every story there is to hear about people getting fired over their tweets. Well, here’s the story of Sarah Muscroft. She’s got them all beat. Until last Friday, Muscroft was the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA). For 72 hours beginning on 5 August, Islamic Jihad fired 1,000 rockets into Israel and Israel responded with 170 counterstrikes, with the terrorist group citing as its pretext Israel’s targeted killing of two of its senior commanders and the arrest of dozens of its members. Eventually, a ceasefire was brokered with the assistance of Egypt.

The race to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister has been marked by acrimony. Rishi Sunak has established himself as the candidate of the centre and his rival Liz Truss the figurehead of the right. On one issue, however, they are on the same platform. Last night, Sunak spoke to Conservative Friends of Israel, a campaign group within the Conservative party that is popular with both MPs and grassroots activists. During the Q&A session, the former Chancellor was asked his position on moving the British embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, an issue that has sprung from relative obscurity in British politics to become a mainstream proposition.

Salman Rushdie's would-be assassin might have been a lone wolf. He might have had no contact with military or intelligence figures. He might never even have set foot in Tehran. But be in no doubt: he acted, in effect, as an agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Under the terms of the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989, Rushdie ‘and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death’. Khomeini urged 'brave Muslims to quickly kill them wherever they find them so that no one ever again would dare to insult the sanctities of Muslims', adding: ‘Anyone killed while trying to execute Rushdie would, God willing, be a martyr.

The next Prime Minister, whoever they are, really needs to get a grip on the declinism and defeatism of the UK government. A case in point is the statement issued today confirming ministers have submitted their case to the Supreme Court in the referendum showdown with Nicola Sturgeon. For those unfamiliar, the Scottish government intends to hold a referendum on independence next year, despite the Union being reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act and Westminster declining to grant permission. So Sturgeon’s Lord Advocate — who isn’t herself convinced that her First Minister’s plan is lawful — will now argue before the Supreme Court that Holyrood doesn’t need Westminster’s permission to hold an ‘advisory’ referendum.

Liz Truss has signalled a historic shift in British foreign policy by saying she would review the location of the UK’s embassy in Israel in order to strengthen ties with the Jewish state. The announcement came in a letter sent by the Tory leadership candidate to Conservative Friends of Israel. The Foreign Secretary writes: ‘I understand the importance and sensitivity of the location of the British Embassy in Israel. I’ve had many conversations with my good friend Prime Minister Lapid on this topic. Acknowledging that, I will review a move to ensure we are operating on the strongest footing within Israel.’ The British Embassy is currently situated in Tel Aviv, despite Israel’s capital being Jerusalem.

There is a lot of pearl-clutching over Liz Truss’s dismissive remarks about Nicola Sturgeon. Much of it involves conflating a dig at the leader of the SNP with a grave insult to Scotland. This is symptomatic not only of the fetid culture of grievance that permeates Scottish politics but of the steady merging of the party of government and the state itself. Were Emmanuel Macron to brand Boris Johnson an ‘attention seeker’, these same guardians of the public discourse would scoff at the suggestion it represented a slight against the British people. In fact, they would regard anyone proposing such an interpretation as a hysterical ideologue and perhaps even a jingoist. The difference is that Boris Johnson isn’t regarded as a semi-monarchical figure.

Much to the chagrin of colleagues, friends and ex-friends, I’ve spent the past few years raising the alarm about how Scottish devolution is gradually eroding the Union. I’ve noted how the devolution settlement was devised as a fiefdom by arrogant New Labour architects who, unable to imagine anyone else coming to power, failed to include sufficient checks and balances. I’ve catalogued how the SNP has seized on this flaw to transform the Scottish Government into a permanent, taxpayer-funded campaign against the UK state. I’ve remonstrated about Westminster’s failure to notice the problem and its unwillingness to do something about it.

Reflections on the life and legacy of David Trimble will naturally focus on his role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, a feat for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, but never the same esteem from the political and intellectual classes as went to the more romantic figure of Martin McGuinness. However, in his passing another worthwhile contribution he made to the world should also be remembered. Trimble was a steadfast friend of Israel, one whose friendship went far beyond mere statements of support. An officer of Conservative Friends of Israel, Trimble was frequently to be found accompanying new Tory MPs on their first visits to the Jewish state.

It’s always the ones you most expect. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, nationalist strongman and post-liberal poster-boy gave a speech over the weekend on the evils of race-mixing. He was speaking on Saturday to attendees at Tusványos summer university in Băile Tușnad, Transylvania, previously an annual forum for Hungarian-Romanian dialogue but now an intellectual pep rally for the ultranationalist Fidesz party. According to the Budapest Times, he told his co-ideologues the West was ‘split in two’ between European nations and those in which Europeans and non-Europeans lived together. He declared: ‘Those countries are no longer nations.