Labour leapt into Brexit's fires - and now the party is burning

[Denzil_DC]

34. I could make some guesses where you might have read stuff like that.

Labour Hame would be one, but there are others. There's a passably vibrant online community who do nothing but peddle these partisan myths.

Check and see whether their complaints include the fact that the SNP-led Scottish Government refused to nationalize the Scottish railways.

It's a good test, because there's no way it could have - it's one of those powers reserved to Westminster, so it would have been plain illegal.

That didn't stop one Jeremy Corbyn loudly banging on about this horrible betrayal of the Scottish people, among many others, on one of his visits up north last year ...

To debunk that rubbish, I'll let Wings Over Scotland do the writing again, because I have RSI:

“The SNP are privatising CalMac.”

Not true. The SNP are following a tendering process which is required by EU law, and which was also undertaken in an identical fashion by the last Labour-led administration at Holyrood. No decision has as yet been made.

(Calmac - a large, long-established but frequently struggling ferry company - wasn't privatized. It has since won the franchise in the last tendering round. We who live on the coast cheered.)

“{The SNP} were behind privatisation of ScotRail.”

Hang on, what? Britain’s railways (including Scotland’s) were privatised by the Tories under the Railways Act 1993. The Scottish Parliament didn’t even exist at the time.

Privatisation/nationalisation of railways is reserved to Westminster under the same act – it’s totally outwith the Scottish Government’s control. It’s currently forbidden by law for the public sector to own/operate Britain’s railways except in emergencies

More debunking of SNP Bad myths (with supporting links) at this unashamedly partisan blog, but one that's wedded to exposing media lies: http://wingsoverscotland.com/advice-for-jeremy-corbyn/

Other of Corbyn's lies in that few second-long clip exploded there: “{they’re} also cutting college places”, “{they’re} also privatising services” - and most germane to what you cited earlier, “{they’re} also cutting local government funding”. To which the riposte is:

In fact, despite having to deal with heavy reductions to its budget from Westminster (10% in real terms since 2009-10), the SNP has protected local-government funding, and indeed just days ago it was shown to have OVER-funded local authorities by £165m in compensation for its policy of freezing the Council Tax.

(Since Corbyn's interview and the above was written, the Council Tax freeze has ended - and this in the run-up to local government elections where there could be a political price for the SNP to pay - precisely to protect local authority funding because it was untenable to subsidize the shortfall any more.)

That's why he can't disappoint me in anything he says about Scotland. Because it's been obvious for ages that he hasn't a fucking clue, apparently has no desire to check his facts before spouting off, and will say anything his daft Scottish minders feed him - and they've made such a success of things themselves.

Anyway, it's less about independence at this point than it is about survival.