[Robin McAlpine Blog] One week ago Scotland was debased – and it wasn’t necessary

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One week ago Scotland was debased – and it wasn't necessary

This time last week establishment politics were playing out as they always do. Shitty people cowered in front of shittier people and ‘respectable’ people were grudgingly supporting it all. It’s the British Way. I want to argue that not for the first time, establishment centrist commentators claim a wisdom they do not demonstrate.

This of course is about dinner with Trump (sorry I’m late to this – lot of commissions last week…). What is not in question is that Keir Starmer debased Britain and John Swinney debased Scotland. Nobody has argued that it was morally right to do what they did, or that it was dignified, or that it cast our nations in a good light. The justification is that it was unfortunately necessary.

Of course, being the establishment they usually operate in slogan form. It was necessary because of ‘tariffs, whisky and investment’ and ‘because that’s how grown up politics is done’. I found not a single piece of explanation of this that went beyond saying that and ad hominem attacks on the left.

Engaging with unappealing actors on the world stage is indeed part of the game. I was very clear about this at the time of Swinney’s meeting in Scotland. That’s political business. Don’t get into politics if you don’t want to do it.

But a state dinner is a completely different thing. That is nothing other than open, craven sycophancy and that is most certainly not part of the business of politics. You have to accept that you will compromise yourself sometimes, but that is not the same as undermining the integrity of your administration.

No business was done at that dinner. Everything happened through formal channels. The people who went to that dinner wanted to be at that dinner and wanted to be seen to be at that dinner. There is no soft-soaping it. That was a calculated action of debasement. It is most certainly not non-negotiable

Of course, the whole ‘grown ups must go’ thing was undermined by the fact that lots of serious grownups chose to be washing their hair. In fact for my money it was the two least serious political leaders in Britain who turned up. Starmer is an embarrassing creep and his main function now is a subject for a sweepstake – more than six months or less?

For me, Swinney is just too pleased with himself. Like I have pointed out before, he is the Factor. He is exactly the personality type that gets a kick out of hanging out with important people. I am pretty sure that this was a career highlight for Factor John.

It’s not about throwing your weight around, it’s about not kneeling when you want something

Suffice to say Trump has not bombed London, cut the internet to Wales or sanctioned Northern Ireland. Their leaders showed courage and best of all, they called the establishment’s bluff and revealed its Emperor’s new clothes.

So let’s drop this ‘no choice, grow up’ crap and let’s look at the substantive ‘more good than bad comes from it’ argument.

As best as I can tell, the only real practical reason anyone thinks Scotland should have had to suck up this humiliation was whisky. If Trump tariffs whisky it is bad for Scotland. That is how far any thinking I saw has gone, and it really needs picked apart.

Let’s park the fact that this is not a devolved responsibility and that the negotiations are being handled by London and let’s dismiss the idea that there was no choice but to have our First Minister fellate the President of the USA, just to help juice the negotiating efforts of the British Government.

Instead let’s look at both the industry concerned and the tariffs involved. Scotland makes whisky, but Scotland doesn’t sell much whisky because Scotland doesn’t own much whisky. Most of the big business of whisky takes place in London where distribution and sales is based. If we are making whisky, Scotland gets the money. If we are selling whisky, foreign businesses get the money.

And not a single drop of whisky being made today in Scotland will be affected by Trump’s tariffs. The absolute minimum time legally from distilling to bottling is three years. By the time any whisky being made in Scotland is being sold to America, Trump will (presumably) be history. For Scotland, whisky is long term. A capricious President will not cause major industrial changes. The tariffs may not even make it to Christmas depending on the Supreme Court which starts hearing a challenge in November.

I was a professional political lobbyist so even if you want to go out to bat for whisky, you don’t go with a sack of carrots and no sticks at all. Whisky consumers in the US presumably like whisky. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society of America claims to be the biggest whisky club in the world.

I’d have been over to seem them immediately and got them on board behind a ‘no tariffs on whisky’ campaign. My next move would have been to go see the Democrats. They hope to regain the House in what is only a bit more than a year from now. The House undoubtedly has the power to vote down the President’s tariffs since the constitution makes clear they can.

I’d have gone, met them, persuaded them on tariffs on whisky and hopefully have got hard approval for a reversal. And I’d have done all of that long before talking to Trump.

Then when I met Trump I’d have played all this very differently. I would have used my background work to gently imply that we want to work with him now rather than with his opposition in a year, and I would have given the strong impression we were working on a significant domestic backlash. It’s not about throwing your weight around, it’s about not kneeling when you want something. That’s how it’s done.

Whisky is incredibly profitable and the mark-ups are huge. It is almost all owned by wealth-extracting foreign corporations. It is a private sector business. It can swallow short-term drops in sales just fine. It is very far from clear that Scotch whisky (a premium product) is all that price sensitive anyway. The point is luxury.

Of course this is probably as much about Scotland’s cheap vodka industry (whisky is just a marketing tool for the booze corporations – fast turnaround vodka is how they make their billions). But I’m not talking about it until they do, so I’ll continue to pretend this is about whisky just like they do.

We’re helping to polarise the world by backing its most disruptive figure

I am first in the queue to argue for pragmatic politics. I have been one of the few people who argued that we should have been keeping direct channels of proper diplomatic negotiation open after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am no friend of tyrants, but it is rare that total isolation makes anything better. We live with the reality of that world.

But that does not mean carte blanche or that we should actually fully submit to tyrants. That is what is happening. John Swinney is now out in the world actively backing up is new best friend in his desire to shoot down Russian fighter planes. This talk is beyond reckless and is how wars start.

Swinney stands side by side with a man who turns up at the UN and gives that speech. It shames the nation. Trump is capricious – what happens next time he threatens us? How do we bow lower than this? How much debasement is enough for Trump? How much is too much for us? It won’t even work medium term.

I was going to go into a whole analysis of the geopolitics of this but I’ve been going on far too long. Once again, people with actual wisdom will explain that our unlimited sycophancy for Trump is actively pushing China towards Russia. China correctly thinks it can’t trust us because we’re in Trump’s pockets. We’re helping to polarise the world by backing its most disruptive figure. For foreign corporations.

So no, I don’t think Swinney’s debasement was clever, or wise. I definitely do not believe it was unavoidable and I think the fact that everyone else avoided it confirms that. I most certainly don’t think it was in our long term interests. No partner respects us more as a result. Certainly no-one thinks we’re strong. And I am certain it didn’t make the world a safer place.

And all I did there was look purely at Scotland’s self interest. I didn’t mention Gaza once. That is a whole other compelling reason in itself that this was a travesty.

The long and short of it is that Keir Starmer is basically a State Department asset who is currently working flat-out to sell Britain down the river and make sure we are permanently and unchangingly in America’s pocket. He is knowingly and openly acting against the national interest.

Swinney? It is almost worse. He is just pathetically needy and inordinately in awe of the British state and of powerful people. He is just the Factor so delighted to be at the laird’s birthday party he is beside himself. I know you all think this is over now, that Trump has gone home. But this is never over. It was appeasement and it is carved in the permanent record.

Plus this dinner was white tie. So my question is simple; how on earth will we ever get the stain out?

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