{"id":36603,"date":"2020-07-11T03:27:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T03:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=36603"},"modified":"2020-07-11T03:27:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T03:27:03","slug":"a-scottish-independence-crisis-is-on-its-way-and-english-politics-is-in-denial-rafael-behr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=36603","title":{"rendered":"A Scottish independence crisis is on its way &ndash; and English politics is in denial | Rafael Behr"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, the union will not be safe with a prime minister who plays with nationalist fire<\/p>\n<p>A virus that doesn&rsquo;t care about nations or history can still spread perimeters across the map like a rash. Different European countries&rsquo; pandemic responses regenerated frontiers that were meant to be submerged for the sources of continental incorporation. That influence was less pronounced within the UK, but public health is a devolved thing, so lockdown has probed the tender line where England encounters Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>There is no Scottish plan to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-53252930\">quarantine guests from England<\/a>, but Nicola Sturgeon has refused to dismiss the notion altogether. Opining on the subject in parliament last week, Boris Johnson offered the untrue and crass assertion that &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotsman.com\/news\/politics\/war-words-between-scotland-and-london-over-pms-there-no-border-claim-2901217\">there is no such thing as a border<\/a>&rdquo; between the two nations. The inane gauntlet was taken up by a handful of pro-independence activists over the weekend, who stands at the sign on the A1 welcoming motorists to Scotland with a banner advocating the coronavirus-carrying English to stay away.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/08\/scottish-independence-english-politics-coronavirus-brexit\">Continue reading &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\"><\/div>\n<p>Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/08\/scottish-independence-english-politics-coronavirus-brexit\">theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, the union will not be safe with a prime minister who plays with nationalist fire A virus that doesn&rsquo;t care about nations or history can still spread perimeters across the map like a rash. Different European countries&rsquo; pandemic responses regenerated frontiers that were meant to be submerged for the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19752,744,20947,1041,930,15607],"class_list":["post-36603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-uncategorized","tag-boris-johnson","tag-conservatives","tag-nicola-sturgeon","tag-politics","tag-scotland","tag-uk-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/48321594438024.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}