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MICHELLE Ballantyne has claimed the 18 polls showing majority support for Scottish independence have “not told the whole truth”. Ballantyne, who was unveiled as the leader of Nigel Farage s Reform Party in Scotland earlier this week, said a recent example of the Union being beneficial for Scotland was during the pandemic. Speaking to The Herald, she said: “If we had voted to be independent in 2014 we would have been devastated by coronavirus. “We would still be waiting or a vaccine, we would be absolutely catastrophically, economically bust. Ballantyne went on: “If we had another independence vote, we would vote to stay in the Union.
A MARCUS Rashford-style figure could help convince Covid sceptics to help fight the virus, a leading expert has said. The Manchester United player has become a hero outwith his sport for forcing the UK Government into a U-turn on free school meals for England’s poorest children after taking up the cause. Boris Johnson congratulated the 23-year-old goal scorer for his successful campaign after he was backed into a policy change last summer. Now Professor Linda Bauld says recruiting a similar figure to join Scotland’s public health team could help tackle the anti-mask and anti-vaccine sentiment held by some Scots.
NIGEL Farage’s new party has an MSP in the Scots Parliament. This was done without campaigning or raising a single vote. How? Anyone can do it, apparently. All it takes is for an already elected MSP to join your new party. Simples. Farage’s new MSP is now also their “leader” in Scotland. In most democracies this would be a constitutional obscenity, of course. So, the rules do need tightening. As The National points out; “Michelle Ballantyne (for it is she) was not elected to the new leadership, merely appointed by Farage, but then she was not directly elected to the Holyrood Parliament either, as she only got the job because fellow Tory Rachael Hamilton resigned her position as a list MSP to fight the Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire Scottish Parliamentary by-election in June 2017.
The Independent.
But if the Labour leader refuses to collaborate with Liberal Democrats and Greens, he risks a repeat of the December 2019 election, when Boris Johnson’s Tories won a landslide on a hard Brexit platform despite a majority of voters backing parties offering a second EU referendum.
Despite a narrow lead for Labour in the poll, the analysis suggests that Mr Johnson can hold onto his overall majority at Westminster if Nigel Farage repeats his 2019 move of standing aside candidates to allow Conservatives to consolidate the right-of-centre vote.
Internationalist campaign group Best for Britain, which fought for a second Brexit referendum and is now pushing for a strengthening of the EU trade deal, examined the results of a massive 22,000-voter Focaldata poll, conducted in December on the MRP method which allows figures to be broken down to a constituency-by-constituency level.