The Scottish Nationalists have been accused of ignoring the independence referendum result after a senior SNP MSP described as “insensitive” plans to put the Union flag on new UK driving licences.
Peter A Bell's insight:
How is it possible to see this move by the UK Government as anything other than, at best, insensitive and, at worst, wilfully provocative when it is entirely unnecessary and an exception has already been made for Northern Ireland? What other reason can there be for putting the union flag on driving licences?
If the reaction in Scotland and Wales was predictable then so too was the evidently well-rehearsed and carefully coordinated response from the British parties. All of which adds to the suspicion that the whole situation has been engineered by British nationalists.
As for the patently feeble plea from the DVLA that respecting the sensibilities of people in Scotland and Wales would be “extremely expensive and complex”, I would point out that cost was evidently not a consideration when the UK Government decided to impose the union flag regardless of the offence that this would cause. And the “complexity” of imprinting licences with different flags was plainly not so great as to prevent this happening in Northern Ireland.
The union flag does not represent either a nation or a people. It represents a political construct. An artifice. A contrivance. It stands for the British state and, of necessity, the union that most people in Scotland want to end or, at least, drastically reform. Like it or not, the union flag is the emblem of a political cause - the cause of preserving the structures of power and privilege which define the British state.
Who but a complete fool would be surprised that people in Scotland object to their personal documents being emblazoned with British nationalist propaganda.
See on telegraph.co.uk
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