Scottish independence: Tories' 'over-ready' plan to beat the SNP and Labour's 'radical' plans for Union are pie in the sky – Angus Robertson MSP

Labour and the Tories think they have oven-ready plans to beat Scottish independence. But, as with Johnson’s Brexit deal, they have forgotten to turn the oven on.

If Rishi Sunak is appointed Prime Minister by Tory members, he says he will bring back the Union Unit. Last year, the same Union Unit was disbanded because no one in government took it seriously and showed, as one Scottish Tory MP said, the Conservative Government’s “total lack of a strategy on how to deal with the SNP.” It appears Sunak’s strategy is to bring back a lack of strategy.

On the other hand, Liz Truss plans just to ignore Scotland. The upside for all of us in Scotland is we would not have to deal with Liz Truss. However, it is incumbent upon a Prime Minister to actually respect and engage with the democratically elected governments of devolved nations and their policy agendas.

Meanwhile, Labour is trotting out Gordon Brown who has been beavering away in the background on his ‘radical’ ideas for changing the Union. Do you remember when Gordon Brown talked about a ‘fully federal’ UK following a No vote and, pertinently, lower energy bills if Scots backed the Union?

It is interesting that the pie-in-the-sky ‘radical’ change Labour is proposing seems to be entirely free of the scrutiny to which proponents of independence are subject.

If the proposals are truly radical, surely, at the very least, we must see a range of white papers with the detail of their plans to fundamentally change the UK.

Day by day, it becomes more apparent that the only viable future for Scotland is through independence.

Angus Robertson is the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central and Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary