A PRO-EU commentator has expressed his concern Scottish independence is “nowhere on the English radar” due to a severe lack of media coverage.
Jonathan Lis has said the fact the Scottish Government has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether it has powers to hold a second independence referendum without Westminster’s permission should’ve been on all the front pages but was treated as a “page 9, Westminster bubble story”.
The English journalist and deputy director of pro-European think tank British Influence said he would likely not have noticed the story had he not had a distinct interest in politics because the media had not treated it as a major issue.
As a result, Lis added he feared the views expressed by Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss – that the best way to deal with Nicola Sturgeon was to “ignore her” – were shared among a growing number of English people.
He told The National: “The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether Scotland should have the right to vote on whether it can secede from the Union and its nowhere on the English radar.
“If I wasn’t a devotee of politics I probably wouldn’t have noticed that story because the media just isn’t focussing on it here. No one is talking about it and it should be one of the country’s biggest talking points.
“It would have been front-page news across the UK 10 or 15 years ago and it was a kind of page nine, Westminster bubble story, and that I find a shame because it suggests the insularity in English discourse, that people are not talking about Scotland.”
When asked if he felt Scottish independence was being discussed in England, he added: “People don’t talk about it very much. I have a lot of political discussions in my line of work and it comes up very rarely.
“It’s a subject that’s close to my heart but I feel like I’m one of the only people in London on the pundit’s circuit, if you like, who talks about it regularly and the fact my comments seem to have a lot of traction in Scotland suggests to me there isn’t a wealth of English commentary that is talking about this.”
Truss caused outrage among Tories and Unionist campaigners including Alistair Campbell and former Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon after she branded the First Minister an “attention seeker” and said the “best thing to do with Nicola Sturgeon is to ignore her”.
Scanlon had yet to vote in the leadership contest and said Truss’s remarks meant she’d lost her support.
The Foreign Secretary's team then backtracked and insisted Truss would work with the Holyrood government.
But Lis said her remarks were part of a growing trend of Scotland being treated with contempt by the Conservative establishment and fears her stance is one that is shared among many south of the border.
When asked if he felt Truss’s opinion was shared by others in England, he said: “I fear that it might actually be shared by a lot of people.
“That is part of a trend we have seen where Scotland is either treated with outright contempt and mocked by the Tory establishment or just completely ignored.
“I feel that people are parroting this line that Scotland doesn’t get to choose when it holds a referendum and that the Supreme Court will settle the matter either way.”
Earlier this month in an interview with Byline TV, Lis said if Scotland is denied indyref2 then the UK is “not a Union, it’s a prison”.
He told the broadcaster the SNP had won successive mandates in 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2021, to hold an independence referendum asked what more Scots would have to do to be granted the right to hold a ballot.
Lis said: “Scotland must have a mechanism to secede [from the UK] – and I’m absolutely clear on the point that I’m not expressing a view on whether Scotland should secede – if it wants to.
“If it doesn’t have that then it [the UK] is a prison in the sense that it [Scotland] cannot release itself from something it wants to be released from.”
