Irvine Welsh on his disillusionment with the 'expenses-guzzling bloaters' in the Labour party and his backing of the SNP

The Trainspotting author describes the Union as a 'pointless entity'

Scabrous and slightly silly: Irvine Welsh (Getty Images)

Irvine Welsh will not be voting for a second term of David Cameron as Prime Minister.

But he won’t be marking his ballot in favour of the “expenses-guzzling bloaters” in Ed Miliband’s Labour party, either.

“The UK is now a pointless entity, existing solely to protect entrenched privilege and continue the transference of the country’s resources to a global elite,” he writes for the Guardian.

“For most citizens it’s a failed state, which cannot guarantee social progress, a decent education, the opportunity for useful employment or a debt-free life. With Scotland cast in the role as the conscience of Britain, or a running sore on its politics (delete to taste), as it continues to both manoeuvre and be manoeuvred out the UK door, the unionist right wing desperately proclaim that the Scots have ‘gone mad’.”

First Minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP Nicola Sturgeon, votes with her husband Peter Murrell in Glasgow, Scotland

Instead, he argues that Scottish independence, in light of “Neoliberalism, austerity, the preservation and protection of a secretive nonce ruling class” and the destruction of the welfare state is “inherently sane”.

“The real madness lies in tolerating this twisted nonsense, while assuming it’s going to fix itself.”

SNP activists came out in numbers to support Nicola Sturgeon on the eve of the election (PA)

“Figures such as Nicola Sturgeon would have been natural Labourites a generation ago. Now it’s impossible to imagine Scotland’s brightest political talents being attracted to a party largely the preserve of expenses-guzzling bloaters looking to get on the career structure, culminating in an ermine-wrapped, gin-soaked tenure in the House of Lords.”

Welsh goes on to describe what he perceives to be the “traditional English left view of the SNP” exhibited during the Scottish referendum in September 2014.

“If the shit-the-bed neo-liberal model of globalisation is truly the last stand of imperialism, then the emerging narrative has to be the progressive, democratic nation state,” he concludes. “It’s time for the left in England to get over their hurt that this story didn’t originate in north London, and get onside with this project. After all, it’s where things end up that’s important, not where they start out.”

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