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AFTER clearly suggesting the terms for a Scottish independence referendum should be the same as those set out for a vote on Irish reunification in the Good Friday Agreement, Andy Burnham has rolled back on his word faster than you can say Manchesterism.
We expected nothing less and it seems he enjoys U-turning just as much as his predecessor.
But the truth is, the Prime Minister can run all he likes from what he said. We all know it won't get him far.
Not only will his words forever be documented given the location he chose to say them, but he knows full well that despite claiming he is "not aware that there is a majority of public support for another referendum", it's there whether he likes it or not.
Several polls throughout this year have shown there is a majority in favour of Scottish independence, and despite what some Unionists would have you believe they have not all come from The National.
A Diffley Partnership survey of 2000 Scottish voters at the end of last month found a 52/48 split in favour of independence with don't knows removed. A Norstat poll in June also found the same split.
There is also consensus building in Wales on independence with polls consistently showing more than a third of people back leaving the UK. A Survation poll released on Friday also showed more than half of people in Wales are in the middle on the issue or leaning towards independence, suggesting they could easily be persuaded towards Yes.
And now that the Welsh Parliament has a Plaid Cymru government for the first time in its history, and campaigners in YesCymru are motivated to push the Welsh Government towards a target of 2032 for a referendum , who are we to suggest Welsh independence is not possible?
Scottish independence support was languishing well below 30% before a date for a referendum was set and it soared to 45% by the time the vote happened in 2014. Wales is in an incredible position given it has had no such referendum to aim for and this should leave Burnham feeling uncomfortable.
We also know that younger people in Scotland and Wales are convincingly in favour of independence from multiple polls, with the Survation one on Welsh independence showing all age groups below 45 are in favour.
There is a Sinn Fein government now at Stormont too and so whichever way Burnham looks, he should be on edge about a UK that is falling apart around him.
But there seems to always be a troubling aura of delusion and ignorance when it comes to Unionists. No matter what evidence you show them, they seem to think there just won't be a world where Scottish independence will occur.
It's funny, I think there were once a similar cohort who thought Britain wouldn't leave the EU.
Scottish leadership candidate Michael Marra tried to argue that Burnham was actually talking about the “distinction” between Scotland and Northern Ireland when he spoke in the Commons, despite Burnham uttering the words "exactly the same" when describing how the two countries should be treated when it comes to self-determination. The smell of gas being lit is overwhelming.
There's a passage in The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham which has always stuck with me where narrator Bill Masen says: "It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that 'it can't happen here' – that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”
I read the book during the Covid pandemic and at the time it summed up many people's complacency about the terrifying situation we were in perfectly.
But I think it too sums up the entitled mindset of many Unionists. They will keep on believing the comforting hallucination that Scottish independence "can't happen here", until it does.
Let them. We should take comfort in our knowledge that the tide is turning, Scottish independence supporters now have like-minded friends in other nations fighting for their self-determination, and surely there's only so long this Westminster dam can hold.
Burnham can run, but he can't hide.
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