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MICHEL Barnier, the EU's former chief negotiator on Brexit has been on a walking holiday on the Isle of Skye, but still managed to make a pointed dig at the British Government and his equivalent in Boris Johnson'sgovernment, the former UK Brexit negotiator David Frost, by praising the good cooperation between the European Union and the Scottish Government.

Barnier made the comment in a tweet while out walking near the Old Man of Storr when he encountered a sign marking joint support by the European Union and the Scottish Government for a nature conservation project.

He tweeted: "On the path of Old Man of Storr in the north of the Scottish island of Skye...happy to find a lasting trace of the good cooperation between the European Union and the Scottish government...".

Writing in his memoir, he said under Theresa May the UK negotiated in good faith, but she was pushed aside by the likes of Johnson and Frost whereupon "ideology took hold of the pragmatism of the UK."

Barnier will certainly be aware of the controversy stirred up by Frost in recent weeks with his call to roll back devolution and prevent the Scottish Government from being "an independent actor on the world stage."

READ MORE:Scotland reacts as public urged to pledge allegiance to King Charles

Frost has made it clear that he views the Scottish Parliament as a local administration.An opinion which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apparently shares, referring to Holyroodas a 'devolved assembly' in his speech to the Scottish Conservative conference last week.

The Scottish Government's External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson has written to the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly demanding that he withdraw "rude" and "undemocratic" guidance intended to curtail Scottish ministers' overseas work.

The guidance emerged last month after Cleverly issued a letter to British diplomats containg four demands about how the overseas visits of Scottish ministers should be handled.

Insultingly, the new guidance was not communicated to the Scottish Government through official channels, Scottish Government ministers only found out about it through newspaper reports.

Dr Kirsty Hughes, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh who previously worked at the European Commission, said the guidance would mean that foreign diplomats would clearly see that Scottish Government ministers were "being treated like children".

That's undoubtedly the intent of these new rules, part of the Conservative plan to reduce the Scottish Parliament to a local authority and to neuter any source of political power that the Conservatives do not control.

READ MORE:Scots less likely to watch coronation than rest of UK, poll says

Scots have plenty to suffer this week with the increasingly desperate and nauseating British nationalist festival of humour free high campery and bunting shagging that is the coronation being shoved down our throats by an incessant media.

Over the weekend we learned that we are all to be invited to swear allegiance to Chuck on his special day of hat plonking.

There's bound to be plenty of Scottish people enthusiastically swearing, just not in words that can be printed in a family newspaper.

Despite BBC Scotland's unconvincing attempts to find some Scottish angle to the proceedings, Scots are either not interested or are actively alienated by the red white and blue pageant of privilege and pointlessness.

A recent opinion poll carried out by YouGov found that over 70% of Scots are not interested in the coronation.

A more widespread Scottish attitude was displayed over the weekend by the Celtic fans who were singing "You can stick the coronation up yer A***," which ought to be Scotland's entry in next week's Eurovision Song Contest.

As if we don't have enough to suffer this week due to mediocre adulterers with messiah complexes, Scotland now has been inflicted with a visit from alleged rapist and criminally indicted former American president Donald Trump.

He is visiting his golf courses in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, presumably in hope of cheating at a few rounds of golf before he becomes a convicted criminal as opposed to an unindicted co-conspirator.

Trump faces mounting legal problems back home, with other criminal indictments thought to be looming, all of which are more serious than the 34 charges he's currently facing relating to hush money payments to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels.

READ MORE:Former Scottish Tory MP has Make America Great Again hat signed by Donald Trump

Despite his many and varied legal woes, which may very well see him becoming a convicted criminal, and opinion polling which consistently shows he's likely to lose if he runs again as a candidate for the presidency in 2024, Trump appears likely to secure the Republican nomination meaning that we will see a rematch of the 2020 contest between Trump and Biden.

Should Trump lose that campaign, he will certainly refuse to concede and America may yet again face a violent insurrection from Trump's embittered followers, stirred up by the conspiracy theory touting far right media which now has a foothold in the UK too.

This piece is an extract from todays REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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Wee Ginger Dug: The EU is aware of devolution attacks - The National