Sifting the wheat from the chaff
Okay, we’ve steeled ourselves. We’re going back in. In this feature we’re going to attempt to pick out the few interesting snippets that could be gleaned from the abysmal shambles of last night’s referendum debate, because underneath all the juvenile squabbling and monkey applause there were a couple.
Don’t believe us? Put your foot through the telly after 20 minutes? Read on.
Apart from what we noted in the earlier piece, the first – and the most significant – came from Sarwar, as he dutifully trotted out Labour’s standard line about how a Scotland in a monetary union with the UK couldn’t claim to be independent. At 21m 30s he said (our emphasis):
“What the SNP are trying to say is, we can stay part of Sterling, let England set our interest rates – probably a Tory government set our interest rates, our spending limits and our borrowing limits, and everything will be fine.”
It is, by any measure, an astonishing admission. On national television, Sarwar – Labour’s great rising star, certainly in Scotland – appears to have just conceded the 2015 general election (and the majority of subsequent ones) to the Conservatives. It’s doubly remarkable given Labour’s current double-digit poll lead, but it’s a stunning demonstration of the mendacity at the heart of the party’s opposition to independence.
For one thing, “England” already sets Scotland’s interest rates, spending limits and borrowing limits. While the (misleadingly named) Bank Of England is a British rather than English institution, Scotland has no representation on its board, so it could have no less under independence.
But Sarwar has just told Scotland to vote to stay in the Union, so that it can be governed by the very same Tories he told us he “hated “at the start of the evening – even though his assertion is that Scotland’s financial policy would be governed by the Tories either way. Is this the “positive case for the Union“?
Ruth Davidson wasn’t to be outdone in the stupidity stakes, though. At around 23m 10s, she strenuously insisted that not only would Scotland definitely have to apply for EU membership (a question which in fact divides opinion right down the middle and has no authoritative answer), but that it was “the law” that EU membership would force Scotland to adopt the Euro.
The second point, unlike the first, attracts absolutely no dispute among learned scholars of the EU constitution whatsoever – it’s complete bollocks. The rules are written down in black and white, entirely unambiguously, and there are numerous precedents of member states not in the Euro. It’s beyond the point of credibility that Davidson doesn’t know that, so it can only be the case that she’s deliberately lying. When Sturgeon pointed out those very rules to her a few minutes later, she immediately switched the subject back to EU accession.
(She’d bafflingly attempted to back up her case by announcing triumphantly that Sturgeon had never directly asked the head of the European Commission to verify said rules, which invites one to pose the question of whether Davidson has ever written a letter to Patrick Moore asking him to confirm whether the moon is made of cheese or not. Sturgeon, you’d hope and imagine, wouldn’t be so discourteous as to waste Jose Manuel Barroso’s valuable time by demanding he tell her something that’s set out in plain English in the EU’s own articles for anyone to read.)
Davidson, by now shaking her fist and practically foaming at the mouth, went on to even more inexplicably insist that the referendum would in fact be about membership of the EU and the Euro, not independence, and that joining up would be “irreversible”, something most observers suspect Greece is about to spectacularly disprove.
(At this juncture Fraser pointed out, without much force, that producing the letter from Barroso without prior warning to the other panellists was a breach of the terms of the debate, but sadly took no disciplinary action.)
Sarwar was about to fight back, though. In the second half of the debate the subject turned to that of defence, with Davidson starting off by claiming that Scotland would be essentially completely undefended for years in the event of a Yes vote. Sturgeon dismissed that argument and raised the issue of the Trident, committing the SNP to removing it from Scottish waters “as soon as possible”.
Sarwar’s first contribution to the topic wasn’t quite a lie, but it was close – a disingenuous claim that independence would mean no more rUK “warships” would be commissioned from Scottish shipyards (because the UK has historically never built warships outside its borders) and that therefore thousands of jobs in the industry would be lost. However, the Royal Navy commissions a lot more than “warships”, and recently placed a £500m order for non-combat naval vessels in South Korea.
(Also, of course, the UK isn’t the only country in the world that buys warships. A new Scottish Navy would need its own fleet, for a start.)
His second, though, was considerably more dishonest still. Moving onto Trident, Sarwar threw out Labour’s newest policy position on the subject, and one of its weakest ever. The new angle is that getting Trident out of Scotland is meaningless unless it’s removed from the UK altogether – or as he put it:
“I don’t simply want to get nuclear weapons out of the Clyde and think actually, that’s fine, we’ll be fine and we’ll be safe. I don’t think it’s credible to say ‘Let’s move it a few hundred miles down the M74 and that’s okay’. We want to obliterate nuclear weapons not just from Scotland, but from right across the UK and right around the world.”
Now, we suspect the vast majority of Scots would regard getting Trident out of Scotland and several hundred miles away as an entirely satisfactory move, at which point it would become someone else’s problem. But Sarwar’s portrayal of Labour’s policy is simply a gigantic lie.
Labour was in power for 13 years and did absolutely nothing about disarmament. The UK had exactly as many Trident submarines when they left power as when they entered it. Labour has in fact had NO policy of removing Trident since the party abandoned unilateral disarmament under Neil Kinnock in the late 1980s.
In May 2011, the party’s shadow Defence Secretary, Scottish Labour MP Jim Murphy (who when in Cabinet in the last Labour government, voted strongly in favour of not just retaining but renewing Trident), made this speech in the House of Commons:
“Britain’s independent deterrent has been the cornerstone of our peace and security over half a century. As long as there are other countries with such capability it is right the UK retains an independent nuclear deterrent.”
Labour sometimes argues that its policy is multi-lateral disarmament, but by definition a policy of multilateral disarmament requires you to be continually armed, or you have nothing to trade. And as for trading them away, there have been no nuclear-arms reduction talks involving the UK for decades – the START treaties are strictly bilateral affairs between the USA and the Russian Federation – and Labour’s policy, both de facto and explicit, remains to maintain and upgrade the UK’s nuclear weapons capability with only an abstract theoretical possibility of disarming at some indeterminate point in the future.
When the party elected its new Scottish leadership team in 2011 from a total of six candidates, two of them told CND they wanted to keep nuclear weapons for their own sake and one wanted to keep them as a disarmament bargaining chip, with just one – Ian Davidson – saying they should be scrapped. And of the two ultimately successful candidates, Johann Lamont didn’t reply at all and Sarwar himself, despite depicting himself as a heartfelt abolitionist on The Big Debate, gave only an extremely vague, evasive response about “looking into alternatives” and holding “discussions”.
When an audience member challenged Sarwar directly on the massive contradiction between his portrayal of Labour’s policy and the reality, he completely dodged the question and repeated his previous soundbite about it not being enough to move Trident out of Scotland, almost word for word. Patrick Harvie neatly skewered Sarwar’s position, however, by immediately pointing out that forcing Trident out of Scotland would in practice mean its disappearance from the UK too, as there is currently no other base suitable for hosting it (or more specifically, its armaments depot). As it can’t be mothballed for the 10+ years that building a replacement would take, removal from Scotland would in reality mean total decommissioning.
As we’ve seen above, in so far as it’s currently possible to discern any Scottish Labour policies at all, they’re the direct opposite of what the party habitually claims them to be. The Tories, on the other hand, are honest about what they want but dishonest about the facts which lead them to their position. Last night’s debate showcased the sort of black-is-white misinformation in which Sarwar in particular specialises, and which we should undoubtedly expect more of between now and 2014.
I’m beginning to properly loathe that man (Anas Sarwar that is).
@RevStu
I dont know if you saw this article but it further blows the defence industry will move south argument out the water:-
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/minister-warns-bae-job-cuts-inevitable-1-3791996
Mr Hammond said: ‘One of the downsides of big programmes like the carriers, which create lots of good news when they start, is that when they come to an end it inevitably means a downsizing of the overall workforce.
‘Now, where that downsizing takes place is an issue for the company and I’m sure BAE are already discussing with their workforce their plans for the future.’
Later this decade, BAE will start building 13 Type 26 frigates for the navy fleet.
The defence giant has not ruled out speculation that it will move all of its warship construction to Scotland.
Mr Hammond said: ‘It’s explicitly not our decision where BAE builds the Type 26s. It’s a commercial decision they will have to make.’
Same subject:-
Tory Scotland Office minister David Mundell said: “The consequences of separation could be severe for Scotland’s defence industries. It is right and proper that the unions examine the issue and make a responsible assessment of how their members’ best interests can be met..”
The committee’s Labour chairman Ian Davidson, whose constituency includes many workers employed in the shipyards, described the evidence as “extremely concerning”.
A BAE spokesman said: “The question of an independent Scotland is not for BAE Systems. Our responsibility is to deliver on our commitments to the UK Ministry of Defence and our international customers.” Babcock declined to comment.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-independence-country-would-lose-warship-contracts-1-2299189
Then there is an article which describes how the two BAE Systems shipyards in Scotland will survive after independence.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics-news/2012/02/13/clyde-warship-yards-would-survive-even-if-scotland-becomes-independent-says-expert-86908-23746651/
Defence giants BAE were questioning if they should invest and called in consultants to look at the future of the Govan and Scotstoun yards, as well as a third yard at Portsmouth.
The defence analyst they used, Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist with City firm BGC Partners, said:
“If BAE decide to close a shipyard because of uncertainty about future work levels, I think it would be Portsmouth. It would be natural because Portsmouth is smaller than the Clydeside operations. It’s true that if Portsmouth closed and Scotland went independent, all the yards would be in Scotland. But that’s not BAE’s concern. That’s the UK Government’s concern.”
Oh Anas Sarwar… will you never learn!
As to Anas Sarwar – I kept picking up this point he made again & again during the debate, but was never challenged on. I suspect it was some talking point his briefer had told him to get across as often as possible, and it was the odd notion that England was Scotland’s number one customer and in the event of Independence it would become its number one competitor.
This struck me as odd as I heard it the first time, and when he kept mentioning it, I got more and more annoyed as no one seemed to pick up on it.
Follow the logic with me, perhaps I am missing something.
England is Scotland’s number one customer – this would imply that England buys a lot of resources, goods and services from us. So far so good.
Independent Scotland now finds that England; formerly its Number 1 customer has by some strange method become its competitor instead. This assertion would imply that England will acquire by means not yet described (but let us imagine that it is a place called lala land) the resources, goods and services that it once bought from us, and will now compete with us to sell those same to….? Who exactly – well not us obviously, we already have what they are now selling, so who would these assets be sold to? The Greeks? The Germans? Bahrain? The Soup Dragon?
So I am right? He was talking pants?
It seems to me, that England would go on being our customer for sometime to come, unless there is a place called lala land after all.
I watched the programme last night. As usual much of the time was taken up by argument rather than debate – i.e. Sarwar or Davidson attacking SNP policy, and Sturgeon defending same. Ms Davidson’s apparent immaturity in how she conducts herself on such occassions was contrasted by the dignified and reasoned approach deployed by Mr Harvie.
Taking your theme of sifting the wheat from the chaff, I did think that Mr Harvie did try to raise the tone and actually make debating points as to the merits of independence, as opposed to wallowing in the mire of the party political slanging match indulged in by others. There was also one good contribution from an audience member who pointed out that the arguments on individual party policies (on defence, currency, Europe, etc.) would only become a relevant pass time when electing the first parliament after a YES vote for independence.
Following on from last night, I heard a good bit of the “Call Kaye” programme on Radio Scotland this morning. In particular the contributions from Mr Harvie and Mr McLeish were interesting – it actually sounded like a real debate! Not sure if you would agree, but I think Henry McLeish did make a positive case for the Union in arguing that Scotland could remain in the Union with a devo-max settlement. Patrick Harvie countered that by going as far as devo-max, you may as well go the whole road and take independence to ensure Scotland can represent her own position internationally etc. It is a shame that the pro-Union camp appear to have side-lined Henry McLeish for now as he seems to engage in proper debate about the main issue – a rare sight so far.
I’m so utterly glad I missed this shambles… I would have had a stroke.
I so much want to call Sarwar a moron, but I can’t because that would be unfair to all the morons already out there so I stick with calling him a number 1 TWAT!
Totally agree with your comments James. Just a couple of thoughts.
Makes you wonder where they (England) have all these resources hidden at present, doesn’t it? I mean at the last count I read we supplied 40% of our electricity to England at a cost, TO US! Methinks with the impending doom and gloom surrounding Cameron’s plan to build new Nuclear Power stations and the remaining companies threatening to pull out you have to ask where is England going to get all the energy they need.
Last time I checked England does NOT produce Scots Whisky, and they NEVER will. So you have to ask where will the Houses of Parliament get their supplies from to keep all those “lovely” M.P.’s warm at night!
It was rather depressing stuff, more worried by the stupidity of the audience than the debate itself.
A couple of things I noticed that Ruth Davidson said:
She tried to claim that Scotland came out of the banking crisis relatively unscathed with the rest of the UK because it was a G8 country and could handle it, but we came out of it a lot worse off than Norway which isn’t a G8 country, they just regulate their banks well.
She also tried to make out that the military jobs would be lost and is terrible which I don’t think is a very good argument because more jobs are created when investing in the health, education, fire or police sector than when you invest in the military sector. At least Nicola Sturgeon pointed out that the MoD jobs were already being cut at a fast pace.
I also didn’t like how Nicola Sturgeon tried to convince the audience that we would be financially better off when independent (I personally think we would be a little better off but it’s not guaranteed). The whole economic argument was a little meaningless and Patrick Harvie done well to state that, although I feel it wasn’t what the audience wanted to hear.
A couple of positive notes: I did like Patrick Harvie’s contribution, I thought he was the only politician that represented himself well and made a good case for independence. And the guy in the blue shirt 10mins from the end who pointed out that most of the debate had been entirely useless, he seemed to understand the point of the referendum.
Apart from that it was a complete and utter joke.
If Anas Sarwar and Craig Levein swapped jobs, would anyone notice?
There were three or four audience contributions that showed some people actually get it.
Of course, they’re probably yes voters already (one certainly is, since she’s on Twitter and is an SNP member).
Is it just me, or are thoughtful contributions always from pro-indy people, and rabid ranting is always from unionists? I won’t state the conclusion to reach there, because it’s glaringly obvious (except to unionists, perhaps…)
Having survived the GREAT BBC non event on Sunday night I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to the news that apparently the Anti Independence Brigade are closing in on their campaign slogan. Does any one want to have a guess at the slogan?
Go on you know you want to have a guess before you check out the answer below! 😀
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/slogan-for-no-campaign.17711292
@Scott Minto
The Clyde yards won’t need to tender for Royal Navy contracts as they’ll be too busy building Scotland’s Navy ships.
@James Morton
Companies compete with one-another. Nationality irrelevant so no change there. It’s called capitalism and Sarwar was talking utter pish.
I appreciate the launch was only the beginning but I kind of feel there are almost too many conversations going on about the referendum and we’re all at different speeds ?
What became clear to me watching last nights ‘big debate’ was although (I assume )the people who applied for /received tickets are interested in politics ,there was a total lack of understanding (from some people asking the questions), what exactly the referendum is about.
There also appears to be a nice wee career opportunity forming for some (stand up Mr T ) who are being asked for and deliver their banal comments with the gravity of the 4 minute warning. “And journalist will speak unto journalist “.
I rather like “Stronger under Scottish rule, Weaker under Westminster rule.”
So announce it tomorrow.
That will ruin their slogan!!!!!!!!!!
And it makes it anti Westminster, and NOT anti English, which is important.
An independent Scotland that wanted to join the EU ( God knows why – totally corrupt and run by an unelected elite on £350K plus exes) would be ‘legally obliged’ to join the euro under the Maastricht Treaty. The UK and Denmark have a legal ‘opt out’.
So although Davidson got the wording wrong ( we wouldn’t be forced to join ) we would still have to set out a reasonable framework for joining the eurozone. Romania for example, has set it for 2020. Any negotiations for joining the EU would require us to set out our plans to join the euro and there would be no chance of joining the EU without telling the troika in Brussels how we planned to join the euro.
We would get a visit from the economic ‘experts’ in the ECB who would pore over our finances and instruct us in how to organise our budget policy etc to meet the ERM2 criteria for joining.
Hopefully the whole eurozone is dust by the time we get independence and we can avoid the whole corrupt and backward system.
@Andrew Haddow – True, they will have contracts but from a balance of payment perspective it is good to get money coming into the country from “foreign” lands.
See Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_and_the_euro
“Sweden does not currently use the euro as its currency and has no plans to replace the krona in the near future. Sweden is obliged under the Treaty of Maastricht to adopt the euro at some point in the future.[1] Under the 1994 Treaty of Accession Sweden has to join the eurozone once it meets the necessary conditions.[2] Sweden maintains being part of ERM II is a required criterion and joining ERM II is voluntary,[3][4] giving Sweden a de facto opt out.”
Countries may have a TECHNICAL obligation to join, but in reality it’s meaningless. The Swedes don’t have a UK/Denmark-style official opt-out, but have been dodging it for the best part of two decades already.
@Joe
Dont fall for the spin…
In order to join the Euro you need to have met 2 very distinct criteria:
1) You must have your own currency
2) You must have had that currency in the ERMII for two years
Now since Scotland will be using the Pound then it is inelligible on ground 1, and since joining the ERMII is VOLUNTARY, it means that there is no way to force a member state to adopt the Euro.
ERGO, THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN BE FORCED TO JOIN THE EURO!!!!!
Sorry for shouting but it really is such an important point to counter in Unionist propaganda.
I very much doubt that Scotland will have to ‘reapply’ to join the EU. The delay for most accession countries comes from trying to get their legislation and structures up to speed (i.e. more or less in line with EU Directives and Regulations), which obviously is not the case for Scotland as we are completely up to speed already.
Whether you’d want to be in the EU is another issue, although overall I think it is a good thing (I would say that because I’m in the environment business and all the environmental legislation that keeps Scotland beautiful, relatively unpolluted and renewables oriented (please note) originates in Europe…).
Mind you, I wouldn’t be at all surprised that after the independence dust settles Scotland will transition seamlessly into the bosom of the EU whilst the rUK will be driving off into the setting sun (westwards) jeering and triumphant, straight over a cliff…. More fool them I say.
I think the guff that eminates out of the mouth of the mouths of the unionists shows one of two things.
Either
They do dot understand the methods and criteria for joining the E.U./Euro.
OR
They are LYING!
Personally I believe it is the second choice that is in force. They know the truth but are lying about it in public to confuse the electorate in Scotland. In my view they should have a Wallace done on them. (Hung, Drawn and Quartered!)
Major..
“all the environmental legislation that keeps Scotland beautiful, relatively unpolluted and renewables oriented (please note) originates in Europe…). ”
Not sure where to start with this errant nonsense.
The EU fantasy of fake global warming and CO2 targets is destroying our landscape and our seas. Have you seen the devastation at Whitelees ?
Hundreds of square miles of windmills sitting on their massive concrete foundations and metalled roads that destroyed a natural environment. An environment that will never recover. This windmill madness is set to be spread across Scotland. Even into our important seabeds where crab and other fishermen will lose their centuries old fishing grounds.
And these thousands of wind mills will sit idle during our long cold winters with high pressure and windless months the norm. We’ll freeze and pay ever higher bills for this madness. And the Chinese children will continue to suffer in polluted rare earth mines.
To be slightly fair to the EU, our First Minister has taken the madness to new heights with the 100% renewables madness and underwater turbines and useless wave generators. All tried and failed around the world. But we’re the last target for the renewables snake oil salesmen who will skin us like they skinned Spain, Denmark, Germany, California et al
Joe, I am DIRECTLY involved in EIA and ecological assessment of large scale development projects (and that includes factories, roads, bridges, hydro schemes, solar, wave, tidal, (all renewable energy dontcha know), ports, schools, housing developments as well as windfarms) and believe me, without European legislation the level of environmental protecton that we enjoy and evidently take for granted would be much much worse than it is now. Do you think that preservation of biodiversity and natural resources from all of the multiple anthropogenic threats that are out there just happens?
That was my point – without the EU the countryside and the natural environment would be much more fucked up than it is now. I refer you to the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive, the Water Framework Driective, the Groundwater Directive, etc., etc.
As for global warming I am afraid it is actually happening, and it is not an EU conspiracy (laughable assertion that, Joe, you should be ashamed), but it is in the interests of big business and particuarly hydrocarbon producers and people who make money from carbon based energy to make us believe that it is so. There is NO credible scientific research that disproves the theory of global warming, which as you may know is the scientific approach to determining knowledge, as opposed to taking your opinions from the Daily Mail.
Oh and by the way, the Earth’s not flat and it’s older than Chapter 1 of Genesis. Sorry, but that’s the current scientific theory, yet to be disproved.
And while I’m warmed up – if the fishing industry, and that’s what it is, an INDUSTRY, had it’s way without environmental or quota controls, then our waters would have been fished out decades ago. So much for the gentle and traditional fisher folk of Peterhead at their nets and creels…
You see, business doesn’t like controls or regulations that stand in the way of it making money and using up the earth’s resources hand over fist – that’s why it doesn’t like ‘red tape’, health and safety, Unions or the EU, because the EU at least is trying to do more than just promote business but also improve the quality of people’s lives and safeguard the environment now and for future generations.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a EU fanboy but I do see the benefits that it has brought in terms of environmental legislation and protection, which to my mind makes it worth being a member.
Right, any more trolls? I’m manning the harpoon next time.
Major..
Due to us being in the EU we’ve handed over £320Bn of our fish to the rest of the EU. We could have had a sustainable fishing policy that would have supported thousands of jobs for ever but the EU Fisheries Policy took it all away and turned our little fishing ports into wastelands. Valuable jobs and boats gone forever .Granted it was us who signed it away.
Due to the EU we’re tied to a CO2 limit that turns our natural habitats and wilderness into a wasteland of useless turbines. Ruining a once beautiful landscape.
There has been no warming since 1998. This is despite an increase in CO2 emissions from China , India etc. The climate will always change. We can’t stop it. Even if CO2 caused global warming ( rather than being what it is – a harmless gas essential for plant growth) the UK could do nothing to slow the increase despite reverting to the dark ages and handing all of our industrial output to the far east. Can I recommend Montford’s book ‘The Hockey stick Illusion’ ? Or a read over the e mails from climategate 1and 2 which show how the ‘concensus’ on climate change by the East Anglia CRU was not a concensus but a corruption of science. Dodgy data and a block on FOI requests and an ongoing attack on anyone who asked too many relevant questions about the so called ‘concensus’. This is all hidden from the msm.
To rely on the EU to protect our environment is obviously a massive mistake. Our fish can legally be thrown back into the sea dead. If we tried to keep them we would be fined.
Our light bulbs must now be low energy. These contain mercury and give off dangerous vapours and must be sealed and disposed of carefully. If we tried to use safer bulbs we would be fined.
The EU is controlled by an unelected elite whose job is to make up more and more rules. These rules are rubber stamped by the ‘elected’ MEP’s.
Scotland can only be independent if it keeps away from this marxist institution.
Independence first, Marxist purges later!
Haha
I’m with you there Major.
I like the cut of your jib 😉
Reminds me of that (unoriginal) Douglas Adams line about “First against the wall when the revolution comes.” It’ll be a long wall.
Just occurred to me…where were the Lib Dems? Couldn’t be bothered? Not invited? Did William Rennie spontaneously combust when he heard about the debate?
…probably hiding in the same bunker/cake factory as Johann Lamont.
The EU a “Marxist institution”?
Bugger me, the wonders of modern science, I had no idea that this blog made it all the way to planet Zog, that might explain the time delay.
Let me check that I’ve got this right. We have one thing that you don’t like, Marxism. And we have something else that you don’t like, the EU. What could be more straightforward, therefore, than putting the two together to give us the EU, that well-known ‘marxist’ institution.
This could be fun this game. Let’s play it a little more and see where it takes us. For example, my employers exercise more influence and control over my daily life than the EU. They insist that I turn up for work every day at 8.00am and that I remain there every day until 5.00pm. They’ve insisted on this every day – apart from holidays and weekends – for twelve years now. They also influence and control what I do when I’m at work. Jeez, thinking about it, these guys influence and control 75 per cent of my waking life and for the other 25 per cent I’m too knackered to do anything about it! Let’s put the two together, therefore, while we’re on planet Zog, and see what comes out. That would mean that my capitalist employer is, in fact, a Marxist. I have to say, he hides it well.
But it gets worse. For these devious Marxists criticise the EU. They tell us, particularly after those notorious events at Lisbon that we’re all signed up to, that today the EU is just a front for the promotion of a neo-liberal policy agenda in Europe. Perhaps, though, this is just a Marxist mindfuck. For, behind closed doors, these Marxists are secretly orchestrating the agenda of the EU whilst in public they would have us believe that they are opposed to it.
Then there’s the BBC, they’re Marxists too you know, and let’s not forget the Tory party, they’re Marxists (I knew there was something I didn’t like about that David Cameron). The Royal family, well, it’s obvious innit? Advertisers, let’s not forget them – forget them, they’re the worst type of Marxists, they are.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth…..
“Just occurred to me…where were the Lib Dems? Couldn’t be bothered? Not invited?”
Not invited, as the debate format was two for vs two against, and they’re the least significant of the Unionist parties.
Also, they were represented at the expense of the Tories the last time the BBC did this, on Burns Night.
I did enjoy seeing Lib Dems on Twitter moaning about them being ignored. They clearly don’t understand that debates are not about making sure everyone is heard, they’re about ensuring all sides are equally represented.
Not invited, as the debate format was two for vs two against, and they’re the least significant of the Unionist parties.
Surely having Rennie on the debate would not have made any difference to the debate, after all he is “Leader???” of the Lib/Dems and as we all know all the Lib/Dems are good for is sitting on the fence! Net result we would STILL have two FOR and two AGAINST! 😀
Yes x 3…
USSR..an unelected elite running power from the centre. Decisions rubber stamped by a compliant parliament. Individual country sovereignty and policy defers to the centre. Troika leaders parachuted into individual countries when problems arise ( political or financial etc). Taxes looted from the people of each country to support the expansion of the system in order to increase the power of the system and it’s inlfuence overseas ( via wars and embassies and paying off of favoured nations who are on message). Threats of fines and sanctions against nations that ignore rules. Funding to increase as the spread of the system requires more and more funding. Despite the imminent collapse in the project the elite are oblivious and buy lear jets and give themselves pay rises and fund more useless ‘green’ follies. Innovative new ways are made to squeeze the pips out of the system but there’s nothing left. The rulers are finally overthrown when the people have nothing more to lose.
EU…as above
@Joe,
My God, you really do think the Tory government at Westminster are Marxists! There was me thinking that you were just engaging in some light-hearted Marxist-baiting post-modernist irony.
Personally, I find UKIP and the Taxpayers Alliance much more scary than the EU.
Next time, save yourself some trouble, just type out the following words:
If you ask me, it’s political correctness gone mad.
There you go.
Yes x 3
I’ve not mentioned the Tory govt. I thought we were talking about the EU ?
But if asked I’d say the LIBLabCon were 3 cheeks on the same erse ( socialists and europhiles).
If you got 3 erses 😉
@Joe,
“I’ve not mentioned the Tory government”.
You don’t do irony then Joe?
“I thought we were talking about the EU?”
If you’re going to write sentences like, “But if asked I’d say the LibLabCon were three cheeks on the same erse (socialists and europhiles)” then I have to confess, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
I’m glad I didn’t see this live and unprepared. I’d have popped a vein or two. I can’t stand the childishness of the unionist side or their constant dishonesty and smearing. The sad thing is that it still seems to be effective to simply shout down everyone and fling unionist poo instead of giving the mythical positive case for the union or debating the independence crowd properly.
Utter cretins. The sad thing is that so far the cheapest and most base tactics that the unionists love seem to still work. Do you think they’ll still be working by 2014? If so then that spells the doom of that happy ending.
Surely the EU are more Neo-Liberals and banksters than extreme socialists or marxists? They conform very much to the former’s agenda on most important issues, althought no organisation or group that large can be of one mind. Even political parties in the UK have their own internal disagreements or change their minds.
Last time I remember someone having a good rant online about the EU being a dictatorship in the making it was a rather interesting and entertaining one about it being the grand achievement of the Germans as their Plan B for European domination after military conquest and genocide failed. That way you can call them Nazis instead of Marxists for a change, if you like. Bit of a change, eh? Maybe “Commie-Nazis” for short and then McBain can help out.
@Appleby,
Now that’s funny. I have a horrible feeling that Joe might run an inhospitable hotel in Torquay and he’s left us, temporarily, to beat his (German-owned) Mini with the foliage of a branch that he’s just ripped off from a tree.
Nearly forgot:
DON’T MENTION THE WAR!
The debate could’ve been made bareable if the noise chimps make was dubbed over Ruth’s rants and over talking and maybe some of the audience “questions”.
Why does the default position always seem to be to join EU?
Because it IS the default position, because everyone in Scotland is currently an EU citizen.
bookmark http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-archive/scottish-affairs-committee/
It’s quite entertaining listening to the drivel that anti-EU people come out with. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not all for it either, but it has it’s benefits. Just the anti- bunch are hilarious in their misinformation.
Also, I believe Joe needs to go look up what a ‘Marxist’ is. It doesn’t mean what you think it means mate. It’s almost like listening to an American xD. “Things I dun like are Marxist”.