What will we do in the shadows?
Posted on
June 15, 2019 by
Chris Cairns
1 Trackbacks/Pingbacks 
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15 06 19 08:56
What will we do in the shadows? | speymouth
Ignored
It’ll never happen. Ruthie would never let Scotland be ruled by this panel show buffoon – would she?
That sent a shiver down my spine.
Escape to the sunshine!
Independence is the only answer – let’s all focus on one goal and leave the shambles of the current UK behind us.
Instantly recognisable. Nice one Chris
oooh! I’m not into scary cartoons Chris.
Chilling but not at all funny. This is ART.
Fantastic work.(Don’t pay him any more dosh Stu . He’ll squander it on holidays)
Run to the light Hamish. Run to the light.
Hamish looks sweet and meek.
He isn’t, though, is he?
That shadow is about to be mugged , Hamish knows something he dont know.
The sainted Nicola will save us.
anyhoo,
Hope all the patriots have a great day in Oban,(Gateway to the Isles),
looks like sunshine with a little drizzle to help you keep cool,
as they said in `Hill Street Blues`,
‘Let’s be careful out there’.
Awesome.
Bungling Boris the man who would be king but doesn’t know
How to use a comb or what size he takes in a suit.
He is the Diplomat who has managed to insult most nations that
He has dealt with as well as Muslims, Scots the Gay Community etc.
It’s claimed he did a remarkable job with housing when Lord Mayor of London?
Don’t mention that there is still a chronic shortage, that London is the Stabbing Capital
Of the world, money launderer’s favourite laundrette and who his Brexit lies has cost the
City thousands of jobs.
I would expect Boris, Daddy and Old Etonian chums did very
Well out any new housing projects down there.
He certainly never had any concept of doing anything for the working classes.
Assertive, aggressive English nationalism, the vicious new kid on the block…..
Meh! Yah boo sucks!
Hope there’s more than that in Hamish’s armoury.
There is a spectre haunting Europe right enough – and its name is Boris Johnston. Scary.
David -v- Goliath – and we all know the outcome of that one! 🙂
Judging by the outlines of that shadow I’d say Ruth Davidson’s let her hair get a bit out of hand.
Well done again Chris. This is a scary time Boris is not a buffoon he is a cold calculating egotist of the worst kind. I would not like to be in the shoes of anyone who attempts to say no to this character. On the other hand Im sure that he will destroy England.
Brilliant. The scariest recruiting sergeant poster for Yes that I’ve seen yet
Bela Lugosi isn’t dead.
Thee bestest cartoon I have ever seen in a long long time.
If that doesn’t scare the shit out of us into action, then God save us.
Said in jest?
https://www.businessinsider.sg/boris-johnson-published-poem-friendly-fire-james-michie-extermination-of-scottish-people-2019-6/
and from his old head teacher.
https://www.indy100.com/article/boris-johnson-eton-college-letter-stanley-class-brexit-conservatives-8774126
Going to help himself to Scotland’s budget, Scotland’s EU development money and Scotland’s devo powers.
Boris Johnson, the Eton Rifler.
And if you thought the Milk Snatcher was bad.
Boris certainly is scary, but maybe a big bad bogey man is just what Scottish ‘fence sitters’ need to let them see the reality of this union.
Boris has been quiet, or perhaps his minders have been keeping him silent. However, once he has been crowned his reign of madness will begin. This arrogance will tell him he can do what he wants to Scotland and get away with it. We need to deliver, in response, an accolade he won’t expect – last ever PM of the UK.
Retaliate first.
Hamish should sink his teeth into the Shadow’s balls.
That will get his attention and compliance so long as Hamish breathes through his nose while hanging on.
Run between his legs then push him of the cliff he’ll drive the UK over given half a chance. The fucker is a Tory and will be doing what they like to think of as a Power Stance and I think of as a huge sign saying kick here.
Thinking about Lemmings is wrong. Not just because the footage giving rise to the myth was faked but because what you should be thinking about is ants or zombies.
There are ants who get over bodies of water by clumping in a ball or raft. Those in bottom might not make it but sacrifices for the greater good and all that.
Zombies in World War Z and other fiction swarm over walls. The reverse is possible. Fill a gap or form a ramp and those driving them can pass any obstacle. More recently you’ve got Game of Thrones.
Not sure how disrespectful mentioning both World Wars and other conflicts is but some of the rhetoric seems familiar. The social gains secured by the proles thereafter will be completely reversed if those Tory bastards get their way. If you want a conspiracy theory then think about whether there’s a deliberate methodology in remembrance services that steals the valour of our ancestors and persuades us to disown it.
Scream.
Youtube: Craig Murray 11/06/19 1:03:00
What I have been saying for years. Scottish independence is a threat to national security (UK heavily indebted and struggling to pay deficits already). Therefore MI5 will be involved deeply in this.
If Scotland somehow got politically independent then violence would be instigated to justify the deployment of security personnel in Scotland ‘to provide peace and stability’.
As he said – MI5 will have been involved with any independence movement for a long time. To derail any real attempt at independence at a critical time. Look at the current situation.
We only got 2014 because they underestimated us. Thats all. it wont happen again.
The answer? We need to stop following and putting faith in any one politician or political party. There wont be a referendum. Scotland will have to gain back ground slowly, 1 piece of legislation at a time.
Oh yes – MI5 arent the only ones who get involved. This blog is the most popular for Scottish independence. There will be actors from private PR companies watching also to guard against free thought on certain topics (the EU). Welcome to the internet.
Has anyone watched “fluffy” denial on a T.V. interview, that he did Not say that he would not work with Boris ?, it dry boak time watching it.
What a grovelling ba+^^~d.
The plan is so subtle it is transparent, they plan to have the Tories run Scotland no matter what the Scots vote for. All the powers they are taking back from the EU will be allocated to the new offices in Edinburgh in theory but the real power will be in Westminster. They are in Edinburgh to claim it is a Scottish decision and change Scotland’s laws at Westminster bequest.
Holyrood will be retained to decide on speed limits, drink driving levels, income tax (because they know it is a curse) and all other meaningless decisions.
galamcennalath @ 09:30,
Actually, I can’t think of anyone more suitable for the role of “last PM of the UK”.
It would be the crowning glory of a long series of blunders.
Time to utilize the street cobbles?
Excellent
Showed three folk this in the cafe and two got it right away while my Daily Mail reader didn’t understand any of it.
None knew Hamish by name but saw the ‘Scottish’ lion in a bit of trouble.
🙂
Holyrood will be hollowed out and crippled as a sham in order to prevent any future indyref.
The way it’s being set up is any choice Holyrood makes can be countermanded at will by Westminster leaving only decisions they have no strong opinions on up to Scotland as the price of doing business.
One choice is on independence but the target for a mandate will constantly move so as to make it nigh impossible.
Without Holyrood that chicanery would be harder. A clear majority of Scotland’s seats at Westminster might not be automatically a trigger for immediate independence without a manifesto commitment but a referendum would. The only reason there isn’t one right now is because the SNP didn’t put it in their Westminster manifesto choosing instead to reinforce their mandate already gained at Holyrood.
The danger, to the union, is that if the unionists are too blatant about their con then the SNP will go for broke and stand on a straight UDI if there’s no immediate referendum platform and will win.
Run!!!!! Hamish, nice one Chris.
Aye, but what is Hamish hiding behind his back? A phaser set to full malkie?
Fortunately, and legally by international law, as soon as there is a majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland who demand the end of the union then the union ends and remember that Westminster has acknowledged, by not contesting the Scottish Claim of Right, that the people of Scotland are legally sovereign.
Furthermore several Westminster cabinet ministers are recorded in Hansard as claiming, “In any international treaty any of the signatories can end the treaty at will”.
They are, of course correct and as the United Kingdom is constituted by the Treaty of Union 1706/7 it is, of course, an international treaty.
With a clear majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland demanding it, whatever party, or coalition of parties, at Holyrood can simply announce that the union is over and it will legally be over. No matter what Westminster, or their Secretary of State
foragainst Scotland, cares to try and say otherwise.That is the simple, and legally watertight, way for Scotland to become once more an independent kingdom. After which it will be the collective will of the people of Scotland whether Scotland remains a kingdom or becomes a republic.
We quite simply require a majority for independence to become independent and, “It’s comin yet fir aa that.”
@galamcennalath says: 15 June, 2019 at 11:06 am:
” … Aye, but what is Hamish hiding behind his back? A phaser set to full malkie?”
Hamish needs no phaser, nor even an auld roosty claymore set to wheech, to obtain Scotland’s return to being independent of Westminster.
All Hamish needs is a clear majority of the people of Scotland wanting a return to independence, “an it’s comin yet fir aa that”.
Ooh! a reference to a NZ film classic. If anyone has not seen Germaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s What We Do In The Shadows you should check it out soonest.
It’s nowhere near as dark as this ‘toon though even though it contains ancient vampires and werewolves.
I would actually welcome a Bojo premiership, simply because he will be a great recruiting sergeant for Independence. I don’t think Boris will be able to ignore polls showing us firmly in positive territory and while being the PM who lost Scotland will not particularly appeal to him I think he is the sort who would actually not be too sad to see the back of us. For a start he wouldn’t have to choose his words over us as carefully.
Just like it took the extremes to come together to build the modern Northern Ireland: Dr No and Mr IRA Martin McGuinness. If getting Brexit more simply and easily will cost Scotland then I think Boris will be happy to pay that and push it through cabinet as well, probably with assumed abilities to dominate us and get us in an armlock after Indy. Never discount such thinking in those types. Look at the magic thinking over the EU for eg.
That the Irish and the EU would have our backs and mean it will not have occurred to them or will be stupidly discounted. Also with polls showing over 70% of folk in Scotland comfortable with a harder border we can cut England off and up our transport links elsewhere. I think boosting those should be an urgent task post Indy or even post a Yes. More Ferries to Norway, Rosyth to the Low Countries. Why not the Clyde to Ireland? Much closer than the far SW. Longer sailings but most of it in sheltered waters of the Firth of Clyde.
The ONLY surface link between NZ’s main islands is Ferries across Cook Strait, a very tricky and stormy place connecting the Tasman Sea and the mighty Pacific Ocean. But you get long peaceful bits across Wellington harbour and then the mirror calm Queen Charlotte Sound to Picton right at the base of it. When you’re seasick on the strait crossing knowing relief is in sight is something to hold to. Glasgow to Ireland would be fine. You would get lots more foot and cyclist traffic as well. Look at Oban and Ullapool with their rail links as examples.
Good bike ride so far. The sun has just come out in Tyndrum.
I think we need a bigger Welly!
Good ride with Yes Bikers so far. The sun is out in Tyndrum.
I think we need a bigger Welly!
Glencoe here we come…
That’s one way of looking at Johnson!
Tory leadership contender is so unprincipled and dishonest he may retreat on the Border
http://archive.is/jdcEO#selection-611.1-611.89
OT
1)For those who don’t follow the Rev’s twitter feed.
A teacher’s contribution to the gender debate
Basically, shut the feck up.
(Would love to know more about this)
https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1139572227307794432
2)For those btling about Chernobyl
The book to read is
Serhii Plokhy — Chernobyl: History Of A Tragedy
http://archive.is/cQwf7
The documentary about the capping of the reactor is being repeated on BBC4 Sunday at 8.00
http://www.windfallfilms.com/show/6894/inside-chernobyls-mega-tomb.aspx
“What We Do In The Shadows”
BBC2 Sunday 11.15pm
Hamish kicks him square in the nads and votes for Independence.
I just want to know; who went back and stepped on the butterfly ?
mumsyhugs says:
15 June, 2019 at 9:01 am
David -v- Goliath – and we all know the outcome of that one! ?
Aye, saw that one straight away too
It looks likely the leaders of the 4 biggest unionist parties will be Johnson, Corbyn, Swinson and Farage.
With the Tories scheming to make Davidson de facto FM and Mundell or some other cipher a sort of Governor General.
Those 6 low grade politicians all wish to see Scotland marginalised.
A narcissist and pathological liar in Downing Street, Chris, pals with another in the Whitehouse is a sure fire bet they will take us into another war. Their hobby is measuring their phallus.
We certainly created a lot more pain for Scotland by failing in 2014. Our marches may have to get very threatening if we are to have a voice of our own.
You essential weekend reading:
The Scot who discovered Natural Selection: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-nHa
The Scot who transformed Jaguar https://wp.me/p4fd9j-nG7
Muscleguy says:
15 June, 2019 at 11:30 am
I don’t think Ullapool has a rail link. It was planned in the very dim and distant past but never happened.
Old Bo’Jos is the best thing that can happen to the Yes movement.
We’ve been stuck in the mid to high 40’s since 2014, but having a hard-Brexiting, Jockophobic, career idiot squatting in #10 might just bring that additional 10% over.
If he’s on form, he’ll do the last bit of heavy lifting for us.
Excellent image Chris.
Johnson will have Scotland for breakfast, dinner and tea if he can get away with it, be in no doubt.
I am sure I read ages ago that he has dual UK/US citizenship? Could be wrong. Was it part of the nightmares I have had, maybe, but I am sure I also saw a photo of Johnson with short hair, a dreadful cut if ever there was, on the head of a self serving trougher.
Good one Chris. Scary or what!
The ”Horror Show.’
http://www.snp.org/tory-leadership-horror-show-makes-the-case-for-independence/
………………………
Thanks for that auld highlander. Worth posting in full.
@ auld highlander says at 9:10 ….”Said in jest?”
http://www.businessinsider.sg/boris-johnson-published-poem-friendly-fire-james-michie-extermination-of-scottish-people-2019-6/
…………………………….
When Johnson was editor of the Spectator magazine in 2004, he sparked outrage in one part of the UK, when he authorised the publication of an apparently satirical poem describing Scottish people as “a verminous race” who should be exterminated.
‘Friendly Fire’ – By James Michie
The Scotch – what a verminous race!
Canny, pushy, chippy, they’re all over the place,
Battening off us with false bonhomie,
Polluting our stock, undermining our economy.
Down with sandy hair and knobbly knees!
Suppress the tartan dwarves and the Wee Frees!
Ban the kilt, the skean-dhu and the sporran
As provocatively, offensively foreign!
It’s time Hadrian’s Wall was refortified
To pen them in a ghetto on the other side.
I would go further. The nation
Deserves not merely isolation
But comprehensive extermination.
We must not flinch from a solution.
(I await legal prosecution.)
That cartoon chills me to the marrow.
For anyone interested I’ve finally managed to post some links on the previous thread including a few on Boris.
Oban march livestream link for later
https://livestream.com/independencelive
@Legerwood and Muscleguy: Ullapool does NOT have a railway link. I live in Lochbroom so would know if there was one!
Also my husband is a great-grandson of John Fowler, the Forth Bridge and other still-used railway infrastructure engineer, who bought Lochbroom estates and drew up plans for a railway here.
Grass roots English nationalists ie Tories want Johnson. The die is certain to be cast in our favour.
That, as we know, is no guarantee of a shoo in.
Luck has dealt us a good hand, have our leaders the skill to play and win? We shall see.
@Artyhetty says:15 June, 2019 at 1:02 pm:
… I am sure I read ages ago that he has dual UK/US citizenship? Could be wrong.”
Nope! You are correct and, what is more he was born in the USA, (NY). However, his pedigree is much more mixed than just USA/UK.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964.
Boris was born to British parents in Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York City. His birth was registered with both the US authorities and the city’s British Consulate, thereby granting him both American and British citizenship. His father, Stanley Johnson, was studying economics at Columbia University. Johnson’s maternal grandfather was the lawyer Sir James Fawcett. His paternal great grandfather was Circassian-Turkish journalist Ali Kemal. on his maternal side he is of mixed English and French descent and is a descendant of King George II of Great Britain. His mother was Charlotte Fawcett, an artist from a family of liberal intellectuals, she had married Stanley in 1963, prior to their move to the U.S. She is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a palaeographer of Russian-Jewish descent and Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, a translator of Thomas Mann. In reference to his varied ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a “one-man melting pot” – with a combination of Muslims, Jews, and Christians as great-grandparents. Johnson was given the middle name “Boris” after a Russian émigré his parents had once met.
Nana @ 1.10pm
Already had a look at the links. Thank you.
Sarah @ 1.12pm
I was pretty certain Ullapool did not have a rail link but these days I don’t entirely trust my memory.
@ Legerwood: I don’t trust my memory either!!
Riddled with the woodworm of xenophobia and racial superiority, British Nationalism can no longer tolerate being ‘under’ the constraints of membership of the EU. Such is the overwhelming strength of feeling among Leave voters in general and Leave politicians in particular, that they would rather be in the train wreck of a No Deal, than continue on the European journey.
https://www.ft.com/content/b7f4eae0-8daf-11e9-a24d-b42f641eca37?
“No deal is either lunatic or a confidence trick. It is not a policy any sane or decent politician could even consider. Of course, in a country whose dominant politicians are now Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, this can no longer be ruled out. But the fact that this is the case merely demonstrates the disappearance from British politics of every pattern of decent and sensible behaviour that once made it admired.” (Martin Wolf FT)
Robert Peffers says:
15 June, 2019 at 1:31 pm
@Artyhetty says:15 June, 2019 at 1:02 pm:
… I am sure I read ages ago that he has dual UK/US citizenship? Could be wrong.”
…………
He did not renounce his US citizenship until 2015-16 and then only after the US slapped a big tax bill on him. Sweet guy.
Imagine Boris Johnston as the newly elected First Minister of Scotland. It hardly bears thinking about. What it will be like as newly elected Prime Minister of England and the rest of the UK, if indeed it happens, I suspect that imagination will not suffice, unless assisted by mental illness or veterinary drugs.
The uncharted waters of Brexit look set to become the treacherous and dangerous waters of a Boris Johnston led No Deal and No Devolution.
Independence. It’s about to get rough, with BJ in No.10.
@manandboy says:15 June, 2019 at 2:08 pm:
” … It is not a policy any sane or decent politician could even consider. Of course, in a country whose dominant politicians are now Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, this can no longer be ruled out.”
I’ve had the feeling for a while now that a likely result of the UK exit, (Brexit has always been a misnomer because Westminster is not the parliament of Britain, it is only the parliament of the United Kingdom so only the UK will exit), anyway I can see the result being that the UK will fall between the several trading blocs and end uo outside all of them.
So what happens to the UK when they leave the EU and the WTO doesn’t want them and neither does anyone else?
The former Commonwealth countries have now all joined other trading blocs and would probably not be keen to risk whatever trade deals they now have by throwing in their lot with the UK for I imagine most trading blocs will have rules to prevent members making trade deals with other countries or trade blocs.
The seem to have assumed that the WTO will welcome them with open arms – but will they?
.
Boris Johnson as PM is GREAT news for Scotland.
That bufoon is a useful idiot.
He hates Scotland.
Johnson is incredibly stupid and ignorant. His handlers are having to hide him from making public gaffes FFS!!!
When Johnson becomes PM, his mouth will dial up the insult and abuse of Scotland and Scots to a maximum 100% on the Boris-Verbal-Excrementometer!
Many a no-voting Scot and especially the undecided have the word “thrawn” in their DNA. Being dumped on by this lard-ersed lying Tory sex pest week-in, week-out will turn many to the yes vote come IndyRef2.
Boris the bufoon will be the best recruiting sergeant for YES that Scotland has had for years.
Worry not Wee Hamish, that shadow is nothing but a fat eclipse that will pass like shite in a sewer.
Stolen valour merchant Colonel Ruth de la Mooth knows her cousin, Sir Boris Pfeffel de la Mooth the Second, will enable Scottish Independence and it will be interesting to see how she slithers herself into Westminster politics to save her precious Union.
https://tinyurl.com/ColonelRuthWarHeroThief
Here’s what Electoral Calculus says of the latest UK YouGov poll …
BREXIT 309 seats [+309] (17 short of a majority)
LAB 170 [-92]
LIB 71 [+59]
SNP 55 [+20]
CON 22 [-296]
PLAID 4 [nc]
GREEN 1 [nc]
I think whoever the new Tory PM is, they will probably want to avoid an election anytime soon!
OBAN Live Stream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gL8ryEOk94
Run Scotland, very fast.
Erich Fromm’s ‘Fear of Freedom’- A Summary
https://revisesociology.com/2016/12/23/eric-fromm-fear-freedom-summary/
Johnson repudiated his USA citizenship some years ago for tax reasons.
For those of you unaware, all USA citizens must file a tax return with the IRS regardless of country of residence. Johnson’s tax “affairs” were incompatible with IRS rules.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/gendered-intelligence-training-teachers-kiss-my-genders/
The Scottish Government seems determined to push through GenderID legislation, but without serious consultation.
The above article gives cause for believing that the SG may just be in a little bit too much of a hurry about the issue.
At present, Scotland’s future is jeopardised by those resistant to change. Such resistance will have many sources but will almost certainly be related to the personality of the individual.
Here Is How Each Myers-Briggs Personality Type Feels About Change
https://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2016/11/here-is-how-each-myers-briggs-personality-type-handles-change/
galamcennalath @2.57pm.
I would personally not read too much into those polls in relation to The Brexit Party.
Come a GE i just cannot see a follow through on what folk tell pollsters.
The recent Peterborough by election arguably supports that thinking.
Why could TBP not win a seat with a tiny 604 majority, and if they cannot win that seat in those circumstances (perfect storm of recent events for TBP) then how will they win over 300 seat where many will have 5 figure majorities to overturn ?
What really sticks out on those numbers, are the SNP polling projections.
Those figures are roughly the same as previous polling from before the Brexit Party even existed.
Those are the only consistent figures over recent polls.
That is the story for me, Scots gathering behind the SNP as we approach ukexit (again) which is a pretty hard indicator Scots want the SNP to defend our pretty obvious EU/indy credentials against what is to come.
Last time we won 56 seats AFTER an indyref.
This time we are potentially looking at 55 seats BEFORE an indyref, if WM has the stones to call a GE.
Even if they don’t call one, the sustained SNP support in voting intention polling, is good back up to show Scots want an indyref/Remain in the EU and totally reject Scotland being dragged out.
I reckon the SNP figures will concern the tories and labour more than the Brexit Party figures as they are a huge threat to the union, which is the only REAL show in town for WM as they have much more to lose from losing Scottish resources.
The tories will go into an election saying they need a majority to deliver brexit, and blame everyone else for frustrating it, and claim that splitting the tory vote with the Brexit Party will let labour steal power from them and stop their hard brexit.
If Boris delivers such a message, English voters will listen in my opinion.
The Brexit Party are just ukip by another name, a right wing tool used to keep the tories on their toes.
A sad reminder of how the Brits have treated the colonised from not so foreign shores.
https://www.archaeology.org/news/7759-190614-canada-shipwreck-ireland
Perhaps we should print a handout of Boris’s poem about Scotland ,written in 2004. I think it was called “Friendly Fire”.That would open some eyes right enough.
Cat Steven’s Song:
I’m being followed by a Buffoon’s Shadow.
@ Al-Stuart at 2:45pm ….. ”Boris Johnson as PM is GREAT news for Scotland.”
Great post Al. Boris Johnston for PM is an absolute gift for us Independentistas. Even Colonel Gadaftie knows it.
…………………………..
@ Sarah says at 1:12 pm … ”I live in Lochbroom”..
How lucky are you Sarah. I just love that part of Scotland from Lochcarron to Loch Broom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjXYt5LYocU
Ooops! Lochbroom.
@galamcennalath says:15 June, 2019 at 2:57 pm:
” … I think whoever the new Tory PM is, they will probably want to avoid an election anytime soon!”
Indeed but you do realise just how precarious a Tory government is no matter who becomes their next leader, don’t you?
All it will take will be for Jeremy Corbyn to stand up in the Westminster debating chamber and say, “I call a vote of no confidence in the Government,” and the game is up for the Tories who currently do not have a majority at Westminster. They face a GE whether they want one or not.
Now consider that Boris has difficulty curbing his insults and I just cannot see him not insulting Corbyn – can you?
@Petra – thanks for the film clip! 🙂
galamcennalath says:
15 June, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Here’s what Electoral Calculus says of the latest UK YouGov poll …
BREXIT 309 seats [+309] (17 short of a majority)
LAB 170 [-92]
LIB 71 [+59]
SNP 55 [+20]
CON 22 [-296]
PLAID 4 [nc]
GREEN 1 [nc]
I think whoever the new Tory PM is, they will probably want to avoid an election anytime soon!
————
disagree
ukip won the eu elections in england by pretty much the same margins last time round. cameron then backed an eu ref in the 2015 ge and ukips support withered a died
if bojo becomes a no deal pm,, the same will happen to the brexit party
in which case, bojo would be mad not to call a ge, indeed, without a majority in the hoc, he will have no choice
@26% for the Brexit party and 17% for the Cons, the right is doing rather well in the UK according to latest YouGov.
Anyone for another ‘righteous’ war in the ME? It’ll be over by Christmas….
@manandboy says: 15 June, 2019 at 3:48 pm:
” … https://www.transgendertrend.com/gendered-intelligence-training-teachers-kiss-my-genders/
The Scottish Government seems determined to push through GenderID legislation, but without serious consultation.
The above article gives cause for believing that the SG may just be in a little bit too much of a hurry about the issue.”
Excuse me, manandboy, but could you explain what the hell that article you cited has to do with the Scottish Government?
Now I must confess I know very little, well nothing really, about this subject of self assessed gender. To tell the truth, like other such personal matters of gender and sexual orientation of particular individuals I don’t really want to know what anyone assesses themselves to be. It is their business and not mine and, in the unlikely event I should find any problems with the matter, I’ll face them when they arise.
Thing is, though, I cannot see anything in the article you cite that has anything whatsoever to do with the Scottish government. Can you please enlighten me?
Another good article (IMHO) from Peter Bell:
https://peterabell.blog/2019/06/15/in-place-of-truth/
I am in bar in Inverness, far from home. On the wall there’s sample t-shirts for sale. One says “Stop the world Scotland wants to get on.” The craic in the bar is like-minded.
Walking back to the hoose along Kenneth St in my Yes2 t-shirt an Inverness Bluenose (there are many) yells ‘Rule Briitannia’ oot the car windae.
An Asian lassie passes me by at the same time.
Neither of us is quite sure which one of us the guy was shouting at.
We exchanged a smile and an unspoken camaraderie.
An hour earlier a young Turkish guy cut my hair.
”If Scotland stays in EU I’ll get a Scottish passport, no problem’, he tells me.
The soul of Scotland is on the line right here, right now.
It is internationalist an egalitarian at heart.
And I will fight to the utmost of my energy to help it find its voice.
At this moment in time, the most important in the history of the SNP and Scotland since the union, all else is so much fluff and navel-gazing.
For all that is right and good we have to win.
If by happenstance there should be a GE and the SNP obtain the majority of seats then without more ado independence ought to be declared….pity it did not dare to do so when it held those 56.
Brexit, Johnson and rightist nationalism are the reality. An appropriate, clear, unconditional response to this ‘new order’ is required.
Abulhaq
What with Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya being put on the back burner, ISIS chased underground and the Ruskies sabotaging plans for a war against Syria. The MIC must be projecting serious cashflow problems.
Their pals in the political arena were not slow in denouncing the Iranians for the “Gulf of Omankin Incident”, though I believe Mundell tried to blame the SNP when he heard that the price of oil had gone up as a consequence.
Robert Peffers
Legislation is being amended to allow the self-identification of sex. Whatever the source of this situation, it is very bad law and needs to be stopped. The public consultation also needs legal examination, IMHO.
@ Robert Peffers – perhaps I can clarify what the transgender training session for teachers has to do with the Scottish Government. Similar training and advice is carried out in Scotland. Schools, hospitals, prisons are all being advised to change their policies and practice to accomodate transgender people.
Here’s a sample of what Forwomen Scotland says in in the advice for schools:
I have not seen the advice myself so I can’t verify whether this is circulated to schools or not. Other sections cover the prison service, NHS and other organisations. If there are any teachers on WoS maybe they can update us?
https://forwomen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/FWS-Briefing-Notes-January-2019.pdf
@Abulhaq says: 15 June, 2019 at 5:23 pm:
… pity it did not dare to do so when it held those 56.”
Seems I have credited you with more intelligence than it seems you actually posses, Abulhaq, I’ll know better in future.
The SNP holding 56 Westminster seats has absolutely no legal relevance to claiming Scottish Independence.
There is only one electoral circumstance that can legally claim independence back for Scotland.
Unless, of course, you can explain otherwise.
Despite the best efforts of the Pro-Indy movement, in all its forms, over the decades, we’ve only ever crossed the 50% threshold on a handful of occasions, then promptly slipped below again thereafter.
The biggest obstacle has been the ‘better the devil you know’ mentality of the ‘soft’ No’s. (The GSTQ Rule Britannia brigade we’ll never convince).
But with Boris and a hard-Brexit, the ‘devil you know’ might well become so unbearable that Indy becomes a far more attractive proposition.
All hail Robert Peffers! , the omniscient, the all wise, the….whatever…
You are becoming a parody in your fetishizing of the SNP and its leadership. Useful idiot? Not you….
We live in different political universes….plainly.
I dont trust politicians, especially when they get too full of themselves. NS is well on the verge.
Have a good evening.
Under Scottish law, if the buffoonic retard were to enter Scotland, couldn’t we have him arrested and sectioned as an extreme danger to the sovereign people of Scotland.
This, of coutse, would be for an unlimited time and then, perhaps, after successful pioneering brain surgery.
What better example could a leading surgeon get. Scotland has given the world many breakthroughs in medical science. We should grab this opportunity with both hands as we continually try to make this universe a better place.
Heart of Galloway.
Great story.
Wouldn’t be to concerned re the Inverness bluenose.
Met a few in my time and my dog’s bum has more intelligence.
Robert Peffers says:
“There is only one electoral circumstance that can legally claim independence back for Scotland.”
How about at the next General Election, either the SNP or preferably a cross party pro-independence organisation, stand with a clear manifesto declaration.
Independence for Scotland in the event of receiving a majority of the votes … business as usual if they don’t.
Every Westminster election between now and Independence or Hell freezing over (whichever happens first), could and should be to determine Scotland’s future … Not to choose who is to be in charge of deck-chair shuffling on the domed HMS Britannia.
@Col. Blimp IV
As someone of Syriac ancestry any perturbation of the politics in the region is not going to be beneficial. ‘The West’ ie sic Amerika, seems indifferent to to what is unleashed by its activities in the ME. Many in the region believe AlQa3ida and Islamic State were promotions of the US State Dept.to subvert the ME. Keep them dependent. Keep them non democratic. Arab Spring…no.no.no.
Their morality is the morality of the whorehouse.
Scotland must not be a client.
schrodingers cat says:
Yes, ordinary Tory voters and members would go along with that. And yes, it would dispense with the need for the Brexit party. However, would adopting that as an actual policy get enough wider backing? Polls imply (as far as I can remember) Leavers are split in half of whether they want a deal or not.
So, Boris gets told by the EU, you’ve got the only deal your getting. If he can’t get that through WM then he moves to No Deal, or he just dispenses with trying to renegotiate and adopts No Deal straight off. As Robert Peffers points out, the Tories are vulnerable to a vote of no confidence, especially if headed for no deal. Thus, Boris goes for an election. Could he stand on a no deal ticket? That could be step too far for many existing ‘moderate’ Tories.
If no deal happens, it seems more likely by cock up than by plan, for me.
Boris is out to look after Boris. A no deal would be a disaster and he’d get the blame.
So how does he navigate the Brexit problem?
At stake are …
The UK’s existence
The UK’s economy
The Tory party’s future
Boris’s place in history
He’s a devious scheming barstad. Is he a risk taker?
Point of order, please.
My Honourable friends here seem to have an intense dislike of the current front runner to become Leader of the Tory Party and the next PM of the Yookay.
Although I have a vested interest in the man – he was taught Ancient Greek by my father-in-law @ Balliol College, Oxford and my 3rd cousin was his one-time spin doctor – I have NO compunction to call him, as his MSM chums and others do, ‘Boris’.
Cease and desist, I beseech you, Scotland. He is Mr Johnson, Boris Johnson or Johnson. Anything else is playing to his over-inflated sense of entitlement and ego, when we know him pace Eddie Mair to be ‘a nasty piece of work.’ Don’t do the MSM’s work for them in portraying the man in question as a harmless and charming eccentric-buffoon, known by his first name, as if he’s some sort of family friend, so beloved by certain members of the English populace.
@Capella says: 15 June, 2019 at 5:53 pm:
” … Robert Peffers – perhaps I can clarify what the transgender training session for teachers has to do with the Scottish Government. Similar training and advice is carried out in Scotland. Schools, hospitals, prisons are all being advised to change their policies and practice to accomodate transgender people.”
Yes, Capella, but that isn’t what I’m asking about.
I’ll attempt to put it another way. All I can establish about this matter is that it was originally a Westminster Act. The SG stated they would review the Westminster Act with a view amend it. I can find that information on the Holyrood government website.
What I cannot find is any details of either the review or of any mention of Holyrood amendments. So either there has been no review and what is being fought over on social media is the Westminster act but the bitter infighting on social media seems to be aimed at the SG and/or the SNP who seem not to have brought the matter to the debating chamber as yet.
Now the only way I can perceive the SG being able to amend an already passed Westminster Act of Parliament is by proposing a bill to amend it at Holyrood. But bills are not laws and bills must be debated in the parliament, voted upon in the parliament, and the resultant bill presented for the Royal signature before they become an act.
I can find none of that on the Holyrood Parliament website. The only conclusion I can come to is that what is being advised on websites by every organisation except the SG and SNP can only be the Westminster Act of Parliament and as perceived by other organisations.
You must understand I know nothing about these sexual orientation or self proclaimed gender issues and really have no axe to grind but I have learned from past experience NOT to trust what people on Social Media claim about anything. Which is why I was trying to get to the root of the matter via the Holyrood Website in the first place. Of course whatever it is may fall under a title I do not associate with the subject or the subject matter.
Anyway, my problem is I read comments blaming the SG/SNP but referring to organisations I can find totally unconnected to the SG/SNP. Just who is it pushing these matters?, (and I do mean from both sides of the bitter battle).
However, the SG has not the power to amend the Westminster Act without a Holyrood Bill. But any Holyrood bill means that, whatever the bill is concerned with, it can only become an act after a debate and a vote in Holyrood.
My problem is that I cannot find, on the Holyrood parliament website, mention of either a bill to debate and vote on or the passing of a bill and the required Queen’s signature to make it an act.
So who is it that this bitter battle is being fought over?
Individuals or parties do not pass bills into acts = only parliaments can do that and I can find no trace that Holyrood has done so.
Abulhaq
I wholeheartedly agree, the immorality of killing and maiming countless thousands and impoverishing and displacing ten times as many under the pretext of removing a despotic regime. In order to replace it with a government that will be more co-operative with western commercial interests is pretty much incalculable.
It disturbs me greatly that despite centuries of evidence showing that to be almost invariably the case regarding military intervention overseas, a substantial proportion of the public swallow the same old propaganda hook line and sinker.
stu mac says:
15 June, 2019 at 5:20 pm
Another good article (IMHO) from Peter Bell:
https://peterabell.blog/2019/06/15/in-place-of-truth/
I like Peter Bell a lot, and while I take his point, I wouldn’t be too hasty to credit the likes of Davidson, Mundell or Richard Whatshisface with capacities they don’t have. Don’t look at the front line for a moment, look at the reserves, and then you realise the extent to which the Unionists are scraping the bottom of the barrel just to man a team that manages to turn up.
For Labour’s James Kelly there’s the Tory’s Jamie Greene. Shit stirring imbeciles with more fingers than brain cells. If the BBC didn’t airbrush their stupidity to make them look credible, the whole edifice of “Scottish” Unionism would be an even bigger laughing stock than it is now.
Why do you think they never press Davidson for an answer? Because the embarrassing spectacle of her having to find one would put her on the spot and reveal the extent of shallow and fickle grasp of anything more sophisticated than a one line crib sheet saying “No to a Second Referendum”. The BBC airbrushes their gaffs and limitations because it has to!
You know what terrifies the Unionist Propagandists? Those maps where the UK is blue but Scotland is all yellow. It’s not fear of the SNP, correction, it’s not just fear of the SNP, … it’s because it shows the gulf that exists and the growing divergence occurring between what matters to people South of the Border and what matters to us.
The propagandists NEED anchormen like Davidson and Leonard, because that’s their “Access All Areas” Pass to Scottish politics, and if they were exposed for the diddies they are, the Unionist narrative would collapse and have neither a foothold nor any relevance in Scotland. It would be like Scotland watching the BBC weather but knowing the BBC hadn’t any weather stations in Scotland.
Davidson and Leonard, and every other oddball in the creepshow pageant, are there to give BBC news the illusion of relevance to Scotland, and allow it to masquerade as “our” news.
Not all of them I admit, but I’d have concerns about some of these MSP’s and MP’s running a jumble sale with any degree of competence, and yet in a Country of 5+ million people, this is the cream of the crop that wants to govern Scotland? Seriously???
Serial losers like Davidson and Murdo can’t barely win an election in their own constituency. “This” is Scotland’s “B” Team Government? It’s a political Muppet Show.
Scotland’s politics, like Scotland’s sport, like Scotland’s industry, like Scotland’s news, IS ALL contaminated and stunted by a Union which distorts every one of these facets of Scottish life and self awareness.
Scotland said no to Brexit, and yet 3 years later we’re still driven to distraction by England’s Brexit, England’s MP’s, England’s New teams… all of it shovelled into our lives because we’re “British”. Shove this red, white and blue Cuckoo out of Scotland’s nest, and let’s begin to cultivate a conversation and political narrative that is actually homegrown here in Scotland.
“British” news is proxy news, shipped in from a different country.
@ Robert Peffers – Here is a link to the Scottish Government’s Fact Sheet outlining how it proposes to update the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00545198.pdf
This business with the selection of the gobshite oaf.
Was the present incumbent deliberately placed in the hot seat when the predecessor walked?
Was his walking the plan if he lost the in / out vote?
Was No Deal the plan all along?
Was the deal with the gobshite already done many months ago?
No matter what happens it stinks to high heaven.
@ Robert Peffers – Scottish Government web page summarising its review of the Gender Recognition Act with links to consultation and factsheets etc.
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/17867/gender-recognition-review
One fact sheet clarifies what is meant by transgender. It says that the UK Government was obliged to introduce the law to comply with EU legislation. However, the EU advice I’ve seen is limited in scope to ensuring transgender people are not discriminated against in goods and services etc. I posted a link to the EU advice in the previous thread.
Welsh Sion says:
15 June, 2019 at 7:01 pm
I have NO compunction to call him, as his MSM chums and others do, ‘Boris’.
You don’t call him Boris the Animal then? It’s just Boris? 😉
It makes me want to weep that there is such little critical thought given to women’s rights. Sex and gender are not the same things. Self-ID of sex would be extremely bad law, as it is discriminatory against biological women. It will undermine the normative/cultural value of “womanhood” and human rights in general.
Biology, legal reason and bounded rationality are not trans-phobic.
https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/gender-recognition-act-transphobia-and-scotland
@Abulhaq says:15 June, 2019 at 6:11 pm:
… All hail Robert Peffers! , the omniscient, the all wise, the….whatever… “
Seems I was correct in my most recent assessment of your intelligence, Abulhaq.
” .. You are becoming a parody in your fetishizing of the SNP and its leadership. Useful idiot? Not you….
Now there you go proving me correct, Abulhaq. Jumping to preconvieved and quite wrong conclusions. In spite of the many times I have posted that I have not, and do not always, agree with decisions made by either the FM, SG or SNP you promptly jump to wrong conclusions without a shred of evidence for your claims.
Have I not, many, many times, stated that making accusation on open forums only harms the independence movement and if you have complaints to take them directly to the person, party or the SG directly? I have even posted where to get their contact details here on Wings. In fact doing so will most certainly have some effect, dripping complaints on a daily basis on open forums will have no effect whatsoever.
So much for your idiotic claims of fetishisms. I’d warrant I’ve had many more arguments with both SNP branch officials and elected SNP people from councillors to first ministers than you have ever met. I do so to their faces, not on open forums.
” … We live in different political universes… “”
We sure as hell do, Abulhaq, we certainly do.
” … I dont trust politicians, especially when they get too full of themselves. NS is well on the verge.”
That’s bloody hilarious, Abulhaq. Best laugh I’ve had in a very long time. You talk of people, ” … being full of themselves”, yet if I was asked to name someone on Wings you exhibited such a tract, I’d have to say you came very close to the top of the list. Want to know something, Abulhaq? I cannot recall ever reading you saying on Wings something like, “In my humble opinion”, “I may be wrong”, or I don’t really know anything about something or other.
Now before we go any further I just replied to, Capella and said that I knew nothing about a certain subject and what I was replying to was questions I had asked because I didn’t understand a particular subject. I also frequently pose, “I may be wrong but … “.
Now I cannot ever recall you doing any of these things yet you are first in the queue to accuse others of being, “Know it alls”, even when they frequently say, “I may be wrong”. Don’t you know what that phrase means, Abulhaq? It means the person saying so is uncertain of what they are about to claim.
Oh! And BTW: It has long been my experience that people who make the sweeping generalisation, “I don’t trust Politicians”, have invariably been people who always think that they, and not the politicians, always knew best.
And another thing, I’m honest enough NOT to wish you to have a good evening when I don’t mean it – How about you?
Polls imply (as far as I can remember) Leavers are split in half of whether they want a deal or not.
——————–
except they dont, 40-43% of voters back no deal
————————
So, Boris gets told by the EU, you’ve got the only deal your getting.
—————-
which is exactly what the eu have said
—————-
If he can’t get that through WM
————-
which he wont
———–
then he moves to No Deal, or he just dispenses with trying to renegotiate and adopts No Deal straight off.
—————
which is what he says he is going to
——————
As Robert Peffers points out, the Tories are vulnerable to a vote of no confidence, especially if headed for no deal.
—————-
which is why he will jump at a ge
————-
Thus, Boris goes for an election. Could he stand on a no deal ticket? That could be step too far for many existing ‘moderate’ Tories.
——————
tory mps, not the rank and file members (80% support no deal) or the voters
ergo, a ge is a racing certainty
Brilliance yet again Chris.
Nice One.
An image to behold- when Donald Johnson tells Boris Trump “to bark”, Boris won’t just bark he will drag his arse across the carpet like a dog with worms.
There is NO WAY we can accept this moron as PM.
Dialogue has to be the first line, but I am embarrassed to say civil unrest may have to come into the equation, anarchy solves nothing, but BORIS!!!
CameronB Brodie
HaHaHa Frankenstein’s Monster meets the Emperor in his New Clothes.
Is it a Book? a Film? a Play? … No it is “real” life !
Well ye certainly couldnae make it up.
Scotland .. It’s time … to fight.
Col.Blimp IV
It threatens to be the beginning of a time of apparent diversity, though the reality is that of regressive patriarchy, that’s what it is.
http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/6/1/1324.pdf
@Breeks says:
15 June, 2019 at 7:19 pm
==============
Pretty fair response and to some extent I agree with you. However, I think his wider point (UK and USA wide and elsewhere) is true. Not that I think the idea of destroying “truth” came about as a plot. It’s just a symptom of the corruption in modern society (though some of it has always existed) which is being used by guys like Trump, Johnson and even Davidson. Not perhaps fully aware of what they are doing but having a sleekit instinct for the mood of the times (and having no compunction about lying) and so unashamedly destroying truth in a way that politicians and the media rarely did before (their misleading of the public used to stick to some form of the truth, bending it a little, occasionally a lot) and its effect is perhaps amplified by modern communications systems in a way it couldn’t be in the past.
Conflating sex with gender-ID to allow self-ID of sex, undermines the potential for rational jurisprudence and the entire thrust of equality legislation. Law and reason are the foundations of liberal society. Law that is detached from liberal science can not be considered liberal.
Critical Review of Jurisprudence: An Occasional Series
Gender Equality Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/19/4/1663.pdf
@Col.Blimp IV says: 15 June, 2019 at 6:19 pm:
” … How about at the next General Election, either the SNP or preferably a cross party pro-independence organisation, stand with a clear manifesto declaration.”
Well in the first place we can rule out the, “cross party pro-independence organisation”, idea. You cannot stand in a General Election unless you are a registered political party and that rules out cross-party organisations.
As to a party standing in an general election with a manifesto promise a.k.a. “declaration”, to declare independence it wouldn’t mean anything unless the party concerned obtained a clear majority of the votes.
Winning seats is not the same thing as getting a majority of the votes and without a majority of entire voting populations votes the party couldn’t claim to have a mandate from the legally sovereign people of Scotland.
All Westminster would need to do would be to advise unionists to boycott the election to negate any party getting a mandate of over 50% of the sovereign people’s vote.
Now I may be wrong here, but there hasn’t been an HMS Britannia to shuffle deck chairs on for a very long time. The last HMS Britannia was the Royal Naval College Shore Establishment formed from the earlier Britannias.
It retained the name until 1953, when it became known as HMS Dartmouth.
That’s a wee trick answer as HMS is the designation of Royal Navy ships and submarines only and they generally don’t have deck chairs to shuffle. Royal Yachts are designated HMY, (Her/His Majesy’s Yacht).
Seriously, but I may be wro9ng, the idea that even returning all Westminster seats to a party claiming that this would legally give Scotland indep0endence is not really creditable unless it also returned over 50% of the voting population of Scotland.
I’d just about bet that even getting a 50%+1 return on an independence referendum would result in a battle through the courts. The point is that it is the people who are sovereign under Scots law not either the government or the crown.
At least in a specific indyref the defence in a court case that those choosing not to vote were voting that they didn’t cate by not voting. Not so in a vote for Westminster seats.
‘What will we do in the shadows?’
SHINE A LIGHT 🙂
I see some object to Boris Johnson being referred to as simple Boris. I see it as quite appropriate, demagogues are always referred to be their first names, Boris, Nigel Adolph, they are all of the same mould.
Also I see we are at the Caligula level governance by making your horse a senator with SelfID.
Capella @ 7.25 pm =)
Thankyou for the light you shed – THAT was a very useful link.
Arrgh! A post replying to Capella just vanished as I typed. So I don’t know if it was submitted or not.
I suppose I’ll have to wait and see if it turns up.
Hi Robert Peffers at 8:55 pm.
You typed,
“Winning seats is not the same thing as getting a majority of the votes and without a majority of entire voting populations votes the party couldn’t claim to have a mandate from the legally sovereign people of Scotland.
All Westminster would need to do would be to advise unionists to boycott the election to negate any party getting a mandate of over 50% of the sovereign people’s vote.”
I’m maybe reading you wrong here but you seem to be suggesting a similar situation to 1979, where the dead and non-voters were counted as a NO vote, due to the “40% of the electorate” scam.
I would suggest that if the SNP go into a Westminster general election, having in their manifesto that either a majority of seats, or a majority of votes, provided a mandate to dissolve the Treaty of Union, then on current opinion polling, the SNP would have around 55 of the 59 seats and, possibly, 50%+ of the vote.
If pro-unionists boycotted the election, it would not alter anything, imho.
The mandate would have been delivered.
Apologies for double post at 11.41am, was trying to post on my phone with tiny keyboard and first attempt had a typo in the email address, hence no gravatar.
Phew, back home now with a poke of chips and a cuppa.
Rode over 250 miles on the bike traveling to and from Oban via Glencoe. What an excellent day and we pretty much stayed dry bar one shower just as we finished the convoy through the march in Oban.
If anyone has dealings with someone who says “Scotland is too small to manage on its own” or “There’s nae room for any more immigrants”… I’ll happily stick them on the back of my bike and drop them off at Glencoe and they can make their own way back home on foot.
The duration of the “short” walk and vista might give them time to adjust their thoughts and realise just how fookin mahoosif Scotland is!
We had an excellent response from the public as we rode past all the laybys full of outdoor enthusiasts and tourists waving and giving us the thumbs up.
There should be some excellent imagery capturing the day once folk get it edited and uploaded.
There is a way Boris can make good on the *Will of the people* with Brexit says Michael Portillo
He can offer the people of Northern Ireland a referendum on whether they want to remain British or not
Now the DUP would go mental but the SNP would vote for it and so would enough in the Labour party to get it through which would get rid of the backstop and Northern Ireland who the people of England don’t give a toss about losing anyway
Then Boris would only have the Scottish problem which he could keep kicking down the road forever, precedent or no precedent with promises of soon, soon
I get what you are saying there Robert P,(8.55pm) regards a unionist boycotted GE.
However, if the SNP put forward a specific mandate to dissolve the union treaty on a GE seat majority plus a 50 % plus vote share, and won 50% plus of votes cast, then that would indeed be a legitimate mandate, as anyone boycotting the vote, CHOOSES to do so and therefore removes themselves from the democratic process.
Otherwise, whats stopping Scots mass boycotting a GE due to the usual democratic deficit, and as such, delegitimising an entire uk GE every 5 years?
If you do not vote, you dont vote.
Didn’t Bercow make that very announcement in WM not do long ago when tories boycotted an opposition day motion then later tried to de-legitimise the result, only to be told by Bercow, result stands as will of the house, because you had a vote and CHOSE not to use it.
@ Ghillie – welks 🙂 I’ve ploughed through a library of docs so far trying to get to the bottom of what is going on – has gone on.
I have a fundamental opposition to the notion that humans can change sex. It’s not biologically possible. Therefore, to change the law in order to allow a delusion to be recorded as if it were fact seems absolutely crazy.
Ghillie at 8:59 pm
Aye exactly. Shine a light on his past deeds with a daily reminder, just to keep folks terror on the boil.
Shine a light on the solution – IndyRef2. Everyone to signal their demand for one by switching lights on and off at organised times.
Also about shedding light, does anyone know if Broadcasting Scotland or anybody else are interviewing BBC journalists/ presenters on a regular basis?
… you know, put THEM on the spot.
Robert Peffers @8.55
If you flick back to my post @6.15, you will see that I said “majority of votes”.
As for :
“You cannot stand in a General Election unless you are a registered political party and that rules out cross-party organisations.”
Registration with The Electoral commission is not mandatory but if you don’t, the Name, Logo and slogan e.g.(Alex Salmond for First Minister) of your organisation will not appear on the ballot paper, only your name and Independent.
Hardly an insurmountable hurdle. Only an on line form to fill in and a tweak to the “I am not a member of another political party active in Scotland” bit on the SNP membership application.
Or the candidates could all change their names to Robert the Bruce … to avoid confusion.
You are right about the Unionists, no matter how the people of Scotland declare their wish to dissolve the Union, they will shout FOUL! and concoct spurious reasons as to how we can’t, or demand Best of Three … and whenever and however that day comes we must be strong, resolute, prepared and speak with one voice.
i’m not sure i would be prepared to hang about waiting for a court to rule on our right to choose our own destiny
https://tinyurl.com/pogbx4u
@Brian Doonthetoon says:15 June, 2019 at 9:47 pm:
” … I’m maybe reading you wrong here but you seem to be suggesting a similar situation to 1979, where the dead and non-voters were counted as a NO vote, due to the “40% of the electorate” scam.”
No, I’m not suggesting that at all.
” … I would suggest that if the SNP go into a Westminster general election, having in their manifesto that either a majority of seats, or a majority of votes, provided a mandate to dissolve the Treaty of Union, then on current opinion polling, the SNP would have around 55 of the 59 seats and, possibly, 50%+ of the vote.”
That is not the point, Brian Doonthetoon. Here are a couple of thoughts for you. Manifestos are really fairly meaningless in the first place as any reading of past manifestos and consequent spells in government will show. Most manifesto promises of any government are never achieved. They are more intentions than promises and, in any event they need to get past votes in the house. More to the point it can be taken as read that a vote for the SNP is a vote for independence for independence is the SNP’s
raison d’être.
What we are talking about here is the legality of a claim of independence and that is a different matter. Under Scots law it is the people who are legally sovereign and not either the crown or the parliament and that is either the parliament of Westminster or of Holyrood. So the simple answer is that only a majority of the sovereign people of Scotland can end the United Kingdom.
I’ll try and keep this brief but it isn’t easy. Let’s go back to 1706/7. The parliament of Scotland were factually illegally conned in one way or another into signing the Treaty of Union. However, things were a bit legally different back then as the commoners did not have the franchise it could be argued that the land owner/parliamentarians were legally entitled to sign the Treaty and that would tie up matters in courts. Then there would be the claim that by allowing the union to continue the Scots accepted it by custom and use, more court time. See where that is going?
Anyway, back to the present day and there is no doubt that the people of Scotland are legally sovereign now. So here’s the deal – when we elect an MP to Westminster we Scots delegate our sovereignty to those elected MP but under English law the people are the monarch of England’s subjects and although they elect the MPs those MPs are, (and have been since 1688), legally delegated the English Monarch’s sovereignty. So arguing any points about Westminster sovereignty in a court is fraught with problems.
Now we get to the meaty bits – In April of 1707 the Westminster Parliament of England sat and put itself into permanent recess and has never sat since. Westminster is not now the parliament of England it is the parliament of the United Kingdom. However, the old parliament of Scotland was only prorogued, (only temporarily in recess), and when Winnie Ewing opened the first Holyrood sitting she reconvened it as the old Scots parliament and that means the MSPs are not sovereign and neither is the crown because under Scots law the people are legally sovereign and Westminster has conceded that in the Supreme Court.
So the MSPs are sitting in the old Scots parliament where neither they or the crown are sovereign but the MSPs are delegated to exercise the people’s legal sovereignty.
If 51% of the people vote to end the union then that is legally the sovereign people’s will, the MSPs must respect that and so must the crown and Westminster. The crown has not been sovereign in Scotland since 1320, and Westminster accepted the Scottish Claim of Right, (sovereignty), in their Supreme court and MPs from Scotland are delegated the people’s sovereignty so we tell them to come home.
Scotland is independent – legally. If you are sovereign your word is law so no illegal UDI. What is more several Westminster Ministers of State have recently stated in parliament that in all international treaties any signatory to the treaty can legally end the treaty for no other reason that they want to.
So there it is we need only to win an independence referendum and Holyrood can legally declare the union is finished.
” … The mandate would have been delivered.”
A mandate is only permission to do some particular thing but would it have been granted by over 50% of the electorate to do that particular thing? Furthermore, the MPs from Scotland are Westminster MPs and sure as shooting Westminster would claim the delegated powers of the English monarchy include sovereignty.
They already attempt to claim that, “The Treaty of Union Extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom.”
The last thing we need is battles in the courts we could either lose or be tied up for years.
Dr Jim @ 21:51,
As others have observed on previous threads, if we here get an influx of Orangists from a re-unified Ireland, that will create a significant further hill to climb on the road to independence. So we had beter make our move before then, whenever “then” is.
It is all too plausible though. NI is a significant burden on the UK taxpayer, which is one reason why the Republic, oddly enough, is not too fussed about reunification any time soon. But they would accept it anyway if the vote went that way. It would be impossible not to.
The counter argument is that the Tories in general do seem fixated in maintaining the Union whole, NI and all. One hesitates to use the word “principle” for how they feel, but it does seem to be a visceral thing with them. And what scares them most is “the domino effect” that if one periphery goes, the others are likely to follow, with total international humiliation for London close behind.
That’s why the Orangists are so hostile towards Scottish independence it’s not so much for our sakes and much more for their own.
There’s more at stake though. Resources in our case, of course, but we shouldn’t underestimate the fear of wounded amour propre in the English Establishment as a motivation to oppose indy all round. The humiliation of Brexit hasn’t yet manifested itself, but this on top would be unavoidable, and crushing.
It’s their inability to concede even an iota of real power that is the undoing of their precious union. Boris is a maverick, but I can’t see even him going so off-piste as to change that. But if he did, the Leavers of England would likely cheer him on, so who knows…?
@ Robert Peffers says at 11:05 pm ……
I just want to say that I’m so grateful that you have chosen to post information on here Robert and it’s clear why so many people don’t want you to do so: Do their damndest in fact to shut you up. You’re a REAL threat to the Establishment Robert and we can see why they want to get rid of you. Keep on trucking mate. More than anything take care of yourself and don’t ever forget that you have contributed GREATLY to the Independence cause. What an educator. What a guy.
Great wee march in Oban today, 7,000 people – not bad for a town of 8000
I saw some video of the Oban march. Looked like a good turnout. Great that so many made it -so well done everybody.
Petra at 11:05 pm
I’ll second that – thank you Robert.
Bittie45 and Petra
Happy to 3rd that.
some good comments this evening
i would add that i believe it is more difficult for unionists tho boycott an ge, called by wm than an indyref2 called by holyrood.
i also agree it would require a majority of votes (50%+1), not just a majority of seats (even with 40%, a majority of seats is very probable)
I would pick up on rp’s comment
“it can be taken as read that a vote for the SNP is a vote for independence for independence is the SNP’s
raison d’être”
I disagree, the snp stood on manifestos in 2015 and 2017 explicity ruling out independence.
also rp,
“Manifestos are really fairly meaningless in the first place as any reading of past manifestos and consequent spells in government will show”
except the he 2016 snp manifesto which said the sg has the right to indyref2 etc, if situations change eg, being pulled out of the eu against our will etc
this is the basis for the snp’s mandate to hold indyref2, hardly meaningless
This is a seriously Orwellian prospect. I had been taking refuge in the protection of Scots Law under the Treaty of Union and the sovereignty of the Scottish people but now I’m really worried
https://caltonjock.com/2018/07/09/emasculation-of-the-scottish-government-through-the-adoption-of-conferred-powers-conflicting-with-the-devolved-government-scotland-act-1998/
Mundell retains funding sufficient to employ up to 100 whole time equivalent (W.T.E.) posts and that salary and incidental costs arising from such employment are (top sliced) from Scotland’s block grant before the allocation of finance to the Scottish government.
The slush fund created is an ever increasing annual financial nest egg, skimmed off Scotland’s block financial grant and used, abused by the Mundell for purposes such as UK government anti-devolution leaflet production, printing and distribution.
https://caltonjock.com/2017/07/24/mundell-and-the-tory-party-actively-aided-by-the-scottish-office-are-the-legal-government-of-scotland-holyrood-politicians-need-to-be-mindful-of-this-or-westminster-will-shut-it-down/
Petra , may I fourth that!
Glad the march was a great success and delighted to hear that the bikers had such a good ,dry run.
Looking forward to photos!
A manifesto with the right to IndyRef if situations change (EU). Does not rule out an IndyRef.
If people go out and vote Tory/unionist. More fool them. They were warned time and time again. Some people never learn.
Constitution of the Scottish National Party (1 – Name)
(2) Aims – Independence for Scotland
I’m sorry but I completely disagree with RP regarding votes for independence. The argument that a GE majority cannot be used is akin to dancing on the head of a pin. Such a defeatist attitude. In Westminster’s terms, such a majority IS a mandate. Did our forefathers back in the time of King Robert the Bruce, really specify that a majority of the people of Scotland could only ever be representated by a referendum?
In a general election, People could have a clear choice, vote SNP = indy. They then decide how to vote. It is simple. Or are we to wait until the end of time, for ‘permission’ to hold a referendum??
I do understand all the technicalities RP cites, but no country when being told it is not allowed to decide on independence, would sit back and say, ‘well we’ll need to just keep asking for permission’. No, any other country would take an alternative approach. A wholly democratic approach, such as majority at a GE.
This constant negating of ideas to secure independence, because of ‘technicalities’, is akin to the Scottish cringe. It is a truly subservient mindset. “We cannae do it, because we’re no allowed”. get up off your knees SNP, FFS.
A democratic vote via a GE would be recognised worldwide, and THAT is what matters. England will disagree with the outcome, no matter what happens or how people vote. I would have thought the SNP would have grasped that by now. We need international recognition, not Westminster’s approval.
If a GE were called soon, and the SNP did NOT have indy and the immediate end of the union treaty, first and foremost as their policy with a majority of seats, then they will be punished by the electorate. They certainly would not get my vote, not with brexit and Boris the English clown in charge.
Unionist press bigging up Rory Stewart this weekend as they know Boris will guarantee a Yes vote. Check out Stewart’s voting record on welfare etc. He is just another right wing Tory close to the House of Windsor.
Sinky , he looks so ill he may not last the pace .
I loved the clip of him trying to talk to the ‘man in the street’ and the man in the street more or less told him to get raffled.
The SNP manifesto needs to
1) be one that explicitly states ending the union is the sovereign right of the people of Scotland
2) a majority of seats in Scotland be won by SNP candidates or other parties standing on an independence platform then they will move to end t the union.
3) the form of that ending may vary depending on the exact circumstances.
4) should a majority of those who voted have done so for SNP or independence supporting parties then the right to declare the union at an end will be affirmed.
5) otherwise there shall be a referendum on independence to confirm the union is at an end.
6) a majority of SNP and other MPs from Scotland will assert the right to reconvene the Scottish Grand Committee at any point in order to exercise the authority delegated by the electorate of Scotland to Westminster that would suffer a conflict of interest if the entirety of Westminster were to make decisions. For example on whether a referendum on constitutional matters might be held.
Is there perchance a cobble missing behind Hamish?
Links
https://www.gov.scot/news/citizens-assembly-of-scotland/
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2019/06/richard-leonard-begs-for-mercy-as.html
https://peterabell.blog/2019/06/16/a-nightmare-scenario/
Swinson the liar
http://archive.fo/3yAoH
Politicians from a right wing party of another country, are allowed to stand in an oil producing country’s elections, and their bosses are also control of 85% of taxes in that nation (which doesn’t belong to them)
https://thehub.scot/+Indycar
https://newsnet.scot/news-analysis/power-influence-and-control-in-the-real-world/
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/i-never-understood-the-campaign-for-an-independent-scotland-until-now/15/06/
https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2019/06/15/a-new-record-dwp-now-lose-pip-appeals-74-of-the-time/
https://www.politico.eu/article/leo-varadkar-no-backstop-as-bad-as-no-deal/
Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit plan ‘will trigger early election’
http://archive.fo/U0nCS
Article from 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html
Why Europe’s Far Right Is Targeting Gender Studies
http://archive.fo/AknPE
BritainThinks survey of mood in UK makes stark reading, especially its evidence of the divide between young and old
http://archive.fo/ix2sZ
https://centreforbrexitstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/10/uk-auto-slumps-amidst-brexit-uncertainty/
http://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-race-to-wield-no-deal-scalpel.html
Brexit: no-deal, big deal
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87269
https://www.rt.com/uk/461863-hunt-oil-tankers-oman/
Blockbuster story buried in this NYT report.
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1139945314754990081
Israel Lobbyist suggests False Flag attack to start war with Iran.
https://twitter.com/Ventuckyspaz/status/1139322005310717952
If you find anyone who is unsure about their opinion on Scotland deciding their own future, please show them this video.
https://twitter.com/StewMan46/status/1138848173852647425
@Col.Blimp IV says: 15 June, 2019 at 10:14 pm:
” … If you flick back to my post @6.15, you will see that I said “majority of votes”.”
Let’s not beat about the bush, Col.Blimp IV
It isn’t complicated in the slightest and it goes like this:-
Question: How did we get into this damned union?
Answer: By signing the Treaty of Union.
Question: How do we get out of this damned union?
Answer: Cancel the Treaty of Union.
What is the point of any other solution?
We are legally equally sovereign partner kingdoms in a two kingdom partnership of equals. We are not being treated as an equally sovereign partner in a two partner union of kingdoms.
The obvious solution is just what several Westminster Cabinet Ministers are on record of claiming at Westminster in relation to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.
Their claim is legally correct and it is this, “In any international treaty any partner in the International Treaty who wants to withdraw from the international treaty has the legal right to do so for no other reason than they want to”.
But, as usual with Westminster they don’t add but mean, “Except for viewers in Scotland”, but legally it does apply to, “Viewers in Scotland”.
Unfortunately a small clique of unelected people in the SNP HQ are having a disproportionate impact on the party policies at present.
The strength of the SNP politicians has always been their accessibility and willingness to listen to members. It is now very difficult to get past the barrier of “influencers” who have positioned themselves to push group agendas over the key target of Independence.
Only with Independence will WE decide our future. Nothing is more important than that one critical objective. I cannot understand why the SNP leadership team would chase secondary issues that risk the unity of our cause.
Like many my membership of the SNP is based on my belief that getting behind one United headline group offers the most effective strategy. I hope my loyalty will not continue to be tested.
The future of our Nation is far more important than any individual or minority pressure group.
‘We have seen a great deal of uncertainty and division caused in recent times by holding a referendum to decide on issues of great national importance. It is clear, in light of the political turmoil in recent years, that any referendum held on the issue of Scottish Independence should require a 60-40 majority’
– the Tory leadership. Sometime in future.
Many people share your concern, Clootie
@Clootie, I share your concern as do many I have spoken to over the last few weeks.
Last links
Starts at midday
Guests on this week’s Full Scottish, are Maggie Lennon, Director of the Bridges Programmes and Chris Stephens, SNP MP for Glasgow South West.
https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/full-scottish-16-06-2019/
Shame on Vine and UK journalism on the whole that they have not held the Tories to account
https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1139323822786654213
http://theconversation.com/englands-history-of-defaulting-on-european-lenders-shows-repercussions-of-not-paying-brexit-bill-118637
Seriously Scotland, how much longer can this horror show continue. The Brexit Tory mess is causing real stress in people’s lives, somthing has to break and soon before we all up broken.
Clootie @ 9.21am
Well said Clootie. I fear, standing aboon them awe in Scottish politics, some within the SNP are I feel seeing themselves as; “The Scottish Establishment.
The SNP will surely win the majority of the Scottish seats at the next Westminster General Election. They will also win the majority of the seats at the next Holyrood election. The only question is: how big will their numbers be?
In such instances, some party apparatchiks naturally begin to have delusions of grandeur, and indulge in Empire Building. Also, some might feel entitled to allow the status quo to continue for as long as possible.
Those in the “Gradualist” wing of the party, in such circumstances, may well be putting obstacles in the way of those within the party hierarchy who want to take full advantage of the current turmoil in Westminster to advance the cause of Independence.
I firmly believe, once Independence is realised, this being the SNP’s whole reason d’ etre, the party will fragment. Those whose core political beliefs are somewhat different from the current social-democratic stance of the SNP, will, I believe, go back to being conservative (small c), but not Unionist, or will reform into a truly SCOTTISH Labour Party.
They will lend their votes to the SNP to get Independence, then revert. So, for the party apparatchiks, their own survival depends on keeping these potential party leavers from leaving.
Also, might some current SNP paid officials be those security service “sleepers” we keep hearing about.
Morning Nana! Delicious links , thank you but don’t overdo it!
My close friend has made me a cake for my birthday and then she added Christmas , then she added on Easter and if I said too many people enjoyed it with me she would make another. She is now stuck on a hamster wheel making me cakes !
I have thought about letting her off the hook and telling her not to do it because I appreciate the amount of work she puts into it ,but the cake is the best I’ve ever had and I just can’t bring myself to tell her to stop!
Nana @ 9.07 am
Blockbuster story buried in this NYT report.
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1139945314754990081
From the link above you gave to the article in the New York Times about the US inserting malware etc into Russian grid:
“”Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States.””
If America can do this then so can other countries.
Now which country is currently building a nuclear power plant in the UK albeit in partnership with a French company but with an option to build another one on its own?
Which country’s state oil company owns around 10% or more of North Sea oil production?
Which country’s investment arm is the major shareholder in a consortium which recently bought a controlling interest in the National Gas Grid?
Answer: China.
And I have not even mentioned Huawei.
Join the dots on that lot.
Remember how yesterday we sort of opted for sobriety? Well after reading through your links today, particularly the NYT one, I think I may revisit that decision
Orri
re the mamifesto
um.. keep it simple
bollox to boris
bollox to brexit
bollox to britain
vote snp for indy 🙂
Moening Dorothy, I’m needing to get my wheel overhauled, nuts and bolts are sticking and the gears are grinding a little plus the memory card could always do with some fine tuning 🙂
What with chocolate, popcorn and cake I’ll soon be resembling the Michelin man xx
Morning Legerwood,
“Remember how yesterday we sort of opted for sobriety? Well after reading through your links today, particularly the NYT one, I think I may revisit that decision”
I may have a head start on you, but I’ll save a seat for you in my local hostelry!
@ Clootie @ Socrates – I too agree. The SNP has a perfectly good mechanism for developing policy which Robert Peffers has described many times i.e. resolutions voted on by the members at conference.
Some persons unknown seem to have slipped under the radar to push an agenda that is certain to be a massive vote loser. Their motives are unknown (but we can speculate).
Stick to science and facts. Facts are always friendly.
@ Nana – I’ve archived your link to that Independent article on the rise of sex attacks on women and girls in unisex changing areas.
Ken500 – FYI as well:
http://archive.fo/nwTMc
Also I posted this link yesterday morning on the previous thread
https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-most-dangerous-hacking-group-is-now-probing-power-grids/
can’t recall if I posted the following articles
https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2019/04/19/what-a-difference-a-decade-makes/
https://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iot/articles/441016-cyber-threats-oil-gas.htm
Moening Capella, thanks for archiving the indy article. Sometimes I forget, my memory banks do indeed require fine tuning 🙂
‘Arthur’s Seat says:
15 June, 2019 at 7:17 am
Escape to the sunshine!
Independence is the only answer – let’s all focus on one goal and leave the shambles ….’
Sorry for the late response – enjoying Oban yesterday.
Like both options.
Feel Independence from Westminster needs to be the emphasis to convince the waverers, as people think it is splitting the Union of Crowns not the Union of Parliaments. The UK question should come after our political separation.
@Clootie 09:21
Independence is the only reason for supporting the SNP, all the rest of the repertoire seems to concern virtue signaling, social liberal tinkering, something it shares with the other British parties.
Has the SNP morphed into a vehicle for her personal worldview?
She has, it appears, a problem with the word ‘nationalism’ and even with the SNP’s name.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-scotland-sturgeon-idUSKCN1AY1T6
In these increasingly ’Scotophobic’ times, not an encouraging attitude.
@Legerwood
Now now. Stop that with the dropping of uncomfortable truths. You’ll upset the sensitive readers. If trump dislikes the communist oppressive rulers of China and there activities in the west, then we should automatically like China. Ok? Thats how it works here
Rory Stewart on the Marr Show. He gives the impression that he knows he can’t win but is hopeful of a decent runner-up showing. He also emphatically rejected serving in a Johnson government.
Stewart seems to be looking to position himself as the alternative leader while Johnson makes a mess of being Brexit and post-Brexit PM.
Although he doesn’t have the maladroit and boorish traits of Johnson, Stewart would not be the saviour of the union that many unionists see him as potentially being. His notion of Scotland seems to be akin to those of a deluded and romantic 19th century son of Empire.
Robert Peffers@
“9.17 Question: How did we get into this damned union?
Answer: By signing the Treaty of Union.
Question: How do we get out of this damned union?
Answer: Cancel the Treaty of Union.”
I doubt if many here would disagree with that.
The obvious supplementary question would be …
Who has the authority to cancel the Treaty of Union?
If the answer is – The people!
How is their will ascertained?
Once apon a time the SNP would have said…A majority of MP’s at Westminster.
But times changed and the SNP changed – They became a “grown up” political party with policies and agendas and stuff that had little or nothing to do with the central aim.
PR and the introduction of referenda, shifted the consensus to a majority of the votes.
An outright majority a Holyrood was deemed by the SNP, a mandate to oversee only those matters that Westminster chose to delegate to a subordinate body.
Sweeping the boards at Westminster was devalued into a mandate to moan.
Don’t forget what happened in the 1979 referendum – when despite YES gaining a majority, the abominable NO-MEN claimed victory … and got away with it.
Westminster MP’s are of little or no value to Scotland if they see their job as being “good” MP’s within the context of a British Unitary State.
Why not put them to some use?
I say contest Westminster Elections under the banner.
Independence – Nothing Else. (yes, an “in joke” only a few oldies will understand).
That of course does not preclude referenda but might spare us the bother of trying to arrange one or ten … and boot that “Once in a Lifetime” nonsense right out of the park, for an err..Lifetime.
Politics Scotland pundits both anti SNP then Brewer cuts off comment regarding Labour MPs letting Brexit Tories off the hook in HoC vote last week
@ Nana – your links are great as ever – I’m just tidying up!
From Stu’s twitter – a letter from academics saying that Stonewall is stifling academic freedom:
https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1140140371613224960
Brewer’s politics show, this espisode of unionism, labelled The Police Scotland Inquisition Half Hour.
Nana @ 10.50 am
Mines is a Cinzano Bianco with a piece of lemon peel.
Nana @ 11.04 am
Nooooooo! Not more.
Make that a double.
Well said, Clootie (9.21am)
@Socrates MacSporran 10.29
Also, might some current SNP paid officials be those security service “sleepers” we keep hearing about.
Why is Neal Stewart, linked to Integrity Initiative (a UK intelligence cut-out), employed as an adviser to the SNP Westminster Parliamentary group?
kapellmeister 11.14
Rory Stewart is a deluded nineteenth century son of the empire. however we shall cross that bridge when we come to it.
Labour on 8% in the new Yougov Scottish sub-sample. Fringe status awaits.
Abulhaq
The problem with these SJW types is that they tend to profess an abhorrence of all things they self-designate as “bad”, whilst being deaf dumb and blind to their own and their phylosophy’s shortfalls and contradictions.
Imperialism, Racism, and Nationalism seem to be unthinkingly lumped together in their minds as an absolute and indivisible axis of evil … say anything positive, sometimes even factual, about any and you are deemed to be endorsing the worst aspects of all of three so must be denounced as a NAZI.
But for nationalism, racism and competing Imperial powers, our world would be peopled exclusively by khaki coloured minions, with the name language, religion, customs and laws of whoever won the last great battle several thousand years ago.
If these authoritarian bastards win …that will be what the future looks like.
@ Nana
Good to see you and hope you’re keeping well.
Been off on my own travels for the past few days and it’s good to settle into a bit Sunday reading. Catch up on the past few posts kinda thing. 🙂
@The concern blimp @11.14am
It was Thatcher who made the SNP WM majority comment.
And it was most certainly a jibe at the SNP at the time who had no chance of ever getting such a majority.
As far as i recall it was NEVER SNP policy.
The SNP do not have the authority to over-write the Scots People’s sovereignty, which would have to happen to change to a WM seat majority.
Its a non starter.
@Legerwood Hic hic!
@Macart, good to see you too Sam. You could be some time catching up 🙂
Socrates MacSporran says:
16 June, 2019 at 10:29 am
Clootie @ 9.21am
“….They will lend their votes to the SNP to get Independence, then revert. So, for the party apparatchiks, their own survival depends on keeping these potential party leavers from leaving.”
That is why YES was fundamentally important, if not essential, prior to 2014.
In 2019, we need more YES, not less, and better coordinated and better led YES to create an expansion chamber for dissent so it doesn’t won’t blow up the Party.
The SNP strategy I’ll leave for the SNP to explain and defend, but the enigmatic principle of keeping the enemy guessing has also kept our own Yessers in the dark, and provided precious little sustenance for those Independentists who, for the most part, are quite happy to remain outside the SNP bubble.
I greatly miss the vibrant YES camaraderie of 2014. What I do NOT miss was the unfulfilled expectation of 2014 that the YES and SNP leadership would finally take on the rotten media and unleash the big howitzers in the final weeks before the ballot. Sadly, it never happened. Waiting for the SNP to “stop getting bits wrong” and finally kick into overdrive back then, and similar expectations now, brings me to an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.
Do us all a favour SNP, before you launch IndyRef2, let us all work together to relaunch YES with a dynamic team of streetwise, progressive and assertive personalities at it’s head. I didn’t mind Blair Jenkins back in 2014 as much as some, but I very much do remember both him, and Alex Salmond declaring there was no issue of bias in the rotten media coverage. I understand why they said it, but it didn’t half let all the air out our tyres.
We need YES, and we need fuel and time to get the YES boilers up to a full head of steam.
geeo
Safe to assume that you can read … so you know full well that I said a majority of VOTES at the Westminster Election for the SNP could be taken as the will of the people to secede from the Union. If the SNP stated that was their intention.
As for theoretical historical abstentionism and UDI, at the time FPTP was Westminster’s rules and the Sovereignty of Parliament the only game in town. No Idea if it was ever official policy … the occasion to action it never came even remotely close.
I’m sure Winnie Ewing mentioned it more than once, pre-Thatcher in the context of the “tipping point” anomaly built into FPTP which had hitherto worked against the SNP at elections. hard to imagine it not being mooted by others in the preceding 50 or so years of the party’s existence.
Not entirely convinced that you are not one of those “Trojan Horse Jockeys” mentioned earlier by Clootie and Socrates McSporran
starlaw says:
16 June, 2019 at 11:53 am
kapellmeister 11.14
Rory Stewart is a deluded nineteenth century son of the empire. however we shall cross that bridge when we come to it.
I would agree, however if it came to a choice, I would much rather negotiate Scotland’s Independence with Rory Stewart than any one of the other Tory leadership “hopefuls”.
In some ways, he is every bit the same Dickensian anachronism as Rees-Mogg, except for Rees-Mogg having been more successfully cured of his empathy for the poor, the frail, and the Scottish.
I actually believe Stewart is one of the very few Unionists who might actually contemplate addressing the Constitutional issue of Scottish Independence by reinvention of the Union to make it fairer and more palatable to us Scots. (Don’t laugh, he can try). But let me qualify that immediately by saying he’ll be every bit as devious and scheming about frustrating Independence once it becomes clear we stubborn and ungrateful Scots can’t be persuaded out of it.
He’ll sit down and take opium with Iranians, not to be polite, but because he wants the Rory Stewart biography to read like an exotic adventure book for boys. Perhaps he might be encouraged to style himself as a great pragmatist like Louis Mountbatten, … the last Viceroy of India. Cough, cough. Hint, hint…
re. overseas investment in infrastructure. Contrary to some other posters, my interpretation of reality is not based on intellectual rigidity and cultural prejudice.
State Theory: Four Analytical Traditions
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199691586.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199691586-e-7
Breeks
Are you suggesting that he may be willing to settle for Mundell’s job or are you telling us that he has a yacht?
Don’t answer that last one…Geeo is watching! LoL.
And a bit of International Relations Theory.
State Theory in International Relations: Why Realism Matters
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230281981_4
Brewer on the BBC has Pearson ex Chief Executive of Scotland in Union oh and a exMsp from the Labour Party to trash the Police. Then we have Susan Deacon ex Labour minster defending the actions of the SPA.
It was all agreed over a month ago. The BBC and Dewar have their agenda and yet appear to be unable to understand the issue has been discussed openly or more likely are unwilling to accept the matter has been adressed. Poor journalism and BBC again.
@the concern blimp@1.26pm
No, you said this: “Once apon a time the SNP would have said…A MAJORITY OF MP’s at Westminster”.
Not votes, MP’s.
………
And I am telling you, NO they never, not once was it ever SNP policy.
I even told you why not.
You come on here talking pish, thinking nobody notices (for some reason) and hope not to be pulled up for your slobbering.
Then you show your true colours with this uneducated steamer :
……..
“the will of the people to secede from the Union”
………
Please, do tell us all how Sovereign Scots “secede” from a union which we are LEGALLY EQUAL partners to?
Take your time by all means…
Wow
http://www.facebook.com/groups/Aye2AyeLochaber/permalink/2155174204536759/
geeo says:”Please, do tell us all how Sovereign Scots “secede” from a union which we are LEGALLY EQUAL partners to?”
I never claimed to be an English whiz, I didn’t even show up for the “O” grade exam – so riven with self-doubt, I looked it [secede] up :
secede
/s??si?d/
verb
withdraw formally from membership of a federal union, an alliance, or a political or religious organization.
“the kingdom of Belgium seceded from the Netherlands in 1830”
synonyms: withdraw from, break away from, break with, separate (oneself) from, sever relations with, leave, quit, split with, split off from, disaffiliate from, defect from, resign from, pull out of, drop out of, have nothing more to do with, turn one’s back on, repudiate, reject, renounce, desert; form a splinter group
“the Southern states seceded from the Federal Union”
As for the rest … anyone who can be bothered reading my two previous posts can draw their own conclusions.
Geo : In case you didn’t fully comprehend … from the Cambridge Dictionary
Meaning of secession in English
Contents
secession
noun [ U ] UK ? /s?s?e?.?n/ US ? /s?s?e?.?n/
?
the act of becoming independent and no longer part of a country, area, organization, etc.:
Norway’s secession from Sweden in 1905
See
secede
More examples
They discussed the newly emerging possibility that the Holyrood Scottish Parliament might move towards secession.
The Italian region of Alto Adige South Tyrol had a strong secession movement, headed by the German-speaking majority in the region.
the secession of the Southern states following the start of the American Civil War in 1861
The group’s board voted 31-13 to support secession.
Concern blimp can look up words in a dictionary, not as thick as we thought.
Context dear boy, though, context.
We do not secede from the union treaty, we DISSOLVE it.
Because we can.
coming in late here this evening –
just wanted to say that’s a great cartoon, Chris.
Menacing.
Hope Scotland realises it’s fast approaching the fork in the road and is ready and willing to make her choice to take the high road from the UK
@Col Blimp IV…
The issue with the word secede isn’t a literal use of the word, but the implication than when secession occurs, it creates a continuer State, and a seceding State, with the Continuer State enjoying the continuity of vast majority of agreements and privileges of the former Country, whereas the seceding State has the job of renegotiating such things from scratch.
Westminster has gone out of its way to argue that Scotland going Independent would be an act of secession, and in 2014, the immediate ramification would have been that England would retain EU membership as Continuer State, with Scotland kicked out and required to negotiate a new membership. England would retain all the UK contracts, Treaties and trade deals, and Scotland would be starting from scratch.
The reason this is controversial is because the Union never was a merger between a greater part and a lesser one, but has never been anything else except a bilateral treaty between two EQUAL Kingdoms. The breakup of the UK is not carving out a new country from an existing one, but simply ending a treaty between two Constitutional equals, so neither country would be Continuer or Seceding State.
In that context of EU membership, one nation could not remain as Continuer State while the other had to rejoin. Both “altered” states would be Constitutional equals and have the same entitlements. We would either both remain EU members, or we would both be required to rejoin.
Westminster’s assertions that Scotland would be a seceding State is wishful thinking and deliberate disinformation.
Where it get more complicated, is that Articles 48 and 49 of the Lisbon Treaty define how a seceding State must reapply to join the EU, or continue an existing membership as Continuer State. The Lisbon Treaty never anticipated a UK situation, where one member would split into two, but as Constitutional equals. If the U.K. dissolved while still a member of the EU, a new precedent would be created.
There is also a cross reference with this issue of breaking apart as Constitutional equals, rather than Continuer and Seceder, and that relates to debt.
People say an Independent Scotland wouldn’t be burdened by UK debt. In some respects that’s true, but as Constitutional equals, might not England claim the very same thing?
While the UK’s debts might die with the UK, I don’t believe the liability would disappear but fall upon the newly emerged separate nations of England and Scotland. We would be wise to bite the bullet and honour our share.
We can’t have it both ways. An equal Nation when it suits us, but seceder when there’s a scary problem to negotiate.
Forgot to say too… Split as equals, embrace our share of U.K. debt, but lay legitimate claim to UK assets.
If the Col Blimp IV had read Wings in the past he would know this information. It has been stated many times on Wings. No secession no UDI. The Treaty is terminated therefore no UK.
An equal share of debts must mean an equal share of assets.
I doubt Boris is the clown some take him for, or the clown he plays.
Nor is he acting without backing.
Substantial backing.
The others in the race will fall behind whomever looks like winning, to preserve their careers, as will the wider Tory party. They already are, all hail the king!
Self above others. Always.
Some in Scotland see his arrogance and it gets their backs up.
Some in England see his standing up for England and it gets them behind him.
Swept forward on a wave of alluded to better days.
An end to all their ills, as if he or anyone could ever really deliver that, as if that’s what he or his kind really wanted to do in the first place.
But the story.. that can be sold easily enough.
Scotland?
The Tories will fall into place, their supporters will too believing what they want to be true, is the truth as it protects them and their possessions. Their homeostasis.
Shout out a slogan loud enough and just vague enough that people will attach their own hopes or fears to fill in the blanks and the slogan matches their own beliefs.
“Ah now he is speaking to me!”
The scared? They will split. Some will hang on in desperation to the sinking ship.
Others may realise their is another way but it will take guts, determination effort and possibly sacrifice for a time.
That’s the risk in a fear campaign I suppose, don’t scare them enough and you make them angry, too much and they may think what the hell we have nothing to lose anyway!
Will there be enough of the latter to outweigh the former?
I have no idea.
Will Westminster employ dirty tricks?
Why wouldn’t they? may be a better question.
Its not like they have anything to lose by doing it, is there?
The media to drip feed the preferred message.
Cost: A few agreeable policies, a few promotions here and there, perhaps a gong sir/ madam?
Just sell out your people, you’ll be well taken care of.
It doesn’t even have to be true, most will not check and if they do you control the information streams most of them watch!
Some discrediting perhaps?
Cost: A rumour here and rumour there, a leaked story should be enough to sling some mud. If done well a delayed court case may be used to prolong the damage.
Sling enough mud and all that.
How about some legal chicanery?
Section 30,flat denial. if enough of the electorate are convinced anything less than sec 30 approval means any referendum is a dead duck then the turnout could be so low as to muddy the waters of any result.
Failing that a court case could be arranged afterwards.
How about a change in the law? Reduction in Holyrood powers? We have a wide range to choose from.
Financial institutions, corporations, big employers anyone at all really, deliver the message we like and you’ll do well out of it.
“Is it morally right?”
“Now now my good man Morals are not good business”. This is about profit. The money in YOUR pocket.
Create enough fear and you will paralyse enough people to get the result you want.
Think what they did to the pensioners in 2014.
Independence is a risk, we all know that, the issue is perhaps that for some of us it is a risk worth taking.
For others it is not worth the risk. Too much to lose.
Brexit and Boris could move the numbers either way.
“Independence AND Brexit, AND BORIS?! Lets get the hell out of here asap!”
Or
Risk reduction? “Lets not add to the risks, remove Independence for now and we only have to deal with Boris and Brexit” As though there wasn’t a way to avoid that.
I have no clue which way the people of my country will go, none whatever. I know what I hope they will do.
The disappointment in those same people in 2014 was bitter to taste.
Stand in front of Goliath if you’d like,
hold the slingshot in your hand and be laughed at
Fire the shot and still be ignored.
It is not until the shot is fired AND aimed at exactly the right spot at EXACTLY the right time AND HITS the spot to fell the giant that we will be taken seriously.
Not until then will the less strong of heart will contemplate a move to side with the victor is always better for survival.
What kind of survival though?
Which victor is decided by those that choose before the fight begins.
Blah blah blah nothing new here.
@Moalbeatha.
Scotland isn’t powerless, trembling and prostrate before Westminster. The last opportunity for the establishment to get out of this union unscathed was in 2014. They spurned that opportunity mistakenly thinking that winning would destroy the independence movement, the 2015 GE proved otherwise. Westminster is subject to Scots Constitutional law, despite what you see and hear, they know that.
Was thinking today. Im starting to believe that the biggest obstacle to winning over much more of Scotland to the idea of independence lies in the overly left wing leaning of most the people campaigning for it.
I grew up in some shadow of resemblance to free market democracy (Scotland/UK) and ive lived/worked for years in the remains of communist countries or 1st world countries with long term socialist influence.
From experience I can say that id rather live a bit longer in the Union than have a Scotland that goes too far left. Clueless lefties/socialists with their constant appeals to emotion and conviction of holding the moral high ground can’t bring themselves to see it. Its the ultimate in self aggrandizing group-think.
I know that this position makes me some sort of equivalent to a love child of Pinochet and Thatcher to many here. Which only amplifies the problem.
I was talking to an old friend of mine who was near-communist in his political bias until recently and he pretty much said the same thing. Too little knowledge of 20th century history and basic economics and too much emotive, thoughtless moral posturing on equality and diversity.
If you think:
1 – Britain is a terrible country to live and work, in and of itself, relative to the rest of the world.
2 – British people are more racist/bigoted relative to other cultures across the world.
3 – Britain is undemocratic relative to other countries across the world
Then the problem is you have never had a proper sampling of real life in other countries, including many in Europe of which I mean finding a place to live, working, paying taxes, being affected by political systems, health etc. Not stats from a website. Ive shown the mewlings of British/Scottish people about how hard they think they have it to people from properly poor countries and the reaction is either amusement or disgust.
Ahhh, see? He’s just a unionist! No, im just not a total fkng cretin. Let me explain:
The left side of politics requires increasing state power, and taxes, to provide for their vote winning policies. The recent nonsense of the SNP are just 1 example of it. Trampling over rights of women to provide so called ‘equality’ for a tiny minority. We who are not on the left can mostly see the trajectory for what it is – increasingly authoritarian and disconnected.
Government doesn’t and cant create wealth. Only individual people and companies can. The private sector pays for the public sector to exist. Period. This might be why I cant find that many economically conservative types involved with the Indy movement.
Maybe there needs to be a slight consideration that winning more support for independence might involve raising the bar a bit and be less hostile to anyone who is worldly enough, and educated enough, to have a more nuanced view?
Repeating the same old stuff isnt going to convince much more people. Maybe embracing the fact that not everyone has a similar vision for an independent Scotland might help?
Been looking over a lot of prominent pro indy people on twitter etc and honestly, Scotland could well end up the next Sweden. In fact the SNP seem determined to make it so (but without giant successful companies to prop up its cretinous socialist policies).
Just thinking.
As a last point – im well aware of how wealthy an independent Scotland would be. Possibly the richest country in Europe per capita if managed properly. But it wont be a leftist government that gets it there. It would be something resembling a free market.
A constitution that guarantees:
1 – limited government and taxes
2 – privilege the rights of the individual rather than the group
3 – free speech for anything that does not call for actual violence/harm
4 – protection of private property/ownership
5 – social considerations such as limiting debt liabilities with 0% interest government loans, a debt-free monetary system etc.
Id be out with my flag for that. I think it would go the other way mind you. Fast. Taxes would go up for self employed and businesses, B.S ‘social justice’ inspired laws will flood in, over sold ‘climate change’ issues would cause extra taxes to be developed and in the end anyone who is capable of earning money or creating a job or 2 will leave for England, and with them the tax base.
In that scenario the more left-leaning types could be satisfied – you’d all be equally totally skint.
@ Joe.
How many ‘ lefties ‘ are there in the current Scottish Parliament. I would say not a lot, so why would that change after Independence.
Ruth will try to ‘outboris’ Boris, I think. She’s nothing if not a Tory thru and thru.
This is the same woman who, whilst married to an Irish Catholic woman, has actively courted the Orange vote and remains within a party which is allied with the terrorist sympathising DUP (not a group known for their ‘religious tolerance’ or record on LGBTQ Rights!)
So, she’s ALREADY sold out her OWN WIFE can we doubt she’d sell out an entire country?? She’ll back Boris to the hilt no matter what…
“Fee Fie Foe Fum, aye see the arse of a Johnson bum”
Have ye a merry 17 JUN 2019 evening y’all!
Cheers to ye cc
And with a frame like that… we take you back to Fraggle Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K-7wK-CNeg
Johnson is Gorg Junior
So…
Q. What will we do in the shadows?
A. Keep laughing at them
THEN we WIN
Et aussi..
Q. SO what else will we do in the shadows?
A. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoN6AKPGkBo
This song was frae 50 years ago 🙂
Whip crack bj away hehe!
Here’s how Abe did it in the shadows way back in the day like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMmLGwxky5Y
Watch the full game walkthrough here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW5IRvW4apo
WARNING ~ BEWARE of the Tory sligs and enjoy!
@Breeks
Thanks for the explanation as to why I inadvertently used a “dirty word”.
It was not my intention to cause offence, (not even to the Trollhunter General), just a word chosen at random do describe as the dictionary put it: “the act of becoming independent and no longer part of a country, area, organization, etc.”
I mostly agree with the points you make re your preferred method of separation, though much as I would enjoy taking a hacksaw to all the post 1603 trinkets in the Tower of London, I would gladly leave with no more than the shirt on my back.
If for no other reason than to ensure that the Forum Cop Fud remains convinced that he has snagged me on a shibboleth, I feel
obliged to point out that since 1707, the UK has expanded beyond the boundaries of ?E?n?g?l?a?n?d? ?&? ?J?o?c?k?s?h?i?r?e? um Scotland & Englandandwales, so the designations of Continuing and Seceder State may be a pill we have to swallow.
The gibberish bit above was supposed to be a “strike-through”, intended to signify a Freudian slip.