A case apart
We’ve long argued that whatever the small print, when it comes to an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union common sense and realpolitik will prevail, because nobody wants Scotland to be out of the EU for even a day and it’s in nobody’s interests for it to be.
Of course, we’re just some idiots with a website and nobody should listen to OUR opinion about anything. But it seems as though people like Graham Avery (Honorary Director-General of the European Commission), Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, (the former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN) and Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, (author of a book on EU constitutional law and professor of European law and human rights at Oxford University) ought to have a pretty good inside track on Europe stuff.
And if all those still aren’t enough, how about the esteemed Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament? He ought to know what he’s talking about, right?
Darling and the 3 Scottish musketeers(Ruth, Johann and wee Wullie) need to be asked what happens to the Barnett Formula if their plan is introduced!
John Major was one of those who predicted devolution would lead to independence. To him it was a threat which might come to pass. Personally, I shared this view but for me it was always a hope!
Also meant to add, what happens to the number of Scottish MPs?
Do they really think there will be no kickback.
Come on MSM please ask, doyour job and ask the questions!
“There are Scots in the British Army” says they grey one.
What does old John mean by this? Are they being kicked out? What is his point?
Still spouting the same pish as ever. at lest Humphries pretended to interrupt him. Lamely.
Juteman says:
“Darling repeating his ‘1,000,000 jobs depend on the union’ bollocks on GMS.”
A million jobs may depend on cross border commerce, but exactly how does Darling connect that to Independence? Another barely veiled threat that iScotland and rUK won’t be on talking terms?
The quicker that idiot gets his jotters the better!
Just in case anyone’s wondering about the “Will Spain veto our EU membership” question, here’s what the Spanish Foreign Minister had to say.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-end-or-is-it/
In summary: “if Westminster recognise Scotland’s Yes vote, we won’t veto anything.”
It’s all very exciting, eh?
Like a big giant game of Whack-A-Nawbag…
Darling taking your questions on RS phone in.
@ Robert Peffers
Please contact me bill_urquhart@hotmail.com
I would like to pick your brains, thanks.
they have taken my name & tel number lets see if they get back to me My question who,s guaranteeing more devolved powers, Im a DK voter,will you,s forgive me folks.
OMG. Set up call on GMS for a Darling PPB. Why would devo be so good? FFS
Ronnie
You would have a better chance if you said you were a No.
Jings – only one whole week of campaigning left.
o/t
great come back to a no supporter
Naw, if we vote yes on the 18th, i’ll wake up in a foriegn country
aye, if we vote no on the 18th, i’ll wake up in a foriegn country
John Major, ex PM on Radio 4 this morning, stated that a Labour MP has admitted to him that he is voting Yes! That is a revelation. Who is it, I wonder? I hope he comes out publicly for Yes. Recording should be available somewhere.
Darling is offering burdens.No oil tax,no vat and a fraction of other taxes. We are given the burden of collecting and the unpopular poisoned chalice of income tax rates with no power to offset the unpopularity. It is a con.
Ronnie,
I suspect that you are on their blacklist and that they are no more likely to believe the DK bit than we are.
Ian,
Isn’t it just!
Talk about making complete fools of themselves in front of the whole world. Running around in fll headless chicken mode screaming about the end of the world as we know it. World Power my erse!
Seeing today’s Daily Wrecker, listening to Darling falling to bits, rambling incoherently on the phone in on BBC Scotland, and in the knowledge that the Three Stooges are to be at unspecified destinations in Scotland today far from genuine public scrutiny I begin to clearly appreciate the meaning of SCHADENFREUDE.
Is this how it is all to end- not with a bang but with a whimper?
There are rumours that the latest Survation poll has the Yes campaign in the lead.
Anyone else heard of this?
Well done BBC. Misinformed lady on Radio Scotland that thinks devo max is now being offered. Yep, say it often enough it will sink in.
Have a great day folks. VoteYes radio playing songs, requested by you, for the visit of Cameron, Milliband & Clegg. All day long :-). Now playing: Cap In Hand. http://VoteYes.fm
o/t
no thanks campaign manager
http://www.facebook.com/#!/video.php?v=10203431394040415&fref=nf
ha ha ha ha
Good Question Elizabeth in the NE of Great Britain. Labour party voter.
Why was Devo not on the ballot paper? It’s panic.
“Too late now” she said
Personally folks, boiled beef & carrots are maybe OK for down South but cold kale and porridge is not going to do in Scotland.
Vote YES.
Pat Cox on RTE Morning Ireland again outlining why the EU would welcome an independent Scotland and why Spain will not be stamping their feet and saying No.
gillie
Only hints from someone at Survation that ‘the results were something’. Take that to mean what you want. Could be Yes down to 2% but rather doubt that. We will know at 10.30 pm when David Clegg releases the figures as the poll will be in the Record, they paid for it.
@ Cearc do you mean they see rite through me, is there a remake of the Invisible Man ah think I’ll audition lol
Ronnie – they can tell you’re Yes ‘cos you don’t do sweary, shouty.
I heard that last night from Darling also, the 1,000,000 jobs will go as they are dependant on the Union.
I would love him to be questioned on that, it just might put his blood pressure into the stratosphere.
No 1 lead story on French TV for third consecutive day is the probability that Scotland will quit the Union with England.
They are trying to get their head around it and are reading into it as game changer in Europe. How, they are trying to work out but, a game changer it will be.
schrodingers cat says:
10 September, 2014 at 9:08 am
o/t
great come back to a no supporter
Naw, if we vote yes on the 18th, i’ll wake up in a foriegn country
aye, if we vote no on the 18th, i’ll wake up in a foriegn country
=====================
The answer to that guy should have been
Naw if we vote yes on the 18th I’ll wake up in my country doon the road will be a foreign country.
@ Giving Goose
That was an interesting exchange with John Major. Not only did he say a labour MP had told him he is voting yes: he also said that same Labour MP said that he shouldn’t worry because the said MP would still be there at Westminster to vote. Mr Major took this as evidence that Scottish people do not understand what independence actually means
He could not of course have meant that he does not believe the yes side will win, despite his voting intention. Mr Major could not be telling big fat lies.
No, Scottish people, including Labour MP’s, just don’t understand that independence is forever.
The overwhelming thing for me is the fact that ALL the media are running with anti-independence stories. We really do not have a free and independent media and that is the really shocking thing that Stu has highlighted in all his articles
Stu I note that you and Wings have a reasonable write up in the Indy:
Scottish independence: The rise of the ‘cybernats’ – who might just win it for the Yes side
galamcennalath
but a 1.1m gov job loss was announced in feb 2014
“More than one million civil servant jobs ‘to be axed by 2019’ in Government cull.” http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/civil-service-job-cuts-more-3143284
unless he means a million more ie 2.1m gov jobs or roughly 50% of the civil service?
What an ill informed woman. Scotland is subsidised by UK says she. There you have it folks too poor.
The presenter now misquoting figures too. Good old BBC!
@Paule Rose did we or did we not spend a whole weekend in Graystone & Arbroath ( in the company of Thepnr , in case you’s mucky lot have any other idea’s,you know I do sweary shouty elequently XX.
All you need to know about it, laughs SKY. Come on uncle Rupert, look how teamGB elite repaid decades of your undying loyalty.
Despicable me!
https://skynews.grabyo.com/g/v/P25wqfTO9M3
@ Ronnie Best get in the queue before 18th as there will be a few seeking a cloak of invisibility when we win
Ronnie dear – you were nothing but polite and soft-spoken in my company!
When & where are the three beggars appearing? Will they be doing a walkabout?
Or is it yet another behind closed doors event for the Nohopers/bbc lot.
Anyways – on with the campaign shoes and off to the Brechin Yes shop ttfn xx
Daphne no say daft Darling at a loss for words
A lady quotes the correct official figures.
£1250 given £1700 sent to UK treasury.
Barnett secure!
Lady rightly says Scottish income tax powers will result in the same amount amount that is raised being taken of our Barnett formula. She was ushered off quickly, thanks for your question!
AD never called her out on it.
Giving Goose
If true, should not be difficult to deduce (said he in a Sherlock Holmes manner 😉 )
41 Labour MPS
deduct those that are canvassing for No
The obvious ones being Darling, Murphy, Brown, Alexander, Davidson, Donohoe, Curran, Begg, McGovern, Greatrex.
So that’s 10, leaving just 31 to wonder about 😀
What? Ok I’ll get my coat 😉
http://news.sky.com/templates/watch-live stream SKY is an interesting change from BBC liggers, they lack the sweaty BetterTogether panic of BBC in Scotland but its fun.
REV
must be giving the 3 leaders enough rope,before he writes next article
my feeling BT team will be taken back down to Tower of London
@ Paule Rose go to it Im sure you,ll convince more & more to the Yes camp If you havent done that already, onward upward.
How many questions will the Three Amigos take?
How many ‘real’ people will they meet?
Will they, at any stage, be allowed to stop moving?
Will anyone manage to hand-deliver a WBB to any of them?
Which one is ‘doing’ Glasgow (i.e. drew the short straw…)
It’s gonny be a Bennyhillathon – bring it on!
One question for the three stooges……can you guarantee more powers…..YES or NO? Simple question which they can’t and won’t answer.
Flipper on radio Scotland getting an easy time from Louise White who is very sharp with the YES supporting callers and allowing the no ones to ramble on and on.
@Fiona
The Labour MP is correct (for once), he/she can vote YES and still be in Westminster, least for another 18 Months
🙂
Reading the Letters Page in Metro on London Tube today was like listening to the Old Guard…silly little Scotland hoodwinked by Dictator Salmond…talk about still not getting it!
Well that’s Lincolnshire sausage off the menu.
Be nice to see Cameron, Clegg and Darling all signing a pledge too. Cameron’s vote Tory “for the Greenest government ever” is another cracker, as he dog sleighed across the North Pole.
If there was ever a greatest liar in the history of the universe prize, everyone in Westminster would get one. Up here in Aberdeen, you want to have heard the complete and utter lies Anne Begg MP told people throughout her career, mostly on local stuff that involved people lives, jobs, pensions etc
Very difficult Labour history buried by local Press and Journal/BBC on a very British mission to shut down Holyrood.
It’s actually quite simple …..
1. MORE POWERS – we don’t just want the power to carry out you austerity cuts …… with your dwindling budgets …….. and than have to take the blame as it’s a “devolved power”
2. TAX RAISING – we don’t just to be able to raise taxes to make good the shortfall between what Scotland raised in taxes in the first place and what you deigned to send back
3. EXTRA INCOME – anything at all?
@ Ian Brotherhood whit do you mean a (Bennyhillathon)are there a lot of Kilties gonna be running after them,that I want to see,anybody got a handle on where there appearing as yet.
Listening to Alistair Darling on Morning Call just now. The B.B.C. are obviously vetting for more NO voters to put questions to A.D. than pro Ind. ones. It has become a Better Together Broadcast allowing Alistair to spout his propaganda. After the other night allowing Gordon Brown and S.Lab a 50 minute party political broadcast going out unchallenged its plain to see the B.B.C in full” Protect the Union” at all costs mode.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/referendum/independence-referendum-guide/340448/scottish-independence-expert-alex-kemp-predicts-north-sea-oil-bonanza/
At 18 I was roughnecking North Sea for Shell and they told us the oil would be gone by 1999. While in fact, its 2099. Who knew, they did.
Just a wee request for a moments pause here.
How many folk woke up this morning thinking “Wow, this is really it!” and felt all charged up ( even more so than normal)?
Thats happeneing all over the country and in the balance of nature, the opposite is happening in the No Camp.
The game is truly afoot.
Carpe Diem folks!
@ desimond.
The labour MP was right in the sense you say: but Mr Major put it forward as evidence that Scottish people do not understand what independence means. For him this labour MP imagines he will continue as a Westminster MP in perpetuity, after a yes vote. It is amazing just how ignorant these scottish folk are. Good job we have clever people like John Major to explain it to us, really
I heard somewhere that cameron is going to Edinburgh and Milliband to Glasgow. Can’t remember where I came across that nor where Clegg is going. Didn’t speficy a venue either
@Fiona
Yeah, poor John and his cohorts cant quite imagine others thinking unlike him. He sees a lovely life spent sleeping in the Lords with the occassional House of Commons Garden party and imagines thats what others envisage as making it.
Given the Labour folk he knows are folk like Douglas Alexander, John Reid and Mags Curran, you can see how he could get confused mind you.
@ desimond
Oh come on! He MUST have met some people who don’t fancy Edwina Currie, at the very least 😉
Darling failed to answer a very good question about UKIP – what happens if UKIP holds the balance of power at WM in 2015?
What happens to the great (just a little) more Devo promises if UKIP are wagging the WM dog? Would England tolerate more sweeties for the “subsidy junkies” up north?
I note also that Wales, NI and some of the English regions are also making noises about the unfairness (to them) of bribing Scotland in this way. The Barnett formula and the West Lothian Question are sure to resurface with a vengeance. This is what happens when the three stooge amateurs make up policy on the hoof. Unforeseen consequences and all that.
Oh Dear, it’s not quite going to plan, Mr Darling!
John Major was one of those who predicted devolution would lead to independence. To him it was a threat which might come to pass. Personally, I shared this view but for me it was always a hope!
People understood that devolution might eventually lead to independence, but many voted for it anyway. Back then, most people liked the idea of independence but weren’t quite ready for it. I believe that most people in Scotland still like the idea of independence. The question is:
Are we ready for it now?
This will be answered in the early hours of the 19th of September.
A wee hint at tonights poll….
http://www.forexlive.com/blog/2014/09/10/talk-of-another-scottish-yes-poll-sends-shudders-through-the-pound-again/
No wonder the three beggars are desperate….
http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/09/expert-alex-kemp-predicts-north-sea-oil-bonanza/
What I’d like to know is, how are they going to split the bussed in so-called activists between the stooges?
I thought there was a Daily Record poll out this morning or is it the one Nana Smith points to tonight?
But why would anyone want to join the EU? It has a stagnant economy, and a currency that is strangling even its strongest member and crucifying its weakest. It backs the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] which would benefit only the big corporations in the USA and the EU, at the expense of the working classes of the world. All areas of public interest would be subject to mandatory free trade, liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation – agriculture, financial services, health, education, energy, food, health and safety standards, communications, culture, public utilities like water and transport, local government services, and ‘buy local’ procurement policies. These rules would subject all our services, including the NHS, to private corporate rule.
That is why so many of our trade unions oppose TTIP, and why many think TTIP stands for Transnationals’ Treaty for Imposing Privatisation.
The EU backed the fascist coup in Ukraine. It backs war against Syria.
And Salmond wants Scotland to be an ‘enthusiastic, engaged and committed’ member of this capitalist cartel.
There is a whole debate on the question of Scotland and the EU hosted by verfassungsblog.eu. Worth reading, but the short version is that there is quite a consensus that the EU will and must accept Scotland and that Barruso is just wrong.
The main issue in the debate is really about the avenue (article 48 or 49 or just ad-hoc) and whether Scotland has to give up the UK exemptions (answer: probably some)