A different school
Tommy Sheppard knows a John Swinney you don’t know.
And who, conveniently, you’re not allowed to see.
Traditionally, this is the opposite order to how things are done in politics:
Normally, you tell people what you’re asking them to vote for BEFORE they actually vote. You don’t explain your plans AFTER the election, especially when they already voted for you at the LAST election and you didn’t do any of that stuff then, even though the supposed reason for your party’s existence and the circumstances with regard to it haven’t changed at all in the intervening time, and there’s precisely nothing stopping you engaging in “mass public information” and “legal and diplomatic effort” right now.
And that goes double when the thing you’re hinting that what you’d do is the same thing your party promised before the last Holyrood election, reiterated less than a year ago, then explicitly ruled out doing as recently as two weeks ago.
Because if it’s urgent, and time is short, why not do it now?
Why do we have to wait a year for a convention, and why would it be dependent on an SNP victory in the election? That doesn’t sound like you’re interested in “cross-party alliances”. That sounds like all you’re interested in is votes for the SNP.
It doesn’t say “independence supporters” here:
For the avoidance of doubt, Wings’ view is that an indy convention is a waste of time. There’s been no shortage of talking shops since 2014, not one of which has produced a damn thing except a suggestion of more talking shops. But it’s even more of an insult to voters’ intelligence to promise them something useless when everyone knows that you’re not going to deliver it anyway.
Sheppard can’t even do his audience (if you can call a group as tiny as readers of The National an “audience”) the basic courtesy of keeping his bullshit straight from one paragraph to the next.
Did Swinney have a strategy or not? Presumably those are the sorts of questions that the pesky press or public might have rudely asked if they’d been allowed to observe the conference, so phew, lucky escape there.
(It may be tactless of us to point this out, but as recently as last month Sheppard himself noted that there is no way to translate a Holyrood mandate into independence and that electing a new parliament would make no difference and anyone who thought it would was “naive”.)
Nor, more worryingly, can he identify the basic problem.
Wait a minute. These people ALREADY “think Scotland should be independent”. So why do we need to convince them of the reasons? Why do they currently think we should be independent, if it’s not about making Scotland better by making our own decisions? Just for a laugh? Just to flick two fingers at the English? Sheppard doesn’t bother to tell us, so it’s hard to conclude he understands them.
What the actual balls? These people want an independent Scotland but have NEVER voted? Not in 2007, not in 2011, not in 2015, not in 2016, not in 2017, not in 2019, not in 2024, not in 2021, never? And you think you’ll turn this decades-long apathy around by… asserting the Claim Of Right? Are you out of your tiny fricking mind?
(The Claim Of Right was asserted in, and endorsed by, the UK Parliament as recently as 2018. It was hardly even debated – Tommy Sheppard himself noted than nobody spoke against it – and barely anyone noticed, and absolutely nothing happened as a result of the uncontested asserting. The UK government continued to refuse a second indyref and that refusal was backed by the Supreme Court in 2022.)
The simple fact is that there are two plausible strategies for achieving independence without the permission or co-operation of Westminster, and the SNP refuses to adopt either (it very briefly flirted with a terrible version of one of them, then ditched it again almost instantly). Indeed, it won’t even discuss either of them.
Any time anyone actually IS allowed to ask John Swinney what his strategy is, he mumbles bland, incoherent drivel about building support (even though the SNP has failed to shift the dial by so much as a single millimetre after a decade of incredibly favourable circumstances when it commanded a thumping majority of public opinion, and is now approximately as popular with the electorate as vomit in a wetsuit) and independence just sort of somehow magically happening as a result.
(Sheppard rejoices that Swinney has slowed the rate of decline in SNP support to the point where it’s now only slightly lower than it was at the end of Humza Yousaf’s short and slapstick reign.)
But hey, maybe he said something totally different in Perth at the weekend. Maybe he revealed a plan so cunning that even Edmund Blackadder would have been forced to doff his cap to it.
A plan so irresistibly ingenious that all those people who Tommy Shepperd says want independence but don’t want to vote SNP (or to vote at all) would have no rational choice but to unite behind it, deliver the SNP another overwhelming electoral mandate, and have us independent by Christmas.
In which case, it seems a terrible shame that voters aren’t allowed to know what it is.
I’ve heard the expression “great oaks from small acorns” but this really does take the biscuit, good old…
Come on, Rev, you must be on speaking terms with someone who was there. Spill the beans.
I’m in the third group Tommy, the indy supporters who hate SNP with a passion and who wouldn’t vote SNP now if you paid us. Women especially, who will vote to keep people like Kirsten Oswald out even if it means voting for a unionist. N truth I’m actively voting now to destroy the SNP. I hate it, but that’s the truth.
Biggest obstacle to independence is the SNP, which like the zombies of countless crap movies, is dead, but just doesn’t realise it.
The SNP corpse needs a burial, and Scotland needs to move on. The only way to bury that corpse is for everyone who wants an independent Scotland to cease voting for and cease funding the SNP.
This ” Whodunit” has been going on for years.
Quite how long I don’t know.
But in 2015 this board was full of ” Yoon Trolls”.
Surely even they have got bored and moved on.
For many years, I have advocated turning the regional list vote in the Scottish Parliament elections into a vote for independence. All it needs is for every pro-independence candidate/party to agree to state this in line one of their manifesto. If more than 50% vote for these pro-independence candidates/parties in the regional list vote, it would constitute a mandate for Scottish independence. No further confirmatory vote would be needed as the people will have spoken and negotiations with the UK Government and the international community could commence forthwith.
This strategy can be repeated at every Scottish Parliament election. When the people are ready for independence, they can vote for it and we don’t need to get involved in endless debates about how we can achieve Scottish independence.
People can vote for whatever party they want in the constituencies, based on other aspects of their manifestos. Only votes on the regional list will count towards independence.
This strategy should maximise turnout for both sides of the independence debate and therefore democracy will be well served by it. It gives an opportunity for the 40% (probably much more) of independence supporters who loathe what the SNP has morphed into over the past decade to express their views on independence without having to cast a vote for the party that has become more of an impediment to it than Westminster.
What is the downside of this strategy? Worst case, we don’t achieve independence but have the potential to prevent a great many unionist MSPs from getting seats via the regional list vote and thus create an independence super-majority at Holyrood. Best case, we begin negotiations for our independence following the 2026 Holyrood elections.
I expect that the SNP will refuse to participate in this strategy and will continue advocating “both votes SNP”. If that’s their stance, independence supporters need to expose them for what they have become; the biggest impediment to Scotland’s independence.
That’s a brilliant idea. Bet the SNP would sh*t themselves at the very mention of it.
It’s an idea proposed by Wings in 2020.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
(Although it makes more sense to use the constituency vote.)
Liberate Scotland is the body offering just that in 2026 Colin. Check them out. But bear in mind that SNP votes on the list will count toward the 50%+1 whether they like it or not Also check out the Project Arbroath booklet available now at
https://projectarbroath.scot for every Scot.
@Colin Dawson
Aye so there’s twa guid ideas straight off.
Use the list vote to indicate a majority for action on independence
and as @lindsay says check out the project Arbroath.
It might be worth sharing with any indy leaning people you meet who are not fully up to speed on how we got into the mess we are in, and how we can get out of it.
The I4I initiative and the Liberate Scotland collective seem to be half way there with their thinking.
What a result it would be if they could help motivate previously scunnered ex YES and ex SNP voters to vote on the list for an explicit policy for regaining our independence!
I say half way there because what happens when the proposal is either for something that cannot be delivered (failure to deliver) or for something that has been left undefined? We don’t know, but success seems like an unlikely outcome starting from there.
The Manifesto for Independence seems to be the solid suggestion that we should tell people to vote on the list for parties that want to take back our parliament from Westminster control.
Simple! After that we can do anything we need to vote on our right of self determination – as many times as we choose!
What the hell is stopping these people from combining these 3 cracking ideas?
I4I and Liberate Scotland get scunnered (mainly ordinary/indigenous/ working class ?) people to vote for some equivalent of the M4I proposal on the list.
When they raise turnout above the 50% threshold we have won on a proposal that we can deliver and can deliver our independence.
That combined proposal seems like the only reasonable option that I have heard that anyone has been talking about.
WHY oh WHY oh WHY don’t this lot get their shit together! ???
The manifesto for independence needs a pretty decent level of public support however. Sign the petition to tell the pro-independence parties to take our independence and stop asking WM for another S30 referendum: Sign the petition here
Sounds great in theory but you say: “Best case, we begin negotiations for our independence” and here is the problem. Someone is going to have to do the negotiating on Scotland’s behalf, but who out of “every pro-independence candidate/party” is going to take the lead negotiating role, who will decide who else is involved, and how will the negotiators agree on the terms?
Can you see the SNP allowing anyone else to lead, and would you trust anyone currently in the SNP to do it, because I wouldn’t.
After the people have voted for the restoration of Scotland’s full self-government there will be no ‘negotiations for Independence’.
The people will have decided and Westminster has no say in the matter.
Only the divvying up of assets and liabilities will be discussed with the British.
“Sheppard talks to his sheep”
The graph is fairly illuminating and shows the same what if that the John Smith issue did.
Everyone will always wonder what would have happened if Salmond had won the referendum the same as if John Smith had survived and become PM.
For both scenarios who and what actually came after has been downhill all the way.
Unfortunately independence is now a dead issue for the foreseeable future no matter how many rabbits some folk try and produce, particularly while the SNP sits as a blocker.
Many next generation, or more till the next time.
It’s the English that have been flicking the two fingers at us. With a devolved government as stupid as that and the house prices so affordable…. I wonder what phase of colonization this comes under.
Swinney is going to curl up on the settee and write a letter.
I couldn’t read all that, my tolerance has evaporated. Was it along the lines of :
“dig up the claymores”
Maybe not.
As I have stayed before.
Prevent the closure of Alexanders
Abolish the UK supreme court and house of lords
Stop building student accommodation
Oppose high energy bills
For a start.
The SNP can beg, plead, whatever for me to lend them my vote but they can GTF. I won’t vote for any anti-indy party and that includes them. “Just one more mandate and THIS time we promise, etc, etc.” Depressing times indeed.
No politician wants to own the actual delivery of independence. They know it will be hard with a lot of pain and no guarantee of success. Career ending stuff.
So instead, the SNP wants you to be in love with the idea of independence. Then they get to keep picking up a fat remuneration for doing not much.
The SNP stopped being an actual independence party a long time ago. It’s just whatever’s needed to keep the comfy grift and nutty agendas going.
Meanwhile, opinion of the SNP apart, support for independence flatlines far short of any level where it has legitimacy as a settled will. Even then, the polling only says what people would like, not how they’d actually vote when push comes to shove.
I wouldn’t trust the current residents in Holyrood to deliver a pizza, never mind a new state. They have form when it comes to falling far short of expectations. I think a large majority would agree that MSPs are not exactly the A-Team.
Of course, there are those who would sacrifice all for an independent Scotland, whatever the cost. But most people are not martyrs and until someone offers a plan that at the very least guarantees the status quo on the important things families need, the SNP can happily keep exploiting their brand of fantasy independence, safe in the knowledge nobody in their right mind believes what they say.
Some Traynor-esque spin from Sheppard there.
We either destroy the SNP or allow the SNP to destroy Scotland.
The SNP have had plenty of mandates that they threw and squandered away because they are woke globalists first, yoonist second and a party that no longer believes in listening or involving the people of Scotland.
The closed conference is a good example of that, Plenty of filters to separate the politicians from the people, in the devolved government sent to Scotland for management control of the ethnic native population,
And their begging us to lend them our vote so they can squander a mandate yet again while living it up and profiteering out of it,
Fingers in ears and start singing everyone.
How hard can returning to self-governing nationhood be? 60 countries have come from nowhere to nationhood since 1945 – they all managed it.
Scotland will be fine. We’ll have 100% of our income to work with and plenty of capital from bank accounts currently in English banks that can be brought home.
Good for you Sarah. No plan, forecasts or projections on anything. ‘It will all be fine’.
Scotland will simply plunder the Bank Accounts held in English Banks. The word ‘How’ springs to mind! Of course the English Banks will willingly hand over money with a broad smile on their faces and wish Scotland well!
There is some simplistic mince posted on Wings every day. Your contribution is up there with the best of them.
The SNP are brit infiltrated careerist, cowardly liars!
Independence of Scotland is more likely to come through the supidity errors of the tory party ( which is more in our favour by default) whom have for a while been denying the existence of the 1707 treaty of union,
Which would deny them any attachment to Scotland, as the merger theory of England would be obliterated and so would the subsumed Scotland theory,
For without the first the second two fall falt on there faces,
Tories and Labour will provide Scots with a independent Scotland long before the SNP,
BecauseTories are claiming the treaty of union is old parchment guff that no longer has validity,
And labour are more stupid than the elite Scots were that sold their country for gold in 1707, cos labour give away Countries that they already own and then pay the people to take the country,
If we sit a few more years without voting for anyone Scotland will be giving its Country back and be paid reparations to take it and tories will say you dont need to sign a treaty agreement to take it back, cos they aren’ worth the parchment there written,
Who needs to ggive the SNP a mandate.
It defies belief that any thinking person could imagine the Claim of Right, a document written hundreds of years ago prior to the development of our modern system of government and prior to universal suffrage, is the answer if the economic, political and governance arguments aren’t working. The obsession with trying to dig up ancient documents and relitigate 1707 has got to be in the top 5 reasons that the cause of independence is in the doldrums now and will be for a very long time.
Actually, the Treaty and the CoR are still extant. That means that they exist legally. Time has not withered them. The SNP couldn’t care less about either, though, so they will never try to challenge their undermining. They will only ever support independence if, by some miracle, it falls straight into their laps along with billions in support money to sustain the first few years of independence when things will be tight.
Every other country that has taken its independence since the end of WW II has had to endure a few lean years till its economy adjusted. Scotland is almost uniquely well-resourced to become a thriving independent state within about five years of a declaration of independence. However, that, of course, is contingent upon our not re electing squidgy dough balls and empty skulls full of rainbow drops.
“Every other country that has taken its independence since the end of WW II has had to endure a few lean years”
I’ve never heard what’s going on in Eastern Europe described as “a few lean years” before.
But thanks for the advance warning, Lorn
Correct; they are still extant.
Many people posting on this blog insist that the ToU is invalid because it was not endorsed by the people of Scotland, as per the CoR.
Of course, the Claim of Right was never approved by the people of Scotland either.
In fact, I am not aware of any national decision made while Scotland was an independent country that was ever approved by the people of Scotland.
There was not even any mechanism to ask them.
So are all Scottish treaties similarly invalid? Should Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles perhaps be returned returned to Norway?
So you anticipate a breakdown of civilization as occurred in the Balkans or Eastern Europe? Why? A Bulgarian working in Scotland described it as a “backward” country. Scotland, that is, not Bulgaria.
What happened in the Balkans was down to Serbian aggression. Serbia attacked each of its neighbours. Do you expect England to do the same, Hatey? It could, but would it? It would be stepping into a relentless guerrilla war on three fronts. Scotland has more trained former army personnel per capita than any other part of the UK.
Eastern Europe, when it first emerged from under Soviet rule, was poor, but full of hope and spirit. Clean transport running on time, wonderful cafes and bars, people determined to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, open and friendly, and open to investment and enterprise. What makes you think the Scots would be any different?
@ Lorn says: 23 June, 2025 at 4:27 pm
“So you anticipate a breakdown of civilization as occurred in the Balkans or Eastern Europe?”
Yes. I do.
If the minority who support Indy succeed in ramming it down the throats of the majority who don’t.
“Do you expect England to do the same, Hatey? It could, but would it? It would be stepping into a relentless guerrilla war on three fronts”
I expect England to seize, occupy and redirect the facilities and infrastructure it needs and owns nine tenths of following Scottish unilateral actions. Offshore oil and gas, and offshore wind generation. Fishing. Sea lanes. Trident facilities on the west coast.
Scotland will lack the wherewithal to do anything about most of that, other than take disproportionately high casualties. If you seriously believe different, bring your summer holidays forwards and take a break now.
“What makes you think the Scots would be any different?”
We won’t be if we have majority support and grown ups negotiating a divorce treaty. As I said, if the vociferous minority who categorically refuse to admit they are the minority force the issue, all bets will be off.
Your typical usual suspect bleats about the Butcher’s Apron one day and scoffs at the effete, has-been shirt lifters the next. Your typical usual suspect needs to make up his or her mind about WM and the English. Which side will Scotland see if we present them with an existentialist threat, like plenty of posters on here salivate at the thought of doing?
I don’t think they will be very nice to us at all.
Which part of Eastern Europe are you talking about, Hatey? Ukraine? Was it inevitable that there would be war between Russia and Ukraine? Read the history.
Hatey: I take your point about the minority forcing independence on the majority, which is why I have always accepted that we need both a legal and political route running parallel – and sensible people negotiating on our behalf. However, they must be armed with fact and legality. My point was: if England were to invade us, they would get more than they bargained for, despite their overwhelming numbers. I would not wish to see any physical aggression between our two countries.
If, however, we reached a point where a majority of Scots did want to leave the Union, and elements within Scotland tried to prevent that again, as they did in 2014, I wouldn’t like to predict what could happen.
When did the economic, political and governance arguments “stop working”, “Aidan”?
Must have missed that one.
Of course you missed it.
You would have had your hands full.
Read the article above: Tommy Sheridan’s view is that this is what will mobilise the current non-voters. As if “we can improve your life”, isn’t a persuasive argument, but “we can revive a document from 1689” is. It’s total madness.
It defies belief that any aspirational national government could have avoided discussing the ever-escalating war.
In fact, I don’t believe it.
I’m guessing that they spent most of the time gloomily agreeing that all notions of Scottish Independence are off the table until the war is over and a stable peace breaks out. I’m guessing they couldn’t foresee a date for when that might be (who can?).
I’m guessing they dare not make any of this public for fear of antagonising the “bairns not bombs” fantasists, the humous cheerleaders and the poot fanboys.
Whether the ToU was lawfully executed or whether England simply invaded is a very interesting historical subject, for a historian. However, it happened too long ago to form the basis for any legal claim to fundamentally change the constitution or establish that Scotland is today an occupied territory under intentional law. That is the law, as established, by the courts. Whatever psychotic fantasy about taking up arms in the streets is currently running around your tiny mind is not the law, but could form the basis for a clinical diagnosis.
Magna Carta is also an interesting historical document, and just as mad are the people who claim that because of Magna Carta they can grow cannabis in the garden or drive without insurance.
So ayden
“The obsession with trying to dig up ancient documents and relitigate 1707 has got to be in the top 5 reasons that the cause of independence is in the doldrums now and will be for a very long time.” “It defies belief that any thinking person could imagine the Claim of Right, a document written hundreds of years ago prior to the development of our modern system of government and prior to universal suffrage, is the answer if the economic, political and governance arguments aren’t working.”
Maybe ayden you should give that item of superior knowledge to the NUMEROUS engerlish governments of all persuasions that you so favour, who constantly and unerringly revere and quote the magna carta when great brutishness has been challenged, or does that also DEFY BELIEF
Or is that a betterer and more relevant original piece of ancient guff and history that deserves to be recognised and adhered to, or should it be used as toilet paper as it is no longer RELEVANT in this modern world
@Twatselfhater – Can you find me a single example of a recent case where the outcome was determined based on the interpretation of Magna Carta.
Magna Carta is an important document, like the Claim of Right, but they are not the basis we determine modern questions of constitutional law OR are they in any way a political rallying cry. I find it amazing that people like yourself who have not in the most basic grasp of law or politics are so eager to continually post about the subject all the time. What do your friends think about this?
Actually, Aidan, you could not be more wrong. Modern law stems from earliest times in both Scotland and England. It is called the ‘Golden Thread’. To ,lose sight of that is to lose sight of oneself as Scottish or English or Welsh or Irish.
It’s a constitution, Aidan, not a system of modern democracy, and it has sod all to do with running an economy.
I notice you’ve never made similar observations about England’s Bill of Rights, or Magna Carta, neither of which have anything whatsoever to do with democracy or economics in any modern sense. And the UK’s system of democracy is barely worthy of the name given its many flaws, Scotland’s systemic democratic deficit, deliberately imposed on it by Westminster, being among the worst.
You’re right, I don’t, but that’s because I don’t have dozens of people day after day trying to invent some new legal order based on their own personal reinterpretation of either the English Bill of Rights or Magna Carta. I’ve encountered people in the world as I said before, with the equally ridiculous view that Magna Carta means they don’t need a driving license. It’s a different species of nonsense but certainly the same pathology!
You’ve never addressed the arguments I’ve made about the current legal order and its origin myths, Aidan; all you’ve ever done is sweep them aside with lofty but empty tripe that doesn’t stand proper examination. You’ve never done that, have you Aidan? You’ve just accepted whatever legalistic junk you were told about the origin of the Union as if it was gospel.
You should take a leaf out of King’s Counsel Professor Robert Black’s presentation, and re-examine the events of 1706/07 with a more skeptical eye. You might surprise yourself. He certainly did!
Aidan: it has nothing to do with creating a new legal order. The law is the law is the law. The’woke’/’trans’ who thought that the law could not be clarified a la real law rather than Stonewalll law received an electric shock to the system. People are not psychotic because they don’t agree with your reasoning based on nothing at all but the voices in your head. That’s what the ‘woke’/’trans’ thought, too.
@Xaracen – you haven’t made any arguments so there isn’t anything to be dismissed. You simply assert what you are saying to be true, despite having no evidence or any authority or any of the building blocks of a legal argument.
Even if I were to consider what arguments could be used to support your assertion, we still come up against two fundamental issues;
A) What you are saying is in contradiction to the explicit language in Article 1 of the ToU; and
B) None of the recent innumerable cases on the U.K. constitution and Scotlands place within it support or align to your view in any way.
“you haven’t made any arguments so there isn’t anything to be dismissed. You simply assert what you are saying to be true, despite having no evidence or any authority or any of the building blocks of a legal argument.”
All of that is a flat out lie, Aidan, so you’ve just proved my point. Again!
@Xaracen – perhaps I’ve missed it then.
For my benefit, could you resend over all the recent judicial cases where the judgement supports your point of view?
If you can’t do that, then you have no argument.
A; Article I of the ToU does NOT explicitly require Scotland’s MPs to subordinate their majority decisions to those of England’s MPs as you have claimed more than once, that matter being my primary beef with the governance of the Union. That is a verifiable and verified fact by direct observation of the actual text of that Article. And as a matter again of direct observation, none of the rest of the ToU contains that explicit requirement either. If you wish to claim instead that Article I inexorably implies that subordination, then explain ALL of the logical steps that inexorably lead to that conclusion. You have never made the slightest attempt to do so in this blog.
B; I haven’t examined all those innumerable cases on the U.K. constitution and Scotland’s place within it. Clearly you have, so bloody well quote an EXPLICIT example from any of those innumerable cases on the U.K. constitution and Scotland’s place within it that spell out precisely how the ToU EXPLICITLY requires Scotland’s MPs to subordinate their majority decisions to those of England’s MPs, and EXPLICITLY asserts and obliges Scotland’s sovereignty to be subordinate to England’s, along with Scotland’s formal sovereign agreement to both those effects.
Put up or shut up!
@Xaracen – I don’t have time to write you an essay today, but the cases you need to read the full judgements for if you are generally interested in the subject are;
– Jackson v Attorney General 2005 (The Hunting Ban case)
– Miller Number 1 2016 (Brexit – right to trigger article 50)
– Reference from the Attorney General of Scotland 2022 (The Section 30 referendum case)
– REFERENCE by the Attorney General and the Advocate General for Scotland – United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill
That’s a lengthy reading, but and it’s well worth your time if you genuinely want to learn something.
Aidan – On the matter of ” having no evidence”, all one has to do is consider the reality within any colonial society. Legal opinion and debate on constitutional matters does not alter this colonial reality whereby ‘a people’ are (1) economically plundered and subject to (2) external political control, (3) cultural domination and (4) ‘se**ler occupation’.
There is plenty of evidence that this is the reality in Scotland (and which explains an independence / decolonisation movement!) – despite the fact those subject to a colonial mindset will continue to deny it:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
@Alf – using the criteria you apply to determine that Scotland is a colony, London is also a colony. If you disagree (as I’m sure instinctively you will) can you point to the criteria which differentiate Scotland from London?
“can you point to the criteria which differentiate Scotland from London?”
Yes. Scotland is a sovereign nation, London is neither sovereign nor a nation.
London is not a country.
London is not economically plundered by another country or politically controlled by another country.
London’s occupants today are not predominantly from one other country, and hence also not from the same single country which dominates it economically, politically and culturally.
London’s wealth is distributed around the U.K.
There are far more non-Londoners in London as a proportion of the population than there are non-Scots in Scotland.
London doesn’t control its own foreign affairs and London’s representatives can be outvoted by representatives from outside London in the state parliament.
Sounds like Londoners need to understand their colonial situation.
Albert Memmi would be turning in his grave at the thought of the oppressed colonised people of London.
I looked at all of these references, Aidan, but none of them contained any statement that explicitly spells out any Treaty-agreed obligation that Scots MPs must defer to England’s MPs decisions.
The closest any of them got was to assert the unlimited sovereignty of the UK parliament, the presumption of which the Treaty does not even mention, let alone support, either explicitly nor implicitly. Unlike Scotland’s constitution, England’s constitution does not have any ratified guarantee of its continued authority in England, let alone across the new British union including Scotland, which does have such a guarantee, as King Charles III of England recently confirmed on his accession.
Your response therefore failed to even address the challenge I set, let alone meet it.
This is yet another example of your usual tactic, Aidan, of asserting an explicit statement supposedly contained in some formal document that purports to ‘explicitly’ trump something I said, but which on examination clearly fails to do any such thing.
@Xaracen – So you’ve read and considered all of the judgments in those cases, so can you find anywhere a reference to the idea that for legislation to pass the which affects both England and Scotland, a majority of MP’s from both Scotland and rUK must vote for it? In all those paragraphs, this apparently central fundamental idea isn’t even mentioned.
Yet countless pieces of legislation passed without a majority of either Scottish or rUK MP’s sits on the statute. For example;
We could then have a look further at the U.K. Continuity Bill case SC in 2018. This concerned the EU withdrawal bill and whether a piece of Scottish legislation was compatible with that bill. The EU withdrawal bill was opposed by a majority of MP’s from Scotland, so if what you are saying is true, this wouldn’t even be an issue as the U.K. bill would not even be law. However, the 7 members of the Supreme Court determined that it is law, and yet again therefore either 7 members of the Supreme Court are wrong, or you are wrong.
I was overcome by a plunging wave of boredom and so I decided to surf that wave by making this from a bunch of words I found lying about the place if anyone’s interestit.
“If Scotland is a colony then London is also a colony because:”
Premise 1: London’s wealth is distributed around the U.K.
Premise 2: There are far more non-Londoners in London as a proportion of the population than there are non-Scots in Scotland.
Premise 3: London doesn’t control its own foreign affairs and London’s representatives can be outvoted by representatives from outside London in the state parliament.
Conclusion: London is a colony.
Trying to convince us Scots who hing aboot here that London, a mere city, is equivalent to an ancient nation; home to an entire people with its own distinct history, culture and language in argument is fallacious – the argument contains errors in logic.
One of the logical fallacies afflicting this argument, yes there’s more than one, is known as the fallacy of relevance.
More specifically this fallacy belongs to a group o’ fallacies known as distortion fallacies and is a generalisation distortion called a weak analogy.
In other words, it’s a fallacy of questionable analogy; a faulty analogy.
This fallacy is found in the improper association of two or more cases with irrelevant attributes – aye, a ken… it can be haurd gettin yer heid aboot some o’ the terminology an concepts in baith formal and informal logic, but it’s no as haurd as it leuks at first sicht sae dinna be pit aff the learnin o’ it if ye hae the caw tae.
The arguer’s premises are malformed wi respect tae the conclusion an the conclusion is twistit wi respect tae the premises.
Don’t know why I went a bit Scots there in the previous twa paragraphs… I just get the urge sometimes and it won’t let go of me until its appetite is sated (if there were another ‘t’ in sated it could be written as tasted – interesting).
Also, and perhaps a bit mair obvious, the premises are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.
But arguments can fail due to more than one fallacy – and so it is with this particular argument.
The argument ‘If Scotland is a colony then so must London be a colony because P1 + P2 + P3 = conclusion’ is flawed due to two logical fallacies; the first a fallacy of relevance and the second this yin – false equivalence.
False equivalence is a logical fallacy where it is incorrectly asserted that two (or more) different things are equivalent because they share some characteristics, despite there being substantial differences between them.
For example, false equivalence is saying that oranges and apples are the same fruit since they both grow on trees and are roughly spherical in shape.
In false equivalence the similarities are highlighted and the differences ignored by the arguer.
However, for the argument to succeed the properties and attributes of the two fruits would have to exactly match – they don’t in this case and so the argument fails due to a logical error… a fallacy.
I feel the approach of a surging wave; so I might hop on to that and with a bit of luck surf my way out of boredom.
I was overcome by a plunging wave of boredom trying to read your post, NC, so I never did quite reach the end.
If you are taking questions from the floor, why are you posting all that in English and not in Scots?
Addendum: It should be apparent to all regardless of intellectual ability that equating London with Scotland, a town with a nation, is a ridiculous argument.
Actually, this argument might also be guilty of exhibiting a third fallacy – a Distraction Fallacy called an Appeal to the Ridiculous – but I might be pushing it with that one..
There are some similarities in that London is a geographical location where a bunch of, disparate, mostly transient people live, but the similarities more or less end there and fallacy of equivalence kicks-in.
Nation. Culture. A national language. A separate legal system. A national parliament… of sorts. Borders. A vast and beautiful landscape. A people with a shared history and culture, A fowkgaist (the national spirit of the Scottish people – I made that word myself. I wonder if it’ll catch on).
These are just a very few of the differences between a proud and ancient nation populated by a proud and ancient people and a faur faur awa wee toon maistly populated with passers-by.
It’s defo fascinating to consider that with some 200,000 Scots in it, London is the third-largest Scottish city in the UK by population. Glasgow and Edinburgh take top spots (obviously) with Aberdeen coming in at number 4.
Fits that ye’re saying, Northcode? The Scots fowks in London hae nae fowkgaist?
Dinna tell me. Gang doon there yersel an tell thaim. Bit maybe tak oot some travel insurance afore ye gang. Jist enough tae get ye repatriated hame if ye end up thumped senseless.
And thus, Aidan, you have again utterly missed the entire point of my argument and the purpose of my challenge! Neither of us has found any formal agreement of the Scots to their MPs’ subordination to England’s MPs in the Union parliament. You, like the entire English establishment, have simply presumed that no such agreement was necessary, that England’s MPs were obviously automatically fully entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs on any matter of governance, despite awkward problems like sovereignties and constitutions that rendered any such presumption utterly inept and entirely bogus.
“the 7 members of the Supreme Court determined that it is law, and yet again therefore either 7 members of the Supreme Court are wrong, or you are wrong.””
I’ll make it easy for you, Aidan; The 7 members of the Supreme Court are clearly wrong.
They are wrong because they neglected their due diligence;
A- they ignored Scotland’s continued sovereignty, and still do,
B- they presumed without examination that the new British parliament legitimately took over the sovereignty of the old English parliament, despite the Treaty containing no actual provision for this,
C- they further presumed that England’s parliamentary sovereignty now legitimately extended over Scotland despite the existence of Scotland’s own continued sovereignty which its formal owners never gave up, and which the Treaty doesn’t even mention, let alone demote or abolish,
D- they ignored the guaranteed continuation of Scotland’s constitution as cited by Scotland’s Claim of Right, and presumed that England’s constitution not only continued, despite it not being formally preserved in the Treaty or Acts, or even mentioned, but that it would also apply over Scotland, replacing the very constitution both former parliaments had just agreed to preserve,
E- they ignored the absence of any formal agreement in the Treaty of Union for the subordination of Scotland and its MPs to England’s MPs, accepting that England’s MPs were fully entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs by any simple majority,
F- they ignored the absence of formal agreement in the Treaty for the use of a flat vote within the brand new British parliament for determining the outcomes of debates between its two new bodies of MPs, which formally and separately represent the two sovereign partners of the Union, thus facilitating point E.
These are pretty huge and basic errors for any court to make, and that list is not complete. They arose because they never properly examined the formal constitutional basis of the union as contained in the Treaty and its Acts of ratification. They just took it for granted that the Union parliament was fully entitled to behave as it had done since 1707, and they were seriously wrong to do so.
Because of all the above, you have to seriously question the authenticity of the entire enterprise of the Union. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I haven’t found any answers that properly justify the current position, and so far, neither have you. This was also what Professor Robert Black KC has been doing recently, and he too found that authenticity was lacking for much of the current arrangements, so I am in the very best of company.
London is the imperial metropolitan capital, hence it is where most of the corporations and institutions active here in Scotland and in other territories have their HQ. So of course native elites and others from colonized territories will necessarily be drawn there. Many people even from former colonies remain attracted to the cultural illusion of British ‘superiority’ as well as the metropolis’ financial connections.
@Xaracen – and here we really are getting into the moon is made of cheese and the earth is flat territory.
If the concepts you described around continuing sovereignty and the permanence of the Scottish constitution are not recognised by the courts system, especially by the final appellant court, then they are by definition not concepts that exist in law. A judgement of the Supreme Court, as I have pointed out many times before, is by definition, a definitive statement of law until and unless it is revisited or confined to its facts by a subsequent Supreme Court. So by conceding that your ideas are contrary expressly to that which the Supreme Court has determined and which the lower courts recognise, you are conclusively conceding that as a matter of law, your concepts and arguments are wrong.
“a proud and ancient nation populated by a proud and ancient people”
Ancient, yes, defo ancient, no argument there.
But proud?
The year we spent with HY at our head, with scarcely a peep of protest, doesn’t suggest pride to me. Quite the opposite. A proud nation would have been out on the streets, tens of thousands strong, every week in protest about the undemocratic disgrace that was the foisting of HY on us by a secretive, corrupt, cabal.
We only have to imagine how the foisting of Kate Forbes as leader of Pakistan would play out on its people to comprehend what patriotic national pride and honour looks like. She wouldn’t last a week before they had to send in the helicopters to get her out.
The only pride we Scots seem to be able to summon up these days is of the rainbow-flagged variety.
And, that, Aidan, is precisely why the UK is a rogue state, and its internal arrangements regarding Scotland are in direct contravention of its founding Treaty.
Thank you for acknowledging and confirming that Scotland is a colony of England governed by the foreign English establishment. Scotland’s NSGT petition should be plain sailing, now.
“Thank you for acknowledging and confirming that Scotland is a colony of England governed by the foreign English establishment. Scotland’s NSGT petition should be plain sailing, now.”
The day is yet young, Xaracen, but I think you have already submitted today’s stand-out post. Respect
However, you do seem to be betting the farm that the UN is closely reading Aidan’s posts. Of that ah hae ma doots.
The proof of the pudding is, of course, to ask you two questions:
1) On what date (nearest year will suffice) will the fictional UK state be torn asunder by the international community?
2) What practical steps are you personally taking to mitigate against the resultant chaos, confusion and reparations for historic illegality that will inevitably arise from the re-writing of every edict that affects your daily life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, going back for nearly 320 years? To give one example: WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHT TO RESIDE IN YOUR HOME, WHETHER IT BE OWNED OR RENTED?
The answers are (of course):
1) Not a scooby, but probably sometime never.
2) None whatsoever. Get real!
But at least you’re calling the UK a rogue state, not a rouge state, as plenty of others do. Respect for that too.
@Xaracen – The Treaty of Union is crystal clear, in Article 1 (two kingdoms become one) and Article XXII (number of representatives to sit in the Lords and the Commons from Scotland) about creating a situation whereby legislation can be effective in Scotland even if it is opposed by a majority of MP’s representing Scottish constituencies. That is what the treaty describes and that is what did happen.
You seem to be judging the legitimacy of a system on one criteria; the extend to which it conforms to your personal idea. To say that that is deluded is putting it lightly, it’s inexplicable, and a classic if extreme case of starting with the conclusion and trying to work backwards to retrofit all the evidence. It also has no bearing on NSGT status, nobody cares about how a state was formed if it was formed in 1707. I doubt any state has entirely been formed in a way that would be acceptable in intentional law today, so to open the U.K. that way would be to open up every country/nations/people including Scotland, which might find for example, Shetland being returned to the Norwegians. NSGT’s refers to a specific issue – more powerful countries taking over remote territories around the world and exploiting them for their own benefit, not the rights of peoples within a states borders to form a new state (which is actually generally prohibited by intentional law, not supported by it).
But you still haven’t addressed any of my actual arguments, Aidan. You never pay the slightest attention to them, and you haven’t actually refuted any of them.
The Treaty only says what it says; what it says may carry formal constitutional or legal weight, what it does NOT say cannot unless it follows directly from what it does say, if relevant. Where it is silent on a matter, the status quo at the time must continue in full in both territories, pending a formal agreement made between BOTH sovereignties for a specific arrangement.
So, some specifics;
It doesn’t say that Scotland would lose its sovereignty to England. It doesn’t say that England’s MPs can outvote or overrule Scotland’s MPs. It doesn’t say that the new British parliament must use a flat voting system.
None of those thingss were true in 1706, and because of the Treaty’s silence on these matters, they were still not true in 1707, and lacking a new formal agreement to change them, which doesn’t exist precisely because of that silence, they are still not true today. You really need to learn to read what I actually said on these matters, and what the Treaty actually says on these matter, and NOT simply presume them to be automatically wrong because it doesn’t conform to your personal idea.
“Article I (two kingdoms become one) and Article XXII (number of representatives to sit in the Lords and the Commons from Scotland)”
Yes, Aidan, two kingdoms became one, but Scotland’s sovereignty remains intact, because Article I does not say, nor does any other Article, that Scotland relinquished its sovereignty. The statement that could have relinquished that sovereignty received no legal or constitutional standing precisely because it never made it into the Treaty, and therefore was never signed off by England’s commissioners, was never signed off by Scotland’s commissioners, was never signed off by Anne Queen of England, was never signed off by Anne Queen of Scots, was never ratified by Scotland’s parliament, was never ratified by England’s parliament, and therefore that unwritten statement has absolutely no formal standing of any kind from the Treaty or Acts of Union.
And, Yes, Aidan, the Treaty set numbers for Scotland’s MPs and Lords. But Article XXII does not say that Scotland’s MPs and Lords must defer their own majority decisions to those of England’s MPs and Lords, does it Aidan? therefore, like your alleged abolition of Scotland’s sovereignty, the statement that could have asserted that deference received no legal or constitutional standing because it also never made it into the Treaty, and therefore was never signed off by England’s commissioners, was never signed off by Scotland’s commissioners, was never signed off by Anne Queen of England, was never signed off by Anne Queen of Scots, was never ratified by Scotland’s parliament, was never ratified by England’s parliament, and therefore that unwritten statement has absolutely no formal standing of any kind from the Treaty or Acts of Union.
Your conclusion from those two Articles requires an element that is missing from both; an actual formal connection from them to your conclusion. Absent that connection, your conclusion is worthless.
Game, set and match to me on those two fronts, Aidan.
“You seem to be judging the legitimacy of a system on one
criteriacriterion”Really, Aidan? I have several criteria, but the one you stated isn’t one of them. Your single criterion on the other hand is that everything about the Union’s governance is fully legitimate on the basis that if it wasn’t, then it would have been corrected already, resulting in the UK being what it is today. It’s an obvious circular argument, because it presumes its conclusion, making it an illegitimate argument, and that means game, set and match on that front to me, as well.
@Xaracen – you aren’t making any recognised form of legal argument that can be engaged with though. You seem to believe that you are entitled to undertake your own legal analysis which is independent of that recognised by the judiciary in numerous cases concerning the U.K. constitution, and have that described as “law”. You have no authority to determine what the law is. If an area of law was genuinely uncertain, you might offer some analysis of how currently unresolved questions of law might come to be resolved, but you can’t with any credibility assert that your own view is superior to that of the judiciary. On what possible basis would that manifest itself, in what situation could I treat your view of the law as being superior to the view of the supreme court’s and achieve a favourable outcome? It has no more validity than me inventing a common law principle of “Aidan is right about everything”.
Even if I put that aside, the actual reasoning in your argument is outright wrong. You seem to say that because the treaty doesn’t go to great lengths to spell out numerous explicit consequences of its terms, then its terms don’t apply as they are drafted. That’s an impossible standard for any document to meet given that there will always be an unlimited number of potential scenarios or outcomes which can’t be individually dismissed. What you actually have to do is take an objective view of the consequences of the words that were used in the context they were written. If you do that, it’s beyond obvious that Article 1 intends to merge two states into one, with the resultant pooling of sovereignty. Those are literally the words used. By definition, the retention of sovereignty means the retention of the Kingdom of Scotland, otherwise what entity remains sovereignty exactly?
Likewise – as I said above, the treaty proposed the number of representatives for inclusion in a parliamentary chamber which approved legislation with a simple majority of those voting. We’re supposed to believe that a new Scottish (and therefore English) veto was to be introduced, fundamentally changing the way in which parliament operated. Yet again, nobody thought to write this down anywhere? Why, because they ran out of paper?
If those that drafted the Treaty of Union intended to preserve the Scottish Kingdom, and to introduce a country-veto, whiy did they draft language which is expressly contrary to both of those things, and why did they not include a positive statement of those things within the treaty. You’re forced to make this arguments because you’re clinging onto a hopeless idea which is expressly contradicted by both the language of the treaty you claim to uphold and the subsequent constitutional developments since that. It’s total nonsense of the highest order.
“you aren’t making any recognised form of legal argument that can be engaged with though.”
That’s because it’s not a legal argument in the first place, Aidan; I’m not questioning the law, I’m questioning the constitutional underpinning of the processes that create law. It’s a constitutional argument concerning the authenticity of the very basis of the Union and the legitimacy of its governance processes, given that those processes entail the unwarranted subordination of the Scottish sovereign half of the Union for which the Treaty makes no provision. That takes it outside the competence of any domestic court to determine. That includes the UK’s Supreme Court, because it’s not supreme enough!
I am not going to address the rest of your comment point by point. Instead I shall merely eviscerate the most important one, the abolition of Scotland’s sovereignty, because that subject is the key one that invalidates the entire Treaty as implemented.
Your arguments on the matter are badly constructed, relying on ‘quotes’ from documents that don’t even contain them, so you are forced to rely on supposed ‘implications’ of those quotes instead, to the extent that, to take that key example, the abolition of Scotland’s sovereignty as a Kingdom is merely ‘implied’, but never stated outright at ANY point in the Treaty!
This argument is outright nonsense, Aidan, for the obvious reason that the abolition of a nation’s sovereignty is not something that can be casually inferred or tucked between the lines of a merger clause. This is a constitution we’re talking about — the details are crucial. They must be spelled out explicitly, for legal, historical, and constitutional reference, and as such it absolutely has to be formally stated and formally agreed to by its owners. This never happened, and it smashes the authenticity of the Union beyond any possibility of repair!
How conceited or desperate do you have to be to think that this argument could possibly have any legitimacy? That you even attempted to make this argument shows how desperately short you are of legitimate justifications for your position. This is unacceptable Aidan.
If this was my blog I would have banned you permanently for such arrogantly and insultingly dishonest argumentation, not just because it insults me, but because it also insults the readers who come to this blog for information on matters relating to Scotland’s case for resuming its independence. You are insulting them by lying to them, deliberately misinforming them of the fundamental nature of England’s Union.
“By definition, the retention of sovereignty means the retention of the Kingdom of Scotland, otherwise what entity remains sovereignty exactly?”
The entity that retains sovereignty are the people of the Kingdom of Scotland, Aidan,
A- because they never gave it up, and
B- because nobody involved in the Treaty had the authority to take it from them, or subordinate it and them to England’s sovereignty.
I have pointed this out to you several times already, Aidan, so I know you know this.
@Xaracen – you are making a legal argument, when you realise it or not. The constitution is a construct of the law and the legitimacy or otherwise of a body or institution to make law is obviously a legal question. How else would it be determined? You could make a historical argument about the formation of the ToU, but that would have no bearing on questions of governance today other than through the direct influence of that history onto today’s constitutional argument. So we are left in the same position as to whose legal analysis holds water here: I say that of the Supreme Court and the lower courts in endless judgements over a long period of time. You say that it’s you that is you who is authority. I’ll invite others to consider whether that is a reasonable opinion.
Secondly, you don’t understand sovereignty as a concept. The Scottish people as separate distinct individuals cannot be sovereign definitionally. The exercise of sovereignty can only be committed through institutions, even if those institutions derive their legitimacy from their acceptance and support of the population. The reason for this should be obvious. Without institutions, how can laws be made and disputes resolved? Both of those things require some organisational formation. So the question is then, did Article 1 intend to retain two separate independent sovereign kingdoms, or did it intend to merge two kingdoms into one? We don’t have to guess or to speculate as to what the answer to that question is because article 1 is explicit.
That’s not to say that Scotland doesn’t retain its own cultural identity or its legal distinct with distinct Scottish principles. But the idea you appear to be describing is a bare contraction. Either of the Kingdom of Scotland remains as a sovereign independent state or it doesn’t. It is a literal impossibility for independent sovereignty to remain as an abstract concept without any institutions through which it can be exercised. I think you’re one of these people who confuses law and magic. Law is not a collection of ancient runes and sayings which exist in some abstract context. It is a deeply practical concept designed to effectively resolve the disputes and conflicts that exist in a contemporary society. Once you understand that latter point you’ll be much better placed not to embarrass yourself like this.
“you are making a legal argument, when you realise it or not.”
No, I am not; you are conflating and/or confusing legal authority with constitutional legitimacy and using it to dodge addressing my primary argument. As I clearly said, I’m not disputing how a law is currently applied but whether the basis on which that law was constructed is legitimate. If Scotland’s sovereignty and constitution were never lawfully ceded, the legal system that presumes that ceding is structurally invalid, no matter how many rulings you can stack up to defend it.
A constitution sets limits on the ability of governments to make law. That’s what a constitution is for; it defines the relationships and interactions between a people and their government, and that’s why its details need to be fully spelled out, because it’s a formal contract between two bodies. Nobody signs up to a formal contract without knowing precisely what they are signing up to, both positive and negative. And because it is Scotland’s people who are sovereign over themselves and their territory, their specific and formal agreement to any changes in their relationship to any government or other authority is an absolute requirement.
The 1707 Treaty utterly ignores that requirement, and no attempt was ever made to gain agreement from the sovereign Scots for the new governance arrangements. That makes any UK governance unconstitutional, and that’s before we get into sovereignty.
Your argument to the contrary is literally empty of substance, Aidan, precisely because you cannot quote ANY of the details of that new contract.
Secondly, you don’t get to tell me that I don’t understand sovereignty as a concept.
“The exercise of sovereignty can only be committed through institutions, even if those institutions derive their legitimacy from their acceptance and support of the population.”
Blethers, Aidan, sovereignty can be exerted directly by those such as the Scots calling up an ‘institution’ of their own, such as their Convention of the Estates, something completely alien to the English constitutional system. They are not obliged to conform or accede to institutions they did not formally accept as holding any authority over them. Those institutions they did accept were nevertheless subject to the continuing approval of the Scots, and if they exceeded the authorities they were delegated, those authorities could be withdrawn. In other words, Scotland’s sovereignty flows from the people to their institutions, not the other way around.
This was not merely theoretical; prior to the Union, two of Scotland’s monarchs were fired, that is, kicked off the throne, and another monarch was sanctioned, so that constitutional contract has real teeth. And of course it has teeth, or it would be utterly worthless.
Since Scotland’s sovereignty is still owned by Scotland’s people, and their constitution is still legally in effect as formally ratified by BOTH former parliaments, that Convention can be recalled to decide on its own whether the British parliament or any other institution has exceeded its powers over Scotland and the Scots, and it owes no allegiance of any sort to Westminster or UK law. Scotland’s sovereignty doesn’t require continuous institutional embodiment, it is permanently vested in the Scots themselves, and it is THEIR sovereignty that authorizes their institutions. That’s the whole point you keep avoiding, Aidan.
If there is one or two things the modern politicians do not have, is integrity, intelligence, and honesty.
At least the old politicians pretended they were smart.
One of the regulars forever telling us that Indy support is above 55%, 60% or higher, needs to have a wee word with Rev Stu.
The green line on his graph above clearly shows Indy support to be flatlined at 48% since March 2023.
It is quite unacceptable to have an “in your face” error of this kind on what is the world’s most-read Scottish politics site. One of the regulars needs to read Rev Stu the riot act for getting this so spectacularly wrong.
In your own time, loons and quines …
What is internalised oppression?
Interesting stuff.
I’m guessing that internalised oppression and marginalised groups might be of interest to individuals who have yet to succumb to the insidious pressure to conform with the cultural norms of the coloniser – and who thus resist adopting the coloniser’s idiomatic and incorrect spelling.
Those who are unconsciously colonised obviously spell words incorrectly without even being aware of it.
Isn’t that so, Northcode?
” Internalized oppression” or ‘Appropriated Racial Oppression’ is an important feature within colonized and hence oppressed societies. To a large extent it is “Internalized oppression” that explains why an oppressed (i.e. ‘doun-hauden’) group develop a “dependency complex” (Cesaire), and some may even reject their own liberation – i.e. Vote No.
Watch out, Hatey !
“Puir auld Alf” has his ouija board out again to talk to his deid pals.
More utterly irrelevant nonsense will surely follow……
“some may even reject their own liberation – i.e. Vote No”
Some may develop schizophrenia. They will vote Yes for “Independence” and also vote Yes for Brussels rule.
See what I did there? I’ve medicalised what is just simple fuck-wittery by calling it something that the intellectually challenged don’t need to beat themselves up about.
Mr Galloway – a rank outsider, or is he?
The next holyrood parliament needs parties like reform. This means the parliament will be distributed by disagreements regularly. Voting SNP is 5 years of cronyism. They have no intention of trying to achieve independence. Vote reform to shake things up!
A’ve been readin aw aboot different kinds o’ oppressioun. An a hiv juist feenisht readin’ aboot thon internalised oppression.
Noo, appearently a growin boady o’ research haes fund that members o’ oppressed groups micht hiv associatit negative traits wi ther oppressed identity.
It’s thought that the more overt type of internalised oppression are the behaviours people have already internalised.
Some examples include folk who use bleach to whiten their skin or refuse to speak their heritage language, ther mither tongue, because they think it is obsolete or a lower class language.
interestin stuff is it no?
A wunner if ony o’ thaim SNP folk suffer fae internalised oppression… puir sowels.
My online friend, Northy.
Thank goodness then for such as I, who happily post using my very own heritage tongue, my inherited language. As spoken and taught to me by my grandparents. Though to be sure there could be an academic argument by colonialist theorists that I should in fact be learning and using Faroese to talk to myself … for precious few round here use this notoriously challenging language.
This is powerful stuff, NC.
Who knew that the Scots for “internalised oppression” is “internalised oppression”?
Or that the Scots for “research” is “research”?
Or that the Scots for “members of oppressed groups” is “members o’ oppressed groups”?
Or that the Scots for “negative traits” is “negative traits”?
More please. Our knowledge of Scots is coming on by leaps and bounds.
Or should I say “Mair please. Oor knowledge o’ Scots is coming oan by leaps an bounds”.
Richt. Gie’s me ma diploma noo.
This has got to be one of the funniest posts I’ve read here.
Gie us mair Hatey gie us mair LOL. Donul wus me troosers. Och aye! I’m talking like a real Scot now. I’ll just update my CV to bilingual.
Cheers dasBlimp!
It’s fun to go the funny haha route sometimes.
The funny peculiar route I leave to the true experts on here. I cheerfully acknowledge that in comparison to these boys and girls, I am a rank amateur.
Swinney and the SNP hierarchy continue to give every impression that they just wish this pesky independence thing would go away, leaving them unfettered to do the Union’s dirty work in Edinburgh.
Daisy Dog passed last week folks, (for those who knew her) 17 years young. She didn’t suffer.
Re the above, if instead of achieving your goals, you ‘inspire’ everyone to,’keep pursuing the AIM of the goals’, it sounds like you’re trying and acting in good faith, but in reality, you’ve switched baits.
On a subconscious level, you’ve also provided your audience with an easy out, by sounding sensible and cautious, they can put off all the hard work, put their courage back in the locked cupboard, and feel dutiful and worthy all at the same time, while pursuing a lesser target.
The pursuit of the ‘belief’ that Scotland should be independent (sometime in the future), Believe in Scotland…. as opposed to Get Indy Done, Now!
Surround yourself with a few like-minded people, and now you have the church of the Sometime Never Party. A new faith for a not so new dawn, watered down hope instead of concrete action.
Man looked to pig, pig looked to man, then both looked at the flock of sheeple and laughed.
Please do not feed the troll collective whatever he\she\it is called this week. Thank you. Message ends.
George Galloway has made a surprise call for a Scottish independence referendum. Question why? Cause he knows the SNP isn’t interest in one, who would have ever though Galloway would be in favor and the SNP against in 2025 not me after 2014.
Palestine Action to be proscribed as terrorist organisation, Yvette Cooper says, world gone mad.
“world gone mad”
Ah ken fit ye mean.
I really struggle when Cooper, a politician I have detested since the Blair/Brown days, does something I whole-heartedly agree with.
I guess even the worst of the bad guys can sometimes do something good.
Do you think it’s too much to hope she might discover her inner Trump and start deporting the jihadi scum back where they came from?
That’s where the votes lie. That’s what is going to sweep Reform to power unless Labour wake up and smell the coffee. Or more likely, the smoke from the inner city riots.
Lorn @ 4.27pm
Slovakia is exactly as you say. The Slovaks had no say in becoming independent. It was forced upon them. It took about five years to get their economy in order, but from then on, economically, life has improved hugely for them.
Yes, two sets of politicians from The Czech Republic and Slovakia decided that the two parts could no longer live together. The people of both countries had little say. However, in the end, it was probably for the best because they would have separated sooner or later, and it might have been after a conflict. Out of the two parts, I would predict that Slovakia will see the greater economic recovery in the longer term, although both are doing well, as it has further to go to throw off the past economic stagnation, just like Scotland.
S. N P
Scotland Not Prospering
Kanska skuldi eg stríöst fyri á mínum forfedramáli, føroyskum.
No, it may be this Scots ancestral tongue,however I do believe I’ll remain with my native tongue whilst others attempt to gain independence by debating the correct spelling of broad Scots, Gaelic or even Pictish. All interesting enough in their own academic way, however far from being in the top 5 or 10 convincing reasons to persuade fellow Scots to vote independence I’d suggest.
But Sven….did the Faroese parents and/or teachers ever belt their weans for speaking in their ain language though?
James @ 19.16.
Indeed they did not, James, and I share what I’m guessing is your entirely justified and righteous indignation on how native Gaelic speaking children were treated as a matter of educational policy.
However, few of us city dwelling lowland families would have Gaelic as as our native language, in relatively recent historical terms.
It would seem to me (others are fully entitled to their own views) that to spend time, effort and commitment in debating whether or not Scots (in its many varied phonetic spellings) or Gaelic should be reintroduced as a “new” national language. Especially at a time when so many of our younger generation can barely achieve mastery of grammar, spelling and syntax of the English they have been taught at school and chatter to each other and at home.
The Danes tried to suppress the Faroese language for centuries. Given current circumstances I reckon most Scots would take a Faroese deal over what we have now.
The Norwegians still have conflicts about use of Bokmål and Nynorsk. Lots of countries imposed “standard” versions of languages: Florentine Italian in Italy, the French of Ile de France around Paris in France, hochdeutsch in Germany.
Remember the Weinrich witticism:
“A language is a dialect with an army and navy” which was originally expressed in Yiddish (“a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot”).
“A language is a dialect with an army and navy”
Uh oh!
So that’s Scots fucked then.
Or as we might say in Scots:
Sae that’s Scots fucked then.
It’s Scots I’m mainly aiming at, Sven; we were regularly scolded and belted for speaking in oor ain tongue.
“The second group are those who want Scotland to be independent but do not vote. Some have never voted; some have given up because they no longer see how voting will achieve what they want. They have been ground down by the intransigence and denial of the UK state.”
Actually, no, Mr Sheppard. That is not it at all.
We have been ground down by:
a. the superlative incompetence (by accident or by design) of the so called SNP
b. the intransigence, arrogance and contempt for yes voters of the political fraud Sturgeon and her cabal
c. the way the political fraud Sturgeon sold us to the Brits and shat on every single opportunity Scotland had to exit this union
d. The disgusting lack of transparency of successive Scottish colonial administrations, the current individual parachuted to the position of FM has been at the heart of.
e. the disgusting betrayal of Mr Salmond by the SNP
f. The way the useless Yousaf handed the stone of destiny to the English monarch.
g. The way the SNP has transformed Holyrood into a pathetic talking show with no teeth
h. The way the SNP used the unelected crown representative “Lord Advocate” to frustrate the progress of the bill for the referendum
i. the way successive SNP leaders proceeded to deceive voters into casting a vote for the SNP with the excuse of a mandate for a referendum only to piss over those mandates for the best part of 10 years
j. the freeports
K. 10 years of unforgivable procrastination to progress independence
L. A disgusting surrender to brexit by the mandarins of the SNP
m. A disgusting fire sale-like of Scotland’s assets and territory.
n. the betrayal of women
The list goes on and on and on and on.
Mr Shephard, the SNP had absolute majorities of MPs since 8 May 2015 until recently. You were part of those majorities, yet you did SFA to progress independence. So, what are you bleating about now?
56 MPs, then 35, then 46 could have ended the UK right there and then. Yet, in your own words, you were in Westminster to behave as “good parliamentarians”, rather than fighters for independence.
We did not vote for the SNP all those years so you could behave “as a good parliamentarian” and lick the boots of the English MPs or the foreign monarch. We did not vote for you so you could accrue a decent salary and a pension. We voted for you with the expectation that you would deliver independence.
So, to be frank, your useless waffle enters through one ear and immediately exits through the other without even computing. We are fed up of your waffle. Fed up of your inaction. Fed up of your procrastination. Fed up of your deception. Fed up of your taking us for fools. Fed up of your lectures on nothingness. Fed up of your wasting our time.
If you made something clear during the last 10 years is that you have no interest in delivering independence.
So save the waffle. The SNP is no longer a party of independence and it is rather shameful and beyond pathetic that you are still, after wasting 10 years of our time, still seeking to waste even more time with more excuses, faux promises that you do not intend to deliver and with more useless waffle.
“We need to make next year’s vote an assertion of the Claim of Right”
The moment to have made “an assertion of the Claim of Right” was at any time from 8 May 2015 until your useless leader lost the GE last year. ANY day of those 10 years would have been adequate to “make an assertion of the Claim of Right” by the SNP MPs, of which you were one of, by ditching the green seats, reconvening Scotland’s parliament and revoking the treaty and act of union with England.
But you chose to piss on the Claim of Right and increase your bank accounts with salaries at our expense instead. So it really takes some special kind of brass neck to now attempt to bamboozle us by mentioning the “Claim of Right” so as to make yourself more credible.
Who do you think you are fooling, Mr Sheppard?
“L. A disgusting surrender to brexit”
Brexit was a necessary step on the true road to genuine Independence.
Your denial of that shows you lack the stomach for Independence. You’ll settle for rule by the foreigners in Brussels because at heart, you’re feart that all the “too wee, too poor, too daft, too corrupt” jibes are accurate.
Who do you think you are fooling with all your feigned anger and pompous, holier-than-thou hypocrisy? Maybe yourself. Few others though.
“Brexit was a necessary step on the true road to genuine Independence”
Of for goodness sake. Here comes the gaslighting at cruise speed. This person will even demand we thank the wankers in London for denying us our democratic rights and for pissing all over our vote against brexit.
It is like the abuser hitting the victim and then expecting her to be grateful because “I did it for your own good”.
“Your denial of that shows you lack the stomach for Independence”
Well, your pathetic attempts at gaslighting show that you are just an amateur.
“Who do you think you are fooling with all your feigned anger and pompous, holier-than-thou hypocrisy?”
Oh dear. Are you Mr Shepperd, the coward who went to Westminter “to act as a good parliamentarian” and earn a salary at our expense whilst pretending to be there to fight for Scotland’s independence?
Mia 10:54…
Please stop perpetuating the myth that Scotland is “too wee, too poor, too stupid” to be independent !
Why do you want an independent Scotland to go running to their new mammy the EU, holding out the begging bowl ?
Why ?
So, Mia, simply pointing out that member countries of the EU aren’t truly independents is tantamount to domestic abuse.
My, but you have enjoyed a sheltered and fortunate life.
Mr Mia, if he exists, must be a fine gentleman. I assume you have taken care to ensure he never develops the power of independent thought. I would hate to think of him subjecting you to gaslighting or domestic abuse by adopting an opinion contrary to your own.
Then again, perhaps he has learned through bitter experience to keep his mouth zipped.
@Mia
Thankyou for listing the reasons why I have never voted SNP and never will.
Party before Country has been SNP’s position for the last decade. Indy supporters who intend to vote SNP in 2026 are mugs, and you can argue will be indulging in anti-Scottish behaviour.
Wee bit ay Scots poetry fir light relief:
link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com
I enjoyed that, Rattled – thanks for posting! It brought back memories of bonfire nights when I was little – they were scary and beautiful enough without the accidental pyrotechnics.
Thanks. Glad ye enjoayed it.
Very good, WhoRattledYourCage. And well deserving of another plug fae me:
THE ACCIDENTAL WORLD WAR
Definitely worth a read.
Cheers fir that, Northcode. Much appreciatit.
The question we should be discussing is “How is the word to be spread to the voters about the need to vote for a Liberate Scotland umbrella candidate on the regional ballot paper?”
On Prism yesterday it was said it would only take 10 doors to be knocked on every day to get the message to every household in Scotland before the May 2026 election.
Not impossible IF there was organisation and numbers to do the canvassing.
Rev, have you a cunning plan in the pipeline? Your talents are desperately needed if your wish to remove the SNP’s monopoly is to come true.
Has anyone asked if Fergus Ewing will stand as a Liberate Scotland umbrella candidate?
Good question. Given that their candidate has made a public declaration about standing down to give Fergus a free run, I would like to think that there will be a conversation.
“would only take 10 doors to be knocked on every day to get the message to every household in Scotland before the May 2026 election”
Hmmmm.
Less than a year until the election. Call it 340 days.
Ten doors a day gets you 3400 doors.
Sorry, sarah, does not compute.
Unless Covid really did kill off a lot more Scots than I have noticed.
In 2023 the number of households in Scotland was 2.5 million
10 doors per day – 2,500,000/10 = 250,000/340 days = 735 people doing it – each day every day.
“it would only take 10 doors to be knocked on every day”
sarah…
Do you not realise that many people would tell the door-knockers to feck off ?
There’s a whole generation of Scots activists 18-30 waiting for a country to liberate. Looking for a cause. They are reduced and lost into gender ideology. Climate change and now Free Palestine. The Green Brigade Celtic Ultras vs the Union Bears – defend Europe from woke ideology was their banner – reform voters in the making!
Our country is a disgrace under the SNP. I’m listening to Liberate Scotland now. Swinney will not be getting my vote. I despise the cabal and I’m going to make sure they know it come may 2026.
Another great piece Rev where you once again expose the SNP for what they are, lying chancers drowning us in meaningless insincere drivel worthy of an under the railway bridge used car salesman. All they want is our vote which is their passport back to the trough. They insult our intelligence and they make me sick.
Listening to Mhairi MaCallan this week – she doesn’t even know how many Scots are on a social housing waiting list.
She said: “It’s not that I don’t know it. It’s that I don’t have the figures!”
She’s an absolute dim wit. She’s never spoken to anyone in a social house in her life. She doesn’t know her brief yet alone give a damn.
I fear for the men. She’ll fucking put every foreigner that’s on the boats above the native Scots.
Fuck her and fuck the SNPz
James.
Sven.
I too was caned or given the leather strap if i spoke Scottish language at primary school, but then the teachers began to single me at for all ills that may occur as a example,
I feared every school day, and began playing truant,
The teachers only taught english history, english language and the great wars instigated and continued through the politicians of parliament of England,
Most of my education has had to be self taught by my self through older books, as I had a thirst for learning,
This meant I read the alternative and opposite side of England -Great- Britain,
But I am clever and smart enough to realise nowadays how utterly stupid globalist unionist mantras are thatthe treaty of union is old guff parchment paper stuff is at present invalid,
For Scotland is a independent country without the treaty of union being unable to capture the territory and kingdom of Scotland.
This meant
Yes, James C; we had to find oot for ourselves. They dinnae want us tae ken oor ain history.
Wonder why that is….
Then there are the half-wits and bad actors shilling on here for “Brexit” and “Reform” (and of course EFTA never gets mentioned).
James,
Aye James, you could say I learn’t first hand what colonialism was, is and does, long before I had even heard of the word Colony?
Where, people that had been colonised were beaten to learn the colonisers language, ways methods and rules,
And in my day the methods and colonisation seemed to be targeting those small pockets of Scotland that were still isolated to change and had maintained their old ways.
Its without doubt this constant brow beaten set me in opposition to the colonisers from a early age.
And I learned like many Scots to look for connections to similar people.with a similar back ground.
It turned out those other people were a large population in Scotland.
Nowadays James, I try to research every subject for myself that draws my attention, I hear what you are saying regards those you mentioned,
And realise the mindset of the bully coloniser and the more veiled subtle threats is never far away for Scottish people that want independence.
The comments from trolls are meant to make us feel useless and inferior natives, , not capable on running our own affairs compared to the colonising governance.
I do not know your own background James or how you came to the same or similar conclusions about Scotland and its people,
But it is need for self determination in the future for all Scottish people , decolonisation of Scotland,
And if the trolls persist in stating there is no treaty of union, I am more than happy to agree with them,
Should they change their minds, I am more than happy to hold them to all the original agreed terms’ conditions and articles they must adhere to in that voluntary international 1707 treaty of union.
James,
We are either in a voluntary treaty of union with England, which also includes pre- terms and conditions which we can withdraw from, or we are a colonised country where we are enslaved against our will and Scotlands territorial resources are stolen assets.
Scotland cannot be in the position of both.
And it is interesting to hear that we are no longer under the treaty of union from the trolls, as that position would rely on there being no crown prosecution of the supreme court over Scots or Scotland.
If you are enslaved, James, there are numbers you can call.
You have internet access. Use it to set yourself free.
There have been many alterations to the text of that said treaty, many repeals and many changes by Westminster that breach that treaty of union,
And perhaps it is a worry to unionists today that Scotland could hold Westminster to account for those breaches of the treaty of union, and demand reparations.
Or that Scotland would be able to voluntary withdraw from that treaty,
On the other hand the treaty may have ended but Westminster never informed the people of Scotland.
Which brings us back on to the subject of colonial subjection, oppression etc of Scotland and Scottish people.
As was stated in someones comment earlier on in this post.
The relationship between Scotland and England has never legally been challenged or defined.
And it should be,
Not through the supreme court of Englands Britain, that tony blair set up, for that would hold a extreme bias’d and involved outcome,
Which also breaches the treaty of union on Scots Law.
On The troll position that the old yellow parchment 1707 treaty of union holds no merit any longer is just guff, stuff an nonsense, and that most people would not recognise it any longer.
Raises questions, not only on the crown supreme court holding authority or making any decision over Scotland.
It raises questions on the monarch of Great- Britain being a reality, as that only holds through the treaty of union agreement,
It’s not that the Treaty of Union no longer holds any “merit”, it’s an important historical document and is therefore important to the context of our constitution. It’s that within our legal framework, we aren’t going to change fundamental aspects of the U.K. constitution by litigating issues around the formation of the treaty in 1707. It is too far in the past, too much has changed this then, and the issues in 1707 don’t provide a sensible basis for deciding how to resolve important questions in 2025.
Any country can withdraw from a treaty, or suspend a treaty
Especially if one side of said treaty is suspected of large or dire breaches of the agreed treaty and the attached pre- terms and conditions.
Or has used altered texts of the said treaty for financial beneficial gain to progress the mutual treaty into a colonisation status of the other country.
The Treaty of Union doesn’t exist as a treaty in international law, and there are no two states that are party to it. The states that existed pre-1707 ceased to exist and a new state was born (or if you believe Prof Black, Scotland was simply subsumed into England). Either way, “withdrawal from the treaty” is not an option or a concept in this context.
Aidan,
The proposal of a new codified constitution for UK in which a new treaty with Scotland would also emerge on the agenda has to agreed to by the people of Scotland under a vote or a reinstatement of the Scottish parliament,
For the parliament of England that continued into the Great-Britain parliament numerically and through its members, is legally unable to negotiate any deal or agreement on behalf of the Sovereign Scots under their claim of right and The right to self determination, under Westminster own devolved parliament government sent into Scotland,
Scottish people are much more awake and aware of their right nowadays,
To do as the universities and Westminster parliament are suggesting would be further in extending colonisation over the Scottish people.
If that is true, how did Scotland enter into the European Community in 1973?
I’ve been following the argument, but there are some basic assumptions I don’t get. The first one is that the “Claim of Right” creates a Sovereign Scottish people, which survives through the Union of kingdoms and their parliaments.
I don’t know what “sovereign” means in this context. Is it an assertion of a basic human right, that every national group has or should have its own sovereignty (as in it should be able to choose its own way of being governed) — but that wouldn’t need a Claim or Act. Or is it a legal argument, that the
Claim of Right 1689 implicitly creates the sovereign people, because of the way the Scottish parliament (through the Estates) assumed power to choose its monarch?
Looking at it, the Claim of Right states that James VII had broken the law by not swearing the oath to uphold protestantism, for promoting Catholicism, and for altering the constitution “from a legall limited monarchy to ane Arbitrary Despotick power”.
This is quite something, but perhaps in line with the English parliament putting Charles I on trial for treason.
The Claim of Rights then states that the Estates choose William and Mary, “King and Queen of England”, as monarchs of Scotland, and states that the Crown should pass to the heirs of the body of the Queen (Mary), which failing, to Princess Ann of Denmark and the airs of her body. If Anne had no heir they would go to the “aires of the Body of the said William King of England”, but that wasn’t necessary and it went to Princess Sophia of Hanover (as agreed in the Treaty of Union 1706). But the Estates in 1689 would have preferred William’s heirs to those of James.
It states that it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and that imprisoning a subject for such petitioning is against the law. Presumably because of the seven bishops being imprisoned for sedition, for petitioning James against his declaration of the freedom of religion. And that parliament should be called frequently, because James had dismissed it.
But I don’t see anything about a sovereign people of Scotland, unless it is that parliament is considered to be the same thing as (or some sort of expression of) the people of Scotland. It’s obviously a huge area, and I can see that many books have been written about the period.
Without going into too much detail, essentially it gives the Scottish people the ability to act as a check on the King and on Parliament through the convention of the estates (although question whether that really represents the people or just landowners). It is however a mechanism that has long since fallen into disuse and doesn’t form part of the checks and balances in our democratic system any more. Given it is a feature of a bygone age, no court is going to revive it, which essentially was the position in Miller no.2
It appears to be a consistent flaw in The Westminster bubble thinking to suppose it is in a treaty of union with itself.
Don’t waste your time engaging, James C, these are paid trolls.
Lickle Aidan, the constitutional historian, who thinks laws don’t apply anymore when “he doesn’t like it” and there is some kind of “use by” date on them.
“london is a colony” what surreal adventures are we on today?
– Aidan, you need to stop swigging the Calpol straight out the bottle, I know, I know, it’s fun, we’ve all done it, but it’s not good for you.
Stick to 18 yr old Macallan.
aidan has a 25 year mortgage; he took it out 20 years ago, he thinks : “that is ancient guff by now” and stops paying it.
What happens next?
aidan has a 25 year mortgage; he took it out 25 years ago, now it is up, he has paid off his house and doesn’t need to pay anymore; but the contract is ancient guff and he has always paid his mortgage and so he decides to just keep on paying as “stuff people wrote down 25 years ago is no basis to change circumstances”.
Go aidan.
Well if it isn’t the site cabbage at it again. I sometimes wonder whether you wake up with the sole intention of saying something even more stupid and uneducated than all of the deranged things you said the day before.
There is a bit of a different between a loan agreement entered into by me within my lifetime and which I am still receiving the benefit of, and laws entered into hundreds of years and 10 generations ago which applied in a very different time and context. Or maybe that isn’t the case, and we need to start burning people for witchcraft again or owning the bible in English, or torturing people for sedition against a local landlord. Perhaps we need to start enforcing blasphemy or heresy laws again, and that’s before we get to the Roman laws which we barely have a record of and yet according to you, we need to start enforcing again as forcefully as an act of Parliament passed yesterday.
“Stick to 18 yr old Macallan.”
Heh! As if, pal.
Tennents Super in your case
Independence died when Alex Salmond died. The snp died when they tried to kill Salmond’s political career and reputation. The SNP are about as useful to Independence as wet sawdust is to a fire.
They are all wasters. I would sooner lick sandpaper than listen to John Swinney for 5 minutes.