A matter of competence
Back in May we wrote this:
The prediction duly came true, as most of ours do. Sometimes we hate being right.
Because today in Parliament this happened:
The assertion of Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles that a second indyref bill legislated by Holyrood without first having been sanctioned by Westminster would be “universally recognised as being outwith the competence of this Scottish Parliament” is a flat-out lie. Legal opinions on the matter are widely differing, and the entire purpose of the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement was to avoid the prospect of the question being settled by the courts, because either way that would have opened a massive can of worms. The principle remains untested in law and both interpretations are legitimately arguable.
In May we also said that the then-policy of the Scottish Greens, namely not to vote for a second indyref unless it was backed by a million-signature petition, ensured that there wouldn’t be one anyway. But at their party conference last weekend the Greens abandoned that position and committed themselves to unconditional support in any such vote. The welcome U-turn, however, may be rendered entirely irrelevant.
Ken Macintosh’s reply to Rumbles was pretty non-committal, as might be expected. However, we can observe already that – exactly as we warned five months ago – one consequence of the SNP’s loss of their majority in May this year will be the Unionist parties exploring any avenues possible, however underhanded, to prevent the Scottish people from expressing their view on independence again in light of the dramatically changed circumstances that have arisen since the 23rd of June.
We can only hope that it won’t be a decisive one.
And today Ken Mcintosh was made a member of the privy council… I smell a rat
would they dare ?
The best way to make the daft jocks come to their senses and embrace ENGERLAND mastery over north Britain is to ridicule them and rub their noses in the shit. Looking forward to seeing how that goes. It could be a right binger!
Wow. In such circumstances it may fall to the people to unblock the parliament. If Nicola Sturgeon is unable to wrestle meaningful concessions on Scotland’s membership of the single market and control of immigration (which seems unlikely) so that the only option for Scotland is independence, and were Ken Macintosh to block that, then there would have to be petitions and public meetings to show Macintosh that the temper and view of the people had changed.
And in a way, there is nothing like being thwarted by incompetants without a plan, to get people’s backs up and win the case for indy. That’s the only positive I can see here.
My Slovene girlfriend also explained in the Sunday Times this weekend how Holyrood will have absolutely no say in Brexit. Well maybe some but really nothing. Its all a UKOK double whammy.
“Holyrood therefore has no veto on Brexit — we MSPs cannot block Brexit. This does not mean, however, that Holyrood will have no say on the future role that EU law may play in Scotland.”
Future Lord Adam Tomkins, atl, for a change.
The Presiding Officer would have to outline exactly why he was viewing a referendum as being outside of Hollywood competence, He could not just ” think” it is. This would involve him also ruling on the question of Scottish sovereignty of the people.
Personally I do not think he is daft enough to take that on .
Then again,a vote of no confidence could await him.
If the SNP had an outright majority of 1 after the last election and choose not to have an SNP MSP elected as Presiding Officer in order to maintain that majority then the situation would be the same as it is now regarding a referendum bill’s legality.
A majority in favour in Holyrood of a referendum bill need not be an SNP majority, just a majority.
I believe with the first referendum bill having been passed by Holyrood, then that has already proven the competence of the Scottish parliament to do so. I can’t see any court ruling against a second since competemce has already been shown.
Historic Parliament vote endorses independence choice.
The Bill to allow the people of Scotland to choose whether Scotland should be an independent country has been passed by Holyrood.
MSPs voted in favour of the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill following a final debate on the legislation this afternoon.
The Bill confirms that:
The people of Scotland will vote in a referendum on September 18th next year on the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”
The vote will be run to the highest international standards and will be overseen by the independent Electoral Commission.
The vote will be preceded by a 16-week formal campaign period.
The referendum will be conducted under the direction of a Chief Counting Officer responsible for appointing local Counting Officers to run the poll in local areas.
link to news.scotland.gov.uk
Of course, this is what happens when you DO,NT vote SNP/SNP.
A wee reminder for the council elections.
That wee Liberal (never mind the democrat bit), would rather Scotland be ground to dust, under right wing Tory governments, than it be a normal country…twat.
Have all the Presiding Officers been made PCs? Or is this a sinister development? Whichever, it will no doubt guarantee the less than useful Mr Mackintosh a seat in the Lords – his Skye ancestors will be birling in their graves.
Agree Thepnr
As McIntosh said any Bill could be challenged for competence by the Law Officers.
If they want to deny democracy then Westminster can.
Hell, they can recall the Scottish Parliament any time they want.
And the Supreme Court is now in place, a back ball position 30 years in the making, to rule against it if they want.
It is all a question of:
What would it do to the UK reputation and do they care?
How would the English public respond to that and do they care?
I guess, with Brexit, the Supreme Court rule out becomes more likely, since they have less to lose.
But anything is possible with that bunch of sociopaths in charge.
The SNP can, as a last resort, force a virtual plebiscite by having a mass resignation by their Westminster MPs with them restanding on a one line manifesto:
“The SNP and others who may want independence will begin immediate discussions with Westminster for Scottish independence.”
@Neil,
Presiding officers are as a rule on the Privy Council. I. E. Patricia Marwick
Does the Holyrood parliament sit for a fixed period of time like WM?
Because if it doesn’t a Holyrood election would have to be called and put to the country that again one unionist MSP is blocking our democratic right – if that happened
I don’t think we will reach the point of passing the IndyRef2 Bill before the full catastrophic reality of Brexit for Scotland is exposed. Public opinion should have shifted by that point, surely.
As is oft said, if Scots don’t shift to being pro Indy with the behaviour of this WM government, they probably never will.
If polls are showing pro Indy majority opinion, then trying to stop IndyRef2 by legal tricks would be suicide.
Though, it has to be said, WM and running dogs don’t shy away from suicidal actions?
A very interesting clip.
Immediately Rumbles stood up several members got up and walked out!
His “point of order” was a speech. He needed to turn the page!
The whole point is that this is a Yoon “clever plan”.
The response shall be “Are you afraid you’ll lose?”
I thought the presiding officer did it by the book.
Thepnr says at 6:01 pm
I agree that IndyRef1 Bill must set legal precedent for Holyroods competence.
As for Mike Rumbles MSP lying?
He’s just keeping up the proud Fib Dem Party tradition then. 🙂
@ Bob Thanks for that – but have ALL P.O.s been so “honoured” ? The Lords for Mackintosh I have no doubt.
Chic McGregor says:
Also, they will be in the midst of talks with the EU.
The EU will have an agenda to look after its 27 members and also to punish the UK. A Scotland expressing a wish to democratically remain inside the EU will be relevant to that agenda.
The UK … will they care … they might have no choice if their EU deal involves a democratic and smooth transition for Scotland to be the EU continuing state.
What better way to punish the UK than to facilitate its dissolution!?.
Just the normal unionist opinion that Scots should just shut the fcuk up and do not question their maisters after all we are just toooo stupid to know what’s best for us, we are better leaving it to a shower of ar**wipes that only got in via the back door. I am fcukin incandescent with anger, Nicola and the truly ELECTED Scottish Government better hold these twats to account.
Better still hold an election with a mandate to HOLD a referendum on independence and stop fcuking about. This is the problem when you allow the children to have a say, get the gloves aff and get ripped into these idiots at every turn,call them out on all their past mistakes, highlight publicly their constant stupidity and expose publicly the theft of Scotland ‘s resources
Oh they could draw it out alright. Power devolved is power… etc Challenge, counter, courts, counter and so on. All the while, this is occurring in full public view. What will this do to every party which participates and do they really think it will prevent the Scottish electorate having their say?
If the Scottish unionist parties proceed with this course, just what do you think will be in the SNPs very next manifesto at both UK GE or Scottish Parliament elections? Do they think people will forget their actions or mistake their intent?
There is always more than one path and people have very long memories for those who act against the public good. 😉
I had forgotten Mike Rumbles even existed. Do they keep him a glass box with a “in case of need of a Unionist lackey break glass” sign on it?
He is clearly taking bollocks because I don’t think it is outwith the competence of the Scottish Government and neither do 50% of the population at least. So his “universal” bull shit falls at the first hurdle.
Theresa May and her Liberal lackeys in waiting maybe do. So what? The more difficult they make it to hold a referedum the more likely we are to win.
Not sure the Yoons trying to basically prevent Scotland from avoiding the disastrous consequences of the Brexit fall out, on some crap jumped up bollocks technicality, will do them any favours in the long run.
Have they learnt nothing?
If I am remembering right some Tory last week was gleefully saying “we can’t stop Indy Ref 2 but we can slow them down” question is why do they need it slowed down?
Anybody remember who it was and in what context they were saying it?
Make up of Scottish Parliament after 2016 general election:
Unionists (Tory + Labour + Liberals) = 60 seats
Independence Parties (SNP + Scottish Greens) = 69 seats
From link to parliament.scot under glossary item -confidence of the parliament : “The Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officer can be removed from office if the parliament so decides by an absolute majority (rule 3.5).”
If the PO will not approve a vote on holding a referendum then the SNP and Scot Greens could remove him and replace him with another PO that would approve the vote.
Rumbles is a Geordie.
Retired major from the Army Education Corps.
List MSP.
A real go-getter!
As regular Wingers may remember, I am in an on-going dialogue with one of my former class-mates, who has lived in the Sudentenland these past 40-plus years.
He gets most of his information from the BBC, the Daily Torygraph and the Daily Heil – and, in spite of an education at a former Scottish Senior Secondary school, he believes what he reads.
What follows is his latest missive, which, other than highlighting the “facts” which I know to be correct, from the list of 13 he sent me, I have left untouched.
It is indeed a sair fecht trying to correct him.
“Sorry to burst your bubble. Just stop and think, Would you reveal your negotiating position to people who have different political agendas and are eager to make political opportunity. Get real and stop believing all that tosh.
I know you like Facts
Fact. The people of Scotland voted to remain in the UK.
Fact. The people of the UK voted to leave the E.U.
Fact. The E.U. will not give Scotland the time of day
Fact. The E.U. is breaking its own Dublin Treaty on immigration.
Fact The E.U. has failed to agree a trade deal with Canada after7years of negotiation.
Fact The E.U. is a total mess.
Fact. Scotland will not qualify for the next world cup.
Fact. Jeremy Corbyn will be sending his thugs to Scotland.
Fact. An Independent Scotland will be like Greece without the sunshine “quote from Peterhead fisherman.
Fact. Italy’s banks are bust
Fact Scotland has no real oil or gas industry and not much chance of it recovering.
Fact. We will probably end up with a sensible agreement which will be some form of compromise to suit Germany and France, lets face it, we need foreign workers but we must be able to control who comes to this country,not only from the E.U. but all other countries. We also must have our own laws, otherwise all of the four countries of the UK might as well get rid of all their laws and be run by a bunch of Romanian judges.
Fact. Business will determine the terms and conditions of the Brexit, not a bunch of crazy politicians.
Trump to win.”
Sorry mistyped that link. Try link to parliament.scot Look under “confidence of the parliament”
[…] Wings Over Scotland A matter of competence Back in May we wrote this: The prediction duly came true, as most of ours do. […]
Liz g says:
25 October, 2016 at 6:49 pm
If I am remembering right some Tory last week was gleefully saying “we can’t stop Indy Ref 2 but we can slow them down” question is why do they need it slowed down?
Anybody remember who it was and in what context they were saying it?”
That’s my Slovene girlfriend Liz, in the Times or The Record.
link to twitter.com
@Socrates MacSporran
2Trump to win”
Jeez some strange friends you have there. I read your earlier post today about your OAPS current affairs discussion group.
All I can say is some strange friends you have there. I don’t envy you that’s for sure!
We can only hope this is one of those types of predictions of yours that doesn’t end up happening, like Glasgow voting No, or SNP failing to win Garscadden/Scotstounhill. I’m sure you’d love to be wrong on this one, too.
Mike Rumbles rumbled for the farmyard engine that he is.
But what a lack of ambition for the Parliament that you are a serving member of (serving member is most accurate in his case).
But you get my point, I hope.
Rumbled is happy being a place-man second tier politico, having his strings pulled by his London Puppet Masters.
And make no mistake, Rumbled is willingly turning on his back to have his tummy tickled like the neutred tom that he is.
Pathetic!
Heedtracker @ 7.02
Thanks
I agree that a precedent was set previously.
But it’s still a risky situation to be in, and shows the danger of ‘divide and rule’.
Sometimes we make it hard for ourselves. At the Holyrood elections, some so-called YES supporters were even spoiling their ballot papers because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the SNP in Constituency seats. How pathetic and self-defeating is that ?
The realpolitik involved in trying to block a bill in Holyrood might make all the difference here though, especially with regards to the sovereignty question.
That’s why Davidson is opposed to Westminster blocking a second referendum. She knows it would come across as Scotland being treated like a colony and could see a huge backlash in support of independence.
If all the Scottish MPs resigned from Westminster and forced byelections standing on a manifesto that a majority of them returned would constitute a mandate for independence, would that carry weight?
Pre devolution that was seen as the mechanism for indy.
All should be good.
Tonight, playing Glasgow..
‘The Specials’
If this ends up in the court, I don’t see much hope for indyref2 bill 🙁 I could be wrong but if this did end up in court it could bounce between the Scottish Courts to the Supreme Court in London and of course the Supreme Court instructed by their masters will do as required and kill the bill off.
Bit of an off day for the Rev I’m afraid. Even if the SNP had had 80 MSPs elected, it’s likely the PO would have been from Labour or the Conservatives, because the last one was SNP.
And the last one did not vote with the SNP, was praised by all sides, and put Alex Salmond in his place as few people can.
The PO relinquishes party membership, and is neutral politically.
Macart wrote:
“….people have very long memories for those who act against the public good.”
Oh yes, and then some!
_____
Robert Kerr wrote:
“Immediately Rumbles stood up several members got up and walked out!”
I picked up on that immediately too Robert. Very telling!
_____
This is all the more reason why independence is the *only* route. Holyrood is no more than a glorified council created by FUDamentalists to fool us peasants into appreciating our gruel.
They even attempted arranging procedures so that the SNP could never achieve a majority, their arrogance did not allow them to take the electorate into consideration.
Nor, i suspect, did the founding gophers back then see what an even greater shower of incompetent gophers would be replacing them further down the line.
The FUDamentalists have been led by their own arrogance straight into their very own acid bath downfall. Wriggling, squirming, bubbling, melting and reeking right before the watching public.
Only a FUDamentalist would cut off its nose to spite its face…. and they often do!
From the Scottish Parliament website under “Absolute Majority”
“In a Parliament with 129 seats, 65 votes would be required to obtain an absolute majority. An example of a motion which requires such a majority is one that seeks to remove from office the Presiding Officer or a deputy Presiding Officer (rule 3.5.2).”
Theoretically then, the PO could be removed and replaced with either an SNP or Green MSP and there would still be a majority to pass an indyref2 bill.
the pnr @ 7.06pm
Aye, I do have some strange friends, but, apparently so do my pals!!
I spent a few years with the Scottish Missionary Service in West Yorshire, and, when I was repatriated, I thought my work was finished.
Now, I spend my time trying to educate the Proud Scots But and UKOKers I meet at the coffin dodgers club and with whom I was at school certainly help keep me young.
The problem is we only got the Edinburgh agreement because the pro union support was overwhelming.
If they believe they no longer command an unassailable lead and the vote would be too close to call they aint going to cooperate so fully and decisively. They will definitely leave themselves a back door escape option in the event of a Yes vote.
I’m starting to wonder if it ever will be possible to gain Independence from Westminster by Democratic means. Lets face it nobody else has managed to do it.
Also showing..
Bad Company with BJ’s Richie Sambora.
Go Glasgow!
Brexit is, so I was told today, so yesterday. Today and tomorrow it’s all about Brenaissance, apparently.
Just let them try.
And here’s an example of where Tricia Marwich – voted as an SNP MSP then as PO – ruled an SNP Government biil out of flaming competence.
link to archive.is
To question the integrity of the Presiding Office of the Scottish Parliament without any excuse is disgusting.
Liz g says:
25 October, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Heedtracker @ 7.02
Thanks
link to archive.is
The first minister’s spokes- man accused them of attempting a “stitch-up” and warned that “the days of Tory governments walking all over Scotland are long gone” after Tory constitutional spokesman Adam Tomkins said a second referendum could be delayed.
He told The Sunday Times the party will not block a second independence poll but that “a lot can be done to slow it down”…
The Scotch Times crew and Tomkinski are quite interesting to watch for their er, diverging UKOK stuff lately.
link to twitter.com
is very very pushing his complete and utter federal UK shyste, while Tomkins pushes his usual pack of constitutional law flimflam and straight out lies basically. He’s getting busier by the UKOK day though is old Prof Tomkins. Word is, Scottish toryboy’s are worried about stuffed shirt Ruthie Babes “mis-steps” on Brexit. Even for planet toryboy, Ruth’s Remain/Leave flip flop was too reckless.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Tomkins.
@silver19
A referendum is the preferred route of the Scottish Government, but its not the only one and not the only way to ask the same question of the Scottish electorate.
Sueing for dissolution of the treaty of union simply becomes a manifesto commitment of the SNP. It means waiting till the end of the parliamentary term, but as well as the obvious downside regarding Brexit timing, there is also (if you could call it that) an upside. Oh and the SP elections would be preferable (less WM interference), but events dictate need eventually.
The two year Brexit negotiation period will have just concluded. People will have experienced first hand the catastrophe as it unfolds. Hammond’s fiscal reset (several times over), not ongoing, but renewed austerity legislation, rampant immigration legislation, the start of the British Bill of rights legislation and watch in horror as their ECHR are eroded and discarded at the hands of Westminster.
What do you think the reaction of the population will be toward those who actively took a hand in delaying the arrival of the Scottish electorate’s lifeboat, an indyref? How do you think that vote will go for those parties?
Robert Peffers writes quite a bit on the history of the union etc. I read his posts.
So I wonder, would the UK Governemnt really want to test anything in a court?
To me the SG/SNP seem relaxed about a lot of stuff coming out, again which makes me wonder if there is something they have up their sleeve.
Liz g says:
25 October, 2016 at 6:49 pm
If I am remembering right some Tory last week was gleefully saying “we can’t stop Indy Ref 2 but we can slow them down” question is why do they need it slowed down?
Anybody remember who it was and in what context they were saying it?
Ruby replies
link to archive.is
UK Government could seek to block indyref2 until after Brexit, suggest Whitehall sources. Herald
it would be “a nightmare” for Theresa May!
We’re already losing our EU citizenship of more than 40 years if the Tories get their way. I think the people of Scotland would not just bow and scrape if Westminster attempted in any way to deny Scots a democratic vote.
We might only be in the early days of a second Independence Referendum but already the stench from the fear Unionists are exhibiting is overwhelming.
No Presiding Officer can ignore that stench and neither can the Tories.
I just read the following on a UK politics thread on a forum which seems to be inhabited by lots of ex military types:
“Today I was speaking to a pair of Scots chaps who are apparently very keen on this ‘independence’ lark. The most extraordinary thing they spake of, out of many such ludicrous statements, was that tiny Scotland (with a sixth of the population and twice the debt) is in an “Equal Union” with England. They lap up every word that hateful poison dwarf woman says and regurgitate all the ScotNat mantras like this. The worst thing is they have all the media in this one party state in their pockets and NO dissent is tolerated. Not an ounce of sense in them; they need to be stamped out. ”
A truly frightening insight into the mindset of middle England.
From the Times article posted by
heedtracker
‘Senior Tory sources stressed there is no desire to block a second referendum, recognising that to do so could prove detrimental to their cause. But they suggest an early vote could be deeply damaging to Brexit negotiations as well as to the health of the economy.
“There could be economic chaos, compounding the uncertainty of Brexit with the uncertainty of an independence referendum which would be the last thing the economy needs. All this mitigates against an early referendum,” said a UK government source.
Tomkins said another vote is not inevitable and the party would resist one. But if it had to go ahead “it would not be unreasonable, as in the last Edinburgh agreement, that there would be a clause about when it could take place”.
Arguing that another referendum must be fair, clear, legal and decisive, he added: “To put no more than the outline of a Brexit deal still under negotiation to a vote against an independence offer would not be fair or clear.” The Times
I don’t believe any of that! They want to delay an IndyRef to in order to discourage a YES vote!
How can they claim it is fair if by delaying an IndyRef it would hinder iScotland chances of a smooth transition to EU membership?
Power, real power, is taken, not given.
Time to assert our Sovereignty. We already have the mandate, we just need to get on with it at a time of our pleasing.
No ifs, buts or mebbies, no cap in hand Westminster please sir. Invoke our rights within the Union and take it the UN if needs be. We do not need permission to make a democratic decision!
Ronnie says:
A link, please.
I can’t express enough how reviled I am, at Holyrood, unionist, politicians and their concerted attempts to DO Scotland down, at every opportunity they get.
How can those people look at themselves in the mirror, and how can they possibly claim, to have Scotland’s best interests at heart.
‘But they suggest an early vote could be deeply damaging to Brexit negotiations as well as to the health of the economy.’
Does anyone understand that? How could an early IndyRef vote be deeply damaging to the Brexit negotiations?
Do you think it has anything to do with fishing rights?
How can it be damaging to the economy when Scotland is such a drain on their finances to the tune of £15b per annum?
The legality appears a tad confused or is that just me.
If the Scottish government, and the people of Scotland see fit that an independence referendum is the only means by which to avoid an economic, social and even environmental catastrophe, then no amount of cajoling, no amount of bullying, no amount of threatening behaviour from Westminster, will get in the way.
Scotland has been beaten down, undermined, belittled, and ridiculed by it’s parasitic neighbour for far far too long.
Brexit has changed the UK. It has exposed an inherent sense of superiority among those who falsely claim ownership of a land and its people, as a given right.
In Scotland it is felt more acutely, because the sense of ownership does not and never has been based on equal terms.
Where I was brought up, in NE england, a pseudo sense of belonging, however subtle, was enough to calm the horses.
In Scotland that is not the case, and understandably, with all of it’s unique culture, language and landscape, as well as attention to detail in the mindset of the people, there is and has never really been a sense of belonging in the context of the so called union.
That union was built on falsity, lies, scheming and slavery. It cannot continue.
Ruby
How can they claim it is fair if by delaying an IndyRef it would hinder iScotland chances of a smooth transition to EU membership?
They’re playing all kinds of games. Just follow two toryboys, Kenfarq and Tomkins.
Kenfarq of the Times says be quiet and you’ll get a Federal UK, but only if you’re good and back St Teresa’s Brexit means Brexit.
Tomkins says anything to anyone, yes we can block ref2, no we cant, yes we can slow it down enough to get clear of Brexit, then we can block it some more, because we tories love democracy n shit.
Scots Cons’s oppose absolutely every single thing Scots devo, now same crew say they really want more devo, or a “decentralised country,” which may or may not mean devo, or is in fact just more tory bollox.
Adam Tomkins MSP Retweeted
ScotConservatives ?@ScotTories 3h3 hours ago
.@ProfTomkins “A fairer Scotland would be a radically more decentralised country.”
Fairness and the toryboys is one of the biggest oxymorons of our lives too.
heedtracker says:
25 October, 2016 at 8:21 pm
Ruby
How can they claim it is fair if by delaying an IndyRef it would hinder iScotland chances of a smooth transition to EU membership?
They’re playing all kinds of games.
Ruby replies
I guessed that!
Ruby replies
I guessed that!
Pointing out the blatantly obvious is my super power:D
heedtracker says:
25 October, 2016 at 8:31 pm
Ruby replies
I guessed that!
Pointing out the blatantly obvious is my super power:D
Ruby replies
I’m suprise by that!
I thought after the comment you made re
“Even a harmless game of fetch with your dog can go spectacularly wrong.”
that you might have other super powers! 😉
If you listen to the POs reply it’s clear that he has to say where he believed the bill is not in the remit of Holyrood he must say so. He then said that he does not have the power to stop a bill being debated or passed but only to advise. So if anything that attempt at derailment just failed.
Obviously if he has specific issues with a bill that are addressed through amendments the even should an appeal go to the courts it would receive short shrift. I’d go further and suggest that such an attempt might be seen as a contempt of the POs office.
Just watched this clip of Fluffy Mundell,
link to twitter.com
You can actually see the fear and panic in his eyes. He knows without a shadow of doubt that his Gravy Train union is on a hiding to nothing if IndyRef2 is called.
Ruby says:
25 October, 2016 at 8:44 pm
heedtracker says:
25 October, 2016 at 8:31 pm
OK, two super powers:D
I cannot see how Ken Macintosh could have answered differently- he could hardly have just given his rubber stamp of approval on a bill before it is brought before parliament or ruled it out either. I have yet to see anything other then Ken carrying out his duties with due seriousness, professionalism or impartiality- happy to be corrected if anyone knows otherwise.
The unionists will explore any avenue that is possible and that would be the same whether there was an outright SNP majority or simply a pro-independence majority.
It is amazing right now- the Scottish government has a jemmy in the form of 17 million folk which it is using to prise open the door- day by day. I don’t think Ken Macintosh can bar that door to a second indyref when Theresa May and the might of the UK government will not.
I think if you give lily livered Scots too much time to think, they often revert to type. I say that because a guy in my work said if he had the vote the week after the EU ref. He would have jumped to vote yes. Now he is humming and hawing. I said but things are getting worse by the day can you not see. He suggested that people didn’t want more disruption.
Will waiting too long be the undoing of the SNP.I don’t know but I just worry that weak Scots always retreat to their comfort zone. Are we any less feart than 2014?
Article 19 of the Act of Union states “… that the Court of Justiciary do also after the Union, and notwithstanding thereof, remain in all time coming within Scotland, as it is now constituted by the Laws of that Kingdom, and with the same Authority and Privileges as before the Union, subject nevertheless to such Regulations as shall be made by the Parliament of Great Britain, and without Prejudice of other Rights of Justiciary…”
If the UK Supreme Court has any jurisdiction over Scotland’s Court of Session, then it’s is a violation of the Act of Union.
I remain similarly curious about Holyrood, and a similar disconnect with Scottish sovereignty which occurs the moment that divine sovereignty channelled through the UK monarch is acknowledged as superior to the popular sovereignty of the Scots people. Holyrood seems set up to be fully compatible with Westminster’s notion of sovereignty, and awkward questions need answered before Holyrood truly speaks with the voice of true Scottish sovereignty.
Set up by Westminster, Holyrood is a device of Westminster, and you can argue with some credence it is essentially Westminster’s device to maintain or dismiss on the whim of Westminster itself.
However, where it was to be set up by popular mandate from Scotland’s sovereign people, a true Scottish parliament would be no device of Westminster, and nobody’s to command except the sovereign people of Scotland. The big question is whether Holyrood in its current form properly fits this job description.
If, as some people seem to be proposing, Scottish MPs and MSP were to resign and force byelections to stand or fall on a mandate for independence, there is a redundancy of effort which creeps in to the act of doing so. If a Scottish government is thus elected, it will be the sovereign government of Scotland, and Independnece will already be a realty, requiring no referendum. All it requires to seal the deal is International recognition and Scottish independence becomes the reality.
As I have tried to say before, there is no UDI. There is no threshold crossed, no change from one sovereignty to another sovereignty brought about by a declaration. There is only the recognition, and correction, of a longstanding constitutional anomaly. Put simply, time is called on the fudged contrivance of Westminster, and Scottish, and English respective sovereignties fall apart separate and properly recognised as constitutionally incompatible.
There is an open door in front of us. All we have to do is decide we are stepping through it.
One_Scot says:
25 October, 2016 at 9:04 pm
Just watched this clip of Fluffy Mundell,
Yeah I watched that earlier, I don’t know about anybody else on here but I’m getting really fed up hearing this “get on with the day job” it’s demeaning and it’s childish and it’s fucking pissing me off
Graeme
Graeme says
Mundell’s card marked here
link to derekbateman.scot
@ Mike Rumbles
Not a fan of human right?
link to un.org
It is entirely appropriate for the Scottish election to be fought on the issue “On behalf of the sovereign people of Scotland this parliament assumes the full powers of independence” and looks for a majority of the vote on that proposal.
In fact it would be difficult to argue that proposition was illegal or inappropriate even if it was only put to a vote in Parliament. Several counties have achieved independence that way.
All this legal bumf is basically bluff. Events have always changed,replaced or superseded “laws” which in the final analysis are only actually legitimate if the majority of people affected by them support them.
Graeme
According to the UK Gov site “The main role of the Scottish Secretary is to promote and protect the devolution settlement.
Other responsibilities include promoting partnership between the UK government and the Scottish government, and relations between the 2 Parliaments.”
He heads up the Scotland Office: “The Scotland Office supports the Secretary of State for Scotland in promoting the best interests of Scotland within a stronger United Kingdom. It ensures Scottish interests are fully and effectively represented at the heart of the UK Government, and the UK Government’s responsibilities are fully and effectively represented in Scotland.”
The great irony of course is that the Secretary of State for Scotland has never got on with his day job and instead sees it as his duty to oppose the Scottish Government in everything they do. Any neutral observer watching Scottish Questions fielded by fluffy would think his role was to simply attack the Scottish Government.
No matter what else is claimed on this matter the facts remain exactly as they have done since 1320 in Scotland and 1688 in the rest of what became the United Kingdom, ( excluding Scotland in 1706/7), and that pair of facts is theirs and ours different legal sovereignty.
Under English law, a.k.a. United Kingdom Law, (which excludes Scotland), The Monarchy of the Kingdom of England is still legally sovereign but has legally delegated their royal sovereignty to the Parliament of England, (Not the parliament of the United Kingdom because that legal delegation of sovereignty was made in 1688 when The Kingdom of Scotland was then NOT part of the Kingdom of England and Scotland still is NOT part of the Kingdom of England.
England, (obviously), is the main part of the Kingdom of England but Wales became an English Principality by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and England still has their Prince of Wales today to prove it.
Northern Ireland, as part of the Kingdom of Ireland, became a part of the Kingdom of England in 1542 by the Crown of Ireland Act. Then, when Ireland partitioned, Ulster became an English Province – and it still is.
So the Glorious Revolution made only England, Wales & Ireland a Constitutional Monarchy while Scotland remained an independent kingdom until 1706/7 and Scottish Law states that the People of Scotland are legally sovereign to this day.
To prove it the courts ruled that it is an offence of, “Demanding Money with menace”, if a landowner clamped and demanded payment to release any vehicle parked on private land in Scotland,. This was because, as sovereign, the people own Scotland and have, since 1320, had/have legal right to roam.
Land ownership in England was all by the crown. The crown created Dukes, Earls and so on and granted land for favours rendered. These Aristocrats then also granted land to their underlings for favours rendered and that was the feudal system we were all still paying Feu Duty for just a scant few years ago.
The law of Scotland changed from Divine Right in 1320 and that made the people the owners of Scotland – not the then King, Robert Bruce.
No one can legally tell any sovereign they cannot do anything they wish to do. Nor can they legally tell a majority of sovereign people what they can, or cannot do.
Here, though, is the rub – just as the people of England’s majority in 1688 forced King Billy and Queen Mary to legally delegate their sovereignty to the Parliament of England then the Parliament of the United Kingdom could attempt to force Scotland to delegate their sovereignty to that same parliament.
Do you remember what was wrongly claimed by the Secretary of State for Scotland during indyref 1?
I’ll remind you yet again – “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as The United Kingdom”.
That was always utter claptrap but don’t think for a moment it was not their basic plan all along – even as far back as before the Treaty of Union was even signed.
They have always just assumed that the Kingdom of England had sovereignty over Scotland – remember, “The Ragman Rolls for example?
If we were just talking about some issue like VAT or West Minster boundary changes then these statements might be relevant.
But we are talking about “self determination”. Any legal tricks or games with procedural rules to prevent a vote would be contrary to the UN Charter. It would provide a reason for any external powers supportive of Scotland to intervene where now they feel restrained by UK sovereignty.
It would mean a humiliating climb down by the UK government if they tried.
If this came to pass, the SNP could call an election with a manifesto commitment to independence. Then it would be a matter of securing the majority in Holyrood.
Could be this was the delaying tactics referrred to by some Tories.
It may still come down, and straight to the point – does Westminster dare flat-out …refuse Scotland a second Referendum?
To refuse Scotland, would not only be a slap in the face as well as triggering fury throughout Scotland, but it would also be another admission by Westminster that Scotland’s voice does not matter.
That is a dangerous stance for Westminster to take, especially when everyone in Scotland was told …and all of us (including Unionists) all remember it …that our voices, opinions and wishes would be respected after the 2014 Referendum.
On the back of a Trident vote as well as the EU Referendum, it is now most clear to everyone in Scotland, that Scottish voices, opinions and wishes are not being respected. In fact, they are being trodden on with arrogance and contempt by the Westminster establishment.
Ken McIntosh knows this well …as do all the Unionist MSP’s. They know they tread a very fine line here. People’s fears, no matter whether they are nationalist or unionist, are coming to the fore over jobs, savings, personal as well as working rights …all of which could be removed by Westminster, whether we like it or not.
I have no doubt …that there are Labour, Liberal and Tory MSP’s sitting very quietly and uneasily in Holyrood, who are troubled over the inaction and uncertainty that Westminster is presiding over the whole Brexit fiasco …but to contemptuously deny the Scots a choice in deciding their own future, knowing what Brexit could do to Scotland, both economically and socially, might be one step too far, for such MSP’s in backing the British Union.
I don’t think they are stupid enough to stop the progress of the bill, it would be entirely self defeating. Apart from creating a political vacuum, and we know how badly that could get out of hand, it would signal the end of their pretence of being a kingdom of equals.
In no other way could it be seen that a dictatorship, a colonial government in Westminster trying to extinguish the inherent rights of the Scottish parliament. I even suspect that a handful of labour, liberal and maybe even an odd Tory would object if that hand was played.
One of the main reasons the rise of the independence movement has been good natured and without malice is due to Westminster allowing the first referendum, were there to be a political shift to ignore democracy then I fear the old stupid unionists will feel the force of the lions roar.
But it would not come to that, even Ken isn’t so stupid to be the one to set that ball in motion, I do suspect Ruth would like to refer the act to the court of session, but that is decision that could in every likelihood end her career. As for any ruling, again the judiciary would be fouetté in sending that back toot sweet! You know what you call judges that deny the rights of democracy no? Ask lord Sumpiton. He knows the limits of the judiciary over parliaments.
Aye.. we expect such lapses by our football teams.. but the Independence movement MUST keep its eye in the ball.
a) Rumbles is a non-entity. He only crept in by the LibDems back stabbing one of their own.
b ) Independence will come. If not in my life time it will still come. We must focus on the generations to follow … one step nearer every time. They cannot stop it. I hope to see it but I’m happy that the direction of travel is towards Independence. Always remember those who campaigned in the past and never seen a MP never mind a First Minister and 56 MPs at Westminster.
….tick tiock
Ironically it could speed up the end of the UK. If Holyrood bill is kicked out in Jan 17 by presiding officer. sturgeon could resign the government and call an election within weeks. We could be independent by late Spring 17. The Tories are daft enough to try this. Salmonds closing words were that there was more than one route to independence!
Thomas Valentine says:
25 October, 2016 at 9:48 pm
“But we are talking about “self determination”. Any legal tricks or games with procedural rules to prevent a vote would be contrary to the UN Charter. It would provide a reason for any external powers supportive of Scotland to intervene where now they feel restrained by UK sovereignty.
It would mean a humiliating climb down by the UK government if they tried”.
UN or external powers haven’t help Cataluyna get a referendum
@Robert Peffers says 9:46pm
The unionist establishment is feeling under great threat like a wounded beast and so is very unpredictable and not thinking rationally. Open “invasion” is a non starter but I believe and have said so many times they will use every dirty trick and underhand tactic open to them to plunder Scotlands wealth to keep Londinium afloat. Politically and morally a very difficult trick to pull off without worldwide repercussions never mind pissing off the vast madjority of the Scottish population.
Hence the smell of fear and shit emanating from the yoons. They walk a very fine line which appears to lead them from one disaster to another. Westminster is finished it just hasn’t tried opening all the cupboards yet to find they are beat.
Obfuscation, such as stated by Rumbles might delay a referendum but has no chance of stopping one and the Unionists would be idiots to try such a maneuver.
Doubt anybody is that daft. Who cares anyway, not me. The diddies have only one way to go and that is down. Same as their vote.
For me, the logical choice for PO would have been one of the Greens. However, the anti Greens histeria whipped up by some at that time made that logical choice impossible.
Sinky.Correct we are on our own with this. The Un and anyone else will not interfere unless it results in a Ukraine type situation.
We have to sort it out. It might mean our government going out on a limb and just declaring the Union dissolved. Then we could seek approval.
I think the route would be to force an election with a simple mandate. Win a majority of seats and declare independence. That would require the Greens lending the SNP their votes and using the SNP as the actual referendum.
@ Robert Peffers
“The list of names is based on those published by the “Bannatyne Club” in Edinburgh in 1834.”
Jings! Ah didna ken he wis that auld, even aulder nar us.
Nae wunner he gied up yon Dragon’s Den.
@Big Jock
Cleverer to say ‘begin immediate negotiations for independence’.
That way the negs of UDI might be avoided, to both sides benefit.
I don’t see Oor Ken relishing his going down in history as one of the knaves who sold out the 1707 Parliament?
Hope Yoons block Indyref2. They only condescended to Indyref1 because they thought a ‘No’ win was a foregone conclusion.
Not this time.
The velvet glove of tyranny is coming off. The chain-mail, clenched fist revealed, a la Roose Bolton @ a Red Wedding.
Would EU allow rUK to deny democracy to 5.4m EU citizens?
Or will it sail to the Wildlings rescue like a Dothraki horde sailing over the Shivering Sea?
Yes I am missing Game of Thrones. How’d you guess? (Just finish the damn book George)!
As I understand it the Holyrood MSPs only hold the bits of our Soverenty that the Westminster parliament devolved to them.
It is the Scottish Westminster MP’S that holds our Soverenty.
As was designed by the Act/Articles of the Union.
So I would have thought that it would have to be them that stood in an election to return to Westminster with Instructions from their Sovereigns to dissolve the Act of the Union.
And in that instance protection from interference in doing so,comes from Queen Elizabeth 1st of the Scot’s.
For that route to Independence to have legal standing.
It’s not about international recognition at all,its the UK parliament’s process.
Yes Chic we would probably say begin negotiations. I suppose it’s a polite way of saying the same thing. You know with this current shower in London. I think there is good chance that we might have an election next year.
They might force Scotland’s hand. I think winning an election is easier than a referendum. As it’s seats we are talking about not necessarily percentages. It would be better to have over 50% of the vote though.
I go with Big jocks view on this. Nicola could call a snap election and with current sentiment use it with an independence mandate of changed circumstances re Brexit.
A clear majority of SNP would mean country could take independence road without need for a referendum again.
I am with Liz g on this one. Since the Union of Parliaments was between the Scottish one (which suspended itself) and the English parliament, (which disbanded), if we go down the road of dissolving the Act of Union, it has to be the Scots MPs who walked away.
Of course, only 56 of them would do this: the tea boy, the liar and the abstainer would hang-on and do what their London masters telt them.
But, surely, 56 walking away for 56 by-elections would be a sufficiently strong signal that even the dumbest of Tories would have to pay attention.
Or am I crediting the Tories with more imagination and intelligence than they have hitherto shown?
Andrew Wilson,
“If this came to pass, the SNP could call an election with a manifesto commitment to independence. Then it would be a matter of securing the majority in Holyrood.”
That is exactly the trap the unionists are waiting for the SNP to fall into.
The Establishment would make absolutely sure that the SNP did not get a majority.
It wont be blocked and Mike Rumbles knows it, the guy’s just trying to make a name for himself, although I would suggest this is the wrong way to do it by attracting the wrong kind of attention to himself
This is a serious time for serious people and this man’s behaving like a foolish Numpty, if this was a genuine thing one of the regular mouths in the oppostion would have come up with this so why are they staying out of it and leaving it to this guy
Because they know for every action there is a reaction and nobody with half a brain wants a bar of this, to quote somebody else “It’s stupidity on stilts”
For lovers of Scottish history we get a rare treat in the Express- an article comparing Nicola Sturgeon and Bonnie Prince Charlie. I have no words. Robert Peffers: avert thy eyes:
link to archive.is
One thing’s for sure: the stakes have rarely been higher for Scotland. Even so, many haven’t a clue what’s going on.
Robert Peffers,
What mechanism to the “sovereign” people of Scotland have to exercise their “sovereignty”?
If the SNP fail to get a vote on a referendum, or fail to win it in parliament, what do the “sovereign” people of Scotland do then?
In my view, the people of Scotland have near zero “sovereignty”.
If parliament is unable to deliver, there is absolutely nothing that the people will be able to do “within the law” as it currently stands.
And we barely have a majority on the independence side.
Our opponents are extremely rich and powerful.
As I had pointed out then, Nicola should have called a referendum immediately after the Brexit result when the Establishment was under total chaos and the EU’s attention was on Scotland.
As we saw today, they have now re-organised themselves and are plotting to put us back into the box by any means possible.
@Tam Jardine
That was a peach. LOL
I think all Unionist politicians realise that to block an indyref2 would be to instantly lose. The reaction of even supine Scots would be to get behind independence.
This is what I meant the other day by “calling their bluff”. If you have the support of a majority of the people behind you, anything is possible. If the narrowly-legalistic route of a Section 30 order or somesuch is blocked, a mechanism will be found behind which people can and will rally, and several such have already been identified on this thread. The harder the block, the more people will unite behind indy.
Which is why the Unionists won’t try a head-on block. Instead they will attempt to delay and obfuscate just as they have always done. Hence Rumbles’ little outing today. (A representative of a party for which membership of the EU was supposedly a core belief, now cruelly exposed by events as nothing more than a Unionist shill operation.) Hence also the repeated mantra “Scotland doesn’t want…”. It’s getting more obvious by the day, but it only has to provide enough popular drag to achieve its purpose. But quietly amassing in the background is a legion of chiels that winna ding, the emerging irrefutable facts of Brexit.
It remains to be seen whether most people will knuckle under and meekly accept it all, as an earlier poster justifiably feared, or instead finally go for broke. Good leadership from the FM on down is crucial.
Oh, and BTW, have you noticed the dog that isn’t barking? The one person who has gone very quiet after her humiliating U-turn: Buffalo Gal.
@ Thepnr / Tam Jardine
The bit about Conservative MPs barely able to hide their pro-EU sympathies was most entertaining.
Rock
You have been quiet for some time. Now you are back with your negative stuff. The UN Charter which supersedes all national laws of those signed up to it allows us and us alone to decide how we rule ourselves. Any “law ” the UK quotes to stop us deciding how in a democracy we govern ourself is bluff and only swallowed by fainthearts
A WEE Song for ROCK link to youtube.com
Tam
I had a look at the Tim Newark piece in the Express. I hope they didn’t pay him for the lazy knee jerk tropes he peddled. I can imagine him typing that in his sleep. Nothing but Pavlovian bells and whistles to make the Express reader salivate.
Scotland, Darien, worse than Greece, greedy subsidy junkies, better off being the gophers of the British Empire (does seem to admit we are no longer part of the UK – possibly a mistake as this is done in his sleep)….pause while Tim faps himself silly over the British Empire and a picture of Queen Victoria….SNPBaaaaaad, Brexit fantastic, Ruthie tank commander wonderful – she will save the day, Bring back the Unionist Party, I’m a Southern Highlander.
No, Tim you are an Essex Tory boy with strong UKIP leanings, a TPA blogger and Trump supporter. Having distant Scottish relatives and writing a book about the Highland regiments does not make you a Highlander.
Tam Jardine @ 23:56,
The author of that entertaining piece of pure fantasy, Tim Newark, is heavily involved (down in the Rev’s part of the world, as it happens) with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. ‘Nuff said.
For anyone in need of a broadsword. May I recommend Rob of castle keep on Skye. Unfortunately I cannot recommend a thatcher for after slate removal.
Robert J Sutherland @ 12.25
Where’s Ruthie? Don’t like it when she goes silent – it worries me – she’s up to no good!
FMQ’s should be blistering hot this week!
I see May’s constituents are up in arms and feel she has betrayed them re Heathrow; Tory colleagues upset too – how long till a vote of ‘No Confidence’? Would anyone else want to take on the poisoned chalice that is PM of the Lemming State?
@Tam Jardine
What a dreadful piece that Express story is. And yet that’s the way Scottish History used to be portrayed in England, taught in their schools, presented by the BBC. The BBC itself has actually moved on and has some very accurate articles and programs, but the legacy of those decades of ignorance and misrepresentation left behind many like Tim Newark who think they know all about Scotland, but know nothing.
From a Tory point of view, the only real problem with the EU is that their leaders didn’t go to Eton and Oxbridge.
Theresa May would not have fitted in with the EU crowd either, any more than Cameron did. It’s just the English ‘effortless superiority’ culture which prevents Brits from joining in, due, frankly, to a preference for lording it over others, especially Johnny Foreigner.
It’s nothing to do with competence, which The Establishment finds rather unnecessary, preferring instead bungling incompetence, which it finds endearing, for the most part. Consider the Cabinet, or David Mundell.
Scotland won’t just be welcome in the EU, it will feel right at home. And then there’s all that oil&gas, and electricity, whisky, water, delicious food, oh and the fish, and so much more. At home in Europe? – the hugging will never stop.
O/T and up late, Silly me tuned into Tonight’s Scotland 2016 , I really did approach this with an open mind prepared to give the show the benefit of the doubt, How wrong I was , every single item had an underlying slant with a real emphasis on promoting however tenuous a failing SNP government, after watching this junk promoted as current affairs, at least in not too distant past they had at least a semblance of objectivity , with this effort the pretence has been totally binned.
Good old BBC never knowingly undercut by even the most dubious news organisations, and this bunch criticise the likes of RT and North Korea they have a bloody cheek .
@Tam Jardine
Oh Jeez! 😀 LOL
That Newark fella has issues. You you could practically see the foam flying off the page.
Mind you, it’s pretty obvious where our neighbours pick up their QT knowledge of world history if they read guff like that. 😉
Missing all the news, not well… been sleeping!
Anyhoo! Here I am wide awake now.
Just caught Radio 5 on the Heathrow thing and blow me down the largest export item by a country mile everyday is Scottish salmon mostly to China.
It must be true for auntie said it
Funny old GERS world init!
Ken Macintosh’s reply pretty straight I’ll wait and see what develops. FMQs no opposition leader looking forward to the that I think.
Now where’s the porridge I’m hungry!
Oh. PS
UK Gov ‘faces £84bn Brexit-related black hole’
All going well then 🙂
link to archive.is
New bid for Holyrood reform launched by presiding officer
link to archive.is
Call me dave,
Hmm, just done the middle of the night porridge thing as well.
I heard about the salmon as well. So with increased direct flights from an Independent (and solvent) Scotland they might not need the runway at all!
Sunlit uplands!
link to bloomberg.com
Sounds like it’s not just the EU jobs that will be going,
‘Jobs may shift to Continental Europe to satisfy regional rules ensuring time-zone-friendly access to its market, but more may eventually shift to global capitals including New York.’
Cearc @ 4.05 & Call me Dave @ 3.06
What is this middle of the night porridge thing of which you speak?
Ruby says:
25 October, 2016 at 8:16 pm
‘But they suggest an early vote could be deeply damaging to Brexit negotiations as well as to the health of the economy.’
Does anyone understand that? How could an early IndyRef vote be deeply damaging to the Brexit negotiations?
Do you think it has anything to do with fishing rights?
..
————–
Yeah – concessions that will be offered to the EU to try and keep single market access.
Not so easy when there is a simultaneous indyref going on, and Scotland needs another last-minute vow.
And how about ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ brexit negotiations?
Keep single market access to encourage Scotland to stay, or go for a ‘hard’ brexit and make threats against an indy Scotland?
If this was to go to the courts then I would want to mount a legal challenge against the uk gov for forceably removing my eu citizenship.
It is now confirmed that Big Banks are the Puppet Masters running the UK and the US.
Tapes of May as Home Secretary attending a Q&A session run by Goldman Sachs is recorded, one month before the Brexit vote, and May confirms what she is now denying; a Leave vote would be a disaster for UK, companies would move to Europe, and the UK’s security and defence would be seriously damaged.
It is reported that she was not paid for the session, but Hillary Clinton was paid a six figure fee for attending a GS event in NY last year.
What goes through May’s head when she insults our FM, and the representatives of Ireland and Wales like she did on Monday?
Like Davidson, Dugdale, Mundell, and whoever is in charge of the Scottish LD Branch Office, she is pro Remain, yet is now acting as UKIP’s agent.
The Unionists are morally bankrupt.
How Mundell, Davidson, Dugdale, Findlay, Gray, Rennie, Carmichael, and Murray sleep o’ nights beats me.
What do they tell their children?
I am a Ukipper now?
@ Socrates and Liz
It’s a bit like lime mortar and cement mortar. A lime mortar has no cement in it. If you have a cement mortar, doesn’t matter how much lime you add to it, it remains a cement mortar. In contrast, if you have lime mortar, then add cement, then it is no longer a lime mortar but becomes a cement mortar.
Scottish sovereignty is power drawn up from Scotland’s people and implemented by our delegated representatives, that is the people whom we elect to the post. There is no Westminster ingredient to add. In strict terms, there is actually no Holyrood required either, at least, no part of Holyrood which prostrates itself before Westminster’s authority. Remember it was said before the Scottish Parliament building was built that the Scottish Parliament could sit in an open field.
The muddy question is whether Scottish MP’s and MSP’s properly elected to the UK parliament and the (forgive the expression) the UK parliament’s super committee at Holyrood, can properly represent true Scottish sovereignty since this is not technically what they were elected to represent. On the other hand, they have a mandate to represent us from the sovereign people, so you could argue that there are some aspects of Scottish sovereignty empowering them, but its all very messy and hostage to misinterpretation.
The moment you embrace Westminster, you embrace the contrived fudge which exists about the incompatible respective sovereignties of two countries. For Westminster to function, it has to mute Scottish sovereignty and assume that it works the same way as English sovereignty. And that is the problem. It cannae really do that.
English sovereignty didn’t have to modify itself to shoulder the robes of a UK parliament, but Scottish sovereignty had to suffer the indignity of deferring to a superior, which is the the very thing Scottish sovereignty cannot do. So Scotland has its own brand of constitutional fudge. This is where and why there is such widespread confusion. It is a constitutional dogs breakfast, because only a dogs breakfast can bamboozle the people and allow Westminster to function. To end the dogs breakfast and establish true clarity would leave Westminster hamstrung by the incontrovertible reality that English and Scottish sovereignty cannot be joined, only shared, and that is a reality which has been ignored since 1706 and subsequent Act of Union.
Establish the real essence of what is meant by sovereignty, and all the conjecture, disinformation, misappropriation of power, and 300 years of general confusion is all washed away, and what remains are two incompatible ingredients. A Scottish sovereignty, and an English sovereignty. Love it, hate it, bury your head in the sand and deny it, it is the only answer invested with obdurate truth.
Personally, I would rather the whole constitutional argument stopped playing games and cut to the chase.
That was a wee cracker in the Express – you do wonder at the intellect of those who write that guff and those who believe it.
Jack C, and where is the media in all that? Busily shovelling it under the carpet on behalf of their political pals.
And what will Scotland’s ‘journalists’ tell their children about their work during the Scottish referendum?
“Nicola Sturgeon will today say the Scottish Government will work constructively to build an all-Scotland coalition to protect the country’s place in the European Single Market.”
link to scottishgovernment.presscentre.com
ESM is perhaps a forelorn hope, however it has to pursued until WM reject it.
Thinking about this. It seems that this may actually be a non issue in that should a bill be presented in such a way that it avoids the disproved of the PO an passes then there is no recourse to the courts. Especially if at no point during its passage do those opponents actually voice complaints or concerns about any ammendments.
The obvious course of action would therefore be to follow the model of the EU negotiations in a far friendlier fashion.
While Holyrood may not unilaterally alter the constitution of the UK as a whole for obvious reasons we might assert that as the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty is a concept foreign to the law governing our land we will recall those elected by us to meet in joint session with a view to formally ending our part in the UK via negotiation with Westminster. Further to which we expect Westminster to recognise said withdrawal of consent and ammend it’s own constitution as it is did when it renamed itself Great Britain and Northern Ireland and likewise change its boundaries.
o/t Tories on Radio shortbread regarding student support.
Some one should remind them of the billions they have cut from the Scottish budget over the last six years and more to come under George Osborne’s Fiscal Charter and “It’s very clear” Ian Murray backed George Osborne’s Fiscal (austerity) Charter when interviewed on TV by Gordon Brewer at Labour’s national Conference in 2015.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Breeks @ 7.18
While I agree with most of what you say.
I do interpret some of the Soverenty issue,espically the history of it a wee bit differently.
The 1707 agreement to us today looks like it was a stupid way to try and organise anything.
So obviously a power grab why would Scotland sign up for it.
While the rights and wrongs of it have always been contested the arguments were limited to the pro’s and con’s for the Nobel’s
Clearly most of them for whatever reason felt their interests were best served as part of this system.
Since they held the Soverenty the decision was indeed theirs to make.
It’s the evolution of democracy and with it the distribution of the Soverenty to the population that makes the current system unworkable.
But the arguments remain the same.
When we say that democracy gives everyone an equal vote,and then they say ofcourse it does and that’s exactly what you have.
They are of course correct.
But as you said the two Soverenty’s can’t be merged so when they need and want different things,and there is such a gap in the population numbers democracy can’t work as it should.
It then becomes impossible to govern both Soverenty’s from the one institution.
I like you think there’s only one answer to this and do struggle to understand why it’s taking so long for a majority to get there
.
Every one seems to think government needs sorting.
No one as far as I can see on these Islands really believes we are one nation,and I think never have.
Of course the biggest country will resist this change.
Why wouldn’t they.
They will be loosing something real.
What Scotland will be loosing is a concept of stuff that the thought of can be nice.
And I don’t know about you but how the market’s and banks think feel or react is their problem.
I am sick to the back teeth of being told my government has to be careful not to upset them.
I MHO I have always thought that’s the biggest con of all it should be the other way round.
So aye Breeks let’s cut to the chase and get on wi it.
Links
link to indyref2.scot
London, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland deserve a seat at the Brexit negotiating table
link to archive.is
link to foodmanufacture.co.uk?
link to michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com
Noonan offers Ireland as new home for European Banking Authority after Brexit
link to archive.is
link to thecanary.co
link to politics.co.uk
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
I would not be too hard on Mike Rumbles, he is asking the question that had to be asked. In a way we are looking at the “bicycle accident and ignoring the fall of civilisation” to coin an apt phrase.
The events we are witnessing are the tide of history, mr Rumbles is a bit player, he has played his card and the game continues on its way, every one knows how things will end, the question is how and when.
A house devided cannot stand.
The Scottish independence movement is continuing to gather pace, too slow for some too fast for others. It is now no longer a United union, the devision seen in the independence referendum has been mirrored during Brexit, whereas we are INCLUSIVE, Westminster is divisive, looking for people to hate, immigrants, are in the firing line today, but who will it be tomorrow, my guess is the enemy within, they will need someone to blame! I could write the headlines today, hard Brexit because Sturgeon betrayed the UK. And when that happens the lunatics will really be out the asylum.
Dangerous times indeed.
IMO nothing will happen to the IndyRef Bill until it is clear we have a binary choice between UKArmageddon and iScotland.
Unionists posturing now, when everything is literally up in the air, is quite different to saying down the line, “we choose and will campaign for Armageddon!”
link to ecowatch.com
Unable to archive
link to independent.ie
link to commonspace.scot
Orri @ 8.15
I think although I can’t be 100% sure the main stumbling block to doing it that way.
Is that it’s not Westminster that has the authority to deal with us to strike down the Treaty,in that way but rather the Parliament of England.
Trouble is that it doesn’t exist.
Our parliament was only suspended so we are good to go.
Talk about Karma I think that the agreement to only suspend Holyrood was a placebo that has come back to bite Westminster.
The case for ‘sub state status’ for Scotland within the EU, and more …
link to iainmacwhirter.wordpress.com
Andrew McLean @ 8.27
Aye and ye can add “you are poor and suffering because Scotland, with help from it’s big pal Europe took it all off ye “,to those headlines, and they will believe it.
We might need a wall after all.
Nana:
Thanks for the links,your a gem.
Peace Always
The thing about treaties are they can be withdrawn from. The thing about Acts is they can be repealed. However the historical fact is that the 1801 union with Ireland was effectively modified to exclude the RoI. The old parliament of Ireland is still part of a Westminster that no longer holds sway over the whole island.
It matters not whether the original Parliament of England exists. It’s successor does and regardless of whether they see Holyrood and our MPs, and possibly our councils, are the successor of the Parliament of Scotland or not or wish to present a claim that a maximum of 3 out of 59 MPs constitute the Parliament of Scotland the reality is that the constitutional crisis would be upon them. Either they acknowledge that the people of Scotland have exercised their right to self determination and withdrawn consent to be governed by them and recognise that we still see our MPs as out representatives or they face a rather interesting time in any international dealings such as with the UN, EU, Argentina and the Spain. The latter due to their insistence that the will of the local populations be respected.
sinky says at 8:22 am
Call Kaye starting with a real SNP Baaad fest over Student funding.
Jack Collatin says at 5:40 am
“Tapes of May as Home Secretary attending a Q&A session run by Goldman Sachs is recorded, one month before the Brexit vote, and May confirms what she is now denying; a Leave vote would be a disaster for UK”.
Have you got a link Jack?
I’ve a few folk (soft NOs) needing to see/read this.
Tam Jardine says at 11:56 pm
link to archive.is
If that’s how we Scots are viewed South of the border then I propose IndyRef2 should be a Union wide vote.
The Brexiteers, Kippers et al would cut us loose in an instant 🙂
Treaties, Bills, Acts etc aside, the only way WM can continue to “govern” Scotland (and decide whether we are in the EU or not) depends on the will of the people of Scotland.
Is the UK constitution a mess? Of course it is. Is there a truck load of constitutional bluff involved? Yep, for sure. However, the bluffs can only be called when the people are ready.
At the moment, half the population of Scotland is ready to go for independence and will fight tooth and nail to remain in Europe. But the other half are still, as yet, willing (if not happy) to be ruled over by another country, even if that means they are dragged out of the EU against their democratic wishes. How long this unstable situation will last, but until the will of the people becomes clear (one way or another), we are in constitutional limbo.
I see the presiding officer has been up to something:
link to parliamentaryreform.scot
A new ‘commission’ to revue how the Scottish Parliament works (apparently it needs an ‘MOT’), headed by John McCormick (ex-BBC).
Shades of Calman…
Yes Liz, but Scotland’s sovereignty was not within the power or authority of the Scottish nobles to abdicate or delegate.
Sovereignty is like the heraldic Scottish unicorn. It is free, unchained without any master, or it ceases to exist. Whatever the Scottish nobles surrendered to Westminster, sovereignty was not it.
Scottish sovereignty cannot be removed from the Scottish people; not by God, not by monarch, not by Lord, and not even by the sovereign will of the people who are sovereign. It is ours in perpetuity, it is a legacy from our ancestors which belongs to those who have yet to be born. We are nothing more than temporary custodians.
For as long as but 100 of us remain alive… so does Scotland’s true sovereignty.
@Jockanese Wind Talker
link to news.forexlive.com
From the guardian
link to archive.is
For some time now, politics has been ‘privatised’ ie. run like a business. And like nearly all businesses, politics in the UK is not about democracy. Surprise, surprise, when The Union has never been democratic in any real sense. The Union is strictly neo-liberal, whereby the rich and powerful take to themselves the wealth of a nation – in this case, of Scotland. Facilitated of course by very carefully planned propaganda and manipulation, and always dressed up as democracy.
Politics is now an industry, run by the rich, offering a lucrative career path to the personally ambitious. Politicians listen more to big business than to constituents or voters in general. But then, big business is able to offer politicians more money than the voters can. A lot more. Just ask Brown and Darling, to name but two. And soon to be coming back for more as IndyRef2 approaches.
And all the while, power drains from the people. What price the sovereignty of the Scottish people without the power of the ballot box, and when, under the Union, Scotland’s ballot box is then mixed with ten boxes from England. Hence we see Theresa May treat Nicola and the other devolved Leaders like orphaned children.
Right now, Nicola has no choice but to exhaust Scotland’s options within the UK, while strengthening our relationship withe the EU countries. But when these options have been fully explored and finding no security for Scotland’s economic future, then Independence is imperative. This is already clear. Not so clear is precisely how, except to say, whatever it takes.
Everything comes to those who wait. So lets hold on and stick together until the time is right.
orri says:
Good point. WM’s arguments for holding on to the Malvinas/Falklands and Gibraltar are based on “the will of the local populations”.
Should is become clear, one way or another, that the will of the Scots is for an iScotland, then rUK should respect that or risk having their cases for the two above challenged.
A YES win in an IndyRef2 should be clear. That is why Unionists are clutching at straws to prevent that possibility.
Other means? As long as they are democratic, would it stand internationally? If another democratic route had been taken because WM that prevented a straightforward referendum, possibly. Independence on the world stage comes when other nations recognise you as an independent state.
Preventing a straight referendum would be a massive gamble for WM and likely to precipitate a backlash, both in Scotland and internationally (especially and significantly in the EU).
@galamcennalath
I agree, the ESM route does need to be explored and in all probability will prove a fruitless exercise over the period.
Two things are required to trigger an early indyref2 – 1. That article 50 is triggered and Scotland is officially under threat of being taken out of the EU against the electorate’s will. 2. That May rules out any Scottish sub state status to form a deal on its own.
TBF only the one could do it, but both would put the tin lid on it.
Both are direct violations of the indyref 2014 result and both affect Scotland’s constitutional status and economic stability. All the pledges and assurances broken by bt/HMG up to this point are chickenfeed by comparison and they were making a pretty good, though longer route, case on their own.
The months between now and March are going to feel like an eternity, but that is the timescale. The SG could never really put together a snap indyref on the evidence of the past two years and stagnant polls. It was IMO, always going to require the imminent threat of real and lasting constitutional and economic carnage to make a sound legal and internationally acceptable case for dissolution of the treaty of union.
HMGs case for retaining the union had to be taken apart publicly and with real, measurable consequences Scotland’s population. The threat of the removal of their inalienable and internationally recognized human rights, economic hardship, and lastly but more importantly, the trampling of our democracy and sovereign will.
There is no avoiding short term suffering and damage to the economy. Hammond’s ‘reset’ should prove a wake up call to many. The runaway rise in hate crime and draconian immigration policy of central government will focus others on our rights. We simply help out where we can, if we can.
In the meantime, its going to be a long and nervous winter.
Hootsman taking SNP to task for UK austerity measures and £15 billion deficit
link to archive.is
Nana says at 9:35 am
Thanks Nana. 🙂
Just like her views on Heathrow, May has been shown again to be two faced.
Will put these links to good use.
Now to plant the seed re: her statement that “Brexit will work for the whole of the UK”
Holyrood needs an overhaul to get rid of the 3rd rate rejects. Westminster Unionists are just a mess. Could the Tories muck up even more. All they are interested is in their Parties and self preservation.
Why are there not flights from Scotland to China from Scotland with salmon, whisky and tourists? Direct.
Lol, it looks like IndyRef2 might not be needed, apparently on twitter there is a rising consensus to #throwscotlandout.
What happened to the, ‘you have no mandate’. That didn’t last long.
Luigi says:
Indeed. The limbo is most frustrating!
Several things will happen in the coming months.
– WM’s arrogant attitudes towards Scotland with intensify
– The extreme nature of the Tories will be laid bare
– Brexit repercussions will become more apparent
– The Union will become increasingly less attractive to more people
– YES2 will begin campaigning
Conversely, what is likely to happen to strengthen the case for the Union?
Jockanese Wind Talker says
Link to May saying brexit bad.
link to archive.is
Clink on link below videobox on page
@sinky 9.42
So Westminster’s mismanagement of the eccononomy is all the fault of the SNP.
They forgot, SNP Baaaaaddddd!
Undeadshaun says at 9:54 am
Thanks Undeadshaun,
Nana just pipped you to the post but I’d rather get it twice than not at all.
When James VI went to London he got ahead of himself and tried to exert Royal Prerogative where none had previously existed to be told in no uncertain terms that he had no right to do so without parliament passing law to make it legal. As such the ruse to bypass Westminster and activate A50 should fail. However note that James was unfamiliar enough with how things went that it’s not really something that existed in Scotland.
Now there’s a great play made on Unchaining the Unicorn. That’s based on a misunderstanding of what the depiction is meant to be. The Unicorn is the royal beast and whilst it symbolises our sovereignty it does so by representing our monarch. That’s why it’s collar is a crown and chain is gold. What is not shown is who is on the other end of that chain. Rather than Unchain the Unicorn what we really need to do is get a good grip on that chain an give it a firm but respectful tug. Simply put have Sturgeon respectfully remind the Queen of her own coronation oath to reign, not rule, according to the individual laws of her various realms.
The Unionist ‘journalists’ and their ‘deficit’ comments. The Deficit could be wiped out overnight. Nearly £1Billion for Trident. Nearly £4Billion on loan repayments Scotland doesn’t borrow or spend. £3Billion on tax evasion. Whisky companies pay no tax. £4Billion lost on Oil & Gas sector. Taxed at 60% to 80% when the price had fallen 75%. Losing thousands of jobs. The tax on Oil/Gas is now 40%. Untaxed fracked Gas from the US is now being imported,
NI (2million ) has twice the ‘deficit’ pro rata. Raises £28Billion in taxes gets (50%) £14Billion = £42Billion. Norwegian levels of funding. A Law unto itself.
Scotland raises £54Billion. Nearly £4Billion goes to pay the rest of the UK Debt. The rest of the UK raises £42Billion (pro rata). Borrows and spends £90Billion more.
Scotland Independent would be one of the wealthiest, fairer, more equal countries in Europe.
MajorBloodnok..9:31..
Re. John McCormick appointed by the Presiding Officer.
Interesting appointment indeed. Ex BBC Scotland Controller who also oversaw the 2014 independence referendum as a member of the Electoral Commission, I believe.
He would not, I would say, be my first choice.
This ones quite funny,
link to twitter.com
The tape of Theresa May speaking at the Goldman Sachs meeting in May 2016, shows that May was a remainer. Her tone of voice on the tape offers no evidence to the contrary.
The fact remains that Brexit was a shock vote which revealed a shift to the right by a very large number of voters. The Tories had to follow that shift or else risk being seriously weakened politically. But that in turn demanded the adoption of UKIP policies – and attitudes.
I remain persuaded that Theresa May is not naturally inclined to do this, hence, the absence of the energy or force of will to actually get on and do it, resulting in no actual Brexit policies on paper.
Since becoming PM, Theresa May is required to cut off the UK’s right leg, (the EU), even though there’s nothing wrong with it, apart from some coloured spots on the skin.
This has some way to go alright – but what a mess.
The less respectful media here in Ireland labelling ‘Teresa and the Three Brexiteers’ on the mental giants leading Britain.
Leader of the Irish Stock Exchange berating the Irish Government publicly for not being ruthless enough enough in grabbing Euro exchange, major stock listings and more bond trades from London
A senior member of the most pro-British party in the Republic suggesting that Ireland should pay the £300 million bill pa bill for the north to remain in EU. If Fine Gael party are thinking this way and nobody thought it was daft, it means that a sea change is afoot.
The most unionist forelock tugging of all Irish southern politicians John Briton was on radio this morning pointing out that using Irish boarders to check for immigrants to the common travel area with the UK was a done deal, and there would be no passport checks on the boarder. (Everyone here knows any other solution is unimplementable as no one would cooperate with UK officials demanding ID on the boarder)
According to Bruton, this leaves the issue of cross broader trade, and golden opportunities for organised smuggling
Follow this carefully – its very relevant to Scotland
Also, if you have not helped out on this one yet, the train is leaving without you link to gofundme.com
Breeks @ 9.33
I probably didn’t put what I meant clearly.
I totally agree Soverenty is ours both then and now.
When I say given to our representatives in Westminster,I only mean given to look after and to exercise.
Not that we have or could give it away.
And only that we by agreement elect people to do this currently but, in the past that agreement was not given by direct election it was given/implied in a sense by going along with and not questioning/revolting against the Nobles who claimed it.
Although that’s probably only because we didn’t know we could.
Here we go again. Denial of electoral reality and that under the PR system we have taking all or most of the constituencies will make getting List seats very hard to impossible.
Those of us who saw this ineluctable fact and offered a way to maintain a Yes majority in the parliament by taking advantage of the very few number of votes it would take to elect Greens on the list compared to SNP people with divisors of 10+1 or worse were vindicated. Four more Greens were elected to the Parliament, there is a Yes majority as a result. Which surprises nobody except those so deep in SNP acolyte territory they see anybody not as deep as themselves as lesser or suspect in their devotion to Independence.
Yet here we have someone who lives secluded in Bath telling us that know more about Scottish political realities than those of us at the coalface do.
I’m disappointed in you Rev Stu. Your desire to be seen as some sort of political Nostradamus has blinded you to things you see as inconvenient to your self narrative.
As for this stushie in a teacup, due process dear boy, due process will be done and be seen to be done and then the Good Ship Indy will sail on with a democratic majority mandate. Denial of due process is the guaranteed way to ensure this ends up in the courts. That you cannot see that means I doubt your political nous even more.
Take off your SNP tinted spectacles and wake up and smell the coffee. All is good.
@JamesCaithness says: 25 October, 2016 at 7:38 pm:
“Robert Peffers writes quite a bit on the history of the union etc. I read his posts.
So I wonder, would the UK Governemnt really want to test anything in a court?”
Can you imagine how it would look to the Europe and the World at large if a United Kingdom Supreme Court were faced with deciding the answers to the two questions:-
“As the United Kingdom is being run as the parliament of England, that unequally devolves English powers to the three other United Kingdom countries, is it called The United Kingdom and thus is legally a two Kingdom union of Kingdoms”?
Why, as there are only two equally sovereign kingdoms as Treaty of Union signatories, is Scotland treated as just another Kingdom of England country?
Another link to link to gofundme.com
Less than £1,000 to go. I can;t wait to see pro-indy billboards start to appear, I don’t believe there can ever be enough of them.
I thought some Wings money was also previously earmarked for this?
Orri @ 10am
Interesting Orri, but doesn’t the Unicorn sinister and Lion dexter on the Royal coat of arms reflect Union of the Crowns, but the Scottish crown is defined by a sovereignty which cannot be held (or chained) without the will of the animal (the people) for it to be held? That is where the mythical nature of the unicorn comes in… if you think you hold on to Scottish sovereignty, it is an illusion, because you hold something that cannot physically be held. The chains I understood were not literal, and not even that important, but merely symbolic of holding or binding in heraldic iconography. They are represented to show the negative, that is, simply show the mythical animal is not held in a language of pictures not words.
Undeadshaun says:
26 October, 2016 at 9:54 am
Jockanese Wind Talker says
Link to May saying brexit bad.
link to archive.is
Clink on link below videobox on page
Ruby replies
It’s very difficult to take these politicians who campaigned for ‘remain’ seriously when they say ‘Brexit is Brilliant!’
I think the old nursery rhyme rather exposes the South British view of their Union, as symbolised by the national animals.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
And when he had beat him out,
He beat him in again;
He beat him three times over,
His power to maintain.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
and drummed them out of town.
I think the SNP missed a trick by not calling a swift referendum after the EU vote. That said we can’t change the past and that was a tactical error, that can’t be changed.
We also can’t see into the future, so when the chaos really bites next year. Things may change and the swing to yes might be well over 50%. Personally I think we are already over 50% in the real-politic of an actual referendum.
What needs to happen now after 4 months of probing the possibilities of Scotland remaining in the EU. Is that Sturgeon now has to lay her cards on the table and agree the only option is independence. If this period of reflection goes on too long people see this as dithering and it gets frustrating. Everyone agrees there is no other option than to call a referendum to decide what Scotland wants, the EU or the UK.
Lets hope that someone gets this in motion as soon as possible.
Personally I am bored rigid with the wait and see approach.
I’m disappointed in you Rev Stu. Your desire to be seen as some sort of political Nostradamus has blinded you to things you see as inconvenient to your self narrative.”
I’ve never really got guys like you Muscleguy. The whole of the UKOK teamGB tory BBC led press freak show pisses daily all over Scotland and Scottish democracy but if one Scottish politics blogger, in Bath… and you can see where I’m going Muscleguy.
Check out my old paper, the Graun today, nothing going on in the Scotland region of greater England whatsoever. But woe betide anything democratic happening in Scotland and rancid the Graun liggers will pound it all to a pulp.
link to archive.is
The Times also has an article about Theresa May claiming quitting Europe would be bad for business.
Goldman Sachs that’s where Barrosso works now! I wonder if he attended the dinner?
‘A top EU official has questioned the European Commission’s ethical standards over the new role of ex-Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Mr Barroso headed the EU executive from 2004-2014 and will help the bank deal with the impact of Brexit. It is a powerful player in the City of London.’
Big Jock says:
I share your frustration.
It reminds me of the old cartoon of vultures sitting on a telegraph pole, one says, “patience my ass, I’m going to kill something”.
Too early, especially just after the Brexit vote, and WM would just lie itself to IndyRef victory, again.
They would swear Brexit would be soft and cuddly, and oodles of new powers given to a compliant Scotland. The same NOs would feel safe, again, in voting to stay in Union. Then we would then be subjected to the same horrors they had always planned.
We need to have a crystal clear binary choice – UKHardHell or iScotland – with everything else dismissed before the campaign begins.
Then there is no chance of WM slipping in more devolved powers, special EU relationships, promises of federalism, or other half way houses.
And the way to do that is for the SG to ask for that now and have WM take them off the table.
IMO we want IndyRef2 to be forced by WM intransigence.
Heedtracker @ 11.03
Glad you said something,I thought it was just me.
I really don’t see his point at all.
Nope, the unicorn was the heraldic beast of a 14 century king of Scotland. The crown and chain are a pointed heraldic joke and reminder of the limits of the King of Scots. It’s a royal crest that shows a chained majesty. We’re being diverted from the truth with all the bollox about mythology. In the context that it’s shown it concerns our monarch and it tells a simple story. The Unicorn represents our sovereignty because out king does and we hold the chain that binds them to us.
Muscleguy says:
Yet here we have someone who lives secluded in Bath telling us that know more about Scottish political realities than those of us at the coalface do.
Ruby replies
That depends what you mean by ‘at the coalface’ Someone living in Bath has exactly the same access to information as someone living in Central Edinburgh. Central Edinburgh where the Green MSP Alison Johnstone stood and where Ruth Davidson won the seat!
I can say quite categorically that even although I live in Central Edinburgh Stu knows 100 times more about ‘Scottish political realities’ than I do.
Where would I go to get this extra information that is denied someone who lives in Bath?
Big Jock @ 10.57
Believe me this waiting around for events to play out is getting on everybody’s last nerve.
But I don’t think it would have been a good idea to call Indy Ref 2 immediately after the Brexit vote.
It’s obvious to us how Brexit will go,but not to most Scot’s who don’t follow politics.
As well as everything galamcennalath said the media would I think have went to town on the “any excuse for a referendum” narrative more than they did.
Also that would have been an ideal distraction from all the craziness that went on in Westminster,and we needed everyone to see that for themselves.
So no I don’t think we missed an opportunity at all.
Just a thought..
The last thing anyone wishing or hoping that Westminster might possibly guide the course of Brexit is allow May to wind them up so much that the foolishly attempt to oust her in a vote of no confidence. All that would do is allow her a month or more where she and the ministers she appoints continued as the interim government during the election period with no Parliament sitting to stop her. As she’s already shown willing to assume dictatorial powers there every possibility she’d be lunatic enough to declare a complete withdrawal from the EU with immediate effect. Unless she can be removed from office the sad fact is she can’t be trusted to behave in a rational manner.
What I currently need info on is this ‘World Trade Organisation’
What exactly do they do?
Big Jock says:
26 October, 2016 at 10:57 am
I think the SNP missed a trick by not calling a swift referendum after the EU vote. That said we can’t change the past and that was a tactical error, that can’t be changed.
Can’t agree with that Jock, Nicola has to be seen to be exploring all options to respect the No voters and the Leavers before pushing the referendum button even though she probably knows it’s a waste of time but timing is crucial but I think she’s playing her hand the only way she can the best way she can
At Stirling Brig Wallace & De Moray waited and allowed the English army to advance to just to the right point before launching their attack and when they did the result was devastating and decisive
Indyref2 will be our Stirling Brig we need to be patient and strike at the right moment, we have to get this right failure is not an option
Graeme
Graeme
Graeme says
Gramme until article 50 is triggered the uk gov can backtrack on brexi.
After article 50 shit hits the fan, with banks leaving, Nissan leaving, pound on parity or lower with euro and dollar and independence is then easier to win.
Timing is essential to win this and Nicola is getting it right by exhuasting all other options which May will reject, before calling indyref2.
That way soft not and don’t knows will see an independent Scotland in Europe, is the only way out of the quagmire that Brexit will leave.
Liz g says:
26 October, 2016 at 11:18 am
Heedtracker @ 11.03
Muscleguy’s interesting in that you can see how infighting kicks off in politics, even on a anonymous comment section, in practically the only widely read pro YES blog, in the whole of the teamGB UKOK zone.
Its probably just a bloke thing, which is just one more reason for women to become directly involved. If Scottish democracy and commenting online teaches us anything, its that you have to leave your ego out of it, as much as you possibly can.
Ruby
A good description of what the WTO does can be found in the book, Trade is War, by Yash Tandon. He is a Indian Ugandan who worked with the WTO since 1996 representing Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania at Ministerial level. Between 2005 and 2009 he attended as Executive Director for South Side (Africa).
He now considers it a war machine, doing to Africa and South America what TTIP and Ceta would do to Europe and has done to Australia, NZ.
link to archive.is
Brexit is blamed for £84bn black hole in public finances
Similar article in The Herald
‘Chancellor told he faces Pounds 84bn black hole in statement plan’
Increased taxes, higher food prices at Tesco,deterioration in public services, companies ‘hands poised quivering over the relocate button’ fall in £sterling etc etc
Is there any good news about Brexit?
link to archive.is
More bad news about Brexit
‘Thousands of Vauxhall jobs at risk from Brexit
Carmaker warns of plant closures after $400m hit’
link to archive.is
Farmers to grow GM crops under new agriculture rules
Surely there must be something good about Brexit?
Heedtracker @ 11.50
I see what you are saying.(wee winky smiley face thing)
Ruby
But is the Jam doing ok???
Re the timing of the next Indy ref;
I think Nicola has to wait for the last possible moment, till it becomes a stark binary choice, do we stay with the lemmings of ‘Sarf Britain’ or do we choose freedom and a brighter future? It’s not without risk as we need to complete before UK leaves the EU.
I’m reminded of James, Marquis of Montrose:
” He either fears his fates too much or his desserts are small, that dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all”
Project ‘lies and flattery’ is well underway – headline in The Hootsman ” Scotland will benefit hugely from new Heathrow runway” and also reading that it will benefit Prestwick… we’ll see!
Aye, another Brexit ‘benefit’. We all get to eat GM food. yum. 🙁
link to caltonjock.com
SNP rep James Dornan on Radio Scotland at 12.14 failed to point out that the First Minister only knows the first question posed by opposition and the follow ups are completely unknown ….thats why she has a large book of answers to possible questions.
New Heathrow runway.
Do they really still believe it will be necessary?
A probable future sees it no longer being the hub for Scotland and NI, and fewer business flights with a significantly contracted rUK economy.
O/T
I have just received the new edition of Private Eye.
Their SNPBad correspondent is at it again with a story against Michelle Thomson.
Given the allegations therein and the fact that the police have stated that she is not under investigation she may wish to consult her solicitors.
Brian Powell says:
26 October, 2016 at 11:51 am
He now considers it a war machine, doing to Africa and South America what TTIP and Ceta would do to Europe and has done to Australia, NZ.
Ruby replies
Cheers Brian.
That sounds like something the UK Gov would want to be part of.
Liz g says:
26 October, 2016 at 12:04 pm
Heedtracker @ 11.50
By “more women” its probably best to add more intelligent women, in Scottish politics. As in, look at how Ruth Davidson laid into Brexit and Bojo types, in her nation wide broadcast Remain campaigning, “you deserve the truth!”
link to youtube.com
Fast forward a few UKOK weeks and its majorly wrong tory turn but it has all been airbrushed away by our tory BBC led media chums.
But did the great Ruthie babes just assume that there was no way the UK would Leave, so she went mental at the Leavers and her own crew, is she just another reckless tory tub thumper, a bit thick, with a huge ego?
Or look at Kezia and her full on monstering of Labour leader Corbyn. None of Kezia’s Owen Smith campaign made any sense at all, even if you bothered to look at his membership polling. It certainly ended Ian Murray’s front bench career for good. But once again, another catastrophic yoon mess is quickly swept away by Pacific Quay red tories in particular. Its not by chance.
It’s like a movie, she used to be the most “Dangerous woman” in the UK, now she’s the most “Dangerous woman” in Europe
David Cameron “Offered” the people of the UK a referendum
Nicola Sturgeon “Threatens” a referendum
David Cameron “stood down” “Stepped back” for the sake of the country
Nicola Sturgeon will be forced to resign in “Disgrace” “Ignominy”
I particularly love this firm favourite
“Britains Nuclear Deterrent” except Putin can sail right up the Clyde nobody notices until a local rambler out with his dog spots a foreign looking Sub and phones the Polis, they send a car up to look and then decide “Aye yer right Tam it’s defo no one of ours” phone the MOD by which time the Sub is sailing away
Tams dug is about as much use of a deterrent as the MOD one
So what’s it for? That’s an easy one, it’s to retaliate with just before Scotland is oblterated for housing it in exactly the same way as the UK described N Koreas possession of the same weapon, it makes you a target
They should just call it Scotlands nuclear poll tax coz if we get nuked first then the UK did the right thing and it’s the central belt of Scotland thank God and not many Grouse moors threatened
Everybody else’s got “Weapons of Mass Destruction”
If you say anything remotely angry in return you’re considered a
Rabid Nationalist Lunatic blood and soil Nazi English hating subsidy junky tenement dwelling half educated thicko probably on benefits….So we’d best not say anything unpleasant about our captors, eh masters, eh overlords
Benefactors, yeah Benefactors that was the word I was searching for
I think that the yoons fear a referendum, as they know they will lose. When Britexit is announced and the pound plummets to €60 cents per pound, and manufacturing industry announces it is leaving the UK. The UK will be desperate not to piss off the EU any further and will have to agree to anything that Scotland wants. They are committing national and economic suicide, and Scotland wants no part of it.
Liz g says:
26 October, 2016 at 12:08 pm
Ruby
But is the Jam doing ok???
Ruby replies
I think it’ll be OK provided there is a good crop of British oranges this year and crops of sugar beet dont fail!
galamcennalath says:
26 October, 2016 at 12:19 pm
New Heathrow runway.
Do they really still believe it will be necessary?
Yes! Schiphol has 6 runways. All US airports have at least 3 runways, side by side. Schiphol;s also a beautiful example of architecture. Architecture that has been completely excluded from all UKOK airports. Its all about cost and profit in teamGB but across the world, UK airports are the ugliest dumps imaginable, often totally unplanned. With Aberdeen airport coming near the top of the WTF are they doing league.
Ruby says at 11:52 am
“Is there any good news about Brexit?”
Aye, Ruby there is.
It makes Independence for Scotland a lot more likely now than we’d have though it would have been in 2016 on the 19th Sept 2014.
yesindyref2
Some good replies from you on that nonsense in the express. I will dip back in later on and have some fun perhaps- the ignorance on there is crazy. Lots of people congregating round anti Scottish articles insisting they don’t care what happens to Scotland. Some borderline death wishes against the FM too.
The amazing thing for me is that my goal and the goal of most of the posters is the same- independence for our respective countries but they cannot see this.
Heathrow is a mistake.
It will never have the 4 to 6 runways needed to expand as a world level hub airport.
The cost of the 3rd runway is £17bn plus, enough for a whole lot of airport – if its not built inside the M25, if its not built in the overpriced south east of England.
But this is the Union and the idea that a large new 4-to-6 runway airport built closer to Manchester and connected via fast rail to more than one city is a non-starter. Because all questions and all answers begin and end with London.
Heedtracker
Having just been through Schipol and impressed by the size of it, I compared it to Heathrow on Googlemaps.
It had an area of approx 25 sq km compared to Heathrow’s approx 6 sq km. And that was not including the new stand alone runway which is someway removed from the main complex.
Also noticed for the first time that both Heathrow’s runwways are parallel, which doesn’t seem to make sense re crosswind avoidance.
However I suppose airliners are designed to cope with crosswinds and can land in any direction. It would would also make scheduling and approach packing a lot easier.
Tam Jardine says:
The problem the South British have is with the concept of “respective countries”.
For them England is much more entitled to be considered a country that Scotland. It is after all, synonymous with Britain / UK / GB In their oft confused minds.
Wonder what they will call England and Wales once the constitutional reconfiguration has happened?
If I was Prime Minister of the UK, and I found myself in Mays’ position there are actions I would be forced to take given that I knew my Party and indeed myself would face the wrath of the electorate in future if I failed. The British public, but more importantly the English public ( The majority vote) have spoken .
My first step would be to consolidate the finances of the United Kingdom, as we have already witnessed the pound on the slide and the threat of increased prices as well as a reduction of potential income with banks and companies threatening to relocate to European brass plates.
A combined United Kingdom balance sheet may provide a chance of reprieve. However,without Scottish financial income and revenues on that balance sheet, then an already imperiled English economy with a debt of £1.7 trillion and a current deficit of around £80 billion would most certainly fail. This is especially the case if other regions look for self governance.
So ,my first target is to keep the UK together at all costs in order to survive politically and financially. That means I have to go to any lengths to stop Scotland being free.
No matter what it takes or how hard the decision ,if England is to survive then Scotlands aspirations must be quelled.
That is the game we are in at this stage, and there are those in Scotland who will assist in this endeavour. We have become essential for English survival, but in a more roundabout way than we realise.
Equal Partners..we should start acting like an equal partner. Every time they push against us..we must push back.
Also, triggering indy ref 2, immediately aftet Brexit, would have brought the house (we share) down.
@Bob Mack
Yes, if had May’s job I too would consider the UK Union more important than the European Union.
However, May has May’s job and over the last umpteen years the Tories have shown astonishingly poor judgement. We are where we are because of that.
From their perspective, 2014 should have been followed up to secure the Union. Brexit shouldn’t be happening. And a dozen other mistakes.
From and iScotland perspective I just hope they don’t get their act together!
Chic McGregor says:
26 October, 2016 at 1:06 pm
Heedtracker
Having just been through Schipol and impressed by the size of it, I compared it to Heathrow on Googlemaps.
Long term, airports like Schiphol have been developed with extraordinary(for the UK) planning. Schiphol’s been a glory of architecture and infrastructure planning for decades now. Its not just beautiful, its dead easy to get to, rail and road, from almost anywhere in Holland.
Planning and failure to plan is a teamGB fact of life, as in Heathrow 3. Crash Gordon bottled the decision over a decade ago, as usual, Crash the Bottler. Heathrow is a hotch-potch of urban and commercial planning and always will be.
Even Dutch trains are double decker straight under Schiphol, then all across Europe.
Also, the idea of building a Heathrow near Manchester fails, if only because one of the airlines biggest markets in the world is one of the world’s richest city’s and regions, is London and the south east of England land.
And finally, 30 years ago, oil capital of European Aberdeen’s great planners built their ghastly Aberdeen airport terminal on the other side of their new runway from the main and only railway and station at Dyce. Hellish bus service, totally outdated Victorian roads but it made taxi drivers wealthy. Or just another crazy failure of planning that only seems to have blighted Scotland for decades.
O/T
link to eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk
link to global.handelsblatt.com
link to politicshome.com
SNP branch calls for devolution to protect Shetland fishing industry
link to archive.is
Fuck respecting the constitutional niceties and legalese bollocks of an institutionally corrupt system, I want my human rights respected!
link to un.org
@Galamcennalath.
Yes I agree and that is my concern. I believe that poor judgement may also apply as to how to keep Scotland within the United Kingdom.
I believe nothing is off the table in that regard given the implications for England should they fail.
We must jump free at just the right time.
(although any time sounds good)
We cannot leave too quick.
(although we cannot leave soon enough)
We need dry land within reach.
(although we’d like to take out chances)
We cannot sabotage, lest they do so also.
(although it’s tempting)
So we look to our captains to resonate our views.
(although the crew can see the breaking shore)
@louis.b.argyll
Aye! 🙂
Sorry if this has already been linked to but I’ve come across a wee itsy bitsy teeny weeny petition that I thought might interest one or maybe even two people on here. 😉
link to you.38degrees.org.uk
They have 7,600 signatures out of 8,000 needed.
You know what to do folks. ?
O/T
Watching PMQs and the utter contempt with which May and her government treat any opposition question, I do believe the SNP MPs should make some sort of statement.Continue with PMQs as Angus Robertson tends to ask pertinent big questions and it reflects well on the SNP.
However, if none of them attended or put any questions to Mundell at Scottish Questions saying they found the exercise pointless, it would bring into focus the charade that is the Scottish Office. SQ at Westminster is just another chance for the UK government, who already have ample opportunity, to display their arrogance. To be honest would anyone notice the difference as it is clogged up with idiots like Costa?
@Tam Jardine
I really enjoyed it, it’s a great change from the Herald.
Yes, they really are so badly informed by the disgusting London-based media, and hence their attitudes. But I think I got through to at least one of them, so I might dip in occasionally, sweetness and light, make friends, that sort of stuff – inclusive – that’s the word!
Or to put it another way, If we are to live by the “rule-of-law”, can we choose which laws to acknowledge and which laws it’s UKOK to ignore?
@ Graeme, good analogy with Stirling Bridge kid, who will play Sir Marmaduke Twenge & be first to cross? This guy cracked my primary school class up, as narrated by the long gone Miss MacPhee.
As you probably know Fred old Marmaduke was a man of honour a man to be respected
I can’t for the life of me think of anyone of his kind in this present day mob of Westminster gangsters
Graeme
The throw the Scots out of the Union thing is a laugh.
I loved the comment
the selfish Jocks can start their own illegal wars and destroy the NHS just like we do down here in little England.
Think they will easily get their 10,000 votes or whatever because a lot of (good) people in England will see it as an opportunity to stir it up for May…and why not?
If there’s one thing I hate more than fudge it’s hypocrisy built on fudge. As we can see with our own eyes, fudge does not make a strong foundation.
Well I’ve just signed 38 degrees petition to remove Scotland from the Union they’re close to getting the signatures needed to get rid of us so like @Arbroath 1320 says, you know what to do
Funny thing though the petition seems to be organised by a person with a very Un-English sounding name so in that case will the racist English government pay any attention to the petitioner who wants to get rid of just some of the folk Westminster doesn’t like or will they still likely want to keep us unloved Scottish people because we pay for sodding everything and are more likely to get rid of the foreign sounding person who came up with the idea for the petition
Think on who you’re dealing with Mr/Mrs/Miss/Mz/.. Nik Joannou
ScottishPsyche says:
Yeah I forced myself to watch it too, in case something relevent to us came up, despite Angus’s attempt he just got smoke and mirrors back.
Westminster is just too full of baying dogs to make any impression on the Tories. We will continue to push their own agenda, whatever that is. How our MP’s put up with it I will never know, it is all one big sham, if only, everyone was aware of it.
At Holyrood, we have devious plans being made up to thwart Scottish democracy. It looks like to undermine Holyrood it’s self is their aim. It is time we played this game as dirty as they do. Indy think tank suggestions please!
Bob Mack @ 13:14:
That’s where the problem escalates, actually. The way to do that is to raise Bank of England interest rates, but that puts a lot of people with mortgages in financial dire straights. The UK economy is already teetering on a cliff and that could be enough to push it over. It that old familiar conundrum: between the rock and the hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea. No wonder the UK Gov is like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
In the meantime, long before Art.50 is invoked next spring, businesses are going to be increasingly making arrangements to move out. They aren’t going to wait, so events are going to dictate the pace, not the UK Gov.
There’s also it seems an increasing English backlash against Scotland. Just another aspect of the xenophobia that seems to be taking grip among them. The lie (another one!) that we Scots are greedy ingrates sponging off English largesse may take on a political reality that defies the actual economic one. Like Brexit all over again, really.
38 degrees petition
The Bastirts have removed my name minutes after I told them I loved them and wished them all the best
Maybe I went too far
I have noticed over the years that the Yoons I speak to, are overly aggressive, and really angry. I think internally there is a conflict. On one level they despise my Scotland, and on another level they claim to belong to it. The anger comes from the conflict created in their own minds. They are abusing themselves, begging for more and then lashing out at Scots who try and open their eyes to the truth. It’s classic self loathing and denial.
It’s why the cry is :” You had your referendum we voted no”.
Ken Macintosh’s reply to Rumbles was pretty non-committal, as might be expected.
He says he’s an MOT for Holyrood. Cant think yoons want one, other than the current system’s like one big down escalator for SLab.
link to archive.is
“The Parliament’s systems are not broken but they are in need of an MOT. I am asking the Commission to take a fresh look at how we conduct our business and to deliver practical recommendations for change.
“Over the last decade or more, we have seen Scottish politics become increasingly tribal and divisive. This has, among other things, made it challenging for MSPs to find the space to develop in their distinct role as parliamentarians.”
How many votes did Ken get last time?
Just in case folks cannae get onto the 38 Deg petition to throw those pesky Scots out of the beloved broken union you can always go here instead.
link to petition.parliament.uk
I signed both just to be sure. 😀
After signing the parliament petition you may want to visit the accompanying map page to help you get over the serious bout of depression you will no doubt have just suffered from signing the petition. 😀
link to petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com
When I checked it out a wee constituency called “Dumfriesshire, Cldesdale and Tweeddale”, where ever the hang that is was leading with FOUR signatures. 😀
@ Arbroath1320 @ 1:43 pm:-
You sign it, Troll!
38 Degrees can fuck right off!
I wonder if the Tank will be shouting from the roof tops about this.
UK Government ‘faces £84bn Brexit-related black hole’
I suppose she will say that Scotland will have to take their share.
link to bbc.co.uk
So Ken gets 30.6% of the vote but wants to reform Scottish democracy and because
“Over the last decade or more, we have seen Scottish politics become increasingly tribal and divisive.”
Ken lost to a toryboy, in third place, SLabour have the whole of the tory BBC Scotland led media all mercilessly battering away at Scots to stop voting SNP, so ofcourse they want “reform.”
@Graeme, anent Old Marmaduke & honour. ” Honour? who has it, him that died a Wednesday!” Falstaff. 🙂
Looks like there wont be a legal challenge to the minimum pricing after all. Never mind, what will they do now?
“Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) chief executive David Frost is leaving the organisation to take up a new role as foreign affairs special adviser to the UK Foreign Secretary, Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP.”
Birds of a feather, fly together.!
Much to admire and a lot to think about on Wings today, as we continue to wait, and to endure, along with the rest of Europe, the stalled Government at Westminster under Theresa May.
As with any game of chess, planned moves are very important, but nothing can happen until the next move is made. It is that next move we are waiting for – but it is Theresa May’s turn. We are compelled to wait under the rules of the game. If only Mrs May had a fixed, short period of time in which to make her move. But no. Apart from anything else, Theresa May’s Conservative party like to make their own rules and to set their own timetable. But perhaps I ascribe to them more talent than they have.
However, it is not as if Mrs May has all the time in the world. Far from it – and therein lies Scotland’s first advantage. We are not under the huge time pressure which is building for Theresa May & her Tory government.
The EU is not enjoying being kept waiting; and the more it has to wait, the more does resentment fester there.
Business is not enjoying the wait either and is impatient to move on. The markets continue to lose more and more confidence in Westminster’s ability to get a grip on Brexit and to form a plan with a reasonable chance of success. And so the pound falls a little more. Pressure, pressure, tic tock, tic tock. Mrs May must make a move – under pressure. Will it be a good move, the right move, or a far right move?
I hate waiting. I am glad I am waiting with Wings, with all its wonderful wingers. Be unbearable otherwise I think.
ManandBoy,
“Be unbearable otherwise I think”
Now that probably is the truest thing ever written on Wings!
I wish she’d hurry up and get on with it.
Look folks we are approaching this referendum from the wrong angle
Let the English have a Vote as well , after all the press coverage of us being spongers and ungrateful beggars its a slam dunk as our yankee friends would say , it’s guaranteed we would be tossed out the next day they would even help with the flitting .
paulTgeist says:
26 October, 2016 at 2:48 pm
@ Arbroath1320 @ 1:43 pm:-
You sign it, Troll!
38 Degrees can fuck right off!
Hi there!
Why is Costa spokesman on a Scottish Politics programme? They get worse and worse.
Westminster haven’t a clue what they are doing re Brexit. Claimed ‘the SNP don’t know what they are doing re Brexit’. The SNP + majority of voters want to stay in the EU.
The Committees? Scotland has less powers. 3rd rate rejects are in the Scottish Parliament and chairing the Committees.
Please sign!
link to you.38degrees.org.uk
Holy fcuk.
BBC career[edit]
Before Ken Macintosh became an MSP, he was from 1987 to 1999, a television producer for the BBC News Network.[4] He also worked on Breakfast with Frost, Breakfast News, and the Nine O’Clock News. He was also worked as a researcher on election programmes for both David Dimbleby and Jonathan Dimbleby.[5]
Bet BBC vote SLab Scotland reunions are a hoot.
“Why did you get into politics Ken?”
“I want to give something back to my people.”
“Like?”
“Me.”
38 degrees are twisted, I wouldn’t go near them with someone else’s bargepole.
Two points of view, both I believe are essentially correct.
@manandboy
“I remain persuaded that Theresa May is not naturally inclined to do this, hence, the absence of the energy or force of will to actually get on and do it, resulting in no actual Brexit policies on paper.”
@orri
“As she’s already shown willing to assume dictatorial powers there every possibility she’d be lunatic enough to declare a complete withdrawal from the EU with immediate effect.”
So which is it to be? Do nothing or just rip us out? Who can say.
May has proven over the last 100 days or so to be utterly useless as a leader. She is “Winging” it 🙂 and surely can’t be long before she becomes unstuck and we see that our Emperor is naked.
Squash that thought, better to think dimmer than a 40 Watt bulb.
Can I suggest that our finance sec. Derek MacKay call a press conference to announce that ENGERLAND will be denied use of, or access to the Scottish currency. They can f*** right off.
Interesting hard core conservative yoon defenderisers with very similar Scottish region of greater England backgrounds, at the BBC.
link to bbc.co.uk
A native of Mull and a Gaelic speaker, he was educated at Oban, Edinburgh University and Moray House College of Education before joining BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1975.
and
Born in Inverness, Macintosh was educated at the Portree and Oban primary schools before attending Royal High School, Edinburgh. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an History MA (Hons) in 1984.
Both his parents were headteachers. His father Dr Farquhar Macintosh CBE was a Gaelic speaker from Skye.
Both with Edinburgh MA’s too. Maybe if you’re whole life is dedicated to the UK and everything about it, the whole concept of Scotland running Scotland is insane and must be defeated. Plus there’s two hundred grand a year in it.
Tasty.
You can vote to leave a union but you cannot vote for another part of it to be thrown out.
Think what that would mean morally.
That is why there is no such mechanism within the EU and why the UK must be the one to start the procedure.
As explained before, I think it would have to be England votes to leave the UK, NI votes to leave the UK and Wales votes to leave the UK.
Wales and NI and England could then form a new union with each other.
I don’t think NI say, could vote to leave the UK and union with England at the same time.
One argument against the legitimacy of a South Ossetia referendum I saw was that it wasn’t just to leave Georgia but to leave Georgia and become part of the Russian Federation at the same time.
The Native American semi-autonomous nations of Canada wanted to be able to vote to leave Quebec and stay in Canada for the Quebec referenda, this wasn’t allowed either. Ironic, given the close remain vote in their second ref..
Basically, you can choose to get off the bus but you can’t tell others to leave.
Dear Stu et al. I got this email from my ‘Hacked Off’ contact. Hope its not too OT.
“Dear Friends,
Today we reached an important milestone. The press self-regulator IMPRESS has been formally recognised as meeting the criteria of independence and effectiveness as recommended by Lord Justice Leveson. This means that for the first time ever, an independent press self-regulator for UK newspapers exists.”
“Thank you for all of the campaigning you have done, whether it was signing our petition, writing to your MP or Tweeting. We wouldn’t be here without the campaigning of supporters like you, who have made this possible.
Victims of press abuse and free speech figures joined with us today to welcome the news and to call on the Government to now deliver the free speech and guaranteed access to justice measures which were promised.”
Hacked Off Patron and libel-victim Christopher Jefferies said: “National titles must now sign up to IMPRESS if they want to show the public that anything has changed since the phone hacking scandal and Leveson Report. The recognition of a regulator was supposed to trigger both costs protection for newspapers who are signed up and guaranteed access to justice for victims of press abuse who need to sue a newspaper which is not signed up. The Government must therefore bring that measure into effect as they promised.”
Investigative journalist, Nick Davies who broke the phone hacking scandal said: “No decent journalist wants their work regulated by Ipso – an organisation which is vulnerable to the influence of some very bad people from the worst newspapers in the UK. Impress is a decent alternative, independent of government and of newspapers. It tells you all you need to know about the continuing scandal of press misbehaviour in the UK that these notorious newspapers will not join a regulator which can be trusted to enforce the code of conduct which they themselves have written and claim to want to honour; and that in spite of overwhelming public and parliamentary support, government is too scared of those newspapers to trigger Section 40, which would put pressure on those newspapers to join such a regulator.”
Bumbles et al can try if they want. More publicity for IndyRef2. More proof of britnat arrogance and ignorance.
A Voice of Reason
Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon is essentially the only functioning U.K. opposition to Britain’s exit from the European Union. As such, Scotland’s prime minister and her pragmatic approach are the last, greatest hopes for a continued, united Europe.
From leading European business paper:
link to global.handelsblatt.com
Thepnr @ 3.41
I have also worried that she will just go for the we are out,and out now route.
Because if they stick to the no free movement tack she’s not going to get a better deal now than she will 2 years from now.
But the chaos of a short sharp exit might be her best chance of hanging on to us.
But I did notice that at PMQs today she was being careful not to annoy Spain,which might be a sign she does indeed harbour some hope of a deal.
Is it me or has Ruthie no been auffey quite?
Never a good sign,wonder what she’s up to!
Maureen excellent link to the petition that questions the benefit to england of having scots in their union ,brilliant everyone should sign , twice if you can get away with it ha ha
Some interesting parallels with how Eire was treated in the late 19th Century by England. They asked for moderate powers but were denied , lied to and cheated at every level.
Hostility towards Irish demands grew and the people were demonised as disloyal subjects and spongers. The resentment grew and eventually the Irish rose against what was a colonial London government. This is just normal historical behaviour for Brits. They try and create division in the country they want to control. We are divided that’s true. But we are divided by blind loyalty to a country who cares not a jot for us.
The fact that fellow Scots complain about Scotland’s first minister sticking up for what Scotland voted for. Speaks volumes for the state of these peoples minds. It’s like they want to show deference by ganging up against the one person who actually cares about them. They believe the English will reward them for self harming.
Scotland’s people have got to this level of insanity. Because they have spent to long in union with England. Most other colonies got rid of them within 100 years. We are unique that we have suffered the abuse without blinking for so long.
I am not brainwashed so can’t get my head around those that are. I find it baffling as I am outside of the abuse watching it going on but I can’t make the victims see what I can see.
This is what we have to overcome! With all that is going on the movement should be 80/20 Yes. But it’s not and that’s just incredible.
Big Jock says:
Yes, it’s funny how they project IndyRef1 ownership onto Salmond, SNP, SG, Nats. It’s never Scotland’s referendum. They won, so you’d think maybe it should be their referendum.
If they are so mad keen on their Union, and so certain Scotland doesn’t want or need independence, you would have thought they’d be keen to assert themselves again to prove it. They can vote NO again, if they think that’s best.
We all know the truth. And they know the truth too. They only won by making unfounded threats followed by false promises. They won’t be able to pull the same trick twice.
Excellent article here on the ThrowScotlandOut petitions…
link to talkradio.co.uk
O/T @Maureen 3.35 p.m. and others – that petition was started 2 years ago so will it be going anywhere now [even with all our signatures!]?
Express and one of Ligger Neil’s idiot sidekick in UKOK action again, or every time you look basically.
From Siobahn Macwhatseherface of the Express today, and what a hack that guy Martin is, “Crash Bang Wallop, I cant write for toffee.”
“Iain Martin says not even an apology from England’s football team “for Gazza’s goal against Scotland in Euro 96″ would put a smile on Ms Sturgeon’s thundery demeanour.”
to
“He also pointed to Gascoigne’s skilful goal that secured a 2-0 England win over Scotland in the Euro 96 competition as one of his most memorable football moments. He said: “[I have been to] lots of England matches, but the most memorable were the Euro 96 game against Scotland, with Gazza’s great goal, and the 0-0 game in Rome the following year when England held on to qualify for France 98.”
Vote Crash in the Hootsman, ten years ago, and then same Gordon went on to become the most unpopular Prime Minister of greater England, ever. Oh well, Crash, BBC and his SLab crew went on to destroy ref 1 but at least Express reprobates have skipped their violent headlines today.
@manandboy
A lot of the media and academia do think Teresa and the Brexiteers have all the time in the world. Just listen how the “expert” on this program thinks the heads of member states will be involved in the negotiations. He seems to think that they will have problems as they will be too busy with their own internal member state elections in 2017.
link to bloomberg.com
He got it wrong. That is not how the EU functions. It is not the heads of state but negotiators (with no other responsibilities) who will do the work. The EU has announced who they are.
Michel Barnier, European Commission Chief Brexit Negotiator
Didier Seeuws, Council Special Taskforce Chief Negotiator
Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament chief negotiator on Brexit
The current Commission’s term of office runs until 31 October 2019. EU Parliament elections are in the same year.
So the drivel about the elections in member states causing a problem is bunkum.
The European Council and the European Parliament will not be directly involved until after the deal is negotiated – long after the member state elections are over. The deal will have to be approved by both bodies.
The Commission want this wrapped up before the next EU Parliament elections (2019) and the next Commission nominations/appointment. There is no way they are going to wait.
In any case could you imagine what an utter farce holding elections for UK MEPs in 2020 would be?
Joanne @ 4.29
That link fair cheered me up Joanne thanks.
It’s lookin like we are getting back up to speed with how we handle the negative propaganda,that reaction could have come straight out of Indy ref 1.
I’m glad I posted something to cheer the heart Liz, because everything else seems to range from gloom to massive uncertainty. Even the UK’s most sympathetic ally in the EU, the Irish government, is getting annoyed with them….
link to irishtimes.com
The May/Remain warnings of businesses exiting rUK following a Leave Vote at Goldman Sachs Q&A session is in the Guardian, I recall.
I see WATP Sectarian Bigot Professor adam Tomkins is still holding down two jobs. I wonder what Glasgow Uni thinks of him dogging school to talk absolute rubbish in Holyrood today. Must be great to have two jobs when so many have none.
I’d hate to be an SNP/Celtic supporting Law student in his group.
This neo fascist stood in my constituency and we resoundingly rejected him, but he still gets in on the Tory Old Boys’ Network List and spouts forth about the disgraced Union.
He has no shame or embarrassment.
I am not entirely clear why Mr MacIntosh, the Presiding Officer, is being criticised for his remarks about the need to review/reform the committee system in Hollyrood when Ms Marwick, his immediate predecessor as PO, said much the same thing just before she left office.
The Scottish Parliament has been in existence for almost 20 years and it would be a strange beast indeed if some of its systems and procedures did not need some form of updating in the light of experience built up over the period of its existence.
The ‘Throw Scotland Out’ hashtag has been a great success. Great, robust humour, getting the hashtag trending.
It’s been called – top class trolling by those North of the Border.
Just in case folk haven’t picked up, there seems to be quite a lot of talk from various, not in support of the misreporting Scotland billboards.
Article over on Common space now.
Joannie says:
James Kelly’s … “the continuing toxic overlap between English nationalism and the old imperialist impulse” … is an excellent description of not only the “Jock-bashing brigade”, but of most Tory MPs!
The Scottish Parliament has been in existence for almost 20 years and it would be a strange beast indeed if some of its systems and procedures did not need some form of updating in the light of experience built up over the period of its existence.
1. They haven’t bothered to print what’s needed to be changed and why in Holyrood.
2. How come SLab dudes like Ken aren’t doing the same in Westminster, you know, because they’re all so radical n shit now?
All that the massed ranks of hard core yoons like Ken or his chums at Pacific Quay are trying to do, is stop the people of Scotland actually having a democratic say in how our Scotland region of greater England is run.
As we know and right now, its all decided by the tory voter of merry old England. They get more and more UKOK desperate by the day too.
@Valerie.
Yes I saw that. The usual suspects who will no longer vote YES if we criticise the BBC. Utter Tosh. All indy supporters know the BBC is an arm of the controlling government and indeed the British establishment. That is why they were founded in the first place. To control the knowledge of the population.
Amazing is it not the number of apparent yes voters who want to change because of EU, BBC, or any other initials you care to name.
I think that is the strategy. Hope people are sheep and they will follow where you want to lead them. Not me. I am a Scottish lion.
btw, in case folk think I’m just banging on about some utopian ideal when I mention the “Right to Development”. It is not merely theoretical bollocks, it is the condensation of global best practice and knowledge built over decades of development aimed at addressing the social inequalities colonial imperialism left behind.
It’s principle aim is to bring development under the “rule-of-law”. No wonder the British state does all it can to ignore it’s legal responsibilities, but only when it suites, ken. Fascists.
Man, I’m genuinely thinking about opening a twitter account just so I can join in the #throwscotlandout conga.
I can just see it now, a big long line, dancing out, Do, Do, Do, come on and do the conga, Do, Do, Do, it’s conga night for sure!
Re the Common Space opinion piece criticising the BBC Mis-Reporting Scotland billboard campaign. Can I suggest the people responsible ask for a right to reply on Common Space to explain its purpose.
From the Common Space site:
“A spokesman for the BBC said its priority was to provide fair and impartial coverage, and not toe a party line: “Public service journalism exists to scrutinise and ask questions of those who are responsible for public policy decisions, while also doing the same for those who oppose them – no matter which political viewpoint they represent.”
More BBC spin shyte. Aye sure – some believe you, MILLIONS DON’T!!
“Because of the way we are funded we don’t, as some newspapers do, follow any particular political viewpoint – it is our responsibility to provide outlets for as many voices as possible as we strive to provide fair and impartial news coverage.
Oh aye, sure. As many voices as possible. That’s not being contested you numbskull dumbfucks. It is the PERCENTAGE of coverage you GIVE to those “different voices”. It is NOT BALANCED REPORTING. It is skewed way over to the pro-union side AND YOU DAMN WELL KNOW IT IS. THAT IS THE EFFING POINT!!!!!
“Reassuringly, audiences continue to tell us that the BBC is still the news provider they trust most, while we take heart from the fact that Reporting Scotland is by far the most watched news programme in Scotland with almost half a million viewers tuning in every night.”
Aye, well watch this space. Just saying sounbite doesn’t make it true.
Don’t believe the BBC is MISREPORTING SCOTLAND? Well just have a wee gander here:
link to informscotland.com
Your tea’s oot, Union Jackie!!
I really wish informscotland all the best.
I hope they prove those who are sneering wrong. The website can easily be improved and maybe their message is forceful but it will at least point to links where people can make up their own mind. I am a bit tired of tiptoeing around timid voters of either persuasion for fear of offending them.
The SiU billboard outside the SNP conference got a mention by the BBC so what is wrong with an opposing view?
Liz g @ 16:19:
No, it’s not just you. See my posting just after midnight and the response by Meg merrilees. So there’s at least three of us! =grin=
I’m beginning to suspect that Buffalo Gal is deliberately keeping a low profile so she won’t be in the line of fire when the proverbial ordure hits the ventilation equipment over Brexit. She has her career to think of.
Oh, and chapeau to The Herald for that gem of a headline “£84bn Brexit-related black hole”. That’s one to keep, and use to counter the “Scotland’s £15bn GERS black hole” canard.
(What, you mean there’s going to be no £350m Brexit dividend? hahahaaaaaaaa… )
It is interesting to note that any English Parish council can hold a referendum, called a parish poll. As I remember the rules, the poll can be held on any topic discussed at a parish meeting and on which the parish council would at least be consulted even if the decision itself is outside its own remit. The question must be capable of an unambiguous yes or no answer. The result is non-binding.
If holding an independence referendum turns out to indeed be outside the powers of the Scottish Parliament, then it would be just another example of the Scottish Parliament having less power than an English Parish Council.
Roboscot says:
Its also pretty much the same monstering WoS gets, from those YES voters than know so much more than er, everyone else.
I screened the “London Calling” documentary at the Be More Brechin (Yes) meeting last night – the anger at the BBC was palpable.
Robert J. Sutherland says:
She stood on a ticket of the Ruth Davidson Party, playing down as much as possible the true nature of her allegiance.
Perhaps it worked. Are people so gullible? We are talking Scots’ Tory voters here. 🙂
Anyways, she now needs to stand up and defend her party and the antics of May with her the 3 Brexiteers. That’s a pretty tall order.
When she does face the public there are limits to how much she can chant SNPBad. She will have to answer questions about her own party’s unfolding disaster sometimes.
Nae wonder she’s in hiding.
The colonial mouthpiece, the BBC is Mis-Reporting Scotland. Call them out for it, I for one am glad that some have seen fit to do so.
What possible argument is there for not doing so?
We might lose the soft No’s? Doubt it, more likely to win them once the scales have fallen from their eyes.
We are taking on a powerful enemy here, for an enemy of Independce is what the state mouthpiece is all about. I wouldn’t take them on with one hand tied behind my back. Some maybe think we just shouldn’t take them all at all. Why?
They, the BBC are liars, known liars and are also the last remaining obstacle to Independence. If that means billboards to get more people to notice, then billboards it us.
I contributed to the fund, I did so because I believe these billboards will speak for me, I want to send the BBC and their politically appointed masters a message. Might work, might not.
Don’t like the idea of exposing the BBC lies? Then don’t contribute.
Simple.
The bbc is clearly a tool of the britnat establishment. I support informscotland. Don’t pay the bbc tax. Let britnats pay for britnat propaganda.
To anyone attempting to con WOS newbies or lurkers:
Regarding commercial petition sites such as 38degrees. I recently wrote to the House of Commons Petition Committee seeking clarification on 2 questions. I now have their response.
This is what i asked:
(1): Does the UK Parliament have to consider and/or debate petitions formed by private petition companies such as ’38degrees’ etc which have gathered the required 100K signatures?
(2): Has there been any previous debates by Government on investigations into the BBC?
This was their response:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for contacting us. I am sorry you’ve had to wait so long for a reply.
The House of Commons Petitions Committee, which oversees the petition.parliament.uk website, cannot schedule debates on petitions hosted on other websites.
As far as i’m aware, there haven’t been any previous petition debates on investigations into the BBC.
Many thanks,
/?%+££ “!*@#++££
So there you have it folks, private petition companies are a con. If you ever plan on starting a petition make sure it’s a UK Government petition or a Scottish Parliament petition. Will still probably get nowhere but at least we now know never to give our time and private details to these private companies.
You read it here first!
Stoker says:
Thanks for getting clarification on that!
I’m not surprised that they have absolutely no official standing.
It’s probably all about commercial harvesting of contact details with bonus information about people’s views and attitudes.
They do get some attention in the media, but do they influence any decision makers? Probably not very often!
Roboscot
Good luck with that. I think the idea is that we have to play fair next time round- win the argument, Queensberry Rules and all that. And if the beeb displays bias we just need to campaign extra hard. Encourage people to check out Common Space- No- voters will end up dipping into Common Space just as they dip into Reporting Scotland at night.
Remember- “the majority of Yes probably agree these billboards are counter-productive and unhelpful.” That is about as scientific as you get.
For some of us Independence is just a social club- just speaking to each other and campaigning in our echo chamber to make ourselves feel good. Save the congratulatory rallies and start some joined up thinking about how to convince a large number of right of centre no-voters to get involved in the progressive movement.
And if we play by the rules and we lose because the BBC is the main campaign organisation for No again and we don’t challenge it then we can dust our selves down wipe away a tear with one of our big foam fingers and live to fight another day.
After all- it is just a journey we are all on. I need to look back through Sun Tsu for the quote on simply absorbing your enemy’s main thrust of attack… it must be in there somewhere.
If we’re concerned with BBC bias we should complain when appropriate and when they produce a completely false headline as the main item on Reporting Scotland we can be satisfied at a job well done when 6 weeks later we get a private email apologising for the mistaken claim that the Scottish Government spends £15 billion more revenue than Scotland generates.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step- that is maybe how we should view the next campaign… as the first step. And as Robin MacAlpine suggests- we should push for indyref 2 some time in the latter half of the next century once we have really got our shit together.
Above all- repeat the mantra: if we lose indyref 2 we will never get another chance… it is useful and not at all counter-productive to get that locked in to the national consciousness from the yes side.
ACC wants to issue bonds. The Labour incompetents are at it again. They have wasted £Millions destroying the City centre with a grotesque monstrosity. Caused traffic chaos. Wasted £30Million renovating an Art Gallery. Refused a gift of £80Million for the UTG project, which would have pedestrianised the City. Supported by the majority.
Class sizes are going up. There is no overnight accommodation for the homeless or properly funded social care or rehab facilities. Labour/unionist are a disgrace. Last time they nearly bankrupted the City. Now they have the cheek to blame others. They are not fit for public office.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017. Vote for Independence.
Stoker says:
26 October, 2016 at 6:10 pm
To anyone attempting to con WOS newbies or lurkers:
I hope you are not saying I am attempting to con anyone by signing the petition as that is not my intention.
As a longtime lurker I didn’t see any harm in posting the link.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and will choose to follow the link or ignore it, that’s up to them.
@heedtracker,
My experience of Schiphol was that it took longer to taxi to the gate after landing than the flight I had just had!
Personal favourite has to be Kansai International in Osaka. An artificial island with road and rail connections and was immaculately tidy.
@Stoker
there is a UK Gov petition,
Petition
A referendum to Vote Scotland out of the U.K.
link to petition.parliament.uk
Less than £500 to go before they hit their target. Some campaigns have been successful and some not even though they might have reached their targets.
I’m willing to give this a chance. Who else to take on the BBC? The other option is to lie in bed and pull the covers over your head.
Fight or Flight? That’s up to you.
link to gofundme.com
I can understand where folks like Kirsty Strickland are coming from when they express doubts about the misreporting Scotland ads. Truth be known, and no disrespect towards those involved, I felt the same way about the protests outside Pacific Quay.
I do not feel that way about these billboards. If these were just provocative ads, then yeah fair enough, but there is a wealth of substance, and good quality authoritative substance backing up these ads, and substance which can stand its ground against criticism. If it does nothing else it will hopefully make the BBC understand that Indyref2 will not be the YES campaign reheated in the microwave. They will not have such an easy run this time.
I would love to see the BBC taking the hump about these ads, but I suspect that like the PQ protests, they will ignore them; party to deny them publicity, but also because they know full well there is substance to the grievance and at least some appetite for the truth to come out.
But this isn’t about what the BBC will or will not do. This is about taking a message directly to the people which fell beyond the reach of the YES campaign back in 2014. We need new lines of communication, and we need more lines of communication. So yeah, go for it.
I don’t honestly know whether the Pacific Quay protests achieved very much, but that’s not to say I disapproved of them.
Taking on the BBC and its propaganda is something that has to be done. It might not be Indyref2 which brings the BBC to book, but the BBC’s prejudices and xenophobia is in large part responsible for exacerbating Britnat frustrations and hauling the UK by the nose towards Brexit. It may take years for England to see the harm which the BBC has suffered upon it, but the people of England will waken up, if only because Scotland will be gone and they will need a new scapegoat for their ills.
@Tam Jardine
Yep and when we do all that and lose, we can console ourselves by writing interminable naval gazing articles about tone and sympathise with overworked MSM (oh we are not allowed to call it that are we) journos.
Does anyone else think the little circle jerk of journos is turning into ‘great article by Kirsty says Angela, retweeted by Mike and quoted in a wonderful seminar by Robin, so good to see you all…’?
I get the impression that the message about Scotland being poor etc and needing England’s constant charity, which of course, Westminster provides as part of its Christian duty, is politically very acceptable in England. It certainly appears to be the most widely held view.
The truth about Scotland’s vast wealth being exploited to a point where Scotland is keeping England afloat, is simply impossible for English people to accept.
This is a problem for Mrs May and should be exploited in Brexit talks by asking her frequently why Westminster is so desperate to prevent Scottish Independence.
If I was FM, I’d be asking her at every opportunity.
Paula Rose
But- Paula- GA Ponsonby is obviously wasting his time highlighting the BBC campaigning for a No vote. He should be engaging in a positive way addressing concerns.
Remember- It is understandable that GA Ponsonby and others feel let down by some of the BBC’s coverage during the independence referendum. The answer is to fund the alternative. To that end I am pleased to announce a compulsory licence fee to fund a new national broadcaster to run parallel with the BBC in Scotland.
You will have to pay the licence if you watch live television even if you don’t watch SBC broadcasts and the content will be by-and-large supportive of the Scottish Government- particularly during elections and referenda.
Strange how that petition has been withdrawn, just when it was getting popular…
There’s always this one:
link to petition.parliament.uk
Just to say Tam, you summed how I am feeling about the group who are trying to control the Yes movement. Quite a few poacher turned gamekeeper in that lot.
Question Why do most growdfunders LIMIT there means of getting donations ie Inform Scotland ( paypal ) ( I dont have a paypal account ) FFS most people have Credit/Debit cards.
Thepnr
You do realise that if they reach their target we haven’t actually won our independence yet? Just checking- us yes-voters can be guy stupid sometimes it seems. In fact- why are any of us on Wings- this isn’t a bloody social club: Stu- shut down the site immediately and get chapping on doors! Or better still, get involved in the Common!
Conan the Librarian™ says:
26 October, 2016 at 7:01 pm
Strange how that petition has been withdrawn, just when it was getting popular…
There’s always this one:
maureen says: Thanks for the link & signed!
@Tam Jardine
Common Space can be it’s own worst enemy, it would seem. I really don’t know who they write for. OK I get it’s meant to be for a left leaning Scotland but FFS why not just write for an Independent Scotland?
I lean so far to the left that I nearly fall over everytime I try and stand up. I don’t care though about left leaning politics right now.
There’s a good reason for that we can only get the politicians we deserve after Independence and not before. Some are just dumb.
O/T
link to thenational.scot
Breeks @ 6.52
One thing I do know about the BBC protests was that when they were and are reported in the way that they are,it always provided a talking point for us who were there to illustrate to people that know us “that’s me and my friends they mean “.
The look on people’s faces when trying to imagine us as a mob who scared journalist’s is priceless and also opens the door to explain what was so bad about the BBC that we felt we needed to act.
And we have our own foties.
If you multiply that conversation by all the mild mannered citizen’s who were there it had to have made a difference somewhere.
If not back then maybe this time and at the very least I don’t think it hurt us.
There was also the Nazi Kid’s indecent which happened at that protest,and that really gave them a showing up.
I know it wasn’t a game changer or anything but I think it was worth doing.
ronnie anderson
Hi Ronnie. I managed to pay by card on their website so it is possible.
Listening to BBC Northern Colony interviewing former Royal Navy Officer (read wealthy establishment placeman) and Scotish Fishing Industry Spokesperson.
I cant believe how staged it all sounds. Its almost like a script.
Interviewer leads in with a question (more like a heavily loaded statement) and Bertie (homely, matey, man of the people type name) replies with “Yes, the Scots Govt are shite and their behaviour is causing chaos…yada yada”…. you get the idea.
They will deploy this pantomime interview technique to discredit SNP at every opportunity.
Anyway, focusing on the Fishermen, being from fishing stock on the Moray coast, they have been greedy bastards over the years. You will find that lots of Skippers now employ crew from places like Phillipines, Estonia etc. The reason? These poor bastards have a strong work ethos, but get paid jack shit which they send home to support their families. Meanwhile, greedy bastard skippers coin it in.
ScottishPsyche
You shouldn’t pay attention to me brother- I marched against the BBC so I should be ignored as a harmful malcontent. In fact- I’m a gift to the No campaign: we all are. Best leave campaigning to those who know how to do it properly… we are doing more harm than good.
Billboards against the BBC are counter productive- in fact the BBC will be delighted to see its flagship Scottish News programme publicly called out. If we’re going to lose next time round lets make sure we lose the right way… or should that be the RISE way
Have a guid night ScottishPsyche… I canny keep this up any longer
Nick Robinson – liar – lest we forget.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@scotspine 7:25pm
Correct on both counts.
@Tam Jardine
I’ve met you don’t forget, and I know you could keep it up from here until doomsday. You will do and so will many of the rest of us.
In fact, surrender is not a word I recognise. No Surrender 🙂
Tam Jardine
Man you’re good.
I thought I was sarcastic LOL
@Tam Jardine
Ha! I was about to salute your indefatigability…
@Tam Jardine
Ha! I was just about to salute your indefatigability…
Ken McIntosh says over the last ten years politics in Scotland has become too tribal and he wants to address that
by reforming the system
Do we think that’s because the SNP has been doing all the winning over the last ten years (Couldnae be could it?)
Two years ago they were screaming at the tops of their wee voices “What’s plan B What’s plan B”
Today they’re screaming at the tops of their wee voices
“We dont want plan B We dont want plan B”
We can give them an A for consistancy of stupid though
FMQs tomorrow must include at the very minimum the FM wielding an Acme cannon and blowing up Wile e Davidson and Road runner Dugdale and some Dyno Mite to throw down Willie Rennies rabbit hole
Or I’m gonnae end up resignating my position as grievancer in chief, well mibbees no in chief, more o an indian like…a wee indian..papoose really
‘Above all- repeat the mantra: if we lose indyref 2 we will never get another chance… it is useful and not at all counter-productive to get that locked in to the national consciousness from the yes side.’
————-
Now or never? What addled brain dreamed this up?
Great if we win. Disastrous if we lose and a further material change takes place.
Oops double post before edit again
I think the 38 crowd have pulled a few petitions recently. However, I don’t tend to sign them because of the junk mail and totally irrelevant links to unrelated petitions,
I hear ya Liz… the point I made, badly again lol, is that we shouldn’t be jumping to condemn pro Indy actions just because they don’t appeal to us on a personal basis.
The Pacific Quay protest was a lesson for me because I saw positives from it that I didn’t expect to see. I was wrong.
I’m not sure what to expect from this Misreporting Scotland idea, but I have good “vibes” about it.
I recall the furore that surrounded Wings putting ads on the Glasgow Underground. Sometimes being brazen is exactly what is needed, not to push folks out their comfort zone, but make that comfort zone a little broader.
I think the BBC will be foaming at the mouth to see these billboards, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with it. They cannot sue for defamation, because of the volume of empirical evidence that the truth IS being distorted. Game on…
@Breeks
I don’t expect any Inform Scotland billboards slagging the BBC to last less than a week without being defaced and trashed.
Maybe I’m totally wrong, would like to see it put to the test though.
“more than a week” not less. I’m losing it, put it down tae auld age.
Brilliant ….
“A referendum to Vote Scotland out of the U.K.”
link to petition.parliament.uk
Then click ‘Show on a map’
Feeling crushed by the neo-liberal oppression of the British state? I wouldn’t worry too much, I don’t think even the Tories can stop evolution.
link to caringlabor.files.wordpress.com
P.S. Any woman who values the suffragette movement or sexual equality, is a natural exponent of this particular perspective.
Thepnr @ 7:53
I guess we just have to “adopt one” and get some cameras aimed at them as best we can.
The thought of being caught on camera and posted on “You Tube” might be enough to deter a few folk.
The Inform Scotland billboard project has two highly impressive folk involved, Simon Malzer and Cadogan Enright.
These aren’t a couple of young hot heads, but articulate, considered individuals. I think the billboards will aim to inform and give food for thought.
I think it’s disgusting that the idea is being slagged before we even see it.
Meanwhile we see the yoons getting their ass in gear, no matter what we think of their attempts.
GA Ponsonby on Twitter just now giving his robust opinion of the ‘snobs’ decrying the project. If anyone knows the level of crap churned out by BBC, he does.
@ Tam Jardine Thanks Tam sorted I would have donated more but bloody car needs fixed.
Ken McIntosh disnae like hearing Scottish voices on BBC Scotland. Mickey Mouse voices are allowed in the Scottish Parliament and the BBC.
If nothing else, having Brexit BEFORE Scottish independence has given us a good look at the humming, hawing, delaying, hiding, Westminster-party-hari-kari and general who’s-got-the-plan fuckwittery that would inevitably also happen after a YES vote, despite the SG’s best intentions.
Forwarned is forearmed and all that…
Balaaargh says:
26 October, 2016 at 6:40 pm
@heedtracker,
My experience of Schiphol was that it took longer to taxi to the gate after landing than the flight I had just had!
Personal favourite has to be Kansai International in Osaka
Noted. And you know youre in Japan. Its not just the weird lack of planning that’s gone in to UK airport design and infrastructure, from ABZ to LHR.
For such a nationalist rule Britannia land like the UK, the airports are almost completely devoid of any national character. Its probably investors and planners just will not pay for architecture but a lot of countries do. There’s nothing characteristically Scottish about any Scottish airport.
Everywhere you go, countries hold their airports as national emblems. The US certainly does it, in every state. John Wayne airport in California is amazing, Denver Colorado international airport’s out in the planes from Denver and designed like teepees. You can do this all day. In Denmark, Esbjerg Airport’s a beautiful example of Danish architecture so that you do know you’re in Scandinavia.
In teamGB, yoon culture goes apeshit at just Gaelic road signs. Its the same in Ireland and they’ve built beautiful dry stain sculptures along the M1, which really work. If they tried that here, yoon hysteria doesn’t bare thinking about. Lets do it:D
Breeks @ 7.46
Oh I didn’t for one minute think you were condemning the protests.
I was just explaining what I thought they achieved.
In fact I agree with you that this campaign is a broad church so to speak and we mustn’t insist there’s a right and a wrong way to do this.
Ronnie , I just made out a cheque to Inform Scotland and co and posted it to the address.
I don’t have a paypal account and I ain’t putting my details on the internet ever again!!
@ maureen Oor passports ur cheaper n funnier
I see Scotland in Union already have billboards up. A massive one went up in Leith on Monday, the third one in Edinburgh.
We simply HAVE to counter/keep up with this.
link to gofundme.com – only £400 to go, but for this campaign more is better, bigger is better. More sites, more messages.
OK I’m convinced now, I want my money back from BBC Bill Board, no billboards, in fact I want to give my money to S******* in Onion.
Kirsty Strickland is right, I’m a NO-hoper, useless, just a mill to the grist, a stone to the rolling, a moss with no fresh air, a river running upwards a mouth with no teeth, a pair of logs with no purpose, or legs even, a slipper with no pipe and dog, in fact I’m a cat that’s got the cream. Miaaoooowww! Where’s my bone?
What a load of shite.
Valerie
That is the crazy thing- the ads themselves are not offensive in any way- not what I would put up on a billboard about the BBC (which almost certainly would be counter-productive). They are simple, well thought out and link to what will be a great website with loads of good stuff on there.
The point from what i can see is to spread a bit of doubt and raise the issue of BBC impartiality- something that is extraordinarily difficult for us to do as the media (and even the pro-yes print media)- traditional route to highlight any issue will not touch it. The only thing that was able to rise above the media fog and enter the public consciousness in this area before were the BBC protests. Not for everyone but they made it an issue and could not simply be ignored.
I must have missed the common space campaign to address BBC impartiality. Acht-if it winds up a few on our side then I am OK with that. Honestly- the Scottish cringe is so strong that it even permeates the Yes campaign! Wha’s like us, eh!
I’ve hung around here for a while like a bad smell some might think. I’m fine with that, each to their own is my mantra.
What I really want to say now though is this. I can understand the point of view of those that are against the billboards. They believe it will/can backfire and make the case for Independence worse off.
That’s a fair point of view and position to have.
I’d say though let’s just do it and see the actual result rather than an imagined result. There is little to lose and all to gain.
Believe me, the Yoons will go mental at this. Hahaha result!
galamcennalath on 26 October, 2016 at 6:35 pm:
You’re welcome! I just despair when i see independence supporters being conned into these things, along with BUM rag polls and direct links to the online BUM rags. The more we expose all these FUDamentalist fraudsters the quicker we progress.
_____
maureen wrote on 26 October, 2016 at 6:39 pm:
“I hope you are not saying I am attempting to con anyone..”
If i was specifically getting at you Maureen you would know because i would have specifically addressed you. However, i note that you correctly quote the bold emphasis in my post, how you turn that into me accusing *you* is anybody’s guess. I can only put that down to a guilty conscience on your part?
You also wrote:
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and will choose to follow the link or ignore it, that’s up to them.”
Correct, just as i have the right to inform newcomers and other WOS members of my take on the situation and the facts i uncover. So what’s the problem?
You also wrote:
“As a longtime lurker I didn’t see any harm in posting the link.”
If you’ve been a “longtime lurker”, as you claimed, then you would be well aware of the responses i’ve just given above. You would also be *very* aware that the majority of WOS btl contributors have nothing but contempt for 38degrees after they allowed Crash Broon to hijack a previous petition and claim it as his own.
You would also be *very* aware that these private companies are no more than commercial enterprises that take our details for marketing purposes (see Gala’s post just after mine at 6:35pm) and get us nothing in return.
For so called independence supporters to be now helping these businesses to thrive is well beyond a joke and any comprehension. They’ve helped to destroy our country and insult our intelligence by offering us a false way of thinking we’re doing something about it.
FUDamentalist businesses have done nothing but help to take the food off the tables of Scotland’s people and drive hundreds of thousands into poverty.Why then would we want to help fatten their wallets and Christmas turkeys?
Hopefully if you weren’t aware of these things Maureen you are now and hopefully it will help you make a more informed decision next time someone attempts to stick one of these cons under your nose. Every click on BUM links helps towards their advertising revenues therefore the survival of their business and the continuation of Scotland being shat on.
Just to reiterate, Maureen, i most certainly was not specifically targeting you. My main purpose was to bring factual clarification to all on WOS on a matter which repeatedly has been raising its ugly head.
Take care and have a good evening!
Stoker
I’m not taking sides and don’t want to get involved but I recognise Maureen’s name.
@ Dorothy Devine Good on you Dorothy I didn’t see the card on the donate until I hit the top button so,s sorted now. Sadly some people have no vision & prefer sitting on there erses & carping from the side lines . Side issue I bought a couple of Carp poles from PeteTC on Sat so the FLAGS will FLY HIGHER.
xx D.
As long as the message is very simple and basic with BBC mis-reporting Scotland, it’s a thought piece. It might make people watch or listen more carefully, instead of letting it wash over them like the constant drip drip drip of misinformation, facial grimaces, eyebrows raised, shakes of the had, smriks, small lies, missing important news, it is and continues to be.
People can think it out and decide for themselves.
As I did over 40 years ago, and a pal of mine did when I pointed it out in Indy Ref 1 – just the once, that was enough.
Third time I have tried to comment on this in a post!
An official WM throw Scotland out petition.
link to tinyurl.com
Click in the map to see where people are. That is funny.
It really is like feeding frenzy about the billboards from the usual suspects and some that I wouldn’t have thought. A bit surprised at the cringe that is being manifested by some folk I thought were quite cool on Twitter. I guess they are just there for the ‘100% twitter’ accolade. Someone even posted on the crowd funder that it was a ‘pure riddy’.
I am increasingly put off by the sanctimonious and pseudointellectual attitude of Common Space and its regular contributors. Why do they think they are the people to change minds?
Interesting coment on that article from MariaF who came over to YES because of the negativity of BT – and the bias of the BBC:
“By the way, why is the No badge in the picture almost double size compared with the Yes one? Subtle bias, perhaps?”
Makes you think.
This has been scientifically tested but I can’t remember where I read it. Apparently the most influential news programs/propaganda opportunities, are those broadcast in the morning. We are generally busy with getting the kids to school and then to work on time, so we are distracted. Even worse, our usual skepticism hasn’t woken up yet.
I’ll bet an empirical investigation would show the biggest UKOK whoppers are touted in the morning than toned down over the day, or dropped completely. All they want to do is groome you to be a content slave of the British state.
Protect your subconscious from Britnat trolling and avoid the BBC like it was galloping syphilis.
Why do they think they are the people to change minds?
Its hard to tell if link to gofundme.com will work but its completely devoid of the awful British nationalist jingoism of those Scotland in Union billboards in Edinburgh. Holy fcuk they’re horrible and why have they just got a Scotland flag and union jack, instead of an England flag? Very creepy.
ScotsRenewables
Same one as this billboard I presume? link to archive.is
Scotland in traction…. wonder if anyone from their side is getting on their back about their billboards? Can we expect to see a critique in the Express or the Scotsman questioning whether this is the right time or place to use resources? Maybe there will be a piece in the Herald suggesting that Scotland in Union should avoid using the Yes logo as it is still getting the Yes logo out there?
Maybe the Daily Mail will churn out a couple of columns about how the grassroots no movement should stop campaigning against a second indyref and start campaigning to win it when it comes?
It seems to me that everyone on the No side is pretty cool about Scotland in Traction doing the donkey work. They are doing their thing (in the usual uninspiring, humourless way)… yoons be yoons.
Here’s a wee challenge to anyone from Common Space reading this and offended by my response to Kirsty Strickland’s article: why don’t YOU get a billboard campaign going? If £8K is enough for a wee campaign then it should be chickenfeed for Common Space readers- get off your arses and lead the way with a beautiful, creative and vibrant billboard campaign for the indyref Robin is wants (in 5-10 years).
It is a great way to get a message across to the public and was going to be the cornerstone of the Yes campaign last time with fortunes set aside for it, trailed for months on end. What we got in the end was a load of touchy feely stuff when we needed hard facts. Time for a great big Common Space campaign to highlight the myriad of strengths Scotland has and get that message out there.
There- that’s me being a bit more constructive
@ CameronB Brodie 5.23
Keep on posting about the right to self development, Cameron.
Robert Peffers posts often on the sovereignty issue and the status of the Union.
Some ideas are worth repeating. Understanding deepens with each repetition. That’s how we got brainwashed with Unionist rubbish in the first place!
So thanks for your and Robert’s persistence.
Why things matter.
I’ve said this before on Wings but I believe now is a good time to tell it again.
I’m 57 years old now and until 2012 had always voted Labour. The day was the council elections and my wife said, “we better go soon, or we’ll miss it”.
She was shocked when I said “I’m not going, I have nobody to vote for”
Up to then I had always voted at every election, no matter what, I believed voting was right and you should vote.
I had nobody to vote for because the Labour Party who I was once a member of had gone so far to the right that they were unrecognisable to me. They were the Tories in disguise.
Come 2013 my son tries to persuade me to vote Yes, I was still undecided, like my old man I wanted to give the UK a chance. Then I got a letter through the door it was from Yes and on the bottom it had all the different groups and parties that were supporting Yes in Scotland.
One of them was “Labour for Independence”, I’d never heard of them but you have to know I was very naive then. So I go and search for their website. To be honest it wasn’t very impressive so I emailed there leader Allan Grogan and told him what I thought.
He emailed me back and from that day I was an Independence supporter, even went out with LFI and stuck leaflets through doors on occasion.
What am I talking about?
I’ll tell you what. It is that you do not know where support may come from, for me it was a small reference on the bottom of a letter I may or may not have ever opened.
SNP did not destroy Labour in Scotland, “Red Tories Out” did, when people like me, Labour all their lives had their eyes opened then that was the end for Slab.
The billboards trying to fight BBC propaganda may be worth naught or they may be very successful. I’d risk it and have done by backing it. That is the point of this post.
You pays your money and takes your chance. No future in doing nothing at all.
I can’t believe the bad press the BILLBOARDS are getting from commonspace.
The YES side need to support all the initiatives to show folk how anti Scottish the BBC are.
I helped to fund the Billboards and am grateful to the folk who have had the drive and energy to have an idea and see it through.
Why can’t the YES side just support each other?
This carping from aside has made me really angry!
Re. Common Space’s flap over the ethics of argument.
Sorry Common Space, I want my human rights respected now, not in a couple of decades. Which is the most tangible threat possed by these ethical conundrums? The potential damage billboards may cause to the Yes movement or the continued criminality of the British state and the BBC?
Might I suggest you re-examine your priorities?
I too contributed to the Billboards campaign. I like the look of them and hope to see many more in future, developing the theme. There’s a link to the website where people can get more information. What more do you need?
Commonspace could produce their own billboards.
Capella
Thank very much. Will do. 😉
I think my biggest concern about the billboards would be if they just had that one design. We here all know what it means but I suspect a great many not even notice the “mis” and just think it is a BBC advert.
If they have a range of adverts both thought provoking and positive then I can’t see it as a bad thing especially as the Unionists have already started bill boarding. It effectively kicks off Indyref2 and people will quickly become accustomed to the notion that there is going to be one. In effect it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Not sure I really understand the Common Space position. The shown advert is hardly negative a la Project Fear style.
Kenarq’s looking for,
Kenny Farquharson ?@KennyFarq 4h4 hours ago
Academic or someone with a position in Scottish public life? Something to say? Fancy writing a Thunderer column in The Times? Tweet me.
Kenny Farquharson Retweeted Lucy HunterBlackburn
There’s been a 10% fall in grants to Scotland’s poorest students in the past three years.
Dear Mr KenFarq,
Since when did the toryboys of the UK zone give a flying fcuk about Scotland’s poorest studentos, let alone a Murdoch goon such as you?
Should get my foot in the Times door:D
CameronB Brodie on 26 October, 2016 at 8:40 pm:
No shit, Sherlock!
(big wide grinny thing)
Regarding your other posts, i’m with Capella, keep posting, especially on the matters you vent at 8:57pm. I like reading and learning about that sort of stuff, psychology and the media etc.
I’ve been interested in the subject ever since first hearing about subliminal messages when i was in my early teens, may even have been just before my teens.
The only problem i have with some of your posts Cameron is that you obviously read, write and understand at a level way beyond my understanding. You often use very big words and WTF sentences that don’t just go right over my head, ffs, they’re interstellar.
Thanks for the post info at 8:57pm and especially this part which is now sending me off to bed with watery eyes and sore jaws:
“Protect your subconscious from Britnat trolling and avoid the BBC like it was galloping syphilis.”
Goodnight troops!
:))
scotspine says at 7:25 pm
RE: Fishermen
Aa lot of these guys greeting about getting their seas back sold their quotas to the Spanish and French for a lot of cash.
The layering of meaning is key in the effect of visual semiotics (e.g bill boards). The first layer is denotation –who or what is being depicted here?
The second layer is the layer of connotation – what ideas and values are expressed through what is represented and through the way it is represented? (Barthian visual semiotics).
Of course we only recognise what we already know. For many who are not engaged in the discussions about Scotland’s independence visual images will help them to at least challenge and question their established beliefs. We remain disadvantaged if we don’t know what we don’t know.
That said there is the risk that the opposite happens and the bill board messages convince the electorate that Scotland is an equal partner in UK power relations after all, we have total control of our welfare budgets, we are subsidised by WM benevolence, the oil isn’t the right sort to create a sovereign wealth fund, we cannot tackle inequality and poverty, we are too stupid to govern ourselves,manage our economy, become self-sufficient in renewable energy, we cannot remain in the EU because ‘jam and biscuits’ is the closed economic model of the future, we don’t understand internationalism, global capitalism and multiculturalism and we require nuclear weapons beside our most populous city to prevent an all- out attack from deep space.
The potential list of symbolic messages on billboards is endless isn’t it .
@Stoker
CameronB has been hanging around here a long time. Long, long time.
He is a a friend of mine and I hope he continues to post right up to the day Scotland becomes Independent.
Stoker
Thank you as well and I’m very sorry for being unfathomable. I obviously don’t understand the subject well enough, or I would be able to modify my language to a more accessible pitch. I’ll try harder. 😉
Valerie says at 8:06 pm
Thepnr and all the rest.
RE: The Inform Scotland billboard project.
The time for Common Space pseudo intellectual navel gazing is at an end.
It is now time for action.
Billboards and all the other weapons we can bring to bear will be required to supplement the doorstep canvassing and grass roots activism of IndyRef1 if we are to persuade enough Soft NOs that iScotland is viable.
Common Space can bathe in our reflected glory when propping up the bar and the “what did you do to assist Scotland’s Independence” question comes up.
Ummm, did call me dave point this out from Herald?
link to archive.is
“Anti-BBC billboard campaign launched after Yes activists raise £8,000 in days”
Wow, Herald’s carrying it, I’m away to lay me doon.
I don’t see myself as in anyway radical but for me this billboard campaign is a good idea. Whether there is an indyref in the offing or not, we are being fed propaganda and have to pay for the priveledge.
I just wish I had thought of it.
Thepnr
Thanks mate but I don’t think Stoker was having a pop. In fact, I’m pretty certain he wasn’t. 😉
Phronesis
You have just made me very happy and appear to have a deeper appreciation of semiotics than I do. Thank you as well, I now feel vindicated. 🙂
I donated to the billboard campaign because I feel we need to kick back at the BBC somehow and this to me seems the best way to do it, I’m not too keen on the site itself but I hope it will improve over time
Just £250 to go now and it’s looks like it will cross the line tomorrow, once the posters go up I’m sure the site owners will monitor the traffic so they can judge how successful it is
Graeme
Seeing as there’s a lot of typing about the “so called” BBC btl here, I’m gonna paste something that I thought was more appropriate in ‘off-topic’ at 7.23pm tonight.
——————————————————
It REALLY is “Misreporting Scotland”…
On two broadcasts of Misreporting Scotland today – 1.30 and evening – in the story about the Forth Road Bridge repair winning the Saltire prize for civil engineering, the burd referred to the Forth as Scotland’s “longest bridge”.
PURE $H!T€!!!
The Forth Road Bridge is 8,241 feet long.
link to en.wikipedia.org
The Tay Rail Bridge is Scotland’s longest, at 10,711 feet.
link to networkrail.co.uk
How do you get a job as a researcher with “so called” BBC Scotland? Eh kid mak stuff up! Did you know that wulks need $h!T€ to survive? That’s why they congregate around sewer pipes – a bit like “so called” BBC Scotland researchers…
End of rant.
Also, I’ll paste in here a comment I made on the Commonspace page at:-
link to commonspace.scot
——————————————————
Wed, 10/26/2016 – 19:50
I think the point of this billboard campaign is to raise doubts, to get people to question what they will eventually be told in the Indyref2 campaign.
Their time is in the next few months – not during the coming campaign. I think they would be counter-productive once a date for Indyref2 is announced and the campaign gets under way.
People who don’t really engage would, I think, see them as sour grapes, once the campaigning ramps up.
What arse says yes billboards are a bad idea? Ffs, did you see the poster of Alex picking the wallet, it won the Torys the bloody election!
Exactly how many conservatives voted labour because of the embarrassment, f all I would bet!
This is cringeworthy! Tomorrow I will donate, I wil even put the ruddy poster up myself if necessary.
Shrinking violets not needed.
I do like the indignant outrage regarding the billboards from the Yoonery.
Very much “shut up and eat your cereal”.
I have missed the the vibe of the Indyref campaign
On one hand you have Tomkins and Co trying to talk down the idea of another referendum but there is a distinct feel that it has already started.
Mike at 7.25
Many countries have achieved independence from UK democratically. The days of using fore to maintain the empire are long gone.
I contributed to the Billboards Campaign, as I had asked for this for the last few years, and I’ll contribute again as Westminster Control all of the propaganda channels that promote Scotland and SNP bad on a daily basis.
I put forward another Billboard campaign for South Lanarkshire where Labour are in control of the Council.
Their incompetence and corruption can be judged by the less politically active, with excerpts from the links below.
This link would enrage 99% of South Lanarkshire’s Council Tax payers.
“£500,00 Golden Hand Shake for Incompetent Finance Leader, with another £63,000 Garden Leave payment on top”!
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
link to sundaypost.com
link to eveningtimes.co.uk
link to commonspace.scot
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Highlights from the above link-
“Panorama went to South Lanarkshire in Scotland where an online auction decided the council’s new care provider. Domiciliary Care won the auction which saw bidders bidding down, not up. It’s one of Scotland’s largest care providers looking after more than 1,500 people. While it won with a bid to provide care for £9.95 an hour, South Lanarkshire says the decision to award the contract was based only 40% on price with 60% based on quality of care.
Andrew Wilson, 78, was one of the clients whose care went to Domiciliary Care (Scotland). Mr Wilson is hard of hearing, blind in one eye and unable to walk more than a few steps. With no close family he lives alone and depends on carers. He allowed Panorama to fit secret cameras in his home for 19 days.
The cameras showed him receiving a bed bath with his carer constantly on the phone and revealed that of his four half-hour visits a day, the lunch and teatime visits were often curtailed. While his care assessment says his lunchtime carer should prepare and cook a meal, he was routinely fed on sandwiches, packets of quavers and toast.
Domiciliary Care denied neglect, saying their carers were under no obligation to go shopping for Mr Wilson but routinely did so as there was often no food in the house.
‘Tragic and scandalous’
Do you want to vote these people back into power????
Heathrow Casino
“While the commission report estimated a £5bn bill for new roads and rail links, Transport for London put the potential cost as being as high as £18.4bn.” Steven Hammond Con MP
Hay whats a £13.4bn difference between old boys networks.
Not a new airport but the estimated costs for one additional runway and intrastructure to support it.
Glad of the UK’s broad shoulders to carry 9% of all that cash south.
Liz g at 5.05 am
It’s otherwise known as getting one’s oats
Billboards:
If it changes one mind or makes somebody at least think
If anybody thinks up an idea and goes for it good on them
Well done all of you who are working for the cause in whatever way
Saltire removal:
Lotsa food stuff’s having the Saltire removed and I’m starting to get hungry trying to find stuff to eat that doesn’t have a stupid union flag stuck on it, and let me be clear I’m not eating it I’m not buying it
on some packaging they’re even sneaking on a little tiny union flag in the corners at the opposite side from the Saltire
The other thing about this is, where exactly is “produced in GB or UK” are they ashamed to have an English flag or a Welsh flag or an NI flag on the food now
GB or UK is four places not one so when I see a pie with this crap on it does that mean some meat came from Scotland some from England a dod from Wales some fat from NI
It’s not appetising sounding is it
Or did they know all along and plan for Brexit with their new one size fits all labelling to sell abroad, like Jersey or Guernsey or.. coz they’ve buggered us up for Europe
Och, I posted a comment around 10.20pm. It seems to have got lost.
For tonight, I accept defeat.
Em, who appointed Common Space to be in charge of the Yes campaign. I must have missed that bit.
If they are so put out by the Misreporting Scotland billboards, let them get up of their backsides and do something, soon. Not years from now when we’ll be dragged out the EU, and subject to a Tory government for years to come.
These folk have their heids so far up their ain erses, they cannae see daylight. Why try and cause splits in the Yes side, I just don’t get it, or are they trying to tell the rest of us that they’re more clever than the rest of us.
The time for that type of discussion is surely after we have gained our independence.
@Liz g says: 25 October, 2016 at 11:04 pm:
“As I understand it the Holyrood MSPs only hold the bits of our Soverenty that the Westminster parliament devolved to them.”
No liz, that is not so. As I keep reminding Wingers. When Winnie Ewing opened the very first, so called, Scottish Parliament, (not then at Holyrood), she actually reconvened the old Scottish parliament that has never been formally ended.
It was only legally, “prorogued”, (That is it was only adjourned), and then proclaimed as closed by town criers around the streets of the capital city.
See :- link to news.bbc.co.uk
The reason being that the Scottish parliamentarians couldn’t show their faces in public or the Edinburgh mob would have lynched them on the spot. There are claims that the last signature on the Treaty was signed in the cellar of a house opposite the old parliament building. That cellar, unless its use has changed since I was investigating that particular point in the history behind the union, is now a ladies toiled in an eating place on the Royal Mile opposite the Old Parliament Building.
So there you go, Liz, the old Scottish parliament was formally prorogued in 1707 and reconvened on 12 May 1999. To date no one has officially disputed that fact.
” … It is the Scottish Westminster MP’S that holds our Soverenty.”
That is legally a very moot point, Liz, it only holds good if it is accepted that Westminster has legal sovereignty over Scotland in the first place and I defy anyone to show, and prove, that they legally do.
Look at it this way – The law of England has at least one written legal judgement, thus a precedent, that states, (and I paraphrase), “A sovereign, just by being sovereign, cannot legally give away the sovereignty of the kingdom but can only abdicate the throne, (sovereignty). That means the crown passes to the next Royal in the line of succession. Thus the old saying, “The King is dead – Long live the King”. The sovereignty of the Kingdom cannot, for an instant, be non-existent. In the event of a monarch dying without issue there are regents appointed to hold the sovereignty.
” … As was designed by the Act/Articles of the Union”.
Now wouldn’t that be a fine thing for the Yoons to claim?
They would be exposing themselves to claims of what is the actual way the present devolution is a real scam.
They would be invoking the articles of Union that plainly state the Union only legally has two, equally sovereign, Kingdoms as the partners in a bipartite, “United Kingdom” but are running the bloody thing as the Country of England ruling the roost over not just the other two countries of the Kingdom of England but also of treating their equal partner Kingdom of Scotland as just another country of the union.
That is the actuality of the present set-up but it is certainly not the legal position.
The present setup has Westminster running the country of England as the United Kingdom – it uses English law to legislate and tags on wee codicils at the end of Westminster acts to accommodate the differences in Scottish law and it finances the Country of England directly while deciding the block grants it will give to Scotland, Wales and N. I.
Simply put they have taken what is legally a bipartite United Kingdom and are illegally running it as if it were a union of four countries and only three of those countries are parts of the Kingdom of England. What else did you think EVEL was?
There is absolutely no legal legislature that can do that as long as the law of the Kingdom of Scotland states that the People of Scotland are sovereign. Remember that English law states a sovereign cannot give away the sovereignty of the Kingdom and tell me when the people of Scotland renounced their sovereignty?
In point of fact there have been several Scottish Claim of Right and the last one has several prominent signatures including Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Donald Dewar.
In any event most states in the World have two houses in their parliaments and thus two lots of elected representatives. So why not have two lots of Scots? Remember that the English may vote for their MPs but the Sovereignty of England remains legally with Her Majesty. It is NOT the Parliament of England – it is legally, “Her Majesty’s Government”.
Tell you what – instead of waffling, I’ll just provide two links and see if that works. And then retire to a safe distance.
RE: the BBC, of which much typing tonight, and the billboard campaign.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Billboards – my comment at 17.50pm here:-
link to commonspace.scot
Ken500 at 9.47
I would imagine that is the longer term plan for Prestwick which can take the bigger planes and which has very few weather interuptions.
Last post should say “interruptions”
38 Degrees have apparently taken down their wee petition about kicking out those pesky Scots from their broken union peeps. I can’t possibly imagine why they would want to to do that though! 😀
Never mind folks we have a back up plan. 😉
We can all do what has to be done over on THIS petition instead. 😀
link to petition.parliament.uk
Apparently Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency is leading with 91 signatures. 😀
link to petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com
@Arbroath1320
petition now 4,260
link to tinyurl.com
would be good if it could get picked up more in England,
maybe through English friends on twitter or facebook.
Can somebody post it (parliament petition) below the line on some of the right wing rags? I note people have mentioned battling on some of McF’s articles, perhaps we could encourage them to put their signatures where their mooths ur? 😉
Last comment before heading off about billboards.
For me, the official Yes campaign was dismal. It was dry and too vague. It wasn’t sharp enough. There was no detail and I was really looking for stuff to counteract the angry yoon stuff. I was embarrassed by wishing trees and bad poetry nights. That is how I came across WoS – the histrionic press coverage and bleating from the sappy Bella and Common Space types directed me here.
So if the publicity and negative comments about the billboards even just intrigue people enough to have a look then it will be worth it. If that is too much of an effort for them or they are put off by an idea that upsets them, so be it.
K1
Will do
Heedtracker @ 5.21 pm on 26th October.
As an aside to the points I made and which you did not address then read this:
link to parliament.scot
I also have to say that your omission of quotation marks when you quote from someone else’s post and your failure to acknowledge who posted the comment renders your comments in response virtually meaningless.
I agree Scot.
It was obviously created by someone dan suff but most of his countrymen and women don’t seem that bothered yet … apparently. 😀
I re-tweet the link every time I see it and add into others I make from time to time so hopefully the message will eventually get through and the penny will drop. 😛
ScottishPsyche at 11.39
The official Yes campaign was very good and nearly won us independence from a starting point of around 30%. There was a vast amount of detail (perhaps too much)which our media suppressed but there were hundreds and hundreds of huge enthusiastic meetings all across the country and thousands of activists working for months. That is why we are where we are today.
I can only imagine you were somewhere else when the rest of us had our shoulders to the wheel.
There are always ways we can do things better with the experience we gained in 2014.
Everyone’s away to their pit so I’ll clarify a point I made earlier. My understanding of semiotics is related to space and place, the built environment and social interaction, rather than literary structure or graphic depiction. The basic principles apply in roughly the same way though, sort of.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I obviously was somewhere else, probably working and doing the ordinary things I do like everyone else who is not politically active. I wasn’t a campaigner. I wasn’t a Party member. I was a fairly hacked off ‘member of the public’ looking for answers. What I am saying is the official campaign did not grasp my attention or engage me or many around me.
There were meetings and rallies. I became aware of them but I did not feel part of them, most people did not.
I am sorry if I have offended you and those who worked hard with you, but yes, you are right, things have to be done better.
The billboard campaign is a great idea.
As others have said before the BBC is the only effective political opposition to independence still standing.
I cannot see how we win the next referendum unless we start to invite people to question the veracity of the bbc’s output. There’s nothing nasty or conspiratorial about the campaign and it’s as good an idea as the WoS adverts placed on the Glasgow subway.
Will contribute to the campaign tomorrow and delighted that folk are being pro active.
Re: Billboards.
No problem with the BBC one, but it would be good to see general pro-independence billboards keeping the issue in the spotlight.
I would be happy to contribute towards such a campaign, especially at a time when the Brexit vote has put everything into upheaval.
A few billboards promoting the concept of Scotland having our own place in the world as a real nation state would be effective, including a few more provocative ones.
A nation or a region?
Personally I think a running campaign should be about more than just economics.
Self-government is also about dignity and democracy. We need to push the attitude that the current unequal union is demeaning to self-respecting Scots.
ScottishPsyche @ 23:39:
Huh? The “Yes” media presence may have at times been somewhat lacklustre, but one of the things that really hacked me off was the continual bleating by people on media vox-pops for “more detail”, when we were swimming (or more likely, drowning) in the stuff. Some of it, like the Wee Blue Book, was extremely comprehensive and authoratitive. We were even criticised in the media for not having a “Plan B” over currency, FGS! Compare that with the EUref, where the Brexiteers even now don’t have a “Plan A”. As if the media revealed that when it actually mattered.
I think what people really wanted, despite what they said, was plausible reassurance.
The solution to that is to be found in an authoratitive comparison of Scotland’s economic situation (natural resources, assets, etc.) relative to all its European neighbours of reasonably-comparable size. A comparison that will be favourable to us, I’m sure. See how well they are doing and we get a decent measure of how we can also expect to fare as an independent country. We are not uniquely incompetent, after all. Blow this facile “poorer than Greece” bollocks right out of the water, and take the GERS propaganda with it.
O/T
Someone mentioned The National’s “Scottish Passport Holder” for sale.
Not impressed IMHO.
I would be happy to part with £12 if somebody did a ‘holder’ version of this…
I’d be prepared to live with that until such time as the real thing arrived in the post. 🙂
Scottishpsyche , It’s interesting what you have to say. I never once attended an ‘ official ‘ Yes campaign event apart from Carlton Hill. The rest were discussions or meetings that I thought could be interesting but organised by ordinary folk like me and you.
I actually went along on my own to the first BBC protest ( believe me, not something I’d normally do) because I was utterly fed up with their high handed stance and then the removal of comments on the Blether with Brian site,
Being honest , that’s where I first got a lot of my answers to some of my questions , from the below the line comments.
It was there I realised there are other people in Scotland asking the same basic things , like if we have oil, why are people being asked to live in damp houses?
So where is the oil money going and one thing lead to another…
Funny enough I never once knew about or was invited to or aware of any Better Together meetings in the two years up to the Ref in my area.
Funny thing to mention…
Remember the excellent graphic from the YES campaign where the Scottish butterfly was rising to join a clutch of European butterflies? I always thought that image more than most typified what YES was all about, and I thought that would have made an excellent billboard.
But for reasons I can’t properly explain, I don’t believe it resonates with Indyref2.
The butterflies were inspirational and aspirational, but Indyref2 is a battle for our survival. If we want Scotland to remain a positive, welcoming and inclusive place for people to come and live, we have no future in the xenophobic and deeply troubled UK.
I think the vital message for Indyref2 is the fundamental understanding that there is no default setting; no “safe” status quo. We step into the light or we step into the dark. There is no neutral option. The darkness will thoroughly engulf us unless we stop it. No more Mr Nice butterfly.
I still have my aspirations that fill my heart and raise my spirit, but YES was reaching out for the things we never had. Indyref2 is the desperate struggle to hold on to the precious things we’ve got and to some degree take for granted.
@Molly
I was at Calton Hill that too and I was utterly infuriated at how at the BBC misreported it.
There is no R in the name by the way – it is not from English but from Gaelic. It means Hazel, which I presume grew there.
Breeks , I loved that poster but now I have to agree with you and it depresses me.
Links
link to auldacquaintance.wordpress.com
link to europe.newsweek.com
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Labour Discontent As 100 MPs Abstain From Party’s Own Vote On Yemen Civil War
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@Breeks 7:05 am
Agree wholeheartedly.
We need a Hamish with claws this time
All the Press is misreporting.
A mention of the deficit and how it is accumulated might be relevant. A mention of Wings will help. The Indy Ref1 should have included true discussions on budgets etc. The debate should have included the mismanagement of the UK economy by Westminster. It was lacklustred. The only good leaflets with facts and figures came after the postal vote. The SNP just keep control of the next campaign. They have the experience.
10 multimillionaires are controlling the UK. Some are tax evading Non Doms who are not fit people to be controlling the Press. 10 multimillionaires have funded the lies and distortion of the Indy Ref NO campaign and the Brexit campaign. To sanction the vulnerable and increase the tax breaks for the wealthiest. Westminster Unionists are misusing £Billions of public money, on another London S/E fest. HS2 and Heathrow expansion etc. Even more traffic chaos. Along with Hinkley Point. Corruption. Ignoring the North and Scotland.
It will be hard seeing SNP MP’s going through the lobby with Tories on Heathrow. Scotland might be Independent and have more direct flights, by then.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017.More control of the Councils might help to put through Scottish Gov policies. To make sure the policies are carried out. Could more spending be given to essential Council services instead of capital spending on grotesque projects wasting public money? Non mandated Against the majority interest and the public interest. The councils are suppose to be oroviding local public services. The Gov to decide proper evaluated capital funding projects.
The Holyrood system does need changing. To get rid of the 3rd rate rejects getting far to much say.
I obviously missed the thinking behind backing a third runway at Heathrow – can anyone tell me why the SNP voted on this and didn’t just abstain? is there an advantage to Scotland?
Minimum pricing will help the Health Care budget. Sanctioning the vulnerable can be stopped in April 2017.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017. Vote for Independence.
Misreporting Scotland doing its daily job of running Scotland down. They are delighting in the recent poor figures about health targets.
My own recent experience shows the Scottish Nhs to be ultra modern, compassionate, and efficient organization.
Could the bbc, be lying?
If people find real life out of touch with the appalling picture the bbc paints of life in Scotland they will be dismissed as a propaganda station.
The bbc is digging its own grave, as growing numbers of Scots don’t believe a word they say, and post indy still will not believe word they say.
CameronB Brodie on 26 October, 2016 at 9:58 pm:
100% bang on, Cameron!
😉
Petition increasingly steadily.
link to tinyurl.com
An interesting feature is the map. If you switch to ‘% of constituents’ mode you can see more accurately where the concentrations are.
This provides an excellent survey of the locations of online pro democracy activists, or cybernats as they are sometimes known 🙂
Lowest concentrations are in the previously Labour urban areas, and highest in the previously LibDem Highlands and west coast. SNP ‘heartlands’ of the NE are middling.
@Dorothy Devine
SNP say that supporting the 3rd runway means best result for Scotland. In connectivity, investment in Scotland and Barnett consequentials.
As a member, have to say I’m slightly perplexed, but I suppose they need to take a position.
Breeks says:
Yes. IndyRef1 contrasted the positive of YES versus the relentless negativity of NO.
It is inevitable, and correct, that YES must go on the offensive and point to massive failings of the Union and all the previous deceit. However, this must also be tempered by the same aspirations as before. We still need positive imagery.
I’m not suggesting this as a poster … but the image I now have is of the same butterfly rising to join the others, however on the ground is sad dying creature with broken Union Flag wings.
Nana:
As always thank you for the links X
Iain:I agree with you wholeheartedly about the SNHS
modern,compassionate and efficient.
Peace Always
“”Dorothy Devine says:
27 October, 2016 at 8:27 am
I obviously missed the thinking behind backing a third runway at Heathrow – can anyone tell me why the SNP voted on this and didn’t just abstain? is there an advantage to Scotland?””
As far as I am aware no vote has been taken. All that has happened is that the UK Government has announced there will be a third runway at Heathrow but it could be up to a year before the issue comes before Parliament in Westminster.
The SNP, or Nicola Sturgeon, has said they support it and would presumably vote for it when it comes before Parliament.
Given that the Tories have a majority now of 10 and about 50 of their MPs will vote against the runway therefore the SNP votes will be essential for the project to get the go head.
I have no idea why they are supporting it. We should be working to improve direct connectivity from airports in Scotland. It also does not make sense in terms of the SNP’s supposed green credentials given the noise, air, and traffic pollution that will result from it.
A weird decision.
Robert Peffers @ 10.50
I’m sorry to have taken so long to respond to you Robert,Only got to read your comment to me just now.
While we kind of agree on what went on with the Union,am afraid I can’t agree on some of your interpretation of it.
My point about Holyrood only having the part of our Soverenty/Power that Westminster passed to it ,when the Parliament was reconvened ,was not an acknowledgement of Westminster as a whole having the authority to do so.
But rather that the Scottish Westminster MPs who have and are responsible for law making for Scotland,took part and went along with the arrangements.
Them going along with it is how law’s have been put in place in Scotland since the Union was formed.
It is in fact an indirect acknowledgement of the fact that there are two distinct legal systems.
Which as you have said many times there is and always has been two separate systems.
The Act of the Union is really only the framework they came up with to try to run these two systems in parallel.
Now I know that even had they objected the MP’s would or could have been voted down.
As I am sure you can agree that is the “flaw ” (I am being nice about it)in the plan so to speak.
But there is a world of difference between objecting and loosing a vote you take part in , within a system you are remaining within.
And stating that you no longer lend your power and authority to this method of law making for Scotland therefore this law making body cannot pass any legislation that holds force for Scotland anymore.
It is the fact that up until now no Scottish representatives have gotten together in enough numbers who are willing to take from Westminster their authority granted from the people of Scotland and prevent Westminster from legislating for Scotland.
Even if they had there were also Scottish Law Lords who may have had some sort of power to put the kibosh on them doing so.(circumventing rather than confronting the Court of Session). Although if that chanty burst there’d be one hell of a stink.
So I take the view that, Holyrood runs they way it does because our MP’s agreed to it,they did not say Holyrood will be reconvened with all powers restored to it,quite the opposite in fact.
They said Holyrood will reconvene with all powers except the ones on this list,those power’s stay with us.
So Robert it’s my assertion that stay with Scottish MP’s those power’s will, till such time ..we …the actual boss says different.
We are fortunate that the current lot are asking for instructions as a the previous ones never did.
We now have a large number of Scottish MPs who are willing to “bring our Soverenty/powers home” to exercise the authority we give them in Holyrood and no longer take part in the Westminster system,but they have promised not to do so unless and until they either receive a direct instruction from their Sovereigns or are obliged to do so by a threat to their Sovereigins Soverenty.
And as a side point this Marjory of Scottish MPs have no real or imagined superiors in the Law Lords.
Now while we might be saying the same thing in differeway I.E.
The Scottish People are Sovereign.
I can’t see Holyrood as the main route to having All of our Soverenty managed from there,that IMHO is a Munro best bagged at Westminster.
Ref the Audit Scotland report on the SNHS, I have reservations on Audit Scotland itself.They always seem to come out with stuff that suits the Yoons soo well.
Quite often their negatives also come out when FMQ’s are due,Hmmm.
Meanwhile Yoonland NHS is really breaking down,but Scotland is the main focus of bad, who actually are Audit Scotland?, who is on the board? Who set it up in the first place? What are it’s real aims?
Who actually runs it?
Heathrow,
The choice is between London airports and has nothing to do with increasing or decreasing our connectivity, which the SG are trying to do. None of the choices are good for Scotland.
The Barnet money will probably be far higher from Heathrow as it will have loads of delays hiking the price up (what’s not to like?).
Also Heathrow is renowned as a nightmare airport for travelers thus making hub services in Scotland (as connectivity improves) quite attractive.
Agree about SNP support for third runway. Why?
O/T HAPPY BIRTHDAY REV!
robertknight @3.21: now I really like that. The Gaelic and Scots will have the PSB’s flipping their lids.
Classy!
So the UK is sending 800 troops to the Russian border now? Well, Estonia, which is that little bit of Russian border between the Gulf of Finland and Latvia.
Well, come one, what Britnat nostalgia project for 1950’s food rationing, Anderson shelters, and plucky Union Jack Britishness would be complete without its own version of an authentic Cold War paranoia and threat of imminent nuclear annihilation?
Ah the good old days….
Soon we’ll be allowed to use the word “Golliwog” again, and put pictures of them on the trillion or so Robertson jam jars sent annually to China to save the UK economy.
link to archive.is
Onwards says:
I agree a variety of posters hitting the right spot would be better. But the BBC deserves it’s place. Places of high visibility could achieve that.
Here’s a wee thought. The UK would probably be regarded as a “pariah” state if it wasn’t for the UK’s seat on the UN’s security council. How else could they so brazenly deny the human rights of an entire nation with such impunity?
OK I was forgetting about the Scotch themed press and the BBC.
P.S. If English law does indeed stand over Scots law , then I suppose the BBC’s new charter might actually be legal. Wonders will never cease.
link to un.org
Being able to land planes on arrival, rather than having them ‘stacked’ for ages would be considerably greener.
Thanks Valerie and Legerwood – I am a tad perplexed too.
Stoker
😉
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, REV. Perhaps take the day off?
Cameron B Brodie @ 10.03
English Law doesn’t stand over Scottish Law.
The best way to describe it is the concept of Separate but Equal,carry on that operated in the US,back in the day.
I think it might be called The Jim Crow law/laws ???
And I am afraid that in practice that is exactly how legislation is currently implemented for us.
We are part of a system that by taking part in the system ensures that we just pretty much write into Scot’s Law what Westminster has decided should be written in to English Law.
If you step to the side titlt your head close one eye and squint ,you could just about call it democracy…and sadly many Scot’s do.
Keep up your articles…..they are an eye opener!!
Liz g
If you can stir it so can I but thanks for the clarification. 😉
The shortbread phone in on the SNHS did not go to plan. I was out at the doctor’s and caught most of it on the car radio.
Very positive overall and the last caller I heard, with two daughters working in the service, summed it all up rather well.
Basically telling auntie and the other MSM to stop kicking it around like a political football.
We know it’s not perfect but it’s better than other places not too far away.
First day out for a week nearly still a bit wobbly 🙂
Valerie says:
27 October, 2016 at 9:07 am
@Dorothy Devine
SNP say that supporting the 3rd runway means best result for Scotland. In connectivity, investment in Scotland and Barnett consequentials.
As a member, have to say I’m slightly perplexed, but I suppose they need to take a position.
The SNP position should have been that it is greener to fly from Scottish airports direct to the far east, the America’s than via Heathrow.
Who in their right mind trusts the BAA and British Airways?
Bad call SNP UNLESS there is some deal done maybe over Prestwick.
SNP MSP’S/MP’S/ researchers who monitor such sites fancy telling us plebs?
Anent the billboard tiff. The Tories were quick off the mark with their billboard outside the SNP conference.
Here’s another we though. No Trident renewal = no UN Securuty Council seat and the UK’s pariah status beckons.
Maybe the deal was to keep the Inverness/ Heathrow flight?
BA have the knack of withdrawing services then offering a crumb of comfort by saying they will give us a flight or two.
Remember British Caledonian ? Bought over not for the company but for the routes BCal flew. Then Laker airways…
Billboards reach target – happy birthday Stu
3rd runway won’t be built anyway. SNP having a bit of fun with Westminster – anything which causes disagreement between britnats is good. SNP can always change its mind if it means more disagreement.
Happy Birthday Rev.
Yeah! BILLBOARDS are coming!
Happy Birthday Rev, and if I cold put that on a Billboard I would;)
Have just donated to the Billboard campaign – facts are cheils that dinna ding, or chills that dinner according to auto speller. I hope they go on to inform people with economic facts, etc and not just the Beeb. Definitely worth a try. There are former no’s out there, who haven’t learnt all the stuff we have, but once they do. Well its all to play for. Education, education, education.
Re the SNP and Heathrow… apparently they had an extensive stall and function at the SNP conference, giving out free drinks. It smells bad to be honest. Not green, not locally democratic, making the ‘dark star’ more powerful, and will it be a national project, like the London Sewers? So once again Scots will have to pay to improve the London infrastructure. Hhmm.
If there is a real positive Scottish aspect to this, the SNP should be getting that info out now and out clear, and wthl all their new members, they have no excuse not to do so… except that they don’t really utilise that asset very well. Still I’m sure Angus will be on it soon.
Peace to all. We’ll get there yet.
@call me dave
Hope you feel better soon. Keep up the good work with your links.
Presumably the Heathrow bosses offered more concessions towards Scotland.. extra flights etc
Given that the extra runway is going to be built regardless, I suppose it makes sense for the SNP to support whichever option benefits us more.
Although they need to keep pushing for more direct flights which will benefit Scotland the most. Reducing APD should help with this.
Yes Hamish 100, I remember the shenanigans particularly over Laker . I seem to remember that BA , British Caledonian and Richard Branson all plotted against him.
Duncan Hothersall ?@dhothersall 15m15 minutes ago
And yet senior SNP and independence people will continue to endorse @WingsScotland, despite him being a vile pustule on Scottish politics.
Happy Birthday to yooooooou!
For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow.
Much less senior SNP and independence people will also continue to endorse @WingsScotland. 😀
What sane person would respect and submit to a system that denies their human rights?
link to micahmwhite.com
Bit of speculation and mischief making from McWhirter….
link to heraldscotland.com
Maybe needs further investigation. Now what could May possibly offer Sturgeon. A smooth indi ref bill? Or an agreement on a different EU membership for Scotland. Interesting times peoples.
Happy birthday Rev.
The billboards are a good idea, even though they are being attacked by Common space and others. I notice it is those involved in media who are most vociferous on the issue. I suppose the BBC throws them crumbs now and again so they have a vested interest in protecting it in a strange way.
Thing is though, they appear to be in denial that the BBC is one of the most biased opponents of independence. I notice not one of them has offered an alternative strategy of how to deal with that. These billboards have been proposed by ordinary folk sick of feeling helpless against a media giant intent on destroying their dream.
What option is there? Sit back and do nothing ? That would be worse.
What sane person would respect and submit to an authority that denies their inalienable human rights?
link to micahmwhite.com
Hothersall should leave politics to people that understand it Heedtracker. He would back the UK over a cliff! No brains , no vision and dogmatically subservient.
“Anent” Heathrow, it seems to be about slots for flights to and from Scotland, they’re going down so it’s a case of supporting the 3rd runway to keep what we have and increase it, rather than see it drop to our disadvantage. Also exports and stuff, to markets that couldn’t all be covered in Scotland. Apparently Heathrow is better for us than Gatwick, Glasgow airport like it, business leaders like it, changber of commerce are behind it.
So the SNP are doing the right thing, but will indeed get abused for it.
OT. The BBC in Scotland is the British Establishment using talking pictures and Nodding Heads to spread Goodness,Truth and Bakeoff to GB Northern Territories.
Bless them.
I do not profess to be an expert on Scottish history, or on our relationship with England since 1707, but, I have my opinions. I have also been interested in the discussion on here between Robert Peffers and liz g; so, here is my twopenceworth.
I can buy into the perception that Burns’s “parcel o’ rogues”, when they signed the Act of Union back then were looking after themselves first. However, once the initial adjustments were made – mostly it has to be said on the Scottish side, I believe our representatives in Westminster genuinely set-out to try to make the United Kingdom work.
I also believe, since England has always put England first, the Scots’ altruism and willingness to work for the common good of the new UK was played-on by the Little Englanders. In a union of two sovereign nations – the larger nation was always, in their eyes, more-equal than the smaller.
We fast forward through the various Reform Acts of the Victorian era and, I suspect, while the Scots representatives in both houses at Westminster thought they were part of a Great Britain that stretched from Land’s End to Out Stack and from Lowestoft to Rockall, to their English colleagues, anywhere north of a point between Carlisle and Berwick-on-Tweed might as well have had a caption saying: “Here be dragons”. For them, Great Britain/the United Kingdom/the Empire was always English.
Scotland made a lot of money for a lot of English people, we shed a lot of blood – on a pro-rata basis more than “the mother country” in England’s wars, while the minor Edinburgh public schools got themselves a nice wee sinecure in churning out the district commissioners and administrators who made the Empire function. How the Empire worked: the English decided what was to be done and the Scots made damned sure, the Irish and Welsh did the exact opposite.
Over these long years, our Scottish representatives, with a few honourable exceptions such as the first MP I ever encountered, the late Emrys Hughes, the Welshman who was long-serving MP for South Ayrshire and the late Willie Hamilton – part of a small “awkward squad” on the left of the Labour Party, by and large made themselves at home in the Palace of Westminster; to become the “Low-flying Jimmies” of legend. Easily-led lobby fodder who didn’t upset the status quo, as the English ran things to suit England.
Then, in September, 2014 and more-so in May, 2015, everything changed. Suddenly we had a solid phalanx of Scottish MPs who would put Scotland first. This has seriously rattled England, the tartan colonials are no longer prepare to play their game, by England’s rules – and, to quote Corporal Jones, the English parliamentarians don’t like it up ’em.
The many predecessors of our present fighting 56th have sat on their hands and allowed the English to have things their way too long. They have allowed the Union to become disunited and weighted too-far in favour of England.
A Holyrood parliament, with a majority favouring Scottish Independence, is a great thing, but, in this fight, the key troops for Independence are the fighting 56th.
I feel, they need to make it abundantly clear to the rest of the House of Commons – you have ignored and legislated against Scotland’s interests for over 300-years. Our predecessors have colluded with you, this stops – NOW – no more Mr Nice Guy.
You either listen to Scotland, or Scotland withdraws from your unequal Union. Take it or leave it.
CameronB Brodie @ 10.54am
The UK is a permanent member of the UN Security Council which was set up before the UK had nuclear weapons. When the Security Council was set up only one of the permanent members had nuclear weapons – the USA. The other permanent members acquired nuclear weapons later. Their position as permanent members rested on them being on the winning side in WWII.
Recent proposals to increase the number of permanent members have included countries such as Germany which do nit have nuclear weapons.
The original and continuing permanent members are UK, USA, China, France and Russia which was seen as the successor state to the USSR.
O/T
Peep the Beeb Campaign Update.
Phase 1 of the campaign is now in full swing with BBC MISREPORTING SCOTLAND stickies having been sent out to distributors all over the country. (There are still loads of dud stickies from the original batch the printers messed up if anyone would like some. They are difficult to peel but doable with good nails and a bit of patience. Just email: peepthebeeb [at] gmail [dot] com and we’ll get some out to you).
Phase 2 of the campaign is to have vinyl car window stickers made and distributed across the country with the same message: BBC MISREPORTING SCOTLAND. A separate crowd-fund will be set up for this initiative soon.
I realise that not everyone on the YES side approves of these initiatives to tackle the BBC. Well, it HAS to be done and it HAS to be done NOW. When the official starting gun for IndyRef2 is fired, it will be too late. For these campaigns to effectively combat the BBC’s 24/7 propaganda they will need TIME; time for enough people to see the message, consider it and learn from it. The BBC can broadcast its propaganda into the homes of millions in seconds. That is what we are up against. With this campaign (and the billboard camapign) we are, by necessity, taking the drip-drip approach to getting the message out. And that approach takes time and needs time. Which is why it has to be started NOW, well in advance of IndyRef2.
And let no one misunderstand. The Peep-the-Beeb campaign is not about attempting to silence the BBC (as if that were even possible), nor is it about getting the BBC to promote the views of indy supporters over those of anyone else. It is simply about getting FAIRNESS in broadcasting from the BBC. As matters stand (and no matter how much the BBC protests and pretends otherwise) its broadcast news reports are very much skewed in favour of the Union. No one but no one can surely now seriously dispute that.
When Scotland’s NHS is shown statistically to be the best performing health service in the entire UK, the BBC in Scotland will find some way to distort the figures to produce an SNHS/SNP bad narrative. Conveniently ‘forgetting’ all the time, of course, that Scotland’s budget is being slashed by the TORIES IN LONDON of which Ruth Davidson, their new Unionist cheer leader in Scotland, is happy to support.
Remember how the Forth Road Bridge had to close for unscheduled repair works? The BBC in Scotland was in full-on SNP bad mode for weeks on end, through all its media channels. Notice how quiet they were when the new Forth Road bridge was opened ahead of schedule and under budget? Where was the BBC’s broadcast news reports then? Where was the ‘SNP good’ narrative? There simply wasn’t one.
That skewed approach to news reporting is simply NOT acceptable in any modern democracy. The BBC in Scotland, by its actions, is actively undermining Scotland’s democracy, its democratically elected government. And THAT cannot be allowed to continue unchecked. THAT is what these campaigns are about.
Uninformed/unaware people have to be made aware of the insidious nature of BBC in Scotland ‘news’ reporting. They need to be properly informed before making their next big decision in IndyRef2.
We hope you will be able to help fund Phase 2 of Peep-the-Beeb campaign and help bring fairness in broadcasting to the state broadcaster in this country.
Wonder where the bbc misreporting billboards are going to be situated?
heedtracker
I think Mr. Hothersall simply hates the idea of Scots enjoying their inalienable human rights. He is a Britnat after all.
link to un.org
Big Jock said at 11:31 am:-
“Bit of speculation and mischief making from McWhirter…. ”
Here’s that Herald piece Archived.
link to archive.is
From Bloomberg:
“Brexit is set to rob international banks of the “passporting” rights which currently allow them to access the European Union.
In the most detailed outline yet of the government’s thinking on the future of U.K. finance outside of the EU, Trade Minister Mark Garnier told Bloomberg’s Tim Ross that passporting was likely to end, but would hopefully be replaced with some other relationship.
An alternative system known as equivalence, whereby banks keep operating in the European single market as long as British and EU regulations are compatible, is nevertheless probably not going to be “good enough” for banks, Garnier said. The status can be withdrawn at 30-days notice.
Garnier touted a “hybrid version” designed especially for banks based in the U.K. The drawback? Britain may have to accept all future EU regulations, something that may irritate voters who voted to leave the bloc.
“If we can create a special hybrid version of that, with a better version of equivalence or a different version of passporting, then that’s what we will try to achieve. What we are not trying to do is fit into an existing box. We are trying to create a new model.”
The comments will confirm the suspicion of banks that current ties to the EU are unlikely to continue after Brexit. The test will be whether finance executives now carry out their threat to shifts jobs and operation overseas to safeguard access to the EU.”
Theresa May’s knitting is unravelling.
Big Jock says:
27 October, 2016 at 11:34 am
Hothersall should leave politics to people that understand it Heedtracker.
He’s interesting in that red tory politics have failed, red tories have failed, its all fail for red tories, across the whole of teamGB.
And yet, here they are, bitterly raging away at anyone in their Scotland region who wont vote red tory SLab, racing towards that end of era abyss. Vote SLabour, we were great, don’t look back at what a catastrofuck we were in office, oh no! Just watch BBC vote SLab Scotland, you’ll see.
BBC viewers in England land have their own style of vote blue tory brainwashing.
And Hothersall types still own Scottish councils. Oh christ.
Legerwood
Thanks for the clarification, though the USA has B61 nuclear bombs stored all over Europe.
@Heedtracker 11:30
It’s just Hothersall’s way of saying Happy Birthday Rev Stu. ?
He doesn’t know nice.
The last thing Scotland needs is more divisive Unionist politics
Scotland doesn’t want another set of Unionists
There’s no appetite in Scotland for Unionists they should drop this idea of grievance standing for elections and get back to their day job
Unionists should be uniting our country not dividing it
Now that all sounds better to me
Legerwood @ 11.44
Can you (or anyone else ) tell me what the difference is between members of the security council and permanent members?
Also would it matter which Scotland was?
CameronB Brodie says:
27 October, 2016 at 11:49 am
heedtracker
I think Mr. Hothersall simply hates the idea of Scots enjoying their inalienable human rights. He is a Britnat after all.
“The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples…
That should be carved in granite Cameron! Its easy to mock idiots like Dunc. He’s just another British guy who’s world view tells him Scotland is a region of greater England. And that being a region of greater England is the best for all in his greater England land.
BBC attack propagandists daily reinforce Hothersallian UKOK vote SLab dogma but look at the stats. Glasgow and the west of Scotland’s got at least 25% of households with no one employed. The only way out is Scotland clawing away economic devo from Uk.gov Treasury, who wont give up anything. And its because they all think like our Dunc. What’s good for the Scots, is bad for greater England, v v bad.
The billboards – great idea. They will stimulate debate. Remember we have academic research that backs this up. The BBC are also in a pickle over how they play out brexit north and south of the border. It only takes one chink for someone to start querying and then it’s over to Yes.
Flags on food – getting on my nerves. Why can’t they just say country of origin? Or if it is flags then why the union jack? I’ve no problem with an English, Welsh or Irish flag. But I’m sick of this team GB approach to everything – and judging by the mood down the road the English are fed up too – they are increasingly flying the flag of St George and ditching the butcher’s apron. Sadly Aldi and Lidl’s are going down this path – so I will be searching out other places to shop!
have to agree on those flags – I would love the Welsh dragon slapped on Welsh produce – it really is a cracker of a flag!
So some people are a bit sensitive about upsetting the BBC.
This is how the BBC reported an MP’s resignation.
link to archive.is
This tells you how the BBC were directly involved.
link to archive.is
Feck those who are worried about the Billboards.
The more the merrier.
The bigger the better.
Brexiteers celebrating Nissan announcing they will develop Sunderland into a superplant.
This coincides with ONS announcing that last 3 months have seen 0.5% growth increase.
Faisal Islam says sources are clear a secret deal has been done with Nissan, and no coincidence the two announcements are on same day.
Where are they getting the money to give Nissan? Which must be substantial.
@Liz g says: 27 October, 2016 at 9:37 am
“I’m sorry to have taken so long to respond to you Robert, Only got to read your comment to me just now.”
It is not your fault, Liz. I’m rebuilding my extensive wired home network. So I’m only on-line in fits and starts and it makes things a bit disjointed.
“While we kind of agree on what went on with the Union,am afraid I can’t agree on some of your interpretation of it.”
That is actually a rather good thing. First of all I’m expressing my own views but I do so after a lifetime of studying this particular aspect of Scottish history. Debate can only lead to a clearer understanding and often opens up other aspects not perhaps considered before.
“My point about Holyrood only having the part of our Soverenty/Power that Westminster passed to it ,when the Parliament was reconvened ,was not an acknowledgement of Westminster as a whole having the authority to do so.
But rather that the Scottish Westminster MPs who have and are responsible for law making for Scotland,took part and went along with the arrangements.”
Let’s face it, Liz, they didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Perhaps comparing it to the former USSR might show you how I interpret it. Russia made the, so called, USSR, that laughingly termed itself, “a union of soviet socialist republics”, but was factually nothing of the sort. They were neither socialist nor republics.
Just like the, “NAZI”, party, and other similar fascists in Italy, the Russian Communists were not what they described themselves as.
The term, “NAZI”, is, (in German),the initial letters for the, “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” It too was neither socialist nor a workers party.
So before going any further we must not accept that what a political party claims to be is in fact what it is. Think of the present Labour Party in much the same way. They ceased being socialist long ago to the extent most Scots now call them the Red Tory Party.
The USSR was a bloc built upon an aggressive military invasion and absorption of other states by force. That is against all international laws and thus illegal.
So there is historically absolutely no doubt that all the evidence, (not ever mentioned in the history teachings in the United Kingdom), most certainly shows the Treaty of Union was in fact a forced takeover, and factual invasion, of Scotland by the three country Kingdom of England.
Think of the fact that the English claim the Jacobite uprising of Scots against the, then still independent, Kingdom of England deposing their monarchy and claiming this also deposed the, still independent, King of Scots, was a series of illegal invasions of Scotland.
The Jacobites could not legally be rebelling against the King of the still independent King of England. Now remember they were still fighting over that little matter at Culloden in 1745 almost 40 years after the English forced the signing of the Treaty of Union.
Check out the real history of William Patterson and Daniel Defoe and their spymaster employer, England’s “Sir Robert Harley”. All real evidence is that the Treaty of Union was forced upon Scotland by the English, and the greed and intransiences of the Scottish parliamentarians, (The Proverbial, “Paircel o Rogues”). Who, by the way, could not legally, (under both English or Scottish law), give away the sovereignty of the Kingdom.
As there was rioting in the streets throughout Scotland in protest against the Union the evidence is that the then Scottish parliamentarians had signed against the wishes of the majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland.
However, even accepting that The Treaty of Union was a legal treaty and there was indeed a legal, “United Kingdom”, formed in 1706/7 does not explain away the present Westminster cooked up setup of devolved powers.
There can be absolutely no doubt that the Treaty of Union was NOT directly a union of four countries as there is not a single mention of country or countries in the document. It only has two signatory Kingdoms and neither Wales or Ireland were required to sign up to the Kingdom because they were already part of the Kingdom of England.
Yet right from day one Westminster just assumed the Kingdom of England had full sovereignty over the Kingdom of Scotland but the Treaty and both Acts of Union do not bear that assumption out. Legally the Treaty of Union united two equally sovereign Kingdoms and that Union is thus not a country but is legally just what it agreed to be, “The United Kingdom”.
It did not agree to be, “The United Country of Great Britain and Ireland”. It is thus still a Kingdom but has long been being run as a single country and that under the law of England.
Then Westminster carried the scam to new heights by assuming that there was no longer a Kingdom of Scotland and that the Kingdom of England had been renamed by the Treaty of Union as The United Kingdom but then they decided to be the Country of England and devolve some of the powers of the country of England to the other three countries in the United Kingdom.
In essence the splitting of the united kingdom up along the lines of country instead of the actual union’s component parts, (two equally sovereign kingdoms), is illegally ignoring Scotland’s position of being the Kingdom of England’s only partner in the union.
So just like the United Nations accepted such members as the USSR when it was obvious they were composed of states forced into being parts of the member state then the Scottish Members of the Westminster Parliament had little choice but accept their position but does not prevent them from continuing to believe they are there to end the union.
The flaw in your view is that while the voters of England elect the member of parliament that MP is legally, under English law, a delegated representative of the sovereign Monarch of England.
The Scottish voter, being legally sovereign, votes their representative MP to exercise their legal sovereignty in the Westminster Parliament.
That boils down to the crazy setup where the English, Welsh and N.I. Members are exercising the Queens sovereignty of the Kingdom of England and the Scottish MPs are representing the sovereign people of Scotland’s sovereignty under a setup that is being illegally run as a parliament of the country of England devolving the country of England’s, (non-existent), illegal sovereignty over the bipartite United Kingdom.
Heedtracker
Carved on a gravestone and delivered, postage-unpaid, to the Palaces of Westminster. 🙂
@Valerie,
Secret deals behind closed doors at enormous expense. That is the future. Protect your choice functions whilst throwing everything else to the wolves.
Bit of a bloodbath at PMQs for Ruthie and Deadwood as they both, like those heavy based toys, kept bobbing up for more punishment with every ‘open goal’ question on the SNHS. 🙂
Rennie also joined in too late and fizzled out…the dud!
PS:
Brexit hot line to Davis…36hrs waiting time even the SNHS sometimes beats that.
Valerie says:
27 October, 2016 at 12:35 pm
Brexiteers celebrating Nissan announcing they will develop Sunderland into a superplant.
Where are they getting the money to give Nissan? Which must be substantial.”
Graun’s not saying either,
“Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, has been lobbying May’s government for guarantees after the 23 June referendum. He said on Thursday that government support and assurances had led to the decision to manufacture the Qashqai and X-Trail SUV models in Sunderland. The X-Trail is an unexpected addition.”
Several hundred million UK zone quid to pay for the 10% EU car sales tariff, probably. There’s a lot more to come too.
Just listened to king of the Brexit world Mike Gove on BBC Politics with the Ligger, that’s at least 3 days of blanket BBC coverage for Gove from BBC r4 news creeps too. Tory BBC propaganda at its worst, if only.
Oh wait! Emergency question / point of order from Sarwar about the SNHS Audit.
Ach he’s just grandstanding.
PO tells him to ask his questions to the Health Minister on Tuesday… :-).
There will be no special Brexit deal for Scotland, says David Mundell.
link to archive.is
That Davis hot line must be a one-way system straight to Mundell.
@Flower of Scotland.
Thanks for the kind regards. Not been in the pink for a few days getting better though and doing lots of reading on here.
Enjoying the comments.
Regarding the talking out of a Private Members Bill. I think that wasn’t just about being ultra nasty and putting an SNP MP in his place. It comes across as a clumsy attempt at telling the rest of parliament to STFU and that any attempt at altering the course of Brexit, or any other issue for that matter, will be kicked to the kerb by May and her minions. Theresa May’s government is in charge and not Parliament and don’t you forget it.
And straight after Ligger Neil’s BBC 2 hour long party political broadcast on behalf of Mike Gove and the Conservative party its,
Pressure Pad
John Barrowman invites contestants to descend into an illuminated arena, the Pressure Pad,
That’s enough BBC grot for one lunchtime.
link to youtube.com
Let’s just say, BBC tory creeps reward loyalty.
@ call me dave 12:42
Don’t denigrate SNHS.
Had to cal 111 on Sat evening for elderly ma in law.
Phone answered with 30 seconds
2 minute conversation answering standard questions
Transferred to medical person
3 minute conversation
Ambulance on way
14 minutes for ambulance to arrive
10 minutes in house
Out to ambulance and away
In hospital from first non emergency call within 1 hour.
Now in hospital receiving first class treatment.
And you want to compare that with BREXIT. Get a feckin life man. Choose the correct target like the DWP or the Tax office not the SNHS.
Robert Peffers @ 12.36
Firstly Thank You Sir for stating that we are having a discussion with a view to expanding our understanding of this issue.
That is exactly how I view it and was just about to post to Socrates McSporran that I was grateful he used the word discussion in his post.
I can’t disagree with anything that you just said,but what I did pick up on was the comparison with the Soviet Union being accepted as a single body when it is indeed no such thing.
And also that it was an enforced arrangement.
I had not thought of that comparison before but it it a good one.
All the more because I have an interest in how the different concepts of Legal Soverenty & Political Soverenty play out and, or are understood.
Which most definitely are issues that apply to the USSR especially internationally.
While you or I will never be the definitive voice on this I think it’s important to keep taking about what it might all mean.
So that the “power’s that be “don’t ever again talk to us like we don’t know what they’re up to.
If Scotland is to be organised more fairly after Indy.
Anyhoo good luck with your project.
I’m away tae think about Russia.
link to bbc.co.uk
Scotland will not get a “special deal” when the UK leaves the EU, the Scottish secretary has told MSPs.
David Mundell told Holyrood’s Europe committee that it was “absolutely wrong” to suggest individual areas or industries could win separate deals.
However, he said there could be “differential” arrangements within the single UK deal for some sectors, such as the financial services industry.
And he said Scotland’s concerns would be “right at the heart of the process”.
Spectacular BBC Scotland propaganda. Nissan just got a “special deal” but neither Nissan or planet toryboy is saying what it is, shock.
heedtracker said at 1:18 pm
“Scotland will not get a “special deal” when the UK leaves the EU, the Scottish secretary has told MSPs.”
Here is the Archived link to the BBC:
link to archive.is
OK .Let’s talk SNHS. It is remarkable in every way.
Whilst England suffers low morale and crisis upon crisis daily in the NHS, up here in Scotland we do rather well.
I feel sorry for Jim the miner mentioned on FMQ, but let us be very clear about this. The reason he is waiting is because of a clinical decision which doctors must do all the time. They must feel he is not a priority at this time, First Ministers do not make clinical decisions.
Secondly the morale of the staff here in Scotland is exceptional. It is among the best in the world. I can state this with absolute certainty. So much so that IHI are looking to approve the Scottish model of staff care as being amongst the best in the world.
Many of you will know nothing of this but I can assure you it is true accurate and measured. This also applies to patient satisfaction in most areas,
All this shit about SNHS is exactly that. Rubbish.
@Macbeda ??
I have been a supporter of the SNHS on here for many years now and have contrasted Scotland with darn Sarf on many occasions so I think you misread my point. 🙁
In fact I owe my life to the SNHS on their prompt action and care after suffering a aneurysm in the head a few years ago.
I don’t normally reply to posts having an opposing view as each to their own. But just to keep the record straight this once. 🙂
I’m glad your experience was good too.
Proud Cybernat:
Your 11:45 post was not O/T,it was spot on.I contributed to the posters and will continue to do so.Thank you for all of your hard work,it is one of the few ways that we can get our
views known to the general public.
Peace Always
Sorry to disagree–
yesindyref2 says:
27 October, 2016 at 11:36 am
“Anent” Heathrow, it seems to be about slots for flights to and from Scotland, they’re going down so it’s a case of supporting the 3rd runway to keep what we have and increase it, rather than see it drop to our disadvantage. Also exports and stuff, to markets that couldn’t all be covered in Scotland. Apparently Heathrow is better for us than Gatwick, Glasgow airport like it, business leaders like it, changber of commerce are behind it.
So the SNP are doing the right thing, but will indeed get abused for it.
indyref2
When did this get discussed by the snp? SNP branch office at Prestwick?
You have Frankfurt in EU, Schipol in EU etc — tagging onto Heathrow is silly. Ask Zak,
What has Scotland gained?
David Mundell told Holyrood’s Europe committee that it was “absolutely wrong” to suggest individual areas or industries could win separate deals.
What about the Financial sector?
“Well the Financial sector goes without saying”
…”and the car industry”
“Well alright but apart from the Financial sector and the car industry there will be no special deals”
“What about…..”
“Shut up and eat your cereal!”
The great thing about Fluffy Muddle is he is useless at this sort of thing 🙂
Robert Peffers says:
27 October, 2016 at 12:36
Robert, I never cease to enjoy your comments on the Union. I suspect you have educated half the nation on the subject. I also wonder how many of our MSP’S & MP’S are clued up on the history of the Union. Not that the Unionists among them would be much interested.
Do keep well and may I wish you every success as you rebuild your network. Be assured of your connections with Wings – they are all sound and of excellent quality.
The great thing about Fluffy Muddle is he is useless at this sort of thing”
We’re in for years of this kind of toryboy waffle, from Fluffie and the whole of the tory UK zone media.
Vote LEAVE and get back your £350 million a week, for a new hospital a week, as tory UK.gov pump billions back into the EU in tariffs, what can never ever be mentioned, by teamGB.
link to archive.is
All of which explains the ongoing blanket tory BBC Ligger Neil says Mike Gove is an ace guy coverage.
Heedtracker @11.30 & Proud Cybernat &11.45: thanks for those.
Dear Mr Hothersall,
Thank you for your interest. I am training to be a vile pustule too.
Regards, etc
I can’t understand the resistance to the Billboard campaign. Its sole purpose is to make people gently aware of BBC bias. If Common Space as a whole are really opposed to it, they are in danger, like Bella, of becoming a political Klein Bottle, disappearing up their own fundament while becoming nothing more than an achingly right-on debating society.
Some famous women sometime said, “Deeds, not words.”
The BBC is the main impediment to independence because, unlike the Dead Tree Press, older people still think it is truthful and balanced, mainly because the BBC have been telling all of us that since the time of the ghastly Reith.
Thankfully, the young don’t give a flying Carmichael about the BBC and once the chain has snapped it can’t go back on.
“Pro-Brexit Conservative big-hitters led by Michael Gove have landed places on a key committee to oversee Britain’s EU exit.
Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale and Dominic Raab – two other prominent Leave campaigners – will also sit on the Exiting the EU Select Committee.”
No SNP reps on their committee either. They can phone them though.
Nissan got £2Billion to develop electric cars in the North of England.
“”
CameronB Brodie says:
27 October, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Legerwood
Thanks for the clarification, though the USA has B61 nuclear bombs stored all over Europe.””
The fact that the USA has nuclear weapons in many countries around the world and that other countries have nuclear weapons has nothing to do with permanent membership of the UN Security Council or the UK’s position as a permanent member which was what your earlier post and my reply to it was about.
This Nissan deal must involve some huge sums of cash and/or guarantees. I suppose every single company will be getting the same kind of corporate welfare in order to be fair.. Could get expensive. Tories might have to raise taxes lol.
There will be another new model by 2019 when brexit is completed and the tariffs start to kick in. I’ll bet that one will be made elsewhere in europe.
Welcome to Brexit UK everyone. The tory land of toryness, where the UK.gov pays for all your EU trade tariffs.
@Rock says: 26 October, 2016 at 12:12 am:
“What mechanism to the “sovereign” people of Scotland have to exercise their “sovereignty”?”
The mere fact that they are sovereign by law and both the English & Scottish laws state that a sovereign, just by being sovereign, cannot give away the sovereignty of the kingdom.
That, of course, means there must be a provable majority, for example by a free vote that any particular thing is the expressed will of the sovereign people of Scotland.
” … If the SNP fail to get a vote on a referendum, or fail to win it in parliament, what do the “sovereign” people of Scotland do then?
It doesn’t need to be either the SNP or the SG to show a majority of the sovereign people’s expressed views. Scotland has had several, “Claim of Right”, petitions already but all have simply been ignored by Westminster. The last one was actually signed by such, believe it or not, “patriotic”, Scots as Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Donald Dewar.
A Claim of Right Act was passed by the Parliament of Scotland in April 1689. It is one of the key documents of Scottish constitutional law.
see :-
link to en.wikipedia.org
Then. 300 years later, A Claim of Right for Scotland, was set up by, “The Campaign for a Scottish Assembly”, in 1988. It declared the sovereignty of the Scottish people. It was signed then by all serving Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, with the only exceptions of Tam Dalyell (Labour). That list of signatories also included several MPs later to attain Westminster high office. These included the future prime minister & chancellor, Gordon Brown, future chancellor Alistair Darling, and future leaders of the Liberal Democrats Charlie Kennedy and Menzies Campbell.
” … In my view, the people of Scotland have near zero “sovereignty”.”
Yes, Rock, I believe we are all aware of your views by now and you are, of course, welcome to express them. That, of course does not, any more than my views, make them legally valid or correct.
It might help your cause if you could at least offer more than an opinion to back up your, no doubt genuinely held, views.
” … If parliament is unable to deliver, there is absolutely nothing that the people will be able to do “within the law” as it currently stands.”
That is utter rubbish, Rock. First of all the people are already doing more than just, “something”. Have they not elected a series of independence supporting MPs to Westminster? There could not be a more legal way of expressing the people of Scotland’s sovereign wishes to Westminster than that.
Then the sovereign people of Scotland have elected a majority, (wrongly claimed by the MSM as not having an, Overall”, majority). While it may not be a working party majority as the SG operates on a party basis, but there is indeed a majority of independence supporting MSPs at Holyrood.
” … And we barely have a majority on the independence side”,
On what evidence do you base that claim, Rock? Is it perhaps opinion polls? The same opinion polls proved so wrong in the past?
” … Our opponents are extremely rich and powerful”
Aye! Rock and as I’ve pointed out they are now wetting their collective breeks and knickers in abject fear.
To the extent that they are suppressing the news of such as the recent, “Unchain the Unicorn”, march. Yet still the movement towards independence grows as we speak and the news is getting out to the people. The newspaper circulation figures are dropping like stones and broadcast figures go down too.
The United Kingdom, at least as a government of a United Kingdom, is drawing to a close.
The monarchy may, or may not survive a bit longer but I doubt it will extend much beyond the life of Queen Elizabeth II of Englnd. Her heir, Charles, is not nearly so well loved by even the most ardent loyalists.
Just look at the royal coverage in the media. It is mostly centred upon the younger royals who, BTW: are treated more like pop singers than royalty.
Brexit good, Nissan good, England good, Economy good, Future good, Scotland baad.. Now here’s the news where you are…and repeat
I’m sensing a pattern here
But I’m probably paranoid eh
Socrates 1140 cybernat 1145.
Excellent guys.
I don’t get as much time as I would like to read all wingers posts, but what I have seen the last couple of days has been brilliant.
Re- Fishermen
When talking about the greedy skippers please remember that not all skippers are 100% boat owners. Many only have a part share, and the majority share will be owned by a company, who will own the quota allocation. The company then leases quota to the vessel which they own, and the cost of this quota is then deducted from the grossing of the boat.
This means that any boat that doesn’t have sufficient quota to last a whole year, or catches the quota before the year is up, has to pay to go to sea and fish, or they tie up.
Brexit and Frenchgate, (starring Alistair Carmichael as The Government Liar, and David Mundell playing the obsequious lying lickspittle,) now looking quite similar. A lengthy attempt by the Tory Government to cover up what they are doing, or in this Brexit case, what they’re not doing, using the repeated lying methodology.
Theresa May started off her Premiership emulating Thatcher. Now she hasn’t a clue. At PMQ’s yesterday, her stuttering and stumbling through broken words was quite something. This is the CEO of the UKPLC. Can’t be for long at this rate.
Lizg at 12.08
There are two main differences between the permanent members and the other members of the Security Council. Firstly, as the name suggests the permanent members are exactly that the remaining members serve a two year stint. Secondly, while each member has one vote, the permanent members have a veto which they can use to overturn decisions/resolutions passed by the Security Council.
Some links with info:
UN Security Council
A couple of links with short explanations as to which countries including the permanent members are on the Security Council.
link to un.org
link to un.org
And a fuller explanation here link to en.m.wikipedia.org
Interesting note taking, from facebook post by Heddle. Oh hokey cokey cokey tory.
BBC r4 vote tory news, Teresa May thrilled that Nissan investing in the UK, its all entirely because the tories are in charge you see, nothing else, just that, Teresa has Brexit going great, nothing at all to do with tory UK.gov underwrittenerising in the billions for Nissan Europe car sales division, at all, ever.
Donna Heddle SNP
1 hr ·
HOKEY COKEY MUNDELL ROWS BACK ON SINGLE MARKET AT HOLYROOD
Scottish Secretary David Mundell rowed back on his support for single market membership when appearing at Holyrood’s Europe Committee – the latest signal that the UK Government is doggedly pursuing a hard Brexit.
Mr Mundell was asked by Committee Convener Joan McAlpine whether he still agreed with his statement of July 13th that the best deal for Scotland meant remaining in the single market.
The Scottish Secretary said that “it is not appropriate to look at existing structures” as the UK Government intends to achieve a “bespoke deal”.
When asked by SNP MSP Richard Lochhead whether he agreed that there was a distinctive case for Scottish access to the single market, Mr Mundell implied that Scotland should not have an opt-out from the UK’s hard Brexit – insisting that “Scotland has two governments” and that “Scotland gets the best deal when those two governments work together in a team UK approach”.
Commenting, Mr Lochhead said:
“David Mundell squirmed his way through his appearance at Holyrood, using weasel words to hide the fact that he appears to be rowing back on his support for Scotland’s place in the single market – while it is increasingly obvious that he is being frozen out of discussions by his Cabinet colleagues.
“This is the latest example of the Scottish Tories abandoning their principles because Theresa May – who previously warned of the dangers of leaving the single market herself – has ordered the party to get behind a hard-right Tory Brexit.
“The Tories are in complete denial – there is no ‘bespoke deal’ that allows Theresa May all of the advantages of EU membership while simultaneously burning our bridges with the continent. The sooner the UK Government realise this and listen to the sensible suggestions put forward by the First Minister the better.”
Notes:
Joan McAlpine: “On the 13th of July you said that you wanted to ensure that Scotland got the best deal, and to quote you, you said ‘clearly that involves being part of the single market’. Is that still your view?”
David Mundell: “My view is that we want to maximise our involvement in the single market, that is the objective that the government wants to achieve. But what I’ve also said, what the Prime Minister’s said, is that it is not appropriate to look at existing structures because, going forward, what the UK is looking to achieve is a bespoke deal.”
Richard Lochhead: “In Scotland our position is different. We have a government of our own with a policy position, we have a parliament and we have 62% of the population who voted to remain within the European Union. And you are after all Scotland’s voice in the UK Cabinet, and therefore I assume it’s Scotland’s priorities at the foremost of your mind. Do you therefore agree that Scotland does have a distinctive case and a voice to be heard in these negotiations, especially in relation to access and membership of the single market?”
David Mundell: “Scotland has two governments. It has a government here, a devolved government, and it is part of the United Kingdom and it is represented by the United Kingdom government. Scotland gets the best deal when those two governments work together in a team UK approach. That’s what I am committed to achieving.”
@Hamish100
Firstly London and arounds are a destination in their own right, and if slots to Heathrow reduce that’s bad, from the point of view of us going down there and them coming up here – business and pleasure.
As for goods, the likes of Fedex operate via road and Stanstead, I’ve used that, but I daresay there are others operate via Heathrow. Search for “Heathrow freight”. It’s a question of cost, which is volume, which is why it’s often cheaper for sending goods via lorry to Southampton, and container from there, than Greenock. Quite a long time since I costed a half container, but it was like half the price from Southampton, and quicker.
Heathrow will still be an important destination after Independence, even if we develop every airport in Scotland up to the hilt, or apron.
Duncan Horsefeathers should leave denigrating Scotland to the professionals, such as the Tory boys running the Scotland Is Useless campaign or the BBC.
He could use his time to better ends, and perhaps win himself an autographed picture of Dan Snow or J K Wosserface or something nice, by dreaming up yet another TV programme that can have the word “British” slotted into its title, or look for another product made in Scotland that needs a Yoon-yin-jack stuck on its label.
Shouldn’t be too difficult a task, even for him… :/
Tinto Chiel
Re. aching debating societies. I thought this could possibly be adapted and put to some appropriate use. 😉
link to pretentious-o-meter.co.uk
Legerwood
Fair doos. Anyway, the denial of a nation’s inalienable human rights still strikes me as an appallingly criminal venture. God bless the Queen though.
Irish Times reporting on Nissan story.
“The British government has committed in writing to extra support for Nissan in the event that Brexit reduces the competitiveness of its Sunderland plant”
I don’t want to see workers losing their jobs, but where is support for those out of work in the oil industry?
What is the scale of this support, which is in addition to their existing support?
Why is it secret, when it’s public monies? That’s rhetorical.
@Proudcybernat
Totally agree with your sentiment – could have been my own words.
Until the BBC and STV for that matter, level out their bias skewed reporting,their GB state focused agenda must be countered by all who wish to see reporting of the issues as they should be – without bias (of any kind)
“”CameronB Brodie says:
27 October, 2016 at 2:30 pm
Legerwood
Fair doos. Anyway, the denial of a nation’s inalienable human rights still strikes me as an appallingly criminal venture. God bless the Queen though.””
EH??? Where did that come from?
Legerwood
I was acknowledging your superior knowledge on the subject and then moving on quickly. 🙂
So, a big company plays one party – the UK -against another – the EU
and extracts a big bribe.
It was ever thus!
link to archive.is
Oh, does Nissan still ‘sell’ its cars through Switzerland to avoid tax?
link to archive.is
Just a thought.
With the BBC celebrating 80 years of tv broadcasting, could one of those billboards not read –
BBC. Mis – reporting Scotland since 1926.
Just a reminder, ‘cos you won’t get one from Theresa May.
As soon as the Brexit results were known, with Scotland voting 62% Remain, the Tory Government knew instantly they were in the worst possible position. Since then, nothing has changed.
Confronted by the enormous political challenges facing the UK Government since June 23rd., Theresa May and her Cabinet are afraid of the consequences of brexit and have decided to cover them up. They believe they cannot tell the electorate the truth.
Turning to Scotland, the British Government’s preferred way of speaking about Scotland, at any time – is to lie.
The reason for this is simple: the truth seriously undermines the case for the Union. With Brexit, that is still true, but now, more than ever.
The future for Scotland is to be drenched in Unionist lies coming from every TV channel, newspaper and radio station. Just as before, but with added intensity due to Brexit.
Here is a saying you can rely on. Without Scotland, England is already bankrupt.
The British Establishment is now terrified of Scottish Independence. They were terrified in 2014, but thought they had got away with it. But since June 23rd 2016, they are maxxed out on fear, and their desperation to prevent Scottish Independence is so great, it cannot be measured.
That’s why they can’t stop talking about it.
It is not actually Brexit which is occupying the minds of Westminster; it’s Scottish Independence.
Brexit will be bad enough, but it will not trigger the ruination of England. But Independence for Scotland will.
Scotland is keeping the English economy afloat. It is England’s lifebelt.
No Scotland, no lifebelt.
No lifebelt . . . .
The queen is already blessed!
The UK gets the pleasure of entertaining the Monarchy year round, so it’s no surprise they pay a (metric?) buttload. There’s this year’s £150 million pound renovation for Buckingham Palace, the official residence. But that’s owned by the people, so apparently we shouldn’t factor that in. Outside of that, there’s another £42.8 million budgeted in the latest accounts. This works out to roughly £0.80 per capita.
So the UK taxpayer will subsidise Nissan forever, so that it can trade in the EU? When they could have continued to trade by voting to stay in the EU and not subsidised Nissan.
@Tam Jardine says: 25 October, 2016 at 11:56 pm:
“For lovers of Scottish history we get a rare treat in the Express- an article comparing Nicola Sturgeon and Bonnie Prince Charlie. I have no words. Robert Peffers: avert thy eyes:
link to archive.is
”
Aye” Tam, and what Tim Newark does in that article is twofold. It exposes his rather deficient standard of education as it exposes his sheer ignorance of history and also his somewhat idiotic conclusions.
He states, “But whereas the Prince left hundreds of dead clansmen on the field of Culloden before fleeing back to France”
The truth about Culloden is far more stark and far more indicative of the Westminster bloody minded mentality than Tim Newark realises.
The Battle of Culloden was the direct result of the Kingdom of England’s determination to take over Scotland by any illegal means they could muster. First of all there was no Union of the Crowns in 1603 as English History claims. This is clearly seen as only both still independent Kingdom’s crowns, (the symbol of their independent sovereignty), resting upon the same person’s head. The truth being that as the Kingdoms remained independent in 1603 there was no United Kingdom and no union of the two crowns.
The reason being that England remained under the rule of Divine Right of Kings until 1688 and Scotland had left that law behind in 1320 with the Declaration of Arbroath that not only declared Scotland an independent Kingdom but made the people sovereign and the monarch their defender of their sovereignty.
That meant James VI of Scots was NOT sovereign in Scotland but as James I of England he was sovereign in England. That meant that under the English Kingdom’s law of Divine Right he could have tagged the English kingdom he had just inherited onto his existing Kingdom of Scotland – if he had been sovereign in Scotland .
However, as he was only King of Scots and thus had no sovereignty of Scotland he could not take over the Kingdom of England but was legally king of England, (the already three country Kingdom of England).
Thus after England’s law changed in 1688 to the Kingdom of England becoming a Constitutional Monarchy the English overthrow of James II of England could have no legal constitutional affect upon the monarchy of Scotland, (i.e. James VII of Scotland was still King of Scots as Scotland was still an independent kingdom in 1688.
So the claim that the Jacobites were rebelling against the King of England was not correct then and it is not correct even yet. Thus the wars of the claimed, “Jacobite Rebellion”, were not a rebellion as you cannot rebel against a king not your own but were wars between the two still legally independent kingdoms.
As the Scots were still in alliance, (The Auld Alliance), with the French the still independent Kingdom of England saw Scotland’s borders as a weak point in their wars with the French. Their response was to use undercover agents to attempt to force a Treaty of Union with Scotland.
So, what was going on in England prior to the Treaty being signed?
First of all the English Kingdom had become a, “Constitutional Monarchy in 1688 by the English, “Glorious Revolution”, and its coffers were bare due to the many European wars due to the English, “Navigational Acts”.
“
Here we learn about the London Scot, “William Patterson”, who setup a subscription scheme to raise private money to bail out the English crown, (parliament since 1688). This subscription scheme led to the birth of the private company called, “The Governor & company of the Bank of England”. The same William Patterson who was later up in Scotland setting up the disastrous, (for Scotland’s parliamentarian landowners), Darien Expedition.
We also learn that Paterson was great friends with the author Daniel Defoe, who is a known English government undercover agent, run by the English spymaster, “Sir Robert Harley”. This pair were setting up Scotland for signing the Treaty of Union and English forces were massed along the Scottish border and an English fleet lying off the Firth of Forth.
So there you go Culloden was not a battle against a bunch of rebels – it was a war still being fought about Scottish sovereignty almost 40 years after the English had forced the Treaty of Union.
The three country Kingdom of England still is a Constitutional Monarchy but, as Scotland’s sovereignty legally rests with the people and not the crown, even after the Treaty of Union Westminster cannot include legally the sovereignty of Scotland because the Monarch who is legally still sovereign under English law does not have Scottish sovereignty to give away.
So perhaps that idiot Tim Newark can explain how Bonnie
Prince Charlie could be responsible for killing Scots at Culloden almost 40 years after the Treaty of Union was signed?
Re. that Common Space article. Why are those who seek merely to access their inaliable human right, referred to as “Scotish nationalists“? ‘Cause the author is still using the tools of their master, innit!
“BBC. Mis – reporting Scotland since 1926.”
Don’t you mean from 18:30?
I’ll get me coat.
yesindyref2 says:
27 October, 2016 at 2:12 pm
@Hamish100
Firstly London and arounds are a destination in their own right, and if slots to Heathrow reduce that’s bad, from the point of view of us going down there and them coming up here – business and pleasure.
As for goods, the likes of Fedex operate via road and Stanstead, I’ve used that, but I daresay there are others operate via Heathrow. Search for “Heathrow freight”. It’s a question of cost, which is volume, which is why it’s often cheaper for sending goods via lorry to Southampton, and container from there, than Greenock. Quite a long time since I costed a half container, but it was like half the price from Southampton, and quicker.
Heathrow will still be an important destination after Independence, even if we develop every airport in Scotland up to the hilt, or apron.
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Indy– So is Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, London City Airport. You also have the train and other much slower options.
You never really answered my original questions though. Where was the debate/discussion by the snp? What was the benefit? The billions to be spent on Heathrow 3 equates to 1 penny spent at Prestwick.
My third question was – what was the deal?
Seems Scotland got zero benefit.
Hi all, enjoying reading many great comments on WoS in between house chores, organising support for my son, trying to make some colourful prints with nuke subs in them, etc. ?
Just as an aside, found a publication yesterday, in charity shop called, ‘Scottish Affairs’, no.82, Winter 2013, I think it was started in 2010? ‘Successor to the Scottish Government Yearbook’. Published by, ‘Institute of Governance, Edin Uni’. Mix of aurhors, ‘forum for dialogue between informed journalism and academic analysis’. Oh aye.
I think can accessed for free on http://www.scottishaffairs.org
Happy birthday Rev Stu. ?
Good old Rancid.
From
link to archive.is
“Nissan decision to stay in Sunderland averts ‘catastrophic’ consequences
North-east city’s economic future is heavily tied to Japanese car giant’s continued presence there”
to
EU referendum: Almost all North East areas vote for Brexit – BBC News
link to bbc.co.uk
24 Jun 2016 – With all results now declared, people in 11 areas voted to leave. … UKIP and Leave Sunderland organiser, UKIP rules England land etc
then,
Hammer of the Scots Graun dude Severin Carrell, monsterer in chief of all things Scottish democracy, also from Sunderland.
and
“The episode has, however, left a bitter taste in the mouths of some in the city. Many Nissan workers voted to leave, in spite of a company-wide email from bosses recommending they do the opposite.
For some voters, sick of being told what to do by big business and Westminster, that edict would have simply pushed them further to the Brexit door. “In Sunderland, you don’t tell people to come with you, you invite them,” said one senior business leader.”
says Graun.
We’re shackled to oddest country, what controls Scotland completely.