A tried and trusted strategy
Posted on
March 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Does any of this sound familiar, readers?
Well, okay, maybe not that last bit.
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
“But No campaigners tried to do this without stoking up the atmosphere of hostility that would favour a Yes vote. They did not want to destroy the image of a Canada built on respect and accommodation, a crucial part of their campaign.”
Oops, too late Project Fear!.. 😀 😀
(cue ‘Dambusters’ theme)
“But No campaigners tried to do this without stoking up the atmosphere of hostility that would favour a Yes vote. They did not want to destroy the image of a Canada built on respect and accommodation, a crucial part of their campaign.”
Which just emphasises the sheer arrogance and disdain of our lot that they think this aspect doesn’t need to be considered.
Not going to let a bouncing ???? stop me
@Gordon Hay
No, no, let them continue all they want. 😀 If they are as unbelievably stupid as to not see the damage they are doing to the Union themselves, then who are we to comment. 😀 They obviously cannot put a price on ermine!
“But No campaigners tried to do this without stoking up the atmosphere of hostility that would favour a Yes vote. They did not want to destroy the image of a Canada built on respect and accommodation, a crucial part of their campaign.”
And of course, certain elements of Yes Quebec just had to poke the “Ethnic Votes” thing…
I think EU Citizens for Independence have the right riposte:
link to facebook.com
When Cameron was going on about “love bombing”, by encouraging his compatriots to phone us up and persuade us to stay in the Union, it was clearly a bit incomprehensible to the average BritNat who translated it as “the only language these ungrateful Scots understand is what we dropped on Dresden.”
Actually, Bella Caledonia has an article today mentioning that the Union has often had difficulties understanding others and communicating effectively (he cites the British punitive economic reaction to colonial disquiet that triggered the American Revolution).
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Anyone else off to hear about instability at Jim Murphy’s ‘important intervention’ on Friday in Glasgow at an undisclosed location. I will be there, I will be wearing my Yes badge and I hope to get the chance to ask a question.
I burnt some toast this morning and when I took a slice out of the toaster, once side had the recognizably, grumpy face of Alistair Darling on it.
I considered selling it on eBay but then realised that anything endorsed by “Flipper” Darling is usually worthless.
Well no-one thought Better Together or the Westminster Tories really had the imagination to think up their campaign all by themselves did they?
Now what will be interesting later, when there’s more pressure on them and they’re forced to go off-script to try and avoid disaster is to see what tactics they will then try to come up with?
Will there be simply even more ridiculous scare stories or will they go further and try and further implement the old British Empire technique of divide and rule by using differentials in polling intentions between different demographics and try and drive a wedge between those groups of people?
Living in Canada (Alberta) I get to see the fall out from this regularly. Here in the west there is still (sweeping generalizations and stereotyping warning here) a bit of bubbling resentment that these damned Quebecois (who do they think they are) would dare to do such a thing, after all they’re just rude and ‘french’. But on the other hand there is a small but growing ‘independence’ slant here in Alberta (the oil based economic powerhouse) who are fed up subsidizing the rest – (especially the sponging Quebecois, but for some reason they don’t wont same sponging Quebecois to go). Mind you on the other hand this is the same ‘rest’ who think that he Alberta oil that subsidizes them is dirty and horrible and volatile, but best kept under Ottawa rule – obviously. UNfortunately the ‘Wild Rose’ party here in Alberta (closet independistas) have politics not dissimilar to UKIP so best avoided – right wing (Damned tories here are obviously mamby pamby liberals) , closet racist, and any other phobic you care to mention – they all find a home in Wild Rose. Of course the nail in the coffin for Scottish independence v Quebec is that there is a clear cultural and language distinction between francophone Quebec and the rest, unlike Scotland of course where we are assured by the great Lord Robertson that we don’t have a culture. So many interesting parallels but also much less vitriolic in general than what is happening back home, but that’s Canadians for you.
@GH Graham
Best see a shrink or eat porridge instead.
London Devolution
link to data.parliament.uk
London Devolution
link to data.parliament.uk
Scare stories seem to be international.
Derek Bateman says that the currency thing is a red herring. Care should be our currency;
link to derekbateman1.wordpress.com
Sorry for going O/T but folks may remember some of us reporting last night that (dis)Reporting Scotland were claiming that Alex Salmond and his cabinet were to be banned from council buildings, schools, libraries, parks etc in Aberdeen.
Earlier today I posted that (dis)Reporting Scotland were claiming that the First Minister and team were not to be banned, according to an independent vice chair of the Aberdeen council who claimed Willie Young had suffered from a “slip of the tongue.”
Well folks the comedy act that is the Willie Young show continues.
link to tinyurl.com
I have also heard the the SNP group within the Aberdeen council are to put forward a vote of no confidence in Willie Young on Wednesday. Great idea but I fear it will not get very far,either Labour will prohibit the vote or he’ll squeak by in a narrow vote to save himself, only time will tell.
Sorry but I forgot to add this link to my last post.
link to tinyurl.com
It appears that big business has MORE confidence in an independent Scotland rather than being confident in the workings of the Westminster government.
‘They did not want to destroy the image of a Canada built on respect and accommodation, a crucial part of their campaign.’
Perhaps the No campaign couldn’t do that here because there’s no such image to destroy.
Respect?
I see the Duke of Argyll trousered £126,000 in housing benefit last year. How many bedrooms does he have?
link to politicalscrapbook.net
John Barrowman on the One Show now, wonder if he’ll risk a bit of propaganda.
You can watch Alex Salmond giving his speech in London live here.
link to uk.reuters.com
I used to work with a Quebecois in Tokyo (he’s still there). He’s been telling me for months that it’ll get really dirty in the run-up to the vote.
He also tells me Quebec is watching us intently.
Damn it just after putting up the link to Alex Salmond’s speech the live feed failed. Hmm, methinks Reuters UK didn’t like what Alex was saying too much. 🙂
I would take that last paragraph with a heavy dose of salt as it doesn’t tally with what he tells me.
link to uk.reuters.com
Gordon Hay says:
“But No campaigners tried to do this without stoking up the atmosphere of hostility that would favour a Yes vote.
Which just emphasises the sheer arrogance and disdain of our lot that they think this aspect doesn’t need to be considered.”
No it rather emphasises the STUPIDITY of the No camp. They really are a bunch of dimwits.
@ bookie from hell, interesting to hear Salmond not critical in anyway of Vote NO BBC in Scotland on that Reuters link right the now. Are they untouchable now?
he commented on a balanced programme going out newsnight scotland castlemilk,and townhall meets
From this paper i think? I recon this paper outlines the westminster governments strategy they are and will use. Any of it sound familiar?
link to parliament.uk
@ bookie from hell, no he commented on a Newsnet campaign report from these areas, is what I heard!
Ah well, at least we have Ehow on our side !
link to ehow.co.uk
Ah well, so Russia has test fired a intercontinental ballistic missile eh, I wonder where the Russians have stuck the “contact pin ” on the map of the U.K. ?. ( it’ll be just about as far away from London as Westminster could put it!!, but still local to a city of considerable population )
Humble apologies Rev, for going O/T, already got the kilt and sporran on and am half way oot the bothy!.
alex sounded quietly confident of a YES win,positive graasroots campaign,answered all the questions,
I have to wonder if the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also destroyed their reputation during the Quebec referendum, the same way the BBC has done theirs desperately attacking new PR Scottish democracy eg. Why is this reported here link to newsnetscotland.com
and yet totally not reported here link to bbc.co.uk
Unfortunately for the naysayers Quebec is not and never has been an actual country. It doesn’t have a treaty of union signed as a sovereign state with another sovereign state to make a new state.
There has never been an actual country that has rejected independence so the doom-mongers have to compare Scotland with a region of a federal state. Just more Scotophobia.
Aaah newsnet not newsnight bbc
I think he knows pressure will grow on BBC to give more balanced view,I noticed a diff of tone even this week to be fair,Jackie bird gave Ian Murray,scottish labour mp,edinburgh south a difficult time on news drive
@Juteman
Re the trousering of housing benefit
The Duke of Argyll is hardcore British Establishment. Heard him speaking? Same English language sect as the UK Royal family.
“Chieftan” of the clan Campbell who whiles away some of his abundant free time by claiming £300-a-pop at the House of Lords … fucking joke! Like too many of these “clan chiefs”, just another of the Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.
Scotland will be well rid of these scroungers and vagabonds when the day comes – and the sooner the better.
@Taysideterrier
That paper looks amazing, I’ve saved it and will take time to read it tomorrow, BT are undoubtedly using similar tactics.
Tactics that are guaranteed to fail! Different psyche, different times. I am very confident, the 49% of the electorate plus the 10% not on the electoral roll then will be the difference. Very few of these are being polled.
That’s why the polls are bullshit, Yes is already ahead and once we are motivated haha. End of story.
As John Paul Jones from Kirkcudbright “Father of the United States Navy” said:
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
Not on the electoral roll in 2011.
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to jacothenorth.net
This is the same event- French page and Google doesn’t do the best job of translating but you can get the gist.
link to ledevoir.com
I also found a youtube video a while ago comparing our referendum with theirs.
Saying dont trust the polls, how the canadian goverment bought all the bill boards (hopefully we beat them to it this time) and how they flew in loads of canadian nats to film waving flags ect the last few days before the poll. Will see if i can find it
Such is Westminster’s respect for Scotland they have created myths like we are reliant on English hand outs just to get by. Did they even think what might happen if Scots found out the big lie or what would happen if the English started to get angry in the belief that said lie is true?
They have had to lie so many times now to cover the original one that it comes naturally to them and now whenever discussing Scotland they start twisting and omitting whatever suits their purpose without even having to think about it.
these people are sick and the only cure is YES.
Stoking up the atmosphere of hostility,
BT wuld be better stoking up Para Handy,s
auld Puffer an sailin doon the Clyde
their on a sinking ship oonyhow.
Read the First Minister’s speech given to the New Statesman magazine in London;
link to snp.org
I should have pointed out that this is the interesting bit:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Why do so many people compare Scotland to Quebec anyway? Apart from the independence question I see no real comparison at all. Anybody else?
@muttely79
Not much apart from Westminster’s shitty scare stories, you canny use the Pound, will have to renegotiate all the treaties as applied to us and…
“Arguments over the cost of separation, the currency an independent Quebec would use and the province’s economic viability as an independent state were heated but were thought in the end not to have increased the No vote.
There was also argument about where a Yes vote would leave Quebec in relation to Canada’s international commitments such as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and NATO.”
From Taysideterrier’s link earlier. History repeating itself but this time with a different outcome.
“Well know what?. Just fuck off wi yir pound”
Why do so many people compare Scotland to Quebec anyway? Apart from the independence question I see no real comparison at all. Anybody else?
because the tactics are very similar indeed
@Taysideterrier
I believe what you have posted is dynamite, a UK parliamentary paper called “Scare Stories R Us” when the average Scot reads this he/she will go ballistic.
This proves all the reporting, all the scares are just tactics tried before to prevent a country having a democratic voice. These fuckers have had it now, when I show this to even the biggest doubter, they will have their eyes opened as to why the bias in the media exists.
It exists because Westminster says so, their plan unfolded in their own words laid before your very eyes.
I like this bit. ‘The First Eck’ has a way with words.
“There would be a ‘Northern Light’ to redress the influence of the ‘dark star’ – rebalancing the economic centre of gravity of these islands.”
thx for copy of new statesman mag Marcia
brilliant speech
thx for copy of new statesman mag Marcia
brilliant speech
Deflection
Here is your Quebec story. 4mins 40secs in.
Worth watching the whole thing.
Sorry Rev
I believe what you posted is dynamite, I didn’t click the link but downloaded Taysideteriers paper. Apologies, this will not just take us over the line but ensure a resounding Yes.
You should have a wee go at this
link to facebook.com
When I watch this film after about 7 months I think Darling’s whole campaign is based on this model.
🙁
After reading the The Quebec referendums, RESEARCH PAPER 13/47 25 July 2013 published by the House of Commons, you would put the value of your house on a bet that McDougall & Darling used this paper as a blueprint to rubbish Scotland’s plans for independence. The similarity in scare tactics is a real eye opener !
Page 7 … (I’ve bolded the best bits)
Trudeau and the No campaign offered constitutional reform if there was a No vote and continually questioned the economic viability of an independent Quebec.
They argued that separation could cost 200,000 jobs and said that it would mean a 19% tax increase to maintain the same level of government services.
The federalists cast doubt on whether Quebec would be able to pay pensions, targeting older voters whom they knew to be less likely to vote for separation.
Yes campaigners argued that if Quebec were to lose so many jobs that depended on trade with the rest of Canada, the rest of Canada would also lose a comparable number of jobs that depended on trade with Quebec.
They said that the other provinces therefore had a clear interest in negotiating an agreement that would ensure the untroubled continuation of trade.
The Yes camp also pointed out that Quebec was a modern economy with enormous potential in agriculture and natural resources, including hydroelectric power and minerals, and that to suggest that it would not be viable was nonsense.
Another key argument was over the currency. The No camp argued that the remainder of Canada would not consent to a monetary union with an independent Quebec, and that Quebec would find it difficult simply to use the Canadian dollar; some very small and dependent countries have adopted the US dollar as their currency but it has not been done by anywhere as large as Quebec.
Have a wild guess where the SNP conference is on the 11th and 12th of April?
give in?
its the AECC in Aberdeen
I just got an email from the SNP asking me if I would like to attend, I thought I was going to pass out laughing I hope that little shit Willie Young got an invite.
BT’s campaign is now ‘ Operation Fear and Loathing’.The strategy appears to be to continue to attempt to frighten the Jocks whilst stirring up hatred of us in the English media.
The aim being that if enough fearties vote ‘NO’ up here, the righteous wrath of the middle-England zenophobes will ensure a drastic cut in the Barnet formula and a torpedo of any ‘jam tomorrow devo plus’ moves from the pack of unionist ("Tractor" - Ed)s from up here.
I watched Brian Taylor, the fat liar, ‘examining’ the assorted ("Quizmaster" - Ed)s’ ‘manifestos’ for devo max, in the light of NS’s speech criticising the blatant inadequacy of said bogus proposals. Not once did he point out that none of their proposals had a snowball in hell’s chance of success at Westminster. Yet he is fobbed off as a political analyst to the unknowing.
After watching the programme, by BBC, about foodbanks, I felt like weeping. Then the loathsome Edwina Currie appeared..beady eyed and cold hearted. This is the reality of a ‘NO’vote. As Orwell said ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face…forever’. Time the boot was on the other foot.
O/T Crimea, Russian Television accusing the Western Press of telling porkies, and being economical with the truth. being biased and taking the word of one side only.
Sounds familiar?
Project Fear, taken off the shelf and dusted down.
Pity they could not apply that principle to their defence procurement.
A bit of a long-winded reply to muttley79
As a former “anglophone” resident of Quebec I don’t see too much of a comparison. The Parti Quebecois won their first election because the governing Liberals were so hated at the time that even a number of “anglos” voted for the separatists. One of the Liberal candidates even described his own leader as the most hated man in Quebec and the leader went on to lose his own seat and then also lose the seat vacated by one of the Liberal winners.
However the PQ were not really new. They were a development of a movement of intellectuals and others with the philosophy of being “Masters in Our Own House.” So far there are a number of parallels with Scotland. But…
This movement was statist and culturally/ethnically chauvinist. They were secular heirs of the regime that ran Quebec as a kind of monolithic Roman Catholic entity. To be Qubecois was to be Catholic and French speaking which was hard on the many Irish Catholics, and Jews were educated by the Protestant school board which was, of course, Anglophone. A Quebecois who decided to become Protestant usually was forced to culturally mutate into an “Anglo” as well.
There is a German verb “herausekeln” which means to be “made to experience disgust to the point of exiting a place or position” and that’s what happened next to the “Anglos” under the various Separatist and Liberal governments. The native Indians and Eskimos have only recently been treated with a modicum of respect as they have an unquestionable prior claim on the land. There is a rather nasty undercurrent of anti-Semitism and also racism especially towards the many francophone Haitians as well. The end result was that there was a massive exodus of “Anglos” and minorities (includes basically all that is not (white) Francophone)who either did not want to function in French at any level or due to associated economic uncertainty. This part does not seem applicable at all to the Scottish situation. As I point out to my friends here in Istanbul, Scotland has historically been a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country with certain shared social values and a pack of homegrown ("Tractor" - Ed)s in its midst messing things up. Who needs Quebec style xenophobia when you have that Davidson fellow and his clique?
Non-francophones experience a lot of petty-mindedness especialy in the area of language. I lived in a mixed area and Wilson’s Corners had to remove the apostrophe from its name because there is no possessive apostrophe in French. But many a “tete carree”(square head) like myself still preferred/prefers to live in Quebec because a.it is home b.there is more energy about the place that in much of the torpid rest of the country c.it is home. No Scottish “angloid?” is going to be forced out and from what I hear many in horror at what is going on in their former homeland are calling on their relatives to join them up North. Again, in Canada there is a very different situation,probably no-one one who lived and loved in Montreal is happy with the prospect of living in Toronto which has now replaced Montreal as the business and biggest population centre.
It has been stated that the PQ want a fully sovreign Quebec inside a strong united Canada and this not wrong. In fact Quebecois nationalism has resulted in many more powers being conceded to the other provincial governments as well. Unlike the current Scottish government they have wide-ranging taxation power and social stuff and education and natural resources are matters reserved to the provinces. Many maintain quasi-embassies in foreign countries and especially in Quebec have a serious say in immigration policies. Again only if Scotland had maxi-maxi devo plus plus plus could the Caledonian and Quebecois situations be compared.
Interestingly enough an early PQ party treasurer was a francophone named Robert Burns and Quebeco?s seem to have a soft spot for the Scots – very kindly overlooking the fact that some of the most oppressive “anglo” industrialists were lowland Scots to the core. In this they connect with those in Scotland who would blame all Scotland’s problems on the English rather than just a large part.
I eagerly look forward to replacing my (lapsed) UK passport with a Scottish one when Scots once again finally, at last become once again Masters in Their Own House.
As with our December 2013 poll, the Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has the highest satisfaction ratings of all politicians measured. Almost half of voters (48%) are satisfied with the job she is doing, compared to 39% who are dissatisfied, a net score of +9.
^^ From the STV MORI poll (LOL). One that even prof C recognises as an outlier (overly optimistic for No / pro-union party support).
Hmmm…Someone’s taking centre stage in the polls and it’s not Mr Salmond.
Interesting given the gender split on Y/N.
/–whistles–/
call me dave,
thats the one, everyone in scotland should watch that film
@G H Graham
You also missed that it was unlikely thety could remain in the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)(EU anybody) and NATO.
Will Smith to be on radio 4 very shortly
Now, imagine if AS were to announce he’d not stand to be the leader of the SNP in 2016 and so, by default, not the first potential PM of an independent Scotland. Rather, maybe NS would…
That would set a cat amongst the pigeons.
All about who?
bookie from hell says at 8.12:
“I noticed a diff of tone even this week to be fair,Jackie bird gave Ian Murray,scottish labour mp,edinburgh south a difficult time on news drive”
Does anyone have a link to this or if it is on Iplayer when at what programme.
Maybe he’s keeping that idea back till nearer the Referendum date SS. 😉
O/T – From AS New Statesman speech:
” A couple of years ago the Institute of Public Policy for the Regions published a report – “On the Wrong Track”. It found that public spending on major transport Infrastructure amounted to £2,600 per head in London– and £5 per head in the north east of England”.
Surprised everyone north of Middlesboro doesn’t want to join us :).
Linda’s back
Not likely to be the Bird on Newsdrive (radio) I have gone through today’s newsdrive on play back not there.
Must have been tv I think.
@frazer allen whyte
That was a great read and very informative, thanks for sharing 🙂
O/T – Just watched Newsnight Scotland – discussed AS New Statesman speech and young people voting – most balanced broadcast I have seen in weeks. Maybe things are changing.
Linda it was about 445pm radio scotland,Monday
apologies totaly wrong
it was thurs 27/02/2014
1:09:00
S&P
standard life
Ian Murray,scottish labour mp,edinburgh,south
mhairi Stuart
link to bbc.co.uk
Another gem from Rorys parallel universe:
A newspaper editor: “We haven’t decided our editorial position. We won’t decide whether the newspaper will be backing the United Kingdom until much closer to the vote.’
Not sure if this has been put up before, apologies if it has.
WARNING
This link was written by someone working for our favourite newspaper.
link to tinyurl.com
Arbroath
Although the article is full of fallacies it actually strengthens our argument. Scotland gets no subsidy, we are no subsidy junkies. Nobody had better come out with that crap against Independence talking to me again.
If anyone missed this when it came out in the Telegraph back in 2012 here’s an article about Gordon Brown and his selling off of the U.K.’s gold reserves.
link to tinyurl.com
While you’re at it perhaps the more economically acute amongst might like to chew over this from the UK government calculating the size of the banking sector in Scotland.
link to tinyurl.com
O/T Nobody posting on this article now, gon show them them what we’re made of. Stick a one liner in even.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Re Quebec, remember the FLQ? and the terrorist tactics they used ?. Remember the politician Piere La Port found shot dead in the boot of a car? Yes it happened. What stopped the independence movement? The native Canadians (Indians) were laying claim to the land in the event separation succeeded, their lawyers were watching and waiting. I remember it well.
@john ferguson
Personally, no. Your point is in relevance to the referendum?
Jim McIntosh
Actually Gordon Brewer, as with News brodcasts, tried inferring that Alex Salomond had gone to London off his own back to ‘lecture’
Thankfully Gordon Brewer was corrected by the guy from the New Stateman, pointing out specifically that Alex Salmond was invited to London by the New Stateman
Looks like we might have a wee tiff going on between numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street,. 😉
link to tinyurl.com
Oh dearie me. It looks like the good old Osborne “you can not use our pound thingy” isn’t going down too well. Either that or these two leading academics just didn’t get the e-mail from him telling them that they HAD to, on consequences of death, support his cause.
link to tinyurl.com
Interestingly one of the acedemics, Professor Simpson is a former chief economic advisor to some wee insignificant life insurance firm that was in the news recently. Now if only I can remember its name. 🙂
Confidence among Scottish firms has risen to a record high as the economy grows, according to a new report.
The latest business confidence monitor from industry body the ICAEW said it expected average salaries to rise this year as companies take on new staff.
It said Scots firms were increasingly positive about their trading conditions.
Their confidence index score of +38 in the current quarter of the year was a record high.
link to bbc.co.uk
They still couldn’t help themselves though cmd. This appears to be a BBC comment and nothing I read could back this up. I might have blinked and missed it of course. 😉
But there was also concern this could lead to a skills shortage.
Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland have different rights and history. To compare them without qualification is inadequate. The different history of Independence movements has to be considered. Scotland is a Country in a supposed equal Union.
Catalonia and Quebec are provinces is a Federal system. Scotland, a country, has less rights, and fiscal autonomy than the two provinces, being used as a comparison. Spain has only been a democratic? monarchy since 1975, when Franco, a dictator died. Franco used the German airforce to bomb the Basque country during the Spanish Civil War.
Quebec reportedly voted against Independence because they did not want to lose Canadian passports.
Today it’s oil
Guardian quoting IFS advising that SNP are exaggerating oil revenues
link to archive.is
That paper looks to be running a new demolition job on Scotland this week
@Thepnr The polling companies basically can’t handle new registrants so will ignore them. Thus the 10% are essentially invisible. Our special forces sneak troops 😉
Thanks for the background Frazer – very interesting.
I lived in Canada for a year, but don’t know much about the Quebec debate. One thing that does strike me as entirely different though, is that Canada is a federated nation made up of (I think) ten provinces. In effect, those provinces are in a union, with a federal government overseeing them.
So if “Canada” wants to love-bomb Quebec, it’s people from Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland etc – all very different places culturally, geographically and economically – saying “we want you to stay in our union”, and it’s a union of pretty much equal states.
By contrast the UK is not a real union at all, and rUK is basically England with a couple of contquered territories.(even the UK as now, with Scotland in it, is synonymous with England for most people). And it is in no way equal, with Scotland having massively less powers and autonomy than any Canadian state does.
So what you have is basically England saying, “We want to keep running your affairs, so stop whinging and just let us do it.”
That just isn’t the same thing at all. It’s not remotely comparable, and it’s hard to see how it could be made to look in any way positive.
I actually like Rory Stewart – he seems like a well meaning bloke. And I love England as a place, and as a people. But if they want us to all “stick together” and “retain friendships” and all the rest, their best bet would be be to listen to the issues and ambitions of people here, let us decide and work out with us the best way forward for the British Isles after September, whatever the result.