And No Great Mischief Should They Fall
A few weeks ago we had a thought. And it seemed quite an interesting thought, so we decided to commission a poll on it from our old pals at Norstat.
63-37? Well, there’s your clear and overwhelming support.
There is not, in our lifetimes, going to be another independence referendum on the terms of the first one. The UK government has no conceivable reason to agree to one, because it has nothing to gain. It conceded one in 2014 because it was confident it would win handsomely and wasn’t really risking anything; under the hapless campaign of Blair McDougall it got a very near miss from which it learned a very scary lesson.
Now, after 10 solid years of polling three or four points either side of 50%, it knows that it would be putting the UK at stake, but that all it would get for winning would be to keep everything the same as it is now. Only an imbecile would take that bet, and while there have been a succession of terrifyingly dim and inept Prime Ministers, none of them have been THAT stupid, because NOBODY’S that stupid.
So independence-supporting Scots have two choices left: (1) bypass a referendum entirely with a de-facto referendum strategy in a general election followed by a unilateral declaration of independence should the 50%+1 line be breached (not a terrible plan by any means, but a tough and hotly-contested road to go down); or (2) propose a referendum where there’s something on the table that the UK wants.
The prize for Westminster here is tangible and considerable: firstly a very significant annual cash saving to the UK Treasury from turning Holyrood into student flats and a concert venue, and secondly the effective emasculation of the irritant that is SNP. With no governmental powerbase in Edinburgh, the party would be once more reduced to an impotent carping sideshow in the House Of Commons whose views never mattered or affected anything, and Scotland would again always be under either Labour or Tory (or, now, Reform) control.
The near-bankrupt SNP’s lavish state funding from the UK would also be cut in half overnight, further reducing its ability to function even as a mild irritant to London power (although in truth it’s barely even tried to be that since Alex Salmond resigned).
The downside from the UK’s perspective, of course, is that our poll shows that Yes would likely win the vote handsomely. And it’s a significant downside, because it would require a Prime Minister who wasn’t afraid to take a bit of a gamble, who has a track record of dismantling longstanding unions of nations, and who wasn’t all that bothered if a seismic change left the country worse off as long as he got something out of it.
If only there was someone like that with a chance of entering Downing Street, eh?
Nigel Farage’s support for devolution has always been, put mildly, somewhat equivocal and conditional, and he clearly has no particular love for Scotland.
(The feeling was palpably mutual until very recently, as Reform’s support has surged and Farage’s personal unpopularity has decreased. The pathetic turnouts at a couple of protests against his campaign visit yesterday, barely a couple of dozen people in total, were revealing.)
But there’s one man who says that Farage isn’t just indifferent to devolution. He says Farage loathes and abhors the very idea of it.
And if he’s telling the truth, things just got interesting.
Because it’s very unlikely that Farage is dumb enough to get into power and abolish Holyrood off his own bat just for fun. Imposing the closure of the Scottish Parliament (and of course the Welsh Senedd and Northern Irish Assembly would logically have to go with it) would be a stratospherically unpopular way to kick off his leadership – it would likely offend the sense of fair play of the English as well as enraging the other three nations – and Sir Keir Starmer is currently showing us just how tricky it is to recover from a terrible start.
But if he could get the Scots to vote Holyrood out of existence themselves, well, that’s a whole other kettle of straight European bananas. If John Swinney isn’t lying, Farage would be faced with the perfect opportunity to get rid of something he despises, AND save a ton of money, AND remove the stone of the SNP from his shoe forever (AND terrify the Senedd and Assembly into meek compliance for fear of losing their own cushy jobs), all while looking like a brave and principled democrat.
And here’s the kicker: to all intents and purposes, he gets the same result whether he wins or loses the vote. Either way the whingeing, ungrateful Jocks are out of his life and off his books. Jackpot! (Or as he’d probably call it, “Jockpot”.) In the infamous words of General Wolfe: “And no great mischief should they fall”.
If John Swinney isn’t lying.
We know that most English voters would, if push came to shove, shrug and say “Oh well, cheerio and good luck” if Scotland voted to go its own way. They’d rather it didn’t happen, but they’re just not that fussed about it. Most of them very firmly believe Scotland is a financial drain on England/the UK, and whether they’re right or not is irrelevant – that’s what they think, and it’s therefore a pretty easy sell to English voters.
(Indeed, we know most Tories/Reform supporters outside Scotland would rejoice, quietly or otherwise, if it became independent, because for 70 years it’s consistently elected dozens of SNP or Labour MPs, which makes the arithmetic of a majority for a right-wing government more difficult. And why would you want someone who hates you living permanently in your house, spending your money and abusing you daily?)
The one thing the UK genuinely doesn’t want to lose in Scotland is Trident, but imagine if Westminster played hardball and said “We don’t care how the vote went, unless you keep letting us use Faslane we’re going to drag this out for decades”. Do you really imagine an SNP led by an unprincipled power-seeker like, say, Stephen Flynn would hold that line, especially with the sort of voices who’d be whispering in his ear?
So if Swinney isn’t lying, and if the SNP cared even a jot about actually achieving independence rather than just using it as a carrot to secure luxury gravy lifestyles for themselves, they’d adopt the “all or nothing” strategy immediately and throw down the gauntlet to the UK.
We know, with utter certainty, that bleating for a re-run of 2014 doesn’t work and never will. Because for as long as they insist on the win-win fallback cushion of devolution, it’s clear to Westminster that they’re not really serious, and are happy with their shiny beads and trinkets and pensions, needing only to dangle that mangy carrot in front of their gullible voters once every few years to maintain their well-furnished sinecures.
The new question would turn round 30% of 2014 No voters, while holding on to 93% of those who voted Yes a decade ago. Nothing the SNP do for the next decade will get anywhere close to that. The party itself is hugely unpopular – properly so after its abysmal record in government since 2015 – and its already abysmal cohort of hapless seatwarmers is about to be gutted and replaced with a whole clutch of idiot careerist children, so it’s not likely to get any more competent any time soon.
If the SNP isn’t interested in a de-facto 50%+1 approach founded on UDI – and we know they’re not, it was widely hated within the party and dumped almost the second Nicola Sturgeon resigned – and are instead going to insist on a big margin of Yes support as the thing that’ll force Westminster’s hand, this is the only way to get it. A gift-wrapped 26-point lead in their hands before they even start campaigning, and – if John Swinney isn’t lying – an “opponent” who’s itching at his fingertips to give them what they they say they want.
So if the SNP refuse to pursue either option, or come up with any sort of credible alternative [SPOILER: they don’t have one], something everyone sane already does know and has known for years – that they’re the biggest obstacle in the way of Scottish independence, and need to be removed as soon as possible – will become all but undeniable.
And in such circumstances, that really will be no great mischief.
Loving it, Alf. BTW, what’s the Scots for linguicide? That’s surely gonna be the first question every alert…
“if John Swinney isn’t lying”
Yeah, but he can move his lips …
Absolutely agree that the SNP needs to go, and the sooner the better for all Scots and Scotland. However, and while I can see the attraction of laying a scent for Farage to follow, is he trustworthy enough to deliver or would he, like every English PM before him, come to understand what Scotland represents?
A massive difference exists between being in opposition and being in power, and reticence starts to set in immediately on taking power, so would he really be that keen on letting Scotland go without assurances that he had the nuclear weapons wrapped up for the foreseeable, plus all the overland and undersea cables in and around Scotland, plus a guarantee to receive renewable energy from Scotland, and, in the event of another drought in England, water, too?
Cameron believed that NO would win handsomely, and, yes, he did get a scare, but he still had the ‘you were subsumed’ up his sleeve. The existence of the Treaty precludes that scenario, even if that is the de facto situation, either that or colonial status. I feel deeply worried about the acceptance of either status as our flagship policy for constitutional independence when there was and remains a Treaty. If “you were subsumed” had not worked, I am convinced that he would have turned to the Treaty to try and screw us. It isn’t just about the nuclear warheads: it is about our land and our waters (both sea and fresh) and all that runs over or under them and leading to England.
It seems to me that it doesn’t matter how we win our independence, the Treaty will come along to trip us up – even if it is only at the negotiation stage. There is simply no way that England-as-the-UK will not use it when everything else fails. Hatey (The Flip) was adamant that we would negotiate everything. Well, we negotiated the Treaty and look what happened: we have ended up with few powers and are, devolved or not, a satellite nation of England-as-the-UK. Even a 60% vote for independence and UDI cannot be the end of the matter because that Treaty is still there.
This doesn’t have a chance I’m afraid for the reasons I set out previously. Even as a concept, how would you justify the democratic credentials of a referendum which didn’t allow for the continuation of a status quo (devolution within the U.K.) which is very popular, and probably more popular than either of the two options on the ballot paper.
Given the polling numbers you present (which I’m sure are an accurate reflection of public opinion), you’d be asking the unionist state to agree to a proposal which is virtually certain to result in independence. Just think of the balance of risk vs reward for a unionist: they are virtually certain to lose which means the breakup of the union. If they win, the benefits financially and politically are minimal, and there is likely to be an ongoing sense of discontent about the lack of a devolved government in Scotland which is going to have to be resolved at some point through something that looks very much like Holyrood.
In my view, if a Labour/Tory/Reform PM had a button in their office which would dissolve the Scottish Parliament and return powers to Westminister, they would not press it. So I don’t think it’s remotely politically feasible to suggest a very high risk strategy (for them) where the “upside” outcome isn’t something they really want anyway.
SCOTTISH ROULETTE, the game where every bullet is live. for numbskull politicos only.
”how would you justify the democratic credentials of a referendum which didn’t allow for the continuation of a status quo”
You don’t have to justify stuff if you’re in power. You just do it. Things change.
”In my view, if a Labour/Tory/Reform PM had a button in their office which would dissolve the Scottish Parliament and return powers to Westminister, they would not press it.”
So Swinney is lying?
Ministers do have to justify their policies, to the media, to parliament (both of them) and to their own MP’s/MEP’s, and eventually to the public. I don’t think it’s remotely plausible to suggest that on such a significant, emotive and important subject the government position is “we don’t have to justify this so go whistle if you don’t like it”. That’s a definitive way to engineer a parliamentary defeat and to create a hugely damaging campaign of opposition in the country.
Is Swinney lying? He’s making a political statement about an opponent, subject to the usual exaggeration. I’ve never seen Farage say anything that suggests he would like to see the Scottish Parliament dissolved. If I were him, I’d definitely see the benefit of having Scottish issues dealt with up in Scotland so he can focus on England and Wales (I.e. the areas he’s interested in).
Starmer is about to get the Black Spot from his MPs/MSPs/MEPs because they are facing extinction at the next election. How many MPs in England are going to lose their jobs by cutting Scotland loose. Not many, if any.
The benefits in money saved are immediate. Moreso if there is some deal over electricity, water and submarines. The costs are all long term – less resources, less space – and are harder to wail about in a regular election cycle.
I don’t agree, I think it’s a big vote loser in England. It’s not as important an issue there as in Scotland obviously, but the people of England and Wales do not want the next 5 years to be dominated by the negotiations and process of separating Scotland from the U.K. Again, you have to consider the benefits vs costs. Even on the GERS numbers the fiscal transfer to Scotland is only around 1.5% of total public sector spending, and the loss of trade would wipe some of that out. On the downside, the government machine neglects a whole range of other things to deal with this a la Brexit.
Of course he’s lying.
Once, the SNP used the Conservative party in power as the bogey. Now it is Reform.
Swinney’s remarks are about keeping or increasing support for the SNP.
Don’t argue with “Aidan”.
“Aidan” knows EVERYTHING.
It maybe just looks that way to you.
There’s a few things the average citizens, both north and south of the border, want sorted:
1. Stop the boats. Substantially cut down on the incoming grifters and crims.
2. Cut energy prices. That means oil, gas, probably coal and possibly fracking too.
3. Make housing (rented and purchased) affordable. Radical change is needed to get this under way.
4. Crack down hard on those taking the piss out of decent, law abiding, working people – whether its shoplifters, druggies, biology deniers, knife carriers, or the chanting apologists for Islamist extremism.
Starmer promised to sort out at least the first 3. He can’t, partly because he’s a hostage of the people who want 4 to continue.
So now it’s Farage’s turn. Maybe he’ll get somewhere, maybe he wont.
As for Indy, a genuinely competent movement that plausibly and believably will sort out these issues in an Independent Scotland simply cannot lose at the ballot box.
It’s gonna take a lot of work, and a long time, and we’re starting from a very bad place, but every day lost arguing over things that don’t matter to most people is a wasted opportunity.
this is likely to be the same result of slimy Gove’s secret poll.
had we known this then, we’d be in much better shape now.
but ‘smith commission’ negotiator Swinney is totally lacking in any movement on indy.
I’d love to know why someone who ruled himself out of the initial leadership contest is now ‘in charge’
I’m not sure getting rid of Hollyrood is actually in the UK Governments interest. What Hollyrood has done is (theoretically) make the SNP accountable for much of their actions.
The problem has been that the opposition have provided much of an alternative – until now with Reform.
Breaking up the UK would be a massive gamble, whilst letting the SNP continue to wreck Scotland domestically isn’t – eventually the voters will throw them out – especially if they can’t do the very thing which they were created (indy).
Ultimately, if Indy is such a good idea more people will back it – if it isn’t then they won’t.
Utter pish!
Believing that another country will prioritise Scotland’s needs is farcical to the extreme and needs people to believe the unbelievable…and of course, that’s what propaganda is for.
They do need an ample supply of gullible people to fall for it, though.
Its a Win either way for Farage.
Scotland votes to stay. He saves a shit load of money, would be the man to not only getting Brexit, but saving the UK and killing independence stone dead. What chance would they be of independence again if Scots vote in favour of abolishing Holyrood?
If Scotland votes for independence, then sure he would be seen as the PM to break up the UK and the Guardian and independent (if that still exist) would bash him, but he would get over it especially if he gets immigration down in England and would save an even bigger amount of money if Scotland goes. The former would cement his relection as PM.
For sure they would be pressure on him not to gamble but he is the supposedly anti establishment guy who hates the blob. But if he is just a another establishment Tory as some former Reform members claim; then better for potential voters to know before the next GE.
You have to remember what a referendum actually is. A referendum is where a government seek permission from the people to move from the position where they currently are, to some other position, which they have to define. It follows that one of the options on the paper needs to be the status quo, because if you dont give that option, the people who favour that are disenfranchised. To make your theory work, there would have to be 2 X questions (1) Status quo vs Indy, (2) Status quo vs abolish Holyrood. That would be the only way of covering all options.
So the ultimate and probably necessary choice that needs to be faced. Either accept being governed solely by a UK that has for many decades, and which will likely continue for many more, to be in relentless economic and social decline; or take a chance that Scotland can do better, even though the current lot aren’t exactly reassuringly competent. If they were, then the choice would be a no brainer. Sadly though, this is what we have now acting as the main blockage to making an easy choice –
link to x.com
PS hen. The recent past is very important. It’s all we have to judge you on. Trying to avoid that while insultingly rabbiting on about how well you’ll do starting tomorrow is what really pisses people off. Hopefully that’ll be clear this Friday. It’d be a start to the bigger problem.
The tweet from Dundee City Life says that the 51st Division was sacrificed at Dunkirk. It wasn’t – it didn’t even make it to Dunkirk as it was put under French command (by Churchill) and left behind to form a defensive line along the Somme. As the French line collapsed, the 51st was forced to retreat until it was surrounded at the port of Saint-Valery-en-Caux, far to the south of Dunkirk. Rescue from there proved to be impossible, so over 10,000 men of the Division became prisoners of war. At one stage Churchill had planned to send another Scottish division, the 52nd (Lowland), over to France to reinforce the 51st but the sudden capitulation of France prevented that. Phew! Oh, and General Fortune did get a medal.
In his history of WWII, Churchill brazenly dodged the blame for the debacle. He even had the gall to quote some lines from a poem:
‘Half-mast the castle banner droops,
The Laird’s lament was played yestreen
An mony a widowed cottar wife
Is greetin’ at her shank aleen.
In Freedom’s cause, for ane that fa’s,
We’ll glean the glens an’ send them three,
To clip the reivin’ eagle’s claws
An’ drook his feathers i’ the sea.
For gallant loons, in brochs an’ toons,
Are leavin’ shop an’ yaird an’ mill,
A’ keen to show baith friend an’ foe
Auld Scotland counts for something still.’
Cannon fodder, indeed.
That is correct, Michael. They were nowhere near Dunkirk. They were fighting a rearguard action to save the rest of the army and events caught up with them when France surrendered.
Yes, they were sacrificed in the sense that they were the rearguard, but Churchill actually believed that the Scots would hold out the longest, and he was right. They, and the French units, did hold out as long as they could.
I had relatives in the 51st, and was told that they were short of weapons when they ran out of ammunition and the rifles were useless, and they had no hope of outrunning the German advance and pincer movement.
The fact that they were captured and saw out the war in POW camps does not mean that their sacrifice had no effect. Most of the army did escape to fight another day.
However, something very odd happened, too: von Rundstedt (along with Rommel) did not employ his tanks, and most of the British units on the beaches were rescued, so the Germans took the decision to not engage them.
There’s too much nonsense written about the 51st, including that tweet and your comment.
Yes they were under French command, but that happened on 22nd April, and they were just the latest of several units moved to the French sector to get experience. Churchill only became PM on 10th May, and had nothing to do with moving units about.
Far from being abandoned or a rearguard there were still 150,000 British troops in France after Dunkirk, and more were being sent in through western ports, including the 52nd, and French units from Dunkirk, with the aim of continuing the fight.
When the Germans broke through the new line on the Somme, the 51st and other British and French units retreated to the coast. The Navy sent a fleet of 250 ships and small boats and took off as many as it could. One brigade of the 51st was rescued from Le Havre, along with other troops, but only a few could be rescued from St Valery as the harbour was too narrow, too shallow, and overlooked by cliffs.
The idea that Scots were deliberately sacrificed to save English troops is a myth, and we should stop repeating it.
Doug: had you read my comment properly, you would have noted that I said no such thing. The part of the 51st Highland Division that was trapped at St Valery was, indeed, trying to evacuate before France fell. They surrendered in June, 1940. They were, indeed, fighting a rearguard action to try and reach St Valwery, but it was almost impossible to get ships and boats in there, and Churchill, who had been in post since May, did believe that the Scottish troops would hold out longest, but the Germans had them boxed in and surrounded.
Of the British troops who lost their lives in WW II, the Scots lost most. That is irrefutable. Check the statistics. I did not say that Churchill deliberately sacrificed them on a whim or to save English soldiers because that is not true. He greatly regretted their capture at St Valery, but paid them the tribute of knowing that they had done their best to hold the line against insurmountable odds, and had kept the Germans pinned down as long as they could, keeping them there.
Are you saying that my relatives lied when they said they had run out of ammunition and discarded their rifles as useless? The 51st did not let anyone down; the German Blitzkrieg advance and power had been underestimated. They were bitter about having been abandoned, but, in reality, it had become impossible to rescue them.
You will know the story of the reconstituted 51st at El Alamein and Sicily? At one point, they were accused of cowardice when, in fact, they had been exhausted after non-stop deployment. As I said, the Scots lost more troops per capita, so work out for yourself why that might have been.
You will also know that von Rundstedt and Rommel did not deploy their tanks on the orders of Hitler himself. That very strange order has never been fully understood because it allowed the evacuation of British troops to have been a relative success rather than the utter disaster it might have been.
On June 2nd 2025 UK(English) Prime Minister’Sir’Keir Starmer put the UK on a war footing. Quote. Britain must prepare for war.On June 4th 2025 Sir Keir Starmer proclaimed there will be no Referendem in Scotland as long as I am Prime Minister.Every PM since 2014 of which there have been a few, Have proclaimed no Referendem while i am PM.Scottish oil gas renewables whisky right down to the bounty from the 6000 square miles stolen when the sea border was Annexed by the English gov in Westminster will finance this adventure, Who does that in a Union of equals!! One unified kingdom they proclaim The most successful Union ever created they tell us. So Scotlands (we are NOT in a territorial union) resources will be the cash cow. Our taxes will go up, Rachel Reeves in Accounts is already lining up the theft of our pensions to bolster the fighting fund.Get ready for a military equipment VIP LANE, Our pensioners and needy will get less our NHS Public Services and welfare services will decline then be dismantled (the torys will be furious it wasnt them that got that oppertunity. Food prices will sky rocket.basic essential will be a luxury.Then your sons and daughters will be sent of to war.To fight and possibly die for a country that is not theirs that says they are not worth a vote on their or your familys future. You can pay with your taxes you can pay with your standard of living you can pay with your health and your children’s heath. And Then will gladly let you pay with your life and the lives of your nearest.but they will never let you have a say on you or your familys future or safety.TODAY they call us scroungers and benifit junkies. An ungrateful race held up by a benevolent England.Our resources and people are the price of that benevolence.History tells us We as always will be at the front in harm’s way,The glorious fighting jocks they cry from behind the sound of bullets and bombs, While the donkeys put on a brew.Its time to end this.We pay taxes with no representation,We Vote and it is ignored. We live in a so called kingdom of four (England Scotland Wales NI) where one England dominates steals and plunders there resources for the benifit of the elite’s of big business and politics in the guise of party donations to all partys We as parents and grandparents need to let them know our children are not cannon fodder for a system that tells us they can die but can’t vote for a better future.you do not fight or send your children to fight for a system that holds you in chains. Sir Keir Starmer And others say NO the people say YES. No vote No compliance from Scots.
WHAT SAY YOU JOHN SWINNEY ???
Do the ANGLO clonists get a vote this time?
Does anyone who turned up 5 minutes ago get a vote?
Will photography be banned?
Will the postals all be mixed in with the normal allots?
Will roofie davison do her gypsy fortune teller routine?
Would a new referendum be run entirely by an international body with the UN, USA, EU etc, with copious observers and run on the ground by a professional body with a background in corporate fraud prevention?
@Confused – No need to go to those extremes for the Postal Vote.
A few heavy blocks placed on the graves of the recently departed will stop them arising in the night and voting.
We probably need a procedure to disenfranchise dementia sufferers in Rest Homes to prevent their votes being exploited, or at least transfer the responsibility to their guardian.
the funny thing is – when there is an election in a foreign land and there is no exit poll, the media are usually very quick to imply
RIGGED
Their voting rights were given to the managers of the Care Homes. Their voting papers came in, were handed out – & the said ‘fill them in yourselves’ or the carers asked them if they needed help to fill them in. Not being au fait with what was going on in the political world, the clients said ‘just mark the party you think is doing their best’. Welll… the word had come down from on high (the OWNERS of the establishment, to suggest NO & the tories needed their votes or the Homes would be forced to close so they should vote NO!) And the clients, with no reference to counter-balance that lie, believed they’d lose their homes (such as they are)! So the voting papers were filled in and popped in the mail.
Losing a home is a huge thing to contemplate when you’re old & your family don’t want you – or don’t have room for you. Where do you go??? So – they agreed to vote No! Wouldn’t you if you were 78 yrs old & believed you were about to lose the only place you thought of as ‘home’? And that you believed your next home would be in a cardboard box behind Iceland??
I was a Care Office during that vote, so believe me, I’m talking from experience & believe me, the elderly was scared silly ‘NO’ wouldn’t win! The elderly were used in horrible ways to win that vote! All because in their twilight years, when they believed that they were okay, and would spend their last few remaining years with at least something to eat and a bed to sleep in (such as THEY are!) – and now they faced a cardboard box and a park bench! Doesn’t sound so likely, you’re thinking. But these people are just so vulnerable, without the strength to survive and who, even in care, live perilous, knife edge battles, physically & mentally, to keep going. They’re not all daft. They don’t all have Alzheimer’s or Dementia. They just know they couldn’t survive if they didn’t stay in these places they have to call ‘home’. So they can be ‘encouraged’ to do what in a healthy, young/middle age they would never in their wildest dreams have contemplated doing – voting tory! All of a sudden, it seems tories hold their lives in their hands! So who are they gonna vote for?
Perhaps offer them homes for the rest of their lives & you’ll get to use their votes how YOU want. I know – but that’s the problem, right? They’re NOT all Alzheimer’s/Dementia patients! In fact most of them are not. But they KNOW their limitations, on both their health, their strength & what their meagre PENSIONS can provide for them. They know there’s few options for them and they can’t survive in a cardboard box, as so many homeless have to. So – what’s the answer?
See for interest Andy Anderson introducing the ‘DUNOON UNIT REPORT: THE POSTAL BALLOT AT THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM’ (2015):
“We are now convinced that the Postal Ballot (PB) at the Scottish Referendum was compromised by a UK Government agency, and consequently that the ballot result is not democratically valid.”
‘DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: DSF REPORT ON THE REFERENDUM POSTAL BALLOT’
link to gobha-uisge.blogspot.com
BONHOEFFER ON STUPIDITY
(The following is abridged from a circular letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to three friends and co-workers in the conspiracy against Hitler, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of German. Bonhoeffer was hanged by Adolf Hitler in 1945.)
« ‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
« If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.
« Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
« The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
« Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly.
« But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.»
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from ‘After Ten Years’ in Letters and Papers from Prison — Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8 — Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010. )
What was interesting was the majority of Labour, Tory and Libdem voters all wanted Holyrood to be shut down and Scotland to be directly ruled from Westminster, I’m not surprised and the SNP is to blame.
If I was John Swinney I would be concerned because if Reform stand on a ticket of closing Holyrood down completely at the next Westminster election reform would be able to count on votes from SNP 4%, Tory 67%, Labour 51%, Libdem 62%.
Even if you pointed this out to the SNP leadership it doesn’t matter because the party has no idea what it wants.
Holyrood has been a failed experiment.
I would be quite happy if it was simply erased.
And Westminster has been a runaway success? Thanks to London rule, Britain now has one of the most divided, Astroturfed populations on earth. The collection of rent money has literally become the biggest “business” on the island thanks to London, bud. Are you thinking this through? Two world wars to be a giant market for rent money, drugs money and halal meat money. And that’s the he truth! The sooner we are out of this union, the better. We are literally at the stage where people want to emigrate in huge numbers again, thanks to London rule.
Any argument about the -awfulness- of Holyrood can be made of Westminster by a factor of 10; HR is really just an amateur hour karaoke tribute act to westminster, which is far more professional in its corruption. HR is a mini-me, but was completely shaped by London, in its image.
– it was meant to be shit, and it is. Big whoop.
You could shut down the commons and the lords, save a ton of money and just let the bureaucracies run themselves, mainly on an “as you were” basis – it’s always when politicians, mediocrities at best, try to “do things”, that bad stuff happens. They don’t really understand anything, they are lobby fodder and spewers of soundbites. They can’t do weapons, nuke power stations, high speed rail, it’s all incompetent. Starmer is banging on about getting into AI and fighting rusha, delusional.
Maybe Farage when he becomes PM will shut westminster down and style himself “Lord Protector”.
– as long as we were independent, I wouldn’t care; Farage, as a small businessman, knows how to do one thing well – fiddle his taxes, but that is the end of it. I already wrote a scenario of what would happen with him in charge.
“Starmer is banging on about getting into AI and fighting rusha, delusional”
Then again, Rusha is banging on about fighting us.
You can’t have forgotton, Confused, you’re one of the ones who used to post your “bricking it” posts every time poot rattled his sabre.
Then again, you maybe believe poot reads Burns in the original Scots every night before bed, will only ever target England, and that the Romans were advanced enough to build Hadrian’s Wall to stop radioactive fallout and blast.
Prick.
We were ripped out of the EU against our will, based on how England and Wales voted. A Prime Minister Farage (jeezo) might be attracted to offering a single UK -wide vote on “Keep or Abolish Devolution?” question.
I am pretty sick of the brexit argument, its done and dusted and we did not go against our will, we voted with the rest of the UK and a fairly large proportion of scots voted to leave, myself included.
If we had stayed then we would be having even more issues that we do just now, our largest trading partner by a country mile is the rest of the UK and still is.
“we voted with the rest of the UK”
Exactly.
And that’s exactly how we voted to get into it in the first place.
The “agin oor will” greeters and gurners would have had a point if the individual nations of the UK had individually been polled on whether we wanted to join the Common Market.
But that’s not how it was done.
So it’s perfectly right that’s not how the exit should have been handled either.
It’s all very well declaring the union doesn’t exist and we need to act as if Scotland is Independent, etc, but out in the real world, and I include international politics in that, sane and rational people deal with reality.
In fairness to the Welsh…
“English people living in Wales tilted it towards Brexit, research finds”
Extract: “The question of why Wales voted to leave the EU can in large part be answered by the number of English retired people who have moved across the border, research has found.”
Source: link to theguardian.com
A bit like the non-Scots in Scotland who tipped a “Yes” to “No” in 2014…
“Independence referendum figures revealed: Majority of Scots born here voted YES while voters from elsewhere in UK said NO”
Extract: “NEARLY three quarters of people from elsewhere in the UK voted for the country to stick together despite over half of native Scots wanting a break up. Check the detailed statistics here.”
Source: link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Farage clearly said in Aberdeen on 2 May 2025 in the run up to the Hamilton by-election that “Devolution is here to stay”, that he wanted Scotland to raise more of its tax revenues and for devolution to be extended to England. He also said he wished to stay out of Scottish debates and policy making through lack of information and direct experience (I paraphrase).
He means extended to the cities and regions of England, which would, then, be in direct competition with Scotland for monies. No English PM or MP is going to vote to devolve England, the country, because that would mean they would be on an equal footing, power wise, with the rest of the UK. That will never happen. Still, we never learn the lesson, do we?
England will get rid of its trickster ‘Scottish’ devolved government as soon as it thinks it no longer needs to keep up the pretence of giving the Scots a choice over their own land and lives.
I don’t think that time is too far away and it could be that England has enlisted the help of one of its Scottish servants in the form of Swinney to begin laying the groundwork for getting rid of Holyrood.
Getting rid of Holyrood and putting Scotland back under the direct rule of Westminster might be an objective actively being pursued by England as I write – not that it’ll make much difference other than the dispelling of an illusion.
Each passing day sees the increasingly frantic extraction of Scotland’s wealth go directly down south.
It seems England can’t even be bothered covering up the theft of Scotland’s resources now; the plundering of Scotland becomes more blatant by the second.
I wonder if England is beginning to sense its free ride at the expense of the Scots is nearing its end and is trying to bag as much loot it can before the union draws its final breath.
Or, more likely, the undisguised ransacking of Scotland we see all about us is an indicator that England no longer considers the Scots a threat to its plundering operation – could this be a strategic mistake on England’s part, I wonder.
“the plundering of Scotland becomes more blatant by the second”
A second is a geological aeon.
It’s all milliseconds and microseconds these days.
I don’t know what the SI unit of blatancy is, NC, so I’m going to call it the Blat (abbreviation B) until better information comes along.
In the number of seconds it will take you to read this post, the blatancy of the plundering of Scotland will increase by 3.5 Blats. Do the math to derive the blatancy increase per second in B/s.
If, however, you ignore this post, that will still take a finite time, and blatancy will likely rise by 0.7 Blats.
Now, what was the blatancy of the plundering of Scotland at the time I wrote this post, in Mega Blats (MB)? The blatancy rise rates derived above are meaningless without that baseline figure to give them context.
Paragraph 2.4 of the Reform UK constitution (it’s on the web) explicitly states that the Party believes that all UK legislation will be passed by the UK Parliament and that it believes that the UK is a unitary entity. Whether they follow through should they form a Westminster majority is, I guess, a political choice but the commitment is there in black and white.
Firstly, excellent journalism, excellent poll. Alex Salmond will smiling down from Heaven proud of your work. I would love to take the bet of Independence and the abolition of the corrupt Scottish Parliament.
Farage was surprisingly talking about more devolution in the UK this week. Pressed by the Record on whether his party was supportive of devolution in general , Farage added: “Devolution should extended to England, right down to the counties.
“Devolution is here to stay. Sadly, over the course of the last 20 years or so, devolution has not worked very well.”
If Labour had any principles remaining they could
Challenge and oppose reform by saying the Scottish Parliament is permanent and the health service in Scotland will be under authority of Holyrood as stated in the vow.
I’m sure Farage has called for the loosening of UK gun laws where mass shootings would become common in spite of the horror which they where introduced to prevent being repeated.
Any parliament will fail – will become corrupt and/or ineffectual – if it is not controlled between elections by the electorate.
Direct democracy is the answer – electorate can prevent/punish wrongdoing etc.
In Scotland there is a petition to Holyrood for such direct democracy to be brought in by incorporating into Scottish law the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Since I last mentioned this petition on Wings there have been only about 20 more signatories, total 6877. Come on Wingers – get it signed and get it shared. This is something concrete to make a real difference if we can impress the MSPs that enough of us want it. If petitions run for 6 months this one’s deadline is Friday.
link to petitions.parliament.scot
Aye sarah,
but I cannot envisage any mechanism by which the British State will or would allow any direct democracy to take hold anywhere on these islands.
Think about it.
The only way that the Sovereignty of The People can come to override the King in Parliament is AFTER the power of the people has overthrown the doctrine of the Sovereignty of the English Parliament.
For to allow the Power of the People to override the Power of the British State would be to have overthrown the power of the British State!
They would, will and indeed have previously fought to the last drop of blood to hold onto Ultimate Power.
History shows us this.
So while the idea of the campaign seems initially like it could be a good one, because it raises awareness of what _could_ be,
there remains no prospect whatsoever of the visionless drones in the Scottish Executive ever even attempting to go against the instructions of the British Civil Service in Edinburgh.
We can all see that.
The only likely outcome, beyond simply being ignored, is that the excuse could be seized to TIGHTEN the grip of the English constitution over us, when the stupid cowards in the SNP executive foolishly agree that the people of Scotland can only have their say _within_the_chains_of_devolution_.
That will be a situation far worse than we have now.
You don’t have to have the predictive powers of Nostradamus to see what our enemy could do, if they choose to.
Likely they will seize upon this excuse to further tighten their grip on Scots and Scotland.
Of the 4 campaigns that I can see currently running that purport to be trying to help us, this is both the most dangerous, and has the least chance of success.
Therefore it seems obvious that, whilst raising awareness _ought_ to be a good thing, expending ones energies on the other 3 campaigns (one of which is still a half announced secret) would seem to obviously be the rational course of action.
YMMV.
Link failure – on my laptop anyway! The PE2135 petition title is “Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] in Scottish legislation”
Anyone else seen Rupert Lowe’s latest social media post, about wanting to abolish the Scottish parliament? I think he needs to see this article, if he hasn’t already! It could be game on.
Historical polls showed overwhelming cross-party support for Holyrood. What would be interesting is what a current poll would show.
I know this Wings poll obliquely answers that, but not directly.
If the majority, current feeling is ‘nah, bugger the pretendy parliament’ then perhaps a return to central government may see majority support over the status-quo, even if it was included.
That just leaves Independence via MP’s/FPTP. On that, I’m of the opinion it is a question of whether the increasing influx of English settlers to Scotland are fleeing England, or fleeing to somewhere the have the power to turn into what they want England to be. I think we probably know the answer to that.
There’s a vanishingly small chance of Independence in my opinion, because the rise of Reform in Scotland is just a reflection of what the English want for England. If that is the case, Scotland is already ideologically ‘English’ and it’s too late.
“Scotland will get what England wants, and that includes Independence” Relying on English apathy and indifference is not a good idea there though.
Reform may be indifferent, English voters may be indifferent, but vested interests are not indifferent.
Farage et-al might, possibly, maybe say ‘We’re getting rid of the Scottish millstone!’ but a quiet word, will have his mind changed.
What vested interest? The logical ones, because if there were vested interests in Scotland being Independent we’d have been Independent a long time ago, but there aren’t.
Not even the most rabid, anti-western democracy dictator for life, has ever said ‘Hey, we back Scottish Independence, here’s a couple of bob for some flyers, go slap some imperialist dogs’
Not even the Great States of lauding independence seeking nations deigned to included Scotland (Scotland, you can fuck off back into your box’ – B.Obama)
So we might ostensibly hate the great Imperialist England who has us in shackles, but no-one else is queuing up to rescue us, so apparently this is what we are reduced to – for England to rescue us from ourselves?
“Help us swivel-eyed loon, you’re our only hope!’
Jesus wept.
The gun law issue is an emotive one but also a red herring. I live in an area that had a massive legal gun ownership of over 170,00 legally held weapons and crime involving legally held arms is pretty much unknown.
Its the illegally held weapons that are the issue and I wish there was more determination to pursue and prosecute those guys. There are shootings all the time between criminals and nobody ever seems to bother as long as they don’t involve the public. Maybe folk would be better trying to remove all the illegally held handguns off the streets!
Thinking about it I would suggest that the poll is flawed.
I am pretty sure in the real world that if these two options were set up there would have to be a third one allowing the status quo to remain in place. The SP would also fight tooth and nail to stop the removal option being even considered so can’t see this ever being put forward.
Which resets the narrative back to no independence majority again so pointless having a another referendum.
The other alternative ( just as unlikely I know) is to elect a majority south of the border that’s in favour of indi. whether that means standing down south or promoting English independence without the burdon of the Scots & welsh. Mind you, NI could go first.
The contradiction is that Hollyrood is the Colonial Administration of Westminster.they have total control of hollyrood.
Swinney has taken the carrot on a stick from sturgeon to keep them in place, And their friends out of jail.we keep marching up that hill expecting a different
outcome. Westminster gets what westminster wants.they want freeports they get freeports surprise surprise soon after a £20,000 pay rise for club members each year. The price paid for their servitude.Sunac said before he was Prime minister he would let Scotland go. As soon as he became PM and the civil servants told him the numbers he did a quick 180 on that thought.As has been said countless times here and other places the snp want independence as much as westminster wants to give it.IF it looks like salvo get any traction in their bid at the UN you can bet your bottom dollar Westminster will allow a referendem.But under their franchise. Swinney/forbes will readily agree then do everything in their power to help derail our wish.We cannot let that happen the snp are as much a danger to Scotland as farage.Scotland suffers from a political cancer that is the snp.
“Scotland suffers from a political cancer that is the snp.”
Albert Memmi regarded colonialism as “a cancer”, noting also that “cancer only wants to spread.” Which is why he said there needs to be “a complete break with colonialism”, not a compromise.
Hence a “colonized society is a diseased society” (Memmi) and this includes the dominant national party which has been “co-opted by colonialism” (Fanon) and has joined in the “regime of oppression”.
A colonial society (i.e. Scotland) is already subject to fascist rule, direct or indirect, with or without Farage.
So every Unionist party supporter , including Labour. Would rather have no parliament than have independence. The truth is that they are British first , and Scottish a distant second.
It should be no surprise. But what is clear is that the straight question of indi or nothing. Produces an overwhelming indi result. Tony Blair knew what he was doing with devolution. Muddy the waters, blame the Scots and delay independence until Scotland is fully bled.
If that worthless sack of dogshit Swinney wasn’t a worthless sack of dogshit he’d be presenting the people of Scotland with a stark choice ……
Do you want to see your loved ones sent to fight an unnecessary , unwinnable war against a nuclear armed * enemy * .
Or not ?
If the latter , the ONLY way of realising that choice is by declaring Scottish Independence . Not asking , not pleading , not begging . Taking Independence .
Whether Queer Starmer’s assertion that * we * will sooner rather than later be at war with Russia is anything more than the ravings of a fantasist who ” just happens ” to be the most unpopular PM – EVER – and has ulterior motives ( other than courting absolute , total disaster ) for these ravings ( eg as smokescreen/distraction for their cluelessness how to extract the dying animal that is the UK from it’s trajectory of social/financial meltdown – the product of successive utterly useless , bonehead , Uniparty English Govs ) : or he and his * backers * really are THAT unhinged doesn’t particularly matter for our purposes .
In the same way we’re witnessing the pro-War propaganda machine going into overdrive , with the same ludicrous/cynical ” Reds under the bed ” fearmongering that done so much damage in the U.S during McCarthy’s reign of terror ; that identical tactic could be used to terrify the people of Scotland with the full horror of what a war with Russia ( and likely , ultimately China , Iran , N.Korea etc ) would entail : the difference being this would not be fanciful fearmongering , but the VERY real, accurate depiction of the horrific consequences of such a scenario .
Instead , we have that sack of dogshit actually aligning with the slavering , rabid mutts & delusional Strangeloves of Blimpton . U.K Ltd .
Never mind speculating whether that muppet-faced Home Counties Cunt – Farage – would – as PM – consider the type of trade-off referred to – THIS JUST IN …..he won’t , for the simple reason that neither he nor any other P.M would be allowed ( by the UK Deep State + ” Others ” ) to make such a decision , even if he or any other PM was so inclined . It is not and will never be in the power of such transient ciphers to ” break-up the U.K ” . Let’s be clear about that .
This present opportunity to get-the-fuck out from under the leperous zombie-nation of England-As-Britain will almost certainly be squandered , just like all the others , eg Brexit and the succession of breathtakingly shite PMs of recent years , by an snP Gov that has acheived the astonishing feat of being even more breathtakingly shite than that aforementioned procession of bozos , bawbags & bumbling bellicose bandersnatchers .
The opportunity still exists for the other pro-Independence parties ( which I don’t consider the snP to any longer be ) to do , not only the right , sane thing ,ie refuse to participate in / strongly oppose in the insane road to hell that war with Russia would precipitate , also a tactically sound , potentially game-changing stance .
Will any of them grasp it ?
The last thing the Scots need is hauners fae a bunch o’ well meaning sympathy merchants tae pat thaim oan the back and whisper ther sincere condolences intae ther ears.
Sympathy merchants wha hivna liftit a finger tae help the Scots in ther three hunner year o’ subjugation at the hauns o’ the Inglis.
Sympathy kills fowk stane deid…sae thaim sympathy merchants can juist get thersels tae…fuck.
Whit the Scots need tae dae is get up aff ther knees and wake up tae the reality o’ ther oppression at the hauns o’ the Inglis and peacefully and withoot prejudice or fear or favor of ony kind refuse tae participate in ther ain subjugation.
The Scots need tae demand ther ain, ther natioun’s and ther country’s release fae a mankit treaty no worth the ersewipe paper it’s scribbled doun oan.
The Scots, aye thaim wha gied the modern world maist o’ its ideas fir invention an innovation, hiv tae staun up and demand ther freedom, demand they be listened tae, and demand ther place in the family o’ independent natiouns. No go cap in hand pleadin fir a place at the table they made possible wi ther genius in the first place.
Aye, the fowk o’ the world wid still be lightin’ up ther fires wi the sparks fae stanes or the heat aff a rubbed stick and wipin’ ther erses wi leaves if it wisnae fir the Scots.
The Scots need tae staun up and loudly, and with great pryde in thersels and ther ancient history, culture and achievements, demand ther liberation and keep oan demandin’ until the rest o’ the world, that world that owes the Scots sae much, gets aff its erse and makes way fir the Scots tae join it as a free people agin.
Nou it’s sayed that pryde comes afore a fa. But fir the Scots ther pryde maist needs tae come afore ther liberatioun. Efter that’s sortit oot they can mibbe calm doun agin…a wee bit onyways.
That’s whit the Scots hiv tae dae. Aye, an curse aw thaim tae suffer Hell’s damnation that get in ther way.
I like writing in the Scots language it’s a much better language than English, much better, and I’ve only just scratched its surface. But that’s bye the bye.
We Scots have been led to believe that we are the lowest of the low. That we’re too wee. That we’re too stupid. And that we’re too poor – that yin is actually true because England nicked all our cash and all our stuff – am telt thaim Inglis are still at the thievin’ by the way sae keep an eye oot fir thaim they canna be trustit.
These things that we’ve been telt fir centuries are all lies and are actually the externalised projections of the characteristics and true nature of the fowk who’ve been telling us aw that nonsense.
But we fell fir it. Whit a bunch o’ dafties, eh? Ye hiv tae laugh at how gullible we used tae be.
The young fowk call it gaslightin’ these days – you know…after Gaslight the 1944 American psychological thriller film directed by George Cukor, and starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury in her film debut. (I nicked all that Gaslight stuff from wiki).
The problem remains that those who are supporters of Indy have no legal means in order to achieve such.
Doesn’t matter if Scotland returned 57 SNP MPs. They’d sit and take Big Ben’s wages whilst wringing their hands, pulling their hair, gnashing their teeth, and doing nothing else. They’d be 57 out of 650, with 593 others ranged against them and an entire second chamber in the form of the HoL ready to assist in torpedoing any sort of Bill. Furthermore, the SNP would never do a SF and not show up and they’d never organise anything that could be termed “illegal”. More’s the pity…
The SNP could have 73 MSPs in Holyrood, but they’d do nothing about the constitution because, as the UKSC said, that’s reserved to Westminster.
Therefore even if the majority of MPs and MSPs and local authorities were pro-Indy, and opinion polls consistently showed +60% pro-Indy, in reality it’s meaningless…
Westminster has total control and decides all by itself if and when WE get to decide our country’s future.
Unless we can get the UN on side, we’re all just pissing into the wind because, as Rev Stu said, no UK PM will ever sanction another IndyRef, unless it’s rigged – which courtesy of The Vow, the EU’s stance, the MSM/BBC, and the franchise, the last one certainly was.
“…we’re all just pissing into the wind…”
As a wean during the hot summers of my childhood I often found pissing into the wind quite refreshing. And on those occasions where the wee burn had dried up I could slake ma thirst at the same time. Happy days.
Apologies, Robert. Ye kin mibbe tell I’m in one of those moods from my previous post.
No apology required
Good comment by the way. Meant to tag that onto the end of my previous, facetious, comment but forgot.
“The UK government has no conceivable reason to agree to one”
My question has always been and will always remain the same:
Why on earth does Scotland have to ask permission to England MPs for a referendum or for anything, for that matter? What exactly gives England MPs ownership over Scotland and the right to dictate Scotland’s future? Do any of those England MPs actually hold the mandate of a single vote from Scotland? No. They hold the mandate of the people in their constituencies in England who voted for them. They do not represent us. They do not speak for us.
Holyrood, as it currently stands, is just a colonial administration acting on behalf of Westminster. That, we can agree. It has as much of “Scotland’s parliament” as the representative from The City of London sitting in Westminster: nothing. It is an entity running for the benefit of the English crown, not the people of Scotland.
But that can very easily change. The only two things required are for those elected to not swear allegiance to the English crown, to repudiate the Scotland Act (voting to repeal it) and to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament.
I am sorry, but I do not agree with the gambling of Holyrood so we can attract the interest of staunch colonialists. Does anybody seriously believe for even a second that we are going to fool them?
Let’s get real, shall we?
In my view this proposition looks like madness. We do not have to continue begging for a referendum. Why the hell should we? We do not have to give away the silver in exchange for a bloody referendum that is almost certain will be rigged if we let England (as the UK) take control of it. Just as it happened in 2014.
I honestly thing this is the entire wrong approach to take here. We do not need involvement from Westminster. We never did. In fact, we should reject point blank ANY involvement from Westminster. In the matter of a referendum, frankly, the only thing that comes across as sensible is to wait for the outcome of Salvo’s initiative. There is absolutely no point in engaging with referendums if England as the UK continues to interfere for its own interest. And when one say “England as the UK”, it means also “his allies” and the groups “friends of those allies” who are currently controlling at least the labour and the Tory party.
The mandarins of England (as the UK) have already demonstrated countless times since 2013 that they cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted at all. If you launch such a kamikaze offer as to gamble Holyrood in exchange for a referendum, you already know exactly what is going to happen. That referendum, including its franchise, is going to be rigged from top to bottom and, not only we will not get independence, we will also lose Holyrood. That is walking backwards, not forward.
I am sorry, but this proposition comes across to me as far too crazy to even entertain for even a second. It opens wide the door for the deep state to waltz in and rig the whole thing to ensure for once and for all that Scotland, as a country, disappears.
And then, of course, there is something else. We are being fed right, left and centre that if Farage gets to be PM, support for independence will raise to 60%. So what? What difference is it going to make?
Absolutely none.
Unless we have a party in control of Holyrood or in control of Scotland’s MPs that is prepared to do something about it, we will remain in the exact same hamster wheel, the same groundhog day we have been since 19 September 2014. Running and running and running to absolutely nowhere.
We already had high support for independence immediately after Brexit. We were also given all sort of predictions that independence would sky rocket if Johnson became PM. Well, Johnson came and went. His premiership was beyond the joke. Support for independence under his tenure allegedly increased, but what difference did it make?
None. Because we had the useless Brit state useful idiot Sturgeon frantically pulling the hand break on independence during the entirety of her tenure.
Does anybody seriously expect anything different with undertaker Swinney or with careerist Flynn?
Let’s get real. The only way out of this is, either bypassing UK politics entirely, or by voting for a political party/umbrella that is prepared to do something about independence. And doing something about independence starts by not swearing allegiance to a foreign crown.
After 10 years of stasis, continuing to think that Westminster is going to help us get independence in any way whatsoever is, in my humble opinion, beyond naive.
I would never agree to, never mind promote such gamble. I think is negligent and madness. I do not see why on earth it is Scotland always that has to lose and England (as the UK) the one that always wins.
Do we really want independence?
If the answer to the above question is yes, then we have to start acting as we are already independent. Sacrificing ANY of Scotland’s belongings in the altar of a referendum and continue to act as if England MPs own Scotland comes across as if we all agree that Scotland should be governed as a colony.
Well, I do not agree.
I say absolutely not to such crazy referendum.
“…we have to start acting as we are already independent”
Absolutely right, Mia. Another good post
Which is why the 63% here, who presumably having been persuaded to vote along with the rest of the UK to kill Holyrood, would be left with their nether regions swinging in the wind, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, because the rules that Westminster play by wouldn’t have changed one jot by all devolved powers being restored to Westminster.
Turkeys voting for Christmas.
“Turkeys voting for Christmas”
That is precisely how this proposal comes across to me. I am so angry about this, that I do not know what to think or where this crazy idea really comes from. All what this proposal brings to my mind is the picture of a frog being slowly boiled. We are being slowly boiled but, somehow, are we supposed to embrace this political suicide as if it was beneficial for us?
I don’t bite.
The Scotland Act is quite clear. Westminster cannot simply eliminate Holyrood until there is a referendum from Scotland.
So, are we being groomed to pretend holding a referendum to lose Holyrood was our idea all along?
Let’s look at the big picture for a second. What do we have in the horizon?
1. A potential war that the disgusting Starmer is frantically dragging us into. Wasn’t pushing the UK into a war also what delayed Ireland’s independence? Same con-trick here?
2. A deal with the USA is being cooked as we speak.
Now, lets think. What does Holyrood currently control that could be of interest to the USA?
That is easy: NHS Scotland, farmland, etc
mmmm. Is that why the useless Swinney is opening the door to GM products?
3. As far as I know, at least until a few years ago, Holyrood had control over packaging of food. That deal with USA will most certainly involve flooding us with crap beef and potentially chlorinated chicken that is not up to our standards. Mmmm.
4. Are they planning to frack the bejesus out of Scotland?
5. Or does this have to do with the effing freeports?
I am not convinced by the Farage “Phenomenon” at all. Looking back, he was always used by the establishment as the ice breaker. Ab awful lot of hot air, an awful lot of noise and controversy, a lot of threats, a massive growth in support for his which seemed to stem out of nowhere and in record time, and then as quickly as his parties grew at lightning speed, they fell equally fast neatly right on their own footprint. I suspect the very same will happen again when it comes to the next GE.
Bottom line is that I smell a rat on this whole affair. A rather big one.
The spiv, like his Yank equivalent, is just a fricking gameshow host.
One says “you’re fired”.
The other, having persuaded us to commit infanticide by slitting the throat of our albeit incompetent, ineffective and wholly compromised legislature, would put his arm around Scotland’s collective shoulder, turn to the camera, and say “sit yourselves down on those lovely green benches and let’s have a look at what you could’ve won…”
I too smell a rat Mia, and it’s wearing a Crombie coat.
“cholorinated chicken”
Ah yes. The foodstuff that killed and injured precisely 0% of the millions of Brits that (before President Trump) used to visit the USA every year to cram their great fat faces with as much of the “chlorinated chicken” as they could get their hands on.
Massive steaks too.
But enough of them.
Do tell us all, Mia, how you de-chlorinate the water that comes out of your tap.
It’s not likely you’ll be drinking Scottish “chlorinated water” now, is it?
“I smell a rat”
A chlorinated one?
But you’re right, Mia. A politician at least paying lip service to what people want, and possibly actually going to get votes because the things he says gel with the lived reality of the voters he says it to.
Drive him out! We’ll have no truck with that kind of thing in Scotland.
Aye, Bob, what we need is a comedian. They make fantastically effective, smart, charismatic and popular political leaders.
Instead, in Scotland, we have politicians making a very bad attempt at being comedians.
“commit infanticide by slitting the throat of our albeit incompetent, ineffective and wholly compromised legislature”
Oh Bob, bless your wee, white, cotton socks!
HR may be a complete abortion, bit it’s oor abortion, am ah right?
And that’s your best offer to the people of Scotland. Locally sourced, zero air miles, home grown shite.
“Do we really want independence? If the answer to the above question is yes, then we have to start acting as we are already independent”
Sure, Mia.
We also need to start acting as if we are all Sovereign, we are back in the EU, and we are all filthy rich.
Off you go, lead from the front, and report back to us how your acting is received in the real world.
But wait. What you really and truly mean, is that you want somebody else to do the acting. Let them put their head above the parapet. And if their head isn’t blown off, after a decent interval has elapsed and you can see it’s perfectly safe to do so, you’ll follow.
Inspirational. Not.
“Kate Forbes responds to Keir Starmer ruling out independence vote”
link to thenational.scot
” Deputy First Minister Forbes, who was visiting Blantyre on Tuesday as part of campaigning in the Hamilton by-election this week, was asked by The National if it was a political tactic from Starmer to suggest Swinney was not focused on independence.
She said: “It’s hardly a surprise that Keir Starmer is repeating what we’ve heard from Tory prime ministers for years, and the day after we saw an increase in support for independence if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister, it seems a bit rich to be telling the people of Scotland what they are saying when their greatest concern is that the change that was promised by Labour hasn’t happened at all, opening the door to Nigel Farage.
“The purpose of the SNP is to deliver a better future for the people of Scotland.
“We are speaking to the people of Scotland, we are engaging directly with them, they are increasingly rejecting the empty politics of Westminster, indicating support for a different and better future.
“I think it’s a lot more important John Swinney is speaking to the people of Scotland than anyone else.”
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It’s strange that she never said the SNP want Independence?
“The purpose of the SNP is to deliver a better future for the people of Scotland”
One has to ask Ms Freeports Forbes a “better future” compared to what, exactly. That is the part she is most careful not to tell us. The reference point used to establish if our future will be “better or worse” than that reference point is crucial to establish how good that future will be. Forbes’ sentence is completely meaningless without that reference point.
Devolutionist Kate Forbes has now confirmed that the purpose of Swinney’s (and hers) SNP is not to pursue, never mind delivering, independence. It is some vague, undefined, even mystic notion of “a better future” compared to something only she knows what it is.
If you are a supporter of independence, what exactly is the point in continuing to play UK politics, continue to waste your precious time listening to Forbes’ shallow and worthless soundbites, and continue to ping your hopes in casting a vote for a party that has put forward every excuse under the sun to avoid talking, never mind delivering, independence.
Not really… that was the “old” SNP you’re thinking of.
The post-2014, ultra-woke, Devo-Max, NuSNP is a different creature entirely.
Whenver I see or hear John Swinney, a picture of him in a deckchair on a grimy beach springs to mind.
He’s got a knotted hankie over his shiny pate, and he’s just vacantly smiling. Doing nothing, planning nothing, dreaming of nothing.
“He’s got a knotted hankie over his shiny pate, and he’s just vacantly smiling. Doing nothing, planning nothing, dreaming of nothing.”
Sounds fine to me with an ice cool pint and a few pretty women in bikinis beside the pool.
“an ice cool pint and a few pretty women in bikinis”
Best not take that one too far until it’s clarified if he and his enablers all know what a woman is.
Any uncertainty or ambiguities around that leaves it open for the most grotesquely horrible and deeply traumatising of events to occur.
Far beyond anything that beer goggles could ever fix.
From what I’ve read, at a push, England can put trident in Plymouth. The main objection is the safety being so close to densely populated areas.
However, if it comes to it, with a few years of upgrades, Devon can hold trident.
If Scotland collects rent or uses it in negotiations then all can end well for all concerned.
It’s always awkward and uncomfortable for the more hard-of-thinking Indy supporters when they have to deal with Farage.
He is the man who lied about how much more the UK paid into the EU than the UK got back. He lied too about how much better off we would be after Brexit. He lied that after Brexit we would go our own way, take back control, do things our way, and throw off the shackles of the 50 odd years union forever. Studiously ignoring, of course, that the EU was (and is) the UK’s major trading partner.
The more hard-of-thinking Indy supporters can’t stop themselves from pointing out these lies. They then go on to claim that Scotland pays more into the UK than we get out. And Scotland will be better off after Indy. We will go our own way, take control of our finances and our international relations, and throw off the constricting shackles of the 300+ years union forever. Studiously ignoring, of course, that England is (and will remain) Scotland’s major trading partner
My best guess is that the hard-of-thinking Indy supporters don’t listen to what they say, or read what they write. Or understand either.
But I digress. The referendum question I want to see will be something like this:
Should the devolved assembly at HR be closed, its legislature and supporting services paid off, and after an independent audit to establish its total yearly cost to the people of Scotland, its yearly cost allocated instead for every year thereafter to providing additional public services for the people of Scotland? Yes / No.
It’s my unsubstantiated opinion that Yes will beat No by a factor of two.
Maybe Independence could actually be the saviour of the SNP
Excuse me, Sir, can we have an independence vote (Cap in Hand)
And lose all that free water and oil revenue ?
Not bloody likely mate, on yer bike!
“whilst Scotland has a relative abundance of fresh water compared to an increasing number of parts of the world that are becoming water stressed due to population growth and climate factors, there are no current plans to export water to England or internationally.
Ministers are aware of the supply challenges in some countries, including in south-east England, and the growing concerns about the need for water utilities in England to take action to ensure continuity of supply in water-stressed areas in the future. However, previous analysis suggests the sale or transfer of water from Scotland to England – most likely by bulk shipping raw water or via pipelines – would not be economically viable at this time. However, the Scottish Government will keep the issue under review.”
link to gov.scot
“bulk shipping raw water”
It keeps a lot better in transit if it’s cooked first.
To me the single most cataclysmic consequence of the 1707 Union with England was the handing over of our manhood in perpetuity as canon-fodder under the cynical command of an inveterately hostile imperialist country.
WOLFE AND NORTH AMERICA
« James Wolfe (1727-59), while serving with the 20th Regiment in Scotland, in a letter to Captain William Rickson, dated June 9, 1751, revealed his reasons for considering the formation of new Highland regiments, which are not wholly flattering to the Highlanders. “I should imagine,” wrote Wolfe, referring to Rickson’s duties in Nova Scotia, “that two or three independent Highland companies might be of use; they are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall. How can you better employ a secret enemy than by making his end conducive to the common good? If this sentiment should take wind,” he justly concludes, “what an execrable and bloody being should I be considered here in the midst of Popery and Jacobitism!” » [‘James Wolfe: Man and Soldier’ by W.T. Waugh, M.A., Kingsford Professor of History, McGill University (Montreal, New York: Louis Carrier & Co., 1928) p. 101]
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« He [James Wolfe] was on the staff at Culloden [1746], and described the battle in a letter next day, but said nothing of his own share in it. […]The summer [1752] was spent in road-making on Loch Lomond. In September the regiment left Scotland for Dover, and for the next four years it was quartered in the south of England. In the winter of 1754–5 it was at Exeter, and Wolfe wrote: ‘I have danced the officers into the good graces of the Jacobite women hereabouts.’ » (Wikisource – Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wolfe, James).
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« The number of Highland Scots in the British Army in North America during the French and Indian War was significant — about a quarter of the force and a third of the officer corps. And they took a wildly disproportionate number of casualties. The Army’s casualty rate was 9 percent; the Highland Regiments 32 percent. » (Jim Cornelius in 2021 article ‘The Shock Troops Of The Empire’ on his ‘Frontier Partisans’ website.)
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« Whatever crimes might have been laid at Wolfe’s door for his generalship during the Quebec campaign were washed away in the postmortem euphoria and forgotten during his subsequent apotheosis to imperialistic icon. » (Ian McCulloch, Canadian Forces College, 2008)
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WW1 LOSSES
« The worst disaster to ever hit the Gaels was the Battle of Loos 25 Sept 1915. Three Scottish Divisions. 15th Scottish Division, 9th Scottish Division, and 51st Highland Division. Worst blow 9th Scottish Division, 26th Brigade: ‘The 5th Camerons: On the right were the men of North Uist, Strathspey, and Lochaber. On the left were the men of South Uist, Benbecula, and Skye, under Major Arkshaw, who fell at the head of his men. The first two lines went forward and were absolutely wiped out. Line after line was mown down. Of the 760 men who went over the top, only 70 came back. And of the 700 who were killed, you could probably say that 90% of them were Gaelic-speakers. And I don’t think Gaeldom ever got over it. And Scotland as a whole. It was a black day for Scotland. The three Divisions had 14,000 casualties at Loos. Percentage-wise, more Scots were killed in First World War than any other country.“ (Translated from Gaelic YouTube by Donald MacCormick in 2015: ‘An Fheadhainn Tha Laighe Sàmhach / They Lie Silent and Still — Grievous high loss of Gaelophone soldiers in WW1’).
————
« Of the 157 battalions which comprised the British Expeditionary Force, 22 were Scottish regiments […] The human losses were enormous and unprecedented. Of the 557,000 Scots who enlisted in all services, 26.4 percent lost their lives. This compares with an average death rate of 11.8 percent for the rest of the British army between 1914 and 1918. Of all the combatant nations, only the Serbs and the Turks had higher per capita mortality rates, but this was primarily because of disease in the trenches rather than a direct result of losses in battle. The main reason for the higher-than-average casualties among the Scottish soldiers was that they were regarded as excellent, aggressive shock troops who could be depended upon to lead the line in the first hours of battle. » (Sir Tom Devine [T.M.Devine] ‘The Scottish Nation 1700-2000’
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« ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ » (George Orwell, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’)
————
« D’où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?[Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?] » (Title of famous 1898 painting by Paul Gaugin)
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A Gaelic version of ‘The Time Machine’ by HG Wells has recently been published. We can’t go back and change Scotland’s plundered past, but surely we can change Scotland’s future.
link to gaelicbooks.org
Were they press ganged?
Were they volunteers?
Were they living in community relationships that made resistance to peer pressure nigh impossible?
Were they too susceptible to an ancient tradition that valued martial prowess too highly?
Was it unthinkable for any Scotsman of that age to ever be considered yellow?
Did they enjoy fighting and winning, and never counted the cost?
These are all questions that interest me far more than the lazy, modern, revisionist assumption that they were all victims and dupes.
“they were regarded as excellent, aggressive shock troops who could be depended upon to lead the line in the first hours of battle”
That’s not a description of reluctant, forced, cannon fodder.
One of the hardest ideas for today’s entitled, health & safety obsessed, risk averse, confrontation avoiders to get his head around is that some people just love to fight. It’s odd when you consider that the Scots, Irish, English and Welsh between them succeeded in colouring so much of the world’s atlas pink.
The 1984 concepts go both ways. Our Scottish ancestors were a ferocious, martial, blood thirsty and violent crew, steeped from birth in the belief that fighting was what defined the essence of manhood. They wouldn’t see us, their pathetic, whiny descendants, in their road.
“…no great mischief if they fall. How can you better employ a secret enemy…”
The cost of union, in blood, is oddly overlooked when we obsess over oil fields and whisky and electricity and sovereign wealth funds and what could have been – maybe because it is incalculable.
The Scots got press-ganged into the empire’s dirty work, and to our credit and shame, it is the post union period when the empire “goes turbo” for as chomsky put it “the celtic periphery was subdued”. Independent, we always acted as a brake on the worst excesses of those southern pirates, which was all they ever were, and still are. Winning in 1300 held the empire back for 400 years, something the world should thank us for. I think there is a parallel to the Scots with the “buffalo soldiers” the black men conscripted by the union to kill indians.
Dunkirk was mentioned earlier; the uncomfortable truth about that was hitler went easy because he still had hopes of a peace deal with “england” and a massacre would have been hard to forget about over the negotiating table. The desire of hitler for peace with england, and that he was a massive fanboy of the empire, is embarrassing to modern media, at most you might get it on a history program, an old one like world at war.
I came across an odd quote in an odd place, by a failed artist, about the Scots fighting prowess and their comparison with the English :
… convinced that one saw in THE ENGLISHMAN a MERCHANT as CRAFTY as he was personally INCREDIBLY COWARDLY. That an empire of the size of the British had not been brought together by sneaking and swindling never occurred to our sublime teachers of professorial wisdom. The few who uttered warnings were not listened to or were passed by in silence. I well remember the ASTONISHED FACES of my comrades, when in Flanders we faced the Tommies personally. After the first few days of battle the conviction dawned on everyone that THESE SCOTS did not quite correspond to those one had thought fit to describe to us in comic papers and newspaper dispatches
that was from the devil himself, uncle adolph, in mein kampf. We see how others see us –
anglo = merchant (dilettante, wastrel, gambler, pirate, crook, conman, swindler)
scot = warrior (engineer, doctor)
– even the devil is not always wrong all of the time. Thus we can say that Hitler wanted a peace deal with “the english” because of the SCOTS he faced in Flanders.
There are a lot of rightwing english historians who are right into ww2, and you know they have read mein kampf till the spine broke … and yet I had never heard that particular quote; which is why you should, when you can, read the originals, not the commentators. And never believe a fucking englishmen, for they cleanse the uncomfortable truths of history via the filter of their own narcissism, every single one of them.
“Thus we can say that Hitler wanted a peace deal with “the english” because of the SCOTS he faced in Flanders”
Nah.
It’s been bad enough listening to the jingoism that it was the Brits that won the war. Now you’re re-writing it as it was us Scots.
Get real, FFS.
Hitler wanted a peace deal because he already had most of continental Europe and he wanted to be free to pursue the real aims of his war – the conquest of the east and the eradication of Bolshevism.
BTW, it’s not an uncomfortable truth of history that there are Scottish place names all over the formerly colonised world.
It’s an uncomfortable truth of the present day. These names are still there.
By all means you persuade yourself that you wouldn’t have minded being killed that much by one of our Scottish colonisers, because, you know, the poor Scots boy behind the gun was being forced to do it and didn’t really enjoy doing it. But FFS, ask somebody you know to tell you honestly how daft that sounds.
With all due respect for the interesting thought experiment: it rests on a single poll of n=704 (after weighing). Despite best efforts the potential of sampling bias is enormous.
I note, for example, that – when broken down into voting preferences, there is a resounding ‘we’d rater give up Hollywood” majority EXCEPT in the group identifying as SNP voters. That group, as your site keeps pointing out, is heterogenous and difficult to capture in a single poll.
Therefore, to base a fervent hope for a plebiscite outcome on that one under-powered poll is – well – ambitious.
in a more wider sense, currently (and with every passing year increasingly so) all political decision making /gaming/positioning is likely going to be massively influenced by the knock-on effect of the demographic tidal wave on all sides of the political spectrum (local councils spending >80% of budgets on care; public services decreasing in rural areas; work-force depletion; supply chain disruption, cost of health care etc ).
It’s hard to imagine – despite all rhetoric that you quote – that even a PM N. Farage would spend any time/effort on this — especially given the geostrategic importance of retaining Scotland (see Mr. T’s overtures on Greenland).
Sorry, I think this is pie in the sky..
Voting SNP seems increasingly crazy in any scenario. What other options do we have? Should we all be voting Reform then and get Farage in power and hope he pushes the button to explode the pretendy wee parliament that has been like a pair of concrete slippers to our cause..?
So you can’t have independence of you elect a majority of Westminster independence MPs
And you can’t have independence if you elect a majority of Hollyrood MSPs
And no you can’t have a referendum either.
And that’s the bases covered.
So where do you go from there. What do you do when democracy is denied. Its a good question and one only has to look around the world at ex colonies.
Anyway, more mundane, a grisly old affair over in Spain with the execution of two Glasgow gangsters. One can appreciate how these slayings were on foreign soil. But with the gang warfare across Scotland leading up to these murders with fire bombings, shooting and machette’ attacks, this now shows to the international community what a violent country Scotland actually is.
Of course this landscape of violent criminality comes on the back of widespread corruption in the police, the local authorities, public bodies and big business. And it will only get worse as this week’s events show.
Willie says…
“So you can’t have independence of you elect a majority of Westminster independence MPs
And you can’t have independence if you elect a majority of Hollyrood MSPs
And no you can’t have a referendum either.
And that’s the bases covered.
So where do you go from there. What do you do when democracy is denied. Its a good question and one only has to look around the world at ex colonies.”
My point in a nutshell.
“What do you do when democracy is denied?”
Civil disobedience sometimes works, but you’d need a far greater percentage of the population than currently supports Indy for that to succeed…
* Non payment of TV licence
* Non payment of road fund tax, (non payment of council tax just hurts local services)
” General strikes by public service workers
” Marches with well over 10% of the population taking part
* Politicians prepared to boycott Westminster
* Politicians prepared to go to jail
* Westminster’s hand forced to close Holyrood for deliberately and repeatedly straying into reserved matters
* The Monarch forced to refuse to give Royal Assent to Bills passed unanimously by Holyrood on reserved matters
* All Union Flags removed from public buildings
* Mass burning of British Passports
Unless and until Scotland’s population becomes as incensed as the Civil Rights movement did in Northern Ireland and the USA during the 1950s/60s, or the Catalans and their politicians did in 2017, or the you crane-e-yins in 2014, Westminster can and will continue to ignore us, especially when the biggest single party in Scotland decides to go soft on the idea of an independent Scotland.
I remember hearing of a quote several decades ago, (probably after Winnie won Hamilton), by an African politician from a former British colony, who when asked about Scottish independence said that they thought that it wouldn’t happen. When pressed as to why, they said that the people of Scotland hadn’t suffered enough.
Perhaps they had a point, and perhaps Westminster’s plan is just… Keep us tied to England and ensure, unlike the Irish, we never quite suffer too much.
Not a bad post.
You need to re-think a couple of points though:
“Non payment of road fund tax, (non payment of council tax just hurts local services)
General strikes by public service workers”
That reads as if you believe a general strike of public service workers won’t harm local services. In which case, sack the lot of them, as they obviously aren’t doing anything.
“we never quite suffer too much”
Bingo! Check out the big brain on Bob.
A welcome draught of sanity, in among the usual cries of we’re enslaved and being blatantly abused every second of the day.
Good luck with burning your passport. I guess prudent Scots will first want to check that the authorities on the Costas and the Canaries are prepared to allow passport-free entry and exit. Otherwise, I just can’t see that one gaining much traction.
Sure, there’d be impacts on public services.
However, in the absence of any means of achieving Indy through a democratic means, democracy being denied to us by Westminster, (Hell, even Quebec wasn’t denied a second referendum…), I recon it’ll take a movement akin to Solidarity in Poland during the 80’s to circumvent Westminster.
Even then, you’d need the UN to recognise Scotland as a ‘Non Self-governing Territory’ in order to garner international support – Catalonia, despite the best efforts of its citizens and politicians, failed to get any such support, no doubt due to it’s constitutional (legal) status within the Kingdom of Spain.
We on the other hand have no such legal status within the United Kingdom, except for a couple of residual elements of the 1707 ToU, which turned out not to be worth the vellum it was scratched upon.
Until we, as a movement, accept that politicians and parliaments are not the way, we’ll go nowhere.
@robertknight 12.48am
“Until we, as a movement, accept that politicians and parliaments are not the way, we’ll go nowhere.”
Sounds like the dialogue of despair to me. I reckon only a small minority of folk in the movement share your view of the ultimate hopelessness of politicians and parliament as a route to independence (or indeed maintaining the union if that’s their preference) not because of any fondness for politicians or their institutions but because they aren’t convinced the available alternative routes are preferable, feasible or even required.
There may be something to the argument that the problem for proponents of Scottish independence is that things just are regarded as bad enough for people to take direct action or contemplate extraordinary or extra parliamentary routes to independence. Whatever the outrage at the perceived anti-democratic nature of the current political settlement and Westminster’s refusal to “grant” a second referendum, that sense of outrage has not reached the stage for most people that would encourage them to take to the streets or take the kind of direct action your are contemplating in your “trial balloon” examples of direct action up thread.
Most Scots can probably see that even when we achieve independence, for most of them things aren’t going to suddenly change for the better. Indeed, most reasonable people are capable of admitting that things might even be harder in the short term until our new state establishes itself. The day after independence most folks ordinary lives will still revolve around their day to day jobs, paying their way and hoping their lives will improve.
Sure, we can make the case that in the medium to long term things will improve because we have control of our own destinies and can spend and save according to our own priorities rather than those of the whole UK. However, persuading Scots that the cost/benefit analysis of staying in the union versus taking our independence supports the latter isn’t that easy if folk think not that much will change.
The plain truth is we don’t need extra parliamentary routes or cunning plans to achieve independence. We don’t need the UN to categorise us as a non-self-governing territory. It doesn’t matter that Catalonia’s case and Scotland’s cases are not exactly the same because Spain has a constitutional ban on secession, because that ban has no basis in international law. Any people is entitled to self determination, but the right is neither automatic or unlimited.
Nobody abroad is going to take a blind bit of notice of the Scottish independence movement bumping its gums about how we were robbed when they look at our situation and see that all we have to do is put an X on a piece of paper in elections. We’re not being oppressed like the Poles were when Solidarity helped destabilise the communist regime there, nor are we seeing our political leadership jailed like the Catalans, nor are we seeing a parallel state being set up as happened in Ireland with Sinn Fein in the early 20th century.
If – and likely only if – things get worse will the Scottish electorate probably decide to grow a pair and in their righteous anger take extraordinary action. Before the kind of civil disobedience measures discussed earlier become likely, it’s surely far MORE likely that the movement will seek a mandate from the Scottish people to “repatriate” constitutional authority to themselves or their own parliament in Holyrood or a constitutional convention or assembly of some sort rather than switch directly to civil disobedience, whether non-violent or not.
Many years ago (when independence and the prospect of a referendum seemed a pipe dream) I met some folk while on holiday in Türkiye who invited my wife and I to go to Cyprus with them on their yacht. In discussion about politics, they made much the same observation as the African politician saying that if Scots wanted independence they would ultimately have to fight for it, not take “no” for an answer and take it by force if necessary which ultimately meant being prepared to lay down their lives for it. Given these guys had all served in their armed forces (the yacht was flying a star of David flag – work it out!) that seemed self evident to them, even though I argued that cases like Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec weren’t really analogous to their situation.
I still think my take on it is right: Scots are (at least relatively) in an unbelievably fortunate position, as most Catalans I’ve talked to agree. They’d give their eye teeth to be in our situation rather than their own.
We’re not being violently oppressed or colonised, we’re not being cheated or conspired against, we just lack the self-belief to take the risks attendant on voting for the opportunities that the upheaval will undoubtedly cause. Believers in short cuts to indy might not like it, but for most of the people, most of the time, they haven’t been convinced of the case for change. It will be pretty ironic if the proximate cause for that changing isn’t a sudden upsurge in courage, but the deus ex machina of Reform being elected in England.
In the end, perhaps that would be a suitable end for the ignominious Treaties of Union? Not a legalistic repeal or a violent overthrow by disgruntled or oppressed Scots, but the election by the rest of the UK of a government Scots find so intolerable that it finally bestirs them to action leading to an amicable divorce. However much we might loathe Farage and his politics, perhaps we can at least see a silver lining to his party winning in the rest of the UK?
“…accept that politicians and parliaments are not the way…”
Not until the Scots are liberated and restored to their rightful place as a self-governing sovereign people with a genuine Scottish government and parliament of their own and genuine Scottish politicians they can vote for, or not as the case might be.
Thon brace o’ paurliaments, ‘Scotlan’s and Inglan’s, are nae servants tae the Scots…anerly ther oppressor and hits faithfu dug.
@Andy Ellis says: 4 June, 2025 at 11:25 am
Great post, Andy.
Regarding the likely end of the union, I have long thought it will be precipitated here in Scotland by the ongoing descent into anarchy as the chaotic and dysfunctional WM government fails to deliver on even the “managed decline” that is its best promise to the voters.
And in a cruel twist that will have the usual suspects foaming at the mouth, I have long thought that the precipitation of Indy will be enabled and likely driven by our English white sizzlers.
Having fled the dystopia that is England, they will be better motivated than most to ensure Scotland can be salvaged from the wreckage of the UK. Of course, they won’t see the kind of Made In Scotland clusterfuck that is the SNP as having any part in their plans for Scotland.
It’s exactly the same mechanism that you see when you observe immigrants calling for the drawbridge to be raised behind them.
And besides, sizzlers and immigrants are always more motivated – you don’t voluntarily up sticks and move to a new country if at heart, you’re the kind who prefers to sit gurnin on your lardy arse all day.
Loving your anecdote about the boys with the flag. Do you think they know where Greta Thunberg is?
“Great post, Andy.”
Actually it is a rather naive hypothesis that ignores the history and colonial relationship here, and the continued annexation and exploitation of Scotland, as per Professor Black’s legal analysis and plentiful other evidence submitted to the UN.
I don’t know much about Professor Black.
I know a little about the UN. Simple observation over many years shows me that they do what the megabeasts of international politics are prepared to allow.
Professor Black could have saved himself and the rest of us a lot of time and trouble by simply flying to Washington and requesting 30 minutes with President Trump.
We would at least have got the answer, Yes or No, the same day.
Anyhoo, I guess one man’s naïve hypothesis is another’s cunning plan.
@ Harry
I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys concerned would be able to help. I’m pretty convinced they were ex special forces. Changed days of course: back then in the early 90’s their countrymen were welcome in Turkey and they’d obviously enjoyed sailing round the Aegean and visiting a Muslim country that it was possible for them to explore.
We were quite tempted by the offer of a trip to Cyprus but worried about how we’d get home as our flight home was from Turkey and they were heading back to Haifa I think.
Much as I bristled at their evident disdain for what they regarded as Scots milquetoast efforts to become independent, listening to their stories and their family histories, it was hard not to wonder if in their circumstances Scots would ever have had the strength to become independent, particularly given recent events and our continued inability to put X’s on a ballot paper. If anything I’m less optimistic now that I was then.
“If anything I’m less optimistic now that I was then.”
It’s not that the Scots somehow (uniquely) lack the courage to become independent, Andy. The problem is that, hitherto, they’ve not been presented with an adequately persuasive proposal and prospectus for independence.
Note, I’m talking about “Middle Scotland” here – people with careers, jobs, mortgages, pension pots, kids, grandkids. Stakeholders, basically.
It is beyond naïve to expect these people to take a giant leap when so many key questions remain unanswered by those who would wish them to do so (noting that the onus to provide such information rests entirely on their shoulders). These people have too much to lose on a pipe dream, and it is right that they expect a more robust proposal than ever they got in the 2013 White Paper (which pretty much fell to pieces almost immediately afterward e.g. oil prices 2014- present).
I’m obviously not including you when I say this, but it’s all very well for those with “hee haw” to lose to be frustrated by people who don’t occupy the extreme fringes of politics and have real life issues to contend with.
I would further add that the SNP’s record in government since the 2014 Referendum has been dire – and so has the quality of it’s politicians (the exact same politicians who would’ve been entirely running the show since 2014, had a few more people voted for indy).
Ask yourself and be honest, if that doesn’t send a shiver or two down your spine (and a sense of bullet dodged), well, I don’t know what would.
I note in the “submission to the UN”, there is a link to documents purporting to be statements of support from member states. I was ready to be both impressed and surprised, until I clicked the link at its actually supporting statements from members of Salvo (mostly mad and hysterical, written in terrible English).
Did you honestly think you’d get away with that?
The UN C-24 special committee session starts on Monday. Have you or anyone else from Salvo been invited to attend?
@Captain Caveman – I think what you’ve presented is the essence of it. The relentless focus on the Treaty of Union, colonisation or any number of other historical curiosities is a world away from the issues that most people in Scotland think about when either supporting or getting motivated about independence. The reality is: the independence cause lost in 2014, and Scotland has not voted by a majority (of votes) for parties promising independence since that date. To read some of the comments here, you would think that independence is the number one priority for the Scottish people and enjoys 99% support across the country. Neither of those things are true.
“…independence is the number one priority for the Scottish people and enjoys 99% support across the country.”
I didn’t think support for Scotland’s liberation from their oppression was quite that high (I was thinking more around the 87.5% mark), but I’m very pleased to know that it is.
The dam of English lies hauden back, and doun, the Scots is crumbling fast it seems and is closer to bursting than even I had hoped.
The Scottish independence movement, Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Liberation.Scot – The Dambusters…indeed.
Yes Northcode – the end of the Union is imminent, all we need to do is grab a beer and put our feet up, cracking
“The Scottish independence movement, Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Liberation.Scot…”
Should have read:
“Professor Alf Baird, The Scottish independence movement, Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Liberation.Scot..”
But now that I think about it Alf deserves a separate mention as a ‘Dambuster’ for his tireless support of Scottish independence and his excellent academic work set out in his various papers and in his book Doun-Hauden.
And here it is.
“The Scottish independence movement, Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Liberation.Scot…”
Should have read:
“Professor Alf Baird, The Scottish independence movement, Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Liberation.Scot..”
But now that I think about it Alf deserves a separate mention as a ‘Dambuster’ for his tireless support of Scottish independence and his excellent academic work set out in his various papers and in his book Doun-Hauden.
And here it is.
I am thinking maybe God secretly promised Scotland to England for ever and it is England’s right to keep Scotland for ever. Or at least until 2640 AD.
That would explain the Highlands clearances.
Laser weapons. Pew pew! Buck Rogers! Twiki! Biddibiddibiddi! Star Wars shite. Westminster psychopaths and Holyrood bootlickers ripping the pish yet again. Laughable and disgusting. Buying right into the whole Elon Musk Battlestar Galactica space battles madness.
link to holyrood.com
Reagan came away with this same laser pish weapon in the early 80s:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Realistically, the SNP leadership are never going to voluntarily put their Holyrood gravybus at risk.
So are we back to * certain * words being proscribed , leading to post not appearing ?
That posturing creep Starmer beating utterly insane war drums and we can’t discuss it ?
If this is not just smokescreen ( from Labour’s cluelessness re digging the UK out of the social/financial shithole successive Uniparty English Govs have created ) posturing by the most unpopular PM – ever – I think it may have * some * relevance to where we are vis-a-vis Independence . Don’t you ?
@Robert Hughes
A forum I used to moderate on running on WordPress had a moderator / admin function which could put certain problematic folk on an “awkward user” setting. This basically amounted to making it very frustrating for the individual to continue using the site, with delayed forum response and posts taking ages to appear, if at all. It pissed off the user to the point they just left.
That seems very familiar for some reason… Whether by intention or not, this site is back to functioning like that for me all the time now after the briefly ran “upgrade” tweak, which facilitated posts appearing instantly and other features.
But the nested comments on that setup were a total pain as anybody that had a life and wasn’t sitting constantly refreshing the page and navigating to every comment meant it was nigh on impossible to follow btl commentary without developing rsi through a shitload of clicking and scrolling compared to the previous chronologically appearing post setup where a simple single page refresh allowed the user to resume reading every comment since they were last on the site, be it 30 minutes or a week later.
Now it’s the worst of both worlds with retaining the shite nested comments and taking ages for posts to appear.
BTL poster numbers defo look down with many regulars falling silent. (Hi all if you’re lurking)
Most folk probably have better things to be doing than pissing away time on here now. Plus, apparently nothing can be done to progress Indy till justice for Mr Salmond happens. But how that “justice” would be achieved with Scotland’s already fucked up separation of powers setup with potentially closing down Holyrood mid-justice seeking I don’t know. Best ask a poet or something…
Cheers for this , D . aye I thought after being able to use certain words ( names of countries FFS ! ) on the ” absinthe ” post all that silliness had been abandoned and we could write freely about what concerned/interested us ; but it appears not .
I get Stu not wanting every thread to be consumed by subjects unrelated to the O.P ( though ” unrelated ” can often be pretty subjective ) , but , ‘kin hell the shit thats emanating from whatever-the-fuck that entity is in Downing Street potentially renders everything to do with Independence/Scottish Affairs trivial by comparison ; and for the life of me I can’t see how our country getting dragged into yet another * Brit * foreign ” adventure – this one potentially catastrophic – can be considered not relevant . Surely it is of the utmost relevance .
Hope yr well , compadre .
What happened in the end, Dan, to the forum you used to moderate?
How did the site fare once it had been turned into the perfect echo chamber, and hermetically sealed?
@ Hatey
Your presumption that it turned into an echo chamber is wrong. I never put anybody onto the awkward user function; Instead, I took the time to have dialogue with the individual and worked to resolve the issues that were creating the problem.
Interesting that that’s the only tenuous thing you attempt to pick up on from my post about the awkward issues with using this site.
You must have too much time spare if you can put up with and spend as much time as you do what with the dismal functionality of the site.
As you seem so keen on “interacting” with folk on here, I thought that site feedback might bother you, because as folk aren’t chained down and ebb away you may soon find yourself in an echo chamber.
Anyway, cuppa finished and it’s back to the stonework, though the weather is being a total changeable arse of sunny dry windy then pissing it down. Trying to mix batches of lime mortar when it’s dry but windy as fuck means loads of nasty powder emanating from the mixer drum so covered in ppe.
Then once it’s mixed try to get it used up before yet another shower rolls in and forces me to clear everything up quickly before all the materials and equipment gets soaked.
Getting there now though, and have removed the last two big problematic poor quality stones leaving a fair muckle hole in the wall, and dressed half a dozen replacements that will better suit the rest of the building’s stonework.
Kissin’ don’t last, cookery do.
Chains they don’t last, people do.
When the ‘union’ be dead, the Scots they last too.
They cast off chain Ingland, say good riddance to you.
Never has a people been so despised and hated by their political representatives and civic institutions as the Scots
It’s like I said, Wullie…kissin’! It just don’t last.
Farage was hounded into a pub in Edinburgh years ago. Think he’ll have forgotten? He has no love for Scotland. He will have his revenge somehow. Then again, maybe getting any support in Scotland at all is his revenge. The scurvy shyster bastard.
link to bbc.co.uk
It was English students that chased him into the pub. Last time he was corrected by everyone, as he claimed it showed that everyone in Scotland hated English peoplw. He was chased by his own people.
As for this psychotic science fiction drivel (allow me to gratefully tuck my forelock that it’s being developed in Scotland!), well, what is to be said?
link to holyrood.com
Reagan babbled aboot this same Star Wars laser weapon rubbish in the early 80s:
link to en.wikipedia.org
“what is to be said?”
Thank you very much for your application. Our team read your CV with great interest.
Regrettably we have no suitable vacancies for you at this time, but please be assured we will retain your application and CV on file and if our recruitment opportunities improve in the future, we will be in touch.
Away and take yer face for a shite.
Now, now.
With that kind of attitude, it’s easy to see why no high tech Scottish firm will be interested in hiring you.
Shame you have such a downer on lucrative first world technology. It’s the profits from that that funds the taxes that allows so many Scots to suck their only nourishment from the swollen public titties.
One third of all Scottish workers are employed by the state.
Even in hated England, it’s less, at one quarter.
Off topic (perhaps) – which is worse, an Englishman, or a unionist Scot?
No difference.
Unionists from north and south of the border believe that England is entitled to Scotland, that Scotland benefits from England’s entitlement, and that this arrangement is mutually beneficial.
Doesn’t matter which side of the fence they’re on, they both read from the same script.
“which is worse, an Englishman, or a unionist Scot?”
Postcolonial theory suggests the latter:
“The recently assimilated (native) …push a colonial mentality to excess, display proud disdain for the colonized and continually show off their borrowed rank, which often belies a vulgar brutality and avidity. Still too impressed by their privileges, they savor them and defend them with fear and harshness; and when colonization is imperiled, they provide it with its most dynamic defenders, its shock troops, and sometimes its instigators. Representatives of the authorities… recruited from among the colonized.. place themselves in the colonizer’s service to protect his interests exclusively, (and) they end up by adopting his ideology (and) values…” (Albert Memmi)
It is precisely that sort on divisive attitude that ensures that independence is off the table for the majority of Scots, nobody really wants it although it remains on the back burner as something to dream about.
If the majority of Scots wanted independence they simply need to vote for it overwhelmingly, WM would not be about to say no to another referendum no matter what they wanted.
The truth is that for the majority of Scots, at this time, there is no appetite for another referendum or independence.
The SNP and the general incompetence of the SP have made the situation worse by showing that Scotland currently does not have any political talent to govern anyway and that will have to change first before any hope of anything else happening.
“If the majority of Scots wanted independence they simply need to vote for it overwhelmingly”
Are you suggesting 50%+1 isn’t enough?
PS “The majority of Scots” voted “YES” in 2014, it was the rest of the non-Scots who overturned it to a majority “NO”
Fabulous though how with the recent slayings in Spain this has brought into clear view what a rotten, corrupt out of control violent place Scotland is.
On every metric from drug deaths, to levels of people in jail, to levels of poverty, to levels of corruption that is extant through our society and its institutions, we are most certainly near, or if not at the top of the European listing.
But the violence, the knife crime, the gang warfare, they are an indication of the sentiment that if focussed in other ways through political and social dissatisfaction could truly let the genie out of the bottle.
Norther Ireland was not a particularly violent place. Rotten and sectarian yes. Run by an apartheid regime and its apartheid police it turned into a real bundle of laughs over the 30 year hiatus they called the Troubles.
Billy Brit and the boys had to play hard to keep the lid on the fun and frolics with at one time something like 20,000 troops deployed into the province. So it does show that shit does happen.
But it couldn’t ever ever happen here in bonnie sunny Scotland. Our sunny placid nature will never react in that way.
Scotland wasn’t Colonized it was Lobotomized.
That’s a great analysis and a clever approach to achieving independence. Farage would maybe go for it. So Scots seeking independence should vote for Reform?
“ We know that most English voters would, if push came to shove, shrug and say “Oh well, cheerio and good luck” if Scotland voted to go its own way. They’d rather it didn’t happen, but they’re just not that fussed about it.”
As an Anglo Scot of over 40 years this is so true. The ordinary English don’t really care and they would wish Scotland well if it did choose independence.