Anything But That
The SNP really really don’t want to have another independence referendum, but if somebody somehow FORCES them into one, they DEFINITELY don’t want to have it in circumstances where they’d be starting the campaign with a 16-point lead.
(We must conclude from all this, incidentally, that John Swinney LOVES the Tories, because he had no problem accepting an indyref from a right-wing party in 2012.)
If Scotland leaves the UK, who might be the Prime Minister of the remains of it is none of his business, and certainly shouldn’t be a dealbreaker in achieving independence.
If there’s anyone left in the SNP with a shred of integrity (and if there is they must be very deep undercover indeed), Swinney ought to be challenged for the leadership at next month’s conference and replaced with someone – the Lord alone knows who – who’s actually willing to pursue the party’s supposed primary goal, because Swinney has now dismissed every possible route to it out of hand.
(Even though he loves Reform winning seats the rest of the time.)
We know Andy Burnham won’t give him a referendum and we now know he won’t accept one from Nigel Farage, so it would appear that the whole idea is off the table until at least 2034 (by which point the SNP will have about 17 members left on their current trajectory).
That’s a lot of time for a lot of grifters to slurp up a lot of gravy, but the rest of us are in for a depressing decade.
Swinney is a true fascist, refuses in democracy and working with other democratically voted parties. A total arse wipe of a politician _ used loosely.
The fact that most smaller nations in Europe operate on consensus politics seems to have escaped Swinney’s vision, his view of “it’s ma ba'” is narrow minded, the phrase a broad church has been buried !
“Swinney has now dismissed every possible route to [Indy] out of hand”
Hmmm.
Is that bad? My interpretation of the consensus from the BTL comments on the last thread is that Swinney’s playing a blinder by doing so.
The consensus is that it’s a trap, and even if it’s not, far more importantly, it fails the ideological purity tests.
It’s surprising to see Wings BTL content to settle in for the status quo until 2034, just as it’s astonishing to see Wings BTL in lockstep with the tractors of the SNP, but there we have it.
Every day a school day.
“My interpretation of the consensus from the BTL comments on the last thread is that Swinney’s playing a blinder by doing so.”
SP needs to do a re-read.
“Divert, distract, divide” etc etc.
All day, every day.
Yer maw needs to tak yer smutty picture books awa – force ye tae learn tae read.
How about if you link to one BTL post, just one, under the previous thread that says Swinney is wrong, Rev Stu is right, and Indy needs to seize this chance for Indy Ref 2?
Here’s what Rev Stu wrote:
“After years of simply stalling on the pursuit of independence, the SNP now appears to be in full headlong retreat, running for the hills as fast as their legs will carry them with the Daily Record and George Foulkes and Reform and Uncle Tom Cobley and all running after them going “Come back! Don’t you WANT a referendum?””
So here’s your chance to forever become a legend in your own, pishy nappy. Point to just ONE BTL post agreeing with Rev Stu.
In your own time, once yer maw has done yer feed and change.
No matter how much Honest John and the other Fabians stamp their feet, if Reform form the next UK government (quite likely, according to polls) then they’ll HAVE to work with them, whether they like it or not.
But we all know Honest John’s completely against independence and is just in it for the gravy. Oink oink.
I never thought I might be recommending Mr Churchill to Mr Swinney, for I have no time for Mr Churchill, or indeed the Devil, but the former said there were circumstances in which he might at least give the latter a favourable mention in the House of Commons. I commend this pragmatism To Whomever It May Concern!
‘If Hitler invaded hell..’
I heard about a story yesterday, I believe by Sartre, about a trio of progressive, lefty politicos who were sentenced by the courts of a nazi, fascist regime to be hideously tortured unto death.
They were incarcerated in a comfortable cell, with good air and light, and en suite facilities, and nutritious meals were pushed under the door three times a day, as soiled dishes were collected.
After a few weeks, they realised with mounting horror that their exquisitely cruel torture consisted of them having to listen to each other tracing out ever diminishing ideological purity spirals for the remainder of their lives.
Sartre was pretty clear that: elites who become ‘an accomplice of colonialism’, those ‘who profited by colonial exploitation’, the ‘high minded liberal’, all are ‘the enemies of mankind’.
And, as we see with what passes for governance or justice in a colony society, this elite ‘shows itself in its true colours – it is nothing more than a gang’.
Colonialism, we are reminded ‘is only kept up by the agents of colonialism’, spread as they are like a cancer throughout every colonial institution.
Ultimately, however, ‘there is only one duty to be done, one end to achieve: to thrust out colonialism’, for only this means independence.
And, as we know, ‘the native only cures himself of colonial neurosis by thrusting out the colonizer’.
We might say Sartre learned a lot from Fanon and vice versa, so you are on the right track, Hatey.
Who’s this “we”, Alf?
You’re free to say what you like about Fanon, etc. but leave me out of it.
Whilst I might not be averse to “thrusting out” a few colonisers myself, I’d much prefer to thrust them in. Into the sea within wading distance of the French coast where so many of them come from.
At least it’s easy for me to identify the real colonisers. You interminably go on about your pretendy “colonisers” but you’d struggle to pick one out in an identity parade.
Satre, that’s a new one, where have you been hiding them?
This whole “enemies of mankind” thing sounds a bit Hutu power radio however Alf.
Reforms membership is now at 12,000 and rising. Who says Reform want to do a deal? The time the election comes around Farage may have a majority in Westminster and the SNP are left begging at the door. Let’s not pretend Scotland has any cards to play in the future negotiations of a majority Westminster government. Let’s not forget that it was the Scottish electorate that emptied the Nats from Westminster.
The dynamic of politics has changed. The SNP ideology is in par with the rest of the woke juggernaut. What have the SNP got to offer Reform? Threatening to tear up the union failed ten years ago leaving Scotland bitter and divided. Sturgeon left Scotland with it’s knickers round it’s ankles.
I’m minded of what that famous black quine wrote:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries”
“…On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
There is indeed a tide in the affairs of men, and boy did wee Nikla and honest John make sure they steer us up a creek before a low, low tide.
Giving The Swinster the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he realises there is no competent captain on board, and a wretched, lazy, incompetent crew, and if he sets sail for the bright future on a rising tide, he’ll sink the vessel.
Whilst I dream of Scotsmen in control of their own destiny, using their best of wits and best of character, I sure as Hill ain’t voting for independence while any of the current muppets in Holyrood remain at their stupid desks.
SNP policy has put a raft of weak candidates into office thinking somehow every walk of life should be represented even when they have no qualities in leadership or management.
Many of these representative would struggle to get a job paying average wages so they ain’t going to let go of £80,000 a year by becoming pro independent when push comes to shove.
“JOHN Swinney has said he will probe whether the Scottish Legal Aid Board was right to fund a case by an American woman over a row about her dog not being allowed into a cafe.”
link to thenational.scot
—————————————-
But he didn’t probe the legal aid for Murrell did he?
Ah, c’moan noo, x.
How could Murrell keep his loot (mind there’s still around 1 million quid unaccounted for) if he had to spaff it on lawyers?
I dare say his missus could have charged him mate’s rates, but then she was never much use at the lawyering.
You wouldn’t dealing with Farage you’d be delivery on the mandate’s the SNP have been given since 2015 for a referendum.
I ask what wouldn’t anyone do to deliver Scottish Independence?
The SNP new slogan should be “We want Independence when it suite England” at leased we would know.
The trouble we have with the membership SNP is everyone is either to frightened to speak out in the fare of being bullied or expelled from the party or their seeking to advance themselves while standing on the rest of us.
Rape and attempted rape statistics for Glasgow City centre have been removed from Police Scotland’s web page. According to Google there was 71 cases reported so far this year.
Remember when violence gainst women and girls was (rightly) a constant talking point. Now it is on the increase it is barely reported even hidden away-what changed ?
I don’t know. Ask professor Baird.
Now the Islamists are taking over the lion’s share we just have to respect and even celebrate their cultural and religious norms.
Besides, if we make too much of a fuss about them beating and murdering their own women and girls, they might start in on us.
Even more so than they have already.
The narrative is that sex crimes have sky rocketed in the last 3 years and the furriners are to be blame despite that fact that Glasgow has been accepting them since the late nineties.
Of course no police patrols around the city centre, the jails being full, crazy court decisions concerning sex crimes and allowing under 22’s free bus travel for the last 3 years has absolutely nothing to do with it?
I know the last point is controversial but anybody who has been up to Glasgow and been around the St Enochs centre, Argylle street area, full of young neds and bams knows what I mean.
Sure, Bilbo, they’ve been coming here since the late nineties.
Meaning that numbers and percentages have been what the mathematicians describe as monotonically increasing.
With the change from tiny minority, through minority, to large minority, with the goals of parity and then majority in sight, guess what! Confidence increases and the willingness to act in defiance of the host country’s norms does too.
The concept of “critical mass” applies, but none of this is rocket science.
Examples clutter the pages of every history book.
@ Hatey
Ye have some imagination on ye, Hatey ma boy.
It was at the point where the rising rape statistics in Glasgow were being blamed on free bus travel for the Under 22’s, that I realised that I had gone down a particularly bizarre internet rabbit-hole.
Surely a whole chunk of the UK (Scotland) no longer voting in Westminster elections in a way that doesn’t benefit Reform.
Also, Farrage is an English nationalist. Ignoring various deluded people, rUK still subsidizes Scotland from the Barnet Formula — and now England has just realised they have their own massive ned (Middlesbrough) and budget problems, an English nationalist will want that money so they can claim it for the English.
Not everyone in England wants to be part of the UK, either.
“..rUK still subsidizes Scotland from the Barnet Formula…”
LOL.
Chrisst A’michty. That’s a brave thing to state here…
Sitting back with my popcorn awaiting the incoming storm from the Siol nan Gaidheal activists, incensed at some Angleman “Yoon” spreading colonialist agitprop. Grrr, Bloody English. Grrr, Yoons. FWIW I politely disagree re: Barnett but be aware other responses may not be so… Polite.
If the UK in whatever shape or form it takes (with or without Scotland) is to arrest its Warp 9 descent into a dystopian Communist hellscape then a federal system is the way forward, decentralising from the M25 cesspit of incompetence and malevolence.
Speaking of which, up here we could also do with decentralisation from the dungheap at the bottom of Arthur’s Seat which, like its big brother in SW1, represents everything that stands against the ordinary men, women and children of this nation.
Aye you spooks based at Vauxhall Cross are caring benevolent well wishers to Scotland, ain-cha?
The truth upsets your Anglo-centric sensibilities I know, but hey, keep repeating the tired old unionist Pish, you’ve gotta earn your pay after all and it’s all you’ve got.
John Jappy;
“As a civil servant in London in the 1960s, and being part of the establishment, I always accepted the general view that an independent Scotland would not be able to survive on its own without financial help from the London Exchequer.
However, when in 1968 I was able to closely examine the UK’s “books” for myself in an official capacity, I was shocked to find that the position was exactly the opposite: that Scotland contributed far more to the UK economy than its other partners. And this, of course, was all before the oil boom.
I realised that the Treasury would wish to keep this a secret, as it might feed the then-fledgling nationalistic tendencies north of the border. I decided to keep an eye on the situation to see how long it would take for the true facts to emerge, which I felt would only be a short time. However, the machinery of Westminster, aided and abetted by the media, did an excellent job of keeping the myth about “subsidised” Scotland alive.
In fact it took another 30 years before the first chink in their armour appeared.
This came unexpectedly on 13 January 1997 when, in reply to a series of questions put by Alex Salmond (then an MP) to the Tory government of the day, Treasury minister William Waldegrave admitted that Scotland had paid a massive £27 billion more to the Exchequer than it had received since the Tories came to power in 1979, or around £5,400 for every Scot – a statistic which received barely any media coverage.”
James. To quote your favourite reply, “LOL”. I actually entirely agree with you, for once; perhaps WordPress’ formatting skewed your understanding.
Anyway, as expected, the Siol nan Gaidheal agent revealed itself with Yoon this, English that. I’m waiting for the 77th footsoldiers to show up soon with their opposite garbage soon. Plenty popcorn at the ready. Munch munch.
“Aye you spooks based at Vauxhall Cross”
Aye James, aw thay skivers aye lat ken thairsels as suin as thay appen their mou’s an thair colonial deceit fa’s oot.
Thay aye gie thairsels awa whaniver thay abuise Scots fowk’s cultur an langage(s) an quaisten oor abeelity tae rin oor ain naition.
Sartre telt us whit tae dae wi oor abuiser.
As always, Alf, I question your “abeelity” to make yourself understood even to a majority of your fellow Scots when you start speaking/writing like that.
Which is, of course, why you revert to the King’s English every time you have a serious point you are trying to get across.
I guess me pointing out some home truths will be logged as “abuise” but what the hell. Indy without the freedom to speak truth won’t be worth anything.
Are we talking Lowland Scots or Broad Scots here? Something we, er, “Teuchters” as you lowlander plastic Scots call us, up here in the Ghàidhealtachd don’t speak.
And let’s not get into the Gàidhlig and its variances, away from the overly genericised homogenised plastic variant peppered on the road signs in very non-Gàidhlig regions.
Ochone, Spartan!
Professor Baird has a special beef with the Gaels.
But he’ll tell you himself.
S117 @ 2.10
“Plastic”!!
Plastic?!
Steady on there laddie-buck!
I recount;
“The first blow that Lord Forbes struck
The blade ran in an ell,
The second blow Lord Forbes struck,
The Great MacDonald fell
Wi a dirrum ..
etc
Sic a crie came frae the Hieland men
When the saw their leader fa’,
They cairtit him and buried him
Alang by Reid Harlaw!
Wi a dirrum.. “
etc
The Battle of Harlaw 1411.
History is a wee bit skewed in this classic but you should get the gist Johnnie Heiland man..
Caw canny who ye call “plastic”..
if the scotch were left alone with excess revenue from copious oil, gas, wind and renewable energy they would not know what to do with it, wasting it on diazepam, buckfast or advanced infrastructure programs like tunnels, bridges or worse still, bringing pensions up to the level of european norms, i.e. double
– this is why we need the wise, firm but fair “pimp hand of the anglo”
remember that a pimp’s love is a special kind of love, when he hits you its for your own good cuz you bin gittin outta line
I can’t take a shit without an englishmen telling me when to push and my skidmarks are not that bad
I bless the english for their largesse and generosity
I’ve got a good job, the system works – why oh why can’t you jocks understand that; you are all anglo saxons anyway, putting on an accent pretending to be aboriginal pictish gaels and tuatha de danaan
C
That made me smile 🙂
Alert readers can stop at the copious oil and gas tripe.
Quit living in the past, Confused.
Sadly, no mention of colonising, hotpot-wielding M15 operatives with their fiendish slow cookers and sinister Le Crueset pans at their side, nor shadowy “77th” spooks ever lurking in dark corners, ready to pounce on the unwary. Standards are slipping.
C-
Re. Accusations of living in the past…
Alert readers can view this linked to site of the GB Grid, and you can see the makeup of how electrical energy is being produced to meet demand.
Just the 30% of grid power being produced by Combined Cycle Gas Turbines at the moment…
link to gridwatch.templar.co.uk
And also ponder where all the diesel comes from to power the tractors, harvesters, lorries that produce and deliver the food you eat that keeps you alive.
The fact that you are still living and reading this, and not deid and a part of history kind of proves that consumption of oil and gas is not living in the past.
Every day massive amounts of oil and gas are still being extracted from fields within Scotland’d geographic area.
Aye, economics play a part in where fossil fuel derived energy products are extracted, refined, and consumed, but much of that is “economics” that best suit the big corporate interests over that of the peoples in any given area they operate.
Hatey – why? There is indeed plenty of Oil & Gas (plus coal), largely squandered by decades of dreadful short-sighted policy; the rest is being deliberately left alone, purely for ideological reasons.
The industry has been destroyed by the Commies, EcoNazis and terminal incompetents within the M25, willingly aided by their chums at the foot of Arthur’s Seat. Aberdeen has been hollowed out these past few years as the money’s disappeared.
CC – joking aside, I’m convinced there’s a couple of 77th accounts trolling here. They’re pretty active on politics blogs/comments sections, particularly right-wing/pro-democracy ones. Guido Fawkes used to be absolutely hoaching with them (and probably still is – gave up on that Tory shilling mouthpiece a good while ago).
The repeat prescriptions must be coming through like clockwork, CC.
Shame. But that’s just me being selfish. Although the “episodes” are amusing on here, they can’t be much fun for the professionals and others working at Ground Zero.
Honestly Spartan, I’ve gotta say I think it’s all the preserve of the Bacofoil headgear wearers! 🙂
It does provide hilarious reading at times though. I could be wrong of course!
As Dan says, consumption of oil and gas is very much not living in the past.
And indeed the North Sea is not finished, as the ongoing shitshows over Rosebank and Jackdaw show.
But the big bonanzas are gone. The UK will never be self sufficient again. Scotland might be, but simple economics and standard extraction techniques tell us the fields would still be depleted at much the same rates, with any surpluses likely sold to generate much needed foreign exchange.
Hence my objection to “copious” in Confused’s rant.
But hey! I’m aware that oil and gas is yet another subject where faith holds sway over facts, so I’m not going to get excited over it.
People are welcome to believe that Aberdeen is being shuttered by greedy, grasping multinationals and evil, rapacious colonialists, just because.
And that the noggies are diversifying out of oil and gas because they passionately hate their own sovereign wealth fund.
Lunacy of course, but isn’t that most of what faith is all about?
Effijy,
The problem is that Scotland probably do not keep voting the SnP muppets in. We have no control on our elections,
A good example of that is when the prime minster BJ state there had been interference in the 1014 referendum,
Westminster knowing that the result had been interfered with in Scotland, if a Demoratic Country would have re run the referendum, but did not.
Being more contented the outcome results was to Westminsters liking.
The interfered results in Scotland was left alone by Westminster parliament and taken as satisfactory gospel.
When Scotland actually is in Control of its elections, there is a excellent chance there would be no sitting SNP in the Westminster – devolved governance over Scotland,
And we may eventually even have a Scottish parliament. Not a pretendy one.
That’s a new one, James.
So if we Scots don’t vote the SNP into power, who do we vote for?
And what’s the story with all the Scots who believe they’ve been in the polling booth, putting their X against the SNP candidate?
I’m on the edge of my seat here!
Hatey
Why respond to an obvious nutter? Nothing you say will ever change it’s deranged mind.
Aye Hatey all that could be said has been said. The Leftys are self combusting at an incredible rate. General election next year.
Confused,
A different kind of silver, the elites are very picky you know,
One from Scotland purses and one from Englands purse strings.
Confused.
The finances have to be converted from Scotlands finances to Westminsters bank of England finances before the snobby elite will accept it as a English payroll.
The English establishment today celebrates an artefact depicting their conquest by a foreign «power», Normandy.
Eccentricity is a national trait but isnt that overworking the characteristic?
The wily normans were quick to realise the potential of their acquisition. The Domesday book inventory of land, property etc, another thing England celebrates.
.
It is odd, TURABDIN.
Somebody on here is forever claiming that every English defeat gets airbrushed out of history.
You read some strange stuff on here but this comment is one of the oddest. You think England should still be so resentful of an invasion of one thousand years ago that it should churlishly refuse to put an incredible, unique tapestry from the time (made originally in England btw) that depicts the invasion on show?
And who are the English anyway? I know you are fond of equating them solely with Anglo-Saxons, but I have news for you, the Normans combined with them and others here prior to the Anglo-Saxons and after the Normans, to create what the modern English are, a people of mixed heritage (as very many ‘peoples’ are).
It is true that the Normans did some major things that the country arguably still suffers from (and many that no doubt benefitted the place) but the idea that we should boycott a thousand year old artwork because of that is risible. It is the artwork that is being celebrated, not an invasion.
What next, somehow try and wheedle out all the Normans and ‘send them back’?
Careful, you’re applying logic to the illogical.
The Siol nan Gaidheal activists will be along shortly to give you what for. Grrr, English. Grrr, Colonisers. If you listen carefully you can hear the knuckles scraping along the ground and the grunting as they approach.
I’ve met a few Normans in my time and every one was a busturt so yes, send them back.
Daves too. And Wilmas.
But Colins. Don’t get me started on Colin’s. Sending them back is too good for them cants.
TURABDIN how dare you insult a magnificent depiction of history, next you will be saying that it is nothing but ANCIENT GUFF, the Bayeux tapestry illustrates great engerlish historical imperialism and how to defeat it, I think the king should ensure it doesn’t leave Engerland
I see the famous Bayeux tapestry is out on loan and will be viewed today by T’ King of Oop Norf Aunty Burnham, The King of Windsor C3 and Vive L’Emperor!! Macron.
Aunty Burnham is claiming one point for a score draw oop Norf, C3 ruminated at length on the advisability of wearing eye protection whenever in the south east of Engerlund and Macron with Gallic charm chided them both for not speaking in the Emperor’s French claiming 3 points for a win/ thrashing.
King Hakon of Norway, in a diplomatic slur, was not even invited so is allegedly preparing to invade again to show “de Enngloosh arselinges vot for”..
Thanks YL. Must admit, I giggled at that.
That’s another diplomatic slur.
It’s King Haakon VIII.
HMcH
Maybe explains why he didn’t receive his invitation, doesn’t spell his name right..
Double a’s, I ask you!
🙂
PS
At the Dan Sahf reception following the viewing they were treated to Dan Sahf cuisine; pie mash and jellied eels.
The chef (clearly of Reform voting orientation) managed to get some half dissolved eel eyes especially prominently presented on the Emperor Macrons plate, who on seeing this staring up at him recoiled uttering “Mon Dieu! Zut Alors!! C’est Le Cthulhu!!!”
He had a bag of Frog Leg scratchings with him so didn’t go hungry, allegedly..
🙂
Now that’s funny!
Although Mrs Spartan (from Dahn Sahf) cannot stand jellied eels, pie and mash acceptable but a full roast dinner preferable 🙂
East End Essex here. 🙂
Never done jellied eels, pie and mash is OK but wouldn’t seek it out. Always loved the ol’ seafood though – oysters, whelks, cockles, mussels, clams, scallops. Oh, and most especially Scottish langoustines and salmon. 🙂
Back in the day, oysters and the like were considered peasant food; cheap as chips yet so nutritious and good for you. Used to have a guy turning up regularly at the pub to sell all manner of seafood.
I blame the French, though. My first (and only) trip abroad with our school was to Boulogne as a day trip when about 14 – everyone else was buying “stumpies” small bottles of French lager, but I went to a cafe and tried super garlicky, super creamy moules mariniere and frites and crusty bread to mop up, all washed down with a glass of dry white French table wine. I was hooked for life. 🙂
@ CC
Sod eating quite so many molluscs that will be filtering and capturing so much of the effluent and other chemical pollutants humans have and continue to put into their ecosystems.
And sod chomping “Scottish” farmed salmon too with its cheap-ass production methods. I prefer to eat younger fish that live higher up in the sea which are less likely to contain build up of nasties compared to older bottom feeders like cod.
Wild salmon fishing is dying on its arse too in Scotland to the point few beats are financially viable with folk not prepared to spend their dosh to practice casting all day with barely a fish nibbling their lure.
The drop in numbers of fish over the decades is astounding. Used to see dozens of fish jumping during spawning, and dozens of kelts on their last legs at side of river or dead, but now lucky to see a single fish jump and haven’t seen a single kelt at side of river for several years, and I spend a fair bit of time at the river.
Not a great situation for sustaining rural jobs when punters can fly abroad to fish places they can catch decent fish.
But years of pumping untreated effluent into our once pristine and productive rivers was always going to degrade them and impact the ecosystem.
Slow handclap for the likes of SEPA and the poundshop Scottish Parliament which have done little to improve matters whilst their well remunerated taxpayer funded staff sook hard on the gravy whilst not trying very hard to enforce existing, or develop and implement ecosystem improving policy.
CC/ Dan
Haven’t been fishing Wolf Clyde this year as Mrs YL has been poorly (but improving).
I really miss the wild caught brown trout, absolutely beauties!
@Dan
I can see your point to a degree. I was always told not to eat bivalves like oysters, clams and mussels whenever there’s an R in the month, as due to stuff like this and the “red tide”. Like most old wives’ tales there’s probably some truth in it, but hardly a complete solution? All I can say, I honestly enjoy this food and makes me feel great (especially oysters and good champagne – yes I know I’m a total ponce), and as for spaghetti vongole…. stuff of dreams for me!
Completely agree with you (and very saddened by) what you say about the rivers and SEPA. We really do seem so “good” at shitting on our own doorstep in the UK, while other countries jealously guard and conserve their habitats? Too many useless public sector bureaucrats, tea-drinkers – not helped by a burgeoning population of incomers.
@YL sorry to hear about the missus. 🙁
*Sorry – meant to say only eat oysters, mussels etc. when then *IS* an R in the month (i.e. autumn, winter and early spring only)
Ah, that takes me back about 25 years to that occasion on which I decided to sample some crab. I found the meat to be quite pleasant and that being so, I went ahead and cleared my plate.
Oh man, was I ever not prepared for what was to come only a quarter of an hour later…
Let’s just say that my stomach gave a very firm thumbs-down to crab 🙁
Mussels thrive in polluted, shitty water, rapidly converting the effluent into succulent, delicious seafood.
The trick, if you wish to eat them, is to farm them on portable frames, moving them to a clean location for the final week or so before harvesting.
Following this strategy, any toxins in the mussels will have been washed away.
MH 8:47
Cleared your plate, eh?
Thicko twat numpty. Ye’re nae meant tae eat the shell 🙂
Feck, that takes me back…
I remember doing that with a bag of pistachio nuts when I was either 17 or 18, this obviously being for a stupid alcohol-induced bet. I received £10, some brutal indigestion and some fearsome jobbies but I survived 🙂
LOL @ “fearsome jobbies” 😀
Yup, unfortunately raw seafood is the most perishable substance known to man, if shellfish are not kept live & raw fish perfectly fresh and meticulously refrigerated, it sure can spell BAD trouble “both ends” as it were.
Wife and I went to the Maldives a couple of years ago; our bedroom had an open plan bog and bathtub (just WHO thinks that’s a good idea, readers?), and yes, the “curried crab” lead to quite the most humiliating experience of my life. The poor, poor missus, man alive. A “memorable” holiday for all the wrong reasons.
The Great Tapestry of Scotland is now in Galashiels in its own building.
It is about twice the size of the Bayeux Tapestry and depicts much of the history of Scotland.
The design of each of the 160 panels was done by Andrew Crummy and the stitching of the tapestry by many volunteers. Over 50,000 hours of stitching were done to make the tapestry, one of the largest community artr projects in the UK.
link to greattapestryofscotland.com
S
Good stuff, need to pop over and see it.
Back in 2024 there was a man who secured the required signatures to lodge nomination papers to contest the coronation of John Swinney as leader of the SNP.
He was persuaded not to continue with reportedly cast iron guarantees that the party under Swinney would move to secure independence.
Thereafter with the coronation of John Swinney the NEC moved to change the rules to hugely increase the number if signatures required across all the branches to make in near nigh on impossible to secure the required signatures within the timescale to secure a nomination save for those in the gang.
link to archive.ph
Yes, Billie. And conference went along with the change of rules – it used to need 100 signatures with signatories from 20 branches, but now it is [1.5%?] of the entire membership.
Graham McCormick was the one who stepped back from the challenge following a phone call from Swinney. What a mistake that was.
When they skipped the lite fandango, they didnt know the cartweels would make them fall so hard!
the time to reap is upon them, and it may not be kind!
Just read that twat from scot goes pop ( what kind of a frucking name is that anyway) saying the SNP is the only game in town! So hes basically advocating to stick with a party, he knows, that is opposed to any progress on independence strategy!
More of the same wont get independence twat!
Stick with it Stu!
ANYTHING BUT WHAT & WHY.
link to theguardian.com
No surprise there then. Unshocked am I that the omniclusterfuckpermashambles don’t have a kcufing clue (or “claim” not to) what’s going on whilst this Devilish technology that represents a very real threat to civilisation on multiple levels is blithely rolled out by Western TechBro oligarchs.
I thought one of the purposes of AI data centres is to eventually route everything you try to do online through them.
Then everything you try to do online can be chargeable.
They’re spending trillions on the things. Is there anybody still believing they intend to let us use and interrogate them for free?
The technology is close to the point where its use will be unavoidable for just about everything we do. That’s the perfect time, when we have no alternatives left, to stop it being free.
Guarantees from John Swinney, either in public or in private are as good a bit of used toilet paper.
A bidet to clean the bums is what is needed.
Guarantees from John Swinney, either in public or in private are as good a bit of used toilet paper.
A bidet to clean the bums is what is needed.
I think it’s an enema that’s sorely needed to flush oot all the keech, followed by an industrial-level disinfectant.
Nutzlose Essen or Useless Eaters was a term in the 30s to describe certain classes of persons.
But using the term today without the sinister shadow of 1930s Germany the term could well be reinvented to describe our current crop of SNP troughers – and or others in other parties exactly of the same ilk.
But that is where we are sadly. Saddled with those who eat trough plenty but deliver nothing.
This says it all.
link to spectator.com
P
Couldn’t read it all as I don’t and won’t subscribe to the Tories favourite comic.
And let’s be honest; Daisley is a tw8t writing what Spectator readers want to read anyway.
Another crank of the wheel..
A link to a less partisan publication giving the current devolved “administration” a kicking would have been better received, otherwise it’s taken as seriously as the National Rag..
It doesn’t say much for me except ‘give us a pound’.
ask mummy to show you how to click on the “x”
I
Assuming that is that you are actually on X..
Who do we vote for in Scotland,?
It appears does not matter much anymore, as we don’t get to count the votes nor decide if interference in our election should be classed as valid results,
That decision and investigation is and was decided by Westminster. Whom said it was the ruskies.
When acknowledged it was interfered with by reports from the Prime minster BJ at the time, does not result in corrections for Scotlands voters,
Nor a non interfered re run referendum, in fact it is being refused like it is a plague from Westminster,
So going to the polling stations in Scotland is for Westminster to decide the results, which explains our rather strange results in our elections today,
when most Scots cannot stand the SNP for years, the results always come out in favour of the SNP staying in Control over with drawing themselves as the reason for the independence party in the pretendy parliament.
In years to come no doubt Scots will be informed that our elections were interfered with yet again, when the ” to close for comfort risks ” rears its head again in Westminster. Another investigation will have done, but not re run.
It is an interesting scenario that Scots keep getting what did not vote for, but being told they did vote for it,
Scotland needs to run its own elections each result being counted locally on site, by Locals, without interference,
Because if Westminster knows there is interference, at the time do an goes forward with investigations, finds it to be true,
Then tells the world SO What!
The elections in Scotland at the polling Stations run by Westminster are not worth it, if it is allowed to remain a tampered with election result.
Perhaps we should keep re running it like the EU and Westminster do with Brexit until the results are the ones we require, or ignore the results like Westminster and the EU are doing. As you do not get what you voted for in Britain unless it is a manipulated result.
Good Lord, James Che, where to start? Perhaps a simple, demonstrable piece of rubbish.
“Perhaps we should keep re running it like the EU and Westminster do with Brexit until the results are the ones we require, or ignore the results like Westminster and the EU are doing. As you do not get what you voted for in Britain unless it is a manipulated result.”.
The Brexit result was the opposite of what the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, wanted and campaigned for. He did not rerun it. He did not manipulate the result. He did not ignore it. He accepted the democratic decision of the UK referendum. He resigned his job primarily because of it. The result was then put into effect.
Nonsense comments like yours give Independence supporters a bad name. Please give it a rest.
Indeed, Call Me Dave campaigned for Remain (which was the official Government policy of the time) and promptly scarpered when the result went the other way.
As an important note however, ever since that vote the M25 omniclusterfuckpermashambles has persistently strained every sinew to block Brexit as far as possible, with current efforts to completely renege on Brexit. They didn’t want it, it couldn’t be seen to be a success or their beloved EU empire they are in hock to would collapse as other countries would see the light and vote with their feet.
Would be interesting to note if the same would also happen with Scottish independence, I’m willing to bet there would be plenty who’d happily collaborate to ensure failure.
Please stay calm.
Wasn’t it funny how Fish Face was never off the telly during the Brexit campaign, though? Was that the time he got chased out of Edinburgh?
Course, every region of Scotland rejected Brexit by 63%+. Just saying, like.
And it’ll be EFTA for us, thanks all the same.
EFTA, eh?
Your certainty suggests you see yourself as a kingpin of the negotiating team, flown out (business class, natch) to “fight Scotland’s corner”, all expenses paid, in Brussels.
I really can’t wait to see you deploy your legendary debating skills in front of the world.
Long as they’ve got Ace on ice, SP, I’ll be happy.
Now, now WWW. Use its proper name.
8 Ace.
When you know your elections have been interfered with and are told they were openly.
Then those results are not valid.
However,
It is something Scotlands voters should be aware of, that we do not get what we vote for here in Scotland,
We have to abide by the interfered with elections results that Westminster parliament investigations discovered.
Not Scotlands voters choice, but Westminsters, as it will always be.
Scotland as the only other Country in the treaty of union if ot a hoax that created the Great Britain parliament.
Then Scotland has equality to run its own Countries elections,
Otherwise the Great Britain parliament creation is a falsehood as the parliament for England and Wales transferred into the Great Britain parliament actively vote for England and Wales and still pass laws for England and Wales today,
Scotland is a Country in the treaty, not a region,
A Country has the right to run its own elections, have its own media,
It is this sort of conspiracy led guff that turns folk away from independence.
The only way to get another referendum is to start getting mainstream support, which isn’t there at the moment, and demand another one which a majority then vote for.
If enough folk vote yes it will happen, even “interference” if it exists, has its limits.
I voted yes last time but don’t want another vote at the moment, it would be a pointless exercise because there is not enough public support for independence at the moment, and the vote was very divisive.
Instead of all the guff about “colonisation” “we was robbed” “a big boy did it and ran away” and other various fantasies, why don’t hardcore independence supporters do what the SNP did and start a party and try and convince folk to vote for them, after all it worked eventually. If as some think there is support then it should not be that hard, although I think the biggest issue maybe finding a suitable charismatic and non lunatic fringe leader.
Agreed 100%
Considering how much worse things are in the UK and Scotland than they were the last time, this time it should be easier to garner support and build a new consensus party.
After all, it’s the deteriorating situations in other European countries that’s supposedly behind the rise of the popular new movements and parties in them.
So why would Scotland be any different?
Well, yes. This is the problem.
There needs to be a cogent, logical and factual argument as to the benefits and drawbacks of independence, presented to the public free of bias and full of all the facts, good and bad.
Unfortunately, there are too many who treat it like a religion or a football team and can’t think rationally or critically, unwilling to see the other side’s points or accept any disagreement or alternate views.
Hysterical fringe stuff like “colonisation”, “Yoons” or “they English cants, grrr” just ruins any argument, as does the other side with their “ye Cannae dae that” illogic.
“There needs to be a cogent, logical and factual argument as to the benefits and drawbacks of independence, presented to the public free of bias and full of all the facts, good and bad.”
Given our ongoing colonial status should that not be ‘dependence’ instead of ‘independence’? What are the benefits and drawbacks of Scotland being or remaining a ‘dependency’ of England-as-UK?
link to salvo.scot
Wibble. Hysterical fringe, Exhibit A.
You speak of “colonialism” yet complain of “Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will”. The EU literally *is* a beacon of colonialism and represents everything you claim to be against.
No wonder few of us, including the owner of this blog, take you seriously.
Alf;
“…they didn’t answer…”
Not answering is Alf’s MO.
But I can easily list one benefit of sticking with the status quo.
We’ll be treated to “all you can read” pearls of wisdom from Fanon, Cesaire, Memmi and the rest of the gang.
This whole “Scotland is a colony” theory is only accepted by a tiny minority of largely irrelevant fringe voices. I don’t think many Scot’s see themselves as downtrodden natives or Scotland as a dystopian occupied territory. It’s a very negative viewpoint to have of your own country.
Ultimately – those proposing independence are those proposing to change the status quo, so the burden is on them to set out how it would work and what the benefits would be. That’s after all what the Wee Blue Book aimed to do.
Any news from the UN BTW? You can hardly claim that the UN (at least as an organisation) is unaware of your campaign by now, given the various submissions that have been made.
“The EU literally *is* a beacon of colonialism and represents everything you claim to be against.”
What nonsense is this I see laid out before me?
The EU is not ‘literally’ a beacon, and it is a beacon that is not a beacon that is also not colonialist in nature… it is a bad idea, though. It is a bad idea for a number of reasons, but one good reason for the EU not existing stands above all others. But I’ll let folk work that reason out for thersels.
Under no circumstances should an independent Scotland give the slightest consideration to joining that deformed monster of entangled half-nations.
Being screwed by England is bad enough… being screwed by the EU looking for sloppy seconds is not a desirable outcome for Scotland after independence.
I mean the United States is a sort of EU… and look at the disaster for the world that’s turned out to be.
All unions are evil and must be cast out of Eden.
Aww, Adrian, back again?
Here’s today’s crossword clue, just for you;
A country that has no controls over its own resources or borders, and which has to ask permission from the country next door to have a vote on its own future.
6 letters.
C_L_NY.
So every region of every country everywhere in the world is a colony is it James? What about those poor exploited people in the colony of London? Spare a thought ey.
“I don’t think many Scot’s see themselves as downtrodden natives or Scotland as a dystopian occupied territory.”
Scots, and yersel of course, clearly need to read up on their actual history of what occurred, after they were ‘bought and sold’ (i.e. enslaved) in 1707, and which confirms that:
“The Garrison State the English Colonial State Built in Scotland with the Highest Density Occupation & Pacification Apparatus in the English Empire with 650 army posts.”
link to decolonise.scot
So it’s the English empire now, Alf?
What you doing here? Channeling your inner Trump? He likes to rename stuff too.
It was always England’s empire.
You never hear of Britain’s “Green and Pleasant Land” or “There’ll Always Be a Britain” or “The Bastard King of Britain” or Gilbert and Sullivan’s “He Remains a Britishman” or Billy Braggs “A New Britain” do you?
No… it’s always like England this and England that and England’s brilliant and England’s great and England’s the best and England invented everything (when it says in the history books that England invented something it really means it stole someone else’s idea, innit).
It was only called the British Empire so the English could name the Scots, Irish and Welsh – three of the first peoples England press ganged – *Impressment, to give the legally sanctioned practice its proper name – into serving as its accomplices in helping England subjugate other peoples and steal their stuff tae.
It’s common practice among the criminal fraternity to blame their crimes on their associates when they get nicked by the rozzers.
* Impressment, colloquially “the press” or the “press gang”, is a type of conscription of people into a military force, especially a naval force, via intimidation and physical coercion, conducted by an organized group (hence “gang”). Much as the Scots, Irish and Welsh have been press ganged into a union they don’t want to be in called the United Kingdom nowadays.
Personally, I don’t really mind the English Empire being called the British Empire because either way… it’s over and done with.
I have this theory, Northy, that you spout shite in inverse proportion to the likelihood of Scotland becoming independent.
On those days when you think you may yet live to see Indy, you have the good sense to keep your more farcical claims to yourself.
But on days of black despair, like today seems to be, you give vent to your impotent rage with a post like that one above.
You’ll be chuntering in faux Scots next. Why not drown your sorrows in a dram of Scotland’s finest, watered to perfection with your own tears?
Yeah again I think most people can get over the events of 300+ years ago.
Within some people’s lifetimes, the USA literally dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, yet the two nations and peoples can be friends now.
“… yet the two nations and peoples can be friends now.”
Setting aside this logic falling victim to the fallacy of False Equivalence and therefore simply wrong, I would think that the Scots – despite being treated very badly by England for centuries – being a magnanimous, forgiving and friendly people will eventually find it in their hearts to forgive their errant neighbour… after the completion of a suitable “Truth and Reconciliation” process, perhaps.
Scotland and England might even live side by side in perpetual harmony as completely separate peoples firmly belonging to two completely separate countries – and just like the distinct peoples and cultures of Japan and America are now great pals, so might the distinct peoples of Scotland and England someday be too.
Of course, I would think that Scotland will insist on a robust border separating the two friendly countries… just to be safe – I don’t think there’s ever been a recorded case in history where a leopard has changed its spots.
We get it Northcode, you hate the English.
“…you hate the English.”
They hated me first!
But, seriously, I don’t hate the English… I don’t hate anyone.
I don’t hate mainly for selfish personal health reasons.
Studies show that hating people can have several negative effects on mental health and overall well-being.
It can lead to low self-esteem, self-confidence, shame, fear, guilt, and hopelessness.
These feelings can complicate one’s life and lead to depression, anxiety, and other disorders.
Thankfully, I suffer none of those conditions… being up ma ain arse at the mere thought o’ masel.
So, no, I don’t hate the English… I do find their various accents a bit loud and annoying when in echoey public spaces, though, or in Tesco when doing the weekly shop. But that doesn’t mean I hate them. I mean a few Scottish accents are quite annoying, too. That up itself Edinburgh twang gets right on ma tits, for example – and let’s not even get started on thon Aberdonian, fit.
Having said that I don’t personally hate the English, it’s a fact that many peoples around the world do.
It’s so common, in fact, that the term “Anglophobia” has been coined to describe the phenomenon.
While Anglophobia is common in parts of the world it certainly isn’t universal.
Though, why Anglophobia is so prevalent in certain parts of the world we can only speculate.
I asked Google:
“how many countries or peoples can be described by specific English words by those who hate them”
Answer:
“English contains formal dictionary-defined terms for at least 30 to 40 major countries or distinct cultural groups that describe a specific hatred, fear or aversion towards them”
It then went on to list some of them. If you’re interested, put the effort in yourself.
TBH, I didn’t see a specific anti-Scottish word, so perhaps the institutionalised hatred is indeed all one way.
Then again, perhaps the AI answered accurately within its own parameters, listing major countries and distinct cultural groups only.
Hey everybodee…
England gets the revenues.
Scotland gets the nukes!
Yaaaaaay! Rejoice!
You’ll be fine, Wee Wally.
Scotland still gets the top shelf mags.
@Aidan;
“Ultimately – those proposing independence are those proposing to change the status quo.”
And so they absolutely should! The status quo is fundamentally fraudulent, and has been since the Treaty was signed — even before it was ratified by the two parliaments. Just because most Scots are unaware of their true constitutional history doesn’t mean such an outrageous constitutional crime should get a free pass.
No person or institution that took part in negotiating, agreeing, signing, or ratifying the 1707 Treaty of Union ever held or owned the lawful authority to dispossess the sovereign Scots of their sovereignty, their constitution, or their territory.
This assertion is exceptionally simple, is easily shown to be factually accurate, and is thus irrefutable. It depends solely on the authenticity of the Scots’ legally-titled ownership of their kingdom’s sovereignty — and that ownership cannot sensibly be disputed.
It cleanly eviscerates the authenticity of the Treaty, of its two Acts of Union, of the Union itself, and all of its 319 years of governance.
It is the One Argument to rule them all.
A status quo built on an unlawful foundation can never justify its continued existence — it is an ongoing and unchallenged wrong, and patently abusive to Scotland, and only to Scotland.
Ex injuria jus non oritur clearly applies.
If it’s irrefutable Xaracen – then why not argue it in court where these matters are properly determined?
@Aidan;
The question of lawful authority in 1707 is not a matter for judicial discretion. It is a matter of constitutional competence. No court can retroactively grant powers that the negotiators and parliaments never possessed.
It was the lack of powers that voided the Treaty, and it cannot become valid after the fact because a court is asked to bless it.
“No person or institution that took part in negotiating, agreeing, signing, or ratifying the 1707 Treaty of Union ever held or owned the lawful authority to dispossess the sovereign Scots of their sovereignty, their constitution, or their territory”
I see. So when a Sovereign Scot negotiates, agrees, signs, or ratifies something impinging on sovereignty, constitution or territory, they instantaneously lose their sovereignty.
I’m reminded of Pratchett’s speculations on monarchy and how the crown passes to the heir on the death of the incumbent. Pratchett mused on whether the transfer exceeded the speed of light.
So quickly, perhaps, does Scottish Sovereignty vanish when one Sovereign Scot does something of which another Sovereign Scot disapproves. Or maybe vice versa.
Tell us true. When Scotland was in the EU, and subject to the rules, laws, regulations and restrictions passed down from Brussels, were all the formerly Sovereign Scots who were in favour of this arrangement automatically stripped of their Sovereignty?
In fact, for those memorable years, were the only true Sovereign Scots in Scotland those who opposed EU membership and voted to get out of the damned place?
By your definition, the answer is, of course, YES.
And again by your definition, having clarified that for 47 years, during which Scotland was in the EU, all Scots supporting this situation were no longer Sovereign, perhaps we should re-evaluate all the decisions usurped by un-entitled, non-Sovereign Scots over that period.
Nonsensical, of course, but hey! You started it!
So if you reject the authority of the courts, are you proposing for your ideas to lead to a violent revolution?
@Aidan;
Rejecting the idea that courts can validate an act that was void ab initio is not rejecting the authority of the courts, and it is certainly b>not proposing violence. It’s simply recognising the limits of judicial competence.
Courts interpret law; they can’t manufacture powers that never existed, nor can they retroactively legitimise a constitutional act that was unlawful from the outset — Void Ab Initio.
Pointing out that the Union was created without lawful authority is not itself a call for revolution — it is a statement of constitutional fact.
Of course that is a wholesale rejection of the rule of law in society. What you appear to be proposing here is that the courts have no ability to determine whether the Acts of Union legislation is law in the UK, with all of the profound consequences that flow from that.
That is;
a) clearly a issue that has to be addressed;
b) an issue that can only be addressed by the courts.
So in your weird world, we have an issue right at the core of our constitutional structure that is apparently unresolvable. We know, of course, the real reason why you are contorting yourself into these intellectual knots is because the courts have;
– considered these issues in great depth many times; and
– wholely and completely rejected your theory in a way that is unambiguous.
@Aidan;
Recognising that courts cannot validate an act that was void ab initio is not a rejection of the rule of law. It is an acknowledgement of the limits of judicial authority. Courts interpret and apply law; they do not create sovereignty, they do not grant powers retroactively, and they cannot cure an ultra vires constitutional act after the fact.
The question of lawful authority in 1707 is not a judicial question. It is a question of constitutional competence at the moment of the Treaty. If the negotiators and parliaments lacked the authority to alienate Scottish sovereignty, no court centuries later can manufacture that authority or declare the act valid.
Courts have never ruled on the competence of Scotland’s pre-Union constitutional authorities. They have only interpreted the consequences of the Union as a political fact. That is not the same thing as determining whether the Union was lawfully created.
Pointing out that courts cannot cure a void act is not rejecting the rule of law — it is applying it.
“If the negotiators and parliaments lacked the authority to alienate Scottish sovereignty”
Wow! Just look at all the heavy lifting that “If” is doing there.
Perhaps the Scottish negotiators and parliament were 100% Sovereign Scots. It’s really difficult to see how they couldn’t have been.
But let’s debate by your rules for the moment.
I notice nobody is gonna deal with the point I raised the other day.
If the Sovereign Scottish negotiators who agreed the Treaty Of Union in 1707 immediately annulled their Scottish Sovereignty by doing so, how is that different to the Sovereign Scottish voters who agreed for Scotland to join the EU, and the Sovereign Scottish voters who voted against Brexit?
It’s an immensely relevant question, hence I don’t expect any answer will be forthcoming.
Nobody is asking the courts to “create sovereignties” because that phrase has no meaning in the English language.
However, what the courts can do, and are the only body that can do, is to determine questions of law such as the applicability and effectiveness of legislation. The consequences of your argument would necessarily be that the Acts of Union 1707 are not effective as legislation in Scotland (or elsewhere in the U.K.). That is a question of constitutional law which the courts have to determine.
If you want to pose a separate ethical question – then sure, we can debate whether morally the commissioners had the right to commit Scotland to the treaty of union and the merger with England, on those terms. However, even if we concluded that entering into the union was morally wrong, that would not mean the Acts of Union were not legally effective. You cannot have it both ways – by making a legal argument and then claiming the courts have no right to determine it. Those two things are contradictory.
Just to re-centre the discussion for anyone following the thread, the point I originally made — and from which all of this flows — was simply this:
“No person or institution that took part in negotiating, agreeing, signing, or ratifying the 1707 Treaty of Union ever held or owned the lawful authority to dispossess the sovereign Scots of their sovereignty, their constitution, or their territory.”
Everything since has been about that single question of constitutional competence in 1707.
The 1707 Treaty of Union, lacking lawful authority at its creation, has never possessed constitutional legitimacy. That remains the case today, regardless of the political history that followed.
Sure, Xaracen, most of us understand how sunk costs work, and how the years of endless posts and uncounted words you’ve devoted to your theory mean you can never give it up now.
Just as most of us understand that after 300+ years of reality and events, none of your claims of constitutional illegality and denied sovereignty amount to so much as a hill of beans.
Shame. Maybe you could have devoted your energies to something useful. I guess you still could, but then the sunk costs rear their ugly head again.
So you won’t.
Yes, absolutely Hatey.
Put more simply: sometimes in life, you have to wake up to the fact that you’ve been pissing in the wind. Them’s the breaks.
At the time of the treaty of union in 1707, England as a Country not have a written Constitution,
At the time of the treaty of union in 1707 Scotland as a Country did have a written Constitution,
The Country of England that entered the treaty of union in 1707 must remain without a Constitution as it was to be valid in the union,
And The Country of Scotland that entered the treaty of union in 1707 must retain its Constitution from 1707 as it was,
Scotland as a Sovereign Country in a voluntary union with England has the right to make decision for Scotland,
The Country of Scotland was not consumed by England in the treaty of union, otherwise there would no treaty in of itself existing,
Wether its is laws of Scotlands Country., voting in present day , policing, the Courts of/ for Scotland, private rights, the Claim of right, education, stated religion, these are part and parcel of Scotlands Constitution.
The pretendy parliament devolved from Westminster parliament cannot alter the Constitution of the Country of Scotland.
What it comes down to in legalities.
There is either a 1707:treaty of union that binds England to Scotland.
And a 1707 treaty of union that binds Scotland to England,
To create the STATE of Great Britain.
The State of Great Britain legally Cannot Change either of the two Countries Sovereign Constitutions written or unwritten that went before it to create Great Britain. Without Great Britain ceasing to Exist from that two very valid constitutions.
Yeh I know unionists, globalists and the Fabian Society will all try to attack the messinger, rather than the legality of the message.
The State of Great Britain only exists due the the Sovereignty of both Countries remaining in tact as they were, wrote into the 1707 treaty of union,
There is either a created State of Great Britain of two individual Countries or there is not,
There is either a 1707 treaty of union or there is not.
It can’t be both a union and…not a union,
Great Britain and …..not Great Britain, it cannot be both.
@ Phil 2 September, 2026 at 9:07 pm
While the Spectator is a Tory rag as Young Lochinvar says, it does tap into the suspicion that the only strategy the SNP has for independence is to centralise as much power in Scotland. I can only hazard a guess this is to reduce the influence of internal political blocs like COSLA and the public trade unions. It could also creates a notion in the eyes of the Scottish people that the only realistic political options is between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster.
It ties in with the SNP’s gradualist mentality, but there is two things here.
The constant argument against independence is that if it happened, the SNP would dominate an iScotland. The SNP as a party would no longer exist but the politicians who belonged to it would completely be embedded into the political fabric of our society that they would still rule even if they formed a new party.
Besides, this gradualist approach gives that big fish in a small pond mentality. Would any SNP politician actually go for independence even if they exercised total political power in Scottish society?
I see that the trolls are out in force.
As the saying goes, Dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
Unlike the campervan.
John Swinney blames Westminster for Glasgow homelessness crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, its always Westminster Westminster is the SNP its no me policy.
The SNP get out of blaming me policy, is Westminster.
67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found themselves on their arse, people you could make an argument for). That was on a letter sent to all housing associations in Glasgow. It came from the top officials (golden goodbyes for me, wage cuts for the staff) not the councillors. While the housing associations have pushed back to a degree they have conceded in practise to the principle which discriminates against Scots for one of life’s necessities with all its cascading, mundane tragedies. Treating people the same is racist? I go into work in the town centre every day as I have done for 25 years. It is a disaster. I have never ever seen it as bad, not even close. Travel in at 6am and you’ll see the true scale of it, before those who are ashamed to be seen get up before people start coming through for work. A year ago the profile was almost exclusively Scots males, 55 – 65. One guy who I speak to is over 60 and had been on st vincent street for well over a year in a makeshift tent. Younger Scottish people are appearing on the street now, almost all Scots, I spoke to 1 poor English guy in the past 2 years. The only period of rapid mass immigration we have experienced in my life time has been between 2022/2023 to date. The alarming rise in rape and sexual assault overwhelmingly associated with Glasgow city centre and its immediate surrounds matches this period. The Scottish justice minister made a statement a couple of days ago on the subject citing ‘toxic masculinity’. Source was Scottish Legal News.
Conclusions? The Scottish elite now despise the Scottish nation and its people, they perform or go along with experiments on us. The dominant ideology amongst the elite group here and elsewhere (including England) encompasses a disdain for nation and the ordinary citizen. When these experiments on our country fail catastrophically they admit to nothing and instead point to the ephemeral rather than address the reality. Things with no objective reality are preferred to dealing with the reality that people have to face, homelessness and sexual assault sadly, for example. For the elite group their are spin offs, quangoes, many of them fighting an open ended fight against things that only exist in people’s heads. They don’t intend to DO anything about ant of the pressing, issues of the day no matter how urgently they need addressed. They will get away with as much as they can for as long as they can get away with it. It is as bad as that. Self interest is utterly dominant now in elite circles, nothing is impacting them personally at the moment to change that. Just stop this pish about Independence, no political party anywhere near power supports it or has any interest in delivering it.
By the way, the people I see on the street, actually sleeping on the street I have never seen drunk or on drugs, never in the last couple of years all sober. The people I have seen daily or regularly are sober every day, often penniless apart from what they can beg. The commonly heard refrain that they mainly have mental health and drug problems does not match rthe reality of recent events, I testify to that. That is not to deny that drug addicts beg on the streets, I am talking about the current homelessness problem. I believe that refrain is becoming a trope inviting us all to believe that ‘nothing can be done’.
Unless of course they are actually lining us up for a vote we are in an utterly dire position to compete in…dominated by the state… run by people on both sides who want Scotland to lose…on a franchise that guarantees humiliation.. leading to another 20 years of post referendum destruction ..until there is nothing left that evens resembles Scotland,,,I’m getting paranoid now..
@GM
“67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found themselves on their arse, people you could make an argument for). That was on a letter sent to all housing associations in Glasgow”
Do you have a link or reference to back up that claim? A report in a newspaper or similar?
This is a disgrace if true and I will bend people’s ears about it every opportunity I get.
But I need to have evidence.
The SNP disgusts me – nothing new then
Alf Baird @ 4.06pm – thanks for the link. I was in Helensburgh last month and looking out at Gare Loch – made me ponder on the benefits of instantaneous death in the event of nuclear conflagration – Glasgow and the Firth of Clyde being a target for immediate destruction. Why would anyone want a slow lingering death in a nuclear Winter far away from all the action? And then I remembered that Faslane leaks like a radioactive sieve into Loch Long and Gare Loch. Perhaps the population of West Central Scotland is already enjoying the benefits of radioactive effluent? Keeping all the oncologists in a job? Ho hum.
Benefits to who?
@ Marie – I live overlooking Gareloch and have fished there with my sons and eaten mackerel that we caught. I obviously take an interest in the water quality.
For information:
AI Overview
Official documents released following freedom-of-information battles confirm that low-level radioactive tritiated water from aging pipe infrastructure at the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport (part of HMNB Clyde) leaked into Loch Long following floods in 2019.
“freedom of information battles”. Personally I wouldn’t eat the fish – but I’m only an ex-cancer nurse.
Westminster is nervous… and for good reason.
The main event that could trigger a great upsurge in Scottish demand for independence has not yet happened.
And with some polls showing an even 50/50 split the question, “Should Scotland be an Independent Country?” isn’t going away anytime soon.
Westminster understands something many independence activists and commentators miss: Scotland is not apathetic… Scotland is latent.
And latency can become active very quickly.
Westminster’s strategists know the pattern well.
Scotland is a nation with a democratic tradition, a constitutional identity, a history of sovereignty, a latent independence movement, international sympathy, and the capacity to mobilise rapidly.
The ‘empire’ has lost enough overseas possessions over the last century to recognise the danger.
Westminster knows the rupture event is the threat.
It knows Scotland is not content… merely stable for now.
It knows a single misjudged slip could internationalise Scotland’s desire for independence.
And so Westminster is cautious, because one mistake could turn Scotland’s simmering frustration into a boiling, democratic demand for independence.
Once that demand becomes visible and overwhelming, the international community will pay attention.
And once the international community pays attention, the UK loses control of the narrative… and that could mark the end of Scotland’s 300-year stint in the ‘Better, for England, Together) Union.
Could it be that an upsurge in support for Scottish independence is far more likely to be triggered by Westminster than by any Scottish independence activist?
How odd that you don’t want to pose the question in Scots, Northy.
Got to say, I’m pissed that according to you and Alf, Scotland is once again going to get the shitty end of the stick.
Other cults promise The Rapture. You’re offering us The Rupture.
WW3 & the AI loonies…..
link to theguardian.com
El Niño too.
Keyboard Tourets
The term “keyboard tourettes” is not officially recognized, but it describes a phenomenon where individuals, often in online or texting conversations, may type random or inappropriate words or phrases without conscious control.
This behavior can occur when someone is annoyed, bored, or unable to think of something to say.
It is a common occurrence and is not a medical condition.
I wonder if some folk in this place suffer from such an affliction… I know I don’t.
How about the rest of you?
For the pedantic, “Keyboard Tourets” should read “Keyboard Tourette’s”
Thair – sortit.
… or even “Keyboard Tourettes” for those who think the possessive term is misplaced.
Perhaps i do suffer from keybored toorette’s efter aw.
Well, you are a Pict. A thousand year old, space traveling one at that. Whether in reality, or just self-identified, we have insufficient evidence to tell.
What does your vet say?
Well, you are a Pict? Probably.
what is it in your Indigenous language?
Better a Pict than a “Prick” though eh, SP?
Should have known you’d stick up for Northy, Wee Wally.
What with Tourettes being the verbal equivalent of w@nking.
Food for thought.
It is not a case of if but when will Reform take power and when they do will they use the same tactics against the people who disagree and protest against them as Labour and the woke machine have done?
I for one will write a stunning book about all the good things the British Empire has given the world. With extra long chapters about why they couldn’t have done it without Scotland. I will then follow up with a book about white slaves being taken from their country and sold to Muslims. By that time I will have my own TV show and a world tour sponsored by Persil.
Ach, c’moan, Mark.
Long before Reform have taken power, the UN decolonisation committee will have gifted us our freedom.
If you ever write your book, you’ll have to write it elsewhere. I doubt any of us will ever see it, unless you can arrange for a Scottish publisher to bring out a foreign language translation in Scots.
MSM reporting Jackdaw and Rosebank to go ahead:
link to theguardian.com
Who knows, it may actually be true!
If it is, Scotland can thank Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Labour energy secretary, for finally having the guts to do something that will materially improve the lives of Scots. Both by providing us with much needed jobs, and by providing us with much needed oil and gas.
Compare and contrast with the disgraceful sitting on the fence by Swinney, the SNP’s very own “doughty fighter for Scotland and the Scots”, who lacks even the courage to say that Scotland’s oil and gas should never be left in the ground, that Scotland’s skilled workforce should never be sacrificed to the progressive, trendy, lefty shibboleths, or that Scotland’s people should never go cold while there is energy available to help keep them warm.
Pathetic, farcical and yellow.
I fully expect that, sooner or later, some cretinous talking heid from the SNP or its fan club will pop up to bleat that “Scotland’s oil and gas is being stolen from beneath Scotland’s waters agin oor will”.
It is on. Stop Oil have glued their genitals to the tarmac. Expect more from the nutty putty brigade of seriously fucked up beatniks and aging hippies.
Well I am laughing an thise union minded people that cannot confirm there is a 1707 treaty of today,
But insist Scotland is not a Colony.
Nor can the define which are the [two Sovereign Countries ] that are the foundation stones the created state of Great Britain.
Not a Country by the way, but a State of Scotland and England.
The issue of carbon emissions is a huge one and it certainly seems that the world climate is warming with all the issues that this bring.
Going green is good. That I think is widely accepted. But how quickly and at what cost is the big question. Most certainly without a doubt the world will be relying on oil for many years to come. Think aeroplane, think lorries that transport everything from goods to services that fill our shops, think agricultural machinery, think construction plant, think quarry plant, think buses and ambulances, think ships and so much more. Is that going to change overnight. Well of course not – unless you want to live in a cave.
And think of the economic impact. Plain and simple, we are going to have to continue with oil for some time yet, and if we don’t produce and refine it, well we’ll just buy it from someone else who does. And what about plastics the big sister of big oil – or fertilisers from oil, or the fertilisers that feed our battery farm so called Scottish Salmon which too are made from oil.
Ah well at least the Scottish Government were pushing the food additive for cows that reduced their farting, or at least pushing it till the dairy farmers rebelled big time. Green washing do I hear someone say – like we’ll not produce Scottish Oil but will buy oil from where ever else.
And so we then move to other emblems of our Scottish Government and their green credentials. Anyone heard of waste to energy incinerators. The latest one in Glasgow is being built in near Govan just beside the M8 and the QEUH hospital.
Burning rubbish is better than landfill but despite the incineration process now being much better than incineration of old it still produces waste toxins. But everything is a trade off.
But here’s a point with this new 350.000 tonne per year waste facility bringing Glasgow’s incineration capacity if to around an annual million one would anticipate that the new plant a) had carbon capture capacity and b) made use of the surplus heat generated to provide district type heating.
In the case of district type heating, the absolutely huge QEUH hospital could certainly take a bit of that. But does the new plant, being built by a Nordic company provide for either carbon capture or district heating type heat recovery. Of course it doesn’t. Will green washing from our greenest of green Scottish Government do I hear someone say.
And it goes on, the bull that comes from our Scottish Government is world class. But the foregoing are just some examples of the spin and lies spread by an utterly non performing government on a hapless populace.
All of that said, I would proceed with more North Sea extraction for the time being but at the same time I would accelerate the transition to greener technologies.
Now what was it that Alex Salmond talked about a decade or more ago about carbon capture and the disposal of carbon down into depleted oil and gas strata?
Well said Wullie.
“Plunder Scotland (UK) is a carpetbagging operation largely owned by non-Scottish, foreign ‘investors’ and overseen by Westminster who takes a cut of the vast profits the sector generates.
It was registered in London in 1707 as a commercial plundering enterprise and has been plundering Scotland these past 300 years and more.
Strangely – or perhaps as part of its design – the Scots do not benefit much from the plundering of their country’s highly valuable natural resources; being given only a fraction of the profits in the form of pocket money, baubles, trinkets, and English titles for Scotland’s elite.”
extracted form ‘The Truth’ that underpins Scotland’s ‘union’ with England.
So, Plunder Scotland (UK) – it’s nothing personal, you sweaties… it’s just business.
Dear Slave,
Shut up and eat your porridge or we will stop your privileges.
Yours faithfully
Sir Biggus ‘Fluffy’ Dickus OBE VC.
President
Plunder Scotland UK
Shafting the sheep shaggers since 1707
“highly valuable natural resources”
Odd that nobody, either in Scotland or outside, knew we had any highly valuable natural resources prior to around 1970.
Fish perhaps. But we’d already made a decent job of plundering that ourselves by 1970.
Coal for certain. Of course, England and Wales were hoaching with the stuff too.
But don’t let me stop you watering your dram with your bitter tears, Northy. I’m sure you’ve come to quite like the taste.
Willie,
Jacob rees Mog was on his podcast yesterday praising that should the lights go out, not to worry as all of the United states of Great Britain have their very own North Sea Oil,
Aye, James, breaths there as many as even ten True Sovereign Scots who have not, on reading your post, redoubled their sacred vows to prove him and all his ilk wrong.
FFFrrrreeeeeddddddooooooommmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!
Erm.
Haud oan noo. It’s Friday afto and we’ve got plans for the weekend.
Speak later. If we forget, remind us again on Monday.
There is ni UK parliament concerning Scotland, as the UK parliament has a start date of origin of 1800,
When the Great Britain parliament was Dissolved in 1800.
Respect to the Norwegians.
They’re rediscovering their inner Viking and taking back control of the seas around their coastline.
All in accordance with International Law, of course.
It will be interesting to find out if International Law, which is often described on here as Scotland’s friend, will be honoured by the Orcs, or just smashed to pieces, as per their usual MO.
The court in The Hague reckons the Orcs owe $4.22 billion plus interest and legal costs. The Norwegians have seized an Orc ship to auction in settlement of part of that bill.
“The court in The Hague reckons the Orcs owe $4.22 billion”
Small beer, or the cost of one dodgy aircraft carrier, compared to the £150+ billion a year that Anglo colonialism is costing Scots:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Seems like hardly any time since you were telling us it’s £200 billion a year.
Whatever, what’s £50 billion between friends?
I’ve said this before, Alf, but you’re in no position to accuse others of being repetitious. So I’ll say it again:
If there is anybody who genuinely believes in this £150+ billion a year figure, if it’s not just something like what was written on the side of the Brexit Bus, WTAF are they incapable of using that figure as the means for lighting a pro-Indy firestorm?
I mean, it’s something like £27,000 for every Scot in Scotland.
£27,000 EVERY FUCKING YEAR!
“If there is anybody who genuinely believes in this £150+ billion a year figure”
Well here’s another quite detailed analysis suggesting the cost of colonialism could be even higher, and certainly places a free liberated Scotland’s GDP-per-capita up there with our near neighbour ‘small’ independent states, which is where we will be when colonial plunder is ended. Which explains why nae country iver wants tae go back tae colonial rule, Hatey:
“On a decolonised GDP of £420 billion to £520 billion across a population of 6-6.5 million, Scotland’s Gross National Income per capita lands between roughly $85,000 and $115,000. Unlike the colonial figure, virtually all of it is retained income rather than production booked to foreign owners. That places a liberated Scotland above Norway, above Denmark, level with Switzerland, and among the four or five wealthiest nations on earth per head of population.”
link to decolonise.scot
The usual mince from the supposedly learned professor.
Figures plucked from thin air and a conclusion that does not stand up to anyone with any financial nous.
Your wee, thick, bitter acolytes will, of course, lap it all up.
However, some good news, the UN will be deciding Scotland’s fate any day now. Once they stop laughing!
“places a liberated Scotland above Norway”
Wow, fifty years of Scotland’s oil wealth being “plundered by England”.
Fifty years of Norway’s oil wealth being “wisely invested”.
But we’ll still be richer than Norway after Indy!
Ah hae ma verra real doots, Alf.
What is it with you lot? You can never restrict yourselves to presenting sane, sober figures that might pass the plausibility test.
It’s always straight to the hyperbolic flights of fancy, and all credibility crashes and burns.
Yes Alf – your tautological proposition is:
– if Scotland was wealthier than Norway (because) then Scotland would be wealthier than Norway.
I fail to see the detailed analysis. I do see the usual mince. Figures plucked out of thin air yet again. No explanation of how your GDP figures are arrived at. Wishful thinking again.
You are shit in anything financial Alf. Stick to quoting your hero’s Fanny and Mummi. You excel at that.
oh, Yoon pile-on.
As usual all they have is inults.
Keep going, Alf, you’re getting to them.
Truth hurts and all that.
Oh it’s “James” – this should be good
Adult nappy.
@ James says: 4 September, 2026 at 9:33 pm
“all they have is inults”
Side splitting for two reasons, the humour is, in this one.
And it puts me in a quandary. I can’t decide which of the two hilariously funny reasons is actually the funniest.
Haud oan though, it’s funny for a third reason. I’m willing to bet a quite substantial sum of money that when he reads it back, James will only be able to see one reason for why it’s funny.
Cheers, girls; you’ve proved my point. As expected.
Baby Swinney says
“We are going to make the NHS great again. Believe me. We’re going to march down there and sweep around the dedicated NHS staff and they won’t even notice. A change like no one has ever seen. No one can shake something like us. Fourteen health boards into two. A revolution in number division, simple, radical, very much a game changer. Only I can do this.”
“Fourteen health boards into two”
Why two?
Theoretical mathematicians argues there are only 3 numbers worth dealing with: zero, one and infinity.
We can’t have an infinity of health boards, and having zero health boards would go down badly with the voters (OK, maybe not with SNP voters – nothing ever goes down badly with them).
So there should be ONE health board.
Two is daft.
Water was hived into East , West and North before it it was fettled up to become Scottish Water.
A bit like the gas boards aggregated into whatever it is now.
So why two health board you ask Hatey? Setting the NHS for privatisation perchance?
2+2=5.
Water was hived into East , West and North before it it was fettled up to become Scottish Water.
A bit like the gas boards aggregated into whatever they are now.
So why two health board you ask Hatey? Setting the NHS up for privatisation perchance? And by what electoral mandate does king John Swinney exercise his authority?
Burnham gave him a wee piece of Manchesterism to play with.
Said “Here you go, John, you can be King of North Britain”.
Another link to educate people to the damage progressives do
link to markacollett.substack.com
A good link, twathater.
One tiny criticism of your post, if I may be so bold.
You could have also provided a link to the government’s recent publication entreating migrants not to rape and/or murder us. Every little helps!
Lest anybody chooses to condemn me as wacist, can I also issue an appeal to all indigenous Scots reading here.
As you go about your legitimate business this weekend, resist all urges to rape and/or murder a migrant.
It’s wrong, so just don’t do it. Ask your mammie if you won’t believe me.
And don’t get taken in by all this prisoner early release bollocks either. You’re still gonna do a couple of years inside.
And that multiple conversations is the point,
Because nothing belongs to The state of Great Britain in wealth obtained from Scotland land and sea unless the 1707 treaty of union is as was and unaltered.
Other wise The rest is as what Alf states over the years, As the points Alf makes eventually join up to be proven correct,
Or the points I have made over the years are correct.
For Scotland and its people are either a Colony of Westminster Parliament because Westminster parliament ignore the 1707 treaty,
Or Westminster parliament must apply and be seen to have always applied an followed the treaty of Union since 1707.
Yoons wanting the Country and people of Scotland to abide by a treaty supposedly holding the created state of Scotland and England of Great Britain together as a legal entity
Without that treaty being visible and active to the people of Scotland, then they the ,
people of Scotland are not obliged to follow it,
not obliged to pay taxes,
not obliged to Share its mineral wealth,
not obliged to follow the pretendy devolved parliaments and SNP back door laws,
not share Scotlands finances with the bank of Englands national debt,
not obliged to inform Englands Westminster parliament its on its own.
Not obliged to land and sea laws of England,
So numpty think tanks and Westminster parliament make Scotlands case as becoming obvious for being a Colony to the world and the UN, but also to the people in the Country of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and in England,
This is what happens if there is no treaty of union being applied and upheld and followed to the letter,
Alf Baird is proven correct or I am orrect,
“not obliged to pay taxes”
You mind me of the boy who occasionally pops up on here to tell us we should impeach the tractors occupying Hollyrood. He interprets the ancient scriptures anointing us as Sovereign Scots forever much as you do – there is no law in Scotland but what we, the Sovereign Scots, declare.
I’m in favour of these policies. Impeach the cants and stop paying taxes.
And I’m a Sovereign Scot. Wha daur meddle wi me? So when do we start? Why don’t you set up a WhatsApp group to coordinate things?
“not obliged to pay taxes” “ not obliged to follow the pretendy devolved parliaments and SNP back door laws”
That’s wonderful news, I’ll save a fortune!
Just a quick question, when I get arrested which inevitably what will happen, do you have a number I can call so someone can explain to the arresting officers that the law no longer applies? They might not read Wings BTL so they may not be aware of this development.
What will NOT happen is that the ( Westminster parliament of England) is proven Correct in legality laws,
With either of those result Scotland need not apply to leave the treaty of union at all. Or a Colony, it simply ignores the impositions and laws placed upon Scotland.
Does not any longer require permissions
Scotland just ignores Englands Westminster parliament and goes about setting up a real Scottish parliament in its own Sovereign Country, applying laws of Scotland,
So a treaty of union that is applied by Westminster parliament and England to both Scotland and England as a union,
Or Scotland as a proven Colony of England in international law,
Let’s have a wee game this morning.
It’s called………..Spot the loony!
Union minded people will only reap what they sow,
And if Scotland turns out to be a Colony, there are reparations owed to Scotland from England in international laws that still apply,
And it does help Scotland when unionist can’t help dirtying in their own nest.
In claiming historic ‘reparations”, presumably James Che would also agree that Scotland would have to repay rUK the £billions due in compensation as a consequence of the monumental trade tariffs that Scotland did not have to pay over 300 years of imperial trade with all parts of the globe as a result of the equal trading terms of the Act of Union?
I can see lawyers and accountants licking their lips…
During the current time line unionists and think tanks are volunteering to make themselves look like backward groups, not capable of applying joined up thinking, and illiterate as to what binds two Countries together if it is in a 1707 treaty.
No part of that 1707 treaty agreement can be altered or falsified by the parliament of the Two States that created the parliament of Great Britain,
For Scotlands parliament of 1707 holds, nor created or made no treaty, with the parliament of Great Britain or the UK parliament as neither of those two parliaments existed when Scotland made its 1707 treaty of union with Englands parliament.
And only with the parliament of England,
Scotland did thanks Chas,
This tecnology is on its last legs, it pleases itself, no doubt I will at some time have to update it,,
Meanwhile, it will have to do,
Hatey,
If the treaty of union is not being followed, by the parliament of England, which gives specific mention of Taxation for Scotland, then I would presume you would stop paying taxes from the time line of when the 1707 treaty failed to be active or used in the context that is wrote down between the two parliaments of Scotland and England.
For Scotland made no 1707 treaty of Union with the parliament of Great Britain, only with the parliament of England,
When you personally apply it is up to you.
Mind you with Westminster parliament thinking of applying a mansion / house tax which also dictates you can not refuse entry to HMRC or Government to your house, and taxing people’s savings and also pensions including State pensions, a lot of people may decide in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland that excessive taxation by the Great Britain Parliament may be an excellent reason to end the UK/ Great Britain parliament.
When three of those Countries hold no written treaty between GB parliament with themselves.
“We know Andy Burnham won’t give him a referendum and we now know he won’t accept one from Nigel Farage, so it would appear that the whole idea is off the table until at least 2034 (by which point the SNP will have about 17 members left on their current trajectory).”
The Rev is spot on here. We also now know that the route to independence is not via the colonizer’s political process, it never was and never can be.
Which explains why most former colonies now UN member states were decolonized via the UN self-determination route and related international law.
Which leaves Liberation Scotland’s UN decolonization initiative as the only game in toun fowks:
link to decolonise.scot
Can your cock touch your arse?
yes? Go fuck yerself ya parasite.
Mark, I think that comment crosses a red line.
I enjoy many of your “alternative POV” posts on here. You can do better than this.
MB having an Ezekiel 23:19-20 moment all to himself there..
“the only game in toun”
Naw. I’m wi Ash Regan.
She explained how a plebiscitary party could arrange things to deliver a clear, sustained, democratic mandate for Indy.
That’s the only real game in town. Or even toun.
Alf’s game inevitably founders when the UN or whoever ask if the petitioners can demonstrate a clear, sustained, democratic mandate for Indy.
To which the answer is “Naw, there’s just a few thousand of us claiming this unfathomable and likely erroneous concept of Scottish Sovereignty from 300+ years ago”.
Hear hear Alf.
The rigged political system will never allow Scotland and its people to choose independence. The process is an utter sham and a sham which folks increasingly recognise.
Britain colonised the world, slaughtered millions after millions, in everywhere they went. Tasmanania, India, Kenya, the Carribean, North America, Kenya, Ireland. And they would kill hear were it not for their rigging of the political system. And yes, they have selectively killed here too
So yes, it will take international intervention to help bring about independence.
“So yes, it will take international intervention to help bring about independence.”
So you have just admitted that you are a band of bandidos who would do a deal with anyone to get your way. The Scottish people told you the answer in 2014. Nice try with the post colony crap. Look what happened to the nutcase professor Arday. The schmuck killed himself. One lives in hope.
and No it will not work but don’t let me stop you trying.
“Britain colonised the world”
If only, eh?
“they would kill hear were it not for their rigging of the political system. And yes, they have selectively killed here too”
Just imagine if that was true. You’d have just painted a big, bright target on your own back!
“it will take international intervention to help bring about independence”
But, but, but, then Britain will kill the Scots fronting Indy at this end, because they’ll be “unrigging” the system. You just said so yourself.
As mentioned it is not the parliament of Great Britain or the parliament f the UK that Scotland has a treaty with, only the parliament of England,
This means that it is the parliament of England that is refusing Scotland the “right to self determination” ,
The parliament of England ignoring Scotlands ” Claim of right “,
and the parliament of England ignoring the text and laws of a 1707 international treaty of Union, ,
Do you really hate the Rev that much. Maybe you think you are getting at us but you insult the work the Rev has done. You insult the people who actually did something constructively for their cause. You are Mental Health, probably a Transvestite or some other sexual deviant.
Alf.
Adding the two positions of a Scotland Colony under the parliament of England or a 1707 treaty of union between Scotland and England not being applied or followed by the parliament of England,
for the parliament of Great Britain did not Exist at the date the 1707 treaty of union was made between Scotland and Englands to Sovereign Countries,
It is a created State of Great Britain not a Country,
The same as America, it would be classed as the united states of Great Britain for as long as the 1707 treaty is applied between Scotland and England.
Not between the parliament of Great Britain and the parliament of Scotland, which ceased to be over three hundred years past,
The united States of Great Britain fails miserable in it continuation after 1707 to exist if,
1. the 1707 parliament of Scotland and independent Country of Scotland cease to exist.
2. the parliament of England presumes it is the Sole sovereign Country in the treaty of union that refuses Scotland the right to Self determination, the Scots Claim of right,
3. The results of The parliament of Englands behaviour is that it makes Scotlands nation and Sovereign Country a Colony of the The parliament of England,
Not of the parliament of GB or of the UK parliament,
Those already taken actions by the parliament of England supplies Scotland with the required Information to the UN and rest of the world, that the parliament of England is in and acted as the sole parliament in the 1707 treaty and Colonised the Sovereign Country of Scotland without legal merit to do so,
As it breached and ended the original international 1707 treaty of terms, conditions and agreement
Between two sovereign Countries.
That must sound great in your head. Repeating something just waters it down. Like inbreeding. If you keep using the same DNA stamp. Not that I’am suggesting that your Mother is your sister, far from it, it’s probably your auntie Alf.
‘STUC general secretary Roz Foyer and actor Kate Dickie have both signed Sturgeons open letter 600 women and groups’.
Can anyone spot what’s wrong with this statement.
“The women have also called for the SNP Government to launch an “emergency response” focusing on “effective and accountable” policing of the far-right.
Groups signing the online letter include Rape Crisis Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland and Muslim Women’s Resource Centre.
Crime author Val McDermid and TV presenter Jean Johansson have also backed the call.”
And what is wrong with this statement? Anyone?
Can anyone else smell the fear?
We need an investigation to find out how many intact blokes are hiding in plain sight within the Muslim Women’s Resource Centre.
Without evidence, I can no longer decide if the answer is zero, or, they all are.
“Rape crisis Scotland” Enough said.
‘STUC general secretary Roz Foyer and actor Kate Dickie have both signed Sturgeons open letter 600 women and groups’.
——————————————————–
It is not “Sturgeons open letter” – it is open letter published by Women Against the Far-Right Scotland.
Sturgeon and 600 others have signed it.
“Women Against the Far-Right Scotland.”
Only 600? More people sign a ‘Stop Dog Fouling’ campaign on a wet Tuesday afternoon.
The fact that they are doing this shows how scared they are. They know it will be game over in the Gravy Boat. Every Quango every Woke club paid for by the Tax payer. Be afraid Be very afraid.
Apparently over 3000 have signed it now.
The port of Dover appears to be blocked by reportedly 300 men claiming to be English and asserting that England is their country.
Michty!
It’s impossible to predict how this one will end, but I would place a small wager on another 300 wife beaters, child abusers and serial, big money fraudsters being turfed out of jail early, to make room for some “real” criminals.
“Dover protest ‘disgraceful’, says Jenrick
Speaking to reporters at the Reform national conference, the party’s Treasury spokesperson said:
I’m sick of people disrupting life in this country.
I hope the police take all the actions as necessary to get the port open as quickly as possible.
It’s completely disgraceful that businesses and individuals are having their lives held up by those people.””
—————————————–
Reform don’t like it!
It’s a little rich of Jenrick to girn when we consider his appalling track record on matters of asylum and migration, but whatever… 🙄
Well they’d better come up with some hardcore policies on asylum and migration then. I think that’s what the people want these days, is it not?
Wearing a mask in this country should be instant arrest. A thug is a thug.
My mask self-identifies as a letterbox.
Works fine in Scotland, not so good across the border.
If they get arrested they can just say ‘I’m with Stop Oil’ and the police will help them put up their barrier.
” Into the jaws of death rode the six hundred”
and not a horse in sight!
The Open Letter: More than 3,000 people—including prominent politicians, trade union leaders, and artists like Nicola Sturgeon and Hannah Lavery—signed an open letter against the far-right. Groups like Rape Crisis Scotland also backed the statement.
———————————————–
Update.
(although I doubt the description of Sturgeon as an “artist”)
You’re gonna need a bigger campervan!
With Nicky No Comment on board how could you possibly lose?
If we make the same assumption the elites will make, that each of the 3000 of the “correctly opinioned” deserves a golden vote equivalent to 1,000 ordinary, unwashed, bigoted, penny votes, then they already have a majority for whatever it is they plan.
“including prominent politicians”
I need to sit down for this!
Eh! Duh! Who? name names.
“Con-artist” perhaps?
King America, the immature, paranoid & seriously deep in debt boss of «the west»
link to dailymail.com
Patrick Grady seen at Holyrood but an official SNP statement said that no one spoke to him. His best chum didn’t even know he was there.
Let’s start a petition and an Open Letter!
Keep the sex pest out of Scotland!
I bet Simon Weston is happy that the penguins remained British, by God.
link to archive.ph
a fascinating tale, full of spicy little titbits; the falklanders have more authority than the Scots have and are setup for a decent cut of the take. Nice.
Illuminating in all sorts of ways; and it shows the scam of netzero = destroy perfectly good infrastructure to create artificial demand and corporate profits, all that – if we were serious about “net zero”, well first of all india, china, USA, the pentagon need to be shut down, but that’s not happening – instead we endure all that shite about rosebank and jackdaw and middle class twats having their performative days out … nah
– there is too much real wealth around the falklands right now and with modern tech we can finally get to it.
Looming in the background are the argies, noticing we don’t have a navy anymore – for example :
no one can pish it up a wall like the anglos
youtu.be/EWZPJK91X1I?t=572
– and now the yanks are saying they don’t necessarily recognise our sovereignty. Oh dear. What if Milei has more support in washington than the brits? He is fully jewed up –
“Argentine President Javier Milei is one of Isr a el’s strongest and most vocal international supporters. He has famously described himself as “the most Z10nist president in the world”
– beautiful realpolitik there, nice triangulation; if only Scots politicians had the wits to play these games. What if a Scots FM “had more support in Washington” from a president who was a half-scottish golf nut? Imagine. Imagine Scotland scoring at an open goal for a change.
It gets worse though; you see the falklands oil is just an appetiser, the real find was down in antarctica off the peninsula, in the part we claim as “ours”. It has a whopping 500B barrels; cf the North Sea has had about 50B barrels taken out of it on our side (we split it with Norway and look how rich they became). No one is going to just “leave it in the ground” for the climate emergency and the net zero. A UK with the Falklands – great place for a base of operations – and a recognised claim would be laffing, but what if no one else recognises it? And we don’t have the gunboats any more to make anyone pay attention to us.
The antarctic treaty is a bizarre anomaly in international relations; people seem to take it seriously and obey it, but at some point it will get ripped up, then it’s a competition among the great powers. Which does not include the UK.
– of course if the earth is hollow and it’s where the nazis escaped to in their flying saucers, we’ll really be in the shit.
The Falklanders should worry.
The Argies are the descendants of the most genocidal colonists on the stolen and ethnically cleansed South American continent.
If the Argies run true to their genetic inheritance from their murdering, thieving Spanish, Italian, German, English, Scottish and Welsh ancestors, they’ll slaughter the Falklanders in cold blood.
Needless to say, the likes of Confused will be cheering them on and cramming his hole with popcorn as he does so.
It’s the position usually adopted by the bottom feeding stratum of Scottish Nationalism. Other peoples desiring freedom, independence and self determination must be ruthlessly crushed.
There go’s the holidays in Spain.
Whatever you do, do not talk about the Status of the treaty of union between Scotland and England as Unionist do not like the Scrutiny,
and change the topic as soon as possible from it not being a Colony of the Westminster parliament subject or a treaty of union with the Westminster parliament of England subject.
If none of the above then Scotland can just end the the union that does not exist, walk away from a Colony Status without the need or requirement for permission.
But then that is why the avoid defining of the situation, and try back to school name calling instead,
Their brain appears to be stuck at primary School level.
“Whatever you do, do not talk about the Status of the treaty of union between Scotland and England as Unionist do not like the Scrutiny”
You say this, but it seems like you do little else. Every day, every few hours there is a barely comprehensible word salad setting out essentially the same point. Very rarely does anyone respond positively to any of these posts, I think most of us have resigned to the fact that we have no defences against your campaign of terrorism against Wings BTL and the best strategy is to just ignore it, to the extent that this is possible.
I appreciate you are elderly and you have lost your partner, and you have my sympathy in that. However, there are societies and interest groups where you can exchange your views with other like-minded people, and you may find a lot more intellectual fulfilment in that than you do by, let’s be honest, annoying people here.
Factchecker,
Scotland would have to pay the rUK billions.
How did you work that one out,
Scotland has never entered or made a treaty of union with the rest of UK,
Only with the parliament of England.
Polish police now allowed to shoot illegal immigrants and the AFD set to gain power. That’s going to take more than an Open Letter to stop.
Factchecker.
You may also need to check some other facts such as ,
1: the old parliament of Scotland was dissolved, …from the union by England and the monarch of England. Not subsumed.
2: the old parliament of Scotland also withdrew from the union treaty under Sine die,
3: the parliament of England has 11 missing days to its side of the union, for year 1752. But Scotland already followed that calander, so no missing voluntary days to Scotlands side,
4: the parliament of Great Britain was dissolved in 1800.
5: the Anglo/ Ireland parliament was created in 1801/ 1802. [the rest of the UK as you eloquently Stated] which Scotland never made a treaty with. Because….
6: which did not include the dissolved parliament of Scotland, as that took place almost a hundred years previously.
I will leave you factchecking.
Alas, there are no facts here to check, merely your incomprehensible meanderings around historical events using terms like ‘sine die’ that you don’t seem to understand.
And of course Scotland never made a treaty of union with the rest of the UK – the UK didn’t exist.
However, my suggestion was that if, as you claim, the Act of Union is not valid, then Scotland’s free trade with the rUK and the rest of the Empire was also not valid. It was the Act of Union that permitted this free trade access. If you wish to demand reparations from rUK, it would seem equally valid for rUK to demand Reparations from Scotland.
Please just stop – you expose Wings and the independence movement to ridicule
These are the reasons that Stu has difficulty holding anyone to account like the SNP under the Crown of Westminsters parliament for England and Ireland.
Praying that Reform win a huge majority of seats in England and damn all in Scotland. That’ll learn the ‘proud Scots but’ for 2014.
Talking of which, Sir Chris Hoy is in my neighborhood tomorrow.
Better Together, eh Chris? My arse!
UK Prime Minister Nigel ‘Brown Shirt’ Farage? LOL!
I guess if Farage ever does become PM, he’ll have far more of a democratic mandate than Burnham has.
I’m intrigued by the bombshell revelation announced at the start of the Reform conference. When did the recorded conversation occur? Surely not the day before the conference started?
This story bears all the hallmarks of dirt mined, and then kept carefully aside until it can be revealed with maximum effect. A sting, in other words.
The question is, what group is ultimately behind it? Might be an established political party. Might be a pressure group that prefers to work without the inconvenience and legal hazards an established political party would give them.
That doesn’t excuse or condone Reform’s stupidity and amateurism. They need to wise up and realise that their enemy, the ones taking over this country, are very well organised, integrated, funded and determined.
Our enemy too, obviously.
I would like yo start a crowdfunder to get James Che laid. The only condition is that he can only choose from the two available genders. I know a person who would do it for free but that would defeat the purpose.
Your posts here today have been appalling. Grow up.
I wouldn’t restrict such an astute observation to today…
Mark !
Behave yourself !
“James Che” is actually a very old lady who is sadly suffering from the onset of dementia..
She has no short term memory left and will continue to repeat the same drivel, day after day, week after week……
Nothing anyone can do to help……
‘Onset of dementia’
Sorry but you are wrong Insider. The ‘onset’ took place years ago. It is now full blown.
Mark,
Its a same when politicians cant convince the electors and have to resort to violence to get their own way,
Luckily no body is Making threats to Scotland and its people within Scotland as it would upset every other treaty and Country around the world,.
The easiest solution of course with Scotland would be for England is to abide by the written agreement of the 1707 treaty,
Making every Country much happier.
There’s a lot of talk in this place, and elsewhere, suggesting that because of Scotland’s sovereign past and how the Treaty of Union was forced on the Scots and how the Claim of Right, all taken together, entitles the Scots to simply walk away from the United Kingdom.
The problem with that argument is that it’s unwinnable in international law.
The Scots cannot make a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) and expect the international community of nations just to accept it… well, they could, but neither the UN nor the rest of the world would acknowledge it – and the UK parliament certainly wouldn’t.
I think it’s important folk understand the reality of Scotland’s current status as the rest of the world sees it.
Scotland’s historical sovereignty doesn’t equate with contemporary legal sovereignty.
Scotland was sovereign, once, that is an undeniable truth.
And it’s true that the 1707 Treaty of Union was shaped by elite interests, coercion, bribery, and political pressure.
And it’s true that many Scots justifiably felt betrayed by their own leadership when their country was sold to a foreign power from under them.
These are historically valid arguments.
But — and this is the key point — historical sovereignty does not automatically translate into contemporary legal sovereignty.
International law recognises current constitutional reality, not historical grievance.
And today:
That means arguments about illegality, coercion, or historical sovereignty have no operative force in modern international law.
They may be emotionally powerful.
They may be historically interesting.
But they do not create a legal route to independence.
The fact is that the sovereignty of the Scots won’t be reclaimed by shouting about the past… it can only be reclaimed by persuading the present.
Historical validity does not create modern legal authority.
Scotland’s history can certainly inspire independence, but only contemporary democracy can deliver it.
Good post.
See, Northy?
You CAN post sensibly when you make the effort.
I’ll gloss over the fact that much of what you wrote is simply paraphrasing and polishing the work of others.
Regardless, you’ve still over qualified yourself for the position left vacant by Professor Arday.
Thank you.
” Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom ”
Benjamin Franklin
The full statement reads: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
“corrupt and vicious”
That sums up Scottish nationalism.
@agentx
FRANKLIN’s country may be counted among the least virtuous and most hypocritical on the planet, albeit «anglosaxons» do hold pole position in that field.
All men are created equal……except the ones unwilling to do our bidding.
E,g. Persian scum, Iraqi monkeys, towel heads etc.
Ah well, TURABDIN. As it happens, I was just reading about a pair of Ir@nian sisters in the Guardian online this morning.
Taken from their beds by masked thugs of the IRGC.
Visited in prison by a relative who scarce recognised them. Bruised and bloodied, broken bones, little hair left. The system of “prisoner transfer” consists of knocking the lassie to the floor, then dragging her by the hair to the destination.
Anyhoo, sentences have now been pronounced for their “crimes” of being opinionated lassies. 25 years for one, death for the other.
I fully understand your pressing need to be acknowledged as a representative of some kind of civilised, humane, learned, sophisticated culture, TURABDIN.
It’s just that examples like this one, plus countless others, suggest that every one of the contemptuous epithets you list are justified.
Mark Beggan says:
6 September, 2026 at 12:14 am
“corrupt and vicious”
That sums up Scottish nationalism.
Meanwhile wee Mark’s favourite set of corrupt LIARS Deform are busy SCREAMING that they have been the target of entrapment and targeted in a setup to make them look CORRUPT and CRIMINAL hahahahaha, Nige and Jenrick are furious that these revelations have come out
EH NAW Nige and Jenrick are furious that they have been CAUGHT
Apparently the normal????? rank and file at their conference were extremely angry that they appeared to be just like the rest of the corrupt lying bastard parties. who’d have thunk it
Don’t worry Marky Mark nothing will happen to your favourite GREEDY BASTARDS they ARE part of the establishment so it will quietly fade out, because you and your moronic unionist pals will keep voting for them
” Worry” I’ve forgotten about it already. They are not my pals they’re just people who care about our country. I never discuss politics or religion with my friends.
Swinney is looking more reptilian everyday. I do believe he is shedding his skin.
His shed skin, stuffed and cosmetically improved by a talented funeral director, will make a superb figurehead for the SNP faithful to revere and follow in the years to come.
There are credible reports that poot and xi intend to prolong their lives and their dictatorships far belong the normal human lifespans.
Perhaps Scotland could share that ambition too, and what’s more, do it on the cheap!
“I do believe he is shedding his skin”
Maybe its the shock of finally realising the cost for Scots of the colonial hoax the SNP administration is covering up on our oppressor’s behalf:
link to youtube.com
I thought it would be obvious. He has the woke disease. The symptoms can be quite easy to spot; Constant denial of reality, psychotic repetition is the main symptom. James Che is in the late stages and I fear he has not got long before he starts identifying as Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre’s wife.
@Mark Beggan
«they’re just people who care about our country».
«our country» being?
Do give it a name?
Shut up and eat your Lembas bread. You pointy eared trouble maker.
Supporters of Scottish independence – especially the more active kind – often talk about the Claim of Right as if it exempts the Scots from proving to the international community that independence is what they desire as a people.
This is the rhetorical flaw:
They treat history as if it were current legitimacy.
They treat symbolism as if it were international law.
They treat past sovereignty as if it were current.
And they treat grievance as if it were some kind of legal authority.
It’s emotionally understandable – the Scots have been exploited and treated very badly by their close neighbour for centuries – but misaligned, hyperbolic rhetoric does not strengthen Scotland’s legitimate pursuit of independence in the eyes of the world.
International law only recognises current constitutional reality.
And currently, regardless of how it came about historically:
No UN body, no foreign government, no international court will treat Scotland as sovereign based on a 1689 document.
They will treat Scotland as sovereign only if the Scottish people demonstrate overwhelming, sustained democratic will.
Not historical will.
Not theoretical will.
… Democratic will.
More good sense.
Additionally, I would suggest that the Claim of Right was in reality simply a political negotiating tool of its time.
Despite the its claim of the historical ‘Sovereign Scot, I am not aware of any time in Scottish history when the wishes of the individual ‘sovereign’ Scot were given any importance by the various unelected (in a modern democratic sense) rulers and ruling bodies that controlled the country. Indeed, they were not even asked for – there was no mechanism to do so.
This was the situation throughout Europe.
But… another one
” We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.
We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following ends:
To agree a scheme for an Assembly or Parliament for Scotland;
To mobilise Scottish opinion and ensure the approval of the Scottish people for that scheme; and
To assert the right of the Scottish people to secure implementation of that scheme.”
The Convention declaration does not change the legal position.
The claim of right was debated in the HoC and Sec of State,v David Mundell, said: “On 4 July 2018, this Parliament debated a motion to endorse the principles of the claim of right for Scotland.
This debate was an opportunity to discuss the democratic tradition in Scotland, of which both the 1689 and 1989 claim of right documents form a significant part. The claim of right, set out by the Scottish constitutional convention in 1989, was a key part of a process which ultimately led to the devolution of powers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the new Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Act 1998.
The claim of right sought to mobilise and secure the approval of the Scottish people for a new Parliament and then to see that Parliament established. The referendum of 1997 resoundingly secured that approval and the new Parliament was convened in 1999.
While this debate on 4 July secured the UK Parliament’s endorsement of the principles of the claim of right, with the Parliament and the Government voting to support the motion, the UK Parliament has already demonstrated its endorsement quite clearly by legislating for the existence of the new Scottish Parliament in the first place.
NC
The UK Constitution..
A bit of a myth that, point me to the stirring single document will you?
I’d be surprised if you can.
The UK so-called “Constitution” is a bouillabaisse (oops sorry- a pie mash and jellied eel gravy culinary crime against humanity) of all sorts of cobbled together different bits and pieces to suit, such as (ahem); “works of authority”- ie “respected HISTORICAL and legal texts written by constitutional experts”.
Ancient guff (to use a phrase popular here amongst the site contrarians) such Magna Carta even gets debated..
Suppose “ancient guff” is different when it’s “English ancient guff” eh?
Brut of Troy is probably in there as well somewhere..
“The UK Constitution…A bit of a myth that, point me to the stirring single document…”
I’m not sure of the point being attempted there, but the UK constitution is hardly myth.
A constitution is simply the set of fundamental rules that determine how a state is governed.
Those rules can be codified (written in one document), uncodified (spread across many sources), partly codified, or entirely customary.
Many countries have uncodified or partly uncodified constitutions and the UK is not unusual in that its constitution is uncodified, flexible, and spread across statutes, common law, conventions, and historical documents.
The UK constitution is fully recognised as a constitution in law, politics, and international practice.
Every state on Earth has a constitution… even if it isn’t written down.
A constitution isn’t defined by being a single document.
A constitution is defined by being:
The set of fundamental rules that determine how a state is governed.
The UK’s constitution is recognised by the UK Supreme Court, Parliament, international bodies, constitutional scholars, and political scientists.
The UK constitution isn’t “less real” because it isn’t in one document… it’s simply distributed rather than consolidated.
NC
Stopped reading at “the UK constitution is recognised by the UK Supreme Court”.
Kind of says it all really..
Whatever country it is – it’s definitely NOT Scotland
North code,
The comment you made was a bit contradictory in its overall veiw on international treaties.
The old treaty between Scotland and England will be taken into the eqaution of historical facts,
But the historical cacts also record that Scotlands old parliament was dissoled from tht union by the Westminster parliament, not subsumed into the Great Britain parliament.
Here lies the double Standard of picking and chosen what suits the narrative,.
Both the treaty of union records and the dissolved Scottish parliament records must apply for a completed union,.
And here you are implicating that the treaty of union has passed its sell by date. So what happens now the treaty of union has passed its sell by date, and been converted to null, void, does not apply any longer?
We usually throw out something that has passed its sell by date.
History is history in totality, not in selected few points or pieces only to satisfy a small number.who want the union to be the Law of GB parliament but at the same time tell us it doesn’t count as a treaty,
A interesting perspective for results with other Countries treaties with the GB parliament. Just claim their treaties are old and they are no longer in a treaty with the GB parliament.
I am actually liking your take on treaties that are no longer running to be lawful treaties in international law.
“So what happens now the treaty of union has passed its sell by date…”
Well… we could have it framed and hung in the entrance lobby of the Holyrood parliament building for tourists and school groups to look at.
What’s the point?
Even if we managed to fit it up for serious sexual assault, it would be out again in a very few years.
Plus, it might be forcibly converted to Islam while inside. That’s another practice rife in the 2026 UK.
@Hatey McHateface
I am no apologist for the theocratic system currently gripping Ir@n but that system is not Ir@n per se. Persian culture is no more barbaric than any other of the like. Ir@n did not invent the concentration camp or the «Abu Ghuraib» version.
Struggling to exclude the snares of whataboutery from the theme, i do wonder however about the role the west played in installing this system after the downfall of the Pahlevi monarchy, a monarchy that was out of favour with US regional interests and the rather spoiled & mercenary middle classes of the same country who now grow pistachios in California….
The «régime change», western involvement in Afgh@nistan & Ir@q is a signal example of where meddling by the uninformed leads. Even T E Lawrence might spin in his tomb.
Re.the subject country I know something of this for a branch of my extended family, in the orient families tend to the extra extended variety, lives there. I can assure you they are neither scum nor bloodthirsty demons and are nauseated by such cruelty. They, unlike my Christian side of the family, are Shia muslims.
As for towelhead, wore the bedouin headgear once, at age 6….i look cute in the picture…a kilt might have gone well with it!
Cross-fertilized culture, the future……?
Any relation to Darius the Great?
“subjugated Thrace and forced Macedon to become a fully subordinate client kingdom within the Achaemenid Empire; it had been a Persian vassal as early as the late 6th century BC—probably in 512 BC”
That’s the guy and his sons who also tried to colonize the Athenians. Achaemenid Empire ring any bells?
So no more agreeing with Alf. I don’t think your ancestors would be very amused would they?
No point interacting with wee guttersnipes like Beggan.
So the 1707 treaty of union that is wrote down on old parchment paper no longer exist as a treaty between Scotland and England regardless of actual historic records that, that treaty states for evermore and hereafter in it.
Or that Scotland automatically became a Sovereign country and nation again when that treaty had run its course to its end day,
When was the date by the way that the 1707 treaty of union had its sell by date?
so it can be discarded.
The truth is this:
The Treaty of Union is no longer a live international treaty.
It’s a historical document whose provisions have been fully absorbed into domestic UK constitutional law.
That’s the reality.
It’s not an international treaty anymore.
In 1707, it was a treaty between two sovereign parliaments.
But today:
The ToU has been domesticated… absorbed into the UK’s internal constitutional framework.
This is why folk who talk about “withdrawing from the Treaty” are wrong.
I was thinking about Prof Alf Baird’s posts about how an independent Scotland wouldn’t be burdened with the financial ambitions of the United Kingdom.
While the current Middle east conflict highlighted the inadequacies of the Royal Navy’s readiness, the United Kingdom will still be in the top 10 countries most powerful navies in the next decade.
As well as that the UK is in the top 10 of countries with spending on military.
Despite all that, people can come over on boats to our island and claim asylum despite crossing numerous countries to do so. What is the point of spending so much on the military where as a nation, Westminster can’t even have a secure border which allows only legal routes for asylum?
It seems Westminster is spending money on the wrong things. Could an independent Scotland spend it’s limited resources on things that truly benefit it’s citizens and at a lower cost than the Westminster system currently does?
Of course! Duh!
But it requires a hard-nosed realism at odds with the feel good vibes that an entire generation of entitled fantasists has come to expect.
Take “the boats” for example. Farage claims he will instruct the RN to stop them (a farcical claim in its own right, as some armed landlubbers on fast launches could do it in a week).
I don’t believe serving RN personnel will obey orders because slavish adherence to human rights shibboleths will leave them looking over their shoulders all of their lives.
The rot has gone so far that as Dominic Cummings famously observed, few of the levers that can be pulled by government ministers are attached to anything that works.
Scotland is no different. Possibly even worse, as our public sector is proportionately bigger.
It will take a Trump-style disruptor to achieve real change. Move fast and break things. After, we will need somebody capable of building back better. That part of the job that Trump is spectacularly useless at.
B
Top ten in spending on military eh?
I wonder how much of that is spent on the money-pit “nuclear deterrent” and more mundane stuff such as wholesale married quarters reconstruction after the peace dividend era was used as the excuse to leave that to deteriorate?
Then there’s the money wasted on the Ajax “brain scrambler” armoured personnel carrier, the vast stocks of gear and ammunition gifted to others in proxy wars and on and on?
Things being so great they now are being told to restrict training due to costs!
People can point at the expenditure but we are long relegated out of the premier league from days gone by..
Has Westminster parliament informed the UN that the 1707 treaty between Scotland and England has come to its end date?
And When did Westminster parliament inform the the Scots and Scotland by declaration that its 1707 treaty of union ended with the parliament of England?
Was it before the parliament of Scotland was dissolved three hundred years ago?
So many questions from Scotland wanting to know if it is a Colony or in a treaty of union with England.
Perhaps it is a legal slip up not telling the other half of the only two Countries in that Treaty there is no treaty,
Bilbo.
Here is another thought to mull over,
If Scotland is a independent Country since the 1707 treaty of unions sell by date, then so is England.
The UK parliament would be deceitful statement, unless it refers to the Anglo/ Irish parliament of 1801/ 1802.
Bilbo,
Without a active 1707 treaty between Scotland and England, Scotland is not in a national debt situation with the Bank of England or its treasury. w wEr8 spsessssd ps
For those who might have fallen under the delusion that the United Nations is planning to liberate the Scots from English oppression soon… here’s what it’s actually doing for Scotland.
Right now? Nothing.
The UN is not planning anything.
The UN is not preparing anything.
The UN is not considering anything.
The UN is not reviewing Scotland’s status.
This is the reality… Salvo’s/Liberate Scotland’s petition submitted to the C-24 is symbolic.
It has no legal force.
It will not trigger UN action.
It will sit in the UN system, acknowledged but inert.
This is exactly what happens to almost all civil-society petitions submitted to the C-24.
International law’s core principle is “State Sovereignty” and is built on one foundational rule:
The UN cannot override them.
This means that the UK decides Scotland’s constitutional status and the UN can’t challenge that.
The UN cannot intervene.
The UN cannot recognise Scotland unilaterally.
The UN cannot force negotiations.
The UN cannot “free” Scotland.
It’s tempting for folk to imagine the UN as a higher authority.
It isn’t.
States are the higher authority.
Ultimately, If Scotland wants independence, it must demonstrate overwhelming democratic will… not rely on historical documents or UN symbolism.
The UN exists to keep the world stable, talking, and cooperating – not to liberate nations or override sovereign states.
But… if the Scots overwhelmingly and consistently demonstrate that they want independence, the UK cannot stand in their way… not politically, not legally, and not internationally.
So it’s true then: Alf’s much-vaunted UN delusion will achieve…
… “Hee-Haw”, to coin a phrase.
I’m sure much of the Wings readership is truly shocked by this revelation. 🙂
Who knew that getting independence requires hard graft and winning hearts and minds (with detailed, cogent arguments and illustrations), rather than magic beans?
Bloody hell, Northy !
You’re beginning to talk sense for a change !
What happened to you ?
The starship to Alpha Centauri left without him.
The next one’s not due for 500 years.
So he has no choice but to pipe down and try to fit in. Quite right too. Who would want 500 years “assisting with enquiries” in Area 51.
Ultimately, while pro-independence groups look to the UN Charter as an overarching moral and political justification for independence, the UN’s legal architecture operates on the rule that self-determination for a nation like Scotland must be achieved internally and cooperatively through the UK’s domestic constitutional framework, rather than via unilateral international intervention.
IN THE IDEALIST’S UNIVERSE MAYBE.
In the messy actuality any minority within a larger state cannot rely on the principle even being acknowledged.
The big powers and their agents decide the agenda. Top of the list, the UN shall not interfere directly in matters of ethnic minority rights within constituent states, no matter how bad the treatment.
With Scotland locked into the British state, an entity created well before the concept of international law was thought of, even a resounding yes in a referendum might have little effective weight.
The UN itself, as an overseer of a plebiscite, would need to be involved. The British state, or any other, would never allow such interference in peacetime.
All of which returns to the status of Scotland within the UK. Burnham has hinted that any referendum or plebiscite ought to be considered «unconstutional» as it threatens the integrity of a sovereign state, consequently a referendum is probably off the table.
What should Swinney do? wait for a more compliant régime in London possibly.
Time is rarely on the side of the «right-thinking» petitioner, even in favorable times.
Amen.
The UN is the record keeper of war. They list the conflicts in the world, keep records, take statements, give food to people who never receive it and have the best debating chamber in the world. Apart from that it’s the Titanic of Gravy Boats and we all know what happened to her.
I think your final paragraph needs to be amended. Scottish people need to be able to hold a referendum at intervals to determine whether the Scottish people wish to secede.
That is the opinion at least of the European Journal of International Law.
link to ejiltalk.org
“The actual issue for Scotland is therefore not whether it somehow fits into the category of constitutional self-determination. It clearly does. The actual question is whether the central government can unreasonably withhold from such an entity the opportunity to actualize that right through a referendum.
However, having raised the issue of self-determination only in order to illuminate the very technical question of UK law concerning reserved powers according to the Scotland Act (1998), the SNP invited the Supreme Court to address this issue in an incidental and somewhat cursory way. Hence, it has ended up with a highly condensed and brief treatment by the Court—a treatment that might be misunderstood as denying the application of the right of self-determination to Scotland altogether.
In reality, of course, the Court has merely found that Scotland is not a classical colony. Hence, the classical right of unilateral secession does not apply. Scotland cannot simply declare independence and leave if it wishes to obtain the benefit of a legally privileged secession in international law as a constitutional self-determination entity—in fact a practical necessity given Scotland’s hope to achieve widespread recognition and EU membership as an independent state. But if it enjoys constitutional self-determination, Scotland should be entitled to assess the will of its population at reasonable intervals. And if there is a clear majority in favour of independence, both sides would be obliged to negotiate the divorce in good faith.”
“I think your final paragraph needs to be amended…”
No – it doesn’t. Read it again.
” That is the opinion at least of the European Journal of International Law.”
Who cares? You still do not get it.
sam likes to present ideas as evidence and conjecture as fact. He never quotes any source until he’s satisfied its bias aligns with his own.
It’s a typical EU ploy to insist that when a binary decision is to be democratically made, one choice will be decreed as settled, final and irrefutable. Whereas the opposite choice must be revisited for as often as it continues to be made.
As for the statement that Scotland “hopes to achieve EU membership as an independent state”.
Even if we gloss over the obvious contradiction between EU membership and Independence, a moment’s thought tells us that no sane, rational Scot could ever support joining the EU without some prior knowledge of what the pros and cons of Scotland’s membership will look like.
sam and his ilk like to pretend it will simply be a “rejoining”. But with an economy one tenth the size of the UK’s, without the Hated Thatcher to fight for rebates and opt outs, and no choice over our currency, the deal put on the table by the EU will be different and worse than the one we had before.
That’s even before we start to consider Alf’s extra £150+ billion per year, which the cash strapped EU will be salivating to get its teeth into.
It’s precisely because of considerations like these that Iceland just told the EU to sling their hook. But that’s not something sam will want to talk about.
I support Scottish independence, but I’ve grown weary of the flawed rhetoric deployed in its name.
When a movement clings to magical solutions, it abandons the only path that works… and in doing so, it becomes its own worst enemy.
Flawed rhetoric is counter-productive; magical solutions, absolutist claims, historical shortcuts, and ego-driven “legacy building” do not strengthen a movement… they weaken it.
Why?
Because it diverts energy away from:
and into:
Movements collapse when they chase symbols instead of strategy.
Independence requires maturity, realism, and strategy… not grievance, fantasy, or rhetorical noise.
If Scotland wants independence, it must replace symbolism with strategy, grievance with persuasion, and myth with maturity.
And if that maturity can’t be found in Scotland’s Parliament – and currently, it can’t – then it must be found within the movement itself.
The path exists… but the movement must get itself together and choose to walk it and not wander off only to get lost in some fantasy of independence.
I don’t know how you’re doing this, Northy, and I don’t care that much.
Just stop reading my mind.
Just repeating this because it’s the best summary I’ve seen in years. Well done, Northy.
“Independence requires maturity, realism, and strategy… not grievance, fantasy, or rhetorical noise.
If Scotland wants independence, it must replace symbolism with strategy, grievance with persuasion, and myth with maturity.”
Alex Salmond knew this. It’s been forgotten since in the bitter grievance politics that Sturgeon and her brainless acolytes have made into a part of our way of life.
Strategy and a preternatural understanding of the opponent.
WOW….if only.
Salmond new how difficult the task to unite Scotland internally would be. Everybody was on board on the anti English establishment boat but he knew well how divided Scotland really was and how much a prisoner of her past she was and still is.
Well said Northy. Better late than never, about Ten years late, but none the less. Seriously! That is something that can be built on. If anyone here and now is serious about Scottish Independence then they must be resigned to the fact that we are laying the foundation for future generations to build on. Instant Indy is not on the menu. The EU is Achtung Verboten!! No short cuts or deals. Hard work long term with no fruits for your labors. See how many are still in the room and the ones that are left are the team.
Missing person appeal!
Will the real Northcode come forward please, his account here has clearly been hacked and it appears to be by the likes of Tory Scotchland HQ or similar..
Or maybe it’s Aunty Burnham?
Certainly got the site spoilers and Reform orientated on here having a good one handed read..
Keeps them off the streets I suppose.
🙂