Articles without faith
At a time of unprecedented political chaos and uncertainty, just about the only thing you can still count on is that for any given situation, senior Labour figures will issue proclamations both firmly in favour of it and stoutly opposed to it, usually the same day.
So the stories below, which are respectively from today’s Scotsman and today’s Times, won’t come as much of a shock to anyone.
But against the odds, we think we’ve made some sense of it.
Because below the diametrically opposite spins from the two papers, the stories aren’t actually all that different. Thornberry merely assumes that the SNP would meekly comply with Labour’s wish to form a minority government:
…whereas McDonnell DEMANDS it.
Now, that level of jawdroppingly arrogant entitlement is perhaps somewhat misplaced given that the latest polls show Labour trailing five points behind the Tories:
…but let’s take it at face value for a moment and see if we can find any tortured logic (from Labour’s perspective) anywhere in it.
The McDonnell quotes are taken from a lengthy interview with Kenny Farquharson in the Times, which in itself is a shambolic illustration of the absolute mess Labour is currently in about everything.
He starts off dismissing the independence debate as a “distraction”:
But when Farquharson points out that telling Scots to shut up, eat their cereal and vote Labour like they’re supposed to has relegated the party to a third-place irrelevance north of the border, McDonnell immediately U-turns and says the constitution is “back on the agenda”.
But all of this is standard Labour doublespeak of the sort they’ve been deploying to catastrophic effect in Scotland ever since the SNP came to power, in the apparent belief that their audience is comprised of idiots incapable of remembering as far back as the last sentence. No news there.
(A point McDonnell emphasises with an amusing insistence that Scottish Labour is an autonomous entity not controlled by London, issued on the very same day the party placed an advert for a Scottish policy director based in, er, London.)
But what comes next is slightly more revealing.
Because what McDonnell’s comments give away is that Labour are still clinging, in more ways than we may have previously realised, to the ghosts of 1979.
The party has always sought comically to blame the SNP for “ushering in” 18 years of Thatcherism, despite endless debunkings of the obviously-cretinous idea from its own senior figures.
But the only atom of truth in the entire fantasy is that the Scottish electorate did punish the SNP at the ballot box for its minor role in finally bringing down Jim Callaghan’s long-doomed government. The Nats saw their vote share almost cut in half, from 30% to 17%, and lost nine of their 11 MPs.
(They fell even further, to under 12%, in 1983, and didn’t begin to seriously recover until the 1990s. In fact it would be 41 years before they regained – and dramatically surpassed – the heights they’d occupied in 1974.)
In so far as Labour has any kind of coherent strategy for anything, then, it can only be to rebuild its fortunes by engineering a repeat of 1979 in the belief that the outcome will be the same. Given McDonnell and Corbyn’s evident attachment to the 1970s, it makes a sort of limited sense in its own bubble.
The problem is that – to put it mildly – politics is not the same now as it was then. Let’s just play through that scenario in early 2019.
1. Labour get the most seats in a general election and attempt to form a minority government.
Now, as we’ve already seen, that’s quite a big assumption to be starting off with. For a whole variety of reasons it’s unlikely – for a start the Tories can use the Fixed Term Parliaments Act to resist any election before 2022 that they think they’d lose, and there’s no easy majority to defeat them in a confidence vote.
But more importantly, if there’s a single constant in British politics it’s that the party with the least-preferred potential Prime Minister doesn’t win elections, and polls have consistently shown Labour trailing on that front for almost Corbyn’s entire time as leader, and getting further behind over the last 18 months.
Still, let’s say it happens for the sake of argument. One recent ComRes poll did project 300 seats for Labour – 26 short of a Commons majority, but with the SNP on 47 and able to take them comfortably into Downing Street. So how would those negotiations go?
2. The SNP demand a second independence referendum – or the transfer of that decision-making power to Holyrood – as the price of their support.
This, one would have to assume, would be a non-negotiable red line for Nicola Sturgeon. And it’s a perfectly reasonable and moderate demand – she has both an electoral mandate and a Scottish Parliament mandate for it, and it’s her job.
It’s also by far her best chance (arguably her ONLY chance) of delivering a new indyref within the next 20+ years, so it would be criminally irresponsible of her not to use the leverage while it existed.
3. Labour refuses, the SNP decline to back Labour’s attempt to form a government, and with no viable administration another election is called.
We should perhaps note that we’re not so sure that when push came to shove Labour WOULD refuse in this situation. Jeremy Corbyn himself has repeatedly been ambiguous to say the least on the subject.
Scottish Labour would of course be incandescent with rage if they didn’t, but their opinion would be irrelevant – on current polling they stand to lose most of their small handful of Scottish MPs whoever wins the election, so Corbyn could afford to ignore them – and more crucially the blunt truth is that UK Labour has absolutely nothing to lose from Scottish independence.
Firstly, if it granted Scotland a second referendum and No won it again, it could take the credit for destroying the independence movement for decades. It would be all but impossible to come back from two defeats in five years, especially when one of them was held in the shadow of Brexit.
But even if Scotland voted Yes, Labour would still be winners.
On the seat projections in that ComRes poll, for example, were Scotland to be independent Labour would then have an outright majority in the rUK parliament (because the Commons would have 591 seats, not 650, so Labour’s 300 would take it over the line without needing any other party’s help). Scotland is currently just an electoral irritation to Labour, and that torment would finally be over.
(And being freed from its slavish devotion to the Union would also give the Scottish branch office its only realistic hope of becoming in any way relevant again. As things stand it’s trapped in a constitutional No Man’s Land with no hope of carving out an electable position. Abandoning the blind pathological obsession with being tied to UK Tory governments is the only thing that might ever win them back a chunk of the voters they’ve lost to the SNP.)
But for the purposes of this hypothetical scenario let’s say that McDonnell isn’t just trying to placate Scottish Labour with empty words, and that the UK party would indeed reject the SNP’s demands out of sheer petulance, forego regaining power at no meaningful cost to themselves, and trigger another election.
(Again, we can’t rule this option out. As we’ve pointed out many times on this site, opposition is a very cushy gig, and taking control of the UK at this particular moment in time is a bit like being handed the wheel of the Titanic three seconds before it hits the iceberg. We shouldn’t dismiss the notion that Labour simply don’t want to be in power and carrying the can for what’s about to happen.)
4. ?????
Labour’s strategy, if we’re to dignify it as such, is that an outraged Scottish public would then rise up and sweep Labour back to its birthright. But the unanswered question is WHY they would do such a thing.
It has to be assumed that the vast majority of SNP voters (though of course not all) vote for the party chiefly – especially at Westminster elections – because they want independence. They would have regarded Nicola Sturgeon’s demands for a second indyref as not only reasonable but in fact the bare minimum they were willing to accept from her.
Indeed, if she directed her MPs to back Labour without securing such a pledge, she’d face a revolution inside her own party (which is already quite agitated at the lack of progress towards its primary goal since 2015), and almost certainly from her own voters.
So it seems stupendously implausible to imagine that if she’d stood firm on the demand, SNP voters would desert her for a Labour Party which had behaved in a manifestly, irrationally, anti-democratic and anti-Scottish way. The reverse is more likely to be true. Try as we might, we can’t see an election in such circumstances delivering anything but increased support for the SNP.
So if that’s Labour’s plan, it’s a really really stupid plan. But if we’ve learned anything since 2007 it’s that a plan being stupid is no barrier to Labour doggedly pursuing it for year after year anyway.
The inescapable conclusion, then, is that they’re either lying about refusing to deal with the SNP, or they’re completely incompetent imbeciles who shouldn’t be put in charge of a cake shop, let alone a country.
And that, unfortunately, is the one question we still can’t answer.
OR they are lying about it so as not to rile the Daily Wail and cause the Tories to run posters of Corbyn in Nicola’s pocket or Nicola picking his pocket like the time before last.
We can’t ignore that possibility and neither can Labour so despite it being blindingly obvious they will deny it up until the millisecond they pick up the phone for a pre-arranged call to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
“The inescapable conclusion, then, is that they’re either lying about refusing to deal with the SNP, or they’re completely incompetent imbeciles who shouldn’t be put in charge of a cake shop, let alone a country”.
I would say there’s a bit of both going on there, IMO. 🙂
There really is no option but for a vote for Independence. An Independent is financially, socially, politically the better option for Scotland. All the uk options spells more job losses and a move to right wing politics.
Thanks to the Tories and the weak Brexit Corbyn (remember when he was the saviour of labour) Independence is the best option.
If the SNP have anything whatsoever to do with Labour, it will be a disaster, and they will shaft the SNP with gusto. Any party offering independence for Scotland should keep well away from coalitions, informal deals, etc. These London-based johnnies are invariably wedded to the perfidy of Perfidious Albion – and that goes for all three of the main Unionist parties in Scotland. If we leave independence until London decides (maybes aye, maybes naw), we will never get it, and the moment will have passed. Westminster and the UKG are weak right now, so why leave it till they are stronger again? In the name of the wee man, SNP, make our case to the UN and declare independence before we go down the route of the post-Brexit Tory/Labour/Lib Dem One Nation State. They are all one nation parties, for God’s Sake. I fear we have already left it too late. We might not get another election either for many a long day. The final words to say must be: keep well away and do not trust them – ever.
And which Labour Party would that be? Old or new?
Two things I noted.
Labours ad’ says “..the Labour Party in Scotland” not ‘Scottish Labour’ – So that’s that put to bed.
Also, the ‘Rev’ says supporting a minority Labour government is “…also by far her best chance (arguably her ONLY chance) of delivering a new indyref within the next 20+ years…”
Oh…really? Could that statement be elucidated ta, maybe in its own post. Plus I’m scratching my head at 20 years – I hear Rock cackling in the background for some reason.
They can’t publicly support a coalition or deal with the SNP in England because both Tories and Labour have demonised the SNP so much in England it would be toxic for their own vote
In Scotland Labour would say they support such a deal with the SNP hoping to win over SNP voters and or win back previous Labour voters from the SNP and if it goes sour they blame the SNP for well anything they can think up
In the past these tactics worked for Labour but they can’t work today because these tactics are now exposed as the lies they always were, but at that time Scotland didn’t know they were tactics because then, newspapers and TV, now, the internet prevails and the strategies of the deceivers and serial misleaders are exposed
So Yaay! the age of the internet educates and informs Scotlands voters and that’s why we have a SNP government and why no matter what the big London decides to try, Scotland sees it coming and gives it the big elbow
Anyway, I have the strongest suspicion Scotland might well not be taking part in a future election for the big London parties to joust themselves into power because I’m guessing there’s going to be another political event in Scotland right round the corner announced post Merry Christmas before all that London nonsense, so we’ll not have to worry about it because Scotland will have made an entirely other decision by then, and it won’t be to climb on Londons carousel of chaos to nowhere again
Jings! That’s quite a mornings work there in putting all these snippets together reminding us all of the forked tongue ‘Labour’ party promises. Much to ponder on.
Helping out the ‘Scottish labour’ at a GE to form a ‘Big Labour’ coalition government darn Sarf sounds like what the underlying message may be. Hoping some swithering Scots will fall for that old three-shell game which has been debunked on these pages before.
Naw! Too risky for me. Voters darn Sarf must make it happen on their own but the YouGov polls say they do not want to.
Excellent analysis. I will pass it on.
That’s a helluva job you’ve just done there, Stu. Well done and much appreciated.
There’s only one way I can see out of this. The SNP has to stand in every marginal seat in England on a policy of taking us out of the Union.
Having been continually fed that we are subsidy junkies and nothing but a burden there’s plenty voters in the south that would happy to see us go and just view us as a bit of an irritation whilst also seeming to be the only party any where near competent and not fighting itself.
Then they can have Westminster control “back” and everything will be super.
To hell with the BritNat parties and their slightly different versions of: Brits rule okay! and Scotland disnae matter.
To hell with what version of the UKIP’s and Tories’ Brexit plan England will decide on.
In 2016, Scotland elected an SNP govt that promised Scotland EU membership or indyref2. This was endorsed by the Scottish Parliament.
It’s up to the SNP to deliver on that promise, not playing Britnat politics about which version of Brexit will be forced on the sovereign people of Scotland after they decided to Remain in the EU.
The sovereign people of Scotland have decided: the politicians must listen and follow the democratic will of the sovereign people.
Scotland must be given the option of ending the UK Union if dragged out of the EU, against her will, by England (and Wales).
The more Independent Scotland gets. The more Labour wins south of the border. Win win. Everyone gets what they want. Except he Tories. 30 years in the wilderness awaits. Could the Tories make a bigger mess. Why do Westminster unionists cling on to Scotland. Stand on their own two feet.
Westminster policies are appalling.
It’s also by far her ( Nicola Strugeon’s ) best chance (arguably her ONLY chance) of delivering a new indyref within the next 20+ years.
Well kinda . No WM party either Tory or Labour will grant a section 30 order to the SNP because they got a real scare 45/55 was to close for Unionists comfort and they know that after Brexit that 45% will rise . The amount on NO to yes testimonies even if anacdotal are very encouraging.
I call it 2 for 1. For every gain for us is a double loss for them.
Brexit will dominate British politics for at least the next 10 years so more converts
So you smoked out some politics Grad apparatchik reviving 70’s policy and agendas o try and kill off the SNP with a fatal blow.
What Nicola would settle for initially would be making Holyrood permanent, Devolve everything apart from Military and Foreign Policy . And when the Scottish Electorate could see the positive divergence in social benefits they would be more persuaded for Independence.
Watch phantom power and Lesley Riddick’s Norway film 70 odd % of Norwegians wanted Independence.
It’s not about holding another independence referendum! It’s about winning it, and with a substantive enough number that the losing side could except the outcome.
Go with ‘they are completely imcompetent and couldn’t run a cake shop, never mind a country’. Aye
Theyre lieing. They would have done a deal with snp last election if they could but it wasnt an option but they didnt want english voters to know that labour would deal with kilted flag waving Nationalists. If Con voters knew Tories would go in with DUP, they wouldnt get so many votes, or maybe more, the english voter is a strange beast!
A Scottish referendum should allow the people to vote for the repeal the Treaty of The Union Of the Scottish and English Parliaments. NO PERMISSION NEEDED.
SNP will support the best interests of the Scottish people. If a Peoples referendum is called then the People of Scotland should be able to decide which union they wish to be part of. Either the UK or the EU. In the EU Scotland would be a full active member. In the UK Scotland would be… well we found out this week what our position in a toxic UK union is.
None of the southern main stream parties can be trusted as they would stab you in the back at the first opportunity.
Smiling assassins for want of better words.
If the scenario arose where a referendum was refused by a Labour government, I’m not sure many people (myself including) would be happy with the SNP if they simply came back to us saying “At least we tried”.
Asking Westminster’s permission is, I believe, simply a courtesy.
But if they do not relent, then we might need to stop asking and start demanding.
I think Westminster refusing a referendum under all circumstances is extremely likely, which is why I think we do need to start considering other options. e.g. UDI after winning a majority of MSPs or MPs.
Westminster can say that they are not allowing an election.
We just ignore their ramblings and give the sovereign people of Scotland their right to vote.
I think Stu nails it when he says Labour can be for and against something on the same day. I could not nail a thing I think Labour have a firm position on.
Only a few days then hopefully the EU will tell us Scotland can reverse A50 affecting the people of Scotland.
Do we want to make decisions affecting us, YES
If England wants to be independent it should be allowed a referendum and get out of the UK.
It seems to be the logic of Brexit that IS what the English (and Welsh ?) electorate wants. They should get on with it and stop buggering the rest of us about.
A great takedown of labour’s supposed policies Stu, at least what they vaguely appear to be today.
However in Scotland the jack is out of the box for labour’s Scottish branch. Who, if anything are either worse or as bad as labour HQ, take your pick.(because they are Scottish in the main, makes them worse for me!)
If there is an election I think that labour Scottish branch will suffer more along with the Tory demise.
A coalition of sorts remains possible labour/SNP at Westminster, but as you say, life is cushy for them harking from the sidelines and helps them avoid the facing of huge problems that are sure to be there.
Even when Scotland becomes Independent I cannot see either of these parties being a serious challenge to the SNP, who have demonstrated over a long period, that they can govern well.
Something distinctly Scottish would have to rise to be the opposition, and that would take some time.
Labour as usual are telling different parts of the UK different stories. They tell Scotland they will work with the SNP through their Scottish media circus they tell England and Wales they wont because they don’t want the English Welsh electorate thinking they support the Jockanese having any influence or bearing on what should be English authority over the UK from their perspective.
Labour have been playing this duplicitous game for decades sometimes successfully lately not so much. The internet kind of ruins it for them.
Just to make clear ref last post
“Even when Scotland becomes Independent I cannot see either of these parties being a serious challenge to the SNP, who have demonstrated over a long period, that they can govern well”
For avoiding of doubt, I mean of course if they were Scottish only versions.
Labour has never done anything for Scotland with the possible exception of Willie Ross when he was the Scottish Secretary.
I’d recommend people read the literal definition of “gaslighting”.
Both Labour and the Tories are highly accomplished “gaslighters” and in the BBC / ITV they have a pair of all too capable and enthusiastic accomplices.
When either party is telling you a thing which contradicts entirely the other thing they’ve told you before, it isn’t error or ineptitude, it is gaslighting designed to engage your attention but keep your opinions off balance and confused.
Is May a Remainer or a Leaver? Is Corbyn pro or anti Europe? Is Corbyn for IndyRef2 or against it? Is Labour for or against it? Did Fluffy say he’d resign or didn’t he? Labour backing the strike over equal pay which Labour Administration created… Do you see it yet? … Don’t get bogged down by it, recognise the process. It’s the gaslighting process in action. You don’t know what to think, logic is repeatedly turned on its head, and as Nicola Sturgeon should have realised months ago, your enemy is a constantly moving target and it’s hellish difficult to land a glove on them.
You have no idea how much I ache to see a spark of vitality that confirms to me the SNP are alert to this and playing out a greater strategy, but Plan A seems incoherent and reactive to others’ agenda, and all about remaining the perfect enigma. Frankly it is getting tiresome beyond endurance. As a consequence we are strung out cold turkey style between the Gaslighters who won’t shut up and the SNP which should step up and start winning this, but just delivers yet another flat tyre disappointment.
118 Days left to save ourselves from Brexit. Has anybody sent word to the Rohirrim? I think we maybe should…
They’re a mess from front to back right enough. No, the current crop really don’t inspire do they? ‘Course it kinda suits them to be in perpetual opposition. They get paid to snipe, rip off other folks successful policies and claim them for their own and don’t have to come up with anything original or even remotely helpful.
They were given their opportunities many, many, times over. Turns out, they’re not who they pretended to be. They’re still not.
The British nationalist Labour party will always put Westminster’s wants above Scotland’s needs.
Michty me, ” Now you’ve got a Scottish Labour party that’s operating effectively with a new leader that’s dynamic”. EH! When did that happen. I’m afraid that the “dynamic” new leader always reminds me of one of those youtube videos of a cockatoo bouncing about to music. I reckon that the cockatoo makes about as much sense as the ” dynamic” new leader.
Labour, in all it’s forms can bugger off as far as I’m concerned. I’m too long in the tooth now to be conned by these chanty wrasslers. Get over it SLAB, we the voters kicked you out of office in Scotland, basically because you were a useless selfserving bunch of incompetants. Nothing much has changed in the interim.
We in Scotland, are more than capable of making our own decisions and running our own country. Independence it has to be as far as I’m concerned. The alternative is too unbearable even to contemplate.
We should be wondering if the SNP should trust Labour. This would be the party that brought devolution,yes, but with hidden ‘gems’ like the Sewel convention,the method of election to the Scottish Parliament that gives us list MSPs for life,etc.
Good analysis. Difficult to know how things might play out.
No BritNats expected it to be so close in 2014, and all BritNats know they stand a very real chance of losing next time.
While none want to ‘lose’ Scotland, it may come down to priorities, especially if it becomes consensus opinion that Scotland has been ‘lost’.
The English centric parties may simply accept being England centric. Dreams of Great England will be set aside.
Would a coalition with the SNP be of any relevance for any party as long as we have EVEL?
@A2 says: 1 December, 2018 at 1:00 pm:
” … There’s only one way I can see out of this. The SNP has to stand in every marginal seat in England on a policy of taking us out of the Union.”
If the SNP as much as stand a single candidate in an English, Welsh or N.I. constituency they will kill The SCOTTISH National Party stone dead.
Labour had their chances in Scotland and blew it. As many as half million former voters have deserted them for the SNP and few are likely ever to return.
I most defiantely could never vote for them again and if it wasn’t for the SNP I don’t think I’d ever vote again in any election.
They should of course be doing a lot better in England in opposition to a hapless Tory government with a leader that couldn’t tie her own never mind Nicola Sturgeons shoelaces.
That’s Labour real problem right there, the fact that Theresa May is more popular than Jeremy Corbyn speaks volumes. Both are utterly useless but the public see Corbyn as being the most useless and that much is obvious.
The final thing is policies, under Corbyn they have none. Nobody really knows what Labour and for and they are all over the place on anything important such as Brexit or Universal Credit. They don’t know what they want to be and are trying to hard to appear to be all things to all voters.
Maybe they should disband the party and start from scratch? I can’t say I care much now to be honest and that’s why they have lost my vote and will never get it back.
@Colin Alexander says: 1 December, 2018 at 1:05 pm:
” … It’s up to the SNP to deliver on that promise, not playing Britnat politics about which version of Brexit will be forced on the sovereign people of Scotland after they decided to Remain in the EU.”
Oh! Stop havering Colin. The name of the party is the Scottish NATIONAL party – not the Scottish NATIONALIST Party.
Nicola has stated categorically that she has to represent the best interests of all the people of Scotland no matter their original nationality. colour, ethnicity, religious faith or politics.
As first Minister her remit is to look after all of the people of Scotland not just the ones who vote SNP.
The sovereign people of Scotland have decided: the politicians must listen and follow the democratic will of the sovereign people.
Scotland must be given the option of ending the UK Union if dragged out of the EU, against her will, by England (and Wales).
A2@1.00pm
” a policy of taking us out of the Union”
As the UK union consists of only two parties, unlike the EU, it is not the case Scotland is being taken out of the Union. The Union is finished, terminated, dissolved, ceases to exist – take your pick.
This is not being pedantic. It is important not to follow Britnat propaganda that the Union is 4 countries.
If this is an example of Labour’s much vaunted negotiating prowess I don’t hold out much hope for their efforts with the EU who will scratch their heads and think the faces have changed the process remains the same.
I am almost 68 years of age and my memory is for shit but I can honestly say , I will never vote liebour again or even support ANY of their policies , as they are ALL LIES and they have proven so time immemorial ,
IMHO I have nothing but contempt for ANYONE who votes liebour in Scotland when they have the REAL BENEFICIALLY ACTED policies of the SNP , their corruption ,denigration , lies and duplicitousness towards the people of Scotland is LEGENDARY
The SNP are the ONLY party who truly represent the ordinary Scot the rest are brutish nationalist bench warmers whose SOLE aim in life is to protect themselves and their precioussss onion
If Nicola were to support liebour , to me it should only be on a supply and demand basis and every time it would come very expensively
I still believe if another GE is called Nicola should go forward with a mandate , if enough votes are gained and enough MP’S elected she would enter discussions to #dissolve the onion , with a referendum later to enforce the vote
That way the electorate would KNOW what they are voting for and the brit nats would know that Nicola won’t be mitigating the onionist austerity programmes
Dr Jim @ 12:31:
Exactly so. That’s what helped undo the hapless Miliband in England. An English fear of the “outlandish” SNP having a significant influence on their situation, however much Labour might try to deny the possibility. (Though they don’t seem too perturbed when the situation is the other way round, as is normally is. So much for being all equals and friends together. One might wonder in passing if Nicola’s strategy over Brexit is in part intended to de-fang such irrational southern fears.)
As for NorthBritLab, they are actually far more antagonistic to any “understanding” with the SNP because of their deep existential angst. There is no upside for them. London Labour have no such fear, since they have no equivalent challenger to the SNP in Scotland.
As far as IR2 is concerned, we have to recognise that the greater the likelihood of a win for indy, the less any hardline Unionist party is likely to concede any S.30. So sometime soon will be the time to act, and if a S.30 is not forthcoming, there had better be a Plan B, eg. involving our own “consultative” referendum, lacking an immediate UKGE. Waiting for some kind of conventional election to come along in due course will be to allow this unique opportunity to slip away.
It’s the usual arrogance of Westminster, even if there were 59 SNP MP’s they would just need to toe the line with Labour and vote with them. It is just colonialism in its purest, you can elect who you want but you will be governed by us.
Imagine for a second, if the Labour party were Ronaldo and the SNP were Messi but playing in the same team.
0-0 with one minute to go to win the World cup, Messi dribbles past the entire opposition and lays it to the feet of Ronaldo who is standing in front of an open goal.
Would Ronaldo stick it in the net, or simply boot it into the stand in the huff. I think the latter.
Labour= do F all, stand for F all .
ZERO principles.( apart from feathering their own nest)
@John Walsh says: 1 December, 2018 at 1:20 pm:
” … No WM party either Tory or Labour will grant a section 30 order to the SNP because they got a real scare”
Sigh! When the hell will the electorate in Scotland stop listening to Britnat/English nationalist lies?
No one needs a Section 30 Order to hold a referendum.
A Section 30 Order is not permission to hold a referendum – No permission to do so is require. A section 30 order to hold a referendum is simply an agreement that the two parties signing the Section 30 agree to stand by the results.
Referendums are normally only advisory but the recent EU referendum had no section 20 order but Westminster is now enforcing the result as, “The Will of The People”, even although every opinion poll now shows the people have changed their minds.
In other words the EU referendum is being treated by Westminster as if it were NOT just advisory. They thus have set a legal precedent. They may yet live to regret it.
Marie Clark ,3.23pm. Hoi Marie you have just upset my cockatoo she is livid that you have compared her to the dick ,I have explained that you didn’t really mean cockatoo but you meant a dumb donkey ( sorry donkeys )
In reply to Breeks’ request that ” people read the literal definition of “gaslighting”.
here you go again, with the real explanation for the “Scottish Cringe”!
Pass the link along to educate your Yes-doubting friends, acquaintances and workmates!
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Labour are already in a coalition with the Tories and always have been, two *opposing* parties with the same objective that no matter what differences they have on policy, no matter what differences they have on implementation of policy, no matter if the sun comes up in the west, the one thing they both will never waver from, Scotland must be controlled by Westminster, and it overides any and all considerations of all other matters
When you realise that you know just how much Scotland is worth and how much they panic when Scotland raises its head and tells them we know how much we’re worth
Otherwise they wouldn’t keep telling us we’re worthless, and so worthless are we that English political parties who say they oppose each other so fiercely join together as one to keep hold of such a worthless place
The cat’s out of the bag Scotland’s a 200 billion pound economy and they let it slip on the BBC of all places, Cameron let it slip on the Marr programme when he admitted the truth about the oil and Norway
Even Scotland’s grotty Yoons know the truth but their hatred of that truth has made them Ultras
If anybody’s waiting for the polling for YES to go up you’ll wait forever, but watch the polling for NO go down and down, this time round those moderate NO voters while they might not vote FOR Independence will not oppose Independence
YES will win this time by the low to mid fifties, NO will be far behind in the high thirties, or I’ll eat my own face
Thepnr @ 16:11,
twathater @ 16:26,
We of long memories and bitter experience have been through all that, and we have lost all hope of seeing any kind of improvement in Labour’s attitude, which in Scotland seems to be nothing more than a pig-headed death wish.
If anything, it now seems to have reverted to a union-driven retro lurch back to the 1970s.
However, we must not overlook the danger of a new generation of innocents being seduced by the attractive superficiality of the Labour offer. Young folk look at all the woes of the world, the extreme disparities of wealth and power, the same things which motivated us, and look for a party that seems to promise to do something about it.
Maybe the truly revolutionary act of establishing our own polity under our own direction may seem a little too limited for them. (Even though the shock wave of Scottish departure would likely trigger a much-needed root-and-branch reform of English politics as a consequence.)
We have though somehow to get over to the young that they mustn’t fall into the trap and have to endure their own lifetime of bitter disappointment in a Labour Party that is as self-serving and ingrained in the English Establishment as are the Tories.
@Dr Jim
Don’t know about eatin’ ma face, but yes. I’d say that’s about right.
They’re both pretty much out there with their views these days and they can barely hide the contempt they both hold for Scotland’s electorate. They act this way because we’re here and because we know what they’ve done and choose to place our votes elsewhere. Worse. They act as they do because they need us and that’s got to burn.
It’s probably a statement of the bleeding obvious, but Labour trailing the GTories in the polls is likely because people aren’t convinced they actually want to form the next Government. It certainly did Labour no good when shiny suit Miliband said he wouldn’t form a government with the help of the SNP.
People won’t vote for a wishy-washy leader who shows no clear intent of becoming PM, and shows no clear policy on, well, practically anything. Like her or not, at least May is determined to be and stay PM. Unless Corbyn can show a clear determined opposition, he’s got no chance. And McDonnell is an uncharismatic clown.
On a totally different subject – Stone of Destiny (about the stealing of the aforementioned stone) is on Now TV.
Meanwhile a failed chancellor and PM has criticised the SNP. Obviously this is headline news on the BBC website. Why would anyone listen to someone that was running the treasury and bailed out just before the biggest financial crash in most peoples living memory.
Never won an election as a leader, thinks that sounding sincere and serious wipes out his record. Flash Gordon destroyer of the economy.
So what do we say to PFI Brown, away back to sleep you total failure of a chancellor and leader is the best I can think of (that’s polite).
BBC Scotland are certainly besides themselves with excitement in giving Brown big space on their website.
Naturally HYS comments are not permitted.
.
REV STU, PLEASE CAN YOU APPLY FOR THAT LABOUR JOB AS SCOTTISH POLICY ADVISOR? YOU COULD DO A HELLUVA A LOT BETTER THAT THE HOTHERSALL SCHOOL OF SLAB EEJITS AND MAYBE KNOCK SOME SENSE INTO DENSE DINOSAUR HEEDS!
JC4PM? AYE RIGHT
SORRY, NOT SHOUTING … CAPS LOCK STUCK ON KEYBOARD!
twathater @ 4.37. Oh apologies, I widnae upset your cockatoo for the world. But please dinnae upset oor three donkeys either.
Could we mibbies jist settle for eh, bouncing aboot like a bouncy eejit talking rubbish. Hows that.
@Marie Clark, twathater
He looks like a wee boy that’s bursting for a pee!
What will the Media in the UK do when the EU gives their verdict and our media cant twist it.
Does Scotland want the truth. YES
If the Demented Ulster Puritans can squeeze cash for Norn Iron out of a minority Tory Govt. through a Confidence & Supply arrangement, why shouldn’t the SNP do the same to a minority Labour Govt?
Although, if Labour said as an alternative to hard £ they’d provide another Section 30 Order/Edinburgh Agreement II, and then did the dirty by chucking another 40% Minimum Turnout amendment into the mix, as in 1979, then you can easily see another few decades of “SNP let the Tories in” nonsense from Labour quarters when the SNP rightly pulled the plug.
“Wait Gandalf! What if it’s a trap?”
“…it’s undoubtedly a trap”
Robert Peffers question regarding referendums . England Parliament is sovereign not the people so all Referendi in England is non advisory, whether the Parliament (Government of the day) choose to accept the result of the referendum is up to them, i dont think there will be legal precedent because they choose to accept the result. however I presume in Scotland that since the people are Sovereign then all referendum results are binding. Would appreciate your thoughts on this?
Remember the licence fee does not directly finance the BBC. If it did and you didn’t watch it, this would amount to extortion since you were being forced to finance an organisation you do not consume with the threats of prosecution if you don’t pay them, the mafia would love such an arrangement backed by the government.
The BBC needs restructured, I watch some of their stuff but I would rather not receive there news and current affairs, since it’s basically just government propaganda. I suspect there is no chance of this happening as Westminster likes the current arrangements, but they can’t force me to watch the news output, but I sometimes do for a bit of amusement.
Bloated britnat Brown is a liar and a loser. No wonder the britnat bbc loves him. Their incestuous relationship is truly disgusting.
Re totally failed and discredited Labour planks and scoundrels, please be aware that Douglas Alexander (yes, the one who was too good to debate with Mhairi Black in 2015) has a new series on Pravdasound 4 called “Belonging” coming up next week, in which he explore identity and belonging in contemporary “Britain”.
Please could some kind soul with a high bullshit threshold listen to the episodes and give a brief summary for me ‘cos I’ve run out of Styrofoam bricks and can’t afford a new kitchen radio?
I thought he’s buggered off to the USA after that election for a cosy job but seems he’s back here now for another nice little earner. Soon he’ll probs be co-presenting a new TV series with Neil Oliver entitled “Why North Britain is Crapola”.
The Establishment always looks after its own, eh, Poindexters?
@Lenny Hartley
It’s an interesting point, as even Westminster has agreed that the people of Scotland are sovereign and those people have by a substantial margin voted to remain in the EU, if we are then removed from the EU this sovereignty looks meaningless.
@Richard Hunter says: 1 December, 2018 at 2:03 pm:
” … First of all the United Kingdom is not a country – it is legally exactly what it says it is on the tin.
It is a United KINGDOM a.k.a. a monarchy and According to the Treaty of Union that formed it there are only two Kingdoms involved in, “The Union”.
The former Princedom of Wakes was annexed under the previous, “Rule of Law”, (The Divine Right of Kings), of the Kingdom of England in 1284 and the previous Kingdom of Ireland also was annexed previously by the Kingdom of England by, “The Crown of Ireland Act of 1542.
Thus the Kingdom of England that signed the Treaty of Union with the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 is a three country Kingdom. The United Kingdom only legally has two, equally sovereign, kingdom partners.
However, as both the constituent kingdoms have different rules of law, that of Scotland changed in 1320 to the people, not the monarchy, being sovereign. That of the 3 country Kingdom of England changed to become, A Constitutional Monarchy”, in 1688.
Thus in the English Kingdom the Monarch of the Kingdom of England remains legally sovereign but must, since 1688, delegate their royal sovereignty to, “The Parliament of the Kingdom of England”, but there has not been a parliament of the Kingdom or the country of England since 30 April 1707.
So the actual legal set-up is rather different to what Westminster would have us believe.
In the first place Westminster is NOT a union of four unequal countries with the country of England devolving English powers to three subservient dominion countries – it is a union of only two equally sovereign kingdoms.
There is no elected country or kingdom of England parliament for Westminster has been the Parliament ogf The United Kingdom since 1 May 1707.
Furthermore, in the English Kingdom the legal sovereign remains the Queen/King of England but who must legally delegate that sovereignty to the parliament of the Kingdom od England that no longer exists.
In Scotland the People of Scotland are legally sovereign and not either the Queen/king of Scots nor a parliament which that monarch of Scots has delegated powers for the monarch of Scots has no such powers.
That means there is no legal way for a parliament elected by the People of Scotland to declare a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, (UDI), simply because a Scottish Parliament is not legally sovereign and it requires a referendum of the people of Scotland to declare the Scottish Kingdom independent.
The people of Scotland do not delegate their sovereignty to their parliament they elect members to represent them and those members need our say so to declare Scottish independence.
If you are already legally sovereign you cannot unilaterally declare independence because you are already legally independent.
All a Scottish parliament needs is for a majority of the people to say they no longer want to be in a political union with the, (non-existent), parliament of England.
I think Westminster refusing a referendum under all circumstances is extremely likely, which is why I think we do need to start considering other options. e.g. UDI after winning a majority of MSPs or MPs.
Re Brown. A whole page in the Daily retching. The whole paper is pro union – despite some on here suggesting it was moveing towards Independence.
1 line mentioning SNP the rest even guest DJ’s columns spend the usual Tory v labour. It’s like being back in the 60’s or 70’s.
Thankfully I didn’t buy it just had a read on the train.
Clegg and co are the pits
@Tinto Chiel
Douglas Alexander? Name I’ve not heard in a while.
‘Course Mr Alexander (deep thinker that he is) knows all about belonging and identity. Lord knows he and his peers spent long enough identifying demographics to divide, alienate and exploit for their agenda du jour.
I’d trust whatever he’d have to say on any subject about as far as I could chuck a lorry.
And I’ve got a bad back. 🙄
Agree with Bill Purves – how about NS organizing a Ref vote for Scottish Residents, then show the results to the EU and the World, then we can talk about Indy2 😉
It seems that most journalists are just astroturfers now, they tweet their nonsense in the hope that the gullible will click on the story to increase their ad revenue. This is because those willing to actually purchase their nonsense is decreasing at a substantial rate.
Doesn’t work most of the time with me as I rarely want to read their dribblings and even if I do my ad blocker is quite ferocious.
@Macart
Douglas Alexander is a sad case of could have been.
I would be very reluctant to get into bed with Labour due to their inclination to lie and generally be corrupt.
In Scotland we need some honesty from Labour.
If there is part of Labour who are not anti-Scottish they should join the SNP.
The remainder should go to their true home in the Tory party, things would then be much more clearer.
What’s that smell? It’s Scottish Labour of course.
Thank you, Robert Peffers@5.49pm
I lost all your previous notes about the make up of the UK. They just disappeared one day!
I hate it when they say 4 countries in the UK ruled over by England. In their dreams.
Rev you made it to a Google News highlight article with “Articles without faith”
That that first time I have Wings on the news widget as a source instead of a target!
The quality of the btl comments as well as the post itself, reassure me that Scotland is heading in the right direction. That is until the late night headbangers come online.
@ Robert Peffers
Independence IS in the best interests of all the people of Scotland – well, all people except a small group of rich people, some of whom are parasite MSPs who think they will have well paid jobs for life through UK Union devolution.
The current SNP policy is now acceptance of some form of so-called “soft” exit from the EU.
Leaving the EU was Tory / UKIP policy. Not the policy of the SNP.
EU-Ref was UKIP / Tory policy. Now the SNP support a second EU-Ref. The SNP have effectively adopted UKIP policy.
Indyref, which IS / WAS ?? SNP policy is put off and put off, while the SNP focus on UKIP BritNat politics.
Those are the facts, no havering.
Erm I’m going for the completely incompetent imbeciles, especially when it comes to Labour.
ben madigan @ 4.37pm
Ben your explanation regarding gaslighting is excellent and should be on the front page of the National and on any leaflets given out by the SNP.
This clearly explains the tactics used by the Regime against Scotland.
Indyref2@6.17
“Douglas Alexander is a sad case of could have been”
Naw, Douglas Alexander is a sad case of being a “Douglas Alexander”
Nothing Else.
Another nobody who sold out his brothers/sisters. I would say country man but who knows who/what he stands for.(found out before the ermine underpants)!!
A pathetic excuse for a human being/waste of skin.
As for North Queensferrys finest arsehole crash Broon, words fail me.
Careful Gary, Broon …. Arsehole…. Wee Duggie….
@Macart &yesindyref2: can either of you hardened cyber-warriors put me straight? Did Douglas stab sister Wendy in the back or was it vice versa?
BLiS______d always has the whiff of the Last Days of Rome or At Home with The Borgias about it. No dry Martini for me, thanks. And these anchovy blinis taste a bit funny.
I’m sure the FM knows a deal with Jezza and his invisible-ink-fountain-pen-for-deals is impossible but she has to be seen to be bending over backwards to save England from itself. We don’t really want a completely chaotic and dysfunctional state on our doorstep, do we?
What we regard as stupidity or irrationality is actually just English nationalism, as deeply engrained in Labour as it is in the Tory party. It easily trumps any fanciful notion we have of socialism, democracy or even political sense.
@TC
That’s a tricky one. With the SNP getting in with a minority government in 2007, they still aimed to get an Indy Ref during that term, and started the National Conversations (including an online forum I posted on). They’d have needed some votes from the opposition. But then in 2007 the subprime crisis started and got worse and worse. Salmond apparently (rightly) didn’t think the time was right. With the banks crisis, the last thing most people would have been thinking of was Indy.
So along comes Wendy Alexander in 2008 saying “Bring it on”, rightly from her point of view, it wouldn’t have been a YES vote, but she got shot down in flames and resigned for “family reasons”. Yeah, supposedly Douglas put the knife in but who knows, it was the media reporting this after all.
I’d say he likely had a different view on “bring it on”.
Hi Tinto Cheil.
I understand Wendy was stabbed, as she now works in academia… in that Dundee…
link to dundee.ac.uk
You just know that the Scottish Unionists are in panic mod, when they drag out that “Clunking Brain”, isn’t he just the very pits. (North British indeed!! ).
Thanks to Jason Smoothpiece who said:
“Ben your explanation regarding gaslighting is excellent . . .”
As i said -I hope you will all share it around.
As far as regards “national” and “SNP” coverage – that’s in the hands of the Gods.
It’s there , it’s for Scotland, it’s for the Independence movement. Use it to the best, as you will.- just put my name on it wherever you cite it!
A lot of media types seem awfully sure that us Scots will still be around to play in their next Election farce.
I would love to see a WM GE campaign from the sidelines, from the point of view of an indy Scotland, when tory/labour/libdem candidates try convince voters their taxes are not about to go through the roof to make up the shortfall from Scots revenue streams, which we will be busy spending to make Scotland a transformed place to live and be happy.
Can you imagine QT on a Thursday one year on from indy ?
Audience to panel: “Since Scotland went independent, how come they have managed to spend multiple billions of smackeroonies on infrastructure projects and public services, yet we in England are suffering huge tax hikes and have sold off everything not nailed down” ?
Ooft !
@BDTT
I actually liked her (stands by for abuse). She was the “wee nippy” of course in those days. And Douglas had a good article in the Scotsman post-Indy about Smith, about the devolution of income tax only being bad, because it needs a basket of taxation to play with. They’re not all bad 🙂
OT
I’ve been noticing a sustained and often personal attack on some old-timers in “another place”, and to be fair, there is the same on a couple of old-timers from our side. It’s a shame really, open debate serves our side better I think as we still need to open minds.
Comes back to Dr Jim’s posting, where he says the key thing is seeing the NO vote in polls go down – it’s something I’ve been watching for as well. If the don’t knows – the undecided – the open minds – vote YES in the event, then it’s in the bag.
The Unionist agitators doing the personal attacks know what they’re doing, trying to shut down debate, provoke over the top reactions, and stop that movement from NO to don’t know. It would be good for us NOT to be too aggressive.
I sometimes type up a posting, and then delete it. There is no need to reply, it’s not like being in a pub with an awkaward silence. Sometimes the best weapon is – silence.
i wonder why, “the ordinary people” cannot make comments btl at this link?
“Faird”, as we would say in Dundee.
link to bbc.co.uk
The Alexanders old man was a Minister of the cloth (remind you of anyone) and was best friend of Donald Dewar (helps if you want your children to be researchers). All attended the same Church as Annabel Goldie ex tory Sottish leader and is now a Dame in the House of Lords. Me? I’ve nae connections. Any jobs goin in a University Board room? how about the NHS? Some think tank? National Trust for Scotland? taken?
We are a free and sovrign nation and the abuse of the act of union between the sovereign nation of England and Scotland constitutes a breech of the act of union and renders the treaty null and void.
We need to get this fact to the people of Scotland and the union will be history.
@Tinto Chiel
Pretty much what yesindyref2 said. That’s how I understood it went down.
He’s a peach that fella. 🙄
Hi Hamish100.
Typin’ about connections…
This is a classic of its genre.
link to lenathehyena.wordpress.com
@yesindyref2 and BDTT: thanks for that. I can’t keep up with their perfidy.
@Iain: there have been multiple infringements of the Treaty of Union since 1706/7 by England. I only discovered recently (slow learner) that some cases in our Court of Session (civil cases, in other words) were being referred to the House of Lords even during the 18th century. I’ve lost the Wings reference and link now unfortunately but it may have come from Legerwood.
I’m sure the SG could provide a fat file of such things for the ECJ but unless a majority of Scots show clearly they wish to be independent, it’s all rather academic, I’m afraid.
Brian,
Cheers. Now I know where I went wrong. Its the wifes fault for not knowing anyone in the labour party, bbc or the GMB!!!
Yesindyref2@6.17pm
Spot on. He could have been a Scotsman rather than a Britnat.
“2. The SNP demand a second independence referendum – or the transfer of that decision-making power to Holyrood – as the price of their support.
This, one would have to assume, would be a non-negotiable red line for Nicola Sturgeon. And it’s a perfectly reasonable and moderate demand – she has both an electoral mandate and a Scottish Parliament mandate for it, and it’s her job.
It’s also by far her best chance (arguably her ONLY chance) of delivering a new indyref within the next 20+ years, so it would be criminally irresponsible of her not to use the leverage while it existed.”
What?
Nicola needs Westminster’s permission to hold an independence referendum?
yesindyref2 says:
18 November, 2018 at 9:47 pm
““illegal independence referendum”
There’s actually NO SUCH THING in Scotland, or the UK. Anyone can organise one.”
Robert Louis says:
18 November, 2018 at 10:30 pm
“Yesindyref2 at 947
EXACTLY, There is no such thing as an illegal referendum in Scotland. To suggest there is, is just stupid.
As you rightly point out, anybody including the Scottish government can hold one.”
Robert Peffers at 549pm,
I understand the points you make regarding the make up of the UK. However, you assert that the parliament cannot declare UDI, unless it has a referendum first. But, then I need to ask, if it needs a referendum to make that decision, why doesn’t it need a referendum to make ANY decisions? What is the difference?
You see, in the course of a government, situations arise for which the public have not declared a view via the ballot box, so according to your logic, any such decision would need a referendum first. And of course that is wholly unworkable.
So, the point I am making is, if the people of Scotland do not delegate their sovereignty to those elected to the parliament/government how can any decisions be made?
The other slightly related question I would have is this, as you explain, Scotland is part of a union via the treaty between the two kingdoms. However, surely ending that union is NOT a declaration of UDI. You see, UDI, is where a territory of an integral country, decides to split away, but it is simply not the same in Scotland. Scotland is effectively in a partnership with England vie the treaty of union, and a treaty can be ended by either party at any time. Therefore, ending (or even, suspending the treaty) is not UDI, It would of course mean scotland would be free t run its own affairs, since it has effectively withdrawn from the treaty.
Imagine if France and Germany had arranged to work closely via a treaty, which enabled a NEW joint German/French parliament. Would we then say that if Germany withdrew from the treaty agreement, that it had declared UDI?? I don’t think so. So why do we burden ourselves with these things, when the situation in Scotland is exactly the same.
@Macart: thanks for that.
Worried about your back. Left some therapy for you on O/T.
Need you for the long haul 😛
And the news where we are…
link to bbc.co.uk
Rock (27th August 2017 – “Underneath the Goodyear blimp”):
“Scotland was on the verge of independence immediately after the Brexit vote.
The unionist parties were without leaders and completely lost, the SNP had 56 out of 59 MPs and 50% of the vote, the EU’s eyes were (favourably) on Scotland.
But Nicola squandered a once in a 1000 years golden opportunity by wasting more than a year flogging a dead horse – a separate deal for Scotland which was never going to happen.
The result: Nicola outsmarted by the collusion between Saints Theresa and Ruth on one hand, and Corbyn on the other, fall in SNP support from 50% to 37%.
It is my prediction that there will be a “snap” Brexit and the SNP will be caught napping and unable to hold a second independence referendum.
Or another “snap” Westminster election with the SNP again losing support.
Despite the pretendy “sovereignty” and boasting of the clueless pompous armchair pundits posting here, Scotland is again as far away from independence as ever.
If they succeed in neutralising the Rev. Stuart Campbell and WOS, independence will be “stone dead” for at least 620 years.”
Tinto Chiel at 825
You are correct, very soon after the signing of the union treaty, the London House of Lords took it upon themselves to subvert Scots Law, and act as a superior court on civil cases over the highest court in Scotland (the court of session).
Sadly many such thing have been done throughout history, but Scotland has been quite literally been betrayed by our own folk once elected to Westminster. Nobody actually stood up for Scotland.
I genuinely believe the Scottish government should draw up a formal list of grievances and abuses perpetrated by London against Scotland, including where the actual articles of union have been ignored or completely dispensed with.
Most Scots know nothing of any of this. If they did know what London has done to Scotland they would be demanding independence tomorrow. We have self serving MP’s of the past and present, and the England controlled and run ‘media’ to thank for ensuring Scots do not know these things.
Tinto Chiel says:
1 December, 2018 at 7:16 pm
‘… I’m sure … she [the FM] has to be seen to be bending over backwards to save England from itself. We don’t really want a completely chaotic and dysfunctional state on our doorstep, do we?’
I am not disagreeing with you, Tinto Chiel, but your language made me think. So what follows should be seen as a development of what you said here, not a critique or an opposition to it.
Of course we ‘don’t want’ a ‘completely chaotic and dysfunctional state on our doorstep’… But it doesn’t matter what we want: the fact is we’ve got one. Right on our southern doorstep. Just how grossly dysfunctional and chaotic this neighbour of ours actually is has become increasingly apparent, and plain to behold year on year, over the past 5 or 6 or 7 years.
So the question is: What are we going to do about it?
The first answer must be: face up to the fact. Don’t treat our neighbour as if she is a well organised fully functional state – both reasonable and rational – when she clearly isn’t.
The second answer, similar, is: Identify that neighbouring state for what she really is, and act accordingly. (If you treat her like a benign little pussy-cat when in fact she is a hungry, voracious, rampaging out-of-control tiger, she’ll have you for breakfast every day of life … and always come back for more.)
The third answer is: Develop a truly effective strategy for defending yourself against all the dangers which that chaotic and dysfunctional neighbour poses to your security, sanity, mental and emotional health and general well-being. (Make sure you keep her under strict control – and don’t let the mad bitch bite you, or else you’ll become as rabbid and barking as she is.)
The fourth answer might be: Don’t kowtow to her. You’re the sane one, so don’t let her set your agenda, determine your course or divert you from your purpose.
And so on …
If many other things could and should be included in such a strategy, there is one thing that can’t. The one thing you can’t do in the face of such a chaotic and dysfunctional threat is ‘bend over backwards’ to it. Wrong position …
Eventually, you are going to have to face it, full on. Which means confrontation – eyeball to eyeball, or forehead to forehead … (the ‘front’ in the word ‘con-front- ation’ is, I suppose, the French word ‘front’ for ‘forehead’).
That doesn’t mean you have to do direct confrontation all the time – picking your moment(s) is indeed important. As Robert Bruce said, ‘avoid pitched battles’, at least until the time is ripe. Bruce still knew that pitched battle there would be, and he got himself and his men ready for it. there were skirmishes and sideswipes a-plenty before the moment came. And even after it had come these still continued … Bannockburn was very far from being the end of the matter …
The skirmishes are important: they train you for the moment. And are needed afterwards as well, so that the moment eventually becomes a s decisive as it should be. But the training has to be right: ‘bending over backwards’ is no part of it. Such bending is the wrong exercise for getting into the shape required when it becomes frontal confrontational.
Having said that, I don’t think Nicola Sturgeon is bending over for anyone. I am sometimes critical of her strategy, and impatient regarding it. There are aspects of it that I seriously doubt and thoroughly disagree with, even on principle. But I still think she intends to get us there, and I am still confident that she will.
If not her, who?
Nobody has to agree with everything she says or does, and not every Yesser will. But we do have to keep our eye on the bigger picture, and remain focused on the goal. That will require us to exercise a good dose of patience, and plenty of plain common sense.
She happens to be the person in place, but it’s not about Nicola Sturgeon, or even about liking her or disliking her. It’s about Scotland. I am sure she knows that very well herself, better than we do even. And I am confident she is under no illusions about what it will take. Nor should we be.
Do you think everyone who rallied round Robert Bruce from 1306 onwards agreed with him all the time on every issue, or every point of strategy? For sure, they didn’t (read the history). But he was the man in place at the time and, with their help. he-and-they did it.
And in our time, in these days of ours, right now, Nicola Sturgeon happens to be the person in place. And she’ll do it, but with-us, and not-without-us. And we’ll do it, but not-without-her.
Be confident! Now, in our days, most certainly IS the time!
To Rock…..
You are a bit of a blether, just making things up doesn’t make them true or credible.
@ cactus
Enjoyed today on the bridge. Many flegs, Catalan, Wings, Bikers, Welsh, Unicorn, YES, and Saltires. Even St. Piran had an airing.
Wine is good too. 3rd. glass. Fleyin’ like a fleg!
Stay safe pilgrim and keep on trucking on. We are winning!
Like a Roadrunner, beep beep!
Robert Peffers says:
1 December, 2018 at 4:36 pm
“No one needs a Section 30 Order to hold a referendum.
A Section 30 Order is not permission to hold a referendum – No permission to do so is require. A section 30 order to hold a referendum is simply an agreement that the two parties signing the Section 30 agree to stand by the results.”
It goes without saying that Westminster is not going to grant a Section 30 order any time soon.
Do you have the guts to go on the record and state that Nicola will hold an independence referendum without a Section 30 order?
I can say with 100% confidence that she will not.
And no one in their right mind in Scotland would want a referendum which the unionists would definitely boycott and Westminster would not “stand by the results”.
Don’t invoke the EU – everyone knows what they did (not) when Catalonia held an illegal referendum.
Robert Louis@8.28pm
I was about to post similar comments but you got there first. I will just say I agree with your comments and just add that other examples of valid UDI are if it was a colony or a protectorate declaring UDI.
Terminating the Treaty can be by the signatories England or Scotland. That is not UDI. Thinking it is UDI is letting in Britnat propaganda into your head.
If England terminated the Treaty would the English think they are declaring UDI from Scotland.
Rockshit
Rockshit you post such a lot of crap your place of abode in England must stink.
I can say with the proverbial 100% confidence that we shall have our Independence.
Not an S30 concession, it’s a right!
wull2 says: 2:34 pm
Only a few days then hopefully the EU will tell us Scotland can reverse A50 affecting the people of Scotland.
I agree that this is crucial and if the much delayed (from Mid-Oct) Supreme Court ruling finds in favour of Holyrood’s Consent Motion, then this motion aligned with the House of Common’s recent reaffirmation regarding the on-going Sovereignty of our Scottish people means:-
Nicola can stand up in Holyrood and state “Scotland will remain in the EU as this is the wish of the Scottish People” and it will be so.
You know, I don’t think I can forgive them. Either of them. Not the Conservatives or Labour.
Brexit UK? Austerity ideology? A broken society? Broken politics? An economy on the precipice? When you cut through all the bullshit. All the media spin. All the narratives. This UK is ALL their doing. Their greed. Their practice of politics. Their system.
We are where we are because of what they do and what they have done. No semantics. No ideology. No extenuating circumstances. No ifs. No Buts.
They’ve both put their own electorates in harms way for the sake of personal agenda and political advancement. They’ve both legislated harmfully against those in their care. They’ve both caused untold harm and suffering. They’ve both abused their power, lied, smeared, destroyed lives.
It’s not good enough to say ‘ach, thur awe the same’ and ‘whit can we dae aboot it’. We let these bastards get away with it for decades. We ALWAYS had the means to shut them down. We chose not to because… reasons. And it was ok so long as it was some other guy on the end of their legislative shit list.
Well people. This time their epic bourach is going to visit every livingroom the length and breadth of these islands. EVERY LIVINGROOM.
No one gets a pass on this misery.
Only the voter gets to decide what happens next and at the very next window of opportunity. Do you let the bastirts slide (yet again), or decide on a change of management?
It’s an interesting point wull2 makes . If the ECJ rules that the UK can revoke its A50 invocation unilaterally, could that right extend to Scotland? The answer is surely yes, if the Government of Scotland is empowered to do so. Such as by a YES vote in an Independence Referendum. There may also be other ways, maybe even through the Court of Sessions. Hence, no need for an A49 or even an A48.
Douglas Alexander = Holy Willie.
The obnoxious half of the Alexander family.
If Wendy Alexander was SLAB leader, the SNP would have needed to up their game, and maybe would not be too feart to fight for independence.
Not a criticism of Nicola, but definately a criticism of the party appraratchniks who are comfortable in a management job in a devolved parliament in a British colony.
P.S. the likes of Douglas Alexander, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are the reason I am no longer a christian.
The total hypocrisy of Tories supporting food banks. They caused the need for them. They have no shame. Just disgusting. How they are not embarrassed.
UDI without mandate, is not democractic. People have to vote for it.
It would be difficult having an IndyRef at the same time as a GE, for obvious reasons. Funding, campaign time, mixed messages etc. You can be sure as soon as the SNP called an IndyRef that Westminster would call a GE. Just let the Tories make a bigger mess, of which, they can’t get out. Then there will be a GE. Look at how the land lies. If there is more support for the SNP/Independence. Then go for another Indy Ref.
The more Independent Scotland gets, the bigger chance Labour has of winning south of the border. A win, win. Except for the Tories. They are going down in any case. Another 30 years in the wilderness.
Scotland is growing away in any case. Eventually it will just be a protocol agreement. There would have to be a few years of negotiating.
Labour just do not seem to realise. The best way to get in power in Westminster is supporting the SNP and Independence for Scotland.
The best time for an Indy campaign is in the Spring or Autumn.
The HoL has absolutely no power. Just power of twice delay. Cameron and Osbourne (May?) wanted to take that away.
The London Supreme Court has to agree with the Scottish Lords Court or break the terms of the Act of Union, ie Scotland to have a separate legal system forever. It means Scottish citizens can be denied the right to appeal to the ECHR in common with all EU citizens. If the Scottish High Court blocks an appeal. The London Supreme Court has to agree. Instead of people in Scotland having the immediate right of appeal. Blair’s interference.
@Robert Louis: thanks for confirming my vague recollection. It may even have been yourself who posted the original point re referral of the CoS to the HoLords.
Like yourself, since we are in a bi-partite union, imo there is no UDI or nasty secession if we say the treaty has been infringed on so many levels and here’s the file, ECJ. All we would need is a vote to confirm. “All” may still be tricky, of course.
@Wull: I like your long posts ( no BUT to follow). I doubt we disagree at all. I’m not the FM so don’t have to be diplomatic/ strategic. If the English wish to self- destruct, who am I to stop them, except I have family ablaw the dyke, one of whom told me at a family wedding in 2016 that the City “wouldn’t let Brexit happen”.
Wonder how he feels now? Mind you, his family speak English, French and Cantonese so we could be doing with them.
My reply was delayed because my keyboard went haywire and I had to switch to another device.
Apologies.
rock of ages
“I can say with 100% confidence that she will not.”
Confidence is a belief system. You can be 100% wrong and yet you look in the mirror and still appear smug.
I say that with 100%…………….
fairlie
You state “..P.S. the likes of Douglas Alexander, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are the reason I am no longer a christian.”
Who says they are Christian? Actions speak louder than words whether you are agnostic, atheist, Christian (of whatever tradition), Muslim, Jewish, Buddist, Sikhism or a liberal democrat!!
have faith!
Nicola Sturgeon can’t be seen to be right in anything she says or it makes the London politicians look predictable and pretty bad to the English electorate who must not under any circumstances view Scotland’s FM as anything but a distraction and a troublemaker
Nicola Sturgeon knows this and has learned that lesson well from the Miliband debacle so whatever Nicola Sturgeon says shouldn’t always be thought of as what Nicola Sturgeon’s intent is
Everyone’s playing poker now as opposed to just rolling the dice and whoever gets high score wins
So far whenever Nicola Sturgeon predicts something *might* happen Westminster tries its damndest to make the opposite happen
Some folk might think I’m being overly machiavellian and I guess that’s possible but after previous and devious doings by Westminster I think our First Minister has been studying the art of poker very hard and Westminster has no idea how to work her out
When people dramatically say things like expect the unexpected I usually laugh my head off because we all know it’s impossible to do that but in the case of Scotland’s First Minister I could be persuaded to think I might be wrong…. or right…or…see what I mean
@Dr Jim
I happen to think you’re right. Maybe I’m trusting her judgement too much but to be honest there’s no one else I can trust.
As far as NorthBritLab are concerned, they may well all have known each other, but in their heyday, Scottish politics was all within the party, not outside it. And there wasn’t much fraternité among them.
Whatever the spin for public consumption, both Wendy and Henry were removed at the instigation of El Gordo, and for the selfsame reason: they both showed too much sign of independence of thought. Even their modest inclinations were too much for the control freak of Downing Street.
And how likely will it be any less with the top-down 1970-era neo-statists, Corbyn & Co…?
About 160 local members were entitled to vote and about a third of that number – about 50 – turned up at the hustings event.
The local party Chairman immediately resigned. In a statement to media he said: “The constituency Labour Party selected their candidate for Airdrie and Shotts and following that I resigned my position as chair because the voting pattern showed that this had not represented the view of the majority of the CLP. I had expected them to rally behind another local activist, but in the event the broader membership didn’t.”
An official Labour spokesperson said: “One member, one vote means that successful candidates enjoy the confidence of the local party who yesterday chose Pamela Nash by some considerable margin.”
Surprise Surprise London got it’s Blairite child selected.
link to caltonjock.com
Ken500@10.12pm
Scotland by definition cannot do a UDI.
@Thepnr
No shame in that brother. You have to trust someone sometime.
Labour and the Tories have done so very, very much to undermine trust in both people and institutions, it can be hard.
You have to have faith in something. I believe people can do good when they want to. When they put their mind and their heart into it.
It’s about that time.
Tinto chiel @ 8.25 pm
Appeals to the House of Lords in civil cases in Scotland.
Is this the reference you are referring to:
link to www2.gov.scot
It is a longish read but sets out how it came about that civil cases in Scotland could be appealed to the House of Lords but not criminal cases.
Short version, ambiguity in wording of relevant part of Treaty of Union and Claim of Right 1689 allowing appeals to Scottish Parliament. After the Treaty of Union the new Parliament could be seen as taking over the functions of the Scots Parliament and one of these functions was to hear appeals ergo House of Lords could hear appeals in Scottish civil cases.
@Colin Alexander says: 1 December, 2018 at 6:51 pm:
” … The current SNP policy is now acceptance of some form of so-called “soft” exit from the EU. “
Is it?
Where can we see that in SNP documentation, Colin?
In the first place Party Policy can only be made by the delegates at National Conference. That means those delegates speak on behalf of the members of their own particular branch membership.
Woe betide a delegate who attempts to put forward his/her own opinions. The delegates are just that, delegated by branch members to put forward the opinions that have been debated and, if necessary, voted upon at branch level.
In the second place no such policy has even been mooted. The truth being what I already posted on Wings today. Nicola Sturgeon is the First Minister of the Holyrood Parliament and, as such, was elected by the Holyrood Parliament – not by the SNP alone.
She thus acts on behalf of that Parliament and is duty bound to represent not just the views and policies of the SNP but of all the people of Scotland whether they voted for her or not.
Nicola has three distinct jobs. As FM she must consider the entire people of Scotland. As Leader of the Scottish National Party she speaks for the party and as the constituency MSP she must consider all those in her constituency whether they vote for her or not.
Nicola said, just the other day that she is duty bound to seek out and attempt all options in regard to
BRUKExit but that doesn’t mean that the things she must, in all honesty, put forward for consideration are either her own or the party’s first choice.In point of fact it has largely been the reason that so many Scottish voters have moved from unionist parties to support the SNP. Labour’s first priority is what is best for Labour, Tory party priority is what is best for the Tories and the LibDems don’t know what they want to support but will support anything if it gives them a wee bit of power.
The SNP genuinely does what is best for Scotland – so Colin, don’t tell the SNP what their policies are when what you are expressing is Colin Alexander’s impressions of what they are.
Of course I’ll retract that statement if you can produce the documentary evidence that what you claim is SNP party policy is factually SNP policy and not just your usual Anti-Nicola, Anti-SG and anti-independence claptrap.
Leaving the EU was Tory / UKIP policy. Not the policy of the SNP.
EU-Ref was UKIP / Tory policy. Now the SNP support a second EU-Ref. The SNP have effectively adopted UKIP policy.
Indyref, which IS / WAS ?? SNP policy is put off and put off, while the SNP focus on UKIP BritNat politics.
Those are the facts, no havering.
Tomorrow’s Scotland On Sunday front page headline: “‘Put down the #indyref2 dog whistle’ – Interim Tory leader Carlaw tells Nicola Sturgeon to stop fostering grudge and grievance in bid to win new vote”
Any connection with this Tory panic outburst and latest Times YouGov Westminster G/E Scotland sub sample;
SNP 46% (+9) Tories 22% (-7) Labour 17% (-10) Lib Dem 7% (N/C) Green 1% (+1)
Equals SNP 53 seats (+18) CON 3 seats (-10) LD 2 seats (-2) LAB 1 seat (-2)
OK its only 137 voters but enough to wind up the Tories in Scotland when they are 5 percentage points ahead of Labour in UK. wide poll.
Ever notice how Treeza likes the Union Jack flag folded with the St Georges Cross prominent and made to look like a red Crucifix.
All very “Onward Christian Soldiers” looking.
Pathetic English bastards even trying to hijack the flag that is meant to represent the four Nations of the UK.
Tinto Chiel @ 8.25pm and
Robert Louis @ 8.38pm
This link is an Appendix to the document I linked to in my post at 10.57.
link to www2.gov.scot
It gives more of the historical background to the appeals process and involvement of the House of Lords
Wouldn’t it be interesting if our very own Queen Nicola announced the date for IndyRef2 on Thurs 28th March 2019,,,,the day before we are meant to be leaving the EU.
Cubby at 910pm
You comment “If England terminated the Treaty would the English think they are declaring UDI from Scotland.”, hits the nail on the head. I cannot fathom this subservience to everything which Westminster asserts. And that is the point here, westminster just makes up its authority to do things.
If as you say England ended the union, NOBODY would call it UDI, so why do people insist Scotland is any different.
So bear with me for a second given that I know nothing of the law in these matters and I’m only musing here
January 2019 Scotlands FM announces a referendum to be held in September after being refused a section 30 which we all expect to happen but Westminster can’t interfere to stop it because Scotland does have the power to hold referendums
September 2019 comes around and YES wins that plebicite but Westminster refuses to recognise and legalise it but Scotland sends the result of that vote to the UN with whom the UK are signatories to that organisation which within its rules and articles stipulates all peoples have the right to independence if a majority of them expresses a desire for it and given that the UK has accepted Scotlands claim of right and the UN has four times sanctioned the UK on human rights abuses
Do we think anybody on the UN council would veto Scotlands claim except the UK who’s veto would be the only one that wouldn’t count given that’s the Union Scotland would be seceding from
I don’t know the law on any of this and regarding UN petitions I know even less so somebody with a bit of legal knowledge could pitch in to inform better but does this sound like an unreasonable plan, what am I missing?
From SNP.org – Constitution
In June 2016 Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, while the UK as a whole voted to leave. Following the EU referendum, the First Minister made clear that the SNP Scottish government would explore all options to protect Scotland’s place in Europe, including a referendum on independence. If the UK is to leave the EU, we believe the least-worst deal for jobs and living standards would be to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union.
@Dr Jim
You might be right, but then I would say that.
Robert P,
Your comment regarding the FM’s duties are correctly stated, but in the REAL world, political parties implement THEIR policies upon which they were elected. So, whilst technically representing all Scots, her job is also to implement the manifesto policies which saw her elected. Otherwise we would NEVER achieve independence.
In the current situation, the FM was elected on a specific mandate to call an independence referendum should scotland be taken out of the EU against its wishes. That is EXACTLY what she needs to do.
If any FM tried to do what everybody wanted, then nothing at all would ever get done (because everybody has a different opinion). That is what leadership is about, charting a direction, then making it happen. That is exactly what Alex Salmond did when he called the first indyref.
Dithering on the other hand, is doing nothing because everybody has a different viewpoint.
Leadership Vs. dithering
Tinto Chiel @ 8.25pm
Robert Louis @ 8.38pm
Last one.
Memorandum from the Lord President of the Court of Session and Senators of the College of Justice with reference to the Constitutional Reforms Bill which led to the setting up of the UK Supreme Court.
They have some cogent comments/criticisms of the plans as set out in the Bill.
link to publications.parliament.uk
Macart,
I read tonight about a woman in Wales, who looked after her son and saved £50,000 . I didn’t realise this but you are only allowed to have so much saved, if your on benefits.
So even if your quite savvy at making meals do two days,quite canny at budgeting,or save and choose to pay for your own stairlift or even decide you’ll leave (the son you look after ) in a good financial position, you end up in court.
I am really struggling to understand how we have become such a bunch of utter ,callous, selfish, arses where being cruel to other people has become a daily way of life. Although the benefit scrounger tags by politicians and our beloved media hasn’t helped.
I know Margaret Thatchers policies have brought us to this but today I read Ian Frasers piece about RBS deliberately and callously targeting RBS customers only one year after RBS were bailed out – no punishment for the three responsible, they glided into even better jobs.
Tonight I watched a programme on BBC 4 about Fittie and Old Torry in Aberdeen, where the oil company threatened to pull out if they didn’t get the land so Torry was demolished and look at the deception involved in that threat,given the billions the oil companies have made.
Then reading about the woman in Wales, who because she is on benefits is denied to make the same choices as anyone else just totally sickens me.
I read The ragged Trousered Philanthropists years ago,jeez it’s like a blueprint for both Tories and Labours vision for The last 20 years
Any No voters now can harp on about what currency or deficits to the cows come home but for me,we have lost much more than just money , I genuinely fear the U.K. has lost its way altogether, where the middle management and above,encouraged by what is basically corruption has no red lines, they’re for the little people, who sometimes look up and try to do something good, only to end up in court.
ill never forget and I’ll never forgive either.
@Legerwood
Thanks for the link, I shall settle down to some light reading once I’ve heated up my less than a sixth normal price Bells chicken curry pie. Got to the supermarket at exactly the right moment 🙂
Robert louis@11.16pm
Sadly because the Britnats control the media their conditioning and propaganda seems into everyone in Scotland – even long term independence supporters. No one is immune to this creeping conditioning but we should all call it out when we recognise it.
“Westminster makes up its authority to do things” Correct and it makes up its authority to stop Scotland doing things. Scotland is treated like a colony because Scots and Britnats allow it to happen. We have been conditioned to accept a colonial status over the last 300 years even though our legal status is of an equal partner.
England would, of course, have terminated the Treaty a long time ago if we were costing them £15billion per annum. Just as Scotland will terminate the treaty when sufficient Scots realise the extent to which we are being ripped off and how easy it is to legally do so.
@Legerwood: thanks for all your efforts. As my very expensive lawyer used to say, I shall consider and revert.
Your last seemed to imply lots of polite w(r)iggle room claimed by Scots Law.
At the end of it all, it seems all we have to do is point to the many breaches of the basic idea that Scots Law should not be overruled by English Law.
But then, I’m not a lawyer and still find delight in the limpid beauty of the eternal moon.
Much good that may do me/us, of course.
Yes, the pie was tasty, so was that Memorandum by Lord President of the Court of Session and the Senators of the College of Justice.
@yesindyref2
Yes wendy’s “Bwing it on’ strategy was a very good one at the time IMHO.
She appeared to me to be an astute politician Yet that statetement under a myopic London Labour leadership cost her her career.
I’d actually love Wendy to come back as pro Indy. Perhaps a fantasy!
Hahahaha I think May has a wee problem.
link to archive.fo
Charging…
Life’s been good to me SO far like… what’s next.
All show AND all game… ahm game, RU?
Keep ra faith Lovely people.
Back in five, time furra top-up…
@ScottieDog
Yes, supporting the holding of a referendum isn’t the same as supporting Independence, something that remote leadership failed to understand. I suspect she might have made it an open vote, and avoided much of the damage to Labour in Scotland.
Ashcroft is interesting too, not as anti-Indy as some make out. I’d love to see him embrace MMT 🙂
Robert Louis says: 1 December, 2018 at 8:28 pm:
” … I understand the points you make regarding the make up of the UK. However, you assert that the parliament cannot declare UDI, unless it has a referendum first. But, then I need to ask, if it needs a referendum to make that decision, why doesn’t it need a referendum to make ANY decisions? “
Quite simple, Robert Louis, the party, (any party). has set policies that they stand for and they also publish them in their manifesto. Then the voters casting a vote for them have given them a mandate for their policies.
Obviously few voters will agree with everything a party stands for and that is where on important legal and constitutional matters require a specific majority mandate.
For example the Tory party’s first move when they got elected was to not only increase the rate of VAT but also brought a raft of new things under VAT taxation. They combined that hike in indirect taxation with cuts in direct taxation.
That though is Tory Party policy and it is a well known economic fact that when the main burden of taxation is indirect taxation then the poorer members of society carry the main burden of taxation.
Now consider this – it was NOT the Tory party that introduced the policies of hiking up indirect taxation – it was the Labour Party a.k.a. NuLabour.
A very true statistic is that while the Tory Party was telling us, “We are all in this austerity thing together”, the poor were getting increasingly poorer but the top levels of the wealthy have more than doubled their own personal wealth. They simply are not under austerity measures while increasing their personal wealth but there has/is an increasing number of the poorest being killed off by austerity measures.
Wealth is being taken from the poorest and given to the richest.
Now the UN is out and out condemning Westminster for their cruel measures killing people. However, the voters, in mainly England, knew that this was Tory Policies – it was in their manifesto, so the Tories had a mandate to introduce austerity measures. Thing is, when they were being introduced Labour and LibDems were either voting with the Tories or abstaining.
The point is that Westminster operates under English Law and Westminster considers itself sovereign as being delegated in 1688 and they claim that this is the United Kingdom’s unwritten constitution. Yet it stems from before the union. Furthermore, Westminster is legally the bipartite United Kingdom parliament and there hasn’t been a legal parliament of England since 1707.
So there is the argument – Westminster claims to be sovereign and, being sovereign, it needs no mandate to change the unwritten constitution.
A point of fact is that the United Kingdom does have a written Constitution – It is the Treaty of Union.
The Kingdom of Scotland, and hence the Scottish Parliament, is not sovereign and that is why they need a definite mandate from the sovereign people to enforce change in the constitution of the United Kingdom for have not the sovereign people of Scotland voted in General Elections? They thus have accepted whatever the Unionist parties which were elected had in their manifestos?
Lalalalalalalala… topped up, let’s do THIS Scotland.
Vote Yes, THIS time.
Peekaboo ICSY.
THIS.
NB swearing not required tonight American friends, cause wur there.
Seasonal Greetings again frae Balfron, Scotland.
Who do you Love …?
George T kens.
Scotland.
Check THIS out…
4,991 WOS articles tae date.
Where will you be at 5,000.
Look up.
The quickening is quickening…
Don’t cha think Scotland.
A hey there Liz g xx.
On the seventeen.
Free soon.
Torcuil Crichton:
Have I spelled that correctly?
Why don’t you move to Surbiton?
You are not a Scot.
Hey yesindyref2…
Yes!
One is fully charged.
Sunday marn.
Talk with me…
Hey there Cactus xx
17 sounds good to me
Hey Liz…
Ahm frae Cambuslang tae Balfron.
Aye get around xx.
Aye and ye do it with all the best people
THIS is it!
Scotland has the best people.
We ken, et SO does Kurt.
Ahm SO happy cause ra day ah’ve found my friends…
It makes me wonder
@Cactus
Aye!
Yah man, Loving’s comin…
Ur name.
Don’t be shy, show us yer PIE…
Orra Venn Diagram.
Linkies and pinkies Nana!
Planet Rock is rockin’
Sammy’s daein it…
“Let it slide”
C’mon baby.
You gotta stop, hey, what’s that sound Planet Rock…
Ah’ll share with ye inda marn.
Hey lurkers!
C above.
Dedication to life…
What time is Love?
Et 2 learn.
Political chaos is ensuing…
Do sumfin different.
Be Scotland.
Be yersel.
Furr fortunates sake.
Be lucky Caesar.
We kick ass.
Excited…
Ahm an Aries, one is of a very passionate fire sign.
The twelve of worlds.
Know yer cairds.
Yee-harr 🙂
Anypaisleybuddies comin’ out tae PLAY El Gordo…
Aye can see you fellar.
Can U see me?
😉
Be a freebird…
Said PR.
Sing.
Scotland says Yes!
You can change.
Find it.
Chorus.
Latin.
Everybuddies crashed out here…
But ahm still alive.
Said Eddy V.
THIS is SO mental!!
WHO has just came on the radio…
Friggin’ PJ.
Be happy 🙂
Very.
Hey Planet Rock dj… if yur listening…
Please may aye request…
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Put it in the soul of everyone.
Can anybuddy find me somebuddy to Love?
CCR doing it like right NOW honda radio…
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Ghillie girl xx
Ah’ve just realised ah’ve done a full scoreboard, recent comments.
Tis like being in Curlers (west end).
Aye own the TT record table.
Rocky mountain way…
Motorbike.
Night ,night Cactus – or should I say Morning , morning!?
Not had time to read through everything so sorry if it’s already been answered.
But is anyone having problems with “certain links” from the National Newspaper subscription?
All the juicy ones seem to come up “server can’t be found”
Go to bed
Stop consuming so much. Or Independence will not come for some. Six feet under.
Go sober for October in December.
Why are so many Tories, not from Scotland, allowed to commandee Scottish Questions in Westminster. Like a grievance package for sychophant Tories making a fool of themselves. Fluffy struggling. The DUP having a go. SNP MP’s not allows a look in and the racket going on in more ways than one.
£Million intercity deals. £Millions for this £millions for that. When in fact Westminster are taking £Billions out of Scotland paying for Westminster rubbish. £1Billion Trident and Defence. £Billions on loan repayments not borrowed or spent in Scotland. ie HS2 and Hickley Point. The Tory slush fund. All their noses in the trough, including Cameron. A total waste of time and money, After they destroyed the economy. £3Billion lost on tax evasion in Scotland.
£Billions lost in Oil revenues because of high Tory taxes (when the price had fallen). Fishing ruined because of Westminster policies. Throwing dead fish back for years, when bigger nets should have been used, like Norway. The SNP rep was sorting it out for increased quotas. When some of them went and voted Tory. £Millions of CAP payments taken from poorer farmers in Scotland and given to wealthy farmers south of the border. Scotland can borrow very little for growth. Westminster can borrow and spend what it likes in the rest of the UK. At least 10% more. Pro rata recently £10Billion. £Billions lost to Scotland.
Thatcher secretly and illegally used Scottish revenues to build up London S/E. Building Canary Wharf and Tilbury Docks. Taking jobs away thoughout Britain. To deregulate banking and bankrupt Britain. Instead of investing in manufacture and public services. Privatising utilities. Resulting in violence and rioting. Civil unrest. The Poll tax.
Labour are no better. The winter of discontent. Three day weeks and candles. The rubbish piled up in the streets. The dead not getting buried. The illegal wars causing mass migration and costing £Trns, The European countries having to pick up the bill and sorting out the mess, caused by UK/US and France. Supporting apartheid regimes and absolute despot monarchies. Now food banks. Cutting essential services and killing off the elderly. The Tories are killing off their supporters. The elderly. The lowest pensions in Europe. Starving vulnerable people and the disabled.
Austerity was totally unnecessary. The tax revenues are up £95Billion. From £533Billion to £628Billion. Scotland raises more pro rata. Up from £54Billion to £60Billion. The Tories were cutting NHS/Education/Welfare £13Billion a year. NHS £4Billion, Education £6Billion and Welfare £3Billion. From 2015 to 2020. They have had to cut some of the cuts. The Scottish Gov has had to mitigate them. While the Scottish budget was cut 10% a year. Now £3Billion less. Totally unnecessary because the Scottish tax revenues were up. Up on average £5Billion+ a year. Yet the Scottish Block Grant was being cut.
Brexit will damage the Scottish economy. The NE will suffer the most.
No problems with the National without subscription. Just lug in.
Yes Ken, I have just watched Scottish Questions at Wm from the 28th. Mundell and his lapdogs, preserving the union at all costs.
Stephen Kerr is my MP, what an arse of a man.
I sincerely hope that we do not need to put up with this for much longer.
Think I’ll put a wee sign on my post box ‘NO Hawkers or Tories’
Hey there Cactus =)
Hope you had a good night!
Have a lovely day folks =)
Tory England, utterly shocking link to indy100.com
In his column in The Observer this morning, Kevin McKenna describes The Herald as: “Scotland’s most-authoratitive newspaper.”
If he’s right, the age of Private Fraser has finally arrived, and we are all doomed, doomed I tell you.
BBC Scotland Wakey! Wakey! Still showing Saturday’s papers at 8.20am Sunday morning.
McKenna would say that about the Herald. Hoping to get lucrative ‘work’ from them. The same as the supposed Indy reporters working for the BBC. Away and get another job. Most of the unionists support ‘reporters’ know they would be out in their ear in an Independent Scotland. They owe their lucrative position to political (Labour) patronage. Just like a lot of historical posts in Scotland. Now getting weeded out. The Labour Mafia tentacles run deep in Scotland. Fifty years of Labour. To try and keep the Tories out. Now there is another alternative. The SNP and Independence gaining support.
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.com
link to channel4.com
This week’s Full Scottish is presented by Carol McNamara and her guests are Alison Thewliss MP and Ken McDonald from iScot Magazine.
link to broadcastingscotland.scot
link to jmbeuansson.blogspot.com
link to travellerstimes.org.uk
Kirkcaldy welcomes Holocaust Denier and serial liar Alistair McConnachie with his bunch of ex-BNP followers.
link to facebook.com
The campaign group for 50s women who lost their pensions have won the right to have a judicial review into the government’s handling of the raising of the pension age from 60 to 65
link to byline.com
link to independent.co.uk
link to infacts.org
Watchdog slams IEA over pro-Brexit report backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg
link to archive.is
EU law expert, Professor Michael Dougan gives his assessment of the impact of Brexit on migrant rights, following many audience requests.
link to youtube.com
link to politico.eu
UK gov and ministers corrupt as hell
Just stumbled upon some alerting information which ties a now Cabinet Minister to Pre-EUreferendum digital preparations
link to twitter.com
link to twitter.com
He kept very quiet in 2014
link to twitter.com
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
link to rt.com
Japanese PM urges Theresa May to prevent a no-deal Brexit
link to archive.is
Brexit: that sinking feeling
link to eureferendum.com
Brexit legal advice: Theresa May faces fresh battle
link to archive.is
Councils appeal for cash injection to avoid ‘catastrophic collapse’
link to archive.is
link to irishtimes.com
link to theintercept.com
So. This happened today. My lovely gorgeous son went to get medication he needed today from the pharmacist
link to twitter.com
Theresa May has defended holding talks with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite accusations that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
link to archive.is
Rosemarie Bangura looked round in astonishment. As a west African MP, she’d travelled from Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest countries, all the way to Brentford, in one of the world’s richest cities. “I am so surprised,” she said examining boxes being packed for hungry families this Christmas
link to youtube.com
They told India they were too stupid,too weak and too poor to be independent
link to sott.net
An excellent analysis Rev. I’ve only just got around to reading it.
One of my first thoughts to add to the ifs and maybes is that had the SNP challenged the opposition’s anti indy stance at GE17 they would likely have held on to enough seats to have had leverage over the Tories instead of the DUP.
That said, even if Nicola had been able to have more input on Brexit and had secured a S30, the polls indicate that she would still be going against Scottish public opinion by holding a ref.
In many ways, being relatively powerless for the last few years has been a blessing.
This article is like a meat thermometer for the times we’re living in. NOT to read it is simply to risk not knowing what is actually going on in today’s society, here in the UK, but also in Europe and the US.
link to amp.theguardian.com
Here’s a snippet:
“In France, as in all western countries, we have gone in a few decades from a system that economically, politically and culturally integrates the majority, into an unequal society that, by creating ever more wealth, benefits only the already wealthy.”
For France, just read the UK.
Nana says:
So Thatcher actually had the relatives of Lockerbie victims spied upon because they were becoming organised.
Which begs the obvious question… why would a group of grieving relatives be a threat to the state? If that isn’t an admission that the state had much to hide, I don’t know what is!
Tory MP’s now donating to Foodbanks for the PR photo-op, while another calls for volunteers to shore up England’s NHS.
The Tories have caused these difficulties, and are now wilfully gaslighting the electorate to evade culpability, and the BritNat Media is helping them do it.
….And to think my moral compass was uncomfortable last summer when people carried a banner calling them scum.
link to thenational.scot
I will be PM to take Britain out of EU, says May
link to archive.is
link to wired.co.uk
Looking at the Rev’s Twitter just now and was struck by the number of Tory MPs in Scotland who had tweeted about their visit to a Tesco store in their respective constituencies To make a donation to a food bank collection organised by the Trussel Trust.
Co-ordinated or what? Even the wording in the tweets was almost identical.
What Next? A synchronised swim team?
Time Nicola Sturgeon came out the closet re her true and honest position on independence: jam yesterday, jam tomorrow but not jam today? Mooted alliances with anti-independence parties to save the UK from brexit are suggestive of compromise. Compromise with Scotland’s miserable devolved status and the colonial Westminster dispensation.
She and her party have a fully fitted ship which yet again seems to be psychologically rigged to miss the tide.
@Robert Louis says: 1 December, 2018 at 11:27 pm:
” … If any FM tried to do what everybody wanted, then nothing at all would ever get done (because everybody has a different opinion).
No, Robert Louis, that is incorrect – Nicola has not attempted to do what, “everybody wanted”,. She is correctly doing what the majority of the people who voted wanted.
That, of course, is the definition of democracy and, in a democracy, it is the will of the majority that is the democratic option.
To put that in a different way – in a democracy there will always be a minority who do not get what they want.
Nana says:
2 December, 2018 at 9:53 am
link to wired.co.uk
Scary bananas there Nana…
link to insider.co.uk
Everyone needs to be prepared for a speed-chess Brexit – especially Labour
link to archive.is
link to indy100.com
That’s all
Robert Peffers says:
2 December, 2018 at 9:58 am
@Robert Louis says: 1 December, 2018 at 11:27 pm:
No, Robert Louis, that is incorrect – Nicola has not attempted to do what, “everybody wanted”,. She is correctly doing what the majority of the people who voted wanted.
So if Nicola is busy being magnanimous to a fault in victory, is it safe to assume the job of promoting Scottish Independence is currently vacant?
So if Nicola is busy being magnanimous to a fault in victory, is it safe to assume the job of promoting Scotland’s EU membership is currently vacant?
So if Nicola is busy being magnanimous to a fault in victory, is it safe to assume the job of promoting Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is currently vacant?
…that sense of entitlement of Scottish support runs deep!
Thanks for the encouragement, Tinto Chiel @ 10.28 pm yesterday. I am only seeing this now since I am not in Scotland at the moment but in a different time zone, and had gone to bed by the time you posted. Thanks to other posters also – very many excellent, informative and educational posts here, especially on legal and constitutional matters. I am learning a lot …
I am no lawyer and have no competence in such matters. Yet I find it fascinating that exact legal argumentation, especially of a constitutional nature, is so central to the Scottish cause. It always has been, for it was exactly the same at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th Centuries and, indeed, from then onwards.
There are so many fascinating parallels between that crucial moment in Scottish history and this equally crucial moment. Sometimes it feels like looking at a mirror-image, or a re-run of an old and classic film. And it doesn’t leave out any of the centuries ‘in-between’ either, because from that time until this Scottish constitutional lawyers have always had to fight their corner and argue their case. And they have always done it: even the Act(s) of Union of 1707 are evidence of this.
I believe this to be one of the major long-standing differences between Scotland and England. Even if it might be said that the two countries now basically speak the same language (English!), we don’t think the same way. And a big part of that is because the two countries are actually ‘constituted’ very differently from each other. Always have been. And it’s not superficial – in both countries it’s something radical, right to the very roots of who and what we are, respectively. The two countries that formed the Union are really and truly, and radically, NOT the same at all.
For historical reasons, Scots do tend to this grasp fairly easily (not all, for sure: some try to deny it and cancel themselves out, but most Scots have a profound intuitive grasp of it even if they can’t always adequately articulate it and don’t know its detail). It’s a cultural difference not in the superficial but in the profound sense. One sign of that depth dimension – its profundity – is that it has survived despite changes over the centuries in the language(s) we actually use as our mother tongue, and in which we express it.
I said ‘for historical reasons’ above, and this is one of the reasons why there is continual pressure to annul Scottish history and wipe it from our minds. Constant pressure, that is, from those who do not understand or are not willing to accept that Scottish difference. This includes those who seek to reduce it to something merely sentimental superficial, romantic or merely maudling, and who thereby hope to sap its intellectual vigour and undermine the principles in which it is rooted and to which it gives expression.
If these principles and roots are profoundly constitutional and legal, which they certainly are, what underlies them is a tenacious vision of what it is to be a human being. What it is, moreover, to be a human being within a human community. Specifically, what it is to be a human being who is a citizen of this particular human community, this particular polity, which we call (especially but not simply from the mid-13th Century onwards) the Scots. What is legal and constitutional is also philosophical, and it tells you something not just about yourself and your community, but about the universe. That obviously includes the whole wide world, and your place in it.
What Scotland developed in all these regards is something important and of permanent value and useful not just for ourselves, but for others’ benefit as well. Actually, for the whole wide world. Which is why we cannot just roll over, and let it die. There is an idea at the core of all this which has many enemies, who continually down the centuries attempt to put it to the sword, so it is always in a precarious state of health and yet … and yet, it will never die.
For that very Scottish idea – Scottish as it is, from its roots to its fingernails (if I may mix the metaphor) – is not just about Scotland, it’s about humanity and the human community and the very nature of political authority. That is, it’s about what it is to be human beings who come together and form a polity by setting up, of their own free will, a government. That is, who create together governmental institutions that will have sufficient authority to keep the peace among all those who belong to that polity and ensure that just and fair relations are maintained among its members.
Because Scotland and the Scots are the people that articulated the principle that governmental authority is conferred on those who govern by the willing consent of those whom they rule. Governments are derived from their people; peoples are NOT derived from – do NOT originate in – those who govern them.
In the previous sentence, you have to remember that the idea that comes after the semi-colon hates the idea that comes prior to it. And the idea that comes after the semi-colon underlies the English polity, or state. Just as the idea that comes before the semi-colon in that sentence is what the Scottish polity has always been founded on.
More explicitly, the Scottish ‘idea’ on which the Scottish polity (and therefore Scotland itself as a political entity) is founded is this: that the legitimacy of a government depends on popular consent for it is the people who freely choose their ruler(s) and freely give him (from within themselves, without being coerced) THEIR authority, and it is precisely that authority – which belongs inherently to the people and which he receives from them – which be wields when he governs them. The obvious logical consequence is that the ruler must rule in a just fashion which will be acceptable to the people, otherwise the people will no doubt take their authority back from him (it belongs to them, not him – he only had the temporary use of it) and give it to another, who will rule in the way they want him to.
That idea, I am convinced, always underlay the Scottish polity, and it came to be articulated in a definitive, legal and constitutional way at the time of the Bruce monarchy. When something becomes explicit in that legally formulated and indeed written way it is not exist beforehand but because pressure is being brought to bear on it. That pressure, of course, came form Edward I of England, who sought to annihilate – i.e. reduce to nothing – the Scottish polity and absorb what he called ‘the land’ of Scotland (as if Scotland was some kind of ‘landed estate’ and he was the ‘landed gent’ who happened to own it) into the English crown, as if it was one of its ‘possessions’.
The idea that underlies the Scottish polity – our basic Scottish assumption, which lives within us – was expressed in a physical and tangible way when the Scots installed Robert Bruce as their king in 1306, and it was articulated in a written document drawn up by the clergy of his kingdom and issued from and by the very first parliament of his reign in 1309. At St. Andrews, on March 17th, to be precise. To my mind, that is the foundational Scottish constitutional text par excellence, of even greater importance than the Arbroath Declaration of 1320. Why? Read it and see! I think it was issued as a deliberate constitutional text, and it is hugely significant that it was the parliament that issued it with, obviously, the consent and approval of the king (Bruce). This was a statement of the Scottish constitution by a Scottish government sitting in a parliament in full legal mode, with full authority. That is a very different kind of thing from some Scottish barons sending a letter to a Pope, on their own initiative (there is no claim that the Arbroath Declaration carried with it the legal authority of either king or parliament). That should not dismay us: the key points made in the 1320 text are simply logical consequences which follow on from that of 1309, or which may be said to be contained within or presumed by it. The two documents stand in clear continuity with each other.
Legerwood says:
2 December, 2018 at 9:55 am
Is it just myself that finds it distasteful for a food retailer to lend space to a charity to get people to got into the food retailers store, buy food from them and then donate it to that charity?
It is even more distasteful that Tesco and other food retailers could donate foodstuffs to those charities free of charge if they were so concerned. Even if they weren’t charitable they could still donate edible foodstuffs that they throw out as waste every day.
@Robert Peffers
In Scotland 62% voted remain. The SNP policy on which the SNP were elected was Scotland remaining in the EU or it’s indyref2:
“We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will”.
However, Nicola Sturgeon, a few days ago: “The first option is the compromise position of single market [and] customs union membership … The second option is another referendum on EU membership with the option to remain in the EU on the ballot paper. The SNP will support whatever option can command a majority, though it will always be our preference to look at options that see us remaining in the EU,” she said.
A govt is elected on its manifesto. Even if the majority didn’t vote for that manifesto, the convention is that the govt has the right to implement that manifesto. There was no manifesto promise of compromise if England decides Leave and Scotland voted Remain.
It was a straight promise to ALL the electorate:
if Scotland is being dragged out of the EU against her will, it’s indyref2. NOT: HAS BEEN, but BEING.
That means during the process of leaving the EU, not AFTER we have left.
So, if UK exit is approved for UK exit day: 29 March 2019, the SNP MUST hold an indyref before then to keep their manifesto promise.
Heh. Times in a bit of a panic.
link to archive.fo
They still like to use that word ‘secession’ I see.
@Molly 11.39pm
We are where we are because we were led here by people who deliberately limited your choices and opinions to suit their personal agendas. They were ably assisted by a media who convinced the people that this was all that was possible and that they were powerless to change anything. They set about and succeeded, in making the population feel powerless and helpless.
Decades of this bred apathy, cynicism, a lack of care for ourselves and each other. They really didn’t care about collateral damage within the populations on these islands or that at some point the other shoe would inevitably drop.
@Breeks
If they operate at all on Wings, then God help the UK.
Delia Smith on BBC…..
…..almost turned me into a Brexiteer
Sorry for having missed out a few words at a key point in the previous post (just in case anyone is till reading here, or may be interested). I will put the missing words in capital letters, so that the sentence now (hopefully) makes sense. As follows:
‘… When something becomes explicit in that legally formulated and indeed written way it is not BECAUSE IT DID NOT exist beforehand but because pressure is being brought to bear on it…’
Nana
That article on the 77th Brigade archived.
link to archive.is
Who would have guessed ‘our boys’ indulge in cyberwarfare too?
“Disinformation is cheap; debunking it is expensive and difficult.”
Makes for an interesting companion piece to this ‘fake news’ article I’ve posted about before.
link to archive.is
@Breeks says: 2 December, 2018 at 10:11 am:
” … So if Nicola is busy being magnanimous to a fault in victory, is it safe to assume the job of promoting Scottish Independence is currently vacant?”
Hi, Breeks – How are things at the 77th these days>
Robert Louis says: 1 December, 2018 at 11:27 pm
Implementing manifesto polices can be done with large party parliamentary majorities as well as overwhelming public support. These policies can also be implemented if they are popular are not too divisive. At the moment, the SNP do not have a majority at Holyrood and there is no overwhelming public support at the moment for independence.
As I had previously mentioned, the SNP is the only national party of Scotland. It believes the for independence to occur, it needs to represent all voices in Scottish society. That causes a contradiction as how does a party represent a part of Scottish society that it is against the parties sole purpose?
This is a difficult if not impossible to do and maybe require a certain kind of leadership to reconcile these two opposing precepts in order for the SNP to achieve their goals. Does Nicola Sturgeon possess this kind of leadership. I don’t know and only time will tell.
However, on Brexit, it is plain to see that from Scotland’s perspective, independence is the least worst option. All others will harm Scotland disproportionately. It is a waste of time trying to get a favourable Brexit outcome for Scotland so why does NS and the SNP do it then?
Part of leadership is to show direction but it is also about gaining consensus to follow that direction. In politics, everybody has an opinion and to gain consensus is liking herding cats.
NS and the SNP are exhausting every opinion left before the need for independence is asked. In exhausting every opinion beforehand, it leaves the critics powerless. By taking these other options to their logical conclusion, it shows to the public the futility of them and further robs the critics of independence of support and more importantly moral legitimacy as it exposes their motives of just being about narrow political and idealogical gain.
It is slow, frustrating and yes hurts morale of indy supporters but this is a delicate moment much like in a game of chess where the pieces need to be accurately placed in the correct positions to allow a victory or to get the pieces in a better position for a future victory.
Alex Salmond was an inspirational leader and the first indyref was the fulfilment of the aspiration that Scotland could be an independent nation. The question was asked and 45% of us, including myself, answered the call.
The right for Scotland to be an independent nation has been legitimised in the Scottish public’s consciousness. The next step is to make the right for Scotland to be independent nation the choice of the majority of the Scottish people. That takes a different way of doing this then done before. I do believe NS is taking the right decisions to do this.
I like you and greatly respect you Mr Peffers. I’m saddened but resigned to the fact that isn’t mutually reciprocated, because you have taught me such a lot, and set so many embers smouldering in my imagination.
It doesn’t make me sad that you get so angry, even angry with me, I get angry too, but what does frustrate me is the clear possibility that you are perhaps getting angry with the wrong people. Or no, to be more strictly accurate, perhaps not angry with the wrong people, but not angry enough with the right people.
I won’t ever condemn you for defending the SNP, nor Petra, nor any other able lieutenant of the SNP, but your Constitutional knowledge is vitally important, bona fide weapons grade material which, forgive me, the SNP are just not using to its full potential. Fact is, they seem absolutely determined not to use it to any potential at all, and instead leave open the door which allows all the BritNat shite, misery, absurdity and anaesthetising propaganda, collectively called our subjugation, to deluge into our land.
I don’t set out to bait you Robert. I simply get angry with what I do not understand. We could end this. We elected an SNP Government to end this, but the years roll by and still we don’t.
That first quote from John McDonnell is shocking. Labour MPs/members have always been threatened by parties more left wing than them as they’re terrified people will see them for what they’re really like- red tories. We already know in Scotland but sadly they’re still learning elsewhere. The amount of intelligent people I know who are still blindly voting Corbyn despite everything….
I expect a second referendum would come out of a lab minoriry government. The look on Ian Murray’s face ?
Great Post from PacMan
Herding independence supporters is indeed like herding cats, and Nicola is the only person with the knowledge, the experience, the background, reach, personality and street smarts to do the job.
I believe history will make us glad cooler heads prevailed in Scotland over this short and turbulent period.
@PacMan 11.05
Good post and worth reading.
Pacman – Yes, I find the whole thing nauseating.
The big supermarkets could well afford to stock food banks if they chose to, instead of shafting their customers.
I only became aware of food banks in Scotland in 2014 – anyone know when they first started?
Will at 10.27am
Your words, Will, make me proud to be Scottish.
Thanks for the inspiring posts in the last couple of days, these difficult times are producing some excellent essays.
seems churlish to be calling for nicola to announce indyref2, 9 days before the hocs starts the final debate about brexit
nicola is currently gaining plaudits from remainers, gavin esler, adonis etc, who while being unionists etc, their support will be mirrored in scotland by like minded unionist remainers.
her position is seen by many as a sensible compromise. I dont think it will gain a majority in hoc and without corbyns support, i dont think anyone really believed it would succeed. regardless of which, it was and remains the most politically astute position to take.
im glad nicola isnt in the debate, her being sidelined will just infuriate remainers in scotland even more (70% now) but after a blustering performance next sunday it will be corbyn who will cop the blame for treezas deal being dumped by the hoc. good
it will defeat and probally call the end to the center right of the tory party in england, ushering in a no deal tory pm.
in the subsequent ge, a no deal tory manifesto led by PM mogg or bojo will be a gift for us here. think about it? think about what and how the scottish tories will campaign for this?
it will be a complete nightmare for the unionist
Now if Tesco were to say they’d double the food bank donations it might just be worth it
@schrodingers cat
Labour claiming that if May’s deal hits the buffers in HoC, they’d get behind a vote of no confidence. Should that get picked up?
Labour’s leadership and their members would be in for a bit of bad weather. They still have no consensus in their own party for policy or direction on Brexit. Who knew that two years of vagueness and fence sitting could result in internal carnage just when you need bods pulling in the same direction? (shrugs) Their final ticket? You pays your money etc.
Absolutely the Tories would campaign on a pro Brexit ticket in such a scenario. They’re over committed to their own narrative and would have no choice but to seek public backing. How that plays for their local franchise? Heh. Tick tock.
As for the SNP and Scottish Greens? You’d get good money on seeking a mandate, if not for indy now (a preference for many), then seeking to hold a near instant indyref on an S30 and remaining in the single market/CU. This would have the added advantage of heaping more national and international pressure on any Westminster government. Basically double daring them to dump on the UN charter and Treaty of Union in full public vision. Again you pays your money. Either/or would set the ball rolling.
Pac man @ 10.32 am
Tesco is a major donor – coin and kind – to the Trussell Trust hence the tie-up between the two.
The Trust set up its first food bank in 2000. The Trust has been the subject of controversy, for example, on the subject of directors/managers pay and it’s policy of charging organisations such as churches etc to set up its food banks.
I think supermarkets etc could do more by way of donating surplus food to food banks. I remember in the 1960s the local Marks and Spencers would donate food to the local hospitals etc at close of business on a Saturday – they did not open on a Sunday in those days so the food would be going to waste otherwise.
Macart says:
2 December, 2018 at 1:07 pm
@schrodingers cat
Labour claiming that if May’s deal hits the buffers in HoC, they’d get behind a vote of no confidence. Should that get picked up?
——————
once the deal is deal, treeza resigns and a new no deal tory pm is a certainty. it will be the tories who dissolve parliament.
the last poll showed 45% support for no deal, why wouldnt they go for a ge?, bear in mind, the tories will remove all dissenting mps in their party before the GE. they will be a united force, at least in england.
you rightly point out that labour is in a mess, once the deal is dead, corbyn will have the choice of agreeing with the tories or backing no brexit.
what is going to happen is the snp will increase its mps and standing in scotland at the expense of the unionists
id say nicola is playing her cards well
Is WM not wanting tell us what they have been told, because they don’t want to know what EU courts are about to tell us.
Does the people of Scotland want to reverse Brexit concerning us, YES
Labour under Corbyn are just the same garbage they always were. Their only principle at this time is to be consistently fraudulent.
Nicola will deal with them in the most appropriate way, in our interests. She knows that they are untrustworthy.
For my part, living as I do in England, I will vote for and drum up support for Corbyn for two reasons. Firstly, the strikes and unemployment that would ensue would be accompanied by at least as some amelioration of the horrible plight that afflicts the poor in England. Secondly, it would be the final nail in the coffin of the myth of British superiority. The Brits would be – rightly – even more of an international laughing stock with even less influence.
Bursting the ludicrously inflated bubble of British greatness is a key to Scottish independence. Brexit is doing a grand job deflating it. Corby is just the man to make it disappear altogether.
Tesco donates 20% on top of the value of the goods donated. Shrug.
link to trusselltrust.org
Robert Peffers
The SNP isn’t too good for genuinely constructive criticism. It’s like football supporters criticising their own team, not because they want to undermine it but because everyone has their own ideas about how things could be done better or more effectively.
There is a perception (by some at least) that they’re too hesitant and timid, and worst of all, too polite towards british nationalists and their “media” who are actively seeking to destroy Scotland.
Personally I wouldn’t profess to praise or criticise the SNP because on the one hand I can see their point about the SNP not seeming to fight back hard enough against the enemy, on the other I have no doubt – none whatsoever – that Nicola Sturgeon is the most capable and astute politician in the DisUK. Many other SNP figures are of similar calibre.
So while I won’t praise or criticise the SNP for their handling of the situation, be in no doubt that as and when required I’ll vote for them and them only.
I just hope I don’t end up doing so with an uncomfortable feeling of them having me over a barrel because there’s nothing else to vote for, similar to what it would have been like in Scotland in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s, whereby many found themselves voting Labour for much the same reason.
Whatever way you look at it, the SNP are soon going to have to grasp the thistle, forget about staying comfortable with just kicking the can down the road, and ACT!
@Breeks says: 2 December, 2018 at 11:07 am3” … It doesn’t make me sad that you get so angry, even angry with me, I get angry too, but what does frustrate me is the clear possibility that you are perhaps getting angry with the wrong people.”
Breeks, I was making a detailed reply to your comment when the whole comment just vanished as I typed. This only began to happen fairly recently and has happened several times and usually on just that same type of reply. Just one more event that makes me certain that the evil forces of the Establishment have been operating on Wings for some time now.
The short answer to you is this:-
a) – I do not get angry – anger 3clouds the thought process and causes wrong conclusions.
b) – I’m certain that such as Nicola Sturgeon, who joined the SNP as a teenager, trained as a lawyer, but decided to devote her life to Scottish Independence when she could have been following a very much better paying career in the law, is not about to be diverted by becoming too comfortable.
In the first place she chose NOT to join the Westminster Gravy train but to remain at Holyrood.
I have absolutely no doubt that the dark forces of the, “British”, Establishment will long have had sleepers within every aspect of Scottish life. Police, the Media, Education, the Churches and the political parties. I have no doubt they are here on Wings.
I’m also certain that open opposition to the only people who stand a chance of regaining Scotland’s sovereignty are the SNP. There are no credible alternatives. No one is more impatient than I am for at my age, disability and state of health I may well never live in an independent Scotland.
Yet I know the worst possible thing that could ever happen to the campaign for independence would be a premature, and failed, bid for independence.
Such an outcome would kill the dream, very likely forever.
Yet here we have a great many commenters and never a topic passes without several post claiming that Nicola, the SG and the SNP are acting against Scotland’s best interests.
That means, in my book, these people are, whether intentionally or by design, acting on behalf of the Westminster Establishment, unionist parties or the Westminster security services.
You simply do not wash your dirty linen in public. In my lifetime I have sometimes held differing views from the SNP top echelons but the way to deal with that is to take your differences to a local branch, or a local constituency meeting.
To air them on a public forum is to deliberately damage the cause of independence. Make no mistake the slightest comment on Wings that damages the Nicola/The SG/SNP is seized upon with great delight by the forces of darkness.
@Essexexile 9.33am
“That said, even if Nicola had been able to have more input on Brexit and had secured a S30, the polls indicate that she would still be going against Scottish public opinion by holding a ref”.
………
How many times…Opinion polls DO NOT deliver political mandates, ELECTIONS DO.
Scottish public opinion has made it very clear, THEY FULLY MANDATE an indyref.
It is a done deal.
Talk of foodbanks and Tory connections
article from 2011
link to opendemocracy.net
and this one from 2012 on subsidies to Tesco
link to archive.is
a few links for a quiet afternoon
link to barrheadboy.com
link to peterabell.blog
Net immigration – The truth from the ONS.
link to facebook.com
Theresa May, like Jeremy Corbyn, has utterly failed to be ‘straight with people’
link to archive.is
@Macart says:
2 December, 2018 at 1:07 pm
@schrodingers cat
Labour’s leadership and their members would be in for a bit of bad weather. They still have no consensus in their own party for policy or direction on Brexit. Who knew that two years of vagueness and fence sitting could result in internal carnage just when you need bods pulling in the same direction? (shrugs) Their final ticket? You pays your money etc.
This is exactly what happened in the 80s when Thatcher was ruining our economy and damaging society. Labour cared much more about fighting internal battles that fighting what was being done to the country. They seem incapable of learning – or even caring about the consequences of not learning.
Nana says:
I completely agree that while Tories deservedly get pilloried, the other BritNat parties and the Union itself is just as complicit.
In 2014 it was BLiS which delivered the NO win. With Smith it was Labour which delivered least. And now it is galling that BLiS cry loudest for the SNP to mitigate Tory policies when it was BLiS which denied us the real levers of power.
Labour aren’t Scotland’s friend, and haven’t been for a long time.
stu mac says:
I’ve never voted Labour, but as Unionists when, I thought they were the lesser of the evils. Not after the Feeble Fifty of the 80s. They had an overwhelming mandate to stand up of Scotland. They did nothing.
Now few expect then to stand up for us.
Kevin McKenna says the SNP backing of a EU-Ref2, if it happened, would guarantee no indyref2 by this Scottish Parliament. And the SNP know that.
His reasoning for that relies on no time for an “official” S30 Indyref being agreed by WM. Based on that reasoning, his timetable seems right.
Is this ultimate brinkmanship by the SNP, believing Eu-Ref2 wouldn’t happen no matter how much they support it? (But they’ll look good).
Is it the SNP ditching SNP Indyref2 policy by prioritising the wellbeing of the UK Union?
Interesting couple of weeks ahead. It should make the situation a wee bit clearer.
@Stu Mac
Pretty much.
Labour in Scotland brought their current woes upon themselves. They accuse the SNP of stealing their clothes, of taking the votes to which they feel entitled.
It’s all the vile essenpee’s fault. No. NOTHING could be further from the truth.
They pretended to be something they patently weren’t. They abused their public trust. They got caught. They got warned. They got warned countless times. They continued to act from a sense of entitlement and then got telt.
Now? Now it’s a narrative of denial and abuse of the public.
Their choice and no one elses.
Peston says
Theresa & I are just back from Argentina
see here
link to m.facebook.com
YET another piece of sage advice from “Auld Boab” aka Robert Peffers, above – on the vexing subject of the SNP havig to wait around before pressing the button for Indyref2.
In an ideal world, this inept and split Conservative Government, once they decided to go for any kind of Brexit, would have gone in, with a coherent plan. They would have negotiated in good faith, found a consensus among themselves and would have 18 months into these negotiations, reached an agreement with the EU 27, which would have, by September this year, been passed on for verifiction by each of the 27 individual nations.
That is what was supposed to happen, what should have happened. IF the Tories had been organised enough to stick to the pre-acceptd script, thre months ago, Nicola could have gone to the Scottish people and said: “This agreement does not meet our aspirations, it does not address the desires of the Scottish people, so, with no other option towards the stated desire of the people of Scotland, as demonstrated by the EU referendum, than to call a second independence referendum.
However, we still have not arrived at that situation, and will not, until after the House of Commons vote on 11 December. It is after that vote that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP inner circle will need to make the big decision, to press the “GO” button for Indyref2.
It is becoming increasingly clear, neither the Tories nor Labour will deviate from this suicidal course towards Brexit. Time is running out and I feel, before the end of the year, the SNP MUST finally make up their mind and go for broke.
The principal one, of the many problems they will have to overcome, will be, the Tories will not allow a Section 30 order. The SNP must therefore, in spite of the all too obvious fact, the Unionists’ media cheer leaders will, at every opportunity, push the lie that without a Section 30 order, the referendum is meaningless, nail that lie an demonstrate – Westminster CANNOT prevent the referendum.
It would also, I feel, help, if they also looked at somehow having the Act of Union annulled, on the grounds of the bad faith of various Westminster governments. The Westminster MPs must, at every opportunity, bring this up. They must, also, I feel, at the earliest and every opportunity, convene the Scottish Grand Committee as a means of making it clear, Westminster is ignoring Scotland.
The SGC is the antidote to EVEL, and if they use it properly, they could caus relative carnage at Westminster.
We simply need to be patient for a bit longer, but, I for one will be very upset at the SNP if no action is taken before the end of the year – we simply do not have the time to wait any longer.
Surely it would be possible to have Indyref2 done and dusted before Brexit – although, I fully exect the forces of the UK Government in Scotland will, even after the referendum is announced, do everything they can to prevent a Yes vote while we are still inside the EU.
Many people still seem to think that May’s deal is for a soft Brexit. Quick thread to explain why I think this is seriously misguided (1)
link to twitter.com
BBC in hot water over debate – and an unlikely pastor
link to archive.is
They’ll have us all living in caves soon
Ministers order emergency stockpiling of baby milk amid fears of no deal Brexit
link to archive.is
French riots
Benjamin Griveaux, a government spokesman, on Sunday morning said France would consider imposing a state of emergency
link to archive.is
If you want to give the impression you’ve spontaneously donated to a food bank, probably best not to mostly copy and paste whatever the Scottish Tory PR office sent over…
link to twitter.com
link to bloomberg.com
Will not archive
link to buzzfeed.com
The economic consequences of the Brexit deal
link to ukandeu.ac.uk
Nana says:
Anyone who does, hasn’t paid attention! But yes, that is how May tries to present it. NoDeal is hard so everything else is soft, relatively, is the message.
Also, all along, there has been intentional subterfuge by blurring the distinction between this Withdrawal Agreement, with its transition period and added on Irish Backstop, and the future final trade deal.
Things look soft, temporarily, but not in long term where it’s hard as coffin nails.
None of her fundamental red lines have been breached in the vague future trade framework.
@Nana –
Just a swift one to say thanks for all the links. I never get time to read them all but do try to take in at least a couple from each batch.
The review of Fintan O’Toole’s essay (9.04) was excellent!
😉
@Ian B and Nana
Good shout on that review piece. The fella could have shortened the title to simply… OOFT! 😎
Thanks Ian. If only one is read and shared, it could be that one article which changes a No to Yes.
You might like to watch this, I posted it a few weeks ago you, may have missed it first time around. He doesn’t mince his words 🙂
Fintan O’Toole: Brexit: Ireland and the English Question
link to youtube.com
I see the concern trolls and IndyRefNow! trolls are putting in another shift. The establishment must be panicking big time, if they are putting so much effort into a WoS thread on Sunday.
I hope you BritNats are getting well paid for your weekend overtime (you know who you are).
And so do we. 🙂
Among all the Brexit comings and goings, what happened to the case of our continuity bill that had gone to the English Supreme Court for judgement. I was under the impression that the decision of the court should have been announced by now. It’s gone very, very quiet.
Anybody have any idea what’s going on, or is it just me, have I missed something.
Galamcennalath
Talking to a friend down south recently and she volunteered the information that it seems a lot of folk there think ‘No Deal’ Brexit means – there is no deal, therefore no change – i.e. we remain in status quo and in the EU!
Meg merrilees says:
Now that is very depressing! And scary!
I am not totally surprised because there have been so many muddled messages from politicians and media.
I wouldn’t know where to start … but perhaps the worse is the two totally conflicting messages that a hard Brexit means both a wonderful fresh start, a bonfire of unnecessary red tape, and riches for the NHS …. and at the same time a terrible recession with social melt down, the end of the NHS, and food shortages.
No wonder people who don’t closely follow events are confused.
For democracy to function you need a well informed electorate who can discern bullshit from reality. The UK has developed a system which ensures much the electorate hasn’t got a clue what to think. This is by design.
@Marie Clark
Funny how so many things, since 1914, would be settled by Christmas!
Catching but spent the last 1hr+ listening (headphones on) to Nana’s link while pottering about on the computer. Excellent stuff.
Link is just up the page.
Fintan O’Toole: Brexit: Ireland and the English Question
Luigi
Do you really believe that people are paid to comment BTL on this blog?
There is a danger that comments like yours and mr peffers further up add to the ‘nats are conspiracy theory’ narrative that does not help the debate.
Any food bank that allows Tories publicity will not get donations from some people.
The Tories have caused the problems.
TrusselTrust is run by a Tory.
It is odd Welsh Labour reached an agreement with a Tory government over the return of devolved powers from the EU and went ahead a couple weeks ago with the repeal of its EU Continuity Act.
Similarly with the Scottish government.
It has been reported so much progress has been made on the same issue, that they are calling for Section 12 of the EU Withdrawal Act to be repealed!
It suggests they no longer require their own EU Continuity Act, currently referred to the Supreme Court for a decision.
Do both devolved governments suspect they will soon be working with a Labour government?
Fintan O’Toole….exceptional assessment.
@Marie Clark
The Supreme Court are sitting on the Continuity Bill appeal, waiting for the UK Withdrawal Bill to get royal approval.
Then they can say a devolved parliament bill can’t contradict an existing Westminster one.
It’s known a s “Perfidious Albion”.
Robert Peffers: and others –
You mention that some of your longer comments keep disappearing before you can post them.
Might it be an idea to construct them elsewhere and then ‘cut and paste’ the whole comment into the Wings comment box…
Just a thought.
At least I won’t need to watch the meaningless debate between two English nationalists as the second leg of River Plate v Boca Juniors will be on BT Sport.
Back from a horrendous refereeing performance this afternoon when the team formerly known as Rangers got a blatantly offside goal from their main striker who should have been sent off on basis of numerous fouls, play acting and gestures to the home crowd but didn’t even get booked.
Then found that Euro Nations cup draw finds Scotland with the two most difficult opponents they could have possibly faced while England gets an easy draw against two lowly ranked opponents.
Some things never change in football.
Meg merilees @6:47
Thiis is quite a serious point
I’ve been rsponding to bbc regarding the may deal/ no deal and not mentioning no brexit.
This is in line with the tory plan to crash out of the EU.
BBC are complicit in this imho
OT
Well, that’s that job nearly over. Who’d have thought moving hosts for multiple websites would be such a pain, considering I first simulated the move, then parallel tested it over the last couple of weeks then did it for real?
Seems my move has disrupted the entire tinternet, with NASA complaining they couldn’t log in to ther Mars buggy and the mighty Amazon brought to its knees in the jungle, covered in sticky webs and caught up in nets, while getting messages like “SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP” because browsers can’t cope with security certificates, and the 13 root nameservers, unlucky for some, can’t cope with the mere trillions of websites all changing every day or decade.
Ho hum, it’s a brave new world, but is it worth it I ask myself, as I take a partial place in the cloud while waiting patiently for the sands of time to pass on and give us Indy Ref 2 (vaguely back on topic)?
I need a cigarette, pass me the zig-zags.
Gfaetheblock@7.16pm
Hope you are on more than the min wage. LOL
Just a thought!
link to indyref2.scot
O/T
Could everybody check their local Co-op to see if it is being plastered with “British” and “better together” promotioning?
Dunoon store has just lost several customers due to this stuff being plastered all over its display.
“We support British meat”
“Our food is better together”
Either the Co-op in Manchester is stupid or they think we are all stupid.
I have just endured some Tory Prick on some Sky thingy on you tube.
I recon the only answer to Brexit is, every party now simply walks away from the table, and allow the Tories with UKIP arseholes to give the people what they want.
Here is the crux, every said tosser who put the country in this mess will be held GUILTY when the truth comes to light as to what a disaster it is.
They can flee to foreign countries but can be easily found, ALL assets from personal bank accounts/houses, their offspring’s accounts etc so they cannot hide diddlysquat.
They will be forced to hand over ALL ASSETS to the people.
Lets see if they would be so cavalier with the lies they tell.
Essexexile@9.33am
I read your post and then read it again. Same result. Am I missing a secret code again or is it just a lot of rubbish.
Robert Peffers@3.05pm
“Such an outcome would kill the dream, very likely forever.”
Sorry but I disagree the independence movement will never just fade away even with an indyref2 loss. Half glass empty comment by Mr Peffers.
@Nana (5.40) –
Just finished watching that O’Toole piece. Soo-perb, but scary.
I was really disappointed he used Scottish ‘Nationalist’ Party early on but, hey, naebdy’s perfect!
😉
State warping of perception. or for the Scots who voted no to independence. “Mugs-R-US”
link to caltonjock.com
The Co-op used to give a % of profits direct to the Labour party, I don’t know if that’s changed
Albert Herring @ 8.02, aye Albert, I fear that you are right enough in what you say. Twas ever thus.
Here’s my latest piece on Brexit – I had intended adding in something about Scotland but it got too long.
Hope to finish a separate post on Scotland this week (work committments permitting).
Anyway in the meantime enjoy the UK Dilemma
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Presuming the House of Commons rejects May’s Brexit Deal, what will the SNP do next?
Judging by what they have done so far, I think the SNP might, and maybe should (though many Yessers will disagree) give the English public one last chance to say exactly what they want. Now that sufficient facts are available to allow them to make a real choice, let them express themselves.
On the EU. But also, simultaneously, on the UK. And let them realise that one choice affects – and effects – another. There is a basic principle here: they can’t have it both ways. If the last two years of the UK’s pathetic efforts to negotiate a so-called ‘deal’ with the EU demonstrate anything, it is surely that. No one gets it both ways – not for long, anyway.
With the May Deal gone, and everything in-between gone with it, a second referendum on Europe will now, once again, be a clear choice between retaining full EU membership (by revoking Article 50) or leaving the EU altogether (on a pure and simple No Deal Brexit). There will no longer be anything else on the table. Donald Tusk made that very clear – the EU are not going to enter into any further re-negotiations. Reject the May Deal and the UK either gets out altogether or it abandons the entire project, and stays in.
This new choice – ‘No Deal Brexit’ or ‘No Brexit at all’ – has the advantage of simplicity. At last – the electorate is being offered something it can fairly easily understand.
This will be a mighty relief. It will be a bit like going back to playing pontoon (such a simple and easy-to-understand game) after all the ‘poker politics’ the politicians have been subjecting us to ever since the result of the first EU referendum was announced.
Such a complicated game, poker, with all that second-guessing and interminable speculation. The public are thoroughly fed up with it and will be happy to get back to something straightforward. Oh for the days of pontoon – which we played with such joy when we were innocent (some of us, I suppose) and optimistic teenagers, with the world at our feet, with life opening up before us like the dawn of a new day and everything to play for!
Back in the world of the present grim reality, this time round it will be possible to put the ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’ choice before the English/ rUk public in terms of ‘Stick’ or ‘Bust’. Familiar ‘pontoon language’, albeit somewhat adapted.
If ‘Remain’ wins, everything will ‘Stick’ the way it already is. In two ways, simultaneously. First, the UK will remain a full member state of the EU, just as it is now. The SNP will be glad: that’s what they always wanted. I will be too, at least in the sense that I value greatly my European citizenship, and do not want it taken off me in any circumstances.
Forbye that – and more ominously … there will be a price to pay, for … Second, there will be no more grounds for us Scots to hold Indyref2, not now at least. (That should give poor Mrs May – the ex-PM by this time? – some consolation, since it is what she always said: ‘now is not the time’. However, it doesn’t console me in the least. Many of us will be enormously disappointed, and it may be expected that present grumbling will turn to outrage … However, all is not lost …)
With a ‘Remain in the EU’ vote the circumstance which had justified, and even necessitated, that we Scots hold Indyref2 during the lifetime of the present Scottish parliament will no longer exist. English voters will have to be informed of this. If you want Indyref2 to disappear (for now, at least) remove the grounds on the basis of which it received its mandate: keep us in the EU.
English voters will thus be given the chance to vote down Indyref2, making it impossible for us to hold it during the present Holyrood parliament. All they have to do is vote ‘Remain’ – or, if you prefer it, in pontoon terms, ‘Stick’.
If English voters really love the UK Union, and really want it to continue (for the time being at least), they can make that happen. They can remove that massive ‘material change’ that was about to be forced on Scotland, through her being dragged out of the EU against her will. But if they refuse to remove it, they will be demonstrating that they don’t really care about the UK Union, and don’t mind it coming to an end.
They will have to choose. Where do their priorities lie?
The alternative result, a repeat vote for ‘Leave’, will inevitably have the opposite consequences. If the English/rUK public goes down that path it will be voting for ‘Bust’ true and proper, or what we might call ‘Bust all round’. For, in that case, England/ rUK will effectively be ‘leaving’ BOTH the Unions of which it is currently a part.
In that scenario, the people of England/rUK will have chosen to leave the EU altogether (without a ‘deal’), and in doing so they will knowingly have chosen to ‘leave’ their union with Scotland as well, because Scotland will be ‘remaining’ in the EU.
Quite a ‘bust-up’, then. But why not? Even if the parliament (more precisely, ‘the Queen-in-parliament’) is supreme in England, and not the people, why not let the people have what they want for once? Mrs May, after all, has been pretending for the last two years that that is obviously what should happen (if only because, in fact, she thought it coincided with her getting what she wants – specifically, the kind of Brexit that would follow HER red lines rather than anyone else’s, even though the referendum question has never defined these).
Basically, in such a second referendum England will be faced with making her choices clear. Moreover, in this comparatively simple way – pontoon, not poker! It will be made plain, and will be stated openly that an English ‘Leave’ vote will ‘bust’ England free from both its Unions.
According to the propaganda that has been pumped no less in England than in Scotland over the last few years, in regard to both issues, that should serve England very well. For England – or, at least, those English voters who believe all that propaganda – will no longer have to subsidise any of these leach-junkie spongers (the Scots) or devious-foreigner cheats (the Europeans) who have been blatantly ripping her off for all these many years!
Of course, if England does ‘remain’ foolish and ends up voting ‘leave’ yet again, almost unbelievably in the face of the circumstances that now obtain and despite the information that is now available, the one thing that might really and truly ‘go bust’ is …
well,
… England itself!
In which case, hell mend them! You can only help someone so far; at some point he has to cop on, and help himself as well. If he doesn’t … you don’t have to sink with him. And shouldn’t let him drag you down.
But if ordinary English voters wise up sufficiently to what’s happening, or just pay enough attention to the factual evidence that surrounds them, they will presumably vote ‘Remain’ this time round. Which means – sadly for most of us – that Scotland will not be becoming an independent country quite as soon as so many of us had hoped, myself included.
Those of us who will be so immensely disappointed, however, will have to fix it in our minds that this has not been a ‘no’ to independence, but only a ‘not just yet’.
The SNP will be pilloried from some quarters, even within itself. But it will not, I am sure, have abandoned its goal, its very raison d’etre, which is and remains independence. It will have postponed it, yes … but not for long. The SNP will no longer have their mandate for holding Indyref2 before the expiry of the present Holyrood parliament’s term in 2021, but that is as far as it will go. They won’t be making any commitments concerning what might happen after 2021.
After all, the UK’s Unionist Parties have continually hammered the SNP for a casual remark (not a manifesto promise) made by one of their leaders to the effect that, if ‘Yes’ lost in 2014, there would be no second referendum on independence ‘for a generation’. And, in that respect, the UK has already signed an international agreement which defines what that phrase – ‘for a generation’ – actually means in political and legal terms, especially in reference to repeating a referendum.
The Good Friday agreement defines ‘a generation’ as – precisely – seven years!
Something like – for instance, to take a random example – the time between 2014 and 2021.
So, not a long time at all. We don’t know what the SNP’s manifesto for the 2021 Holyrood elections will be, and neither do they. If anyone asks them now, they will just say they haven’t written it yet. Wait and see – it will depend on what circumstances exist in 2021.
And the same goes for what their manifesto will be for the 2022 General Election to the Westminster parliament. That is, if Scotland is still sending MPs there by that time … Which might, or might not be the case. Maybe – for all we know – the 2021 Holyrood election will put an end to that!
Even if we don’t get our Indyref2 now, therefore, we can still be confident that our independence will not be long in coming.
Who knows? Our English friends might even hand it to us on a plate. It might well turn out that they really do love Brexit more than a continuation of the UK Union. And they might freely choose this, simply by again voting ‘Leave’ (= ‘Bust’) in that second EU referendum, which might well coming soon.
That second EU referendum which the SNP has already said it will support, after the ‘May Deal’ (presumably) gets voted down in the House of Commons on December 11th.
Anyone for pontoon?
Here’s the deck …
… Whose turn to ‘deal’?
PS By the way, this post received the same treatment as that of Robert Peffers. Once a large chunk of it disappeared. And the second time – about a minute ago, when I scrolled upwards before coming back to press the ‘send’ button – all of it disappeared. Luckily (or unluckily for those who understandably can’t stand long posts like this one, or for whoever simply wants to make them disappear into the ether) … As I was saying, ‘luckily’ I had copied it beforehand, and could paste it back in. Let’s see what happens when I press the ‘send’ button.
Ahundredthidiot@10.39am
Marr show today.
I think the BBC picked Delia because they knew she would be bloody useless at making the case for remain. They were right.
A bit like captain Heggarty later on in Sunday Politics. Does even use the word independence these days. No surrender Clegg and Heggarty on the same show – at the same time – hard to stomach.
OT
Just because I feel like it, while watcing over the settling down like an anxious kitten watching its mike get spilled. Or something.
The reason there are 13 root name servers (actually clusters), is because of the size of a packet of information which is 512 bytes. It takes 32 bytes for one nameserver’s dotted quad – ip address (don’t ask me how that gets worked out because it doesn’t make sense), so 13 x 32 – 416 leaving 96 bytes spare.
link to lifewire.com
There are far more nameservers around the world, thousands, millions, even I ran something called BIND for which I had two IP addresses corresponding to my own nameservers, in theory they should be on different machines. This BIND had my websites and “bound” them to IP addresses, often the same one as you can have way more than one website on ons single IP address, identified inside the web hosting maching via “virtual servers”, run on the likes of Apache. Nameservers tell the web where to get information about domains such as this, and simpler hosts then host these sites.
Time for a cuppa, seems to be settling down page by page on my main website 🙁
milk, can’t really see how mike could help, though it makes things louder I guess. Or is that an amplifier?
Hey Cactus, it’s contagious 🙂
Wull@9.17pm
Never mind the Brexit deal you most definitely need to get a book deal.???????
@wull
I had been thinking of posting something along the same lines all day today but never bothered. It’s a very important point you make because I do believe that the chances of a second EU referendum are increasing.
It’s faily obvious I thing that May’s deal as it stands is in the bin, maybe if they through in membership of the single market along with the current proposals to remain in the customs union for now might gain enough support to win through in a second vote.
Even that though seems unlikely, so if May’s “deal” is out the window we’re left with No deal as the default option or a general election or second EU referendum. I just can’t see enough MP’s in parliament being willing to accept the consequences of No deal.
Nope, maybe it could happen but I just can’t see it as it would be the greatest mistake ever made by a UK government.
Of the two options left I have a sneaking suspicion that a 2nd EU referendum is the more likely of the two, it is this I could imagine more Tory MP’s voting for rather than a vote of no confidence in the current government.
If that happens and the vote is to Remain then is it back to the drawing board?
The SNP of course must know this and it could throw any hope of a 2nd Independence referendum up in the air for quite some time. I guess we will know soon enough though we should expect more surprises and screw ups along the way going by current form.
For those who don’t do much scrolling back, please consider having a swatch at this interview with Fintan O’Toole on Brexit.
It’s an hour long but you can drop into it at any point and get an idea of poorly served we’ve been by ‘British’ msm generally.
This is what reasoned, sober analysis of a serious problem looks like, and we’ve had next to none of it.
link to youtube.com
Wull
Great piece
Been thinking and commenting along these lines for a couple of weeks. If SNP leadership were confident about winning indyref2 currently, they would try and vote through the May deal. Get the trigger, get the ref.
They can’t be, and have realised that the best thing for Scotland is stop brexit at all costs. This sacrifices the trigger, but is the best for us in Scotland.
P.S. I am on 5p a word, so this is £3.30 in the bank
Just read the advertising feature for the 77th brigade. More MOD money down the drain. The internet has no doubt caused much hand wringing at Brit HQ. Just when they thought the BBC eternally invincible as the ultimate propaganda tool.
The Brits have a real problem in using social media to control the homeland. Their power base is an infantilised, aging population who are barely computer literate. Same goes for all the other autocratic states.
Garbage in garbage out will be the hallmark of the 77th brigade. I find it amusing and not at all concerning.
Scotland within the EU. The arguments used as scare tactics in Indy ref 1 are relevant now when Scotland, the country, is being dragged into a process that is economically damaging on multiple levels. Why would any country vote to degrade its institutions, renege on hard fought human rights, cause harm to its citizens and diminish its status. Scotland, the country didn’t vote to shred its social contract and this is non-negotiable.
‘The Scottish Government says Scotland would secure its EU membership before the new state became fully independent in March 2016. This would be achieved by renegotiating existing treaties, through an Article 48 amendment. Mr Cox says this would be viable and reflect the “past pragmatism and inventiveness” of the EU…
Scotland’s membership of the EU is seen as crucial economically. It would mean firms retaining access to the lucrative single market and vital EU global trade treaties’
link to scotsman.com
‘Social protection effectively and swiftly reduces inequality and poverty through transfers in cash and kind. A solid basic level of social protection is affordable and implementable nearly everywhere. It can be achieved now or—at least after some investment in good governance—fairly soon.
For decades, the community of nations has had a global ethical compass when it comes to social protection.
Most countries not only can afford social protection, they cannot afford to neglect it. No country will be able to fully realize its economic potential without investing in the health, education, and material security of its people’
link to imf.org
‘You cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’
JF Kennedy 1961
Does anyone really imagine that the EU are going to welcome the Brits staying in without extracting a price? Who would want a walking, talking Trojan Horse in their midst?
The Brits would only be accepted with their tail suitably between their legs and thoroughly emasculated. They would never be trusted.
I really don’t care what option the Brits go for. The damage is done and that will prove beneficial to Scotland.
link to youtube.com
Dear Nana,
As always, thanks for the links, the one from Fintan OToole – was superb, as others have mentioned.
O/T only not really
Brexshit changes everything, but not really.
Do we allow ourselves to be dragged, against our will, and dropped off an economic cliff, which will take 50 years to sort.
Or do we, the people who live here and know the most about it, start running our own affairs.
I say Aye.
And the good news is, our former No voters, are now deeply concerned, and willing to listen. Dust off your McCrone Reports, Sign Post the web sites to Hurricane Energy, re-assure them the realities of our extremely wealthy country.
Aw the best, tae aw biddy. An keep keeping on, there’s now’t else fir it.
So Sarah Smith has a new bbc R4 series about people living in the border Douglas Alexander has a bbc r4 series as well (how we all cling on to tribes). What erver could he be referring to. Gordon Brown appears on the Bbc about the NHS in Scotland.
the tory labourites are gearing up once again
Slightly off topic. Haggerty on BBC Sunday Politics. Sounded just like Clegg of the Daily Record– Independence cannot be spoken. Useless,
Thepnr says:
1 December, 2018 at 10:44 pm
“@Dr Jim
I happen to think you’re right. Maybe I’m trusting her judgement too much but to be honest there’s no one else I can trust.”
If blind faith in religion is bad, blind faith in politicians is worse.
Nicola blew it big time when she tried to flog a dead horse instead of preparing the people of Scotland for independence in March 2019.
@Daisy et al –
In Perth t’other day, Thepnr gave me a copy of the following document, Scotland’s Parliament: Fundamentals for a New Scotland Act.
Published by The Constitition Unit of University College, London, in 1996.
The section which could be of use in persuading switherers is called ‘A Chronology of Devolution 1885-1979’, and it’s pp. 159-164.
Even the dimmest can perceive a trend, a pattern, movement, and it’s only ever gone in the one direction:
link to ucl.ac.uk
Another fine post from Wull @0917 pm. However, I am not so sure that May will “ give up” so easily. Could it be she plans in fact to “ go to the country” with her deal ( or very similar ) over the heads of parliamentarians? The Labour mandate would be possibly Norway type deal and/or 2nd EU vote. In this scenario what would the SNP mandate be ( Scotland remain vote is “ sovereign “ and/or SM &CU is minimum outcome for Scotland whatever transpired from GE and subsequent EU outcome otherwise Indyref2 is called.??
I am not so sure that Tories wouldn’t possibly be largest party again ( if they are in position to again proceed with EU withdrawal then Indyref2 must be on cards) .However if SNP can “ support” a Corbyn minority gov, then what can our FM extract in return ( will she set a minimum of SM& CU for Scotland whatever Corbyn proposed for RUK ie. Possible Norway style deal . Additionally will she insist on powergrab reversal and/ or significant further powers to include immigration & dwp etc.). If EU2nd vote will our FM declare union treaty over if E&W votes out? So many possibilities & outcomes and this is why our FM has been so so right to hold her cards very close and keep her “ powder dry”. However it certainly won’t be long now until we know how her cards are played .
Ironically funny when you think about England stuck in the EU with no say and no power to get out of it
Even more ironical they don’t see the irony
A US Embassy telegram from early 1984 described how Brown was;
“already being seen as a leading light among the new members. He is an articulate, hard working and dedicated MP who is likely to go places within his party . As he has never been to the US the IV Program will give him an ideal opportunity to learn first-hand about the US political system and meet his American counterparts early in his career, which could have immense value to both sides of the Atlantic”.
link to caltonjock.com
@Ian Brotherhood
Good find in sourcing an online version, a few interesting snippets in there and as you say the chronology all points in the same direction and where we are today is simply an extension of that.
Independence is inevitable.
wull @ 9:17 pm
Many thanks for such a great, thoughtful post – and such a ‘dense’ one in terms of content that merited a couple of readings.
It resonated with my sense of how little agency the electorate in Scotland have had over this whole Brexit business – from our rejection of the UK party of government that started the process with its EU referendum all the way through every stage in the Westminster process up to now. And the ‘conditionalities’ being placed around our opportunity to exercise any agency just seem to get greater.
However, candidly, I won’t be critical of the SG at this time because it truly does face a ‘dilemma’ – a problem to be solved which offers two or more possible routes to the desired outcome, none of which is unambiguously acceptable, preferable or certain of success. As a consequence of our vote in 2014, we’re now left hanging around waiting until others beyond Scotland decide on THEIR next move.
It is this blindly obvious lack of agency on an important issue – again – that fundamentally underpins the case for Scotland’s independence.
Brexit
where some English establishment figures forced on Scots the removal of their right to remain European Citizens.
They call it democracy whereas in truth it is colonialism in action.
Hamish 100 @ 12.01
Spot on.
I think you’re being unfair (only VERY slightly) to Labour (UK)
They couldn’t POSSIBLY say they’ll give any ground on Indy 2 before a public vote.
Remember all those advertising posters showing Salmond with Milliband in his pocket? Remember the Daily Mail’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ issue?
ANYTHING hinting of SNP involvement in government would see Labour being utterly slaughtered in England. The Tories (correctly) assumed that the thought of having Scots having a say-so over the English would scare the bejesus out of them and have the running to vote Conservative.
No, O’Donnell is quite right to keep his powder dry on this, and NOT for the sake of SLAB, but for the sake of English votes.
Of course, once IN a position like that they can negotiate ‘in the national interest’ and give up something.
I have no doubt they wouldn’t want to be seen to give another Indy vote. However, agreeing to pass over the right to decide when they are held MAY be agreed (may) but only with strings. For example, they can only be held if there is demand (polls showing 50% WANT a vote) and/or no more often than every ten years OR EVEN that any such vote would be FINAL and PERMANENT should it take place. And THAT would indeed discourage any SNP leader from holding it unless they had a starting point of over 50%.
One thing I have noticed about party leaders, they keep their hands clean. For example, in the Indy referendum Cameron was VERY careful not to say too much at all. He let Darling do all the lying. Cameron said things like ‘no one’s saying Scotland couldn’t be a successful independent nation’ whilst in fact he was backing a campaign to say exactly that. For the most part party leaders don’t want to get caught saying something that’s demonstrably untrue, unpopular or even offensive. That’s what the underlings are for. As you’ve said, the party leader’s popularity is a key indicator on how the party performs.
And, looking at personal popularity, Corbyn IS popular in Scotland. And why not? He seems to be at least not AGAINST an Indy vote, he’s further to the left than any previous leader in the last 30 years (meaning he’s ACTUALLY a moderate and not really left wing for a Labour man)
Corbyn is a real and present danger to the SNP vote at the next election. One of the BIG problems is that people don’t actually understand – 1) What SNP has done in a positive sense, for Scotland. 2) What the SNP has done to mitigate Tory and Labour policies for people living in Scotland. 3)They don’t understand the EXTENT of the lies that we were told in the Referendum, they have no idea that EVERY promise was broken and that EVERYTHING that was offered as ‘additional powers’ was essentially an attempt at giving us the rope with which to hang ourselves.
The voting public’s memories are SHORT. Younger voters aren’t taught anything of recent political history at school or by anyone else. I was shocked when my nephew asked me who Margaret Thatcher was when I mentioned her name, but I was, on reflection, not surprised…
Just checked out that Finton O’Toole interview on Brexit. Very good, worth a watch.
Had a quick look at some of the comments. Someone made a witty observation about it being an Irishman speaking about the ‘English Question’. That raised a smile. But then some moron replies to that with: ‘Just wait until they have a famine over there’… a comment which is not only bewilderingly crass but somehow epitomises the attitude of so many low IQ Britnats that you encounter online. And very likely from around these parts I suspect, with a wee sash and bowler hat tucked away in a drawer, no doubt.
Rockshit
Trust Rockshit to stink the place out at the end of the evening with his usual Britnat crap.
Just my wee pennies worth. I don’t see that in the event,
(unlikely) of a second EU referendum, that Scotland’s position regards Independence would be any different the day after a ‘remain’ vote by English voters.
Many reasons, not least the SNP at Holyrood, with a mandate sitting there, and 35 SNP MP’s at Westminster. Scotland is still at a huge disadvantage in terms of how the Britnat government undermine, ridicule, and treat Scotland’s democratically elected representatives with utter contempt.
The Westminster Britnat gov no matter whether Labour or Tory, will always treat Scotland as a colony, they won’t change now after 300+ years.Foodbanks, Universal credit(!),homelessness, destitution, Scotland’s resources being plundered, revenues removed, massively damaging to Scotland and the people of Scotland.
No, Brexit certainly makes independence an immediate and crucial decision, because it puts Scotland in great peril, but, even with any Brexit being decided for us by England, Scotland needs to move forward. That means not accepting Westminster Tory/red Tory terrible, cruel and unnecessary austerity, we must reject that for our people! Imposed suffering is being normalised by the britnats, it’s sinister and very dangerous. It’s far right wing!
Without independence Scotland will be strangled by the Britnat state, and our parliament rendered impotent. There will be no more powers, more cuts to the budget than we can imagine, until the Britnats can get rid of the SNP government.
After 300 years of the brutal British ( English) government ruling over Scotland, we cannot allow England’s umming and arring, ducking and diving, to decide on whether Scotland should remain in a dysfunctional unequal and in fact quite abusive union to the detriment of Scotland’s land and people. The past 300 years have not been good for Scotland. I say we aim for better, to take a chance to escape the so called ‘union’ because it is in fact a sham, a racket.
Brexit is an English construct, Scotland has been ignored, ridiculed and demonised in fact. That’s not acceptable it’s just not. The serious thing is, it will only get worse if we carry on allowing our neighbour make decisions we don’t want, didn’t vote for, and above the elected Scottish governments’ heads. That cannot and must not be sustained.
I don’t see how Brexit would suddenly mean that Scotland would be in any better position whatsoever, no matter how it goes and turns out.
Sorry long comment1
Wayhay, problem sorted, with an online chat support, the guy changed Cloudfare from flexible to full. Yeah, don’t ask me either yet, I’ve not got into it but probably as I thought a cacheing problem.
Yanks it is, and I always say I’m from Scotland. Seems to me we get a bit extra, which is a bit sad for those who aren’t from Scotland. Tough, move here and enjoy!
Nicola Sturgeon will meet Theresa May tomorrow in London for Brexit talks.
link to archive.fo
@jfngw
“Meanwhile a failed chancellor and PM has criticised the SNP. ”
A cartoon I tested my new graphics computer with a few weeks back:
Gary@12.28am
Do you write for the Daily Record. What a load of British Nationalist Labour in Scotland rubbish.
Scotland should not and does not need to go cap in hand to Labour or any other British Nationalist party for the right to hold an independence referendum.
Corbyn is popular in Scotland – total rubbish. In fact your whole post is just a lot of thinly disguised Britnat propaganda. If you think you are an independence supporter posting this stuff – well surprise surprise you are not.
Here we go again , the same old “ Britnat better together faces” being rolled out again by the State broadcasting propaganda channel. Yesterday it was “ Broon and NHS Scotland” this morning it’s “ Sir” Ian Wood “ promoting Mays “deal”. Must be a GE in the offing??
@thepnr(1.05am)
Interesting stuff in that link.
As usual however, the media never quite tell it fully correctly.
……
“Ms Sturgeon is prepared to back another referendum”.
……….
That of course should read…
……..
“Ms Sturgeon is prepared to back another referendum’ as long as what Scotland decides is respected this time”.
………
As ever, context is everything.
Pretty sure treeza aint gonna like what Nicola tells her.
Gary says@12.28am…
Way too much, all of it utter gibberish.
Labour party apologist.
Now we all have to pay attention children:
We’ve been waiting for him and right on cue he arrives, Sir Ian Wood and he does indeed back Theresa May and says the oil’s running out and the investment’s on the wane as well
The band’s getting back together to re release the same record they had a hit with in 2014
OT
I’ve been taking a broad view of things happening in WM & I’m going to be basic in my post.
On the one hand you have the Tories, according to Labour, talking a great load of s***e, & Labour, of the Tories doing likewise. Then there is the smattering of Libs going around at their tails with a handful of tissues hopelessly trying to clean up the mess.
Now, a woman is naturally somewhat tidy &, as our Nicola is as such, she cannot do a great deal to clean up all the excreta prevalent in that establishment. However, as a consultant, she could advise, as consultants do, to suggest the best way forward. Obviously, that advice is being ignored.
Hence, let WM wallow on their own shit. Nicola is not the type to shout to all the world, “I told you so”. She won’t have to.
Once s**t hardens, it’s rather difficult to remove. It will be there for quite some time for all to see.
Read an interesting article in the Sunday National explaining what could happen next in the Brexs*it fiasco…
Took a bit of time to follow the diagram but in the bottom-right corner was an intriguing suggestion that in the event of it all going belly up, the 39 SNP MP’s could resign En Masse and cause a plethora of by-elections in which they might stand on an Independence ticket!
(quicker to organise than a General Election?).
Now the MSM would have to report that – wouldn’t they?
And remember what happened the last time they walked out of the House of Commons…
Wonder what Nicola and Theresa will be discussing tomorrow – can’t think they will be exchanging Christmas stuffing recipes.
Nana and Ian Brotherhood @ 9.55 pm
Thank you for the link to Fintan O’Toole on Brexit and the English Question.
I loved listening to him quietly and wittily taking the English Question apart, analysing and explaining and finally offering a viable solution 🙂
You’ll have to listen too. Informative AND priceless.
Nicola , brave lass, is heading south again to have a wee chat with Teresa.
I wonder how much longer it will take before poor Teresa breaks down and begs Nicola to take over and sort the mess.
Reading that T May is now thinking of making a quick trip to the EU to try and renegotiate some better terms that may help her to win over some few more of her party and also is considering NOT holding the vote on Dec 11th!!!
The woman is MAD
The EU has told her umpteen times that there will be no more negotiations, the 27 countries have signed off on the deal – does she not realise she is negotiation with 27 countries, not just Tusk or Barnier.
If she reneges on the vote she’s finished.
Already talk of initiating a contempt of Parliament tomorrow ( today) over her refusal to obey the motion passed in Parliament requiring the Gov. to reveal its legal advice on the Brexit deal.
I don’t see how she can carry on after that.
She is leading a minority government, the DUP are about to/ have already ditch(ed) her; this is her deal that she has personally tried to sell all round her ‘Preciousss Onion’ and both Remain and Leave are about to vote it down – that’s quite an achievement to alienate both sides of the argument.
Wow – and we are the generation able to witness all this. Will the history books do it justice?
History is repeating itself as this all happened in 1846 when Robert Peel, Tory PM, had to resign because he no longer had control over his party – and that was connected with Ireland as well.
Thank goodness we have Nicola.
HAS MAY BLINDFOLDED BRITAIN IN ORDER TO TAKE IT TO A PLACE IT WOULD NOT CHOOSE TO GO TO.
So Theresa May remains, while the jigsaw known as Brexit, it too remains incomplete and still without the guidance of a clear picture. A jigsaw being put together in darkness.
Confusion remains the dominant effect of the Brexit era, created directly by May’s unbroken refusal to part with any factual information.
Whether this can be ascribed to the Russian, Vladizlav Surkov, whose fingerprints are all over Theresa May’s premiership, and his ‘Sovereign Democracy’ policies of political control, is now immaterial, the fact is, confusion and uncertainty still reign in the UK, causing a drought in decision making and keeping us all in limbo.
The UK is seriously disabled, due entirely to the inability of Westminster to function as a working Parliament and the shambolic incompetence of the British Conservative Government.
It is beginning to look as if the upheaval triggered in the UK by Brexit, but also occurring elsewhere in Europe, and the US, is deeper, bigger and will last longer than anyone thought possible.
How Scottish Independence can be achieved in this ongoing turmoil is very difficult to compute. Until the new political landscape emerges and stabilises, it would surely be extremely foolish to imagine that a quick-fix Independence solution is on the cards.
So on we go. But where to?
Meg merrilees says @ 4.04am
“Reading that T May is now thinking of making a quick trip to the EU to try and renegotiate some better terms that may help her to win over some few more of her party and also is considering NOT holding the vote on Dec 11th!!!
———–
She can think all she likes – I reckon any trip would purely be for show, so the media can print whatever shit it decides on the day.
Doubt if the EU will have time for anymore ‘negotiations’ they have 27 other countries to consider and time is almost up.
manandboy
I think under the circumstances if we include Brexit, the attacks on Scottish democracy, the constant attempts to undermine the Scottish government and the continued theft of Scottish resources and impoverishment of our people a quick fix independence solution will do me fine.
I have to say independence, which is the normal way to run a country, was not just thought up last night.
Independence today is good compared to the raging mess that is the failing UK.
The Tories going down. The DUP ready to put the boot in. A GE is coming soon. How long can May and the imbeciles stagger on. Lining their pockets on other people’s misery. They are an international disgrace.
Any store or foodbank that allows the Tories any cheap publicity are just as bad as them. That’s Asda and Tescos off the Christmas list. Especially after the financial fraud. They got away with again.
The Tories have caused the mess. They can’t get out of it. Thirty years in the wilderness. If there is any justice, Labour are just as bad. The Libdems and Corbyn don’t even turn up to vote. They could have voted May down in Sept 2017. No one wants the poison chalice.
Good article by Lesley Riddoch in Scotsman on Nicola Sturgeon and TV brexit debate
Thepnr says:
3 December, 2018 at 1:05 am
Nicola Sturgeon will meet Theresa May tomorrow in London for Brexit talks.
That Fin O’Toole conversation is excellent, while I flatter myself tremendously, picking up where he left off…
Wouldn’t it be nice to imagine Nicola was going to Downing St with a proposition that conditional upon Westminster backing the deal and endorsing the Sovereign status of Scotland, essentially extending Scotland Continuer status to pick up the UK’s EU membership, that in return for facilitating Scotland’s capacity to remain in the EU, Scotland would engineer itself into transitional zone, not unlike Northern Ireland, where a No Deal Catastrophe for the UK evolves into an Independent Scotland in Europe extending a bespoke Free Trade Agreement with England, which keeps a Customs Border between the EU and a Brexited England, but permits English Trade with Scotland and whereby Scotland functions as a filter/buffer zone to ensure compliance with EU standards for all trade heading for the continent.
Scotland would of course require distinct sovereignty to become a full EU Member in the first place, and further oversee the bespoke buffer status between England and the EU was respected, but importantly to pacify Scottish Unionism, a wafer thin quasi Federal arrangement between and Indy Scotland and Indy England might see some consolatory vestigial remains of the United Kingdom still remaining. Exactly like Northern Ireland, perhaps Scots too would be entitled to BOTH Scottish (EU) Passports and UK (British) Passports. Blue ones of course. The United Kingdom would still exist, it would just be an “honorary” title.
Nicola might also underpin Scotland’s offer with thebig stick “nuclear” option of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty, where the UK loses control, it’s just a question of how much and how acrimoniously it loses it.
This way, the UK doesn’t have a Border in NI, so the Irish Backstop is resolved, and the Border which might have run acrimoniously down the Irish Sea now runs contentedly policed from Gretna to Berwick, and on into the North Sea / Channel.
Here in Scotland, Unionism is truncated by a “Union” which has the stark choice of an amicable divorce with ongoing relationship between Scotland and England, or the white knuckle No Deal Brexit which will destroy the English economy and provoke a more acrimonious divorce with Scotland.
That’s what I’d like to think Nicola was taking down to Downing St.
Unfortunately I just bet it isn’t. We’ll be fishing for a Section 30 Agreement or EuroRef2 concessions.
Well the 2014 dinosaurs are creeping out again, wehave had Broon the Yoon, now Ian Woods again via by the BBC of course.
Pushing the North Sea oil and gas industry, but of course there will be a down turn.
Also he says that he believes more fish will be caught with Brexit. Again,no surprise as he also has trawlers out there. He is on the British 100 richest people list. Worth £1.5billion.
The audacity of this little rich creep pushing the North sea is simply the reverse of what he said in 2014, and because recent large finds are open knowledge.
If they had not been publicised he would not be seen pushing the industry, on the contrary he would be talking it down again and quietly filling his pockets as before.
THE ESTABLISHMENT’S HALLMARK IS TREACHERY.
Theresa May follows Establishment tradition by continuing to work in secret as much as possible. Transparency is anathema to Britain’s Ruling Class.
Consider the report on the Dunblane killings which has been rendered secret for a hundred years. Or, again The McCrone Report on Scotland’s Oil which was kept secret for thirty years, and then suppressed when it was ‘released’ in 2005.
Let’s face it, secrecy is only used to hide something, but that something is usually bad. With so much done in secret by Theresa May’s Government, they have obviously got a lot of bad things to hide.
But no matter the secrecy, what May, the government and the Establishment can’t hide, is their nature. We all know what the ‘Nasty Party’ Tories and their Establishment friends are like. But, above all, their hallmark is treachery. And with the Tory government struggling to hold onto power, while the Establishment itself is under threat, we can expect that treachery to prevail in the weeks and months ahead, and nowhere more so, than in Westminster’s dealings with Scotland.
Better Together – with a treacherous thieving ‘partner’?
Soon, we’ll be in the Divorce Court.
May trying to get Nicola to get her out of the mess. After snubbing Scotland every time, No chance. How’s taking away powers going now, May. The Tories down and out in Scotland.
The unionists will not get away with their lies in the next IndyRef, They have called ‘wolf’ enough. It is their policies which are causing the harm to society.
The more Independent Scotland gets the better chance Labour have of power at Westminster. They are just too thick to realise. Living in the past. The failed Chabcellor and the rest of the creeps reappear trying to put the fighteners on. They are now redundant. People have suffered enough for this undemocratic Union Gov. After their muck up. The Tory unionist can never be trusted. Independence coming soon.
Take yon Trident and the debt. The Westminster unionists will not get away with it any more. What a way to run a Gov and the economy into the ground. Thank goodness for the SNP Gov and the internet, Thanks to Rev Stu and Nana etc for all you do. Everyone else as well.
The Scottish Way. We’ve only one First Minister, who is also the Leader of the only Party in Scotland capable of delivering Independence. So, of a Monday morning, first thing, let’s begin by sticking needles into our Nicola Sturgeon doll on the Wings over Scotland blog. Some of us need ‘to catch on’, as they say in NI.
Anyone who is not for Independence is against Independence. For or against, Aye or Naw.
If you want to play in the team, don’t go putting the knife into the Manager.
Artyhetty says:
Well your post may be a bit long, but we have had many longer that did not say as much. It is a good posting that does not skip the real issues,well done.
@Meg merrilees
As far as my limited understanding of UK parliament procedure is,
I don`t think MP`s can resign.
Scotland can vote for it. An SNP Gov and another Ref. Scotland already has and can do again. Vote every Tory unionist out of Scotland. Vote SNP/SNP every time and vote for Independence. The power is in the people’s hand.
The Tories were warned an EU Ref would damage the economy and break up the Union. Just as they were warned about the havoc of the illegal war and the terrorism it would bring, They would not listen and went again legal advice, Telling a pack of lies. They are more concerned about who would be PM. Their conceited egos rather than the good management of the economy and saving people’s lives.
Westminster not supporting essential services etc. Elected to protect NHS/Education and vuknerable people. They cut the funding. Totally unnecessarily £13Billion a year, The tax take revenues are up £95Billion a year. They are sanctionig and starving people. Killing off the elderly (their voters). Spending £Billions in HS2 and Hinkley Point a total waste of time and money.
Brexit the total mess which will make people and the economy poorer. It could cause a world recession. After the illegal wars causing the worse migration crisis in Europe since the 11WW costing £Trns. How much better would the world be if all that revenues had been spent on trade and aid, instead of catastrophe. What a better place the world would be. Instead of supplying £Billion of redundant illegal weaponry to absolute, despot monarchies and apartheid States.
Do they get into Westminster Gov, on a pack of lies. Breaking every promise. Then look around to see how much havoc and chaos they can cause. Just for the hell of it. Looks like it since 1928. From crisis to crisis, to crisis. Another bloody mess. Lie after lie after lie. The worse wealth gap and deficit in the world. No cohesive Gov or society. The terrible Press.Controlled by Westminster computing the lies. A total waste of time, money and paper. Just like the Westminster Unionist Gov.
Last nights downtime question, what does WM not want us to know.
My answer this morning.
WM has only today before the EU court gives their decision tomorrow.
Is that the sound of a starting gun getting loaded. YES
Heh. Good piece in the today’s National on statements made around other routes to self determination. It’s given a few titles food for thought over the weekend to be sure and suddenly the dinosaurs are being rolled out to spread a bit of doom n’ gloom. Wood, Broon, McDonnell and such.
You can tell how much they’re rattled by the level of doom laden response. So yes. They are rattled. They don’t like the idea of a narrative change on ‘permission’. Permission sought gives them the illusion of control. Reality is somewhat different. There’s a big difference between being polite and seeking a mutually agreeable framework to settle a thing and begging cap in hand.
There are a goodly number of other options available if Westminster government is determined to ignore the consequences of its own actions.
If they continue to respond with intimidation, fear and rolling out the usual suspects? I think they’ll find that not only will this show a definite trend of diminishing returns, but it will NOT look good or reflect well given their current record. (shrugs)
Next bit, as always, is their choice.
The stars are aligning. Falling straight from the skies. People’s hopes and dreams. The reality of Scottish Independence. How many people ever thought it would happen in their lifetime. Yet look how far it has come in such a short time, Since Devolution 2000. Such a short time 18 years. To fulfill so many dreams.
Alex Salmond is a world Statesman. Nicola is admired all around the world. Scotland has friends in high places. Willing to give support. On redial in many cases. Alex knows them all and where the bodies are buried, The McCrone Report.
Iraq, Dunblane and Lockerbie kept secret for 100 years. Westminster hides it’s criminality under the Official Secrets Act. Liars always get found out.
link to bbc.co.uk
The British Brainwashing Corporation, BBC News, lives and breathes the Government’s propaganda. Haven’t watched the telly these past three years and haven’t missed it one bit. In fact, I just wish I’d done it a lot sooner.
The BBC has nothing good to say about Scotland.
Under Donalda MacKinnon, the BBC exudes hostility towards Scotland, much like an abusive parent who never stops criticising their children and is always finding fault, even where there is none.
BBC Mis-Reporting Scotland, under the leadership of Donalda MacKinnon, is a serial abuser of Scotland’s people.
The sooner we get Independence, the sooner BBC Scotland will be gone, and the sooner the abuse will cease.
To celebrate 100 years of independence the Finns built a massive modern state of the art library,
`Twenty years in the planning, Helsinki’s central library officially opens on Wednesday (Dec 5), at the end of a year of festivities marking the centenary of Finland’s independence after breaking with Russia in 1917 following six centuries under Swedish rule.
“It is a house of literature but it’s also a house of technology, it’s a house of music, it’s a house of cinema, it’s a house of the European Union`.
while we are still shackled to the rotting corpse of the Brutish Empire as it is sinking in its own cesspool.
I’ve a hospital appointment this morning, so just a few links today.
link to gov.scot
KEITH BROWN: MAY CAN’T GO ON IGNORING SCOTLAND
link to helensburghsnp.scot
SNP expects amendment to suspend Article 50 EU withdrawal process to be brought
link to archive.is
link to thecaterer.com
link to thenational.scot
link to thenational.scot
An American company accused of abusing prisoners and immigrant detainees in the US is set to begin a 12-year contract with the Scottish Prison Service in January.
link to archive.is
The Committee on Exiting the European Union returns with an evidence session on Monday 3 December, part of its over-arching inquiry examining the progress of the UK’s negotiations on EU withdrawal.
Watch here from 1.30pm
link to parliament.uk
link to voxpoliticalonline.com
link to prospectmagazine.co.uk
link to thecanary.co
link to vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com
The reporter who got things spectacularly wrong over ‘Muslim foster care’ has offered another lesson in what journalists should not do
link to byline.com
UK manufacturers head for sharp Brexit slowdown in 2019 – EEF
link to archive.is
link to taxresearch.org.uk
Brexit: parallel lives
link to eureferendum.com
link to truepublica.org.uk
link to theconversation.com
link to euronews.com
link to newyorker.com
Ken500 says:
3 December, 2018 at 8:11 am
The unionists will not get away with their lies in the next IndyRef, They have called ‘wolf’ enough.
Aye, the
unionistsBritish nationalists have a big problem after all the BS promises in 2014 and a complete lack of respect shown since then. The media will try very hard to help em, but they have a humungous problem – 2014 wasn’t very long ago. And people remember. 🙂Scot Finlayson says:
3 December, 2018 at 8:41 am
@Meg merilees
Technically an MP cannot resign but there is a mechanism whereby they can give up their seat. It is called taking the Chiltern Hundreds – an office of profit under the Crown. The other one is the Manor of Northstead but is less well known.
But I think this process limits the number of MPs that can resign at any one time.
Lying ________ is back
Article doesn’t say he’s one of the ‘5’ wealthy fishing families
link to archive.is
What a surprise!
Sir Ian Wood has come out in support of May’s deal. Fishing will be OK. “We need this to move forward”
The knighthood is not enough apparently.
Arrrgggghhhhh!
I see Tory lackey Ian Wood has turned up on the BBC, neatly timed with Gordon Brown at the weekend. These unionist that told us Scotland being outside the EU would be a disaster, now some of them are telling us that being outside the EU is the best thing ever. And they cans say this with the knowledge that these contradictions will simply be ignored by the BBC. What a corrupt organisation, they are in full pro-UK, anti-independence mode.
@Nana
Cheers Nana. Always appreciated. 🙂
Ffs Tereza the Resilient . We’re in for more assaults on our intellect by the combined Brutish propoganda machine Hold Fast , we’ve got a few irons on the coals and it wont be long until those irons meet the anvil & we’ll fashion them to suit Scotland & its People .
link to irishtimes.com
That’s all for today
Missed that the same Ian Wood will be presented by the BBC as some sort of expert and not be beholding to the UK for his knighthood, has an interest in Scotland oil remaining in the UK and has substantial fishing quota interests to protect for himself and four friendly families.
It strange how the BBC go to ‘experts’ always seem to have some UK affiliation, they seem to struggle to find any neutral voice from Scotland. Maybe they need to go to CNN to see how to find the Scottish voices which seem illusive to them.
So Sarah Smith; Douglas Alexander; Neil Oliver all are doing documentaries on ‘Borders’, ‘tribes’ and ‘Clans’ respectively? Therefore we can expect more undermining of Scottish identity and history by back door snidery.
Add in the resurrection of Better Together scumbags such as Gordon Brown, Ian Wood and Brian Wilson ( recently on an Edie Stark puffery piece), and you can see that the gang is getting back together.
The level of BBC manipulation at the highest level to ensure the propaganda continuation is startling in its relentless organisation. Donalda, a Damehood awaits!
Sir Ian Wood, this is the man who off shored his business interests is it it not.
Has Sir Ian Wood actually produced a single drop of oil?
Or is he a successful middle man (services)?
I would rather hear what the real producers have to say about oil resources.
This notion of having all the SNP MPs resign together, to force a series of by-elections, to then be held either on one day, or close together, and to be fought by the SNP on the basis of a vote for or against independence.
I might be over-thnking this; or I might have found a potential problem. The usual means of resigning a seat is for the MP to apply for either the “Chiltern Hundreds” or the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead.
But, these are English Crown roles, established pre-1707. Could the SNP apply? Should the SNP apply – since they would have to go down a route which appears to justify the English belief that they took-over Scotland in 1707?
Is there a particularly Scottish way out of this impasse. Mr Peffers, do you have an opinion?
Nana says
Alyn writes …
” Tomorrow a bright new “Exit” sign will appear alongside the unappealing options Mrs May has brought us of deal or no deal. “
…. implying he feels the ECJ outcome will allow a straightforward cancellation procedure.
If it does turn out to be a simply implimented option, and WM don’t take it, then that furthers the case for Indy.
I agree with Luigi, Wood is not an oil man but a service industry type. It’s a bit like asking RS components about the future of the BBC, they could only comment on the quantity of the parts they are supplying. Maybe I’ll see a headline soon, ‘RS say BBC has no future without extortion tax’.
From The National: “SNP insiders are suggesting the party’s next UK general election manifesto will contain a commitment to hold ANOTHER REFERENDUM and if a referendum is blocked then winning a large majority of seats may suffice as a basis for negotiations”.
The SNP have already committed to an indyref THIS PARLIAMENTARY TERM if Scotland is being dragged out of the EU.
If the best they can do is make more promises of jam tomorrow (or another indyref next time), we will need to take route B and ditch the SNP.
Of course there will be the “always vote SNP for life no matter what” bampots, same as the: “I’m Labour for life cos my granny voted Labour aw her life” bampots and “I’m a proud Scot but…” bampots.
Here’s tae us… you just have to laugh. Who said politics is boring? It’s hilarious at times.
The Labour Party Tory party and Lib Dems in Scotland are the friends of Englands Westminster newspapers in Scotland too they are no friend to Scotland or its people.
Nicola Sturgeon is being clever by showing people in England that she and most of Scotland want to remain in the EU she is doing it at the heart of English media their newspapers ,many on here have criticized her for doing so but she is doing to Westminster what Westminster do to holyrood bypassing the parliament and going straight to the people with her message.
The remainers in England and Wales are very happy to hear a politician speaking up for the remain side which is considerable they can’t rely on Theresa May because they now see that she lied she never ever was a remainer not when she was head of the home office telling people with a message on the side of vans that they should go back to their own country and not now when she is spearheading the leave campaign.
Jeremy Corbyn can’t be relied on because he is and always will be a brexiter.
Yes Nicola sturgeon is at the heart of Englands media getting the message out for the remainers in England and Wales upsetting the brexiters in the process who say she is interfereing in England and Wales politics.
Well we in Scotland know what that feels like when we have English political party,s and English politicians telling us what we should be doing and telling us what we are not allowed to do.
It’s a strong and stable act of clever politics by Nicola sturgeon ,one that all the folks on here who are jittery for getting the Scottish independence announced should praise ,I say to you ,relax, Nicola Sturgeon knows what she is doing, I also say again that we have to wait until all the facts relating to Brexit are known and as yet they are not known so hold tight stop backstabbing Nicola sturgeon ,support and show strength of mind and togetherness,that is what is required and feared.
Ian Wood a generation gap. The younger folk support Independence. The older ones less so but their are more older voters. More likely to vote. Except in Referendum. A higher turnout.
Corbyn is losing support from the young ones. A higher number support EU membership. Down from 50%+ to 36% according to Polls.
Support for SNP and Independence are up. In Scotland Labour and Tories losing support. Labour most of all.
The more Independent Scotland gets. The more power Labour will get at Westminster. Labour just do not realise. Living in the past. The better off Scotland gets Independent. The better off Britain gets.
Every time Corbyn and McDonnell open their mouths all they do is show the people in England, not just how incompetent they really are, but also the utter contradiction of their party’s policies.
I don’t see the SNP going into coalition with Labour at Westminster, if I remember correctly the SNP made it
clear to Labour in 2017, that it would not go into coalition.
I hope the party sticks to that position and has learned the lesson of 1979, not to trust Labour one inch.
So what would Labour’s reaction be, if the SNP made it clear, they would only support a minority Labour government on a policy by policy basis.
Would we see Corbyn and McDonnell react would they not abide by the democratic will of electorate and decide to go to back the country and call another general election, because they didn’t get their own way.
Maybe Mr McDonnell should before making any threats, remember the lesson of Theresa May who thought she
could cut and run in 2017.
Believing she could increase her majority and ended up as a minority government dependent on the DUP- a party which doesn’t put up any candidates for election in England.
Wood group pay tax on profits in the UK. Look it up on the internet. The accounts are there with tax liabilities published. The Wood Group do lots of overseas service contracts. Overseas tax can be more complicated. Companies can pay tax overseas on profits. So do not pay twice on overseas profits. Most of Ian Wood’s money is going to Africa. A Foundation. Paying back. Ian Wood was a workoholic. Worked 70 hours a week. The son’s might support Independence. They give a lot of money/profits to charity.
Ian Wood offered £80Million to pedestrianise and renovate the City. The Labour imbeciles turned it down. Helped by the Greens. Then spent £200Million ruining the City. A concrete jungle. £1.2Billion in debt. When people want open spaces and pedestrianisation.
Crookett still pouncing about with 9 councillors ruinig the City. A LibDem got elected, then immediately declared Independent to keep an illegal Lab/Tory coalition in power. Along with a two job Tory. Just disgraceful. Spending £Million building shops, offices and hotels. When there are shops, office sitting empty and under occupied hotels. £300Million spent in a Conference Centre without a mandate. Or a business case. The present one used on average once a month. £26Million of debt had to be coverde. Sold the City on the Stock Exchange. A shortage of teachers and too high class sizes. Essential services underfunded.
The Tory/LibDem Shire Sitting in a £Billion HQ’s for 70 councillors. Instead of building schools and funding essential services. Teachers. No proper ‘total abstinence’, one chance drink/drug rehab counselling or other essential services. Always trying to cut the allocated budget. A castle owning Tory councillor not paying council tax. A former councillor, now MSP, family firm getting council contracts, then overcharging £Million. Despite several warnings. The administration staff trying to keep from the Councillors. Was it ever paid back? A total scandal. Multimillionaires. The only reason they are in politics. The Tories not nice but dim. Two millionaire CAP subsidised MSP/MP. Trying to ruin the NE economy with Brexit.
A Tory councillor one of May’s mates. Advocating and cutting additional needs teachers and support. Instead of keeping class sizes down with the money allocated. £2Millon extra from nursery allocation not being taken up. New schools needed but ignored. The statutory legal limit (30) used as the norm instead of the limit. John Sweeney should lower it. (27/28) No houses built at Trump to get the development off the ground and get some economic benefit. Even a smaller size. Houses being build elsewhere in the area with a new school needed.
O/T:
This may open a few eyes:-
link to youtube.com
I wonder how many have realised the implications.
Lochside 9.54am
Yes Lochside,,,the Class of 2014 are slowly but surely organizing their Re-Union.
And the thing about these sad bastards is they think we don’t know what they are playing at.
@Peter McCulloch
It’s part of the Labour plan, they believe they could go back to the electorate and claim the SNP are stopping them achieving power, they think this will swing Scotland back to Labour.
Are we that stupid, well I’m not but after Scottish voters decided in 2017 to give up the balance of power position (there could have been no Brexit without the Tories/Labour joining forces) who knows.
Scott Finlayson @8.41
Best send a letter in to The National then – it definitely has that as a ‘Long Shot Option’
@Collie
@Lochside
“Class of 2014 are slowly but surely organizing their Re-Union.”
From our perspective, if they wheeled out the same old BritNats, that would be ideal. There are so many examples of the claims, threats, and promises they made for us to use back at them. Posters, leaflets, and video of what they said in 2014 and what actually happened.
IMO we must run a positive YES2 …. BUT … all the negative ammunition we have at out fingertips should get an outing!
Nikki Morgan on Adam Boulton says the people of Britain want what they voted for and every day she recieves a barrage of messaging that says they want to be poorer if it means getting rid of immigrants, so the government must do what the people want
I don’t think I should have to spell out what this woman just said whether she’s too stupid to realise it or not
What a head case!
@ Socrates MacSporran at 10.02
It seems to be very difficult to resign as an MP without “being appointed” to one of those roles, whether the MP wants it or not.
This is what happened to Gerry Adams:
(from link to en.wikipedia.org)
So, the title can be rejected (and the resignation effected), but it will still have been held officially.
It is also clearly possible to resign and then stand in the resultant by-election. Those who have done so include Bruce Douglas-Mann, David Davis, and Douglas Carswell. Presumably that then vacates the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead or the Chiltern Hundreds (but as mentioned above, possibly limits the number of MPs who can resign simultaneously to two).
“IMO we must run a positive YES2 …. BUT … all the negative ammunition we have at out fingertips should get an outing!”
Agreed. 2 parts carrot to 1 part stick. The unaware need to understand that there is NO status quo. The future is change whether we are Indy (aligned to Europe) or Brexit. They need to understand that indy (aligned to Europe) is, by far, the better option.
They need to be educated of the almost certain horrors that Brexit will bring them but which can (largely) be avoided with Indy (aligned to EU).
We use their 2014 lies against them. This time it’s gloves off, bare knuckle. No more Mr Nice Guy with them because they don’t give a hee-haw about ANYONE in Scotland (and I include their own support in that statement). For BT2 mouthpieces, it’s all and only about obtaining their elusive ermine cloak.
So yes – a largely positive picture of indy but, by God, we give it to the voters here with both barrels as to the utter chaos Brexit will most certainly visit upon them and their families. And we don’t hold back. Already stories are beginning to appear on Social Media of people unable to get their medicine from pharmacies as a result of Brexit. And this is just the start.
Gloves aff.
I just found out something I should have known but was never taught so have been ignorant my whole life to this….At the beginning of WW1 China sent 150.000 labourers to France to assist the allies in the war effort against Germany, these were not trained soldiers they were just workers sent to help with the movement of vehicles and engineering work, apparently there is no record of how many of these men returned to China because there were so few who did return
From the Victoris live prog this morning, she attempts to cut the speaker off pretty sharpish.
An important message from the future ambassador of England to Scotland.
link to twitter.com
re the proposal for 39 SNP MP’s to resign en masse (should be 35- sorry)
This proposal is taken from a printed article in Sunday National – not something I am suggesting – called ‘Brexit – What next?’
It looks at all the possible options available including, finally:
“The (Very) Long Shot”
All SNP MP’s immediately resign their seats and the Party fights 35 Westminster by-elections as a vote for either a stronger mandate or Independence itself.
Curious that it is being mentioned as a remotely possible route taking on board the situation re MP’s being unable to resign.
————
Wonder how it will go with Nicola and T May today.
Just in case anybody reading this blog is under the impression that stock piling means supplies will be maintained to the current levels, they won’t. It means controlling the supply, it means rationing, it means profiteering. As far as medicines are concerned it could mean serious hikes in prescription charges.
Not sure what the point of the 35 MP’s resigning would make, you would merely be returning SNP MP’s to seats they already hold. To claim an independence mandate from such a situation you would need everyone to vote SNP and a turnout of more than 84%.
We are not going to be able to claim a mandate on this type of scenario unless the vote for independence supporting parties is greater than 50% in a whole Scotland election.
I agree by Westminster rules returning anything more than 30 MP’s should be a mandate but I think you will find this scenario ignored and the support from elsewhere not high. Although after the UK leaves the EU could make a statement regarding how Scotland would be treated as the UK is no longer a member, I suspect they won’t.
@jfngw 3 December, 2018 at 11:59 am
I couldn’t agree more with what you say about it being Labour’s plan, particularly here in Scotland where we
have seen them unite with the Tories and Libdems.
They united with the Tories and libdems to prevent the election of SNP MPs during the 2017 general election,
They have also tried to thwart the SNP Scottish
Government at every opportunity.
And they are targeting SNP constituencies, not Tory constituencies here in Scotland for the next general election.
This is a message we need to hammer home to the electorate, that Labour does not and never has had our country of Scotland and its peoples interests at heart.
Is WN just going to be told only what Scotland is going to told tomorrow and nothing else.
The people of Scotland have made there choice known, so no requirement for a second vote.
Possibly O/T…..
Re: How Scotland gets out of this.
Maybe I’m being a bit simplistic about this, but here we go….
Earlier on this year, the SNP in Westminster forced a debate on the Sovereignty of the Scottish people, and Westminster agreed that the people of Scotland ARE SOVEREIGN.
At the Brexit referendum, it was clear that the Sovereign Will of the people of Scotland, i.e. One Half of this United Kingdom, voted to remain in Europe.
The other half of the United Kingdom voted to leave.
It is my understanding that Scots law and English law are equal under the Treaty of Union.
As it is the Sovereign Will of the people of Scotland that they wish to remain in the EU, does England forcing Scotland to leave with it not break the terms of the Treaty of Union?
If it does,(and this can be proved), is it not the job of the Scottish Parliament to uphold the will of the Scottish people, and tell the other half of the UK that a vote will be taken in Holyrood to the effect that the Treaty of Union is now void, and Scotland is free to approach the EU asking to stay as the Sovereign Kingdom of Scotland?
As I said, maybe I’m being a bit simplistic with this, but can anyone with more knowledge of the Act of Union comment?
BBC Scotland news:
All the teachers are going on strike
Ralway Unions refuse to work overtime, trains cancelled
All Scotlands tenements are falling down
Theresa May’s deal is the only one and Mundell is seen saying so, and Nicola Sturgeon’s on to a loser
Where’s Alistair Darling, he’s due about now to talk about currency
OT but it seems that Russia is bigger and badder than the SNP.
I really want out of this disgusting ,lying union .
I am sick and tired of the peddled crap from the MSM particularly this sabre rattling ordure about anything to do with Russia.
Ooft.
link to twitter.com
Jings crivvins help ma boab things is gettin worser
Are you now or have you ever been NOT English!
Big Auntie darn Sarf mentions the cuts to the health Service and gives figures for Wales Scotland and England …fair enough.
A few minutes later Wee Auntie wie a kilt gets tore intae Scotlands failed waiting targets and basically says it’s a crap system that’s failed, with no context given.
Then announce a ‘waiting time exclusive’ later on tonight just to make the point in case we missed it earlier.
PS:
This came up at the cafe over a coffee this morning where fellow customer ‘acquaintance’ was a bit scathing about the waiting time figures. I threw in a bit about staff shortages (+ effects of Brexit).
She agreed that the staff were leaving for better pay??? eh!
Well no I said… Scottish NHS workers are reasonably better paid than some darn Sarf. Brexit really means foreign staff who normally make up a large percentage of NHS staff are leaving the UK because their fears for residency etc.
Naw! she’s not having it… Daily Mail says… holding up the paper….etc etc so there you go! FGS 🙁
Brexit legal advice published
link to assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
link to twitter.com
link to bbc.co.uk
That’s several separate pieces on BBC news, each having an unconnected video of Michael Gove pledging support for Theresa May. Probably just a typo? Yeah right!
Unadulterated propaganda by the British State.
crazycat @ 12.23pm
According to Wikipedia, in 1985, 15 Ulster Unionist MPs resigned simultaneusly in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The article does not say if that loop-hole has since been closed, but, if it still open, then it would appear, the SNP could use this means to resign their seats then fight by-electons.
Although, there is always the chance, it does not apply to us Sweaties.
Legal position on the Withdrawal Agreement
1. This document describes THE OVERALL legal effect of the draft Withdrawal Agreement of 25 November 2018 (‘the Agreement’). It considers each Part of the Agreement, together with the Protocols on Ireland/Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus, and describes the OVERALL legal effect of the provisions.”
The opening paragraph stating clearly that this is a description of the overall legal effect of the draft Withdrawal Agreement. It is NOT therefore the FULL DETAILED effect.
So the question is, what is it the Government is trying to hide. Otherwise, on an issue of such huge importance, why is the FULL LEGAL ADVICE not immediately given to Parliament and the electorate.
Treachery as standard.
According to McKinney the government has only released #a legal position’ and not the full legal advice
link to twitter.com
with that in mind
Brexit legal advice and threat of contempt of parliament – explainer
What would happen if ministers fail to publish the attorney general’s report?
link to archive.is
Does the legal advice say anything about the ‘transitional arrangement’ facilitating the Dissolution of the UK?
@ Socrates at 2.48
Maybe those Stewardships can be a job share!
Brexit and Theresa’s lies
link to zerohedge.com
It’s probably the full legal advice in reality, but by saying it isn’t they can keep to the principle that advice is not published. And they should stick to this, as Eck did, the relationship is one of lawyer & client. Why would anyone release their lawyers arguments before going to court?
Baldeagle @ 1.33
As I understand it….
In the situation you decribed..
The Court could/would rule that “The Treaty of Union has indeed been breeched”
But it would likely also find that “ To end the Treaty is a Political Decision not a Leagal one”, and not within the competence of a Court.
So while useful to get from the Courts a ruling that there are Legal grounds to end it.
It’s still Holyrood/Scottish politicians who will need to find the route to do so… and … then we are right back to, getting an instruction from the Scottish People.
AKA … a mandate achieved by a vote…
Big Auntie presenter at Westminster tells us that the FM is in London today regarding Brexit… yada yada Mundell in Edinburgh quick snippet of him lying again.
Then says don’t expect pictures of the FM ushered into No10 as she’s going to Theresa’s WM office in HOC!….why he say that? 🙂
They don’t want to lend her meeting with the FM any ‘undue significance’ is why he say that Imo. Downplaying repeatedly is their strategy with all things ‘Scoattish’.
Being held in contempt of Parliament would appear to carry little in the way of punishment, a slap on the back of the wrist with a feather, no more than that.
With all the lies being told, manipulation and dark money, Impeachment is surely the route to take.
The Lawyer/Ciient arguement is a very poor one. What would happen if we had a coalition such as Tory/LibDem/DUP would those MPs only get access?
The HofC should have all the information before such a major vote by MPs.
One day a form of PR will arrive at Westminster and as a result various party groupings will emerge. I hope Scotland is free by then but Holyrood is certain to have these mixes.
These cosy rules/customs should be dumped along with all the other nonsense at Westminster.
….especially the HofLs
@Clootie
Other legal advice is available to MPs.
It’s just opinion- only a court can weigh one legal argument against another.
K1
actually,
I think May’s change of tune and willingness could mean that Nicola is being set up to be the scapegoat when it all goes wrong!
We’ve been told that T May has said to her today that Scottish Farmers, Fishermen and Business leaders … and Sir Ian Wood – in Tory Speak that means the Oil Industry ( and of course Jim Whats-his-name that owns Ineos,), all back T May’s deal so how can it possibly fail.. It’s only because Britain’s most dangerous woman is trying to play at politics and putting the Precious Country at risk of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit — see it’s all SNPEE Baad. Might have guessed.
Sorry Mrs. May, you are so caught up in your own little bubble so much so that you completely fail to see that the ONLY person talking any sense in all this is Nicola Sturgeon, born of dragons, who can steer this ship to relative safety away from the rocks that you are heading straight towards.
Now Bercow has allowed the Contempt of Parliament claim to proceed May’s days are numbered.
All quite