But No Cigar
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these worthless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Ooh! So nearly!
Because of course that last line was precisely what it was. 40 or so of the very same people who’ve created all the disillusionment and resentment in Scottish politics over the last decade or so got around a giant table, waffled at each other for a few hours, and then graciously concluded that it was all someone else’s fault.
Ironically, some of the most intolerant and fundamentalist people in Scotland decided that the solution to the problem they’d created was “Participation”, having expressly and openly convened the entire event with the stated primary purpose of excluding a single lawful democratic party (and by extension its voters) from Scottish politics.
(We’ll also give our readers a couple of minutes here to stop laughing at the idea that there’s any sort of “accountability” in Scottish politics while The Great Redacter himself has any say in the matter.)
Because we struggle to imagine anything that could possibly have delighted Nigel Farage more – or more obviously – than the exact wretched failures the electorate are angry at publicly forming a cartel to “lock out” him and his party.
It’s the tactic the left has deployed against him for the last quarter of a century, with the result that Britain is now out of the EU, Reform is leading in almost every UK opinion poll and looking likely to form the next government, and the party is now the third biggest in Scotland despite having no Scottish leader, no noticeable Scottish presence and in fact very little discernible interest in Scottish affairs at all.
But like drunk lemmings, Scotland’s pious unco guid went ahead and did it anyway, in essence telling the electorate “Look, we know you hate all of us, entirely justifiably, but you’re basically stupid bigot scum all the same and we’re going to do everything we can to make your votes meaningless”.
It’ll probably work, too. The Unionist parties are so split that even as the SNP languish on a vote share barely a couple of points higher (30% vs 28%) than they got in the first ever Holyrood election, winning just 35 seats, the Scottish electoral system looks set to give them 50+ next year.
The main reason for that is that Anas Sarwar’s abject failure in four years as leader to carve out any sort of distinct identity or policy platform for Scottish Labour means that he’s been torpedoed by the catastrophic unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s government at Westminster, having previously thought that all he had to do to win in 2026 was shut up and not be the SNP.
But with his party now looking at a worse result than even Kezia Dugdale’s 2016 humiliation, Sarwar is surely heading for ignominious resignation next May, all because he’s the man who actually can see reality but refuses to let it influence his actions.
Scotland, meanwhile, faces another miserable five years of the same old same old, only now with any last remaining tiny fragments of decency or competence purged from its blinkered, arrogant ruling clique, and they didn’t need to bother convening a summit to achieve that.
It is certainly always worth the effort to step back and be careful what one might wish for. Especially when frying pans and fires are involved.
Yet, another Sturgeon legacy.
Anyone still “I’m with Nicola” ?
Hard to disagree with Stephen Daisley’s tweet:
As I look across the UK political spectrum, I can only marvel at how many parties I find utterly repulsive. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single party represented in Parliament that I could bring myself to vote for at the next general election.
link to x.com
Much as I might abhor his politics generally, doubtless many Scots will feel the same. And it’s not just parties either: which individuals are really worth voting for, or appear to have any charisma, principle or “fight” left in them?
Ash Regan perhaps? Joanna Cherry seems to have all but given up on politics (and who can blame her given what she was put through?).
It’s not as if I can see any inspirational new generation coming through either. What a bùrach.
I know that the truly brainwashed think that all NO voters like myself get down and weep with joy at hearing our glorious red and blue tory leaders speak
but
NEWSFLASH
I think that the idiots in Westminster are all mostly useless cunts
and I include the SNP/Alba ones in that assessment
Interesting attendees. Not sure how many of the organisations can be said to represent any political viewpoint whatsoever as their membership will have many different viewpoints.
Looks like a waste of time and effort to me.
I am not a reform supporter but fail to see how you can claim openness an inclusion but either exclude some of the big players or they don’t come anyway.
Excellent analysis as ever Rev.
One addition- self evidently a ‘core vote’ strategy from Swinney and any sensible advisors left.
Their cold hard maths is that painting Reform as ‘the bogeyman’ in a similar way to Tories of 2000s is a successful electoral strategy to form minority Gov and keep the gravy bus going.
Long abandoned making life of Scots better or any hint of a care for Indy, it’s now pure survival.
Worst. it’s guaranteed to work – Greens are beyond the pale for most, Alba deid, Labour clueless.
A centre left voter has no choice but to hold their nose and vote SNP… Or the Bogeyman cometh!
but reform want to shut down the NHS !!!!!!!!!
I remember when I was at school the English teacher told me if the Tory party was elected then they would shut down the NHS
And we would have the same system as America
I’m close to picking up my pension
So I have some trouble in believing this
Also
I find it very very strange that in the UK there is only two possible health care models
The NHS
or
The American system
I do wish folk would remember that almost all countries have healthcare
and most of them are cheaper then the USA system
and
Better then the NHS
Can we please look at France maybe
or Denmark
or germany
or New Zealand
or Australia
or ireland
etc and so
Oooo YS.
You’ve twigged there are other options, not just the binary choice between the saintly NHS and the Yankee death cult.
And it looks like you’ve noticed that Europe and the rest of the world are hoaching with countries where every street corner doesn’t have some poor sod dying of an entirely treatable malady on it. Yet … these countries don’t have an NHS.
Did you get the specs that allow you to see so clearly on the NHS? Or did you go private?
Oh for all those scunnered voters to be bothered to turn up and spoil their ballots.
That’s if they don’t have a believable Independence candidate to support. One thing’s for sure, political wonks at the counting pay great attention to spoilt papers. A few score they can live with, however once it mounts up into the hundreds it does tend to focus career politicians’ minds wonderfully.
Challenging to claim that one has popular support when the next highest vote is for “none of the above”.
The one-percenters set about working out ways to exclude the one-tenth-percenters.
It’s a joke for anyone involved with the Scottish Government as it currently stands to talk about openness and accountability. Secrecy by default is the operating principle: refusing to answer straightforward questions, redacting FoI requests, failing to take expert advice, and blaming others for their failings is the method.
The Morgan McSweeney strategy of nurturing apathy and disillusion may have delivered Labour a landslide victory in 2024 on a record low turnout, but it isn’t a path to universal success.
As Anas Sarwar of all people somehow intuitively realises, pretty soon the only people motivated to leave their house and visit a polling station will be those intent on delivering a resounding fuck you to the inept but somehow immovable establishment.
Record low, in-person voting is of course vulnerable to being rigged by unaudited, postal voting, as was allegedly done when McSweeney’s wife won the constituency selection process at Hamilton & Lanark over a local candidate who was ahead when in-person votes were tallied.
I wonder if the “men’s sheds” bloke actually got to say anything?
I say this because I can’t think of a demographic that these neo liberalist head cases cares less about, or, actively attempts to disenfranchise with their every waking thought.
I think they lost all/some of Scots gov funding so it was a cheek to invite them.
Just think how low Scottish Democracy would go if that lot were sitting in a Sovereign Scottish parliament and therefore a Sovereign Government.
God help us.
I’ll repeat this again
Hopefully it might get some of you to understand
I’m not afraid of leaving the union with England
I’m not afraid of Westminster losing control
I’m not afraid of the end of the butchers apron
I’m fucking terrified of those fecking loonies being handed full control
PS
Braveheart is still a shit film
Next year’s SGE is too far-off to call just yet. Or so I keep telling myself. I can’t see me voting for any of Parties on offer, but like so many others with nothing left to lose, politically-speaking, I see Reform as the only FU vote available to me.The unpredictable consequences of a strong Reform showing next May are, arguably, preferable to another five years of the irreformable SNP and the predictable stasis-quo, if you will.
Still waiting for someone to point out what policies that Reform hold that people object to
I know some tit will pop up and say they want to shut down the NHS
There is no Reform policy to shut down the NHS
SO
If we are allowed to invent policies
Then I shall say I’m never going to vote for Alba
As they want everyone to wear a “see you jimmy” tartan hat complete with fake ginger hair for at least 18 hours a day
Liberate Scotland candidates will be the ones to vote for in 2026. They will be fire-in-their-bellies-for-independence people, NOT politicians.
This umbrella group is what we should all be talking about, spreading the word, and helping. We have 12 months to get Liberate Scotland to the forefront of the voters minds.
They sound like the only option available to me Sarah
gm…
They sound like the same old fantasist nutters to me, gm
Yes,gm, they are the Independents For Independence types e.g. Sally Hughes who stood in Perth at the Westminster election, and Eva Comrie. Also Independence for Scotland Party.
I think some other Wings readers may be confusing this electoral pact umbrella, Liberate Scotland, with the UN decolonisation initiative by Liberation.scot. They are completely different campaigns – Liberate Scotland is trying to combine the independence movement in order to gain seats at Holyrood which can make progress towards independence.
@Sarah – what word from New York? I asked Alf this a few days ago but I think he must have missed it.
You have a HUGE problem
You think that if you get indyref2
Then it will be 95% YES
and then instantly everyone in Scotland will be so rich that they will be driving around in Ferraris and everything will be free from the state
the rest of us
Live in reality
So you can promise me ANYTHING you want
And I won’t believe you
As I have seen very little evidence that Holyrood can run scotland well
and I think that the majority of Scots are on the same page
You may hate Sturgeon because she doesn’t have my English head on a spike
but she early on say something very wise
There shouldn’t be a vote until it is constantly 60% YES
and the only way to get there was via competent government
WTF happened to her after that is a whole different debate
Try the de-caff..
We’d like a Ferrari too please.
You can only have a Ferrari, when you have shown you can make the Mini we gave you go like a Ferrari.
Can we at least buy a Ferrari engine? No.
Suspension? No.
Parts? No.
At least the Fuel? Ahh… No.
…
Look, it’s taken some time, and a fair bit of genius, but it looks like we have built a Mini that might give a Ferrari a fair run for its money.
Well, you won’t be needing a Ferrari then, so stop asking – Next!
HUGHES, Sally Independent 679votes 1.4%of votes 6thposition
General election result.
Aye, but that’s the result you get with a very short campaign, a constituency boundary change, and a significant amount of your election leaflets getting delivered to the wrong fucking constituency so folk in your constituency didn’t even know you were standing.
Plus there was effectively zero support for the pro Scotland returning to self-governance gender critical women standing for election from this site (and btl) which has been so myopically focused on generwoowoo for years…
But even with all that shite playing out, Sally and Eva still got more votes than Alba’s Kenny MacAskill.
link to bbc.co.uk
I recall the BNP support was rising quickly, and it was purposely excluded from any tv political debates.
Then an appearance on Question Time was granted, hoping that BNP support would drop if they’re were shown up on TV. Fiona Bruce couldn’t help herself and constantly interrupted and didn’t give them a fair hearing, probably thinking it make the BNP support wither, funnily enough that DIDN’T happen. Because FB kept giving the BNP a hard time support to for them went UP!
Exactly the same thing is going to happen again with reform, exclusion will look like they are against the “establishment” and being shut out because of it, which in turn will boost they’re support and will manage to push them over the line for seats and turn reform into a one trick pony with power
And yet, at 39 appearances…..
link to strudel.org.uk
….. Nigel Farage is the joint sixth-most platformed panellist on BBC Question Time.
The BBC ask political parties to nominate who they want to appear on QT. Parties normally share the appearances between whoever they want to promote – UKIP nominated Farage every time.
Politicians like Swinney and all the rest of the political firmament are exactly the reason that people are utterly revulsed by the system. The Scottish Parliament is a Westminster devolved administration.
Would the far right be anymore dishonest and disengaged from the electorate than the current SNP or for that matter the Labour and the Tories. I don’t honestly know if they would.
Maybe Scotland electorate needs a far right party. They’d sadly I suspect be much more honest than the current bunch. And that is why Reform, even in Scotland, is making big progress in the polls.
Of course the system of Hollyrood was set up to stop the march to independence. The most powerful devolved parliament in the world was the claim. An independence arrester rather was its intention and with a hollowed out SNP its doing a good job.
If Reform Scotland declared they would deliver Scottish independence, then folks would vote reform. It’s as simple as that and the major parties know it, Swinney knows it.
Anyway, aside, the mood music is that London is on the brink of a trade deal with the US – and as we all know one of the key planks of the US negotiations for a deal is for the UK to allow the big corporate health care businesses access to the NHS.
If so, and with the Westminster legislation in place that allows Westminster to dictate on trade matters Hollyrood will have no say in being required to open up the Scottish (eh? ) NHS to the US corporates.
Suck it up as they say folks. Vote for your pretend Scottish Parliament with its subservient SNP government
A lot can change between now and the Scottish Election.
Swinney’s campaign to get rid of the Tories in Scotland at the general election was a spectacular failure. I expect his next campaign to be just as bad.
What on earth were Scottish Men’s Shed Association doing their? Surely they are non-political?
And what about all the Bishops and other religious leaders?
Morgwyn…
Well they were probably SNP “men” !
And what they get up to in their sheds….you really don’t want to know !!
Swinney still thinks he can buy time for more dissembling by saying ” oh look there’s a squirrel “. The least worst of a collection of no marks, grifters and nutters and with
nothing to inspire the independence movement.
NEWSFLASH
the indy movement is a minority
Lets change the last line to
“nothing to inspire Scotland”
And we can be in 100% agreement
Wow. Check out all those ethnic minority names! Anybody care to do the math and tell us if that’s proportionate to Scottish society as a whole?
And three “Mac”s. I mind when “Mac” was the world’s go-to name for any Scotsman, based on how common Scottish “Mac”s were in real life. Changed days.
Would I be right in thinking the “DG Communities” are those good people who sell, supply and install our double glazing? If so, they would have been the only ones there who do anything useful.
Louise Macdonald was appointed Director-General Communities in March 2023.
Responsibilities
The Director General for Communities is responsible for:
social security
housing
social justice
equalities
human rights
local government and public service reform
The Director-General Communities is a member of the Scottish Government’s Corporate Governance Board.
Typical. Double Glazing has probably done more to improve Scottish quality of life than all the attendees put together, but no DG industry representative even gets an invite.
I bet there’s not one of those attendees who suffers and shivers through a Scottish winter in a home without sealed unit Double Glazing.
Bloody hypocrites.
I do wonder what the SNP consider the “far right”
I’d happily bet that a large percentage of their own core voters are “far right”
As they think Scotland should be run for the Scottish
And by Scottish I mean those disgusting white people who make up 95% of the population
Though I think they will discover that most people
Are quite happy being labeled “far right”
I know I have zero issues with being labelled “far right”
As I firmly believe what the media and social media call “far right”
Is anyone who doesn’t hate the country they where born in
PS
For the hard of thinking
I love Scotland
Hence I do not want to leave the union so we can turn it over to Marxists globalists who want me jailed for questioning government policies
YS, why do you type “Marxist globalists”? Perhaps this is a new category. Marxists would usually be ANTI globalisation.
As for ‘left’ or ‘right’, why bother with the labels? Read the policies and do one’s best to assess personalities for honesty prior to voting, that seems to be best one can do.
There is no clue of how long you have available but maybe you will become a nationalist, eventually. Alf quotes various books which I should read, if only i had time at my age.
Read the books that Alf quotes
he’s a Moon howler that bangs on about things that happened over 300 years ago
Couldn’t care less if a long dead Englishman did something nasty to a long dead Scotsman
It’s all bagpipes, facepaint and bollocks
that will NEVER bring me over to the nationalist cause
What I DO care about is something that happened a week last Tuesday
When the SNP say they want to reduce people owning cars
As these fuckwits think that because there is a tram stop a short walk from Holyrood there is a tram stop a short walk from my house in rural Aberdeenshire
They are metropolitan idiots with as much clue about rural Scotland as the tits sitting in Westminster
You want me to join the nationalist cause
very simple
Form a competent and grown up Scottish government
Who aren’t anti-business
Who aren’t Authoritarian
Who aren’t closet communists
Don’t waste keystrokes on YS.
He/she/it is a half wit.
“…the country they where born in…”
Hmm…
Need I remind you about useless with his WHITE WHITE WHITE speech/rant
Interesting how many charities receiving government funding were at this obvious political rally. Shame on them.
Scots will never vote for a Muslim first minister , not a chance.
Mainly as he was a racist moron
I agree its unlikely but not impossible.
I have no time for the likes of those who want to change our culture to their ancestors culture and use racism or prejudice as their tools.
The right candidate who is actually 100% scottish born and bred would be possible.
Unfortunately the ones that have come to the fore generally still have a chip on their shoulder and want to turn scotland into the shithole their ancestors escaped from.
I am old enough to still find it very mildly amusing for an asian to speak in a broad glasgow accent but also to accept them for what they are, a slightly tanned glaswegian
SUMMITS, where hot air condenses.
SUMMITS, where the «underendowed» seek the solace of their own kind.
I’m sure he has a higher seat than the riffraff, and it’s not his brass neck that’s extending.
50+ seats?
Say it aint so, Joe, please say it aint so.
What a bleak & hopeless prospect.
A solipsistic summit and a summit of the solipsistic.
And while these dangerous fuckwits endlessly mark their own homework in secret and then quickly redact it all, and give themselves £20k payrises for destroying our country, the electorate moulder and seethe.
I wonder how long until we are all forced, by law, to display a framed photo of the ‘Supreme Leader’ in our living rooms?
How long until an army of ‘aunties’ are employed to snitch on those neighbours whose photo of the Supreme Leader is missing?
This may sound far fetched, but we’re no far off it.
NCHIs and the hurty feelz.
Leah Gunn Barrett wrote a very interesting (though terminally depressing) article the other day – Sturgeon met up with Blackrock’s Stephen Cohen!
link to dearscotland.substack.com
What a bunch of jolly nice peeps we have running our country . . . into complete ruination.
If Farage promised to close Holyrood and send all the Unionist out on there ears, no matter how untasteful that sound, I’d vote for Reform. The SNP is enemy number 1 on Independence and if the stinking party won’t fold with debt then I’ll take whatever on offer. I hate the SNP more than any other political party in the UK including reform. The death of the SNP is my vengeance for all party leadership treacherous behavior on Independence and other topics.
The First Cuck is projecting his own bigotry and intolerance . Bunch of extremist clowns.
Gird your loins for the lowest turnout in the history of Holyrood elections landing sometime next year.
Which, sadly, is exactly what these w@nkers want – the disengagement of the masses so they can carry on troughing whilst screwing us over at every opportunity.
Stu writes:
“(We’ll also give our readers a couple of minutes here to stop laughing at the idea that there’s any sort of ‘accountability’ in Scottish politics while The Great Redacter himself has any say in the matter.) … Scotland, meanwhile, faces another miserable five years of the same old same old, only now with any last remaining tiny fragments of decency or competence purged from its blinkered, arrogant ruling clique, and they didn’t need to bother convening a summit to achieve that.”
=========
My son was watching Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’ earlier today. As I passed I happened to hear a snatch of the closing courtroom speech (with Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison). Our Declaration of Arbroath leapt to mind. For context I looked up online the transcript of that part of the movie. It strangely resonated with present-day Scotland:
« …’ Treason doth never prosper,’ wrote an English poet, ‘What’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’
« […] There are hundreds of documents that could help prove this conspiracy. Why are they being withheld or burned by the government? Each time my office or you the people have asked those questions, demanded crucial evidence, the answer from on high has always been ‘national security.’ What kind of national security do we have when we’ve been robbed of our leaders?
« […] I submit to you that what took place on November 22, 1963 was a coup d’etat.
« […] All these documents are yours – the people’s property – you pay for it, but because the government considers you children who might be too disturbed or distressed to face this reality, or because you might possibly lynch those involved, you cannot see these documents for another 75 years.
« […] Hell it may become a generational affair, with questions passed down from father to son, mother to daughter. But someday, somewhere, someone may find out the damned Truth. We better. We better or we might just as well build ourselves another government like the Declaration of Independence says to do when the old one ain’t working – just – just a little farther out West. »
« […] An American naturalist wrote, ‘A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government.’
« […] You know, going back to when we were children, I think that most of us in this courtroom thought that justice came into being automatically, that virtue was its own reward, that good would triumph over evil. But as we get older we know that this just isn’t true. Individual human beings have to create justice and this is not easy, because the truth often poses a threat to power and one often has to fight power at great risk to themselves.
« […] I have here some $8,000 in these letters sent to my office from all over the country – quarters, dimes, dollar bills from housewives, plumbers, car salesmen, teachers, invalids. These are people who cannot afford to send money but do. These are the ones who drive the cabs, who nurse in the hospitals, who see their kids go to Vietnam. Why? Because they care, because they want to know the truth, because they want their country back, because it still belongs to us, as long as the people have the guts to fight for what they believe in! The truth is the most important value we have because if the truth does not endure, if the government murders truth, if we cannot respect the hearts of these people, then this is not the country in which I was born and this is certainly not the country I want to die in.
« […] ‘Do not forget your dying king’. Show this world that this is still a government ‘of the people, for the people, and by the people’. Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important.”
“and did we tell you the name of the game boy?
It’s called riding the gravy train”
The best wee colony in the world.
Jack Wilson McConnell, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale.
Why people keep voting one way or another for this corrupt state of affairs is beyond me.
Yes, it was a colonial summit, comprising mainly those in receipt of ‘the wages of colonialism’, whose main purpose is to protect colonialism (i.e. the status quo), to maintain the colonial racket, which only widens inequality, who fear Scottish national liberation, such is their dependency complex, and who reject any national liberation, even Reform’s Anglo-Saxon notion of ‘England-as-Britain’ liberation.
Have you worked out the process to deal with people born in Scotland who are faithful to the English invaders?
I wonder if the SNP position vs Reform has moved on the one Karen Adam set out a few weeks ago (do some shouting, but also vote for me so I can continue on the gravy train, and also Brexit is terrible) the latter being a message particularly likely to resonate with Reform-sympathetic voters. All this said, I’d be amazed if Reform could pull off a single MSP in 2026. They are a party of England and Wales.
Reform are mostly an anti-immigration party
is there a reason that the Scots like yourself want to have open border immigration with hundreds of thousand of folk flooding into Scotland
While the English and YOONS want to have actual immigration controls?
It’s not that Reform’s policies don’t have any support in Scotland, it’s that Reform don’t maintain any presence in Scotland or campaign on any Scottish issues. Immigration is a reserved matter so voting based on that policy in the 26’ Holyrood elections doesn’t make much sense. The effort (and money) is being spent on middle suburban England and South Wales where they think they could win for example, some of the upcoming Mayoral elections.
REFORM is grumpy old AngloBritishness in a union jack draped mobility scooter.
Scots couldn’t possibly be so intellectually challenged as to fall for the bluff?
You KNOW that the reason Scotland is poor is due to those nasty invaders from England who are oppressing the Scots
You do know off you where English you’d be a reform party member?
As REFORM VOTERS….. KNOW it’s those nasty invaders who aren’t from elsewhere who are oppressing the English
Men’s shed association.
Tarquin with his Peaky Blinders cap, suit and goatee.
When Britain ruled over India, it needed two governments. The main One in London and a sub-government to control the native population over in India,
In that over seas colonial government they payed and employed the elite from Britain to manage And control the country from afar.
It did not matter wether they came from England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland, as long as they held loyalty to their pay masters.
Today Scotland like India has a second sub-government in place from London to control the natives, and that sub- government is populated and employs well payed loyal administrators,
The system is has not change much in hundreds of years,
This old template perception of democracy for Scotland of a Sub government and second parliament in Britain however differs from India, in as much that the Treaty of Union came first between Scotland and England, and the terms and conditions to that treaty are as much part of the treaty as the articles of that treaty themselves.
The 1707 treaty that binds only (two) Countries together stipulates “that hereafter there will only be (one) parliament of Great Britain”.
As the Law Society of Scotland published a number of years past,
Just because the parliament of Great Britain has altered the Treaty of Union over the years, does not mean the parliament of Great Britain was in the legal position to do so,
Today the Country of Scotland blindly sits under a sub- government and parliament just like the Colony of India used to.
And through no fault of its own has been pro pulsed out of the treaty of union when the (Scotland Act ) came into being,
As that very Act created more than (one) parliament and more than (one) government in Great Britain and breaches one of the main articles of the 1707 treaty of union.
Excellent analogy
That is nonsensical.
India had its own government and viceroy because it was so far away in time and space at the time. It would not have been possible to “govern” it effectively from the UK.
And there still is only 1 parliament in the UK, the devolved parliamenst are subservient to Westminster.
When are folk going to realise that looking for “loopholes” in old treaties and documents ain’t going to produce a hill of beans, when you start with no beans.
The only way of getting independence is to convince the public to vote for it, something I see for the near to middle future as an impossible ask.
Yes James, this is ‘Lord Lugard’s famed policy of indirect rule (Said) whereby co-opted native elites and colonialists (Gramsci’s ‘cultural hegemony’) together run the territory on behalf of the Imperial metropolitan capital.
I’ll need to keep an eye out for what Reform want to do with the SP, I am not really supportive of reform but if they did say they would remove the whole SP from existence I would vote for them.
The devolved parliament has to be the biggest con ever visited on Scotland and I would be glad to see it gone.
Hi Rob,
Merely as an observation
I have been keeping an eye on reform too,
there are a few controversial points that I have with reform.
One is the constant of talk of ( Englands) Britain, and the other is that They have always said they would refuse Scotland as a Country its independence in the same breath as shouting to be independent from the EU ( perhaps a good thing) and regaining its borders, and being proud of the St George flag,
All commendable.
Except being proud of your country is not allowed for the rest of Scotland, Ireland and Wales,
It boarders on hypocracy.
We can give the Chagos Islands away and “we” the tax payers in Scotland pay for it too. are paying for the privilege for doing so in reparations.
And reparations to other passed colonised countries.
Why not Scotland if the UK parliament are not going to abide to the terms, condition and articles of the original Treaty between the two countries.
if reform want to gain votes in Scotland and England then they should promise a UK wide vote on scottish independence
I would put money on the English voting to eject Scotland from the union
As the voice of Scotland is the SNP
Who are blatantly anti-english and extremely woke at the same time
If I lived in England I’d happily see Scotland leave the union
Just we’d need to close the border to the country formally called Scotland
As it would be renamed to
The democratic workers republic of Scot-o-stan
Ho Rob,
That debate you put forward holds little water on two accounts.
1,
I have researched my family history and one of my own ancestors was knighted for being injured ( on two separate occassions) whilst fighting and controlling the natives of India. He owned a lot of land around Cheshire, and retired back to England. With a title “Sir.”
I dont mind providing his name and history to you publicly if your interested as it was so long ago.
However the evidence of the history of the colony control of India I speak of, is in public records in Cheshire,
2.
If the colonial government control of India was because it was so far away,
Why does Scotland need a Colonial sub-parliament when it sits next door–to the parliament of Britain.
Not sure what “debate” you think I am making.
I simply stated that there was a separate government in India mainly because of distance and geography rather than the colonial mechanism to control them.
India was originally thousands of miles and literally months away from the UK at the beginning, no effective government would work with that sort of delay.
As far as control, nobody is denying we had a very large measure of control, first indirectly through the East India company and then directly through the Raj. However that was not being disputed just the claim that a separate indian government was some sort of plot to control india and, by extension, the same for scotland.
As far as the SP goes this was asked for by us, and since it is doing no good I would perfer it was now removed!
Rob,
India is of course still thousands of miles away.
I also do not think that the devolved subservient parliament of Scotland should exist as it breaches the treaty of union since its creation under the Scotland Act. Of oneparliament of Great Britain hereafter accordingly.
Because it also brings into Question why is the devolved parliament in Scotland passing laws and legislation as Scots Law.,
Yes, but we now have the telephone, telegraph and can be there in hours on a plane. India was created pre telegraph in the sailing ship era where it took months to get a message back and forth.
There is only one parliament in the UK and all others are devolved institutions that only have authority from it.
As far as I am concerned all the devolved parliaments could disappear tomorrow and I would not shed a single tear for all the good they do and the costs they incur.
Rob.
I think the same,
A devolved Scottish parliament from Westminster should not be passing Scots laws.
Two parliaments in Scotland, one presenting itself of as Scots parliament passing Scots laws and one presenting itself as the British parliament,
Which ever way it is construed there are two parliaments in Scotland, passing separate plus the same laws over Scotland.
A double whammy and a double Standard.
And even the devolved parliaments breaches the treaty of union terms, conditions and articles of the treaty of union as it does not agree to there being a sub parliament in Scotland.
The pre- terms and conditions are always part of of all treaties along with the articles themselves.
They are the condition under which a treaty holds its foundation principles for both sides.
Under treaties agreements they are not a pick and choose which bits one side wants to keep selectively after a treaty has come to a conclusion and been signed.