Facing the wrong way
Scottish Labour mounted another of their infamous stunt “protests” today, as always dutifully assisted and advertised by the Scottish media.
STV reported it as an event organised by a small rail union – not the RMT or ASLEF, but the little-known Transport Salaried Staff Association – which would feature “other campaigners”, but in fact it was a Scottish Labour shindig from top to bottom, with no union branding visible anywhere and Scottish Labour on all the placards.
Well, we say “all”.
The party managed to scare up just barely a dozen people to stand outside a damp Glasgow Central on a Monday morning with three Scottish Labour ad boards, almost outnumbered by an eager press pack keen to snap them nice and close in to make proceedings look a bit more dramatic, straight out of the Jim Murphy playbook.
(The timing was a tad fortunate, coming just hours after services into Central had been cancelled because some poor sod had been hit by a train in Renfrewshire, generating more statistical disruption that Labour can castigate ScotRail and the SNP for.)
We wondered aloud on Twitter whether the tiny group had actually bothered doing any protesting or leafleting at all, or if they’d just turned up briefly for the photo opportunity and then scuttled off, and an alert reader was on the spot to answer.
Majority was taken up by various photo shots and Richard Leonard being moved as they were blocking the road. Few takers for leaflets, more than a few willing to point out that Labour blocked powers over rail in Scotland. pic.twitter.com/3fLnmPFoQT
— AirdrieForIndy (@AirdrieForIndy) January 7, 2019
Richard Leonard and his micro-mob had in fact been standing with their backs to commuters the whole time, as far from the station entrance as it was possible to get without being run over, earnestly relaying their real concerns to passing cars and the window of the Sainsbury’s Local across the road while rail passengers couldn’t even see their placards as they hurried to catch their trains.
If there’s a better visual metaphor for Labour’s relationship with the Scottish electorate this year, we’d love to see it.
@HYFUD
“Yesindyref2 Rubbish Scotland has far more MPs as a percentage than MEPs.”
Whioh also has absolutely nothing to do with QMV. The number of MEPs is relevant to the European Parliament you ignoramus, NOT the Councils which have one Minister from each of the 28 EU members, with 1 vote each.
Your lack of knowledge of the EU is 100%. Are you Theresa May?
CameronB Brodie says:
10 January, 2019 at 9:10 pm
“Rock
You make unsupported statements then claim I lost an argument I never involved myself in.”
You did involve yourself in – for no reason.
If you think they are “unsupported statements”, prove them wrong.
Rock says “The moon is made of green cheese” and expects people to prove him wrong. I think that’s what you’d call “cheese and crackers”.
CameronBBrodie Nietzsche did believe in ‘master’ morality ie to have wealth, strength, health, power in contrast to being poor, weak, sick, pathetic, over ‘slave’ morality which in his opinion championed other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission over what it saw as evil values of being worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive and he saw the latter as cause of most of the world’s problems. If you deny that you deny proper understanding of Nietzsche
K1 In Macron’s own words a European army is needed to counter Russia, China and the USA
link to newsweek.com
Yesindyref2 Yes so Scotland has less representation in the European Parliament as a percentage of MEPs than the UK Parliament as a percentage of MPs and can also be outvoted in the Council of the European Union under QMV
@HYUFD
The UK has no QMV, so if MPs from Scotland and Wales and even from Northern Ireland all voted together that achieves only 15% in the UK Parliament, so we would all be outvoted if the English MPs decided to vote against us.
Whereas under the much fairer EU QMV system, that would be 3 out of 4 saying “no”, so they would win. In fact 2 out of 4 would win, and halt any EU legislation that had a bad effect.
And of course, for votes that require unanimity, Scotland would have a veto in the two Councils of the EU, whereas Scotland has no veto in the House of Commons. Legislation in the EU requires consent from the Council, as well as the EP.
The conclusion is staring a sane man or woman in the face – if it’s a choice between two Unions, as it may well be, Scotland is far far better represented democratically in the EU than the UK.
And if you say any different, you’re a fool.
HYUFD
I see you ignored my earlier travel advice so Ill repeat it for you:
PISSOFFF
So?
What’s what Macron says got to do with anything I stated?
One temporary current president makes an assertion about ‘why’ he views it this way and that makes it a ‘superstate’?
Look all nations have influence within the bloc and influence means outlook can be altered, compromises reached. There will always be different views, at least within the EU construct, our views will be heard as an equal nation amongst other nations. That is not the situation within this UK construct and that is the point I was making.
You throwing in another useless piece of msm diatribe is not debating, nor does it shore up your assertion, what it does show is a man incapable of reasoning, resorting to ‘news’ articles (second hand sources) to somehow support his fevered imagination, you are one of those gullible enough to vote Tory, so it’s easy to see ‘how’ you have come to think about these issues as ‘your’ view has already been sold to you through your own choice of ‘news’ outlet, it certainly isn’t through engaging any capacity to actually think through issues for yourself.
People like you are stuck in a ‘danger danger’ bubble, fears of everything going wrong with no sense of humanity’s capacity to work through problems without always resorting to threat/violence as ‘the only’ means to solve problems.
Macron drinks from the same Kool aid as you…it’s arms and trade deals and ‘strong man’ rhetoric.
You have no idea or any kind of vision of any future without what you imagine to be ‘set in stone’ internal reference points gleaned from what you ‘already believe’ and what you have been taught to believe in those ‘fantasy’ terms.
What is a ‘paradigm’ shift?
Tell you what it isn’t…the hopeless and futile outlook of those with your mentality continuing forever to dictate the narrative and terms of debate to decide the lives of those who disagree passionately with the very essence of your worldview…continuing ad infinitum.
A tiny, minuscule shift…does change everything, who is to say what the future holds eh?
Not you.
And thank the fucking heavens above for that.
Yesindyef2 To win under QMV Scotland would need at least 14 other nations to vote with it, far more than just 3. Plus the idea that you could always get agreement on the issues you want with the vast cultural and economic differences between Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe is absurd.
Chubby Say what you want, as long as people keep replying to me on this thread I will replying to them.
K1 It is Germany that sets the direction for EU economic and Eurozone policy as the largest economy in the EU, as Greece and Italy have discovered. It is France as the largest EU military power that will set the direction for EU military power and foreign policy. With Putin threatening the Baltic states and Xi threatening Taiwan nationalism is on the rise in both Russia and China.
Rock
I claimed your statements were unsupported as you provided no substantiating proof. Your a sophist. I’m on to you.
I’ve shown HYUFD how British nationalism crushes the embodied human rights of Scotland’s inhabitants, yet he persist in promoting British nationalism. Subsequently, we can assume that HYUFD does not respect the doctrine of international law, or support the principle of universal human rights. His arrogance dulls his intellect and encourages his cultural chauvinism. He is an authoritarian, English/British nationalist.
HYUFD is a fantasist. Parliamentary sovereignty was removed from British constitutional law in 1991, but tradition appears to be deeply ingrained in this one. The man’s an arse.
“Yesindyef2 To win under QMV Scotland would need at least 14 other nations to vote with it, far more than just 3.”
12. It needs 13 out of 28 – just 45% of the 28 member states in total – to block legislation. Smaller members do very well out of the EU, they can get concessions to get their votes.
CameronBBrodie If British nationalism crushed Scots rights to self determination a vote on independence in 2014 would have been banned by the UK government, instead one was held and Scots voted to stay in the UK. Instead the main ‘universal human right’ you are pushing is for Scotland to stay a part of an EU superstate if the UK proceeds with Brexit
Yesindyref2 There is a world of difference between socially conservative Poland or Hungary or Italy, economically liberal Luxembourg or the Netherlands, social democratic Sweden or Finland and left populist Greece. Trying to get them to all agree on legislation on immigration or economics or regulation such as to get 13 nations in a block committed to Scotland’s views all the time is not going to happen
HYUFD
Were you in Scotland to experience the indyref? It was as far removed from ethical democratic process as you can get. Do you respect the doctrine of international law and support the principle of universal human rights? I don’t think so.
If the British state wants to comply with international law, it must do all in its’ power to encourage the implementation of the “Right to Development”. As such, the Tory’s ‘plan’ for Brexit is not consistent with international human rights law. British nationalism stands in opposition to international law and fails to respect the embodied legal personality of those living outwith England.
Let’s carry on with HYUFD’s edumication of what ethical democratic process looks like.
link to press.princeton.edu
link to scholar.harvard.edu
link to assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
Oh dear god in heaven, whatever ‘current’ set up is in place makes no difference to the point being made.
Scotland would have a voice within the EU construct. You can twist and turn with your insistence that it would somehow be irrelevant given the big 3…the reality is as others have pointed out to you time and again, is that in ‘comparison’ to the UK construct we would in fact be running our own affairs within that bloc and we would have representation in terms of issues that affect Scotland specifically, currently we have little if any say in terms of how we wish to run our country, especially wrt to foreign policy.
As that is the reserve of WM. We don’t vote for Tory Govs and get them repeatedly, our parliament is in effect an administrative outpost that mitigates agains the worst of those crushing social policies.
If you insist on playing dumb you will be treated as the ignorant robotic arse that you clearly are Simon.
“such as to get 13 nations in a block committed to Scotland’s views all the time is not going to happen”
What planet are you on? Who on earth apart from you has ever suggested such a thing? Though it does go to show the state of mind YOU have, where the whole world should revolve around the UK.
I’ve got news – planet earth revolves around the Sun, which is a star at the end of a spiral galaxy, which is just one galaxy in a universe of galaxies, in a whole load of dimensions of universes.
We’re not really that important in the cosmos of things, except to ourselves.
Here’s an example of how it works with QMV. These are 2017 figures, but they’ll do. By population:
Germany 82,800,000
France 67,024,500
United Kingdom 65,808,600
Italy 60,589,400
Spain 46,529,000
Poland 37,973,000
EU-28 total 511,805,000
Total of those 6 member states 360,723,500. That’s over 70% of the total population of the EU!
However, if those 6 “bullies” try to pull a fast one and pass legislation which favours them against the 22 smaller states, they FAIL on QMV, as they only have 6 out of 28 votes on the first stage of QMV.
Can you imagine the UK being so democratic towards its smaller partners – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
No, me neither.
CameronB Brodie says:
11 January, 2019 at 9:17 am
“Rock
I claimed your statements were unsupported as you provided no substantiating proof. Your a sophist. I’m on to you.”
If you are looking for unsupported statements, why are you not questioning Ken500?
Have you turned into one of the hypocrite usual suspects attacking me?
The owner of this blog has not imposed any condition for supporting statements – I am expressing my opinions.
If you disagree with something I post, why don’t you specify what is wrong and provide your alternative opinions?
Are you denying that Nicola has fully backed the dishonest unionist civil servant trying to destroy Alex Salmond?
Are you denying that the British Establishment is terrified of Alex Salmond?
Are you denying that the British Establishment has ZERO fear of Nicola?
I see Rock is running interference for HYUFD.
CameronBBrodie It was a fair vote on an 80% turnout even if you dislike the result
K1 Scotland has MPs just as it has MEPs, it has even produced PMs from Douglas Home to Brown. The fact many Scots want independence to rejoin the EU if Brexit, especially No Deal Brexit, goes ahead is up to them but that as the polls on the issue show would be the main reason for any Yes win
Yesindyref2 As I pointed out trying to get 13 member states, even smaller ones to vote in a block is far easier said than done, especially with the cultural and economic differences between Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe
We only need to win once.
“As I pointed out trying to get 13 member states, even smaller ones to vote in a block is far easier said than done, ”
and what about trying to get 2 more than that – 15 in total – to vote in a block FOR any legislation? Abd they have to actively vote FOR to count. 16 or more.
Because there’s this:
“An abstention under qualified majority voting counts as a vote against. Abstention is not the same as not participating in the vote. Any member can abstain at any time.”
link to consilium.europa.eu
So you don’t even have to get 13 to vote, abstensions are good enough.
So there, sweetie pie.
K1 Not necessarily. If Yes does win it would be mainly down to Brexit, especially if No Deal. However if the UK reversed Brexit in any EUref2 and decided to stay in the UK that would also set a precedent for Scotland to reverse an independence vote and decide to stay in the UK
K1 Not necessarily. If Yes does win it would be mainly down to Brexit, especially if No Deal. However if the UK reversed Brexit in any EUref2 and decided to stay in the EU that would also set a precedent for Scotland to reverse an independence vote and decide to stay in the UK
HYFUD
Totally delusional Tory twit.
As if any country has ever thought about going back under Westminster control. You are not even in the same universe never mind the real world.
Once people experience freedom from the dictatorship that is Westminster they laugh at that suggestion.
Just pissoff with your nonsense.
HYUFD
It was a fair vote you say. Tories don’t do fair. Lie cheat and deceive – that’s what they do. Labour are pretty good at cheating as well.
Westminster = gerrymandering = perfidious Albion = Britnats.
Scottish MPs are part of Westminster, what an absurd point.
59 MPs out of a total of 650, 9%. A simple majority requires 50%, so 59 MPs have ZERO power, what an absurd idea of democracy.
Not necessarily, indeed on current polls Corbyn would only get into government with the support of SNP MPs.
Indeed if we get EUref2 that could also be down to Scottish MPs