Wings Over Scotland

You should have linked to the replacement toon you did that time, just incase folk don’t realise what we’d be stuck with without Chris – we still have a great laugh at that effort 😀

Brilliant.

Caesar typo, should have been Alba ;o)

Unless I have missed it – since Saint Ruth and Fluffy received the Tory Bullet I have not seen either of them in their respective parliaments’ debating chambers.

I wish I could wake up and discover it had all been a bad dream.

Hilarious!

(link to indiegogo.com not yet active – will try later)

This is a rather interesting:

link to chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com

Did you read the part about how grateful the Remainers are about Scotland (and it’s courts) being a valuable and valued part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. No, neither did I. Seems it was all down to Gina Miller.

@Doug Bryce says: 27 September, 2019 at 1:37 pm:

” … UK is becoming a fascist state. Unelected PM, from party Scotland didnt elect, vowing to take action on devolve issues over which he no power. BBC blindly report it and dont allow comments.”

If you haven’t already sussed out what is happening now it that it has reached the point where the BBC, and the rest of the Westminster controlled media, have got enough rope as to hang themselves with it. The SNP wisely just let them get on with what the media was doing until it has become apparent to anyone with a brain what the media is up to and now things have backfired upon the media.

Hence the falling circulation of the dead tree press and the falling number of TV licences in Scotland. Quite simply they have overdone the propaganda and more and more people in Scotland can see it for themselves.

We thought Brexit was bad, a disrespected ‘referendum’ then along came Boris!
It really is time for Scotland to decide its own destiny.

@ Stuart MacKay 2.23pm I read that link you posted and wrote a long post re the involvement of the Scottish SC , Joanna Cherry , Jolyan Maugham and others and commented that their involvement should not have been expunged or ignored , I then tried to post it and it disappeared ,I tried page back and it had still disappeared ggggrrrr

@twathater

I always make a copy before I click anything. It’s saved me more than once.

It’s rather disturbing that the highest court in one of the member countries of the United Kingdom triggers the reinstatement of Parliament and does not get any credit.

I know this just going over the same theme over and over again but with respect to English politics, Scotland is simply an irrelevance. Better to leave them to it.

Clever move by the FM to float the idea of a temporary PM Corbyn

The Lib dems now need to choose whether to keep Johnson and the Tories in power or to eat humble pie. Tories online getting edgy.

Labour now have a hard time to criticize the SNP (they will still try)

FM 3-0 UP

Holy shit, Ok I’m giving him money.

Only £60.00 to go

Sorry line two and three should read 2020 not 2014

The BBC what a disgraceful organisation. It upholds a complaint against Naga Munchetty for calling out Trumps racist comment but has, I very much doubt, ever upheld a complaint against the BBC for all its anti Scotland propaganda.

Racism and racist comments are never acceptable and it doesn’t matter the source of them – the President of USA or an independence supporter.

The BBC an absolutely disgusting organisation.

As I have said many times Sturgeon has always said she would prefer a sec 30. NOT MUST.

No one has ever produced any evidence she ever said MUST have a sec 30. Colin Alexander tried to kid on he had evidence but he didn’t. Just a shit stirrer as usual.

Cynicalhighlander 1745 a guid time 1746 a bad time.
Off to hear wee ginger dug talk about the Gaelic.
North Ayrshire Council putting their hands in their pockets for a good reason for once.

Cubby

“His comments were put to the First Minister yesterday who said the legal basis for any future referendum should be “the same” as for the 2014 – where the Edinburgh agreement struck between the Scottish and UK government set out the conditions for a legally binding ballot.

Asked by reporters if it was a possibility she could hold a Catalan style referendum without the permission of Westminster, she said: “No, I am not open to that possibility.”

She said: “My view is clear and always has been clear. The legal basis of any future independence referendum should be the same as the referendum in 2014, which is the transfer of power under a section 30 order.

“Of course the only reason we’re talking about this is because of the anti-democratic stance of the Conservatives, who I think are running so scared of the will of the Scottish people on independence.

“They refuse to acknowledge the democratic mandate that the Scottish government has.”

OK, I was gonna add £25 to the Chris Cairns/Greg Moodie fundraiser.

BUT…

It would accept neither Scotland, UK nor U.K. as my country.

It would not accept Dundee as the state and it couldn’t be left blank. (Dundee is a County of a City.)

So, I admit defeat. He’s over the target onnyhoo.

I’ll just browse WOS Saturday posts to see the old cartoons…

Re-watching the West Wing for the upteenth time and in the episode “Mandatory Minimums” the speech at the start by Pres Bartlet rings true to our movement, in my mind at least.

“This moment reminds me of the tale of 2 Irish lads who’s journey was blocked by a wall, seemingly too tall to overcome, they tossed their caps over the wall, they had no choice but to follow”

“We’ve gotta have term limits, because voters can’t be trusted to recognise corruption, oh, btw, when the playing field is level and the process is fair and open, we do have term limits, they’re called elections”

We, the Sovereign people, vote for parties that represent our interests and include several (3? 4?) mandates to ask the electorate our views.

Q: If the process is fair & open, the playing field level, then elections are all we require?

If not, given a wall that is seemingly too high to get over (UK Gov intransigence) then we need to throw our caps over the wall (The legal route).

Chinese proverbs aside, we do live in interesting times.

Apologies for any mixed metaphors. All quoted text reserved to Aaron Sorkin (1 of the best script writers in modern times IMO)

Wow. Daily Wail readers in England going ballistic re the downright disgusting, evil, nasty etc, etc.. interference from those Jocks.

Hilarious.

@BDTT 7.43: what is going to happen if the Flags fundraiser stays at circa £4,500 when the target is £12,500? Is Mark liable for the full sum or will he just have to cancel the order? It is a shame after the success the last time when he got flags for us all.

Thank you very much, Robert Peffers, @ 7.13. ‘Maybe the drive for independence is not via Westminster but via the courts.’ Nice one. Absolutely. It’s a matter of justice, after all – not simply political acumen, or tactics. Just justice, for everyone concerned. Including both countries.

Yet, not uniquely through the courts. The battle is being fought on several fronts simultaneously. And being won on all of them. This is important, because these fronts are all interconnected.

As I understand it, when a member state wants to leave the EU, that member state must respect its own constitution both when making the request to leave, and when negotiating the detail of how it will do so, and with which consequences.

If, through the courts, it could ultimately be proved that the UK is not / was not respecting its own constitution, especially in respect of Scotland, when it exited, then its exit will be as null and void – even in the eyes of the EU – as was Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Westminster.

In that case, the only way the English Brexiteers could ever have their cherished Brexit would be for England to become independent from Scotland (with Scotland thereby becoming independent from England). If England wants Brexit, England will have to break up the UK. Because England simply CANNOT constitutionally and therefore legally overrule the will of the Scottish people (62% in 2016, and now growing) to remain in the EU.

An English government – but not a UK one – could legitimately arrange for England to leave the EU. A UK government CANNOT constitutionally overrule the sovereign will of the Scottish people. If it attempts to do so it will be acting against the Scottish constitution. That, however, would be illegal, because the Scottish constitution which is an integral part of what originally constituted and still constitutes the UK, and it is still in force. The Westminster parliament CANNOT overrule it.

It (the Westminster parliament) CANNOT legally overrule, abolish or ignore one of the elements which constitutes it, and on which it was supposedly founded. Even if it HAS INDEED, as we all know, frequently ignored the will of the Scottish people – and even did so when it was first set up – whenever it has done so, it has been acting illegally.

WE know that it was a sham from the beginning, because all the evidence from 1707 shows that the Scottish people did not acquiesce in what happened, and did not agree with it. But even when decades and centuries onward, for a certain period of time (e.g. during the 19th and some of the 20th Century) it may have seemed as if the Scottish people did acquiesce in the UK Union that had originally been imposed on them against their will, the Scottish constitutional principle still remained that the people are sovereign in Scotland.

And in instance after instance, including very recently, even Westminster has acknowledged the ongoing validity of that basic constitutional principle. It has done so for the simple fact that it CANNOT do otherwise.

WE KNOW these things (or should do), but the world at large – including the EU – generally doesn’t.

Why don’t they?

Because England, and English-dominated Westminster has sold the world at large a dummy. Not just a dummy, but the very big lie that the UK = England, and that the English Constitution (in which parliament was sovereign) = the UK constitution. They have even sold that dummy – that downright lie – to themselves, and to their own people.

Now that all the lies are beginning to come undone, they are all unravelling before our very eyes, one after the other. This is Scotland’s hour. This is the moment when the world, including the EU, is beginning to realise how phoney and fraudulent the UK parliament actually is (and, in fact, always has been). In its pretensions to be something which, constitutionally, it isn’t.

That is, contrary to what they have always been told, the EU and the world are beginning to see that the entity they know as the UK, unlike other political entities, has two constitutions, not one. And they are BOTH VALID, and BOTH OUGHT to be and, legally, HAVE to be respected when the UK acts. As, for instance, when it is attempting to LEAVE the EU.

If the UK government tries to do that while contravening one of the two constitutions which underpin it (the UK), it will be acting unconstitutionally and illegally. The EU CANNOT legally make agreements with individual politicians or political factions (e.g. Boris and Co Unlimited) who contravene the constitution(s) of the political entity they purport (i.e. pretend) to represent.

As the court battles ensue, it will become more and more evident to the EU (and to the world at large) that a UK government which seeks to take the WHOLE of the UK out of the EU CANNOT actually do so. If it attempts to do so it is NOT representing the will of of the Scottish people which remains sovereign in Scotland which, as one of the two component parts which constitute the UK, all UK governments are bound to acknowledge and fully respect.

What is also becoming apparent, and ought to be increasingly noticed by the EU negotiators, is that the UK has finally spawned an Executive (Boris & Co Un-Limited) which is clearly illegitimate on all fronts. The EU therefore CANNOT negotiate with these people … Because, as a supposed, but actually illegitimate, ‘executive’ they (Boris & Co) do NOT represent anyone. Above all, they do NOT represent the political entity that joined the EU as the ‘UK’.

That is to say, this Executive is acting UNCONSTITUTIONALLY in regard to BOTH the constitutions which constitute the UK, and remain operative within it. The recent brou-ha-ha has demonstrated that Boris & Co, the pretendy executive that wants no limitations placed upon its powers, are not respecting the English constitution. They illegitimately closed down the legislature to which, as executive, they are constitutionally accountable. They did this in order to remain unaccountable to anyone other than themselves, all of which is totally unconstitutional.

The ‘Gina Miller’ case demonstrated this, even to the English themselves (or at least, large swathes of them). The English constitution, in which parliament is supreme and the legislature holds the executive to account, had been contravened. The action of Boris & Co had therefore been unlawful, and the prorogation utterly null and void.

It was therefore the Gina Miller case that grabbed all the headlines in the English-dominated press. But underneath that Gina Miller case lay the Joanna Cherry case.

The ruling of the Court of Session in the Cherry case had demonstrated that the same Boris & Co (the would-be unlimited and unaccountable ‘executive’ of the so-called UK) had also acted unconstitutionally, and therefore unlawfully, in Scots law as well. The Scottish judges had found that Boris & Co’s prorogation of Westminster had been undertaken for a purpose that rendered it invalid.

What all this increasingly suggests is that Boris & Co are a ‘rogue’ executive, which does not respect either the sovereignty of the people in Scotland or the sovereignty of parliament in England. Overriding both the constitutions of the two countries which constitute the UK, it is claiming for itself the ability to exercise powers which it does not constitutionally or legally possess.

Whether in regard to its own member states, or other states outside itself, the EU can only negotiate with constitutionally legitimate governments comprising those who do legally represent the people they purport to talk for. In view of what has been happening in the courts – and will continue to happen there – it must be beginning to dawn on the leaders of the EU that they CANNOT negotiate with Boris & Co. Any deal they make with him (Johnson) and his pals might well be open to challenge in the courts. Both in the UK (before both the Court of Session in Edinburgh and the UK Supreme Court in London), and in the highest European court as well.

Even if Johnson does get a ‘deal’, the courts might have to declare it invalid. And if he crashes out of the EU without one, that crashing out might be declared invalid as well. In which case the UK will still be a member state of the EU.

Even if he gets a deal and Westminster approves it, that need not be the end of the story. The deal could be valid in England, where parliament is sovereign, but not in Scotland, where the people remain sovereign. With the EU at last aware of the true nature of the UK’s constitution – aware, that is, that the Scottish constitution is different from the English one, that both are fully operative in their respective places, and that both have to be respected – their own (EU) lawyers and leaders will realise what Johnson’s ‘deal’ actually means, legally speaking. Namely, that England has left the EU, but not Scotland.

Maybe this is what Ian Blackford means, and has meant all along, when he has stated so often and so categorically that ‘SCOTLAND WILL NOT BE FORCED OUT OF THE EU AGAINST HER WILL’. The EU’s own insistence on respecting the respective constitutions of each of its member states makes such ‘being forced out against their will’ an impossibility for Scotland, even legally speaking, so long as the Scottish people continue to vote to remain IN the EU.

Yes, indeed – as Robert Peffers surmises – maybe it will indeed prove to be ‘through the courts’ that Scotland will achieve her independence. There is a logic in all of this.

If Scotland wants to stay in the EU and England wants to leave the EU, it seems to be a logical inevitability that the UK automatically breaks up. That is what the two constitutions operative in the UK automatically – that is to say, quite simply, of themselves – bring about. It just happens. Scotland goes the EU way, and England goes its own way.

A simple ‘bye-bye’, and no hard feelings required on either side. Both sides get what they want. As in all farewells, there might be a tinge of sadness – and why not? so there should be, we are only human after all – but no need for any grudge, since no one is being denied anything, and both are gaining precisely what they preferred and opted for. This parting of the ways is the opposite of one nation imposing itself on another, and should be celebrated in a friendly way, as a liberation for both.

Recognising the differences between us doesn’t have to make us enemies, and never should. That’s what adults do. Adult relationships don’t depend on agreeing on everything, but on recognising each other, in our difference. And even celebrating that difference.

Of course, we have quite a way to go before it comes to that. Even in terms of emotional maturity, all round. But come it will, … eventually!

I hope so …

@ Wull – excellent post. There is only one quibble I have. The English High Court ruled that the prorogation was “not justiciable”. Lord Sumption also proclaimed that, loud and clear, before the supreme Court judgment. I would argue that the Gina Miller case did not prove the prorogation unconstitutional because under English law, Parliament is sovereign and the courts can’t interfere with political decisions.

Without the Scottish Court of Session judgement that prorogation was unlawful, Gina Miller’s case might not have got to the Supreme Court. Parliament didn’t act to prevent the prorogation through e.g. a VONC.

Nicola’s demand tonight that Parliament co-operate to remove Boris Johnston is reinforcing the supremacy of Parliament in Westminster – but they must act in order to enforce that supremacy.

The stupid Lib Dems of course are climbing onto their high horse because they won’t co-operate with Jeremy Corbyn. That should clear up any lingering doubt voters might have had about Jo Swinson’s Tory credentials.

I think the House of Commons might be falling over itself to give a Section 30 Order “How quick do you want it, 48 hours quick enough? We’ll parachute in the Queen to give the Royal Assent.”

Wull , Capella , Kangaroo and others very many outstanding comments , a great thread , it shows when we all stop bickering and accusing each other of WHATEVER we ALL have this great country Scotland and it’s people at the forefront

Wull special thanks to you for a very illuminating and pertinent explanation of what may be the PLAN

Let’s make Edinburgh AUOB the biggest yet