Hitch a ride on the turning tide
Posted on
July 11, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Things were different in 2009.
Of course, they meant if they LOST the first one. But readers might feel that a certain degree of irony has perhaps manifested itself since then, particularly in terms of people knowing “what they would be in for” after June 2016.
So just to recap the UK government’s rules for the Yes movement:
– If you win, you don’t really win and you have to go again in case things change.
– If you lose once, that’s it forever, no matter how much things change.
Always remember what we’re dealing with, folks. The rules are always whatever they say they are, regardless of what they might have said a minute ago, and no matter what happens we’re swimming against the sea.
I’m out of walls to punch
April first?
Suffocated by irony, hypocrisy and downright lies.
Head I win, tails you loose.
Notice how the fingers never leave the hands folks!
The Boris is frightening the Tories, his Gimp Ross is just a little trumpet.
And the hypocrisy is strong in this one. … this one being the minority Tory party telling the Scots Parliament what is what.
Punch the walls the cooker and the floor. Rage on.
Democracy is and always has been a moveable feast. It is what the Government of the day and their allies claim it to mean.
In Scotlands case it means colonial status,now and evermore.
Oh Feck em.
As Jimmy Ringo said, ‘All the way outside, Sonny’.
We have to go all in, whatever it takes. Half measures, avail us nothing. (which is also why you should continue with your case)
from 39mins onwards
link to youtube.com
Christ, being fuckin Scottish is a fuckin punishment, even Satan couldn’t be this fucked up creating this hell
I’m left wondering where’s the breaking point of the average Scot.
Is our spine so weak that we’re going to take more without snapping?
It’s scary to think that so much pressure has built inside: when the release comes it might be an earth-shattering explosion.
I’m fn fed up playing by Westminster’s rules.
We’re a country in a Treaty with another country. How damned difficult can it be to resile from that Treaty.
The Orange One across the Pond, resiles from Treaties right, left and centre whenever the fancy takes him but we have to follow English laws and the English constitution – unwritten and made up as they go along.
Seriously, SNP?
Corrado Mella @ 2:35
I can’t think of a better way to put it!
[…] Wings Over Scotland Hitch a ride on the turning tide Things were different in 2009. Of course, they meant if they LOST the first one. But […]
It comes as no surprise to learn that senior Tories considered a second referendum may have been required if they had lost the first Scotindyref in 2014.
I always believed Westminster would never have abided by the result of the 2014 Referendum if we had won it.
They would have found some excuse to make the result null and void and demand a rerun with changed rules to ensure they won.
You only have to look at what labour did in the devolution Bill for the 1978 devolution referendum with introduction of the 40% rule.
An interesting article.
It is a pity the quote is from an article that is hidden behind a paywall.
The premis by Jo Murkens links very well with this article he wrote in June 2016.
He suggests the EU referendum was a score draw and that if Brexit went ahead it would mean the break up of the ‘Union’
He also gives a possible reason for why Mr Johnson made a surprise withdrawal for leader of the Conservative Party that Theresa May won.
link to newspunch.com
It is likely he will become the next PM in a couple of weeks.
Nicola Sturgeon’s recent claim at an event that Mr Johnson offering “Home Rule to buy off you lot” might not be so far-fetched!
Exactly right. And the exact same can be said for the EU. Referenda until it goes the establishment way. Then never again.
Sorry in advance to the bright eyed, naive (ignorant) and downright dishonest Europhiles out there.
Where was the Scottish Parliament’s referendum to allow the sovereign people to decide whether The Vow had been delivered?
What we got was a complete surrender for the last 5 years, despite it being clear to everyone and his dug, that The Vow was a shameful sham.
Has the lessons been learned?
All the talk from the SNP is re-running everything the same way again.
The SNP’s “gold standard”.
Fools gold if it means yet again relying on trusting our imperial masters.
An Independence referendum is a whole world different to the devolution referendum, that had to go correctly or the UK would never have been allowed to join the EU
The UK government was virtually ordered by the world council to devolve power to the other UK countries on pain of being kept out of the democratically formed EU because the UK had a historically bad human rights record on power sharing and carries it on to this day, along with their record on basic human rights on which they have been warned by the United Nations
The nasty little Euro *septics* who spread their bile all over the place are just British Nationalists wrapped up in any flag they choose to hide behind to squeeze out their bilge like faeces
The Independence referendum is coming, there is nothing surer and it will be won and won well
Sure folk want it now or soonest, but on the question of Independence this will be it and the SNP are making sure the result will be unchallengeable by the large margin of the vote for it
There is no such thing as the UK guv saying NO and they know it, otherwise they wouldn’t be stacking up massive amounts of our money to convince us to vote against it
The UK baw’s on the slates and their gemme’s a bogey
No lie, no false promise, no u-turn, now comes as a surprise.
The rest of the world has understood this about the UK for centuries. The difference is now that within the UK the perfidy has become all too apparent to just too many people. The scam of pseudo democracy, fluid principles, and a constitution made up on the fly, is being exposed.
How ordinary English folks sort this out, I haven’t a clue.
Scotland has a simple and available solution.
Lets not forget the paragon of honesty the British Civil service. Who are leaking our politicians questions to the Civil service to Tory MP’s.
link to thenational.scot
Britannia waives the rules.
Surely that is well known>
Frank Gillougly 2,27 PM Sovereignty is always on the table for Indy not under it
In car Gordon Ross yesterday once again putting forward that if we don’t get out of this accursed union before brexshit we are fcuked , the yookay acceded to the EU and had to be forced to implement devo with penalties for failure to do so .
If brexshit no deal happens then the haunders have gone , the viceroy will be installed with his cronies and Holyrood will be mothballed , tRuthless will be DEPUTY VICEROY and wee wullie will get his ain bus , that other guy will get a bouncy ball
If this were the USA, CNN would be playing “then and now” video clips back-to-back, and the sheer hypocrisy would be apparent to everyone. The BritNats may be increasingly-desperate chancers, but it’s the deliberate media amnesia that is the real villain of the piece, because without it the goalpost-thieves would be exposed for the idea-barren grifters they truly are.
twathater @ 17:42,
I don’t always agree with ICGR, but I feel that in this case he’s right. If we’ve not made our move by the Evil Hour, we’ll have thrown away what little momentum we’ll have acquired, and be full in BoJo’s beady eye. A deliberate economic squeeze to follow, to exploit the mitigation weapon to the full, bust the SG financially and land the (undeserved) blame full on it.
So far, for good reason, we’ve been allowing the Tories full rope, but sooner rather than later we will have to haul it in. Or it’s we who will be dangling from one instead.
Even if Boris Brexits no deal it’ll still be forever until the no deal negotiations are done (Transition)
Once out of the EU on October the 31st the EU has no obligation or duty to the UK state and can negotiate with and speak freely on Scottish matters publicly even though it’s inside the transition period of the UKs departure
Wait for the Bute house visitors bearing gifts, oh zee Virst Meneester she is spoiling us
Hardly breaking news though is it?
Nobody gives it to you. You have to take it.
I do find myself wondering if at some point during the long hot summer of 2018, the best opportunity to do that was missed.
Waiting to see how Brexit turned out to further indy is not a plan. Brexit will never end. There will be no point at which we’ve definitively left the EU and no point at which we are definitively staying in. We will be about to leave for years to come. People will just get used to it.
“Second referendum”, presumably after WM have made an utter hash of negotiations. Inevitably trying it on with half way houses and ‘Home Rule’. Their preferred outcome will be constitutional tinkering, failing that ‘Home Rule’ or something a bit like the Irish Free State of 1922 (where the UK retained bases).
We are sovereign. If we express the wish to be completely independent democratically then it is a done deal. A Declaration of Independence should follow very quickly.
I have always felt there is no need for extensive and lengthy negotiations. They keep all joint moveable assets outside Scotland, and they keep the debt,
We own a share of administrative bodies such as vehicle licensing, etc etc. These can continue continue to service Scotland on a paid basis until we reorganise. We can use whatever currency we wish. We can be in Customs Union and Full Single Market with the EU from day one, so that resolved all border issues.
All preplanned with voters knowing what they are voting for.
It’s in WM’s interests to cooperate and disengage in an orderly manner. We hold ace cards that rUK will want to be the continuing state, and we can tolerate Trident until it is relocated safely.
The First Ministers reception will probably start with an entre of *Oil de Scotia* followed by a main course of *Fresh North sea Pescar* and for dessert *Electricite de Aire*
And they’ll say, *yer in, sign here*
Well we hope eh
Dr Jim,
If the UK leaves on 31st October with no deal then there is no transition period. The transition period is, I believe, part of the Withdrawal Agreement that TM could not get through the HoC.
Von der Leyen to counteract ther lyin’.
I remember on the morning after the referendum David Cameron’s first statement was that Scots MP’s were no longer UK MP’s and an English MP would decide when they could vote.
On the morning after winning the indyref I want to see the FM standing on the door of Bute House stating that Scotland is now an independent country but will work with our neighbours towards an amicable working relationship. It needs to be a instant break, anything else will be used by Westminster to try and undermine the decision.
Obviously there will be a transition period but from day one taxation from Scottish resources must be controlled by Scotland and we decide how this will be allocated to WM and whether we want the services WM provides.
Dr Jim – if Boris takes UK out on no deal, then there is no transition period. TP only comes with the Withdrawal Agreement being agreed/passed by Westminster.
Legerwood – oops, soz, your comment wasn’t visible when I posted.
Legerwood says:
Indeed. But here’s the twist in the tail/tale.
If there is a no deal Brexit then the EU have already made clear there are three prerequisites for future talks …. wait for it …. monies owed, citizen’s rights, and the Good Friday Agreement honoured. Yup, basically it’s the Withdrawal Agreement all over again.
The thing the Tories don’t like about the WA is the backstop which failing all else keeps the whole UK tied to the EU. The EU solution was a border in the Irish Sea. It was the Tories who wanted the backstop … until they thought it through properly. One scenario would be to return to the Irish Sea border, let NI stay close to the EU, then a hard Brexit would follow for the rest. This might be Boris’s solution.
To take this a stage further, if NI can stay in the single market, why not Scotland? Boris might just be thinking along these lines too. Why has he suggested ‘FFA’ and ‘ Home Rule’ on two occasions? Pure deceit … or some actual creative thinking?
Power, real power, is taken not given.
We have to grow a pair, take what’s rightfully ours and leave them to their own midden.
galamcennalath @ 18:35,
I fear it may be the reverse, with repression rather than concession, but it isn’t totally inconceivable that BoJo might offer the SG a kind of gilded cage. He already sounded-out FFA informally with Nicola, after all. (We don’t know what her reply was, but I doubt it was enthusiastic.) So what if he broke all centralist BritNat precedent and did? Does he fully realise the true financial underpinning of the UK, or would he just aim to “fix” the deal somehow in true perfidious fashion?
Would such a move reverse the small gains in popular sentiment that indy has made of late, despite Brexit?
Would it appease the SNP gradualist wing sufficiently to enable them to postpone the inevitable challenge for another day sometime in the future?
I’m hoping for a Boris neverending story transition no deal Brexit everything’ll be all right on the night type of thing please give me another year or I’ll send a gunboat Brexit
With lots of optimism sprinkled all over it, or on a bus
B. Johnson wants to be PM, and talks as if he will then be able to prorogue parliament if he decides it is necessary, or simply wants to.
We already know he knows nothing about Scottish history / the Scottish constitution, but this demonstrates that he knows nothing about the English equivalents either. Only the Queen can prorogue parliament. The PM has no power to do this. So what is he dreaming of?
By talking this way – you have to ask yourself – is Johnson dreaming of usurping the Queen’s office? Or is he actually doing just that, even by talking that way? Giving the impression that the PM of the UK has some kind of supreme or absolute power …? Over the parliament, over the people represented there – even over the Head of State … Is he thereby committing the crime of treason? Is this ‘lese majeste’?
If so, can he be charged?
These are major crimes, after all. Especially on the part of a rising politician. English history is full of examples when previous English monarchs have executed far more important, and far better English politicians than B. Johnson, for far less!
Of course, if he becomes PM, Bonkers Johnson could ADVISE the Queen to prorogue the Westminster parliament. But she is under NO obligation to take such advice. And she would surely be foolish to accede to it. Especially if Johnson were to be allowed to presume he could govern without the parliament – when in fact, legally, she is the only person who could, and she won’t.
If she let Johnson ‘take over’ in the way that he seems to be imagining is possible, would she not thereby be effectively abolishing herself?
By handing her office and all its authority (in England) over to the PM, someone whom she appoints, wouldn’t she be undermining and contradicting the letter and spirit of the very English constitution she says she is obliged to uphold? (And so she is – in her kingdom of England.)
If she acted thus, a massive transfer of power would have taken place. Instead of being ruled by ‘the Queen in Parliament’, the kingdom of England and its people would now be ruled by ‘B. Johnson WITHOUT the Parliament’. What kind of ‘constitution’ is that?
And for how long? ‘Indefinitely …’ do I hear you say (you, the Brexiteer mob who are taking over ‘this country’, whatever you mean by ‘this country’)?
‘For ever and ever …?’ OK, so …
‘Arise King Bonkers Johnson of the Johnson-Brexit Dynasty … Arise Great Leviathan from out the Sea, and take possession of this Sceptred Isle of yours’ … (Except that, being the kingdom of England, it isn’t an ‘isle’ at all – but who cares about the detail? Reading the brief was never the strong point of Bonkers J and his ilk … And neither was any respect for the rule of law …)
There you have it. The Lawless Man, that Monster from the Deep, is entering the throne room. And he is just about to grab the sceptre …
Watch out, Your Majesty! English history is a succession of revolutions. No dynasty lasts for ever, and few for as long as yours has … They are all overcome, and replaced by an up-and-coming Upstart, who wades in with some kind of coup d’etat … And these insurgents, these usurpers, these revolutionaries always dress up in the clothes their fleeing predecessors left behind … Like players in a pantomime. Welcome to the ball, or rather to the masque – which looks the same even though the faces underneath the masquerade have changed radically, as has the meaning of the whole thing. They dress up their usurpation in their claim to be in strict legal continuity with the past, which in fact they have sweot aside, and abolished …
This is English history … Scottish history is different … The dynastic revolution that got rid of the Stewarts was a typically English, not Scottish affair.
(Before someone objects by mentioning Bruce’s 1306 replacement of Balliol, which can in fact be justified – and was – on legal grounds, just compare the unbroken kingship line in Scotland from Malcolm Canmore up to Alexander III with the breaks in the English succession during the same period and, even more tellingly, compare from Bruce to James VII in Scotland with the same period in England (Plantagenets replaced by Lancastrians, replaced by Yorkists who were replaced by Tudors etc.)
Anyway, your Majesty, you know all that: you know your own forebears (real or imagined), what they did as well as what happened to them, and how they were involved in all that blood-soaked mess.
And now it looks like your own ‘House of Windsor’ may be the next to go …
Which raises the question: What will ‘her majesty’ do when Crown Prince B., of the Johnson clan, makes his move? Through attempting to prorogue parliament, and rule without it, thereby taking control from it rather than allowing it to take back that control which Johnson’s own Brexit rhetoric originally promised …
I think her only chance will be to ignore his advice, and give him the brush-off. Dub him, if you will, with the royal toilet brush, and once and for all brush off all this loose talk of proroguing parliament with a simple wave of the hand … And – oh, the irony of it – she will become the defender of the sovereignty of parliament (specifically, of the Queen in Parliament) in her kingdom of England.
The English constitution needs to be defended against a rogue politician like this one. So too does the Scottish constitution, where the people of Scotland are sovereign. You will have to bear in mind both the sovereignty of parliament in England and the sovereignty of the people in Scotland. Do both, and you will win support everywhere. Unlike your predecessor, Charles I, who did neither. And lost everything, not least his little head. These are tricky waters, your Majesty, which have to be very carefully navigated. Necessarily so, when you are up against such a formidable maritime foe as Leviathan.
So … time for you to defend the respective constitutions of the two kingdoms of which you are Queen. Whether the two of them continue to form a United Kingdom or decide to go their separate ways, you can still win ongoing respect for yourself and your family if you defend both. Because BOTH are now under attack – not Scotland alone, but England as well – from the Monster at the door.
The Monster, that is, who will very soon be crossing your threshold, wagging his tail; walking under your lintel, waving his smiling two-fingered salute … as, at your behest, he triumphantly enters into into your own home of ucking-ham Palace, his face beaming and his eyes flashing around to take in the glories that = watch out, your Majesty – might soon be his.
Your Majesty, you need a lawyer – very fast – to help you. A very good Constitutional Lawyer, a fully equipped Counselor, to advise you correctly. Otherwise, your head is likely to be on the line – as happened to not a few of your predecessors (I am again sorry to remind you of these sad facts about some of your ‘ancestors’, no matter how remote or tenuous their lineage may in fact be to yours) …
Luckily, you do have just the right person to hand to help you out in his time of dire need for you. One who is quickly available, . She knows Scots Law, she knows the Constitutional Law of both England and Scotland; she knows how to argue the case and she isn’t the kind to be pushed aside by anyone. However monstrous that ‘anyone’ might be …
Allow me to advise you to pick up the phone, dial the House of Commons, and ask for Joanna Cherry. And make her your very own QC (Queen’s Counselor). Of course she is that already – now is your chance, nay, your absolute need, to make it absolutely real.
And, by the way, she knows European Law as well. Just in case you are not aware of it, your Majesty, a challenge could be brought to the European Court as well. I know you are not a fan, and you have some interests to look after, but this is a time to get the priorities right. You have to think in the long view now … Take a short-term loss for a long-term gain. Why waste time defending a few billions or trillions or whatever they are when the whole Family Firm is under threat from Leviathan and could be thrown under a bus – yes that Brexit bus! – for ever, with no hope of return. There is a simple way out of this. B. Johnson and his monstrous buddies continually and crassly ignore the fact that every member-state wishing to leave the EU is required to fulfill the requirements of its own Constitution when doing so. Just ask Joanna how to make the EU Court aware of this, and get her to lodge a case with them.
If the EU were to do due diligence and inquire into this constitutional requirement, … frankly, your Majesty, what a can of worms they would open up! I know you like all this constitutional fuzziness, and it’s like an old friend who has served you well in the past, whom you wouldn’t like to lose. But these are drastic times, your Majesty, and drastic times require drastic solutions …
Despite the environmental hazard that will, alas, prove unavoidable, there are also occupational hazards – yes, you may well stroke your neck – that you really have to think about. Clearing up the constitutional mess will surely be a small price to pay for seeing off that Leviathan fellow once and for all … Listen to Joanna … Send him down to Davy Jones’s locker … With all the other toxic waste that is so sadly accumulating there … but in the midst of which his remains will at last find their true home, and resting-place.
Seriously, though … Boris Johnson proves on a daily basis just how dangerous he is. He has no respect for the rule of law, constitutional or otherwise. No real knowledge of it, and no real interest in it: this is a power-grab, by someone who believes only in … power! And in his own presumed destiny to wield it. Scotland, be ready for the full-on assault which will surely follow … England, beware – be very wary – of what you hoped and voted for, and of who you put your trust in. There is going to be an attempt to re-tool and re-create (as if from scratch) the so-called Union – that is, the so-called UK – in a way which will actually over-ride and undermine everything that ever constituted that entity in the first place. It is already under way, and far more advanced than we think. It is not yet irreversible, but could soon become so. The name is to be continued, while the reality which that name originally stood for is to be changed utterly.
All is undermined, detonated from within. We are witnessing a revolution – of the very worst, most unlawful, fundamentally violent kind. And it’s going very, very quickly … There is no time left for dithering or shilly-shallying around. or even for seeming to do so. While remaining confident, and determined, we should not underestimate what we will be up against. Even if, out of ignorance, our opponents will make huge mistakes, they still have a lot of fire-power … And they won’t hesitate to use it (even though, by the way they do so, some of it will surely backfire on them).
Latest from Pete Wishart as reported in Wales. Translation to follow, unless someone gets there first or uses Google Translate.
Source: link to golwg360.cymru
galamcennalath @ 18:35,
Oh, but an EU border down the Irish Sea, eminently practicable as it is, does also violate the terms of the Treaty of Union in a very fundamental way. Equal trading terms throughout the UK, the recently-renamed (by the Tories) “UK single market”. =cough=
(Well, it would be a breach provided NI remains part of the UK. =grin=)
I agree with frogesque, waiting for Westminster to let us have an inevitable Yes (judging by the polling) is asking for nothing. We got the Edinburgh Agreement because at the time Yes was around 30% and the result looked a foregone conclusion. Hence the brown trousers time of the Vow.
We are not going to be allowed another one from Westminster for the simple reason they know they will almost certainly lose it with only the size of the victory in doubt and they will not let our people go.
I think once campaigning starts and the polls start showing a Yes lead consistently it will snowball for the simple reaon nobody wants to be on the losing side, everyone wants to be on the right side of history and the soft noes will come to us. With polling showing a hardcore Yes I don’t think we can lose.
The recent referendums in Ireland have been a case in point. They generated a buzz and a momentum and won them handsomely because the time had come and the youth were highly energised. We need to do that again next time, let the youth organise and do stuff on their own, like the climate strikes. We have to relax and let them, encourage them, give advice if they ask for it not otherwise etc.
Jacob Rees Mogg says it’s the *fault* of the EU that support for Scottish Independence has risen because it made relations with London more difficult in that Scotland had to talk to London then London had to talk to Brussels before it got back to Scotland, and Jacob says the people of Scotland understand this so post Brexit they’ll come around to the right way of thinking once Brussels is out of the way
I’ve always thought Jacob Rees Mogg was an idiot, but a clever idiot, i’m afraid i’ve had to remove the clever reference now
With Brexit reckoned to cost the UK up to £100 billion a year by 2030, I wonder if Scotland would have the current level of Barnet, or our budget would be reduced by around £8 to £10 billion pounds per year.?
Imagine a nation of 5 million,that produces over £50 billion in revenues a year having a supposed £20 billion deficit.
Only if your a member of this bloody Union.
Rev’s twitter feed showing only one post. Sinister or dexter?
Twitter’s out around the world apparently.
Twitter’s down
Twit now gone to the rather. Odd!
Eather. Bloody auto correct!
Re twitter tried Ian Dunts and Joanna Cherry’s twitter feeds and got the same feedback – looks like an all over twitter thing, not a wings thing.
@Bruce & Dr Jim
Has Trump finally broken it? Lol
@frogesque,
Twitter is down/flaky in the UK.
Should’ve followed that with a useful link,
link to downdetector.co.uk
link to golwg360.cymru
Pete Wishart, Google Translate, if it has worked.
Robert J Sutherland @ 7.37
I can see them trying but if ever the phrase too little to late applied,it’s here..
It might have flown in 2014 before Brexit but I don’t think it would now because of the oil.
They need it to successfully Brexit and so it’s therefore unlikely that it would be included in this FFA/Devo Max arrangement.
Our position in the EU will be stronger as Europe’s largest oil producers,and even so,it’s bloody well ours…
I can’t see them wanting to open up the “book” to show us how they manage it fairly and we won’t need to worry our wee heids about oil not being included…. This offer won’t be everything except defence and foreign affairs. It will be Defence, Foreign Affairs and ( because they will never just say oil)Energy.
Something, I think, we should ask and keep asking during the Campaign when they mention oil is…
” Well where is it ? We know where Norway’s oil went,everyone dose! What has Westminster done with ours these past 40 years? ”
That will,I’d say, focus minds better than quoting figures at each other.
Also.
We would have to always,always be watching for other things that they were hiding from us.They weren’t exactly honest about the Tax powers from “Smith” a few years back and tried to set a trap.
As for the rest of it….
Foreign Affairs ? really ? …..
They think we would want that joke of a parliament in Westminster to be the international face of Scotland any longer????
Defence……
Well never mind all the Wars Westminster jump into at the behest of the U.S.,which,as they say themselves,are perfectly capable of leaving a nutter in charge.
Westminster control of Scottish Defence = Trident and because the matter will be considered settled for decades to come Tridents replacement.
A huge chunk of our west coast still unavailable to us for development and that target still on our backs!!!
I can’t see the current Scottish Government settling for any of that?
But more importantly I don’t think the Yes movement will allow them too!
Oh, well, translation didn’t work.
Sorry.
The original proposal regarding proroging parliament was ending one session and immediately beginning another in order to reset the clock on submitting the same bill more than once in a given session.
However a change of PM means a change of government so there’s no longer a need for it for that purpose.
There’s been a change in language though that now paints it as suspended parliament.
That seems a more than deliberate act of interference that should get anyone who attempted it dragged on front of Parliament for contempt and possibly expelled if not imprisoned.
As was stated upthread it’s not the PM who makes the decision on prorogation. It’s the Privy Council, who may not be so inclined, who then ask the Queen. All of those who voted in favour should be held to account.
If I was the Queen I’d certainly thing twice about asking to form a Government anyone who has not outright rejected contemplating imposing a dictatorship.
RE:
A C Bruce says:
11 July, 2019 at 2:39 pm
I’m fn fed up playing by Westminster’s rules.
We’re a country in a Treaty with another country. How damned difficult can it be to resile from that Treaty.
Re above, I agree, and out of interest, does anyone know why an International Treaty such as the Treaty of Union cannot be nullified by following internationally agreed rules and conventions? Surely, there has to be some sort of process that international communities follow and as such cannot be left to the whims of Westminster if a signatory of a Treaty decides enough is enough.
Pete Wishart’s comments from the National re relationships between UK nations that Welsh Sion referred to above.
link to thenational.scot
If Twitter is down how will we all be able to rage about the trans debate?
Welsh Sion here is translation
The relationship between the UK governments is stressed, and it has never experienced such pressure before.
That is the view of Pete Wishart, SNP Member of Parliament and Chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee at Westminster.
During a debate in the House of Commons to mark 20 years since devolution began, the MP has warned that “things have to change significantly” in the face of Brexit.
And it has called for an equal relationship between the governments of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland – when they have government – and Westminster.
“The relationship between the governments has never been under such pressure,” he said. “Brexit has been challenged, and almost killed the relationship…
“Although devolution has changed the way we negotiate has not changed. At a lower level – between civil servants, for example – the things are still the same. ”
“The will of the people”
One of those who contributed to the debate was Monmouthshire MP, David TC Davies, and during the session he shared his feelings about devolution.
He opposed an Assembly for Wales in the 1997 referendum, but now feels that he would not oppose the organization “right at all”.
“We lost,” said the Conservative, “but as a democrat I felt it was important to respect the will of the people of Wales.”
David TC Davies is in favor of leaving the European Union and believes that the outcome of the 2016 referendum should be respected.
Extremely unlikely a section order will be forthcoming.
So the next holyrood or Westminster election – whatever comes first – if Indy parties get a majority we end the union. Alternative If there is a hard brexit on Halloween then Nicola says on November the 1st we remain in eu – another way to begin the end of the union.
Douglas @ 8.45
Well there’s no instructions in the Treaty itself…
A lesson going forward perhaps?
I don’t think there is any international protocols either.
I say that because,it was apparently noticed that there was no method of leaving the EU Treaties a few years back…
So that’s why they wrote and introduced Article 50!
@galamcennalath 18:02
“I have always felt there is no need for extensive and lengthy negotiations. They keep all joint moveable assets outside Scotland, and they keep the debt,”
Rubbish, man! For example, the British Museum has, no doubt, thousands of treasures from Scotland’s past. We should not in any way relenquish our possesion of these. They must come home! You want to give all OUR history away? Shame on you!
As to the debt, the kingdom of the Scots and the Kingdom of England created the UK, when the Treaty of Union is dissolved we must bear our share of the UK’s debt, just as the Kingdom of England will have to do. It is the only honourable thing to do.
What sort of message does it send, to both the world and the future, if we renege on our debts right at the very beginning of our renewed independence?
Liz g @ 20:24:
Yes, my thought also. I was just speculating whether BoJo might be sold on the Tories’ own propaganda – at least before taking office.
As for independent defence and foreign policies, that’s now a strong decider for me, and likely for everyone else who is fully-signed up for independence. But it’s probably not such a big issue for the faint-no’s. (Maybe even a slight deterrent.) And those inclined to delay further, eg. the Robin Macalpine tendency, might be willing to overlook that freedom for now and take what they could get in the meantime. So a tempting UKGov offer could conceivably widen the existing difference of opinion within the Yes camp.
But personally I find it hard to see the Tory stuffed leopard changing its spots. Increased centralisation – Brexit powergrab and all – seems the more-likely future. Suffocation of Scotland to save their precioussss Union.
Aye! Twitter down world wide says The Independent. Jings!
Bydd yn ofalus wrth ddefnyddio’r Gymraeg, Sion. Ni fydd ‘Y Parchedig’ yn hapus gyda dy ddefnydd o’r heniaith. Mae’n elyniaethus tu hwnt tuag ati.
We’ve recently had the “Borderlands” Deal — a minimal bribe intended to make D&G & Scottish Borders more beholden to Westminster.
Now we get “Moray Region investment deal announced”: link to bbc.co.uk
All of £65million over 15 years for Moray, some of it supposedly a gift from the UK Government. Scot Gov presumably can’t be seen to turn down these crumbs from Westminster’s table so welcomes the chance to collaborate.
Grayling wastes that sort of sum in a matter of weeks.
Boris Johnson’s imaginary Garden Bridge squandered £43million (at least) of public money.
How much are they spending on HS2, Buckingham Palace, Palace of Westminster, Crossrail, Trident?
Yet House Jocks are expected to be ever so grateful, stay in their box, celebrate this largesse, cultivate their cringe, and accept everything their imperial masters decree about money and about referendums.
But Field Jocks and Wingers know that these cake-crumb-offerings belong to us anyway, as do many of the entire cakes which Westminster grabs for itself. Not to mention all the EU funding which Scotland voted to keep and Westminster is mindlessly axing. And the massive EU payment for Scottish farms, which Westminster gobbled up.
High time Scotland stopped being a “rule-taker”. Enough of the cringe. Enough of the crumbs. And enough of the feeble acceptance that indyref2 has to be permitted by a government that has created the Brexitshambles and has plainly lost its mind.
Douglas at 8.45 pm.
Most other countries which became independent ignored the laws of the “parent” country and just went for it. (Iceland just sent a letter to Denmark telling them they were off during WWII, Norway was a little different in method but they pretty much told Sweden “we’re now doing our own thing”).
Scotland, uniquely, as far as I can understand is intending to play by UK constitutional laws and only become independent if England agrees. Fat chance, of course. Westminster/UK Parliament is the institution with responsibility for UK constitutional matters.
However, take at look at the UK submission (2009) to the Court of Justice in The Hague regarding Kosovan independence. The Court asked for opinions as to whether Kosovan independence should be recognised. The UK provided its opinion along with dozens of other countries.
Section 5 of the UK submission is the relevant part. In it, the UK acknowledges that separating nations were highly unlikely to obey the “parent” country’s laws when seeking independence and that this was entirely to be expected as the bigger nation would always seek to hold the smaller using the law against it. The UK said that breaking those laws should not prevent the smaller nation from becoming independent.
Take a look. It’s available on line. Craig Murray has referred to it several times.
Successive Westminster governments have broken the Treaty time after time. Plenty of evidence for that. Even in the absence of evidence they can’t hold us. What it needs is for the Scottish people to make it clear that is what they want – to end the union – and for the Scottish Government to stop playing by Westminster’s rules.
More on that “Moray Deal”:
‘UK Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said he was “delighted” that the “transformative package of support will boost the region’s economy by helping to attract and retain people to live and work in the area”.’
How thoughtful. Meanwhile they stand back and cheer as the English Home Office insists on the deportation of people who have made their lives and work in Scotland — people Scotland badly needs but cannot retain because Westminster makes the rules.
‘And Mr Lidington said the pacts were “a key part of the UK government’s long-standing commitment to invest directly in Scotland’s future”.’
“Pacts”, eh? Feel the love, House Jocks.
A C Bruce @ 20:45,
I know Pete Wishart is just doing his job as select committee chairman, but I’m always underwhelmed when any SNP MP pleads for fairer treatment within the UK and “better devolution”. Personally, I don’t believe this petitioning attitude convinces anyone now, on either side.
(I used to be righteously offended and protest every time somebody used “English” in the wrong context instead of “British”. Now I say “the more the merrier”. It reveals the reality.)
Legerwood 6.08pm and RJS , that is the point Gordon was making in his broadcast and I was reinforcing ,and the testosterone challenges between brump and *unt re who is the most manly and will TELL the EU to FO doesn’t encourage patience
We cannot afford to be caught out , these cretins can read the signs as well as us , all recent statements and declarations indicate that they are bricking it , they know the writing is on the wall and quite honestly I do believe this recent sabre rattling at the Iranians is just a foretaste of what’s to come , and once they get their dander up we are all aware of their penchant for violence ( thatcher , miners ,Falklands , empire )
@KOF 8.55pm
Wow, you are like, 5/6 years behind the curve.
During indyref1 WM treasury took full responsibility for the debt pile.
However, lets play.
Last we checked, ASSETS were still more than the debt.
So, even if Scotland took a debt share, even a 50/50 share, we would be having a 50/50 ASSET share (Except, we get 98% of that big black sticky asset in OUR waters) woohoo…half a nuclear missile system to flog to highest bidder !
So we are actually already a NET GAINER either way you cut the post indy cake.
We also have a devastating negotiating base.
Trident being a rather massive one.
Try fuck us about and we order Trident removal overnight.
See how shaky the WM seat on the Security council becomes after indy for one, and removal of Trident for seconds.
Never mind the plummetting pound as the petro dollar is effectively removed from WM with associated issues for WM balance of payments as we assume control of our oil fields.
Talking of those oil £££’s, our historical debt ‘share’ is easily negated by the loss of our oil revenues over the last 45 odd years.
WM owe US money.
I can’t see the west doing anything other than sabre rattling at Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz is very narrow and easily blocked by sinking a tanker or two. There would be chaos as the world’s oil supply dried up.
KOF @ 8.55
Aye… and don’t be forgettin The Royal Collection held in trust for the nation by Auld Betty Windsor
Anything after 1707 has our name on it too..
Won’t it be fascinating documenting that??
AC Bruce @ 9.35
A wee bit of Chaos might just suit the western governments just now.
By tomorrow they’ll likely be telling us Iran attacked Twitter and because people couldn’t write shite to each other something must be done….
“ For example, the British Museum has, no doubt, thousands of treasures from Scotland’s past. We should not in any way relenquish our possesion of these. They must come home! You want to give all OUR history away? Shame on you!”
Good luck with trying to get our treasures back from the British museum. Greece has been trying to get the Parthenon marbles back for yonks. Egypt, no doubt, would like theirs back too but England will not give them up.
That goes for many other countries whose treasures were removed over the centuries. The British museum is stuffed to the rafters with them.
Liz G 8.25pm Liz I am horrified absolutely horrified unless you are kidding that you would even consider contemplating ANY form of union with they lying barstewards , we have had 312 years of absolute denigration and ridicule aligned with the theft of our land and resources , the only thing acceptable to me is INDEPENDENCE with the possibility of a trading situation , quite honestly I am in favour of a controlled border to ensure they keep their divisive xenophobic greed driven anti compassionate morons down there
BTW just read your post again and got the wrong impression but couldn’t be bothered rewriting this one ( sorry )
.
Stu.,
On Friday 19th September 2014 around 1,617,989 of us (44.7%) were at varying degrees of distress and despondency having lost the Scottish Independence Referendum by a 5.3% swing in the wrong direction.
Then something counterintuitive happened. From a terrible loss came the juiciest, most delightful win…
link to tinyurl.com
Swimming against the tide, after we lost IndyRef on 18th September 2014, Alex Salmond prophetically quoted Walter Scott…
“You’ve not seen the last of my bonnet and me”.
Alex was right, and with style too.
Stuart, if you’ll forgive me mentioning an elephant in the room, or rather the mammoth on these WoS boards… Kezia Dugdale excremental legal costs + the BBC Bias + Disproportionately Hostile Media + SNP Bad and now RevStuBad…
You are right to write…
“The rules are always whatever they say they are, regardless of what they might have said a minute ago, and no matter what happens we’re swimming against the sea.”
As with IndyRef1 and the BIG bounceback of 56 SNP out of 59 Scottish constituencies, the answer for Kezia legals may be counter-intuitive…
Consider paying the £150,000. Take ownership of that injustice.
Pick your field of battle. Change the tide that you mention.
Something counterintuitive might just happen. From a painful injustice, the juiciest, most delightful win may appear…
By taking the ScotsUnionistLaw to Holyrood Justice Committee, many Scots, including a significant number of NO voters will get thrawn in the way Scots do, and become angry at the injustice of Kezia losing but winning.
Stuart, get the laws surrounding libel + BBC bias/breach of charter + the whole gamut of what come up on WoS week-in, week-out PUT BEFORE HOLYROOD WHENEVER POSSIBLE. If we take the spectrum of WoS battles frquently raised on WoS and present them at the Scottish Parliament, we stand a far better chance of many wins.
Book a regular slot at the various committee meetings 🙂 .
By picking the fights carefully AND moving them to a battlefield where we stand a chance: Holyrood with a built-in SNP majority, we have a greater chance to secure some important WINS.
Plus GIRFUY with the injustice of that Kez-Dim-Defence and free £150,000 ruling.
A C Bruce @ 9:11 pm
Your post on the formal position taken previously by Her Majesty’s Government on Kosovo’s independence is rightly cited as of major importance. Craig Murray has indeed emphasised this previously.
Thanks for raising it!
Because it’s so important, I’d like to add to your post by giving the link to the official HMG statement:
link to icj-cij.org
You refer rightly to the content of Section 5. This includes the following notable clauses:
“5.5 Consistent with this general approach, international law has not treated the legality of the act of secession under the internal law of the predecessor State as determining the effect of that act on the international plane. In most cases of secession, of course, the predecessor State?s law will not have been complied with: that is true almost as a matter of definition.”
And goes on:
“5.6 Nor is compliance with the law of the predecessor State a condition for the declaration of independence to be recognised by third States, if other conditions for recognition are fulfilled. The conditions do not include compliance with the internal legal requirements of the predecessor State. Otherwise the international legality of a secession would be expressly predetermined by the very system of internal law called in question by the circumstances in which the secession is occurring.”
For further interest, I’d like add an extract from a post I made BTL here in 2017, on an ‘UN expert’ statement on the independence movement in Catalonia and on Spain’s response to it.
Source: link to ohchr.org
“… While the principle of territorial integrity is important, as understood in many United Nations Resolutions, including GA Resolutions 2625 and 3314, it is intended to be applied externally, to prohibit foreign threats or incursions into the territorial integrity of sovereign States. This principle cannot be invoked to quench the right of all people, guaranteed under Article 1 of the International Covenants on Human Rights, to express their desire to control their futures.”
The statement goes on:
“The right of self-determination is a right of peoples and not a prerogative of States to grant or deny. In case of a conflict between the principle of territorial integrity and the human right to self-determination, it is the latter that prevails.”
“Of course, there are many peoples worldwide who aspire to self-determination, whether internal in the form of autonomy or external in the form of independence. And while the realization of self-determination is not automatic or self-executing, it is a fundamental human right that the international community should help implement.”
And this statement adds:
“The international law of self-determination has also progressed far beyond mere decolonization. Applying the 15 criteria contained in my 2014 report (paras 63-77), it is evident that no state can use the principle of territorial integrity to deny the right of self-determination and that arguments about the legality of actions taken by Catalonia’s elected parliament are immaterial. Such arguments do not nullify the ius cogens* character of self-determination.”
(* an international norm from which no derogation is permitted.)
Well Scotland – I guess we have two options. We can sit back and watch the UK drown in a puddle of its piss and filth. Or…if we can’t leave we can always take the UK over. Have the SNP stand candidates in England. Just watch them beg us to leave the UK then.
Thanks / Diolch to all who helped me out when I had a sabbatical from translation duties tonight and for the advice regarding one of the older languages of Scotland.
I hope the contents was of interest and that I will be able to post more Welsh links with translations when I have the time. The joke is that if I don’t, it usually means I’m working on a paid, professional one at the time.
Cofion gorau / Best wishes.
Twathater @ 10.01
That I’d agree a union…. Tut Tut..
Now just ….. Bring to the next gathering a bottle of what you were on the first time ye read it and we’ll say no more about it 🙂
Liz g says:
11 July, 2019 at 9:38 pm
KOF @ 8.55
“”Aye… and don’t be forgettin The Royal Collection held in trust for the nation by Auld Betty Windsor
Anything after 1707 has our name on it too..
Won’t it be fascinating documenting that??””
………….
And an awful lot of the stuff pre-1707 too. A significant part of what constitutes ‘The Royal Collection’ was put together by successive Stuart monarchs after the Union of the Crowns. Whatever is said about the Stuart’s as monarchs they did have a good eye for art.
Cromwell broke up the collection but the Hanovarian monarchs re-acquired a lot of what had been sold, as did Charles II after the restoration.
Whether it would be in the ‘pot’ for division after independence remains to be seen.
link to theguardian.com
Stewartb @ 10.17 pm.
Thanks for that. On my ipad and unable to link.
Craig Murray said that most countries that became independent didn’t do it via referenda. Scotland and England are diverging so much now that we should just separate. Union flags slapped on everything won’t change that. It’s laughable and desperate.
Time to split.
Stewart B @ 10.17
I think that one of the issues with going down that road is the continuer/successor state thing.
As I understand it we are looking to just end the 1707 Treaty and give no ground on being anything other than one of the two partners to the Treaty..
The status of each Country to then be negotiated…
Tell the Tories to get lost. Into oblivion. The ConDems 2010. The Vow reneged upon. Never trust a Tory, especially in Scotland. They have caused the Brexit mess. Mucked up the economy.. Responsible for the demise of their own supporters. Life expectancy going down. Johnston is just a clown. Good riddance to the lot of them. Johnston will not last till October. What a complete and utter shambles.
The SNP MP’s have to ask questions in Westminster, of unionists, because people voted No. Next time they can vote Yes.
Me @ 10.42
Oops sorry Kingdom’s not Countries…
Sorry Robert P
And where have you been this last see while…
Hope you’re ok.X
Hmmm.
Many good posts today, thanks.
Though, I will reiterate something I mentioned on an earlier thread. Scotland will need an alliance. Independence in isolation is not a viable scenario. Even the UK splitters seek alliance with the USA (as ever) and as for sabre rattling at Iran. I do believe Mohammad Mosaddegh would have had a view on that 60 years ago.
Isolated, oil producing country, the oil sector under British control, strategically positioned country geographically, seeks greater autonomy… Pick a windae mate, you’re leaving.
not entirely off topic – for the day’s that in it
The Sash – ladies and gentlemen, lads and lassies, boys and girls,mothers and fathers, pensioners and grandchildren
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Ledgerwood @ 10.36
That’s a good point….
I also wonder about this ” keeping the monarchy thing”
Fine if that’s what Scottish people want AND most definitely a conversation for after the Yes vote, but and it’s a big but…. Who is funding the costs of not only them ( and I’m in nae mood to go halfers on it…. that’s when we will suddenly be an equal partner!!) but the Royal collection too?
Security,preservation ect…And I’m certainly no going to agree to contribute to the buildings the collections are held In if they are not in Scotland!!!
In one sense it’s simple,identify our stuff,bring it home and England can mind it’s own share..
But if we don’t get our stuff and have to argue for it!!
Why should we contribute to it in the mean time!!
I often wonder what Ireland got?
Did they even ask?
Could they still?
We must mind and tell Wales to pay attention 🙂
Nae wonder the auld besiom wis purring!!!
Iain mhor @ 10:58 pm
You write: ” Scotland will need an alliance. Independence in isolation is not a viable scenario.” Agreed.
Research at the University of Iceland is relevant and interesting here, specifically on the concept of ‘alliance shelter’ for smaller independent states. As an example of recent published work see:
‘Do Small States Need ‘Alliance Shelter’? – Scotland and the Nordic Nations’ (see link to books.openedition.org )
As with much in life, deciding on the appropriate ‘alliance shelter’ will involve the people and government of an independent Scotland making choices based on non-trivial cost vs. benefit assessments between what are feasible options.
STV Scotland tonight last night had one of HM the Queen’s Royal reporter lackeys being interviewed by help me Rona Dougall, his name was Dickie Arbiter who was brought on our telly screens to inform Scotland that HM the Queen and the Royal family recieve no funding from the tax payer whatsoever and that all her funding comes from the profit of the Crown Estates that she owns
If that were true why wouldn’t those profits go directly into her coffers instead of a hand out each year from the treasury after negotiations on how much of her supposed own money she’s to get
Oh and by the way Boris says he’s going to buy her a new big boat so she can go back to sailing around impressing the natives again, good for *British* business says Boris
Empire biscuit anyone…..Memsaab?
@stewartb 11:35
Interesting link,thanks.
It’s an irony that Scotland is perceived as small. Population-wise yes, geographically absolutely not. Brussels is synonymous with the EU; yet Brussels is in Belgium and Belgium is orders of magnitude smaller than Scotland (though with twice her population) Scotland could drop the population of Belgium into it and still be “empty”.
Belgium and many other small European countries made their alliances – its called the EU and satellites. Yes, Germany and France are the behemoths, but they get a checking from the myriad ‘wee yappy dugs’. Scotland isn’t even a wee yappy dug anymore, just a whipped cur chained in its kennel.
But as the saying goes (and to mix metaphors)
“Beware the Lion wi nae teeth…he’ll gie ye a nasty sook!”
@ AC Bruce 21:46
“Good luck with trying to get our treasures back from the British museum. Greece has been trying to get the Parthenon marbles back for yonks. Egypt, no doubt, would like theirs back too but England will not give them up.
That goes for many other countries whose treasures were removed over the centuries. The British museum is stuffed to the rafters with them.”
The crucial difference between Egypt, Greece, etc and Scotland is that Scotland is one of the two creators of the UK. It doen’t matter what receipts or bits of paper they have, the British Museum and it’s collection is owned by the UK. When Scotland ends the treaty, there is no more UK.Assets are divided. There is no question on this.
As Iain Mhor said, Scotland will need allies for the future. Here’s a way to get an immediate massive goodwill towards Scotland from many countries of the world. FAs part of the negotiations, from the British Museum Scotland takes artefacts of Scotland, England gets the artefacts of England and Greece gets all it’s artefacts back and Egypt and all the others. When the treaty is ended there is no more UK, despite what Westminster says. I’m sure there will be states which will recognise the Kingdom of England as the UK (the continuing state) for various geo-political reasons. However, I reckon there will be a lot more who will back us in saying the UK is dead and there no continuing UK state. If they do they’ll get all their national teasures back, or at the very least possibly their best chance for ever getting them back.
I may not explain it all very well, but it’s an interesting thought for a Thursday evening, don’t you think?. 🙂
Re treasures belonging to Scotland at the British Museum. In a previous existance I used to travel a lot on business , once I was staying in a hotel near the British Museum attending a seminar. We finished early one day so I wondered into the Museum and asked the Concierge in my best Doric Accent (Was staying in Aberdeen at the time) tell me Quine, phar di ye keep the sillar you have looted frae Scotland. 5th floor she responded without a seconds pause.
There was rather a lot of loot, off course we also have a share of the stuff looted from the Empire and beyond. Im sure if we said to India we would give them back the jewel in the crown once we are Independent we would find a friendly ally in the International Community. ?
Dr Jim @ 11.41
Well… It’s kinda true…
The Crown hands all profit from the Crown Estates to Westminster..
In return the Crown gets an allowance from Westminster.
This is always punted as a “good” deal for the Tax payer but there’s so much smoke and mirrors around it who knows?
We would have to trust that Westminster and the Crown were telling all ???
The two questions are..
Well,do we trust them??
And
Where is the evidence that the Crown Estate actually belongs to the Crown ???
Where did they get it, who from and how… And in particular the Scottish Sovereignty issues don’t get with this arrangement…then the Clan system which is not hereditary,a Scottish myth of the worst kind!
The Laird was the Concierge of the Land not the owner abiding by his word was agreed not imposed.
A feudal system is a Norman concept and why the Clan system needed to be destroyed!
It has been said that they fought for it, and so they did… Well jist haud ma jackit…
We’re now in a political system and I’m fighting fur it now 🙂
Where did the UK Government get the idea of entering into ‘Pacts’ with what are presumably Tory-led ‘Councils’ in Moray and the Borders and so on? Why ‘pacts’ … ?
I think I begin to see … Being legally minded and custom oriented chaps, these Tory governments always follow precedent, don’t they? …
So are these new agreements with their mates in Scotland a new version of the jolly fine ‘Pacts’ their forebears used to make with the native chiefs, in Asia and Africa, in the good old imperialist days of yore? You know the sort of thing …
‘Don’t you like our nice shiny beads, Chief? We could do a swap, Chief, and these could be all yours. We give you our beads, and you give us your land. And the people who live on that land … and all its minerals and farming wealth … so that they can find work with us and dig, mine, plough harvests and break their backs for us …
But you’ll be able to relax, Chief. Owzzzat for a great little deal – tell you what, we’ll even teach you cricket as a little extra, thrown in for nothing? Meanwhile, you just carry on chiefing it over them, like the jolly good chap you are – under our instructions of course.
So, a little largesse – all these piddling millions to be distributed in infinitesimal amounts over an eternity of time – to the Borders, and a little bit more to Moray and … so on, and that will solve everything.
‘We give you our buttons, in very small numbers … and you give us your votes – in droves. You let us carry on stealing your land and your people, your treasure and your resources – don’t you feel the privilege? – from under your very noses. Just like you always did. and the Union will be safe once more. What a great, great, truly great deal … And what a great, great, truly great country: ‘our’ United Kingdom of ‘our’ Great B and NI.
Don’t you feel proud to be part of it, Jock? You Scots never had it so good. Or rather, how good you have had it – and you have had it, by the way, there’s nothing else for you now – ever since we let you be associated with us. Lucky you! That union dividend you keep reaping – show some gratitude!
Wull @ 1.03
Their problem is that
When they were doing this Empire stuff.. we were right there.
Now I don’t think for a minute we should be proud of it.. of course we shouldn’t..
But we know it
We recognise it
And
Unfortunately some still believe in it..
But knowledge is power.
In this we are better at it than them, because for us we had to learn how to survive
But survive we did, and Scotland was never “Subsumed “ now is our time.
And I for one am proud to be part of the doing of it..
The British Museum refuses point blank to return any of the 13 million artefacts that collectors looted, half-inched or cheated out of local ownership.
Under English law they don’t have to return anything. So Greece, Egypt and China, amongst others, have been told to take a hike. Scotland will be told to do the same, treaty partner or not.
English law is conveniently, for the museum, the only law to be relied on in this matter. No other claims countenanced. This allows them to hold on to other countries’ historical artefacts, some of them 2,000+ years old, forever.
Repatriation of the items would empty the museum – their argument for not returning them. The museum doesn’t appear to legitimately own any of it.
AC Bruce @ 1.28
Aye well,if all ye say is true….
This still is nae reason tae stay in this Union.
It’s a shit agreement… Would ye say!!
I would never argue for this union. I see no benefits for Scotland remaining.
I expect our historical artefacts to be returned when requested.
As much as I love browsing in museums, the items belong to others and should go back where they belong. It’s not right keeping them, they tell the story of their past not the UK’s.
Re; Wull@1.03am
Hit the nail on the head there. It’s the typical BritNat colonial bullying, masquerading as special treatment. It’s the preamble to direct rule, Boris the horrid ain’t going to let Scotland slip through his or his US pals’ slimey fingers. A few million quid will keep the natives indebted for just long enough to dismantle their pretendy little parliament. Just who do these Jocks think they are eh!
How many no voters will still bow down to their masters now.
All that EU money, trade and freedom of movement and protection, lost for a bribe from the BritNats, wonderful eh.
Don’t mind if aye do… thumb up:
link to youtube.com
“Carry us away from the terrible Tories for the last time”
@ Liz g 1:19
Well said.
They had plan, its gone arse over tit, and now they are having to improvise. Now they are going to have to crush those pesky jock separatists. Funny how that word ‘ crush ‘ surfaces whenever the democratic process doesn’t go their way. They are creating a ‘war chest ‘ to fight the democratic right of the sovereign people of Scotland to end this union. Where’s all that love gone. Wull is asking the right questions.
Douglas at 845pm,
A treaty, such as the treaty of union, is just an agreement between two or more countries. Watch the news, and you will hear every day, of countries agreeing or ending treaties. For example, Iran Nuclear treaty, or environmental treaties. The important thing is that they are literally just agreements, which are written down, and may contain one or more terms or conditions etc.
Either party to a treaty may end it unilaterally. This is not ‘special’ or requiring ‘permission’ from London or any other seat of power, it is just a simple fact.
So, why, you might ask, does the Scottish Government not simply end the treaty today? in law, and technically, they could. EXCEPT, for it to be recognised by the international community (which is what matters), it needs to be ‘the will of the people’ of Scotland. So, how does that get demonstrated? Well the current SNP leader believes it must be via a referendum, however, in many instances, this has been expressed simply via choice of government or via democratic elections. It is ONLY the SNP who say it must be via referendum. Indeed it was until very recently widely acknowledged, including by Westminster, that for Scotland to become independent, all that was needed, was a majority of pro independence MP’s to be elected.
If an election of MP’s is sufficient mandate to take us out of the EU union against our wishes, then it is certainly mandate enough to get us out of the UK ‘union’. in both cases by ending treaties.
This is why I am so frustrated at the current SNP leader. ‘Permission’ from another party to end a treaty is NOT required. So bleating on, till the end of time about a section 30, to my mind is utter baloney. In my honest opinion, the current SNP leadership are merely using Westminster’s refusal for a section 30 as an ‘excuse’ to do nothing. I stress again, we do not need London/Westminster/England’s permission. We just need to demonstrate that it is the will of the people, be that either via election of Scottish MP’s or MSP’s or referendum. I think it is shameful and utter, utter folly, that the current SNP leader is pandering to the ill-conceived notion, that somehow we do need ‘permission’ from London.
So, for example, if we elect a Scottish Government with the role of doing what is in Scotland’s best interests (i.e the CURRENT Scottish Government), it could be argued that in extremes, they could end the union treaty, to protect Scotland from catastrophe (a no-deal brexit, for example). What other country in the world wouldn’t?
Anyway, there it is. The treaty of union of 1707, is not magic, or special. It could at the stroke of a pen. be ended by either Scotland or, for that matter England
It is now widely expected that Boris the clown, will call an election, once undemocratically appointed to the post of UK Prime Minister. The SNP and other parties know this. Given the absolute, crystal clear, flat out rejection of a section 30, the SNP should be ready to use the election of a majority of Scottish MP’s as a clear democratic mandate for ending the treaty. They need to act, instead of merely moaning about how unfair it all is.
Power is taken, never given. And certainly not by Westminster.
@LizG 11 July, 2019 at 11:32 pm
“I often wonder what Ireland got”
Nothing. BUT that was only decided in 1927; on the breakdown of the border commission, which froze in place the borders of NI on the basis of the then existing county boundaries. Why? Up to then there had been a ongoing discussion on the final settlement. Everything froze in place thereafter. The UK paid out any incurred pension liabilities (retired police, teachers etc) , Ireland paid out the Land Annuities (payment for settement of the Land War of the 1880s which took land from the landlords to the farmers on a agreed payment schedule), the UK kept the naval basing rights in the ports.
Land annuities were settled as were the ports only in 1939 post a bitter trade war (which Ireland, being the smaller partner, mostly lost).
I have said time and again – we have been down the Brexit/Indy lane before in these islands, and while we well recall the pros, cons and process, the lessons have been wilfuly or neglectfully lost both in the UK and in Scotland.
Brian Lucey at 0802am,
Interesting historical context, for current affairs. Of course, for an independent Scotland WITHIN the EU, matters might turn out differently. You see, as an EU member, what is left of the UK, would effectively be negotiating with the entire EU might, when negotiating with Scotland. Trade deals would be the same as for the EU, and so on.
Scotland as an independent nation, within the EU, would have REAL power to force trade on EU terms with England. A trade deal with the EU, is the same for all member states. In many ways it would simplify matters, and also prevent England, abusing its size against Scotland.
Scotland independent within the EU would be in a very strong position indeed.
“Do as we say, not as we do. “ – ancient Tory proverb.
Scotland was beve4 treated equally as promised. The provisions of the Treaty of the Union were broken as soon as it was signed. Taxes were enforced in Scotland to pay for Westminster unionist wars and conscription imposed. Citizen against citizen.
Edward 1 imposed taxes and conscription in Scotland to pay for his wars in France. The Scots revolted. ’Raggy man’s roll’. The documentation draw up. Parts are still in existence, Toom Tabard. Balliol. Edward 1 Hammer of the Scots was resisted. He died at Alnwick in the attempt.
Treaty of Union Scotland plundered. The terms not honoured. Reneged upon as soon as it was signed.
Blair’s illegal wars. At one time the British Army was 80% Scottish recruits. Higher unemployment retained in Scotland because of Westminster unionist economic policies. Thatcher and ‘the sermon on the Mould’ Took all Scotland’s assets and resources and run the economy down. Devastating Scotland, illegally, secretly and lied. The documents released two years ago from the Official Secrets Act, This must be kept secret’, written in them by Thatcher’s hand. Thatcher illegally gave the Press over to the right wing. Murdoch and denied it. Documents also released.
Since 1928 was no Democracy in Scotland. The friction began to be exposed. Scotland rarely got the Government for which it voted. Scotland’s assets and resources were milked secretly and illegally to benefit London S/E. Westminster unionists other appalling policies. Leaving the rest of the UK in massive debt. Scotland has always been self sufficient and paid it’s way. It assets and resources were plundered and wasted to fund Westminster unionist exploitation.
Illegal wars, tax evasion and financial fraud, Scotland was lied to all the way by unionists at Westminster. Out voted 10 to 1. There was little the people in Scotland could do it. Until the SNP gained and increased support. Still on going. The 2014 IndyRef unionist Vow reneged upon. Cameron, Clegg and Brown now gone. Still troughing on public monies and tax evasion. The NHS and Education promises reneged upon.
Iraq, Lockerbie and Dunblane kept secret for 100 years under the Official Secrets Act. What have they got to hide?
Beware a Tory unionist bearing gifts to be reneged upon. Some people never learn. Scotland would be £Billions better off a year if Independent. (£15Billion+) Like Norway. Without Westminster unionist.destructive policies. Brexit etc.
The Tories will be gone. Vote SNP/SNP. Vote for Independence. Get one other to vote for a better world. The Westminster unionist imbecile’s power will be broken to cause disruption and destruction in the world,
Items held in British Museums that were taken from other countries are always said to be protected and kept by the UK because they might otherwise be at risk of loss or damage, the truth however as we see from time to time is that they are kept for their value, the recent Tutankhamen mask sold by Sotheby’s in London for millions is a perfect example of how safe items are in the UK it was apparently stolen from Karnak in Egypt.
Another example of the British way is closer to home , the Lewis chessmen , taken from the island of Lewis Scotland and now claimed on Wikipedia to be owned by the British museum in London !
Additionally, a newly identified piece, a “warder”, the equivalent of a castle or rook, was sold for £735,000 in July 2019. Four other major pieces, and many pawns, remain missing from the chess sets.[3]
Today, 82 pieces are owned and usually exhibited by the British Museum in London, and the remaining 11 are at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
If the new UKPM refuses a request from the Scottish Government to hold an independence referendum, then the latest proposal is to consider a win for pro-independence parties by numbers of MPs or MSPs at an election as an alternative mandate to open negotiations for independence. A perfectly respectable suggestion.
How’s that looking for unionists?
Westminster 2017:
SNP 35/59 MPs on 36.9% of the vote
Holyrood 2016:
SNP 59/73 constituency MSPs on 46.5% of the vote
Pro-indy parties 69/129 on 44% of all votes cast (constituency+region)
Westminster 2015:
SNP 56/59 on 50.0%of the vote
Ironically, agreeing to a section 30 order and running a referendum with a 50%+1 finishing line is the unionists’ best chance of maintaining the union!
So why are they rowing so hard against it?
Once again Radio Scotland GMS give visiting Tory Minister an easy interview. David Livington not challenged on refusal to grant Indy Ref2 or reminded of Scottish Parliament mandate or on Brexit damage to Scotland’s exports including our fishermen and farmers.
When he came out with England is Scotland’s largest trading partner he was not confronted with much larger EU market with example of Ireland’s trade with UK since joining EU.
Or that Canada exports a higher percentage of goods to USA than Scotland does to RoUK, but is an independent country.
These points are never raised by BBC as it doesn’t suit the Unionist narrative.
Ireland could reunite. The demographics are changing in favour. Including because of Brexit. NI has always been heavily subsidised by the Westminster Gov for Tory unionist votes at Westminster. The illegal Partition 1923 caused the ‘troubles. Massive amounts of monetary support had to be given to NI because of the ‘troubles’ ruining the economy.
The Masonic inequality.. The majority of public jobs and houses went to Protestants. The sectarian divide. Streets were divided, The Ballot Box was even restricted in some parts of Belfast until the 1960’s. Bernadette Devlin. The handshakes and the winks. Black balls. There was total inequality which fuelled the troubles and led to the illegal inequalities. Backed up by the British Gov. The DUP are now fuelling re unification. The Irish wanted Home Rule/Independence. They got illegal Partition. Lloyd George. 1923 . IR became the Celtic Tiger. Massive growth worldwide. To catch up from the massive deprivation of Westminster unionist rule for centuries.
I would think there are many many antiquity items of value held in England that are actually Scottish and have been taken from Scotland to England for exhibition and other reasons but never returned to Scotland .
Will Scotland ever get them back ?
I doubt it
We see how england behave when Greece Egypt Persia and other great ancient countries ask for the return of looted booty , England appears to believe that reaching a modernised state in your country before other countries allows you to ransack their treasures , it’s what they have always done and are still doing disguised as scientific exploration.
Robert Louis at 7.44pm
A General Election is almost certainly in the offing but does the SNP have the money to fight such an election?
The SNP may be a big party in terms of membership, MSPs etc but in terms of income not so much.
In the last 4 years it has fought:
2015 General Election
2016 Holyrood Election
2017 Local Elections
2017 General Election
2019 Euro Elections.
How much is left in the coffers after that lot?
Membership income is a major part of their income but, as we have seen here, people stop their membership at the drop of a hat.
The other, unionist, parties seem to be awash with cash and if the SNP makes the GE all about independence as you suggest then you can be sure money will be no object for those parties. Sources unknown of course.
Scotland was never treated equally as promised under the Terms of the Treaty of Union. Reneged upon.
In Northern Ireland and orange order groups in Scotland they celebrate killing catholics today.
link to bbc.co.uk
A large number of orange order from Scotland attending celebrations of hate the catholic in Belfast today
link to belfasttelegraph.co.uk
http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/07/10/news/organisers-of-the-open-in-portrush-warn-of-possible-bonfire-disorder–1659581/
A Scottish saltire placed amongst the UVF flag and Union Jack in the council car park controversially used as a venue for fifty foot high bonfire
link to irishnews.com
The Irish times report on 12th July bonfires Belfast celebrating killing catholics
link to irishtimes.com
The SNP does have the monies to fight a GE. It is the case of one battle at a time. Otherwise there is a chance both could be lost. Strategically If fighting two campaigns at a time. That is why a little patience is needed. 120,000 members campaigning for 2.5million+ citizens. That’s why all the help is needed. All the help that can be given. Join, donate, campaign everyone do what they can manage to make the world a better place.
1707 the population of Scotland was 1/4 of the UK. 1million of 5million? Now it is 1/12. The population in Scotland has hardly changed since 1900. It show how much resources and funds have been taken from Scotland to benefit London S/E. A larger population than Scotland. Totally congested, A 1/3 of the British land mass. Scotland needs people to survive. The population has only gone up since Devolution 2000. 5.2Million. People are being driven away by Westminster unionist inane migration policies. Not coherent to the Scottish economy.
The 12th July celebrations in NI are an absolute disgrace. Maintained by the authorities. An appalling sight to be seen. Citizen pitched against citizen for unionist parties political gain. An affront to Democracy. Violence, intimidation, and arrogance. An abuse of power ruining the economic, social and political structures. Total ignorance.
Last night in Northern Ireland celebrating the killing of catholics 12th July
Here we see the fire brigade hosing blocks of flats near the gigantic bonfire so they don’t catch fire
How crazy is that
link to belfasttelegraph.co.uk
The SNP does get some ‘short money’ at Westminster for research etc. The monies would be better exclusively spent at Holyrood.
In Northern Ireland orange order marches are such a troublesome thing that there is actually a
Parades Commission
See the link
Today 12th July there will be hundreds of orange order marches across Northern Ireland
Incredible
See the link to view the list of marches planned
link to paradescommission.org
In the words of J.A.S.O.N…..”SIlly game..the only way to win is not to play”
Ever since that fateful shitbaggerry day, we have been on a target list and it seems the plan to get rid of Holyrood will soon kick in post Boris’ coronation.
Its amazing to think we could end up with someone worse than David Mundell but Ross Thomson is surely lined up as new Scot Secretary…and how he will love removing “wee Nicola” from any platform of power he can.
I fear that if we don’t see any firm declaration within first week of November, our fate is sealed.
I think they want Nicola to make the first move then they will blame the SNP for HAVING to take the drastic step of closing down the parliament. We’ll know it was planned all along of course. I do wonder if the SNP don’t believe the sovereignty card card won’t work with Westminster making up the rules as they go along and it did worry me back in 2014 when Alex Salmond said we weren’t a colonised nation but surely it would be easy to claim we were if Westminster denied us our right to self determination
The outgoing English PM’s honours list will be announced soon. No doubt there will be gongs given to a parcel o’ rogues for services to the precious.
Im wondering why a 150 year old statute of William Wallace was sent by Stirling council to Wigan to be repaired, rather than repaired by a firm here in Scotland. I’m sure the £260,000 pounds fee for the work could’ve benefited a Scottish based firm instead.
The right Charlie pay 10% tax. £2Million on £20Million. The Royals got hugely wealthy by evading tax. They cause mental health problems for others struggling to manage. The Tory Royals secrecy and lies. Cost £400Million a year.
The BBC £5Billion. Half on the land estate. TV licence fee just went up. It raises £3.7Billion a year. The additional BBC funds comes from taxpayers. It could be better used to alleviate poverty. OAP low incomes.
‘What stories will the British, or more particularly, the English, tell themselves about their country and identity, once Brexit has been enacted?
It is doubtful whether the 1922 creation of a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will endure. Ireland, colonised by the English in 1169, is an independent country remaining in the EU, and its border with Northern Ireland has proved a major blockage in negotiations to leave. Scotland may eventually vote to leave the Union…
As long as ignorance of the past and the presentation of a mythological future is perpetuated in a fragmented unchanged education system Britain without an empire is unlikely to be ‘Great’ anymore. Hope rests with a younger generation, many of whom can see through the lies and myths, are happy to live in a multiracial multicultural society and are willing to work to reduce inequalities and unfairness’
link to transformingsociety.co.uk
The story will be one of self – inflicted mortal wounds to the UK.So much destructive tension, the UK does love its metaphors of war. Its particular brand of jingoism and racism is still being used to foster an atmosphere of fear and intolerance but it has no relevance in a multicultural European nation state.
It never ends well for those who want to suppress and control. We are told that the UK is apparently an equal partnership of its constituent parts but there is a very obvious discrepancy between UK’s professed attachment to Scotland whilst Scotland is threatened that its desire for self- determination will be ‘crushed’.
Scotland is resilient, it will agitate for and grasp independence- that is where Scotland’s future lies. An independent Scotland will prevail, she will not be ‘crushed’ – and that will be the story of country and identity once Brexit is enacted.
Sky news has the cheek to attempt to invent a personality for Theresa May a woman made of wood with an ego the size of the Amazon
Sky news today is making a big fuss over Theresa May’s resignation tears of distress in her final speech suggesting her distress was somehow caused by her patriotism and vision of what she tried to achieve
Anybody who knows anything about human nature or possesses even a bit of empathy can see quite clearly that Mrs May’s tears had nothing whatsoever to do with her duty or passion for her *country* those tears were chock filled with rage and anger at everybody who cost her her job, and that includes us the voters
So if you think you feel anything at all in the way of sympathy for Theresa May take another look at that speech and ask yourself why on earth you would feel anything for a clearly enraged wooden woman who has never at any time displayed empathy for anyone else ever and the only moment in her life we do see any emotion on show is when she loses the job she was only third choice for because nobody else wanted it anyway
UKIP have outpolled Labour in a council by-election at Bridlington in Yorkshire. Labour were fifth and their vote was 4% in a ward where they got 30% of the vote in the previous election.
@Col 10:01
Scotland IS a colonized nation. All the signs and symptoms are there.
For Scotland, see England is in fact how the wide world perceives our country.
Colonized nations are also fixated by their colonizer, the Flower of Scotland syndrome.
Getting England/Britain out of the ‘national mind’ is a psychological as well as a political process.
Have we even begun to think beyond the intellectual confines and context of the British box? A ‘revolutionary act’ waiting to happen?
When that occurs Scottish nationalism will truly have come of age.
@Robert Louis.
‘ why doesn’t the Scottish Government just withdraw from the Treaty’.
Because we have not told them to do so. The Scottish Gov is restricted by devolution, its not, never has been, and it never will have the authority unless we tell it to do so. Nor will it ever be a Sovereign Parliament unless there are changes to constitutional law.
Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly said that she will act when the people of Scotland tell her to do so, we haven’t. So don’t blame Nicola.
In the 1950’s a petition signed by 2.3 million Scots was sent to Westminster demanding home rule. Westminster ignored it legally because it was not backed by the lawmakers of Scotland, her MP’s. To day we have the Scottish Parliament, Get 2 million signatures on a petition ordering the Scottish Parliament to repeal the act of union while there is a pro independence majority of MSP’s and the Parliament will have the authority to act.
As someone who fancies that his Mesopotamian ancestors made the works that Islamic State was gleefully up for destroying in Iraq and elsewhere sometimes the stealing, filtching and sequestration of artefacts by western museums has saved such ancient works from wilful neglect and destruction.
Western curiosity manifest in the encyclopaedic scientific work La déscription de l’Égypte executed by the French during their brief hegemony in that country is a notable account of things the ‘locals’ were indifferent to.
The socalled Elgin marbles were effectively saved from destruction during Ottoman rule in Greece.
Neither the Greeks nor the Turks at the time had any interest in them. The modern Greeks are now interested in their restoration and rightly so.
Museums are world institutions of cultural education. Those who cannot afford to travel ought to be able to see in them the creations of other cultures.
During the depredations of the frequent Anglo-Scottish wars and the iconoclastic Protestant Reformation Scotland lost, it is estimated, 98% of its ancient historical artefacts.
What little was saved is now in museums across Europe and the world.
Since 1707, the English Establishment have done a very thorough job of disabling Scotland’s indigenous population, and in so many ways, economically, in land ownership, population seeding, educationally, culturally, politically, and perhaps above all, in terms of the effective control of Scotland, in mind-control, through 300 years of propaganda.
It is this last element, BritNat brainwashing, which continues to be the most stubborn stain on the minds of the Scottish electorate.
Golfnut says:
“Because we have not told them to do so”
Because they have not included that in their manifesto and we cannot vote for it.
“The Scottish Gov is restricted by devolution, its not, never has been, and it never will have the authority unless we tell it to do so”
The only way the people of Scotland can give them the authority in a democratic context will be by the political parties to include that authority in their manifesto so we can vote for it.
“Nor will it ever be a Sovereign Parliament unless there are changes to constitutional law”
Sorry, I disagree with this:
Sovereignty lies with the Scottish people therefore if the people of Scotland determines that their parliament and not Westminster have the power to do that, then their parliament does. The word of England MPs should never superseed the word of the people of Scotland in the way Scotland must be run – that is the foundation of the Claim of Right.
I never bought that crap that Scotland’s sovereignty lies with England MPs. That is nonsense. It cannot be under any constitutional law that is worth its salt. That would completely negate the treaty of Union, the concept that this is a union at all and would indicate that this political construct is just a colonial arrangement.
You cannot have a situation where you claim to have a political union between 2 sovereign states and somehow one of the partners self-awards itself over 90% of the sovereignty of the other while it retains over 90% of its own. Not just that, the percentages of their own sovereignty held by each of the partners will change in line with the changes of the percentages of population in both partners. In other words, by having increased its rate of population growth by 2 times that of Scotland, the kingdom of England has now twice as much ownership over Scotland’s sovereignty as it did in 1707. That to me is absurd.
The minute Holyrood was reconvened, Westminster ceased to hold sovereignty over Scotland because the 59 MPs are no longer the only legitimate representatives of Scotland.
“Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly said that she will act when the people of Scotland tell her to do so, we haven’t”
We need direction on how to do it. One way would be to list and name the powers one by one and including them in a manifesto. Then there will not be confusion as to what “Devo Max” or “extreme independence” as some Labour has beens tend to ridiculously call independence nowadays, actually mean.
“In the 1950’s a petition signed by 2.3 million Scots was sent to Westminster demanding home rule. Westminster ignored it legally because it was not backed by the lawmakers of Scotland, her MP’s”
Westminster used that excuse as it used the excuse of the 40% in 1979. Any excuse would do because Westminster never intended to return Home Rule to Scotland. From where I am standing, that petition in 1950’s indicates that Westminster has gone ultravires by retaining those powers. The Claim of Right doesn’t say anything of MPs being able to overrule the explicit will of the people of Scotland.
“Get 2 million signatures on a petition ordering the Scottish Parliament to repeal the act of union while there is a pro independence majority of MSP’s and the Parliament will have the authority to act”
The Parliament already has authority given by us, the people of Scotland to call in a second independence referendum and therefore it should set up a date for that referendum.
Considering that the Kingdom of England has unilaterally destroyed the only status quo we gave consent for the union to continue in 2014, I also believe the Scottish parliament has authority NOW to dissolve the treaty of union on the basis of:
1. evident material change of circumstances
2. in the same way that as it has been recorded in Hansard following international law and in the context of the Withdrawal agreement that “the UK can challenge the EU in an arbitration panel if the EU is found in breach of good faith and suspend the backstop (ie the international agreement)”, the exact same applies here. By unilaterally bulldozing the status quo we voted for in 2014 without our consent, by unilaterally and without our consent moving the goal posts that defined the framework of this union and that gave legitimacy to that vote in 2014, by reneging of the Sewell convention and the vow signed by the 3 most senior political figures and representatives of the state, and by unilaterally destroying the devolution settlement and using its power to retrospectively change law to stop a bill already passed through the Scottish parliament, we can conclude that Westminster has acted in bad faith and therefore giving us the green light to challenge it in an international court of law.
Both options above have been mentioned as legit in the context of the international EU withdrawal agreement and are recorded in Hansard.
link to hansard.parliament.uk
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Annent the question of how the crown aquired the Crown Lands in Scotland.
Many of these lands were taken over at the Reformation from the RC Church, they having previously stolen them from the rightful owners by various devious and underhand methods.
See P.H.McKerlie”s ” The Lands and Their Owners In Galloway” for details of the scams worked by the R.C.Church to enable them at one time to own one third of the lands in Scotland.
WGD:- ‘Rebellious Scots to shush.’
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
Republicofscotland says:
12 July, 2019 at 10:16 am
Im wondering why a 150 year old statute of William Wallace was sent by Stirling council to Wigan to be repaired, rather than repaired by a firm here in Scotland. I’m sure the £260,000 pounds fee for the work could’ve benefited a Scottish based firm instead.””
…………….
Because:
a) There is no firm in Scotland able to do such work
Or
b) There is such a firm but it did not tender for the work – too busy perhaps
Or
c) There is such a firm but its tender was too high
These might be some of the reasons. There could be others.
……..
In my post at 9.12 am it should have been Robert Louis @ 7.44 am, not 7.44pm as stated.
BIASED BROADCASTING & CORRUPTION-BBC
Carried a sports need segment where we were treated to
English Cricket, English Netball, England’s Wimbledon but
No mention whatsoever of the Scottish Open Golf Tournament
Up in North Berwick this weekend.
The worlds star players will be there along with crowds greater
That the Cricket or Netball or any day at Wimbledon.
Must be because of that S word in the tournament name and location.
Professor John Robertson:- ‘There wasn’t even really a place called Scotland.’
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
I think probably most folk in Scotland now know for sure that Scotland’s Independence is inevitable no matter how much the Unionists might bleat against it, and there are many grumblings about the pace at which its coming, and rightly so because we know we’re well in front on the numbers now but the First Minister is not only cautious of this but as she’s said she doesn’t just want to hold a referendum, she wants to win it
And I believe she wants to win it in grand unchallengeable style by a very large majority so there is no risk of the UK attempting to twist the result with some nefarious nonsense legal bumf and caveats
If the Scottish government get the right numbers they can proceed by demanding with less negotiating which is good for us but painfully agonising waiting for it to happen
The referendum is happening because even Theresa May admitted it at PMQs when questioned by Ian Blackford she replied *The SNP are planning a referendum within the next 18 months* which was nice of her to tell us that because even we didn’t know an exact date, so at least she’s narrowed it down a bit for us
The 31st of October I think is when the FM will wait for until she fires the starting pistol, unless of course Boris Johnson fools all of us and doesn’t do Brexit at all then that’ll serve up another set of problems to getting the numbers up
Full no deal Brexit = massively high numbers for Independence
Ordinary deal Brexit = high numbers for Independence
Staus quo = We’d still win it (Boris effect) but will the FM risk it
Fortunately the status quo scenario is highly unlikely
No matter how much of our money the UK Guv throws at asking us or threatening us or promising us stuff not to I believe we’ll still win
Boris will just do a massive publicity campaign for
*I can’t believe it’s not Britain* flavoured Union Jackery
and it’ll fall flat on its big buffooneried Arse, just like him
Because we’ve tasted it and we have no difficulty believing it tastes rotten
A lot of people including The Rev. Advocate that we should go to the courts to determine whether we need Westminster’s permission to hold another independence referendum. However many have opined that the Dugdale verdict and cost allocation were the result of The Establishment putting The Rev. and the Yes movement firmly back in their box.
So the question is can the judicial system be trusted to give a fair verdict on a constitutional matter of such importance to the Westminster Establishment
Maria F says:
12 July, 2019 at 11:45 am
Golfnut says:
“Because we have not told them to do so”
Because they have not included that in their manifesto and we cannot vote for it.
“The Scottish Gov is restricted by devolution, its not, never has been, and it never will have the authority unless we tell it to do so”
We may not have told them to explicitly to terminate the Union, but we certainly have told them by explicit and decisive democratic majority that the UK should remain in Europe. The UK thus cannot leave the EU without affecting the unconstitutional subjugation of Scotland’s popular sovereignty. Since they cannot achieve Brexit with our agreement, they must find a way to achieve it without our agreement, and that is a clear cut battle of Constitutional sovereignty… a battle which, (provided we don’t blow it by stupidly forfeiting our rights), …we win.
The UK cannot leave the EU, but if England and Wales insist they will leave the EU, then that is their Constitutional prerogative, but such action shall leave the Union of the United Kingdom untenable, since the notion of a single Sovereignty covering both Union signatories is cleft in two and cannot be sustained. Brexit cannot be delivered. The Union is dead.
The United Kingdom cannot leave the EU by the sovereign diktat of the Scottish people. Unless it can negotiate with Scotland’s Sovereign people to retract our edict to stay in Europe, the only way for the “UK” to exit Europe, is for it to “not be” the United Kingdom when it leaves.
Brexit cannot be achieved bilaterally when the Sovereignty of Scotland runs contrary to the Sovereignty of Westminster. All Westminster can do is to exercise it’s unilateral sovereignty to remove England and Wales. Scotland’s will lies beyond it’s jurisdiction and cannot be overruled.
This Constitutional cul de sac for Brexit should have been Scotland’s Backstop since the result of the Brexit referendum was first announced, because from that point forward, Westminster has had to find a way to negotiate the immovable obstacle of Scotland’s rejection to Brexit. To do it by compulsion, force or duress would be unlawful, and the Union shall cease to exist in the mere process.
The big question for Scotland, is whether our Scottish Government of serial compromisers will stand firm on the essential principles of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty or muddy the water with political manoeuvring in the hope of bolstering a majority in favour of Independence next year… ostensibly long after Brexit, (and our implicit subjugation), has become a matter of established fact and historical record. Alarmingly, the precedent here is not good. (Soft Brexit anyone?)
In my opinion, what the Holyrood Government wants is a definitive majority backing a Democratic Independence option. That’s understandable I suppose, commendable in fact, however, they have taken so long getting around to it, that there is no longer enough time for the luxury of a “democratic” resolution to Brexit, because one way or the other, the Constitutional nature of Scotland’s Sovereignty will be a decisive factor in Brexit in 110 days time.
IF the Scottish Government does not defend Scotland’s Sovereignty before Brexit, then ”we should exert ourselves at once to drive it out as our enemy and a subverter of it’s own rights and ours, and make some other Assembly which was well able to defend us our Government; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule, …or suffer England’s Brexit”.
Clydebuilt says:
12 July, 2019 at 1:22 pm
. . . the question is can the judicial system be trusted to give a fair verdict on a constitutional matter of such importance to the Westminster Establishment
No
Clydebuilt says:
12 July, 2019 at 1:22 pm
…So the question is can the judicial system be trusted to give a fair verdict on a constitutional matter of such importance to the Westminster Establishment.
In the UK, I suspect not. But I think the odds would be markedly different in the European Court.
I said at the time, that Joanna Cherry should have sought a clarification on the ECJ ruling that Article 50 could be revoked by sovereign prerogative, to establish whether Scotland could revoke Article 50 unilaterally.
Win, lose or draw, we’d have witnessed a Constitutional Test Case in an International Court, with hugely significant ramifications, to be determined on whether Scottish Sovereignty was actually “a thing” or not.
I think we’d have won, and Scotland would have won the recognised right to revoke Article 50 unilaterally, and then the fun would really have begun.
@Clydebuilt
The UK government already agreed to the section 30 order on the 27th November 2014 in paragraph 18 of the Smith Commission where it quite clearly states….
“It is agreed that nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an Independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose*
So they can shout about it, threaten to withold a section 30, bluff and bluster all they like but they’d have to go to court to overturn their own legislation that they signed up to using the arbitration of Lord Smith of Kelvin who they tasked with the job of overseeing legality and they’re in enough trouble with the United Nations over their record on human rights as it is, plus they’ve been told in no uncertain terms by the UN that they have six months to remove themselves from the Chagos islands that belong to Mauritius or the good old UK of England’s in serious bother
England has no friends at the moment, and they now can’t even count on the Americans to dig them out of the mess they’re in
Theresa May already admitted on wednesday Scotland is having an Independence referendum within 18 months at PMQs
Legerwood@12.45Pm.
The old uncle owned 4 steam traction engines, these were for many years kept in first-class working order by two steam engineers from the Inverurie Loco Works.
A local museum, run by an incomer from down South, aquired a steam traction engine and he sought the advice of the relatives who recomended these two very experienced engineers who made an offer to make the machine roadworthy and pass all the many tests required by law, for the sum of just under £4000, this offer was not accepted.
Shortly thereafter the machine was dipatched on a low-loader down South for the work to be carried out,on its return some months later it came with a bill for £200,000 plus—brown envelopes anyone.
“I think we’d have won, and Scotland would have won the recognised right to revoke Article 50 unilaterally, and then the fun would really have begun.”
This will probably have to be the last roll of the dice insofar as this question goes. That Scotland claims we can have a Referendum without S30 and WM claims otherwise has never been tested in court. Surely the ‘burden of proof’ rests upon WM to prove the illegality of such a Referendum?
It suits WM that this ‘question’ has not been (legally) settled. But I think it suits ScotGov just as conveniently.
Breeks says:
12 July, 2019 at 1:37 pm
“Joanna Cherry should have sought a clarification on the ECJ ruling that Article 50 could be revoked by sovereign prerogative, to establish whether Scotland could revoke Article 50 unilaterally”
I disagree. I am of the opinion that Scotland will never and should never be able to or even attempt to unilaterally revoke A50 for the simple reason that Scotland never triggered it in the first place and as a matter of fact it has never given consent for it to be triggered on its behalf, which is what the legitimate representatives of the Kingdom of England have done.
If anything, a review should be made in an impartial international court (I do not consider an English supreme court that uses English law and whose existence relies in Scotland remaining in the union as impartial in this matter) to ascertain if triggering A50 without the consent of one of the 2 constituent parts of the UK in 2017 was actually legitimate. My own personal opinion is that without the explicit consent of Scotland it was not.
Should any legitimate representative of Scotland attempt to revoke unilaterally A50 or even seek or inquire about it and, in my view, they would be the accepting that A50 was triggered on behalf of Scotland, which was not.
Because of this I think Ms Cherry and anybody else for that matter should run a mile from such request. That would be giving to Westminster exactly what it was seeking during the 2017 GE and what has been desperately seeking ever since:
the consent of Scotland for brexit via the back door.
Scotland is England’s ONLY legal partner in the Union 1706 (E) 1707 (S)
Scottish Electorate are Sovereign (Claim of Right uncontested 2018)
Scottish Electorate voted to remain part of UK 2014
Scottish Electorate voted to remain part of EU 2016
English Electorate voted to exit EU 2016
As others have mentioned above England cannot exit the EU and maintain the UK Union
So Westminster has 3 options:
1. Go along with IndRef 2 to square circle of 2014 & 2016 results
2. Agree to break up of UK due to in reconcilable differences as per Vienna Convention
3. Ignore Sovereignty of Scottish Electorate and subjugate Scotlands Political institutions
The important thing to remember though is that it isn’t what Westminster decides to do but what Holyrood does, that and how the International Community respond.
Devolution died in 2014 and the Union is on life support, ebbing away daily.
Dr Jim.
You are on fire today, great posts.
It is a quick conversation re: indyref2.
NS: “Indyref2 will be on xyz date, with or without a S.30 order, will you be agreeing to one or not”?
PM: “No S.30, get lost”
NS: “No problem, we will be holding an indyref anyway on said date, and the result will be the expressed sovereign will of the Legally Sovereign people of Scotland, said sovereignty, is a legally protected founding tenet of the Treaty of Union 1707 and cannot be subjugated by our treaty partners, England, or the Treaty of Union is over”.
PM: “Shit”!!!
If WM still insists no S.30, and makes any attempt to ‘crush’ Scotland before we hold a referendum, then we simply threaten to put a dissolution motion to Holyrood to end the Union to protect Scotlands interests, pending the indyref result.
Then you are campaigning in indyref2 on the clear premise that it is indy or a continuation of the WM crushing of Scotland already started.
If people think the Scotsgov will simply pack up and give up if WM says no to a s.30, they need help.
Indy is inevitable, its just a matter of HOW it happens and when.
Does anyone ACTUALLY believe ukexit will absolutely happen on 31st Oct ?
I asked my local bookie for odds on a no ukexit on 31st October, and he said he is not taking bets on it.
Interestingly, he said English bookies are taking lots of bets on no deal actually happening on 31st oct, in the expectation they (bookies) will clean up when that date comes and goes.
Ukexit cannot happen until WM solves the “Scottish problem”.
Unless of course, they listen to their supporters/members, and give up the Treaty of Union to achieve their precious exit from the EU.
Lets not forget, the reason the WM Gov are in this position, is down to the groundwork of the SNP painting them into a corner.
Years of setting constitutional traps, opening legal doors for future walk throughs, are now paying off for Scotsgov.
If these were not powerful arguments to protect Scotland, ukexit would already have been simply steamrollered through on March 29th.
The constitutional argument is not that Westminster ceased to have sovereignty over the Scottish people the minute the Holyrood parliament was set up, but that Westminster never at any time held sovereignty over the Scottish people. The Scots did not ‘regain’ their sovereignty in Scotland in 1999, courtesy of the bounty of the Labour Government of that day; they had never lost it in the first place, not even in 1707.
For many long centuries prior to 1707, sovereignty in Scotland already lay with the Scottish people, and not in any ultimate sense with either their parliament or their king or even both of these combined. That combination had already become the case in England 1707, when the Union Treaties with Scotland were signed. It had never been in the Scotland, nor did the Union Treaties make it become the case there.
The Union Treaties can be said to have fiddled with some secondary or tertiary elements of the way both the Scottish and the English systems of government respectively worked, but they did not touch or mitigate anything of primary constitutional significance in regard to either of the two parties involved. The fundamental constitutional law of Scotland remained as it always had been – especially the no. 1 principle that the people are sovereign in Scotland, as articulated in the early 14th Century (although the assumption no doubt goes back further than that) – and the foundations of English constitutional also continued as before, without alteration.
That is why the UK, from the moment of its inception or creation in 1707 right through until today, has always had two constitutions – two sets of constitutional law, two radically different ‘foundations’ – actually operating, simultaneously, within it. One in Scotland, and one in England.
The English one also operated explicitly in Wales from the 16th Century onward, when Henry VIII imposed it – although I suppose it could be argued that he did so illegally – and it still effectively operates there. Likewise, if the English constitutional assumption did not already operate in all of Ireland beforehand, it came to do so from 1800 onward until the birth of the Irish Republic, after World War I. Thereafter, it continued to operate only in that Northern part of the island which the UK retained (although the Republic continued to claim it).
Within the current UK, therefore, the Scottish constitution operates in Scotland, as it always had done both before and after the Union was created, and English constitutional assumptions operate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In general (although there are notable and worthy exceptions) many English people and most if not all English politicians, in particular those at Westminster – and even not a few Anglicised Scottish ones – have great deal of difficulty in getting their heads around these simple facts. They are not difficult to understand, and anyone with a basic grasp the history of these islands and a rudimentary knowledge of the law(s) there operative, can easily get hold of the required information. The problem is not with the availability of the material or with the normal intelligence required to understand such matters; it is with the will. If you don’t WANT to understand the reality of the situation, you won’t understand it. In fact, if you deliberately WANT to misunderstand it – or you simply DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT – that is precisely what will happen. And if you WANT to carry on with your fantasy concerning what you think the UK ought to be, but isn’t, rather than engaging with the reality of what it actually is and always has been – both in its legal foundations and in its (for the time being, presumably short-term) ongoing existence – then you will remain exactly what and where you WANT to be, namely a fantasist living in your own fantasy-land in a world of make-belief.
And you will think that those who point out the realities to you are the fantasists, when in fact it is you who are such, and not them. When I talk of ‘fantasy’ and ‘fantasists’ I mean exactly what these words convey, because there is something fundamentally wrong, inherently flawed and downright mistaken with what I can only call – with apologies to those good English people who are more realistic and well-informed of the true situation, and who therefore do not subscribe to it – ‘the English imagination’. Let me explain.
Insofar as the UK, like any other piece of ‘political geography’, is an ‘imagined space’, the typically ‘English imagination’ (as I have termed it) regards the whole of the UK as ‘England writ large’. The most frequent manifestation of this is the way and the ease with which they interchange the terms ‘English’ and ‘British’ as if they were synonyms, which they are not. To which we may add likewise, and as a consequence, how often the word ‘British’ is used subtly, or not so subtly, to turn successes in other parts of the UK into English successes, while their failures remain entirely their own, and not England’s. Transfer this mentality to constitutional realities, and the obvious ‘English assumption’ is that the so-called ‘British Constitution’ is uniquely, and nothing other than ‘the English constitution’. And they are astonished, even outraged, by anything which qualifies that assumption or suggests otherwise. This remains the case no matter how well documented, how legally and historically established and how recently and continuously affirmed that ongoing fact and reality might be.
The ongoing existence of the reality of the Scottish constitution is a simple fact which the ‘English imagination’ necessarily denies. It has to do so because of the precise way in which that imagination imagines the UK, and because of the underlying assumptions which determine what it means when it talks of ‘Britain’. The English – those vast majority of them, that is, who are imbued with what I have called ‘the English imagination’ – are in flat denial of what I will now call ‘the Scottish fact – that is, they simply deny the reality of that fact which is the Scottish constitution, and its ongoing actuality, force and relevance. They have to deny it because it undermines, at the most basic and fundamental level, the (inherently false) picture that their minds have built up of ‘their’ – they call it ‘our’ – (beloved) ‘country’.
The depth of this problem should not be underestimated, especially as it affects ordinary English people, and not just their politicians. It is not enough for us Scots simply to lampoon it, or despise what is a very deep-rooted cultural reality in England. The way we ‘imagine’ our countries is no small matter, affecting something very deep within us. Even when we don’t like what our countries or their leaders do, we still belong to them. They are connected and interwoven with who we really are; we are rooted there. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about our ‘place’ and ‘our history’ and ‘our origins’ have a real effect on us: these stories are an essential part of the web and the woof that forms our – our what? – well, quite simply, our ‘selves’.
Insofar as the English people do not tell the true story of the ‘space’ or ‘place’ they inhabit, and who don’t even attempt to question their assumptions in regard to that story, something very unhealthy is going on. To be ‘in denial’ about something that is as real as Ben Nevis is not to be in a healthy state of mind. Insofar as the English nation, as a ‘collective entity’, continues to acquiesce in imagining a false and radically distorted picture of what they consider to be ‘their’ country, even at this basic constitutional level which should inform them of how what it consists of and how it is constituted, those who subscribe to the ‘false consciousness’ which inevitably ensues will continue to do damage to themselves and others.
There is an underlying English assumption that the 1707 Acts of Union which constituted the UK and brought it into existence amounted to nothing less than – at last! – the eventual success and complete vindication of the project to absorb Scotland into England which Edward I had launched four centuries earlier, at the end of the 13th Century. However we may regard these Acts of Union, and whatever feelings we may have about them, they most certainly were no such thing. If the reality of the underlying assumption is a cultural fact of no mean importance, which continues to exercise no little leverage on the English imagination and the psyche that goes with it, so too is the falsity of the premises on which it rests.
These bankrupt premises on which the English political imagination rests are now inherently intertwined with the whole Brexit fiasco. The outcome of the Brexit referendum was hugely influenced by this false English consciousness concerning what England/Britain. It is this false consciousness which now needs to be eliminated, for England’s and the English people’s own good (and everyone else’s good as well). The only way this can be done is by the Scots exercising their constitutional rights in a forward-looking, future-oriented way. When Scotland brings the UK Union to an end and becomes, once again, an independent country within the concert of nations, the English psyche and the assumptions which underlie it will automatically change.
The condition for England becoming her true and – let’s make a value judgement – undoubtedly better self again is that Scotland first takes off, and does the same for herself. As Scots, we have a duty to help our southern neighbour shed her false consciousness, so that she stops harming herself, and others. There is a direct link between ‘false consciousness’ and ‘elf-harm’. This is so not just for individuals, but even on the part of massive collective entities – or ‘identities’ – like that of England and the English people. Come on Scotland – save yourself from England, and in the process SAVE ENGLAND FROM HERSELF!
(By the way, just as an aside, ‘British Constitution’ used to be an A level subject in the English educational system, and may well be to this day – it would be interesting in this respect to see how this plays out in the material and text books that were set out for it, the exam questions that were asked and the kind of answers the students were expected to provide. To my knowledge – please correct me if I am wrong – it was never a subject for Highers.)
With my apologies for these far-too-long long posts – I suppose I enjoy writing them, but I also suppose just about nobody ever reads them. Everyone is of course free to skip (or read) whatever she or he wants – just scroll down!
Apologies, also, for the typos in the above post. Quite a few prepositions, and some other key words, seem to be missing from some of the sentences. Can’t be bothered to correct this – anyone interested can no doubt guess correctly what went wrong, and supply for themselves whatever is missing.
@Wull
I read and enjoy many of the post yours included, excellent.
Hope Mr Chilli Peffers pops in too. Been a couple of days without now?
Nice work there, Wull. Enjoyed it mucho.
🙂
Interesting post Wull thanks.
Good stuff Wull, enjoyed reading that.
@ Wull
Thank you for that enjoyable and interesting post. I like your style – info with a touch of lightness and humility. I can honestly say I enjoyed that post on the constitution probably more than most I have read here – and I have read a fair few!
I enjoy your long posts Wull, they are worth reading and full of meaty info.
Off Topic. BREXIT AND THE TORIES. Last month the pollsters YouGov said on Twitter:
” So committed to Brexit are members of the Conservative and Unionist Party that they would be willing to see Scotland (63%) and Northern Ireland (59%) leave the UK in order to secure it. ”
18th June.
@ Maria F.
This is my third attempt at responding Maria since I got home about 30 minutes ago. They just keep disappearing.
Your on fire Maria, but I can I just say I’m on your side.
Obviously my post is badly explained, I am not criticising the SG/SNP, nor do I in any shape or form give credence to Westminsters claim of sovereignty over Scotland, nor do I suggest that the mandate given to the SNP and Greens is anything other than rock solid democracy in action.
However any discussion we have about returning executive power to our government in Scotland has to recognise the difference between Scots Constitutional law and English law and how we counter and negate arguments deployed to thwart our democratic rights.
Lord Cooper famously( at least in Scotland ) opined that ‘ Parliamentary Sovereignty is an English principal and not recognised in Scots conditional law ‘, that would suggest that the Scottish Parliament was not sovereign, just those who had a vote. Which places sovereignty with the people of Scotland. It also makes a mockery of westminsters claim to sovereignty, if the people of Scotland are Sovereign, it follows that Westminster can’t be. Yet publicly they,for all the world to see, would deny us our democratic right to vote on our own status.
My post is about how we relieve pressure on the SG, how we counter westminsters claim to sovereignty very publicly, and how we engage directly with the public face to face.
Torquil @ 2.12pm
Wallace statue. Jim Mitchell, Conservation Engineer at Industrial Heritage Consulting based in Straad on the Isle of Bute, is the project engineer.
If you read the article you will see that it is a complex project therefore not one many firms would have the expertise to tackle. As it is there may be more than one firm involved because it appears to be a multi-stage project.
link to my.stirling.gov.uk
Just to make your day complete the Kelpies were constructed by a Yorkshire company, SH Structure.
@ wull , I too enjoyed your post , what we all have to remember is that the treaty of union agreed to in 1707 was done with the consent and agreement of the hierarchy in Scotland , as we have all been informed the ordinary citizens were not in agreement with it and rebelled against it
However the good part is that both English and Scots law were to remain separate and that Scots were the SOVEREIGN arbiters of their choice of government , unfortunately we Scots have been the ones to defeat ourselves by actively and moronically electing representatives of parties who deliberately and actively set out to undermine and deconstruct our belief in our sovereignty
In this brainwashing they have been immensely successful , witness 2014 where they collectively frightened the horses and conned the public , fortunately due to the public realising that they had been conned and lied to the SNP were returned to power with a majority
The problem NS and the SNP have is that she has said repeatedly that she wants the people to inform her when they want independence but she and they have provided no mechanism to illustrate that want . The AUOB marches have been fantastic in their turnouts but are constantly ignored , denigrated and demonised by the msm and unionists leading to people being underwhelmed and unaware
I firmly believe that we are moving ahead and that people are becoming more convinced about independence , but we have to defeat the no authority brigade , we have to assert repeatedly and confirm at every opportunity that the people of Scotland are sovereign and that we will not be leaving the EU as per the instructions of the majority wishes of Scots
When people see the belligerence and aggression of bump and *unt they see strength and leadership ( we know better ) our representatives should adopt an attitude of force and PROCLAIM we will not move , that IMO would indicate strength and leadership and generate publicity
With regards to Scotland’s treasures held by the British Museum etc. and whether they will return them, please also include primary documentary evidence held by the Oxbridge Universities and on and on. I would suggest on our Independence they will come home, if they don’t we just simply turn off their lights until they do. Regarding the Elgin Marbles etc.the ancient country of Scotland formerly held in contempt by the English will simply declare that these treasures will be returned, again if they do not then the lights go out. The British Museum will at this point have to steal what it can from the regional museums and local museums of their own land. Consequently unless you wish to be bored to death by the stunningly minute threading of the costume of neighbouring villages Morris dancing teams and how it is visually a socio-political level of social commentary and explains why ‘that night when ‘John of the long field’, fell out with his brothers sister ‘John of the short field’ and therefore as a consequence the family failed.
That is their history.
They are welcome to it.
We will insure that we recognise other peoples unaloyed history and our own, spoiler alert, it’s like nothing you could even begin to imagine!
Many thanks to all those above who have said such kind and encouraging things about the occasional, intermittent and in that sense small (if also over-long) contribution I sometimes make here. Wings makes a huge contribution to moving the independence cause forward, and and I am sure we are all immensely grateful to Stuart Campbell and all those who work away with him at making the site so effective, as well as enjoyable. Thanks and appreciation to one and all.
Callachan@9.44am
A bigot helpfully pointing out other bigots.