Orthodox Pete
As all alert Wings readers will know, we love a “1984” quote. Here’s one:
So with that in mind, let’s have some fun and talk about Pete Wishart again.
One of the most spectacularly entertaining screeching 180-degree U-turns in Scottish political history was when the Honourable Member for Perth and North Perthshire suddenly abandoned literally years of spittle-flecked ranting about how a plebiscite election (as proposed by Wings in 2020) was the worst, most insane idea in the history of the world and decided – after Nicola Sturgeon took it up – that instead it was the only possible way forward for the independence movement.
So we’re delighted to note today that Pension Pete’s had another epiphany.
A couple of months ago, Wings put forward a new strategy for independence.
It was adopted by SNP leadership contender Ash Regan, but Wishart and most of the party payroll instead threw their weight behind the hapless “continuity candidate” Humza Yousaf, who ran on a platform of being fully committed to a “social liberal agenda” but having no plan for independence at all.
(And as far as we can tell he still doesn’t. Whenever he or his supporters talk about his “priorities”, it never gets a look-in.)
Wishart was very clear that Regan couldn’t be credible, and clear about why:
So imagine our surprise when we read this morning’s National.
That’s… that’s literally the EXACT plan we came up with in February, that Ash Regan adopted, and about which Pete said it couldn’t work because Ash had an article republished on Wings and that meant she wasn’t credible because we’re so incredibly vile as to be “the biggest threat to our independence”.
(Despite having asserted as recently as January that “a de facto referendum needs to be a UK election, not a Holyrood one” – primarily because Wings was calling for the latter option while the SNP leadership was briefing heavily against it – Wishart now firmly believes that either will do.)
We must admit, we’re tempted to come up with a properly batshit mad idea now and just see how long it takes for Pete to think of it all by himself. We’ve got some pretty creative thoughts about what two plus two might be, for example. But for now we’ll simply issue a hearty “welcome aboard!”, and remind readers that Wishart was once briefly a Big Country member.
You do remember, don’t you?
This describes Pete the wishy washy guy he is.
Have debated (tried to ) with him at constituency meetings before I resigned from SNP.
He always had opposing views to members with independence in mind.
He has always been the Pete for pension guy.
The saving grace is he won’t regain his seat at next election.
Devolution has eroded the ethos of SNP. A modern Scottish Reformation is needed, based on full autonomy. New blood must prevail.
But but but – no he hasn’t!
He’s not saying a vote for indy parties but only votes for the SNP. And he probably knows fine that the SNP will never now get 50%+ of any vote.
Mair faces than the toon clock.
Blimey.
What about a Wings post suggesting that the landed gentry in Scotland be strung up by the balls and the Sutherland statue semtexed into dust?
Hopefully he’ll parrot that and be inside Barlinnie within a week or so.
Apparently:
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
was Petes his greatest lyric..
It has all the necessary components for an Indy policy right there.
Dreams – check
Mountians – check
Stay alive – check.
It’s simply prophetic. Oh, and the 2+2 = 5 thing too…
As someone who surreptitiously follows Slippers, mainly for comedy value, this article has made my day!
His days of lording it from within the enclaves of the establishment are coming to an end and he knows it, thus making him more ridiculous. His lack of self awareness is halarious.
Delicious.
Thanks again…..I needed a laugh.
It’s amazing how the thought of losing their large UK MP salary, plus expenses, can change a politician’s rhetoric.
But, don’t be fooled. Don’t vote for the treacherous colonial administrator SNP.
Recent poor poll figures for the SNP are having an effect.
Of course there is a subtle difference between the two whereby pension Pete’s ‘plan’demands a 50+1% vote for the SNP rather than the more rational 50+1% for indy parties.
Not so much Big Country as a Big C..t now.
Like the rest of the troughers he has no interest in Independence. He knows he has crossed the golden Pension point so another few years of waffle will add a little bonus.
His Tory pals will reward him with a few contacts to top up the pension income.
The Ponzi scheme has served them well. The TransCult have had their slice of the Public Funds and the loopy Green tail have won their way into wagging the SNP dog.
Sadly it will continue for years to come. The Indy Movement is now deeply divided by the Wheesht for Indy tribe and the take it slow, be kind troughers.
Keep doing the good work Stu. We need to pull it down no matter how painful. We were never going to get Independence under the SNP.
From now on I will vote Alba, ISP or spoil my paper.
He has probably accepted he’s on the way out
And wants to leave wrapped in radical intentions
Radical intentions he would never have allowed to interfere with his pensionpot over the last two decades
“How many fingers am I holding up Winston”
As others above have mentioned, I agree, this is simply more carrot dangling from the SNP.
SNP get more than 50% rather than all of the indy parties?
I think he’s seen polling that loses him his seat.
Lord Wishart of Turncoatery reminds me of a customer of mine who made the famous “Applied Sweeper” green machine. The chief engineer would reject every technical improvement I ever suggested and one day after showing him another good idea he said “there is only one thing wrong with this, I didn’t think of it”. He’d ‘invent’ each idea six months later.
A total fraud. Someone that believes in Scottish Independence should run against him in the next general election.
He’s obviously scared of Alba. So he’s adopting Alba, Wings and Ash Regan policies.
The guy is a charlatan. Hopefully we can split his vote and end his pension.
Then we can leave him down in London.
Does he have any friends? His parliamentary colleagues are pretty scathing about him in private and his services were most definitely not required at the Runrig farewell concert.
Still, he’ll carry on at what he does best: writing tedious blogs (sometimes incorporating others’ ideas in the process); delivering tedious speeches; playing stylophone in MP4 with his Yoon mates; getting selfies at every opportunity; preposterously placing himself at the epicentre of every key political decision since the 80s; and continuing to be a witless, obnoxious arsehole on Twitter
This is Pete seeing the polls, realise he’ll lose his comfy slippers under the green benches, so we NOW need to vote in SNP, note not ANY indy party, to achieve indy.
Pete shove your proposal where the sun don’t shine
There are quite a few other SNP MPs I hope are going to fall off the gravy train come the next election. There are some I’ve never even heard of, so stellar has their performance been at Westminster eg Fulton Macgregor and Marion Fellows from the previous article. ( There are others I couldn’t name either, only occasionally spotted as anonymous faces on the SNP benches. They’re just voting fodder.)
Frankly, the front benchers are all duds too. At one time I had great hopes for Mhairi Black but what a huge thudding disappointment she turned out to be.
The SNP. Stealing Alba Party ideas.
If only they picked Ash Regan. And Robin MaCalpine’s brains, that guy Kirk Torrance the campaign manager.
And Alba. Where all the brains are for Independence.
The Alba Party are leading the All Under one Banner march. With Ash Regan, Kate Forbes, Joanna Cherry. Left wing, right wing, socialists, conservatives. The whole shabang under one banner. For Independence.
Pete hates the Alba Party because he’s not fit to lace Alex Salmond’s boots.
Pete makes me sick. He’s on his jolly with the Butcher’s apron in New York to ensure tartan is British. With the British whiskey.
He wants to kiss Charles toes. That’s what he wants. He’s unable to think for himself. No wonder he’s stealing ideas.
An imposter. A carrot dangler. Where’s the 600K? Where is it? Where have you lot hidden it?
Lie down with dogs. Get bitten by fleas.
The way he’s phrased though is explicitly for the SNP, not “independence parties” so I suspect it is an attempt to prevent indy supporters voting for Alba (or the ISP).
There’s nothing like a looming general election to focus the minds of troughing MPs.
Pete has woken up to the fact that if the SNP continue to avoid pursuing indy, there’s no reason for indy supporters to vote for them any more. Eek.
That lovely, expensive green leather really does emphasise the bum squeaks, doesn’t it.
The guy is a lush without a shred of morality.
His adoration of the feigning and fawning Palace of Westminster sham they call a democracy is offensive. He lushes up on his parliamentary pay and perks whilst his country gets absolutely pillaged.
But Scotland is not this guys country. It is but his toilet that gave him a slot toadying for his English masters. No wonder he wanted to be the Speaker of the House because he certainly aint no speaker on behalf of Scotland.
But all of the SNP members in that parliament are the same. They’ve taken the coin and become part of a group of somnolent sell outs. Many, although not all, would be hard pressed to get as well a paid job elsewhere. Hopefully the few might actually do something.
And meanwhile Food Aid is distributed in Scotland, heat centres are made available, the NHS falls into a chronic state of under resourcing, whilst the standard of living plummets as the big energy companies make hundreds of billions of corporate profit.
And, if you thought the SNP were committed to fairness, support, folks should listen to Mhairi Black when she was recently interviewed by Robert Peston, and said that there needed to be hard conversations about the continuance of free bus passes and prescriptions.
No doubt like the labour party, and let us not dismiss the fact that Sturgeon before she resigned, admitted that the NHS in Scotland were looking at introducing charges for treatment.
Yeh folks, life under the Tories and their lap dog SNP neo cons is going o get a lot tougher. But at least folks like Mhairi Black and Pete Wishart are well remunerated to withstand the cold bitter winds of reduced living standards
Does anyone remember what a principle is? Were they not those things that made life kinda straightforward?
Had Wishart defended this position BEFORE the coronation of Humza Useless as FM and BEFORE the senior SNP executive arrests started, he would have had some credibility.
But now, at a point where Labour is already overtaking the SNP in some polls, even when only the tip of the shitberg the political fraud Sturgeon has left behind has been exposed so far, the prospect of the SNP winning an absolute majority of the seats at the next GE, never mind a majority of the vote, is, to keep it polite, whisful thinking.
His comment is very clear: he only support this if a majority of the vote is given to the SNP. Not to anti-union parties with similar manifesto, but specifically to the SNP.
Reading in between the lines of his comment, it is beyond obvious his only interest is to boost the vote for the SNP. Independence is the last thought in his mind. Because it was the first, giving the situation the SNP has placed itself in, he would talk about a majority of the vote towards anti-union parties, not the SNP. But he is very careful not to do that.
In other words, this self-serving hypocrite is worried about losing the green seat he has been heating, because, quite frankly, other than heating it, for the last 8 years he has done nothing else worthwhile with it.
If there is something that will define for posterity the Sturgeon and post-Sturgeon SNP era it has to be the grotesque levels of deception, self-servitude, dishonesty and consistent backing for continuity in Scotland of full blown colonialism through allowing the crown to steal even more power from the people of Scotland, the con of devolution and the illusion of autonomy and progress. In other words, at all practical effects, Sturgeon’s SNP is Blair’s corrupt labour hiding this time under a different rosette.
I sincerely hope Wishart, and mpst of his SNP MPs and other gravy train riders, lose the seats.
Say what you like. The man is a political genius. For instance, his great idea from a few years back that Scottish football whistlers should be made to declare which team they support. So clever. That would still have left two referees eligible to officiate at Old Firm matches.
Pete Wishart has to be up there leading the pack with others within the SNP who seem to have a very short memory span, the complete inability to read the room, nor the means to create their own informed opinions.
Whatever the root cause of such a condition it appears endemic to a large number of SNP MPs, MSPs and those within their close circles.
Perhaps a career in politics was a poor choice for many of them as very few appear intellectually capable nor willingly demonstrate any strengths they may have – other than frequently creating a stink on social-media, an exertion of effort that they themselves class as “engaging with the public”, which is not exactly a skill in itself.
We all know why those people ultimately sought a career in politics, while it may have started out as seeking independence for our country it has evolved into being about the easy money, the gravy-bus and business class seats on a plane instead of having to slum it with regular people they are supposed to be representing.
They see themselves as above the rest of us, a different class of people, and while that might be true to a certain extent given the largesse of their salaries & expenses – all paid for by our taxes, they would be absolute nobodies if they weren’t content burning up our taxes and returning nothing of any value to us.
The SNP are making it very easy for people in Scotland to become comedy writers.
You can basically just read out the news and call it comedy.
link to youtube.com
or you could follow Pete Wishart on Twitter and hey presto you’ve got comedy gold
link to youtube.com
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” [Groucho Marx].
Aye,I remember. He still is.
How about ‘nobody can own more than 1,000 acres unless their primary tax address is in Scotland’
Restricting land ownership to residents is an eminently sensible policy adopted by many real countries that aren’t tax havens and delightfully, entirely within the competence of the Scottish Parliament.
They could even make a special exemption for Balmoral if they wanted.
An amusing enough diversion for a Friday afternoon… but so what? What do you expect from any politician of any shade or grade but disingenuous doublespeak? – Here’s a wee song for Pete to chunter out tonight at the karaoke (aptly; empty orchestra) – with suitable subtle adaptation…
“The self-preservation society,
This is the self-preservation society
Jump in the camper van gonna get straight
(Babadab-babadabadab-bab-ba)
Hurry up mate, gonna be late
How’s your father?
Tickety boo, tickety boo
England
England
Babadab-babadabadab-bab-ba…
England
England
England”
And for the record; I don’t really imagine anyone takes this wee bubble too seriously; at least, nobody that doesn’t live in a bubble themselves.
It is not a plan for independence. When the UK government refuses to negotiate, and no one recognises a UDI, what do you do? You have no answer because it is pie in the sky nonsense, cynically designed to keep the gravy trains (Wings, Alba, SNP, AUOB etc) going.
“It is not a plan for independence. When the UK government refuses to negotiate, and no one recognises a UDI, what do you do?”
Maybe try reading some of the linked articles.
“The Record understands the police warrant in the case is over 100 pages long.”
link to twitter.com
Baloney and yet more baloney.
So hold a General Election and suppose 50 of the candidates support “independence”. Then where are we? Why, just where we are now.
Does that not just sound wee bit like a quote from Alice in Wonderland?
Recent history has shown us that independence needs active help, whether civil disobedience, guns and barricades or a quick coup. From Ireland to India, from Cuba to Kosovo, it was action and not words that brought the change. (Does anyone think that UK colonies became independent after WW2 without a hard, secret, shove from the USA?)
Action is required and not in the dim and distant, but now.
What a verminous, lickspittle, morality vacuum he is.
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others…”
Certain quotes fit some people almost perfectly.
It takes a certain kind of person to achieve such high-level brass-neckary.
Adjectives which spring to mind would be:
Self-serving – check
Shamelessness – check
Brazenness – check
A total dick – check
If nothing else a World Class Chancer!
Have noticed a trend in the SNP: go for things that have no chance. Not saying that a plebiscitary election and independence have no chance, but, as other commentators have stated, he means we should all vote for the SNP, rather than across the board for all indy parties. Now, a federal would make sense, but he just cannot bring himself to go all the way, but remains coy and anal about all the other parties that, with a loose alliance, could get us over the line
Many will no longer vote SNP – I’m one of them – but I refuse to vote for a Unionist party. Basically, we will be left (voluntarily, of course) disenfranchised. The SNP will take some time to die, and using the votes of those who detest it now, by persuading them that this is the only way, seems to be part of the resuscitation plan (shades of SNP 1 & 2).
The SNP will never now bring in independence unless there is a massive overhaul of the party because it is now the party of devolution. Judge it by its actions, not by what it claims. This MP, and most of them are con merchants. If they drop the S35 challenge and accept that very few want the GRRB, park it and start challenging on the real issues that affect Scotland, and not the fetish-enabling work they have specialized in lately, then contact ALBA and the other parties to work out a strategy for bring in independence, we might be out of the doldrums very soon, and the SNP might just revive. Otherwise, no chance.
I’m coming to suspect that Pete realised this was the way a long time ago but didn’t want Forbes or Regan to replace NS when the time came.
Now that it’s an option under the Sturgeon-clone it is a great idea and all it needed was to adopted by the leadership.
Which way is the wind blowing today? Or has Pete finally seen some polling numbers for his seat and realised that it’s in peril.
Not so much Big Country as a Big C..t now.”
That’s the joke, man.
“Wishart was once briefly a Big Country member.
You do remember, don’t you?”
@Matt Quinn
‘An amusing enough diversion for a Friday afternoon’…classic.
Who knew world-weary aesthetes bothered to find the time to comment BTL?
Craig P @ 12:53
1,000 ACRES! That’s way over the top for a non-permanent resident.
When I arrived in New Zealand in 1994 the law stated that I as a non-permanent resident could only buy a maximum of 5 acres. That is enough. They’ve now changed the rules which have become much more restrictive, and that is only a good thing.
(one of) The problem(s) with the “Wings Strategy” is that 50% + 1 of seats won in an election does not equate to 50% + 1 of the electorate. The more “non independence” parties there are, the fewer the votes needed for the “independence party” to gain a seat.
Example.
1 constituency
1 independence party. 9 non-independence parties.
Electorate 100. 8 of the 9 non-independence parties get 10 votes each. The 9th gets 9 votes.
The independence party gets 11 votes. Total votes = 100.
Independence party wins seat with 11 votes, against the 89 non independence votes.
Leaving aside the fact that “declaring independence” would rightly be ignored by The Government, the maths shows that the idea is, in any case, for the birds.
“(one of) The problem(s) with the “Wings Strategy” is that 50% + 1 of seats won in an election does not equate to 50% + 1 of the electorate.”
Our strategy counts votes, not seats. Seats are worthless for this purpose.
Now now people! – It’s Friday! Surely time to head for the pub for a wee sing-song? – No capo-in-hand required!
C F G7 C
There was a mild colonial clown, Pete Wishart was his name.
C G G7 C
He was born in auld Dunfermline, near a school they named for Danes.
G G7 C
He dreamed of stardom, countries big and ran the rig right down,
C F G G7 C
But auld Father Thames he beckoned him; the mild colonial clown.
(chords as above)
With shortbread tin and tartan troos he joined the MP4,
Sold out for cosy pension plans, he’d stamp the ground no more!
Bends in the breeze and on his knees, the comfort he has found!
Westminster’s such a lovely place, for a mild colonial clown.
Big talk, wee Pete ye aye repeat to suit the mood today.
No matter what! – to still the pot and at the trough to stay,
But the party’s done! It’s ran aggrun! As mired as it can be!
But poor Pete flails…
it’s off the rails…
For the mild colonial clown!
“Pete was a Big Country member”
Aye, I remember.
Lorna Campbell says: 5 May, 2023 at 1:32 pm
“Have noticed a trend in the SNP: go for things that have no chance.”
As a dyed-in-the-wool ‘small n Scottish nationalist’ – I’ve been saying that for over a decade; ever since they carried on where their predecessors had left off – and decimated the Scottish FE system.
I didn’t think it would ever get this unhinged though…
PhilM says: 5 May, 2023 at 1:42 pm
@Matt Quinn
“Who knew world-weary aesthetes bothered to find the time to comment BTL?”
…Finished an edit early; final render (takes time) then ping it off to the client (takes time and ties up the connection). – It’s this or sit here strumming a guitar; which just baffles the dog.
Hereafter known as The Bendy Man. Wishart has many unyielding principles but none of them are to do with politics.
The ideal party man to serve in a dictatorship.
link to twitter.com
Is this the Matt Quinn who is posting lyrics that has left me with an ear worm?
Pete Wishart inspiring artists everywhere.
It seems we Scots have gifted the least and worst of us the power to rule. I look forward to the day the greatest and best of us come forward to reclaim that power.
How sad that our once great nation, of which the French philosopher, Voltaire said, “We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.”, is now ruled over by barely sentient, self-serving half-wits.
Again?
You fucking wee guy moron.
Further drop in the polls for the SNP!
Wishart to gatecrash next week’s Alba conference in Inverness!
Free drinks on Pete at Eden Court!
I don’t remember Wishart in Big Country.
I do remember how shite they were at MacMoray Fest last weekend.
Just sayin’.
Has anyone worked out what would happen after the Scottish government declared independence unilaterally? Just thinking of some practical matters, such as having a central bank, currency, trade deals, the effects on international investments, whether there would be any financial sector left in Scotland, how the EU would react (because Spain, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Croatia, Cyprus and a few other countries with separatist movements would certainly veto Scotland joining after UDI), and even things like taxation and Scotland’s share of the national debt would be raised immediately.
Here’s Stephen Flynn’s reaction to the council elections in England – exhortation to vote SNP to hold the balance of power if Labour doesn’t win a majority in the next GE. Nary a mention of independence!
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminister, said this shows Scots should vote SNP so Scotland can “pull the strings” of a minority UK government. In a statement he said:
It’s increasingly clear that the SNP can hold the balance of power after the next general election – putting Scotland in prime position to pull the strings of a minority UK government.
Voting SNP is the best way to beat the Tories in Scotland – and every vote for the SNP will be crucial to ensure Scotland wields real power and influence.
With the pro-Brexit Labour party lurching to the right, and becoming indistinguishable from the Tories, the SNP will make certain that real change happens.
The SNP would ensure the power to determine Scotland’s future is transferred to Edinburgh, that the cost of living crisis becomes the main priority of Westminster and that relations with Europe are rebuilt and renewed.
link to theguardian.com
Daily Record reports on odd items seized in search of Sturgeon’s home, include pots & pans, a wheelbarrow and a shaving razor.
All evidence seems to be pointing to the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Perhaps it’s SNP’s Swinney Todd? Holyrood’s meat pies, under the microscope?
A load of mince, one way or another.
‘Big Country!’
I’m adding that to my list of ‘written emojis’. It’s easier to type than C U Next Tuesday which requires use of html and even then some posters think I’m trying to arrange a date.
I appreciate that the UK/England is a ‘Big Country’ and that might be what others are referring to.
Hey has anyone been following this:
link to twitter.com
I found part 1 particularly interesting
link to twitter.com
where she talks about the woman who uncovered the laptop relating to the court case between Alistair Carmichael & the Orkney 4′
Ruby says:5 May, 2023 at 2:33 pm
“Is this the Matt Quinn who is posting lyrics that has left me with an ear worm?”
No… Ruby; that’s not me. Though my mother was a ‘Folky’ and I’ve been around musicians all my life (I lectured for 12 years at Stow College’s Music and Creative Industries Department – in TV production!) …I wouldn’t consider myself any kind of musician; if I went busking, people would give me money to STFU! 🙂
Hail SNP, the Kingmakers of Westminster!
Naw thanks. Get your arses up the road!
The slimy scumbag Wishart is the kind of creature to twist and turn in whatever direction best suits it. Wishart knows that he’s facing being booted out of his second home (Westminster) at next years GE so he’s scrambling to jump on any bandwagon that might save his neck.
Wishart has been troughing at Westminster for twenty-years he’s done absolutely f*ck all to further the indy cause, he’ll be remembered as the House Jock who was desperate to be the Speaker of the House.
Vote Alba, Join Alba get Wishart and his fellow SNP gravy trainers out of office at every election and Alba in do it for Scotland.
Ah naw. we’ve got ‘Jesus H. Cunt’ and ‘A Scot Abroad in Norfolk Broads’ posting at the same time.
Wishart was once briefly a Big Country member.
You do remember, don’t you?
Never mind the buzzcocks- class joke then, arguably even funnier now!
A Scot Abroad, you left out one thing. What type of aliens will land on Glasgow Green after independence? I think we should be told. It is vitally important to understand which planet will be running Scotland’s public services after independence.
Pete can say all he wants to say but Useless Eustace calls all the shots now & he & his minders have decided we have to have consistent 60% in the polls to even start Independence campaigning.
We PAY those shysters to work on INDEPENDENCE. It is not up to US to do their work for them. But THEY are happy in their devolved little world, with big salaries and pension pots, so they prefer to tell Pete to throw us some bones to get us to sign up to SNP voting once again.
Thing is; They think we don’t see the deceit in Pete’s words – that only SNP seats will count & not the whole of the other Indy parties. Well… I for one, am getting Pink Eye just from the though of the number of carrots they want us to swallow. And I won’t be eating any of theirs, come the next elections.
To be honest, I think they’re just looking to keep whatever members they have left, fighting for them in the Election ring. They’re hoping they can still pull the wool over enough SNP Member eyes to get a few seats. And let’s face it, those members are not that bright if they’re still paying membership to a bunch of corrupt SNP con merchants. So not bright enough to recognise ANOTHER con job when it’s right in front of them.
But ye canny tell them…
Pete Wishart: “I’m a Big Country member”
All : Oh, we’ll remember alright…
@ben madigan 2:50pm
Thanks for the link, ben. No mention of the dreaded word “independence” from Flynn. Just vote SNP for more devolution within the so-called united kingdom. Any hypothetical holding of the balance of power will be temporary and open to the usual compromises.
Flynn only underlines the SNP’s devotion to devolution and the resulting continuance of the disgusting union.
Vote SNP to mitigate the worst excesses of britnat Westminster?!
To mitigate is to collaborate. The SNP continues to sicken.
O/T.
Cherry lets rip here.
Joanna Cherry admitting that the SNP is intellectually dead, and that Sturgeon did nothing to further the cause of independence.
Get the SNP out and Alba in, bar one or two SNP MPs/MSPs the rest are nothing but troughers making a good living off the backs of the taxpayer, the SNP under Sturgeon has done its best to damage the indy cause, and Yousless has said he’s the continuity candidate/FM nothing will change unless we get the SNP out at every election and Alba in.
link to msn.com
ben madigan says: 5 May, 2023 at 2:50 pm
“Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminister, said this shows Scots should vote SNP so Scotland can “pull the strings” of a minority UK government.”
He’s deluded… personally(though very much a Scottish nationalist) I haven’t felt able to vote SNP in many years because of the lack of integrity of their leaders locally; specifically Angela Constance who in my opinion is as much of a moral bankrupt as any Tory…
In fact – I typically return a spoiled paper; a futile gesture but in the absence of a ‘vote blanc’ all there is – aside from (as most seem to do) simply not voting.
Recent event though will have opened many an eye; and I for one have heard many people express the view that (in terms of integrity) the SNP are no different to the Tories and thus – even if they are supportive of independence – they simply cannot vote for them.
There is no major party in place which has Scottish independence as a sincere objective – in that sense we’re back to the stage we were in 1969 when, as a seven year old, I got my hands on an SNP leaflet that had fallen through the door – and asked one of my Mother’s hippy friends what it was about.
A “Scot” Abroad @ 2.47pm
The Westminster government the only government ever to knowingly seriously damage its own economy via Brexit, and you have the chutzpah to question what action an indy Scotland would take.
Anyway Ash Regan revealed during her candidacy for FM and leader of the SNP, that a indy minded FM would continue the day to day business of running the country whilst separate bodies would set up a central bank and prepare our currency among many other things, so when the 50+1 % mark is achieved many important aspects on moving forward would be in place.
As for joining the EU I’m for joining EFTA which gives us access to the EU and the UK market, I doubt very much that their would be many objection to this as Scottish produce is sought after abroad among other things.
@ Skip_NC,
I don’t claim any originality for those questions, they’re just obvious ones to ask. Aliens in Glasgow is however an original worry, but the probability is low and an alien invasion can safely be left unconsidered until iScotland has got its defence forces sorted out.
As a knowledgeable accountant, you’d probably be asking the same sort of questions. Getting the money facts sorted out in advance seems pretty fundamental to me.
@rev stu
And none of those pieces answers my question and none of the suggestions will actually achieve independence. You are peddling a fantasy to the gullible every bit as much as the SNP.
Ben Madigan.
Yes i was reading a bit of the drivel from Flynn, when has the SNP ever held sway in any form at Westminster answer never, it never has and it never will.
Flynn like Wishart is pushing angle to the Scottish public that they and their party the SNP are still relevant when they are no longer relevant, they had their chances to do the right thing but they decided to settle in and keep mouth shut, and their faces pressed firmly into the gravy trough.
The SNP has damaged it credibility beyond repair, how could we ever trust the SNP again to do the right thing after all that’s happened, and the last eight wasted years where we have been lied to deceived and had the indy carrot dangled in our faces as mandate after mandate went a begging.
Between now and the next GE I expect SNP MPs and MSPs to say anything and everything to get the electorate onside and to vote for them.
Its time to vote for the Alba party headed up by a man with a PROVEN track record who almost delivered independence.
Vote Alba, Join Alba do it for Scotland.
Pishfart’s staggering cuntishness is only trumped by his political naivety. Imagine genuinely believing that Westminster would ever allow an SNP Speaker. He demeaned himself and the party in putting himself forward. Can’t wait to see the back of him and his ilk.
A Scot Abroad says: 5 May, 2023 at 3:28 pm
“Aliens in Glasgow is however an original worry, but the probability is low and an alien invasion can safely be left unconsidered until iScotland has got its defence forces sorted out.”
Not sure Cllr Billy Buchanan of Bonnybridge would agree with you there… he’s got the good oil on where they hang out. And it’s not far; I’m sure they could bus it! – I mean; they’re not going to be allowed into the LEZ with their old flying saucer now; are they?
Rev, there seems to be a bit of a Google hangover from the recent site downtime. The main Wings site link does not appear via a Google search,although the links to your facebook and Twitter sites still appear. Maybe not a biggie but I found accessing the main boards to be a bit of a faff today.
@ Republicofscotland,
That’s not chutzpah to ask those questions. Any serious investor would want answers to all of that and more before putting money into Scotland.
As for Ash Reagan’s statements, they are just glib and deliberately vague. There’s no way Scotland could set up a parallel currency and central bank while still in the union. There’s nothing at all to back it, and trust and confidence are the only two things that a central bank has. Without trust and confidence, there’s no value whatsoever in the currency or issued bonds.
A Scot Abroad, OK, I’ll bite, although I do have some tax returns to finish today. Firstly, an unequivocal declaration of independence will bring England to the negotiating table. It follows that the EFTA countries will then be amenable to working with us. It may be informal at first but, as negotiations with England proceed, we can expect that to be formalized. So that is a large part of our trade deals taken care of.
We don’t *need* a currency or a central bank on Day One. Yes, they are desirable but not absolutely essential. As negotiations wrap up with England, that is something that can be put in place.
Our share of national debt is an excellent bargaining chip. We owe nobody anything. However, I daresay we will accept a reasonable allocation. For instance, we may enter a Totalization Agreement with respect to state pensions. That is normal, non-controversial and can be done very quickly with the political will. In fact, I would happily offer my services free of charge to draw up the agreement once the principles are agreed. That won’t happen, of course, but my point is that it would be very easy to do this. I could probably have something final in a couple of hours. Seriously. It’s not that hard. We can do likewise with double taxation agreements.
I’m not sure what your concerns are on taxation. We would simply adopt the prevailing law in Scotland to begin with. At the start, we would, therefore, have UK law in force. The big difference is that a democratically elected parliament can vote at any time to change the law to suit Scottish needs. Also, that parliament would have full powers over all tax and economic policy in Scotland, not just the poisoned crumbs that Westminster throws on the floor.
I suppose you might be thinking that a Scottish Revenue Agency would be hard to set up to actually assess and collect tax. That is a valid argument up to a point, but Scotland will gain its independence when SNP incompetence has been removed from Scotland’s governance. With a competent government in power, we can do anything we set our minds to. After all, numerous countries as small as, or smaller than, us have done just that.
“What type of aliens will land on Glasgow Green after independence?”
Skip_NC.
I can go one better than that an actual Westminster politician or was it a a top British army general, the name alludes me, actually said prior to the 2014 indyref that if Scots chose independence we would be open to an attack from outerspace.
This was inbetween a myriad of threats and wacky observations from Westminster including Westminster would need to bomb Scottish runways, and we in Scotland wouldn’t be able to watch the BBC, the latter being a blessing I think.
Curious, many are under the illusion that post independence, England will walk away with the accumulated 300+ years assets of the British state but the debt would of course be shared.
Assets include property abroad, embassies etc, government buildings, royal palaces, military etc materiel, moveable cultural treasures, overseas dependent territories and such like. There would be much there for a sharp witted Scottish delegation to get their teeth into.
The parting of the ways would not for the meek or for those seeking a quick resolution.
I trust the king of England has his dosh in a safe place.
link to archive.ph
It’s only being adopted as policy (if such it can be called) so as to scream ‘Both Votes SNP’ over and over again. Plus ca change…
Republicofscotland
It was Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond as reported in the Scottish Daily Mail from 16th April 2014.
I can only find the reference on pressreader.com which has the full text of the story but I can’t cut and paste. It’s really not worth going to any extra effort to find it.
REPUBLICOFSCOTLAND
Scots in the military. They owe allegiance to the British state. That state might call upon them to protect the territorial integrity of the realm.
Coming from a region of the world where the military are adept at meddling in politics I would not trust these guys a hair’s breadth.
Nothing can be taken for granted.
Those who vote SNP in the next UK election thinking that a minority Labour government are going to dance to the SNP’s tune is onto plums. Labour will never going into any form of coalition with the SNP.
Firstly, it will be electoral suicide for Labour to be seen to have connection whatsoever with the SNP in government. It has been used successfully by the Tories in past election and will be used in future elections by them. Labour aren’t that stupid enough to fall for that.
Secondly, the SNP have placed themselves in the position of being anti-Tory in Scotland. All that Labour needs to do is to put their legislative program forward and dare the SNP to vote against them. With the way the SNP have boxed themselves in with their anti-Tory rhetoric, they just can not be seen to be siding with the Tories by voting against or abstaining against Labour.
Of course this is as plain as the nose in your face but there are too many gullible people out there and they only find out the hard way.
A “Scot” Abroad.
Ash Regan’s plans were not glib, they were sensible practical and most of all doable, that’s why the Britnat media did everything in its powers to try and make it appear as thought the SNP/FM leadership campaign was a two-horse race between Yousaf and Forbes, both who had/have no indy plan whatsoever.
This was coupled with Murrell inviting in the enemy of Scottish independence GCHQ to help fix the result, everyone knows what happened, however proving it is another matter entirely.
If Regan hadn’t been cheated out of her victory we’d be voting in the next GE with independence at the top of the agenda and every election afterwards as well.
I’d imagine investors would be lining up to do business in an independent Scotland, (our stick exchange would return) we have a good rep in Europe and beyond and with a competitive corporation tax, I see no reason why Scotland can’t prosper, its certainly not prospering in this union.
Jeez oh, the Betrayer spent almost £2 million quid of taxpayers cash on propaganda, probably to dupe us in her last year in office.
“NICOLA Sturgeon spent almost £2million of public money on a record 18 political spindoctors in her last year as First Minister, it has emerged.”
“The Scottish Government today confirmed the bill for her handpicked team of special advisers, or SpAds, was £1,909,843 in 2022/23, the highest figure seen under devolution, and double the bill when she became FM.”
link to archive.is
The SNP has been playing fast and loose with Taxpayers cash for years, and Yousless wants to wasted a barrel load of taxpayers cash defending the indefensible the unamended GRRB.
Get the SNP out at every election and Alba in.
Vote Alba, Join Alba.
Republicofscotland @ 4:20, that’s what I had in mind when I typed that, along with “What currency will we use?” Seashells and sheep droppings, obviously. We’d be at parity with Sterling in about six months.
Yes, I’m joking, for those who have lent out their brain cell today.
I see the SNP website has NOTHING about the AUOB march tomorrow.
What sort of indy party would not encourage attendance at such a demonstration?
One that has been taken over by unionists!
Thanks Nicola you did a great job.
Skip_NC,
why would anyone at all negotiate with a renegade government that had just made a UDI? No reason at all. The U.K. wouldn’t, nor would any government in Europe or the EU as an institution.
Republicofscotland,
There was no detail at all backing up Regan’s statements, and she hasn’t got any relevant international finance expertise. As for Murrell calling in GCHQ, that’s just bonkers. A conspiracy theory spread by lunatics.
Ottomanboi.
Don’t be too quick to judge, I’m sure many Scots currently in active service in the British armed forces would be proud to switch to Scottish forces, as you rightly say some will not but some will, and the ones that would will probably have experience which will be beneficial to our nation.
I’d also imagine that many Scots/descendants who left Scotland because its subservient position within this so called union would think about returning to the home land once independence is achieved, they too will bring experience in a mixture of fields to Scotland.
Its all upsides to ditching this union, the sooner it happens the better.
You can almost smell the fear. SNP politicians and members are now calling everyone who disagrees with them Albaists. I think it is meant to be derogatory not complimentary!
It was often said that anything the SNP proposed was opposed by Labour, but made an appearance some time later as a great Labour idea. This seems to be the position of the SNP politicians. Plagiarise the proposals of Wings and Alba and others, knowing they are the right way forward,to call them your own.
I suppose this is their new version of ‘progressive’?!?!?
A Scot Abroad @ 4:07 pm
“There’s no way Scotland could….(insert anything here)”
The role of the colonizer is ‘to make any prospect of liberation seem impossible for the native’ and this is achieved ‘by debasing the colonized’ (Albert Memmi).
I think labour and conservative in westminster would cut a deal together rather than have labour do a deal with the SNP that would involve a referendum.
Labour has been quite clear they don’t want to be the one to break the union.
Reminds me of one of my favourite lines from Blackadder…”Blackadder, you’re twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing”
I see there’s no comments allowed on any story in The National just now. Is it because Tractor Pete’s wee article has been taking a hammering?
A Scot Abroad, people negotiate when the other party has something you want. Scotland has lots of staples England needs, like water and electricity. Of course they are going to negotiate.
Independence will only happen when there is political will to drive it forward. I was privileged to hear Craig Murray speak a few months ago at an Alba International Branch meeting. A summary of his talk is within link to craigmurray.org.uk I recommend reading his discussion of what needs to be done. If we are to get independence following a declaration thereof, we need to deal with practical matters. It is not easy but the proper leadership (not the SNP, obviously) will make it happen.
Pete Wishart – the Zelig of British politics.
@ Alf Baird,
it’s nothing to do with colonisation, it’s how international money markets work, and they aren’t going to change the way that they work to help out an independence movement.
If an iScotland is to be successful, then it is going to have to deal with international finance on the terms that every other nation does. Unilateral declarations of independence, walking away from the law of the union, possibly even (as some want) walking away from a fair pro-rata share of U.K. national debt are going to result in no money whatsoever being invested in iScotland, businesses leaving the country, no Scottish bonds being sold except at crazy interest rates (Zimbabwe once had to sell bonds at 428% interest, before hyper-inflation drove away all investment).
There’s a sustainable route to independence, but it doesn’t start with UDI.
“NICOLA Sturgeon spent almost £2million of public money on a record 18 political spindoctors in her last year as First Minister, it has emerged.”
Extortionate? Yes! No doubt! But spin works. Just look on here, one fanny still posting direct links to Unionist rags and another thanking him for doing it, and the irony of irony the 2 of them deride Skanky Sturgeons SNP.
Promoting a rag that shat all over our indyref and has been spinning Unionist shite for decades yet these so-called indy supporters think nothing of helping that rag to potentially pull in advertising revenue and new readers and subscriptions etc. Yeah, spin works!
Mind you, like everything else, you pays your money you takes your choice. Some spin doctors are better than others. Skanky Sturgeon played fast & loose with the publics cash and forked out top dollar for, at best, mediocrity. I think they seen Sturgeon coming. Looks like Stuart Campbell wasn’t the only one to see right through ‘The Skank”.
“Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminister, said this shows Scots should vote SNP so Scotland can “pull the strings” of a minority UK government.”
“Pull the strings of a minority UK government”. From the perspective of a nationalist party which has had absolute majorities of Scotland’s seats for 8 years this is so ridiculous on so many levels that, even if I was not utterly disgusted by their unjustifiable waste of our time and contempt for our democratic rights, just hearing such bullshit would be enough to put me off voting for them ever again.
After reading that, Mr Flynn does not give me any confidence whatsoever he actually intends to pursue independence any more than Blackford, Oswald, Black, Stewart McDonald, Alyn Smith, Yousaf or Sturgeon and Murrell.
First of all, people vote SNP not to “pull the UK government strings”. We voted SNP TO BREAK those darn strings, to STOP LEGITIMISING England as UK government and to stop legitimising Westminster as UK parliament.
There is no need at all to preserve a UK government, pulling its strings or not, to deliver independence. There was only a need for our majority of anti-union MPs to get off their arses, use their backbone and terminate the union.
A vote for the SNP was never a vote to follow Westminster’s rules. It was a vote to break those rules so we could start using our own. Yet, Sturgeon’s SNP and her useless majorities became conveniently deaf to that fact.
I do not know about other yes voters, but personally I am utterly sick and fed up of listening to the same worthless bullshit over and over again while the gravy train continues steaming ahead for the SNP troughers.
The last thing in the mind of any nationalist should be to stupidly prolong the toxicity of this union with delusions that, somehow, 56 or 45 spineless SNP MPs are ever going to pull the strings of over 500. If any of those sitting in Westminster believe that crap, then it is a symptom these people have become drunk with the delusion of power and oblivious to their own insignificant. If they do not believe that and yet they think it is acceptable to insult our intelligence with that crap, then such level of dishonesty and spectacular lack of judgement makes them unfit to represent us anywhere, never mind a parliament.
The only power a majority of anti-union MPs has ever had is that of not taking the seats/vacate the seats and reconvene instead the old Scottish Parliament.
It will never cease to amaze me that all these troughers still think this kind of delusional bullshit is going to take hold among the voters. It is incredible they think it is acceptable to hold a majority of the seats and, despite being in a party which has been pursuing independence for 80 effing years, expect us to believe they still don’t an effing clue on how to use that majority to deliver independence so they use it to secure devolution instead.
UK politics should have never entered the language of a nationalist party because if you really want independence, you do not want to assist or prolong colonial politics in any possible way. You want to end them as soon as you have the chance, particularly when, as a result of that colonial rule, the resources of your country are being ransaked on an industrial scale while the native population of your country is being empoverished and slowly outnumbered and supplanted by that from somewhere else.
Secondly, there was NEVER any need for England as the UK government to agree to Scotland’s independence. That is the biggest bullshit of all the nonsense Sturgeon, and now Yousless, parroted. The only thing was ever needed was for those SNP MPs to grow a pair of balls, vacate the green seats, or even better, to NOT swear allegiance and never taking those seats, reconvene the old Scottish parliament and temporarily suspend the Treaty of Union and Act of Union with England until a referendum had taken place.
So since 14 November 2014, all what we have been hearing from the SNP is nothing but hubris and excuses. Absolute bullshit aiming to distract us from the truth, which is Scotland could have ended the union on the 8th May 2015 should Sturgeon had been a real pro-independence leader instead of a political fraud working for the colonial power and our majority of anti-union MPs real MPs instead of colonial tools.
Now, as the tracks of the gravy train are being exposed, we are bombarded with even more hubris to disguise the SNP’s enormous betrayal towards the yes vote. But no amount of hubris will ever justify the SNP becoming another colonial arm using its position to deny us independence and force on us more useless devolution instead.
The SNP is finished. In fact, I am of the opinion the SNP ceased to exist the minute the political fraud STurgeon took over. What we have is just another version of labour operating under a fake pro-independence flag to keep the yes vote on a leash and stop it progressing.
I am of the opinion that all the mess we are seeing with the SNP has been deliberately fabricated to engineer a labour’s win needed to foist on us the crumbs of more useless devolution, Sturgeon might have sold us in exchange for in 2015 if not even before that.
The scale of the mess we are seeing is a testament to the strenght of the yes vote and desire for independence. It has taken 8 years for these political frauds, by relentlessly disembowelling the internal democratic and accounting processes of the party, infesting it with incompetents, perverts, creeps, pervert apologists and authoritarian amateur dictators, pumping abuse to shut dissent, to totally discredit and destroying this party to give labour and the colonial power another chance.
That the SNP had to be completely destroyed like this to engineer labour’s resurrection is a testament of just how dead the no vote in Scotland is.
But completely destroying the SNP or revealing it explicitly as another colonial party is not in the best interests of the colonial power either. This is because that will release the yes vote trapped by the SNP and will free it to join other pro-indy parties. An explicit colonial SNP would also mean a fourth party competing for the scarce no vote.
This could explain the reluctance of the crown arms in Scotland and the unionist press to pursue the alleged criminality of the SNP previously.
I have been thinking for some time now that the “partial and controlled demolition” of the SNP engineered by Sturgeon and co to force a loss of the majority of the anti-union Scottish MPs but to still keep trapped the yes vote stopping it going anywere else has backfired. In my view this is thanks to the pro-indy bloggers who have been working really hard to expose all the crap and betrayal the troughers, Sturgeon and those pulling her strings have been cooking behind doors.
At this point, the only way we can restore Scotland’s statehood is by bringing the SNP rotten edifice all the way down to the ground. We need to transform that “partial political demolition” engineered for a labour win into a full blown complete demolition at the polls to free the yes vote. The SnP is now a dead-weight around the neck of the yes movement, another colonial trap which we should avoid like the plague.
Same problem as paulk. I had to acccess the site through Wings’ Twitter.
It’s unfair that Tories, Labs and Dim Lebs can contest Scottish seats but the SNP are not allowed to stand in the rest of the UK.
If it were to build on the ‘bugger off, Scotland’ attitude it has already imbued in some English, it might win enough seats to be meaningful.
I see someone (or maybe an alien) has mowed a giant penis on the lawn of the Royal Crescent, Bath. Any suspects 😉
Skip_NC,
Scotland doesn’t export water to England. See link to gov.scot.
The electricity market is very difficult for Scotland to interfere with, because electricity is bought at forward prices for future delivery. It’s a contract to supply, with legal consequences if supply doesn’t occur. So while Scotland did indeed send around 12.3 GW of electricity to England in 2021, it’s actually generated by privately owned companies (eg Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power), and they aren’t going to put themselves in breach of contract on the day-so of a renegade government. Additionally, the U.K. can increase generation in England and Wales by bringing online standby reserves powered by gas, oil or coal.
I don’t think the threat of withholding water or power from England holds up as well as you assume.
Oh to be a fly on the wall during Sturgeon’s missing five days after she absolutely did not meet with the chief constable and then abruptly resigned.
What do folk think she did. I am thinking maybe a five day buckfast bender of anger and lashing out at everyone and everything before finally collapsing in a crying and bubbling heap after eventually realising she was f**ked.
The chief constable tipped her off and then had to resign himself for it seems a very plausible chain of events,
The idea that the SNP at Westminster might seek to support a possible Labour government is good old fashioned perfidy.
This is a political collective in dire need of a backbone.
Politicians in action are 100% duplicitous.
Why do so many trust them?
Man worth £2bn has tens of millions of public money spent on his London party.
Must be in the dna.
“It’s unfair that Tories, Labs and Dim Lebs can contest Scottish seats but the SNP are not allowed to stand in the rest of the UK”
As a Scottish nationalist, anti-union political party, there is absolutely no justification whatsoever, other than greed, for the SNP to ever contest seats in England, Wales or NI.
Any move of the SNP to contest seats elsehwere other than Scotland would be a confirmation they are now another colonial party working for the union rather than a nationalist one working for Scotland’s independence.
The objective of a nationalist party must be their nation politics and their nation’s freedom and self-government, not the distraction of governing England, Wales or NI.
Scotland’s MPs can, at any point, vacate Scotland’s seats in Westminster and suspend the treaty of union and Act of union with England because they, together with the very few Scottish peers left in the HoL are the real custodians of Scotland’s old parliament.
There was never any need for England MPs to vote for Scotland’s independence. Scotland is not the property nor a region of England and therfore England MPs are not the representatives of Scotland in Westminster. Only Our Scotland MPs are.
Well said, Mia.
If we are now to put our faith in Alba, for example, we must make damn sure it doesn’t become a SNP Mark II. And Alba, for example, better make sure it takes radical measures to restore our independence.
Country before party.
A “Scot” Abroad. @5.40pm.
Ash Regan outlined her plan at every hustings there wasn’t time at each hustings to go into every detail, but she admirably put across the basics of the viable route out of this union.
As for financial expertise a FM doesn’t need to have financial expertise an FM can employ people with such expertise as other governments do.
The plans around currency a central bank etc would be planned by people working on them the plans would run concurrent with the government focusing on the every day running of the country so they would not affect usual business. Ash Regan also explained this in what little time she had on every question.
As for Murrell and GCHQ.
“THE SNP is working with UK spy bosses to ensure the ballot to replace Nicola Sturgeon is secure.
The party said it enlisted the help of the National Cyber Security Centre (a part of GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters) to ensure the vote was safe from hackers.”
link to 12ft.io
Otto. Keith Brown was ex military. That’s why I would never trust him. What patriotic Scot would voluntarily join the British army?
Keith swore allegiance to the English Queen. Sang GSTQ at parades. Fought in British wars. Yet we are to believe he did all that with two fingers crossed behind his back!
I grew up with a deep distrust and resentment of the British army. I saw what they did in Ireland, what they did to the Highlands, India and Africa. Why would anyone join the very fulcrum of English establishment culture.
But then again. We have a republican first minister attending a Coronation. Some people just drop their principles out of deference.
Big Jock as Groucho Marx once said.
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well I have others.”
Most of us have been on the big marches so I feel a bit daft asking this, but can anyone hazard a guess as to when Big Alex is likely to be speaking?
The march is due to leave Kelvin Way at 11.30 sharp. I can’t remember how long it takes to reach Queen St but from memory it’s feckin ages.
I have 2 hours in my head as the time to complete the whole route and get to the Green. I can’t find an estimated kick-off time for the speakers.
If I had to put a tenner on it I’d say Alex won’t do his bit until 3.30, maybe 4.00.
What think ye’s?
“Keith swore allegiance to the English Queen”
Like each and every single one of the present crop of SNP, labour, tories, libdems and even Greens MPs and MSPs.
The question all of them should be asked is:
in a situation where the interests of the monarch and those of the people you are elected to represent compete and actually are on opposite sides, which side will you take?
According to the UK rules, MPs who do not swear allegiance to the monarch cannot take our seats in Westminster.
I am of the opinion that MPs and MSPs who do not swear allegiance to the people of Scotland and who put the monarch’s interests ahead of those of the people they were elected to represent should be ejected from our seats too because they would be working for the wrong entity.
You cannot possibly claim you represent the people in a democratic parliament when you are putting the vested interests of the crown ahead of and to the detriment of the interests of those you were democratically elected to represent.
The crown competes with the people for control of the legislative power (parliament). Nicola Sturgeon handed control of Scotland’s legislative power to the crown by inviting an unelected Lord Advocate into the Scottish gov cabinet.
For instance, who is stopping indyref? Is it a cabinet of England MP clowns down south or is it the crown controlling the executive power in Scotland?
Who stopped the indyref bill being debated by Scotland’s legislative power, was it an England MP or were the arms of the crown controlling the executive power in Scotland via a representative of the COPFS and the judicial power in the UK in the form of an English court?
Either you help the crown to steal control of parliament from the people or you help that power to be reverted to where it belongs: the people of Scotland. What you cannot possibly do is to help both simultaneously.
If a representative of the COPFS is still sitting in Yousless cabinet, then he, like Sturgeon, will be helping the crown to control the executive power and indirectly steal from the people of Scotland control of the legislative power.
Ian.
Reading Roddy’s article over on Barrhead Boy, I think the speeches will take place once we reach Glasgow Green.
link to barrheadboy.com
A Scot Abroad says: at 7:18 pm
“The electricity market is very difficult for Scotland to interfere with, because electricity is bought at forward prices for future delivery. It’s a contract to supply, with legal consequences if supply doesn’t occur. So while Scotland did indeed send around 12.3 GW of electricity to England in 2021, it’s actually generated by privately owned companies (eg Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power), and they aren’t going to put themselves in breach of contract on the day-so of a renegade government. Additionally, the U.K. can increase generation in England and Wales by bringing online standby reserves powered by gas, oil or coal.”
Firstly please elucidate on this 12.3GW export figure you state as it doesn’t make sense, plus yesterday (just one day) Scotland transferred 56.61GWh of leccy to England.
link to twitter.com
Secondly, where will the Kingdom of England obtain this gas, oil, and coal as standby reserves?
link to mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net
And to finish that 56.61GWh figure from yesterday does not include all the gas from Scotland that helped run the Combined Cycle Gas Turbines that are currently generating 50% of GB Grid (English) demand.
link to gridwatch.templar.co.uk
Dunno about embdy else but I’m finding the general atmosphere around this coronation palaver quite encouraging.
Very few folk seem to give tuppence-ha’ppeny about it, and even those who are supposed to be cheerleading the celebrations don’t look very keen. If it turns out that there are more republican protesters than adoring onlookers (which may well happen) the Met’s Finest won’t easily get away with kicking the living daylights out of pensioners holding up sheets of blank paper.
Of course my personal preferences on Twitter affect what I see there, but even still it’s quite remarkable that I’ve probably seen more tweets commemorating the anniversary of Bobby Sands’ death than anything about Chas and his burd.
All of this is a grim portent for the futures of any/all SNP folk attending the ceremony and associated shindigs in London. Not so much a matter of failing to ‘read the room’ as remembering what planet you’re on and which century it is. Characters like Blackford will surely enjoy his day, ambling around like a tweed-clad Weeble, imagining that global viewers and fellow guests are admiring his kilt and wondering what tartan that is. Some of them may well be, but many of the Scots who made his career possible by voting for him will be far from impressed. And some of them, in time, will take the opportunity to express that disappointment directly.
Yousaf in particular, who made a proper fanny of himself at the departure of the big cludgie-stane, could be made to look even worse depending on where he’s seated and what faux-pas he commits. Come this time tomorrow he might just be wishing he’d gone to the Green, where the worst thing that could’ve happened was people shouting at him to fuck off. (And we might just do that anyway.)
Looking forward to seeing some of your auld faces again tomorrow. We dwindle in number as the years pass but we’ll surely make some new pals. So it goes!
😉
All these mentions of UDI…
From Wikipedia,
“A unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) or “unilateral secession” is a formal process leading to the establishment of a new state by a subnational entity which declares itself independent and sovereign without a formal agreement with the state which it is seceding from.”
This does NOT apply in the case of the UK, England and Scotland. Scotland is NOT a “subnational entity” – it is one of two partners in a “voluntary” union, the United Kingdom. It is NOT a “subnational entity” of England.
To me, what ALL the pro-indy parties should have first in their manifestos for every general election, either Westminster or Holyrood, from now on, is,
“Regardless of all other policies, every vote for this party in any election will be regarded as a vote to exit the Treaty Of Union and for Scotland, once again, to be an independent nation.”
I believe that would satisfy the UN’s charter regarding “self-determination” and be internationally recognised, the majority of voters having expressed their preference in a vote.
And the Wishite of “What I believe should now happen is that we contest every election with the first line of each successive manifesto stating that ‘if the Scottish National Party secures 50% plus of the vote this will mean Scotland will become an independent nation” is sheer arrogance!
I believe that in most entities that seek independence, the pro-independence parties work together and understand that all their votes will count towards the wanted/needed majority of 50%+1.
As others have typed here btl, it looks like PW is trying to garner “both votes SNP” once again, to try to save his seat.
We see you PW.
This is one of the funniest threads I’ve seen in a long time.
It stars Glasgow Councillor T. Kerr, who found fame via this place as one of the original Hard Drive Six way back in 2013/14ish.
He wants Glaswegians to pop in to the City Chambers and sign a book for Chas & Cammy. And he’s awfy mad at Celtic fans for singing about shoving the coronation somewhere unspeakable.
link to twitter.com
@ Republicofscotland,
There’s a huge difference in between the NCSC helping political parties ensure their digital space is secure from hacking, as opposed to actively colluding with people within a political party to fix a result, as you alleged earlier. The NCSC offers that service to all political parties, and even to companies having an AGM and digital voting by shareholders. It’s absolute nonsense to keep on alleging that GCHQ somehow fixed the SNP leadership vote. Looney Tunes material.
@ Briandoonthetoon,
Wiki isn’t an authority. Rhodesia declared UDI, and wasn’t a sub-national entity. UDI is a perfectly good way of describing what the main article (and indeed, Ash Regan’s) proposal amounts to.
@ Dan,
I may have made a typo, and the annual figure is in Terawatts, not Gigawatts. In any case, for 2021, the value of Scottish electricity export to England was £745 million. Which is about 1/3rd of the Barnett money going north to Edinburgh. Would you rather have the electricity sales, or the Barnett money? Currently, Scotland gets both, but that would be unlikely (at the very least) to continue if a Scottish government made a UDI.
@ Big Jock,
I served in the Army, in a Scottish regiment. Went to war in Iraq to liberate Kuwait, to Northern Ireland, and the Balkans. I don’t recognise your description that no patriotic Scot would join the Army. Nor, I suspect, would the well over one million Scots who served in the forces in just this last century.
For what it’s worth, I’d say that about 90% of the soldiers in my old Regiment would choose to transfer to a rUK Army in the event of Scottish independence, because most soldiers join in order to have an active operational career, very often abroad. It’s a bit more exciting than being a joiner, plumber or a bin man in your local town. And as the SNP seem ambivalent about NATO, and want to model Scotland on Ireland, there’s little attraction in being a plastic soldier driving around Scotland in a Land Rover without much prospect of anything more than a UN tour once every 10 years.
Hi A Scot Abroad.
You typed,
“Wiki isn’t an authority. Rhodesia declared UDI, and wasn’t a sub-national entity. UDI is a perfectly good way of describing what the main article (and indeed, Ash Regan’s) proposal amounts to.”
Rhodesia WAS a “sub-national entity” of the UK. Who else could it possibly declare independence from?
I have some straws if you have a feel for clutching.
Hi A Scot Abroad.
You also miss the point that a “Barnett Formula” would be redundant if Scotland were independent and all revenues went to a Scottish exchequer, not Westminster, who only give us back a proportion of them!
@Ian B: I’m estimating the head of the march won’t get to GG until about 1 of the clock so I suspect the speeches may be timed to start after then.
Don’t know when AS will be slotted in: should be interesting.
Some surprising “The National” types slated to speak: ditto.
@ A Scot Abroad
Your figures still seem off.
link to albaparty.org
I’d rather Scotland left the union and thus returned to full self-governing status whereupon we would hold the full range of powers required to better serve Scottish interests.
Scotland will never be allowed to prosper within the union under London Rule.
And it says a lot about that union when you come on here highlighting all the complexities and hurdles Scotland has to deal with should it wish to extricate itself from what is meant to be a union of equals. Because if it is a union of equals then all the difficulties you continually express that Scotland has to navigate through if the union ends, should also pertain to England.
It seems we’ve caught a big live one with ‘A Scot Abroad’.
The fact that he self-aggrandizes by describing what happened to Iraq as a ‘war’ tells us about as much as anyone needs to know.
Nauseating.
The Tories are wonderful.
Loosing over 1,000 Council seats means the other parties haven’t do as well as they hoped?
Rishi who hasn’t met any member of the public today tells us they support him in cutting inflation which the Tories drove to over 10%.
They want to see growth in the economy Tory Truss crashed like never before.
They want him to end the strikes but the Tories won’t negotiate so more strikes declared.
They want to see Taxes reduced but they have installed the highest rates in 70 years.
Has Westminster passed doublespeak as England’s new official language?
The man has this permentley confused look on his face and i`m sure its genuine.
every so often someone, usually a unionist trying to be clever suggests :
ALLOWING THE UK TO KEEP THE OIL IN ORDER TO EASE OUR PATH TO INDEPENDENCE
– it’s a cunning plan, one worthy of baldrick, with 2 pencils up his nose
you get more sophisticated versions, like the FT suggesting indy Scotland would do such a thing to be “allowed” access to the UK’s highest credit rating when borrowing from the markets …
only a dumb cunt would fall for this, and anyone who suggests it has shown their hand as a unionist
let’s go down how dumb this is
– first of all, you are trying to barter with things the people you are bartering with, THINK THEY ALREADY -OWN-
– secondly, these assets belong to the Scottish people, no one has the right to barter them away for temporary “advantage”; these “clever compromises” will bite you in the arse, e.g. Northern Ireland, one of the most cancerous rotten borough failed states on earth.
– thirdly, suppose they went along with this, why should they play fair by you? And why should they respect you at all – you have absolutely capitulated, thrown the game, before it started, without them even asking
– lastly, the thieves have already stolen too much – it would be immoral to reward them for their pillage by facilitating more; it is not giving the oil away you should be thinking about, but historical reparations
I would rather see the oil fields capped before england got another drop. The discovery of oil was a bloody disaster for Scotland and indirectly made for a wrecking ball for the rest of the UK as well. Oil is not a commodity, it is THE commodity, if you have it your money will always be worth something and would even allow you to reengineer the entire economy on neoliberal lines. A disaster for the people, a jackpot for the elites.
I would also disconnect the power grid from england and make it an act of treason for anyone to create a UK wide water grid. Energy in Scotland would be very cheap, for us the Scots, but also for foreign companies, who would flock here; this is how you encourage investment. Scotland could use cheap excess power to mine bitcoin, a new source of money outside UK control – that would terrify them.
every evil plan you can think of, they have thought of too –
link to londonist.com
link to theguardian.com
no compromise with these types of people; they are fucking evil, and they need to go
Bullshit artists try to invoke “the markets” or “forex” but the markets understand what is valuable and what is not, who has real assets and who prints paper for a living.
The ordinary englanders in england don’t care too much about us, and why should they – got their own problems, but elites are terrified of Scottish indy for a lot of knock-on reasons. First off – the royals have their private wealth and “the wealth they hold in trust for the nation”; this line has been blurry for a long time, but now it would need to be drawn.
Also this game of “what is mine is mine, what’s yours is mine as well” – if you try to grab our assets maybe we will grab yours; we are due some nuke subs, fighter jets for a start, but what of all the wealth siphoned off by the city of london (part of the UK, but not) into the tax havens.
– someone would need to, with “forensic accountants” start tracing assets and ownership, so we get our fair share; no one in the city wants anyone to start looking into their operations or the tax havens.
We have all seen how messy these divorces are when billionaires are involved, what about a country “divorce” with trillions at stake?
The caribbeans and indians have been looking into their own colonial reparations bill (this makes a lot of people, sweat) and it is something the SNP should have been digging into decades ago, but -no- which shows how serious they are.
Deep down, the english are pirates – it is how they got started; you can frame their entire history as a desperate attempt to hold onto their ill gotten gains – for example, the attitude to europe and the anti-catholicism embedded in the constitution is simply because they are terrified of ever having to hand back the wealth they looted during the reformation, the biggest robbery in history.
– point is – these folks are thieves at heart; allowing them to keep the loot and give them more, so you can have an “easy” time is beyond stupid
“wherever wood floats, you will find an englishman stealing all he can”
Pete Wishart, I wonder what the verdict of the Scottish people will be on his 22 years warming the green benches at Westminster (I know, he wants to warm the red ones too). Last year, Pete was “celebrating” 21 years at Westminster – did the irony of that record not reach his brain cell?
You may not have been involved in a war. I have. We (a lot of us, from many nations) liberated Kuwait from a greater number of Iraqis who had marched in and occupied it. It was a proper shooting war.
Now fuck off.
Schrödinger’s Scotland.
Scotland seems to be a country at the same time as not being a country.
If Scotland isn’t a country, then when did it stop being a country and what is it now?
A colony?
A region of England?
If Scotland is a country, then we can extricate ourselves from an international treaty and will have no need to court international recognition as such. We need only announce that we are open for business once more.
Maybe A Scot Abroad can unravel the mystery or why he isn’t just called ‘An English Man at Home’?
@ Briandoonthetoon,
it’s not really arguable that Scotland now receives more in U.K. funding than it sends down south in tax revenues. In short periods of the past (70s / 80s / 90s, the height of the North Sea oil boom) that may not have been the case, but right now it is, and any longer analysis of history since the act of union three centuries ago will show a consistent subsidy of Scotland by the rest of the union.
@Confused (10.41) –
Hear hear hear sah!
That’s one for ASA to stick in his pipe.
😉
Has ‘A Scot Abroad in Norfolk Broads’ managed to convince anyone to vote NO yet?
Looks like we’re totally fucked when it comes to the possibility of our Independence.
Sturgeon really really screwed us all.
Is all lost?
In case folk have forgotten about it in all the excitement over a jug-eared septugenarian pedo-pal finally getting his old dear’s job, there’s a proper ‘shooting war’ going on right now, and Blighty is rather involved.
Perhaps ASA, with all his experience, would be better off serving as an ‘advisor’ to the NATO-aspiring nation (which cannot be named) rather than annoying people here?
(He’s affy-easy ‘triggered’, eh?)
😉
@ Breastplate,
I’m just as Scottish as most living in Scotland. 3 completely Scottish grandparents, and one English from Cumbria. Born and grew up in Scotland, in Ayr then Edinburgh. I still own the flat in Ramsay Garden where I was a teenager, and share a small house in Perthshire with my sister that she lets out on the farm that she and her husband work.
You may not agree with my views on the union, but I’m not an Englishman at home. I’m a Scot abroad from Scotland.
IanB,
ASA obviously can’t support country 404 because they are skinty broke, so using the same logic he applies to Scotland they should hand over the reins of government to the Ruskies, no?
They simply can’t afford to be independent.
He’ll be along any minute now to confirm that sovereignty costs money.
Be kind he might have PTSD & Tourette’s.
Mental illness common in returning soldiers
A Scot Abroad,
You may think you’re Scottish but if you look closely, you are definitely British.
You might not think there’s a difference but there is.
Anyone else get the feeling that ASA is a parody?
Sort of looks that way, yah?
How can you be a Scot when Scotland ceased to exist in 1707?
Whit school did you go to when you were a teenager in Edinburgh living in Ramsay Gardens?
If ur stuck u can listen to,
Iain Macwhirter: The unravelling of the SNP | The Brendan O’Neill Show.
link to youtube.com
or
U could just get pissed…or both!
@ Ruby,
if you think that being Scottish ended in 1707, you are rather more mentally disturbed than previously thought. Nobody else at all thinks that.
I went to Merchiston Castle in my teens.
“ Mia says @0703 pm” …..Yep Mia comes out with the best post of this thread so far . The SNP require to be taken to task over their abject failure to PROSECUTE the case for Independence over the past 8 years . Hopefully commencing tomorrow at the AuOB rally . The Brexit vote should have been the WATERSHED and Blackford should have withdrawn his MP’s from Westminster . No ifs or buts, THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND ARE SOVEREIGN. The surrender speech by Sturgeon in January 2020 was enough for me !!
Ascot Abroad.
As Scottish as Spotted Dick.
A Scot who doesn’t want independence is a Brit. If you do not believe in Scottish sovereignty, then you don’t believe in Scotland. Some people like to kid themselves they can be both. But the problem is that the UK runs Scotland. A country run by another by consent, is not a true nation.
A country colonised and run by force , is still a true nation. Because the people have not consented to foreign rule. The 50% of Scots who reject British rule, are the true Scots. If you reject Scottish rule, then you do not accept Scottish sovereignty. Therefore you are rejecting Scotland.
You cannot be two nationalities at once. One takes precedence. For Unionists it’s their British identity that is their primary identity.
They want to be Scottish at football or rugby matches. Or when wearing a kilt. But that’s not what being a nation is about. That’s playing at being a nation.
@ Big Jock,
you are wrong. It’s entirely possible to be Scottish and to believe that the union is a greater entity than either Scotland or England. I’m not allergic to Scottish independence outside of the union, but for me (and I would suggest, something just over half of Scots) that case is yet to be proven.
You won’t agree with me. That’s fine. I’m still a Scot, though, and there’s nothing you can say that will take that away from me. You don’t have that power.
FFS
Will you please stop feeding the wanker troll.
He’s a total prick, and I’m actually surprised Wingers need reminding.
Dear Stu
I don’t have a Twitter account and your Contact Form is not working. I would rather not put this on here but I was a bit taken aback at your “Chicken Supper” comment on Twitter. We certainly don’t have to agree on every issue to support Wings and the invaluable work you do. I am more than happy to make my small monthly contribution to help ensure this site keeps going.
Freedom of speech is at the core of this site and I am 100% behind that. It also means people can disagree with what you say.
For many people, the chicken supper taunt is sectarian, that can’t be a surprise to you, and indeed you associated it with Rangers fans. I have personally heard it sung by other Clubs fans who also seem to take a “guilty pleasure” in endlessly bringing sectarianism into football.
You may not have any time for the complex history of Ireland, but you surely know that history is very much a part of Scotland’s story. Whatever you feel about them, there are few folk, I would gauge, who would be prepared to do the same for Scotland’s freedom.
Just had a browse of the radio times. What the actual fuck. Both BBC1 and BBC2 are devoted to it all day. Both channels, it is ridiculous. How on earth do they justify this shite.
Has The National shut down all comments for the duration of Tampon Charlie’s coronation?
Ian Brotherhood says:
5 May, 2023 at 11:39 am
“the Sutherland statue semtexed into dust?”
So curious that not too long ago groups in Scotland were demanding places be renamed or things removed, successfully in some cases, as a result of ongoings in America being imported over.
Yet no fashionable protests or graffiti for social media when it comes to those who did harm to Scots yet got streets and buildings named after them or have statues looming over us.
See UK legal advice by Crawford & Boyle.
Do you believe one needs to be mentally disturbed to believe the UK Gov?
link to youtube.com
‘Scotland ceased to exist in 1707 and became Lesser England.’
You seem very keen to prove you are not English why is that?
Is there something wrong with being English or is it just the lesser bit that you object to.
Do you have any sympathy for the Scottish Independence supporters who just want a better life or are you one of the ‘let them eat ‘Tunnocks Teacakes’ brigade’
I am not Scottish. I have been denied the right to be Scottish that is why I’m voting YES.
Vote YES to be Scottish not British.
Well just about to jump on a boat and head up to glesca , due to foot injury no long March for me and Dug , getting to glesca Green from Central Station and back will be enough.
Anyways I thought I would share with you the factoid that a Wummin on Arran got her Hair done yesterday afternoon for the watching on telly of sausage fingered Chuck getting the English Crown on his heid !
Yup let that sink in, thats the level of stupidity we are up against.
Hope everybody has a great day in Glesca and may it piss doon in Londinium.
Ruby/a scot abroad
According to the Supreme Court Ruling re the ability of Scots Parliament ability to hold a Constitusional referendum.
It decreed that England ceased to exist on that date also, although it tried to keep that bit quiet, i had it confirmed by Roddy dunlop on Twitter.
Load of rubbish off course coz Scotland did not agree to that but according to their version of events neither Scotland nor England existed after 1 st may 1707.
Ruby,
you seem to be very disturbed, now believing that you can’t be Scottish.
I’m deeply relaxed about my ethnicity. I’m a Scot. I am the (grateful) beneficiary of over 300 years of union that allowed the peoples of these isles to live in peace (1745 excepted), and go out into the world, prosper, and found a cultural and trading civilisation that is unparalleled in human history. And it’s not all a one way street in our favour: that global presence has encouraged people to our shores who would otherwise have not shared in the bounty. Heavens, you can be a Prime Minister of the U.K., or even the First Minister of Scotland. It’s all good.
@Lenny Hartley: I would avoid the Argyle Street M&S on your Glasgow travels. M&S is flogging all kinds of coronation tat, including a deranged Union Flag poncho which I’m sure will go down a bomb in the Copland Road area after today’s “festivities” are over.
“Ah-hoo, werewolves of London!”
Confused 10:41pm
If I wanted to write a parody post to mock the kind of thinking that has turned away high quality support from the Scottish independence movement it would look something like that.
I no longer talk economics except in big easy to understand terms for a couple of reasons. One reason is not because I think I’m a Big Brain and nobody is worth my time, but because if you are not talking about economics in bigger more obvious terms then you run into the problem of increasingly detailed arguments where everybody is right and everybody is wrong.
More importantly when you are on the political stage, as the Scottish Independence issue obviously is, you have the added problem of talking economics to a general public who are deliberately kept in the dark.
Once you get into the details it becomes far easier to scare the public, who won’t understand whether your points are fanciful garbage or not, than it is to get them hopeful. In fact the hope/fear dynamic is markets 101.
This is why the oil issue is a weakness for the cause. Our detractors will make sure it gets into increasingly vague and minute detail overlaid with a tone of doom and gloom, a liberal use of fantastical market terms whose meanings are very mundane and easy to grasp but due to their unfamiliarity confuse the average Joe.
To hinge our economic case on an argument that can be so easily manipulated against us in the eye of the public is a massive error.
Particularly given that really, and I’m being honest here, I have seen more reasons to doubt the economic acumen of the top pro-indy bloggers, politicians and commenters than to have faith in them.
Here’s an example:
In about 2007 Alex Salmond was giving a presentation at a University, Aberdeen I think, where he made the casual remark when talking about our links with the US that ‘when the US economy sneezes, the rest of the world reaches for a handkerchief’.
I decided to contact him and say that he is right, but does he have any comments on the impending financial disaster building in the U.S and what it might mean for Scots?
I didn’t receive an answer and nobody in the general public were updated as to the coming financial problems that were obvious and who our establishment pretended came as a surprise.
Also there was an argument on here a few years ago also where I was mocked and called a ‘Scottish Tory’ for suggesting that an independent Scotland could well have higher taxes even with all the oil…by people who couldn’t even take the time to look at the tax system of that other small country on the North Sea who is oil rich as a comparison.
So honestly, I’m completely unimpressed. In fact I’m a Scottish nationalist in spite of this kind of stupid arrogance from other Scottish nationalists but there are many more who are not so determined as me.
So here is the crux of the issue:
Let’s say that all you say about the ‘English’ is true. That they are a race of thieves and vipers who care not a jot for honour, decency or honesty and that they will happily grind other nations into the dirt to extract their resources – which is an interesting position given that if we said that about any other people on Earth, say the Jews as a totally random example, you would be dog piled by our progressive warriors of justice.
But that aside how do you propose that 5 million Scots convince these political criminals to give us a vote or accept a constitutional stunt, to let us fairly walk off into the sunset with those very resources you say they will bend heaven and earth to take from us?
This is why, along with the cancerous woke (marxist) streak that runs through the Indy movement, many people shake their head and don’t bother.
Re discussion of Scottish electricity production above, GW and GWh are different things. Important to remember also that private companies are currently the people who own and control electricity generation and production in Scotland, and their shareholders are the people who make money from it.
Did you know that there is currently a programme of industrialising the Highlands with 60m high pylon networks and immense substations underway? This is to enable power to be sent to England and further afield but the profits will not be benefitting us. The power will not be used in Scotland and will not lower our bills either.
One of the first things an independent Scotland should do is nationalise electricity production and transmission. Of course, by then, we will already be the “Saudi Arabia of renewables” with our landscape trashed and other people rolling in the profits, with Scotgov’s collusion in supporting the current crazy strategy.
Dublin GPO Easter 1916, Pearce to Connolly: “You do realise this might mean a tuppenny increase in income tax?”
See you all in Glasgow I hope.
Just watched this interview as youtube threw it up but Kenny MacAskill is a really impressive guy. Handles these two snide media turds very well. Well worth watching.
youtube.com/watch?v=9UVTquntqpw&ab_channel=TimesRadio
His diagnosis of the SNP current problems is excellent as was his summary of the stitch-up.
What a loss to the SNP he is. He is guy that could have potentially saved them.
Way too late now though. The SNP are triple-F, f**ked for the foreseeable future.
The independence movement needs to disassociate itself from the SNP and the Sturgeon / Murrell reign. Because anyone who doesn’t is going to get sucked down with them.
Listening to MacAskill there this is only going to get worse and worse for the SNP as the truth inevitably comes out.
The rehabilitation of Salmond’s reputation is happening right now and it is slowly gathering pace. Alex Salmond is IMHO Scotland’s equivalent of Vaclav Havel, most people just don’t realize it, yet.
Rage or sobbing in your wee dram.
Scotland! for you to decide.
There is no «in-between».
Have a «meaningful» day.
On the way to Glasgow! Meanwhile alex Salmond is outstripping nicola sturgeon (and others) on the Nationals poll on who should be the future president of Scotland.
Just having breakfast before heading off to the AUOB march starting in Glasgow.
And what a better way to spend a day than having to watch or listen to the feigning nauseating cloying coronation. Nice to be able to remember doing something patriotic, democratic on a day when lickspittle subservience is being stuffed down everyone’s throats.
And special mention too for the lickspittle toady they call Scotland’s First Minister as he prepares to bow and scrape before his royal master.
I have uncovered what Nicola’s diary really was for the missing 5 days (after the chief constable visited her and tipped her off she was going to be arrested)…
Day 1. Denial
Day 2. Anger
Day 3. Bargaining
Day 4. Depression
Day 5. Acceptance
I can imagine it was a real hoot in the Murrell household during those missing 5 days, the blame game, the accusations, much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Seeing the Murrells go through even just a tiny fraction of the horror they inflicted on an innocent man is pleasing but there is one very crucial difference this time around Peter & Nicola if you are reading, Alex Salmond was innocent…
Ian Brotherwood 5th may 11.39am ‘and the sutherland statue semtexed into dust’
At least the Irish had the balls to get rid of nelsons statue in o’connell st Ian,
Wonder what the turnout will be like in Glasgow today? Or will apathy rule.
“how do you propose that 5 million Scots convince these political criminals to give us a vote or accept a constitutional stunt, to let us fairly walk off into the sunset with those very resources you say they will bend heaven and earth to take from us?”
By reinstating the convention of states and chucking out from our parliamentary seats all those who choose to use our seats to pursue the interests of the English crown and their own instead of those of the people of Scotland.
We are where we are today, after 8 years of electing what we thought they were anti-union MP majorities, because those majorities were not really anti-union and to make matters worse, they were controlled by political frauds far more interested in preserving the union than delivering independence.
The only people who has to “give” Scotland a vote are our own MSPs and MPs, which, in their self-serving quest to keep their own gravy train going, have refused and continue to refuse to do under a myriad of excuses.
It is not for England’s political representatives, the crown itself or any of its arms to deny Scotland the exercise of its own legitimate self-determination. They will only do so for as long as our useless political representatives continue to indulge them by disrespecting Scotland’s claim of Right and meekly accepting those entities’ self-awarded right to dictate on us.
We have been directing our fury to the wrong target. We have been convinced by the culprits themselves that the problem lies with England’s representatives and entities who are just byproducts of the treaty of union. The problem lies in Bute House, Holyrood and our 59 seats in Westminster, which are the ones handing free Scotland independence vetoes to England’s representatives and byproducts of the union. The sooner we direct our focus and political might to the correct target, the sooner we would get going.
The minute our MSPs and MPs stop behaving as mouthpieces and crown’s tools in Scotland, we will be half way there. As an example, Scotland’s stone is today sitting under Charlie’s arse only because that spineless tool parachuted by the SNP executive to the post of FM of Scotland has chosen to embarrass and humiliate Scotland instead of embarrassing and humiliating the English crown.
As per England and its crown accepting Scotland’s independence and letting go of SCOTLAND’S assets, the way to ensure it is by demanding from our own political representatives to stop disinforming us about “secession” and the fabricated and self-awarded parliamentary sovereignty of a byproduct of the treaty of union.
The sovereignty of Scotland does not lie in a foreign parliament, in the political representatives or the crown of a foreign country. The sovereingty of Scotland lies on its people.
To this follows the demand from all our political representatives to stop portraying and treating Scotland as if it was a region of Greater England or a property of the crown.
Then we must demand them to stop hiding behind the nonsense of Crawford and Boyle and start acknwoledging the treaty of union for what it is: an international treaty. The exact same applies to the UK parliament and government, which are just by-products of the two parliaments, the parliaments of the Kingdom of Scotland and England and therefore subordinated to them.
The only thing that is needed to unilaterally revoke the treaty of union, which Scotland is perfectly entitled to do, is to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament. HOlyrood cannot be the reconvened Scottish parliament until the Scotland Act is ditched completely. For as long as our MSPs continue to hide behind it and force us to abide by it, Holyrood is not Scotland’s parliament, it is a branch of the UK parliament.
Once Scotland’s parliament is reconvened or Holyrood removes from itself the chains of the Scotland Act, then the Treaty of union and act of union with England can be unilaterally revoked.
Then that revocation is officially communicated in writing and simultaneously to the UN, to as many countries as possible, to England’s acting government and to the crown. And I say England’s government because the minute the Treaty and Act of Union with England are revoked, as the byproducts of the Treaty and Act of Union they are, the “UK government” and “UK parliament” cease to have legitimacy to operate as “Great Britain” entities.
At the same time, and in the expectation of hostility from our “partner” (and of course from the crown who has the highest vested interest in the treaty of union, which includes the succession to both crowns, to continue), mediators are requested from the UN and rest of the world for the fair partition of common assets. And I mean common assets. Because Scotland is not the property of the Kingdom of England, but just a treaty partner, England has no claim over Scotland’s geographical (both land and water) assets.
It is my opinion that “they will bend heaven and earth to take those resources from us” should read “so far they HAVE been bending heaven and earth to take those resources from us” and they have done so by transforming our own representatives into the representatives of the interests of the English crown and England itself. We have let them dictate us for the last 8 wasted years because we did not bring to heel the political frauds controlling what was our political vehicle for independence.
The minute you understand “Great Britain” and the current line of succession to Scotland’s crown are subordinated to an international treaty Scotland is perfectly entitled to unilaterally revoke, then that problem does no longer exist That problem only exists if you continue to accept the continuous brainwashing from our own political reprentatives acting as if those entities “own Scotland”, which they don’t.
Like in 1706, the key to the preservation of this union and the sustained assault on Scotland’s population and assets has been the consequence of the continuous and sustained betrayal of those who were elected to represent us but chose to represent the interests of the English crown instead.
This union only exists because our own representatives are allowing it to continue to exist despite not having given a mandate for it. We should always keep that in mind.
The biggest threat to our independence is seat warming Pete and his stupidity. Was he not the drummer in UnPositive Noise ?
Get yersel into Glasgow.
This is one of those times when people will ask in years to come ,,
“Where were you on the day the English crowned their latest parasite”
“Well actually, I was in Glasgow at a Scottish Independence Rally ”
Ok, must dash, see you there.
We are witnessing, particularly in the unedifying spectacle of Charles’s coronation ceremonies, the mad death throes of the desperate British empire. An empire which, unlike the Roman empire it sought to emulate, took much much more than it ever gave, if it ever gave anything of value at all to the nations it subjugated in the name of its one true god – greed.
A “Scot” Abroad.
GCHQ runs the NCSC.
“In late 2018 the online ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous breached GCHQ’s digital security and leaked two batches of documents pertaining to the shady ‘Integrity Initiative’ (a project of the London government-funded, Fife-based, and curiously named Institute for Statecraft), exposing it as a nefarious ‘nudging’ operation. These leaks laid bare – or purported to lay bare – a massive domestic smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, and the British state’s concerns over disadvantageous political developments in Scotland and the north of Ireland. One document questioned ‘Will the current relationship survive, or will we have a federal relationship, or will some become independent?’
What was most interesting was the suggestion of a nexus of communication linking the British government’s surveillance hub – GCHQ, the Integrity Initiative, and journalists and broadcasters working for unionist media outlets in Scotland.”
Big Jock 12.28pm, absolutely great post, i’ve screenshotted that to send to friends and family, that’ll open some of their eyes
12.28am.
Now that Nicola has fallen (and a bit further still to go) what do you think she will do next.
How’s her Spanish.
If there was a union between Ireland and Scotland. It would be two celtic nations sharing a common purpose and cultural identity.
The UK is basically England and represents Anglo Saxon culture. The Scots are culturally poles apart historically. There was an invention of Britishness around the time George visited Edinburgh in the 1800s. Partly assisted by people like Walter Scott.
But even Scott himself was fundamentally Scottish in speech and the written word. The small period of British identity existed for 150 years.
But burning underneath were figures like Mcdermid and the folk tradition. They kept the Scottish flame burning. Despite the Angles trying to eliminate Scotland by calling it North Britain.
The experiment failed. Scotland would never be North Britain. Because you can’t invent a nation. Scotland existed for a 1000 years before the Act Of Union. It still exists, because it’s a nation, Britain is not.
Scots who claim the British identity,are inventing a nationality to suit their political agenda. Britishness does not exist. It is simply Englishness by another name. That’s the part they are uncomfortable with.
Scotland is not , and never will be Anglo Saxon. Eventually the Union will fall apart. Ironically because there will be no perceived economic benefit after Brexit. It might indeed be economics rather than culture that end the Union.
Did Wishart not get the memo? According to Yousaf, his new boss, Sturgeon has already exhausted all avenues to end the UK Scotland/England ‘arrangement’, popularly known as the Union.
In the above arrangement, the UK claims democracy for itself, England owning that democracy, let no other oppose. Sturgeon, kindly agreed.
Pete, also agrees. However, believes his party has not yet exhausted all avenues of conning the electorate. SNP has submitted nothing outside the bounds of Devolution, since the inception of Holyrood, only alluded to it, IndyRef2, prime example.
The trick, as always, any proposal by SNP, of self-determination, must firstly be undermined by self doubt, that of it’s very legitimacy. The practicalities of Scottish Independence, then made an irrelevant, side show. No substantial inroads made or attempted.
As with every election, the above trick needs to be extended. Perhaps, sawing the SNP in half, trick, preferable to the disappearing, reappearing membership trick. A new stunt.
Meanwhile, a walk in the park, is exactly that.
Mia @ 9:37 am
“The problem lies in Bute House, Holyrood and our 59 seats in Westminster, which are the ones handing free Scotland independence vetoes to England’s representatives and byproducts of the union.”
That is the reality Mia, aw thay SNP MPs and MSPs are just as bad as the Commissioners wha selt oot Scotlan in 1707 an gied awa oor soveranety, juist anither parcel o rogues wirkin in cahoots wi oor doun-hauder. Colonial administrators, naethin mair. If yer unlucky eneuch tae see ony o thaim the day, tell thaim whaur tae gae.
The idea of self-IDing as ‘Scottish’ may be perceived as a compliment of sorts but it’s as futile as me identifying as James Brown. No matter how hard I try I will never be able to sing or do the splits, I’ll never be black and I’m currently still alive.
Idea for novel:
Scottish man wakes to find he is trapped inside an English dude’s body.
‘The horror…the horror…’
🙁
Just on my way out to the AUOB march and demo.
O/T I’ve just read that the Met police have arrested the leader of Republic in London on what looks like no grounds at all. Who’d a thought?
Mac says: 6 May, 2023 at 6:42 am
“Both BBC1 and BBC2 are devoted to it all day. Both channels, it is ridiculous. How on earth do they justify this shite.”
BBC1, BBC2, BBC ‘News’ (I use the term loosely) BBC Red Button 1. As someone who has worked in TV for over 40 years and was specifically trained in news ; there is not a grain of editorial justification for this. …We’re not living in the days of ‘405 line’ VHF transmissions where not every body could get BBC2! – Actually; we haven’t been for 50 years!
This isn’t ‘coverage’… it’s trying to ram ‘the event’ down the public’s throat! – Dictatorial!
Toadying along obedianetlyin the rear are STV, their compleltely divorced from real life ‘Milngavie Mafia’ management ever-beholding to their old public-school chums at ITV. – And of course all the ‘Gammon Vision’ channels are carrying it for those that absolutely insist on watching it in VHS/Amateur camcorder club quality!
…Why? Just ‘kin why? What’s going through the mince-laden heads of those that control these things.
The head of England’s leading republican movement has been arrested at an anti-monarchy protest in London.
Kudos to him and his supporters.
Meanwhile unionist SNP MPs like Blackford and Flynn are squatting on their pensioned posteriors eagerly waiting to take another oath to Tampon Charlie.
I can’t find up to date wings over Scotland blogsite except by going into btl posts, since yesterday. Anyone else have a similar problem?
Agree Joe. Wokeism is Marxism rebranded and their vision for our future is Communism rebranded.
Look at how authoritarian they are, how violent and threatening. Glibly talking about dismantling entire industries like an insane soviet planner. Persecuting and stitching-up political opponents. They are anti business, anti-Christian, anti-family. Introducing insidious and sinister hate crime legislation (see what Ireland is currently doing, another woke captured state). Weaponizing the police and justice system. Getting rid of juries. Radicalizing a tiny disaffected part of society to viciously attack the pillars of that society from within. They just replaced class wars with the identity wars. It is so obvious at this point. They are really very dangerous and Jordan Peterson (before he sold out) was very articulate on this subject.
It is very noticeable that while communism killed far more people than the nazis could dream of, it gets a free pass with all these wokerati types. Why? Because that is fundamentally what they are and they know it.
They even tip their own hand by calling everyone they don’t like a Nazi when it is clearly ridiculous to say so. They do this because fundamentally they are communists and this why they have to re-invent Nazis to make into their ‘enemy’. You see this in all of their dialogue, slogans etc. For example just look at the origins and history of ANTIFA, the tactics, the slogans, the symbols, it is all right there in front of you, it is ‘trans-communism’. Essentially Communism has self-id as something else to fool us.
So well worth bearing in mind that Sturgeon explicitly attempted to make Scotland essentially the most ‘woke’ country in the world. And Yousaf is continuing with that. This is really all about exerting their control over us.
The SNP under Sturgeon was hijacked with all this woke poison and all that has changed with Yousaf is the identity of the lead hijacker. And he currently is flying the SNP at 500 mph towards that big electoral sky scraper on the horizon. (We are going to run out of SNP disaster analogies before this is over.)
.
For Stuart Campbell, Editor of Wings Over Scotland.
Hi Stuart.
A sincere thanks for all that you have done and sadly, cheerio.
Not quite “on-topic”, but it is a Big Country thread, so this posting might be allowed tortuously.
Stuart, as one of your long-term readers and supporters, I think it right to take cognisance of what the majority on BTL hold as a point of view.
I refer to the IndyRef vote and the Head of State issue.
Whether to support Independence for Scotland or for Scotland to be part of the bigger country of the U.K., is a matter that has several of us in moral torture. Today is appropriate to decide.
Alex Salmond walked a very fine line, ever the shrewd politician. Alex Salmond is an exemplary Statesman, he set out a clear policy…
1. Scotland Votes for or against becoming an independent country.
2. All other matters follow after that Independence Referendum.
Stuart, I served in uniform and gave an Oath to our Head of State in the 1980s. I could live with Alex Salmond’s subsequent view. If Scotland became Independent,then if Scotland voted to abolish the Monarchy, so be it.
There are many people at Wings BTL forum who hold views on Scotland becoming a Republic as a DECIDED matter. The Indy vote is conflated. The vote is put forward by many as Scotland becoming and Independent Republic. I deeply respect each persons right to their views. Alas, some folk are highly abusive. If you fall into the 16% of Scottish voters who have been described as a “soft yes” but also support the monarchy, then you are open target for abuse. Why bother to fight to vote yes against such Amadans?
The loudest clamour, almost to a dangerous point of arrogance is that anyone who votes yes, but happens to support our current constitutional settlement of being in favour of a monarchy can get to fu** insofar as Wings BTL majority is concerned.
I use the word “dangerous” advisedly. New Labour arrogantly assumed that Scotland belonged to their political party. The thrawn Scottish voter (and I am born and bred Glaswegian, so know all about “thrawn”) decided otherwise. New Labour got booted out by 1 Holyrood seat in 2007. The SNP got into Scotland’s government by just 1 seat. Our constituency had a majority of 800 odd votes in favour of the SNP over Labour. That is the first time I voted for the SNP. It was a very close call between Alex Salmond and Jack McConnell.
At that time, First Minister Jack McConnell had just not done well enough politically.
Now, we have the NuSNP mired in sleaze, corruption, alleged criminality and political meltdown. Virgin on bankruptcy.
It is a breathtaking arrogance to assume the SNP will always “own” Scotland. That the Scottish voters are obliged to vote SNP.
Right now, 6th May 2023 NOT ONE political part is fit to hold the office of First Minister. The voters and Scotland are stuffed.
I am as certain as can be that if Scotland were now a Republic, the Murrells and their control of COPFS and control of Police Scotland and the Murrells incestuous control of government departments, means they would have orchestrated matters so that Scotland, as an independent Republic, would be governed by…
PRESIDENT STURGEON
She has been proven to have abused power. Her hands have NOW been removed from the levers of power. She will shortly announce divorce, then throw her husband under the political/legal bus and retire to America or Canada with a Job at the United Nations.
No system is perfect. But I can only vote yes for an independent Scotland if the checks and balances are in place.
Johanna Cherry QC won her case on the proroguing of Westminster Parliament because she and others proved politician PM Boris Johnson had lied to the Queen.
Remarkably, a Scottish MP managed to legally force the recall of the U.K. Westminster Parliament.
If Scotland were a republic, President Sturgeon would be behaving like the narcissistic psycho, Donald Trump, or the child-sniffing Joe Biden, or the nuclear warmongering horseman of the Apocalypse, Vladimir Putin. The latter on the cusp of committing self-immolation by nuclear extinction.
Even moderate presidents are horrendous. Macron in France is loathed. In Canada, their president has been woke-captured to the point where SOGI policy has drag queens in primary schools and the “minor attracted person” group in Canada are soon to be protected by statute.
Whereas in Scotland, we had COP26. Warm words to save the planet. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak snubbed the next summit. Right up until King Charles invited the participants to a reception that he, as our Head of State held.
Next thing, Prime Minister Sunak about-faced and turned up at the invitation of King Charles. Soft power exercised as a check and balance. The Glasgow COP26 legacy respected. None too shabby a result from a constitutional monarch.
At this time there is NO perfect constitutional settlement in any country on the planet. All human beings are flawed.
But from my perspective, I have seen the Prince of Wales at first hand. He did NOT want the job. When in Scotland, I have photos of the Prince helping out at our charity. Quietly, without press and wanting to just be an ordinary person. He craves privacy. He desires a normal life.
The U.K. is a monarchy. So he is doing the job the best he can as did his mother.
An unwritten element that many people miss and all those who present the argument that we do not elect a King or Queen is the fact that IF the monarchy get things so badly wrong, then the Sword of Damocles makes it an existential problems. That is a little understood check and balance.
So here we have it.
Either President Sturgeon (or now President Yousaf)., or Scots Bonny King Charles and a very benign role that does their best.
Stuart, there is no perfect solution that I can see.
But Hell will freeze over before I would vote for President Sturgeon or President Sarwar or President Ross.
Even President Salmond would have problems.
Nope, until we have a BETTR system than the binfire that is the deviant orgy of fuc*ked up weirdos in Holyrood who stand up and applaud the chick-with-a-dick female (with male bits) whom this website prepared a viable case for prosecution as a rapist, then I will vote with my feet and tick the box for the current monarchy thanks.
My grandmother was a Communist shortly after the Tsar and his family were executed in Yekateringburg. My parents said she would role over in her grave when I swore an Oath to defend the Queen. But thems the breaks.
We all get to choose.
It matters to me that we get to choose with some civility. But sadly, Wings BTL is not the place. That’s not meant as a dig. I very much understand the strength of feeling some folk have.
But I just cannot see a way in which I could vote for President Sturgeon or worse.
Stuart, I’ve really enjoyed your style of very thorough writing. You have maintained an honesty and integrity which very, very rarely, can be proven as accurate and fair. So much so, that readers, myself included, have been delighted to send in contributions to support your style of journalism.
Today of all days, I am one of those who are now heading from YES to NO in respect of IndyRef2.
Good luck to all those on Wings who have engaged civilly and constructively over the past decade.
@Mia
You are a very good writer and deserve an equally worthy reply but I will have to keep this to fewer words than it deserves and address the key points.
Demand – a demand requires force to back it up. Right now, as Scots, we have none. Certainly not the kind of force that would make Britain do what we want against their political and economic well being. The question is that when the British establishment says ‘no’ and activates the media to paint us as dangerous extremists in order justifying a crackdown on us – what do we hit back with?
The UN/’international community’ – im actually surprised that anyone with intelligence can even begin to suggest this approach. I will be convinced that the UN or international community is something we can appeal to the minute they do something to actually stop the genocide in Palestine. Until then I will consider the idea that we can appeal to such an organisation as misguided.
As for Scottish politicians? Anyone who has been on this blog long enough can see that I was calling out our political establishment long before most even began to get to grips with the notion that something might be wrong. Nothing the SNP has done surprised me, in fact I predicted much of it on this blog right down to the emerging facts that they have a massive amounts of sexual deviants within their ranks, because I’m looking at the correct historical context as well as the current political situation in other western countries. It’s all there if anybody wants to gather the testicular fortitude to actually look beyond what’s acceptable.
Scots MUST begin to understand that the political route for us is something of a red herring. Not least because we simply don’t have the means to bring any force to the bargaining table, but because even our own leaders are weak and pathetic who can’t properly defend women or girls nor address the fact that our cities look increasingly like Africa and our villages sound increasingly like Kent.
This obsession with politically demanding our way into walking off with our own country and all its resources to the serious detriment of the establishment in London is currently a foolish distraction that has people sitting on their hands waiting for the next election while the culture war, the economic war and the demographic war are all waged against us to make sure that our people are finished before we ever get the chance to govern ourselves politically.
Are you all pretending that Scotland never had a King? Not to mention that Scotland took the English Crown – literally took it over. If you don’t want a monarchy fair enough, but don’t pretend that Charles is not King of Scotland. He is.
@Mac
Spot on. In fact if we look outside of the acceptable narratives around the history of the 20th century we find the people we are told 24/7 are the worst people to ever live were warning us of what’s happening right now.
All while the people they were warning us of, who set up hundreds of gulags, execution squads, had kill quotas and also pushed extreme sexual perversion (including transexualism for children) and ultimately caused the death of 10’s of millions get a free pass.
You could say that we have been deliberately misled.
So the SNP’s new auditors are promoting a dodgy tax avoidance scheme according to Tax Policy Associates.
I wonder how they will view the SNP’s own version of creative accounting.
Good grief, it’s all communists and crowns today.
I’ll be glued to the telly today to watch a privileged and befuddled old man put a chair on his head and sit on his hat.
What does it mean to be a Scot? Can anyone be a Scot?
Is it just a self-id thing?
At least to be British you have to pass a Britishness test.
To be Scottish you just have to buy a tartan tie.
What do you have to do to be ‘English’?
Is the Prime Minister English? Could he be Scottish if he wanted?
Why are you so keen to prove you are ‘blood & soil’ Scottish?
Do you believe because of your ancestry you are more Scottish than the First Minister. I don’t think his granny was Scottish although he does have a fair number of tartan ties.
Vote YES to be Scottish not British.
Birth Name: Charles Philip Arthur George
Place of Birth: Buckingham Palace, Westminster, London, England, U.K.
Date of Birth: 14 November, 1948
Ethnicity: European Royal, as well as English, small amounts of German, Hungarian, French, Anglo-Irish, distant Irish, Danish, Swedish, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, Bohemian/Czech, Scottish, Lithuanian, Russian, Polish
How can he be King of Scotland when Scotland doesn’t exist?
Just listen to that MacAskill interview…
Sturgeon systematically and methodically destroyed the internal democracy of the SNP and centralized power in herself and her husband, totally destroyed it and made herself an effective dictator. Sound familiar?
Cabinet ministers disappeared from view and it was all about Nicky. That ‘Big Brother’ party political broadcast they did with her face on all the TVs was very close to the truth.
The other ‘noteable’ thing Sturgeon did was attempt to stitch-up an innocent man in the most foul manner. Knowing that at his age and health it would likely be a death sentence. Proper psycho behaviour that is way beyond the pale.
People go on about what a great politician Sturgeon was but I don’t see it, at all. All I see is a Poundland Joe Stalin and a very unpleasant character who squandered and misappropriated the vast amount of political capital bequeathed to her by the very man she betrayed in the most foul manner possible. She leaves behind a complete husk of a party, drained to sustain her ten wasted years ego trip.
Sturgeon was unfit for political office as she has zero respect for democracy as evidenced by what she did to her own party as leader. She was also completely unfit for public office as evidenced by her role in the stitch-up of Alex Salmond. Totally unscrupulous individual who should not be allowed anywhere near power.
It is clearly identifiable trait. Look how authoritarian Trudeau is, same with Ardern and same with Sturgeon, all of them ultra woke. It is not just a coincidence. The whole woke thing is a very cleverly crafted front, a Trojan horse. The current indoctrination of younger generations right now is frightening.
Wit time is Bargain Hunt on?
link to twitter.com
highlights of the rituals will be
– disembowelling of the catholic
– hiding of the royal accounts
the final test, to prove the true kinghood of the new monarch has been updated for the modern era
– perfect speedrun of donkey kong in under 10 minutes
ending with the usual blood orgy and adrenochrome feast at the masonic lodge
You tell them auld yin.
link to twitter.com
Ruby at 11:12 am –
“Why are you (A Scot Abroad) so keen to prove you are ‘blood & soil’ Scottish?”
Probably because challenging his national identity and ethnicity is being used an ad hominem argument.
‘If you disagree with me you cannot be Scottish and I can disregard any points you raise without further consideration.’
Such intolerance.
‘Ergo, non-Scots must not be allowed to express a view on the current and future status of the UK.
No No
Not King of Scotland.
King of Scots …yes!
King of England … yes!
There is the difference.
robbo says:
6 May, 2023 at 11:56 am
“Wit time is Bargain Hunt on?”
Dunno… But there’s back-to-back ‘life below zero’ followed by ‘homestead rescue’ on DMAX. – Then, at seven its on yer bike Italian style!
Having nothing much to do today, although I understand that there is something happening somewhere, I thought, log on to ‘Wings’, and have a keek at the goings on there. I even attempted to read the posts.
Some generic observations-
A Scot Abroad-it appears that you incurred the wrath of the Bonnie Purple Heather Brigade. You have to understand that unless you are a member of that ‘clan’ you will be derided irrespective of what you post.
Mia-Why write 100 words when you can write 1000. I suspect that most people get bored with your scribblings half way through.
Ruby-Do you start everyday with an argument, especially with that person who looks back at you in the mirror, if there is no one else around.
Umpteen refences to the 300 year old stuff that most Scots have no interest in at all.
70% of the electorate have no real interest in Politics other than how it affects their pockets at the end of the week/month.
25% of the electorate cannot be arsed to even vote.
5% of Scots, probably less to be honest, take the time to read Political blogs like Wings. Less than 1% will comment.
Common sense dictates, show the electorate how better we could be in an Independent Scotland, as several posters sometimes allude to, but of course they are shouted down by the BPHB.
It could be worse-I also looked at the WGD site. Queen Nicola still reigns. The SNP are blameless for what has happened in recent times in Scotland. It is all the fault of the Tories. Labour, who have not been in power for over a decade, are also at fault.
Scotland is in an almighty mess with no signs of any improvement in the foreseeable future. Will the ‘Grand Merch’ today change anything for the better?
Apologies for the length of this post.
@Ruby 11:12
“Do you believe because of your ancestry you are more Scottish than the First Minister.”
He is, because he is a Scot. Blood and soil is what makes someone a Scot. The current First Minister is not a Scot.
“Vote YES to be Scottish not British.”
And that is the problem. You do not want to be a Scot, you only want to be Scot-ish. That way you can pretend to be loyal to Scotland without actually being loyal to Scotland, or the Scots.
link to change.org
Is Chris on holiday – again?
link to twitter.com
The masses at Kelvin Way were magnificent today.
What a happy and joyous gathering of people stand up for themselves and their country.
Thousand and thousands of Saltire Flags flying high.
I look forward to the police and media reducing their reported number by 10’s thousands.
I hear the Sun warned that the police would make arrests on a hate filled comments?
Never heard a cross word at any of these marches but maybe manky jacket will report people booing the clown.
Couldn’t make the march, have a lurgy. Hope it went well.
Re the coronation, I disconnected my TV aerial about eighteen years ago and have never missed it. I haven’t seen anything in the supermarkets promoting it, may as well not be happening as far as I am concerned.
What makes someone British? Is the Prime Minister & the King British?
Can a Unionist be a Scot or just Scot-ish?
Is ‘A Scot abroad’ just Scot-ish?
If it’s down to blood & soil then I am most definitely a Scot although on saying that there is the question of whether the soil for the past 300 is Scottish or British.
I want Scottish nationality because it’s shite being Scottish & British.
I want to be Scottish Scottish.
Something to relish.
link to off-guardian.org
Re those warnings about ‘hate speech’ issued before the AUOB march. Were warnings issued by GCC before the gathering of politicians and woke activists at the steps in Buchanan Street? You know, the one with men holding up posters threatening violence. Where there are photos of a close up of grinning SNP ninnies in front of a young man holding a poster threatening decapitation for ‘terfs’?
Did the police charged with policing hate speech ever follow up on that image? He could be seen quite clearly and identified from that, if anyone was interested.
There’s a whole debate and multiple nuances in defining what being Scottish means. In truth, it probably means different things to different people, and there won’t be a single “right” answer.
To many, myself included, it’s about ancestry, not about in which country you live. I’m not however going to deny people the right to call themselves Scottish if Scotland is where they grew up and live: the First Minister is a Scot by that way of thinking. And fair play to him. To others it’s about which passport you hold. Think of the millions of Americans who proudly declare themselves Irish American or Hispanic American or African American, even if it is hundreds of years since their ancestors came to America.
Citizenship is adjacent, but not the same. I’m a British citizen. If Scotland attains independence, I’ll apply for a new Scottish passport, because I’d want to acknowledge my ancestry and become a Scottish citizen. I wouldn’t relinquish my British citizenship. I’d become a dual citizen.
That doesn’t really answer my question.
Why did he feel the need to tell us his preferred national identity and ethnicity?
To refer to Norfolk as being abroad is pretty strange it as if he was trying to fool us.
The main reason he is being challenged is because he is a Unionist.
It was lovely to see all those saltires right enough but it surprises me that I saw no kent faces – you’d have thought amongst a crowd of possibly 15,000 – or possibly more- there would have been a face I recognised.
Kept my eyes open for a cowboy hat on top of a prickly pal or Iain B , Ronnie Anderson with a Wings flag but no.
I thought I saw BDTT but he wasn’t wearing his hat so maybe not.
For all the marches I have gone on my own I have never felt lonely , they have all been good humoured, happy occasions and I\m sure the Bobbies who volunteer to police it are absolutely delighted so to do.
It was a tad damp today – the only downer or downpour. Had to leave early but had to be there to be counted.
Where were you during the 2014 IndyRef debate?
The UK Gov said no to dual Scottish/British citizenship.
One of the main reason was because they would have to pay you ‘the heating allowance’ or some such drivel.
You are going to have to make a choice Scottish or British.
Which would it be?
Can I suggest to you that you go back and read all the newspaper re the IndyRef from 2011 until 2014.
People are getting annoyed with you because you are bringing up the same stuff that was done to death from 2011-2014.
PS Were your ancestors British?
Ah got fuckin drount, but still a rerr day.
On yahoo I read that Scottish Police report 5,000 marchers?
There were 10,000 flags there and most didn’t have a flag.
The reputation of the Police could hardly plummet further but they are trying. Very trying!
Re rally today.
Unbroken line of marchers from George Square to Glasgow Green.
Glad to have contributed.
@Dorothy Devine –
Good turnout of Wingers.
Cactus, QuiniefaeAngus, Betty Boop & Awfypuggled, X-Sticks, Jock Scot, Ruglonian, Lenny Hartley.
Didn’t see Tinto Chiel but I know he was going with his better half.
Great to catch up with them all – we have all aged beautifully, like the very finest wines.
Next time, hopefully, you’ll be there too.
😉
“Citizenship is adjacent, but not the same. I’m a British citizen. If Scotland attains independence, I’ll apply for a new Scottish passport, because I’d want to acknowledge my ancestry and become a Scottish citizen. I wouldn’t relinquish my British citizenship”
Really!
A”Scot”Abroad.
You’ve constantly tried to shoot holes in every aspect of Scottish independence, and played down the most likely route out of this fetid union, please forgive us if we take the above with a huge pinch of salt.
In truth there’s no case for the union, there’s nothing a indy Scotland couldn’t do that an indy England could do albeit be a member of the P5, and most Scots wouldn’t want that anyway.
Ruby,
I wasn’t planning on telling either Government what I’d do with my existing citizenship. The Scottish Government said (in 2014) that it would adopt the Irish model, whereby you get citizenship if you have one Irish grandparent. Well, I had three Scottish grandparents, was born in and grew up in Scotland, and served in a Scottish regiment, so I don’t think Edinburgh would turn me down. As for London, they wouldn’t know.
@Dorothy Devine –
Good turnout of Wingers.
Ca**us, QuiniefaeAngus, Betty Boop & Awfypuggled, X-Sticks, Jock Scot, Ruglonian, Lenny Hartley.
Didn’t see Tinto Chiel but I know he was going with his better half.
Great to catch up with them all – we have all aged beautifully, like the very finest wines.
Next time, hopefully, you’ll be there too.
?
I don’t think that rain was meant for you Ronnie.
You choose the wrong day.
You’ll soon dry off.
Think of the people with their Coronation cake stands full of
fuckin drount Union Jack cupcakes, and the Royal bunting dripping red white & blue dye into their coronation chicken & King Charles & Queen Camila mugs of ‘King’s Coronation Darjeeling Blend’
Republicofscotland,
The only thing that I have tried to shoot holes in is the truly lunatic concept of Scotland making a UDI. Because it is a truly lunatic idea, with immensely negative aspects for the well-being of both Scotland as a nation and the welfare of 5 million Scots. If that’s what you think is “the most likely route”, you need to be told some home truths.
@Ruby 13:28
“What makes someone British? Is the Prime Minister & the King British?”
“British” is an identity for those whose loyalty is, ultimately” to England and the English monarchy. There is no British nation.
“Can a Unionist be a Scot or just Scot-ish?”
Many may be ethnic Scots, but they are just Scot-ish at the end of the day.
“Is ‘A Scot abroad’ just Scot-ish?”
He is an ethnic Scot, but has chosen to be just Scot-ish.
“If it’s down to blood & soil then I am most definitely a Scot although on saying that there is the question of whether the soil for the past 300 is Scottish or British.”
LOL Now you’re sounding like a “British nationalist”.
“I want Scottish nationality because it’s shite being Scottish & British.
I want to be Scottish Scottish.”
And now you’re sounding like a fool.
A Scot Abroad says:
6 May, 2023 at 5:06 pm
Ruby,
I wasn’t planning on telling either Government what I’d do with my existing citizenship. The Scottish Government said (in 2014) that it would adopt the Irish model, whereby you get citizenship if you have one Irish grandparent. Well, I had three Scottish grandparents, was born in and grew up in Scotland, and served in a Scottish regiment, so I don’t think Edinburgh would turn me down. As for London, they wouldn’t know.
Please go away you are talking absolute rubbish now!
Edinburgh wouldn’t turn you down but you would be breaking the law in the RUK.
Over! Over and out!
I wonder if he first pilgrims on the Mayflower stood on the beach of the New World looking homewards and thought that we should just leave now because we don’t have an ecomomy not a lot of trade?
Gotta start somewhere.
Hi Ian Brotherhood,
Was there a Wings stall?
Couldn’t see it.
Maybe I am a fool or maybe you are just not clever enough to understand what I’m saying.
Fuc KOF! 🙂
I’m tired of this nationality talk now.
My main worry about my identity is if I am a woman or not.
I don’t have a penis. Looking at all the magazines,top models, women of the year, women sporting champions etc. They all have penises.
Do I need to get a penis to get a head?
Maybe that should be get ahead or get head or both. 🙂
On the bus back to Aberdeen after a wet but enjoyable day in Glasgow. Alba are beginning to make their presence felt. Good on them. Great speeches by all I heard. It was obvious that a huge number of people were there to hear Akex Salmond. His time may yet come (again)!
I did not attend the ‘Big Merch’ today as I had to clip my toe nails. However I was in Embra during the last ‘Merch’ in the company of some friends from abroad. We viewed the spectacle parading on the Royal Mile and one of my companions mentioned that half of the participants looked as if they had not seen soap and water for some time. I could not disagree with him.
Was it raining during the proceedings today? If yes, some good may have come of it.
Ruby,
you are wrong. Yet again, I’m afraid. The London government isn’t going to prosecute anyone who took out a Scottish passport in the event of an iScotland. Particularly if they have held U.K. citizenship since birth, now live in England, and pay English taxes.
Ian Brotherhood says:
6 May, 2023 at 5:07 pm
@Dorothy Devine –
Good turnout of Wingers.
Ca**us, QuiniefaeAngus, Betty Boop & Awfypuggled, X-Sticks, Jock Scot, Ruglonian, Lenny Hartley…
Whereabouts were you? I made it too, but just with one dog this time. My wee dog is slowing down a bit at 14, so it was just me and the ridgeback.
I didn’t see any Wings tent or even a Wings flag.
No idea what the turnout was, but it felt pretty decent. I don’t know Glasgow, but that long straight street on the Hill was absolutely jammed full of Saltires. I couldn’t see the beginning and I couldn’t see the end.
@Chas.
Naughty.naughty.
I have some branch loppers you cold use for your toenails.
Sounds as if you could do with them.
This is where i was born.
link to telegraph.co.uk
I would love a Scottish passport, citizenship, whatever.
Interesting similarities between my culture and «yours».
Both on the edge.
IanB , I was keeping my eyes peeled for a Wings flag but didn’t see any – disappointed not to catch up.
What a tit Mr Wishart is.
His delusion is that the SNP is the only voice of Scotland, the only political voice of Scottish Independence.
His error is that he apparently believes there is a simple dichotomy Yes/No, and that the SNP is one side of the equation, but has given little thought to the counterpart.
There is no counterpart, If one looks to the Tories as the obvious obverse, they have been unable to achieve 50+1 themselves with all the clout they can bring to bear.
In truth, if there is a dichotomy of YES/NO, then the counterpart to the SNP is a coalition of Unionist parties grimly clinging to the other side on around 53% to 47% with a small, vacillating electorate holding the balance.
The SNP, if it is to achieve the purported electoral goal of independence, requires to be in coalition of purpose with all Independence representatives – not just the *cough Greens – however much that chokes them.
There is a a long, boring passage goes here, about statistics, and phase transitions and why 47/53 was the inevitible split in a dichotomy of choice.
How any gradualist increase takes exponential longer to achieve, and is effectively Zeno’s Arrow.
That flipping states in a phase transition can occur relatively quickly if conditions are met (neighbouring bias) and that 47/53 is persistently hovering on such a catastrophe curve.
We do well to remember that NO is making no gains either.
Now that’s that out the way, how does ‘Independence’ move into the spaces occupied by the other Unionist parties and why should it?
If one looks to those spaces, it will be understood that it should be easier to achieve voter share in the smaller numbers these represent, than to increase the SNP’s pie.
In essence, if a referendum is dead, how do Labourites, LibDems etc. for Independence vote?
Electorally, their political principles enabled them to vote Unionist parties, but YES in a potential referendum (even as they let the SNP do the heavy lifting to achieve such referendum)
With the demise of a referendum route, are we asking them to cast aside those principles, and vote SNP electorally if it chokes them – Mr Wishart is.
Pete Wishart and friends seem to delusionally believe they will do so, but what of the obverse: those who voted SNP for their bus passes, safe in the knowledge they could vote NO in a referendum?
‘A Referendum is dead, long live Electoral Independence for Scotland’ is a tricky business. Gaining enough for a phase transition will require political nous, requires considerable thought, requires strategy, and above all else requires strange bedfellows, and new parties to arise.
Booting everyone else out, and hogging the covers doesn’t cut it Mr Wishart, Though you will cry about that all the way to the Bank of Sinecure I’m sure.
Humza Useless has clearly excelled himself with this appointment , what sort of rank armatures are the SNP
link to scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
I ended up joining the march, midway and attended the rally, with my son. It only reinforced my view, that we’re onto a hiding to nothing.
The ball placed firmly into the hands of the public, to take this forward, which at the end of the day, means we’re screwed.
Politicians in England manufactured Brexit from a standing start. Here in Scotland, There’s no onus on Holyrood to produce the goods. Independence has never been a priority, a means to an end.
Whatever your hopes for independence, best reign them in, it’s a fantasy.
The only debate that remains, is who carries the can, for destroying those hopes and dreams!
“Chas says:6 May, 2023 at 12:47 pm
Scotland is in an almighty mess with no signs of any improvement in the foreseeable future. Will the ‘Grand Merch’ today change anything for the better?”
It seems unlikely at this point in time , Police Scotland said 5K attendees , AUOB of course said 20K. Not sure who to believe
Just back and having my tea, after my day out at Glasgow.
Very, very good.
Thought I was around about in the middle, looked back and Sauchiehall Street full behind me, with more coming.
I estimated 50,000. Tasmina thought 40,000…. BBC said 20,000, so I think Taz and I are much nearer in our estimates.
Best feeling to get to George Square, look back and see them still coming down the hill towards us, in a solid line.
The YES Movement is back, it’s held its own, got its breath back, and looking to get into its stride and GET THIS DONE.
You can bet that wiser heads within the British Establishment will have been looking at this, and looking at the poor turn out for Chuckie (in England too) and will be wondering how to turn it around. Some bloody war in far off lands is the traditional method. FTFAgameoh sudgers…. as they say in Glasgow.
Cheerie the noo.
@Ian B 5.07: sorry to have missed you. Was down the front to right of stage with my lovely young carer. At least you met most of The Disreputables, you lucky person.
One of the AUCB organisers announced 20,000+ marchers. Things almost looked back to pre-pest (Covid/Sturgeon White Flag) levels. Very large numbers before and behind me on the long drag down W. George Street: a solid sea of saltires.
AS’s speech was pretty energetic: he’s still got it. What a contrast with Wee Blinky.
Excellent turnout today on the March.
Hard to estimate how many but there was many thousands.
Outrageous conduct by the Met Police today arresting Graham Smith of Republic for nothing it would appear.
This is very dangerous stuff the Police are wrong I just hope the courts are up to the job
Are you outraged you should be please join Republic cost you £3 a month if many join it will send a message.
“Breeks says:
6 May, 2023 at 6:08 pm
Whereabouts were you? I made it too, but just with one dog this time. My wee dog is slowing down a bit at 14, so it was just me and the ridgeback.
I didn’t see any Wings tent or even a Wings flag.”
I saw a couple with a flag; I was somewhere in the middle, I think, but kept stopping to take photos of things that I spotted so they were presumably well ahead of me come the end.
Iain Mhor@ 6.38.
“those who vote for their bus passes safe in the knowledge that they could vote ‘NO’ in a referendum”.
Therein lies the problem. The SNP know that they can count on a large proportion of votes from people who do not support independence. The SNP pretend that all who vote for them are voting for independence. Not true.
They have been kept in power by NO voters who are happy to take
the freebies, but on the single issue of independence would desert them.
These voters have a dilemma when independence is not a single isue, but is just a part of a ‘general’ election. Which do they choose?
On the other hand, the SNP risk losing a lot of votes from the ‘NO’ brigade by Wishart’s ‘strategy’.
They could well have come to the conclusion that they will take the hit on the loss of votes and hope that it is not too many so they can carry on. This allows them the pretence that they are doing something to appease the supporters of independence, but by excluding other independence party votes they feel safer that they won’t be put in a position to have to actually do anything.
I have said for years that the SNP is not the party of independence. It is a pretendy party built on false premises. It has conned the genuine independence supporters, and bought the ‘NO’ voters with bribes, and have capitalised on the fact that that they are the default party for many voters who feel they have no other choice. It should be re-labelled the Scottish Control Party, for that is it’s sole objective.
Not sure who commented. But to me an ethnic Scot is someone with a bloodline, but not necessarily a Scot.
Donald Trump is an ethnic Scot on his mother’s side. But he isn’t a Scot. Because he has never lived here.
I could claim to be an ethnic Irish man due to my ancestory 100 years ago on my mothers sude. But I am not Irish, and the idea I am is ridiculous to me.
What really grinds my gears is the Royals and landed gentry thinking they are more Scottish than the natives. Due to a surname or ancient ancestors. That somehow Brian Cox is less Scottish because of his Irish ancestory. Than someone called Campbell who hasn’t spent a day in Scotland.
I have Grants in my ancestory, but my surname is Irish. So unionists assume I am not a true Scot. I am a jumped up Paddy rebel! Despite an unbroken line from 1835 of Scottish habitation.
It’s why the unionists try and divide us by name, religion or ancestory. The truth is they betrayed their ancestors and their names 100s of years ago.
You are not a Scot just because of your name or grandparents. You need to have been born and bred in our country. That’s a Scot.
@Ron Clark (5.54), Breeks (6.08) –
There was no Wings stall at GG today. No-one’s ‘fault’, just personal circumstances of the stalwarts. We’re none of us getting any younger. (Not that I’m an organiser but you know what I mean.)
Breeks, it’s hard for me to describe where we were. Probably Stage Left, approx 11 o’clock from the speakers’ pov, quite far back.
Some folk had Wings umbrellas but I don’t remember seeing any of the big flags. I suppose that means Wee Annie wasn’t there today and I didn’t see BDTT.
Absent friends missed, as always, and those not keeping too well right now.
But what a great day overall. I didn’t believe there would be more than approx 10k. I don’t know which estimate is correct but it was a lot bigger than that. I had a very brief chat with Eva Comrie (this was well before the march arrived) and she’d been told it was 20k.
They are all fighting over the leadership of the new Independence movement, which in real terms is small and getting smaller by the day. Small country areas are overrun by people from England who have bought houses at what they see as bargain basement prices.
there are few young people as the big families produced by a working economy are no more and most kids after leaving school, leave Scotland.
Of course the green agenda has played a part in this by attacking work and the produce of work, the whole Western world has been infected and indoctrinated into thinking that saving the planet would be painless, even if it was achievable.
Basically we are finished and Scottish government corruption was only partially to blame. We are seeing the pages penned by Orwell come to fruition before our very eyes. The internet is being used as a tool to curb free thought and free speech, a smart phone is becoming indispensable to most young and middle aged people, people no longer read books, we are being viciously manipulated, thank god I have only a short time left in this madhouse………and you all enthuse over a couple of hundred saltires, be aware and understand what these flags mean to those who mindlessly wave them, keep the word manipulation in your minds and NEVER trust a politician.
“The only thing that I have tried to shoot holes in is the truly lunatic concept of Scotland making a UDI.”
A “Scot” Abroad.
Not so, both Ash Regan’s and the Rev’s 50+1% isn’t UDI you know this, but still you have tried your utmost to undermine it.
As for independence, I don’t recall countries with less assets and in a worse position that Scotland who have ditched the empire ever asking to come back again. The wellbeing of Scots will improve on independence, as we look to a brighter and more prosperous future, we’ll look back and think why didn’t we dump the ball and chain union sooner.
There is no case for the union its as simple as that.
As an aside. I had a run in with a unionist today. I objected to his flag. I said it was offensive and anti Scottish. I told him I was a nationalist republican.
I could hear his gears grinding trying to compute. ” so you are not British?”.” No I am Scottish” was my response, “and that flag is offensive to me”.
” So are you an IRA nationalist, or Scottish nationalist?” Was the reply. Pond life alive and well in Scotland.
Derek 7.47 .
Yer wee dogs slolwing doon at 14 yrs am slowed doon at 73 yrs thats why there is no Wings stall an neither is Briandoonthetoon getting any younger fur aw the humpfing of boxes . / Wings stall is no more sorry to say .
The estimated turnout was 20,000. It was good to see West George Street from Blythswood Square down to Buchanan Street filled with Saltires.
Republicofscotland,
any one-way declaration of independence, even after a 50%+1 vote, is by definition UDI. You don’t get to reinvent the language, or logic. You are the one who should go back and reread the passage from Orwell far above on this webpage.
You also clearly don’t think about the economic devastation that would be wreaked upon Scottish life if there was a UDI. Not caused by Westminster, but how industry and the markets would react. And there’s nothing that the Scottish government could do to prevent that. It’s how markets work. They don’t like unlawful activity by a government.
@scot abroad
You are so correct
UDI -DISASTER
IMMEDIATE STOP OF BARNET FUNDS
NO NEGOTIATION WITH WESTMONSTER
DOOOOOMED
GET REAL EVERYBODY
Banker Blackford has tweeted a photo of himself with Sir George Reid prior to their going along to Westminster Abbey. Both in kilts, with Reid wearing his Knight Companion of the Order of the Thistle insignia.
That sort really are Scotland’s Redmondites.
A “Scot” Abroad.
The 50+1 it a totally viable route out of this union, Westminster should have absolutely no say or input with regards to the organisation or the outcome of the vote, its we the sovereign people of Scotland to decide.
As Ash Regan said during her leadership campaign, many countries before have left the empire and Westminster at first wailed and bemoaned their exit, but in the end with the international community watching they had no choice but to comply, the same will apply to Scotland.
I’d add that Scotland isn’t a region we are a sovereign nation in a union via a international treaty, a treaty that can be dissolved if one party decides to leave.
Your pathetic attempt to scaremonger via our economy is pitiful to say the least, Scotland has much to offer the world, in assets and technology, trade is trade it won’t stop just because Scotland decides to dissolve the union, you know that I know that and so do the captains of industry.
Here’s a prime example of trade in action regardless of sanctions, India is still buying huge quantities of Russian oil, it is then selling it on to Europe at a profit, business doesn’t stop it adapts.
Scottish and English business will still trade, simply because if both need the products and the price is right, then trade will continue, so put your scaremongering back in its box you’re fooling no one.
@ronald anderson (8.26) –
You were sorely missed today, as was LizG, Smallaxe, Bob Boswell, Bugger The Panda, so many others (Wingers or not) it’s impossible to list them. (It would be nice if anyone could name-check others who would’ve been there today but didn’t make it through the lockdown years.) And that would include friends who still cleave to the SNP, more in desperation now than any realistic hope. I was relieved I didn’t bump into certain characters because it would’ve been hellish awkward.
That’s the problem with getting into political activism, isn’t it? – you can’t help becoming fond of people, then a difference of opinion becomes an irreparable fracture. Both Ash Regan and Alex Salmond spoke of unity, reconciliation etc but it’s one thing talking about it, quite another to do it. I don’t believe we’ll ever get back to the togetherness we had in 2014 but today was very significant. As always, there’s nothing like being with other folk to recharge the batteries.
The doom-merchants and naysayers have been out in force all day and they’ll continue to insult us and diminish our efforts. But there’s no getting away from the fact that many thousands of Scots got off their arses and demanded to be heard on a day when they were supposed to be glued to the telly muttering oaths of allegiance.
And thanks be to all known gods that Alex Salmond was there after all! The names Blackford, Yousaf and Flynn will forever live in infamy – they will never be allowed to forget where they chose to be today. Hell mend them.
It’s been a rotten day for the British monarchy and a great day for Scottish republicanism.
All good.
Cheers!
😉
Having gone along to the march in Glasgow, and having freely protested against the colonial monarch and his fetishist followers, I was truly shocked to hear of Republic’s treatment at the hands of the police in England.
For what it is worth, I lodged a complaint: via link to met.police.uk, naming Mr Graham Smith of Republic as the individual wrongfully arrested by the police, before even being allowed to exercise his legitimate right to protest against the wealth and power privilege of Charles Windsor. I would urge all freedom loving people “0? independent mind” to do the same…even if with the lack of accountability, it only succeeds in clogging up their paper-clip counting system and even if, it’s the pleasure in protesting to the Metropolitan Police with the salutation of “Fuck the King!”
Can anyone tell me why Blackfart was in the abbey??
The Yoon infestation is very badly informed. The “United Kingdom” is one of the biggest bits of propaganda perpetrated on us, its actually “United Kingdoms”. Once we leave it becomes England and Scotland so UK passports will wither on the vine.
And the laughable reference to barnet, since when did a London Borough fund Scotland? If you meant Barnett, we’d happily use the 80 billion tax revenues sent to Westminster for our own purposes and foresake the 40 billion we get back.
Great turnout today. Didn’t March due to a bad ankle injury but went along to Glasgow Green and stayed for the speakers.
ALL-IN-ONE STREAM : AUOB March for Independence- Glasgow
Independence live,
The march and speeches,
Ash kick’s off,
link to youtube.com
@Big Jock (8.19) –
If you don’t mind me asking, where was this encounter?
Ruby @ 4:39 pm
“You are going to have to make a choice Scottish or British.”
Yes, this is the choice, in a nutshell.
Those Scots who desire to be British should remember that where colonial oppression is allowed to continue, the colonized nation and culture ultimately perishes. Cultural assimilation means that some among the oppressed group, especially the elite and bourgeoisie, take on the identity of the oppressor. The more assimilated a people become, the more likely they will discard and ultimately lose their own identity. Cultural Imperialism is about changing the national identity of a people. It was the same in Ireland, in India, in Kenya etc, and it is the same in Scotland. For any colonized people, to be British is to be something else.
The Unionists seem to be in panic mode.
They’ve got their ‘Better Together handbook out and they are copying and pasting like mad BTL on Wings.
Do these Unionists know something we don’t?
Union Unit being doing some secret polling?
Shittin’ it because they’ve longer got their ‘woman in holyrood’
The markets reacted quite strongly when Salmond hinted that Scotland would not take a share of the British debt.
Westminster had to reassure the markets that the RUK would take 100% responsibility for the debt.
How would the markets react vis a vis the RUK debt if Scotland declared UDI?
No worries about the Barnet Funds being that this is just Scottish money being sent back to Scotland.
Scotland would just keep the money instead of sending it to Westminster. Dah!
No negotiation with Westmonster no debt repayment & no housing of Trident.
Get your weapons off our land by the end of the month or we’ll sell them to the highest bidder.
Instead of allowing the RUK to buy our share of Gibraltar & the Falklands we can flog it to the Spanish and Argentinians.
The thing is the RUK probably don’t have the money to settle up with us so any negotiation would probably be a waste of time.
Better just go debt free.
Andrew Scott @9:15 pm
“Can anyone tell me why Blackfart was in the abbey??”
Egoism.
If your Scottish,
Don’t think it much matter’s anymore who u are,It’s all gonna come down on your head!
The UK is over,take the the lifeboat,or suffer the concequences,
it will crash…guaranteed!
That’s the plan!
and u don’t count!
Hi Ian B et al.
I joined the march at George Square. At Glasgow Green, I headed for the row of seats behind the column to eat my fish supper, that I hadn’t had time to eat at George Square.
After that, I took up position slightly to the right of the stage, around 50 yards from it. I had my YES saltire/WOS flags up until they got soaked. Saw two other WOS flags close by but didn’t recognise the holders.
The only Winger I met at GG was Gerry Parker, whom I met a number of years ago.
It was announced from the stage that the figure was around 22,000.
I left GG around 3.30 and had a canny daunder to The Clutha. Was there from around 3.55 till 5pm. I sat outside the front door with my pint of lager and Drambuie but they only Winger I saw was Crazycat, who was on her way to another pub to meet her pal.
So, around 5, I took another canny daunder up to Dow’s.
Around 6pm, a couple of Wingers, Bill and Vicky, who have been to get-togethers in Dow’s, spotted me, at the same time as Andy, a pal of Dundee Annie.
So the 4 of us blethered until it was time for me to leave for my bus home, around 6.50.
Today was the kickstart the independence movement needed. It remains to be seen whether or not the SNP will bite the bullet and work with the wider pro-indy organisations.
Ian. It was in my local area of Falkirk. Guy followed me in a car, cause I gave his flag a thumbs down!
“You are going to have to make a choice Scottish or British.”
Particularly because the UK Government has said they will not allow dual Scottish British nationality.
The Unionist posting here are so arrogant they think that doesn’t apply to them.
‘I was in the British Army & I’m a Rangers supporter they can’t possibly deny me British nationality. I had three Scottish grannies so I must also have Scottish nationality.’
I also want my children to have dual nationality so they can work & study in the EU.
It would also be safer for them to use their Scottish passport when travelling abroad well at least that’s what the dual British/Irish passport holders say.
If you don’t do Twitter you may never have the opportunity to see how the Bristol Bar in Glasgow prepared itself for today.
Truly remarkable.
If you have any flabber, prepare to have it well and truly gasted.
link to twitter.com
Is Dow’s the one up the street by the train station? Was in there – briefly – around 5, as the wait for a train was roughly a swifty’s-length.
Otherwise, West; Bratkartoffeln and Dunkel!
Unite’rs or Fu**er’s…
true!
You should tell him to get his own scriptwriter, and stop stealing yours.
@BDTT (10.09) –
Bummer we missed each other.
I assume you had some kind of waterproof over your red jacket, otherwise I might’ve found you. I did take a wander down that area, looking for familiar faces, but it got quite dense and I had to retreat. I suspect that may be where Tinto Chiel was too.
Ach well, next time!
Hoots mon.
😉
@Big Jock (10.09) –
The sheer audacity of the bastard!
Good on ye for giving him an earful.
😉
Ian B, that’s absolutely disgusting. Never heard of the place until now and as I don’t do football I had no idea it was that lots pish palace. The poor missguided souls.
link to archive.is
Just spotted this on Wings Twitter
‘Britain’s FBI’ called in to help with SNP finance probe>/b>
Specialist officers in Scotland have been asking senior figures in the SNP about their tax affairs, sources said.
Praying for help?
How much £SD did it take to create that do you think.
I’m talking ‘hallucinogenics’ although it must have cost a fair bit of dosh too.
Sorry that last post wasn’t all meant to be bold
as you can see I mucked up the closing bracket.
I just meant to bold this bit:
‘Britain’s FBI’ called in to help with SNP finance probe
I’m so proud of Alex Salmond. The headlines read he lead the Independence march in the thousands today In Glasgow.
The guy is a hero.
With Big Eck back front and centre of the Independence, we can do it.
Well done to everyone that attended today.
Here’s the deal. Future promises of independence, while it’s the electorate who’s to persuade others to vote for such candidates.
Independence negotiations to be inserted, as standard, into all future manifestos. With 50%+ majority, a tall order, especially with no real preparation for independence, it’s not difficult to see where this goes.
Indy politicians, now expect you to swallow this bullshit, while voting them into office.
We’re all unpaid Indy campaigners, with no concerted effort from those seeking election.
Onus for 50%+ of the vote, now being heaped on the general public’s failure to convince one and other. Meanwhile the heavy lifting is abandoned by those seeking election. That’s some deal for Wishart & Co.
Big Jock, re your 2019 post: “…I had a run in with a unionist today. I objected to his flag. I said it was offensive and anti Scottish. I told him I was a nationalist republican.”
So what was the flag? The union flag, or perhaps the Lion Rampant? If either of those, perhaps you should consider that the offensiveness lies upon you, going up to someone in his own country and telling him that his national flag is offensive.
Mushroom season wasn’t that long ago…
Aye Ian. I asked if he was stalking me. He muttered under his breath about running me over as well. Then accused me of being immature! Even asked where I lived…as if I would ever tell him.
They do say never argue with stupid people!
Hi Ian B.
I was sporting red until the rain became really heavy. I had to make the choice – brolly or flags or Umbro waterproof. I went for the hoodie Umbro to begin with and kept the flags but eventually gave up the flags for the brolly.
We need some younger Wingers to take up the organisation of the WOS stall. Ronnie can advise. But new blood is needed.
Not that it’s any of your business A Scot. It was a Union flag. I gave it the thumbs down. He accosted me. Why would I find a Lion Rampant offensive! Have you ever been in Scotland you dim wit!
BTW:
Joanna Cherry made a statement in her speech today, which others in the SNP should reflect upon.
She said that, as an SNP MP, to her, country comes before party.
‘Nuff said.
@David Hannah (11.06) –
Yes, he is a hero.
Today I met fellow Wingers and it was brilliant but also quite upsetting to see how much we’ve aged.
We struggled to work out how long it’s been since we’d last met. Aye, there were recollections of the great gatherings, in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and elsewhere, but as those marches grew larger and louder and more impressive we always assumed that we wouldn’t have to be doing it all again. We really believed that we would win.
Nothing is more precious than Time, and we’ve only a limited amount of it, each. That’s a given. And anyone who wastes that time is stealing the most important thing any of us can ever have. Be they politicians, journalists or bloggers, they are equally culpable and should be answerable.
Last week I happened to view an episode of ‘Twa Auld Heids’ where AS was interviewed. Can’t remember the date but it was during the pandemic. Alex looked drawn, exhausted.
We should never forget – if the so-called ‘Vietnam Group’ had had it’s way, Alex Salmond would now still be imprisoned, but more likely dead.
Now? He’s invigorated. As Tinto mentioned upthread, he’s still got it. His speech today was short (perhaps the awful weather shifted him further up the running order?) but he hit the mark. The fact that he called for unity, considering what’s happened to him, is remarkable.
He must be kicking on for 70 now but the fire is still there and no-one who was there today will ever forget it. We won’t be seeing his like again anytime soon, more’s the pity.
🙁
@BDTT (11.41) –
Here’s an idea!
I’m getting my bus pass next month but that won’t be much use for lugging loads of kit around the place.
What if I do a crowdfunder to get me a spanking new 4X4? Then I could do my tree-planting stuff but also be available to facilitate the continuance of the legendary stall?
I’m just wondering if independence supporters have ever been asked for anything so outrageous?!
Would I then just be dismissed as a, what’s that phrase again? ‘irrelevant grifter’? (copyright Friends Of Wings, 2023)
😉 🙂 🙂
Hi Ian B.
A 4×4?!?
You could do the Wings stall in a Berlingo van. I’d crowdfund that.
(Never had you down as a trougher.)
@BDTT –
Ah’ll ‘Trough For Indy’!
🙂
Ian Brotherhood 10.17pm
Re your post about the Unionist decor in the Bristol bar.
I was at Paisley Road Toll tonight, and the Union bar there probably equalled the Bristol bar for Royalist bumf.
Inside and out, Charlie and Camilla, butcher’s aprons, you name it, they had it up.
Five minutes from Ibrox Park, these zoomers are seriously demented.
Big Jock says:
6 May, 2023 at 11:45 pm
Why would I find a Lion Rampant offensive!
Wot A English kings flag?
@ Big Jock,
If you went up to someone flying a union flag in Scotland and told them you found it offensive, I’d say that the offence is on you. It’s the flag of our union, and whoever is flying it has a perfect right to do so. You might not like it, but the original offence is on you.
As for “have you ever been in Scotland”, well yes I have. Born in Ayr, lived in Scotland until I was 19, joined a Scottish Regiment, served a bit in Scotland under training, and a bit more in subsequent postings. I own property in Edinburgh and Perthshire, have a business ownership in Scotland, and go to Scotland 3 or 4 times a year. What more do you require?
Re,,,the Lion Rampant.
Wiki:-
The earliest recorded use of the Lion Rampant as a royal emblem in Scotland was by Alexander II in 1222;[8] with the additional embellishment of a double border set with lilies occurring during the reign of Alexander III (1249–1286).[8] This emblem occupied the shield of the royal coat of arms of the ancient Kingdom of Scotland which, together with a royal banner displaying the same, was used by the King of Scots until the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI acceded to the thrones of the kingdoms of England and Ireland.[9] Since 1603, the lion rampant of Scotland has been incorporated into both the royal arms and royal banners of successive Scottish then British monarchs in order to symbolise Scotland, as can be seen today in the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom.[10] Although now officially restricted to use by representatives of the Monarch and at royal residences, the Royal Banner continues to be one of Scotland’s most recognisable symbols.
ronald anderson says:
6 May, 2023 at 8:26 pm
Derek 7.47 .
Yer wee dogs slolwing doon at 14 yrs am slowed doon at 73 yrs thats why there is no Wings stall an neither is Briandoonthetoon getting any younger fur aw the humpfing of boxes . / Wings stall is no more sorry to say .
I hope nobody thinks I was having a go… definitely wasn’t.
I didn’t have a grumpy March exactly, but my sense of humour was failing because my feet were killing me. I’d new boots on, which gave me weird blisters. They weren’t rubbing at all really, not the usual blister, but the waterproofing was brand new and still pretty air tight and made my feet go all soft. The boots are actually a good fit, so I thought I was safe. Lol. No worries. The feet will mend.
I’d got a new phone too, but the old SIM card is too big, the new one didn’t arrive in time, so I had to fire in a new PAYG SIM, but the credit took all day register. So I was tramping about Glasgow for miles with no internet connection to find my bearings. My feet were in trouble long before it even started. Lol.
Smiling through gritted teeth by the end, but I made it. Felt a long way though.
I don’t dislike Glasgow, not in any way, but I don’t know it very well and find Glasgow hard to navigate. There aren’t many towering landmarks to get your bearings from. It’s tiring trying to hone in to where you want to be by dead reckoning and a general sense of direction. You’re borderline lost the whole way.
Just made it a long day, but I’ve no regrets about going. It lifts you.
YES feels different though. I dunno. Less naive maybe. I think the SNP under Nicola Strychnine has tempered the joy of an afternoon amongst friends.
The fact those obnoxious fuckwits on Calton Hill having their “alternative” assembly just speaks volumes about the SNP’s collective hubris. 300 fewer bodies on the AUOB March, but on the up side, 300 fewer self obsessed SNP and Green Party arseholes who don’t give a fk about Indy anyway.
Not content with wrecking the SNP, it’s as if they’re even determined to spoil Yes’s sense of inclusiveness… All Under One Banner assembled in their tens of thousands in Glasgow, while the Me! Me! Me! SNP assembles 300 in Edinburgh, with barely half a dozen Saltires amongst them.
Maybe the new SNP boss would reign in the ringers… Hah! Fat chance. He’s away to London with Fat Banker Blowhard to kiss Prince Charles’ Arse.
Comedy Club No2 for Tommy Sheppard? Regular comedian factory.
What happens when we set up our Convention of the Estates? Do we need a satellite assembly for the SNPrima Donas? I’d rather have nothing to do with these fucks. So bang goes my inclusiveness and bonhomie.
The Republican protest was a spoiler, just like the gender benders. They want to destroy Scottish identity …spoil the inclusiveness of our movement. They are undoubtedly supported in the dark shadows by the English state and their agents.
Best solution …as with Sturgeon’s crew is to ignore them but ensure they cannot infiltrate the movement.
The SNP could well be finished ..eaten from the inside by entryists …who gains? The English State of course.
The really important thing now is to build a new party. We need a genuine umbrella independence party, one the indy supporters can coalesce around.
I fear if we don’t do this soon then the GE 2024 will be a complete shambles. With Labour picking up 20 or so seats in Scotland. We can’t let that happen. They are serial liars , and will use these seats as proof Scotland wants to remain British.
As for the sudden influx of trolls on here. We need to stop arguing with idiots, they will beat us down with their stupidity.
Some BS coronation shit going on in Glasgow’s George Sq right now, who gave them permission, the SNP ran city council?
Check it out on the George Sq webcam which updates the squares activities every twenty-seconds.
link to glasgow.gov.uk
Get the SNP out at every election and Alba in, do it for Scotland.
Vote Alba, Join Alba.
USAGE.
There is no Britain, United Kingdom, Great Britain etc only the entity BRITISH STATE.
Nationalists might use it to indicate the designing nature of the system Scotland is pitted against.
The two are mortal enemies and no quarter, from historic evidence, may be expected from one of them.
Craig Murray gives us some revealing information on Police Scotland and just how bad they really are.
link to twitter.com
A Scot Abroad @ 1:47 am
“It’s the flag of our union”
According to our English Tory oppressors, Scotland was ‘incorporated’, which means ‘annexed’ and ‘colonized’. There is therefore no ‘union’.
If there were a ‘union’, as Scots have been and still are led to believe, then Scotland would have a veto on laws England sought to impose on Scotland. We have no such veto. Like all other former colonies we are left holding a violated treaty and not much else.
So it is the flag of our oppressor, just as it was the flag of the oppressor of many other former colonies, now independent states, wha noo flee thair ain flags.
It’s all blethers. But there was one incident yesterday…
Chief Inspector: Well, Sergeant what is it now? Can you no see that I’m busy?
Sergeant: Well sir, we kent that they Republicans were arrested doon in London.
Chief Inspector: And?
Sergeant: So we thought it wid be a guid idea tae arrest a few Republicans oorsells.
Chief Inspector: Did you so?
Sergeant: Aye Sir we did, an they’re in the holding cells doonstairs…
Chief Inspector: Really? Who have you got?
Sergeant: Well ye see Sir, it wiz a big demo, and we’ve brought in the pipe band. For starters…
Chief Inspector: So you are telling me that you have a pipe band downstairs in the cells?
Sergeant: Yes Sir, we have that, Sir.
Chief Inspector: What about the rest of the demonstrators, Sergeant? There were others demonstrating were there not?
Sergeant: Yes, Sir. Twenty thousand at the last count. But we couldnae arrest them a’, could we, Sir?
Chief Inspector: No indeed Sergeant. You only managed a pipe band. By the way, that noise I am hearing, did you let them keep those pipes, and fifes, and drums?
Sergeant: Yes Sir. There were more of them than us, and we were feart…
Chef Inspector: Very well, Sergeant. Here is what is going to happen now. I am going to go downstairs in ten minutes and I will inspect the cells. Unless I find them completely empty with not a hint of tartan, no band, nothing, not even a mouth organ, you Sergeant, will spend the rest of your career on foot patrol in Easterhouse. Is that understood?
Sergeant: But…
Chief Inspector: But me no buts, Sergeant, I will not go down in history as the Scots polis that arrested a pipe band. Is that clear? Empty cells, no pipe band, no sound of music. Nothing.
Now!
Somebody further up asked if Annie was on the march yesterday, she was, I was walking close by to her for a while, probably around halfway from the start and end of the march. She was up closed to the barriers in front of the speakers for a while.
Braw day oot despite the rain and a brilliant spectacle seeing the sea of Saltires marching along.
We’re now being told.. the Scottish electorate, is to take the initiative and somehow communicate the advantages of independence, while our politicians make no inroads of that possibility, due to their lack of internal preparations.
The introduction of standardised manifestos to negotiate independence (if the numbers are reached) is insane, while no real preparation is made for that future and only prepares the way for more of the current situation.. a political cocoon of Devolution heaven, for those elected!
The current Scottish government has nothing to show, in way of preparations for independence nor will there be any, in time for the next election.
We are in a catch-22, those in Holrood expect the electorate to pave the way, when that is just plainly impossible, without their preparations and promotion of an independent government.
Madness is voting for same shit over and over. The notion of simplifying election manifestos, without the political groundwork, is allowing Indy politicians to shit on us, from a greater height!
Antoine Bissett @ 10.09am
Good story, except, my grandson is in the polis, stationed at a major County Town in the West of Scotland. Police Scotland are in the process of moving from their huge and prominent and centrally-situated station (built in the 1970s) to a new more cost-effective station, located down a side street, away from the town centre.
One of the problems the local polis have is – there are no holding cells, so anybody they lift has to be taken to the nearest suitable station, 15 miles away.
Was at the event.
Didn’t march all the way.
Alex S, Ash Rs speeches both were fab.
Lesley R got one enormous boo when she started to speak.
She sounded nervous and rightly so.
Marching alongside AS, the woman has no shame.
She rambled on about New Scots, Ukranians, NATO, Scandanavia- she was all over the olace.
Don’t trust her an inch.
I agree with Breeks it felt more mature this time.
We’re back.
Would a campervan not be the best solution for the Wings stall?
Section for selling Wings merchandise
Section for foot massage & treating blisters
Section for Alba campaigning
Section for serving hot soup & sandwiches.
Section where you could have a wee lie down and hug a kitten.
You could even offer a bed to those who got a bit tipsy and missed their train home.
It could be called ‘The Wings Emergency Bus’.
You may find when the FBI have completed their investigations that you already own shares in a very nice campervan.
There might be no need for crowdfunding.
PS I’ll get you an emergency kitten & donate a years worth of cat food and a foot spa.
For as much as things of the kind matter there was a Scottish version of the Union flag with the cross of St Andrew superior to that of St George. A Scot having effectively inherited the English throne that made sense. What did not make sense, with hindsight, was that king’s decamping to London, with his catamites, thus initiating the decline of Scotland as a political entity.
Put not your faith in kings or princes or their like.
What’s in it for them?
link to crowdjustice.com
Why don’t they use a campervan?
Westminster night Safety team arrested last night
link to twitter.com
Republicofscotland says:7 May, 2023 at 9:43 am
“Some BS coronation shit going on in Glasgow’s George Sq right now, who gave them permission, the SNP ran city council?
Check it out on the George Sq webcam which updates the squares activities every twenty-seconds.
link to glasgow.gov.uk”
“See what’s happening in the centre of Glasgow or just check out the local weather if you’re planning a trip to the city.”,/i> it’s says! – They must be having a giraffe!
11:27 – and the only thing I can tell you from that picture is that for a Sunday morning, the town of my birth looks as if it’s on it’s knees activity-wise. There’s hee-haw of any note going on – And their ‘webcam’ output looks like like something I was messing about with in the late 90s…
The (increasingly expensive) green place is f4cked thanks to those clowns (of all shades and grades) in Castle Greyskull there… they’re still twatin’ on about ‘digital transformation’ a quarter-century after the fact! – And probably need ‘the trade’ wherever its coming from.
I might not be the only one looking at that half-assed effort thinkin’ ‘I might never set foot in that square again’. 🙁
Had better things to do yesterday than watch the doings of an old man in London, but checking on the music performed the feeling that the king of the UKGB&NI had missed out one of the constituents of that political construct.
Humza Yousaf performing «ye cannae shove yer grannie aff the bus» on mouth organ might have suited the festal mood.
Booing = hate speech.
That has to be stopped.
Humza currently looking into that.
Do you think Nicola Sturgeon will ever appear in public again?
Reading about the national crime agency involvement. I wonder if the phrase ” he used his own resources” in relation to the loan is connected.
The banks monitor large transactions in and out of accounts, and more so for public figures. I wonder where he got the money and for what?
That phrase puts a bit of distance between the two of them.
Alf Baird,
there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in your post of 10:03. The union is not meant, and never was meant, to be of a nature where both sides held equal political weight. Given the disparity in population sizes (was 5 to one at the time of the union, now it is more like 10 to one), that would be undemocratic and impossible to justify. And Scotland is not a monolithic entity: there will be policies popular in Glasgow that are not popular in Inverness, or Dumfries. Where do you stop breaking things down? Your logic leads to every single person having a veto on political policies. It’s impossible to justify.
As for your paragraph on English Tory oppressors, that’s just an invented grievance. There’s no basis to it.
This covers it!
link to twitter.com
The majority of Scots born commoners and raised under the boot of a system designed to make them compliant slaves, were never willing participants in the creation and global expansion of the British Empire. They were the first victims of that empire.
An empire which, ironically, was enabled by the nobility, clergy, and merchants of Scotland who in their greed for wealth were conned into investing in the Darien Scheme (1690), also known as The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. The failure of the Darien Scheme, and the huge losses its investors and the entire Scottish nation incurred, was the impetus for Scotland’s elite to sell-off Scotland to the English.
This sell-off manifested in the form of the Act of Union (1707), and it was after the Act of Union the second British Empire really picked up the pace. The first being a bit of a flop kicked off by Elizabeth I.
So, if we want to blame an individual for the current suffering the Scottish people have to endure under English rule, Let’s blame Bill Paterson. That’s William Paterson, the Dumfries born slave trader and banker who co-founded the Bank of England and came up with the idea for the Darien Scheme. What a guy?
Greed has no nationality, it seems.
AberdeenPict @ 10:19 am
“Braw day oot despite the rain and a brilliant spectacle seeing the sea of Saltires marching along.”
Aye Pict, an ‘independence/liberation movement depends on national consciousness’ which is built on the indigenous language and culture of the native people; and ‘it is national consciousness which is the most elaborate form of culture’ (Frantz Fanon).
The colonial oppressor and anti-independence colonial elites and administrators (incl. SNP MPs/MSPs, cooncillors, payroll etc) obviously do not like such demonstrations of national consciousness; it reminds them that they are our oppressors, and we an thay ken it fine. Whit is nae doot why thay dinnae lairn Scots bairns oor ain braw Scots mither tongue in the schuils an aw.
A fowk deprived o thair ain langages, cultur, naitional identity, lands and resources, an naitional soveranety = colonialism. Thon’s whit wir merchin an fechtin tae end, an tae leeberate the fowk.
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
So, the bold ASA is taking on Alf Baird?
Good luck wi that.
😉
A Scot Abroad @ 11:50 am
“The union is not meant, and never was meant, to be of a nature where both sides held equal political weight.”
Treaties are written respecting equal constitutional rights of each signatory party, it has nothing to do with ‘political weight’.
The Claim of Right as guarantee of the Scottish constitution and sovereignty also served as further specific condition of the treaty. England’s (and Scotland’s complicit) politicians have abused the treaty, and still abuse it today. That is the main reason Scots seek to end what is an abusive relationship. When a treaty has been violated and/or is no longer in a signatory party’s interest it is ended.
What you are advocating is Scotland being ‘forced’ to remain in an abusive treaty-based alliance via the strength of the ‘political weight’ (i.e. domination) of England’s national representatives; that is colonial oppression.
link to salvo.scot
Ian Brotherhood, doubt ASA is one person, dont think the shifts at the 77th are that onerous. ??? ps i spelt shits instead of shifts , Freudian Slip lol.
It won’t matter what Alf Baird says to him he’ll just keep trollin’
He’s had his instructions from the Union Unit.
‘Trollin’, trollin’. trollin’, just keep on trollin’
Here’s a copy of the 2014 Project Fear handbook.
Just keep copying and pasting from there.
PS Dont forget to mention your three Scottish grannies.
‘Tartan coconut emoji’
I’m not going to say don’t feed the troll because I think he could be handy if treated like a stooge
ie let him feed you your lines.
Does that make sense?
Marko Polo wrote on Twitter: (from the link above)
‘Event at Calton Hill – Anne McLaughlins partner Graham Campbell
Campbell says “You cannot have national liberation, you cannot have black liberation, you cannot have women’s liberation, without Trans liberation.”‘
I’m not sure whether that was a threat or a dictat from a wanabee ‘Dear Leader’; an odd wee self-serving, self-aggrandising dullard trying to make themselves seem ‘interesting and ‘edgy’. …A Judas goat looking for some sheep to ‘lead’.
– Here’s the problem Graham.
You cannot have ‘Trans liberation’ when you deliberately conflate and confuse (both literally and in public perception) often-dangerous paraphiliacs with people afflicted with dysphoria. – The discernment between which requires a rigorous medical process and diagnosis…
Both conditions may also require appropriate treatment.
For example; a violent socio/psychopath and potential sex offender needs to be treated very differently from almost anyone else presenting with any kind of emotional vulnerability… Both for their own good and the sake of society.
Violent sexual predators – no matter how their predilections present or what flag they fly – are not something a healthy society lauds or encourages, let alone ‘liberates’. Historically …In the late 60s and 70s, child-molesters or ‘paedophiles’ as they’re more commonly called tried this; seeking to have their ‘orientation’ accepted along with ordinary homosexuality…
If you can bear to watch; monsters such as the vile ‘Dr Nigel Oldfield’ still campaign for this sort of thing… – Are you planning on ‘liberating’ him Graham? Please explain how – in terms of being a dangerous predator – he is different from the ‘Isla Brysons’ of this world?
Inescapably – it’s people like that you are promoting. You’re not ‘liberating’ trans people; you’re driving the ‘real deal’ underground.
As things stand I know of at least two (possibly three) genuine Trans women (long-since transitioned; decades ago and having lived peacefully for years as they are) who not only distance themselves from the nonsense spouted by you and your kind; but are ‘withdrawing from the world’ and even descending into agoraphobia; precisely because of the utter tripe that passes in the mainstream for ‘trans activism’.
One colleague of mine has not left her house in three months; she does her work remotely, has everything delivered. – Another trusted colleague has to go round every so often to start her car and drive it round the block! – She’s in eternal lockdown Mr Campbell.
– And that’s entirely due to the anti-trans hatred and confusion which is created by you and your kind.
You people promote paraphilia; NOT ‘trans rights.
…If Trans people are being placed under threat Mr Campbell (et al) – and I do not really doubt they are – it is because people like you – instead of actually working to improve the process, make it less invasive and traumatic and more affordable; seek to take the financially-convenient and ‘easy’ rout of deleting the rigour; denuding the safeguards… In this way you not only drive the genuine trans community under ground; you harm them!
The rubbish heard from both sides of this ‘stairheed bitchfight’ is ridiculous and disturbing; most often feeding off ignorance and stupidity; but frequently also phsycopathies that seriously undermine public safety.
The critical-thinking… they might ask; who actually gains from a ‘staged punch up’? – Those that started it so they could stand on the sidelines taking bets selling tickets and ‘bigging themselves up’.
Alf. I think he actually beat himself with his own argument there. The Union is unequal and only favours England. So let’s all wrap ourselves in the Union flag and self flagulate.
@matt Quinn 12:44 , your absolutely spot on
Three cheers for ‘A Scot Abroad’ stooge extraordinaire!
What is a stooge.
any underling, assistant, or accomplice. an entertainer who feeds lines to the main comedian and usually serves as the butt of the jokes. verb (used without object), stooged, stoog·ing. to act as an underling, assistant, or accomplice.
Feed the stooge!
Excellent post Matt Quinn
I’m keeping my fingers cross that this post uploads. The last time I replied to Matt the post disappeared into cyberspace or somewhere.
I tried twice without success.
ASA admits openly the con-job that was the union; I think the kids call this a “self-own”. They are not sending their best.
– the problem with uniting any entities of different sizes (politically speaking) is how to prevent the larger overwhelming the smaller.
You cannot do it on the basis of “one man, one vote” – OMOV is NOT “democratic”, just or fair.
In the US, the new states, sparsely populated, did not want to be “ruled by BACK EAST”, so the solution was 2 houses, upper and lower; lower based on population size. The senate is the senior house and you get 2 senators per state, so Alaska gets the same as California.
In comparative terms, US states have much more autonomy and control over their own resources than Scotland does as an “equal partner in the union”.
A UK Senate with 100 senators, 50 each from Scotland and England, with veto power over the Commons would have made for a very different union – but I don’t care about that – I am not here to fix the problems of the union; I want to see it buried, and for england to be swallowed by the sea.
Point is : the union was always a con-job, it was rotten from the start, fraudulent in its creation.
Here an english lass admits it all plainly :
link to bbc.co.uk
A timely reminder of some 1707 Treaty excerpts…
Article 4
That all the Subjects of the united Kingdom of Great-Britain shall, from and after
the Union, have full Freedom and Intercourse of Trade and Navigation, to and from
any Port or Place within the said united Kingdom, and the Dominions and Plantations.
Article 6.
That all Parts of the united Kingdom, for ever, from and after the Union, shall have the
same Allowances, Encouragements, and Draw-backs, and be under the same Prohibitions,
Restrictions, and Regulations of Trade, and liable to the same Customs and Duties,
and Import and Export.
Yet the loony yoony acknowledges the significant population growth disparity between the two Kingdoms over the course of the union which created economic benefits to the Kingdom of England.
And as the Kingdom of Scotland is a net exporter and the Kingdom of England is a net importer, then clearly there will be disparities in the policies that best serve both constituent parts. But as the KoE has a 10 to 1 democratic advantage over the KoS, this means the KoE gets what it wants whilst the KoS suffers.
“Ruby says: 7 May, 2023 at 1:07 pm
Excellent post Matt Quinn”
Thank you Ruby, and indeed Dan.
– If it’s any consolation Ruby, I frequently have posts ‘disappeared’ for no good reason. ‘ Go figure’ as they will insist on saying in the ‘States. I don’t take it too seriously.
Matt Quinn , round of applause from me too.
It’s the first time I’ve had posts just disappear. I often have a post go into moderation because I have used one of the banned words. ie com*puting, disp*ting, ris*kier
It’s a shame my post disappeared because it was very complimentary.
Well at least I thought it was you may not like being compared to Leonard Cohen.
Leonard couldn’t sing for toffee and nobody told him to STFU. In fact he was inducted into the ‘Rock n Roll Hall of Fame’ and folk paid megabucks to hear him ‘sing’
I was basically suggesting that you don’t give up on the singing/songwriting.
@Matt Quinn –
Just wanted to add to the appreciation of your comment. Nicely expressed. It’s a very difficult topic for many of to address.
FWIW, I also appreciated Pu**n’s take on the whole phenomenon, as outlined in one of his major speeches earlier this year. If the translation was accurate then he, basically, described self-ID and related activities as ‘Satanic’ and said ‘you can do whatever you want in the West but don’t expect us to do likewise’.
I know he’s the devil incarnate au moment but that seems a reasonable reflection of how many are feeling right now, even if they daren’t say so.
A Scot Abroad said;
“The union is not meant, and never was meant, to be of a nature where both sides held equal political weight. Given the disparity in population sizes (was 5 to one at the time of the union, now it is more like 10 to one), that would be undemocratic and impossible to justify.”
ASA, you’ve lost the plot, the above is a-historic, disgracefully over-simplistic English establishment bollox.
Impossible to justify, my arse! There is more to the equation here than just democracy, there is also the matter of the national sovereignties of the two founder partners, neither of which ceased to exist, and neither of which gave up their inherent sovereignty. They only signed an agreement for joint, coordinated government of their two kingdoms, with both partners actively taking part in that governance via their representation in a single joint parliament.
The two kingdoms of the UK are both fully sovereign entities, and therefore fully equal in authority to each other, with neither subservient to the other. They are the two Principals of the Treaty, and they are each represented by their own body of MPs, the numbers of which are based on the sizes of the two populations. But the fact of the two sovereignties alone means that your single, simple majority vote model is inept, because it doesn’t even recognise them, let alone respect them.
The UK’s population is not the homogenous population you and the English establishment pretend it to be, because Scotland’s population is literally sovereign, owning the sovereignty of Scotland, whereas England’s population has no sovereignty at all. That’s a key distinction and sovereignty must be respected. If you think that’s wrong, then you’ve never watched Westminster scream like a stuck pig when it thinks its own overblown sovereignty isn’t getting the respect it thinks it’s due!
There are two partners to the Union, and they each get one vote on any matter in the Union parliament, each vote being determined by a simple majority vote within the English representation, and a separate simple majority vote within the Scottish representation. The two Yes/No outcomes are compared, and the only way a matter can pass is if both votes are Yes. No exceptions, and no casting vote.
The above is fully democratic, as both populations are properly represented numerically, and equally importantly, fully respects the separate and still active sovereignties of both partner kingdoms.
Oh no my reply to Matt has gone into moderation!
“The union is not meant, and never was meant, to be of a nature where both sides held equal political weight.”
A “Scot” Abroad.
That’s all the more reason to dissolve it.
@Xaracen (2.00) –
Nice one.
During the week I came across a word I thought I knew the meaning of.
‘usufruct’
Ever heard it? I thought it was connected with sugars, or sweetening, maybe something you do with jams and pickles and suchlike.
But it isn’t.
NOUN
LAW
usufruct (noun)
the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance
Perhaps Alf Baird has used it before? but I don’t recall it ever being used in the independence debates.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Ottomanboi says:
7 May, 2023 at 11:27 am
‘Had better things to do yesterday than watch the doings of an old man in London, but checking on the music performed . . . ‘
No-one will give a flying fuck here obviously (at best ha ha!), but the music performed in the Abbey yesterday was brilliant from start to finish and played at the highest level of skill imaginable. It is why I bothered watching it and don’t regret doing so.
Ian Brotherhood @ 2:16pm
Almost rhyming slang
Oh aye, forgot; one small criticism from Saturday.
There was a wee woman walking her dog on the Green and wanting to leave through gates that folk were coming in through; the dog was scared by the bikes – particularly the four – that were being bounced off their limiters.
Some info about disappeared posts.
I’ve never had posts just disappear before I’ve had loads of posts go into moderation because of use of banned word.
Normally you could see the ‘post in moderation’ for days. This time the post just more or less just flashed up and disappeared.
When it flashed up I noticed that I put the asterisk in the wrong place in the word comp*ting hence reason for moderation.
* = u
I was going to just copy & paste the moderated post sort out the banned word & re-post but it’s gone. So bye bye post. I’m not going to type all that again.
No fan mail for Matt once again.
If you want to know why comp*ting is banned see
Iain Brotherhoods post and the word with the **
Iain is playing it extra safe with two **
link to wingsoverscotland.com
A Scot Abroad says:
“The union is not meant, and never was meant, to be of a nature where both sides held equal political weight.”
Alf and Xaracen beat me to it with their ripostes to A Scot Abroad, but here’s my tuppence worth:
A Scot Abroad, there is a fundamental misunderstanding in your reasoning. Sovereignty is absolute, not relative. The sovereignty of one nation (no matter how big or how small) is not greater than or less than that of another. Therefore in a union of two sovereign nations there has to be equal political weight given to the sovereignty of both nations. Westminster does not recognise Scotland’s sovereignty as absolute (only its own i.e. England’s) and Scotland’s sovereignty is considered as relative (i.e. subjugated) to that of England’s. Scotland has no sovereign veto at Westminster because its MPs are counted as a proportion (subset) of England’s MPs and therefore any Scottish veto is subsumed by the greater number of English MPs. And that is why the Union Flag has the St George’s Cross emblazoned in the foreground and the St Andrew’s Cross reduced to the background because it symbolises the subjugation (oppression) of Scotland by England and it is, as Alf correctly stated, the flag of the oppressor. However, you are correct to say that the Union does not give equal political weight to Scotland and England i.e. it was rigged from the start.
On another matter, as regards Trans rights: Trans rights are an individual not a collective right. The rights of any one group of individuals (no matter how big or small a group) cannot take precedence over the collective rights of a nation.
Re Matt Quinn and Ruby further upthread.
I am reading todays Guardian/Observer online and was reading about a confrontation in London between protesters against the indoctrination of schoolchildren by the trans lobby and a counter protest. A local woman was interviewed as a concerned bystander and when I did a search for them out of curiosity I found ‘her’ to be a biologically male TRA who advocates punching women in the face and who had placed a bounty on the heads of women promising to make a cuppa for anyone who punched a TERF.
I am sure that this was all completely unknown to the Guardian/Observer.
Ruby @ 2.44pm
I’ve had a couple of comments go into moderation. I didn’t know why and assumed I must have inadvertently transgressed or even just typed my email wrongly but anyway they vanished, never to be seen again.
I didn’t bother since it’s all ephemeral anyway, like putting a message in a bottle and posting it in the ocean where it’s more likely to end up in the North Atlantic garbage patch than ever be read by anyone.
@Anton Decadent (3.40) –
‘a local woman’.
Reminds me of the sketches in The Dick Emery Show when he was in drag.
‘Oooh, you are awful’ an aw that.
🙂
I’m in this age group but couldn’t be more different ie mature in outlook.
link to spiked-online.com
There is something very wrong with the anglophone West.
I find it fun trying to figure out which word/s in my post have triggered moderation.
Took me awhile to figure out why ris*kier was a banned word but I cracked it.
The automated moderation is bonkers like a lot of things going on at the moment most of which I haven’t been able to figure out…….yet!
As for your posts being read I can assure you I read your every word. (Obviously not if they have been modded)
You are one of my favourite posters.
I’ll bet if we had a voting system you would be getting tons of upticks.
It can often feel as if you are talking to yourself here on Wings.
Anton
Have you got a link for that school TRA story you found in the Observer? I can’t find it.
Interesting!
Did Elton sing ‘Candle in the Wind’?
When I first scanned your post I read Abbey as Abba and wondered if they did ‘Waterloo’ or ‘Money, Money, Money’
OK the above might be drivel but at least you know that I did give a flying fuck about your post and actually read it.
Uptick for ‘accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative’
Everyone is confusing sovereignty with political representation and democracy. They are different things, and co-exist.
If Scotland is sovereign (not relatively, but absolutely), then it has the national power to withdraw from the political and economic union of the U.K. So why isn’t any politician putting that up for a vote in Holyrood? And if that were to be voted upon and passed, then how would that be treated elsewhere?
The answer is that both countries have vested their sovereignty into the union. The union can vote to dissolve itself, but as the Supreme Court found, unless a S35 order is passed by vote in Westminster, there cannot be a referendum. There have to be four Yes votes before the dissolution of the union: one in Westminster to grant a referendum, one at the referendum by the people, a third in Holyrood to enact a withdrawal from the union, and the fourth in Westminster to dissolve the union. The fourth is automatic if the third is carried. Nothing that England could do about it.
Ruby, about the closest we got to that was some music by Andrew Lloyd Weber which was actually pretty good and I surprise even myself that I am saying that.
@fruitella
I don’t think I have link posting privileges here, look up Met accused of siding with far Right group in anti drag protest in todays Guardian/Observer. The anti women ‘woman’ is near the end of the article, I just thought the name sounded sus and looked him up.
DONT FEED THE TROLL!!!
A Scot Abroad says:
7 May, 2023 at 5:16 pm
Everyone is confusing sovereignty with political representation and democracy. They are different things, and co-exist.
If Scotland is sovereign (not relatively, but absolutely), then it has the national power to withdraw from the political and economic union of the U.K. So why isn’t any politician putting that up for a vote in Holyrood? And if that were to be voted upon and passed, then how would that be treated elsewhere?
The answer is that both countries have vested their sovereignty into the union. The union can vote to dissolve itself, but as the Supreme Court found, unless a S35 order is passed by vote in Westminster, there cannot be a referendum. There have to be four Yes votes before the dissolution of the union: one in Westminster to grant a referendum, one at the referendum by the people, a third in Holyrood to enact a withdrawal from the union, and the fourth in Westminster to dissolve the union. The fourth is automatic if the third is carried. Nothing that England could do about it
And well done to Celtic for making it 53-1 🙂
Archived link to article in Guardian that Anton mentions.
link to archive.is
A “Scot” Abroad @5.16pm.
In Scotland its the people that are sovereign in England its the monarchy, they are not compatible in any way. The English King Charles III had to swear an oath to uphold the people of Scotland’s Claim of Right, as did his mother and so on.
Westminster by attempting to block the referendum route out of this union, is trying to deny Scots the democratic right to choose whether to leave or stay in the union. I for one never want another another indyref they are far too open to abuse.
The laws of a state/larger state, are not the laws that a ceding state or region needs to adhere to, UN Law C24 as expressed by Craig Murray.
In effect if our parliament garners a 50+1% of the vote, that’s it, independence is declared and a sitdown with Westminster would be on the cards.
As for any politician putting this up for a vote at Holyrood, Ash Regan did but Murrell and GCHQ made sure she lost, Only Alex Salmond has taken us close to ditching this rancid union, the Lib/Dems/Labour and the Tories serve London’s interests and not Scotland’s, the Greens are obsessed with the gender bollocks and the current SNP, the majority of them, are self-serving troughers with no interest in dissolving the union.
Scots need to remove SNP MPs/MSPs, well the majority of them need removing they know Alba will make good gains at the next GE, and that’s why the likes of Pete Wishart a twenty-year trougher is jumping on the 50+1% band wagon because he knows his jakit is oan a shoogly nail so to speak.
When the right people are in place, well make our move.
Tartanpigsy,
posting either facts or an opinion that you don’t hold isn’t trolling.
Ruby @ 4.17pm
As for your posts being read I can assure you I read your every word.
Well, thank you for saying that, Ruby but I meant sincerely that I often post a comment and actually wish I hadn’t and think gratefully that it is going to end up anyway in that great internet garbage patch of the unread. (Another reason why I’m not bothered by disappearing posts is because I tend to regard it as kind fate taking a hand and sending it into the ether, even if it is the site’s automated moderation.)
I don’t post very often because usually other posters have already said what I would have said and have also posted valuable links before I even get to the keyboard or I’m still wrestling with archiving, so it’s rendered redundant.
Anyway, you must be an indefatigable reader, Ruby, to bother reading all my posts! Thanks again for your kind words.
The Smith Commission stated “nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”
How does that square with only a vote in Westminster facilitating the process…
I just went through the AUOB speeches section from yesterday’s march on YouTube, some were good, some were not so good.
But Colette Walker, “leader” of the ISP, was exceptionally bloody awful, as was indeed the response by her lackeys to even the mildest criticism of her meandering word salad.
She is long past the stage – and certainly too long in the tooth – of being told curtly that being blind is not isn’t some exemption from criticism. She’s not some reality TV contestant where patronising sympathy exempts her from censure: she’s putting herself forward as one purporting to be fit to make decisions in elected office affecting thousands of lives.
David Blunkett tried Colette’s line once too often, and in the end the public let him know the score.
Much of it was desperate playing to the crowd for the merest handclap. After some rambling “the people are sovereign drivel” (ISP now sucking up to SALVO in their latest clutching at whatever straws of relevance they can find), she began talking utter pish about how seven or eight years ago and her son refused to swear allegiance to the queen.
“And guess what, I was the first person in Scotland to stop them from saying his pledging [sic!] to the queen”
You are a f**king liar Colette Walker.
link to catholicnewsagency.com
Tracy Anne McVeigh of Neilson’s son Matthew, in 2008, was the first – and after a battle (including threats to take them to the European Court of Human Rights), come 2013 the Scouts changed their position to allow for the fact atheists couldn’t exactly swear to God their allegiance to anyone in the first place.
link to theguardian.com
When someone goes around trying to get cheap popularity points from a crowd by claiming credit for stuff they didn’t do, that’s the point people need to wake up to themselves about who they are sharing platforms with, and remember they’re known by the company they keep.
Matt Quinn @ 12.44pm
Yes, in general a good post which others have said but could you clarify this statement please?
The rubbish heard from both sides of this ‘stairheed bitchfight’ is ridiculous and disturbing; most often feeding off ignorance and stupidity; but frequently also phsycopathies that seriously undermine public safety.
Thanks, Dan.
X Sticks
Wee Annie asked me to pass on a message to U .
She was in a hurry to meet someone yesterday & didn’t have to time to stop , she came back to see U but U had disappeared into the crowd .
Hope U & Family are keeping well .
Republicofscotland,
you seem to misunderstand the legal basis for the Claim of Right. It allows that the people choose their form of government and provides that they can replace the sovereign if he (
or she breaches the laws of Scotland in governing the country, it doesn’t award them sovereignty over the country. The text is here: link to legislation.gov.uk
Dan, nobody has suggested that the Scottish don’t have the right to become independent, but there is a law passed in 1998 that shows what the process is, and it involves a referendum. The argument last year was about which body can call the defending, and the Supreme Court agreed that the law said that it was Westminster. The political judgement was that it was too soon after 2014, but a future Westminster government could take a different view and allow one.
There was an auto-correct error in the previous post. For “defending”, read “referendum”.
@ASA (7.56) –
ROS will respond I’m sure, but if I could interject…
It would be a basic courtesy if you could do some homework before coming on here and pontificating about constitutional concerns which many of us have been educating ourselves about for almost a decade.
Try looking up ‘legislative competence’ for a start.
Just a reminder. PLEASE DON’T FEED THE FU@KING TROLLS!!!
Ian Brotherhood,
I’m perfectly aware of the Scottish government’s legislative competence. It’s hardly a secret: it’s laid out in the Scotland Act 1998.
The problem with people “educating themselves”, particularly within a partisan context such as a WoS forum and discussion, is that very often they are wrong, and nobody tells them that, and it becomes the accepted “truth” to the partisan echo chamber. That doesn’t stop it being a falsehood in wider circles.
I’d prefer to stick with what the law actually says, particularly when it is interpreted by seriously knowledgeable and authoritative bodies such as the Supreme Court of the U.K. And the law doesn’t support many of the claims being made above.
Alf baird @ 12 15 ” a fowk deprived of their ain culture” ehm nobody does more to promote Scottish country dance,than the Royal country dance society. Oh no Royal again..ffs.The Snp have never employed Scottish musicians for functions. Fiona Hislop ,the Scottish culture secretary,could show how to do the slosh to be fair.Couldnt make this up..Promoting Gaelic and clapping along to that shite ,Runrigs Loch Lomond ,is perfect for thick morons, who voted that pile o shite in over again.
77th BDE…
“but there is a law passed in 1998 that shows what the process is”
Ahem…
Hate to state the obvious, but it defines a single process. It does not define the ONLY process.
Nor does it state what other processes, including those recognised in international law and by the UN, are to be considered illegal/illegitimate under said legislation.
The Scotland Act and Edinburgh Agreement refer to referenda undertaken by the devolved Scottish Parliament.
It doesn’t state, for example, what happens in the event of their being no Scottish Parliament. What if Westminster enacted legislation to suspend/dissolve said parliament? Do you seriously think it’d be pre-1999 business as usual thereafter?
I’m sure we’re all aware of just how many former colonies of the British Empire became independent and sovereign states following referendums…
A Scot Abroad said:
“Everyone is confusing sovereignty with political representation and democracy. They are different things, and co-exist.”
Speak for yourself, I am not confused at all, and I’ve made it perfectly clear how sovereignty and democracy must be handled to respect both these things. Political representation in the context of the Union means MPs, and if what they represent is a sovereign entity then the democratic process used by MPs is required to respect that sovereignty. Westminster just doesn’t bother, because the English establishment that runs it gets far more power from its inept simple majority voting system than it would otherwise be entitled to if the sovereignties of both kingdoms were properly addressed, meaning equal votes for both sovereigns. But equal votes would disadvantage England, so it isn’t allowed to happen, but simple majority voting strongly disadvantages the Scots, and that’s just fine.
Why don’t you address that entirely missing co-existence?
“The answer is that both countries have vested their sovereignty into the union.”
Your answer is a flat-out falsehood. You are confusing sovereignty with delegated authority. They are not the same; sovereignty is ultimate authority, delegated authority is just some limited authority. Sovereignty cannot be overruled, even by another’s sovereignty, and will always outrank any delegated authority.
Both Kingdoms still exist (as recent events have confirmed) and both still formally own their own sovereignty, their own constitutions, their own legal systems, their own state religions, their own monarchies, their own crowns, and their own territories, and with a well-established border defining where the discontinuities lie.
The two kingdoms only agreed to joint coordinated governance from a single shared parliament. To make that governance effective, their representatives are delegated sufficient authority to permit governance over their respective kingdoms, subject to the agreed terms of the Treaty as written and ratified, and subject to the consent of the owners of the relevant sovereignty. Neither Treaty Principal relinquished their actual sovereignty. The MPs of one Principal have no legitimate authority over the other Principal, nor over the other Principal’s MPs, coz sovereignty! That is why England’s larger numbers of MPs can mean nothing to Scotland’s MPs, because Scotland’s sovereignty won’t permit it. That Westminster permits it anyway means that Westminster is a rogue parliament.
“There have to be four Yes votes before the dissolution of the union:”
Bullshit. The Union can vote to dissolve itself, but so can either of the Treaty Principals on their own, again coz sovereignty. The actual number of votes required is ONE! That vote can be Scotland’s or it can be England’s, or it can be both, but only one is necessary, as neither partner has any authority to bind the other into the Union against his own sovereign will.
The negotiations are a separate issue from the vote to end the Union, and will involve some form of ratification to formalise the agreement of the negotiations, but they don’t entail additional permissions to end the Union, only to complete the negotiations or require further negotiations.
Westminster has denied us the right to hold a referendum, solely to prevent our own Scottish Parliament from asking its own sovereign Scots if we’d like to end the Union, perhaps due to Westminster’s constant abuse. Westminster has decided that we sovereign Scots are not entitled to know each others minds on the matter, because it literally can’t afford to hear the wrong answer. But that is only domestic legislation, and it has no traction on our sovereignty, so we needn’t accept it. The referendum doesn’t have to come first or even at all.
“you seem to misunderstand the legal basis for the Claim of Right. It allows that the people choose their form of government and provides that they can replace the sovereign if he or she breaches the laws of Scotland in governing the country, it doesn’t award them sovereignty over the country.”
It didn’t award them sovereignty because they already owned it, and have done since at least 843AD! The CoR didn’t set the constitution, it only cited some of its key elements by way of reminding, explaining, and justifying what it did next, which was to sack the King for abusing his authority by breaching the limits the Scottish constitution set on him. It was the very sovereignty of the Scots people that was exercised by the Convention of the Estates that represented them.
Actually, looking over all of the above, you seem to misunderstand rather a lot, and with great confidence, too! We’ve seen a quite a lot of others misunderstanding most of those things here as well, for some reason.
robertkknight,
the Scotland Act 1998 defines the only process that would be deemed legal under U.K. law.
It’s possible that someone in power in Scotland could try another process outwith that existing law, but there’s a lot of risk and danger for Scotland riding on such a decision. I’m not thinking of any U.K. government reaction (although there might well be), but really how other countries and the financial markets would react. It could be pretty catastrophic for Scotland to take an extra-legal position. And catastrophic pretty quickly. You saw how quickly the Liz Truss government was ended by the markets. Scotlands economy is a tenth the size, and it has two further major problems as far as international money is concerned: no currency, and no central bank. Add in the uncertainty of how rUK would react, and the fact that the Scottish government would be perceived to be acting illegally for its own ends, and it would probably be less than 10 hours before every internationally owned investment in Scotland was heading for the exit.
Xaracen,
you’ll convince quite a few on WoS with your cock-eyed interpretation of things that you don’t understand, but you won’t convince the Supreme Court of the U.K., or even the highest court of appeal in Scotland, because you are flat out wrong as the law of both Scotland and the union goes.
Writing a 1,000 popular words on WoS won’t change that.
Bernard de Linton @ 9:45 pm
“Fiona Hislop ,the Scottish culture secretary,could show how to do the slosh to be fair.”
Yes, SNP have been hopeless on culture, no even a Scots Language Act!
All a colonised people can expect is ‘a rusted tongue and a moribund culture’ which leads to ‘the reality of the nation withering away’ (Fanon)
Would you be able to tell us what you are trying to achieve by posting on Wings?
You say you would prefer to stick to what the Supreme Court of the UK actually says.
The Supreme court says that Scotland ceased to exist in 1707 yet you insist you are a Scot.
When you talk about your ancestors are you referred to the ones that lived 300 years ago when Scotland existed.
If you want to stick to the law according to the UK Surpreme Court you should not be claiming you are a Scot nor are your three grannies. You and all your three grannies are British from North Britain aka Scotland.
Here is a suggestion for you from Derek Bateman:
You need to get your knuckles off the ground.
Reject the legal advice. Say it was a mistake. Say the government is not convinced it’s correct and it was insulting to say Scotland ceased to exist. Why? Because to say so is to deny the very thing they’re fighting for – the Union. I talk about what I call principled Unionism which works only if you accept your country is in voluntary partnership with England. Remove that concept and we become, as the lawyers indicate, little more than an adjunct to England. Not even a Unionist who claims to love Scotland can vote for that.
If the Supreme Court that you have so much faith in is correct then there is no Union.
I’ll ask you again what are you trying to achieve by posting in Wings.
Are you trying to save the ‘Union’ or trying to ensure us Lesser English don’t get any ideas above our station?
Hi A Scot Abroad at 10:19 pm.
You professed,
“the Scotland Act 1998 defines the only process that would be deemed legal under U.K. law.”
So, you are typing that UK law supersedes the references to “self-determination” in the UN Charter?
Good luck with that one when it comes down to the wire of 50%+1, or greater, of the Scottish electorate voting for pro-independence parties in a Scottish or UK general election.
@John from Fife (8.55) –
‘Just a reminder. PLEASE DON’T FEED THE FU@KING TROLLS!!!’
You’re right, aye.
I regret responding to that patronising cunt.
But what else are we to do when these characters rock up with their passive-aggressive shitery?
Complain?
There’s something about Scots (in my experience anyway) that recoils against clypery of any kind, no matter how obnoxious or obvious the perpetrator may be.
Hi Ian B.
It could be that, when contributors here engage with the likes of “A Scot Abroad”, lurkers pick up stuff from the content of these comments, that they hadn’t previously thought of.
Jiss sayin’ like…
Ruby,
the Supreme Court of the U.K. has never stated that Scotland ceased to exist in 1707.
I was going to point out that no person has three grannies, as you have several times posted. But if you are so mentally challenged as to just make up stuff as you have posted about the Supreme Court and Scotland’s existence, I doubt that you are up to understanding basic human biology.
@BDTT (10.46) –
I hear ye man.
Double-edged sword intit?
Hopefully an executive decision will be made in due course.
😉
Briandoonthetoon,
the UN have in the vast majority of cases of independence since 1948 pushed for the involved parties to use existing law, not the UN Charter. Only in the case of Rhodesia, Kosovo and South Sudan has the UN incorporated new independent nations under the provisions of the UN Charter. In 52 other cases, it was via existing national laws.
As there is a fully established route to Scottish independence under U.K. law, it’s highly doubtful that the UN is going to recognise a UDI by Scotland.
I wouldn’t call ‘A Scot-ish Abroad in Norfolk Broads’ a cunt.
He’s too pathetic to be called a cunt. A cunt is a very strong word.
I think he’s an absolute hoot desperately posting here on Wings trying to achieve ‘fuck knows what’
BDTT 10.46pm
Quite agree which is why I’d not usually respond to this sort of thing but since ASA has been totally outclassed by Xaracen it’s worth suggesting an early night for ASA. Or an early bath.
@A Scot Abroad
Xaracen might…or might not….convince quite a few on WoS with his “cock-eyed interpretation of things he doesn’t understand….”etc but hes actually pretty close to the mark.
Certainly theres a logical as well as legal case that London alone can enlarge or limit the powers or scope of the Edinburgh administration, as London was responsible for its inception.
But you forgot about, or more probably were never taught, the constitutional treatise Dialogus de Jure Regni Apud Scotos, and the distinctly Scottish constitutional doctrine that sovereignty in Scotland rests ultimately with the people and not the King. Not socialistic or wishful thinking but historical fact; google George Buchanan if you want to learn more. I ‘believe’ it goes back to the early days when the kings of the Scots got together to vote for the High King, or ‘King of Kings’. Its the same legal root that prohibits there ever being a King or Queen of Scotland.
The bottom line is neither the Supreme Court of the U.K., nor even the highest court of appeal in Scotland needs to be convinced; only the people of Scotland. As such its actually your good self who is flat out wrong as the law of both Scotland and the union goes.
@Ruby (11.09) –
I do believe you are right.
😉
Anyway, a new post has appeared – see you over there.
🙂
Oh yes they did!
What’s the matter with you? Are you a transphobe?
Of course people have three grannies. Some people even have four grannies.
Transgrannies are grannies.
You make an excellent stooge. Keep stoogin’
Anton Decadent says: 7 May, 2023 at 3:40 pm
“I am sure that this was all completely unknown to the Guardian/Observer.”
It may well have been. Just as I was completely unaware, back in about 1996/97, that a cameraman assigned to a workgroup I was in charge of (very early days of channel 5) had previously been quietly ‘let go’ from his job as a school technician for ‘letching’ at young female students… I played no part in his hiring; but he was an incompetent sleazy cnut, and for that reason alone I wanted rid, but was stuck with the vile creep.
Some eighteen months or so later I caught him in an edit suite running footage he’d shot secretly at the school, of scantily-dressed female children in dance rehearsals. – There had of course been various minor incidents while working for C5 that marked him out a a ‘wrong un’; but it took that long to get the ammunition…
I sacked him on the spot… and reported all of this to Lothian and Borders Police (as they were at the time) at Livingston. – By rights there should have been an investigation into him and the school; there was now evidence of his inappropriate behaviour and failures of safeguarding procedures…
They did precisely eff-all about him.
To cut a long story short, he eventually went on to rape a nine-year old and abuse other girls from as young as six.
– He spent his last moments collapsed in a pool of his own faeces on a stairwell at Saughton Prison where he was serving a twelve-year sentence for these crimes; but it took until 2012 when one of his victims came forward – before the wheels of justice started to turn; and to September 2015 before he was finally jailed…
Had the police acted upon my report – had the school (a West Lothian Secondary school) reported him; perhaps he would have been denied the opportunity to offend. …Had there not been a cover up!
He was ex-Army; a Sergeant in the RHF from 1966-’90. …Faked his way into Channel 5 with false claims of being an ex-SSVC (Services Sound and Vision Corporation) Cameraman, with a dubious HNC from Stevenson College in Edinburgh; he’d bought all his own gear (many freelancers do) …C5 took his story at face value; and slack was cut for him because he was ‘ex-services’…
Indeed; I’ll express the opinion that there were attempts to cover up for him from both within West Lothian Council and the police – because he certainly had (boasted of)’ex-army’ associates within both and claimed influence with both organisation.
It later emerged that He was a close associate of another pervert who was running child-abuse and prostitution rings (as well as facilitating drug dealing) in various places around Edinburgh and West Lothian throughout the 1980s and 1990s. – And there seems to have been a whole ‘network’ of these Vipers doted throughout the country…
The second beast was jailed for 14 years in 2013. The Church of Scotland had to pay out £1M in compensation in what was said to be ” the most compensation recovered from a religious body in Scotland. (Daily Record 30 APR 2019). – Again, there were police reports (from me and others) that were ‘not believed’.
– In one particular literal-dead-end village I know of, his ‘organisation’ was openly prostituting young girls, feeding booze to young kids, and dealing drugs in the street. Bearing in mind that in 1999 a mobile ‘phone was an expensive thing; he had younger children posted at the entrance to this shit-hole as ‘look outs’ in case the Police or even a strange car entered the area… It was organised, and ‘normalised’ within a particularly dysfunctional community…
One of the ‘ringleaders’ in the area was ex-regular territorial; used to wander about the place dressed up like a demented Action Man bigging himself up to the wee boys. As far as I know he was never caught, stopped or prosecuted. In fact I was horrified a few years ago to find him ‘on the gate’ at a country show, apparently in charge of a gaggle of cadets of some sort.
So… based on those experiences; should I now assume all ex-service people are sexual deviants and organised child molestors? – No, of course not! Such a stance would be utterly ridiculous.
There is a phrase that Lawyers sometimes use… and I’ll refer to the scribblings of one David C Murray
Senior Partner at Gebbie & Wilson for an explanation…
“Irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification” – which translates, into the native Strathavenese, as “And another thing foreby a’ that, yer talkin’ mince – and it’s no’ even guid Preston’s or Alexander’s mince!”
“A local woman was interviewed as a concerned bystander and when I did a search for them out of curiosity I found ‘her’ to be a biologically male TRA who advocates punching women in the face and who had placed a bounty on the heads of women promising to make a cuppa for anyone who punched a TERF.”
…And presumably you seek to imply that this exemplifies or even proves that all transexual women are violent deviants? That’s a strawman argument of the type that would be dismissed as above. – Particularly as you do not cite the article to allow its accuracy to be drilled into.
“a confrontation in London between protesters against the indoctrination of schoolchildren by the trans lobby and a counter protest.”
I’d be interested to read that article to see what it actually says; but it comes as absolutely NO surprise that the only ‘trans’ people who would come within a country mile of such an event would, in reality, be from the pro-paraphilia faction; which does seem to absolutely dominate the dialogue.
But just because a particular faction is the noisiest, most violent, seeks and gets all the attention – that does not make it typical or representative or even genuine. – That’s the heart of the problem.
I tried to post, but was disallowed (previous post recognised?). Seems WoS has the same control as the SNP.
Do you only allow opinions that confirm your bias?
I tried to post, but was disallowed (previous post recognised?; “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!” No I didn’t.
Seems WoS has the same control on debate as the SNP.
Do you only allow opinions that confirm your bias?
Alba,
quite learned, but unfortunately, still not good enough. The Act of Union reserves some powers to Scotland, but in every case, subsidiaries all ancient Scots laws to the union. And that was voted through in the Scottish Parliament over 300 years ago. The Scottish Parliament bound itself to the union.
Ruby,
you really are quite nuts. No human has ever had three grannies. Male Grandparents pretending to be women are only “trans” in the sense of being a transvestite. It’s the same as women pretending to be men. They aren’t. Unfortunately, our western society is so infantilised by wokeness that it ignores biological reality and gives respect to people playing around with the dressing up box. And you know that. It’s a pity that the SNP and the Greens don’t appear to know that.
The UK Supreme Court is supreme only in the sense that it holds English parliamentary sovereignty to be supreme!
A Scot Abroad says:
Dinnae feed the troll.
Derek,
just because I have a different opinion, and present facts to the partisan choir on WoS who don’t seem to understand them doesn’t mean that I’m a troll.
“There have to be four Yes votes before the dissolution of the union”
I am sorry but I think that is complete nonsense and comes across as yet another attempt to present the dissolution of the union as something practically impossible to put people off.
This union is based on an international treaty between two independent, sovereign states. It is at all effects just a contract between two parties. The only thing required for Scotland to enter this contract was a simple majority vote from its parliamentaries (The Three states). And that was it.
Logic tells us therefore that a majority vote of our parlamentaries + Scotland’s original life peers to exit the union is all what is needed to dissolve this union. A different matter to discuss another day is if this will be seen as undemocratic or not by the people of Scotland at present. But, strictly speaking, undemocratic and unfair or not, a Scottish parliamentary majority is all what was required to enter the union and therefore what is required to terminate it.
If you read the records of the parliament of Scotland at the time of ratifying the articles of the treaty, in some of the speeches, those on the side opposing the union, demanded a general vote by the people of Scotland to enter the union. This was totally disregarded by those on the side of the union, presumably because they expected the union to be rejected by the public.
Interestingly, later on, and when the Scottish representatives in Westminster were debating if dissolving the union or not after violations of the treaty, it was precisely those who wanted to preserve the union who were then whining for a vote by the people of Scotland before dissolving the union.
The consideration of the opinion of the people was seen just as circumstantial, never as essential evidence. The treaty of union was just a contract between the parliamentarians of Scotland and England and instigated by the crown to preserve its own interests.
The treaty is also what has ensured the same line of succession to the crown in Scotland and England since 1707. Therefore one can expect the crown having a huge vested interest in this treaty to continue. Looking at the history books, this vested interest from the crown is quite obvious. It remains obvious today.
The treaty has been repeatedly violated since its conception and, the crown itself has endorsed each and every one of those violations.
For example, it was the crown who directly stopped the dissolution of the union in 1713 which was prompted by the attempt to impose the malt tax in Scotland in direct violation of the Treaty.
The Scottish representatives approached the monarch asking for the union to be dissolved. At that time, the monarch refused to accept the dissolution and outrageously attempted to justify the direct breach of the treaty of union by the English side by waffling about “the difficulties all her subjects faced as a result of the recently-concluded war”
However, instead of pressing the crown for the dissolution of the treaty, or simply upping their stakes from Westminster parliament and recalling the convention of the three states, Scotland’s representatives in Westminster, who clearly did not want to lose their nice concessions, caved in and brought the case to the HoLs where they lost it for just 4 votes.
Absenteeism was cited at the time as one of the reasons why this vote failed. It was not in their personal interests to upset the Queen. Scotland mattered less.
But that was not the first time the union was at the verge of being dissolved. In 1711 there was even an stronger attempt to end the union. I am referring to the case of the Hamilton peerage and the attempt by the English counterparts to discriminate Scottish peers to stop them increasing their representation in the HoL upseting “their” politics.
Moved by personal interest and greed, some of the Scottish peers were happy to betray the treaty and endorse a bill which would allow the HoL to increase representation of Scottish peers.
These quotes are from the Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (12th volume, 1994):
“On 18 January (2012) the Committee of the Whole House discussed the problem… The ministry proposed a solution involving the creation of a number of hereditary Scottish peers with the right to sit in the lords to replace the 16 elected ones, provided THE WHOLE SCOTTISH PEERAGE agreed (my capitals)”
“On 25 January (1712) the Committee of the Whole House passed a resolution by 60 votes that the 22nd article of the Union treaty could be altered by parliament provided that this was requested by the Scottish peerage. Oxford further propsed an act of parliament which would call the whole Scottish peerage together to decide what they would propose”
However, this move was disputed by peers like Lord Balmerino who considered it a direct breach of the ToU. In his own words: “I writ to the Treasurer that I could not agree with my countrymen in thinking that any body could alter ane article of any contract by the partys contractors, who, in the Treaty of union, upon our part were the estates of Scotland and not the nobility, nor could the peers dispose of their peerage as of their property, the publique being too much concerned in it, to permit that.”
From those quotes, three interesting points can be extracted:
1. In 1711, that is 4 years after the treaty was ratified, a simple majority of all the lords (English + Scottish) was not considered enough to validate any change of the articles of the treaty – it was accepted that there had to be agreement of a majority of the Scottish peers. Even this was not considered sufficient. Following Lord Balmerino’s quote, it was in fact necessary that the Three Estates of Scotland sat and and approved the change.
This proves that in 2011 and 2013 it was considered that Scotland retained absolute sovereignty.
2. The Treaty of Union was seen merely as “a contract”, not as something final and irreversible. This quote is also from Lord Balmerino also with relation to the Hamilton peerage affair:
“It is not my fault that nothing can alter any Article in our contract, but the partys who made it. Nay several English Lords had say this very thing”
3. Following from Lord Balmerino’s quote, the parliament of Scotland (the Three states) and the parliament of England were considered “the contractors” of the Treaty and not Westminster. As contractors, the parliaments of England and Scotland are the only ones who have legitimacy to change the treaty and not Westminster unless the change is approved by a majority of the representatives of England and a majority of the representatives of Scotland.
This tallies quite well with the views of another contemporary of the treaty: Daniel Defoe.
We all know Defoe was a pro-union propagandist sent by the crown to Scotland to pump Scotland full of pro-union propaganda. But, interestingly, Scot (1979, quoted by Hunter (2018)) attributed the following quote to Defoe extracted from his book “The History of the Union between England and Scotland”, published in 1786:
“the articles of the Treaty…cannot be touched by the Parliament of Great Britain; and the moment that they attempt it, they dissolve their own constitution; so it is a Union upon no other terms, and is expressly stipulated what shall, and what shall not, be alterable by the subsequent Parliaments. And, as the Parliaments of Great Britain are founded, not upon the original right of the people, as the separate Parliaments of England and Scotland were before, but upon the Treaty which is prior to the said Parliament, and consequently superior; so, for that reason, it cannot have power to alter its own foundation, or act against the power which formed it, since all constituted power is subordinate, and inferior to the power constituting”.
So even Defoe, a propagandist working for the crown to bring the union about, acknowledged the subordination of Westminster’s parliament to the Treaty and therefore to the parliaments of Scotland and England. Needless to say, that such quote from Defoe and the quote from Lord Balerino completely trashes the idea that in 1786 it was generally accepted that Westminter had “parliamentary sovereignty” when it came to constitutional matters related to the Treaty of Union. This parliamentary sovereignty thing is something newly adopted, certainly post-treaty, and rather convenient for the English court, called “Supreme Court” to use as a multiuse tool to dismiss any attempt to change the status quo. Considering Westminster is a subordinate of the treaty and the parliaments of Scotland and England, the legitimacy of that “parliamentary sovereignty” is, to say the least, questionable.
But the Balmerino letters and the written records from the Hamilton peerage case highlight something else rather interesting:
1. At the time, it was considered that the Three States (Scotland’s Parliament) could be reconvened at any time. This quote is from the Balmerino letters
“They say I would have the Estates to be called and I might as well propose a dissolution of the Union. I say I shall propose that when ever they please”
2. It was seen at the time that the recalling of the Three Estates was a “de facto” dissolution of the Union. This quote is also from the Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (12th volume, 1994):
“But [during the debate about the Hamilton peerage affair in 1712] the question arose whether the peerage had the right to act alone in altering the Union without the agreement of the other two estates of the old Scottish Parliament, and if all three states met would this not be ipso facto a dissolution of the Union?”
And this quote is from Lord Balmerino’s letters (1713):
“I am convinced that to call a meeting of the Scots estates is in effect to dissolve the union and without them, not only a majority of the peers but even all of them being unanimous cannot alter any reserved article tho they would do it the better, nay a point of the proposals concerns the barrons and burgeses imeadiatly”
From the quotes above, it seems rather clear that if this union did not end at any of those points it was because Scotland’s representatives in Westminster, both in the HoC and the HoLs, have always been thinking more in themselves and their relation with the crown than in Scotland.
This quote is also from the Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (12th volume, 1994):
“The political differences among the Scots, however, made co-operation among themselves difficulty, and even the detested malt tax could not fully unite them. The vulnerable financial position of most Scottish peers meant that the ministry could eventually blunt their attack with offers of patronage, something that even the high-minded Balmerino was not above accepting for himself and his son”
The revelations on this site regarding the SNP gravy train joy riders demonstrates this problem continues today and quite possibly it is the very reason why the SNP troughers are desperate using ny excuse they can find to not progress Scotland’s independence.
If anything is clear to me is that in 1711 and in 1713 the representatives of Scotland in the two houses of Westminster knew the union could be dissolved unilaterally and they knew that reconvening the old Scottish parliament, which they could do, was an ipso fact termination of the union.
Once you have read the above and the context where it took place, the approach the Irish took to end their “union” makes an awful lot of sense:
1. to get a mandate from the people for independence in the form of a general election
2. to not to take Westminster seats – this removed them from having to swear allegiance to a crown with a vested interest in preserving the “union”. By not swearing allegiance to the crown, they have no constrains when following their allegiance to the people they were elected to represent
3. the elected parliamentaries reconvened their old parliament. This is what Lord Balmerino was saying- to recall the Three estates. This at all practical effects terminates the union
4. to repeal the Treaty and Act of union with England, and start acting as an independent country. Clause 37 (Acts of Union) of the Scotland Act 1998 says:
“The Union with Scotland Act 1706 and the Union with England Act 1707 have effect subject to this Act”.
In line with that, I wonder if a reconvened Three Estates repealing the Scotland Act 1998 could suffice to invalidate both acts of union.
It seems to me that the history books have had the path to restore Scotland’s statehood in front of us all along. The Irish successfully tested it.
Personally, I think nothing has changed. In 2023 we had two arms of the crown usurping control of the executive and legislative power to stop the referendum bill. It is interesting also that arms of the crown in the form of a corrupt COPFS and judges brought forward the case against Mr Salmond and are forever protecting the identity of acusers and the exchange of messages of the vietnam group despite strong discomfort among the public about possible perjury and the suppression of messages which might question the validity of the moorov strategy and the entire case against Mr Salmond.
It is also fascinating that it was representatives of the crown in the form of COPFS and courts who brought forward malicious prosecutions against pro-indy bloggers on rather poor evidence.
The bottom line is that both in 1711 and 1713, only 4 and 6 years after the union came about, Scotland’s representatives thought
1, the dissolution of the union was perfectly possible and simply required a majority of Scotland’s representatives to end it
2. They did think the recalling of the Three states was possible
3. They did think recalling the Three States (Scotland’s old parliament) was a de facto dissolution of the union.
4. they did think that English commoners or lords alone could not change the articles of the treaty of union by themselves. It was necessary the agreement of the representatives from Scotland’s three states.
5. If the union was not dissolved then it was only because our representatives did not really want it because it would affect their own personal interests.
Needless to say that in all what I have read from that time, and that was a time when the conditions under which the treaty was agreed would still be fresh in their minds, I have never seen anywhere a stipulated requirement of “four votes”, like you claim are required, before our representatives decide to lift their backsides from the green seats and dissolve the union. As a matter of fact, as soon as their English counterparts attempted to force something that would be detrimental for our representatives’ personal wealth or prospects in the 18th century, they jumped into action and demanding the union to be dissolved rather quickly and loudly unless their grievances were addressed to their satisfaction.
the obfuscation, the diversionary, the outright lying, the ignorance peddled as gravitas … is par for the course when discussing the union with an englishman; they all have english-man-brain, a set of mental blocks about how they see the world
– do not get lost in these arbitrary, often created on the spot, ad hoc, conditions and constitutional mazes they like to create; all you need to know is – there is no condition or set of circumstances in which, under UK law, Scottish Independence will be recognised by them as legitimate – even if 5.4M Scots walked down to Westminster and banged on the fucking doors …
So, don’t waste your time; international law trumps UK, the UN treaty is what you use; all the tools are there, use them. Do not involve the UK, or the English in any process to become independent, keep them away from it, their dirty hands off it; and do not FOR FUCKS SAKE accept their “help” e.g. getting GCHQ to make sure a referendum vote is fair and untampered-with … use a UN style/New Caledonia franchise for any vote and accept no bullshit about NEW SCOTS = LITTLE FUCKING ENGLANDERS
Consider the insanity of asking the UK supreme court for an opinion on indy; it does not make sense, for by the terms of the treaty the very existence of a UK wide Supreme Court is in breach of the treaty – let it sink in; an entity whose existence breaches the treaty is being asked about the treaty.
Win the next election on an indy manifesto, go to the UN, let the world vote down the hated England, and see where the chips fall; UK power is illusory – smoke and mirrors, of glories long past, of imaginary friends it does not have. Just make sure you tell the americans you will remain in NATO, and that your armed forces will need “kitted out”; the USA was never a country, merely a business enterprise.
@Matt Quin 12:44pm
While your comment is very well expressed and I totally agree about what you said about sex predators and the real motive about enabling them, I have to point out the dishonest language that surrounds so much that is LGB and especially T.
You refer to certain people as having transitioned years ago. Talking about this in past tense would give someone a very misguided picture of what it takes for a man to maintain the (shallow) facade of being a woman. The truth is that the process is continuous, requiring very regular physical and chemical intervention to prevent nature trying to reassert itself. From the hideous mutilation and the complications surrounding it to the hormones.
These ‘treatments’ do not make the man in question a woman. So the use of ‘she’ is also dishonest. What these medical interventions achieve, at best, is to give a man a passable disguise as a female from 50 metres, and affirm misguided delusions.
Here’s a thought exercise: Are there any women out there, who if they went to bed one night as themselves and somehow woke up with a full adult male body, would be willing to go through the ‘trans’ process simply to have the illusion of being a woman again, and how many would say ‘to hell with it, id rather not go through that and simply be physically healthy’?
Speaking as a man on the flip side of that question I would much rather be a physically healthy woman than have to maintain the farcical process of ‘transitioning’.
I think most healthy people would agree. Only someone who is genuinely ill and misguided would agree to spending the rest of their lives having to go through that. Only a sick society would prioritise physical alteration over improving mental health.
The trouble we have is that while normal health identity has been mocked and derided in our society we have been encouraged to turn ‘what we like to fuck’ into an obsessive identity around which we base our lives. This is why so many of our young are obsessing about it.
As Ian Brotherhood has said, and as I pointed out here years ago – the underpinnings of this is theological (satanic) and is an assault on our civilisation and people and it’s time to use honest language around the issue.
@Matt Quinn.
Please do not put words into my mouth and if you had scrolled down the thread you would have found a link to the article.
Anton Decadent says:8 May, 2023 at 10:23 am
“Please do not put words into my mouth and if you had scrolled down the thread you would have found a link to the article.”
I didn’t – I dissembled your strawman argument. – And, as the conversations aren’t properly threaded in any meaningful sense; it’s your responsibility to reference what you cite.
@Matt Quinn
I wasn’t making an argument, I was referencing an article in that days Guardian/Observer.
Anyways, I notice that you have not replied to any of the other posters who replied to you, did I hit a nerve when I alluded to a media deliberately biased in favour of the trans lobby?
I am not here to make friends but I am also not here to make enemies and engage in flame wars. Good day to you, sir.
Anton Decadent says: 8 May, 2023 at 11:18 am
It may surprise you to learn that I’ve a life to lead and a business to run… this ‘forum’ is an unimportant diversion; when I have the time I’ll answer the points worth addressing…
No, you silly little man; you didn’t hit any nerve – but you have (as it fails to register with you) just contradicted yourself by admitting you were making an argument – i.e alluding to ‘something’. – You weren’t just ‘referencing an article’ at all! …Strawman arguments; et seperatim, irrelevant!
Joe says: 8 May, 2023 at 6:23 am
@Matt Quinn 12:44pm
” While your comment is very well expressed and I totally agree about what you said about sex predators and the real motive about enabling them, I have to point out the dishonest language that surrounds so much that is LGB and especially T. ”
I wouldn’t disagree with you on that point… adding the ‘intersex i’ to that alphabet soup for example; because of course incorporating something that is an irrefutably and often physically-manifest medical condition helps ‘validate’ the arguments that incorporate (often dangerous) paraphilias into the mix.
As I pointed out earlier; similar ‘tactics’ were employed by organisations such as P.I.E. ‘back when’ society was debating the de-criminalisation and assimilation of ordinary homosexuality; something that is as common as the some of the leaves on the trees being a slightly-different size to others…
The main difficulty here being is that the issues surrounding these issues (or at least a distortion version of them) have become lucrative feeding grounds for politically-minded troughers; who would other wise struggle to find any means by which they might obtain the funds to live.
Earlier, reflecting on Partick Grady re-asserting himself, I wrote; this unfortunately is too-typical of the calibre of individual that is attracted to and flourishes in modern political life. – Weirdos and freak-show rejects! – Often worse!
The key question here is; why is politics in general infested with sex-pests (both homosexual and heterosexual) cheap crooks, and other undesirables? – ‘dishonest language’ is something they don’t even try to hide. – The ‘alphabet soup’ nonsense has nothing to do with asserting the rights of any misunderstood or grass-roots group of people. – It’s a business; pure and simple.
“You refer to certain people as having transitioned years ago. Talking about this in past tense would give someone a very misguided picture of what it takes for a man to maintain the (shallow) facade of being a woman.”
I’m unsure what the profile of that ‘someone’ might be. …However of the individuals I refer to, I can attest to the fact that many people knew them for years, thinking only that (with due apologies to the individuals referred to) they were simply ungainly, unworldly and unfortunately unattractive women.
No-one (again with due apologies for the terminology)’thought the worst’ of them; it was nobody else’s business! …Many ‘natural born women’ do have an androgynous or even masculine look to them after all – nature deals some inexplicable hands at times!
Both work(ed) in media it was only in later life when particularly vindictive individuals ‘outed’ them over other matters, that they began talking openly about their experience.
” The truth is that the process is continuous, requiring very regular physical and chemical intervention to prevent nature trying to reassert itself. From the hideous mutilation and the complications surrounding it to the hormones. “
That’s something I have neither addressed in any comment nor have researched in any great depth; so I haven’t denied the truth as you seem to imply. Although a little superficial investigation does seem to confirm what you say.
-That does not defeat the fact that people do put themselves through this, and seem to live quiet, content lives with that situation; often where they could apparently not before. It’s also worth reflecting on the fact that various treatments for various conditions are, frankly, fairly horrific and mutilating, requiring ‘very regular physical and chemical intervention’.
In a thousand year’s time they might well refer to today’s medicine as ‘butchery’; but it’s all we have.
“These ‘treatments’ do not make the man in question a woman. So the use of ‘she’ is also dishonest. What these medical interventions achieve, at best, is to give a man a passable disguise as a female from 50 metres, and affirm misguided delusions.
That’s a fairly weak and dishonest argument. Although I don’t condone or personally approve of it (stressing that my approval of anyone else’s life choice is neither required nor relevant to them) there are per exemplar entire troupes of entertainers that make a living off the fact you would struggle to tell from natural women if they were sat across the table from you.
Certainly, the ridiculous and unfortunate ‘Widow Twankey’ types that make so much noise do nothing to suggest there is any kind of positive outcome… but then that’s the point. For the most part those people are paraphiliacs as opposed to dysphoria sufferers.
“Here’s a thought exercise: Are there any women out there, who if they went to bed one night as themselves and somehow woke up with a full adult male body, would be willing to go through the ‘trans’ process simply to have the illusion of being a woman again, and how many would say ‘to hell with it, id rather not go through that and simply be physically healthy’?
Speaking as a man on the flip side of that question I would much rather be a physically healthy woman than have to maintain the farcical process of ‘transitioning’.”
Speaking as a man on the flip side of that question, I cannot say this is a ‘thought exercise’ that I’m able to take remotely seriously…
As a genetic male with an endocrine system well within the average range of balance; I’ve no understanding of the emotional and physical trauma that being ‘in the wrong body’ might have; and it would in my view be dishonest and/or delusional to claim otherwise… I cannot have that understanding any more than I might really understand something like pregnancy and childbirth… or for that matter what goes on in the mind of a gay man.
You speak of ‘dishonesty’ –
” Only someone who is genuinely ill and misguided would agree to spending the rest of their lives having to go through that. Only a sick society would prioritise physical alteration over improving mental health. ”
That’s rather the point… people suffering from dysphoria are genuinely (quite seriously) ill; in a way that goes beyond the mental dysfunction of the sex-obsessed deviant and/or paraphiliac; they’re beyond anything that mere counselling might assimilate. And given that their dysphoria does not in or of itself make them predatory or threatening – in the strict absence of and sort of psychopathic or sociopathic disorder – then perhaps this drastic step is the only valid course of action.
This is what makes them different from the mere paraphiliacs that currently dominate so-called ‘Trans rights activism’.
… And why it is absolutely necessary for ‘transition'(regardless of how ineffective and incomplete the likes of you or I might deem it to be) to be an available process; albeit one that requires rigorous medical assessment underpinned by a strict ethical framework.
Again… this is a point of failure
We might begin to converge here in that this is, palpably, where things have gone badly wrong – with both rogue (politicised and often themselves deviant) practitioners and self-serving politicians undermining any such thing; thus exposing the genuinely ill and society at large, to great and unnecessary risk of harm.
“The trouble we have is that while normal health identity has been mocked and derided in our society we have been encouraged to turn ‘what we like to fuck’ into an obsessive identity around which we base our lives. This is why so many of our young are obsessing about it.”
Again… I don’t know who this “we” or “our” are; not people I identify with… The ignorant and the rudderless are malleable for sure. But it’s more a manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect than anything, to imagine there is single bubble that defines or influences all…
“As Ian Brotherhood has said, and as I pointed out here years ago – the underpinnings of this is theological (satanic) and is an assault on our civilisation and people and it’s time to use honest language around the issue.”
Oh! I see! it’s all to do with the big giant head in the sky being displaced by a different big giant head in the sky! One system of power and control (based on myth and legend) being displaced by another! – Silly me; trying to rationalise things in dull prosaic terms of power-and-attention-hungry sociopaths, boring stuff like human greed and nefarious intent!
– I’ll perhaps agree with you in the sense there is something cultish and in what appears to be totalist agenda promoted by men that like to dress up in frocks and dictate to others what they must accept and what they have to cast out! – But then that sort of thing long-pre-dates the so-called ‘trans’ cult. And there is something quasi-religious about ‘wokism’ in the standard form that rails against all rational debate; but that’s the nature of overarching ‘divide and rule’ techniques… which politicos have bee utilising since the days of the Romans and the Greeks! – Civilisation? What civilisation.
Satanic my backside – they’re just dull worthless troughers trying to find a ‘USP’ to make themselves seem interesting, edgy and play the victim!
@Mia 1:23am
Thank you for posting this. A long read, but very interesting and informative. I don’t think the majority of Scots fully understand the true nature of the Act of Union of 1707 (not their fault, I’m sure), or know the reasons for its creation in the first place. I certainly didn’t. But thanks to sites like this and contributions like yours, I’m learning every day.
The treaty of union was a parliamentary union, Two parliaments into one, which in turn dragged the Sovereign people in that kingdom of Scotland around by the neck.
However you will not find a Scottish parliament in the treaty of union since they agreed to the contract of union,
As the very treaty agreement extinguished the Scottish parliament from the treaty of two parliaments union since it was ratified in 1707.
Your initial response to me was a longwinded false equivalence with a dash of DARVO.
Me finding that the Guardian/Observer is giving column inches to a man who is a female impersonator and who has placed a bounty on the heads of women encouraging violence against them appears to have triggered you and I can tell that you will spend the rest of your life if necessary to have the last word here. Keep on deflecting on behalf of abusers of women, Matt.
I know that a lot of people do not understand this.
As soon as the Scottish parliament Sine Die’d its Scottish parliament in 1707 there could be no Scottish parliament in the treaty of parliamentary union between Scotland and England.
The Great Britain parliament can only exist if two parliaments entered into the new Great British parliament.
The English Westminster parliament entered into the new British parliament on its own under the 1694 Triennial Act until 1708, when they then renewed their election to the same parliament.
Besides Scotland closing it parliament in 1707 and therefore unable to send any future representatives to Westminster,
Westminster itself also claims that the treaty of union extinguished the Scottish parliament.
There is only one parliament in the Great British parliament and thus only one participant to the actual Treaty of union.
The Triennial parliament session of Westminster ended in 1708 without the extinct, Sine Die Scottish parliament.
Anton Decadent says:
8 May, 2023 at 3:38 pm
“Your initial response to me was a longwinded false equivalence with a dash of DARVO.” – Now you’re reduced to literally talking bollocks.
No false equivalence at all… As I said; I haven’t seen the article you refer to; and I’m not trailing through hundreds of posts to find it. I gave you an example of where ‘the press’ can be taken unawares… to address the point you apparently made.
I’m not deflecting’ from anything; and who is the ‘victim’ and ‘offender’ here? …As I said; if you’re going to cite something, it’s your responsibility to reference it – not my job to go hunting through the murky corners of your mind.
Just to spell it out for you… as is obviously necessary…
“Me finding that the Guardian/Observer is giving column inches to a man who is a female impersonator and who has placed a bounty on the heads of women encouraging violence against them appears to have triggered you”
Bullshit… What you actually said was that the Guardian/Observer had given space to someone, supposedly just some local woman who – according to you – turned out to be a violent trans-activist.
You neither gave a link to the article nor the ‘evidence’ you had unearthed. Merely saying that ‘maybe they were unaware’ what they were giving space to… and based on what you wrote yes; maybe they were!
“and I can tell that you will spend the rest of your life if necessary to have the last word here. Keep on deflecting on behalf of abusers of women, Matt.”
– How utterly dishonest can you possibly get? A cheap, tawdry coward just making shit up from behind an assumed name! Nothing I have written ‘deflects’ on behalf of any kind of abuser – but where I have at times put my livelihood and personal security on the line (even at one point being driven out of my home and having thousands of pounds worth of property destroyed) to try and bring serious offenders to book… what have you done you spineless ninny?
This very issue regarding wether there was successful treaty with Scotland or not was and has been discussed in Westminster parliament.
The referendum question in 2014 should have been,
Do the Scottish people want to join in a union of parliaments with Englands parliament of Westminster.
Not,
Do you want to stay in the union.
As the Scottish parliament ended its union in 1707.
And the treaty of union contract from Englands Westminster asked the Scottish parliament to become extinguished from that very treaty.
The link to the article is in the thread. From the article it took me about sixty seconds to find out who the person was and what they had done.
You have been using this thread to direct your anger at me but I am not accepting it, you are welcome to it.
Anton Decadent says: 8 May, 2023 at 4:40 pm
“The link to the article is in the thread. From the article it took me about sixty seconds to find out who the person was and what they had done.”
So? – Do you think everybody else lives in the same obsessive head space as you? You cited the piece, if you expected others to know where the hell you were coming from; it was your responsibility to provide a link to it – not to expect anyone else to chase after you!
“You have been using this thread to direct your anger at me but I am not accepting it, you are welcome”
No I haven’t; that’s a lie. But if you think I’m going to take abuse like that from a random wee no-mark gobshite, you’re onto plums!
You’re a dishonest coward who falsely accused me of “deflecting on behalf of abusers of women” from behind an assumed name. You wouldn’t say that to my face and get away with it – or perhaps you would, because you’d run away pissing your pants. –
Which is what you’re figuratively doing now.
It’s people like you that feed and enable the trans-cult (and others like it); because you’re the mirror-image of them. To the trans-cultists everyone who in anyway questions or fails to align with their quasi-religious bullshit is a ‘TERF’. – To you and your kind every trans person is an ‘abuser of women’.
In my first post I made the following observations…
The rubbish heard from both sides of this ‘stairheed bitchfight’ is ridiculous and disturbing; most often feeding off ignorance and stupidity; but frequently also phsycopathies that seriously undermine public safety.
I was asked to clarify that statement; well you – Anton – are a prime exemplar of that.
You’re simply an ignorant bigot who has no interest (and possibly no capacity) to ascertain the facts; instead you swing blindly at anyone and everyone who doesn’t ascribe to your small-minded worldview; you’re no different to the TERF-screaming trans-activist in that respect… thre isn’t a fag-paper between the likes of you and the likes of them.
You’re dishonest… and like the ignorant, rudderless little serf you are; have been neatly divided and conquered by those that seek to keep you under the jack-boot.
I also previously wrote…
The critical-thinking… they might ask; who actually gains from a ‘staged punch up’? – Those that started it so they could stand on the sidelines taking bets selling tickets and ‘bigging themselves up’.
That would be the politicos who made this ‘designed to fail’ and ‘bound to divide’ policy a bone of contention… people like you are too stupid and dishonest to work out that this alphabet soup nonsense is not the monolith it purports to be.
– That there are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and yes; even Trans people – who are just as horrified as the rest of us at the indoctrination of children and even this ridiculous ‘downgrading’ of the transition (it’s not reform; it denudes it or rigour)…
The latter – if they dared speak out – would be slapped down by one side as TERFS (even if they actually are trans themselves) and by the other (i.e people like you) as ‘women abusers’…
As my auld granny used to say; ‘there’s no show without Punch’.
“you seem to misunderstand the legal basis for the Claim of Right.”
A”Scot” Abroad.
Apologies for the late reply.
Salvo explains the legal basis quite clearly.
Principles of the Claim of Right which remain applicable today include the following:
1.The historic right of the people of Scotland to assert their sovereignty and their rights: ‘The said communities (of Scotland) assembled in a full and free representation of this nation do … as their ancestors in like cases have usually done for the vindicating and asserting of their rights and liberties…’
2.The right of the people of Scotland to declare various acts of government unlawful including but not limited to: * any claim by government to an absolute power, or sovereignty, in Scotland * giving gifts or grants for the raising of money without parliamentary (or Convention)
oversight (such as lucrative contracts to party donors)
* imprisonment without charge or trial
* granting personal protection (exemption) from civil debts (such as taxes)
* interfering with/directing the legal process in order to attack political opponents
* preventing protest or petition or criminalizing protestors or petitioner.
link to salvo1689.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
@Matt
Some of the people I admire the most are trans people who speak out about this as it risks their support structure from being withdrawn as punishment by the bullies. That is as far as I will go to justify myself to you.
With regard to the threat you made against me, keyboard tough guy. Get over yourself.
Quite quite fearsome the arrests on London for absolutely no good reason other than to supress and stifle any form of political comment that does not accord with the establishments wishes.
Arresting people on the trumped up charges of suspecting them to be plotting to cause nuisance, or for being in possession of a placard, or other such outrageous grounds is the actions of a fascist police force.
Of course the Metropolitan Police also sought to have excluded from London the young man in York who some time back through an egg at Charles.
But similar police behaviour is in place here. Police Scotland are well versed on weaponizing how they can harry political opponents, maliciously pursue them with no just cause. Police Scotland no longer have the trust of the people and we need to fear them for the establishment attack dogs that they are.
Fascism is alive and well. And they have the battens, the sprays, the technology, and the guns, which they will have no hesitation in using.
But yesterday was a good day. Not because of the offensive obscene opulent coronation extravaganza coronation but because vicious police suppression is in place and the rule of law swet aside.
Fear the Police for exactly what they are.
We are rapidly approaching an era where people vs government becomes a worldwide phenomenon.” ~ John McAfee
@Matt Quin 3:25pm
You have highlighted my point a couple of times here:
1 – it’s mental illness. Any medical establishment that proposes physical alteration to the body in line with a patients delusions, instead of focusing on the mind is clearly barbaric.
2 – most people who are happy with number 1 are so because they do not realise the extent and effects of the physical procedures involved.
This is why dishonest language about the subject is key to the continuation of these practices, especially on children.
I’m not actually trying to blame you personally here, it’s rife through many subjects and used by many people. But that actually goes to show than language counts when it comes to understanding and that’s why totalitarians seek to control language used.
As for satanic – you are correct. It’s not satanic per se. But that’s the best euphemism for the religious roots of what’s happening in the West now without triggering the brainwashed masses or committing a hate crime.
“Anton Decadent says:
7 May, 2023 at 5:30 pm
@fruitella
I don’t think I have link posting privileges here, look up Met accused of siding with far Right group in anti drag protest in todays Guardian/Observer.”
It’s on page 10 of the paper paper, if that’s any use to you.