The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Parking the buses

Posted on October 02, 2020 by

We’re very busy today writing more FOI requests and the like, so we’ll just take a brief moment here to note that hiring super-expensive lawyers to object to the questions you’re being asked DEFINITELY sounds like the behaviour of people who are keen to co-operate fully and in the most transparent way possible with an inquiry:

See you later, gang.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

273 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Sharny Dubs

Only us chickens in here!!

What a shower of lying, two faced, hypocritical, mealie mouthed fu”#*its……..

Ian McLean

Not sure I want my subscription used to pay for this.

H Scott

So now members are paying for the Murrells defence.

Patricia Spencer

The SNP’s escalating sanctimonious ‘disposition’ is one of the most protracted and vile on record for all to witness!

Patricia Spencer

And incidentally have we had an account of where the money went that was ‘collected’ for the independence campaign? Or was that for their defamation and protection fund only?

prj

Is this the Scottish Government our the SNP? If it is the SNP then whose money is being used? My membership is not there to be used for internal witch hunts or cover ups.

Stephen OBrien

When you become the story you must resign! It time that Murrel resigns!

Scozzie

Why would a political party or leadership committed to transparency and accountability need to appoint lawyers just because a Parliament committee is asking some tricky questions and asking for some documentation….makes you wonder eh!

I hope it’s SNP members’ money that’s fronting this and not the tax payer. Members maybe you should be asking some questions of your own.

WhoRattledYourCage

Good job the cost isn’t coming out of their own pockets, eh?

MaggieC

I’ll post this again on here re the Snp hiring lawyers , The article is from the Herald ,

link to archive.vn

Helen Yates

They just can’t stop digging themselves in deeper. unbelievable.

Robert Graham

o/t absolutely and no problem doing it .

Expect Hanging , Garrotting, thumb Screws and every Torture under the Sun being made Law by tonight , The Absolute bile and venom being voiced by callers to LBC is being mixed with all the hatred of the SNP on the pretext on purely health concerns, it’s all bubbling under the surface ,

Yes let’s get all the old pent up prejudices out there , the orchestrated and predictable calls from apparently Scottish listeners , aye right comes to mind, and we are all stupid Jocks and will fall for this game again , the media are under the total control of the English Tory government that makes The Donald’s utterings seem almost plausible .

I wonder who is pulling the strings today , Malcolm Tucker is retired so I guess it’s his pound shop replacement Cummings assisted by the Tory party in Scotland, yep the Empire that the Sun never sets also never sleeps or misses a political opportunity .

WhoRattledYourCage

One of the sickest and saddest things about this tragic and disgusting nd hateful fiasco is that it gives the genetic debris in the opposition, clowns like Baillie and Davidson and Mundell, ammo to use against the FM and her husband that can’t actually be brushed off as just the latest Scotland-hating-and-baiting treasonous, lobotomised, hypocritical arse froth they’re paid to fart.

They must be besides themselves in glee and jealousy-minted schadenfreude.This case has done a great deal of harm to the SNP and, by extension, Scotland and its politics. A disgrace. The FM and her co-conspirator should just stand down now before they do any more damage than they already have. Enough is enough.

Hatuey

The carefully planned response yesterday to Davidson was classic Sturgeon. Nobody cares if she appears before the committee for a square go or not. They key issue and sticking point is her refusal to hand over evidence.

And it is evidence we are talking about. Evidence of atrocious behaviour which may in fact be criminal – we don’t know because they refuse to let us see it.

Conspiring to pervert the course of justice is no trivial matter.

Beaker

There’s more to come. Blackford now being asked if he knew about Ferrier’s positive test on Wednesday, and if so, why did they not make it public until Thursday afternoon.

Perhaps the SNP should rename themselves as JCB…

stonefree

This is what I posted a few minutes ago
My apologies if out of order

stonefree says:
2 October, 2020 at 12:20 pm

@ Big Jock at 9:49 am

“corporate law and tax” My Oh My, odd that Chief Woke Smith worked with Clifford Chance LLP as a Lawyer in that medium.
Now If per chance a “dipping of the till” may have occurred due to a possible accounting error, I am quite sure that is not the case
I worry that the SNP members will have to stump up!!!
Then again
Why should they? It is not down to them.
Where will the money come from?
I suggest the answer lies with John Prescott, being told Labour overdraft liability lay with the NEC
and as Corporal Jones would say “Don’t panic!”, “Permission to speak, sir?” and “They don’t like it up ’em!
All in all this is a crock of shit, and will drag this charade on for another year or so

deerhill

Wonder if the lawyers asked for the money up front?

Corrado Mella

The Scottish Independence movement is saddled with a “leader” with no “leadership” skills that has not “led” anyone, anywhere, in six years.

She’s seeing her grip on power slip away, right when things could go the way she would end in history books, so she and her cohort are resisting any scrutiny of the costs for her abysmal failure to keep onto the stellar trajectory her predecessor plotted.

Support for Scottish Independence up 23% to 45% in two years, then 45% to ~55% in 6 years, the absolute majority of it thanks to external events and (excuse the crude wording, but it’s the truth) natural selection.

Great administrator, witty politician, dismal leader.

But the failure is exclusively on the Yes movement’s head.

I have been banging on this for years: we need a leader that’s not encumbered by the duties of being the Head of a Government that must work for everyone living in Scotland, whichever side of the constitutional debate they sit.

The SNP, despite what some that are neck deep in its apparatchik say, is not and never has been the vehicle for Independence.

An instrument or an expression, indeed, but the vehicle is US, the voters, who will eventually deliver it.

The SNP needs a kick in the backside to get moving again and FOLLOW the vehicle, or it will become another of the tools abandoned on the way to Independence.

After a string of weak, insipid or plain evil leaders, the Labour party that had in Keir Hardie a leader supporting Home Rule for Scotland, has become an irrelevance.

The SNP is on the same trajectory.

David Caledonia

I have decided to go off my nut and become stark raving bonkers, then I will become a SNP.MSP

Heh Heh Heh

Daisy Walker

Perhaps they’ll hold a fundraiser to pay for the lawyers? Hmmm?

If they are in need of legal representation, on a personal level, for damage limitation purposes, would this not indicate they have brought the party into disrepute – at the very least?

David Caledonia

They tell you to do this, and do that and none of it is lawful, get taken to any court in the UK because of all this utter nonesense and you will not be penalised for any of it
Because its not legal, its just another con job

kapelmeister

Shepherd & Wedderburn specialise in commercial law. Yet the Salmond Inquiry’s wish to question Murrell has of course nothing to do with the SNP’s murky accounts, but with Murrell’s involvement in the Salmond Affair. Confusing.

And spouse

If a law firm is doing this work, who pays?

SOG

I’m content that it’s not my money being spent. I definitely made the right decision there.

I’d like to ask if twitter is down for everyone, or was it something I said?
Thanks

[…] Wings Over Scotland Parking the buses We’re very busy today writing more FOI requests and the like, so we’ll just take a […]

Footsoldier

The money being used to pay solicitors is a misuse of membership subscriptions.

I pay my membership to further the cause of independence not to try and hide some dodgy goings on.

Whatever the reason not to publish the latest SNP accounts, instead of the usual silence, we need to know why this is?

What on earth are all the MSP’s and MP’s thinking and doing, have they too been silenced and afraid to speak out?

Republicofscotland

So effectively Sturgeon is using taxpayers money against them in the hope that they (taxpayers/voters) can’t find out the truth.

It looks like every avenue of deflection, obstruction, and downright skullduggery that Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings would use is being thrown by Sturgeon, to stop the truth of the matter seeing the light of day.

It looks as though Sturgeon and Murrell are willing to drag the party down with them in an attempt to save their own necks. Yet Sturgeon has the brassneck to say to Ferrier to do the right thing.

Bob Mack

Of course hiring very expensive lawyers could account for a large deficit in the ring fenced money eventually. For the good Of the party and membership you must understand.

Interestingly one of our former posters on “that” site which is now heavily censored, put up an article by Joanna Cherry.

They hoped the bit where Joanna said we must not wash our dirty laundry in public would bolster the attempt to wheesh everhbody.

They completely miss the point that there is “dirty laundry” there to be washed.

Mist001

It’s a fucking shambles, isn’t it? A fucking shambles.

The whole fucking thing. EVERYBODY’S been taken for a fucking ride.

I’m ruefully laughing here, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

These clowns are meant to be running Scotland? They couldn’t run a fucking bath.

Cuilean

Shouldn’t Mr Murrell be paying Shepherd & Wedderburn’s fees? He undoubtedly has more savings than the SNP, after all, he’s been creaming off party funds for over 20 years and nobody but the Murrells are allowed to know his salary!

The only ring fenced funds in SNP accounts is Mr Murrell’s very private income!

If only Mrs Murrell suspended her chubby hubby with the same alacrity she throws others e.g. Alex Salmond, Michelle Thomson, Mark McDonald, Joanna Cherry, Neale Hanvey.

Republicofscotland

I’m not a SNP member, however I’m sure it must be galling to find out that members fees etc are being used this way. I mean the law firm won’t be cheap, it must be costing a small fortune just to retain their services, let alone it going any further.

It appears all routes will be exploited by Sturgeon except the route to the truth.

Gary45%

Mist001@1.04
And the opposition parties are obviously much more honest and credible?
No skeletons in the Yoon party cupboards?
Vote Tory scum, Labour and Lib Dum to get Scottish Independence.
Dream On.

G H Graham

Since Sturgeon & her kinky cronies retrospectively modified a Scottish Government process to help finger Alex Salmond, why is the SNP involved at all?

At the point when this scandal came to light, Alex Salmond no longer enjoyed a seat in government in any capacity as far as I can recall and perhaps only retained his party membership. I have no idea if he still has one.

So I find it bizarre that Sturgeon & Murrell would hire a legal firm to assist them further with obstructing due parliamentary process on the presumption that it is the SNP who is footing the bill.

Which means that the source of the money is actually from membership fees & other such income streams.

So perhaps someone can clarify why a deeply flawed & proven illegal Scottish Government process is now being defended during a parliamentary inquiry into said illegal process by party political money and not Scottish Government money?

Is this an attempt to deflect the legal obligation away from Government which is constrained by many more regulatory frameworks that a political party could ever be?

What motive might Sturgeon & Murrell have for hiring a legal firm in the first place & why are they using a dwindling resource provided by party members to defend the reprehensible behaviour of two people who clearly think they are above the law?

Especially when Sturgeon has puffed about being open & transparent at every opportunity?

There’s something quite rotten at the head of the party & the Scottish Government & it isn’t the food from Bute House canteen.

Mike Fenwick

As others have suggested, when an entity, in this case the SNP, use SNP funds to employ commercially oriented, financially savvy lawyers – don’t rule out the possibility that it is advance of what may appear (or indeed not appear) in the SNP Accounts.

Josef Ó Luain

What I saw at Hollyrood was the FM taking all questions regarding the AS Inquiry unto herself; this, conducted in a “poor Nicola, who’s done everything right by the Inquiry” fashion. A clever enough holding-tactic, but it it won’t make the questions or their owners disappear.

Heaver

Clearly Sturgeon and Murrell have been squirreling away the SNP’s fighting fund into foreign bank accounts. They’re just hanging on till their next foreign trip, and they’ll never come back. It fits the known facts. Lesley Evans is in on it in some way too, they’ve all got dirt on each other.

Wonder where they’ll go?

Asklair

“‘do the right thing'” “Nicola Sturgeon urges” let’s wait and see.

gorgielad

who is paying for this?

Willie

Sturgeon’s time is running out, if it has not already. Her and her man have been exposed for what they are.

Lawyers will not save them. King Kanute could not stop the tide and neither will they, and spending huge sums of money on lawyers trying to restrict the disclosure of information is something that every contributing member should be raising.

And lawyers, the best money could buy, did not stop Al Capone going to jail.

Kenny

Stu, it is interesting that “the SNP” has hired expensive lawyers to bail Murrell and Sturgeon out of awkward questions asked by a parliamentary committee.

I noticed last night, when responding to the idea of of sending asylum seekers to a remote Scottish island, Nicola Sturgeon said that this will face opposition “from me”.

If she is paying personally for newspaper ads, fine. But if she is doing it in her salaried time, then she should say “from the SG” or even “from Scotland”.

I am increasingly reminded of certain episodes from Roman history now.

Willie

And another thought has to be the departed who left legacies to a party who is now using that money to protect a fucking criminals.

It would break your heart. Scum, scum, scum. We need to clear it out and now!

CameronB Brodie

Are SNP members not a bit embarrassed by the leadership’s clown shoes? If you are determined to support criminality in office, as well as the ‘Spear agenda’, you don’t support the Common law, so you’d probably find a more natural home joining the Tory party. So if all natural Tories in the SNP were to fuck off to their natural homes, i.e. under a rock,, the SNP might be able to support the rule-of-law.

kapelmeister

Kenny @1:35 pm

“…this will face opposition “from me””

Aye Kenny. Even before the current revelations and the indyref retreats of recent times, Sturgeon’s habit of using personal pronouns when talking of SG policies and actions was chronic.

Alison

No wonder the party has no time for an independence campaign, far too busy fire fighting. I resigned from the SNP at the beginning of the year; very glad I’m no longer contributing to the endless legal costs the Murrells are generating.

Oneliner

By doing this (hiring lawyers) does the SNP disassociate itself from CSS (Civil Sabotage Scotland)?

kapelmeister

See one of the things on their website that Shepherd & Wedderburn claim expertise on is white collar crime. Hee hee.

Oneliner

On a brighter front, a pod of whales is blocking the Faslane base and putting the NATO exercise on hold.

I believe one of them is called Vladimir.

robertknight

Oh, for gawd’s sake…

It gets progressively worse week on week!

SNP… Sleazy Nic’s Procrastination

Go, and go now!

Astonished

I am still a member. They better not be using my donations.

Keep up the good work stu.

kapelmeister

robert @2:16

Yeah. It really is time for Sturgeon & Murrell to heed the entreaty in the title of The Moody Blues debut hit.

[…] comment, corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politicsTrackback: trackback from your own […]

Tannadice Boy

Keep the good work up Stu. I am not sure about NS doing the right thing anymore. She is going to bring the house down as she promised. We need the Scottish Judiciary and Police Scotland to grow a pair of balls. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Dave Beveridge

kapelmeister @2:16

“Yeah. It really is time for Sturgeon & Murrell to heed the entreaty in the title of The Moody Blues debut hit.”

Dinnae get it? Nights in White Satin? :bemusedsmileything:

Breeks

Won’t go to Court to defend Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution from colonial assault. Fk no!. Let’s have a gold standard referendum when Boris says we can.

Asked to reply to questions from a Parliamentary Committee? “Gold standard” cooperation? Fk no! Get the lawyers in FAST!

The stench of hypocrisy would make you sick, that is, if you weren’t already gagging from the stench of corrupt conspiracy.

Daisy Walker

@ Kenny ‘I noticed last night, when responding to the idea of of sending asylum seekers to a remote Scottish island, Nicola Sturgeon said that this will face opposition “from me”.’

Scotland’s beautiful Islands are not exactly strangers to large numbers of ‘economic migrants’ from another country coming to settle in the area, with absolutely no regard for the local culture.

Will be interesting to see how THEY react if it comes into being. Not overly keen on foreigners in general.

Perhaps if the Uk stopped getting involved in bombing other countries to hell and back in order to steal their oil, there wouldn’t be so many refugees in the first place.

Breastplate

Dave Beveridge,
Maybe “Go now” is a possibility?

Bob Mack

I have renamed Wee Ginger Dug site as the missing Island of The Lotus Eaters. It isn’t mythology after all. They exist!

Reasonable polite questions censored out because it may reflect badly to answer.

How can we win with this attitude.

kapelmeister

Dave @2:33

Go Now.

Although since the Murrells are driving indy supporters to drink, there’s Days of Future Pissed.

Beaker

A few comments elsewhere that the situation with Ferrier is a piece of nice timing for Sturgeon. No one is suggesting for a moment that it was planned, but pure luck as it attempts to deflect attention from the main story about the law firm.

But the story is definitely getting picked up elsewhere, so I would expect another awkward FMQs next week.

Oneliner

I am not a member of any political party.

If employing lawyers is the only way the SNP can disentangle itself from the ‘Scottish Government’ Civil Service obstruction, truth-avoidance and incompetence, then it could be money well spent.

If, on the other hand, it leads to more of the same, then the Westminster patsies would appear to be unassailable.

Apparently Nicola Sturgeon’s written reply to the Enquiry contained names. Any wonder then that the reply has not been forthcoming?

I’m off to make a false allegation of sexual assault against a former employer. I shall, of course, insist on anonymity. Then they will be unable to sue when the case is found against me.

Gary45%

Rev@1.19
Keep digging the hole, the deeper and wider it gets, the more of us will fall into it.
I am sure you’ll be able to look back a few weeks, as I am sure one of the punters made a comment along the lines of I’d rather vote Tory.
If I am wrong, I apologise.
I am not spitting the dummy out , but the constant SNP BAAAAD is getting a wee bit wearing.
What are the other parties getting up to? as this used to be the only place I’d ever find out, because the Yoon media never tell us.
You gave us ammunition for countering the daily garbage, answers to the crap media, what’s happened?

Breeks

Oneliner says:
2 October, 2020 at 2:12 pm
On a brighter front, a pod of whales is blocking the Faslane base and putting the NATO exercise on hold.

Years ago I was sharing a flat with some mates when there was a newsflash on the TV that a Porpoise had been battered to death in the Moray Firth by dolphins. As I recall it, at the time this behaviour was a new phenomenon, when the whole world thought of dolphins as cuddly, friendly wee critters which wouldnever play murder volleyball with a different species of fish. One of my flat mates just looked over with a knowing look of grim pride on his face… “Scottish dolphins”.

It’s kinda nice that the UK’s Nuclear Attack Fleet is no match for a single pod Scottish whales.

Daisy Walker

‘the party have hired… to represent Peter Mundell’

Does that mean that the failure of the party to hire legal representation for Alex Salmond when he was first accused (and still a member of the party) amounts to discrimination.

Was he offered legal assistance, if not, why not.

Or did no party mechanism exist at that moment in time to provide legal representation… and now it does, in which case, when was it drafted and adopted (there should be minutes) there must be a set criteria by which it can be applied, and this criteria must have been put to the high head yins of the party in order to be added to their procedures. Members funds must be accounted for after all.

It might even have been something so important it merited being put before the members and needing their approval for.

And it is likely that if such a policy now exists, there are provisos within it that representation can be refused at the discretion of the authorising body. Which raises the question – who is the authorising body managing this provision.

It has often been said (although not so much recently) that Nicola is a very intelligent woman, and a Lawyer, don’t you know. Might have saved the membership a penny or 2 if she provided some intelligent, lawyerly advice to her hubby.

Instead, I think they’ve just opened up a whole new raft of legitimate questions members and former members (like AS) can require answers for.

Hatuey

“I am not spitting the dummy out , but the constant SNP BAAAAD is getting a wee bit wearing.”

Fuck off, then.

Robert Graham

Bob 2:42

They are watching , so carefull what you say ,

Question.

What if we are right eh ? . I mean inquiring about uncomfortable stuff .

Oh you won’t have a chance to ask that question because you are censored aren’t you .

kapelmeister

Gary45% @2:50

Well you see Gary. We can’t concentrate on the yoons quite so much just now because the leader and the chief executive of the SNP, who are married to each other, are both as corrupt as fuck.

I’m sure Rev Stu will be delighted to resume normal service once the gruesome twosome have emigrated to Zurich to be nearer their bank manager.

Stan Broadwood

Patricia 11.30

Have a look in the Murrell’s bulging bank account.

I’m sure you will find what you are looking for in there.

Or,,,ask one of their many butlers.

The Murrells have got above themselves, so to speak.

They are in it up to their stinkin little necks.

P.S

Maybe the Wee Ginger Dug knows.

The Murrell’s seem to be replicating everything that is wrong with the English Establishment,,,and will fall in the not too distant future,,,skint.

Bob Mack

@Gar45%,

Are you for real? You happily read about the wrong doing of everybody else, but you want this site to completely ignore what’s happening with the SNP( like Wee Ginger Dug is doing).

Perhaps that’s your natural home among the Lotus eaters.

The rest of us want to know what happened and why it was allowed to happen? There is much to answer and they are NOT minor issues that you can put down to just politics.

Gary45%

Yoons over Scotland.
Got a nice ring to it.

Stan Broadwood

Gary 45%

In the up and coming by-election created by the Ferrier case, I would rather vote for the Monster Raving Loonie Party than the SNP.

And they aren’t even standing,,,so I would just not turn up to vote.

SNP MPs are a waste of everyone’s time and money.

Chocolate teapots, every single one of them.

Sturgeon can go and get rubber ducked.

Bob Mack

@Robert Graham,

Yes I am. I think it may well be Scrodingers Cat who has taken over censorship duties for Paul.

My question was this.

Is it normal for an organisations Chief Executive to be involved in pushing the police to expedite charges?

I asked because I have worked with many Chief Execs and they would never have done this.

Robert Graham

Now Now Daisy @ 2:54

Raising questions I hadn’t thought about ,

Naughty ,Naughty, the dugs will be sent out after you to curb your inquisitive mind and put a end to you spreading doubt amongst the faithful,

Bob Mack

@Gary45%,

Better than your “Crooks running Scotland”

Johnny Martin

Gary@ 2:50pm:

I am fairly sure the Rev made it plain recently (in last few weeks) that the current leadership are the biggest obstacle to an independence referendum any time soon.

And when you look at the ‘branch offices’, they are beat. There is already a majority of Scots for independence, why waste time now battering already beaten parties?

There will be a time for the Rev to turn his fire on the Westminster parties once more, and that time is when there is a referendum date and there are particular lies to counter from that quarter.

Some UK commentators assert every now and then that we are on the cusp of a UK constitutional crisis. What they mean is that eventually the Scottish and UK governments are going to butt heads when the Scottish govt asserts that we must (and will) have a vote on independence and the UK government says no and the Scottish government refuses to accept that.

When they say this, they mean in terms of taking action and not just saying ‘we won’t stand for it’ and doing nothing, which is what is currently happening. They refuse to do anything, waiting for it to fall into their lap. But they don’t seem to realise that Boris will brazen anything out, and so would most of the drongos who might take over from him. You need to *take* it from them, or they will just laugh at you.

The stage we are at presently is trying to work out why the leadership will not take the steps needed to move us on towards that constitutional crisis which must come if we are to be independent.

In the midst of trying to find this out, some people are learning things they don’t like and that’s what the Rev is reporting on. It’s the stage we are at, whether you like it or not. Steps have to be taken to make the political arm of the independence movement function as its voters have asked, and bring on the constitutional crisis.

Graeme

“I am not spitting the dummy out , but the constant SNP BAAAAD is getting a wee bit wearing.”

——————————————————————-
Gary I can’t speak for anyone else on this site but as far as I’m concerned all this “SNP BAAAAD” as you call it is perfectly justified, we all know the yoon parties are corrupt lieing bastards
but I don’t contribute to them, I don’t vote for them, they don’t represent me, like many others on here I’m still a member of the SNP and I have every right to know what they do with my money and my vote

Hatuey

The fight to rid the SNP of Sturgeon and her regime is the first and most important step we can take towards independence.

And it’s precisely because we haven’t thrown in the towel with the SNP that getting rid of Sturgeon is so important.

When she’s gone the moaning sentimentalists will see things differently and that’s good, but most of them will blindly trundle along behind the herd wherever it goes…

Kenny

Quite the trail of destruction following the party now? One piece of very bad news and damning information follows another, a colossal shambles being left behind for the citizens to suck-up – that’s some achievement. Someone ought to tell the amateurs it’s the end of the line – for it is the end of the line.
Just thinking; can you imagine the collective grief when those self-denying, Sturgeon-loyal wake up one morning and see the shit from the fan spatter all over the front pages of their morning papers? A part of me is giving no f*ck about that, those people are holding-back my independence, they have it coming.

Must say, these posts are absolutely riveting, incredible reading. You and MacAskill (and whoever else behind the scenes) are doing a truly great and crucial service to Scotland; we genuinely appreciate this.
I dread to imagine having the shady goings-on at the top being brushed under for years – independence blootered to hell – due to no one asking questions? Horrific.

Resign, you bloated charlatans!

Republicofscotland

“I noticed last night, when responding to the idea of of sending asylum seekers to a remote Scottish island, Nicola Sturgeon said that this will face opposition “from me”.

If she is paying personally for newspaper ads, fine. But if she is doing it in her salaried time, then she should say “from the SG” or even “from Scotland”.”

Kenny.

Knowing that Surgeon has no intentions of holding an indyref, it becomes clearer, well to me anyway, that for now the SNP is lead by a sort of personality leader, its all about her, the focus is on what she thinks, how she thinks things should be done, and during her daily briefings its always I think, not so much we think. Caesar says.

Time she went and Murrell as well, so we can get back to pushing for independence.

Robert Graham

Bob @ 3:05
Yes that’s one , the other members of the resident Clique I guess you know about them , they have taken over with or without the knowledge or maybe it’s with the consent of the site owner , nothing against him personally in fact some of his work is entertaining at times ,

The personal stuff I really don’t agree with and whoever is doing it should wrap it up , but wholesale binning of comments is a bit counter productive , I thought a free exchange of ideas is healthy however annoying some are is just opinions , some good,some bad ,and some totally off the wall Looney , but that’s life it would be pretty boring if we all agreed. and if that’s the case no point in having any Blogs , it would be pointless just like a little appreciation knitting club .yeah I know it’s called a knitting bee before some smart arse corrects me .

Bob Mack

Pro
Is like Gary above refuse to see the obvious. Surgeon believed the accusations against Salmond. That’s why she asked Evans (who told everybody) she was to create a new policy that would ensnare him whereas under the old policy Alex was immune from prosecution.

Sturgeon started this ball rolling, and everything since is down to her and her Chief Exec husband trying to cover up that fact. It is that simple and that destructive.

Republicofscotland

“That’s why she asked Evans (who told everybody) she was to create a new policy that would ensnare him whereas under the old policy Alex was immune from prosecution.”

Bob.

Lets not forget that Mark Macdonald was the guinea pig, that it was first tested on. That in itself was a shameful episode, and not by MacDonald.

CameronB Brodie

Gary45%
Don’t get upset by btl disagreement. These are times of heightened anxiety, and the party’s conduct impinges on trust. So its’ only natural that folk express their alarm, though I understand your desire for a return to the normal service of forensic de-yoonification. I think we need to get to the heart of this issue though, as I think it indicative of conduct that is incapable of supporting the Common law. Which is precisely why Scotland is getting pumped from both ends, and our democracy is being sacrificed to satisfy right-wing, populist, English nationalism. ;(

Dan

I’m thinking ahead to the film titles…

Dirty Rotters In The Fannygate of Doom

I bet the mind game activity to try and keep on top of this are as frenetic as the dancing of a certain Mr Curtis.

Joy Division – She’s Lost Control

link to youtube.com

Lothianlad

In years to come because there are too many sceptics right now, it will come to light that the british secret service have been heavily involved in this scandalous affair.

First, they wanted to discredit AS. Have him framed and jailed, so they could associate Independence with AS, trashing all the good work he had done for Scotland.

When that unexpectedly for them failed, they had orchestrated things in such a way that had the top brass of the SNP SG heavily implicated in the affair.

With a accusations of cover ups, dodgy accounts, potentially criminal behaviour in framing an innocent man, the top brass of the SNP SG will be quaking at the storm the unionist press will unleash when they choose the timing.

Vile unionist attacks are nothing new, but, this time the british secret service have ensured the SNP SG dirty hands in this will be exposed.

Sturgeon has been played by the British secret service who have infiltrated, influenced and fitted up the SNP in such a way that looks bad for them and ultimately the Indy movement.

Any one who has researched the british secret service involvement in NI will know all too well that they have infiltrated the SNP also.

Its not the Russians, the EU or any other country that is a threat to the uk, it’s the snp. That’s why the British state security services have not been asleep.

The SNP once a party of disciplined dignified focus, has become a shambles that threatens the reasons for its creation.

It’s not conspiracy theories. It’s happening before our eyes.

The biggest threat to independence is at the centre of the SNP Scottish Government

Bob Mack

@Relublickfscotland

The whole episode was shameful. All of it.

The only conclusion you can draw from this is that as well as perhaps giving these women a route to promote these spurious allegations, a very dangerous political opponent would be neutered permanently. Nobody can seriously believe that Sturgeon did not know the penalties Alex faced should be be convicted.

You are asked to believe it was never discussed with her husband about how a conviction would affect the party.

It’s nonsense. All of it, and in order to cover, lie after lie after lie.

Alex is a free man but I would love to know his thoughts watching the lass he mentored and her husband who he employed
try to justify their actions in light of the failed prosdcution which they both engineered.

He must be sick to the stomach!

Mist001

“Jim Shannon, DUP MP for Strangford, is self isolating as a precaution because he was seated at the same dining table as Margaret Ferrier on Monday evening.

On Wednesday evening, the Speaker’s Office alerted Shannon that he had been identified as a close contact of an individual who had tested positive for Covid-19.

Shannon immediately self-isolated and on Thursday afternoon he received a negative Covid-19 test result. He is self isolating at home as a precaution.”

They KNEW about all this on Wednesday and still Ferrier hasn’t gone.

Like I said last night, it’s the weekend now and all this will have blown over by Monday morning.

Atrocious.

stonefree

As they say “Good God in Govan”…….they spent the money the SNP can’t be a kick in the hips off bankrupt
I have said it now
This is what I believe could have gone on,the SNP paid full time canvassers for council election with a spending limit of say £1500(a ward) and by my estimation spent the better part of £5k per ward.
The creation of fake news so that they can get the photos done , The latest is the TSB staff redundancies , and to be honest tuff shit. it wasn’t that when banks were closing companies and asset stripping
It up to the members to take action,Get their conveners and tell them to get off their erses do it NOW
It’s my opinion that MSPs are next to useless, there is currently few who are crapping themselves, as Wokies are going to take their comfy seats, because they were just following orders

Bob Mack

@Lothian Lad,

Evans has publicly stated she was given instructions by Nicola to create a new policy. Nicola has never refuted that.

This was not started by agents of the State cunningly planning all this in the future.

This has all occured because Nicola created something that previously wasn’t there. She fired the starting gun and the bullets have riccoched back towards her and the hierarchy.

Stupid stupid stupid. I can guarantee you she at no time envisaged how this has all played out

Astonished

A thought just occured to me – Why aren’t the SNP hiring a lawyer to defend Margaret Ferrier ?

She’ll be a helluva lot easier to defend than murrell.

Republicofscotland

Bob @4pm.

Bob.

I read, I can’t recall where, maybe in here, that Westminster advised against going after former Holyrood ministers but Sturgeon just ignored it.

Mike d

Re margaret ferrier. You tell sturgeon margaret, that you’ll do ‘the right thing’ when cummings and his ilk do.

Mike d

And i hope you gave it to all those sewer rats in the HOC.

Bob Mack

@Rephblicofscotland,

Yes she did, and you have to ask why? . Now the situation is that she probably has daily contact with some of these women and as yet I can find no words of comfort from her towards Alex. There is no indication either that these women have been sanctioned in any way for bringing charges proven to be spurious. Indeed the SNP have thrown a protective blanket around them never afforded to Alex.

All Alex got was a now disclosed Instagram from the SNP Chief Exec extolling attacking him on several fronts to break him.

That is now justice SNP style. Protect the false accuser rather than the innocent accused. It is not equality. It is not fair. Most of all it is not justice.

CameronB Brodie

“This has all occured because Nicola created something that previously wasn’t there. She fired the starting gun and the bullets have riccoched back towards her and the hierarchy.”

Instruction to create a policy is not instruction in how to create the policy, or what that policy should look like. Though if Evans is the one who ordered the Scottish civil service to abandon a gender-critical approach to policy design, she appears not to feel constrained by the Common law. So probably not the safest pair of hands to design policy enabling retrospective criminal action.

Bob Mack

@Cameron,

For that to be true you would have to believe that Nicola did not even read the final version of the policy before it was enacted. Do you actually believe that?

Willie

Unity of purpose and a steadfast commitment is what has allowed ruthless scum to infect and control of a movement and a party.

And it was that unity that kept so many so quiet for so long. But no longer .

Like Jeffrey Epstein and his Madame Ghislaine Maxwelll, Murrell and Sturgeon’s time is up.

CameronB Brodie

Bob Mack
I’m trying to be as prescriptive as possible without commitment to a rigid conclusion. 🙂

I think it unlikely, as our entire government and judicial system has been perverted through institutional yoonery, which is hostile towards both the Natural law and the Common law.

Bob Mack

@Cameron,

I know from experience that every Minister goes through anything they are associated with using a fine tooth comb.

Possibly because they have to explain it in public and answer questions on the subject matter.

Take it from me, Nicola is even more methodical than most in that regard. She will often send documents back with notes attached clarifying various points .Well prepared. Well rehearsed. Well researched. She is a lawyer and knows find well how to interpret legal terminology and nuance.

CameronB Brodie

Bob Mack
Please note I’m not strongly disagreeing with you, not even slightly, and I’m trying to remain as uncommitted as possible in my failure to disagree with you. 🙂

Andrew F

As a lawyer I very strongly believe in the right of everyone to legal advice and representation.

I have often had to deal with problems caused because a client decided to act or speak before getting legal advice and got themselves into a pickle.

However, from a Public Relations point of view this stinks to high heaven. Get lawyers – fine, no problem, but do it from the off and make it clear and public that you are simply engaging them to help you navigate the legalities of the present matters.

Otherwise it looks to your members and the public like you are hiding something and trying to bring in the “big guns” to get all technical and legal to keep your dirty laundry hidden.

It’s a bad look, and no wonder people are rightly asking why they should be paying for this. It looks like the SNP doesn’t want to tell the true facts to the inquiry.

Mike Fenwick

Assumption 1: This was a wholly genuine exercise to comprehensively update procedures over staff harrassment.

Assumption 2: This was a targetted exercise to ensare one individual but camouflaged as Assumption 1.

Question: Is there clear documented and wholly available evidence which renders Assumption 1 unlikely and supports Assumption 2.

Answer: It comes in the shape of a missing Category.

The final and still current version of the revised procedure addresses a situation involving Current or former Ministers who

a) are MSPs of the party in Government

b) were MSPs in a party previously in Government

That’s it … nowhere is there a category for MSPs who are no longer a member of any party.

For all the money spent, for all the internal and external persons involved, a member of staff raising an issue of harrassment involving anyone in that missing category has no procedure to follow – and that is the procedure as it stands today and for the future – unless revised.

As it should be I leave everyone to form their own conclusion – Assumption 1 or 2?

Tannadice Boy

@Andrew F
I am not legally trained but I am a member of my community and a member of the General Scottish Public. And nobody is convinced with the SG. Take it on the streets if needs be or address the real problem.

Ian Brotherhood

Contrary to what Paul Kavanagh (WGD) claims, it is possible to be positive, optimistic etc, and also acknowledge the unpleasant facts that he and his regular contributors recoil from.

Grim as the current situation is, the cleansing process is now underway.

How many of us, this time last year, had any idea that this sinister and sickening shenanigans was going on? How many people had any awareness at all of what was being cooked up by Evans, the Alphabet women etc? How many of us were even aware of Peter Murrell’s role and how long he’s been in place (hands up – I only found out he’s been CEO for 21 years a couple of weeks ago).

The calls for NS to resign and/or provide full disclosure have snowballed in a matter of days. It’s inconceivable that she and her husband can stonewall the committee for much longer, legal machinations notwithstanding.

A year from now, this mess will be resolved one way or another and the movement will be back on track – can’t be any worse than it is right now, can it?

😉

Robert Louis

Said it before and I’ll say it again, this stinks, on every level. What are the Murrells trying so very hard to hide??

Menawhile, we see yet again how happy and quick NS is to throw good people under the bus, at the first sign of difficulty. Any MP ignoring the covid rules is an idiot, no doubt about that, but honestly, calling for her to resign as an MP, is frankly ridiculous, yet that is what Sturgeon was so very quick off the mark with. How about standing up for the people who put you where you are Nicola??? How about NOT throwing every single good MP you ever had under the bus, at the first wee sign of difficulty.

Of course Margaret Ferrier was an idot, but for goodness sake, it isn’t the end of the freaking world. NS, her husband and their woke cabal, need to get a grip.

NS and her husband need to go.

Gregor

Keeping Scotland in the dark and holding it back: at Scotland’s expense.

WTF BANANA SNP 2020…

Dave Beveridge

Robert Louis @5.17 pm
“Of course Margaret Ferrier was an idiot, but for goodness sake, it isn’t the end of the freaking world. NS, her husband and their woke cabal, need to get a grip.”

The thing is, by her actions, it could’ve easily been the end of somebody else’s world. There isn’t a big enough bus for a complete and utter moron like that to be thrown under.

Lochside

So the SNP have gifted another ballsup to the MSM? Another stupid and arrogant ‘M.P.’ decides that she is better than the little people. Never mind all the Unionist imposters all the way up to Cummings, and the Saxe Coburg heir to the throne..they don’t matter…there’s only one game in town and that’s the slow self destruction of our once leading vanguard for National Liberation.

People were obsessed by Sturgeon’s ‘Madame X’ histrionics in the Parish Cooncil Talking Shop. Wrongly giving Baron Munchausen Davidson credit for utilising the ongoing shitshow to distract from the real issue:

That of The Silence of the Bams: i.e the Westminster ‘SNP’s everlasting supinity in the face of the passing of yet another Bill…the Internal Market one…the real last chance to stop, challenge and rip up the Treaty and Acts of Union for the umpteenth time…yet once again Ferrier and this latest legal obsfucation allows the Unionist hegemony to keep the eye off the ball once again.

I understand Gary 45% frustration. The Rev Stu does also share that frustration, but we have to be fit for purpose. Can anybody look honestly at the big picture and say he’s wrong?

Bob Mack mentioned the WGD site and the ‘Lotus Eaters’ narrative being driven by excluding the honest questions ( the site owner is correct to get rid of the hatemongers..I wish the REV would follow suit with the alt rite trolls who keep disrupting threads here). I read through some of the contributions from ex contributors on this site.

The usual suspects were there with their blind faith assertions of belief in the S30, plebiscite route and their rejection of the previous historical SNP/WEstminster agreed protocol for Union Dissolution via the REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY process i.e.a majority of seats for constitutional change ( backed up by Claim of Right). Despite skilled and experienced advice from Craig Murray and Alf Baird , with clear examples of well…..everywhere..that playing by bent rules with a failed gangster state is not the way to go.

But, no harm to them. They demonstrate the ancient Scottish cultural core beliefs of loyalty beyond all reasonable evidence and doubt to the ‘lost cause’ e.g. ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ or the ‘Scottish Labour Party’. But this time it looks like not being a long drawn out death..but a sudden shock when the Brit deep State/BBC/MSM with their ‘sleepers’ in the Party and ‘Scottish ‘ Gov. pull the plug finally and blow away the imposters running the show.

The one light at the end of the tunnel is Joanne Cherry’s article today suggesting that at last, there is a fightback, possibly constitutionally based, being planned. We need this to happen soon, so that if the poison is expelled from the body politic then a weakened but resolute SNP , yes and a united movement, can take us forward in time to challenge seriously for out Independence in the New Year. The ‘enemy within’ the SNP created the own goals ..they must sort it out or we are all lost.

Dave Beveridge

Robert Louis @5.17 pm
“Of course Margaret Ferrier was an idiot, but for goodness sake, it isn’t the end of the freaking world. NS, her husband and their woke cabal, need to get a grip.”

The thing is, by her actions, it could’ve easily been the end of somebody else’s world. There isn’t a big enough bus for a complete and utter moron like that to be thrown under. In this case NS is right in what she did/said even if she’s wrong on so many other counts.

Republicofscotland

Ian Brotherhood @5’16pm.

Yes we were like mushrooms kept in the dark and fed shit by Sturgeon, Murrell and her clique but not anymore.

One does wonder though, say in a years time how Sturgeon will be remembered,( If she’s ousted, along with Murrell) will she be remembered for say, the Baby boxes, the Forth road crossing, and additional funds to the Care Allowance, etc, or will she be remembered, as a liar, who set up Salmond, and pretended to want independence, and an unscrupulous rogue who kept us in the union longer than we needed to be.

Just how will history remember her?

Ottomanboi

@Dave Beveridge
Careful you dont choke on those mouthfuls of official propaganda.

Liz

The Queensferry Bridge was Alex S baby. NS has done nothing on a large scale. That’s probably her style. Think small.

Holyrood Mandy isn’t pulling any punches over the hiring of the law firm.

Tannadice Boy

The thing is there no buses left in Edinburgh to throw people under. And the sad fact is Alex Salmond didn’t throw NS under a bus when he should have. The difference between good and bad leadership.

CameronB Brodie

The FM’s failure to support some guilty of moral indiscretions while supporting other probably worse transgressors, is suggestive of poor and inconsistent judgement. Supporting those who are hostile towards the Common law (see Spear), is suggestive of judgement that is unable to support justice. As is submission to Westminster’s unconstitutional claim to own Scotland. Just saying.

Comparative Administrative Law
link to scholarship.law.gwu.edu

Ian Brotherhood

Edwina Fucking Currie on GMS, lambasting Margaret Ferrier.

We have enough critics right here more than willing to join the lynch mob, we certainly don’t need the witterings of a freelance Tory gobshite to ‘inform’ the debate.

Lochside

Ian Brotherhood @ 5.48pm…Edwina Currie…the individual who OFFICIALLY gave the keys to ‘Jim’L’fixit’ at Broadmoor?

Ottomanboi

Like sheep to the slaughter.
link to off-guardian.org
Never, ever trust anybody over 25.
A maxim that would benefit the over 25s too…..
Why the f are the British so credulous!

Ian Brotherhood

@Liz –

Thanks for reminding us of the Queensferry Bridge opening.

It’s one of the very few occasions Murrell broke cover and let us have a good look at him.

The temptation to play the role of ‘First Man’ was just too much: the historic occasion; the pomp, the theatre; the global coverage, the kudos and, of course, the chance to shake mitts with Madge.

*BOAK*

Ian Brotherhood

@Lochside (5.52) –

The very same.

Thanks for giving me the excuse to post the link to her toe-curling interview on RTE’s Saturday Show.

Anyone who hasn’t seen this, please please watch it. Utterly damning and you’ll never forget it.

Currie is as close as I’ve ever seen in my life to actual ‘evil’.

link to youtube.com

stuart mctavish

@Dave Beverage
By your own understanding of the severity of the disease she could die in the coming weeks, who’d look the complete and utter moron(s) then?

Tannadice Boy

Another round of MSM so called informed comment. What have they missed? The corruption at the heart of the Scottish Government. I will get jailed shortly. I have no offences in a long life. Well done NS it is all about you. A true narracisit.

deerhill

Someone asked,”Has the money been sent abroad?”

If it has the Rev. may use as a headline to the article, the Mark Knoffler track, “Postcards From Panama”!

More seriously, if the SNP finances are in such a parilous state, as speculated, will the Party go bankrupt?
Will the Murrels really bring the house down with them?

Andy Ellis

@Lochside

The “majority seats is enough” narrative is fatally flawed I’m afraid, irrespective of what Craig Murray or other assert. The international community isn’t interested in the vagaries of a 300 year old treaty, or the Claim of Right or Declaration of Arbroath. What they will insist on to recognise the rights of Scots (or Catalans or Quebecois) to become independent is a clear majority in response to a clear question.

The international community don’t regard cases like Scotland, Catalonia or Quebec in the same light as former colonies of imperial powers, or the break up of multi-national states like the USSR or Yugoslavia.

Where the international community MAY get involved is in a situation where Westminster (or Madrid or Ottawa in their cases) was seen to be acting flagrantly in bad faith and refusing to recognise the expressed desire of a clear majority of voters to become independent, AFTER they had exhausted other means.

Thus if the SNP had had the guts to make Holyrood’s 2021 election a plebiscite, pro indy parties won (say) 55% on a clearly secessionist platform, and Westminster refused to recognise the outcome, we would have a strong case to withdraw our representatives from Westminster and simply declare independence. It is NOT enough to do so simply with a majority of seats: remember the SNP won 56 of 59 Westminster seats with 50% of the vote. That wouldn’t have been recognised as a mandate any more than the attempted Catalan secession a few years ago was.

We know the routes to independence. The $64,000 question is why the SNP is so determined to ignore the most practical and fastest route: plebiscitary elections for Holyrood in 8 months time. If they refuse to grasp that nettle, we may as well start constructing a “real” independence party, because the SNP is condemning us to wait a decade anyway.

kapelmeister

The SNP to hold the virtual party conference on St. Andrew’s Day.

You know why they chose that day don’t you?

It’ll be ‘please let’s not squabble on our national day’.

Robert Graham

On a lighter note

Storm ALEX is predicted to take a severe dump on the Aberdeen council area , It is denied Labour and Tory burghs will be severely affected

Oh dear what a Shame eh

CameronB Brodie

The British constitution is a Common law contract limiting administrative conduct required to enact a political agreement between equal sovereign nations. It has no legal power to bind Scotland, only the colonisation of Scots minds can do that. Along with an appalling biased legal Establishment. So I think we simply need to convince more folk that British nationalism is hostile towards international law and order. And that it require Scots to reject the Moral law in order to continue. Obviously this will have serious implications for global law and order.

Madisonian Balancing: A Theory of Constitutional
Adjudication

link to repository.uchastings.edu

MaggieC

Ian Brotherhood @ 5.48 pm

“ We have enough critics right here more than willing to join the lynch mob, we certainly don’t need the witterings of a freelance Tory gobshite to ‘inform’ the debate “ .

That’s the same Edwina Currie who had a four year affair with John Major while they were both married to other people . She didn’t bother to “ inform “ anyone for another fourteen years until she published her diaries . So she has no right to criticise anyone about what is right or wrong .

I cannot stand the women as she was in Margaret Thatcher Government and I’ll never forgive or forget what those Tory’s did to Scotland and I still don’t understand how anyone who lives in Scotland could ever vote for a Tory after the devastation they caused with what they did to Scotland and all who live here . They can all rot in hell as far as I’m concerned and that’s me being polite about them .

And spouse

Don’t know if any of you spoken about or listened to Dot Jessiman on Barrhead Boy.com today. If you haven’t, you must. Rev you are so right.

Tannadice Boy

Kapelmeister
Squabble?,It’s way too late for that. If only Holyrood did there job properly. I am no longer know what side I am on. I am not on the side of the Murrells.

CameronB Brodie

It is truly terrifying when the political practice of the SNP leadership needs de-colonising.

The Common Law, the Constitution, and Judicial Self-Identity: Constitutional Rights Adjudication in Ireland
link to blogs.kcl.ac.uk

Tannadice Boy

Cam B
I don’t know about the law but I know the difference between right and wrong. Corruption at the heart of Government is one thing but there is a prima facia case to be answered about the fall out from their leglisation. We are preparing a case for the Procurator Fiscal. Oh for the days they were independent from the SNP.

Dave Beveridge

stuart mctavish @ 6:07 pm

“By your own understanding of the severity of the disease she could die in the coming weeks, who’d look the complete and utter moron(s) then?”

Well hopefully she won’t nor anyone else the selfish erse might’ve infected.

CameronB Brodie

Tannadice Boy
I’m not disagreeing with you, and though I’m no trained lawyer, I do now how to judge when the interests of justice and democracy are being undermined.

HARVARD LAW REVIEW, VOLUME 122 MAY 2009 NUMBER 7
LAW FOR STATES: INTERNATIONAL LAW,
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, PUBLIC LAW

link to harvardlawreview.org

Lothianlad

@Bob mack 4.00

If you think the british state is not at work in the SNP SG then you are utterly naive!

The british secret service is not all spooks, cloak and dagger, james bond types with bullet pens and exploding watches.

Their modus operandi is to protect the british state!!

One of the ways they have perfected this is by utterly discrediting threats, through smears, blackmail bribery and fear!

Sturgeon is heavily implicated in the AS affair. This is no accident.
Wake up and see the threats around.

Wee Chid

Republicofscotland says:
2 October, 2020 at 5:30 pm

Just how will history remember her?

As a Nobel Prize winner, if she gets her way. I’ve heard that is what she s after with her woke agenda.

Lochside

Andy Ellis says:
2 October, 2020 at 6:16 pm
@Lochside

‘The “majority seats is enough” narrative is fatally flawed I’m afraid, irrespective of what Craig Murray or other assert. The international community isn’t interested in the vagaries of a 300 year old treaty, or the Claim of Right or Declaration of Arbroath. What they will insist on to recognise the rights of Scots (or Catalans or Quebecois) to become independent is a clear majority in response to a clear question.’

The international community don’t regard cases like Scotland, Catalonia or Quebec in the same light as former colonies of imperial powers, or the break up of multi-national states like the USSR or Yugoslavia.’

Sez who Andy..You?? I’m afraid , you ar the one who is so so wrong. Unless you are an International lawyer, it’s just your opinion, and you don’t appear to understand Sovereignty and what it actually means. The Claims of Right are actual democratic assertions which have been recognised by Westminster.
Your points are further flawed:

(1) Quebec and Catalonia never had and do not have an equal binding Treaty and Acts of Equal Union. Those 1706/07 International agreements are binding and permit the U.K. to so describe and define itself as an political ‘entity’. The name is on the tin ‘United’. But despite Mundell and the Supreme Courts attempts, Scotland was not incorporated into a Greater England. England can also separate from Scotland on that basis, hence separate protected legal system, religion , trading rights etc.
( Regarding 300 year old treaties, age does not wither them. The United States Declaration of Independence is only 50 years away from that milestone. I don’t see anybody querying that particular one or Magna Carta’s relevance either for that matter..

(2) The majority of seats for governance and Independence was the convention from the introduction of Universal Suffrage in the UK Parliament nearly a hundred years ago.. It was written into the SNP’s Constitution until Salmond or similar decide to change the rules internally. But the English Unionist Hegemony did not strike down that route to Indy. (See Margaret Thatcher for evidence). I have pointed out repeatedly as have others that we had the majority of seats and Pro-Independence Votes 50% snp plus Greens to declare Dissolution one year after the fiddled Referendum. You, like Schrodinger’s Cat, late of this parish, keep ignoring that fact

(3) Northern Ireland is a Province. A fabricated country separated against the majority votes of the Irish Parliament by a coup de t’at led by the British Army Officer corps that backed off from armed insurrectionists and created a bogus one party protestant state. An abusive eyesore that eventually the International Community had to intervene with due to it being an Elective Dictaorship. We are in this position now.

(4)We are ‘Democratically’ outvoted permanently by a De Jure equal partner in an International Union which has been acting for three centuries as a De Facto Colonial Power.

(5)Your casual dismissive attitude to Murray and Baird does you no favours. Both have highlighted the UN and the ECJ view and potential powers available to act on behalf of ‘nations’ and countries that are effectively being held hostage by bogus democratic means. Both are experts in Constitutional matters. The Former was involved in negotiating national borders at International level. The latter has written an erudite exposition of our political plight and the Sovereign path out of it.

(6) You contradict yourself with this :’Where the international community MAY get involved is in a situation where Westminster (or Madrid or Ottawa in their cases) was seen to be acting flagrantly in bad faith and refusing to recognise the expressed desire of a clear majority of voters to become independent, AFTER they had exhausted other means.’

If we have or do not assert ourselves as a Sovereign nation by following the above protocols based on dissolving International agreements, as is our proven Sovereign right, we remain a ‘devolved’ part of the UK and the ‘International Community’ will ignore us like they did with Madrid and Ottawa. And that is the very reason that Sovereignty declared in the correct process trumps half arsed devolutionary supine surrender S30 s and using ‘local’ elections as plebiscites when they have no legitimacy to be called so.

Final point: If you had been paying attention, I will re-emphasise: all of us who support the Constitutional route based on our Sovereign nation’s historical existence demand that on the following bases: legal establishing International Acts; and our basic rights to demand our freedom. The process incidentally involves Notice of Dissolution made in Westminster, followed by a Declaration of a confirming plebiscite in Scotland with all of Civic Scotland to confirm this to the International community.

I suggest you go and read up on the 17th Century Wars of the Thrie Estates and try to understand the basis of Scotland’s identity and assertions of such before dismissing people such as Murray and Baird who are fucking serious.

CameronB Brodie

If the FM imagines WOKE practice involves the legal exclusion of natal women from the legal right to a legally defensible identity, then she doesn’t understand WOKE theory, and hasn’t much of a clue in how to support open democracy. That might be why Scots are to be removed from the EU, in order to accommodate and empower right-wing English nationalism.

#ragging

Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy
An International Journal for Theory, Research and Practice
Volume 15, 2020 – Issue 1
Bodyfulness: Somatic Practices for Presence, Empowerment and waking up in this life

link to tandfonline.com

SOG

Does anyone else see Margaret F as the unfortunate victim thrown out of the lifeboat to distract the sharks?

CameronB Brodie

I’ve only started to rip our law makers a new one. ;(

#ragging

Somatic Movement and Education:
a phenomenological study of young children’s perceptions, expressions and reflections of embodiment through movement

link to core.ac.uk

Beaker

@Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
2 October, 2020 at 3:57 pm
“No kidding. This is a grim and miserable business right now.”

Better to clear out the crap now, rather than let it fester for a few more years.

If things aren’t sorted out now, they will be much harder to deal with in the future.

Bob Mack

@Lothian Lad,

Sturgeon required no spooks to start this clusterfeck. She did it herself without help from agents provocateur.

Achnababan

Should Margaret Ferrier resign if this Tory git did not?

link to telegraph.co.uk

Tannadice Boy

@CAM B
We will see it was interesting to me you didn’t ask what the Prima Facia case might be. Abstract is fine we are dealing with reality. The consequences of SG leglisation. I don’t need to crowd fund but I have no confidence in the Scottish Judiciary. The SNP owned the institutions. I will probably lose money but the dirt cheap Australian farm is looking good.

Beaker

@SOG says:
2 October, 2020 at 8:10 pm
“Does anyone else see Margaret F as the unfortunate victim thrown out of the lifeboat to distract the sharks?”

I think it is either fortunate or unfortunate timing depending on your point of view.

Makes you wonder how she will react. Will she resign quietly or open a Pandora’s box? I noticed Boris is being rather subdued about it. Wonder why…

Alf Baird

Lochside @ 5.28

“The Silence of the Bams”

Salient points as ever. It must have by now occurred to folks that, by choosing to depend on UK exit by referendum, Scotland could forever elect a majority of SNP MP’s at every UKGE and these liberating nationalists would still likely take their seats at Westminster, like mindless bams, rather than take their sovereignty hame. Even Thatcher, Major, Tebbit etc acknowledged that the election of an SNP Scotland majority was game over for the UK union, whilst others such as Leon Brittan was willing to accept Scotland’s exit after two successive Scottish SNP majorities were returned. We’ve now had three SNP Scotland majorities of MPs!

Andy Ellis @ 6.16

What is lawful in international law and what the international community may think are two different things. Any signatory party to a treaty may lawfully bring an end to that treaty and this is generally understood and accepted under international law. Most of the international community, however, remain blissfully unaware of the existence of the UK ToU and Scotland’s actual constitutional position as signatory party to the ToU (and hence ‘superior’, rather than subordinate party). Once the international community become more fully aware of this the recognition and respect for Scottish sovereignty will be apparent. Moreover, irrespective of the ToU, every national election is a plebiscite on independence as far as Scottish nationalists seeking to end colonial oppression are concerned, and always has been (for all colonies), until the current SNP elite themselves decided otherwise and hence to ignore the ToU. And by the way, there is no similar union treaty in respect of Catalonia/Spain or Quebec/Canada which means the situation in Scotland is, in terms of international law, quite different. Scotland’s treaty constituted Scotland’s way into union and must therefore be the way out of union. Referendums are not required as a matter of law for independence and can and should be avoided wherever possible, unless perhaps where their fair and proper organisation can be guaranteed, which is impossible within the UK context given extensive external interference and where even the SNP ScotGov has now twice managed to mess up the franchise in favour of increasing ‘No’ votes.

crazycat

Re: Nicola Sturgeon’s increasing use of first person singular subject and object pronouns (though she doesn’t always use the correct one) –

I have been noticing this for a while, and think it is a very bad sign.

But, in this particular instance, where she said

They can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me.

she was replying to another tweet in which she was mentioned by name:

There have also been discussions about processing migrants on an island off the coast of Scotland

Ministers said to be concerned this will be met with opposition from Nicola Sturgeon & objections from local residents

[my emphasis]

(link to twitter.com
link to twitter.com)

So I would say she has an excuse, for once.

Stan Broadwood

Howz this for an idea.

Get Margaret Ferrier to remain as an independent MP and then we get her to become the ISP’s first Westminster MP.

She could be our spokesperson at Westminster.

Talk up Scottish Independence on our behalf,,, after all, the SNP never talk about Independence.

Lothianlad

@bob mack

“Sturgeon required no spooks to start this clusterfuck”

Correct bob, the spooks required sturgeon to start it.

This close to independence, support at astronomical levels for the past 6 years and the SNP is about to implode!

This has the british security services hands all over it!

Campbell Martin posted a great piece about agent pravocatours in the Grouse beaters blog.
Check it out.

holymacmoses

There’s no reason for this last debacle to do anything other than hasten the referendum and get Scotland right away from the old ways and start afresh.

Political Parties won’t get Scotland Independence that’s up to the people.

cirsium

@Kenny, 1.35, @kapelmeister, 1.57

L’état, c’est moi

WhoRattledYourCage

See aw this pish aboot ‘the unionist press ur hoarding aw this info against the SNP/SG jist tae yaise it the right minute’? Ah dinnae believe it fir a second. They woulday chucked it oot long afore noo, tae bury the SG/SNP, n laugh is they did sae.

Mibbe – jist mibbe, noo follay me here, it’s gonnae git tricky – the jealous duo in the top seats ay the SNP hierarchy jist wantit tae make shair thir hoosehold nivir goat dividit by that Salmond prick n his power-wanting, winning weys they could nivir measure up tae (impossible act tae follay) ivir again. “Ah mean, mind, Nicola, how ah used tae work in his office n he didnae gie a fuck aboot me? Ah used tae watch him swanning aboot his office like he owned the place, which he did, firget aboot that, bit the wey he took oor running fir the FM post fae you, n pitting me ootay the running tae be the bridesmaid there, nivir the bride, n you wi it…well, it wis mair thin ah could bear.”

Satire. Obviously. Why dae folk find it sae difficult tae believe thit Scottish folk kin be utter scum, n act against the country’s best interests…fir thir ain best interests? Interesting dichotomous view we’ve goat ay oorsels: under the Westminster thumb oan yin hand, perr fucked victims n stainless purveyors ay nuhhin bit truth oan the ither. Nivir fails tae make me laugh we take the pish ootay the yanks or English fir corruption, bit kin nivir see oorsels in the same place. Cos we’ve nivir hud the power tae be, afore. 😉

Ah mean, fir fucksake, look it the zoomers n bangers n haufwits n wallpaper-chowers n utter cunts thit Sturgeon n Murrell huv filled the top tiers wi! That disnae necessarily display English interference tae me though, of course, ah could be wrang. Wouldnae be the first time. It displays selective, vengeful judgement, anger, pisstaking, bloody-minditniss, a desire tae (mibbe no even consciously) trash the pairty n country n government, lunatics taking oor the asylum.

Hink aboot whit will happen when Sturgeon isnae FM onymair. It cannae last firivir, obviously. She’ll go tae whitivir new fresh political pastures she feels like, or is paid best fir, content in hinking thit she shook up Scottish society, n took it awa fae the 20th century macho schizoid model she grew up clearly despising. Thit she endit fucking up the country n her ain pairty willnae maitter tae her or her bird: she got the rainbow cabal intae power, n that will show up her ultra-humanist credentials tae the UN or fucking whaeivir she wants tae employ her.

She’s awready done oot whit she single-n-bloody-minditly set oot tae dae, oorly franchise the angry minority disenfranchised, n she could fuck aff the morra withoot ony negative ramifications oan her ain conscience or psyche. Salmond? “Well, ma auld boss wis jist an anachronistic 20th century (spit) heterosexual man whae happened tae get in the wey ay oestrogeneratit we-ur-ra-people progress…n ma ambition. Hell mend the patriotic chromosome-deficient prick. Ae no, Peter?”

“Sounds sounds tae me, doll. Much mair tae be done!”

Aye, nae doot.

youtube.com/watch?v=iibpewIA_ik&ab_channel=skankin80

holymacmoses

L’etat c’est le peuple et le peuple sont l’etat

Ian Brotherhood

@crazycat (8.24) –

That’s interesting.

NS’s language use is coming under closer scrutiny as the pressure on her increases. That pressure seems to be accentuating the traits you mentioned at the start of your comment (i.e. ‘me, I, me, me, me, I’ etc)

Listening to her pronouncement on Margaret Ferrier, the sighing, the hesitations, expressions of empathy mixed with musings on how to deal with colleagues as well as adversaries etc, I found it really difficult to listen to the substance of what she was saying. ‘Style’ has surpassed content. Just as the set-your-watch-by-it press briefing has become a fixture which appears designed to project reassurance and competence, regardless of what she actually says, her responses to news and/or questions have become uncomfortably predictable, bordering on hammy.

We all watched her in the run-up to indyref1 – her ability to deliver well constructed speeches without notes is genuinely impressive. But that’s during campaigning. How can that same talent be applied to unforeseeable events and questions? Look at the state she got in yesterday with simple questions from Davidson which, presumably, she had prior sight of. She was all over the place.

For a few weeks now it’s been bugging me, who she reminds me of. It hit me earlier, listening to that clip about Ferrier, how disappointed she was, how she was left with no choice but to demand resignation although she can’t enforce it.

It’s pure Blair, post-Iraq, in Chilcot Inquiry mode, giving it ‘I had to make that decision’, trying to elicit sympathy and admiration for being responsible, authoritative, doing his duty etc.

She’s invested so much in the creation and projection of herself as a credible leader, and done so in the almost complete absence of anyone capable of threatening her position (from inside the SNP or other SG parties) that she seems totally unequipped to accept the reality of the situation she finds herself in, just like Blair. She went so far as to state, with that trademark ‘giggle’ of disbelief, that it was ‘outrageous’ that she be questioned. Outrageous! Blair often exhibited similar astonishment that anyone could dare to question his integrity.

Blair will go to his grave still believing that he really did feel the hand of history on his shoulder. Perhaps Nicola has had a similar paranormal experience but the hand isn’t on her shoulder – it’s pointing stage left.

Achnababan

Ian Brotherhood has just introduced an idea for a new TV programme ‘Nightmare Stars in their Eyes’

‘Ladies, Gentlemen (and nonmales) I give you Nicola Sturgeon as Tony Blair!’

Frightening but very close to the mark!

stuart mctavish

@Stan Broadwood
Brilliant – Even better if ISP makes it policy to declare indy with a majority of MPs (subject to a confirmatory referendum), and she can get 29 former colleagues to join her before Christmas 🙂

CameronB Brodie

If the SNP truly want to help those afflicted by dysphoria, rather than simply conform with trendy legal dogma aimed at subordinating the legal identity of natal women, they can start by not insisting that the will of man is more powerful than the laws of nature. Leave that sort of science denial and misogynistic authoritarianism to the right-wing.

The Relationship between Mental and Somatic Practices and Wisdom
link to journals.plos.org

crazycat

@ Ian B

I don’t listen to her (no TV), but I do read tweets and reports of what she’s said.

What I struggle with is the idea that she suffers from Imposter Syndrome, rather than being an example of the Peter Principle!

Ian Brotherhood

@crazycat –

Ha!

‘The Peter Principle’?

I’d heard the expression but didn’t know what it meant, had to go and Wiki it.

Bang on.

😉

WhoRattledYourCage

Wee Nicola goat salutit fir her haunlin ay the 2009 flu epidemic. She’s jist replaying her greatest hits tae try tae boost her immune system fae the anti-Nicola virus oan the rise.

Sarah

I see no sign that the FM is going to resign or step aside or do anything other than hang on.

Who is going to make her? I see no sign of her Cabinet colleagues or the SNP MSPs putting any pressure on her – not publicly anyway.

Employing solicitors, paid for by the party, shows a huge amount of brass neck and is evidence that she has no intention of trying to protect the party and our cause from scandal.

This is all very depressing.

Andy Ellis

@Lochside

Of course it’s just my opinion: that’s all any of us have. I do have a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews…so there is that I guess. I have a fairly good understanding of sovereignty and other basics having taught the subject. By all means however, continue to show yourself up with your assertions.

1) In the eyes of the int. community, polities like Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec (whatever their differences in circumstance) will be treated the same way. They don’t care about the details of UK, Spanish or Canadian history and constitutional practice: they’ll deal with each situation as it comes. They’d have dealt with Quebec voting yes, or with Scotland if it had in 2014. They made it fairly plain how they felt about the Catalans recent attempt. Your assertions that Scotland is somehow different or unique may make you feel better but don’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of actually having the guts to take independence, still less ensuring it is generally recognised. It always amuses me folk pontificating about the Treaty of Union and Magna Carta.

2) The majority of seats route changed with the re-establishment of a Scottish parliament. It’s that big building at the bottom of the Royal Mile. The number of seats has to be backed up with a clear majority vote. Ask the Catalans. Nobody is ignoring facts but you. For indy to be recognised it has to have a clear mandate. It didn’t have that in 2015. It doesn’t have it now. 52% or whatever in the polls signifies nowt if we have no referendum to vote in and/or the ruling party has no balls to call plebiscitary elections.

3) NI =/= Scotland.

4) Immaterial. Nobody but a fringe in Scotland buys the “we’re colonised” bullshit. It is if nothing else deeply disrespectful to the third world countries we actually helped colonise.

5) I simply disagree with their take on the situation. Their opinion is the outlier, not mine.

6) No contradiction there. You either don’t understand or have misinterpreted it. Going by the rest of your contribution it’s hard to say which. I agree independence ultimately has to be taken not asked for, but the right to self determination (particularly in the 3 cases mentioned) isn’t automatic or unlimited. Indeed in some ways it’s even harder than in more straightforward de-colonisation cases.

Final Point: none of what you’re advocating is necessary. If we had a movement worth its salt, all we do is give Westminster an ultimatum: honour the 2014 precedent and approve #indyref2 by “x” date, faling which every subsequent election is a plebiscite. Given the circumstances, if we can’t win in 8 months time we might as well give up for the rest of this decade or until the younger generation grows a pair.

I’m quite aware of our history. Neither that, nor the false prospectus of Craig and his mates takes us any closer to actually being independent. There is simply no substitute for >50% voting for it: whether in a referendum or plebiscitary elections makes no difference. All the other cunning plans are fripperies.

Rm

Margaret Ferrier won’t be feeling too good at the moment, a dose of covid and will be feeling she’s let everyone down, getting her to resign what’s the point every single one of us hasn’t followed all the rules, and if Margaret has to resign NS has to put pressure on all the english mps including Cummings and Corbyn to resign as well, this next few weeks might see a few more resignations maybe not due to the corona virus.

WhoRattledYourCage

‘Andy Ellis says:

‘…if we can’t win in 8 months time we might as well give up for the rest of this decade or until the younger generation grows a pair.’

Youngsters have been growing strange things in strange places over the last few years. 🙂

CameronB Brodie

“Of course it’s just my opinion: that’s all any of us have.”

Bollocks, that’s why I provide links to legally authoritative sources. If Andy wasn’t so determined to undermine the SNP and generally be a bit of a FUD merchant, he might have taken the opportunity to improve his rather narrow appreciation of the law and international legal practice. Anyhoo, getting back the ‘Spear agenda’.

Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, vol.5 no.1 Porto Alegre Jan./Apr. 2015
Shaping the Living Body: paradigms of soma and authority in Thomas Hanna’s writings

Abstract:

This article outlines some features of the discursive strategies adopted by Thomas Hanna in order to legitimate Somatics – as well as his own method – in the eyes of the scientific community. The notion of soma and the representations of its functions will be recognized at the core of this issue.

In order to stress the enduring risk of dogmatism of the scientific rhetoric to our days, as well as their influence on the configuration of somatic discourses, I will be mainly referring to Isabelle Ginot’s radical epistemology and Martha Eddy’s critical perspective.

Keywords:
Hanna; Somatics; Radical Epistemology; Soma-aesthetics; Scientific Discourse

link to scielo.br

Andy Ellis

@Alf

It’s true the int. community doesn’t know the details about the Treat of Union, the Act of Union, the various Claims of Right. More to the point, they don’t care, because they feel they are of no significance: I know lots of anoraks here get very excited about the”kremlinology” of it, but nobody else outside the UK cares, and they are the ones we have to convince.

Elections AREN’T plebiscites, unless the independence movement MAKES them plebiscitary. I happen to agree that referendums aren’t the optimum route, but it’s the precedent we have. We can propose plebiscitary elections either instead of, or in addition to, referendums. The trouble is, the SNP aren’t listening.

The international community isn’t buying the “Scotland is a colony” snake oil. International relations theory and international law (such as it is) sees attempts by Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland to claim independence in a very different light to *actual* de-colonisation situations. Those three movements have both commonalities and differences, but none of them can expect the international community, international organisations or international law to act as the deus ex machina to deliver something they lack the support or will to take for themselves.

Andy Ellis

@CBB

The SNP patently don’t need any assistance from me to undermine the chances of independence. Only someone wilfully blind could think so.

Bunging up BTL comments with screeds of secondary sources isn’t authoritative analysis Cameron, it’s just a mania where you are concerned. You have a few who appreciate your input no doubt, but most just scroll past or find your incessant cut and pasting an irritating distraction to the flow of threads.

One_Scot

Lol, I may have had a few drinks tonight, but hey what the fuck.

I have been your biggest fan from since the beginning, I even once described you as a God amongst mere mortals. But some how, even if you are morally on the right side of history, I can’t help from feel that you are doing the unionists job for them.

I honestly don’t see where the upside is.

CameronB Brodie

Andy Ellis
You don’t win a fight your loosing by giving up, you dig deeper and hit harder. So the next time you want to claim authority of knowledge, why don’t you provide some supporting evidence and practical legal commentary? If you cam that is.

cynicalHighlander

@One_Scot

Try asking Nicola?

James Barr Gardner

Definition of?’Feet of clay’

If you say that a person who is respected or admired has feet of clay or has clay feet, you mean that they have serious faults which you or other people did not know about before.

When those idols are found to have feet of clay, the pain of disenchantment can be profound.

Ian Brotherhood

Why does the SNP need to hire lawyers to protect Murrell?

What are they going to ‘protect’ him from?

Are they going to challenge the committee process itself?

Is the committee entitled to secure legal representation?

If so, how many fucking years will it be before it does any business again?

Is it all just a stunt enabling NS to avoid giving evidence on the basis that she leads the SG and SNP and cannot honour both roles simultaneously?

Does anyone have any decent crack cocaine going spare?

Alf Baird

Andy Ellis @ 9.38

One wonders if ‘International Relations’ at St. Andrews even covers the subjects of Scotland, independence and the ToU? I rather doubt it, given the scandalous dearth of Scottish academics or Scottish PhD candidates active there, and the lack of contemporary research article outputs on what is arguably the most important of matters nationally, at least to the host nation of that institution and its people.

Breeks

Andy Ellis says:
2 October, 2020 at 9:54 pm
@Alf

It’s true the int. community doesn’t know the details about the Treat of Union, the Act of Union, the various Claims of Right. More to the point, they don’t care, because they feel they are of no significance….

Must be a complete mystery why the International Community cares about the Good Friday Agreement then….

The authenticity of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty does not lack significance. The problem Scotland has, is a defective and weak Scottish government that is content to be complicit with Scotland’s unconstitutional subjugation.

Dan

@ Sarah

It’s beginning to have the whiff of siege mentality, but it could turn into a sticky situation.
If they want yet more taxpayer’s dough wasted on this, the people might rise up and give them it in an unexpected form.

Bunfight At The (not)OK Murrells

Gonna be difficult to identify who lobbed the chocolate and cream eclair that stuck tae the windae of Bute Hoose when everyone is masked up because of covid. 😉

One_Scot

‘Try asking Nicola?’

Asking her what?

Andy Ellis

@Alf

Students and those judging standards don’t appear to share your low opinion of the TEF Gold rated IR department bud?

link to theuniguide.co.uk

“The School of International Relations has been placed among the very best in the UK for the quality of its research.

International relations at St Andrews was ranked first in the UK by the Guardian University Guide 2021 and first in Scotland by the Complete University Guide 2021.

The School was ranked second in Scotland for research by the most recent (2014) Research Excellence Framework (REF), with 72% of its research rated world-leading and internationally excellent.”

link to st-andrews.ac.uk

Derek Rogers

@ WhoRattledYourCage 9:03 pm:

“Thit she endit fucking up the country n her ain pairty willnae maitter tae her or her bird: she got the rainbow cabal intae power, n that will show up her ultra-humanist credentials tae the UN or fucking whaeivir she wants tae employ her.”

Go along with all that. An check oot an aw Alf Baird oan langage an eedentite.

Socrates MacSporran

One Scot

Might I respectfully suggest, you refrain from posting after a wee swally.

In criticising the Rev, you are attempting to shoot the Messenger, and ignoring the message.

The Rev is not doing the Unionists’ job for them, it is the Murrells and their clique who are doing that – by taking their eye of the big prize, Independence.

The Rev is only one, albeit a very influential one, among many Independence supporters, who are rightly criticising the SNP’s high heid yins at this time.

cynicalHighlander

@_Scot says:
2 October, 2020 at 10:27 pm
‘Try asking Nicola?’

The question you’re not that blootered yet are you.

Alf Baird

Andy Ellis @ 9.54

Rather vacuous on all counts, I’m afraid.

“nobody else outside the UK cares, and they are the ones we have to convince”

I assume you have lots of evidence for that? The ‘Scottish’ people are who matter most in this, on the question of self-determination.

“referendums aren’t the optimum route, but it’s the precedent we have.”

Really? Says which court?

“The international community isn’t buying the “Scotland is a colony” snake oil.”

Again no evidence for this. But on the evidence of Scotland’s political status, how else would you describe Scotland’s enforced EU exit if not being treated as a colony? Or the ‘granting’ of a non-sovereign restricted-power assembly to a union treaty signatory nation? Or the refusal to teach a people their own national language? Or the three defining features of colonisation: control by an administrative power, occupation by settlers, and economic exploitation? Or the displacement of half the native population during the ‘union’ charade? Or the BBC. etc etc.

Further, do you really think other oppressed colonised peoples around the world now independent depended only on the opinion of the ‘international community’ when seeking to end colonisation and national oppression? Why do you think Scots desire independence if not to throw off colonial oppression? What do you think decolonisation is, if not independence?

Daisy Walker

Re NS’s phrasing and language reminding people of Tony Blair during the Iraq times – yes very much so.

Tony eventually pinned all on his ‘christian’ belief system… ‘I truly believe’ was often repeated.

Have noted recently NS using the ‘truly believe’ phrase quite often of late.

With regards the SNP funding one its employees with legal representation….

Is this a policy open to all. In which case all will have been informed of its existence?

1/ If all have not been informed – then the SNP is leaving itself open to allegations of discrimination – only those and such as those are allowed to ‘know’ about this perk.

2/ Or perhaps its only available to those in higher ranking positions – in which case which positions – it should be specified somewhere, and it will be a perk of the job. One I suspect HM Tax man is going to want to know about.

Point 1 could be the one to provide members with leverage to get some answers, or some legal compensation for discrimination.

But just to clear things in my own mind if no-one elses’… Mr Mundell in his high up position within the SNP had a duty to not bring the party into disrepute and probably – as one of the party big hitters – probably had a duty to ‘firefight’ during the AS scandal… not throw petrol on the flames.

As a result of failing to ‘firefight’ he is now needing/getting very expensive legal advice that the party is ‘having’ to foot the bill for, which is also generating cause for concern/adverse publicity.

And the very act of providing him with legal cover – if it has been done in a knee-jerk type manner, potentially also, opens the SNP up to some very ‘awkward’ questions, if not possible legal action against the party for misappropriation of funds (I doubt any legal insurance scheme covers for wilful illegal behaviour – which might be why legal cover is being requested) and or employment discrimination.

Is that about right, as things stand at the moment. Oh, and the MSM are still not going for it in any real depth – how very convenient.

And about 1/2 million pounds is still unaccounted for.

Meanwhile over at the NEC – there have been no discussions about Independence and methods of achieving same, and the single issue woke crew – are reminding a long term member with experience of same, of the days when labour were taken over by militant and became unelectable.

I never left labour, labour left me – but I put my fingers in my ears, and my head in the sand and made it as easy as I possible could for them to do so….

I never left the SNP….

Beaker

@Stan Broadwood says:
2 October, 2020 at 8:25 pm
“Howz this for an idea.
Get Margaret Ferrier to remain as an independent MP and then we get her to become the ISP’s first Westminster MP.”

She’s not very popular in this neck of the woods at the moment. I live in Rutherglen. So if she does resign and a bye-election is held, the SNP better choose carefully. Labour could easily double their seats in Scotland…

One_Scot

‘The question you’re not that blootered yet are you.’

You didn’t answer my question.

Ian Brotherhood

@Daisy Walker –

As usual, you manage to distil a whole load of difficult stuff into an easily comprehensible comment.

And it raises a question which may seem so fekkin obvious that it doesn’t need to be asked, so I’ll do it…

Who authorised the hiring of the legal firm to deal with Peter Murrell’s ‘little problem’?

As CEO, would it not have to be him?

(‘baffled’ emoji here)

dakk

3.52 Rev Stuart Campbell said

‘The SNP became a bigger threat to the cause than the Unionists.’

Must’ve been a slip of the tongue/finger there Stuart.

You meant to say SNP ‘Leadership’.

Either that or you’ve been playing the faithful Wingers for the last 10 months.

cynicalHighlander

Which was?

One_Scot

Socrates MacSporran, you are missing the point.

Daisy Walker

‘The international community isn’t buying the “Scotland is a colony” snake oil.’

No, but what they do buy is the oil pulled out of Scottish waters, and unlike in the UK, Germany and France are fully aware the 60% of EU oil and gas reserves are within Scottish waters.

America is also fully aware and backing the Brit Nat establishment to the full to keep Scotland under the cosh, all the better to screw every last drop out for their own profit.

So, ask yourself, if you were a foreign government, in a powerful Union, fine and close for trading purposes, who would you rather deal with – the Scottish Government – or Boris and co.

And that is before one starts to consider the renewables.

They are not going to fight our battles for us, but it would be naive to think they aren’t watching like hawks and prepared to deal with a Scot Gov in the near future.

One_Scot

‘Which was?’?

‘Try asking Nicola?’

Try asking what?

Alf Baird

Andy Ellis @ 10.27

I am well aware of university PR thanks, having spent much of my career in one. Just show us the great research being done at St. Andrews on the subject of Scottish independence and more especially why we don’t yet have it? My claim to you was that, reflecting the fact most of its academics and PhD students come from outside Scotland, this means that, in actual fact, very little research on international relations as affecting Scotland, or the matter of Scottish independence in particular, is actually being done there. The reality I found, with PhD students in Scotland, including those I supervised, is a strong tendency to undertake research on matters concerning their own home nations. Moreover, the majorities of academics/postgrads within Scottish uni’s who now come from outside Scotland will likely not even consider Scotland in terms of ‘international relations’ because the ‘state’ of Scotland does not yet exist, and it arguably does not really matter to them whether it exists or not, they are attending or working in a ‘British’ university and that is primarily what is relevant to them.

ElGordo

If you have a problem with rats, an infestation of rats.

Then best thing to do is get a few of them and stick them into a chamber together for a while, in close proximity, with no other nourishment.

Starved, they will grow hungry, and eventually turn on each other, devouring each other, until one rat remains, the uber-rat.

The rat that has grown fat, rewarded for feasting on others.

Then release the uber-rat, with a taste for rats, into the problem infested area.

The fat uber-rat will now feast on the other rats.

A variation on the recipe is to simply substitute rats for nats.

Stu hutch

Trumps away to hospital.be a sleepless night for boris and his mates as they watch their world beating oven ready trade deal slip away.the eu must be laughing their male chickens off.standby for spitfires and vera Lynne songs.always remember no matter how bad it gets for the snp it will be overtaken by that clusterfuc that is the torys at westminster.i think it’s just got a lot better for the snp.well apart from Mr Murrell

robertknight

One_Scot @10:05

“I can’t help from feel that you are doing the unionists job for them.”

It’s not the Rev or any BTL contributors doing the Yoon’s job for them. It’s much worse than that…

It’s the people at the top of the SNP who are risking all for what, on the face of it, is an exercise in arse covering.

That’s the reality, however unpleasant.

Ian Brotherhood

Can anyone confirm that Nicola Sturgeon is scheduled to deliver a speech on St Andrew’s Day (30th November) to conclude SNP conference?

CameronB Brodie

It would be helpful of certain individuals who appear to lack understanding of the law, would not feel themselves in a position to tell folk what’s what. It’s certainly not helpful, just the opposite, and doesn’t seek to empower folk to defend their biological integrity from expansionist English Torydum. In fact, it smells like pure FUD spirit to me, frankly.

Remember, there was no legal or constitutional necessity for Brexit, simply the parochial exceptionalism of contemporary English political and legal culture.

Constitutional Rights and Proportionality 22 | 2014
Constitutional Rights and Proportionality

Abstracts

There are two basic views concerning the relationship between constitutional rights and proportionality analysis. The first maintains that there exists a necessary connection between constitutional rights and proportionality, the second argues that the question of whether constitutional rights and proportionality are connected depends on what the framers of the constitution have actually decided, that is, on positive law.

The first thesis may be termed ‘necessity thesis’, the second ‘contingency thesis’. According to the necessity thesis, the legitimacy of proportionality analysis is a question of the nature of constitutional rights, according to the contingency thesis, it is a question of interpretation. The article defends the necessity thesis. | A previous version of this article was published in Chinese Yearbook of Constitutional Law, Vol. 2010, 221–235.

Keywords:
principles theory, proportionality analysis, constitutional rights, necessary connection, human rights, dual nature

link to journals.openedition.org

Daisy Walker

How can a ring fenced (Indy Ref2) account be unaccounted for?

All it has to do is sit there, in an account, possibly getting a tiny bit bigger with a minute bit of interest.

Now here’s the thing – I never contributed to it. I looked at what the WBB achieved and put my money to Wings.

But if I had contributed to that account, as one of the Crowd who funded it, around about now, regardless of SNP membership or not, around about now, I would be approaching the Police and asking them to investigate a suspected crime of Fraud.

And if I were a member of the SNP, around about now, rather than say in the lead up to an election, I would be asking myself ‘how much confidence do I have in a party leader, that cannot produce Accounts for a ring fenced account that just has to sit there, in a bank account, doing nothing.

Either the leader has overseen that money going amiss, or she has someone in charge of the finances who cannot produce accounts on a big fat ring fenced account that just has to sit there doing nothing, and is needing sacked and replaced – which ever it is, it does not inspire confidence or competence.

Daisy Walker

an Brotherhood says:
2 October, 2020 at 11:28 pm
Can anyone confirm that Nicola Sturgeon is scheduled to deliver a speech on St Andrew’s Day (30th November) to conclude SNP conference?’

No, she’s going to do a song and dance act, from the local nick. ‘PLEASE RELEASE ME, LET ME GO’ FRANK, GET THE DOOR.

Night night all. That’s me for noo.

Ian Brotherhood

@Daisy –

Mibbe they ‘invested’ it in stocks and have left it there just a tad too long?

One thing’s for sure – if they’re now paying Grabbitt & Runne to chuck a spanner in the Harassment Committee’s work, that’ll rack up pronto.

Who would ‘invest’ in the SNP brand right now?

Willie

Has Donald Trump been slipped the Mickey Finn.

And how many of us will send him a get well card. Or maybe a sympathy card. We live in strange times.

One_Scot

Clearly my input is not understood here, but one thing I can say with certainty is that we and Scotland in terms of Independence are fucked big time.

And you can take that to the bank.

ElGordo

@Daisy

If I was a stronger man carrying the weight of a popular demand, tell me would that alarm her?

Willie

Maybe Queen Nicola is hopeful of the corona bounce continuing……….

You know, daily performances, addresses to the nation. Corona certainly takes your mind off everything else. And thankfully there’s not much corona in the SNP high command. Maybe we should search for their secret.

Ah well, it’s better discussing corona that attempts to stitchup Alex Salmond, undermine Joanna Cherry, seed the candidate list with your own, and engage top lawyers to protect yourself and the man from allegations of illegality.

Ah, we’ve got the drift.

Alf Baird

CBB @ 11.28

“It would be helpful of certain individuals who appear to lack understanding of the law, would not feel themselves in a position to tell folk what’s what.”

Maybe such attitude reflects a wee bittie British exceptionalism?

CameronB Brodie

This is one time I fully support the POTUS, as his subourdinate is possibly a bigger science denying misogynist than the orange buffoon, and might actually pose a bigger threat to us all if he gets nearer to real power.

CameronB Brodie

Alf Baird
I think your man simply has an overly inflated opinion of himself. 😉

holymacmoses

One_Scot says:
2 October, 2020 at 11:39 pm
Clearly my input is not understood here, but one thing I can say with certainty is that we and Scotland in terms of Independence are fucked big time.

And you can take that to the bank.

Hi One Scot ……

You should have less faith in a leader and a handful of reprobates and more faith in your fellow countrymen. It’s NOT Sturgeon et all that have brought so many Scots to the point af realisation of a need to be rid of Westminster – it’s the behaviour of those clowns in the south. And Scottish people will be delighted to see that there are people ready to rid Scotland of a similar type of sickness and stupidity in the hierarchy of the SNP and Government
Independence is for the people realise and is NOT in the gift of a party or an individual

Daisy Walker

@ ElGordo,

Sorry I don’t get what you mean. But it is late. And I’m calling it a night.

@ One-Scot – I don’t think we are F@cked. Not yet. i rather think one way or another there is going to be a storm to clear the air and then we’ll win at the ballot box. Not giving up anyway, things are getting interesting.

Big interesting point for me today, is the info that under the Withdrawl Agreement, which Boris signed up to, a legal challenge with regards the Internal Market Bill, will be adjudicated under European Court laws, and has 4 years to come to conclusion (if started before 31/12/20).

That buys us time folks – it even – potentially – allows for the gradualists in our midst to try their one more S30 request, then a no deal Brexit disaster, then possibly a Holyrood emergency plebescite election following the ECJ challenge.

I haven’t thought the above through in any detail, so don’t quote me. But potentially we have a bit more time, possibly, if we play it right.

ElGordo

@Wullie

What height are you?

Stan Broadwood

Should this guy Colin Beattie not know where all the missing millions are, after all, he is the SNP National Treasurer.

Colin Beattie
MSP
Colin Beattie.JPG
Colin Beattie
Member of the Scottish Parliament
for Midlothian North and Musselburgh
Incumbent
Assumed office
5 May 2011
Preceded by
Constituency created
Majority
7,035 (20.3%)
Personal details
Born
17 October 1951 (age 68)
Forfar, Angus, Scotland
Nationality
British
Political party
Scottish National Party
Spouse(s)
Liza
Residence
Scotland
Occupation
SNP National Treasurer

Political career

He won the newly created seat in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election with a majority of just under 3000 votes.[1]
Beattie previously worked as a banker and was SNP group leader on Midlothian Council.[1] Colin Beattie is also the current serving SNP National Treasurer.

Beattie was formally censured in 2013 by the Standards Commission for Scotland for breaching the Councillors’ code of Conduct for failing to register interest in property whilst a councillor.[2][3]

link to en.m.wikipedia.org.

ElGordo

@Daisy

If I was a kinder man, dishing up love for a hungry world,
tell me would that appease her?

ElGordo

@Stan

He’s 68, he probably doesn’t remember what he came to the supermarket for, national treasure is an honorary title.

Stan Broadwood

ElGordo

What do I know?

When someone has the title of “Treasurer” of an Organisation, it usually means they keep an eye on the pennies.

So ElGordo,,,who is the real Treasurer of the SNP then?

It’s not a trick question,,, genuinely want to know who looks after the funding side of the SNP.

The guy who oversees all cash coming in,,, And all cash going out.

My point being,,,he should have a fair idea of what is happening with the ring fenced money for indyRef2.

And who is funding the Murrell’s new legal team?

Thanks ElGordo.

ElGordo

@Stan my china plate

You could be right and they are all on the army and navy.

It’s true they are cut and carried.

But if they were given a lump of ice.

It would be not to duck and dive.

Wotcha.

Stan Broadwood

ElGordo

Over and Out.

Cheers

You ever thought of running for President of the United States ElGordo..?

Is that a bit of Latino in your blood???

We seem to have drifted off topic.

ElGordo

@Stan

Erm, Roger!

Your colours leak through in your casual racism.

Hatuey

I see some people still want to believe everything can blamed on Murrell and that we could all somehow live happily ever after if he was to go.

Maybe we could meet in George Square – with Rhiannon’s permission – and have Nicola lead us into a solemn rendition of ‘we shall overcome…’

The sequencing and timeline of events leading to Salmond being charged are consistent with more than Murrell alone being behind the fiasco, though.

For example, it wasn’t Murrell who ordered the rule change on holding former ministers to account. The rule change itself in terms of its timing and the apparent removal of the First Minister from the regulatory process should be treated with suspicion.

It’s almost as if someone knew what was about to unfold and wanted to preemptively distance th

ElGordo

@Hateuey

Did you re-assign Stan to mumsnet again?

CameronB Brodie

re. mumsnet. I would imagine they are supportive of somatic practices aimed at overcoming mind-body dualism, which denies and prevents human wholeness, and the potential for us to achieve our true potentials. Mind-body dualism also underpins the erroneous claim that trans-women are women, which is simply a belief that can’t be justified scientifically. It is not physically possible to change sex, so trans-women are trans-women, who of course, deserve as much respect and tolerance as anyone.

If you deny the legal identity of natal women is a reflection of their biology, then you simply don’t understand how the law or democracy works.

Awakening the Somatic Imagination: A Depth Psychology of the Body

The body lays claim to equal recognition; it exerts the same fascination as the psyche. – Jung 1928/1970

Just as the body changes in the course of working with the psyche, so the psyche changes in the course of working with the body. – Whitehouse 1958

Here too is the real mystery of the body in movement. Each instant of movement is the instant of creation. – Woodman 1982

link to elizabethnelson-phd.com

A Person

Andy Ellis is as usual correct. Countries usually only look out for their own interests. Talking about the Treaty of Union or the Claim of Right isn’t going to butter many parsnips in Washington, Beijing, or Berlin. Just look at the stuff that the Saudis get away with. Then also look at the complete failure of the much-vaunted “international community” to even so much as issue an anodyne press release on behalf of Catalonia. This is as a favour to Spain which has nowhere near as much clout as Britain. The only viable solution is for Scotland to make ourselves a useful partner to America, China, Russia, and the EU, keeping good relations with everyone.

-Bob Mack, Republicofscotland-

you talk about Westminster warning Sturgeon off ignoring the inquiry. Can you shed any further light on this?

-Cameron Brodie-

Yes, Pence is actually worse than Trump because he believes all that stuff. Moreover, if Trump dies, there will be no reckoning in which he is hammered out of office in a landslide (which may, of course, not happen anyway). Therefore the far right will not have been taught the lesson that it needs to be taught.

wull

Maybe all the people who were told by NS to resign from the Party, or were sacked from it by her, or who lost the Whip could just … could just form a List Party of their own.

I suppose it would be quite a list … Starting with AS, Michelle Thomson, Grousebeater and about 50 others. Could include some high-flyers who were well on their way to SNP stardom, but got stopped in their tracks … Craig Murray, for example … ?

Could simply call themselves the LIST. In the sense of LIST (for an) INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND TODAY. But the Electoral Commission would refuse the name. No doubt, covering itself in glorious idiocy by saying ‘you can’t have a LIST on the list’!

In which case, what would they call themselves instead? Maybe the Refusenik Party, or just ‘Refusenik’. Or they could make the ‘n’ a capital letter: ‘Refuse Nik’

But why would they ‘Refuse’ poor wee ‘Nik’? I suppose because Poor Wee Nik refused them first.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, on the net, the opposite (antonym) of a ‘refusenik’ would be a ‘loyalist’, ‘adherent’, ‘disciple’, ‘follower’, ‘supporter’, ‘fanatic’, ‘militant’, ‘partisan’ or ‘zealot’ …

Folk, therefore, who follow someone else, even blindly and fanatically. In this case, followers of thon ‘Wee Nik’.

The word ‘sycophant’ is not in that list, but maybe it should be.

The same dictionary also gives a list of synonyms for refuseniks. Not all of them are flattering (well, it’s an Americano dictionary: what else can we expect?). Some of the synonyms they suggest might do, all the same. A refusenik is a ‘refuser’, a ‘recusant’, an ‘insurrectionary’, an ‘insurgent’, a ‘rebel’, a ‘revolutionary’ … All of which suggest someone who will actually do something.

‘Refuseniks’ at least have some fire in their belly. People who believe in a cause, and are willing to fight for it. People who can lead, not just blindly follow …

No place on the LIST for the ‘wishy-washy’, then.

Of course, I know this is not going to happen. Just joking, really.

But the list of talented SNP (or ex-SNP) people who have been hung out to dry, or expelled, during NS’s time at the helm is remarkable, and unusual. And maybe frightening both in itself, and in the way it has been done. This is a very authoritarian leader of an organisation that now seems to be allergic to dispersing power, and concentrates it in very few hands.

Compare these often-talented people who were axed (almost literally) with some of the mediocrities who have been kept in or brought in, who are never challenged, and whom NS has seemed positively to protect on some occasions. That’s quite a list too, mostly of the unimpressive. The kind of people who will never do anything except agree with her, and bow to her command. That too should frighten us.

Especially when it is combined with the shrill and increasingly indignant moralistic tone that the FM more and more adopts. No puritanism like secular puritanism! You didn’t like the religious kind? Fair enough. But you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait till you see this brand of secular puritanism in full fling. It will be so convinced of itself, and of its own purity and righteousness, that it will break everything that stands in its way and brook no constraints.

AS said he was no saint. And what he said was true. He’s not. At least there was some self-knowledge there. The trouble with poor wee Nik is that she thinks she is. It’s the self-righteousness that might in the end be the most frightening thing about her. Together with the lack of a sense of humour …

Can you imagine her ever sending herself up? I can’t.

People who can’t laugh at themselves are a danger to others. They mean well, they really do, and convince themselves of it – convince themselves in their own minds that because they ‘mean well’, they are therefore really good people. And this is the frightening thing: because they are good (so they believe), they don’t realise how dangerous they are. For other people, especially those they decide are bad. People, that is, who do not see the world the pure, and good, and beneficial, and correct and true way she sees it.

The self-righteous don’t even know when they are destroying other people. Even as they destroy them, they think they are doing good, not harm. they see themselves as good people, who always do the good thing; the actions they are taking when they are destroying someone are therefore good too, for they always do them for a good and worthy cause.

Tony Blair genuinely thought he was doing a good thing for the whole world, for everyone, when he colluded in the bombing to death of tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq. He really did. And he looks as if he keeps on telling himself that he was ‘right’. He did it because it was ‘the right thing to do’. How often did you hear that phrase coming out of his mouth? (And how often do we hear it now, almost casually, from all stripes of politicians today?)

Weasel words, with which the self-righteous pull the wool over their own eyes. ‘It was the right thing to do, because I did it, and I am right. And if you disagree with me, you are bad. I am the one that rides for the cause of goodness and right, always.’ The righteous are condemned to seeing evil (which they seek to exterminate) all around them, but not to recognise it within themselves. They are right! Everyone else is wrong!

And yet, when now and then I happen see his haunted face on television, I almost feel sorry for Tony Blair. He looks so much like someone who absolutely cannot and will not admit what he nevertheless knows in his heart to be true: simply, very simply, fact that he was wrong. Very, very – most horribly – wrong. With horrific consequences. Will that heart of his ever have peace unless he admits that terrible, terrible fact, that he got it all wrong. That he was wrong. We need to know our own guilt, admit at least to ourselves what we did wrong. To grow is to grow in self-knowledge, including the knowledge of what we are capable of.

If Nicola really is similar, or the same as TB, you might object by saying: ‘But it’s not on the same scale’. It’s not tens of thousands of corpses scattered across Iraq. True.

But, all the same, if it’s the same thing, at bottom it’s the same. And she is, in fact, no less dangerous than TB. The scale is not the point. Scale depends only on opportunity, the amount of power over things and people that one has. Whether the scale of damage you can do is large or small, the source of that damage – within the self – is the same.

NS does – absolutely – have to be stopped.

If there is evidence that more than enough damage to others has been done already, which can be laid at her door, then her ‘reign’ has to be brought to an end immediately. If not, the damage that will be done later will only grow and grow; it can only get bigger. The more you get away with something, the more you do it.

I think there is a lot of tragedy involved in all of this. In what we have been seeing unfold before our eyes over the past few months, or couple of years. Shakespearian style tragedy, with all its human ambiguities and emotions, and all its depth, played out for real, right in front of us. Unbelievable, really: who would ever have imagined things like this? But it’s not a play; these are real people, and the suffering and damage people are causing others is real too.

I am not at all for saying that NS is a bad person, or for judging her. I don’t actually believe that, and don’t see her that way. Besides which, that kind of judgement is not the point, and won’t help. But I have seen enough now, I think, to be able to say one simple thing: for everyone’s good, her own as well (and that too has to be a concern), simply this: she has to be stopped, and STOPPED NOW, without any further delay, before more damage is done.

I don’t mind saying, though I might get pilloried for it on here, that I have a certain sympathy for Nicola Sturgeon. As I said, I don’t think she is a bad person: deluded, probably (we all are: the issue is to what extent?); mistaken, certainly; wrong about a lot of things – in my opinion, yes; imperfect, for sure, but really, really evil – No. Not yet, anyway. Could become so? Yes, and so could we all.

But is she now dangerous? Yes, she is. That is where the problem lies. She doesn’t realise it, but she is dangerous. If she hasn’t got enough real self-knowledge to know this, that does not make her any less dangerous. In fact, it makes her even more dangerous: dangerous to herself and to others, and to the whole political process. And being on the trajectory she is now on, the danger she poses to others, without realising it, will only get worse. Worse and worse, and much worse.

Do her, and all of us, and everyone a favour. STOP HER NOW.

To whom do I address that plea? We should all do what we can. But, above all, I address to everyone in the SNP, and especially to SNP MSPs and MPs. They are the people who have the clout and power to stop her in her tracks, and put an end to the whole sorry mess.

There really has to be a rebellion, which ousts her. No more hanging around. It won’t be beautiful, but it has to be done.

And this is not just about the divide between AS supporters / sympathisers and NS supporters / sympathisers. It’s something much bigger and more important that goes well beyond that, and can’t be reduced only to that level.

Despite everything that has happened to him, I think AS will prove to have the wide vision and long view and quality of political thought which this reality now requires, And I hope he will act accordingly.

Although it must be immensely difficult on a personal level, if only he finds the strength to rise above the swamp into which he was so mercilessly dragged, and act with the degree of responsibility that the situation demands. Therein lies a difference: whatever he had intended with regard to a comeback to front line politics, and whatever happens in regard to that project, I think he knows it’s not finally about himself personally but about the thing he most believes in, Scottish independence. I am confident he will act in function of fostering and achieving that end.

Nicola never reached that level, and won’t now. Not in the near future, anyway. Who knows what she might be like in twenty years time? But for now, it has become all about her, and she has to go. Otherwise, she will only become more and more authoritarian and dictatorial. In her own mind, like all self-righteous people who think they are saints, and don’t know they are not, she will think she is doing good. Even as she wields the knife, and the dead bodies rise in heaps around her.

‘Why did you do it?’ ‘Because it was the right thing to do’.

CameronB Brodie

A Person
No doubt the radical right needs taught a lesson, so that’s why a strong defense of the rule-of-law is needed, in order to bring them too heel. The law also needs to awaken to its’ colonisation by neo-liberal theory and practice, if it is not already aware of its’ illness. Which it is in academic circles anyway.

The Legal
Doctrines of the
Rule of Law and
the Legal State
(Rechtsstaat)

link to link.springer.com

CameronB Brodie

wull
My reading of the FM is that she is intrinsically a good person who believes in Scottish independence, though a bit of a machine politician who I think is simply a bit out of her depth. I simply think she lack the necessary insight, skills, and judgement to support our defense against expansionist English nationalism. So she is simply playing at British constitutionalism instead. She also appears to have been lead on a merry dance by her legal team, or else she is intentionally hostile towards the rule-of-law. Which I don’t think is the case.

CONFERENCE ON “THE RULE OF LAW AS A PRACTICAL CONCEPT”
link to venice.coe.int

CameronB Brodie

Here’s one for those who think a PhD in International Relations, from a pretty British nationalist school of IR thinking, makes him some kind of pop-star. Night, night. 😉

London Review of International Law, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2013, 166–197
On international legal method

International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect seeks to show that the emergence of the responsibility to protect concept and its embrace by a very
diverse range of actors is one sign of a significant shift in the representation of authority in the modern world. More specifically, the book argues that the responsibility to protect concept offers a framework for rationalising and consolidating practices of international executive rule, many of which were developed by Dag Hammarskjo¨ld, the second Secretary – General of the United Nations (UN), in the early years of decolonisation.

Since the late 1950s, the UN and other international actors have developed and systematised a body of practices aimed at ‘the maintenance of order’ and ‘the protection of life’ in the decolonised world,1 including fact-finding, peacekeeping, the management of refugee camps, civilian administration, strategic forms of technical assistance and early warning mechanisms. My aim was to explore the ways in which those practices of governing and that form of authority had been represented.

The book is also a wager that there is something to be gained – theoretically, politically and empirically – by developing a primarily juridical (rather than historical, philosophical, economic or sociological) method as a basis for exploring such contemporary international developments. Juridical thinking frames the problems that the book raises, shapes the archival choices made throughout its research and the construction of its narrative, structures its argument and provides its conceptual underpinnings.

Of course, this begs the question of just what ‘juridical thinking’ is, where we might look for it, and to which historical figures and authors we might properly make reference in order to develop a legal analysis that is also critical, idiomatically recognisable and politically useful. I return to these questions below.

link to academic.oup.com

Achnababan

Thank you Wull – brilliant analysis and a beautifully crafted essay. A ‘must read’ for all of us who care about our country and the well being of its people as we continue our struggle to cast off the imperial yoke.

I actually felt that NS should have stood down last year as I think she was losing momentum ….. many people still support her but the penny has not yet dropped and when it does then the ‘independence march’ will become once again background mood music.

Her beliefs and values cannot take precedence over what is best for the Scots! WE WANT A LEADER OF ALL SCOTS, NOT THE LEADER OF A CULT

CameronB Brodie

Just to be clear, I wasn’t disagreeing with wull, I was simply suggesting the FM has had help in apparently finding herself up the wrong dreel. The legal advice she is taking is mince for a start.

Global Standards of Constitutional Law: Epistemology and Methodology

Abstract

Just as it led the philosophy of science to gravitate around scientific practice, the abandonment of all foundationalist aspirations has already begun making political philosophy into an attentive observer of the new ways in which constitutional law is practiced. Yet paradoxically, lawyers and legal scholars are not those who understand this the most clearly.

Beyond analyzing the jurisprudence that has emerged from the expansion of constitutional justice, and taking into account the development of international and regional law, the ongoing globalization of constitutional law requires comparing the constitutional laws of individual nations.

Following Waldron, the product of this new legal science can be considered as ius gentium. This legal science is not as well established as one might like to think. But it can be developed on the grounds of the practice that consists in ascertaining standards. As abstract types of best “practices” (and especially norms) of constitutional law from around the world, these are only a source of law in a substantive, not a formal, sense. They thus belong to what I should like to call a “second order legal positivity.”

In this article I will undertake, both at a methodological and an epistemological level, the development of a model for ascertaining global standards of constitutional law.

Keywords
Constitutional Law – Legal Science – Sources of Law (formal and substantive) – Legal Standards – Ius Gentium – Legal Principles – Comparative Law – Venice Commission – Rule of Law – Rule of Law Indicators and Factors – Reflective Equilibrium – Interpretive Equilibrium – John Rawls – Ronald Dworkin – Jeremy Waldron

link to pdfs.semanticscholar.org

holymacmoses

That was great analysis Wull.

Ian Blackford exemplifies that same ‘Calvinism’ at Westminster. They misinterpret any scorn they get from others as a rejection of the virtue and truth which they own. This notion of piety and vindication is perfected in ‘The Confessions and Memoirs of a Justified Sinner’ but can I think the beginnings of it can be gleaned in stories as early as Robert Henryson.

In fairness it’s been difficult for the Scots to learn to laugh at themselves when so much scorn has been heaped on them from England over the generations and yet it was the Wisest Fool in Christendom (let alone Scotland when he bothered to be here) which gave England the edge over the rest of the world.

‘In the beginning was the Word’ and James 6th took the English version of that word to the ends of the Earth and gave that country an insight into human behaviour, rarely seen since, through the encouragement of the production of the works of Shakespeare.

Between Nicola Sturgeon and Mr Salmond the latter was always the better politician and since his ordeal he has been proved himself to be, by far, the ‘better man’. Very few people can face the self-scrutiny and public exposure that he has endured and come out smelling of roses. Nicola Sturgeon is a Lily that will fester and smell worse than weeds whereas Alex Salmond’s life story thus far has given us a fertile compost in which to grow new roots – not just for the SNP but for Scotland’s people as a whole.

We should try not to miss the opportunity to become ourselves warts and all.

Phydaux

Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell are in the spotlight now and seem to be in panic mode. Hiring lawyers smacks of desperation, weakness and guilt. Now that we can see and smell what’s been lurking behind the brick wall they’re trying to hide behind, it has become apparent that they’re not remotely interested in the people who support them other than the price they’re prepared to pay. Not a good look.

Stuart’s tenacity and exhaustive reporting are outstanding. His investigative journalism matters a great deal. A recent obituary of the late great Harold Evans described him as possessing that useful piece of editorial equipment: a backbone and this reminds me of Stuart. Heartfelt thanks to you Stuart and keep on digging deeper.

LeggyPeggy

I’ve been thinking about the original point of this post , Why do the Snp have to appoint a firm of lawyers re Peter Murrell and the evidence ( or lack of evidence) that he submitted to the inquiry committee surely the party will already have a firm of lawyers who represent the party in other matters where required . Is their a lawyer employed within HQ and also the party is full of lawyers who are MPs and MSPs .

If this is a case that the lawyers are representing Peter Murrell in a personal capacity then not one penny of their costs should come out of Snp funds to pay for their costs . If Peter Murrell is receiving the vast salary that he’s supposed to receive then he can bloody well pay for their costs himself .

Except for this year so far , Party members work bloody hard to raise funds for the party , organising branch fundraisers , raffles , manning stalls and trying to get people to put a donation in the collection tins on the stalls and not one penny should come out of this . How can we justify to the public to give donations in this way when they find out its going towards paying for this .

stuart mctavish

Willie @11:47

” And thankfully there’s not much corona in the SNP high command. Maybe we should search for their secret”

Exactly, Ferrier could only have caught the “disease” through meeting with the public – something the self-righteous must have been avoiding

Anyone know if she has needed to go into hospital yet, or risks any long term effects (over and above being shunned in Westminster, blacklisted by her ex employer and ostracised from her friends?

Stoker

Achnababan says on 3 October, 2020 at 4:41 am:
“A ‘must read’ for all of us who care about our country and the well being of its people as we continue our struggle to cast off the imperial yoke.”

LOL! Says you who posts direct links to BUM rags. If you cared about Scotland you wouldn’t do it. Doing that also disrespects all of us who put great effort into not doing it and the efforts of those who go to the bother of archiving.

stuart mctavish

elgordo @11:07
Given that they are remarkably clean and intelligent animals with a wicked sense of humour* a better option in the long term might be to improve the environment you share with them and go see a psychiatrist about your problem..

*we have one that visits from time to time who, from the occasional squeal, is getting just about too fat to squeeze through the access points to the kitchen but nonetheless manages to collect (dried) cat food from the bowl and pile it up at the door of the trap laid out for him(/her)!

Andy Ellis

@Alf Baird 10.27pm

If you’ve spent your career at university I’d have expected you to be better informed. My mistake but it’s obvious given the carping and ill-informed quality of your responses particularly your dismissal of “university PR”. Ho hum.

What difference does it make where the research comes from? There are people researching self determination all over the world: it’s the quality of their analysis that matters not where they are located. Perhaps your horizons and those of the students you’ve interacted with are narrowly national and don’t extend beyond their home countries, but it certainly isn’t my experience. It all sounds a bit “blood and soil” to me.

@10.47
I agree that it’s the Scottish people who count. Only we can “take” our independence, no outside actor is going to “give” it to us. International recognition is however essential, unless you want to end up like the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, Transnistria, the Donetsk People’s Republic or find yourself in the same situation as Catalonia.

I’m agreeing with you that referendums aren’t the optimum route to independence. They are historically and constitutionally uncommon in fact. I never claimed there was legal authority involved, you simply made that up in a vain attempt to bolster your weak argument. The fact remains that the 2014 indyref precedent is the only game in town until the broader Yes movement decides otherwise.

At present, any change is stalled because the SNP remain firmly wedded to Plan A, and ONLY Plan A. Remember, their conference actually booed even discussing Plan B. The broader international community will need persuasion that they should accept independence gained via e.g. plebiscitary elections (which is the route I prefer), but it is eminently possible. The courts (whether UK or international) should be avoided if at all possible. The outcome should be a political not legal one.

The colonial argument is flawed. You can protest about it all you like, but few reputable analysts accept that Scotland is the subject of colonial oppression in the same way that former imperial colonies or even say Ireland was. It is in fact a repugnant line of argument that belittles the suffering and lived experience of actual colonies.

The evidence is all around and just as anecdotal as the arguments you advance to support yours. Until recently the majority of Scots accepted what you insist is colonial status. What cuts your argument off at the knees however is the very fact that colonies are “possessions” which are “granted” independence, or fight to attain it and expel their occupiers.

All the Scots people have to do is put a cross in a box.

John diggy

Rather than noise, why not some limited action? A suggestion which would have limited effect but high message – everyone should delete the Scottish tracing App but only for Monday to Wednesday and then reinstall on Thursday. Surely the First Minister will notice and maybe take account of the above.

Andy Ellis

@Breeks 9.54pm

“Must be a complete mystery why the International Community cares about the Good Friday Agreement then….”

That’s a rather different case. The Irish have the support of a large, influential and well funded Irish-American caucus dating back to the late 19th century to help fight their corner, and the support of the EU where they are popular and well regarded. the Scots have neither. The international community cares about peace in Ireland and not seeing a return of violence. It knows little and cares even less about devolution in Scotland and Wales: it’s just the way things are.

They are only going to sit up and take any notice when and if they think there is an imminent prospect of independence. My (admittedly subjective) experience of travelling in Europe for work and discussing it with many folk there is that most are incredulous that Scots are so supine and unwilling to disassociate themselves from British nationalist exceptionalism. All I can do is agree and apologise for our moral cowardice.

You continued: “The authenticity of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty does not lack significance. The problem Scotland has, is a defective and weak Scottish government that is content to be complicit with Scotland’s unconstitutional subjugation.”

I agree. Our sovereignty IS significant, particularly to us. It is of *some* interest to *some* others abroad: many see it as quaint, or just think we’re a glorified English county with a colourful history and a different accent. It’s why so many Europeans routinely used “England” to mean the UK. We’ll never make progress as long as we have a government, and indeed a populace, that is content to accept we need permission to even vote to exercise our independence. If the signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath came back today, they’d think us unworthy of their efforts.

Bob Mack

@Wull,

What a brilliant piece of writing. Everything I have thought of and much more besides. I salute you.

This should be posted on every Independence site, but of course it wont for the very reasons you give. The more’s the pity.

Achnababan

Andy Ellis

If you are an intellectual in the field as you claim then you will know that colonisation is a much more complex phenomenon that what you purport to describe above….

The less clever believe it is intimately and inseparably bound to issues of ethnicity and race, but it is not. This is an argument that colonisers deploy to undermine any resistance they might have faced when they grab resources and wealth from others.

In essence, colonisation is about acquiring power over others – for example, the High Streets of Scotland have been colonised by global corporations because they have exercised their power over the free market the neo-liberals have unleashed.

Colonisation also views ‘culture’ and ‘language’ as barriers to obtaining more and more power over the vassals so they need to eradicate them. They also have a nice word for that ‘progress’

I could go on and I will ….. but not here.

Terry

Rev Stu – you are never wrong, although I do remember you predicting that 2017 would be an uneventful year. With hindsight maybe that’s the year where Theresa May saw off any fleeting notion that Nicola had about independence? Let me explain.

As an indy activist and at that time Snp volunteer I personally despaired at the 2017 snap election – remember, the one where we were told not to mention independence on the doors? Anyway it was called by May largely because of the taunts from Nicola that Theresa May wasn’t an “elected” leader. The Tories knew that Brexit was popular in some parts of Scotland with independence and/or SNP voters and figured they would take a few seats from the SNP and increase their majority. (By the way the SNP survey the autumn before had largely told them that Brexit was popular with some of their voters as well). What May didn’t foresee was the popularity of Corbyn during that campaign.

Theresa May’s plan to bring down Nicola might have worked if she hadn’t brought herself down so badly instead. How do I know this? Because at the count where all was doom and gloom I overheard the high heid yin muttering with others in the know that “Nicola has got to go”. You’ll know these types – the mandelsons and Cummings that every party has. I was really upset at the time but said nothing. So when folk moan that we should all sheesh for indy I think back on that overheard conversation by paid SNP apparatchiks and think “aye, right”.

The consequence of that was (as you have pointed out) to eat into the finances – plus the 2019 election had the same effect. Nicola got all carried away with saving the UK from Brexit. And now she has no intention, and no money to progress to any form of referendum. If you accept that the party hierarchy is no longer pro independence then not a lot separates them from the Lib Dems.

If May had the gambling instincts of some other politicians she could have said after that terrible election – ok Nicola now IS the time. They might have just squeaked another No vote – though who knows? They definitely can’t risk it now.

The good news is that the converts to yes actually think that Nicola and the gang want independence so that is heartening. Time to get rid of the dead wood and install a new driver and we could be on the road, finally to independence.

Ps Very revealing article by Joanna Cherry in the National – it wasn’t her stance on the GRA that the SNP tried to nobble her for – it was her attempts to sort things out in the NEC. Telling, isn’t it? Now that woman would be an excellent leader – brave, intelligent and straight down the line. She has a PURPOSE as opposed to an ego. And that is what we badly need.

Andy Ellis

@Achnababan

Where did I claim to be an intellectual?! We’d all get on a lot better if folk interacted with what others actually said rather than what they wrongly infer.

Of course colonisation is a complex issue with many shades of meaning, and yes…it can even extend to e.g. High Streets being colonised by multi-nationals as you rightly noted. Like any concept however, overuse or extension to the “nth degree” can render the concept meaningless, and/or act to diminish the impact of discussion of the negative impacts of colonialism as perhaps more strictly defined.

I’m not arguing that there aren’t aspects of a colonial mentality in British unionist thought and action with respect to Scotland, either now or through history. I AM challenging the notion that we should characterise our struggle as one of de-colonisation in the same breath as post-colonial struggles for freedom in Africa and Asia – or indeed former Soviet Republics and Yugoslavia.

Even for those (in my view misguided) folk in Scotland who are intent on appropriating the de-colonisation narrative for their own purposes, it is unreasonable to expect those in the international community to be similarly exercised about it. They are more likely to point and laugh or be offended at the impertinence.

Achnababan

Andy Ellis

I appreciate your point -it is very difficult to get the de-colonisation argument across without some interpreting it as racial in some way as in the ‘blood and soil’ context.

I am an internationalist, or perhaps more accurately a humanist, but I am also comfortable with being tagged as a cultural nationalist in the sense that without distinctive cultures we are doomed as a species on this plant.

I guess I like diversity… because I feel we need to respect diversity to make us better humans, but also because diversity may help us resist the complete take over of the planet by mega powerful oligarchs of corporations and in some countries (Turkey, Russia and China) leaders of governments who care nought for people and only seek power.

In short I want lots of wee countries in the world – not a few big and powerful ones that want to bully and intimidate the wee guys that are left. Independence for Scotland has always been a natural view to hold and support.

I wrongly picked up from your initial post that you likened blood and soil nationalism to decolonisation – a trick British Unionists in this country have done for at least 100 years. It is difficult to tread along this line as I know from my own experience in academia and the pub, because most people do not understand these nuances. Your subsequent post brings some clarity so thanks for following up.

Andy Ellis

@Achnababan

No worries:I think we’re pretty much on the same page. I finished the wonderful David Bight biography of Frederick Douglass recently, and was interested to read in that of Douglass being quite annoyed by people in his time trying to make equivalences between enslaved blacks in the USA and the conditions of poor whites in the USA and in Europe. He was (rightly) outraged and had no compunction in setting those making the false equivalence straight.

I fear that many pushing the “Scotland as colony” line are making the same kind of argument, whether consciously or not.

SOG

As a sufferer from Brain Fog, I often wonder if anyone has ever read a days’ comments and references from CBB, and if so, how long did it take?

For with my halting reading, frequent retries, and slow understanding, I must multiply that time by a factor five or ten, and hence fear being left further behind each day, were I to try.

Lochside

Andy Ellis….I read through your responses and I would make a couple of observations:

Your lack of respect for others commentating on here is regrettable. Your introducing your academic qualification as a justification for your opinion is risible and assumes that nobody else on this site has equivalent or better academic and life experience than you. It also reinforces the impression of arrogance.

You admit these are your opinions and those expressed have been mine. We do not agree, apart from the need at some stage for a confirmatory plebiscite.

The ”Blood and Soil slight on colonialism as a strategy is a cheap ‘strawman’ jibe and questionable from a so-called supporter of Scottish Nationhood.

Andy Ellis

@Lochside

I don’t give people respect, they earn it. Guess which side you fall on?

I introduced my academic qualification in direct response to an attack that I didn’t know what I was talking about: it was a reasonable response in the circumstances. I’m quite sure there are many who are more qualified, more erudite and less abrasive. Somehow I think I and readers in general will cope and make any allowances due. Perhaps I am abrasive at times, or don’t sugar coat things sufficiently: the fact is I don’t suffer fools gladly and I’m not afraid to call folk out if I think they’re being particularly dense or making ridiculous points or being combative or abusive themselves.

As discussed later, there are legitimate questions to be answered by those pushing the “Scotland as colony” narrative. Some may be doing it for rhetorical effect and don’t really take it as gospel, others however probably do harbour an element of “blood and soil” nationalism. The problem is that those using the colonisation language rarely have the wit, or perhaps just desire, to explain the nuances involved.

You calling me a “so-called supporter of Scottish Nationhood” tells us everything we need to know about your motives and your level of good faith.

Orlando Quarmby

The Wings comment section seems increasingly to be the Andy Ellis Show. The online equivalent of verbal diarrhea. Citing your academic qualifications in an attempt to give what you spout a specious authority is just so laughably crass.

Alf Baird

Andy Ellis @ 9.19

Some half my career, the latter part, was spent in academia, the rest in business, including a period as an economic migrant due to lack of economic opportunity in Scotland, a perennial problem it seems. In my research work I have been fortunate to visit many former colonies now independent countries, and all have prospered after cutting the ties to the ‘mother country’ oppressor. As my background is working class I could readily see many parallels between former colonised peoples and Scots, and particularly the Scots speaking working class. Michael Hechter’s theory of international colonisation of England’s ‘Celtic Periphery’ and its resultant ‘Cultural Division of Labour’ based on ethnicity, reflecting the power and higher status of an Anglophone meritocracy, clearly reflects the ongoing reality of colonialism in Scotland. That may sound “blood and soil” to you or to pampered bourgeoisie generally, possibly because it is not something you have ‘lived’, or experienced; discrimination and oppression occurring in one’s own land results in a degree of internalised racism which explains why many ‘natives’ will continue to deny its existence.

I think we agree that referendums are for the birds, more especially I would argue those dependent on a corrupt (resident based) franchise more universally applying to minor local government elections than affairs of national (and international) significance where the very existence of a distinct people and their nation is at stake. A national election is a much preferred option, and as many former British Tory leaders accepted, a majority of nationalist MP’s would be sufficient for Scotland to withdraw from its treaty obligations.
I think most of us on here are aware why only Plan A was being considered by the SNP elite and that is because they seek to play out their own little PC/woke agendas and they also appear to be batting for the other side by allowing Scottish sovereignty to gradually be dissolved. We agree that courts should be avoided however I rather suspect that is where Scotland might be dragged by its self-appointed ‘Administrative Power’ and treaty-based administrative entity – the UK Gov.

The colonial argument is never flawed and ‘reputable analysts’ who really take the time to study Scotland’s socio-political realities in sufficient depth will come to better understand this, remembering also that independence is always about decolonisation to a greater or lesser extent. The UN regarded Ireland as a former colony and Scotland would appear to be little different, aside from the fact that perhaps more Scots, especially across the more privileged middle classes / bourgeoisie have tended to grasp and absorb the concept (if not the reality) of unionism and reveled in its imposed Anglophone culture and values (and hence socioeconomic benefits) failing which they would remain culturally and ethnically marginalised and deprived of opportunity, much like the bulk of working class Scots speakers remain today.

As to your concluding remarks that:

“What cuts your argument off at the knees however is the very fact that colonies are “possessions” which are “granted” independence, or fight to attain it and expel their occupiers. All the Scots people have to do is put a cross in a box.”

The political fight is ongoing and is now intensifying but is far from over. That Scotland today contains many occupiers who hold allegiance to our oppressor power is without question, just look at the mainly privileged and unionist Anglophone institutional meritocracy running Scotland which limits the opportunities of and pushes aside and hence oppresses the Scots speaking masses in thay’re ain laund. A colonial people are also often a confused people (not least through longstanding imposed imperial educational and media policies) and this cultural confusion leading to, amongst other outcomes, a ‘dual identity’ and cringe ie ‘inferior’ (colonial) mentality, does result in some putting their cross in their oppressor’s box; an occupying peoples’ choice tends to be rather less problematic as post referendum research confirms. But it seems to be becoming fewer, hopefully, notwithstanding prevailing rapid demographic change which is another important aspect over which a colony has no control – ie its national borders!

Andy Ellis

@Orlando

Really? That’s your best shot? Hey, it could be worse….I could be Cameron Brodie flooding the BTL comments with screeds and screeds of secondary cut and pasted links few bother to read.

As pointed out before, the reference to my qualifications was in a direct attack on levels of knowledge on the subject in question from some no-mark pontificating about my area of expertise. It’s hard not to rise to the bait sometimes.

Having qualifications may not mean everything: indeed some of the stupidest most unpleasant people I’ve met have doctorates. I don’t expect people to accept my opinions as gospel, or think they’re more convincing just because I’ve got relevant knowledge, but I think any reasonable person would think it…how did you put it “laughably crass”…to think having a PhD in IR meant nothing at all in the context of the exchange you’re so keen to mischaracterise.

I’ll leave it up to others who they think makes more of a contribution to BTL comments, me of some anonymous random no-mark.

Alf Baird

Re my rely @ 1.18
“international colonisation” in para 1 should read ‘internal colonialism’

Tinto Chiel

@Andy Ellis 11.53: yes I’m reading Bight’s biography of Frederick Douglass myself. If I remember correctly, FD was rightly enraged by poor workers in Europe implying equivalence of their lot with the true slave status inflicted on him in the USA, when they were merely free men who were being exploited ruthlessly by their employers. I’m not sure what relevance that has to the argument over colonisation, though.

Slavery and colonisation are not necessarily the same thing.

Breeks is of course right to say we are not a colony. We are theoretically in a voluntary, bi-partite union, it’s just that it is effectively an incorporating union because of the huge disparity in population and therefore representation between the two countries which has increased in the last 300-odd years. We’ve been simply swallowed up and completely disregarded. Until recently, there has strangely been no will to pursue the sovereignty question, particularly by our current “leadership”

You’re correct: all we have to do is put a cross in a box but we didn’t do it in sufficient numbers in 2014. Too many of us still believe we are too small, too poor and too stupid and vasts amunts of money are expended by the BBC and mainstream newspapers to reinforce this message. And none of these newspapers are owned by Scots or offer a balanced Scottish perspective.

Until recently, as I’m sure you know, little Scottish history was comprehensively taught in schools, and even less on our culture and our languages, so many Scots grow up thinking Scotland is quite inferior to the big country to the south. The annual Edinburgh Festival and Fringe is really just another example of England’s cultural scent-marking of its Scotland region. These things have an enormous cumulative effect.

You don’t need a marching army to demoralise and control when you can manipulate a sufficient number of people to vote against their best interests by other, subtler means. Call it cultural conditioning or colonisation of the mind or what you will but it’s very effective.

Several times reading Douglass’s biography I have marvelled at his sheer guts, determination, belief and great powers of oratory. Scotland badly has need of someone like him right now.

Andy Ellis

@Tinto Chiel

It is an inspirational read. Scotland, and I suspect the USA, need more people like Frederick Douglass and fewer like those currently “leading” their political discourse.

The relevance of the argument was me trying to point out to those pushing what I regard as the false (or at least over-egged) “Scotland as Colony” narrative, that their appropriation of the issue is no more valid or acceptable than poor European workers in the 19th century equating their lot with enslaved blacks.

I wasn’t suggesting slavery and colonisation were the same thing obviously.

However, as we will no doubt see in subsequent posts, you just can’t kill a bad idea, and the adherents of the “help ma boab we’re puir wee colonised creaturs!” will keep trotting their idea out.

After finishing Douglass’ biography, I wondered what he’d make of the current situation in the USA with Black Lives Matter and a President who refuses to condemn white supremacists? I suspect he would be displeased, but up for the fight. Shame we don’t have someone with his oratorical skills or moral courage to show the current SNP what real principles look like.

Achnababan

The British Establishment must be laughing up their sleeves at the Scottish cringe….. they have deployed the blood and soil accusation to great effect, and many of us are indeed confused and brow beaten. The SNP leadership have caved in hence the large number of Authority figures in Scottish institutions who are Britishers to the core and serve British interests.

We must build confidence and be proud of our cultures, languages and civic progress to equality as Scots (old and new) … we have much to offer all other people and cultures who suffer under the cosh of colonialism, British or otherwise.

The blood and soil slur of British colonial types needs to be challenged directly. We cannot be cowed!

Andy Ellis

@Achnababan

Hear, hear! It’s difficult in current circumstances: like many I feel disheartened by our current situation. It seems a long time ago since the 2015 GE: I was still living in England then, but was staying in Denmark on an extended business trip over the election period which was an interesting counterpoint. I was enthused by the result then, chose to join the SNP and made the decision to move back to Scotland.

It seems along time ago now. 🙁

CameronB Brodie

Andy Ellis
For my perspective, your not particularly well informed, and in fact appear not to understand how the international rule-of-law works. So could you park your ego and start providing some evidence to support your opinion. Or do you think you’re special and that you are due trust just because?

CameronB Brodie

Andy Ellis
Seriously dude, take you BritNat schooling in IR and ram it. Or start defending it as I’m not convinced you’re on our side.

HELP Guidebook
on Human Rights
training methodology
for legal professionals

link to rm.coe.int

Andy Ellis

@Cameron

We’ve had this discussion before. The fact I chose not to spam WoS BTL comments with the apparently endless supply of sources doesn’t support your airy assertion that I’m not particularly well informed, still less that your input is better informed or more apropos.

All that speaks to is your talent for regurgitation. I’m hardly the first to point out that your contribution – such as it is – would be more valuable if you did what *normal* contributors do, and argued your own point, in your own words. Perhaps you’re just not very good at communication? You certainly come across as someone on the spectrum somewhere.

If every comment here necessitated the same endless cut and paste of secondary sources that invariably accompany your posts, it’d be impossible to follow. As it is, threads without your innumerable diversions are a joy to behold when compared to those you infest, which soon become next to impossible to follow.

I don’t feel the necessity to spoon feed other posters here the “benefits” of my google mining. Cameron. It’s a pity you just can’t take a hint.

Andy Ellis

@CBB

“Andy Ellis
Seriously dude, take you BritNat schooling in IR and ram it. Or start defending it as I’m not convinced you’re on our side.”

Always a dead give away when no marks like you start insisting those who dare to disagree with them aren’t ideologically pure enough Cameron. Your lack of any real original thought tells us all we need to know.

CameronB Brodie

Andy Ellis
It’s always a dead give-away when your opponent wants others to considers their opinion as robust, despite the lack of supporting evidence. That’s you, that is.

“Your lack of any real original thought tells us all we need to know.”

Your snobbery is profound, as I’ve been trying to guide folk to an understanding of how the law works. I’m not trying to break new ground here, I’m trying to help folk understand the nature of their oppression. That’s simply an unimaginative regurgitation of secondary sources as far as you are concerned though. However, you have already admitted you have no training as an educator, so we can simply reject that opinion as an expression of your narrow minded ignorance. So away and stroke your ego in private sunshine, or start providing evidence to support your usual depressing narrative of insurrection and FUD.

Law and Method
Methodology of Comparative Legal Research

link to bjutijdschriften.nl

Bob Mack

You two guys just have different skill sets and present them differently. Get a room

Andy Ellis

@CBB

There’s the rub bud. Why do you think it’s appropriate to hi-jack someone else’s popular blog to punt your pedestrian education of the masses? Leaving aside whether it’s an appropriate place for you to do so – I mean it’s not as if you only do it in relevant posts, you spam virtually every single WoS post – why should anyone give any credence to your pearls of wisdom?

You say you’re trying to help and educate folk, but you are in fact simply unimaginatively regurgitating stuff to the detriment of the flow of BTL discussions to satisfy your mania about our supposed lack of understanding or indifference to your hobby horse issue.

It’s beyond lame, it’s just embarrassing for you at this point.

CameronB Brodie

Bob Mack
Andy and myself could have made an effective team, but he obviously feels I’m not worthy. The reality is, my skill-set is geared towards cutting arrogant snobs down to size.

Andy
Get over yourself or start impressing me with your ability to support the rule-of-law.

Equality and Human Rights Commission Research report 56
Processes of prejudice: Theory, evidence and intervention

link to equalityhumanrights.com

twathater

I must admit I enjoyed the various toing and froing from certain posters outlining their views and beliefs on colonisation and the suppression of our values and culture, it is heartening that apart from some minor (ahem) jousts , we continue to be focused on the real important issues , it is GOOD that people have OPINIONS but it is even BETTER when the lasers remain firmly on target

Andy Ellis

@twathater

Yeah, it’s good when a conversation isn’t constantly interrupted by CBB’s google mining franchise.

Don’t give him ideas tho’: we’ll be getting screeds of secondary sources on colonisation and how he has to educate the proles because they’re too dense to learn without him spoon feeding them. 🙂

Alf Baird

Andy Ellis

My rejoinder to yours is @ 1.18, in case you did not see it.

Numerous more detailed examples of the ongoing oppression of Scots are included in my recent book which is actually main titled ‘Oppression’, and in Scots, ‘Doun-Hauden’:

link to amazon.co.uk

I think Cameron Brodie’s insights and sources have been very helpful in relating the law and its traditions and principles, and cultural influences to matters of national oppression. This has belatedly allowed me to understand more fully, and likewise from Rev Stu’s investigative journalism, that Scotland’s ‘justice system’ itself appears to be rather colonial in nature, which should not be surprising, and which represents another form of oppression. We can see this played out in the recent and ongoing persecution of leading independence figures and intellectuals, however, it extends wider than that to include the rather long established persecution and punishment of primarily working class Scots speakers, by a meritocratic privileged elite which aligns to a different culture, language and values. Oppression is also closely associated with deprivation and inequality (and ‘attainment’, or lack of), as well as Scotland having one of Europe’s largest prison populations. Holyrood as we know has been and still is active in developing oppressive law.

I’m a big fan of Frantz Fanon’s work on post colonialism theory, and who wrote that: “The poverty of the people, national oppression and the inhibition of culture are one and the same thing.”

CameronB Brodie

Until Scotland tackles the cultural bias that pervades the Scottish judicial system, Scots will never enjoy the benefits of democracy. The nation does not have a sustainable future if we can’t force our legal Establishment to respect the universal principles of legal doctrine, instead of upholding the English cultural principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. Especially as Westminster no longer feels constrained by the Common law, which has historically been the legal doctrine that articulates the British constitution. That is no longer the case, and our law officers appear “ambivalent” to our subjugation by authoritarian, right-wing, English nationalism. How very Nazi Tory of our legal Establishment.

Boston College Third World Law Journal, Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 6, 1-1-1991

The Schism Between Minorities and the Critical
Legal Studies Movement: Requiem for a Heavyweight?

link to lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu

CameronB Brodie

It isn’t as if I’m breaking new legal grown or punting exotic social theory, I’m simply not a fan of the legal parochialism that appear to guide our legal Establishment.

Whose womanhood? Feminist postcolonial approaches to law
link to voelkerrechtsblog.org

Gary

Sorry, just seeing this one now. What a COINCIDENCE!! Sheppard and Wedderburn are the company that HMRC used to use for it’s legal actions on VAT only legal claims. They benefitted MASSIVELY from this, it was money for old rope. They charged the government FULL LEGAL RATE for the work which for other taxes, in the old Inland Revenue for example, was done ‘in house’ by junior staff at a HUGE saving (none of the work actually requires a qualified lawyer)

But maybe that’s all just a coincidence.

[…] Scottish Government and the Alex Salmond case. If any one has followed the recent Wings articles parking the buses burn before reading a matter above party and here comes the flood it is getting harder and harder […]


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,678 Posts, 1,205,059 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • twathater on Keeping the fire burning: “I’d donate tae that Ian and we could advertise it on air b&b with only mad Jock parties acceptableDec 14, 03:55
    • twathater on Keeping the fire burning: “Who the fuck do you think you are trying to demean someone because of their financial situation, the Rev has…Dec 14, 03:46
    • sarah on Keeping the fire burning: “Gove, of all people, doing the right thing. Isn’t it hate speech to say a GRC holder is still what…Dec 13, 22:08
    • Ian Brotherhood on Keeping the fire burning: “Here’s another worthy fundraiser… Why don’t we Scots raise enough to buy a big house in one of England’s ‘loveliest…Dec 13, 21:57
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Keeping the fire burning: “A ‘CHILLING ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH BY MEDIA REGULATOR IPSO    « The Spectator has defended the freedom of speech of…Dec 13, 21:37
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “Besides not being indy yer not even Scottish. An interloper from over the border no doubt. It’s very simple to…Dec 13, 21:18
    • Southernbystander on Keeping the fire burning: “I like the Co-op tortilla chips. If slumming it I go for the cheese puffs or onion rings.Dec 13, 21:04
    • Southernbystander on Keeping the fire burning: “For the fact this site has provided me with many interesting insights, a few quid donated.Dec 13, 20:23
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “Sorry, replied to the wrong post lol. Reposted.Dec 13, 19:48
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “Cunty MY TAXES MacCuntface cheered on three of the biggest cons going that Thatcher peddled. Capitalism, colonialism & warmongering. Three…Dec 13, 19:45
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “They need their mitts on all that rare mineral wealth to prop up their empire but things aren’t exactly going…Dec 13, 19:13
    • twathater on The Wage Thief: “Just think Cunty MacCuntface you and yer pals including the franchise fanny (the heid white flighter) encouraged and promoted the…Dec 13, 18:50
    • Jay on The Wage Thief: “Should one assume that you know about that excruciating experience? Your obsessions (Krafft Ebing style) are difficult to explain.Dec 13, 18:41
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “You aren’t indy so piss off with yer pish. Colonisers aren’t in the business of granting independence. We see that…Dec 13, 18:34
    • sarah on Keeping the fire burning: “There’s always the Donate button – you can donate by debit card. I did it that way being antediluvian. :…Dec 13, 18:29
    • twathater on The Wage Thief: “Aye Geri what a state Los Angeles and other famous landmarks are in with the homeless and poverty spiralling, but…Dec 13, 18:21
    • Muscleguy on Keeping the fire burning: “I can’t subscribe on twitter since you have blocked me.Dec 13, 18:11
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “More propaganda shit. I’ll tell you what boggles my mind. Fuckwits cheering on the most corrupt neo nhazi regime in…Dec 13, 18:04
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “You’re too kind (blushing)… Greatness: “The quality or state of being important, notable, or distinguished.”: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/greatness Wonderful: “Excellent; great; marvelous.”…Dec 13, 17:57
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Stop hiding and step into the public ring you spineless sissies, otherwise we’ll continue holding the Forever-Champions Cup – And…Dec 13, 17:32
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Nope – I’m serious, Hatey – Should you persist being a dickhead – I’ll strip you stark naked (without touching…Dec 13, 17:08
    • Nae Need! on The Wage Thief: “Indeed.Dec 13, 17:03
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Sizzla: Overstanding: Solid As A Rock: “Oh ah oh ah yay! Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh, yeah ay yeah ay!…Dec 13, 16:38
    • Shauny Boy on Keeping the fire burning: “I too am quite la-de-dah now amd appreciate the shoutout for co-op sea salt and chardonnay crisps, they’re the businessDec 13, 16:37
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: ““MODERN IRREGULAR WARFARE” Wait! Wait! I know this one. I’ve seem them advertising on TV. You’re talking about LoveHoney, aren’t…Dec 13, 16:28
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “And then there’s another ethnic habit getting an airing right now, while so-called “progressive” politicians wish fervently it would go…Dec 13, 16:23
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Would you like me to continue ripping your integrity to pieces, Hatey Not a team-player ?Dec 13, 16:15
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Interesting link, MacDec 13, 16:09
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Only 2 anti-human Deep-State Butt-Plugs disagree ? If they had the courage (balls) to face me – I’ll utterly destroy…Dec 13, 16:08
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: ““Hohahahaha” At last! A post from you we can all understand 🙂 It’s somebody laughing, right? Great work, gregor, that…Dec 13, 16:06
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
325
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x