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Wings Over Scotland


Sing us a new one

Posted on May 07, 2023 by

Because this one’s pretty tired.

We heard it in 2019.

We heard it in 2017.

We heard it in 2015.

We heard it in 2014.

And alert readers might notice that none of those things happened. The Tories won in 2015, 2017 and 2019. The only time the SNP actually did hold the balance of power was in the Brexit deal votes, and they achieved precisely nothing with it. They didn’t stop a hard Brexit, and they didn’t extract a single concession for Scotland, let alone prevent it from being dragged out of the EU against its will.

And why didn’t they manage that? Because they were so terrified of being seen to vote with the Tories on anything – even if it was saving Scotland and the UK from an even worse Brexit – that they didn’t even TRY to do a deal. Which told Labour that even if there is a hung Parliament next year, they can call the SNP’s bluff and shout “1979!” again and it’ll work.

All of which, of course, assumes the SNP would hold the balance of power. Its support is already falling perilously close to the tipping point built into First Past The Post at which it would shed seats by the bucketload, and there are nothing but dark ominous clouds on the horizon for the party, with gender reform and the police investigation only the biggest tickets on a long list of problems.

But frankly, so what? For the past eight years, voting SNP at Westminster elections has been a complete waste of time. Sure, a few dozen MPs and all their hangers-on have become very comfortably off, but they haven’t given the UK government a single uncomfortable day. (Go on, see if you can think of one.)

They can’t even pull off a stunt.

And now, because they really do think you’re gullible idiots, they want you to believe that giving them one more five-year term at the trough will make all the difference. We’d have a lot more respect if they just came out and said “Look, it’s us or Scottish Labour and they’re even more useless than we are”, but they’re so pathologically, reflexively allergic to the truth they won’t even do that.

A plague on all the betrayers.

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Ian Brotherhood

Short and sweet, and much-needed, just like Alex’s speech yesterday.

😉

Casper1066

Yep, it’s like a re-run of a re-run of a re-run.

Maybe they think we are new to this dance.

Ian McCubbin

The only hope is Alba have enough candidates to challenge all SNP and Labour seats and areas.
I for one, of many I know, will only vote Alba, or not vote in GE24.

Geoff Anderson

I don’t care. I will never vote for the SNP again. Even if it was true, and it isn’t, I don’t want that bunch of troughers back in Westminster.

They have done nothing to progress Independence. They said nothing when Sturgeon was destroying the SNP and most of them backed the TransCult shit very vocally.

AnneDon

The only reason I have to vote SNP these days is that my MP is Joanna Cherry. And if the NEC succeed in pushing her out, I won’t have any reason at all.

They put all their eggs in the hung parliament basket in 2019. Johnson, as we know, won an 80-seat majority. Unfortunately, yet again, the SNP leadership had no back-up plan. They don’t have a strategic brain cell between them.

The only reason I feel any optimism is because I was at the demo in Glasgow yesterday, so I know people are ready to move on without them.

Geoff Anderson
Al

I have been following your site for some time; I had a loathing of Sturgeon & the SNP, long before the penny dropped with your mainstream ex-supporters. Nothing like a lover jilted.
However, ASA is correct; your average contibutor has no economic idea, but just a seemingly visceral loathing of England, Tories, Labour. Unilateral UDI, UN support – Reagan and her advocates are delusional.
I appreciate WoS commentary but seriously?

Matt Quinn

Ian McCubbin says: 7 May, 2023 at 11:19 pm

“I for one, of many I know, will only vote Alba, or not vote in GE24.”

For many years I’ve argued that we need a meaningful ‘vote blanc’; one that if returned as a majority in and ward, causes the candidates to be BARRED from standing for office for six years.

Here in West Lothian for a good 15+ years, I’ve found myself usually unable to endorse ANY candidate! …Not even ‘strategically’. So I’m left with the futile gesture of a spoiled paper; they don’t even record those properly here!

Brian Doonthetoon

We need high profile Alba candidates to stand against high profile SNP candidates in the next general election.

For example, what would happen if Alex Salmond stood for election in Dundee East or West? Or even against Pishfart?

Would Stewart Hosie or Chris Law be quakin’ it because they know they’re lack of action on independence pits thir coat on a shoogly peg?
It looks like it could be an interesting year or so.

A Scot Abroad

First past the post is pretty brutal, mathematically. The Rev refers to tipping points, and he’s right.

My guess is that with the current SNP/legal/police/auditors issues, the SNP as a party are under their tipping point, and would be lucky to get 30% of Westminster votes at a U.K. GE, and that means about 25% of Scottish Westminster seats. Whether Alba pick up, they may, but probably not more than 6-10 seats.

If it turns out that the Police investigations are into bigger issues than (allegedly/possibly) hands in the SNP till buying camper vans and Le Creuset pans and Mont Blanc pens, but rather such things as ferry contracts, publishing books of speeches or aluminium smelting mills all using public money, then it’s game over for the SNP, and actually Alba could do very well, certainly at the next Holyrood election.

Brian Doonthetoon

“they’re” should have been “their”. Mea Culpa.

AnneDon

@ AI
Not one of the comments here has mentioned England, but sure, come on and insult everyone. Maybe you’ll get your “evil cybernat” anecdote out of it.

You’ve also spelt Regan wrong.

Matt Quinn

Re the link posted by Geoff Anderson at 11:34 pm

‘A SHAMED Nats MP who inappropriately touched a teen staffer has told colleagues he plans to defend his Westminster seat..

Sex-pest politician Patrick Grady has also claimed to pals that he can boost his vote in Glasgow North by wooing churchgoer voters’

‘In March 2021, newspapers reported that an anonymous letter sent to the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow in 2017 claimed “A member of staff recently left the SNP who was groped sexually by Patrick Grady at last year’s Christmas Party. There was another male staff member who was groped sexually by Mr Grady the same night of last year”‘

So… he represents an affront to the decent normal members of the gay community, surely? It’s men like him that seed homophobia – predators. He represents an affront to common decency and family life… His moral judgement and self control is doubtful.

What church does he hope to appeal to? – The Church of the Poisoned Mind perhaps?

Geoff is quite correct; this unfortunately is too-typical of the calibre of individual that is attracted to and flourishes in modern political life. – Weirdos and freak-show rejects! – Often worse!

David Hannah

Where Alex Salmond goes my vote will follow. I am going to vote for the Alba Party. Independence and no less.

Antoine Roquentin

Personally speaking, I just want to see the SNP get collectively to fuck out of Scottish politics altogether!

It was great to see Alex Salmond at the march on Saturday. His appearance will have done the growth of Alba’s membership numbers no harm at all. Also, quite why Cherry, Regan and Forbes are still hanging-around with an irredeemably incompetent and soon to be rejected gang of no-marks, remains a mystery to me.

100%Yes

If I’m not prepared to lend the SNP money then I’m certainly won’t lend them my vote.

I’m not interested in a party who wants to make Westminster work for Scotland.

I didn’t march yesterday and shouting what do we want Independence, just to give the SNP another 5yrs working hand in hand with the Labour party to make devolution work for Scotland.

If there was going to be a hung Westminster parliament it would be a Labour LibDem government. All three unionist parties would make sure the SNP didn’t hold the balance of power at Westminster, they don’t even want the SNP there.

Since 2015 we have learned that the SNP has done nothing for Scotland by going to Westminster, the DUP got a billion pounds and Scotland got zero, if anything because of the SNP we are actually losing out.

I’ve got a funny feeling the Rag will be gone before the end of this year, fingers crossed.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

When someone lies to you, its because they don’t respect you enough to be honest, and they think you’re too stupid not to know the difference.

The SNP will blame Westminster for all the faults in Scotland but I have been watching, listening and now its time to tell the truth, they have taken us all for fools and it isn’t Westminster or the Tories who’s denying democracy it’s the SNP. Don’t allow the silent unionist party to fool you again they are ("Tractor" - Ed)s who only seek to destroy Scotland for their own selfish ends.

Andouilette

Looking at the map it seems that Pishy Wishfart is projected to retain his seat. I may be foolishly optimistic but I cannot see that happening.

Beauvais

The SNP MPs have far more in common with their fellow unionists the Tories than they do with Alba.

Vote Alba in enough numbers and Scots will have, not the balance of power, but power itself.

Cynicus

“……Because they were so terrified of being seen to vote with the Tories on anything – even if it was saving Scotland and the UK from an even worse Brexit – that they didn’t even TRY….”
=========
Were they? I disagree. The SNP strategy, if it can be called thst, was even worse.

They positively made common cause with those in that Parliament of Fools whose SOLE objective was to re-run the BREXIT referendum. It was an alliance that included Starmerites, Sturgeonites, Salmondites, remainer Tories. LibDems and others, including a dodgy if not actually corrupt, Speaker.

Instead of focusing on a strategy of securing the least bad BREXIT, this clown alliance delivered a hard BREXIT and an 80 seat Tory majority with BoJo the Clown in 10 Downing Street.

Sorry Rev, your analysis is inadequate, flawed and parochial. I suspect it will be relished by your enemies elsewhere who will claim it proves you are a closet Tory.

jockmcx

Kate forbes missed the rally with a bout of flue apparently,

I once did a 12hour shift with a broken arm,my hand was up like a balloon at the end and it was hospital time!

we need leader’s who wan’t independence…not balloons!

these people are not leaders…they dont understand us!

Wilson McBride
Wilson McBride
Wilson McBride
Wilson McBride
jockmcx

No more cheap votes for fannies!…f*ck em!
politicians or prospective politician’s,get real or f*ck off!

Wilson McBride
Mia

“Look, it’s us or Scottish Labour and they’re even more useless than we are”

I don’t think they have even that excuse. Since STurgeon took control of the party, the SNP became in practice Labour operating under a false independence flag to hoover up the yes vote and put it in a cage to stop it increasing.

In my opinion, joining forces with labour has always been Sturgeon’s (and now her continuity candidate’s) objective.

Personally, I am sick and fed up of watching these dishonest losers wasting our majorities pretending to beg for a referendum when it stands to the obvious they do not have the most remote intention to deliver it.

The time for the referendum has now passed us by a mile. I am now much more keen on the GE election route. It makes far more sense to me: representatives stand on a mandate for independence so they do not take the seats, do not swear allegiance to the crown, reconvene Scotland’s old parliament and revoke the treaty and act of union with England.

Short, direct route with no opportunity for our representatives to settle in, get used to the comforts of the green seats or the subsidised bars.

Frank W

I have never voted for a unionist party in almost 50 years. I’m not going to start now by voting NuSNP. They’re just another unionist party wrapped in a kilt.

Wilson McBride
JonM

“For the past eight years, voting SNP at Westminster elections has been a complete waste of time…

 but they haven’t given the UK government a single uncomfortable day. (Go on, see if you can think of one.)”

24 Sep 2019 could be argued to have been moderately uncomfortable.

link to supremecourt.uk

Wilson McBride

Stop feeding the fuckin troll.

twathater

I didn’t vote snp the last two elections and I just couldn’t agree to Alex Salmond’s advice to vote snp 1 and ALBA 2, and quite honestly I was NOT surprised that sturgeon INSISTED on snp 1 and 2, not only that, she did everything in her power to ERASE or block ALBA from the voters thoughts, so much so that she is alleged to have threatened the broadcasters that if Salmond was invited to any debate she would boycott it , does anyone seriously believe that Useless would work collectively with ALBA with the deviant pervert sitting on his shoulder directing his movements

I commented previously that I will celebrate the demise and destruction of the pervert party and all its adherents, especially the ones in the membership and the hierarchy who have sat back and supported sturgeons attempted destruction of the indy movement by their silence and complicity
Tampon charlie is NOT my king and Useless yousaf is NOT my First Minister

Bumsrush

Is it not worth considering that no Independence party should contest General Election seats next year?

First, it would be a PR statement that Scotland’s Independence movement wants nothing to do with governing the UK.

Second, it would free up the few of the ex-MPs who have a combination of intelligence (not low cunning) and character to join with the other few in Holyrood to bring gravitas and direction to the Scottish Government.

Third, the material needs of the Scottish people would still be put before Parliament by their representatives, probably more effectively from within either UK party than by the Billy-no-mates there today.

Fourth, Scottish Government, please God, might truly govern for the economic benefit of the people and once proven successful with good housing, healthcare, education and full bellies, then 60% and more will be ready for a referendum.

Last, I’m English, living in England. I wish Scotland the very best whether as part of the UK or fully independent. That is why I write as I do – become strong in the UK, be friends with the UK and leave, if you have to, with money in the bank and a pot to piss in.

Colin Dawson

Unless a pro-independence party is standing in my constituency (the SNP are demonstrably not one), I’ll be spoiling my ballot paper. I’ve spent over 45 years voting SNP. Never again. They’ve used and abused independence supporters for far too long. They’ve had almost a century to build a winning prospectus for independence and still haven’t succeeded. They are more of an impediment to Scottish independence than Westminster. The sooner the party goes defunct, the sooner the independence movement can get on with the task of improving the prospectus, engaging with undecideds and building support for independence to unassailable levels.

SusanAHF

I shall not be voting SNP in my constituency either, Drew Hendry is a troughing woo woo monger. I no longer believe they want independence, just a cushy job with perks for life. Alba, ISP or an artistically spoiled ballot.

Frank Gillougley

Fol da re, fol da ro, fol de ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, – when you know the notes to sing, you can sing almost anything… and repeat ad nauseum

David Hannah

link to twitter.com

Stephen Flynn: “Don’t dwell on the past. But focus on the future.”

Can you hear the bell? That’s Last orders for you and your best friend Ian Blackford.

Geoff Anderson

What they are…….how they work

link to caltonjock.com

Jlm

‘Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.’
– Franz Kafka
Got to keep moving.

Joe

@Twathater

When people show you who they are, believe them.

A would-be Scottish leader will get my support and advocacy when they address the following:

1 – the fall out from the Covid fraud and the damage done to Scots, particularly children
2 – the continuous disenfranchisement of Scots due to mass migration
3 – the danger to women and children posed by a monolithic marxist machine that has taken over our institutions.

If those points aren’t firmly addressed then you have a pretender on your hands, or at best someone who is totally detached.

Which means more wasted time hoping that your vote will do something.

I would say that the above issues are at least as important as the indy ref carrot that dangles before our noses.

The brutal reality is that at present there is no political solution.

Luigi

A Bridge to Independence

“I have a bridge to sell you!”

Sigh. Here we go again. It’s amazing how those brass-necked politicians’ minds suddenly get focussed when their comfy jobs are on the line. Well to all you (still in denial) habitual SNP voters out there – here, right on cue as expected, is the latest shiny SNP bridge up for sale.

Personally, I have had enough of buying bridges since 2014. The SNP have replaced Labour as Scotland’s premier bridge company. The brass-necks are laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, I have quite a collection of bridges now and I don’t want any more. What a fool I have been. Well, no more. It’s time to cut my losses, burn the bridges and vote ALBA.

Geoff Anderson

Who they are now….

link to twitter.com

auld highlander

It’s Alba for me, it’s Alba for me,
if your not voting Alba yer no use to me,
the snp were braw, the labour an a’,
but cockey wee Alba is the best of them a’.

To the tune of A Gordon for me.

Luigi

Fortunately, I missed Charlie’s do at the weekend. Had better things to do (AUOB – Yeah!).

However, accidentally seeing photos of those puffed up, beaming, smirking SNP politicians in attendance, all dressed in their finest garb was particularly nauseating. They sure do like to get all dressed up and parade about like little tartan peacocks. What a disgrace.

All appearance and no substance.

It’s time to bring those buffoons down to earth.

Mac

That was a very interesting series of tweets by Craig Murray on the involvement of the NCA.

The performative searches they carried out were to make them look like they were actually doing their jobs to the bobbies at the NCA while at the same time totally not doing their job. They were for the benefit of the real police at the NCA…”look we are investigating now, honest guv’.

Of course giving the suspects weeks of advance notice that the searches were coming probably undermined the charade somewhat.

At the highest levels Scotland is one deeply corrupt country, the police, the judiciary and the media are Kafkaesque in operation.

I’d love to know what the honest cops doing the stymied investigation have uncovered… someone should Liz Lloyd it all to a newspaper down south if they are getting cockblocked by their corrupt leadership.

Ottomanboi

The SNP ship may be «all at sea» at the moment but it the only boat available. Burning it, as some would, could well sink independence for rather more than a generation. Powerless factionalism gathers no credibility.
Better to «mutiny» and capture the bridge and reset the course.
Like taking candy from a baby surely or do some people just love to whinge of is a more sinister scenario being played out.
Beware of false friends.

Jlm

@Joe 7.44am
It is amazing how whole areas of discussion have been ‘walled off’ because folks are scared that they will be divisive.
When we make certain topics ‘’verboten’, truths get lost.
Sad to see people, who should know better, toeing the line.
All credit to WoS for appearing to be the least censored of sites.

Scot Finlayson

The Queen promises Alice jam `every other day`,

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.”

“It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day’,” Alice objected.

“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.”

Radical Cartoons

We’ve been hearing “Labour are going to win the next General Election” since 2015. Not going to happen.

Muscleguy

I really hope Alba put up candidates in ever constituency next year. Otherwise it will be yet another spoiled ballot paper.

Mac

I have been really struggling to understand the wildly passive-aggressive behaviour of Police Scotland in recent months but this information about the NCA really helps explain it.

The aggressive behaviour is the honest cop component in action and passive part is the corrupt leadership foiling and stymieing the honest component’s actions.

One solution might be for the NCA to short circuit the investigation and have the cops at Gartcosh report directly to them if that is possible or better yet bring in a Police Force from outside Scotland to do it, or even better yet just take it all over themselves if they can.

It will always be one step forward and one step backwards with the schizophrenic honest-corrupt behaviour of Police Scotland.

We all know the Police will play good cop / bad cop at times but in Scotland they are not playing.

Terry Darvel

We should have been all over Brexit, relentlessly pointing out the parallels to our own independence.
The Corbynites at Alba are just waiting for justification to rejoin the SNP and get their noses in the trough.
What we need is the Scexit party, and we need it now.

David Beveridge

“Independence” is simply NewSNP’s equivalent of “the oil is running out.”

No more votes from this household for these trough-slurping bstrds supposing they offered to send activists round to cut my grass, wash my car and clean my gutters out from now until I pop my clogs. I’m relishing watching the counts at the next WM GE when they get hoofed the fck out.

robertkknight

Wouldn’t lend Sturgeon’s rancid SNP the steam off my dog’s pee on a cold day, let alone anything else.

More of the same shyte we’ve had every day under Sturgeon, and the Wee Ginger Fuds and Rainbow Warriors will still vote for the charlatans and troughers.

Not me however. Never again…

Curtain-twitcher General

“being dragged out of the EU against its will”
I sincerely hope you were in sarcasm mode as you typed this doubleplusgood parrotspeak.
I wonder who was the first person to use it?

Antoine Bisset

There is a specific way of “spoiling” a ballot paper if you wish it to be recorded, as the rules require. “None of the above ” written diagonally between two lines across the ballot paper.
Check online for this.

PacMan

Radical Cartoons says: 8 May, 2023 at 8:44 am

We’ve been hearing “Labour are going to win the next General Election” since 2015. Not going to happen.

Given how bad the Tories have been with the economy, their UK election fight will on other issues. For what I can see, the two main ones will be using a possible SNP coalition and the Trans issue against Labour.

Reality is that voters south of the border shall we say have been indoctrinated with fear about the SNP having any part in a Westminster government. The Tories have been using this against Labour for the past couple of elections and it is been in part successful.

The other one being the Trans issue. Labour is stuck between this middle class Progressive identity politics voting block that loves this stuff and their traditional socially conservative working class base which obviously don’t. The Tories will push that hard and Labour will lose votes to Lib Dems and fail to regain the Red wall seat they had seat over it.

It’s hard to say what the result of the next UK election will be like but it’s hard to say with certainty that Labour will win an outright majority and if they don’t, there is no way that they will form any form of coalition with the SNP. They will just set out a legislative program and dare the SNP to side with the Tories in opposing it.

Then again, by the time the next UK election comes, there will have been an extended period of Tory government under Sunak which if they have got any sense, is not too controversial and in doing so, persuade their voting base to give him another term in office rather than the uncertainty of being ruled under Labour.

Bob Mack

See previous election manifestos!.

They meant those as well. I think.

100%Yes

@Terry Darvel

I’ve no intention of re-joining the SNP ever and I’m sure the rest of the membership isn’t either. I was a member and supporter of the SNP for 33yrs and I’ve never voted Labour in my life, I think you’ll find that the leadership and membership of Alba were the work force of the SNP and we got the SNP to where is stood in 2014 including a referendum.

Stephen O'Brien

Glasgow Green, 6 May, 2023, Joanna Cherry: “I was elected as an SNP MP and that’s what I intend to stay”.

I wondered why that was stated openly, in the presence of Alex Salmond, watching only a few feet away, at the time.

I believe JC, is a shrewd operator and whatever she ‘intends’, could be surpassed by events beyond her control. The most obvious external factor being the loss of Westminster Short Money, for SNP MPs, due to NEC’s drastic failure.

The appointment of new auditors, a vain attempt to shield the present NEC, from further criticism.

A state of flux is weeks away. Only then, could matters develop very differently, for the future shape of Scottish politics. Joanna Cherry, central to that development.

Implosion of SNP, basic natural justice, for many within the party. The Scottish electorate deserves much better and that next chapter cannot come quickly enough.

Stuart MacKay

Why are the SNP perpetually trying to lock the country into a deal with unionist parties, the result of which would be a withdrawal of the goal of independence as part of the bargain?

Ah yes, it’s because “Tories Baad, Baaaaaaad” is a much easier ticket than actually doing any real work. It keeps lots of journalists in work, cutting and pasting what they wrote last week. The NGO’s are all happy to step in a fill the gaps created by the evil, blue, monsters. Politicians can stand up and rail against the injustice but not actually do anything.

But, but, they’re busy fighting the good fight and making sure things don’t get worse. Aye, right. Fool me once…

Ruby

Ottomanboi says:
8 May, 2023 at 8:26 am

The SNP ship may be «all at sea» at the moment but it the only boat available. Burning it, as some would, could well sink independence for rather more than a generation. Powerless factionalism gathers no credibility.
Better to «mutiny» and capture the bridge and reset the course.
Like taking candy from a baby surely or do some people just love to whinge of is a more sinister scenario being played out.
Beware of false friends.

You keep posting the same thing over and over and over again but you never explain what you mean by «mutiny» or «ferocious rage»

So Ottomanboi I’m asking you again what do you think we should be doing? How do we go about capturing the bridge?

How would not burning the SNP get us closer to independence?

Who are these ‘false friends’ you are warning us about? Are you a false friend?

What do you want to achieve by posting on Wings?

Does posting on Wings make you feel superior?

Shug

Lend us your vote, to keep Tories out.

If labour do t give us an insured we will let them back in.

Interesting negotiating position.

Starmer has already said jog on.

I quite like the cut of Flynn but this is no position to take. As a policy it must have been written by one of the blue rinse Mohecan brigade

Jock MacTavish

@Wilson McBride

What’s the point of posting links direct to a yoon shitrag and giving them ad revenue? Please don’t click them folks. Use an archive service if you have to refer to these?

Ruby

If all you want is to get the Tories out would it not make more sense to vote Labour?

Colin Alexander

The idea of voting for the SNP cos there are some “good” SNP politicians amongst them, such as Joanna Cherry or Ash Regan, is like supporting Hitler’s Nazis because not all German soldiers were bad.

I am moving towards the idea of not voting for any candidate unless they will refuse to swear allegiance to KCIII, who is an enemy of Scotland’s independence.

Alf Baird

Mac @ 8:25 am

“At the highest levels Scotland is one deeply corrupt country”

Colonial society is ‘a racket’ that is by its nature dependent on corruption and collaboration at all levels. The ‘co-opted national party elite’ acting as colonial administrators are only a small but intrinsic part of the colonial ‘racket’, and there are thousands of others on the colonial payroll ensuring the plunder and oppression of the people continues. Much as Aime Cesaire describes the ‘watchdogs of colonialism’ here:

“…you will hold as enemies – loftily, lucidly, consistently – not only sadistic governors and greedy bankers, not only prefects who torture and colonists who flog, not only corrupt, check-licking politicians and subservient judges, but likewise and for the same reason, venomous journalists, goitrous academics, wreathed in dollars and stupidity, ethnographers who go in for metaphysics, presumptuous theologians, chattering intellectuals born stinking out of the thigh of Nietzsche, the paternalists, the embracers, the corrupters, the back-slappers, the lovers of exoticism, the dividers, the agrarian sociologists, the hoodwinkers, the hoaxers, the hot-air artists, the humbugs, and in general, all those who, performing their functions in the sordid division of labor for the defense of Western bourgeois society, try in diverse ways and by infamous diversions to split up the forces of Progress – all of them tools of capitalism, openly or secretly, supporters of plundering colonialism, all of them responsible, all hateful, all slave-traders, all henceforth answerable for the violence of revolutionary action. And sweep out all the obscurers, all the inventors of subterfuges, the charlatans and tricksters, the dealers in gobbledygook. And do not seek to know whether personally these gentlemen (and ladies) are in good or bad faith, whether personally – that is, in the private conscience of Peter or Paul(a) – they are or are not colonialists, because the essential thing is that their highly problematical subjective good faith is entirely irrelevant to the objective social implications of the evil work they perform as watchdogs of colonialism.”

Ruby

Terry Darvel says:
8 May, 2023 at 9:02 am

We should have been all over Brexit, relentlessly pointing out the parallels to our own independence.
The Corbynites at Alba are just waiting for justification to rejoin the SNP and get their noses in the trough.
What we need is the Scexit party, and we need it now.

Scexit?

We have already Scexited.

It happened in 2016.

Scotland didn’t vote for Scexit but hey we are part of the Union and we must go where England goes.

Scotland has English votes for Scottish laws.

No idea why we bother sending politicians to Westminster.

I’ve never heard anyone say the word Scexit. How is it pronounced.

I always read it as Sexit.
Ha! Ha!

That made me think of Gilbert & George:

Sexit it, sexit it, just a little bit
And take it easy, show you’re likin’ it
And lover, you know that we’re gonna hit
The heights cause I’m sure that we’re made to fit
Together just like pieces of a
Jigsaw puzzle, what’s the hustle

Luigi

Ottomanboi (and pals)

“I have another bridge to sell”.

“And if you stop buying it, you must be a unionist agent.”

“If you don’t give us another chance, you are just (wait for it) …….., a false friend!“. LMAO

Beware false friends indeed. Ach away with ye – away back to your favourite hobby – rearranging the deckchairs as the SNP goes down.

Must try harder. 🙂

100%Yes

At the next Westminster election I know for a fact the ISP, Alba Party will have in their manifesto’s something like “a vote in this election is a vote to start negotiations with the UKG to end the treaty of Union”. The SNP will have a option either join the AUOB of unity or die by losing votes to ISP, Alba and on the other side the Unionist parties, once again watch the SNP run themselves into the cul-de-sac rather than work with the Indy parties to secure Independence. It will be a interesting time to see what the NUSNP does and how leadership will ruin its own chances of trying to get back any credibility it once had, they’ll wreck the party to secure their own jobs.

I see a opportunity at the next Westminster election for the ISP, Alba to really force the NUSNP hand on Indy, because if the NUSNP don’t stand on that AUOB vote then people will really see them for what they are.

Mac

If the weegingerdunningkruger crowd can’t now see how Sturgeon and now Yousaf have mugged them off for a decade then they never will. It is not even an argument anymore. You were wrong, about everything.

Of course having a massive ego attached to a sub-mediocre mind they will be completely unable to admit it to themselves, never mind anyone else.

Eventually though they will just quietly melt away as the cognitive dissonance deepens and deepens… very few will ever admit their error, and their complicity in what Sturgeon did.

Ruby

I quite fancy having a ‘Let Women Speak Party’

That would attract votes from all political parties.

It could be mainly about GRA but with a promise to ‘Let Women Speak’ about Independence.

100%Yes

At the next Westminster election the NUSNP MPs are going to have to except that if they stand hand in hand with the Labour party they’re going to lose votes from every direction and that all important money to the party that elected MPs bring. If I was advising the NUSNP it would to be to stand as a united front with the rest of the Indy parties or it could be disastrous for then.

auld highlander

Voting liebour is not an option as you will get the same shite in a different wrapper.

Mia

“The SNP ship may be «all at sea» at the moment but it the only boat available”

Would you ever board a boat when you can see from where you are its huge hole on the hull below the waterline and you can hear the water pouring in?
No, because that is no longer a boat. It is a wreck. A death trap.

The SNP has been holed below the waterline and the massive hole is showing. Because they wanted it to show. By their own admission, they are no longer a party which pursues independence for Scotland. Now their only interest is to enable labour and become be an active part of the useless bipartite UK political game. That removes them from the category of “independence boat” and transfers them to the shelf where all the other pro-union British colonial parties are kept.

I hope Alba puts a candidate in my constituency, because I will never cast a vote for the SNP again, no matter how much faux “unity” they try to sell us. I don’t longer trust them nor I will ever trust them again.

If Alba or ISP do not stand in my constituency, I will spoil my ballot. I am determined to vote for independence in the next GE despite the best efforts by the political frauds in the SNP to stop me doing so.

Chas

It does not seem to register with the bulk of Independence supporting Scots that the MAJORITY of the electorate currently do NOT want Independence, for whatever reasons they hold. You can write lots of ‘passionate’ stories on sites like this until the cows come home, but it does not alter this FACT.

Who is even attempting to convince soft No voters to change?

All I ever see is SNP Bad, Tories Bad, Labour Bad, England Bad.

Alba, with a pitifully low support base, wants to challenge the SNP, but seems to be doing very little other than that. Do they simply want SNP supporters to switch allegiance? Beware of troughing incomers.

Wee argumentative Ruby suggests. Vote Labour to get the Tories out. Doing so might also get the SNP out!

100%Yes

We all know that the NUSNP isn’t going to stand on a ticket of a united front on Indy at the next Westminster election. We also know ISP, Alba is and this is where these two Indy parties are going to have to be cunning, because the MSN isn’t going to give them a single minute to promote their manifestos and neither is the Rag.

Joe

@Jlm

‘It is amazing how whole areas of discussion have been ‘walled off’ because folks are scared that they will be divisive’

The absolute farce of it is that things are already divided due to the actions of radical activist groups.

However if we ordinary people, the kind who have families and pay taxes and don’t want our children groomed into the clutches of paedophile ‘drag queens’, or our daughters to be at risk from mentally ill men in womens private spaces, start to demand the same representation and advocacy as these special activist groups THEN it’s divisive.

It’s the same with ethnic and religious minorities. We can sit and listen to our entire political establishment, including the so-called dissidents, talking about how we need to be socially accommodating to every alien culture, religion and ethnicity on the planet, no matter how ideologically incompatible and no matter the disenfranchisement of our own people, but the minute a Scot asks for the EXACT SAME representation for their children then they are considered an extremist.

Honestly, it makes me want to vomit and I have nothing but contempt for any public figure who allows this farce to stand. Because we Scots (as the English and Welsh and Irish and most of Europe) are simply not allowed to have our own interests and any leaders who properly advocate for those interests.

Its Inclusivity TM, Multi-cultural TM, Equality TM, Diversity TM and damn the ordinary people who built the country.

So people need to understand that the division is already baked in hard. The only question is if we are going to be honest about it and speak for your childrens future, or if we want to be politically correct weaklings bending to grotesque destructive ideologies that hate us.

In the end, when it comes right down to it, as far as our evil corrupt establishment is concerned you will either be permissive of paedophiles expressing interest in your bairns and showering with an erection next to your daughter, or having hordes of foreigners housed, fed, payed for while our own go without and you will turn a blind eye to the blatant anti ethnic European (white) propaganda of our institutions OR you will be a vile extremist. The choice is easy for me.

That’s a rant, but it gets me angry

President Xiden

A Scot Abroad says:
If it turns out that the Police investigations are into bigger issues than (allegedly/possibly) hands in the SNP till buying camper vans and Le Creuset pans and Mont Blanc pens, but rather such things as ferry contracts, publishing books of speeches or aluminium smelting mills all using public money, then it’s game over for the SNP

And could I also add the care home inquiry.

Marie Clark

Good article Rev, aye, we’re all sick of the same auld song and the foosty carrots.

There will be no more votes for the SNP from our family, only for an independence party or spoilt votes. For me the SNP need to be wiped out at the election after all it’s what they deserve, chancers with one or two exceptions, and for the life of me I can’t understand why they are still in the SNP.

Ruby

Who would lead the ‘Let Women Speak Party’

Maybe Ash Regan & Joanna Cherry although there are many to choose from.

Who would they get their donations from?

Maybe J. K. Rowling & definitely from me.

I’ve just bought a months worth of lottery tickets so my donation could be huge!

I did win two free lucky dip tickets last month so I might be on a winning streak.

Daisy Walker

Alex’s idea that next GE, all indy parties must fight AUOB with their first paragraph of their published manifesto being a declaration that a vote for them is to begin Indy negotiations.

The pitfall I see, will be that at the eleventh hour, the SNP will adopt their version of this policy, and their published ‘vow/manifesto’ will be a weak and watery thing, with lots of small print.

If Alex’s policy is to be done correctly, then the wording is published independent of parties, and the parties adopt it. Be good if Alex writes it.

With regards Joanna Cherry, the SNP would be absolutely, totally bonkers to de-select her (so no bets here). Given her area, I would advise her to stand as an independent. However, I think if they do this, it will cause a significant amount of remaining ‘good guys’ in the SNP to decant to Alba.

I’m worried re Katie Forbes, I suspect she really is the new Nikla, making all the right noises, but no back bone when it comes to doing the right thing GRR, Freeports. She has sufficient voter appeal to fool most of the SNP sheeple in a way that Useless never will.

Mia

“We’ve been hearing “Labour are going to win the next General Election” since 2015. Not going to happen”

That Labour wins or not the GE is the least of the establishment’s concerns. Ensuring Scotland does not send a majority of anti-union MPs after Sturgeon (and her temporary continuity replacement) is gone, is where their urgency lies.

With the political fraud Sturgeon at the helm of a toothless SNP, the British establishment could rest assured SNP “anti-union” majorities would never be used to pursue independence.

Now that she is gone at last, it has become a bit more unpredictable to determine who will be leading the SNP during the next GE. It is now all hands on deck to make the SNP look unelectable at all costs.

And with the amount of shit the SNP is deliberately surrounding themselves with, they will succeede.

Asking for another mandate to beg indiref from labour after 8 years of majorities comes across as yet another slap in the face of yes supporters. I am sure that is precisely their intended outcome, to put off as many SNP voters as possible.

But there is a caveat in this fool-proof strategy. The strategy only works if the SNP is fully coupled with the yes vote and it is the only political option yes voters have so disenfranchised yes voters stay at home and become silent yes votes. The moment the SNP is no longer seen as a party of independence, the strategy is condemned to fail. The yes vote will divide, so colonial parties may still win seats at the next GE, but they can no longer claim, on the basis of the SNP losses, that support for independence has fallen.

The effectiveness of the dual game of dangling the referendum carrot and then handing over the veto on Scotland’s independence to the crown and Westminster so the referendum never has a chance to materialise, has worn out. So you can feel the establishment’s urgency on its quest to bring down that anti-union majority.

In their greed to stop Scotland’s independence, the establishment shot itself on the foot. They overstreched themselves abusing an English court to transfer control of Scotland’s legislative body from the people of Scotland to the crown. In other words, a rather obvious and conscious step to reverse democracy into absolute rule.

This is opening the eyes of yes supporters to a far more reliable route than a pointless referendum where the franchise is designed to overrule the native vote.

And this is where the establishment’s real problem begins: once that route becomes the default strategy and the yes voters’ expectation, stopping an anti-union MP/MSP majority will forever remain the horse battle for the colonial parties in every single election.

Colonial parties will be forced to redirect most of their energy to fight against independence (with the impossible task of praising the positivity for Scotland of being systematically robbed of its resources and denied democracy) in every election. This means they cannot longer concentrate on their favourite bipartite politics (right vs left) game.

This will lead to a widening gap between Scotland’s and England’s politics. At all practical effects, the stupid intervention of the crown to bulldoze Scotland’s democracy has led them into a divide and conquer trap of their own making.

I have read somewhere that Patrick Grady is allowed to stand again. Well, if that is not begging to lose the seat, what is? It would be fascinating to find out what candidate labour is proposing for that seat because they might be a shoe in. Was this the objective behind Grady’s standing?

What are the chances Sturgeon’s SNP has already done a deal with labour to transfer to Labour some of its seats? to achieve this is easy. Simply field as SNP candidates in the seats you have agreed to lose individuals who are perceived as troughers, perverts or woman haters and voila! Job done.

The question that remains to be answered is what the price for what looks like an engineered seat transfer was. Will it be more useless devolution or would it be forcing down our throats that “new” act of union currently in the pipeline of the HoLs?

Time will tell.

Joe

RE: Aime Cesaire

I don’t know much about this guy but I don’t hold much to the opinions of a man that waited til the mid 50’s to become disillusioned with the Soviet Union. I mean, just how high did the pile of bodies have to be?

He seems like the kind of leftist intellectual who worked hard to give a pass to every communist act of brutality and aggression while giving deep negative attention to the older powers and culture of Europe whose crimes, and never glories, are then heaped on the heads of ordinary Europeans to guilt them into accepting their own ethnic replacement and genocide. As if aggression between peoples were only a thing when Europe was involved.

That, coupled with the deeply anti-european sentiment pervasive in all the institutions that the radical marxists have now taken over leaves me sceptical that these kind of ‘thinkers’ were ever coming from a honest position to begin with.

In fact we can see that in modern leftist rhetoric ‘colonialism’ is synonymous with attacks on European culture and heritage as a justification of replacing it with something less civilised.

Just wanted to point that out.

Ruby

Chas says:
8 May, 2023 at 10:30 am

Wee argumentative Ruby suggests. Vote Labour to get the Tories out.

Stop twisting my words & demeaning me you abusive misogynistic creep.

He’s too pathetic to be called a cunt!

Frazerio

It bemuses me so much that anyone still thinks the SNP are anything at all to do with independence. They are doing absolutely diddly squat in that regard. That column is empty. The column with evidence they are, as a party, lying grifters is overflowing. When seemingly well intentioned people who are also seemingly well informed, like James Scot Goes Pop keep punting the narrative that a vote for the SNP is any better than a vote for any of the overt British Nationalist parties, it just disnae compute. Sturgeon has for years been the single biggest obstacle to Scottish independence. More than May, Boris, Mogg, Sir Keir or Sir Libdem leader, more than Kezia, Ruth, Mundell or Jack. Who thinks Yousaf will be any better? They need routed. They’re as much a party of independence as Labour are a party of the left/the workers/devolution. Your choice is simple;
1) vote right of centre British Nationalist (Tory, Labour, SNP or Libdem) or
2) you can find someone else to vote for or
3) you dont vote/spoil your paper
The SNP are not an indy party. Cherry, MacNeil & Regan, do the right thing, join the real indy movement & go head to head against Pishfart, Flynn, Black & Law. Those three plus Salmond, MacAskill & McEleny in Westminster or Holyrood have more clout & a higher profile than pretty much any of the rest of the SNP. From there, the only way is up!!!
(I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see courage or conviction in Forbes).

Mia

“It does not seem to register with the bulk of Independence supporting Scots that the MAJORITY of the electorate currently do NOT want Independence”

That is right, Chas. Because what is registering with an increasing number of independence supporting Scots is that most, if not all, our political representatives, in both Westmisnter and Holyrood do NOT want independence and they are the ones stopping it.

Bob Mack

@chas.

Things change. I remember support for Independence and even the SNP near or around 20%.

Events dear boy .Events.

Breeks

Terry Darvel says:
8 May, 2023 at 9:02 am

We should have been all over Brexit, relentlessly pointing out the parallels to our own independence.
The Corbynites at Alba are just waiting for justification to rejoin the SNP and get their noses in the trough.
What we need is the Scexit party, and we need it now.

Pretty clear you weren’t at the Glasgow march Terry, nor did you catch up with Alex Salmond’s speech even afterwards.

Alex Salmond, Leader of ALBA, wants the next General Election fought on a Scotland United ticket, and seeking a binary mandate from the sovereign Scottish people to begin negotiations to end the United Kingdom.

I have rarely heard the expression “Scexit” coming from an Independentist source, and recognise the term from the Express or Torygraph, rather than any better informed source.

Apart from anything else, it’s simply wrong and more than a little ignorant. Scottish Independendence does not mean Scotland “exits” the United Kingdom, because Scotland’s departure “ends” the United Kingdom, the UK will no longer exist, so a more accurate term, I suppose, would be something like “Scendit”… if made-uppy words are your thing.

Of course, if they wanted to be a “proper” Newspaper with a degree of professional integrity and detached objectivity, they could always drop the sneering tabloid terminology, and call the process by it’s name, Scottish Independence.

You really shouldn’t rush to judge ALBA by NuSNP standards, especially when you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and I simply don’t know what you mean by “the Corbynites in ALBA”. All too cryptic for me.

Which Tory rag does that come from? Or was it the NuSNP Fanzine, The National?

Liz

I haven’t voted SNP in the last three elections.
I would only change if Ash R or Joanna C became FM.

At Glasgow Green, met a nice lady from Dunoon, who said her MSP told them she was very concerned about HPMA, she then got a cabinet post, and you know what I’m going to say, voted for.

This lady said if there was no Alba candidate, she might have to bite the bullet and vote SNP.
Some people feel they haven’t a choice.

Wanted to say again how awful Lesley Riddoch was, she was a masterclass in scouting for cheers, leading the crowd.

Not sure if she even mentioned Scotland.
She’s desperate to remain on the gravy bus
She was part of a group who raised £100k for some indy thing, what the hell happened to that money?

Jlm

@Joe 10.34 am
To me it appears that some issues are genuine but many are ‘divide and rule’ gaslighting to distract us.
The economic repercussions of the plandemic and climate legislation are immense yet they’ve got us squabbling about Transvestism.
It is a social control experiment.

Today’s ‘1984’ quote.-
“Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds.”

Anton Decadent

Mission accomplished for the front operation which is the Greens, help to discredit and redirect Scottish nationalism and look for coalition status with Labour if the vote goes their way. They found very willing accomplices within the SNP.

Over in Ireland Labour, Sinn Fein, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have all voted for a new Hate Speech bill which will look to fine and/or imprison anyone who speaks out of turn against population transfer or the trans lobby etc. Just possessing something which the supporters of this deem hateful, and that is going to a very broad definition, will carry a sentence of between six months and five years and a fine of five thousand Euros. You do not need to have shown it to anyone else or tried to distribute it. Refusal to provide password to your computer if encrypted carries a twelve month sentence, this is with regard to political material which goes against the Bolshevik takeover of the West which we are living through.

Geoff Anderson

I think a lot of posters on here are missing the point. I am not voting SNP ever again. They can roll out comments all day long and it will not change my mind.
I don’t think I am alone so we need to move on. We need a Unity banner that has one clear message, and that is Independence.
I do not want to be told how that will turn out. I want the People to decide what Scotland will look like.
EU, EFTA, NATO, Monarchy, Nuclear, WMD, TransCult, Green issues…the list is endless.

We need to cross one hurdle before we debate and resolve all the others.

At the moment only two political Parties will get my vote, Alba and ISP.

So, for the hard of thinking I will never vote SNP again. Especially with the two TransCult supporting troughers who represent Argyll and Bute at the moment.

It is very simple. We were never going to get Independence under the NUSNP so nothing will be damaged by rejecting them.

Ottomanboi

What use is Scotland?
link to archive.ph

Shug

So the plan is labour give us a referendum or we let the Tories in!!

Hmm let me think about that

Does Dannie Garvellie say it is a good idea??

Must be a plan.

mark

Your problem is that a reasonably large element of the support for independence is quite soft, and is in reality more anti-Tory than pro-Indy. It disappears like snow off a dyke when labour look like the next UK government. This latest act of desperation is but an example of that.

James Che

Police Scotland sre a corporation that also includes the metro police from london since 2013 Scotland act.

James Che

The Devolved government in Scotland is also a corporation.

You will own nothing and be happy Scotland.

James Che

If you wish to know more about the political position of local Councils and politics in Scotland check out the meeting with Edinburgh Council with the SSRG,

No Burghs, No Three Estates and not legally in the Scotland Act,

James Che

The people of Scotland need to do their own research to educate themselves on what the position of reality is here in Scotland,
Most of Scotland is Run by corporations not public bodies, and most are registered outside of Scotland.

James Che

The Scottish Colonial Stock was also registered in England.

All The political parties within in the Scottish Government legislated from Westminster are there as members in a Corporation, Snp, Tories, Labour, Greens, and the Few lib dems,

Lorna Campbell

The SNP is now a party of devolution, half-believing that independence will never come, the other half believing it never should. Of course it won’t, if you do nothing to advance it – which the SNP has been doing for the past eight years.

In common with many females, I feel utterly betrayed on independence and on the GRRB, and on other matters. For me, there is no way back, and, if I must, I will spoil my ballot paper. I never dreamt that I would even consider such a thing.

People say: but if you don’t vote SNP, it will not be elected, and, if not elected, independence will be even further away. Really? It couldn’t be further away than it is right now with the SNP who will do Sweet Fanny Adams to advance it, so six of one and half a dozen of the other.

What does worry me is that everything that the SNP has done in the social support areas will be dropped if they nosedive at the polls: free school meals; free bus passes; etc. Wait a minute. Haven’t they said these might have to go anyway? Along with 20 million, is it, in financial support to the universities and colleges, so tuition fees might also go.

What will not go, it seems, is the massive public financial support for all the arms of Stonewall situated in our learning institutions. Each educational establishment has its own custom-built ‘trans’ unit dedicated solely to the welfare of ‘trans’. F**k the disabled and anyone else who needs support. The stunning and brave need it all. Just as they will need a substantial part of the NHS budget to try and support all those mutilated young people as they age and their dream of physical perfection evaporates into the ether with bladder and bowel problems, early on-set cancers and other physical ailments – reality, in other words.

If this had been written as a novel, few would have believed it. Just remember Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Franz Kafka, Margaret Atwood, Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh and many, many more. Our artistic people always foresee the future, and always know that our scientists are always tempted to push things too far, that many politicians lie through every orifice and end up corrupted by parasites. Ah, the parasites. Always with us. Like the poor.

Alf Baird

Ruby @ 10:39 am

“….there are many to choose from”

Is there really anybody worthy in a compromised national party? Kenny MacAskill, Neal Hanvey, Alex Salmond et al showed them the path to take but the ‘continuity’ SNP MPs/MSPs still do the oppressor’s work.

As Aime Cesaire wrote:
“And do not seek to know whether personally these gentlemen (and ladies) are in good or bad faith, whether personally – that is, in the private conscience of Peter or Paul(a) – they are or are not colonialists, because the essential thing is that their highly problematical subjective good faith is entirely irrelevant to the objective social implications of the evil work they perform as watchdogs of colonialism.”

bluegrass banjo

wishart now saying all the things he slagged wings for

epic & sad

David Holden

Like Geoff Anderson above I will also not be voting SNP again and I also live in Argyll and Bute. While I was still an SNP member I did not vote for Brendan or Jenni at selection and only voted SNP at the last election in the vain hope that SNP1 Alba2 would be embraced by my former party. If Alba or ISP do not stand candidates out here in wildest Jockistan then I will spoil my ballot as will have no candidate to vote for. I had a low opinion of Brendan our MP before the coronation as he has been the invisible man since getting on the gravy train and he has managed to exceed my expectations by proving more useless than I feared. Out here in the islands Westminster does not know we exist and Holyrood often wishes we didn’t with the latest wheeze to secure our votes being the ill thought out Highly Protected Marine areas out for consultation. Our MSP has voted in favour of it so she is toast as far as I am concerned. Well done to all who marched in Glasgow at the weekend as it gave us all a lift.

PacMan

Ruby says: 8 May, 2023 at 10:21 am

I quite fancy having a ‘Let Women Speak Party’

That would attract votes from all political parties.

It could be mainly about GRA but with a promise to ‘Let Women Speak’ about Independence.

The Trans issue is too much of a golden goose for all parties. For the SNP, Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, it’s all about soaking up middle class progressive votes. For the Tories, it’s to stoke up the culture wars.

If anybody thinks the Tories will do anything about it, they are fooling themselves. They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. It will be kicked in the long grass especially in the event they need to go into coalition with the Libs at the next UK election.

As Westminster is a dead end for independence and for any meaningful change, why vote your vote when it’s better to vote for a candidate on a single issue like woman’s rights?

It sends a message that Scots, both men and woman, won’t wheest for this issue and the finger to the SNP and Sturgeon on their pet project which they have all but destroyed independence on. As the saying goes, Revenge is a dish best served sold.

Athanasius

Here’s something I’ve always wondered about. Why is voting with the Tories so toxic? Yes, I know they’re crooks and all the rest of it, but what I mean is, both Labour and the Lib Dems are rotten to the core of their beings and have been for literally generations. They are both — particularly Labour — corrupt in their flesh, blood and bones and it’s universally accepted that this is the case. So what makes voting with THEM acceptable, but not the Tories, if it will secure advantage for Scotland?

James Che

Lorna Campbell.

Check out the SSRG meeting with Edinburgh Council, interesting response as to wether Councils hold political Clout on the Gender issue,

It could help Scots fight any reform bills issued and forced upon Scots including 15 min Cities.
Know your foundations.

Brian Doonthetoon

A wee 5 minute trailer to watch. The finished article is about the 2014 campaign.

link to kickstarter.com

DavidT

The map indicates Pete Wishart will retain Perth and North Perthshire, although Angus Brendan gets the heave-ho.

James Che

When we vote in Scotland, We vote (Not) for a public representative but for a representative in a Corporation.

That member of the corporation owes you no alligianc, it runs under “corporate bodies” legislation

Northcode

There is a new song the SNP could sing. A much sweeter song with a Gaulish lilt. A song with a greater chance of actually happening than the one about using any balance of power they might gain to benefit Scotland.

It involves the Scottish Parliament expanding on the Auld Alliance.

What if our Scottish ‘Government’ were to make a deal with France? Let’s call it the “Acte d’Union (2023)”.

We would give the French Government all of the revenue we generate from our plentiful resources and creative, educated workforce, and they would let us choose which of their French political parties get to run our local devolved administration, or the Regime de Scotia as it would probably be called.

Of course, the French would give a little bit of the huge revenues we generate back to us to pay for our local services and such. And we’d be able to choose from these new and exciting Scottish political parties: the Scottish Renaissance Party, the Scottish La France Insoumise Party, the Scottish French Communist Party, and the Scottish Soyons Libres Party.

And this one; the Parti National Ecossais (the PNE). I know it’s still French, but it’s my preference because it has a slightly familiar ring to it.

We would even have our own Scottish newspapers; The Scottish Le Monde, Le Record Quotidien, The Scottish L’Express, the Scottish Le Parisien. And, of course, the Scottish Liberation – my favourite.

We probably wouldn’t be allowed to use English any more, as our official language, but on the upside our kids would actually be taught French properly for a change. We’d likely be allowed to keep our kilts (the French are pretty open-minded about fashion). Not sure about our bagpipes, but we’d definitely be allowed to keep our accordions.

Best of all, we would be a French colony, How cool would that be?

Think about it, it’s an ingenuous solution to all of Scotland’s problems. Why haven’t we thought of doing something like this before now? Oh, wait…

A final note. I apologise for the drivel I have just posted. Sometimes I’m triggered by stupid lies, meaningless newspaper headlines, and the nonsense the SNP spouts.

I find myself descending into a dark, dark place. A place where only mad scribblings, usually made late in the night by candlelight whilst muttering incessantly to myself, and the outpouring of fantastical nonsense offers some meagre relief. It’s a form of self-medication. A treatment I suspect I’m not alone in using in my attempt to reclaim my sanity after being gaslighted for so long by the SNP.

robertkknight

Chas…

“Wee argumentative Ruby suggests. Vote Labour to get the Tories out. Doing so might also get the SNP out!”

And your point?

Pro-Devolution Political Parties in Scotland:

Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Scottish Labour (and Co-operative) Party
Scottish Liberal Democrats
Scottish National Party
Scottish Green Party

Pro-Independce Political Parties in Scotland

ALBA
Independence for Scotland Party
Scottish Socialist Party

Why bother to vote pro-Devo when you’re pro-Indy?

James Che

Because many Tories also kept quite about the jimmy Savelle issue, never mind Ceryl smith.

These perversions run throughout politics and political parties from past to present, and in…all parties,
So why choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, then they are all filling there pockets financially from summer houses to ppr contracts, that is not a choice.
Even the Scottish voting system was a Torie own franchise at one point.

We need a new set of politics and real politicians in Scotland

bluegrass banjo

support for welsh independence higher than snp

Poll shows highest support for Welsh independence ever recorded link to nation.cymru … An ITV poll has shown the highest support for independence ever recorded with 39% of Welsh people saying they would now vote ‘yes’ in a referendum.

Ruby

Alf Baird says:
8 May, 2023 at 11:59 am

Ruby @ 10:39 am

“….there are many to choose from”

Is there really anybody worthy in a compromised national party?

Possibly Ash Regan,Joanna Cherry & Joanne MacAlpine and that’s it.

It’s very early days for ‘The Let Woman Speak Party’

At the moment it’s just a figment of my imagination.

I hadn’t imagined that we would be looking for members from a party where the majority of its members don’t even know what a woman is.

The many to choose from weren’t from the SNP.

Your initial quote gives the impression that was what I was suggesting.

You seem to use me as your stooge.

Selectively quoting my post to feed you your lines.

You did this yesterday as well.

It’s fine but you could give others the wrong impression about what I initially said.

OK Alf what do you think about my idea for ‘The Let Women Speak Party’?

I’m pretty sure they could beat Labour LibDems, SNP & Tories who all support the GRA.

Frazerio

Isn’t it telling that at the latest AUOB march, despite all the Unionist lies, media collusion & Sturgeon led purges since 2014, Salmond speaks, while the Covid Queen is nowhere to be seen.

Luigi

DavidT says:
8 May, 2023 at 12:32 pm
The map indicates Pete Wishart will retain Perth and North Perthshire, although Angus Brendan gets the heave-ho.

IMO voter turnout will be crucial. Whether folk who say they will vote SNP will still be inspired or bothered to turn out on a rainy day could be pivotal. For this reason, the SNP could be far more vulnerable than opinion polls currently indicate. Tory voters always turn out. No doubt, up in Perthshire, a nervous Pete Wishart will soon be frantically chapping on doors and flogging the latest SNP Bridge to Independence, with all sorts of promises.

bluegrass banjo

sorry welsh poll is 2021

guy put it on twitter today (:(

Ruby

Correction

I hadn’t imagined that we would be looking for members candidates from a party where the majority don’t even know what a woman is.

Luigi

IMO it is vital for ALBA and ISP etc to field as many candidates as possible at the next election. Independence supporters who can no longer stomach voting SNP (and there are growing numbers of them) desperately need a place to go. At least one SNP-alternative in every seat. The British establishment will try its damnedest to couple a drop in support for the SNP with a drop in support for Scottish independence. By providing a voting alternative for independence supporters, we show the world that this is not the case. No exclusive SNP-independence link. A majority of Scottish unionist MPs at WM will make no difference, but a big overall vote for independence parties makes for a very strong signal.

David Hannah

Sturgeon was no where to be seen at the all under one banner rally?

I haven’t even seen her at the Coronation either. She’s probably running scared of Britain’s FBI on her coat tails.

Laughing out loud.

Saffron Robe

Due to their rapprochement with Westminster and reliance on short money the SNP have become petrified (as Alf explains) and unable to progress independence. Since they can no longer move forward, they can only regress in ever-decreasing circles!

Peter A Bell

It all changes if the SNP adopts the #ManifestoForIndependence. This would be a solemn commitment to specified actions within a stated timeframe with the purpose of ending the Union. To date, no Scottish political party has made such a commitment. This is what we should be demanding of SNP, Alba, ISP and the rest.

~ Repudiate the Section 30 process as an illegitimate constraint on Scotland’s right of self-determination.

~ Declare one or all future Scottish or UK Parliament elections to be a plebiscite on the question of the competence of the Scottish Parliament to facilitate the exercise of Scotland’s right of self-determination.

~ Assert the primacy of the Scottish Parliament on the basis of its democratic legitimacy and the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.
Recall Scotland’s Members of Parliament from Westminster to sit on a National Convention with Members of the Scottish Parliament and such representatives of civic society as are deemed appropriate by the Scottish Parliament for the purpose of overseeing the drafting of a Constitution for Scotland.

~ Propose dissolution of the Union with England subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament and ratification by the people of Scotland in a referendum that stands as the formal exercise by the people of Scotland of our inalienable right of self-determination.

~ Hold a referendum on the question of the Union under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament and subject to oversight and management by the National Convention and such bodies as may be appointed by the Scottish Parliament.

Doug

I’ll be voting Alba in the GE if they field a candidate in Moray, otherwise I’ll spoil my vote.

More and more true supporters of independence are asking themselves, what’s the point in voting SNP when the SNP couldn’t care less about Scotland’s independence and concentrates instead on English politics?

Doug

Further to my comment above I would also prefer to have Alba declare that all Alba candidates, should they win in a GE, would refuse to take their seats in the Westminster cesspit.

Alf Baird

Ruby @ 12:58 pm

“what do you think about my idea for ‘The Let Women Speak Party’?”

I think we are almost past the stage where we depend on politicians or groups with multiple policy ideals on this and that as diversions from the core aim.

The point we are at is where an independence movement that has been confused about what independence means transforms itself into a ‘liberation movement’ reflecting a better understanding by the people as to the true nature of their oppression.

A better option may therefore be to follow the lead of other liberation movements and create a special purpose National Congress Party with the one purpose – liberation of the people and reclaiming oor soveranety. We can surely find 59 Congress candidates with sufficient courage to face the oppressor and his ‘watchdogs’ and to liberate Scotland. I’m kind of looking at Salvo: link to salvo.scot

PhilM

@Peter Bell
If…

JockMcT

@Peter A Bell

“~ Hold a referendum on the question of the Union under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament and subject to oversight and management by the National Convention and such bodies as may be appointed by the Scottish Parliament.”

and with the appropriate franchise?…

Graeme George

Doug says:
8 May, 2023 at 2:03 pm

”Further to my comment above I would also prefer to have Alba declare that all Alba candidates, should they win in a GE, would refuse to take their seats in the Westminster cesspit.”

I wouldn’t disagree with that entirely Doug but I’m not sure if that would go down well with Scottish voters.
I’d prefer them to declare they’d refuse to take an oath to the monarch and instead take an oath to the sovereign people of Scotland, They are after all a republican party it would be a hypocrisy to swear an oath to a monarch their loyalty lies with the Scottish people and the Scottish people alone

A Scot Abroad

Rather than dreaming up conventions and misunderstanding the 1689 Claim of Right, it would be a more productive use of any independence supporter’s time to try to increase the number of people minded to vote “Yes” to over 50%. At the moment it’s bumping along in the low 40s and has done for several years. No wonder Westminster refuses to allow a referendum: it’s going to be the same result as the one in 2014.

The best way to increase the proportion of “Yes” to over 50% is to have some sensible policies. People won’t vote “Yes” if the result is going to be an economic train wreck for Scotland.

Doug

@Graeme George 2:30pm

Hello Graeme. I understand it might be too radical for some and perhaps your way, the refusal to take the oath to the monarch, would result in non-attendance by another route if Westminster and Alba both refused to compromise.

But as I see it Alba, being a new party, is in the perfect position to declare radical policies if only to get the public used to such new ideas even if at first it is shocked by the newness. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.

Geoff Anderson
ronald anderson

DONT FEED THE TROLL

Graeme George

@Doug

Correct me if I’m wrong but what your suggesting and what I’m suggesting is in effect the same thing because presumably if they didn’t take the oath they wouldn’t be allowed to take their seats, the difference by refusing to take the royal oath is they highlight the concept of popular sovereignty to the Scottish people many of whom I believe are struggling with the concept, so effectively they’re not refusing to take their seat they’re not being allowed to which I think might have greater impact

mark

@peter bell

You mention the sovereignty of the Scottish Parliament without a trace of irony. It is explicitly a devolved parliament – that is the basis upon which it was approved in the referendum. The people voted for its creation – not for the creation of a sovereign parliament in an independent Scotland (the latter possibility being rejected in another referendum).

All this SNP/Independence movement trying to protect/save the SP is a joke – you were not in favour of it at the time of the devolution referendum.

Ian

They’ve been playing the same tune for years now, and once again are trying to fool the Scottish public into thinking that will exercise what little power they have at WM in some kind of constructive way. We know, thanks to past actions, that they won’t, and will abstain rather than make a decision. As we have seen for over eight years now, giving them power is all they crave. Once they have it they do nothing with it, except line their own nests, and make vacuous speeches about being progressive, while forcing through badly thought out legislation with no consultation other than with groups they give big grants to.
They are fraudsters and liars.

Geoff Anderson
wullie

Alf Baird says:
8 May, 2023 at 2:04 pm
I think we are almost past the stage where we depend on politicians
I think you are on to something here Alf Baird.
Decades and decades of these roughing swing has got us nowhere. The era of the politician is OVER.
Net zero politicians should be persued

SusanAHF

I agree Joe.

Breeks

Under a Scotland United Alliance, whether it’s a UK General Election, Scottish Election or a referendum, there is only going to be one Independence Candidate to vote for.

There won’t be an SNP, ISP or ALBA Candidate on the ballot, because your vote will be a binary mandate for Independence and the personality in the seat is irrelevant.

Yes, there’s a complication with the List seats in a Holyrood Election, but provided the SNP aren’t as dumb as they were under Sturgeon, then Scotland United MIGHT be able to risk running a Constituency Party and a List Party.

Anybody suggesting “Both Votes SNP” can be tased, (repeatedly), and then restrained with sturdy cable ties until after the vote.

But considering how toxic and radioactive the SNP brand might have become by then, I would humbly suggest a Scotland United Constituency Party, and ALBA targetting List Seats.

But IF that’s going to work, the legwork and the prep needs done now. There’s a UK Electoral Commission to negotiate en route, so the co-operation needs to start early and succeed.

Then there’s the question of trust… I trust we have the names of every one of those douche-bags who assembled on Calton Hill. Strictly no jobs for any of them.

If you really fancy a giggle, all the Scotland United Candidates should change their name by deed pole to William Wallace… Aye, even the women, unless they’re uncomfortable about any implied misogyny. (None intended, I swear). You can change it back later anyways.

Yes, it’s very true, there’s no reason at all why we couldn’t all call ourselves Mary Queen of Scots instead of William Wallace, but I suspect allowing some freaks amongst us to self ID as a Scottish Queen for the day, might have some undesireable consequences once they’ve been given even a modicum of power.

No, 129 folk, awe o’ thum caud William Wallace I think it has to be, with a cast iron mandate for no policy except negotiating Scottish Independence.

There’d be burning the midnight oil in Westminster trying to sort all that out. lol… And I rather suspect the wider World might sit up and take notice too, and have a wee smile on their face into the bargain. Aye, even in Whitehall too.

“They did WHAT? Oh FFS”….

Pete S

If there was a hung parliament with more Labour than Conservative (the most likely outcome now) then the SNP has 3 choices in any vote.

1) abstain, Labour wins.
2) vote with Labour, Labour wins.
3) vote with Conservative, Labour loses.

In options 1 and 2,Labour don’t need any formal arrangements with the SNP.

In option 3, the SNP would halve their vote in any subsequent election.

Basically, the SNP are irrelevant.

Xaracen

“The best way to increase the proportion of “Yes” to over 50% is to have some sensible policies. People won’t vote “Yes” if the result is going to be an economic train wreck for Scotland.”

You mean like Brexit, for example? Or maybe the UK’s abusive so-called energy market? Those kinds of sensible policies?

A Scot Abroad

Xaracen,

I’d agree with you about the negative financial outcome of Brexit. The problem seems to me to have been that nobody knew what sort of Brexit people voted for. It would have been far better if the pro-Brexit campaign had made clear whether they meant Brexit but stay in EFTA, or leave with no deal, or stay in the Single Market but leave the political EU, or whatever.

That’s why I advocate for the pro-independence campaign to actually develop some post-indy economic policies and objectives. What sort of relationship would Scotland have with England, which is by far Scotland’s largest trading partner? What sort of relationship with the EU? Join it, and this need a hard border with England? Join EFTA? Join another trade block? Join nothing and exist on WTO rules? What about a currency and central bank? The list goes on and on, and until there are some clear answers as to what sort of future a “Yes” vote would bring, I can’t see anyone on the soft “No” side being persuaded across.

In my view, serious policies take time to develop. It won’t of course be popular on WoS, but it could be at least 10 years to develop them. At the moment, sentiment in the WoS comments is going the other way, to UDI or similar. That would be a disaster for Scotland economically. No trade deal, EU membership vetoed by countries such as Spain, no credit rating, no currency. Absolutely insane.

PWGC

Well the SNP didn’t stop a hard Brexit, but by voting down May’s deal three times, they certainly stopped a soft Brexit. Hopeless.

Karen

Wilma Wallace would do. This is the sort of out-of-the-box thinking I like!

Chas

Ruby

‘If all you want is to get the Tories out would it not make more sense to vote Labour?’

Those are your words not mine!

I had to laugh when you wrote the following-
‘Stop twisting my words & demeaning me you abusive misogynistic creep.

He’s too pathetic to be called a cunt!’

A bit of advice Ruby-If you can’t take it back, stop dishing it out!

If anybody thinks they have it bad in life, just imagine being Mr Ruby. I shudder at the thought.

Grouser

I notice there is dissatisfaction amongst Scottish Labour supporters regarding the refusal of Labour to consider repealing the latest Tory attack on free speech in England.
Where is the opposition to the Scottish Government’s proposed attack on the Scottish Judicial system? They want to abolish Not Proven, reduce juries from the Scottish 15 to the English 12, and do away with juries in Rape cases. Are we really going to have yet another bad piece of legislation forced on an unwilling population by this SNP Scottish Government? Scottish lawyers and Advocates are opposing it.
I’ve written to all my MSPs, the FM and the Justice and Home Affairs Secretary about this, and much good it will do me. I am looking forward to getting replies, but am not holding my breath for anything sensible.

Ruby

Alf Baird says:

We can surely find 59 Congress candidates with sufficient courage to face the oppressor

Have you got anyone in mind? Anyone who isn’t a politician?

What happens with the politicians from Alba, ISP, SSP & Greens

Will they be ineligible to stand as a Congress candidates?

Would you have a situation where you have Alex Salmond a politician standing against one of the 59 Congress candidates.

PS As soon as these 59 become Congress candidates does that not make them politicians?

Rob

Especially now, after the plan-nothing, argue-nothing Sturgeon approach to independence, I would have though a well argued clear cut case for its benefits would be essential; currency, tax, the border, the lot. I’m not sure what damage Sturgeon’s SNP will have done by the time any kind of voting comes around, but majority support cannot be taken for granted. Do many people currently go to the polls burning with indignation at the abusive energy market – even older folk I know who know about it seem to find old myths of Britishness more comforting, more loyal – and good people like they see themselves are loyal.

Touching on Brexit, England will re-join the EU, eventually, I’d rather we negotiated that for ourselves, by ourselves before we become a bargaining chip again.

And Geoff Anderson, your link to a Lib. Dem. exCEO saying she was duped into hiding a laptop for Alastair Charmichael… Interesting, but what chance is there of anything coming from the disclosure when the MSM will call it old news, done and dusted long since, not as juicy as camper vans and shenanigans? But I too can hope.

Luigi

So some people want to save the Scottish Parliament.

Why?

Mia

“to UDI or similar. That would be a disaster for Scotland economically. No trade deal, EU membership vetoed by countries such as Spain, no credit rating, no currency. Absolutely insane”

Ending a bilateral international treaty is not “UDI” or “similar”. It is perfectly legitimate under international law.

Because there were only 2 signatories to that treaty, the same faith awaits both. So if Scotland UDI, so does the kingdom of England.

Strictly speaking, and unless Scotland agrees for the Kingdom of England to remain as the continuator state, should Scotland terminate the treaty and end up without trade agreements, so will England.

If the treaty is revoked, this means every international treaty, agreement or trade deal signed as “Great Britain” will be over. It does also mean of course a partition of all common assets, including the army, embassies and the money in the Bank of England to cite a few examples.

Unless Scotland agrees to the Kingdom of England becoming the continuator state, say adieu to the seats in Nato, UN and any other international committee.

With regards to your claim “it would be a disaster for Scotland economically”, it cannot be worse than having your parasitic partner with its fangs on your jugular sucking up your blood for 300 years, driving your native population to slow extinction by forced emigration and replacing it with the population from somewhere else, or using your territory to dump nuclear waste or as the playground of aristocrats.

As I said above, ending an international treaty is perfectly legal under international law. So what exactly makes you think any of those countries will object to it? I see absolutely no reason for it.

It seems to me you are fabricating grievances.

We have a currency. It is Scottish pounds. All Scotland’s notes in circulation are backed by a deposit in the Bank of England equivalent to their worth. Now, what exactly is backing English’s pounds?

Needless to say that should Scotland become independent and that deposit comes back to Scotland. In full.

Now, what do you think will happen to England’s currency once it is no longer backed by Scotland’s resources, has lost a rather large chunk of what it considers “its” internal market, and finds itself in the same precarious “UDI” position you claim Scotland will find itself in?

By the way, you forgot to include in your list the other well known scaremongering: the hard border between Scotland and England.

In 2014 we had the colonial sympathisers threatening us with a hard border between Scotland and England and Scotland being unable to sell anything to England.

But they never looked at that border from the opposite angle: England unable to sell anything to Scotland. Have you had recently a look at Scotland’s supermarkets and just how much England relies on Scotland to sell its produce?

In 2014 the assumption was that the Kingdom of England would remain in the EU, so the exports to Scotland were small. But since brexit, that is no longer the case, is it? So what do you think such border will do to a Kingdom of England isolated from Europe and with no intentions to go back to the EU because such thing would upset the cosy agreement of the VIP taxdodgers, with no trade deals because of Scotland ending the treaty, and unable to sell its own product to Scotland because of the self-inflicted hard border as a “punishment” for Scotland’s independence?

If you are really going to look at the economic damage, then you have to look at the entire picture and wonder who is the partner that has most to lose out of Scotland independence.

Here is a clue: it is not Scotland.

So, which country’s economic fate are you really concerned about, is it Scotland or would that be England but you are trying to disguise the weak position it will find itself in by appeared concerned about Scotland?

I think they call that gaslighting.

Ruby

Chas says:
8 May, 2023 at 4:42 pm

Ruby

‘If all you want is to get the Tories out would it not make more sense to vote Labour?’

Those are your words not mine!

That is what I wrote
link to wingsoverscotland.com

Your words:

Wee argumentative Ruby suggests. Vote Labour to get the Tories out.

link to wingsoverscotland.com

Others can decide if you did or didn’t misrepresent what I wrote.

link to youtube.com

Replace Royal Family with your advice.

Who in their right mind would take advice from a NO voting abusive thicko?

James Che

Grouser.
There is no better reason than what you mentioned above for why The 1707 Scottish parliament and Scotlands Country never was in the treaty of union,
To ” quote”, Saffron Robe, whom grasped the implications and ramifications pretty quickly the treaty of parliamentary unions between Scotland and England is a illusion,

There has to be two parliaments still in existence.
And there is only one since the articles of the treaty of union were ratified.

A Scot Abroad

Mia,

that’s just total nonsense. For a start, the 1706 Treaty of Union was explicitly made redundant in both countries by the 1707 Acts of Union. The Treaty hasn’t been in existence for 317 years.

Stuart MacKay

Nice one Mia,

I think any agreement on the breakup of the UK should also include the right of self determination for the people of Northumbria.

Big Jock

I will never vote SNP again. If there is no alternative I will abstain. Utterly pointless.

Ruby

Luigi says:
8 May, 2023 at 5:19 pm

So some people want to save the Scottish Parliament.

Why?

What do you mean by save it?

Are you referring to the building?

If so I would say people want to save it because it cost us a fuckin’ fortune.

Parliament building another very dodgy project. Pity the FBI weren’t called to investigate where all the money went.

Doug

@Mia 5:29pm

Well said, Mia. All we need are political leaders who have the guts and the guile to lead from the front. At the moment none are to be found in the unionist SNP.

Republicofscotland

Lets not fall for this SNP BS again, they are trying too fool us once ore to get our votes at the next GE, don’t give them any o votes at the next GE, vote for the Alba party candidates instead, get troughing SNPs MPs out one such as Wishart, Law, Black Sheppard etc, they done zero, nil, nada to further the indy cause in the last eight years.

Vote Alba, Join Alba do it for Scotland.

James Che

There is no succession or continuator state in the position of only (one) parliament and one Country of England with a annexed Wales entering a illusionary treaty with Scotland.
Scotland nor its parliament been in the treaty since 1707.

Scotland parliament does not EXIST, it was EXTINGUISHED’ it was SINE DIE’d ‘ it was CLOSED, it was DISSOLVED by the then Queen and English parliament of Westminster in the Contractual agreement of the treaty of the union

It COULD Not progress any further,
The TREATY was made VOID, before Westminster officially opened or gave itself a brand new pretentious name.

The treaty could not continue as a treaty, it was annulled by the terms that were ratified, it is indeed a illusion. A long stand hoax on Scotland.

James Che

Scot abroad.

Exactly.

James Che

At least two people have now understood why there was no progress made by the parliament of Scotland 1707 into the treaty of unions.

Ottomanboi

Yeah, we all know how awful Scotland has become.
Will the last person to leave put the wheelie bins out.
(The above is irony. Not for the literal)
Thank all the gods on Olympus you were not born in my neck of the woods.
Too many drama queens BTL.

Republicofscotland

Thankfully Scottish lawyers are not playing along with the SNP Governments madness that is juryless trials.

Get the SNP out at every election, they damaged Scotland and the indy cause, lets make sure they can’t do much more damage to either at the next GE vote for the Alba candidates.

Vote Alba, Join Alba.

link to archive.is

Stoker

“LEND US YOUR VOTES TO LOCK OUT TORIES”

Go fuck yourselves! Self-serving troughlodytes.

(Yes, i know, there’s no such word. It’s a play on the word Troglodytes – uncivilised cave-dwellers)

North Chiel

On the ball again “ Mia @0529 pm “ . If there is no treaty then there is no “ union of parliaments) . If the 1707 treaty of union ( parliaments) does not exist then for 316 years we have had solely an English Parliament . Consequently if there is no union of parliaments then the Kingdom of Scotland under our historical “ sovereignty of the people” should as of tomorrow declare Holyrood to be our sovereign parliament with full sovereign powers ( not the devolved powers under the 1998 Scotland Act “ colonial devolvement” ). . Thereafter , as regards the union of crowns ( if our sovereign people wish to retain the monarchy ) should declare that all future “ coronations” take place in Scotland as our Scottish monarch ( James 6th ) acceded to the English throne to become James 1st of I presume the kingdoms of both Scotland & England . Consequently, why the “ English coronation” solely ?

A2

I lent my vote for long enough, I had expected that it would have been repaid with interest without ever having to askbut now find i have to take it back.

James Che

North Chiel,

When it comes to the senses, the logic is inspiring, for all that happened to Scotland supposedly being in a treaty of union parliaments falls by the wayside.

From the Scotland Acts.
Gender recognition bills.
Taking of Scottish waters,
Scotlands Monarchy.
Scotland oil,
Trade.

I could go on and on with that list, and I dare say everyone her could add much more to that list.
But there is no doubt that a Extinguished, Sine Die’d non existent Scottish parliament cannot be in a treaty of union with Englands Westminster parliament since every detail was ratified.

The Westminsters Triennial Act passed in 1694 continued until 1708, thus this finds that the old Westminster English parliament previously sitting was simply conveyed into the new pretentiously named parliament of Great Britain 1707.

While the Scottish parliament was not transferred or conveyed into the Great Britain parliament, it was dissolved by the Queen and the ratification from progressing any further in 1707.

We can understand why Westminster is perhaps a little aggressive and Colonial minded in protecting this treaty that never was, and those wanting to protect the union are in denial for all the wrong reasons, ie, contracts and treaties of Great Britain would also be void since 1707.
Its massively big deal. A gigantic realisation for Scotland and far reaching for other Countries that were Colonised under Great Britain.

Den

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me

Mia

” the 1706 Treaty of Union was explicitly made redundant in both countries by the 1707 Acts of Union”

Do you understand the difference between an international Treaty and a piece of domestic law?

The Treaty of Union 1707 is a piece of international legislation because it is an agreement, a contract if you like, between two independent, sovereign states. Like the Treaty of Utrecht is.

This “contract” was drafted by commissioners representing each of both Kingdoms and then debated and agreed, article by article by the parliaments of both countries. One country alone could not instigate the treaty. It was necessary the agreement of both parliaments.

An act of union is a unilateral piece of domestic legislation. The Act of Union with England was the piece of domestic legislation that incorporated the Treaty into Scotland’s domestic law.

A piece of domestic legislation can never make by itself a piece of international legislation redundant. The only thing it can do is to breach the conditions of the international treaty and therefore give a reason to the other partner to end the agreement. Re-drafting of the treaty once signed can only be done legally by mutual agreement of the two original contractors.

If the treaty was to be revoked you would have to do two things, first revoke the treaty and then remove its inclusion from your domestic legislature.

The Treaty of Union is ABOVE the Acts of union, not the other way round. As a matter of fact, the Acts of Union are proof the Treaty of Union is still standing. If it wasn’t, those pieces of domestic legislation would be obsolete: England would not be imposing restrictions on itself in the form of the articles of the treaty.

By the way, have you had a look at the Scotland Act 1998?

In section 37 under “Other provisions” it states the following:

“The Union with Scotland Act 1706 and the Union with England Act 1707 have effect subject to this Act”

The Scotland Act, the Union with Scotland and Union with England Acts are all domestic legislation. In this instance, it seems the validity of the Acts of Union with Scotland and England are subjected to this Scotland Act 1998 (presumably to the additional parliament of holyrood) and are therefore subordinated to it. However the Scotland Act does not modify the Treaty of Union in any way or form.

As another proof of the current standing of the Treaty of Union, is within the section of the Ordinary elections in the Scotland Act. It says:

“In this Act “the Scottish Seal” means Her Majesty’s Seal appointed by the Treaty of Union to be kept and used in Scotland in place of the Great Seal of Scotland”

If the treaty of Union was no longer active, as you claim, there would not be a “Scottish seal” nor the need to mention the Treaty in this section of the Act.

Another interesting thing in the Scotland Act 1998 is the embedded recognition of Scotland’s popular sovereignty. In the section “Permanence of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government”, it says:

“it is declared that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are not to be abolished except on the basis of a decision of the people of Scotland voting in a referendum”

You say “The Treaty hasn’t been in existence for 317 years”

I understand finding out the kingdom of England is not “the UK” and does not have exclusive ownership over the treaty or the exclusive right to keep it going forever is painful. But that is the reality.

That treaty is what is ensuring the line of sucession to both crowns, the crown of Scotland and England. If the treaty wasn’t in existence, Scotland would have no obligation to put its crown on the same head where England’s crown rests. If the treaty had been extinct, Scotland would be an independent sovereign state today, King Charles would not have to swear allegiance to the Claim of Right nor feel he had to sit on Scotland’s stone in order to be validated as a monarch in Scotland.

Xaracen

James Che said; “There has to be two parliaments still in existence.
And there is only one since the articles of the treaty of union were ratified.”

James, that is simple nonsense, you have completely misunderstood the situation! The entire purpose and point of the Treaty was to provide a brand new shared parliament to provide joint, coordinated governance of both of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England, with both kingdoms, not parliaments but kingdoms, represented in the new parliament by their own body of MPs elected by their respective kingdoms’ populations directly to the new parliament to conduct that joint governance between them.

There was simply no need at all for the two old parliaments to hang around once the new one was up and running, and nobody involved in the Treaty negotiations nor the ratifications expected anything else but their termination.

Neither the authority of the Treaty, nor the operation of the new GB Parliament was ever dependent on the continued existence of either or both the two old parliaments. Granted that Westminster has abused its authority and reneged on much of the terms and obligations of the Treaty over the years but your accusation is not one of those abuses.

James Che

North Chiel,

You are right , There was no union of parliaments in 1707, and the ramifications of that are very far reaching.
It would have been wiser for Westminster to give the Scottish people their referendum, let the Scots win it and then claim England was the successor state from the decietful hoax treaty with Scotland.

For iWestminster parliament could have had time to save face, rearranged its all its other treaties and contracts with the rest of the world,

By the way it would be a wise move to copy, paste and save the UK parliaments sites Statement.

“That the Scottish parliament was extinguished by agreeing to the treaty of the Union”
I dare say it will quickly disappear this year,

Dan

@ James Che at 7:34 pm

It would be interesting to try to put together a list of all the negative aspects of exploitation and asset theft that England has had to endure over the course of the 300 year union…

Big Jock

Trivial point off topic. I watched Cool Runnings last night. Cracking movie about the Jamaican Olympic Bobsleigh team.

A scene in the pub in Jamaica I had never noticed before. The boys were writing up the times of the countries on the board. Instead of GB , it was England. England don’t compete at Olympic level. So as we know the Americans think England is Britain , and Scotland a region of England.

Truth be told they are like most countries in that thinking. Any Scot thinking they are representing Scotland at GB level,are seriously deluded. But do they care enough about Scotland for it to bother them?

Any Scot who thinks the Union Jack is not just Englands flag is equally delusional. To the world Scotland is invisible, and that is the tragedy. People living in Scotland and waiving the Butchers Apron, are not Scots. They are Brits. That flag is the enemy of our identity.

Chas

I see the usual suspects are droning on about the 300 year old crap again. They pile in on every article irrespective of the subject matter. Possibly 100 people in Scotland are remotely interested however, I acknowledge that I may have over inflated this figure.

Do they think that somehow it will all be repealed by magic? Everything is so unfair in their eyes.

We should ALL be looking to the future and not the past.

Brian Doonthetoon

I related this story, many years ago.

In 1968, I was in Würzburg (Bavaria) on a school exchange trip, when Dundee was taking part in “Spiel Ohne Grenze” (Games Without Frontiers), aka “It’s a Knockout”.

In the local edition of the equivalent of “TV Times”, in describing the programme, they had “Dundee, England”.

That’s the PR we are up against. Furriners see only that UK=Britain=England.

We need to broadcast, internationally, that Scotland is a nation in its own right, not merely a northern add-on of England.

Brian Doonthetoon

Chas, as far as I’m aware, the UK exists because the Treaty of Union still stands.

OK, it dates back to 1707 but it’s what created the UK and still holds it together, by subterfuge, or whatever.

Dorothy Devine

OT but having successfully avoided any coronation broadcasts , I have seen my first official coronation photo in the Guardian.
I can only say they look a right pair of prats in those hats.

Alf Baird

Ruby @ 4:55 pm

“PS As soon as these 59 become Congress candidates does that not make them politicians?”

National liberation arguably requires specific knowledge and expertise for key tasks such as negotiating withdrawal and formation of a transition government/departments, passing a constitution, making appointments of senior officials across key state institutions, prior to arranging first election as an independent state.

We have seen what happens with career politicians many of whom have limited real world experience or intellect. National liberation is not a task only for politicians, there is a need for other skills. We should not expect successful candidates in a national liberation election to then set up constituency offices and settle down to a British oath and salary and talk a load of bull like the SNP MPs/MSPs have done; national liberators should only have the one main task in mind – to settle up and free the people, adjusting the new state institutions and responsibilities as required.

Ian Smith

Many foreigners think of Scotland as a region of England in the same way we don’t understand the differences between Russia and Bashkortistan in the Russian Federation, or Gronigen as a part of Holland or dozens of similar international situations.

It is an understandable misunderstanding form people remote and not particularly interested in foreign situations. It does not make it any less important to the people living in these areas.

A Scot Abroad

Mia, you are still wrong. The 1706 Treaty was retired by the 1707 Acts of Union, because it was deliberately overtaken by the Acts. A treaty is between two (or more) separate countries or entities not in union. When the two countries entered a union, the treaty expired.

All subsequent treaties between the U.K. and other countries are under the seal of pre-1707 England, so your earlier comments about all of those treaties becoming void for England are nonsense. Technically, if Scotland exits the union, it is only Scotland that would end up with no post-1707 treaties, although I suspect in reality accommodations would be made. But it would be up to iScotland to enter into agreements with the UN, WTO, IMF and all the rest. rUK would continue existing U.K. membership and treaties.

PhilM

@Xaracen
Thank you for doing what I don’t have the energy to do.
What I might have said was something along the lines of…
Parliaments are where the business of the legislature takes place i.e. discussing and examining proposed legislation. The Union of the two countries in 1707 extinguished the Scots parliament as a separate legislature but preserved the essence of what had taken place within it i.e. the making of Scots Law, the continuing existence of which the Treaty guaranteed.
The single polity of Great Britain after 1707 legislated for two jurisdictions, England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other. Thinking back to Public Law class, I seem to remember when legislation was being proposed, the legislating for the Scots Law jurisdiction was described as ‘putting a kilt’ on a bill.
It can definitely be argued that the Scottish commissioners made a bad deal against the wishes of the Scottish people but the separate existence of Scots Law was almost wholly preserved. So what was done in the old separate Scots parliament was preserved in the new British legislature. This is a simple fact.
That being said, the shenanigans began pretty quickly and my recollection is that the Patronage Act of 1711 was one of the first major issues where the Westminster parliament stuck its nose into Scottish affairs where it wasn’t wanted.
This constant refrain by a certain poster about how there wasn’t and isn’t an actual union is based on constant evidence-free assertion without any links ever, without any meaningful historical context, and without any authority to back up what is said.
The people who discover things that no-one else has seen, which does happen from time to time, usually have some prior expertise or can provide some evidence for what they say. I’m not seeing either of those things despite the endless posting of the same argument.

Ron Clark

Under Alex Salmond we were on the “Road to Indy”.

Under Sturgeon/Useless we’re on the “Highway to Hell”.

AC/DC.

crazycat

@ Dorothy Devine at 8.24

I saw those pictures and thought they both looked drunk – on power, possibly, rather than actual alcohol.

President Xiden

Road to nowhere more like.

Republicofscotland

“Chas, as far as I’m aware, the UK exists because the Treaty of Union still stands.”

Brian @8.18pm.

The union still exists ONLY because of complicit self-serving Scottish politicians keeping us trapped in it.

As ex-Welsh FM Carwyn Jones said post the 2016 Brexit farce, that Brexit cut clean across the sovereignty of the Scottish people and he was mighty surprised that the FM of Scotland at the time Nicola Sturgeon ignored that completely.

Westminster has on other occasions in recent times invalidated the treaty by moving the maritime borders and plundering Scotland assets, Scotland is in a political union and not a territorial one. Its really unknown for now, on how many times Westminster has invalidated the treaty.

Big Jock

The difference between conflating Holland with the Netherlands and England as the UK. Holland is a region of the Netherlands, not a country in the Netherlands.

England and Scotland are nations in their own right.

Bob Mack

The Acts of Union are nothing more than the legal details of the Treaty of Union. The Treaty is the main entity. Hope that helps

A Scot Abroad

Republicofscotland,

The union exists solely because pro-independence supporters have failed to make the case that persuades a majority of their fellow Scots to vote to leave the union. With a small number of outlying polls, there has never been a majority in favour of it since polling began, many decades ago.

Who know about the future? Nobody. But I’d suggest that if some of the more far out sentiments expressed on WoS by BTL commenters were widely publicised

A Scot Abroad

(posted earlier comment too early. Remainder of final sentence)

…., support for an iScotland under WoS BTL commenters’ terms would be comfortably under 10%, because most of it is thoughtless moonshine and economically damaging.

Shug

Thoughts everyone
When Charles comes to Edinburgh to accept the crown should we:

1) ignore it

2) attend with saltires and banners demanding indy

A Scot Abroad

Bob Mack,

the Supreme Court can only rule on Acts of Parliament, not treaties. Treaties, especially extinct ones, are non-justiciable in the U.K., and there isn’t a world court that would hear a case.

Hope that helps straighten up your thinking.

James Jones

Republicofscotland said at 8:58 pm.

“Its really unknown for now, on how many times Westminster has invalidated the treaty.”

Never, because Westminster is the united Parliament of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland with representation from all (unless they’re foolishly self-excluding sectarian bigots like Sinn Fein). Sometimes a vote goes against a section of Parliament but that’s the democracy agreed upon, and not a violation of anything. Any decision is mutually accepted.

Interesting to note that the only nation in the United Kingdom which doesn’t have a separate Parliament is England. It doesn’t demand to be different.

Angus Files

If the SNP membership is up as claimed by the cult they wouldn’t have out the vote begging bowl. Cant believe a word from one of them, not one word can be believed.

Ruby

Alf Baird says:
8 May, 2023 at 8:24 pm

Ruby @ 4:55 pm

“PS As soon as these 59 become Congress candidates does that not make them politicians?”

National liberation arguably requires specific knowledge and expertise for key tasks such as negotiating withdrawal and formation of a transition government/departments, passing a constitution, making appointments of senior officials across key state institutions, prior to arranging first election as an independent state.

We have seen what happens with career politicians many of whom have limited real world experience or intellect. National liberation is not a task only for politicians, there is a need for other skills. We should not expect successful candidates in a national liberation election to then set up constituency offices and settle down to a British oath and salary and talk a load of bull like the SNP MPs/MSPs have done; national liberators should only have the one main task in mind – to settle up and free the people, adjusting the new state institutions and responsibilities as required.

It’s not going to be straightforward and easy for voters to understand. I’m very confused.

What if 40 of these Congress candidates win but YES doesn’t. Would that mean 40 constituencies would be without political representation?

It ages until the GE so loads of time for me to get my head around it. In the meantime I will continue to think about ‘The Let Women Speak Party’

I’m currently working on the manifesto. 🙂

I may change the name to ‘Let People Speak Party’

Big Jock

James. Oh dear I see the level of debate amongst unionists hasn’t improved.

England doesn’t demand to be different,because the UK is England. Their identity is not being threatened or ignored. England outvotes Scotland 15/1. England always gets the party it votes for. Scotland never does at WM,because it can’t,not ever.

That’s why the Union isn’t fit for purpose. England has a parliament , it’s called Westminster,it’s England’s parliament.

Ruby

A Scot Abroad says:
8 May, 2023 at 9:50 pm

Hope that helps straighten up your thinking.

You would need to have your head examined if you allowed ‘The Scot Abroad with the Three Tory Grannies’ to straighten up your thinking.

Breeks

Dorothy Devine says:
8 May, 2023 at 8:24 pm

OT but having successfully avoided any coronation broadcasts , I have seen my first official coronation photo in the Guardian.
I can only say they look a right pair of prats in those hats.

Same here Dorothy. I caught some random images on a TV with the sound off, and I was struck by how chintzy and lame it all looked. It didn’t come across as remotely “Regal”, more like a kiddies pantomime, and it kinda surprised me.

Old Lizzie’s coronation looked a lot more classy somehow, even filmed in black and white with holes in the roof still bombed out by the Luftwaffe. Never been a royalist, but at least it resembled an historic occassion. Charlies do looked like a cheap wedding with no expense spared if you know what I mean. Like Royal mud wrestling. It’s just a no-no.

It occurred to me that if Charles had any real class, he’d have said, you know what, I’m too old for this carry on, and what with my dodgy disgrace of a brother bringing the family into sleazy disrepute, and all my embarrassing selfies with my old pal Jimmie Saville, I’ve decided the Crown should skip a generation, the crown passes on to the next in line, George, Henry or Harry, or whatshisname, the little blue hi-capacity fu%”!er that sucks up spills,..

Who needs two half-cut crabbit old wrinklies who are far too old and decrepit to be playing fancy dress?

All that cash spent, and they’ll be doing it all again pretty soon, especially if his hand gout swells up his sausage fingers so much he can’t get his jammies on and he catches a chill in a drafty old castle.

Whatever it is causes hand-gout must be incurable if a multi-billionaire can’t get rid of it, and needs a serf to hold his pen and ink thingy. FFS, we can’t expect him to take the cap off his own pen can we?

I bet Purdey even make special “Royal” shotguns with XXXL trigger guards so you don’t have to force in those chubby royal frankfurters and accidentally shoot a peasant by mistake.

Mia

“The 1706 Treaty was retired by the 1707 Acts of Union, because it was deliberately overtaken by the Acts”

Nope. You are incorrect. The Acts of Union are simply the piece of domestic legislation by which the Treaty was incorporated into each state’s legislation. As I said above, an Act of Parliament cannot “retire” a treaty. In fact that those Acts of Parliament still stand today is a direct proof the Treaty of Union is still extant.

As I said above, a treaty is an agreement/contract between two or more contractors. An act is a piece of domestic law of ONE contractor.

You are simply repeating yourself but consciously avoiding to offer any evidence whatsoever as to how a domestic act of one parliament could ever “retire” or “overtake” a treaty.

You claim “A treaty is between two (or more) separate countries or entities not in union. When the two countries entered a union, the treaty expired”

This is absurd. If the treaty ends, the union ends. The union is a byproduct of the treaty and therefore subordinated to and depending on the treaty being extant. The union will last for as long as the treaty lasts. If the treaty ends, there is absolutely no obligation whatsoever for Scotland to continue in this union. If what you claim is true, the UK would not have been able to exit the EU either. Sorry that is nonsense.

“All subsequent treaties between the U.K. and other countries are under the seal of pre-1707 England”

I am afraid you are wrong again. Let me give you an example: the Treaty of Utretch signed in 1713. The “UK” as we know it today did not exist in 1713. It was called Great Britain. If you were right, then the treaty would have been between the Queen of England and the kIng of Spain. Let’s have a look at the first paragraph of the Treaty of Utretch, shall we?

“Friendship between the Most Serene and Most Potent Princess Anne, by the Grace of God, Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. and the Most Serene and Most Potent Prince Philip the Fifth, the Catholic King of Spain, concluded at Utrecht the 2/13 Day of July, 1713”

As you can see, England was not a contractor in the Treaty of Utretch. The treaty was between the Queen of “Great Britain” (whose existence we have established depends on and is subjective to the Treaty of Union 1707) and the Spanish monarch at the time.

If the entity called Great Britain ceases to exist because the Treaty of Union 1707 is repealed, then the Treaty becomes invalid and, in absence of a “Great Britain” continuator state, a new treaty will have to be agreed. Well, good luck with that if the Spanish see this as their golden historic chance to recover Gibraltar.

You say “so your earlier comments about all of those treaties becoming void for England are nonsense”

Well, they are not. If you do not believe me, go to Hansard and read it yourself. Around 2014, the biggest relief the representatives of England in the HoL had was when Mr Salmond seemed quite happy to concede the kingdom of England the status of the United kIngdom’s successor state. Rather interestingly, I thought, England’s representatives were not convinced Ms Sturgeon was of the same generous opinion as Mr Salmond regarding granting the Kingdom of England automatic status of successor state. You wonder what happened to her between then and the time she took control of the SNP leadership for her to walk so far down into the colonial sewer.

You say “Technically, if Scotland exits the union, it is only Scotland that would end up with no post-1707 treaties”

Nope. You are wrong again. Because the Treaty of Union 1706 was a bipartite agreement between only two states, if one of them exits the agreement, the agreement ends and the union ends. the Kingdom of England cannot keep the agreement with itself alone. This stands to the obvious.

Just as it happened with Checkoslovakia dividing into the Check Republic and Slovakia, there is no need for a “continuator state”. There could be two continuator states or none. But England cannot unilaterally decide they will be the continuator state without the agreement of Scotland.

“Accommodations would be made”

I guess by this you mean there will be a partition of common assets. Well this is expected, together with reparations for the ransaking of Scotland’s oil revenues and other resources. Scotland is not England’s property and Scotland has been paying more than his fair share to keep the UK going.

“But it would be up to iScotland to enter into agreements with the UN, WTO, IMF and all the rest”

And if Scotland does not agree for the kingdom of England to remain as the continuator state, it would also be up to the latter to forge its own treaties and agreements as the Kingdom of England.

|”UK would continue existing”
If the Treaty of Union is revoked, no, it will not. The continuation of all those treaties, agreements and international standing is why we are being pumped with so much propaganda to undermine Scotland and make us believe it some how ceased to exist in 1706, or was absorbed by England, or it has become a “region” of the UK, or it is too small and poor and many other permutations and variations of the same nonsense.

The Kingdom of England (and the crown) are desperate for the Treaty of Union to be preserved because of the implications regarding other treaties, agreements, international seats and succession to the crown of Scotland.

The pretence we need permission from Westminster or the charade of the Supreme Court regarding the referendum, using it as an excuse for the crown to usurpe control of the legislative power from the people of Scotland is part of the same propaganda. It is all to make the world believe Scotland is seceding like Catalonia instead of simply terminating an international treaty, which is perfectly entitled to do and it is, in my opinion, what we should focus on doing instead of wasting our time with this secession nonsense.

the concession to the KIngdom of England of the status as successor state should be another of the common assets to be discussed during the separation (and reparation) negotiations.

Ruby

When I first saw a photo of KC I though they had hired a body double.

Bob Mack

A Scot abroad, .The proposed route to Indy does not involve the Supreme Court. Does it?

Brian Doonthetoon

Hi A Scot Abroad at 9:50 pm.

You typed,

“the Supreme Court can only rule on Acts of Parliament, not treaties. Treaties, especially extinct ones, are non-justiciable in the U.K., and there isn’t a world court that would hear a case.

Hope that helps straighten up your thinking.”

You’re gibberin’ Braille!
The Treaty of Union is not “extinct”. It’s what created the UK and holds it together.
Once Scotland removes itself from the ToU, there is no UK any more.
What do you not understand about that?

Ruby

Gout caused by eating too much

Venison, Pheasant, Partridge, Wood Pigeon, Hare, Wild Boar, Duck, Rabbit, Squirrel & Swan.

Drinking too much
Port

orri

Have to admire the genius of the idea. If there’s ever going to be a repeat of the nearly 50% vote, I’m being optimistic but who knows even exceeding it, vote the SNP got in 2015 and an argument that either there’s a majority for independence or at least it needs to be settled by a referendum along comes the SNP leadership with a way to muddy the water and introduce doubt.

They want a better idea. It’d be to support a minority government who nevertheless have a majority in the rUK in return for an immediate referendum on the understanding that the rUK gets what they want and Scotland gets what it wants and if they stab us in the back the SNP pulls the plug on their government. The only problem is that that might be a Tory one or a Labour / Lib dem or other coalition.

Bob Mack

@Mia, Bravo Hat tip to you

Geoff Anderson
Beauvais

The next referendum should not be centred around the question of independence, Yes or No, but on the question of the union, Renegotiate or Opt Out.

In the overly-long 2014 campaign Yes ended up having to do a defensive, justification act which inevitably created more and more angst about indy in peoples’ minds. Endless explaining makes the explainer look weak. In comparison the No side had virtually a free pass.

With a Renegotiate or Opt Out format on the ballot then the burden of proof falls on the unionists. With the added advantage that Renegotiate strongly implies that the union has hitherto been a raw deal for the smaller nation. This in turn would likely lead to nervousness and squabbling among the unionist side as they disagreed over what to offer.

Opt Out as a term signals strength of purpose and self-possession, as well as emphasising the sovereignty of the Scottish people. In complete contrast to the airy-fairy “festival of democracy” claptrap of Yes in the final weeks of the 2014 campaign.

Some of you will doubtless have improvements to suggest, but surely something like the above has to be way to do it.

Mia

“the Supreme Court can only rule on Acts of Parliament, not treaties”

That is correct, because the English court known as “Supreme Court” is a domestic court subproduct of the Treaty of Union, therefore it cannot be above it. Acts of Parliament are pieces of domestic legislation. Treaties are pieces of international legislation and disputes over them should be heard in an international court.

“Treaties, specially Extinct ones”

A treaty does not become “extinct”. A treaty is terminated. But if the treaty is terminated it relieves the contractors of their obligations under the treaty. The obligations under the treaty cannot outlive the duration of the treaty.

A Scot Abroad

Briandoonthetoon,

It’s the two Acts of Union that created the UK, not the Treaty of Union. A treaty is not law, it’s an agreement. The Treaty is extinct. It was made extinct by the 1707 Acts of Union. It became redundant, after the Acts.

There are only two possibly legal ways for Scotland to exit the Union. One is via the provisions of the 1998 Scotland Act. That’s clear cut. The second is legally muddy, and would involve a Scottish Parliament of the three Estates revoking the Scottish Act of Union.

There’s an illegal way, of course, by declaring UDI, but even that is legally muddy, because the Courts of Session in Edinburgh would have to clear it, and that shouldn’t be assumed.

None of those ways involve the Treaty of Union, because apart from some fantasists, everyone agrees that is irrelevant given the subsequent facts of the two Acts of Union.

James Jones

Big Jock,

Are the interests of Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Somerset or Yorkshire as represented at Westminster so different from those of Scotland?

Effijy

9.55 comment- what crap!

First I’m not Irish or Catholic but have you ever heard of 1 million in Ireland being starved to death endlessly by Westminster.
Have you ever heard of the English Army turning a machine gun on innocent men, women and children watching a football match.
How about military records showing English Army officers killing Irish Citizens on their doorstep as it was rumoured they might be IRA supporters.
The actor who plays Mrs Brown lost his Grandfather that way and he was entirely innocent.
How about then instructing loyalist UDA to murder on their behalf.

All irrefutable facts fully documented.

So the Irish you think were stupid not to sit in a murdering parliament where their votes uselessly out numbered and without consequence.

Do you remember how much Scotlands Brexit vote counted.
Do you remember the empty chamber when SNP discussed the damage Brexit could cause
and the packed chamber as the English parties came in to vote against them.

The only colony with votes that achieve something is N Ireland with the DUP.
Bribe after bribe handed over from Tories for blindly supporting them.

It’s the Mother F….er of all parliaments responsible for the death of 10’s of millions across the globe.

A Scot Abroad

@ James Jones,

or indeed, the interests of Orkney, Galloway or Perthshire. There’s an awful lot of people on WoS assuming that Scotland has some form of unitary will, when in reality it probably doesn’t. Some are very keen to claim sovereignty for Scotland, without checking that the whole of Scotland agrees. And with a few outlier exceptions, most polls over decades reveal that Scotland as a whole remains pro-union.

There’s also some debate as to whether Orkney and Shetland are really part of Scotland, or just assumed into Scotland by way of marriage dowry. I’d imagine that most WoS commenters would be horrified if either Orkney or Shetland were to take their own path. Particularly as they have huge resources in terms of water, oil and gas that Edinburgh assumes are Scottish.

Ruby

James Jones says:
8 May, 2023 at 10:55 pm

Big Jock,

Are the interests of Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Somerset or Yorkshire as represented at Westminster so different from those of Scotland?

Differences could be:

1. Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Somerset & Yorkshire interested in Scotland remaining in the Union. Scotland not so much

2. All have too many immigrants Scotland not enough.

3. Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Somerset & Yorkshire vote Tory Scotland doesn’t.

4. Weather different. /Different infrastructure/Different geography (no highlands & islands.)

5. No devolution.

When ‘Better Together’ asked that question they always used alliteration.

Are the interests of people in Buckinghamshire any different to people in Banffshire?

Are the interests of people in Suffolk any different to people in Shetland

and so on.

Cynicus

Ruby says:
8 May, 2023 at 10:32 pm
“Gout caused by eating too much
Venison, Pheasant, Partridge, Wood Pigeon, Hare, Wild Boar, Duck, Rabbit, Squirrel & Swan.
Drinking too much? Port”
======•
You’re on the game, Ruby!

Sorry-I’ll get my coat.

Alf Baird

Ruby @ 10:00 pm

“It’s not going to be straightforward and easy for voters to understand.”

What’s so difficult about a vote for any Scottish Leeberation candidate = Leeberation an FO Britannia?

“It ages until the GE so loads of time”

There is a Vote of No confidence tomorrow which could bring on a GE. Even so, 2024 is not far away. Get ready now I say.

James Jones

Alliteration is the work of the devil, you say?

Ruby

A Scot Abroad says:
8 May, 2023 at 11:19 pm

There’s also some debate as to whether Orkney and Shetland are really part of Scotland, or just assumed into Scotland by way of marriage dowry. I’d imagine that most WoS commenters would be horrified if either Orkney or Shetland were to take their own path. Particularly as they have huge resources in terms of water, oil and gas that Edinburgh assumes are Scottish.

You’ve been copy and pasting from the Better Together’s Project Fear 2014 handbook again.

All this stuff about Orkney & Shetland was done to death between 2011 – 2014.

Where were you between 2011 & 2014?

In a coma?

James Jones

Big Jock seems to be rejecting democracy. Slippery slope, but then you look at the SNP and know they never cared either as long as their elusion kept them in power.

A Scot Abroad

Mia,

you cannot keep on being wrong. Well, possibly you can, but that’s the third time in 6 hours.

The Supreme Court draws jurisdiction from the two Acts of Union, and indeed the Union Act that brought Ireland into the U.K. Not any Treaty.

The Supreme Court isn’t an English court, no matter how many times you wrongfully claim it is. It’s the Supreme Court of the Union.

The Treaty of Union is extinct. It was made extinct by the two 1707 Acts of Union.

Try to be right about something next time.

Ruby

I wonder what ‘A Scot Abroad with the three Tory Grannies is going to come out with next.

‘The only way for Scotland to be in the EU is to vote NO’

A Scot Abroad

Ruby,

it was well discussed, as you say, but the sovereign rights of Orkney and Shetland to secede from Scotland were never tested.

Ruby

Cynicus says:
8 May, 2023 at 11:28 pm

You’re on the game, Ruby!

Sorry-I’ll get my coat.

No ‘cos I live in Venice & I can’t swim.

😕

Ruby

Breaking News at midnight.

‘The Scot Abroad with the three Tory grannies’ turned into a pumkin and exploded.

‘Big bang emoji’

The place is covered in red, white & blue pulp and 100s of photos of the King of England and his 2nd wife.

Big Jock

I am not going to feed the trolls. It’s the same old tired narrative and semantics from 8 years ago. They were wrong then and wrong today.

My only question is why so many have suddenly appeared on here. It’s not as if anything is imminent with independence. Why are Bot H Q suddenly deploying them?

A Scot Abroad

Big Jock, with your comments, it clearly hasn’t entered your mind that you are the troll that’s pushing the cause of an independent Scotland further away.

James Jones

Surely the exposure of the SNP answers Big Jock’s question as to to why more people feel able to express concerns about their supposed central objective.

If it truly is the same narrative from 8 years ago and your aims are no further forward perhaps you really should engage with the widening debate.

Saffron Robe

“An international treaty between two nations can become extinct if one party violates the terms of the treaty to such an extent that the other party decides to withdraw from the agreement.”

Can we think of any scenarios where this would apply?!

Wilson McBride

You’ll probably find the trolls are the latest reincarnation of English Ellis, John Main, Chas and Co.

Yoon and/or English wankers.

Please try not to take the bait.