Sunset for scaremongers
Europe Direct is the official information service of the EU. A reader recently contacted them with a query. Their reply seems significant. We’ll let you read it for yourself.
From: Europe Direct <citizen_reply@edcc.ec.europa.eu>
Date: 20 June 2014 12:16:02 BST
To: [—]@me.com
Subject: [Case_ID: 0912927 / ——-] EU Citizenship
Reply-To: <citizen_reply@edcc.ec.europa.eu>Dear Mr [—],
Thank you for your message.
Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.
More information about European Union (EU) citizenship is available on the following web page of the responsible department of the European Commission, Directorate General (DG) for Justice:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/index en.htmAccording to EU case law (Case C-135/08), Member States lay down the conditions for the acquisition and loss of nationality (points 39, 45, 49). The European Commission has no competence regarding the acquisition and loss of national citizenship.
We hope you find this information useful. Please contact us again if you have other questions.
With kind regards,
EUROPE DIRECT Contact Centre
http://europa.eu – your shortcut to the EU!
We’ve added the emphasis in the first paragraph, but other than redacting identities haven’t edited the letter in any other way. And it seems to us that that’s quite big news. Because we already know that the UK government has accepted that current British citizens in Scotland, and their current or future children, will retain British citizenship after independence. (Any other approach being totally unworkable.)
As such, they will “hold the nationality of a Member State” (that being the rUK, assuming the UK government’s assertion that it would inherit the UK’s membership is correct), and as such will therefore also remain EU citizens.
We’re pretty sure that’s something that’s never been unequivocally officially stated before, and the ramifications of it are huge. Because it would mean that in practice Scotland remained a member of the EU even if it technically wasn’t in its own right.
If all of your citizens are EU citizens, with all the attendant rights of EU citizenship, then in every conceivable meaningful sense you’re in the EU.
We already knew that in the realpolitik world, the EU would bend over backwards to ensure Scotland’s membership would remain uninterrupted, because the alternative is unimaginable chaos across the entire continent. We always knew that there was no mechanism to expel an existing member country – or part of one – from the EU against its will, and no desire to anyway.
But the No camp and the media have always been able to play on abstract theoretical “uncertainty” based on the untruth that Spain or some other country would veto Scotland’s application. Now, for the first time, that uncertainty appears to have been blown out of the water, in an official document from the EU itself.
There will be no isolation of Scotland from the rest of the continent. There will be no trade barriers. There will be no border posts at Carlisle. And now that’s not just common sense, it’s in black and white from the horse’s mouth.
#gamechanger
Oh snap.
That’ll leave a mark in the morning. 🙂
Knowing our friends monitor this site, it’ll be interesting to see if this surfaces anywhere else. Though its hard to see what kind of spin they could winkle out of that statement.
That’s just tickety boo LOL
Oh, one for Sunday Herald to run with coz no one else will touch it. Will they?
Me likey , good one Rev ( and the anonymous reader of course )
I expect BBC news will be eager to report this to us all asap…….
In other news, pigs were seen flying in West Edinburgh this afternoon.
Thats me buggered then. I’d only just registered instantborderposts.com and these swine have kicked away my USP.
Ochone, it’ll have to be welcome.scot instead
Well done that reader!
Isn’t this the kind of stuff the EU takes 2+ years to respond on? How does this fit in with the BBC’s policy position (via A. Marr show) on it being virtually impossible for Scotland to join the EU?
Maybe filling out forms is not so difficult and time consuming after all.
You are on a roll today Stuart, gone yer sel wee man.
I’m so excited waiting for a report on this on BBC Scotland, Sky, STV, radio Scotland…………….
I have never doubted for a nanosecond that we would stay in the EU. This is excellent news. I look forward to sticking this under the collective noses of Better Together. Or in less polite terms “Working it right up their schuch”
Ok then, correct me if i’m wrong but it would appear that the ONLY threat to my EU citizenship would be in the event of a NO vote.
This response confirms that the UK Government has been lying blatantly because with their serried ranks of legal experts and whatever they must – absolutely and without question – have known this to be the case.
This being one of their ‘strongest’ arguments against Independence we can look forward to the whole house of cards that is their case for BT collapsing in an ungainly heap.
When Britain handed over Hong Kong to China look how China was duly ‘ostrasized’ by mega-buck multi-trade agreements, exchange delegations of goodwill, medium and major companies and corporations setting up store in China, China welcomed into world sporting events, Chinese investiment in western projects welcomed, relaxation of tensions between west and east, a blind eye turned to Nepal and imprisonment without trial.
What are we presented with here?
Ed Balls, Glegg, and Cameron threaten a hissy fit if Scotland regains its autonomy.
Does that mean I don’t have to go back to Govan or Chengdu?
handclapping
I bought the domain
freescot.land
Just wondering what to do with it.
handclapping@freescot.land
Does that give you a frisson?
See what good a days rest can do?
More 5 star investigative journalism from my favourite website. Lang may yer lum reek Stu.
O/T
The Rev has just tweeted that a large box of gold and silver Wings badges are heading for the post office. If you have been waiting anxiously for your ‘perk’ – not long to go now.
R whittindon
For you?
One shift retires and another comes forth.
Very well done to the reader who found this information. But as Laura says, pigs will fly first before any M.S.M outlet tells us about it.
Stu,
As always, it’s a pleasure.
Thank you so much and also to your donor for what is a priceless piece of info.
May it seriously deflate the ‘lie balloon’
which is the BT campaign.
MacArt wondered: its hard to see what kind of spin they could winkle out of that.
A dozen misdirects, conjured from thin air with ease.
Remember, their objective isn’t truth, but muddying water.
Sorry for going off-topic so quickly, but I just emailed YES Scotland to question their refusal to allow leaflets with the Wings address to be distributed with their own material, asking if it was official policy. It seems it is, as I received the following back:
Dear (me)
Thank you for getting in touch with Yes Scotland.
Yes Scotland’s job and the task for all supporters over the next 89 days is to persuade undecided voters not only that we can be a successful independent country, but that we should vote Yes so that we can make sure our nation’s vast wealth and resources deliver much more for the people living here.
We know from our research that this is the key to shifting those currently undecided towards a Yes vote. We need to focus 100% on communicating Scotland’s economic strengths and potential as one of the world’s 20 wealthiest countries and, from this, make people think about how we can better use this wealth for the benefit of them, their families and the whole country.
We have to get our message to undecideds pitch perfect if we are to win. And, that means we cannot endorse, or direct people to, an information source that calls our opponents “scum”. Such language turns off the people we need to support us. Its use enables our opponents to brand our movement in a damaging and unfair way. It takes our focus off the work that we actually need to do if we are to secure the movement we need to Yes in these final few weeks.
Very best wishes
(name redacted)
Yes Scotland Team
Scotland more than pays its own way in the UK. Scotland has generated more tax per head than the rest of the UK for each and every one of the past 33 years.
Become part of the greatest grassroots movement in Scottish history by visiting link to yesscotland.net
—
Yes Scotland Ltd. is a company limited by guarantee and registered in Scotland (SC422720). Its registered office is at 136 Hope Street, Glasgow, G2 2TG
It seems to me that YES Scotland is shooting itself magnificently in the foot with this one and asking its volunteers to operate with one hand tied behind their backs.
Perhaps a few more of you could (tactfully and gently) contact them to put your points of view? Or perhaps Stu needs to have a serious talk with Blair Jenkins?
I find it almost unbelieveable that the ‘official’ campaign don’t have more balls than this.
So we could end up with Scotland being outside the EU but all of it’s citizens being EU citizens, with rights to work,fish & live in the EU, but EU citizens not having any rights in Scotland or Scottish waters.
You couldnt make this up !!
To Macart There’s more chance of the Titanic surfacing than this story appearing in the media. It hasn’t got the right ring to it.
They’ve spent the last year telling us we’ll be expelled so there is no chance that message will change.
The press have got a Scotland fan to fry first.
Well well. Looking forward to see this one bettertogether constitutional law theory Prof Tomkins in particular, back on the Sarah Smith comedy show next week explaining this away.
link to gla.ac.uk
Maybe Prof Abiesalba’s/Jezereena on various CiF’s will comment, seeing as this directly contradicts both the good Prof Tomkins/Prof Abiesalba head on.
Bit of a gap in reams of constitutional Abiesalba vote naw stuff last night, for the England match?
link to id.theguardian.com
link to notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com
I read the section “every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union” to mean that we will all still be EU citizens, not necessarily in the EU in a post-indy Scotland.
For example, we can all still be British citizens (those of born in Scotland post-indy) if we choose but not necessarily living in Britain.
So while we’ll all still be EU citizens, could it be possible that we wouldnt necessarily be living in the EU within an indy Scotland? I have no idea what that would result in other than having the same EU rights as any other EU citizen living outside the EU.
Myself, I believe that Scotland won’t be thrown out of the EU because of the chaos that would cause all Scots living in the rest of the EU, all EU citizens living in Scotland, and the EU losing access to one of the largest fishing grounds in Europe. But I don’t think this letter confirms this view.
Yes Campaign allegedly have this as an unwritten policy: And, that means we cannot endorse, or direct people to, an information source that calls our opponents “scum”.
‘Opponents?
I regard the comments in that letter judgmental, spurious, and feckless. They have ‘deleted’ and entire site on the basis of one word? Not even an oath.
A fear of words in a national movement with an ambition to reject control and conformity?
Dear me.
We should probably move on from this scum business.
In fairness to yes, they are now under election rules and can’t direct people to external sites that aren’t under the same rules. It’s as simple as that.
Doesn’t mean the activists can’t tell folk on the doorstep about these sites.
In regard to the EU thing….yes this would be case but only if the UK is to remain in the EU….
O/T
Looks like a real s**tstorm brewing on twitter. Some strange sinister guy called Mike Dailly ‘Social Justice Campaigner’ ‘compiling a list of who supports WoS.
Sorry to be going O/T so early Stu but I’ve just seen this over on Twitter. Be warned peeps you’re names are known by the Better together legal profession and will be published hope you are all ready for the *ahem* “shock and awe” of the up coming Better together assault. 😛
Ominous threat from a Scottish solicitor to publish names of people he determines “support” Wings over Scotland. Bizarre behaviour.
I have one itsy bitsy teeny weeny tiny phrase that this incompetent solicitor might like to bear in mind. I have borrowed it from a former Labour leader in Holyrood.
All together now!
Bring it on! 😉
@Scots Renewables
I wouldn’t bother too much with this. I’m sure a lot of canvassers will still put in Aye Right leaflets through the letter boxes when out canvassing.
@B(tP)
Both on the frisson and just salt on the chips 😉
Seriously what a good idea.
I am Spoartacus
otherwise known as James McLaren.
I live in France and if they publish anything private and personal about me, I have the protection of French privacy laws.
Be warned.
I may make it a free and open domain site post a Yes vote.
My gift, for no knighthood.
Bugger (the Panda) says:
I am Spoartacus
I am Spartacus! 🙂
I’d treat this with a bit of caution.
On one hand the whole stushie about losing passports becomes a bit of a red herring for the immediate future.
On the other hand there’s always the remote chance that the rUK will subsequently vote to leave the EU at which point things would get kind of tricky given that those EU citizens in Scotland would probably not be allowed to have a vote on it and for a sufficiently narrow result might have changed the outcome.
That last makes it even more certain that Scotland will become a member in it’s own right.
I have always felt a European – Scots first and European – not second, but as natural part of my education – hence it’s only natural I’m keen to see Europe and its history.
After all, a hellova lot of European culture lies within our own lands.
Confirmation once an EU citizen always an EU citizen is comforting.
So that’s good news about our individual EU citizenship – even in the unlikely event that iScotland itself is delayed or denied membership we’ll all still be EU citizens in a non-EU country.
But what about things like trade? In this worst case scenario, presumably companies domiciled or headquartered in iScotland would no longer be bound by the EU’s red tape, but also not entitled to partake in the EU’s free trade agreements?
Does the free trade part apply to persons or companies – or governments? Let’s be careful not to overstate what conclusions can be drawn from this – highly significant on a personal citizenship level – intervention.
None of that follows. Scotland, as a geographical entity would not be part of the EU.
It does introduce the possibility that Scots could register as overseas citizens and vote in EU elections. However, more interestingly, it equally suggests we could do so in Westminster elections. Indeed since Westminster has a FPTP electoral system, Scots could register in the 200 marginal constituencies and swing the vote however we wanted. I think you would agree that is a pretty theoretical option and if we tried using it would be disallowed. We might still be allowed to vote in EU elections because they don’t matter.
The closest (though reverse) example for Scotland is that when East Germany joined Federal Germany she automatically became part of the EU (to the considerable annoyance of some other members because the east was an economic liability). So if Scotland quits the UK we quit the EU.
As a UKIP supporter I must admit to not understanding why members of a nominally separatist party are so keen on subsuming themselves in the EU? Even to the extent of wanting to dragoon us into it without even the right of a referendum. And quite certainly losing our share of the UK rebate and opt outs and having to sign up to Shengen. It appears to be the worst of both worlds.
The Scottish case for independence from the EU is even stronger than for the UK because most of the fishing fields are Scots and while less valuable than the oil, potentially very valuable.
Perhaps an SNP loyalist can explain?
Panda announced: My gift, for no knighthood.
Chuckle.
This news has fair cheered up a rather dull birthday….:)
Lesley Anne
I am a Panda
@Grouse Beater
Touche. Iv’e always felt the same i.e. Scots first and European. I am pro Europe and voted Yes in the referendum for the UK to enter the then EEC.
Craig claimed: As a UKIP supporter I must admit to not understanding why members of a nominally separatist party are so keen on subsuming themselves in the EU?
Because we are NOT a separatist party – or did you gloss over that bit in preference to Ukip handouts?
@katsoft
Oh they’ll try to ignore it for a few days whilst they have a think about it, but its already too late. This is going to be right across the indy net and social sites in jig time. I’ve already posted the link on a half dozen sites myself.
As GB says though, they’ll make the usual attempt to muddy the waters. The hard part for them is that its a pretty straight forward and unequivocal statement.
Look I hate to say this, but here’s what I think the spin will be. British citizens within Scotland to individually retain EU Citizenship but the independent country of Scotland per se to be the often used term “a third country”
@ScotsRenewables
I emailed them via the contact form on the website to formally resign from Yes Scotland membership over this issue and told them why. I have not been dignified with a reply, and I have checked my spam filters.
This action is beyond stupid. BT-UKOK_NoThanks have succeeded in driving a wedge between Yes and Wings, the largest and most successful mass participation site on the indyweb. Does Yes think they will stop there? You can bet they are now trawling Newsnet, Bella, Derek Bateman et al looking for something they can spin to detach them too. Having conceded the principle wrt Wings Yes has created an ongoing hostage to fortune.
That they cannot see this simply beggars belief.
Another squirrel, evicted from it’s dray.
No problems ref name being published as a Wing contributer. It’s no secret, I’ve been telling family and friends and been directing many to this site for nigh on a year now.
Be proud. We are contributing to the democratic rights of all of us, Scotland and its people.
As you say Lesley Ann.
Bring it on! 😉
@ Scots Renewables 2.47
A rather good riposte by Robin McAlpine to Yes Scotland’s attitude, on Bella Caledonia.
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Again, apropos O/T – Ian Hamilton, while wondering aloud what Yes Scotland is actually for: ” they toil not, neither do they spin.”
Whoever sent you that glorious letter, Stu, is my new God.
With no insult intended to your own preference of deity intended.
Bugger (the Panda)… that is a top quality domain purchase and I am just ever so slightly envious. I congratulate you on your fine, fine idea. And I am now thinking perhaps we should all club together and start buying up domains… amazon.scot, tesco.scot…. in fact, any whacking big multinational with a presence in Scotland .scot.
Because these companies will be needing those domains; the old .co.uk just ain’t going to cut it in the new world.
Heres the thing muscleguy, you just played right into their hands with that post. Not helpful.
Bugger (the Panda) says:
Lesley Anne
I am a Panda
I am Panda! 😛
(sorry BtP I couldn’t resist it) 😉
Nice one, Rev. Proud Cybernat passes much congratulations upon thee. You should write ‘The Big Bad Book of Stuffing Project Feart 101’. Or is it now ‘Project Fart’? Whatever–I’d buy a copy.
So, cos we will have UK passports after indy and UK will (for a wee while at least) be EU members so will those with a UK Passport.
How’d you like them apples CybertBritNut lurkers?
Muscle guy – You reckon that’s a bad thing? Getting exposure for all those sites in the MSM would be amazing!
On Being Tattooed European
For my first big meeting in Los Angeles before a group of big time movers and shakers I wore my best: Churchill brogue shoes, cavalry twill trousers, Italian shirt, a gentleman’s hand-knitted black tie, a Swiss watch, with an Irish jacket over my arm because of the powerful heat.
I was confronted by six executives wearing trainers, no socks, short trousers, and short sleeved shirts.
I had bearly sat down after shaking hands when the chief among them said – loudly –
“Hell, GB, you look soooo European!”
Embarrassed, keen to do as the Romans do, by the halfway mark I had removed my tie surreptitously, loosened my top shirt button, and rolled up my sleeves.
Next day I arrived in an Hawaiian shirt, cowboy jeans and silver buckle belt – no paunch, eat yer hearts out! – and trainers. I didn’t go as far as the obligatory baseball cap but the deal was duly signed.
Incidentally, baseball caps have all but disappeared in favour of knitted caps. Hooray!
TheItalianJob
My Bugger (the Panda) goes back years, long before the two usurpers in Edinburgh Zoo.
I was an frequent visitor to Chengdu, in Szechuan, where the pandas live, I actually held a baby Panda in my arms at their research station.
I used to, and still do, make grammatical and spelling errors in my posts and usually try to correct them whilst muttering bugger.
For a more funny explanation of my sobriquet, have a read of this post I did a long time ago on another blog.
link to subrosa-blonde.blogspot.fr
A bit out of date but is was a few years back.
Anyone else think that the yes campaign are actually working for the no campaign and have been for the past six months? It would certainly explain a few things.
@neil craig
First up, the vote is to become independent, not separate.
Secondly, independence does not mean isolationist.
Thirdly, after a yes vote, any party can campaign for an in out referendum platform and if they get a mandate from the people of Scotland they can deliver it.
Just like the SNP delivered on providing an independence referendum.
Democracy like it is meant to be, in action.
lesley Anne
Bamboo breathed kisses
@ scotsrenewables
I wrote in the same vein to the Yes campaign accusing them of timidity in not condemning the attacks on the Weirs and instead blaming Wings for describin for the attacker.
I got exactly the same reply word for word.
I agree that they are shooting the messenger and missing the point of their existence which is to create the conditions for a Yes vote, and that will only be achieved if they rebut the lies of the No people and support their friends like Wings.
@Scot’s renewables
Absolutely unbelievable, do they want to win this referendum or not? they sure as (anything) can’t do it by themselves.
If there’s no one unpicking the fibs and digging out the facts (not just this site) might as well pack up now.
Does no one at the official yes campaign actually read this site and take notes, or do they just take for granted Better together portrayal of it?
That’s wrankled more than anything BT has said so far.
Ha, ha, ha. The Naw ‘argument’ evaporating before our eyes.
The Blue Chips – One Hen
link to youtube.com
Sorry should say “describing the attacker as scum”
Don’t get too excited, this is already known and was unearthed at the Scottish Parliament EU Commitee. It is one of the legal anomalies which will force Scotland’s acceptance as still a member.
@Neil Craig
I partly agree with you on the first point. From this letter alone, it doesn’t logically follow that Scotland as a state will have 100% assurance on EU membership. Only its citizens will, but you’ll notice Stu does point that out in the article.
On your second point. You can’t partake in the economy of Europe without adhering to EU rules and regulations. Norway has to. Iceland has to (albeit reluctantly – it helps being so remote), and even Switzerland has to(and gets punished when it doesn’t). You can either have a seat at the table, by being a member, or you can go without. Either way, your still going to be implementing variants of EU law for the sake of your economy. Does this sound fatalistic? Yes, but thats how it is. Kippers seem to have this delusion that no EU means ultimate economic freedom. It doesn’t work like that.
What Scotland can escape though are Westminster rules and regulations, So even as anti-EU as you are, on the very same principles that drive your anti-EU vote, you should vote Yes to independence in September. Anything else is absolutely hypocritical.
Jim Dear said: Scotland’s acceptance as still a member.
In some regards it would’nt matter to me personally – Europe is my home.
I go there where and when I please – I own a left-hand drive vehicle to make travel less complicated – I enjoy meeting local people and learning about their history, sample the cuisine seeking out good bars and restaurants, and buy their arts and crafts to brings home as gifts.
I think Mike Dailly’s List was probably thought up over a long Friday “lunch” or on the other hand maybe with Yes caving in so quickly on “scumgate” the BTs think they can scare us all off, fat chance.
Just caught up with all of yesterday’s shennanigans. Maybe I’m not as polite as I thought I was, because I honestly don’t see the big deal in calling a politician “scum”! Isn’t that what most people privately think about most politicians anyway?!
To be honest, I don’t think this will affect many people other than politics geeks who are following events closely. The ordinary person doesn’t know who’s who; they just want answers to questions like the economic arguments etc, yes I know the answers are there – they just need to be convinced, and whether some blogger called a Tory MSP “scum” will really not sway them one way or the other in my opinion.
I think Stu knows what he’s doing. As he said, it’s resulted in curious people coming here to find out what all the hoo-haa is about, and of course they then find that actually, it’s not a hotbed of “rabid nationalists”, but proper, researched journalism and reasonable discussion. Maybe it will then make them think a bit more about what we are being presented with in the mainstream media.
As to the official Yes camp – I think their stance is ok. Of course they have to appear to be squeaky clean. It is our job to dig deeper and present the more dirty stuff! I’m sure they appreciate everything Stu is doing; they just cannot be seen to endorse it because the media will jump on them for it.
As to the guy on Twitter compiling a list of names – what for?! I’m not on Twitter myself but tempted to sign up just to get added! If he thinks he can intimidate people then he is wrong!
Ah, Neil Craig, the UKIP voter seriously lost.
Your example of East Germany; that’s right, it’s exactly opposite, therefore nowhere near, therefore irrelevant. You are making a truly enormous assumption connecting their immediate membership as part of Germany would mean we would be immediately removed as no longer part of the UK. Legal precedent does not look at facts the way you are, trust me on that.
And besides, we are not, nor are likely to become, an economic basket case as East Germany was. They’ll be far more inclined to want to keep us in. I mean, largest oil and gas reserves in Europe and the largest maritime economic area in Europe; if they boot us out, where are all those Spanish fishing vessels going to go? It is in the best interests of the EU to keep us in.
Schengen and rebates. One, Schengen is nothing much to be scared of anyway; continental Europe seems to have simply got on with it without falling apart. Being UKIP you’re obviously suspicious of it because, deary me, it would let foreigners into our country. It matters not in the slightest to me. I don’t blame immigration for problems in Scotland that have been here long before mass immigration. I blame, primarily, the Tories and Labour inaction for those.
Two, rebates. You assume that Scotland would enter negotiations with the European Union and be unable to play hardball and negotiate our own discounts. What exactly are you basing that on? Oh, true, we won’t have the UK discounts but that’s a long way from saying we won’t have any discounts. But the No campaign seem curiously shy about pointing that out. We will also have the right to negotiate.
Bugger (the Panda) says:
lesley Anne
Bamboo breathed kisses
Gratefully caught and many more sent back in return. 😉
I never really considered wings as part of YES.
It was always a stand alone unit.
I have the same view of Bateman, Wee Ginger Dug, Bella Caledonia, NewsNet etc.
The Yes campaign is an organisation you join or affiliate to a a party member of SSP, Greens, SNP etc
NewNet banned me last year for using the word ("Tractor" - Ed). I see plenty of room for different voices. This stance merely says you don’t speak for us directly.
“Because it would mean that in practice Scotland remained a member of the EU”
Scotland isn’t currently a member of the EU, so quite obviously it can’t ‘remain’ a member of something that it isn’t currently a member of.
@ Duggie, Scotland is a member of the EU, read the letter. Nice to see you back in the game too. How long before you kick off?
How is this new or a revelation? Obviously if you’re a British citizen you’re an EU citizen.
That doesn’t change the fact that Scotland will need to apply for EU membership and negotiate to become a member.
We’ll still be part of the UK anyway during the time period that the SNP plan to negotiate for EU membership, so it doesn’t make the slightest difference.
What is more important is that the SNP are planning to force Scotland into EU membership without giving the people of Scotland any say, and despite not having a mandate to do so.
Tweet the hashtag #putmeonmikeslist if you want to get on Mr. Dailly’s list.
This hashtag is a great opportunity to see just how many people out there DO support Wings.
“Scotland is a member of the EU, read the letter”
There is no mention of Scotland being a member of the EU in the letter.
The ‘member state’ referred to in the letter is the UK. Obviously.
A simple glance at the EU’s website will see a list of the EU’s 28 members – Scotland is not one of them.
Scotland is no more a ‘member’ of the EU than Yorkshire, or Cornwall, or Catalonia or Bavaria.
This isn’t really news.
It is for similar reasons that Greenland citizens are STILL citizens of the EU despite leaving the EU of their own accord.
By dint of their connections to Denmark, they are still EU citizens.
The media either don’t know this (entirely plausible) or don’t like to talk about it (some may say more plausible).
The up to 25% of Scots UKIP voters planning to vote Yes in September are going to be disappointed.
[…] « Sunset for scaremongers […]
Duggie yelped: Scotland isn’t currently a member of the EU,
Scotland is enshrined as a separate kingdom within the current EU Agreement with the UK, as is England, which is why our English friends are obliged to negotiate on Scotland’s behalf for such things as our fishery policy.
In keeping with your agenda to annoy and repeat annoyance, ad nauseam, you’re certain to reject that legal nicety in order to post more irritation followed by your boring nose pickings: “the people of Scotland are denied a referendum on the size of home baked marshmallows, or another inanity.
This article doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a ‘member’ of the EU (i.e. a member state) and an EU citizen.
Individual citizens are not ‘members’ of the EU, they are EU citizens.
Sovereign states are members of the EU – like the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany etc.
Parts of sovereign states – like Yorkshire, Catalonia, Bavaria – are not ‘members’ of the EU, and neither are individual citizens.
If Scots remain EU citizens by virtue of being British citizens we are EU citizens through the UK member state – that does not, obviously, mean Scotland becomes a member or ‘remains’ a member or whatever else the article claims.
Just contacted the scottish law society re Mike Dailly asking them whether this is acceptable behaviour for someone I assume to be a member.
Well it looks like the SNP have been right all along. They have never wavered on this. However, thanks to you and your diligent reader we have visibly obtained the truth.
Great stuff Rev, hats off to you and your reader also.
“Scotland is enshrined as a separate kingdom within the current EU Agreement with the UK, as is England”
Neither Scotland nor England are members of the EU.
The EU member state is the sovereign state UK, no part of the sovereign state UK is a ‘member’ of the EU.
“our English friends are obliged to negotiate on Scotland’s behalf for such things as our fishery policy”
The sovereign state UK negotiates on fisheries policy, not ‘England’.
“you’re certain to reject that legal nicety”
I’m rejecting your claim because it is complete and utter guff that you’ve made up.
Scotland is not a member of the EU. That is a simple fact.
@ Jim, AKA BtP, AKA Brigitte the Danish Pastry
That takes me back, Ayrshire Scot where are you?
@ Duggie,
If Scots remain EU citizens by virtue of being British citizens we are EU citizens through the UK member state – that does not, obviously, mean Scotland becomes a member or ‘remains’ a member or whatever else the article claims.
Why not?
“Well it looks like the SNP have been right all along. They have never wavered on this”
Actually they originally claimed that Scotland would “automatically” become an EU member after independence with “no” need to even negotiate with the EU first – a position they claimed was backed up by copious legal evidence.
The ‘legal evidence’ never materialised of course because they were lying, so now they’ve been forced to retreat to their current position of admitting Scotland will need to negotiate on EU membership.
The above article does not, in any way, change that fact.
The question of EU membership is about larger matters than citizenship. The main concerns are the conditions of state membership, economic matters being seen as the most important. So, while this may resolve matters for us at an individual level, it goes nowhere towards answering the questions of state membership.
Citizenship in iScotland will throw lots of anomalies e.g. Scottish/British citizens can pass their UK citizenship to the next generation but it will not pass to the next one. If some people renounce UK citizenship (and, by implication, EU citizenship) then we shall have two classes of citizens and things will be a lawyers’ delight.
Neil Craig says:
None of that follows. Scotland, as a geographical entity would not be part of the EU.
If this is the case, and Scotland will get chucked out, I assume you are for Yes in September then?
Or will you vote ‘No / pro-EU’ (part of the UK)?
I must admit I find UKIP’s position here really confusing; all this simultaneously being both for and against independence… Wanting people ‘to take back control of their country (Scotland)’ but at the same time telling people to vote against that…
Also Duggie,
“Parts of sovereign states – like Yorkshire, Catalonia, Bavaria – are not ‘members’ of the EU, and neither are individual citizens”.
The Not coutnries in union Duggie.
Hey can someone put me on MikeDaily’s list I am not on Twitter, and I would just hate to be left out. He says he was solicitor of the year 2011 and 2007, wonder if he would like a class action against himself for defamation.
“Why not?”
Er…..its obvious why not isn’t it?! Because we’ll be EU citizens by virtue of being citizens of the EU member state UK.
If I went to live in Botswana I would obviously retain my EU citizenship because I’d still be a citizen of the EU member state UK – Botswana would not magically become an EU member itself simply because I lived there.
Duggie burped: I’m rejecting your claim because it is complete and utter guff that you’ve made up.
You’re busted – go away!
The BBC-MSM will avoid this important, breaking news like the plague.
Hopefully, the Sunday Herald may be interested.
@BobSinclair
Care to explain into whose hands and why? or am I expected to take your unargued or evidenced assertion completely on trust?
If it’s to do with my removing my support for Yes then firstly I doubt they need my piddly little signature and secondly this is why I have never joined a political party: this idea that you have to toe the party line come what may. I’m far too much of a scientist who cares about demonstrable reality to do that. Yes are being dicks and need to be called on it. They are also being beyond stupid. Though actually I think they are being stupidly hard nosed and from an SNP perspective if they are the last Yes supporter standing after a Yes vote then they have fewer people they have to share power with and pay attention to.
Just like BT and the unionist parties are burning political capital in Scotland hand over fist with all this negative campaigning but they don’t care as we don’t matter electorally at UK level.
It’s also like the SNP and Greens effectively not campaigning for the European elections. We are not alone in not receiving any literature from them, in an SNP electorate. EVERYTHING is being sacrificed on the referendum and collateral damage is regrettable but ho-hum. So much for a different sort of polity. If you don’t see the problem with this then you are too far gone inside the bubble.
This strategy of don’t rock the boat, say nothing that might alienate ANYBODY and be whiter than white is not credible. It also looks craven and weak. Their demonising of Wings is craven and weak. A strong campaign would have circled the wagons to protect one of their own and faced down a media that is almost universally hostile. Instead it handed them a propaganda win and couldn’t move fast enough to do so.
“The Not coutnries in union Duggie”
In terms of the EU and EU membership Scotland’s status as a country, or its union with England, is irrelevant.
The sovereign state UK is an EU member – parts of the UK like England, or Scotland, or Wales, or Yorkshire or Cornwall are not ‘members’ of the EU themselves.
Quite frankly its utterly staggering how lacking in knowledge some people are about the EU and membership, but its no surprise considering the fact that the SNP themselves regularly lie in government documents about Scotland being a ‘member’ and having ‘continuing membership’.
Its actually embarrassing how individuals like ‘grouse beater’ with an active interest in the whole independence debate are so staggeringly ignorant when it comes to Scotland not being a EU member.
Its not as if its a hard question to find the answer to – a simple glance at the list of EU members on the EU’s own website will show categorically that Scotland is not a member of the EU.
So quite why these individuals still bleat on about Scotland being a member, and make up utter nonsense about the fact that its a kingdom means its a ‘member’ or some such guff, I have no idea.
Duggie coughed up another rancid fur ball: Actually they claimed that Scotland would “automatically” become an EU member after independence.
Your deliberately misleading readers and its very boring.
Not once was that claim made except by the Inane for Domination brigade and mongerels such as you.
The SNP proposed EU rejection unlikely, and then gave cogent reasons for that assertion. Opponents of democracy such as your nasty self turn that into “automatic” entry in order to fell a straw man.
What is “utterly staggering” is the sheer audacity you display returning to this site to destroy discussion. And in the way of trolls you’ll have one other here to offer a line of support … I can practically count the posts to his appearance.
Go away!
“The BBC-MSM will avoid this important, breaking news like the plague.”
That’s because its not important or breaking news and doesn’t change anything.
Woo Hoo, just ordered my “I’m on the List” T-Shirts. Thanks Mike Daily for making my day! 😛
@Helena Brown
I didn’t know you had to be on twitter to get on the list. I’m not on twitter either.
Oh naw. Please put me on his list. I don’t want left out.
@ Duggie, if Scotland is not an EU member, why are Scots EU citizens and if the letter above is factual, Scotland is only waiting for formal nation status in the EU, unless your a no camper, then it’s stuff like this EU response letter is meaningless.
Wonder what will really happen Duggie?
EU says yes you’re in but Britnats say you have wait decades before you realy are? Duh
“Your deliberately misleading readers and its very boring”
The only deliberate deception is coming from you I’m afraid, with your inane guff about Scotland being a kingdom somehow meaning its an EU ‘member’.
In 2007 Nicola Sturgeon told the EU and External Affairs Committee of the Scottish Parliament that Scotland would “automatically” become a member of the EU after independence, with “no” need to negotiate with the EU first, and that there was apparently copious legal evidence to back up that claim.
She was lying.
link to archive.scottish.parliament.uk
There’s a lot of divide and rule going on here!
Duggie! Please go away! You’re boring!
Thanks for the article, I can use that in any discussions!
@Clootie.
I’m a freelance Yesser.
🙂
“if Scotland is not an EU member, why are Scots EU citizens”
Is this a serious question?!
We’re EU citizens because we’re citizens of the UK, obviously!
“if the letter above is factual, Scotland is only waiting for formal nation status in the EU”
The letter above doesn’t change in the slightest the fact that Scotland will need to apply for EU membership as a new member.
Duggie doesn’t pick up his crap: She was lying.
You’ve referred readers to a mass of discussion on a welter of subjects, none of which states anything you assert.
Go away!
Have said this for years, in fact I wrote to Stu Campbell and Newsnet about this because a year after I asked the EU for a statement on my rights as an EU citizenship they replied! (the reply was about eight months ago)
The EU have an investigative commission answering my question(“We decided you have a case we need to answer”) as an EU citizen asking why my rights as an EU citizen have been questioned by my government in London informing me and anyone born in Scotland that my rights and status an an EU citizen are somehow only based on what Government Scotland chooses.
Your right as an EU citizen is enshrined in the rules and laws of the EU, not lent to you by Cameron, Miliband or Darling, it has sweet FA to do with them, it is the EU that states what constitutes EU citizenship, not westminster.
Somehow I don’t think the EU commission will report to me before the Referendum vote.
Angus said: Your right as an EU citizen is enshrined in the rules and laws of the EU, not lent to you by Cameron, Miliband or Darling, it has sweet FA to do with them, it is the EU that states what constitutes EU citizenship, not Westminster.
Sanity. Good man.
Let’s not get too caught up on Wings vs Yes Scotland folks.
Yes Scotland are the part of the Yes campaign that have to play by Better Togethers rules. That’s the nature of the beast. It has to be squeaky clean because from the outside people will think it’s the be all and end all of the Yes side.
Wings doesn’t. Bella doesn’t. Newsnet doesn’t. An army of cybernats on the internet certainly don’t.
And people are waking up to that. Better Together think they can restrict the debate to politics as usual in the pages of the papers. They can’t. But Yes Scotland have to play there. Leave them to be squeaky clean with plausible deniability – it’s just the game they have to play by someone else’s tiles.
Most converted Yes voters aren’t playing that game. That’s why we will win.
Okay let me explain this as simply as I can.
1. Every Scot is currently an EU citizen because we’re citizens of an EU member state called the UK
2. Despite every Scot currently being an EU citizen, Scotland itself is not an EU member
3. After a yes vote Scots will remain EU citizens because we will remain citizens of an EU member state called the UK
4. Despite every Scot remaining an EU citizen, that would not make Scotland itself become an EU member, anymore than that fact that every Scot is an EU citizen now does
Hope that’s cleared it up.
I always found it hilarious the focus of the pro-union campaign on currency, the EU and border posts when people don’t give a crap about these:
link to image.slidesharecdn.com
Incidentally, I’ve been searching for information on how well the newly independent country of England, Wales and Northern Ireland will do in negotiations on joining the EU if Scotland votes Yes.
What will be its name?
What will be its flag?
How many MEPs will it have?
Will it manage to hold onto its rebate?
It’s going to struggle a bit with negotiations given it will have lost 1/3 of its landmass, 8% of its population, 90% of its hydrocarbons and the lion’s share of some of the best fisheries in the EU.
Anyone have any links to this? I can’t find anything substantial.
I get the impression the UK government has its head in the sand here and is just making massive assumptions. This is in direct contrast to the Scottish Government who say Scotland will have to negotiate its new position which makes sense.
Doesn’t fill me with confidence in UK governance and reaffirms my intention to vote Yes.
Duggie is back I see. The massive independence supporter, who thinks Scotland is not part of the EU at the moment, and would not be entitled to membership. Now you
may well ask why a self proclaimed independence supporter would be giving the standard No campaign line on the EU question? The answer is obvious…
I also see Mike Daily is doing a SLAB impersonation of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Where do SLAB get these characters from? Daily, McTernan et al must be on the verge of setting up a Un-British Activities Committee. Don’t you just love these raging Brit nats?.. 😀 😀
Duggie still trolling away.
Scotland and England have a joint membership of the Eu as partners within the UK. When the UK splits into two parts then obviously either both parts continue as members, neither does or one does and one gets kicked out. Why does one part get claim the Eu membership as exclusive property? Lord Tebbit, bless his shiny head, even raised this very point in parliament. Not well reported mind.
Even the westminster committees have published reports giving the three options although they only ever spout about the one they like bestest.
Penman said: And people are waking up to that.
Got talking to a gardener this morning doing his daily rounds. A life-long socialist and Labour man he’s voting Yes. His wife, he said, demanded more reasons than he felt he needed, but she too had decided it was the only way to ‘get Westminster to do the right thing.’ By that she meant release the political powers denied Scotland overs decades.
I asked her how she knew that, her answer was, the debate had illuminated those aspects she had been in ignorance of most of her life.
I am Cybernatacus.
“You’ve referred readers to a mass of discussion on a welter of subjects, none of which states anything you assert”
You’re lying. I’ll gladly refer you to the relevant section which states exactly what I assert.
Nicola Sturgeon: “Scotland would assume the rights and responsibilities of the UK, which would include AUTOMATIC MEMBERSHIP of the European Union. The overwhelming weight of legal opinion backs up that view”
Irene Oldfather: “The minister said that Scotland would automatically become a member of the European Union?”
Nicola Sturgeon: “Indeed I did”.
Irene Oldfather: “You would not require to renegotiate?”.
Nicola Sturgeon: “No”
I repeat – Sturgeon was lying. As evidenced above.
scottish_skier
I must admit I find UKIP’s position here really confusing; all this simultaneously being both for and against independence… Wanting people ‘to take back control of their country (Scotland)’ but at the same time telling people to vote against that…
The duality of Scotland? Unpredictable laws of nature (parallel universe) and a high improbability quotient. 🙂
Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t lying-the idiot repeating himself is the same person different name that always repeats himself on websites and there is no credibility just repetitiveness.
Scots born people are citizens of the EU, there is no mechanism to undo these rights we have as EU citizens any more than there is one to undo the rights of someone from Wales Ireland or Northern Ireland or indeed England. No shoofly hook for anyone.
EU citizenship is not lent to us by virtue of who governs us, it is a right enshrined in EU laws that are not undone by any method except a current Government (as the uk plan to do) directly voting to be out………this is what what westminster plan to do in 2017.
Your rights as an EU citizen are defended at EU level, not at individual Governmental level, read their rules and there is not even a way to undo your EU citizenship.
Duggie the pooping machine; Okay let me explain this as simply as I can.
Any chance you take your patronising asinine waffle and stick it up your …
What will be its name?
What will be its flag?
Obviously, we know Scottish independence will come from the act of union being repealed.
All over the BBC etc.
To demonstrate that Scotland is resuming its independence, not getting it afresh, the 1707 Act of Union (the one passed by the old Scottish Parliament) is repealed and Westminster is invited to repeal its equivalent act.
link to bbc.co.uk
Ergo, the United Kingdom of Great Britain + NI will cease to exist as state and therefore it and Scotland will no longer be EU members, subject to re-negotiation of terms.
Easy enough for both to get this sorted ‘from within’ in 18 months but as noted, the rUK will have far less to bargain with than it does now.
“who thinks Scotland is not part of the EU at the moment, and would not be entitled to membership”
I have said nothing even slightly close to either of your above claims.
Try to learn the difference between being part of the EU and being an EU member – Scotland is the former and is not the latter.
And, as I’ve said previously, Scotland is likely to have no problem applying for EU membership.
One thing I understand Duggie,is that is the reason that the Former United Kingdom wants to cling onto the name, it does not want to have to renegotiate as England, because they would be in the same boat.
You also have to wake up and smell the coffee. Amongst the eternally optimistic message of hope stuff hardball politics is in play here with at least half an eye on the landscape after a Yes vote. What is the Rev Stu absolutely fantastic at? forensically taking political statements apart.
So you are sitting in SNP Central watching the phenomenal rise of Wings and you think about all that attention being turned on the SNP government after a Yes vote and you begin to sweat.
THIS is why the SNP/Yes have taken this and allowed the media to wag them. Wings’ success is a threat not just to the Unionist side and ‘our’ side has come to fear it as well. The stupid thing is, by distancing themselves from Wings they have given the Rev carte blanche to do exactly what they fear.
“Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t lying”
So when she claimed that Scotland would “automatically” become an EU member with “no” need to even negotiate with the EU first she was telling the truth was she?
Duggie: Try to learn the difference between being part of the EU and being an EU member
Jeezus.
Who the hell would turn to a prat calling himself Duggie on a website to seek absolute legal certainty, paragraph line and clause, about EU membership?
Yet there is someone called Duggie who demands he be given respect for exactly that role.
See you all on another topic…
Do not feed the troll
Muscleguy,
You know the way BT operate. That’s the point I was (clumsily) trying to make. They are trying to drive a wedge and when they see people saying that they are leaving the Yes campaign they will twist it to their own ends.
The fannybaws repetitive and familiar ‘duggie’ is there solely to talk through his buttocks, the desperate wee effort that he is.
You are an EU citizen because the EU says you are, not whatever twat hides in westminster too scared to ask the very question that would say so clearly and unequivocally.
You don’t need to negotiate your way INTO the EU as you are EU citizens, you just need to adjust some of the negotiations on fishing (3/4 of uk fishing in Scottish waters) but you DO need to RENEGOTIATE the treaty to suit Scotland and remove westminster control and adjust the way the fishing rights are currently uk wide.
Scotland will NEVER leave the EU simply by having a democratically elected Government, just like a Government of East Germany run by RUSSIANS became EU citizens with no problems, bearing in mind not ONE of their mechanisms of law were EU based.
So bullock off duggie you attention seeking nobody who has never been here under a different monicker.
Well done that reader, and well done Rev, for further highlighting it. I think most Wing readers known that Spain are playing hard ball with Scotland, because of Catalonia and their bid for independence. Though we knew that the EU would accept us, as we already meet the conditions and have been part of the EU for years, this response to a canny reader,just confirms this.
Westminster and Better Together, will just keep flogging the dead horse of Scotland will be outside the EU if they go independent,because they have no other recourse but scaremongering, its all a bit pathetic, by the no camp.
It is a troll technique ‘duggie’ to take one small part of a sentence by someone else and quote it out of context to make a stupid point of your own with no relevance.
So ta and talk to your arse as it will actually believe you.
Bye
Two things…DO NOT FEED A TROLL.
Independence Public Meeting…Tuesday 24th June 7.30 to 9pm…Royal High School,Clubhouse,East Barnton Ave….with Ivan McKee and Andy Myles…www.businessforscotland.co.uk.
‘Do not feed the troll’
Yes, it’s well established that the number of ‘trolls’ opposing a position rises in direct support for that position amongst the general public.
The more trolls wings gets, the happier its readers should be.
Been a notable upsurge as the polls narrow. If there were none, I’d be very worried.
Conan the Bookbinder
Do you work for GCHQ per chsnce?
A bit off topic, but does anyone know the correct sand and cement mix for external render? Is it 4:1 or 5:1?
Would love to know exactly how Mike Daily plans on getting information that isn’t already publicly available. For one think if you want to know who’s following someone on Twitter there’s a fairly easy way to do so, you just click on the appropriate button. Unless he’s going to the donkey work and trudge through every tweet and compile a list of accounts. Perhaps he’s going to lodge a formal complaint with Twitter in order to force them to divulge the identities of those people.
As it stands though it’s either an empty threat intended to intimidate, a bit McArthyist, or it’s an actual intent to commit a breach of data protection laws in some way.
Third Thing.
Those who would defend scum are also scum. So lawyer sue me! Wings is not the most polite website but it is the most honest.If I had to choose I would choose honesty but would still wish for both.
@Bob Sinclair
BT will happily spin out of thin air. They don’t actually need anything tangible. And I am not ‘people’. I’m truly an ordinary member of the public.
Also as my email to Yes pointed out, not being a member will not stop me campaigning for a Yes vote.
The point is I refuse to be a brainless order obeying robot soldier. I reserve the right to criticise my own side when I see them being stupid.
Labour’s Twitter account hacked, new policy added “It should be compulsory for everyone to have their own owl”. tweeters agreed. At last a Labour policy that doesn’t mention Alex Salmond or austerity.
link to standard.co.uk
A breakaway Scotland would have to join the Schengen free travel agreement, which Britain is not part of. So there would have to be border controls.
George Kerevan in the new book, Scottish independence: yes or no?, praises immigration because it “makes labour markets more flexible”, the usual employer’s attitude.
He fails to notice that if Scotland had a different immigration policy from England, there would have to be border controls between England and Scotland. And only 2 per cent of Scots want a more liberal immigration policy, as Alex Cochrane notes in the same book.
DONT FEED A TROLL Dont even mention his name, far less try to answer any of the inane points he raises. It’s bad enough having to scroll past a troll comment without also now having to scroll past regular users answering said troll comments. Ignore him/them and he/they will go away. I have refrained up to now from even saying this much but it seems that some people can’t resist the temptation to argue with a troll. There’s no point! They aren’t here for information, they’re here to divide and distract. This is especially true of “concern trolls” whose aim is to stop this site from doing what it is doing so effectively.
Rant over. I’m never going to mention this again.
No more Dr Who nor Strictly nor EastEnders according to Westminster and Better Together, but wait whats this Danny Alexander saying the BBC could be shared if Scots vote yes. After all the lies, deception and false threats, they now want to share the BBC with an independent Scotland. The thing is do we really want it after all the turmoil.
link to theguardian.com
Regarding Mike Dailly’s list. Does this mean that I’ll have to go about with an armband like 1930/40’s period Germany? What will the armband have on it? A Saltire, a “C”?
I’m looking forward to my name appearing in the Daily Mail.
I’m very disappointed in Yes Scotland if Scots Renewables’ email is reflective of the entire organisation, and had to vent a little here:
link to wildernessofpeace.wordpress.com
That said, I refuse to allow this to be a source of division. I’ll still support Yes Scotland as surely as I’ll support Wings, because they’re BOTH vital. Yes might think it’s more important to be nice to their opponents than to ensure all the information available is disseminated, but I sure as hell don’t.
The “scum” forore is the same. to me, as “Plebgate”
All that fuss about whether or not he called the policemen “Plebs”
Calling them Plebs is not an issue as far as I’m concerned. The fact that he admits to telling them to “F*** Off” is much more worrying. An administration that sees Plebs as less worrying than F*** Off has well and truly lost the plot.
Lesley-Anne says:
20 June, 2014 at 3:01 pmBugger (the Panda) says:
I am Spoartacus
I am Spartacus!
I’m Brian and so’s my wife
🙂
@ Will Podmore
The provisions governing EU common policies on border checks, asylum and immigration – commonly referred to as the Schengen area provisions – were incorporated into the EU legal framework by the Treaty of Amsterdam which entered into force on 1st May 1999. However, the underlying policy objective – namely enabling movement across internal borders without being subjected to border checks – dates from a voluntary inter-governmental agreement, outside the EU legal framework, signed in 1985 between France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In this sense the Schengen element of the EU acquis originates from a voluntary decision by some EU members to remove border checks on people moving between signatory countries, rather than from a fundamental objective of the EU. Over the period between 1985 and its incorporation in to the EU treaty, almost every EU Member State voluntarily acceded to the cooperation agreement. The exceptions were the UK and Ireland. Since 1999 the Schengen area has extended to include Member States that joined in 2004 as well as non-EU countries.
The objective of the Schengen agreement was to abolish border checks on people moving between the signatory countries. One unavoidable consequence was that controls at the external borders of the participating countries were tightened and that cooperation was triggered between the judicial and security authorities in the participating countries. This latter aspect was deemed necessary insofar as border posts had, up until then, provided a degree of protection against criminals and other potential law-breakers escaping the judicial authorities in one EU Member State by fleeing to another. It is important to note that members of the Schengen area have to meet certain tests to show that they can secure their external borders.
The Schengen agreement also had important implications for the immigration and asylum policies of the participating countries. The removal of border checks on persons travelling within the Schengen area essentially meant that once an individual had entered a Schengen country, that individual was then able to move freely between all Schengen countries; although internal border controls can be brought in by members under certain circumstances[80]. This prompted discussions leading to the emergence of a common approach to immigration and asylum by the Schengen area countries and the introduction of a legal base in the EU treaties to facilitate collective actions on these matters.
Accordingly, the underlying motivation for including the Schengen agreement within the EU Treaty framework was to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons is ensured. This would be in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime.
Timeline – The Schengen Agreement
1985: Schengen Agreement signed
1997: Amsterdam Treaty signed which absorbed Schengen Agreement and rules into EU law. UK and Ireland obtain opt-outs
1999: Amsterdam Treaty comes into force.
Today, a total of 30 countries, including all EU Member States (except the UK and Ireland) and four non-EU members (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein) have signed the Schengen agreement. However, not all countries cooperating in Schengen are party to the Schengen area. This is either because they do not wish to eliminate border controls or because they do not yet fulfill the required conditions for the application of the Schengen acquis[81].
Key rules adopted within the Schengen framework included:
removal of checks on persons at the internal borders;
a common set of rules applying to people crossing the external borders of the EU Member States;
harmonisation of the conditions of entry and of the rules on visas for short stays;
enhanced police cooperation (including rights of cross-border surveillance and hot pursuit);
stronger judicial cooperation through a faster extradition system and transfer of enforcement of criminal judgments; and,
establishment and development of the Schengen Information System (SIS).
The UK and Ireland decided not to participate in the Schengen agreement and as such they secured opt-outs when the Schengen acquis was incorporated into EU law. Accordingly, border checks remain on travellers arriving in either country from Schengen area countries. However, they also have the possibility, through a provision in the Treaty to “opt-in” to some parts of the Schengen accords. This provision is set out in Protocol 19 of the Treaty, under which both the UK and Ireland can, and do, take part in some the Schengen arrangements – especially in fields relating to police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, the fight against drugs and the Schengen Information System.
Regional practice in Schengen
The possibility of the UK and Ireland “opting in” to elements of the Schengen acquis is not the only flexibility provided for in this arrangement. There are a number of other flexibilities in the Schengen protocol that reflect specific regional practice. The Schengen area does not coincide solely with EU territory. Accordingly, the Schengen area is also open to EEA countries (see Annex 4). As such, from 25 March 2001, the Schengen acquis was extended and applied in its entirety to the five countries of the Nordic Passport Union (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland – but excluding the Faroe Islands), although these countries cannot participate in the Council of Ministers meetings that approve legislation. However, there are some provisions in the Nordic Passport Union that give extra rights for Nordic citizens, not covered by Schengen, such as less paperwork if moving to a different Nordic country, and fewer requirements for naturalization of citizenship.
The Common Travel Area
As already noted, the UK and Ireland do not participate in the provisions of the Schengen Agreement on the free movement of persons, external border controls and visa policy though, as set out in Protocol 19, both may choose to participate in aspects of the Schengen system.
The CTA comprises Ireland, the UK (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man). The CTA pre-dates the EU. It came into being in the 1920s and is based on the principle of free movement for nationals of the UK and Ireland. The UK has always operated external border controls (at point of entry) but not within the UK. This allows citizens to move freely across the UK and Ireland without passports or identity cards. Co-operation between the UK and Ireland on measures to secure the external CTA border are underpinned by a Joint Statement published in December 2011[82]. This commits both Governments in an unbinding agreement to continue the co-operation through the CTA and to align visa requirements, data sharing practice and the e-Borders/Irish Border Information System.
On December 21, 2011 the UK and Ireland Governments:
“…signed an important agreement reinforcing their commitment to preserving the Common Travel Area (CTA) while further cracking down on illegal immigration and spurious asylum claims.” (European Union News, December 21, 2011)
The Irish Position on Schengen
Ireland joined the EU in 1973, at the same time as the UK, and has continued to remain committed to the CTA. In 1995 the Irish Government said that:
“It would not be in the interest of Ireland to have a situation where the common travel area with Britain would be ended and Ireland would impose both exit and entry controls on persons travelling between here and Britain and, in addition, on the land frontier.”[83]
In 1999 they said that:
“For reasons related to the United Kingdom’s position on freedom of movement of persons and to the common travel area between both countries, neither Ireland nor the United Kingdom participate in the Schengen process”.[84]
An independent Scotland in the EU would essentially take the same approach. As such the Scottish Government’s position to remain within the CTA is based on valid practical considerations of geography and working arrangements that predate the EU. These arrangements are not only robust and help protect the security of the CTA but also that of the Schengen area.
The Scottish Government does not consider there is any reason to believe its decision to remain part of the CTA and forego Schengen area membership would be challenged by the European Commission. After all, the EU has spent all of its 50 or so years of existence seeking to demolish borders across the EU. It is therefore unlikely that the Commission will use the moment of Scotland’s independent membership of the EU to insist that a new internal border is created between Scotland and the rest of the CTA.
Legal requirements
The current CTA between the UK and Ireland is based on administrative agreements, rather than binding Treaty obligations to which an independent Scotland would succeed. These arrangements are reflected in the UK’s immigration laws (and those of the Republic of Ireland) and could be replicated by an independent Scotland in due course.
From a UK Border Agency Document:
“The CTA was purely an administrative arrangement until it was given statutory recognition in the UK under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Immigration (Control of Entry through the Republic of Ireland) Order 1972. The European Treaty of Amsterdam recognises the provisions of the CTA in order to distinguish it from the Schengen area.”
It is likely that in order to continue being a member of the CTA, an independent Scotland would be asked by the rUK and Irish Governments to ensure that visa and immigration controls and practice met certain shared standards. The detail of this would require negotiation, but it should be noted that the Ireland and the UK already operate different systems within the Common Travel Area and therefore it should not be assumed that full harmonisation will be required.
“…the only sensible thing would be for Scotland to have an opt-out of Schengen… It depends on the level of agreement that has been achieved between Scotland and the United Kingdom, so an agreed position can be presented to the EU. Without an opt-out from Schengen, you would have the nonsense of 20-mile tailbacks of trucks on the M74. You would have border posts and biometric checking along Hadrian’s wall. It does not make any sense, so the two parts of the island really have to have a common border system.” Professor Sir David Omand, former Home Office Permanent Secretary (evidence to Foreign Affairs Committee, 4 Dec 2012)
The Scottish Government has no plans in the foreseeable future to recommend to the people of Scotland that an independent Scotland should begin the process of joining the Schengen area. While endorsing the objectives underpinning the Schengen Agreement, protecting the integrity of the UK and Ireland social union means that an independent Scotland will join the Common Travel Area (CTA).
Following independence the Scottish Government will take the steps required to participate in the Common Travel Area. This will ensure that the citizens of Scotland, rUK and Ireland will continue to enjoy the benefits of unimpeded travel and social engagement in every aspect of their lives as they do at present.
link to news.stv.tv
Will you all please stop biting when Duggie posts his irritating, repetitious, pedantry. I got half way down the page and then had to scroll straight to the bottom out of frustration in order to type this, thus missing some interesting comments by others.
Thanks guys.
I have to say this has given me a wee smile . Well done that man.
O/T I agree with both statements: “the official YES campaign is shooting itself in the foot”
And “…It’s use enables our opponents to brand our movement in a damaging and unfair way”
Am I right in saying then if Scotland was somehow incredibly thrown out of the EU then we would still be regarded as EU citizens?
The similarity with Greenland, who voted to leave the EU in an In/Out referendum but whose citizens remain EU citizens (by virtue of their Danish ties), seems instructive.
Will Podmore says:
20 June, 2014 at 4:53 pm
A breakaway Scotland would have to join the Schengen free travel agreement, which Britain is not part of. So there would have to be border controls.
Is Ireland in Schengen? No. Is Ireland and the UK a Common Travel Area, Yes. There is no border between the UK and Ireland, drive down the M1 Belfast to Dublin highway with no borders.
And cue, “but there’s no way you can get Scotland in the EU with being a Schengen state and that means etc blah blah bleh…”
Just read this interesting news piece regarding WoS on STV. Stu, you should take a look at it, as it sings your praises for the work you do.
Analysis: We need to talk about Wings over Scotland
“Wings is arguably the most exciting, invigorating, and innovative entrant to the Scottish media world in recent years. Bella Caledonia and National Collective contribute intellectual firepower to the Yes cause but they perhaps lack the killer instinct. Campbell takes Unionists out at the knees.”
link to news.stv.tv
@Schroedingers Cat
Hoot, Hoot, Hoot.
anyone seen this
link to news.stv.tv
to slow 🙂
A geat piece on Wings over Scotland on the STV website by Stephen Daisley. Maybe the fairest thing iv’e read about the Rev. At last someone else gets us.
STV are under the impression that they and by default the BBC are impartial, I suggest they look the word up in a dictionary. I think Stu is impartial when he finds something that is, and I think a needle in a haystack must be used for that. Other wise a fair doo.
Oops. to late, thanks torbor for putting in the link.
WHOA!
Analysis: We need to talk about Wings over Scotland
link to news.stv.tv
… this part made me laugh: ‘Broadcasters, who face some of these challenges too, are also hemmed in by regulations which do not extend to bloggers. The rules are clear: Broadcasters must show due impartiality to both sides.’
‘must show due impartiality’ … my arse!
@Scots Renewables
That’s not fair. That is too many big words for Duggie. He will need to use his school ruler to read it line by line.
This is why STV, BBC and all press are laughing stock, with their Lally recount ending “and they may have recoiled at an unseemly choice for a monstering.”
How is pointing out that Flipper, Bliar, bettertoghetherBBC etc were trying to pass off a member of the Labour Shadow cabinet as ordinary mum, a monstering.
Lord Reid under investigation by the Electoral Commission, regarding the referendum.
link to bbc.co.uk
@Dcanmore
Thanks for the link.
I was amused by the line “MSM have to be impartial” – what world do they live in.
Not a bad article except for the attempt to push they above crap.
England Team visited an orphanage in Brazil today. “its heartbreaking to see their sad faces with no hope whatsoever” said jose,age 6.
test
STV thinks that Wings is now part of the mainstream,
‘Wings is arguably the most exciting, invigorating, and innovative entrant to the Scottish media world in recent years.’
Stephen Daisley @ STV
“[Campbell] cannot be charged with inauthenticity. ”
I take that as a roundabout way of saying Stu and Wings deals in facts and truth.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, has declared a controversial opinion poll, which was viewed as a bid to undermine Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Liberal Democrats as a £6000 pounds donation.
Hmm! that’s one way of covering it all up, th Lib/dems are in terminal freefall, isn’t that right Wee Willie Rennie.
link to bbc.co.uk
WOW im gobsmacked at that STV piece ,now if you STV people are lurking out there get on the battle wagon and stop cowering in the corner.
Great news about the EU though i never doubted it ,once again westminster caught spinning lies great work Rev 🙂
Does this mean that we now have to stop blaming the mainstream media for everything?
For what it’s worth, not very much I know (around 1 bawbwee I’ve been told 😛 ) I think the piece over on the STV news site does appear on face value to reasonably balanced when talking about Wings. I agree with others about their understanding of the word *ahem* impartial but there again we’ve talked this one to death before now, haven’t we? 😉
Another unionist lie debunked on the EU. It is what I have said from the word go to unionist numpties. “Who are you going to send round to take away my EU passport, bring it on.”
And then there is this, from Stephen Daisley on the STV web site. Keep it coming Stu, but get some good body armour. Lord Foulkes dentist is going to be busy when the fat git reads this. The heat is on.
“But readers do not turn to Wings over Scotland for political moderation or journalistic etiquette. It’s brash, aggressive, personal. Other blogs shoot from the hip; Wings shoots its targets in the hip.”
“Wings is arguably the most exciting, invigorating, and innovative entrant to the Scottish media world in recent years. Bella Caledonia and National Collective contribute intellectual firepower to the Yes cause but they perhaps lack the killer instinct. Campbell takes Unionists out at the knees.”
Funny how these trolls only seem to come after school closes.
Just saying!
“You are an EU citizen because the EU says you are”
Correct.
“You don’t need to negotiate your way INTO the EU as you are EU citizens”
Scotland will need to negotiate to become an EU member because it isn’t currently an EU member.
Try to learn the difference between an EU citizen (an individual person who is a citizen of an EU member state) and an EU member (a sovereign state that is a member of the EU).
Scots are EU citizens because we’re citizens of the UK which is an EU member state.
Scotland itself is not an EU member.
I genuinely can’t understand how people are getting so confused about such a simple issue.
This insistence that Scotland is an EU member is surreal.
Scotland is not a member of the EU – that isn’t an opinion or a disputable claim it is a simple indisputable fact.
It’s like me insisting that Elgin City are in the SFPL.
The SFPL’s own list of teams quite clearly shows beyond any doubt whatsoever that Elgin are not in the SFPL.
Likewise, the EU’s own list of members quite clearly shows beyond any doubt whatsoever that Scotland is not a member.
Quite how anyone can argue against an indisputable fact I have no idea.
“take one small part of a sentence by someone else and quote it out of context to make a stupid point of your own with no relevance”
So how was I quoting Sturgeon ‘out of context’ when she insisted that Scotland would “automatically” become a member of the EU after independence with “no” need to even negotiate with the EU first?
All, please don’t reply to him.
Excellent analysis by the STV reporter. The best example of WOS investigative journalism I would say was the filleting of the Vote No Borders outfit, exposing it for the London based sham that it was, within minutes of its launch. That Gavin Esler of the BBC was fronting a spoof “launch” of that outfit, complete with fake band and photo agency “ordinary mums”, highlights the lack of talent in the MSM.
Great piece of work Stuart. Sick telling people we are already EU citizens and there is NO mechanism for throwing us out. Plus the oil, plus the gas, plus the food and drink industry , plus …. i could go on all night.
But the biggest news is Stuart being praised by STV.
WHO THOUGHT THAT WOULD HAPPEN …. HANDS UP
And the commentators getting a mention too and they didn’t swear or stutter…hahahahahah
Come on BEEB get Stu to run Scotland 2014 and we”ll romp home.
I’ll even pay my license … honest !!
Regarding the YES Scotland issue, all that needs to be done is a standard disclaimer on any relevant mailshots.
(*YES Scotland does not necessarily endorse every opinion or comment on external independent websites, etc etc.)
Bookie;
Multiple Wine splattered dinner guests there, including the dug ;*©
Its perfectly understandable why Yes Scotland are unwilling to endorse or direct people to this site.
As Yes Scotland correctly say, they are trying to convince undecided voters.
Any undecided voter glancing at the comments on this site – numerous individuals abusing and attacking anyone who dares to even slightly question or criticise anything the SNP do or say – would likely be turned off from the yes campaign.
The sad thing is that the moderator explicitly appeals to the users to “write as if an undecided voter is reading”, to “play the man not the ball”, and to “show other commentators some courtesy”.
Unfortunately there is though an understandable unwillingness to actively ban those users who break the above etiquette rules because that would damage the site’s income from such dedicated followers.
Nice article Stu, kinda says it all doesn’t it.
“Neil Craig” sure your not Duncan Hothersall in disguse, he trys to twist stuff in the same shitty manner, it doesn’t work either.
As regards the YES stuff, is it just me but didn’t that tory earse of a MSP actually insult and miscall the Yes campaigns biggest donators. Maybe I’m missing something here but surely its the Tory MSP who should be getting his collar felt for mis-using his position.
Keep up the good work Stu, and that go’s for the rest of you.
Anyway, as we were saying.
“Great news about the EU though i never doubted it ,once again westminster caught spinning lies”
There is no ‘news’ and no exposure of any ‘lies’ in the letter.
All it confirms is what everyone with any intelligence already knew – that Scots will remain EU citizens because we will remain British citizens.
It does not, obviously, change the fact that Scotland will need to apply to become an EU member state because – again obviously – it is not currently an EU member state.
Scots are currently EU citizens because we’re citizens of the UK. Scotland is not currently an EU member state.
After a yes vote Scots will remain EU citizens because we’ll remain citizens of the UK. And Scotland will remain not an EU member state – until the SNP apply to the EU to become one.
Its really extremely simple, how on earth is anyone getting confused about it?
Can we now have to stop blaming the mainstream media for everything?
Blame?
It all depends what you mean by ‘blame.’
There is severe criticism, rightly, apportioned to the MSM for its consistent torrent of disinformation set hard against self-governance and therefore democratic progress that, if public scorn and scepticism is anything to judge by, achieves the opposite effect to that intended. The number of confirmed Yes voters increase concomitant to any increase in attacks on the integrity of Scotland’s people and its representatives.
In which case, only the Inane for Domination can employ the term ‘blame’ in its purest sense, that is, the MSM is to blame for turning undecided and No voters to Yes voters.
However, a lot of MSM’s propaganda is created by staff of the No campaign, lifted by the MSM straight from press releases without scrutiny, repeated by their puppets and their lickspittle politicians.
It follows from that, that the MSM is quite justified blaming the No campaign for providing ill-informed or deliberately misleading facts and information, and ergo, the No campaign can return the slight by accusing the MSM of being lazy and sloppy disseminating half-truths, and bare-faced lies.
O/T anyone seen this?
link to libdemvoice.org
“Sick telling people we are already EU citizens and there is NO mechanism for throwing us out”
No one has ever suggested Scottish citizens will be ‘thrown out’ of the EU.
We all contribute to the campaign in different ways which suit ourselves and our natures. I’m a big believer in broad church, we all have different voices. I’m disappointed in the YES HQ response, but I get what they’re doing and why they believe they need to take that tack.
I prefer Stu’s and WGD’s approach, but that’s me. I think we should cry foul and raise a stink when the offence warrants it. What we all agree on is the message and the end result. We might disagree on the route, but the destination is the same.
Grame noticed: O/T anyone seen this?
Interesting bleat from a nonentity beaten off in debate, then using his employer’s note paper to get regain some of his battered dignity by exaggerating his integrity.
Its rather like when folk lose a minor dispute then relay the conversation in their head later, rehearsing what they could have said if only they had been quick witted enough.
Duggie,
At the risk of ‘feeding the troll’ just what do you think you are achieving here. Your claim of abuse is about as far off the target as it is possible to get without shooting yourself in the head.
I appreciate you have an agenda to serve but please just go and play with rhe children on facebook Where you’ll find the abuse you are seeking.
IcySpark
I must just be jaded. “Sings praises”? I thought the article was quite snide and dismissive throughout. Has Yes actually distanced itself from WOS? I think this issue was settled earlier.
I also see that STV are too busy to straighten up the image of the advert, thereby continuing to present a partial and skewed picture of the world.
I would suggest fear rather than enthusiasm?
I’m probably being really paranoid but I wasn’t too sure about that STV article. All the mentions of media impartiality (bwahahaha), “monstering” and the tone of the Rev’s articles and tweets all whilst trying to appear fair seemed like a subtle way of giving the impression that Wings was a hotbed of aggressive fanaticism.
I think if I hadn’t already read Wings that article wouldn’t have made me want to.
[…] confirms what everyone already knows about the Scots’ future as EU citizens, Scots Renewables posted an email he received following an inquiry regarding their refusal to allow leaflets with Wings Over […]
Costa Rica 1 – Italy 0.
Italian manager totally dispondent.
Can’t feel worse than the English manager.
England about to say adios amigos in about … 2 minutes from now ….
“Your claim of abuse is about as far off the target as it is possible to get”
This very thread shows evidence of exactly the type of abuse that I’m talking about.
I pointed out the fact that Sturgeon lied when she claimed Scotland would “automatically” become a member of the EU after independence and I was immediately attacked and abused by unquestioning SNP acolytes like ‘grouse beater’ for daring to even have the audacity to suggest the SNP had lied.
@GrouseBeater
Any publicity is good publicity (within reason of course)
It engages the curious.
Can I just register my fury at that utterly disgusting tweet by Mike Daily. I’m reminded of McCarthy, Hungary under the Stasi and North Korea. Ring any bells? I fear that in the event of a No vote, I will never ever come home to Scotland again.
I must adnit I was vastly amused to see one of Nick Clegg’s obedient mouthpieces doing a hit piece on Wings on Lib Dem Pravda.
Lest anyone be in any doubt of the sheer scale of the hypocrisy involved, here’s the Clegg loyalists unabashedly censoring and silencing anyone who dares criticise the ‘dear leader’ Clegg and his fringe party.
link to libdemvoice.org
Thank goodness people like that are an irrelevance to scottish politics now.
Please guys, when will we all realise that Duggie is baiting and looking for controversy.
The Lally incident was a clear example.
I know I said any publicity is good publicity, but there are limits.
“Because we already know that the UK government has accepted that current British citizens in Scotland, and their current or future children, will retain British citizenship after independence”
Er…..no we don’t. We don’t know that at all, quite the opposite in fact:
“The government of the continuing UK would also need to consider whether all British citizens living in Scotland could retain their British citizenship upon independence. THIS CANNOT BE GUARANTEED and could be dependent on any residency requirements or proof of affinity to the continuing UK. It is not possible to predict now what the decision of a future government of the continuing UK might be in this area.”
link to gov.uk
The articles on this site are usually pretty accurate and very good at decisively skewering points and claims, but on this occasion the author doesn’t appear to understand the issues properly himself and is making up claims which are false.
@CameronB Brodie
Maybe “Sings Praises” is a bit overstated, but considering the abuse he gets from the rest of the MSM it’s a close as Stu will ever get to anything positive.
I see the paid Brit trolls are out in force.
Well done Stu, you are hitting them hard.
Graeme said: Any publicity is good publicity (within reason of course) It engages the curious.
Good point.
Celebrities thrive on it – “Freddie Starr ate my hamster!”
Please visit..
link to indiegogo.com
Duggie is actually right about Nicola. She did say it at Holyrood, I’ve seen the clip. I was gutted when I saw it some time ago, as it was such a stupid thing to say on public record. She was wrong when she said, and she knows that as she has absolutely NEVER repeated it.
The SNP line about re-negotiating has been consistent for some time though, at least two years, so I don’t see how relevant her saying it is now. Once she said automatic, a million times she’s said ‘re-negotiate’. I think that speaks for itself. And besides, she’s hardly the first, nor will she be the last, politician to say something daft and categorically wrong in public….unionist politicians do it every day, as this website has demonstrated.
Also of note is that Obama’s “No boots on the ground” has very rapidly been proved to be nonsense as he has announced 300 more Special Ops forces to be sent to Iraq.
Be in no doubt, with Cameron now claiming Iraq is “Britain’s biggest threat” – like Blair used to – and William Hague stating whatever the Americans do so will the UK, the drumbeats for war are getting louder.
The only way the scottish public can ensure avoiding another bloody and endless quagmire is to vote Yes to Independence and leave the westminster warmongers to their catastrophic attacks and invasions.
Yes Scotlands comments about their refusal to allow leaflets with the Wings address to be distributed with their own material are understandable unfortunately. They have rules to abide by and really had no choice but to distance themselves, or the MSM would have had another damaging three day spree of hysterical shouting about Cybernat abuse being condoned by not just the SNP but also Yes Scotland.
This is just classic divide and conquer by Better Together and we just have to try and ignore it.
Reading these comments they will see that another of their plans have worked. Yes are good at supplying campaign materials and have Blair Jenkins popping up here and there but they should now be sending people around the Yes groups giving advice on door to door skills and how to win over undecideds.
Yet another thing to put behind us and focus on the end result. Do not get sidetracked, do not be tempted to do what the unionist would like us to do, alienate Yes Scotland. Some of us have sent them emails asking for them to reverse their decision (I have, but now regret it).
Focus on winning this referendum.
Oh dear, I appear to have been put on pre-moderation. Looks like the site’s moderator doesn’t like it when someone dares to question or criticise his claims rather than offer him the usual unquestioning devoted cult-like adoration that he normally gets on here.
stu
peter is an agent provocateur
he is trying to discredit this site
I think the dugster doesn’t understand the difference between argument and abuse.
Wonder if the Ref will red card him ?
Isn’t it interesting that as soon as I post something regards publicity and controversy, Peter posts a troll. Who is Peter? Which organisation does he belong to?
IcySpark
Maybe “Sings Praises” is a bit overstated, but considering the abuse he gets from the rest of the MSM it’s a close as Stu will ever get to anything positive.
Spot on brother, or sister. 🙂
The obvious point about the EU is that if scotland wants to stay in the EU it has to vote Yes to Independence since the westminster parties are all coalescing to an IN/OUT referendum with UKIP having only just beaten the three establishment parties at the EU elections.
Even the lib dems (fringe party though they may be) are now talking up having an IN/OUT referendum. So with the comcially hopeless Ed Miliband as popular as a fart in a spacesuit, a tory government in 2015 looks ever more likely.
That means the prospect of exit from the EU in 2017 for those willing to trust in yet more westminster rule.
O/T
I predict a false flag outrage in the offing.
Cameron and BBC hyping ISIS being a direct danger to “Britain”.
Well done Mr Campbell. I said on this site a couple of days ago you and Wings are now mainstream. The STV article above encapsulates this even more.
I’m proud of this site and all who contribute to the Yes cause.
There is little more I can say but thanks to you and all.
@Bugger the Panda
No! I am Asparagus!
(see, I went for the vegetarian option).
Duggie said it himself. ” he’s sick” !,
“Sturgeon was lying. As evidenced above.”
Oh look, Duggie’s mixing up “evidence” and “assertions” again. Why are you falling for this, readers? I’ve been having such a pleasant afternoon on Twitter and then I come back here and you’re all feeding the troll.
o/t I suppose this could be true!
Dear James,
We received a very kind donation today with a very moving story attached to it.
This 95 year old woman has donated to our campaign. Her son wrote to us explaining her reasons for giving, and for giving at this time. I wanted to share the letter with you.
“She is making this donation on a special day for her. It is the 70th anniversary of her first husband’s death in action on 17th June 1944. Though a proud Scot, commissioned into a Scottish regiment, he was even more a proud Briton, and he fought for the United Kingdom. She is a proud Scot , but she too is even more pleased to think of herself as pre-eminently British. She herself served her country in time of war, in the Foreign Office at Bletchley Park…”
“It would pain her to see our great united nation fragmented and divided so unnecessarily and pointlessly and to the detriment of all.”
Off topic I know, but who the ferk is Mike Dailly? And what’s this list business – does he think he’s Santa Claus or sumpin’?
Don’t red card Duggie if he’s posting p**h here, where it is effectively filleted then he isn’t posting p**h elswhere
@GraemeMenzies
I’ve just watched Cameron restate his claim that the new Iraq quagmire is the biggest threat facing Britain on the BBC news. Yet as the BBC news had to admit Cameron was refusing to release or even offer any proof of the so called ‘intelligence’to back up his claim.
It can’t only be me who thinks this is all beginning to sound hauntingly familiar.
“Oh look, Duggie’s mixing up “evidence” and “assertions” again”
Apart from the fact that I provided indisputable evidence to back up my assertions – namely the quotes from Sturgeon’s claim and the link to her making that claim – from the Scottish Parliament website.
I said Sturgeon had lied when she claimed Scotland would “automatically” become an EU member with “no” need to negotiate with the EU first and I provided indisputable evidence to back that up.
And for further evidence, one of the other users of this site, ‘Steviecosmic’, backs up the evidence: “Duggie is actually right about Nicola. She did say it at Holyrood, I’ve seen the clip.”
You’re not having a good day are you.
The EU would be foolish to deny an independent Scotland membership. They would also be foolish to try and dictate any conditions of membership that would be against Scotland’s interests; if they were to do so I hope Scotland would tell them to get lost and leave the EU with all their problems of having so many EU citizens living and working in an independent Scotland.
An independent Scotland will be in a strong position regarding EU membership.
Likewise NATO membership.
A No vote keeps Scotland in a very weak position regarding these two organizations.
@ Iain Gray’s Subway Lament
I truly hope I am wrong with regards a False Flag outrage, but there is a lot at stake here for the UK Govt / Intell Agencies and others with vested interests (USA).
Additionally, I also predict many more attempts by false flaggers on this site trying to elicit unsavoury comments that can be held up to the public as examples of abuse.
Apologies if I sound melodramatic, but…
But as I’m falsely being accused of mixing up assertions and evidence, I’ll happily provide the evidence again that I provided earlier to show Sturgeon’s lies:
Nicola Sturgeon: “Scotland would assume the rights and responsibilities of the UK, which would include AUTOMATIC MEMBERSHIP of the European Union. The overwhelming weight of legal opinion backs up that view”
Irene Oldfather: “The minister said that Scotland would automatically become a member of the European Union?”
Nicola Sturgeon: “Indeed I did”.
Irene Oldfather: “You would not require to renegotiate?”.
Nicola Sturgeon: “No”
link to archive.scottish.parliament.uk
Perhaps my accuser will now be man enough to apologise for his false slur?
Labour pledging “owls for all” is a pretty clear indication of just how seriously we should take Ed Miliband and his idiot trolls.
Will Ed Miliband be pledging British jobs for British owls?
;-D
Duggie’s mask is slipping…
“It cannot be guaranteed that dual nationality would be available to everyone who was a British citizen before independence, and who then became a Scottish
citizen”.
link to gov.uk
Was the author unaware of the UK Government report which completely contradicts his claim that the UK government have ‘accepted’ that British citizens in Scotland will retain their citizenship after independence?
Or did he hope no one would notice it?
Hi wondered
if anyone knows if [ The Scottish People Are Sovereign ]
has any bearing on the E.U. status
If the people themselves are members.
Bawheid Bragg says:
Off topic I know, but who the ferk is Mike Dailly? And what’s this list business
Has anybody invited Mike Dailly to the Wings gathering at the Newsroom in Edinburgh on 4th July?
If Mike came along he could get a load of us straight onto his List without having to waste valuable GCHQ time, or whatever.
Just sayin’
“An independent Scotland will be in a strong position regarding EU membership.”
Undoubtedly. The SNP’s application for Scotland to become an EU member should be fairly straightforward.
But they will have to apply to become a member – contrary to the claims in this article.
And the people of Scotland should be given our democratic right to have a say on whether we want Scotland to become an EU member, rather than being forced into EU membership by the SNP without a choice and despite them not having a mandate to do so.
“If the people themselves are members”
People aren’t ‘members’ of the EU, sovereign states are.
People are citizens of the EU if they’re citizens of an EU member state.
So your question has no basis.
First things first: Vote Yes
Awe I like Duggie the troll. Can we keep him Reverend, please:D
@GraemeMenzies
Well Obama sure as shit isn’t sending 300 more special Ops forces to Iraq for a holiday.
Fact is there is a very murky history indeed of what special forces have got up to in Iraq and Afghanistan
link to reuters.com
link to en.wikipedia.org
No need to apologise, though I strongly doubt there even needs to be any kind of manufactured incident. All it will take is continued escalating carnage and bloodshed across the board to push the situation into one where the U.S. and U.K. will have to ‘reluctantly’ get ever more deeply involved.
What needs to be asked is if the UK are also sending in covert forces as that would make a mockery of Cameron’s claim for “No boots on the ground” just as much as it has for Obama. I won’t be holding my breath for the pathetic westminster parties or the BBC to be doing much in the way of that kind of scrutiny, sadly.
I see Lord Reid is being investigated for his faux pas BT advert in the Scottish Catholic Observer.
A friend of my has confirmed this has had no affect on the Celtic website where Yes is at 70% and no at 20%. So much for stating in his article that he was a former Celtic chairman.
Yes Duggie I did indeed say those words, but I also said that despite being gutted when hearing them, the Scottish Government’s official line on this for two whole years has been ‘re-negotiate’. The Sturgeon utterance is the sole instance when, to my knowledge, a member of the Scottish Cabinet has said anything about Scotland’s membership being automatic.
It is accepted in most sane circles however that Scotland’s ‘admission’ to the EU wold be as close to ‘automatic’ as it gets. She is strategically positioned geographically, possesses the richest fishing grounds in the entire EU and has the richest hydrocarbon resources of any EU nation. Anyone who thinks she will be out of the EU, citizenship chaos aside, is either utterly insane or deliberately obtuse. Given that there are near 8000 EU fishing vessels currently in Scottish waters, including half of the Spanish fleet who’s country’s economy relies heavily on fish exports, the notion that some obscure EU bureaucracy would put entire member state economies in jeopardy over legal minutiae is utter garbage. It cannot and will not happen.
Anyways as someone said earlier, the idea that the people of Scotland will bee EU citizens after independence but our Scotland won’t be is completely insane, or Dugggie the Troll speak. Love you Duggie
kendomacaroonbar says:
Please visit..
link to indiegogo.com
Wish I’d known about this earlier would have liked to get the *ahem* big badges. Never mind just made a donation kendo hopefully it will get both myself and my partner a badge. 😉 😛
Apparently Mike Dailly is a solicitor (someone posted way up the comments). If in a legal practice I trust he is registered with the Data Protection Officer. Quite a few of us are looking forward to a possible class action for contravening the Data Protection legislation, defamation, libel etc, or any other legislation we can run with. If he is a solicitor, he will know what the possibilities are. I doubt a public interest defence would be applicable.
Apologies just re – checked my friends email.
Yes 77%, No 10%, undecided 13%. Even better result.
@Iain Gray’s Subway Lament
I was meaning something a bit closer to home to frighten people into sticking with the Union for “Perceived Security”
Apologies for the confusion.
@ heedtracker
You’ll have to feed him an clean out his bridge though.
Remember, Doris starved to death…
@ heedtracker
You’ll have to feed him an clean out his bridge though.
Remember, Doris starved to death…
Not new news but I think I missed this, if already posted.
#indeyref Weekly Review, 1st June.
link to youtube.com
Should the tories win in 2015 then the scottish public will be forced out of the EU even if the majority of scots vote to stay in. That’s the truth and the harsh reality of westmisnter rule, because as we all know by now in any UK wide referendum or Election it doesn’t matter what the scottish public’s view is as long as the England and rUK view outnumbers it.
Hence there being an incompetent and repugnant tory government dictating policy to scotland right now, despite there being more pandas than scottish tory MPs.
If you want that farce to continue then vote No, but if you want the scottish public to decide scotland’s future in the EU then the only way to do that is to vote YES to Independence.
This solicitor who is trying to get a list of Wing contributers naming nonsense will go the same way as the one that tried to get a decision to get Scots born expats non resident in Scotland a vote in the referendum. Nowhere.
Can we all please stop saying ‘don’t feed the troll’. It’s getting quite tiresome and people should be allowed to say what they want to say.
Newsnet article on Mike Dailly
link to newsnetscotland.com
Previous wings article
link to wingsoverscotland.com
When are the bulk of the Scottish press going to be brought to book?
There are presently more of them focused upon a lone Scot NOT supporting England in a football match than focused upon the many, mainly English, jihadists actively supporting Isis militants in Syria.
Last time I looked there was no law against anyone supporting any foreign countries football team and no law to compel Scots to support the foreign English team. The vile CyberBritnat abuse on-line is in overdrive too.
Italian Job: This solicitor who is trying to get a list of Wing contributers named
Touch of Al Capone and the Miafiosa in that ambition.
I want them all dead!
I want their family dead!
I want their dog dead!
Dead, dead, dead, DEAD!!!
O/T
“They think it’s all over, it sure as hell is now”
Bye Bye England, you’re times up, you’re tea’s oot, the party’s over, pack you’re bags, beat it, away hame.
Played two games, lost two games and they are out, worst England team ever.
We feel you’re pain England.
The World Cup starts to get better next week, once we get rid of all the wee diddy teams.
Oh, it disnae hauf put a wee spring in yur step though.
Am burstin wi energy noo, a think I’ll go oot and post a quick 1000 “YES” newspapers.
“I said Sturgeon had lied when she claimed Scotland would “automatically” become an EU member with “no” need to negotiate with the EU first and I provided indisputable evidence to back that up”
She did indeed say that. There is as yet no evidence that it’s incorrect. The EU has made no statement on the issue.
I actually feel sorry for Duggie. He was probably offered a zero hours contract to defend the British state. He knows that we know what he is, but hey, £7 an hour is better than nothing, and he hopes to eventually reach the James Bond level.
Silly man/woman. Go for it son/daughter. 🙂
C’mon folks, please all cool down and lets have none of the Wings Vs Yes Scotland stuff. We are ALL Yes, we are ALL part of the same side.
Keep your eye on the prize, a Yes vote and an independent Scotland.
To start bickering with each other and being divided this close the the vote is exactly what the No side would love. Do you want to help them or help get a Yes vote?
Let’s finish the job united and in style.
Did I just hear a contradictory statement?
Dick Whittington: people should be allowed to say what they want to say.
Anything to say on the topic?
Sand-cement ratios don’t cut it.
I’m looking foward to meeting all my Eurp[ean friends – got a good few in Spain, France, Holland, ge
@R whittington siad: Can we all please stop saying ‘don’t feed the troll’. It’s getting quite tiresome and people should be allowed to say what they want to say.
Hungry?
Plus, in answer to your ealier post: it depends whether it’s concrete overcoats or concrete boots.
Mike Daillly , if you are reading this I don’t do twitter but please please put me on your list . I subscribe to Wings on a monthly basis and also contribute when the Rev has a fundraiser .
To make things easier for you my name is Mike McCabe and I stay in Chapelhall Airdrie . Your blackshirts will usually find me in bed between the hours of 10pm and 6am but I would appreciate a bit of warning as I would like to put my human face on just in case there are any photographers hanging about .
I’m a Cybernat and I’m O.K .
Shouldn’t the Swiss national anthem be ‘Climb Every Mountain’? Harrumph! Their game is about to start ….
And now for the French anthem, Marseillaise – probably one of the best, in my opinion, Actually, it’s great.
Liberte, egalite, fraternite coming Scotland’s way any day soon.
Well said the Major. As a qualified engineer I can vouch that the concrete mixture is indeed of a different constituency for overcoats or boots.
I can confirm at work tomorrow exact mixtures on consulting the appropriate specifications and procedures.
Um sorry folks – but I thought SCUM meant Social Class Ultimately Matters when it comes to having largesse due to luck. Or was the MSP making another point?
@Penman
“Better Together think they can restrict the debate to politics as usual in the pages of the papers. They can’t. But Yes Scotland have to play there. Leave them to be squeaky clean with plausible deniability – it’s just the game they have to play by someone else’s tiles.”
A point I made in their, and the SNP’s, defence often for several years.
But all they need to say, should say, is “Sorry, but outside our control”.
Not become active agents in suppressing grassroots efforts. They should be concentrating on progressing their own squeaky clean approach and if anything, seeing what they can do to give that more of an edge i.e. an edge.
Ever wondered why Hafez al-Asad has such a bad reputation, though his regime was the go-to torture spot for most western democracies. It was because he wouldn’t let the Muslim Brotherhood tear his country apart.
link to cia.gov
link to washingtoninstitute.org
link to cia.gov
Just let them try and call the indyref off.
link to telegraph.co.uk
There’s saying that most will have heard of, I think it’s Voltaire but I may be wrong:
‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity’
I have seen people go for the Rev’s jugular, people who are indisputably on the Yes side, who are active campaigners. It is the traditional Scottish trait of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ through divide and tribalism. It;s the story, I feel, of the left in Scotland, utterly incapable of coming together because they cannot decide which flavour or Trotskyism is palatable, or some such bullshit.
Duggie need not be a spook, just a right of centre political anorak with a tribal hatred of the SNP and Wings, because they don’t support his particular brand of politics. He may or may not support independence, that is irrelevant, as the fact that neither Wings nor teh SNP support his political views is of far more importance than mere inalienable rights to self-determination as recognised by all signatories to the UN Charter….that is, just about every country in the world.
test????
Thanks. Nobody bothered replying to my question re aphids in the last thread. I’d appreciate some advice.
Ah no, Duggie’s back – I think I’ll go out and nail my foreskin to the fence. #morefun
Dick asked:
Nobody bothered replying to my question re aphids. I’d appreciate some advice.
Rather than environmentally unfriendly DDT, spray yourself with a mixture of washing up liquid and water.
Heedtracker says
“Awe I like Duggie the troll. Can we keep him Reverend, please:D”
You know he’ll pee on the carpet if you don’t walk him dont you?
Natural soap, mixed with water, in an aerosol thingy. Works wonders 🙂
Oh is the wee yappie thingy back? Did a speed read through the thread but of course the wee canine wouldn’t register.
Calgacus MacAndrews says
“Has anybody invited Mike Dailly to the Wings gathering at the Newsroom in Edinburgh on 4th July?”
Well he can pay for the sticky labels then,
an he’s no gettin in the raffle. 🙁
Test2??
Yeah, for whatever reason the site is just eating up comments now and they aren’t getting through. Can’t be arsed with that I’m afraid.
Would the solicitor compiling a list of Wings Over Scotland contributers please add my name to the list. I’d hate to be left off a list of such truthful, fair and honest YES campainers.
I may, though, yet have to request my name be removed from the official, ill advised, YES campaign list if I am forced to choose sides in a rather stupid divisive attempt at internal in-fighting by the official YES campaign.
“Can we all please stop saying ‘don’t feed the troll’. It’s getting quite tiresome and people should be allowed to say what they want to say.”
Right, who left the door open?
that’s the Dick back in again.
Grouse Beater
Ah, but is that “egalite” French or USA style, the former being more in terms of ‘social equality’, rather than the American equality in the ‘eyes of the law’. It might make a difference.
@Lesley Anne
Rev Stu made an announcement last week on twitter, and most of the limited edition badges were snapped up within 24 hours.
However, I’m looking at producing additional badges that will be blue-on-white, and probably will release them in limited edition numbered 101-200 watch this space 🙂
See.. We all get on much better after a drink or two.
john king says:
Calgacus MacAndrews says
“Has anybody invited Mike Dailly to the Wings gathering at the Newsroom in Edinburgh on 4th July?”
Well he can pay for the sticky labels then,
an he’s no gettin in the raffle. 🙁
He could pay for two-part carbon-paper name labels.
On another tack, maybes everyone on the demo at the BBC on 29th June could pop along the road afterwards to the Govan Law Centre, and put a bit of paper with their name on it through Mike’s letterbox.
@ john king, Duggie the Troll will be great fun, until he gets boring, then it’ll be the Reverend that has to take him for his walk and let him out every night for a poop.
Iain Gray’s Subway Lament
All you need do is hit the back button, make a slight text/format change, copy and re-send. It might take a few goes and you might have to break your message down, but please don’t let a technical difficulty silence your voice.
Just back from the pub after work when we are told never go online or tweet.
But it seems some people don’t appreciate the fact that the SNP and Yes Scotland must appeaL
kendomacaroonbar says:
@Lesley Anne
Rev Stu made an announcement last week on twitter, and most of the limited edition badges were snapped up within 24 hours.
However, I’m looking at producing additional badges that will be blue-on-white, and probably will release them in limited edition numbered 101-200 watch this space 🙂
Knowing my luck Stu’s announcement was on one of the days I wasn’t on Twitter or posting on here. 😛
Think I’m going to have to keep an eye out on Twitter and here even when I’m having an off couple of days from now on. 🙂
Still not to worry I’ve donated £14 for two of the enamel badges for me and my partner, seemed easier than making two £7 donations. 😉
Heed tracker says
“Love you Duggie”
Ahh there’s nothing nicer than a a wee boy and his duggie,
aahhh
does he know his duggie’ll die soon though? 🙁
Balls busted. :-0
link to bbc.co.uk
This might seem strange but I have never engaged with the official Yes campaign. There are of course tens of thousands doing their bit day in and day out and I applaud that.
It’s not for me though, just a wee bit tame and I like my information to be a bit more critical and hard hitting. That’s what Wings brings to the debate.
Each to their own and it’s no big deal that someone apparently has chosen to disassociate the Yes campaign from Wings. Personally I think it’s all just bullshit and to give the newspapers something to print.
Wishy washy middle class claptrap will not win this referendum. Hard hitting facts and exposure or the bias just might be the straw that breaks Westminster’s back.
As for Yes Scotland, let’s hope they get the finger out tomorrow, are you up for a fight on the run in? Or happy just to fight your own? Get a bloody move on.
Rev, when are you going to make another Sensible Soccer?
O/T
Livestream live from Cumbernauld.
7pm 20th June, Cat Boyd, Carol Fox, Fiona MacDonald Cumbernauld Town Hall.
link to new.livestream.com
PRESSED WRONG BUTTON.
But it seems some people on here don’t appreciate the fact that the SNP and Yes Scotland must appeal to the undecided non political voters and be seen to be reasonable fair and squeaky clean.
Wings on the other hand can be radical challenging and subversive. For example Business for Scotland appeal to another group of voters.
All pro Yes groups are appealing to a different audience in our multi faceted Scotland.
Just as each of us has a different vision for Scotland like Mike Dailly but the important thing is to work together as a No vote is a vote for no change and a stultifying status quo.
@ Thepnr – heartily concur, we, in all our myriad forms are the future for Scotland, we don’t need leaders.
Why do we get the boring trolls, yes duggie & Craig that means you, they are always the same, fixated on some point and continue shaking it like a dog with a bone for forever more.
It does not matter if you provide an arguement against them or show them where they are wrong, they have got their bone and thats it.
But here’s a question for them ! what are you going to do after Scotland votes YES, how are you going to explain to your family and friends now or in the future why you spent so much of your time mis-representing your country to everyone you could.
That is of course assuming you are Scots, your names appear to be scottish, but ?
Davy dear – we get trolls cos we’re where it’s at, if we didn’t have any we’d be where it was.
The 2016 general election in an independent Scotland will be a fascinating experience. True democracy at last for the people of Scotland.
I have to say you guys are missing the bigger picture.
@Lesley Anne
Yes, thank you, understood. Indiegogo doesn’t appear to allow multiple purchases therefore your contribution makes perfect logic 🙂
Badges will be posted on Monday. I’ve a sail doon the watter ramorra.
Terry Kelly, renfrewshire > George Taylor, Grangemouth • 7 hours ago
As a season ticket holder at Celtic and a supporter for about 55 years I can assure you that is nonsense. The snp have a history of anti Catholic and anti Irish sectarian racism and the Celtic fans if nothing else certainly “know the history”.
Why is this gonad not up in court? As clear an example of defamation as you will ever see. When will Jo lament get a grip on her cyber-nazis?
Looking forward to receiving them next week. Hope the weather stays as good as it has been this week for your wee sail doon the watter ramorra. 🙂
When it all gets too much, just stick on LynyrdSkynrd, Freebird. The full version.
I promise you will feel refreshed afterwards. 🙂
R whittington
Sensible Soccer?
YES!!!!!!
As in, letting the HMG Better Together ball do the running for you?
When and if it all gets too too trollish, watch this
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Joy.
Eh?
That’s my screen splattered with coffee… from the libdem link..
And when Willie Rennie tackled him on it, Rev Stu told him to “Go f*** himself.”
Just LOL 😀
Trying to picture Willie’s coupon on that tremendous rebuttal from the Rev 🙂
The Yes campaign and Wings = Yin and Yang. I admit to feeling queasy about Stu calling people ‘scum’ and so on, and in fact I’m eternally glad to be ignorant of Twitter, but I also recognise that Wings can say things the formal campaign can’t.
By that I don’t mean abusive things. I mean subjects that, if highlighted by the Yes campaign or the Scottish Government, would be twisted by the No side and its faithful media and turned against them. Such is the political chess game, and we should understand that (both sides involved already do). Wings, however, has no such inhibitions. We are not playing that political game; in many ways, we are the lightning rod for the opprobrium of ‘Better Together’ and the media.
As I’ve said before – nobody’s being shot or blown up over this referendum. All things considered, Scotland is conducting her constitutional debate pretty well.
Dan said: True democracy at last for the people of Scotland.
The prospect certainly lifts the spirit – but then you remember the time needed to initiate well-laid plans, key folk appointed, main goals scheduled, objectives and fall back positions agreed.
Then there’s reporting back to committees and consequent debates in Parliament – all exciting just the same.
On the wings we can watch Scot-Minster MPs scrambling for safe English seats or, none available, bowing out to ‘spend more time with their families.’
A few will cross the floor to join a renewed Scotland affirming they were always supporters… only they had to follow orders.
R whittington
From what I’ve picked up, successful football teams move the ball about, with teammates constantly moving into space in order to support each other. They let the ball do the work and run the opposition ragged.
HMG Better Together is a top-down monolith to the end of empire. They are they ball, with the Yes movement the supportive teammates. We are running the British state ragged. 🙂
I may need to get ma coat. 😉
successful football teams move the ball about
“Well Brian, basically, I gets the ball to my feet an’ I boots in the back of the net; my philosophy in a nutshell, mate.”
sorry rev ot
link to indiegogo.com
please help reach wgd’s target
Hey rev you keep calling it as you see it , f them as someone once said they don’t like it up em
O/T – watch out for an upcoming Populus survey.
There is a small set of questions about Scotland, including one where the choice is
a) It is very important to me that Scotland remains a part of the UK
b) I don’t care whether Scotland remains in the UK
c) don’t know
Huge scope for distortion of the results there. I wrote them a screed in their comments box at the end, but it will do no good.
Grouse Beater
Not that it is a crime if you don’t, but would you say you ‘get’ football?
I’m not trying to defend by analogy btw, as I may well have taken things a little too far. 😉
Grouse Beater
I forgot the winky after the first question.
Best tactic with Sensible Soccer is to get the ball to one of your good players and then run with it in zig-zags to just outside the area and slot it in the edge of the goal. I used to like being Bulgaria. STOICHKOV!…GOAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!! When are you going to make another one Rev?
O/T
My old schoolfriend Bobby McMahon, former Fox Sport European Soccer Analyst and probably one of the most knowledgeable football media guys in North America, writes on the World Cup here;
link to soccerly.com
Bobby went out canvassing in support of Gordon Wilson in Dundee East around 1971, I think, (I seem to remember we were 16) so he comes from the same stable as me.
Just thought some of you may be interested in what he has to say on football generally, and some awareness of his background may add to the interest.
Just don’t mention the Arabs, unless it is a favourable comment on Hamish Macalpine.
@ Dickie Witteron, WTF are you taking dear? I think it’s time you had a lie down before you embarrass your family – as it is, we’ll not mention it, you are amongst friends – bless.
“All pro Yes groups are appealing to a different audience in our multi faceted Scotland. ”
Indeed, which is why it’s so blindingly stupid to deliver only ‘official yes’ literature which will only reach that part of the audience whilst simultaneously blocking other sources of information.
Brotyboy
What about….? 🙂
Interesting piece. But totally irrelevant!
When you secede from a nation state you give up entirely and voluntarily any rights that citizenship of that state entitles you to. And likewise any memberships of such as the EU NATO or the UNO.All of this is laid out in international law which trumps EU opinion and is explicit in the interpretation of said law handed down by the Canadian Supreme Court following the second failed Quebec referendum
Nice try but no truth and no coconut!
S
“When you secede from a nation state”
Nobody’s SECEDING from anything. Fail.
(There is, of course, also no “international law” covering the peaceful democratic dissolution of a state. It’s a matter for the state’s constituent parts to negotiate among themselves.)
First,
all of us will have one bitter pill to swallow – be rUK citizens (in addition to being Scottish citizens of course). This ‘right’ has been ‘guaranteed’ by the UK government so ‘Bitter Together’ cannot deny it.
To be treated as EU citizens when travelling, we would have to carry rUK passports.
Second,
Scotland then becomes a country almost entirely INHABITATED by EU citizens, without being a member of the EU!
Scotland AS A COUNTRY would not have to follow any EU rules, unless it voluntarily agreed to do so.
Maybe that WOULD BE the ‘best of both worlds’!
But realistically of course, Scotland will be a member of the EU while rUK might well not be in a few years’ time.
@Duggie says: “There is no mention of Scotland being a member of the EU in the letter.
The ‘member state’ referred to in the letter is the UK. Obviously”.
Correct, Duggie, but there is no mention of England being a member state either. As the title, “United Kingdom”, quite obviously is a description of a kingdom and not a country. The member State is the entity created on 1 May 1707, which is a bipartite union of kingdoms and there are only two signatories.
Upon one of those signatories leaving, The United Kingdom that united kingdom ceases to exist. You cannot have a united kingdom with only one member kingdom and there have been no other kingdoms that have joined the union since 1707.
Wales became a part of the Kingdom of England in 1284 by the Statute of Rhuddlan. All Ireland became part of the Kingdom of England in 1542 by the Crown of Ireland Act.
Thus neither country was required to sign the Treaty of Union 1707. So Northern Ireland did not become a new kingdom nor a new country upon the country of Ireland partitioning and one part becoming a Republic.
Thus there is no United Kingdom to be a member state after Scotland disunites the bipartite union. Yet both kingdoms citizens, (that’s four countries), will all remain EU citizens and the obvious answer to the problem is for both Status Quo Ante kingdoms to be required to renegotriate their terms as independent, KINGDOMS.
heedtracker says:
20 June, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Awe I like Duggie the troll.
I like my trolls raw and wriggling
Brotyboy
Thanks for that, Now you’ll have to believe me on this, but I would have gone for a 5-3-2 myself. 🙂
@ Cameron
Don’t know why, but your post put me in mind of the OLD gag about the guy who was a fantastic marksman and also hated Arabs.
Does 5-3-2 mean no knees?
Further to my point above, as rUK citizens living in a ‘foreign’ country we will also have the right to vote in rUK elections as EXPATRIATES won’t we?
That is another scaremongering story debunked – we will all vote Labour in rUK elections so that rUK will not be left at the mercy of permanent Tory rule!
Anyone still thinking of voting No?
Free speech is being blocked. You think that’ll work?
Naw, your onto plums ya halfwits.
Thepnr says:
Free speech is being blocked. You think that’ll work?
Naw, your onto plums ya halfwits.
Ooh! Ooh! I love free stuff. Where can I get some. I’d love to have some free speech in the house, it might keep us company during these long dark drawn out nights of negativity that is living in the union! 😛
Brotyboy
Well my Saturday sport was winding my dad up. He supported United, so I naturally supported FC. I’m also a crack shot. 🙂
Cameron
How can you make 5-3-2 sound like some sort of euphemism?
Paula Rose says:
20 June, 2014 at 9:49 pm
Does 5-3-2 mean no knees?
why is the guy wearing black not gettin’ a kick o’ the ba’?
In international law
You can go back to 2007 when Eamonn Gallagher- former director general of the European Commission stated: “Scotland and the remainder of the UK would be equally entitled, and obliged, to continue the existing full membership of the EU. This was conceded by Emile Noel, one of Europe’s founding fathers and long-serving secretary-general of the European Commission, who said Scottish independence would create two states, which would have “equal status with each other and the other states”.
Or Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, former president of the European Court of Justice who stated: “Independence would leave Scotland and something called the rest’ in the same legal boat. If Scotland had to re-apply, so would the rest. I am puzzled at the suggestion that there would be a difference in the status of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of community law if the Act of Union was dissolved.”
This is backed up by Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, which reads: “Any treaty in force at the date of succession of states in respect of the entire territory of the predecessor state continues in force in respect of each successor state so formed.”
“which is a bipartite union of kingdoms and there are only two signatories. ”
Really?
How many people signed the two Acts of Union 1706/7?
Hint: it was an integer less than two.
@Lesley-Anne
If I try to post something more than a paragraph long it never appears. Nothing is for for free by the way, including free speech. Their is usually a price to pay. I think it’t worth paying that price.
Brotyboy
It’s just a knack I suppose. I like to think it’s one of my more redeeming characteristics. 🙂
Sorry O/T but are the two guys in different out-fits on the same side, and do they have oranges at half times?
Don’t get me started on Monkey Island.
Argentina thrashed by Scotland and england in tears because a nasty Scotchman waved a flag at them. a great day.
(Thepnr dear – edit doll)
Well with the whole Cybernat thing on the go this is fairly relevant. Some wee lad went to the England Uruguay match last night dressed in a see you jimmy wig, a Scotland away strip and stood at the Uruguay end waving a Saltire as cheering on Uruguay…
Well today the BBC named him… pretty much told nutjobs where to find him… since then the story has been picked up by the likes of the Telegraph where the threats and general bile vented into this lad are quite… well shocking….
So we ask ourselves – will the BBC now pick up the gauntlet to defend this chap and decry the bigotry and outpouring of vile internat filth that it itself has created…. Don’t hold your breath..
BTW if this lad is attacked by some violent BritNat… the BBC is 100% to blame…
link to telegraph.co.uk
Soon be dawn peeps.
Paula Rose
Bovril or similar. You try fiddling with a wedge of orange, when your hands and fingers have the mobility of someone who’s morbidly arthritic. Juice in the summer, for the fluid.
Either that or the teams I played for were too tight to spring for fruit. 😉
He’ll be fine Krackerman. I don’t think English people really care.
Rev I doubt you might be blocking my post that I’ve now tried half a dozen times to submit. Very strange, and it’s beginning to annoy me.
R Wittington – I hope so but the posters on the Telepgraph do not fill me with confidence…
Terror and disgust perhaps…
Uruquay population 3.3 million and costa rica population 4.8 million prove that size and broad shoulders is no guarantee of success.
All the most prosperous and most equaitable social cohensive nations are those with low populations which can more easily respond to difficult situaions.
On topic honeys – sunset just.
Someone put a ‘Just Say NAW’ sticker on the Irvine Yes shop window last night!
It was so sticky that white spirit had to be used to remove it!
‘The horror…the horror…’
Duggie says:
“This article doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a ‘member’ of the EU (i.e. a member state) and an EU citizen”.
And Duggie doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a state, a country and a kingdom.
Douggie also fails to understan when he claims, “If Scots remain EU citizens by virtue of being British citizens we are EU citizens through the UK member state – that does not, obviously, mean Scotland becomes a member or ‘remains’ a member or whatever else the article claims”. that he is talking total claptrap.
In the first place the member state is NOT Britain. Britain is an archipelago that contains the UK plus four other non-UK countries. Second of all the United Kingdom is exactly that – a kingdom formed by a bipartite treaty of union.
However, one very important part of the Treaty states that each member kingdom retain their own legal system. Under which the three country Kingdom of England became a Constitutional Monarchy in 1688 after they deposed the common monarch they shared with the Kingdom of Scotland, (Glorious Revolution). As both kingdoms were still independent they could not depose the monarchy of Scotland. This caused the Jacobite uprisings.
However, as under Scottish law the people of Scotland are sovereign and the monarchy is not, Scotland is not a constitutional monarchy. That means the three country kingdom of England legally belongs to the crown of England but the sovereign people of Scotland own Scotland and the monarch is only legally Queen of Scots. Thus the people of Scotland, as joint EU Scottish citizens, retain their sovereign country as a member state of the EU. Not so the kingdom of England with their sovereign monarchy.
Now correct me if I’m wrong but as the monarchy in the kingdom of England is sovereign then that monarch owns all of that kingdom and that includes her English subjects even if they do remain citizens of the EU they cannot be English citizens AND subjects to their English sovereign monarch. For a start it is, “Her Majesty’s Government”.
Krackerman
I read that Mr. MacX has supported Uruguay for years, including in the last World Cup since he has had associations with South America for a while.
By the way, read a couple of years back, that there is quite a strong connection between Scotland and Uruguay through Scottish railway engineer John Hartley (Harley?) from Glasgow. In Uruguay, he is credited with bringing the passing game to Uruguayan football in the early 20th century revolutionising the game there. The passing game was exported from Scotland to many other countries by what became known as ‘the professors’.
He played for a Uruguayan club and eventually went on to playing and managing the Uruguayan national team itself.
He was awarded a testimonial match in the 50s, not as a long serving player but simply because of his contribution to the Uruguayan game. If I recall he was known as ‘El Jonni’.
Uruguay, despite its small population, became a major force in World football as a result winning two of the earliest World Cup competitions.
do they have oranges at half times?
young loon signs for rangers, mccoist tells him to run himself into the ground in the first half and that he would pull him off at half time
young loon burst into tears saying all he ever got at stenhouse muir was half an orange
Bugger! England out and I didn’t even see a baw kicked.
🙁
When does the next world cup start?
🙂
Thepnr says:
@Lesley-Anne
If I try to post something more than a paragraph long it never appears. Nothing is for for free by the way, including free speech. Their is usually a price to pay. I think it’t worth paying that price.
Dammit! I was so looking forward to getting something for nothing just to piss a certain politician off. Never mind. Still as you say Thpnr free speech is definitely worth the price. 🙂
Maybe our dear Thepnr should suck an orange?
@Paula Rose –
Dunno ’bout dat, he might just get the pip.
Cheers Chic – I didn’t know any of that – just more stunned that a lad having laugh at a footy match can engender such hate…
Quiet now – the Rev’s awake.
Don’t worry folks, it will be morning soon, and UKOK shall be resplendent in all it’s glory. Today’s new corporate landlords are convinced the rental boom is here to stay, pointing to a cultural shift in society. They have set out to change the image of renting
link to homesandproperty.co.uk
@Lorraine – your history lessons are a bit pish..
Hint:Fuck Off
Krackerman says:
Cheers Chic – I didn’t know any of that – just more stunned that a lad having laugh at a footy match can engender such hate…
I think our friend in amongst the Uruguayans yesterday, and the sheer volume of absolute hared spouted about him afterwards on Twitter just goes to show, in my view, the country with the more relaxed friendly and happy go lucky group of supporters. Let me just say the supporters with the relaxed happy go lucky outlook on life do NOT wear the white and red flag over their shoulders. 😛
It seems that almost for decades now our supporters have got so used to building up our hopes and seeing them dashed that it is all taken in our stride. This is obviously something the England fans spouting the abuse have still to get their heads around. Reading some of the vile abuse they are not going to achieve this any time soon either. 🙂
I wonder if we should offer the English F.A. to send down an advance party from the Tartan Army to teach the England supporters how to take defeats on the chin and not get all hot under the collar about it or upset about the fact Scots support A.B.E. 😉
Krackerman says:
Cheers Chic – I didn’t know any of that – just more stunned that a lad having laugh at a footy match can engender such hate…
I think our friend in amongst the Uruguayans yesterday, and the sheer volume of absolute hared spouted about him afterwards on Twitter just goes to show, in my view, the country with the more relaxed friendly and happy go lucky group of supporters. Let me just say the supporters with the relaxed happy go lucky outlook on life do NOT wear the white and red flag over their shoulders. 😛
It seems that almost for decades now our supporters have got so used to building up our hopes and seeing them dashed that it is all taken in our stride. This is obviously something the England fans spouting the abuse have still to get their heads around. Reading some of the vile abuse they are not going to achieve this any time soon either. 🙂
I wonder if we should offer the English F.A. to send down an advance party from the Tartan Army to teach the England supporters how to take defeats on the chin and not get all hot under the collar about it or upset about the fact Scots support A.B.E. 😉
This is a very good point that I hadn’t thought of before.
Even though it doesn’t quite prove that Scotland herself would automatically remain in the EU, the fact that every Scottish citizen would remain an EU citizen by virtue of their continuing British citizenship (including any children) means that on a personal level there is little to fear, even if ‘entry negotiations’ take an entire generation.
The UK’s stance that the EU would eject a country which meets all the criteria, is populated entirely by EU citizens, which has more than its fair share of Europe’s natural resources, which is in a vitally important strategic position, and which wants to stay in looks ever more farcical.
A Scotland temporarily outside the EU would have no representation in Europe, but would also have no obligation to allow EU fishing boats or make any other contribution to the union. Protectionism hurts both parties, which is why Scotland will continue to enjoy free trade with Europe, in or (temporarily) out.
Scots won’t be subject to border checks as they’ll still be EU citizens with the right to work anywhere in Europe. Ejecting Scotland would mean the opposite would not be true for EU citizens working in Scotland – not that it would happen, but the Scottish Government could technically decide to deport them.
Therefore ejecting Scotland is a farcical proposition. It would hurt Europe – goodbye access to Scottish waters and Scottish markets, goodbye right for Europeans to live and work in Scotland – while Scottish people and their children would continue to enjoy all the advantages of EU membership.
I can’t see that as a situation that would continue for long, if at all.
@Ian Brotherhood
Vandalism? Ian Murray’ll be right on it.
Robert Peffers
Thank you I was trying to find out some of this stuff
Can you tell me if the sovereign will of the people stuff
means when the Queen signed the EU agreements
It could be argued it was us [The Scottish] who signed
because she had our permission
Lesley Anne
Don’t expect the Unionist press to report any of this abuse.
link to newsnetscotland.com
What’s that you say AUD, there has been abuse from the unionist side of the debate surely not must be some sort of mistake. I mean HAD there been any form of abuse from the unionists the BBC and MSM would surely have reported it right? I mean they are impartial right? 😉
Damn I hate having these nightmares, I could have sworn I’d been talking about unionists abusing YES supporters and the BBC and MSM failing to report it! 😛
Sounds really good but before this came to light we knew this was the case.
With each passing day the ‘Great’ in GB is more and more diminished and tarnished.
Through the ongoing Referendum debate, the Unionist Establishment continues to reveal it’s true colours, which are not to be found in it’s lofty and primary symbol, the union flag, but rather in the indescribable colours of raw union sewage spewed out from every institutional oriface.
We are all surely undergoing a re-education about the kind of people who run this country and their unionist followers.
For many decades we have seen the unnacceptable face of Unionism in NI but we on the mainland thought of that as being ‘over there’.
Now we know , it’s over here as well.
Bare faced and defiant in NI, Unionism in the rest of the UK has worked relentlessly on it’s public image so as to present a nicer picture.
But the fixer has degraded and the true colours of the Establishment can now be clearly seen.
Disgustingly greedy, anti-democratic, pompous and superior, and barely disguising a mindset in which the ending of slavery is seen as a mistake.
At least, judging by the way the poor and the working classes are treated by Government in the UK today, one could easily be forgiven for thinking so.
Hopefully this will all result in an ‘awakening’ for Scots, but also for the Welsh, the regional English and the good people of NI, though I suspect the N Irish have already completed their education at the hands of the British Establishment.
Perhaps, as one thing leads to another after the fashion of falling dominoes, the result will truly be the end of the ‘Empire’ and the beginning of a new political structure in the UK.
Such a change will not happen overnight, nor without suffering, but the writing is now definitly on the wall and the dominoes have already begun to fall.
An age of change is upon us.
The Referendum, it’s flag bearer.
I’m voting Yes.
My re-education is almost complete.
And the new colours ?
Independence and self-determination for Scotland.
Aye.
Thats weak stuff Stu.
So you are saying that by virtue of Scots retaining their British passports, Scotland (as an Independent state) would defacto stay in the EU?
Did you even read the letters from Viviane Reding on the matter?
link to scottish.parliament.uk
“Thats weak stuff Stu.
So you are saying that by virtue of Scots retaining their British passports, Scotland (as an Independent state) would defacto stay in the EU?
Did you even read the letters from Viviane Reding on the matter?”
Um, yes. Her words are repeated almost verbatim in the letter quoted in this piece. What’s your point, caller?
Will that not also mean that even *if* Scotland is independent Scots should also get a vote in the rUK IN/OUT EU referendum?
I think you could argue the case.
Or rather Scots should get an rUK EU vote *only* if Scotland has not got full independent membership.
Thoughts of a Scot
I disagree with your pessimistic conclusion that though the EU is parasitic we just have to put up with it, living in Europe.
Iceland is entirely separate. Switzerland has the problem of being entirely surrounded by the EU and is thus subject to their bullying, but we aren’t.
A UK outside the EU would be even more its own economic area able to trade with the world. We would have a serious problem if we separated and rUK voted to leave the EU and we didn’t (UK voting out seems increasingly likely) or the reverse – Scotland choosing not to join while rUK stays in. If a reason for staying in is that 40% of our trade is with the EU then that 80% of Scotland’s trade is with rUK looks like a more serious problem. Indeed the difficulties inherent on going a different way fro rUK on this issue shows how much of a chimera the “independence” campaign is and how much more parasitic an EU which makes about 75% of our laws is.
—————————
To the writer who explained that if we want a referendum on Scotland being a member of the EU we should vote for a party that wants one, rather than the SNP, I intend to take your advice and hope you will persuade many others to vote UKIP too.
To the writer who said the SNP would play “hardball” on EU membership negotiations – this is difficult when you have already absolutely committed to joining. At the very least an SNP commitment to us getting a referendum before giving up “independence”, so that the Scots people could reject a bum deal, would give them a ball to play with in that game.
Neil Craig.
Iceland is least affected By the EU because its so remote. We are not. England even less so. A UK exit from the EU puts the UK in exactly the same position as Norway and Switzerland. You may not be aware, but 40% of trade is a huge amount. More than enough to compel a non-EU UK to accept whatever terms the EU offers. After all, trade just doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere. You can’t magic that 40% into existence from somewhere else.
Scotland having 80% of its trade with England is hardly a problem in the grand scheme of things, even if England leaves the EU. No matter where both nations futures lie, they’ll still both be bound by EU rules and regulations, by virtue of being on the European continent and being part of the European economy.
An interesting point here too. Scotland has a number of popular exports to the rest of the world. England doesn’t really have anything outside its finance industry. You do remember that everything has been sold off and outsourced to Asia, correct? If for some reason, it was possible to break from EU regulations. An independent Scotland has a lot more going for it in terms of trade than a flailing UK being carried on Scotland’s shoulders. Scotland actually has things that the Chinese, Koreans and Indians want to buy. England? Not so much.
Again, I’ll ask you this question. Why, if you are so anti-EU and want a successful nation that can stand on its own two feet on the international stage, are you not voting yes in September. Again, I’ll lay the charge of hypocrisy at your feet. You can’t cry and whine about the EU tying us down economically, and then at the exact same time ignore the fact that this is exactly what the union with England is doing to us. Be consistent, please.
You may ask, “But why are the supporters of Scottish Independence not hypocrites too?” But for most of us, the economic freedom argument just isn’t really that important. There are other, more important social issues at stake here and the EU doesn’t figure into that equation. the UK parliament, however, does.
You see, that’s the difference. If you’re sole reason for being with UKIP is for the economic argument. Join us and vote yes. Consistency compels you.
*your
Looking forward to the Sunday Herald.
Stu you are so uneducated
Of course it is a secession
I know you don’t recognise academic authority or any other kind for that matter but their are dozens out there saying precisely that. A secession defined as when the population of a part of a sovereign state choose to separate from said sovereign state and where the citizens of said state have not been part of the decision making process
Exactly what would apply, but won’t as independence will never happen ‘
You further Demonstrate your appalling ignorance by denying the existence of international law
The Vienna Conventions took twenty years to accomplish and we are signatories and parties to them like all the world’s democracies
The International Courts of Justice will enforce those and the interpretations in precedent laid down by Supreme Courts
It is absolutely explicit that a decision by a secessionist part of a sovereign state to separate cannot diminish the status and rights of the Continuator State and it’s citizens.
That is the end of the matter
Nobody gives a tuppenny feck for anything that a cowardly bigot posts from his bolthole in Bath
Truth and the rule of law would prevail!
Of course it is entirely irrelevant and hypothetical anyway. The Union will prevail
@truthteller – blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blah
Oh and blah..
When Bugger The Panda told Lesley Anne that he was a panda
I had to Larf…….Funnies thing I’ve heard in Ages!!!!!
Bugger (the Panda) says:
20 June, 2014 at 3:05 pm
Lesley Anne
I am a Panda
@truthteller
Excuse me, but before you come on here to tell Stu he is uneducated, you should check your facts.
The Vienna conventions to which I assume you refer are: Succession of States in respect of treaties, and In respect of state archives, property and debt)
The UK is a signatory to neither.
Neither treaty has entered into force because of the small numbers of signatories. The second treaty has just seven signatories to date. They neither form part of the corpus of international law, nor are they binding even on those who have signed them.
I fear that if you are showing up anyone’s ignorance – it is your own.
@kininvie – Well said, hope Morag doesn’t see his post she will tear him another arsehole
Why me, sweetie? He’s talking mince, why dignify it with a reply?
Was it this thread where someone pointed out that the Scottish government proposes to repeal the Act of Union and call on Westminster to do likewise? That is a beauty of a move.
As far as Stu’s article itself goes, it’s something I had been thinking about, but his take is interesting. There had been people saying that if Scotland was thrown out of the EU then Scottish ex-pats in Spain or wherever would no longer have the right to stay there. I thought, but they would, because they’ll retain rUK citizenship. None of us can be stripped of our EU citizenship for that reason – we’re all entitled to dual nationality and we’d only lose EU citizenship if England voted to come out of the EU which is a whole other kettle of fish.
A whole country full of EU citizens. A country whose laws are all EU compliant. A country whose territory and population have been part of the EU for 40 years. When do they declare that the grass and the rocks and the trees (and the seas and the fish) aren’t part of the EU?
It’s farcical. The EU is nothing if not pragmatic. And expansionist. This will arrange itself with little fuss, no matter how much those within Scotland who want to see their own country punished for its temerity stamp their feet and say, but the rules say you have to throw us out!
@Morag – Why me, sweetie
Aw Morag you have such a better way of putting it to these erses, you also seem to protect oor Stu in such a motherly way that no one else can 😀
Stu does slightly bring out my mother-hen instincts. But he really doesn’t need anyone to take up the cudgels against something that’s no more than a string of demonstrably baseless insults.
@Morag –
Stu does slightly bring out my mother-hen instincts
Never!
Hey, we love you for it sure Stu appreciates too.. 😀
Heedtracker writes, “Is Ireland in Schengen? No. Is Ireland and the UK a Common Travel Area, Yes. There is no border between the UK and Ireland.” There is no border because both Britain and Ireland are outside the Schengen agreement. But a breakaway Scotland would have to join the agreement, so there would have to be border controls.
Iain Gray writes that they only way to stop the British government attacking Iraq again is to vote Yes.
No, this is not so: last year, we – the whole British people – managed to stop the government attacking Syria.
Trolls are those who enter debates with the intent of wrecking discussion, by posting irrelevant and/or abusive posts. Those on this site who debate rationally, without using abuse, are not trolls, just opponents of separatism.