The Bitterest Pill
It’s funny, but even when you think about politics all day for a living, there are some thoughts that just never pop into your head, and then someone says them a decade later and you think “Oh yeah, of course, it’s obvious”.
Iain Macwhirter is almost certainly right about that in today’s Times. We all focus on how it would have saved Scotland from Brexit, which of course it would, but the truth is that it would have saved the rest of the country too, because the shock would have been so seismic that politicians would have been terrified to put power in the hands of the people again for many, many years.
And of course maybe you love Brexit, or maybe you just think it would have been wrong for the rest of the country to have been denied a vote on it, or maybe you think Nigel Farage would have stormed to victory and become Prime Minister as a result or something. But those are all separate arguments. What’s beyond any reasonable doubt is that for good or ill, that’s how it would have panned out.
So as time goes on, remember who’s responsible not just for Scotland still being in the UK, but also for the UK being out of Europe and for Nicola Sturgeon having been First Minister for the last eight years and our country being run into the ground by a bunch of crooked, hapless, gender-obsessed imbeciles.
Thanks again, No voters. Great victory you won there.
If I have to thank the failure of the SNP for enabling the great mass of our people to leave the European Union I gladly give thanks. Next task for the SNP is to try and raise Glaswegian life expectancy to beyond that of Gaza and that’s one task I hope they succeed in.
Thanks again, No voters. Great victory you won there.
Very well said!
And just to emphasise:
“Thanks again, No voters. Great victory you won there.”
Still can’t believe that we didn’t succeed in 2014
No Ted it isn’t the SNP that you have to thank it’s the NO voters.
Everything happening in Glasgow & everywhere in Scotland is all down to the NO voters.
…and the Tory party might have held onto decent politicians such as Kenneth Clarke and Dominic Grieve and their internal European disquiet might have been resolved. Scotland would have had the grown-ups in charge who would have continued to invest in infrastructure and socially just policies such as countering austerity to narrow the inequality gap and save lives. That word ‘if’ again…
It’s all speculation of course, but I seriously doubt whether a Yes vote in 2014 would have resulted in independence. Neither Westminster nor the Britnat infested SNP would have wanted it. Salmond would have been jettisoned somehow and the whole thing would have been watered down, just like Brexit, to the point where Scots would be so scunnered they would sooner or later vote to rejoin the UK.
Nothing ever changes in the UK because our so-called democracy is just an illusion.
Absolutely nothing changed after Brexit. The 1997 regime are still firmly in charge in London. Practically everyone who voted to leave the EU due to natuon-wrecking levels of mass migration got led down the garden path.
The situation with the care sector perfectly highlights the scale of the betrayal. Instead of raising wages in care, the utter shitbags in London have now resorted to recruiting people directly from Africa and India.
Nothing changed. So why are people still whining about being taken out of the EU when the place is still being ran in the exact same manner as before by the exact same shower of disloyal rat bags?
Given the scale of the betrayal, many Brexiteers in Scotland won’t bother their arse about being put back into the EU. Indeed, some of us would be prepared to be put into the 9th circle of hell if it meant getting tf away from those disloyal rats in London.
remember who’s responsible not just for Scotland still being in the UK, but also for the UK being out of Europe and for Nicola Sturgeon having been First Minister for the last eight years and our country being run into the ground by a bunch of crooked, hapless, gender-obsessed imbeciles
Hmmm, not sure the logic follows through from first to last.
The “crooked, hapless, gender-obsessed imbeciles” are all over the western world ATM, so Scotland would have got her unfair share of them, however things had worked out.
Regarding the EU (not Europe), a wise assessment of the reasons behind the No to Indy vote would have looked at the twofer on offer, vote Indy, get EU membership thrown in free, and maybes admitted a canny, Sovereign Scot would clearly see that these are two, quite separate, mega-decisions.
As we are not fated to be blessed with wise politicians any time soon, it’s the twofer that remains on the table. And there it lies, turning ever more rancid, year on year, as the EU morphs into something increasingly hard to equate with the optimistic, successful, prosperous grouping it was back in 2014.
There’s a T shirt slogan ripe for use here: “Indy means Indy”.
Any politician telling me Indy means rule from Brussels can get tae.
I simply do not understand how anyone can consider that independence can be reconciled with membership of the EU. EFTA, a trade club, is different and acceptable. Laws passed in Brussels are not acceptable.
A YES vote would probably have kept Scotland in the EU, but Richard Dearlove and M16 wanted Brexit.
Boris would have been given the nod earlier.
A somewhat simplistic analysis from Macwhirter.
Yes, Cameron would have resigned; possibly to have been replaced by Clarke, but by no means certainly.
(Remember Cameron’s ill-fated Brexit referendum plan – and manifesto pledge – was intended to win votes from UKIP and nothing else. That would have remained an issue for the Tories.)
Scotland would have been at least temporarily out of the EU and it’s not outwith the realms of possibility that the UK would have vetoed Scotland’s re-entry to encourage a future change of heart on independence, at least until the UK had had its say on EU membership.
And I’m not at all sure that the UK government would have immediately moved to make independence happen.
I suspect they’d have delayed and obfuscated, intending to take advantage of any circumstances (like COVID) that would have justified saying “Not yet”, probably pushing for a second referendum to ratify whatever unacceptable terms they could have come up with.
(The Stop Brexit campaign offers a blueprint for that.)
And, ironically, now that some of the post-Brexit toxicity has waned, it’s becoming increasingly acceptable (even popular) amongst independence supporters to reject a return to the EU, preferring the EFTA option that Jim Sillars had pushed for years.
There’s every possibility that a Yes vote would have resulted in circumstances very similar to those that exist now.
Scotland is not oppressed by England, nor is it a colony except in the minds of ultra-nationalists on Twitter. Scots have full economic and civil rights and their own cherished culture. Scotland is not exploited by colonial capitalists — quite the reverse. The Barnett formula transfers billions annually to underwrite Scottish public spending. We even have our own parliament. . Iain MacWhirter
Wow! The question that is never answered is
‘If Scotland isn’t a colony then what is it?’
Is it just a region of England?
The other question is who are the Scots and what is our culture?
And here’s something else the ‘No voters’ continue to have us subjected to: the unelected House of Lords.
And during this cost of living crisis we also have to contend with this unbelievable act of arrogance and snobbery etc:
“Rishi Sunak attends the Lord Mayor of London’s Banquet”
Talk about being out of touch with reality? Anyone any idea of the total cost of that wee extravagance? My guesstimation would be well over 11-grand. Perhaps Douglas Ross or “Baroness Ruth Davidson of Lundin Links” (aka: London Links) could tell us? I’m reminded of the big extravagance the Tories had in Glasgow. Remember that, folks? If i recall WOS’ Ian Brotherhood and many other folk attended to voice their disapproval outside the venue?
We don’t know that because the UK Gov refused to approach the EC for a definitive answer.
Lord Forsyth to Michael Moore.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=12151
at 15.58.09
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: You said that you wanted the debate to be as informed as possible. One of the things that Mr Swinney said to us last week was that they had a difficulty in establishing what the position would be vis-a?-vis having to apply for membership of Europe or whether they would be allowed to remain in Europe because the Commission would only talk to Governments, and that the British Government were not prepared to engage on this issue. I find it a bit puzzling how you can reconcile saying, “We are not prepared to talk to the Commission as a Government about what the consequences would be”, with saying at the same time, “We want to have a fully informed debate”. Does Mr Swinney not have a point there?
Why didn’t the UK Gov not want to approach the EC and why did they spend £millions of taxpayers money to employ two lawyers to tell us Scotland was extinguished in 1707 and became lesser England.
Suspicious?
Wouldn’t it have been easier and cheaper to do as Barosso suggested and seek a definitive answer from the EC?
The UK Gov did not want us to have an informed debate and that is why Ruth Davidson was able to say the only way to retain EU membership was to vote NO.
Macwhirter is indeed dead right, except for one minor slip. It is not just because he would have been ‘too busy’ that Kenneth Clarke, as the presumed new PM, would have pulled the plug on a referendum on the EU.
As a convinced European, Clarke did not want such a referendum in the first place. He surely saw the necessity of continuing EU membership more than ever, and did not believe in playing dice with it. The loss of Scotland would have given him the perfect excuse to drop the whole idea.
With a Yes vote in Scotland, Clarke would have understood how diminished Wales, England and Northern Ireland (WEaNI) had become. Without Scotland, the new ‘teeny-WEaNI entity’ that remained of the former UK would be just ‘too wee’, too poor (and too lacking in talent and resources) to leave the EU.
Johnlm says on 20 November 2023 at 10:01 am:
“Richard Dearlove and M16 wanted Brexit.”
And don’t forget all the mega-rich Tories who didn’t want their finances scrutinised under the impending, at the time, new EU tax rules.
It disappoints me that so many politicians still believe in the EU (or EU gravy train?) when any fool and his dog can see that this corrupt, non democratic organisation is on its last legs. The EU is imploding, it’s running out of cash. Perhaps enabling Brexit in 2014 / 2016 was no bad thing. EFTA is a far better option for Scotland IMO.
The U.K. is not a country. It’s a unitary state.
Does the same not apply to the UK gravy train?
The NO voting Scotland can think that EFTA is a better option until the cows come home but thanks to NO voters what we think or want makes absolutely no difference.
What does that make Scotland?
Granted, David Cameron’s gambler’s flair would be off the table for quite a number of years, but Brexit wouldn’t go entirely away. The man currently munching his way through a plate of emu’s baws (or whatever) wouldn’t go away.
Sure, the UK voted by a 4% margin of victory for Brexit and Scotland voted Remain by a 24% margin of victory, but by simply arithmetic, England voted Leave by a 7% margin of victory.
The vote in England was always more cultural than “rational”. The EU was seen to be inhibiting British / English freedoms.
Perhaps now that Ursula von der Leyen has declared herself Empress of Europe, we should have listened to our southern neighbours.
The unelected house of lords is actually a great opportunity to inject some life into the Yes movement, that is by utilising it. Alba could install Salmond as Westminster leader without an election.
All Westminster parties can recommend peers to the prime minister. The greens have 1 MP and 2 peers, Plaid Cymru 3 MPs and 1 peer. There is no reason why Alba with 3 MPs couldn’t nominate a peer, and as a former head of state there is no reason why Salmond shouldn’t be accepted by historical precedent. Do this and Salmond could lead Alba at Westminster from the House of Lords.
There is no reason why independence supporting parties should boycott the lords on principal when everyone else is doing it. Why not use the UK’S bizarre political system to our favour?
The entity known as the UK left the entity known as the EU, not Europe. The EU is currently careering towards a centralised digital currency.
“Now autumns breeze blows summers leaves through my life”
The Scottish people voted No. Democracy in action. No means No. The blame for this present disaster the Scottish people find themselves in lies squarely on the Indy Mob. Refusing to accept the democratic outcome. The flag waiving imbeciles who kept The Sturgeon disciples fed and fattened. This disaster lies with the YES at any cost group. Ignoring Democracy. Blaming the bogey man in Westminster. Constant Independence coming round the bend like a ‘slow train coming’. A complete waist of British Tax payer resources (that’s your resources) There are more English in Scotland now than there have ever been. Scotland has more expert international politicians than you could shake a stick at. Scotland belongs to the Union. No amount of flag waiving,marching,hugging or intellectual dribble will change that. Hug a thistle for freedom. Sort out other countries problems before you sort your own. Braveheart-Weakhead.
Things have changed considerable since 1014,
Now the SNP and westminster are more out in the open syncronised in destroying all countries of this isles,
Where as if the No voters had voted yes in Scotland it would have shaken up the elite politicians down south to show they could and would do better for England than Scotland just by default of their mind set,
It would have shaken up the rest of the people down south and gave them something to strife for, maybe they would have been more aware sooner just of how bad their politicians at scamming all the money out of their pockets for the rich and wealthy, while running the country down through Westminster parliament,
The migrant crises may have taken a different route as prehaps the Ulez schemes,
The Westminster elite would certainly have been watch closer by the people of England had Scotland left.
And England would not have to subsidise Scotland, smile.
And here in Scotland the voting system definately had the possibility of instant Change and in our own new parliament too.
I doubt the SNP would have had the chance to last very long under the new rules an new conditions in Scotland, they would have been booted out of office if we had (not been) under the British electorial system.
We would have been more like the Icelandic women were with their bankers.
We would have thrown the snp and pervert greens into jail a long time ago, under abuse and treasonous charges without batting a eyelid and them being able to whine to the supreme court of England,
Aye all parts of Britain would have benefited in one way or another from Scotland becoming independent.
We still require to set up a parliament of Scotland, to pass our own moral laws.rather that working hand in glove with the legislation and Statues of Westminster parliament officials.
We will make that change yet, when Scotland realises it can do it as it has no representation in Westminster parliament.
And our new parliament cannot be bound by its predecessor from 1707.
Things have changed considerable since 1014,
Now the SNP and westminster are more out in the open syncronised in destroying all countries of this isles,
Where as if the No voters had voted yes in Scotland it would have shaken up the elite politicians down south to show they could and would do better for England than Scotland just by default of their mind set,
It would have shaken up the rest of the people down south and gave them something to strife for, maybe they would have been more aware sooner just of how bad their politicians at scamming all the money out of their pockets for the rich and wealthy, while running the country down through Westminster parliament,
The migrant crises may have taken a different route as prehaps the Ulez schemes,
The Westminster elite would certainly have been watch closer by the people of England had Scotland left.
And England would not have to subsidise Scotland, smile.
And here in Scotland the voting system definately had the possibility of instant Change and in our own new parliament too.
I doubt the SNP would have had the chance to last very long under the new rules an new conditions in Scotland, they would have been booted out of office if we had (not been) under the British electorial system.
We would have been more like the Icelandic women were with their bankers.
We would have thrown the snp and pervert greens into jail a long time ago, under abuse and treasonous charges without batting a eyelid and them being able to whine to the supreme court of England,
Aye all parts of Britain would have benefited in one way or another from Scotland becoming independent.
We still require to set up a parliament of Scotland, to pass our own moral laws.rather that working hand in glove with the legislation and Statues of Westminster parliament officials.
We will make that change yet, when Scotland realises it can do it as it has no representation in Westminster parliament.
And our new parliament cannot be bound by its predecessor.
The plague of gender imbeciles was coming regardless – just be grateful you didn’t get the chance of seeing Salmond talking about gender equality and self-id.
If you step back and look at the symbiotic relationship between politicians, special advisors and non governmental organisations, then the likes of Nicola Sturgeon was inevitable as well. Let’s go further and look at the alternative lifestyle and cognitively disadvantaged getting into parliament, en masse. These are all inevitable too for the simple reason it’s happening everywhere else and driven by US politics and the vocal minority on social media drowning out everyone else.
In any case, pinning the blame on no voters while correct is a little bit revisionist. The gender woo was just getting started and likely had little visibility day to day. It had certainly not been weaponised by political parties on the left AND the right to shore up their voter base. However, the polarisation in the USA had been visible for a while. The UK’s love of all things American has been visible for decades so it was all predictable but probably didn’t feature much, if at all, in the mind of the 2014 voter.
Rather than crying over spilt milk, time may be better spent looking for a way out. The forecast isn’t great, since all the trends washing over Scotland are still on the rise. However the forecast for the world is being rewritten in Gaza so who knows what opportunities might arise.
And out of the litany of failures of Ms Sturgeon the two standouts are –
1 – vote SNP 1&2
&
2 – taking the SNP and the country down a ‘stop brexit’ pathway instead of having everything absolutely prepared for an indyref the minute the UK walked in Jan 2020. She and the party had done the sum total of NOTHING. She had all the leverage she needed, a country wher epolls were heading to 60% ‘yes’ and not a jot was done. Faced the open goal and didn’t even hit it into row Z… she never even took a shot.
We would not have moved straight to independence any more than we would with another referendum. This was Scottish independence, remember, not Brexit, which a majority of English people voted for, and, therefore, got; and the prevailing consensus in England would have been to prevent Scottish independence by hook or by crook.
We forget at our peril just how powerful the English lobby is in all matters pertaining to the UK and any part of the UK. The rUK vote for NO stood at just under 75% – three-quarters of all rUK voters living in Scotland voted against our independence while they actually used our NHS, our schools, our infrastructure. It takes cojones to simultaneously make use of, and repudiate, another people’s country. It betrays the colonial mind-set. Bigger conjones (or brass neck, if you prefer) and a stronger sense of entitlement than we possess as Scots.
Until we are willing to face the reality of the mountain we have to climb, we will continue to wallow in the foothills of all kinds of unreality, and no amount of looking back at what might have been is going to change a damn thing. We need to persuade at least 50% of rUK voters that they would be better off in an independent Scotland or we use a internationally-legal vote that has a length of stay attached to it as most other countries do in the face of the desire for constitutional change. It is up to us in the end.
There’s nothing to be proud of being British. Unless you’re Nicola Sturgeon who feels British.
It doesn’t exist anymore.
The devolved parliaments breach the fallacious treaty of union article with regards to one united parliament of GB. So nothing for Scotland to worry about in that regard,
Catch up later as away to hospital appointment with spouse which is a forty mile odd round trip all told,
Nigel Farage is going on the jungle show. He’ll be the darling of the nation this time next week.
And Sturgeon will be going to jail soon. So much for being Scotland’s good covid communicator. She can’t even hand over the whatsapp messages. What she’s hiding?
I hate her guts.
The Scottish “independence” movement is a fraud if it wants to be ruled by Brussels (or wherever the EU Parliament is meeting this month) as soon as it gets “independent.”
True independence means no joining the EU.
MARK BEGGAN
Basic English spelling check. Context indicates
Waste, wave not waist and waive
It’s your language.
More English in Scotland than ever….democracy, you never know where it might lead.
to communal disharmony usually.
Hope you’re well armed, to repel the uppity locals.
I wish the SNP had chosen to campaign on the Independence Super Majority with Alex Salmond.
As an Independence supporter. I’m prepared to hold my nose to vote for an SNP candidate. I even heard Roddy Macleod on his Through the Scottish Prism show saying he would campaign alongside Pete Wishart in Perth on a Scotland United ticket.
I loved what Roddy had to say. That’s the kind of attitude we need. Cause over party is what is needed. We need country over party.
And if we lose. Well at least we can say we tried something different.
God bless the Alba Party and the Independence cause.
In the UK, referendums are not legally binding.
https://constitutionallawmatters.org/2022/07/25/what-is-the-legal-status-of-a-referendum-and-why-bother-holding-one/
Seems pretty clear that the 2014 referendum would simply suddenly have become ‘advisory’ had Yes won.
In 1979 the rules of the Devolution referendum were changed thanks to Labour MP George Cunningham to introduce a 40% (of all registered voters) pass rate. So the 51.6% that voted Yes, lost out to a No vote of 48.4% because with a turnout of only 63.7%, the Yes vote became 32.8% when non-voters were included. The No vote became 30.7%.
Using that 40% pass rate rule for the Brexit (72% turnout) vote, Leave would have been 37.4% not 51.9% and Brexit would have been voted down.
It really just isn’t cricket.
It is too early to back Alba on a candiate basis.
Our soup taking SNP MPs are on their way out regardless.
Because we’re the bigger men. Like Alex Salmond is. We might as well help our wanna be careerist SNP MPs to take our program on.
Even though they have refused our offer.
Time and time again.
We must save at least try and lead the horse to water.
We might try and convince them that this is a vote for Independence.
DUNDEE SCOT
True independence means having the ability to choose, whether that be on the EU, British Commonwealth, republic or monarchy or anything else.
Having merely that ability would be a novelty.
I disagree with McWhirter’s analysis. Brexit was a howl of pain from ordinary people against the establishment, cynically promoted by racist populists who knew fine well leaving the EU was against ordinary people’s interests. Independence would have sharpened that pain, except that the Scots would have been made scapegoat for England’s ills instead of immigrants. Farage would be PM, calling for a economic blockade of Scotland. And an alarming number of Scots themselves would support him.
Scotland is going to end up with a corrupt SNP, Labour, Conservative or Lid Dem MP at the next election regardless.
Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacKaskill the two notable exceptions.
I don’t want to vote for the same. There will come a time in 2026 to vote Partisan.
Or. We work together starting at 2024 because we’re not apart. We are together and voting Independence.
Like Roddy Macleod. I’d campaign with the soup taking, comfy slippers SNP MP Commons Speaker Pete Wishart. The carrot dangler.
If it were for the nationalist cause. If the vote was a vote for Independence.
That’s all Humza has to say. He only has to say the words.
If not. I will continue to spoil my ballot and await further instruction from the leader of the Independence cause. Alex Salmond. My hero. And they’ll I’ll march into the polling station with his message in my heart.
I also think that losing the 2014 referendum was possible the best thing that could have happened to Scotland, could you imagine if we won and then Alex stood down and Sturgeon, Swinney, Robertson and Mike Russel becoming the government and having these self severing politicians going into the negotiation with the UK, I dread to think what Scotland would have look like after 2014. Yes losing the 2014 was our sadness moment but it might have just our triumph, we are beginning to see the SNP politicians for who they really are and for me that was worth losing.
There is no doubt in my mind the rats running the SNP are hell bend on destroying the SNP in order to destroy the Independence movement for good, the only trouble for the SNP leadership is the SNP vote is collapsing but the Indy vote is increasing and we have other parties able to fight the cause if the SNP don’t.
There is no way we could have trusted Sturgeon if we became Independent, Salmond thought she was the golden girl to lead the cause, how wrong was he.
I don’t recall Robert the Bruce, or William Wallace, wanting to be ruled by Brussels.
Let’s hold our nose boys. Let the toughers know that we will campaign for them on the Scotland United ticket.
They don’t have a choice. If they are sensible they will back Scotland United.
Angus Robertson don’t listen to him.
His paper is toilet paper.
We can’t use the pound to rejoin the EU.
TOILET PAPER. ANGUS ROBERTSON. DON’T LISTEN TO HIM. HE IS A BELL END.
CRAIG P
It is not beyond the bounds of reason to see a farage clone in downing street before long.
an opportunity would present, whether scotland had the skills to exploit it is an unknown
but the scenario would be an interesting clash of wills, with no punches unpulled.
bring it on, bilaterally…politics is no place for queensberry rules.
Bernard Thompson @10 am
There is no scenario under which England could have vetoed Scotlands re entry to EU
(think about it)
Suspect McWhirter’s suggestion that Cameron would have resigned in disgrace is equally stupid (and insulting), unless its calculated distraction from the mess any of his mates not yet fired from MSM helped fester over the same period.
In fact its arguably stupid (or a blinder) either way if it means he missed a sitter against his old employers that could have been easily exploited with a detailed explanation as to how civil service telephone bills are normally paid, versus the fascinating anomaly used to complicate the lives of MSPs whereby they are (allegedly) billed directly for any government owned device & service they use or share* –
ie the difference between an elected official forging an expense claim and a civil servant forging an expense to claim (steal) from an elected official is as huge as the story would be. Particularly when politicians and assorted opportunists in the pile on would normally be expected to be at least a tiny bit aware as to where utility bills for their own business activities are, or should be, first sent.
*a companion piece exploring the extent of the madness and how much each gets billed for water, electricity and sewage whilst on government property could be particularly instructive/ popular!
England is the enemy of europe, always was, always will be. This intensified due to the reformation.
– the EU was a reasonble idea made shit by various wrong moves, most of them at the behest of the US
the UK wanted in the EU because it was so poor
deGaulle told them to fuckoff since they are shit stirrers
they got let in and they – immediately started to stir the shit
they whined, got a special deal, still whined
propagandist nonsense about straight bananas, tabloid press blame everything on the EU
a plan to turn the EU into a duopoly with Germany was rebuffed then constant anti EU agitation from then started with Goldsmith and the referendum party
during this time mass immigration takes hold – the tabloid press imply this is the fault of the EU – i.e. the EU “let in all the p4kis”
commonwealth immigration was always in control of the UK, nothing to do with the EU
the neoliberal program is well under way, which massively favours the south east and london; the northerners realise they are being shafted, but are convinced this is the fault of the EU, whereas being in the EU actually is better for them, with its program of regional development
the spooks have tried many times over the years to create their own extreme right popular political party; they failed in the past, the national front, the BNP, but they finally got it right with Farage, who is basically an actor with a script; “mr reasonable, mr middle england, with a pint in the golf club bar, talking a lot of sense about putting this country to right … ” – even when he was nobody with no support her appeared out of nowhere on question time, the BBC oddly deferring to him like an elder statesmen
– guys like Farage do not need to get in, they allow the tories to pull ever further right and with them follows labour
brexit happened because the north of england voted for it, in a act of spite against the south, but it was cutting their own noses off. Anglos are fucking stupid, another reason why you do not want shackled to them as they wander to the cliff edge.
the EU as a western european trading bloc makes sense, even freedom of movement but the EU was gradually taken over by Anglo-American/Zionist interests and so they got
– southern europe being in it was dubious, but workable
– eastern europe was a massive mistake, NATO driven
– one currency worked out well for germany, not so for anyone else
– globalisation policies are imports from the US
– mass immigration is an import from the US
– LGBTQ cut your dick off tranny madness, an import from the US
– blanket support for zionism and criminal penalties for “anti semitism”, an import from the US
– a generation of leaders, sellouts and the blackmailed, courtesty of US sponsored leadership programs
everything shit about the EU, comes from the US
being in the EU is still a MILLION FUCKING TIMES BETTER than being in the UK
THERE IS NO COMPARISON
– maybe … an ingrowing toenail versus pancreatic cancer
Meantimes; Teflon Tony is back on the scene in INGSOC Labour..
Let the English get a taste of what we have had to put up with for years with Auld Bleary Brown!
While nice to play these ‘what if’ games, it does nothing to win over pro-union Scots. Possibly the opposite.
There is also the argument that with England out of the UK, it would still have pushed through Brexit. Maybe not as quickly but the democratic will was there and democracy was implemented. At least for England.
You are all forgetting, we actually did win the referendum…….it was the rigged franchise that failed us.
TURABDIN
Thsanks for the corrections. Due to a lack of proper skooling.
Bring on the locals. Be they Scots or not. Far and near. Semper Vigilo.
The only organization that has done its job properly in the last ten years is Police Scotland. Probably because the Nasty Nat’s couldn’t infiltrate it with their woke puke.
Let’s make no mistake Scotland is in a mess because people refused to accept the democratic decision. Thus allowing Sturgeon and her freak show run riot.
“stuart mctavish says:
There is no scenario under which England could have vetoed Scotlands re entry to EU.”
The assumption that Scotland would have remained seamlessly in the EU seems naive. Yes, there were arguable cases but the greatest likelihood seems to be that Scotland would have been considered a seceding state. If that wasn’t certain, neither was it simply to be assumed that Scotland would have had uninterrupted membership of the EU.
And, should Scotland have been forced to re-apply, it’s certainly feasible that the UK might have used its veto to its own advantage, if Brexit hadn’t happened.
Macwhirter’s piece is more properly called speculation, rather than analysis. It’s easy to speak with certainty over scenarios that could never be tested.
Incidentally, I suspect that at least one reason for Sturgeon going to manically towards the “gender-obsessed imbeciles” was to keep in step with the EU as far as possible.
And, as for crooked, one only needs to look at the current actions and history of Ursula von der Leyen to see something of the reality of the EU — a reality that has barely been spoken of until fairly recently by many who were afraid of being decried as racists.
A majority of Scots DID vote YES in 2014 sadly the franchise was far too wide, and this led to Yes losing.
Lets not make that mistake again, some other nations don’t enfranchise on constitutional elections, if we’d have taken that route in 2014 we’d still be in Europe as a independent nation.
EU or EFTA..?
Just how independent is EFTA and is it really dead easy to join?
Look what EFTA says:
https://www.efta.int/About-EFTA/Frequently-asked-questions-EFTA-EEA-EFTA-membership-and-Brexit-328676
https://www.efta.int/
Would they let England/rUK in or would they do what India, USA or the Pacific/Asia Group do and tell the Mad Hatters in WM to F.Orf. 🙂
We all vote according to our own perceptions and desired outcomes. As far as I’m concerned, my vote in favour of Brexit was to preserve the sovereign independence of the United Kingdom: out of the predictable train wreck of the EU, and within our union of kingdoms.
@Bernard Thompson
“The assumption that Scotland would have remained seamlessly in the EU seems naive”
Not convinced I made such an assumption but, had I done so, it could not have been any more naive than the spectacularly fuckwitted one made about England – despite the hint to (think about it)
🙂
While I don’t disagree with MacWhirter or The Rev here, there is a dereliction of duty on the part of both the UK government and the SNP for not providing clarity of the EU stance on an independent Scotland. The former had a vested interest in not providing it in the run-up to 2014, for uncertainty typically favours the status quo in referenda/elections, but the latter have done little other than Alyn Smith’s virtue signalling “I beg you…” and “leave a light on” speeches.
To put it in perspective, the Irish leader Enda Kenny sought – and received – clarity from the EU that, in the event of a successful border poll on Irish reunification, NI would automatically receive full member status. Why did Sturgeon/Murrell and now Humza not seek similar clarity?
RoS, at 1:40 pm,
how would _you_ define a Scot, in order to qualify for the reduced franchise you clearly wish? It seems to me that after 316 years of union, and with vastly increased travel within the last 100 years, that the four nations of the current U.K. are pretty much mongrels: a bit of each. Most families are. And even if you can come up with a clean definition, how on earth is that ever going to be proven by any individual, to whose satisfaction, and at what cost?
A scot abroad. You said previously you wanted to retire in Spain. You said you’re a gardener in France, and that your wife is now on anti depressants because leaving the EU has been disasterous to your retirement plans?
You voted to leave the European Union and hangstrung yourself in the making?
I am glad we’ve left the EU. I voted to remain. Now I would have voted to leave. Like yourself A Scot Abroad.
We differ where you say. You wanted to preserve the Independence of the United Kingdom.
I would vote to leave the EU to preserve the Independence of the United KingdomS.
Er, what’s with this “rest of the country” nonsense?
I kind of thought the whole point is we are different countries?
“What’s beyond any reasonable doubt is that for good or ill, that’s how it would have panned out.”
A bold assertion. Surely if we look around us we see that the future results of today’s actions are highly unpredictable.
Back in the latter 19th century when a few idealists were theorising about establishing settlements in Palestine, noone had any idea how that would turn out. And did Indian nationalists of 100 years ago realise the land they wanted independence for would split into three countries, with horrendous bloodletting and multiple wars?
https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-eu/pages/11/
Angus Robertson Using the Bank of England pound to join the EU:
“This Scottish Government would apply to join the EU as soon as possible after independence whilst continuing to use sterling at the point of application. The process of establishing a Scottish pound would be closely aligned with the process of re-joining the EU.”
Angus Robertson. Common Travel Area between Scotland and England that does not exist:
“In joining the EU, an independent Scotland would adopt what is called the Schengen acquis[264] in so far as it concerns cooperation between police, customs and border authorities, and dealing better with illegal immigration. Under an arrangement called the Common Travel Area (CTA) Scotland would also retain freedom of movement with the UK and Ireland.
Ireland, as an EU member state, is part of the CTA, which is a long-standing arrangement recognised in EU Treaties.[265] Scotland’s geography lends itself to a similar arrangement, in the event of Scottish independence.”
Mr Swinney said to us last week was that they had a difficulty in establishing what the position would be vis-a-vis having to apply for membership of Europe or whether they would be allowed to remain in Europe because the Commission would only talk to Governments, and that the British Government were not prepared to engage on this issue Michael Forsyth
Commission would only talk to Governments so that rules out Sturgeon/Murrell & Humza.
The question is why didn’t the UK Gov seek similar clarity?
“A number of countries have abandoned many of the terms of the Schengen Treaty in order to better police their borders amid soaring migration.
As many as 11 EU countries are rebelling against EU diktats on migration, in the face of growing concerns about illegal migration.
Countries including France, Slovakia, Sweden and Germany have re-instated border restrictions including identity vetting, passport checks, police interviews, static checkpoints and vehicle inspections”
Angus Robertson needs to get his heid oot his erse and start reacting to the fast-changing circumstances as the war consuming the eastern sector of the EU heads into its third year, the ME destabilises, and climate change becomes more extreme.
David Hannah @ 15.56.
I’m no economist, David, so am happy to be corrected if in error, however my understanding is that an applicant to join the EU must join the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Unless there was some exemption made to delay an independent Scotland joining the ERM this would seem to suggest that Mr Robertson’s cunning plan to use the pound sterling may not work.
I am also looking forward to Michael Matheson being sacked this week.
There are 71 MSPs in Government including the presiding officer.
And 58 opposition MSPs.
The opposition is 13 behind.
Half that means there needs to be 7 SNP Rebels prepared to vote against the Government for the SNP to lose Matheson.
Fergus Ewing step up!
” stuart mctavish says: ”
Hee haw of any worth but uses naughty words for effect.
I made no reference to England, Stuart. But if using the F-word makes you feel like a grown-up, knock yourself out.
Seems like you could do with the lie down anyway.
Re a Common Travel Area,
I personally would support that in the event of Indy, but I’m not sure that it’s a guaranteed outcome of negotiations. It would have to demonstrably work for both iScotland and rUK to be accepted.
Perhaps more germane would be what in practice would be population movements in the run up between an Indy vote and the actual day of Indy. Neither Edinburgh nor London could control those whilst in the inter-period between vote and Indy. I’m sure there would be movements both ways, and my suspicion is that more would be going south than going north. For all sorts of reasons. And then look at the financial wealth and tax base that would cross the border. iScotland could well find itself poorer than it is pre-Indy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/snp-msps-scotland-michelle-thomson-scottish-parliament-b2212147.html
“A total of seven SNP MSPs broke with the whip to vote against the Bill: Stephanie Callaghan, Fergus Ewing, Kenneth Gibson, Ruth Maguire, John Mason, Michelle Thomson and Ms Regan.
Two SNP MSPs abstained, Annabelle Ewing and Jim Fairlie.”
We know that Nicola’s Iron fist is over. 9 are prepared to vote against the SNP Government.
Humza is a lame duck false minister. He’s facing yet more embarrassment when Parliament sacks the corrupt Michael Matheson. Criminal and Worst Dad of the year.
Humza should pack his bags with Michael.
“This Scottish Government would apply to join the EU as soon as possible after independence whilst continuing to use sterling at the point of application. Angus Robertson
His big mistake is to dictate what the Scottish Government would do.
It would make much more sense to say
‘The Scottish Government could apply to join the EU as soon as possible after independence after establishing if that is what the Scottish electorate want.’
Same would apply to everything else.
Nato, Royal Family, Trident, Gender Recognition, Green issues, etc etc etc.
I like the idea of the first thing the Scottish Government doing is calling a General election.
I bet the turn out for that general election would be well over 90%.
I voted YES in 2014 (the time was right and. I would have taken the leap of faith) I would not vote YES today (not a fucking chance)we have drifted way way to much to the left and it’s been proven that the people entering politics in this country are only doing so as they couldn’t get a job elsewhere. How the fuck did we get to a point were we missed Indy by a narrow margin to the whole Scottish parliament (almost) standing and applauding a bunch of cross dressing men as the highlight of their year. Why have we allowed them to waste millions on bad business deals without a whimper., there is the biggest disconnect with the people of Scotland and those in Holyrood that I can ever remember and ye canny blame the Bute House agreement entirely.
Ruby @ 10.04 asks of Scotland “what is it?” “Is it just a region of England?” Of course not. It’s a region of the UK. As is England, Wales and NI all of which we still call countries.
May the Brexidiots bask in the eternal light of the Little Englander…
Let their cries of “we didn’t win the war to be told what to do by the Germans” “Bloody Polish coming here and taking our jobs” and “Brussels can keep it’s nose out the City of London” be carved upon the hearts of every Leave voter… with a spoon!
Funny how, with the exception of the Irish, citizens from other EU countries were prevented from voting in 2016, thereby enabling the Little Englanders to win the day.
The Yoon soft soaping of 2014 rang especially hollow in Scotland given nearly 2/3 voted Remain. At least those voting Remain in N.Ireland could easily obtain an Irish/EU Passport. No such luck for those in Scotland nor indeed the indigenous Welsh who voted narrowly for Remain but were dragged into the Leave camp by anti-EU English immigrants.
Great how Brexidiots to a man say the franchise was correct in 2016 in enabling the UK to decide to rip up the Treaty of Accession without the opinions of EU citizens from elsewhere being considered. Yet in the next breath those same individuals will decry any prospect of Scotland being offered another opportunity to rip up the Treaty of Union, let alone having a franchise which excludes immigrants from having a say, despite the majority of indigenous Scots having voted Yes in 2014 only to be thwarted by pro-Union immigrants, of various nationalities.
Yoons and Brexidiots don’t do irony, do they…
Terry said;
“The U.K. is not a country. It’s a unitary state.”</i
The U.K. isn't even a unitary state, it's a binary state with a single shared parliament. It only looks unitary from the outside because of that single parliament.
Internally it is two kingdoms conducting joint self-governance, with the critical flaw that the oblivious English half of the parliament unlawfully refuses to recognise and respect the authority, rights, and territory of the Scottish half. And it is the English half of the state that insists on doing all the talking to the rest of the world.
That is the fundamental reason the Scottish half wants its independence back.
Is this an argument for iScotland having a hard border?
The question is what do these countries do about immigrants who arrive at their borders seeking asylum?
France has 7 borders.
France borders Belgium and Luxembourg in the northeast, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy in the east, the Mediterranean Sea, Monaco, Spain, and Andorra in the south. France also shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom.
I suppose they could just leave them in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Spain & Andorra depending on which land border they turn up at. The trickier ones are the maritime borders ie the Mediterranean and maybe less so the English Channel because I don’t think there
@robertkknight says:20 November, 2023 at 4:52 pm
especially hollow in Scotland given nearly 2/3 voted Remain
Here you go, Bob, some facts:
Scottish registered electorate: 3,987,112
Votes cast for Remain: 1,661,191
That’s a smidge under 42%. Two thirds would be over 66%. Not even in a similar ball park.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/our-reports-and-data-past-elections-and-referendums/results-and-turnout-eu-referendum/eu-referendum-results-region-scotland
Do you do irony, Bob? I’m guessing not, as you fecking obviously can’t do simple arithmetic.
It’s painful to observe the sad decline of our once world-class educational system.
oops last post uploaded before I was finished.
I don’t think there are many asylum seekers leaving the UK and arriving at the UK/French border.
However there are fair number arriving at the French/UK border seeking entry to the UK.
If France has all these problems with illegal immigrants does it make any sense for them to continue with Le Touquet agreement?
If immigrants arrive at any of these borders seeking asylum in the UK what reason would France, Slovakia, Sweden and Germany have to stop them?
Sven says: at 4:29 pm
David Hannah @ 15.56.
I’m no economist, David, so am happy to be corrected if in error, however my understanding is that an applicant to join the EU must join the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
————————
Sven.
The ERM only comes into play when you want to join/use the Euro as a legal currency in your homeland.
First you join(?) the ERM for 2-3 years as a kind of apprenticeship to get your economy, economic policies, banking/monetary policies etc. up to the required standards to actively use the Euro in daily life.
The other Euro members have to then examine and vote on whether you’ve achieved your required goals and whether to accept your application for the Euro.
If accepted you then have approx 1-2 years to convert your banking system/accounts etc. to the Euro and of course print the banknotes and mint the coins ready for the deadline day when the Euro becomes the official currency. Usually the first of January.
BTW, the EU States/Members are required/duty bound to join and use the Euro
BUT BUT BUT
Whether you do or do not is up the member themselves.
Some members just kept their national currency and everyone seems quite happy. 🙂
Did the UK join the Euro? No it kept the GBP.
This is only a rough outline of the process
Sorry forgot, you can see for yourselves:
https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-area/who-can-join-and-when_en
@Xaracen says:20 November, 2023 at 5:12 pm
It’s worth pointing out that you convinced me Scotland should never have been in the EU in the first place, as the accession negotiations were fundamentally flawed.
As a binary state, Scotland and England should have negotiated separate memberships at the time we all joined the then Common Market. The way would then have been clear for both countries to decide to independently stay or leave, and this whole “dragged oot agin oor will” saga could never have arisen.
Either nobody cared back in the 1970’s about Scottish Indy, or our politicians and our voters, even then, lacked all ability to think things through.
Whatever, by accepting our membership as part of a UK-wide decision, we ensured our membership could be ended as part of a UK-wide decision.
Ah, the Trousers Of Time…
Why do you say that Ted when the UK Gov’s legal advice issued in 2014 stated that Scotland was extinguished in 1707 and became lesser England.
If Scotland is a country what kind of country is it?
Is it a country that’s ruled by another country. That sounds pretty much like a colony don’t you think?
Graf Midgehunter @ 17.28.
Thanks for that info GM, appreciated.
Yes might have won the 2014 Referendum if they had an inkling on currency.
No progress has been made on that front.
And the SNP continue to turn off voters with their ineptitude and dishonesty. How Matheson is still in post is a wonder.
Xaracen,
you continue to persist with the nonsense that the Union is an equal partnership in political terms. It simply ain’t. Never was, never intended to be, and never will be. You also never ever mention the Welsh or Northern Irish, which is a bit arrogant of you. As though you don’t count them.
England’s worth about 80%, Scotland about 9%, Wales about 5%, and Northern Ireland about 4%. That’s it. Reality.
John Main….
Go do the equivalent number crunching for the Brexit vote then come back here and by all means shin up the nearest drainpipe in your usual pathetic, Blimp-esque attempt to gain the intellectual high ground.
“It’s painful to observe the sad decline of our once world-class educational system.”
ROFLMFAO…
FYI, I obtained my BSc (Hons) at an English Uni, so why not shuffle back to the “day room” Johnny for a nice cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. If you’re especially polite, Nurse Ratchet might let you watch a Judge Judy re-run, but just remember to keep your busy little hands where she can see them… you know what happened last time you were caught being a “naughty boy”.
I think those people who told us to hold our noses and vote SNP last time around -and keep in power the useless, hopeless frauds that run the SNP- continue to make the same mistake with the EU. You might dream that an honestly-run and democratic EU might be something worth joining (I don’t except as a trading partner in the original EFTA sense), but the reality is the EU is a corrupt, undemocratic, deaf organisation and would do nothing for Scotland except impoverish us even more.
The last thing we should ever want to be in is the EU unless you don’t like freedom, don’t like opportunity, don’t want to better yourselves and don’t want to be heard. Have you seen the NWO clowns that run the Commission?
Independence means independence.
Are you big and tough enough to make it in the world without yer mammy?
“Ruby says:
20 November, 2023 at 10:04 am
Scotland is not oppressed by England, nor is it a colony except in the minds of ultra-nationalists on Twitter. Scots have full economic and civil rights and their own cherished culture. Scotland is not exploited by colonial capitalists — quite the reverse. The Barnett formula transfers billions annually to underwrite Scottish public spending. We even have our own parliament. . Iain MacWhirter”
Thank you for that Ruby.
This section is so much dross.
“Scotland is not oppressed by England, nor is it a colony ”
Scotland is certainly oppressed by England if England means the UK parly. For more than 40 years neoliberal policies have caused massive economic loss of jobs in Scotland’s heavy industry- never replaced: caused unemployment and a near doubling at one point of poverty since 1961. Austerity stopped life expectancy increase as it had increased for decades (except under Thatcher when it faltered) and then caused life expectancy to decrease among the poorest.
UK policy causes poor health with aa massive increase in mental health problems among children.
@Bob
I obtained my BSc (Hons) at an English Uni
Ye wuz taken a len o then.
Facts are chiels blah, blah, and sae are numbers. I’ll type it a second time, but this time a bit slower fer ye:
Scottish registered electorate: 3,987,112
Votes cast for Remain: 1,661,191
That’s a smidge under 42%. Two thirds would be over 66%. Not even in a similar ball park.
Soz, Bob.
The bigger ‘what if’ for me is what if the order was reversed… with indyref1 coming after brexitref1.
Pretty sure 2014 was a dead heat minus all the vote rigging but had it been after BREXIT then YES would have been convincing IMHO.
I wonder if Salmond tried to get it after. Very little advantage to having indyref1 first.
@sam says:20 November, 2023 at 6:20 pm
Austerity stopped life expectancy increase as it had increased for decades (except under Thatcher when it faltered) and then caused life expectancy to decrease among the poorest.
UK policy causes poor health with aa massive increase in mental health problems among children
Here you go Sam, I’ve re-written it for you:
Massive inwards migration stopped life expectancy increase as it had increased for decades (except under Thatcher when it faltered) and then caused life expectancy to decrease among the poorest because the cohorts of impoverished immigrants also had poorer health due to lack of preventative health care and good nutrition in their formative years.
This UK policy causes statistically poorer average health and a massive increase in mental health problems among children struggling to assimilate and learn in schools that have been turned into multi-ethnic, multilingual towers of babel.
You will notice I provide no references for my plausible and logical conclusions, but hey, you started it.
John Main said;
“It’s worth pointing out that you convinced me Scotland should never have been in the EU in the first place, as the accession negotiations were fundamentally flawed.
As a binary state, Scotland and England should have negotiated separate memberships at the time we all joined the then Common Market.”
That’s a silly, stupid, and dishonest statement, John!
I clearly said the UK looks unitary from the outside. It’s supposed to, because it is a state, in the form of a union, with a single parliament running it, of two equally-sovereign members.
But internally, being a binary state, ALL governance decisions made in that shared parliament should have required the agreement of BOTH of its partners, and not made by just the bigger one on his own, which is what actually happens almost all the time.
Which bit of TWO equally-sovereign partners do you, ASA, and the entire English establishment not get? That is what is fundamentally flawed, John, that Scotland is NOT the junior partner England’s establishment wants it be.
I doubt if MacWhirter knows how colonialism works these days. As always it adapts to circumstance. As always it seeks to manipulate and control. As always it seeks to co-opt the elite. As always it seeks to create a sense of inferiority among the colonised.
Control is exercised by the reservation of powers. Scotland does not control the economy. It does not control welfare policy fully. It does not control employment. This means we cannot stop the malign effects of UK policy on the health and well being of the people or our economy.
Wally Jumblatt @6.11
Proposed membership of the EU is just another carrot dangling exercise by the SNP. They know that the chances of being allowed to join are zero for reasons which have been clearly spelled out here by others.
In a desperate attempt to keep their voters they peddle utter rubbish and portray it as a 100% certainty.
The same mugs who fell for “SNP 1 & 2” will no doubt fall for this as well. It’s like taking candy from a baby.
When will people realise the SNP ARE NOT THE PARTY OF INDEPENDANCE.
OK – what are the objectives?
Independence
An end to gender woo woo
The reform of the SNP
How to do it?
Do not campaign for the SNP at the UK GE and encourage folk to not bother voting unless there is an ALBA or Scotland United candidate.
Result?
No more SNP troughers
No more SNP “woke” staffers
Folk still have an MP to turn to for reserved matters.
Decks cleared for 2026.
Graf Midgehunter says:
20 November, 2023 at 5:28 pm
Sven says: at 4:29 pm
“BTW, the EU States/Members are required/duty bound to join and use the Euro
BUT BUT BUT
Whether you do or do not is up the member themselves.
Some members just kept their national currency and everyone seems quite happy.”
Can you help. I want to know if Scotland can join the EU. Because it wouldn’t be using its own currency. It would be using the Brexit pound.
Is there a document at the EU which says a new country must have its own currency.
As Angus Robertson didn’t put any citations next to that section.
He left his sources. BLANK. ONE JUST WONDER WHY? HMM.
“And even if you can come up with a clean definition, how on earth is that ever going to be proven by any individual,”
ASA.
Born in Scotland and resides in it continuously for a minimum of ten years and have the documentation to prove it when you go to the polling station.
Also I’m of the opinion that Postal votes should be banned and those that cannot make it to the polling station, must use a proxy (person) to vote on their behalf, this will reduce any possibility of tampering with Postal votes.
The above is for a constitutional vote on exiting the union, I’m sure those that live in Scotland but wouldn’t qualify for the vote would understand because its just one vote.
I’d also include international observers (not from the UK) watching and monitoring every step of the way through the process. No electronic voting and a 24 hour guard on ballot boxes monitored by a independent observer, again not from the UK.
Oh and most importantly England would have absolutely NO input whatsoever in the process, its for Scots and Scots alone to organise and implement.
Macwhirter supports an English party determined to keep Scotland under the exploitative & colonialist boot of English political hegemony. A Vichy Scot collaborator just like Vichy France in 1942 that surrendered to Hitler’s boot boys. That’s where the term comes from right?
Second class voting rights in the brexit parliament.
The UK is an economic basket case. I despise everything about the UK. I hate it. And everything it stands for including the Royal family and every one of their loin.
Many of these comments are good for a laugh, especially those saying that an “independent” Scotland would still be “independent” if it “chose” to join the EU.
If one chooses to be a slave to Brussels, you become a slave to Brussels. You give up your independence.
Is that too hard to comprehend?
When I look at my passport. I’m ashamed to call myself British. It’s a disgusting passport. With no redeeming features about it. In fact. The British logo has all but flaked off and I have the new blue passport.
We deserve better than this don’t we Scotland?
@Xaracen says:20 November, 2023 at 6:44 pm
That’s a silly, stupid, and dishonest statement
Let me re-write that one for you.
That’s an awkward fact that holes some of my arguments beneath the water, so I’m going to call you daft, thick and a liar, John!
TWO equally-sovereign partners.
I get it. I say each partner should have independently agreed EU membership, as it impinged directly on the sovereignty of each, IN DIFFERENT WAYS, due to the constitutional differences. Then, quite clearly, each partner would have been empowered to stay or leave in the EU as their voters wished.
It’s all academic anyways, so defo not worth my while insulting you, but feel free to differ on that too.
I’ll tell you what though. Every poster on here telling us that the Claim Of Right means that Scotland’s inviolate constitutional vesting of sovereignty in us Sovereign Scots CANNOT ever be given up, better feck right off with the EU crapola.
RoS,
that’s a definition, but one that I’d suggest opens more cans of worms than anything.
Born in Scotland? What about those not born in Scotland, but to Scottish parents? My regiment had around 1,000 children born to Scottish soldiers when we were 10 years in Germany. I suspect that many of them now live in Scotland as young adults, and think of themselves as Scots.
Minimum ten years of residence? I was born in Scotland and lived there until I was 22. Would I qualify under your residence criteria? I’ve got the documentary proof, it’s all from 1965 to 1987, though.
What about born in Scotland, and paying taxes in Scotland? I pay taxes for my flat in Edinburgh that I rent out, plus the utility bills. They are all bang up to date, in my name and sent to the flat’s address. Would the checker at the polling station turn me away, just because I actually live in England now? How would the checker know where I live, or whether I’d added myself to the register at my flat’s address knowing there’s an IndyRef coming up?
But the biggie: you’ve got to be on the electoral roll to have a vote at all, and currently, no council in Scotland or anywhere else in the U.K. holds _integrated_ records on where you were born, where you’ve lived throughout your life, where you’ve been for the last ten years, or what nationality you are. Even someone who you think might qualify: born in Scotland, resident for 50 years, took a 2 year job in the USA, but back in Scotland for the last 8 years may not qualify if they’ve shredded their financial records after the 7 year “keep” period.
Your definition is unworkable in practice. There would be a million or so people approaching council workers with all sorts of weird questions and bits and pieces of paper, very little of which the council would be able to check.
Independence movements are motivated, not by marginal economic advantage, but by the thirst for freedom. Those countries that the SNP cites as having won independence in the last 80 years have invariably done so because they were oppressed by colonial powers or Stalinist overlords. The Baltic states accepted a bit of economic destabilisation because they wanted to throw off the yoke of communism. African states saw disruption of trade as a price worth paying to throw off the yoke of colonialism. Iain MacWhirter
Prior to MacWhirter writing Scotland wasn’t oppressed by England nor was it a colony he wrote the above.
It would be interesting to know why he thinks 50% of Scottish voters want independence.
It’s a strange article from someone who used to be an independence supporter.
Maybe he has changed since he got fired from The Herald because of his ‘coconut tweet’
I haven’t posted a link to his article because Stu didn’t.
It’s in ‘The Times’ and it’s called ‘The road to independence is even harder than in 2014’
Any updates on the missing 600K?
I see Kirsten Oswald has been moved sideways from her role as business convenor. I hope a journalist is scouering over her expenses. Unusual timing for her to go.
Any updates on the 11K laptop? The police Joe Farrell the woke chief of police is off to a disgraceful start to her tenure.
Quick question
Once independence is gained will Holyrood sort out a cheap SIM as I sure non-EU roaming charges to England will be massive and we don’t want a repeat
@Republicofscotland says:20 November, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Born in Scotland and resides in it continuously for a minimum of ten years and have the documentation to prove it when you go to the polling station
So that’s ASA sorted then, if he was born in Scotland and attended primary school here until his tenth birthday, and has evidence (old report cards?) to prove it.
And that’s the kids of every immigrant who came here over ten years ago, gave birth, and enrolled them in our SNHS and educational system.
Not what you meant, RoS? Then why didn’t you write down what you meant?
It’s immensely funny to see RoS setting out to explain his franchise, yet making such a cack-handed sow’s ear of it that you can drive a coach & horses through the logical holes.
Anyhoo, here’s mine. Rock up at the polling station with a photo ID that links your coupon to a Scottish residential address. Produce a piece of paper or other evidence linking you to a NI number, and finally a P60 for the most recent tax year.
If you had tartan tax extorted from you, as a result of contributing to our Scottish society with your graft and hard-earned dosh, then you get a vote. Simples.
It’s a powerful and fair idea. No taxation without representation. If peeps still want to limit the franchise here in Scotland, then allow us to opt out of paying tax.
Frankly, I think many Scots tax payers would jump at the chance. But that’s a different discussion.
A Scot Abroad
Those who advocate such nonsense have no idea what the system is and obviously no experience of getting folk to register for the last referendum.
The anomalies due to the union are extensive – on day one of independence all who live here must have the option of citizenship.
@David Hannah says:20 November, 2023 at 7:04 pm
It’s a disgusting passport. With no redeeming features about it
That’s a shame. Mine’s works well for getting in and out of foreign countries and back to here.
606K new Brits last year all scrabbling to get a passport just like yours. There will be another half million or so this year, and every other year after, maybes rising into the millions per year if the war or climate really start kicking off.
Post your passport up on ebay, Dave, it’s worth a hunk of real dosh.
‘Daily Mail Main’
‘A Twat abroad’
‘Den’
‘Chas’
‘A Dundee Twat’etc etc;
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen…”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Minimum ten years of residence? I was born in Scotland and lived there until I was 22. Would I qualify under your residence criteria?”
ASA
No I should’ve added current continuous residency, ten years or more prior to the vote.
As for unworkable no, in every large scale fishing venture out at sea some fish slip through the net, however the majority are captured, its no an infallible process, if implemented properly though it should reduce the numbers slipping through the net who can vote on this very constitutional issue.
The alternative is basically a rerun of 2014 where 72.1% of folk from the rest of the UK (mainly England) voted against the majority of Scots who voted to leave the union.
The Welsh DIDN’T vote for Brexit in a similar fashion as to Scots DIDN’T vote to stay in the union.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/22/english-people-wales-brexit-research
Sadly its all speculation as there’s no one or any party that wants independence willing to implement this, not because its unworkable but being politicians they don’t want feel as though they’ve offended anyone, so Scotland will remain a country treated as a colony within this union.
@ Mac at 6.29
I agree that’s almost certainly true, but:
I don’t think the timings work for that. The SNP overall majority in 2011 (which necessitated proposing an indyref) occurred during the coalition government at Westminster, when there was no firm plan for an EU referendum. To have negotiated for “an indyref if and only if there had already been a vote on the EU”, with or without the additional condition that Leave won, doesn’t seem likely to me.
By the time of the 2015 Westminster election, Cameron was running scared of UKIP and under-estimating the extent to which the LDs would be punished for the coalition (that should have been obvious given their performance in every electoral test since 2010, but still); I thought at the time and he has since said himself that he expected to use the promise of an EU ref to defuse UKIP, and that he could then negotiate it away with Clegg. No doubt he was pleased to get an overall majority instead, but he then had to deliver the referendum.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/11535219/michael-matheson-flowers-blanked-questions-ipad-bill/
It looks like the SNP has been sending flowers to Michael Matheson. As they did with Nicola. Pathetic.
@ John Main at 7.46
I’ve retired. For several years my income was below the personal allowance so I paid no income tax (it’s not now, so I’m paying IT again) – I paid plenty of other taxes, though. Would you have disqualified me if there had been a referendum during my non-paying years?
Maybe it’s not so “simples” as you make out, though your suggestion is better than RoS’s exclusion of anyone whose parents happened to be outwith Scotland at the time of the child’s birth, even if they returned within a few months (like someone I know who spent 95.5 of her 96 years here, but missed the first 6 months or so due to her parents having been economic migrants in the 1920s; her 2 younger brothers, with the same genetics and upbringing, were born in Glasgow, so they’d be allowed to vote but she wouldn’t – if she were still alive).
@ James The man you quote made the case for his cause with sound reasoned arguments. I wish we had politicians in this country who had similar qualities and skills but alas we don’t. The SNP/Greens are conning you James. They care not one jot for the Indy cause.
Dundee Scot says on 20 November 2023 at 12:15 pm: “The Scottish “independence” movement is a fraud if it wants to be ruled by Brussels…”
Only a clueless halfwit could state such a pile of shite. I think you will find it’s the SNP that wants to be a part of the EU. The actual “independence movement” has many different views on that issue. Quite a number of us would prefer not to be in the EU. Maybe know what you’re talking about before slipping into sockpuppet mode and spouting utter drivel.
Interesting read about Lord Cameron:
“Ms Chamberlain said: “We need urgent clarity over David Cameron’s financial interests, which could lead to serious conflicts of interest while he represents the UK on the world stage. If he was serious about acting with integrity, Rishi Sunak would address these concerns by asking his ethics adviser to launch a full investigation into Cameron’s appointment.”
“David Cameron takes seat in House of Lords after Foreign Secretary appointment” https://archive.is/BKJYG
Bernard Thompson @4:42
Sorry Bernie, and welcome to the conversation.
Unfortunately you stated Scotland would have been out of the EU in 2014 if a Yes vote had been declared and that England (which you stupidly called the UK) would have been able to veto its return.
Using such a stupid conclusion as justification to call Iain MacWhirters analysis simplistic suggested a hint of arrogance, but your repetition of the error after having it politely drawn to your attention implied gaslighting, hence the description of it as spectacularly fuckwitted
Happy to confirm I was wrong to think you capable of either but its academic in any event since both nations did leave already – and both will be welcomed back separately, should they so choose (according to former French PM Bernard Cazeneuve, who appeared very enthusiastic recently about the possibility of David Cameron’s return contributing to an acceleration of the process)
This idea that someone will define who is suitably Scottish to be allowed to vote. Who will bring this forward and who will vote them in? For a start it wouldn’t include any EU people who had settled in Scotland. I’m not sure the EU would like that. Why would those who would instantly become second class citizens vote for this special class of pure bloods? I’m not sure that the UN would ignore that sort of racial supremacy.
At the same time, I’m assuming that you think that the UK government would do nothing?
Stoker says:
“Only a clueless halfwit could state such a pile of shite. … Maybe know what you’re talking about before slipping into sockpuppet mode and spouting utter drivel.”
Who can argue with an intellectually brilliant response such as this?
Which fully demonstrates the elevated intellectual level of independence supporters.
Pat Blake;
There’s no problem at all, despite the usual suspects bleating on here. The UN already has the required criteria set out – see the recent referendum in New Caledonia (how apt).
Or-to put it another way-Cameron was maybe ill-advised to allow a referendum but he did. Didn’t have to-but he did. And you-I generalise-lost.
Since that time as it seems to me anyone who has supported the SNP should concede that they have been tucked up like so many Arbroath Smokies.
As to the EU-well it is POSSIBLE that a ‘Yes’ vote might have prevented another vote on Brexit; but a separate Scotland which did not have -and still does not have-a clear indication of what currency it might use-would be an unwelcome guest. Lastly-in what concrete ways is Scotland worse off out of the EU than previously ? Bear in mind that the Irish have long since trousered the ‘celtic goodwill’ fund-those days are gone and they will not return
@crazycat says:20 November, 2023 at 8:18 pm
For several years my income was below the personal allowance so I paid no income tax (it’s not now, so I’m paying IT again) – I paid plenty of other taxes, though. Would you have disqualified me if there had been a referendum during my non-paying years?
Good point. The other taxes count, as by paying them, you are helping prop up the regime, and so you get a say.
But as you write, anybody on state pension is now within the income tax grab band, so now you’re super safe.
It’s a moot point though. One of the biggest problems our western European societies face is that the interests of the youngsters and the oldies are well out of alignment.
It’s a little commented on fact that the idea of importing millions of young immigrants to do the work can only make the problem worse. Young immigrants and old Sovereign Scots will have little in common, and no familial ties to ensure the two groups will want to split their differences.
It’s an affront to simple fairness to deprive grafting tax payers of a vote, whilst those contributing nothing get to further tilt the scales in their own favour.
As Dan might say, if a country doesn’t like the idea of hard working incomers getting a vote, then don’t let them in in the first place, pick yer ain tatties, neeps and all the rest, and wipe yer ain granny’s erse.
Tommo;
You won’t find many SNP supporters on here, old boy.
Think we’re mostly EFTA fans, apart from the usual suspects.
@stuart mctavish says:20 November, 2023 at 8:43 pm
appeared very enthusiastic
Well of course. The UK paid in handsomely (although less handsomely than we would have if the Iron Lady had not stepped in to throttle back the fire hose). The UK contribution is sorely missed, although the UK continues to pay in as a result of the “divorce” agreement, and will still be doing that long after most of us are deid.
Still, as somebody loves to point out, Scotland subsidises England, not vice versa, so by simple logic, it was Scotland that was swelling the EU’s coffers. Ironic, eh?
So, if an iScotland joins the EU, being even richer pro rata, we can expect our pro rata net contributions to be even bigger too. Don’t you know there’s a war on?
Or, if the UK rejoins first, we can expect the EU to resist Indy, because that will throttle the firehose of Scotland’s contributions via WM.
Here’s my favourite. Prosperous iScotland and broke rUK both join. So Scotland has to cough up to subsidise rUK via Brussels.
Don’t blame me, them’s the rules. If you don’t like them, keep iScotland out of the fecking EU.
Nice title…there’s me in the autumn of ’82 waiting for The Jam’s 15th single to go straight in at No. 1 but no…it stalls at No. 2 behind the Eye of the Tiger. DANG…dang, dang, dang…dang, dang, dang…dang, dang, daaanggggg…
OK. Next week. Fingers crossed.
Bloody Musical Youth’s Pass the Dutchie…great lyrics, des mots très profonds, biddly, biddly, bong or something…jumps from 26 right to the top of yon chart. Foiled! Curses! The Illuminati strike again! Worldwide Freemasonry! A young George Soros possibly or almost certainly. In league with the CIA. Chart manipulation by Unknown Dark Forces…or possibly not as commercial a single as Town Called Malice or Beat Surrender.
Well, I damn well know what I think and no-one can convince me otherwise. Off to YouTube right now to confirm EVERYTHING!!!!!
James 20 November, 2023 at 9:26 pm
I didn’t find anything that denies non native born a vote.
John Main said;
“I get it. I say each partner should have independently agreed EU membership, as it impinged directly on the sovereignty of each, IN DIFFERENT WAYS, due to the constitutional differences. Then, quite clearly, each partner would have been empowered to stay or leave in the EU as their voters wished.”
You do NOT get it!
The Union was supposed to be about JOINT self-governance! Governance agreed by both partners. Independent self-governance was what both kingdoms already had pre-Union. Your argument for ‘independently agreed EU membership’ ignores both the de-facto asymmetric basis of the Union and the true constitutional basis of the UK Union, because it presumes NO Union at all. There was only one parliament in the Union, so who exactly was going to negotiate for Scotland’s EU membership?
A Scot Abroad says:
20 November, 2023 at 3:04 pm
RoS, at 1:40 pm,
how would _you_ define a Scot, in order to qualify for the reduced franchise you clearly wish?
———————————
The same definition Brexiteers supported to determine who qualified as British and could, therefore, vote in the EU ref. Surely as a Brexiteer you would approve of this? Sauce for the goose and all.
Why is the Book of Deer stored in Cambridge University and not in Aberdeen ?
Just asking. I don`t mean to upset our overseers.
I never got past the situation that if Scotland voted Yes we were out of the EU as we were not the United Kingdom.
Oh but wait, the United Kingdom treaty was only signed by England and Scotland so there would be no United Kingdom that signed up to join the EU so England would be as England was never a member.
At they time we were loved we were equal so didn’t SNP get the stark truth out U.K. is Englands other name, Scotland counts for nothing we were never equal never United and never a partner.
@Xaracen says:20 November, 2023 at 10:19 pm
There was only one parliament in the Union, so who exactly was going to negotiate for Scotland’s EU membership?
Erm, the “one parliament in the Union” then? The same one that negotiated for England’s EU membership, and that of Wales and NI?
This is starting to feel like arguing the nature of the Holy Ghost with a bishop!
Look Xaracen. If the WM parliament was not constitutionally entitled to take the UK out of the EU, then it was never constitutionally entitled to take the UK into the EU in the first place, which was my original fecking point.
I can only imagine that the Scots “thinkers” of the time decided that the ends justified the means, they wanted in the CM/EEC/EU, so that even although they perhaps accepted the WM negotiations were unconstitutional, what did it matter if they got their way. And what did it matter anyway if a democratic referendum ratified their actions, which it did.
Of course, it mattered with hindsight because the unthinkable happened, the UK voted democratically for out. And the precedent of letting the WM parliament speak for the entire UK had already been set. So tough shit time.
The rules of the EU membership game were set back in the 1970’s. Nobody complained when these rules delivered the result the people who eventually turned into Remoaners wanted. All the greetin started when the same rules that got us in, got us out. A WM majority, ratified by a UK referendum.
And last but by no means least. The time to start greetin about the unconstitutional nature of the Brexit referendum was before, not after. But before, as most of us remember clearly enough, everybody, including even the Leave campaign, believed the fix was in, the propaganda had worked, Obama had spoken, and Remain would romp it. So again, they cared diddly squat for unconstitutionality when they thought it would give them the result they wanted.
Tough shit time again.
The UK left the EU, not Europe. The cultures of the countries that make up British Isles will always be more European than anything else due to 2000 or more years of interlinked history and exchange of ideas, books, art, music, peoples and trade. The foundations of our cultures is European.
England has not ‘always been the enemy’ of Europe. There has been a certain arms length scepticism, but enemy? No.
One thing I have not forgotten is how the SNP, en masse (and most of the LibDems), voted down Corbyn’s amendment for staying in the customs union, the classic soft Brexit, during the parliamentary chaos following the Brexit vote. The Commons vote was lost by a couple of votes. That pointless grandstanding, based on the foolish idea the Brexit vote could be overturned / another referendum held, ushered in Johnson and the hardest of Brexit’s.
David Hannah says:
20 November, 2023 at 6:56 pm
Graf Midgehunter says:at 5:28 pm
Sven says: at 4:29 pm
“BTW, the EU States/Members are required/duty bound to join and use the Euro
BUT BUT BUT
Whether you do or do not is up the member themselves.
Some members just kept their national currency and everyone seems quite happy.”
Can you help. I want to know if Scotland can join the EU. Because it wouldn’t be using its own currency. It would be using the Brexit pound.
Is there a document at the EU which says a new country must have its own currency.
——————————-
Hi David, sorry was out for the evening and couldn’t reply earlier.
When Scotland regains its independence again, it can as a sovereign country use, more or less, any currency it wants. As long as it’s an open, internationally accepted, tradable currency. E.g. the US Dollar or the GBP. Or it creates its own open internationally tradable currency, the Scot Pound Pund Haggi, Kroner, Dollar, coconut etc..
The Bank of England can’t veto its use by another country otherwise it wouldn’t be an open, internationally accepted, tradable currency.
If iScotland decides it wants to join the EU and is at that time using the GBP, it’s not a problem because it is simply using A currency among many. Denmark still uses the Danish Kroner for example.
I know of no EU document which stipulates that Scotland would have to have its very own unique currency.
Christopher Pike, at 10:24pm,
I personally don’t have a problem with that, but I think you are missing the original point to which I responded.
There’s a subset of commenters BTL on WoS who want the franchise restricted to ethnic Scots (not British citizens), so the question is who qualifies as ethnically Scottish, and how is that ethnicity proven? By blood? Place of birth? Place of residence? Or some other arbitrary distinction? Who decides? What proofs are necessary? And who on earth is going to organise such a divisive sectioning of society?
One gets a sense that some on WoS want the franchise to be drawn ever narrower so that the only people who get a vote at all are those who are going to vote Yes. There are even some palpable lunatics here who seem to believe that the 2014 IndyRef was actually won for Yes by Scots, but lost to No because the wrong sort of non-Scots voted.
Tommo says:
20 November, 2023 at 9:30 pm
“…but a separate Scotland which did not have -and still does not have-a clear indication of what currency it might use-would be an unwelcome guest…”
All that’s needed is a currency – call it the zob or whatever – and the groundwork as to its relative value (similar to the launch of the Euro) and it’ll be fine. Scotland can’t join the EU without having had a stable currency for a period of time. If Scotland were to want to join EFTA, having a stable currency would be a help.
Benhope says: at 10:42 pm
Why is the Book of Deer stored in Cambridge University and not in Aberdeen ?
Just asking. I don`t mean to upset our overseers.
—————————————-
For those who don’t know what the Book of Deer is, it’s part of our national heritage and like so many artifacts from Scotland is now “Resting” in England.
If the Greeks could try to get the “Elgin” Marbles back then we should so for our stuff.
As for our overseers…….. 🙁
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Deer
Brand new Argentine President Milei wants to dump the peso and use the US dollar instead.
Not any of the crappy BRICS currencies, mind, the good ol’ greenback from Uncle Sam.
You need a contact number, RoS? Presumably you will want to put him right about the imminent collapse of the USD?
Don’t be shy now. You owe it to the people of Argentina to make that call.
BTW, he wants the Falklands back too. Looks like War #3 could be on the cards soon.
A lot of the yoon hasbara on here today.
Sounding a bit agitated.
Has something happened to the font/word format on Wings?
Dundee Scot says:
20 November, 2023 at 12:38 pm
**I don’t recall Robert the Bruce, or William Wallace, wanting to be ruled by Brussels.**
Hark at the one being American Israeli bitch slapped on the daily…lol
Westminster can’t fart without two foreign senile old duffers permission – forever.
At least we can leave the EU eh?
At least Cameron could use his mandate.
I think the UK is far more fcked than we first thought. Brexit was a return to sovereignty, borders, money, own decisions..how’s that working out?
MPs can’t even call a ceasefire if it’s against the Israeli code of conduct.
Westminster is now foreign owned to add to the foreign media.
It’s tragic.
I believe it would have been much simpler than this ; Scotland votes Yes, Cameron resigns, Labour smash the Tories in the 2015 election, so no EU referendum – and, given the wafer-thin victory of Trump, the Brexit bump he acknowledged helped him in the US election may not have happened, with Clinton winning. Sliding doors indeed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37922961
ASS
The franchise you keep calling LUNATIC is actually..
INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICE
Every country has it. Including UK elections.
On *constitutional* referendums.
It is very easy to do. So easy, other countries manage it just fine.
Given the nature of the recent Census & what we’ve already known about rigged elections & Westminster – the next Scottish **constitutional** referendum should be restricted to Scots only.
Why should Barbara Fae Manchester living in her Highlands holiday home get to vote on Scots sovereignty & constitution?
I think you’ll find during Brexit, Miguel Fae the Costas living in Dorset as a waiter, didn’t get a vote in the EU referendum.
The United Nations also has protectorate rules for countries to protect themselves from being voted out their own country during referendums too.
So are you saying international best practices & the UK government are all lunatics too?
It’d be lunatic to run the next Indy ref with the exact same terms as last time & hope for a different result – especially now there’s been a stampede of English voters.
Ahaha brilliant. The Russians will be pissed. That’s where they are all fleeing to. Vladamir won’t be happy. The US Dollar. Well. Good luck to them.
Geri,
as enjoyably unhinged as ever. You are such a giving person. You keep giving me a laugh every time you post, and you keep psychologists in paid work as they seek to define what it means to be a serially deluded netizen.
It’s easy to not enfranchise non-citizens. But you tell me how to non-enfranchise actual citizens of our current nation based on some difficult to quantify definition of “Scottishness”. Most families in the U.K. are mongrels with bits of all four nations going back over three centuries. That’s actually the whole point: we aren’t actually four nations any longer. We are one nation.
That’s just the outset. Have you yet worked out that the legal challenges and delays to whatever your lunatic definition may be are under, or over, 10 years?
Folks, can I ask you to have a read of Craig Murray’s latest, in particular the following paragraph re international legal rulings and representations…
‘Extraordinarily, the UK openly takes the view that no international law, including treaties it has signed, is EVER legally binding on the UK UNLESS it has been explicitly incorporated in UK domestic legislation. The UK does not consider itself bound by treaties it has ratified.’
and now, I ask you to consider that ruling/position with regards the Treaty of Union.
It is well understood that Scotland needs to demonstrate a ‘legally obtained and demonstrated’ democratic majority in favour of Indy, and that the international community needs that, in order to accept indy/ratify it…
But what is good for the goose, is good for the gander, and is also true… in order to operate internationally as a UNITED KINGDOM, the British Establishment cannot be demonstrably a ‘Rogue State’ incapable of upholding its word in international and internal treaties.
And if the UK cannot uphold its terms and conditions within the Treaty of Union? can it be trusted by the rest of the world to negociate in any type of treaty in good faith whatsoever.
It sounds like the British Establishment has publically argued that its legal defense is… it will have its cake and eat it.
Scotland needs to withdraw from the treaty of Union.
& The international community should withdraw the UK from international organisations/agreements until it’s sorted.
The UK shouldn’t be sitting on the international stage without the consent of Scotland.
The time for asking for a ref has expired now. People are sick of the melealy mouth politicians dithering about. UK government will NOT offer an invite. It’s time to just take it.
ASS
If you aren’t *born* in Scotland – yer not getting a vote.
That should cover 16/17 yrs residency. At least one parent Scottish.
No one gives a shiny shite about the this & the this crap.. cousins twice removed on yer aunt nawbags side who migrated via Tuffnells, bollocks..
Born here. Made o girders.
Collect yer ballot & take a seat. Congratulations for being Scottish.
Not born here? Tough! Go cry to yer Aunt Nawbags. Nae luck, mongrel. Should’ve practiced wi a real Scot. LMAO!
John Main said;
“Look Xaracen. If the WM parliament was not constitutionally entitled to take the UK out of the EU, then it was never constitutionally entitled to take the UK into the EU in the first place, which was my original fecking point.”
John, that would have depended on whether the Scots MPs and the English MPs both voted in favour of joining or leaving the EU, because that would have been the joint decision of both of the UK’s partners. If it wasn’t joint, then it wasn’t constitutional to do either of those things. That’s my fecking point.
Innarestin article on Unherd this morning: “Will Israel hand America a Ceasefire”.
Well worth a read to those of an open mind, but as it provides such a different take to the standard narrative peddled by the hand wringers and apologists, it may be best avoided by some of the more excitable posters on here.
There is a flaw with the idea that Cameron would have resigned had Scotland voted to leave in 2014. The general feeling was that the Tories were better off staying out of the debate because they were a negative influence on Scottish opinion on the union. The party was in partnership with the Lib Dems, so any result wouldn’t have fallen on Cameron alone and it was the Lib Dems and Labour that lead the pro union stance. Whereas for Brexit, Cameron was the main cheerleader for Remain. Brexit was his, very personal, defeat. I’m also not sure that the Tories would have been punished for Scottish independence, for the same reason. Brown and Labour might have got the flack instead.
FFS! Beginning to look like they’re really gunning for drivers, more than usual, as a good source of income in these hard times. I remember first reading about this 2 or 3 months ago, it seems to be doing the rounds again.
“Is this new speed camera coming to Britain? Spain’s ‘anti-braking’ devices detect if drivers slow down before or speed up after a fixed camera location” https://archive.is/7YZuN
Anyone else finding the covid enquiry entertaining in a macabre sort of way?
May I recommend the Guardian cartoon to one and all , plus the comments below the line.
John Main @10:04
Blame you – after such a seductive description of a future where the whole wide world (and even our neighbours) can be grateful to Scots in general?
Not any more.
If nothing else it makes for a great contingency/ excuse to celebrate whilst awaiting the magic genie roll out/ Germany 2024.
Pat Blake says on 21 November 2023 at 8:42 am:
“The general feeling was that the Tories were better off staying out of the debate because they were a negative influence on Scottish opinion on the union.”
Yes! A bit like the Orange Order but they still participated. Ruth ‘The Mooth’ Davidson was never off the TV, Radio or the newspapers. As were many other Tory BritNats with their ‘bomb the airports’ style of fearmongering. Even auld Lord Forsyth got in on the act regularly. Cameron even put his name to the breaking of the Edinburgh Agreement with “The Vow”. Did you miss all that or are you just conveniently overlooking it? LOL!
An observation from Mesopotamia.
Scotland before the 1707 had rather closer cultural links with Europe than England. That is evidenced by history, Scotland’s alliance with France etc.
Britishness, the 300years of it, eroded that link. Britishness is the fly in the ointment, the spoiler.
A post imperial return to links with the Europe the form of EU, however flawed, might remove that fly.
Floating outside the European mainstream and being still subject to England’s havering over its rôle in the world is a poor option.
Britishness ought to be go the way of the Union.
“how would _you_ define a Scot, in order to qualify for the reduced franchise you clearly wish?”
Christopher Pike.
Proof that you are Scottish and provide evidence that you have lived in Scotland continuously for a minimum of ten years prior to the constitutional vote, so say the vote was in 2027, you’d need to have lived in Scotland since at least 2017 to qualify for the vote, this would show at least you have some commitment to the country.
I don’t often agree with Mike Russell but here I do.
“SCOTTISH seats held by Tory MPs have been granted Levelling Up funding by the Conservative government.
Moray, Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders, which are represented by Douglas Ross, Alister Jack and John Lamont respectively, were awarded millions of pounds for projects.
Three areas without Tory MPs received cash during this round, as Glasgow saw £15m awarded to the Drumchapel Town Centre Regeneration project, and South Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire secured funding.
It’s the third round of Levelling Up funding from the UK Government, with 55 projects across the UK awarded nearly £1 billion in total.
With the Tories behind in the polls, SNP president Michael Russell accused the party of effectively trying to buy votes.
“This is no longer Levelling Up, this is pure naked pork-barrel politics with public money being used to try and buy electoral advantage,” he told The National.
“In many countries it is illegal. It should be illegal here. It is tantamount to using the public purse to try and prop up a government that is out of time, out of ideas and now has no shame left.””
And some in here have the chutzpah to question the process of a reduced franchise on a constitutional vote, with the likes of the above is it any wonder we feel the need to take matters into our own hands on a constitutional vote.
Xaracen at 7:13 am,
You have not got a point at all. This nonsense that you keep spouting about Scotland and England each having 50% of the voting power is simply wrong. You’ve made it up in your head.
@TURABDIN says:21 November, 2023 at 9:57 am
Innarestin you should mention France …
That’ll be the same France that is likely to return President Marie Le Pen quite soon.
And then there’s the Netherlands: Geert Wilders is the bookies favourite to be, certainly in government by the end of this week, and possibly actually leading it.
Germany: AfD support growing year on year.
I could go on.
My point is that we here in Scotland are increasingly being left isolated by the antics of our primary school level politicians. The latest idea, that we should all self-id as Palestinians or somesuch, is just pushing Scotland further away from any serious EU or European country we might want to align with when Independent.
It’s the luxury of tokenistic virtue-signalling that can only be afforded because some grownups are actually doing the serious work for us.
A clear signal that Scotland’s political classes might be ready to shoulder the burden of running a successful, aspirational first-world country, will be the announcement of serious, grounded, realpolitik policies at HR.
Keep your eyes open, but don’t hold your breath …
@Republicofscotland says:21 November, 2023 at 10:29 am
In many countries it is illegal. It should be illegal here. It is tantamount to using the public purse to try and prop up a government that is out of time, out of ideas and now has no shame left
Good quote RoS!
I skimmed the rest of your post, but I guess it’s about the SNP at HR levying an additional income tax (tartan tax) in order to fund their criminality, incompetence, malfeasance, nepotism, fraud, egotistic personal virtue-signalling, and holiday data roaming charges, whilst in office.
Fit else could it be aboot, eh?
Republicofscotland @ 10.22
Would there be exemptions for those without 10 years continuous residence such as military personnel serving overseas or volunteers or employees serving with, for instance, NGOs in charitable or aid organisations ?
RoS, at 10:22 am,
Your “proof” would demand 11 documents: passport or birth certificate, and then at least one document per year to satisfy the “continuous residence” criteria. Not everybody has a passport, not everybody has a bank account or pays utility bills in their own name.
Not every Scot was born in Scotland: their parents may acing been away when they were born (for business reasons, the children of servicemen, of civil servants, or those with skilled trades in demand elsewhere). They may satisfy the continuous residence criteria, and you propose to disenfranchise them?
Who’s going to administer the requirement to prove qualification? You cannot trust councils to do it: they are barely competent at anything.
It’s unworkable as a practical proposition, and deeply flawed at the level of principle.
A Scot Abroad said;
“Xaracen, You have not got a point at all. This nonsense that you keep spouting about Scotland and England each having 50% of the voting power is simply wrong. You’ve made it up in your head.”
I didn’t say that ‘Scotland and England each have 50% of the voting power’, I said they SHOULD each have 50% of the voting power, for solid constitutional reasons I have spelt out many times.
Not everything done by the SNP in government is bad.
It seeks to mitigate the harmful effects of UK policy.
Midwives offer money resource advice to pregnant women. The Scottish Child Payment is having a marked positive effect compared to England. here’s a part of the LSE blog on the subject.
“Clearly, the SCP marks a substantial departure from the austerity which has dominated the social security landscape since 2010. It forms a central part of a more progressive use of tax-benefit powers in Scotland: the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the bottom third of Scottish households with children will, on average, be around £2,000/year better off than similar English households. This is predicted to have a monumental impact on reducing child poverty rates: Oxford University’s Danny Dorling has predicted that the increased and extended payments will transform Scotland from being one of the most unequal places to live in Europe to being one of the most equal. In short: it’s a big deal…
…There is substantial evidence that generous child benefits are an effective way to reduce child poverty and improve children’s well-being and opportunities. For example, research on a previous UK expansion in financial support for families, the introduction of the child tax credit in the early 2000s, found that the money was spent on the children – on fresh fruit and vegetables and on children’s clothes, toys and activities. Meanwhile spending on alcohol and tobacco actually fell.
Research has also found that poverty has a negative effect on maternal depression, stress and anxiety. And a number of studies point to improvements in children’s educational outcomes and social and emotional outcomes as family incomes rise.”
Stoker says:
21 November, 2023 at 9:44 am
“Did you miss all that or are you just conveniently overlooking it? LOL!”
The issue isn’t whether Cameron and the Tories were involved at all but whether they would have been considered mainly to blame for a successful vote for independence. Would the electorate have called for Cameron’s resignation and would the next election have seen the Tories punished? There might have been more or less enthusiasm for Brexit depending on how well Scottish independence was going by that point. If Scotland was in chaos then Brexit would have been off the table. Whereas if the impression was favourable then the English public might have thought ‘if Scotland can do it, so can we’.
Xaracen,
5:12 pm 20th november.
” A binary state, with a single shared parliament”
How did that come about.
As only one of the parliaments was dissolved, the Scottish parliament remember. Prior to the creation of the Great British parliament.
How do you manage to convince yourself there was or is a union in 1707,
Even the parliament of the UK state that the Scottish parliament did not pass the the ratification Stage because they were extinguished by Agreeing to the union,
A dissolved and a Extinguished 1707 Scottish parliament cannot be in a union with anything, any other entity or any other parliament,
I am sure you have read by now the information on “dissolution” of a parliament on the UK’s Instititute of Governance
please explain when and what specific date the two parliaments joined each other simutanliously.
As the Coronation oath up until the Cambridge University papers on the oath explain it is still sworn to the parliament of England,
You statements make the kingdom of Scotland a voluntary prisoner to the parliament of England.
Xaracen, at 11:32 am
No matter what you think SHOULD happen, it ain’t happening. There’s no constitutional basis for it, either.
Xaracen,
The vote on or in any election is not and should not be a voluntary prisoner of the parliament of Westminster in England.
A dissolved Scottish parliament has no members and cannot send foreward any one to represent it constituents.
From 1707 onwards there were no members of a Scottish parliament sittinf in Westminster parliament,
So no union of parliaments between the two Countries, not even on a promise from the old Scottish parliament,
Because dissolve parliament cannot bind its successor parliament.
What you have to come to terms with factually and historically,
Whom do you consider to be the successor state to the now Dissolved 1707 Scottish parliament after the Parliament of Westminster of England got rid of the Scottish parliament?
The Westminster parliament of England?
I disagree with your analysis. If Yes had won in 2014, we’d have been out of both the UK and EU.
There was never any certainty that the Brexit vote would go the way it did. That’s not ‘No’ voters’ fault, many of whom I suspect also voted ‘remain’ in 2016. And besides, ‘yes’ voters in 2014 also voted ‘leave’ in 2016.
You may recall that similar arguments from 2014 were then used as arguments for the UK leaving Europe in 2016:
Sovereignty.
Immigration.
Demographic and cultural factors.
Economy.
Anti-establishment populism.
Good job, not.
Cameron was never off our telly during indyref.
He even dragged in world leaders & some arsehole fae the EU to interfere & z list celebs to fake love bomb.
He would’ve resigned for losing Scotland tho but not for the reasons MacWhirter says but cause it was still the era you fell by yer sword.
I’m sure he’d have crawled back. Or maybe even had another of his arrogant acceptance speeches of how it’s England’s turn now like he did on the 19th. I don’t believe it would’ve stopped Brexit. Eurosceptics & British nationalism would’ve continued as they have for 40+ yrs.
I don’t believe they’d have even honoured the result, tbh. I know there was the Edinburgh agreement but there was nothing actually legal about enforcing the result. It just said they’d respect it. Aye, nice ref – I respect the result of yer glorified opinion poll & will implement some changes to strengthen the Union – or some such bollocks.
They’re slippery feckers. A lot needs nailed down next time.
Sven.
Thank you for that comment, in my opinion the answer would be no, its a constitutional vote via the (VEM) you’d need to be in country to vote on it to produce a few documents at the ballot box.
ASA, I too get a chuckle at every “Geri” post. As to RoS’s 10-year Scottish residency requirement for voting in a referendum, that would mean that Stuart Campbell (who’s lived in Bath since 1991) couldn’t vote in 2027. And if the rule had been applied in 2010, Ash Regan (who’d lived in England and Australia for most of her life till then) would have been denied the vote.
As to restricting the vote to those born in Scotland, that would deny the vote to the current leader of the Holyrood Lib Dems, Alex Cole-Hamilton, who was born in Hertfordshire. Ditto for Norfolk-born Craig Murray, the hero of many who comment on Wings.
ASS
Then don’t wonder why the Union is over.
Are you a constitutional expert & international lawyer on treaties now?
No, thought not. So shut it. Yer a nobody on the internet.
The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was blocked by the UK government. So by applying your logic if it had been a Yes vote it would now be an Act of the independent Scottish parliament, would it not? And those of us who live in Scotland would now be living in a country you have rightly pointed out, at length, would be quite scary. Is that not in itself a great victory?
From RTE news.
“A legal challenge to the British Government’s controversial legislation ending all investigations into killings during the Troubles has begun in Belfast.
All prosecutions and civil cases including inquests into Troubles related deaths will cease in May next year…
…Those mounting the challenge include Martina Dillon, whose husband Seamus Dillon was shot dead by loyalists outside a hotel near Dungannon, Co Tyrone, two days after Christmas in 1997.
An inquest into the death of the 45-year-old father-of-three is pending and there are allegations of collusion between police and the killers.
“Truth and justice are not too much to ask, we shouldn’t have to fight for decades to get it,” she said.
“Victims have been shamefully ignored. We did not want this law, we want answers about what happened to our loved ones, and we want accountability. I fight this oppressive legislation in my husband’s memory and in solidarity with other victims having their rights denied.”…
..Darragh Mackin, a solicitor with Phoenix Law who is representing the relatives, said warnings about a lack of human rights compliance with the legislation were clear from the outset.
“Access to justice is the least anyone can expect. These victims, supported by Amnesty International, seek to swiftly end this grave attack on rights,” he said.
“This case matters not only to our clients, but to all victims of the Northern Ireland conflict.””
Of course, NI is not a colony now or ever.
ASA @11.12am.
Ask yourself why Scots would need to go such lengths to try and find a secure way to hold a constitutional vote.
I’ll tell you why, it because we are up against the machinations of Westminster, which in reality just can’t afford to let Scotland go it alone, they’ve got far too much to lose. Westminster will never sanction another vote via an S30, our own LA prostrated herself in a fashion at the UKSC to aid closing that door.
Our main supposedly independence party called in GCHQ to help with a vote, GCHQ the mortal enemy of Scottish independence, and lets not forget GCHQ can reproduce any document that is required for whatever the situation requires at the time.
So please forgive me when I feel the need to narrow the enfranchisement criteria to Scots that have lived in Scotland since at least 2017 if the vote was in 2027, basically a continuous decade prior to the vote whenever that vote would occur.
We must learn lessons from 2014, in my opinion we were a bit naive, in saying that it was the first vote on dissolving the union in its 300+ years, and looking around the globe at how some other countries exclude some folk on constitutional matters (voting) we can learn a lot from that process, always keeping in mind that our larger neighbour will do everything under the sun to stop us leaving this union.
ASA.
There is “no constitutional basis” for there being a union between the 1707 dissolved parliament of Scotland and the presently existing westminster parliament of England.
If there was no union of parliaments in 1707 then there is none…Zilch now.
You are totally correct when you call it out as Ancient Guff.
JOHN MAIN
My reasoning on EU membership is rather more machiavellian, the Brits/rUK or whatever are not in it and in the early stages of independence keeping a respectable distance from the old order is advisable.
As Poland and Hungary have shown you do not have to engage with everything Brussels might decree. Even the UK when a member was hardly submissively «communautaire».
Scotland’s political culture needs to rid itself of the current social engineering ideology, even if the ideology may have its advocates elsewhere.
Stoker; “Beginning to look like they’re really gunning for drivers”
Don’t speed, then? Simples.
“As to restricting the vote to those born in Scotland, that would deny the vote to the current leader of the Holyrood Lib Dems, Alex Cole-Hamilton, who was born in Hertfordshire. Ditto for Norfolk-born Craig Murray, the hero of many who comment on Wings.”
So basically it balances itself out then.
Dave,
Constitutionally It was not up to the the Westminster parliament to be involved at all with any the kingdom of Scotland internal elections or referendums,
As the Westminster parliament did not join in a parliamentary union with 1707 Scotlands parliament.
Instead the Westminster parliament of England dissolved the Scottish parliament from
Westminster parliament by it over reachin its legal jurisdiction , political reach and kingdom Country border boundaries reach by dissolving the Scottish parliament in and from the treaty of union in kingdom of England,
The nonsense it would block pro Indy ppl from voting. So what? They’d happily step aside.
I’m not sure Ass realises they’d be more than happy to.
The cause has always been bigger than one individual.
Stu for example. No vote here on any indyref in 2014 & not greeting into his craft beer about it.
Also no one knows what happens in the ballot box. They could be the biggest advocates of voting one way in public & then voting the exact opposite when the chips are down cause somebody in the polling station upset them at the last minute FFS LOL!
As for Scotland & her place in the union.
It’s time to flex.
Without Scotlands consent there is NO Union.
Without Scotlands consent there is no UK.
Without Scotlands consent there is no UK international stage.
Without Scotlands consent there is no UK king.
Time we started to remind them of our place & theirs.
We’ve had perfectly legal & democratic mandates.
There is absolutely no reason to deny them.
The next fecker with a mandate is on notice to use it or get out the way.
That’s obviously NOT the SNP.
There is no need to discuss residency of Scots for voting on referendums to gain independence once Scots realise the treaty was a hoax,
A fine example of the deceit played upon Scotland,
England sent a letter to Scotland, to tell Scots that they had crowned the queen of England France and Ireland, as Queen of Scotland. By witnessing the oath to Scotlands kingdom,
Mmm.
Who said the Oath to Scotlands kingdom was authentic……people in England.
Mmmmm.
Of Course Scotland never saw or witnessed this,
When, where and what specific date did the queen of England hold a full Scottish Coronation to take place. Even at a later date prior to her death.
She did not, and It didn’t take place.
Mmmm
Of course there is a full record and elaborate record of queen Anne being Coronated queen of England, France and Ireland.
Mmmm.
Scotland has to accept the word of England, that England oversaw and crowned Queen Anne of England the queen of Scotland.
Mmmmm
That lacks a lot of originality when England claims it coronated the new Queen of Scotland prior to date given of 1707,
Scotland is very naive,
Especially when all monarchs since before and since Queen Anne must swear a Oath.
And “solemnly Swear to Governe the people of the kingdom of England and the Dominions thereto belonging according to the Statues in the parliament agreed ( parliament of England Statues 1688) on the laws and customs of the Same”.
Right up until 2017.
Mmmm
RoS,
your disenfranchisement idea is going to go nowhere. In practical terms, there’s no majority in Holyrood to pass the proposal, nor is there likely to be such a majority in the next decade: the SNP support broadening the franchise, as do Labour, and Alba haven’t set out any thoughts. In terms of law, Holyrood would need to amend the existing franchise law passed in 2020, the purpose of which was to extend the franchise to include Commonwealth and EU citizens.
It’s unworkable in practice, open to misrepresentation and fraud, and would most certainly be open to tens of thousands of legal challenges. In terms of principle, such a concept was shot down by the UN when there was a referendum in Bosnia to accept the terms of the proposed peace agreement in the mid 90s. The ICJ declined to rule on it, as well.
Er ok, but there wasn’t a yes vote was there. The now deified Salmond blew it.
And I’ll say it again. Being in the EU isn’t independence. Not that it matters because there’s not a snowball in hell’s chance of Scotland being admitted. Catalan, currency and a land border with the UK for starters.
The UK isn’t independent.
I dunno what Muppets on here think they actually won with Brexit. Absolutely nothing but one way shut out as 28 borders were erected & feck all trade deals were done (other than the ones already in place) & New Zealand & Australia laughing all the way to the bank LOL!
No Trump deals.
No Biden deals.
No live crustaceans off to Japan & happy to be British.
No stampede for the Union Jack branding.
Hee-haw was won. The UK is now isolationist & locked in to an American/Israeli/Russian control & owned by a foreign media who chooses the PM..
Well done!
Hee haw was won.
“It’s unworkable in practice, open to misrepresentation and fraud, and would most certainly be open to tens of thousands of legal challenges.”
It is workable, and yes like any other vote it is open to fraud and misrepresentation, but restricting the franchise to the parameters I suggested somewhat limits that.
“such a concept was shot down by the UN”
I doubt that very much as other nations UN members disenfranchise those who don’t meet the criteria.
ASS is talking absolute bollocks about the UN.
He talks utter bollocks all of the time. He just spits his own uneducated wish list plucked from mid air.
The UN have protections in international law to prevent small countries being consumed & voted out of their own country by migrants/immigration/larger neighbours.
Or everyone would be doing it.
The UK thinks it’s smart. It isn’t. The UK is a voluntary union. Two separate territories that never merged into one.
Scotland therefore can exercise wtf franchise she likes with international law & protections she sees fit.
The UK doesn’t own Scotland. Not a square inch of it was given in the treaty because it didn’t belong to the ones who signed us up & no asked permission.
It’s by consent. Remove that & there’s no Union.
@ Ros
ASA is just at it. He’s mentioned he knows a bit about computers in the past, so he should know fine well various parameters could be applied for defining and extracting a specific voter franchise off the electoral roll database.
In fact this is something that is done already as the voter franchise differs for various elections with various eligibility criteria needing to be met, meaning degrees of disenfranchisement is applied.
It’s also relatively easy to cross reference and compare new databases against previous ones, and this would show how long someone has been registered to vote in a specific area.
All political Parties already have access to the electoral roll, and they use this to build their own database of information about the electorate across the country, region, constituency, and ward. And this Party database can also have filters applied to it so that specific lists can be extracted from the database such as known supporters, or full list of all on the electoral roll for chapping the doors to get the vote out at an election or for wider canvassing.
Just set the required parameters and print it off.
If someone states their primary residence has been at a / or several Scottish address(es) for a certain duration of time then it is easy to prove as they should have or there will be a trail of information of other documentation to support that assertion such as driving license, insurance declarations, HMRC tax info, registration at local doctor’s, passport, bank accounts, etc.
And as the UK is such a surveillance state these days nearly everything is logged in some way and able to be checked.
Geri,
the 1991 and 1992 Bosnian referenda. I was there for both as a UN Monitoring Officer. One was declared illegal by the UN, the other accepted by the UN, in both cases the franchise was disputed. The second referendum kicked off the civil war.
Dan @4.58pm.
This kind of constitutional discussion brings those opposed to Scottish independence out in the open, they fire all sorts of questions on it at you hoping create a great big hole in it, simply because they don’t like it, and you have to ask yourself why they don’t like it.
What we have to remember is that Westminster and the forces that it can bring to bear on Scotland are used to keep us not just in this union, but to keep us down in this union, they are the real enemies of Scotland and its further progression.
This will continue unless we do something about it, our biggest problem is that there’s no one, and I mean no one, in Scottish politics that has the courage of their convictions to carry something like this out that supports Scottish independence.
They are all focused on enfranchising everyone and they’ll scratch their heads wondering what went wrong when the result turns out to be the same as in 2014.
That was caused by defiant nawbags who boycotted, didn’t like the result & thought they’d start a spot of ethnic cleansing.
Nawbags not accepting defeat.
Sod all to do with the UN.
Everything to do with belligerents.
Nawbags – there’s a want about them it seems..
Dan,
talking of data, you’ll know that it’s held by multiple organisations. It’s not something that any single council, or even ScotGov can access.
Let’s look at your list, by data owner:
Birth records: Scottish councils. They’d need to cross-refer to each other to take account of people being born somewhere, but now living somewhere else. Doable, would take some time. Then what about those born in Scotland but not Scottish? Much more complex, and the councils won’t anything about that.
Driving licence: held by DVLA in Wales. Would they provide a list of addresses? I doubt it.
Insurance information: held by private companies, almost all of which have registered offices in England. They ain’t going to provide any personal information to ScotGov or a Scottish council.
HMRC: no way are they providing info on people’s tax status.
Doctors’ surgeries: also no way.
Passport Office: controlled by the Home Office in London, won’t play ball. Also won’t know where someone lives now, but only where they were when the passport was issued.
Banks: will not divulge information to ScotGov.
You claim to know about data, but you clearly know nothing about data acquisition, the current legalities of that, data integration and data analysis. The whole thing is a huge amount more complex than building two ferries for (so far) hundreds of millions of pounds, and ScotGov cannot even manage that.
You’ve also forgotten to address the legal challenges that would come out of the process. Who is going to be paying for that? ScotGov?
The whole idea of narrowing the franchise beyond that already laid down in law is a non-starter.
@ ASA
Supportive evidence would only be needed from outside organisations in a small amount of appeals processes, as the supportive evidence of duration of residence would mainly be held and confirmed on the electoral rolls through cross-referencing.
I’d question the reality that folk couldn’t produce any supporting evidence themselves rather than the electoral office staff having to access an external organisation’s information which of course brings data protection into the frame.
I had to adhere to data protection aspects when using and accessing information on a political Party’s database.
@ Geri , ROS and any or all ALBA members, as I have repeated often enough I fully support a franchise restriction
ROS and others you continuously promote voting for ALBA and how they protect women’s rights and are fully focused on independence , as members of ALBA how can you support Alex Salmond’s insistence that the same franchise will be used for any constitutional vote in the future, as members you should be able to DEMAND CHANGE over to the UN regulations, are you content once again to be dictated to by politicians who think they know better, a better that will inevitably lead to another defeat and a continuation within the uk HELLHOLE ,as for women’s rights ALBA are doing the same political pin head dancing in an attempt to accommodate everyone and not alienate the woke deviant adherents , IMO if they were GENUINELY honest about female protection and safety they would STATE that on independence they would revoke the 2004 equalities act in Scotland , instead they are fannying about with WORDS intimating that they would insist the 2010 act would be changed to sex rather than gender
How many times are the people of Scotland willing to be lied to and betrayed by politician’s who manipulate words to suit THEIR ENDS rather than the TRUTH
Sturgeon PROMISED independence referendum ,national energy company , land reform , better governance, NONE of which she delivered, are we entering TROUGHING level 2 where a new batch of liars take the piss out of the voters
SALVO , SSRG , LIBERATION.SCOTLAND are the ONLY TRUTH TELLERS
The person mounting the challenge pays for it. Simple.
If you weren’t born in Scotland you have diddly squat vote on her constitution & Sovereignty.
It’s not rocket science.
Scotgov could employ Cambridge Analytica eh? It worked during Brexit lol
It’s very simple. There is a thing called an electoral register & the new fandangled consensus.
Scotland can change her franchise when she feels like it. It’s devolved & it shall remain so under any international observers.
Geri,
Scotland can change the franchise. I don’t think that anyone is saying that it cannot. Certainly not me.
However, in practice, no party is trying to. There’s not a hope in hell of it actually happening. At the moment, all parties in Scotland, less the Tories (and I’m not sure about Alba*, who are irrelevant anyway), are supportive of it being broadened to include Commonwealth and EU citizens. Not narrowed down by some almost impossible to prove set of criteria that’s going to be open to decades of legal challenge.
You have to deal in facts, not theory or your own personal desires. Those are the facts.
* Alex Salmond appears to want it to be a broad franchise. Not narrow. But I don’t believe that’s official Alba policy, so who knows. Alba’s only got one MSP anyway, and she’s been silent on the matter.
“The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was blocked by the UK government. So by applying your logic if it had been a Yes vote it would now be an Act of the independent Scottish parliament, would it not?”
No, because Nicola Sturgeon wouldn’t have been First Minister.
Twathater
Apologies – I missed your post.
I’m not a member of Alba. I’d vote for them in an election but I’d hope that a future Scottish convention would hammer home the franchise & all related info & policy on referendums.
I think we’d be wise to have Salmond back in Holyrood but that the wider YES movement + convention would iron out the fine details on referenda. He is shrewd but he needs to man up a bit because Holyrood shouldn’t even be on Scottish soil. It’s in direct conflict to Scots constitution & no one can serve two masters with the oath bullshit.
In the event we do secure an indyref it would be sheer stupidity to repeat the same mistakes. It’d only end the same way – especially in light of new evidence the fckers are trying to vote us out of our own country.
I’m sure I remember this shit happening in 2014 too when Cameron deployed military eejits to be stationed here which gave them a vote.
I agree with Salvo & Liberation. I’d hope they’d work alongside or actually positioned in the convention. I’d have to research what they’re actually proposing.
Dan,
it’s below hopeless to expect that council staff will have the capacity to check birth records, evidence of “Scottishness”, and 10 years of continuous residency all before handing out a voting form on the day. The queue would be halfway down the street. And what happens when someone argues the toss, if their records are missing for a couple of years?
Absolute lunacy of a proposal. Unicorn type thinking at every level from principle to practice. And all because, secretly, it’s likely that you want to reduce the franchise to only those who you think will vote Yes. If someone told you that dark haired dark eyed people would tend to vote no, I’d bet that you’d be arguing for them to be excluded as well.
@ ASA
Just where did I suggest that Council staff would have to check birth records?
Electoral Offices that oversee the electoral roll already hold the information on their constantly updated databases that could show a defined duration of residence of an individual in a paticular geographic area if it was required.
Don’t conflate what I have said in my posts about implementing a defined duration of residence criteria to become enfranchised in a constitutional vote, with what others have suggested that only those born in Scotland would get to vote.
It’s very straightforward. Say tomorrow you decide to leave your current residence in Norfolk and move back up to one of your other two properties in Scotland and reside at either your flat in Edinburgh, or the cottage in Perthshire.
Should you do this you will be legally obligated to adjust quite a few of your personal documents and declarations due to this move. You would also register / re-register* to vote in the new area you have moved to.
* Re-register mentioned as you could already have been registered in a restricted capacity as a second home owner and enfranchised to vote in Local Authority elections.
Hypothetical: In 3 years time there is a democratic event held and to be enfranchised as a voter there is for the sake of discussion a 5 year residency qualification aspect.
The local electoral office who deal with the electoral roll can see on their databases that you only moved here 3 years ago and that you were previously register to vote in Norfolk.
Therefore there is no need for any data to be garnered from any external organisations.
If you didn’t register to vote when you first arrived back in Scotland then you could always get feisty and appeal, producing as evidence some of that other personal documentation you’ll have showing you moved back here just 3 years previously.
But be advised by this lowly internet Jocko nutter that doing so probably wouldn’t really help your case. 😉
You are therefore disenfranchised in that vote, you are now experiencing a similarly reality felt by 16 & 17 year olds or EU Nationals in elections held under you favoured London Rule. So suck it up.
“Changes to EU nationals’ voting rights
EU nationals legally resident in the UK may currently register to vote in all elections that use the local government franchise. This entitlement stemmed from the UK’s membership of the EU.
In June 2021, the Government announced it was proposing to amend the legislation covering EU voting rights. It said after the UK’s exit from the EU “there should not be a continued, automatic right to vote and stand in local elections solely by virtue of being an EU citizen”.
The Elections Act 2022 changes the voting rights of EU citizens in local elections in England and Northern Ireland, and in police and crime commissioner elections in Wales. These changes take effect after local elections in England in May 2024.
The eligibility of EU nationals to register to vote in these elections will depend on when they became resident in the UK and which EU country they are from. The Government estimates that around 160,000 EU nationals will lose their right to vote in local elections in England and Northern Ireland.
The changes in voting rights for EU nationals will not affect voters from Cyprus, Malta and Ireland. Resident citizens of Malta and Cyprus will retain their voting rights as qualifying Commonwealth citizens. Those from Ireland will retain voting rights from the historic ties with the UK that predate EU membership.
They will also not alter the voting rights of foreign nationals, including EU nationals, in devolved and local elections in Scotland and Wales.”
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8985/
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/can-eu-citizens-take-part-in-uk-elections-after-brexit/
cool it with the racism, twathater
– we have to allow our enemies a veto on our self determination, otherwise we are bad people
only true scots should vote – my test?
anyone who calls “ginger” – “POP” – is no true scotsman and should be deported to sidcup
Dan,
Electoral Registration Offices aren’t empowered to seek information from other councils. All they know is who has registered with them, when, and an address. They haven’t a clue as to where you’ve come from, what your nationality is, or any other residency. They wouldn’t even know where to start. And that’s before even starting to deal with odd queries or fishing out inconsistencies.
Then, in practice, there just aren’t enough council officials not wasting their time on other unimportant council time wasting nonsense to implement such a system. Not the training, nor the IT, nor the data governance, and half a dozen other things.
The concept of an active campaign to reduce the franchise is a total nonsense.
@ Confused 11.16pm Scotland must be the worst country in the whole wide world, according to the resident brit nats naebidy can dae anything,HTAF did Scotland and Scots survive for thousands of years withoot the engerlish telling us wit tae dae
Aw these renowned Scots who gave the world the enlightenment must have had an engerlishman working them fae the back
You’re welcome.