The Little Country That Lost Its Mind
So this just happened.
Which even in the hopelessly politically-debased world of the modern Scottish judiciary might be one of the most extraordinary miscarriages of justice in the nation’s history.
Because what Dave Llewelyn actually did was quote George Galloway’s own words.
He didn’t just say it once, either.
He then went on to found “Alliance For Unity” (later “All For Unity”), a political party which saw Galloway ally himself actively and directly with the Tories, to the extent that he personally voted for them.
But finding examples of George Galloway doing political U-turns is about as hard as – well, we better not say “shooting fish in a barrel”, eh? We don’t want to be accused of hate crimes against fish, especially as the First Minister shares a name with one. Let’s say “spotting Protestants at Ibrox”.
The fact that Galloway subsequently DID the very thing he said people should shoot him for isn’t even the point. The point is that Dave Llewelyn was simply quoting his own words back at him satirically.
The trial judge knew that full well, yet astoundingly still handed down a guilty verdict (there was no jury to laugh at the absurdity of it all, which may explain the alacrity with which the Scottish Government is trying to do away with them).
Dave Llewelyn could now face imprisonment as some sort of dangerous terrorist, and if pointing out that George Galloway is a ludicrous buffoon makes you a terrorist then pretty much everyone in Britain is in a lot of trouble.
So whatever you do, don’t tell him to poke his own eyes out
or he’ll grass you right up to the rozzers and then issue lengthy statements to the media about how horrified and frightened George Galloway was by the terrible things George Galloway said about committing violence on the person of George Galloway, and then inexplicably forgot about.
We’ll be honest, readers – this morning we were sure that this would be the most embarrassing and ludicrous story about Scottish justice we’d see today:
But our country is now such a banana-republic joke that in the end it wasn’t even a close second.
Dave Llewelyn’s card was marked, of course, as soon as he drew the ire of the SNP’s heir apparent and his fragrant wife.
Mrs Robertson is the leader of a PR company with a strikingly large catalogue of awards in its short history and which employs 13 full-time staff (mostly identical-looking young women) despite having assets of just £15,000.
And we’re sure these events are unconnected to the inexplicable presence of Crown Agent David Harvie at Llewelyn’s hearing. Perhaps Mr Harvie just really enjoys a good trial, since he also showed up for Craig Murray’s.
But if you’re not scared of the direction Scotland’s heading in under the rule of Nicola Sturgeon, readers, we’d suggest that you’re really not paying attention.
The logical thing to do would be to complain about this to your MP but ….
It’s extremely worrying.
Political trials in Scotland.
How will this end?
Galloway, Robertson, sturgeon, etc, etc all employed by the british state – that’s some wage bill the food banks finance.
Shouldn’t Galloway be sectioned as a danger to himself, given the troubling things he’s said he’d do to himself?
It is incredibly unbelievable that NORMAL Scottish citizens should have to cower in terror from a disgusting and reviled legal system that is intent on threatening any dissent or opposition to our SCUM politicians or our SCUM government
HOW is it possible that Dave Llewelyn can be prosecuted for quoting the RAT IN THE HATS words back at him, clearly the judiciary or is it only Harvie’s COPFS that is determined to engage in political prosecutions , WHATEVER happened to pursuing REAL CRIMINALS , E.G. FRAUDSTERS or MISAPPROPRIATION OF POLITICAL FUNDS
I have asked before, if a word causes offence and using it will incur legal criminal charges why are some people exempt from those charges , is it reverse discrimination
Good lord , whee are we headed with heidbangers in government and the judiciary and the polis?
Is there a means of appeal? Surely tweeting someone’s own words back isn’t a fking crime? Surely if it is…. The originator should be the criminal. This isn’t a Scotland I want to be part of.
If these fking British state pegs don’t go…… My family will have to leave the country I love. Can’t stand this level of toryism.
Nicola Sturgeon, her husband and a whole bunch of SNP “grandees” are without doubt UK State Security assets. Is David Harvie, MI5 officer and COPFs agent their handler? Who knows. But without a fuckin doubt, these people are working as hard as they can against Independence and the Scottish people.
So we’re supposed to believe that George said it but didn’t mean it, and Dave typed it and did mean it?
I cannot say I am surprised given the history of the “show” trials culminating with the Alex Salmond debacle.
Can someone please explain – Dave drew Robertson’s ‘ire’ over what?
If it was just that he passed comment on her convenient marriage to that bloated throbber, plenty of us should be on guard.
Oh for heaven’s sake how can you be found “guilty of vile comments” when quoting the complainant’s own words? Did he forgot the quotation marks?
Crowdfund for Dave Llewelyn?
@Doug (6.47) –
Excellent suggestion.
Let’s take this chance to make a point and make it loud.
Any of us could be next.
I still have some respect for Galloway for what he did for the Palestinian people. However I now think he’s in the employment of the British state.
As for what happened to Mr Llewellyn, and the Mi5 agent in attendance, along with a juryless trial, Scotland is fast becoming a backwater state under Sturgeon’s tenure, where uttering the truth will see you up before a compliant judge in a juryless court, and then its off to prison with you.
As for the next leader of the SNP Robertson, he’s just a replica of Sturgeon he’s also a Königswinter speaker.
“Conference has convened once a year bringing together around 80 German and British politicians, diplomats, business managers, academics and journalists for a profound exchange of ideas.”
You can imagine what ideas would go through this lots minds.
Anyway, even if you loathe the idea of Scottish independence surely you would want to see the truth spoken and fair and free trials with juries, lets not see more innocent folk sent to prison in the future in Scotland give Alba your vote from now on and get the NuSNP and Sturgeon out of office for good.
I’d lost most respect for Galloway over the unionism thing. But now…absolutely clear he’s part of the UK establishment. As are those leading the SNP. We truly are fucked. We had a chance to fight it back in 2019 but not enough people were paying attention: far too many were busy worshiping at the alter of these false idols. Everything was so perfect and so totally set up for independence in 2017. Instead we’ve ended up with an increasingly fascist colonial state. And one we can’t even escape to Europe from anymore, and will be even less able to do as the pound tanks to worthless. Fucked every which way and I don’t see a way out.
1984, with all the trimmings. What next?
Could I be forgiven for thinking George Galloway is just a distraction and this is really about Mr Robertson and Ms Dempsey?
There is much madness about.
There is also an odious stench coming from the courts.
If it smells like shit….
Having said that it’s 2022 this nonsense must stop
Looking forward to hearing that Dave is going to appeal. And to contributing to his fundraiser.
“Anyway, even if you loathe the idea of Scottish independence surely you would want to see the truth spoken and fair and free trials with juries, lets not see more innocent folk sent to prison in the future in Scotland give Alba your vote from now on and get the NuSNP and Sturgeon out of office for good.”
Unionists will be quite happy that Sturgeon is reducing Scotland to a nasty, vindictive wee country, RoS. It potentially destroys any case for independence by painting us as a banana republic without the sun or the rum.
As others have said, a crowd funding effort for Mr Llewelyn is one of the few weapons The Wee Folk like us can muster without automatically criminalising us, since it is not a woke/gender issue.
As Ian Brotherhood said, any of us could be next, so let’s not leave it until it’s too late.
And it’s always later than you think, chinas.
Have been having trouble posting because of Bad Gateway messages.
Posted this on the previous thread by mistake.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the Principal Crown prosecutor Stephen O’Rourke wrote what was he said would be the first in a series of books called ‘The Crown Agent’. In the headlines all over the place:-)
I will be appealing but any start that process until after sentencing on the 31st of the month as they are waiting for social enquiry reports due to me having a clean record for 33 years . I did a 2 hour stint on TweetStreet tonight where I was able to lay out some of the things I have been prevented from saying for two years and there is a lot more coming after sentencing .
I wonder how they find out about these tweets.
Was Dave Llewelyn being watched?
Also having a lot of ‘bad gateway’ problems.
Does Galloway really think this farce will endear him to the electorate next time he tries to get back on the gravy train? I think not. We must all worry when humorous and tongue-in-cheek remarks land us in the courts. And more so if Sunak wins the tory contest and makes hatred of the british state a crime.
I cant even stand the word ‘british’ and refuse to have it used to refer to me – my identity is Scottish and Scottish only, and if men have the right to dishonestly self-identify as women, then I most certainly have the right to honestly self-identify as indigenous Scot, contrary to what the EC keep trying dishonestly to label me as, ‘british’.
@Fionan: thankfully, Galloway was finished after his gruesome Kitty Kitty performance on Big Brother. And I almost believed him after his performance before the Senate Committee too, more fool me. He was quite impressive then.
Given your laudable parameters, George will always be just a wee Britnat chancer who believes in any oppressed people’s freedom apart from ours.
The SNP will have its day, hence their asking for former supporters to rejoin the party, now we’ve left them all we need do now is to stop voting for them and get them out of power.
Forgive me saying, but I don’t get the David Llewelyn/Jennifer Robertson/MI5 connection.
To all of George Galloway’s apologists – are you feeling very bloody stupid yet? A very long overdue feeling very bloody stupid at that!
Those of us with eyes to see, who saw what he was doing in the gutters of politics, knew exactly the sort of man he was and what his intentions were, and gave the warnings – although the War On Want debacle really ought to have left most in no doubt long, long ago.
But no. His Toytown revolutionary machismo blusher and a cheeky wee side helping of Jew baiting, and some of you couldn’t help yourselves, could you?
Making endless excuses for the inexcusable (“oh well, at least he annoys the Tories” … so f**king what? So does Nigel Farage and Northern Ireland Unionists, does that make them fking gallus Alice too?), until finally – FINALLY – it was someone you DID care about that fell foul of the evil little toad’s legal gymnastics machinations.
Happy now?
When it has got to the stage that Sturgeon and co are jailing anyone preaching dissent against them on trumped up charges, long past the time to quit the bullshit self-indulgent schemes and to start getting back to basics – getting people informed, getting people bloody angry, and getting the message ove to them that for reasons of self-preservation they’d better come to their senses and care pretty damn quick.
It is Dave Llewelyn today – it will be you tomorrow … at least, as long as they think they can keep getting away with it.
Can I just point out that all these things are happening — and keep happening — in a country where the Tories are a marginal force at most and whose people pride themselves on being left-leaning by default and, accordingly, more virtuous and compassionate than those awful social conservatives. Maybe take a time-out and rethink your entire philosophy of life, folks?
My goodness. Loopy judgements. Should we now conclude the Scottish legal system is utterly and wholly corrupted by MI5, and other English government infiltrators?
Ans then, what of George Galloway himself? Does what he is told to do, is what I think.
Definitely donate to an appeal.
I have to say again how sickened i am at the silence of the SNP MSPs/MPs who are prepared to endorse this evil destroying the very fabric of our society.
Now we know what’s been keeping our law enforcers busy. Perhaps this explains why there is apparently no movement on the Daily Record leak and the alleged perjury during the trial of AS.
If I may, and as it’s Edinburgh Fringe time – a brief sketch involving 2 police and a Daily Record employee
Police person 1 to Record Employee – ‘Who gave you the Alex Salmond story?’
Record Employee – ‘I’m afraid that I cannot reveal my source’
Police person 2 – ‘Right, you’re nicked for obstructing a police investigation.’
@Athanasius
A compromised administration/ system , does not necessitate a “rethink,” it requires a purging of the corruption.
Is this the first prosecution of Indy supporters Mrs Robertson has been involved with?
Surly this should be in the hands of the RSPCA since George be an the Cat in the Hat.
Or was that Prat.
George is on any side that pays him.
Indefatigable in his quest the be well paid shill.
Scottish legal system is right up there with the farces that are Westminster and the Met Police.
@Athanasius 10:40pm
We are indeed a country where that marginal force called “Tories” still rule over us – rather annoyingly from another country.
I’ve taken plenty of time out to wonder what the philosophy is behind those supposedly pro independence politicians who seem happy for that situation to continue.
Can I just point out my philosophy is to keep pressurizing these supposedly pro independence politicians to take action to achieve a situation where our country is 100% responsible for its own actions.
No MI5 or MI6 required you see. Think of all the money these “Tories” from another country could save.
This is appalling and terrifying at the same time. As others have said you could be next.
I will contribute to an appeals fund.
There are historical precedents for trumped up charges and showtrials. In 1922 Gandhi was tried for “bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards the British Government established by law in British India”. I am certain Truss et al would approve.
This trial led directly to the independence of India. At his trial Gandhi did not have a defence lawyer. Funnily enough just after the trial the chief prosecutor, Strangman , returned to England to stand for the tory party. Happily he lost. No one knows exactly why he returned to England – but we can guess.
The Nazis were also very, very fond of showtrials. Their favourite judge, Roland Freisler, was killed by his own court (building).
I hope the Sherriff/Judge in their sentencing understands that Scotland is watching and more importantly so is the world.
well, if I ever get stitched up for sod-all by this selectively applied joke of a law, enacted by corrupt twerps in widow twankey outfits …
– I hope they get a cool photo of me outside the courthouse, like smoking a fag, nonchalant dinnay-gie-a-fuck style
venceremos, brave Llewelyn!
Re the PR setup I commented on here at the time that it was unbelievable that the Scottish government were going to GIVE DF concerts something like £100,000 to move the T in the park venue to another location
How can that be acceptable giving our state money to a PRIVATE PROFITABLE ORGANISATION that runs concerts , okay they are profitable and give revenue to locals but they are NOT a charitable organisation , it was said that if the money was not GIVEN DF wouldn’t run the concerts , I said at the time surely there was someone with enough brains in the SG to run it and use the profits to benefit charities , in hindsight knowing the moronic machinations of the current crop of scum in the SG they would probably have cost us a lot more than £100,000 and done more reputational damage to Scotland
The whole thing stank and there was people on here defending the stupidity and questionable actions
The uk = Clown Show
not laughing (people are dead now)
………….no more laughs.
Another more than willing to add to the crowdfund.
This is frightening nonsense and leaves the law in tatters-utterly shameful.
What a farce. It seems that trials by jury are OK until the powers that be require a particular verdict. Then the jury is not required. How convenient. So many examples now apparent. It’s a dangerous road to travel. Scary stuff.
Only another 4 weeks before the Top Tory appointment. Oh the stress!
They might have saved themselves the trouble, plenty of likelies down Regents Park zoo, instantly available, diverse, promiscuous and representive of the kingdom.
@Athanasius 10.40
Can I just point out that all these things are happening — and keep happening — in a country where the Tories are a marginal force at most and whose people pride themselves on being left-leaning by default and, accordingly, more virtuous and compassionate than those awful social conservatives. Maybe take a time-out and rethink your entire philosophy of life, folks?
Perhaps most of us don’t shed our principles as easily as some do a manky jaiket? I doubt the lesson that the (largely) left of centre, communitarian-minded Scots will take from the democratic deficit of being ruled by a bunch of libertarian spivs elected by bovine know-nothings in the English shires is that we must throw the baby of social democracy out with the rank bathwater of the failing British nationalist union project.
As Doug pointed out in response to your post at 11.18 pm ( “Can I just point out my philosophy is to keep pressurizing these supposedly pro independence politicians to take action to achieve a situation where our country is 100% responsible for its own actions.” ) the answer to our predicament lies in convincing our leadership/governing elite, as well as a sufficient majority of the voting public, that the current situation is both a democratic outrage and that failing to remedy it via independence now represents more of a risk than the status quo.
That argument doesn’t even necessarily have to be ideologically based. Even socially conservative and centrist/liberal Scots can be convinced that the kind of society we want to see for the Common Weal would be more likely to happen, and better reflect our values, if we were 100% responsible for our own affairs.
Anyone, of whatever political persuasion, who looks at the governance of the UK over the past decade and thinks it serves as anything other than an example of how NOT to do things hasn’t been paying attention.
Er, guys, think this may have all been done to set a legal precedent, knowing full well any appeals against his sentence have zero chance of success and that anyone campaigning on his behalf is going to make themselves appear about as popular as Lord Longford.
Turns out this Dave Llewelyn isn’t a very nice character at all.
link to scotsman.com
Llewelyn was selling zombie drugs like spice from his home in Antwerp (where they were still legal) until that loophole was finally shut down by the EU in 2016. As someone remembering only too well seeing people lying dead on Buchanan Street and under the Hi’landman’s Umbrella from that crap, any sympathies I have toward people making that crap, never mind selling it, are less than zero.
I’m even more appalled to learn that this guy’s a leading light in Alba (campaign manager, apparantly), and was one of the fannies who stood at the border during the Covid lockdown shouting at English people driving past to “go home” (straight out of McGlashin in Absolutely, that one!)
Galloway is a fraud. An asset clearly working for the British Establishment/State.
How do I know?
Well, make your own mind up:
Back in the late 80’s as a local Union Rep. I had cause to contact, by phone, an academic of my acquaintance who I had not had contact with for several years.
Having concluded the business we were about to ‘clear down’ the connection when the said academic asked me for a favour.
Apparently, the academic was also a leading member of a well known charitable NGO whose AGM was approaching. Galloway, and a clique associated with him were attempting to take over the NGO via its leading positions at the AGM.
I was asked would I become a voting member and ask fellow Reps.of my acquaintance in the Union within the geographical patch to join in order to assist in fending off this hostile take over bid.
I replied that I would see what I could do.
It was at this point that things got weird. With the phone conversation being late at night, along with having so many balls in the air at the time, I had my very first ‘senior moment.’
I put the phone down and completely forgot everything which had just transpired. Not even the cat knew.
A week later, in the early evening, the phone rang. As soon as I heard the academics voice I remembered the conversation of week earlier and assumed this was a follow up call to see if I had made any progress. Triggering my going into abject apology mode.
After calming me down from what I considered to be both a breach of promise and a faux pas as a result of my memory lapse it was explained to me that Galloway had found out that I, personally, had made this commitment a week earlier.
The academic had already received written correspondence from Galloway threatening some kind of action against the academic and the General Secretary of my Union (also an MP at the time) would be receiving a complaint about me attempting to interfere in the charitable NGO election by recruiting local Union representatives.
The Branch subsequently received correspondence from the Union at national level on this matter to explain ourselves.
Having advised this academic I had not even mentioned the matter to anyone – including my own family – never mind acted upon it I asked the academic whether he had relayed the subject of our phone conversation of the previous week to anyone else.
On confirming that no one else apart from myself and the academic were ever made aware of that request during that telephone conversation the following question arises:
How did Galloway come by that information?
Logically, there are only two possible explanations. Either Galloway is psychic and can read minds or either the academics phone line or mine was being ‘tapped”
Given local Union experience of the latter on several previous occasions throughout the mid-80’s – at one point a few years previous, for example, the company we worked for had been caught tapping the Union Branch phones and that of several active members and local elected officers without the home Secretary’s approval – the most logical explanation is the latter of those two options.
Which then raises the question of Galloway’s association with people and organisations with the resources and ability to ‘tap’ telephone lines.
The only way this makes any sense is that Galloway, like many others before him and since, has been a long term Establishment asset. a wrecking ball on the political left for the British Security Services.
He’s a fake who needs to be widely and publicly exposed as the fraud he is.
Garavelli Princip,
“5 August, 2022 at 11:13 pm
Is this the first prosecution of Indy supporters Mrs Robertson has been involved with?”
No, it isn’t.
” Anyone, of whatever political persuasion, who looks at the governance of the UK over the past decade and thinks it serves as anything other than an example of how NOT to do things hasn’t been paying attention. ”
Good post Andy . Scotland’s problem – as I’m sure you’re aware , is not enough people have being paying attention to what’s been happening in their own country .
How have this gang of fckn monsters – typified by the nasty , ruthlessly ambitious J Robertson who tweeted her delight n satisfaction at the conviction and imprisoning of Craig Murray on ludicrous trumped-up charges , and her self-satisfied , oleaginous , Sturgeon arse-kissing husband , come to accrue such power n influence ? And , more generally , how has the cause of Independence been allowed to be hijacked by their ilk , mangled by their agendas and warped * personalities * ?
The answers are no doubt multiple but can be ( over ? ) simplified to a lack of critical thinking . A phenomenon not unique to Scotland , of course , but one that is having a disastrous effect on our lives here and now .
The most urgent question for us is how we can get rid of the disease that has entered our body politic and is eating it alive from the inside .
Drastic times require drastic measures . * Radical * surgery ; or death to our aspiration
@ Robert Hughes: “..how can we get rid of the disease that has entered our body politic..”.
Indeed. It is mind-blowingly difficult especially when MSM doesn’t want to.
Robert Louis @10.48pm.
I think after what happened to Craig Murray and Alex Salmond, though Salmond was lucky he still had the luxury of a jury, that we must assume that the judiciary and the COPFS has been infiltrated/invited in, those loyal to Whitehall, where there’s one there’s likely to be more.
Why were there no prosecutions of those SNP employees who threatened Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine?
Mark Boyle says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:26 am
Er, guys, think this may have all been done to set a legal precedent…
…
hatchet job on DL—
Dae ye, aye?
“SNP plan to clamp down on fake news in the independence movement“
link to archive.ph
When I see the term “fake news”, I always assume what is really meant is truth.
That’s probably too advanced for most of you chumps 😐
I’ve basically given up hope of independence. The SNP is sickeningly compromised and rotten to the core, and appears to have decided on a scorched earth policy that is turning Scotland into a shithole for Yoons and Indys alike (although at least Yoons don’t get jailed).
I have just checked out the lyrics of the Wu Tang Clan “song” and I can confirm that the offending word is there.
Readers will understand and sympathise with the severity of the shock that seeing that word on screen has inflicted on me. Obviously I will get over it, given time. But the process can’t be rushed.
So, to business. I could really use £500, just to tide me over until I can pick up the pieces and move on. Where do I start?
David Ferguson @ 11:10 am
Don’t give up hope. Instead, let’s push Alba. Yes, I know, they’re not perfect, but they’ve a leader who believes totally in independence. That will do for me.
@Hatuey – probably too advanced for most of us chumps.
Maybes naw.
Tell you what though Hatuey. Why don’t you get together with one of the non-chump BTL commenters on here and breed. You should be able to spawn an uber-BTL over-achiever to maintain the stellar quality, relevance and interest of your pebble dashes in the years to come.
Don’t worry about the lengthy timescale this might need. Indy isn’t coming any time soon.
Robert Hughes says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:51 am
How have this gang of fckn monsters – typified by the nasty , ruthlessly ambitious J Robertson who tweeted her delight n satisfaction at the conviction and imprisoning of Craig Murray on ludicrous trumped-up charges , and her self-satisfied , oleaginous , Sturgeon arse-kissing husband , come to accrue such power n influence ? And , more generally , how has the cause of Independence been allowed to be hijacked by their ilk , mangled by their agendas and warped * personalities * ?
The cause of independence has allowed itself to become hijacked because every time they overstep the boundaries and turn Scotland ever more into a tinpot dictatorship, the only solution – the only override that still exists – is appealing to the authorities in Westminster, and no Scottish nationalist with two brain cells to rub together would willingly do so.
David Davis so eloquently pointed out last year that Scotland has not the correct checks and balances in place to ensure that Holyrood remains democratically accountable in-between elections, and this could easily be resolved with a few tweeks.
And I quote:
“The Holyrood inquiry has exposed some critical failings at the heart of the Scottish Government. They failed with the complaints process, they failed to heed legal advice, and they failed to honour commitments made to ensure a transparent parliamentary review.
Perhaps more worryingly, the inquiry has revealed the limits of what the Scottish Parliament can expose. There is a deficit of power and with it comes a deficit in accountability. At very least I ask the Minister today to consider an amendment to the 1998 Act to deliver separation of powers to Scotland, something I believe Madam Deputy Speaker a previous justice minister, the Honourable Member for East Lothian, has written to our justice committee about already.
So to deliver separation of powers to Scotland, to strengthen the civil service, to reinforce the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and correcting the fundamental power imbalance between the executive and the legislature in Scotland. Let us give the Scottish Parliament the power to do the job.”
But here’s the rub: it could and would be too easily spun as proof that the Scots are incapable of ruling themselves – and Sturgeon and co would use the threat of this misinterpretation as much as the vermin of Scotland In Union, etc. would use it … their very own equivalent of the “JONES WILL COME BACK!” threat from “Animal Farm”.
What? An SNP government refusing extra powers? It couldn’t happen! Oh but it could, if it was against the interests of those in charge and wanting to make sure they stayed there. After all, it would be everyone else getting the extra powers … and no way would “Dear Leader” countenance that.
Sunak proposes to chide the SNP.
Could do better, not fit for purpose, ditch the management Rishi?
“Don’t give up hope. Instead, let’s push Alba. Yes, I know, they’re not perfect, but they’ve a leader who believes totally in independence. That will do for me.”
Agreed.
When no indyref appears on the horizon the majority of the indy masses will wake up and realise what a charlatan Sturgeon is, and switch to Alba, unfortunately this will take time. I look forward to the day that Salmond is FM again and Sturgeon is in prison. I might have a bit of wait.
” it could and would be too easily spun as proof that the Scots are incapable of ruling themselves …. ”
Aye , there’s the rub indeed Mark .
As someone said above …..it could quite plausibly be the case the UK/English State is quite content to see the unfolding calamity of this SNP GOV’s rule – maybe even supplying the rope ? with the ultimate aim of closing Holyrood , or at * least * – as you say – using it to demonstrate the hopelessness of Scots to govern themselves and in the process fatally wounding the idea of Independence .
Which is not to attempt to shift responsibility onto it ( the UK/English State ) : no , this is primarily a * home-grown * pestilence , the result of people of VERY questionable character assuming positions of power – under false pretences , and using those positions for personal and/or ideological advancement
.
National justice will come to Sturgeon, Murrell and Scotland’s Addams family, the Creepy Robinsons.
How? They will leave power or be evicted one day. It is a scientific fact. If that is insufficient, how about “all political careers end in failure?”
My own preferred phrase in these circumstance of Nasty Alba-Hating Zero-Chance Independence (N*A*Z*I party) that turned a wee country into losing its mind is…
Dear Nicola,
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown”
One day, you will have the levers of control removed from your gnarled grasping clawed talons.
Then, inexorably as the penny drops with so many folk currently not plugged in that they have been stitched up and “governed” by the feeble McFifty in such a tractorish way, the tide in Scotland will flow in the same direction that it has turned in America:-
Vast numbers are now looking to seek criminal charges and a custodial result against the bent estate agent that lied his way into the American presidency… the orangutan with orange tan and a MAGaot hat…
link to latimes.com
@David Ferguson (11.10) –
‘I’ve basically given up hope of independence. The SNP is sickeningly compromised and rotten to the core, and appears to have decided on a scorched earth policy that is turning Scotland into a shithole for Yoons and Indys alike (although at least Yoons don’t get jailed).’
Agreed, but I’d modify that first sentence a wee bit…’I’ve given up on achieving independence by using the same methods.’
By doing the same thing repeatedly we’re exhibiting signs of madness, and this kind of frustration is the result.
But there are other ways. SALVO is highlighting the constitutional route, fresh and radical to most ears, and there is a burgeoning Civil Rights movement which will bolster the case for widespread and serious civil disobedience and/or general strike action.
There are simply too many of us to be cowed by the targeting of individuals.
Hatuey says:
6 August, 2022 at 11:10 am
“SNP plan to clamp down on fake news in the independence movement“
link to archive.ph
When I see the term “fake news”, I always assume what is really meant is truth.
That’s probably too advanced for most of you chumps 🙁
Not us wot has studied the work of René Magritte. 🙂
“la fausse nouvelle est réelle”
“le mensonge est la vérité”
All the chumps who are happy to accept that
‘un homme est une femme’
might be on board with your progressive way of thinking.
A excellent article, we are being held in this union by deception nothing else. England has no parliamentary sovereignty over Scotland, but as long as our representatives MPs/MSPs say silent on the matter for self gain we will remain tied to this fetid union.
“We have been abandoned by the courts, which preferred to look the other way while the Act of Union with England was butchered. We were abandoned by the Scottish Peers, far more preoccupied by their concessions and standing than Scotland’s interests. And we have been abandoned by our MPs, who, bar very few, have been blinded by unionist partisanism, careerism and power greed. This has never been more obvious than with the SNP under Sturgeon.”
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Mark Boyle says:
Turns out this Dave Llewelyn isn’t a very nice character at all.
Llewelyn was selling zombie drugs like spice from his home in Antwerp (where they were still legal) until that loophole was finally shut down by the EU in 2016. As someone remembering only too well seeing people lying dead on Buchanan Street and under the Hi’landman’s Umbrella from that crap, any sympathies I have toward people making that crap, never mind selling it, are less than zero.
I’m even more appalled to learn that this guy’s a leading light in Alba (campaign manager, apparantly), and was one of the fannies who stood at the border during the Covid lockdown shouting at English people driving past to “go home” (straight out of McGlashin in Absolutely, that one!)
Are you saying this ‘most extraordinary miscarriages of justice’ is deserved because of something he did in the past which you didn’t approve of.
Chickens coming home; and reaping what’s been sowed. Never mind people in glass houses.
I suggest people read the full article by Alex. Lawrie published in Edinburghlive to get a fuller picture of what this is all about.
It made me wonder about the intellectual capacity of certain people wanting to pick a fight with someone of the strength of mind of Dave LLewellyn.
His post above shows what they have let themselves in for.
They may have just opened a huge can of worms for themselves and others. I expect there are many people who are looking forward to seeing things in print which has so far been unavailable.
“He said the song in question was Wu-Tang Clan’s Protect Ya Neck.
Allan told Sheriff Ian Cruickshank that they were a well established group formed in Staten Island, in New York City, in 1992, with the members of an “ethnic background”.
The defence solicitor said a few issues arose from the case, such as “artistic freedom”, but he noted that Siegel was not a “person of colour”.”
Is it the case that a “person of colour”.” has more “artistic freedom” than a white person.
If a “person of colour” uses the word it doesn’t offend?
If you are in a toilet cubicle how can you tell if the person singing is white or a “person of colour”
What happens if someone self-ids as a “person of colour”?
My other question is:
What was Kyle Siegel doing in the Ladies toilet?
Of course it is to intimidate the independence move as were many recent trials in Scotland,
Just make sure you do not mention any ones names when your raging at the injustices of political prisoners in Scotland which as far as I am aware is illegal.
Targeting a specific group whom seek independence of their country more than other sections of the community is political.
Trials without prejudiced juries or any jury can also be seen as political imprisonment without a fair trial, which is also illegal.
I am unsure which article in the treaty mentions that you cannot be tried without a jury or held indefinately.
Do people who mean to cause harm to politicians announce it on Twitter beforehand?
Tartan Jihadist lol. What a load of fucking nonsense from that rag.
George Galloway is like a broken clock. But, even a broken clock is sometimes right:
Regarding Indyref1, he said:
“Salmond is not offering true independence — if Britain is so bad how come he wants to keep so much of it? With the Queen still the head of state and the Bank of England still in charge”.
Such an indy-lite arrangement would have required mutual co-operation with England, our imperial master. So, it was all too easy and predictable for our imperial rulers to say they aren’t going to co-operate and so raise serious doubts about the viability of the YES campaign’s proposals for indy-lite; the prime example being a shared currency with England.
from the Daily Ranger’s “tartan jihadist” story
Llewelyn is also alleged to have photoshopped Galloway’s face on to an image of an adult having sex with an animal and then posted it on Twitter.
– but did the animal consent?! Are you being queer-phobic?
– has anyone NOT done this, about 5 seonds after learning how the “scissors” work in Paint? It’s like looking up “fuck” in the dictionary when you were 7 years old.
Galloway – everyone knows the score with him, he was “spotted” a long time ago, shouldn’t need saying here.
The “tell” is always – “fighting the man” but makes a damn good living doing it (- going after your money is their first tactic). Then when you contrast their treatment with others who got “thrown up against the wall” it seems obvious.
– the trick is to be “edgy” enough to make people believe you, but not so much it causes trouble; a pied piper if you will. Alex Jones was one (- its what he would NOT talk about is interesting) but he seems to have “gone off the reservation” and has been punished for it.
GG – the only people who might have shot him (and completely gotten away with it) are the Israelis, when he did one of his stunts for the palestinians, but the usually trigger happy master race seemed okay with his agitations. It’s almost like he was “protected”.
GG – banging the drum for a homeland for the Palestinian (which will be too wee, too poor) and is NEVER going to happen while Israel has an airforce and AIPAC exists – is very SAFE, is it not? But Indy?!
Ian Brotherhood says:
6 August, 2022 at 12:16 pm
@David Ferguson (11.10) –
But there are other ways. SALVO is highlighting the constitutional route, fresh and radical to most ears, and there is a burgeoning Civil Rights movement which will bolster the case for widespread and serious civil disobedience and/or general strike action.
—–
There is no magical, legal route to independence. Independence can only be achieved if you win over a majority of the Scottish electorate.
How would this absurd civil disobedience movement work? Around 52% of Scots do not support independence and a large section of the 47% in favour of it are not hardcore fundamentalists. If independence doesn’t happen, they’ll simply shrug their shoulders and move on with their lives.
James che says on 6 August, 2022 at 1:00 pm: “I am unsure which article in the treaty mentions that you cannot be tried without a jury or held indefinitely.”
Not sure about that but as far as ‘Human Rights’ go it is Article 6: The Right to a fair trial
Hatuey says:
6 August, 2022 at 11:10 am
“SNP plan to clamp down on fake news in the independence movement“
link to archive.ph
Might just be me, but the SNP seems to be floundering a bit for relevance. They trumpet on about stuff that’s a massive yawn beside the SSRG Conference last week, and SALVO beginning to make it’s presence felt.
I don’t care what the SNP’s Aberdeen nutters are waffling on about, though they seem to have taken over from SNP’s Stirling based nutters.
It actually feels such a retrograde step to go ‘back’ and see what the SNP is grinding on about; some gangling irrelevance that’s found somebody or something offensive.
Going forward, the more the SNP attempts to assert control, the more people they’re going to annoy. I think Sturgeon is losing relevance. It would be superb if she stepped down while she had a degree of integrity with some, but of course, she won’t.
@Christopher Pike 2:53pm
Agreed except I wouldn’t move on. An earlier contributor talked about about socially conservative, centrist liberals. I guess that is me. I am also a civic Nationalist and law abider. But we haven’t had a fair and balanced debate again!. I want good public services but we need the dynamism to pay for them. I agree with the workers that have been offered 2%. Ridiculous offer when inflation is 10% plus. But we have a Governing Party that is the most incompetent in the history of devolution. Very little competence in economics or social cultural policies, in fact in anything. Research shows that a rogue CEO that ruins the operationally competence of an organisation can take the next CEO up to 8 years to recover. So the big question is, has Sturgeons tenure been incompetent or deliberate. The jury is out on that, although I favour sheer incompetence.
@Christopher Pike (2.53) –
Civil disobedience has a long history. Go and look it up. You might just learn something.
The whole situation is done by design to prevent Scotland from seceding from the UK union.
The worst enemy of all is the SNP in collaboration with the Scottish Greens because their UK Supreme Court route will prevent Scotland becoming an independent country.
If you don’t believe me, check out the words from the UK Supreme Court website:
“Can the UKSC overrule the UK Parliament?
No. Unlike some Supreme Courts in other parts of the world, the UK Supreme Court does not have the power to ‘strike down’ legislation passed by the UK Parliament. It is the Court’s role to interpret the law and develop it where necessary, rather than formulate public policy.”
“Can the UKSC overrule Devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in other parts of the UK?
The UKSC can hear ‘devolution issues’, which include questions about whether a Bill or Act of Parliament, or any provision of a Bill or Act of Parliament, is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”
link to supremecourt.uk
Much as I dislike the ‘LibLabCon’, I dislike the SNP and Scottish Greens more, they are no different to the establishment parties. Read Nicola Sturgeon’s biography, she was a qualified solicitor, she knows how the system works and used it against us!
What can I really do? Avoid the news (usually politics) at all costs because it makes me rage over the constant bad news we witness on a daily basis! I don’t even watch television, I educate thanks to the internet.
‘Most of all, what matters is that this is a constitutional argument about the basis for fundamental constitutional change. And constitutional change is, as we know, effected as much, possibly much more, by political will and action than by legal action.’
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Poor, precious, gorgeous George… He needs some milk… Someone get him a saucer of milk!
” Might just be me, but the SNP seems to be floundering a bit for relevance. They trumpet on about stuff that’s a massive yawn beside the SSRG Conference last week, and SALVO beginning to make it’s presence felt. ”
My thoughts exactly Breeks .
The current SNP are like a gaggle of daft teenagers trying to impress within the closed circuit of their own peer group while the adults * next door * – SALVO/SSRG – are discussing subjects of substance and relevance .
” How would this absurd civil disobedience movement work? ”
How does any such thing work ? By – usually at first – a small number of people starting it , garnering support and momentum as it continues , until a tipping point is reached and change can occur , eg the Poll Tax demonstrations .
Albeit that was a very much across-the-board non-specific Party Political protest , whereas Independence is very specific , the principal can still be applied : especially if the Independence Movement can harness the anger and energy of people soon to faced with severe hardships wrought by Inflation , Energy costs and bumbling , insensitive governance .
It’s the postboxes stitch up again isn’t it?
This needs external independent review. Its straying, if it ever didn’t, in the Gestapos.
Repubicofscotland 6.59
Did I blink & miss what Freddie Kruger had done for the Palestinians?
Was it mouth almighty promising the world he’d zero authority or power to ever implement?
Hmm – Like he could get them Super, Super Devo Max?
Apologies if I actually missed something vital this knobhead ever achieved on the world stage.
For information:
link to spiked-online.com
3 long days of “no internet access”. I can’t get over how much has taken place during those 3 days. Incredible! BUT I know for sure that Scotland will be independent very soon – which is why Sturgeon and the Unionists are extremely worried. So cheer up folks! Not long now before our dream comes true.
Doug 11:18pm
The pro indy politicians have left the building a long time ago.
It’s Animal Farm. The instigators of the revolution have turned into the farmer & with far harsher cruelty to keep them there.
The pups will take care of Sturgeons dissenters & report their findings back to head honcho for action or get them binned of SM..
SNP have had a taste at the top & they like it exactly where they are.
Pishy Pete was first out the gate to turn full unionist after the 2015 landslide.
‘Calm yerself, idiot’s! Where’s yer hurry for indyref2?’
Quickly followed by his attempt at Speaker of the House. FFS! As if!!
This current crop needs jettisoned but the lure of the imminent indyref2 keeps the sheep confused for another term & then another..
Barstewards!
If the Snottery Nonce Party were to clamp down on fake news they would have NOTHING ,NADA ,ZILCH to talk to the people about , the fact that any reporter or newspaper can even think about publishing this pish defies logic and pushes irony to unassailable levels
I personally cannot wait for the revolution and the awakening of normal people to what the establishment have inflicted on us
Goodness me. Problems accessing the site yesterday and also tonight. The last bastion of free speech under cyber attack. But by whom?. The incompetent Scot Gov or something more sinister. I don’t think the Scot Gov have the competence. Only leaves one player?
George Ferguson says:
6 August, 2022 at 7:34 pm
Goodness me. Problems accessing the site yesterday and also tonight. The last bastion of free speech under cyber attack. But by whom?. The incompetent Scot Gov or something more sinister. I don’t think the Scot Gov have the competence. Only leaves one player?
And yet the far more contentious Guido Fawkes/Order-Order website, which causes daily embarrassment to the two major combines of the Labour and Conservative Parties, not to mention the LibDems, and an awful lot of stuff about who is funding certain political mouthpieces, appears never to have the same probs that Wings Over Scotland does.
So either Stu is threatening far more important people with access to far more resources than Paul Staines ever does, or his hosting company’s taking the rip.
Looks like this site is under attack difficult accessing today, they mustn’t like what’s on offer, I say f*ck em.
“There is no magical, legal route to independence. Independence can only be achieved if you win over a majority of the Scottish electorate.”
Christopher Pike.
And yet the magical route that got us into this rancid union wasn’t an indyref, so why should we need one to dump it.
Anyway if it does come to an indyref Scotland must control all aspects of it, Westminster MUST have no say in it whatsoever.
Geri @4.49pm.
Galloway was part of a convoy of ships that were blocked by the Israeli’s the convoy was delivering much needed aid to the Gaza Strip. Galloway also took part in a convoy of one hundred vehicles that were laden with aid for the Palestinian people, that one got through they gave the vehicles and their cargo to the Palestinian people, and its was alleged that Galloway handed over a bag of cash to Hamas as well.
Galloway also brought a badly injured young Iraqi girl to Scotland for medical treatment (during the illegal invasion of Iraq) when all things and people from Iraq were loathed due to the lies spread by the Western media and most of its politicians, Galloway paid the full costs of the little injured girls treatments.
I respect him for that, however he advocates independence for every nation bar the one he was born in, and over the last few years I’ve become convinced he’s now in employment of the British state security services or at the very least he’s a useful idiot for them.
@Mark Boyle 7:45pm
Guido is a tittle tattle site concerned mainly with the Westminster bubble. They tolerate certain views as along as it doesn’t breech Vuuckle rules. This is a true free speech site. Stu is remarkably tolerant. He even tolerates a centrist liberal United supporter. I can say that because Aberdein won 4 one today. Otherwise I would be for the chop!.
George Ferguson 8pm.
“Paul Staines is a former member of the Committee for a Free Britain, a shadowy organisation which was funded by Sir James Goldsmith, Rupert Murdoch and David Hart. His self described role with the organisation was as “a foreign policy analyst”.”
Staines is the Editor-in-Chief.
link to order-order.com
@George Ferguson 3:31
I object to paying 10% more for stuff so that the workers producing it, or delivering the services, can get a 10% pay rise.
It’s not like I am getting 10% more.
There’s a more than even chance that most of the people reading here, and even you, think the same way.
Come to think of it, it’s a dead cert. There have been a few democratic politicians who campaigned on a platform that promised to beggar ordinary working people in order to improve the lot of others. But few have voted for them in recent decades.
Bottom line, George, if inflation is 10%, then the only fair policy is a 10% rise for all. As that is manifestly absurd, it’s the special interests with sharp elbows that will win out.
Business as usual in other words.
Incidentally, were you an enthusiastic supporter of the Covid lockdowns, hand outs, etc? Did you ever stop to ask how that largesse would eventually have to be paid for? Some did, and their accurate predictions of what is happening now were not hard to find at the time.
George Ferguson says:
6 August, 2022 at 8:00 pm
@Mark Boyle 7:45pm
Guido is a tittle tattle site concerned mainly with the Westminster bubble.
Whereas WoS is a tittle tattle site concerned mainly with the Holyrood one and Scottish MPs in Westminster – you see my point? Which one is the more likely to be subject to an attempted DDOS attack or whatever it was this time out? In which case, why is it the one most at risk never has the issues WoS does?
It certainly cannot be the case that Stu didn’t notice – he was online enough to be posting merrily away on Twitter during the period on Friday WoS was like Norman Collier’s dud microphone routine.
@Republicofscotland 8:09pm
Yes I know that but I was comparing the sites from a free speech viewpoint. You have to go a long way to annoy Stu. He is very tolerant. I am thinking of Cam B lots of patience and tolerance from Stu. I don’t know how he managed it. He thinks he has retired, 10 years younger than me. I have received an invitation to get involved in an engineering project this week. Where are our young people? Us auld yins getting involved again! It’s a backward step if I am the best candidate.
Republicofscotland says:
6 August, 2022 at 8:09 pm
“Paul Staines is a former member of the Committee for a Free Britain, a shadowy organisation which was funded by Sir James Goldsmith, Rupert Murdoch and David Hart. His self described role with the organisation was as “a foreign policy analyst”.”
Staines is the Editor-in-Chief.
The Committee For A Free Britain (an anti-Labour front, little more than an upper class twit’s copy of Tom Keen’s old Campaign For A More Prosperous Britain) lasted from 1987 to 1991, and it was funded by Baroness Cox, Viscount Monckton and David Hart. Sir Jammy Fishpaste ceased funding them when they turned Eurosceptic, and by the time he decided he didn’t like the EU after all, the CFE was long disbanded.
In the early 2000s, Staines ghost researched stories for The Guardian, until they fell out. He’s been paying them back in spades ever since …
@Republic 7:49
Christopher Pike makes the grown up, rational point that you can’t handle. Stretching a pun, I guess I could say, “they don’t like it up ’em, Pike”.
Applying logic, facts and reason to your assertion that WM must have no say in Indyref2, we run up against the awkward fact that as a majority of Scots voters support the Union, then a majority of Scots voters will thus likely want WM to be fully engaged with Indyref2.
And thus, having pushed the merrygoround yet another revolution, we recognise the simplicity of Mr Pike’s statement, “win over a majority of the Scottish electorate”.
Mark:
Fawkes isn’t a threat to national security. We are.
Leave their state control.
Take control of our own wealth & rescorces.
Become a possible rogue state with undesirables they don’t like.
Become a back door to forgeiners wanting into Englandshire.
Have a voice & veto on int matters that could include against them. Re – EU trade deals.
We flourish & cause them untold int embarrassment because they’re left without a lot to piss in. The cash cow that made them play with the big boys funding warmonering has upped & returned home.
Versus Fawkes tittle tattle. No contest. Indy needs silenced & shut down at all costs.
They can’t have any of that. Period.
Repubicofscotland – thanks for the info. I’d put money on those not being from his own funds tho.
“I object to paying 10% more for stuff so that the workers producing it, or delivering the services, can get a 10% pay rise.”
Main.
In most cases firms give their shareholders huge returns whilst the workers get SFA, I think one of the richest men on the planet Jeff Bezos who owns Amazon, wants to give his workers in some English county a pay rise of 35p, so don’t give me that its all the workers fault that you’ll pay more.
By my definition obscene profits are a sign that companies are not paying their workers enough. All workers have is their Labour, and their rights to protest with, rights that have been hard fought for, and of recent times are under erosion.
The word union in the UK, has been seen as a dirty word, but we need more unions and more folk to join them, like governments people need to hold corporations to account as well, being out of the EU will see workers rights in the UK eroded even more.
Workers rights and safety are always the first to be sacrificed by corporations.
Boyle @8.25pm.
Where did you get that speel from Wiki I suppose, Phil Cross is a busy lad.
On subjects that really matter.
Jimmy Wales is well compromised, and his co-founder buddy Larry Sanger said that Wikipedia is broken and beyond repair.
@John Main 8:13pm
You haven’t read my posts if you think that. I did my own research publicly available on Scot Gov websites. My prediction was 25000 to 40000 additional deaths because of Covid restrictions and lockdown. I started the evidence on Gettr and finished it on here. You can argue that the first lockdown was justified on the basis of we didn’t know what we were dealing with. You can argue the second lockdown was due to vaccine catch up. I have argued that the fourth lockdown was a gratuitous use of power by Sturgeon and cost the Scottish economy 1 billion. Readable on this blog and before Christmas. And we have the evidence. By the way my previous research on additional deaths is standing up. Cancer patients die long and so do mental health conditions.
“Christopher Pike makes the grown up, rational point that you can’t handle. Stretching a pun, I guess I could say, “they don’t like it up ’em, Pike”.”
Main.
Pike is only voicing an opinion, just as I am and you are.
“Applying logic, facts and reason to your assertion that WM must have no say in Indyref2, we run up against the awkward fact that as a majority of Scots voters support the Union, then a majority of Scots voters will thus likely want WM to be fully engaged with Indyref2.”
Keep yir unionist heid on Main, and put yir Butcher Apron back under the bed fir noow.
Its Scotland’s indyref held for Scots, and it should be organised by Scots, why would we allow a foreign and hostile to indy parliament be involved when its for Scots alone to decide.
John Main
So you support greed?
If the fat cats at the top don’t trickle down their wealth then they’ll have no workers to manufacture or deliver things for them.
1st rule. Pay the workers a decent days pay for a decent days work. Not free experience or peanuts while they squirrel profits & screw the workers.
Lockdown didn’t cause this. Billions spent amongst their mates did. It was a BoJo free for all.
Repubicofscotland.
They’re not even political parties registered in Scotland.
Just like last time it’d be arguing with a branch office manager who can promise the world but deliver jack shit without the big bosses say so.
They must be registered in Scotland if they want to take part would be my rule.
They can’t do that cause then they’d be independent from mother ship & be breaking EC rules. Can’t have 2 parties, different pledges.
Republicofscotland says:
6 August, 2022 at 8:41 pm
Boyle @8.25pm.
Where did you get that speel from Wiki I suppose?
Where did you get yours, the David Icke website or whatever other conspiracy theory toilet you get most of your utter shite from on a daily basis?
Boyle.
Lets start with Hart as Murdoch and Goldsmith are well know.
Hart was a Thatcher advisor and Rifkind advisor he was a lobbyist for BAE, he was UK spook in areas of commerce and industry reporting back to the UK security services. Hart had an active role in breaking the miners strike. His son Harry became the director for the Institute for Statecraft.
His other kid Jack, was also listed as a senior fellow of the Institute for Statecraft.
John Main 8:2pm
Mr Pike says: ‘Win over a majority of the Scottish Electorate’
How does Mr Pike know indy hasn’t already & did so a long, long time ago?
As an aside. Did Tommy Shepherd ever get his hands on the taxpayer funded Tory secret polling they conducted on Scottish attitudes that they refused to publish claiming it top secret & matters relating to national security that were of no concern to separatists?
I’ve heard this name Jennifer Dempsey quite frequently.
Groupies, whether it be in music or in other spheres can cause quite mayhem. Slighted, rejected, rebuffed, or not given their way, they can become vicious and malicious. People, very often powerful men, need protection from them.
Jennifer Dempsey though I’m sure is a sweet, upright, moral and supportive girl with not a malicious and bad bone in her body. And to those suggest that in Angus Robertson she got the second choice, one can only say surely not.
Older men, substantially older men, like young wives.
@Willie 10:08pm
Your post would have greater gravitas and believability if you used your identifiable full name. I now use my full name it’s difficult in these times of juryless political determination in legal cases. Or in simple language getting banged up for nothing. In general terms your post is confirmation of the old adage. Their is no fool like an old fool.
Be in no doubt that the british sectet service is operating at the heart of tge scottish government and its highest levels! One day the truth will come out. If sturgeon wanted independece, we would be free already.
#Lothuanlad 11:43pm
My previous comment applies. It’s difficult I know. When the Judiciary represent the Scottish Government and not the people. However, good news we can disturb the SG from their elongated holidays by supporting the recall of Holyrood. Ferries, a failure to support Island communities.
Republicofscotland says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:30 pm
Boyle.
Lets start with Hart as Murdoch and Goldsmith are well know.
Hart was a Thatcher advisor and Rifkind advisor he was a lobbyist for BAE, he was UK spook in areas of commerce and industry reporting back to the UK security services. Hart had an active role in breaking the miners strike. His son Harry became the director for the Institute for Statecraft.
RATFLMAO!
Hart was the black sheep son of a Jewish banker (which is probably why you’re so obsessed with him), whom after disgracing himself at Eton tried to be an entrepreneur with everything he touched – from films to property – turning to shit, largely thanks to his tendency to enjoy the profits instead of reinvesting – fatal in the 1970s.
He resurrected his fortunes by expensively wining and dining the great and good – his role as “advisor” to Thatcher was largely confined to the Miners Strike, as the go-between with Ian McGregor – which put massive strain on Thatcher’s relationship with her Energy Secretary, Peter Walker, and his resignation in 1990 was part of the process which saw her fall from office.
(Walker, as a former chair of the Carlton Club, knew that Hart was a “wrong ‘un.” Thatcher and Walker’s relationship was already strained due to her remarks about the environment during the Falklands War as “humdrum”)
However after that, Hart’s star waned – merely one of a competing series of lobbyists, and the Committee For A Free Britain was in part his attempt to return to relevance, all in vain as the Economic League had largely supplanted what “advice” he’d left to give.
Stop bigging up minor players for the sake of your silly conspiracy theories, you’re embarrassing yourself.
Colonialism involves racism, as we know; but when colonialism is threatened it reaches for its roots, which is fascism (Aime Cesaire). Political prosecutions are starting to mount, which can only mean that independence is near.
“…in Angus Robertson she got the second choice…”
Third or fourth, no?
Alf Baird says:
7 August, 2022 at 12:33 am
Colonialism involves racism, as we know; but when colonialism is threatened it reaches for its roots, which is fascism (Aime Cesaire). Political prosecutions are starting to mount, which can only mean that independence is near.
———
Scotland is not a colony. Reading up on genuine colonialism and applying a ‘cut and paste’ job onto Scotland, is a cheap parlour trick. Your ‘Scotland is a colony’ BS might go down well on your ‘Through A Scottish Prism’ discussions with the Putin sympathising simp living in Spain, but it doesn’t wash in the real world.
You are one strange, oddball of a man.
It seems like just yesterday we were reading articles about the death of Scotland’s oil and gas industry, the costs of decommissioning, etc.
Now we have Tory leadership candidates telling us that they propose to increase Scotland’s oil and gas output in order to save the UK economy.
Do they forget that the natives are listening?
Republicofscotland says:
6 August, 2022 at 8:46 pm
Its Scotland’s indyref held for Scots, and it should be organised by Scots, why would we allow a foreign and hostile to indy parliament be involved when its for Scots alone to decide.
——–
Because, constitutionally Scotland remains part of the UK and Westminster is, thus, not a ‘foreign’ Parliament. Westminster only becomes a foreign parliament once Scotland becomes an independent nation. Reality bites.
Pikey, did you say that about the EU in regards to the Brexit referendum?
Slightly off-topic, but the following article by Thomas Paine about paper money goes a long way to explain current economics and the corrosiveness of fiat money:
link to mises.org
Not living in Scotland I am not familiar with this case. How is it that this case was not a trial by jury? I thought that the proposals to do away with inconvenient juries (that kept finding the wrong people innocent) had been scrapped.
For information:
«British cold war propagandists smeared Kenyan vice-president Oginga Odinga in the 1960s in “black” propaganda operations, newly declassified files reveal»
link to archive.ph
With so much more to lose, what is deep BritState up to now?
@George Ferguson 8:43
Thanks for your reply.
I stand corrected. I agree with every word of your post.
@Hatuey 2:15
Maybes Mr Pike actually read the Brexit referendum question. And understood it.
It was the UK that was taken out of the EU. All of the misunderstandings, accidental and malicious, that have arisen since within the Indy movement, stem from a belief or assertion that Scotland was asked if Scotland should remain in the EU.
Naw, it wisnae.
Read the fucking question again.
@Geri 8:52
I don’t “support” greed. I recognise greed as intrinsic to human nature, and thus pragmatically wish for a political and economic system that tames and harnesses greed for the betterment of all.
We manifestly don’t have that, and won’t have that while people who deny human nature and even human biology are in charge.
Meantime, those who are in a position to use their power (e.g. railway workers), will extort financial advantage from the powerless, mostly other workers. We can agree to disagree over that as a “good thing”.
As for your risible assertion that BoJo is somehow to blame for a world-wide economic tsunami, tell it to the people of Thailand. See if they give you a three-finger salute of approval.
Mark Boyle says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:26 am
“Llewelyn was selling zombie drugs like spice from his home in Antwerp (where they were still legal) until that loophole was finally shut down by the EU in 2016.”
“Still legal” is the point. Pharmaceutical companies,Doctors, breweries, publicans, tobacco companies, shop keepers push legal drugs on people all the time – are you as down on them?
“I’m even more appalled to learn that this guy’s a leading light in Alba (campaign manager, apparantly), and was one of the fannies who stood at the border during the Covid lockdown shouting at English people driving past to “go home” (straight out of McGlashin in Absolutely, that one!)”
Surprised that anyone would object to people trying to protect our own from a bloody plague coming from another country. The borders should have been closed and I salute those who protested as much at the border.
Looks like someone will be only too happy to sign the SNP pledge to “play nice for indy”.
“Bloody plague coming from another country”
That country is China.
Out of interest, you back up your online rants with action? Yes? No?
How’s your boycott of all Chinese goods and services going?
Genuine interest here. I have been trying to implement my own personal boycott for years, and am finding it difficult to impossible.
@Geri 10.02 pm
How does Mr Pike know indy hasn’t already & did so a long, long time ago?
I don’t know how many polls there have been on the indy question recently, but I suspect if one or more had indicated that there was a majority for indy, we’d all know about it.
One poll doesn’t necessarily tell us much of course, but a series of polls all saying the same thing is usually taken as pretty persuasive (unless you’re one of the zoomers that only believes polls that back up your own position).
ALF BAIRD.
I see no signs of the cultural sophistication among the whole Scots political class capable of preventing iScotland from being taken for a ride by the schmoozing globalists and their bling. The immediate «post colonial» period is the danger zone.
Scotland needs more worldly wise «skeptics», as does the rest of the planet.
Looks like someone will be only too happy to sign the SNP pledge to “play nice for indy”.
At the Wee Alba Book event in Edinburgh yesterday the last question – perhaps more of a statement or exhortation from the floor – was from an American woman from Kansas reminding the audience that the recent vote in Kansas (her home state) against amending the state constitution to remove existing protection of abortion rights. Kansans voted No (59% to 41%) to the proposal.
The speaker pointed out that the non-party coalition which won the vote encompassed a wide variety of groups which coalesced around the issue. This backed up what a few others said during the meeting – and Alex Salmond’s view in response to questions – that “if” a plebiscitary election proves necessary / essential, it would be preferable for an umbrella organisations to fight it as a single issue campaign, rather than multiple parties fight it in an attempt to get a majority.
It may be a plausible alternative, particularly if events bring about a change at the top of the SNP. I’m not sure I can see the current SNP leadership (particularly given the pretensions of unelected SNP controlled groups like AIM to police who is and isn’t allowed to participate in the Yes movement!) just rolling over and accepting such a plan though?
@Ottomanboi
You seem a bit like a glass half empty type mate! Doubtless Scots are and will be no better or no worse than any other nationality when it comes to navigating the tricky waters of their immediate independence. We’ll get some things right, and some things wrong. Somehow however I think we’ll manage: “Cometh the hour…” and all that?
I have a suspicion that the “early years of a better nation” will see plenty of ideas and action from innovative folk within Scotland’s political class and those outside it. I’m pretty sure that lifting the yoke of the deeply regressive, crypt-medieval British nationalist state will in itself result in a much needed fillip to Scots confidence and see a host of changes in policy, society and governance that will put clear tartan water between our new nation and the baleful influence on unionism.
We certainly have plenty of evidence from the last few decades (and indeed 300 years since 1707) of how NOT to do things, but also plenty of evidence from other places of how things can be done better.
I’m not sure “schmoozing globalists and their bling” will be any greater a danger to us than anyone else, or indeed that we’ll be uniquely unable to recognise them or try to ameliorate their potential impact on our new nation. Perhaps after freeing ourselves from the rule of English nationalist spivs we’ll be more alert to the dangers of others?
You’re getting slow Boyle, its taken you three hours to compile that utterly vacuous comment. At least you got one thing right.
” knew that Hart was a “wrong ‘un.”
Republicofscotland says:
7 August, 2022 at 10:38 am
You’re getting slow Boyle, its taken you three hours to compile that utterly vacuous comment.
It’s called having a life away from an internet site’s comments section – a concept one realises you have zero ability to grasp.
“Because, constitutionally Scotland remains part of the UK and Westminster is, thus, not a ‘foreign’ Parliament. Westminster only becomes a foreign parliament once Scotland becomes an independent nation. Reality bites.”
Pike.
“When you look at the records of the parliament of Scotland for November 1706, the ratification of the first article of the treaty was conditional to a motion including these words:
“therefore resolved that we are willling to enter into such a union with our neighbours in england as shall unite us entirely and after the most strict manner in all their and our interests of succesion, wars, alliances and trade, reserving to us the sovereignty and independency of our crown and monarchy and immunities of the kingdom and the constitution and frame of the government, both of church and state, as they stand now established by our fundamental constitution, by our claim of right and by our laws following there upon” (taken from the records of the parliaments of Scotland).”
And.
“It does not sound like the old Scottish Parliament had any intention to hand unlimited sovereignty to England MPs, does it?
This is confirmed with article XXIV of the Act of Union reserving to Scotland in all time coming the crown, the scepter, the sword of state, warrants, parliamentary records and all other records, rolls and registers public and private, general and particular.”
Take a peek at this Pike.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Wee Chid says:
7 August, 2022 at 9:39 am
Mark Boyle says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:26 am
“Llewelyn was selling zombie drugs like spice from his home in Antwerp (where they were still legal) until that loophole was finally shut down by the EU in 2016.”
“Still legal” is the point. Pharmaceutical companies,Doctors, breweries, publicans, tobacco companies, shop keepers push legal drugs on people all the time – are you as down on them?
The usual whataboutery from internet libertarians attempting to justify the unjustifiable.
Ask anyone in Police Scotland and local Accident and Emergency crews in the Glasgow area what it was like a few years ago being called out almost continuously to people having collapsed in the street, or more often than not found dead in their sleeping bags because of that crap. Glasgow’s Argyle Street in particular was a carpet of human derelicts lying in near permanent near-unconscious states because of Llewelyn and his ilk’s handiwork.
The people making it knew very well the stuff was a roulette wheel on which society’s most vulnerable – the naiive, the destitute – would gamble their lives every time on one pill for a few hours happiness, but still those swallowed the Thatcher/Blair mantra of so long as it is legal, everything justifies the L”entrepreneurial spirit” for profit.
“I’m even more appalled to learn that this guy’s a leading light in Alba (campaign manager, apparantly), and was one of the fannies who stood at the border during the Covid lockdown shouting at English people driving past to “go home” (straight out of McGlashin in Absolutely, that one!)”
Surprised that anyone would object to people trying to protect our own from a bloody plague coming from another country. The borders should have been closed and I salute those who protested as much at the border.
And you don’t see the paradox – indeed breathtaking hypocrisy – of someone carrying out a protest for “health reasons” having done his best until only six years earlier – safe in Antwerp from the retribution of his victim’s family and friends, let alone the law – to cause others to have terminal health problems in order to line his pockets?
“It’s called having a life away from an internet site’s comments section – a concept one realises you have zero ability to grasp.”
Boyle.
Yet there you are six minutes later after my post, its as if you were poised at the keyboard all night waiting for a response to your uninteresting and empty comment.
Just for a wee change, to see and hear what a ‘real’ politician is like, here’s JFK being interviewed in December 1962.
link to youtube.com
Jeez Oh the Labour Messiah Gordon Brown has been rolled out again this time to bemoan the cost of living, this is rich from the man who punted UK gold on the cheap and robbed the pension pot, along with spewing BS via the Daily Rectum’s vow.
Why would anyone with a brain cell listen to to this man, he has no powers of any kind in the HoC.
Next we’ll see the war criminal Tony Blair bump his gums in the Britnat press.
I think it was Brown who had the Supreme Court set up to thwart the HoL, and he added a few compliant House Jock judges to the benches to shut Scots up.
link to 12ft.io
“GORDON Brown has demanded the UK Government come up with an emergency budget this week before a “financial timebomb” in October “pushes millions over the edge”.”
A wee pick me up on a Sunday morning: For Women Scotland’s response to Open Democracy’s attempt to smear them is a hoot. I suspect the muckraker they are responding to is Adam Ramsay, educated at uber posh Glenalmond College, he of the Fortnum & Mason’s sit in…?
link to forwomen.scot
ANDY ELLIS
You miss the point.
Scotland needs more worldly wise «skeptics», AS DOES THE REST OF THE PLANET.
I am not a believer in the panglossian cometh the hour, something will turn up mindset.
The crude facts of history indicate the opposite. Rubbish in, rubbish out.
Silk purses are not made from sows ears. In many cases you will be lucky to get even sows ears.
Although, with a bit of imagination and loads of chutzpah you could get away with it.
That, alas, is just not the Scottish style. Too Calvinistic, too literal, too legalistic. too tied to the wheels of convention.
The Union is a Gordian knot but there is no chainsaw.
Enjoy your sunday.
Lol RoS, noticed that myself… did he sit up all night watching his float?
His victim blaming speech about Dave Llewelyn is noted.
@Ottomanboi
I didn’t miss the point, it’s just that I think the point has little merit and is a dialogue of despair in the end.
The world is full of skeptics. It’s also full of idiots, nasty pieces of work, inspirational individuals, unsung heroes. It’s not inevitable that “something will turn up” of course, any more than it is inevitable that we’re all doomed as others – including you it seems – appear to think.
Doubtless the world will keep turning whichever path is chosen. There’s no magic bullet or certainty involved: the future may be bleak, and maybe there is little we can do in the face of “globalists and their bling”. We could just give up I suppose.
Nothing guarantees us success, but even if we never achieve our aim, the fight in itself has value. Ameliorating the worst possible outcome still has to be better than sitting back and just waiting for what you are given.
John Main 9:13am
I read & understood the Brexshit question. In or out.
I also understood the dabates in Westminster.
SNP; There should be a lock in place that ALL FOUR Nations show a MAJORITY to leave for any result to be implemented.
Various Tories in HoC & HoL: This is just an *advisory referendum* All four Nations shall be consulted after the result. It’s not legal & binding. Don’t worry your pretty little heads.
After the result: Aye, watch us. Trigger Art 50. We have the numbers to pass it.
No. They didn’t. They had England’s vote to pass it & English MPs to vote it through & everyone else could go fk themselves.
The fairy stories about this magical UK state is 4 Nations myth on the one hand – to England knows best for everyone on the other. Demonstrating that place in no longer the parliament of the United Kingdom but a very English one.
Ellis, you seem like a different person today. Earlier you made a positive case for independence and now you seem all philosophical and inspired.
Im going to assume the energy grant money appeared in your account and you bought £400 worth of booze and drugs…
?
Christopher Pike 2:00am.
Of course we’re a colony.
Whoever heard of a free country where the electorate are being denied democracy & actually gloating about it?
They asset strip.
They control our budget.
The control our defense.
They are politically in control of every aspect. Including referendums, immigration & forgien policy.
They’ve moved in & taken over huge estates, land & property to lock Scots out of their own towns & cities.
Edinburgh is a good example. Everything from the castle to street performers, to new year parties to accomodation & prime real estate to the street vendor is English owned.
You have a weird notion of what a colony is in the face of evidence.
@Hatuey
It’s the same case I’ve been arguing for all along. Given your MO I’m sure alert readers will give your latest hot take on my personality the level of credence it deserves.
It was interesting to hear Alex Speak yesterday and to see such a good turnout. The fact both he and Tasmina rubbished franchise restriction was music to my ears of course, and it was interesting to hear the views from the floor and platform on plebiscitary elections, Conventions etc.
I’m a realist however: I still think we have a lot of work to do and quite a hill to climb to effectively either replace the SNP or ensure it bends to the will of the movement as a whole. We’ll need some luck as well as that hard work perhaps: events, dear boy events?
@Geri 12.37 pm
You have a weird notion of what a colony is in the face of evidence.
You don’t appear to understand what evidence even is….
Ellis, no I don’t believe polling – especially those conducted from another country we wish to divorce & from a hostile media.
Remember when SNP were on course for a landslide victory in 2017?
Yes. So do I.
They plummeted 22 seats & Sturgeon was skelped. Probably because she was the only nutjob in the race who set about pissing off her only voters.
& Sturgeon has *been on course to win a majority* in Holyrood & has never managed it yet.
Ellis, I’ve given plenty of evidence for you to chose from.
Geri says:
7 August, 2022 at 12:37 pm
Christopher Pike 2:00am.
Of course we’re a colony.
Whoever heard of a free country where the electorate are being denied democracy & actually gloating about it?
They asset strip.
They control our budget.
The control our defense.
They are politically in control of every aspect. Including referendums, immigration & forgien policy.
They’ve moved in & taken over huge estates, land & property to lock Scots out of their own towns & cities.
Edinburgh is a good example. Everything from the castle to street performers, to new year parties to accomodation & prime real estate to the street vendor is English owned.
You have a weird notion of what a colony is in the face of evidence.
——
Your nonsensical post is an insult to people who suffered under genuine colonialism and makes the independence movement look like a freak show.
Put it off forever you mean? That sounds about right.
This *alert readers* bs is trying to mimic the sites owners mannerisms. Narcs do that.
As for Alex & Tasmina. I’d put money one they were dying to get away from Mr ‘You don’t wanna do it like that, you wanna do it like this!’ resident anorak in all meetings. LOL Funerals are also fun days out.
No, Pike.
I think it’s because you cannot dispute the conditions we live under which is exactly the conditions of a colony.
Spare me your fake outrage. We haven’t moved into actual violence yet for disobedience. Ask an Irish man.
*alert readers* (LOL) may remember Penny Mordaunt describe Scotland as *our Northern Territories*
Say again? Whose territory?
Ellis.
There is a magic bullet. You use any one of the many mandates to hold a referendum & give the people what they voted for.
No mandate was given to be a talking shop.
Why forever taint the process & make it more difficult than need be?
History doesnt favour all mouth & no trousers types.
Every movement has its moment before it’s ignored as coming from Walter Mitty.
Idle hands & all that causes a void, that void is filled by something or someone else. Why the TRAs have moved in with such ease.
‘Make use of time, let not advantage slip’
“Ellis, you seem like a different person today. Earlier you made a positive case for independence and now you seem all philosophical and inspired.”
Hatuey.
Shift change at Denison.
Christopher Pike says:
7 August, 2022 at 2:00 am
You are one strange, oddball of a man.
Ding! Ding! Personal abuse
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
2 July, 2022 at 11:16 am
MARKER
From this point in the thread, any more personal attacks will see the comments deleted and the attacker placed on the pre-moderation list. No exceptions.
That was posted on the ‘Catch 22’ thread.
Does this mean that personal abuse on this thread is OK?
Update needed.
Also review of banned words which are really needed to discuss current economic crisis would be good.
Merci
Bon Dimanche
Republicofscotland says:
7 August, 2022 at 11:07 am
“It’s called having a life away from an internet site’s comments section – a concept one realises you have zero ability to grasp.”
Boyle.
Yet there you are six minutes later after my post, its as if you were poised at the keyboard all night waiting for a response to your uninteresting and empty comment.
So one moment you are whinging that it was three hours before I replied to your latest droolings from whatever conspiracy website fired your synapses last night …
Republicofscotland says:
7 August, 2022 at 10:38 am
You’re getting slow Boyle, its taken you three hours.
… now you’re whinging I’m replying too quickly. You can’t have it both ways, champ.
Hatuey says:
7 August, 2022 at 11:57 am
Lol RoS, noticed that myself… did he sit up all night watching his float?
It would be a bit strange if you didn’t considering you’re one of RoS’s sockpuppets (Cuban revolutionary centre to many conspiracy theories … oh dear!) – either that or you’re the biggest arselicker not employed by Sturgeon by the way you agree so slavishly to all of RoS’s harebrained utterances on here, the worse series of “exclusives” since Gerry McNee was allowed to write in newspapers.
His victim blaming speech about Dave Llewelyn is noted.
Oh it’s “Noted” is it? Oooooo, am I supposed to be scared now? The forum Remedial and his pretend friends have “noted” that someone has disagreed with him.
Get a life, sad sack.
Ellis.
There is a magic bullet. It’s called a mandate to hold indyref2.
It wasn’t a mandate for an endless talking shop.
Why continually cloud the process?
History never has favoured a ditherer. When a void is created, something or someone steps in to fill it. Welcome the TRAs.
Every movement has its moment – then it becomes Walter Mitty it slips to obscurity & is ignored.
*Make use of time, let not advantage slip*
Unless of course, you never wanted it in the first place. Then as you were – creating imaginary obstacles.
Stuart says:
7 August, 2022 at 6:55 am
Not living in Scotland I am not familiar with this case. How is it that this case was not a trial by jury? I thought that the proposals to do away with inconvenient juries (that kept finding the wrong people innocent) had been scrapped.
That is an interesting question Stuart. I tried to do a search on Google re which cases are tried without a jury. I got loads of hits but they were all about the proposal to have jury less trials for rape cases etc.
While searching I came across this:
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Dave Llewellyn sat next to me in the public gallery of the Salmond trial as we witnessed the defence witnesses – largely female – who shredded the prosecution case.
On Tuesday I wrote a different post to this. It actually gave the detail of what David Llewellyn posted, and examined it. My article also revealed who was behind the complaint against him, and referred to some interesting history of Llewellyn’s own investigations.
However I received strong advice that to publish my article might itself be construed contempt of court, and that I ran the risk of being instantly jailed rather than free pending appeal, and further that to publish may attract yet another political prosecution from the Crown Office. I therefore did not publish and cannot give you the detail of the Llewellyn case, at least until after its conclusion.
Craig Murray.
I think the answer to your question could well by found on the Craig Murray blog. He had a trial without jury.
I can’t access the whole story but Sturgeon’s good buddy Val McDermid says.
“She argues that society is being blighted by “witch-hunting and othering” against trans people”
No mention of the threats to real women online using the term terfs, nor any mention that I can see of women and girls safe spaces being compromised by blokes dressed as men, nor drag queens exposing themselves or being allowed into schools.
I suppose I’m being just a tad overly concerned and should sitback and read a book as Sturgeon and her best buddy would say.
When Val speaks things get done, look what happened to David Goodwillie.
link to thetimes.co.uk
Ruby says:
7 August, 2022 at 2:45 pm
I tried to do a search on Google re which cases are tried without a jury.
—
Summary proceedings never have juries, as the crimes prosecuted are considered at the lower end of the scale, as reflected in sentencing powers.
If you’re interested in the workings of the Courts, the best place to start is their own website.
link to scotcourts.gov.uk
Republicofscotland says:
7 August, 2022 at 2:59 pm
I can’t access the whole story but Sturgeon’s good buddy Val McDermid says.
No great loss ROS. Here’s more of the story.
link to archive.ph
It’s shit!
There was never any debate about female lesbians not being allowed in women’s only spaces.
Thanks Ruby, you are correct there wasn’t much to miss.
Cheers Scott thanks for info.
@Geri
Ellis, no I don’t believe polling – especially those conducted from another country we wish to divorce & from a hostile media.
Ah yes, the cri de coeur of conspiracy nuts everywhere. Do you believe the polls Rev Stu carries out? The reason people, companies and governments commission polls is because they are seen to provide a snapshot of public opinion.
Whilst polling is (obviously) not infallible, it takes a special kind of person to admit that that disbelieve all polling, but would be less inclined to disbelieve it if was produced by friendly media.
“You don’t start by slamming the door on people’s faces. Womanhood is a big tent. It embraces me and Kim Kardashian. There is certainly room in that tent for the trans women I know.”
I think she is referring to body size otherwise
should she not have said ‘it embraces me and Caitlyn Jenner’ or ‘it embraces me and Eddie Izzard’
‘it embraces me and every prisoner who fancies serving time in a woman’s prison’
‘it embraces me and every man who gets his rocks off wearing women’s clothing’
Probably easier just to say womanhood is a big tent it embraces me and all men.
Is the use of the term trans women not transphobic according to the snp’s guidelines.
Basically calling someone a trans woman is outing them as being male.
I see we are still getting pearls of wisdom from the usual sources.
Those who respond are doing the site a grave disservice – please remember that Stu informed us all how to deal with trolls / boring buggers who repeat ad nauseam .
@Ger 2.29 pm
There is a magic bullet. It’s called a mandate to hold indyref2.
There’s a difference between having a mandate – and I quite accept that we do have many of them – and actually holding a referendum however. That’s precisely why the SG are, somewhat belatedly, going to the SC to provide legal certainty.
If the decision, as widely expected, is that the current constitutional set up means the movement can’t deliver an uncontested referendum, then we need to switch to Plan B, as many have been advocating for some time.
Unless of course, you never wanted it in the first place. Then as you were – creating imaginary obstacles.
Like many others since the first “now is not the time” response I’ve advocated an early legal challenge to the britnat insistence that Holyrood lacked the competence to hold a “legal” referendum. What’s happening now should have been done in 2015. A negative answer from the SC would have focused minds on the alternatives, whether plebiscitary elections, or developing alternative routes such as withdrawing our representatives from Westminster or holding a Constituent Assembly.
Interestingly Sinn Fein style non-attendance didn’t seem too popular an option at yesterday’s Alba meeting in Edinburgh. Both Alex Salmond and the Irish historian Owen Dudley Edwards seemed to think the best thing was for Scottish MPs to stay at Westminster, fight their corner and be as disruptive as possible à la Parnellism in an earlier age.
I’m not convinced independence will come via the referendum route in any reasonable timescale. Plebiscitary elections seem much more likely to produce short to medium term results. I’m even persuadable that “cunning plans for indy” are feasible, though I think they lack detail, intellectual and academic/legal support and back up and could potentially take many more years to achieve than trying to gain a Yes majority in plebiscitary elections.
Perhaps the biggest and most obvious road block for “cunning plans for indy” is that they presuppose either toppling the SNP from its current position of dominance or changing it from within so that it fully embraces such a path. I see zero evidence of that being realistic given the inability of rank and file SNP membership to wrest control of the party back from the Sturgeonite devolutionists and misogynistic TRA’s currently directing the party.
Scotland is a colony in 2022,
It signed a treaty of equal kingdoms to create the british parliament,
The british parliament is supposed to adhere to that foundation stone that created the united kingdom’s , some times called great Britain,
The british parliament cannot transfer the old english parliaments sovereignty to westminster parliament due to it comprising of two equal countries in a treaty. And just because westminster says so,
Without either the Scottish Parliament or the English parliament having stated that in the treaty for it to hold true,
Neither the english side of the treaty or the Scottish side of the treaty make any conditions or article references that after the treaty was to be signed, that english laws would supercede or over rule Scots Law or that the old english parliamentary sovereignty would continue after the treaty was signed.
The colonial mind f Westminster has taken an awful lot of pre- sumptions on to itself with regards of being protector of the union,
It has presumed it alone can change the original international treaty it holds with Scotlands old parliament, change and over lay the treaty with new laws and statues from Westminsters.
This is arrogance and supposition that abandons the original agreement that states the new British parliament will be protector of the treaty of the union, NOT the owner of the treaty to alter it at the British parliaments will.
The abandonment as protector of the original treaty by Westminster can be seen with great clarity to day by trying to prevent the Scottish people from using the claim of right, that is wrote into the treaty,
The colonial mindset from Westminster is on open display when it Says No to the Scottish people having the right to self determination under the UN which the Westminster British parliament is signed into as a agreement.
Racism has been displayed by a man that went on to Westminster Parliament as prime minster against Scots.
Boris Johnstone , Liz truss and rushi sunak are also highlighting a racism with the derogatory disregard for Scottish politicians and people on how they vote with both mandates, and Scotlands elections for Brexit results covering trade in the treaty of the union,
The first record of abandoning the treaty by the new british parliament as protector of the treaty was in 1708 when the British parliament passed a new law on Treason, (As they abolished Scots law) that is wrote into the Treaty articles) of Treason, and supplanted English law of treason in its place.
The colony mindset of the British parliament singularly owning the the treaty of union of two countries, reduced to only one party ownership, and of altering the treaty that states it is “unalterable” on certain articles, like Scots Law,
Only a colonised country cannot have the right to self determination.
Only a colonised country cannot make use of the articles in treaty of union articles,
Only a colonised country does not have equal rights,
Only a colonised country has to ask for its freedom.
Only a colonised country has the Laws of its country changed and over ruled by the Coloniser.
Then have to hear ridiculing poems on exterminating them as a race, in major media papers from the next prime minsters
Colonialism and racism.
@Geri 12.50 pm
Ellis, I’ve given plenty of evidence for you to chose from.
You asserting something, and it being evidence are two very different things. Your opinions aren’t evidence. Just because you and others repeat the “Scotland is a colony” schtick over and over, doesn’t render it any more convincing, still less true.
If you can convince the UN to classify Scotland as a non-self governing territory subject to the same provisions as “real” colonies, there might be some merit to thei hyped up BS about us being a puir wee colony of the English imperialists.
Until then it just makes those punting the narrative look a bit deranged.
If you have to ask, or beg for freedom and the coloniser says, no
That is because they consider they own you.
Not protecting you.
There was a halabaloo in Westinster in the lead up to passing new laws of Treason onto Scotland in 1708, by abolishing Scots Law of treason.
Not by the Scots, surprisingly but by the English lords, they stated it would break the treaty of the union.
And it does.
It would be a interesting case in a court if some one in Scotland was charged with the british parliaments version of treason,
Or Does the original Scots law apply that was unalterable according to the treaty of the union, nowadays in Scotland?
Perhaps would it emphasis that the british parliament broke the treaty of the union?
@Geri 1.04 pm
Put it off forever you mean? That sounds about right.
Certainly put off for many years if folk like you and the other fringe nutters have anything to do with it.
This *alert readers* bs is trying to mimic the sites owners mannerisms. Narcs do that.
Aw…are you one of those triggered when Stu’s words are used against you? That’s why it’s such fun though, watching all the wee nativist blow hards and moonhowlers heads explode when it’s pointed out that folk like Rev Stu and Alex Salmond think their pet narratives are bullshit. Butt hurt is as butt hurt does, eh?
As for Alex & Tasmina. I’d put money one they were dying to get away from Mr ‘You don’t wanna do it like that, you wanna do it like this!’ resident anorak in all meetings. LOL Funerals are also fun days out.
I’m not a betting man. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting either. Whether they’d find interacting with me or an anonymous snivelling coward posting online like you is a tough one right enough…..
Christopher Pike @ 1:04 pm
“Your nonsensical post is an insult to people who suffered under genuine colonialism”
You may not be aware of it, but the ‘colonial mindset’ can lead to a denial of oppression and support for the status quo, no matter how exploitative it may be. In addition, more or less every colony had collaborative or co-opted natives who benefitted from colonialism. They didn’t see anything wrong with it either – despite the bulk of the native population being enslaved and exploited.
How Westminster is slowly but surely chipping away at Holyrood’s power, and Sturgeon’s erratic behaviour is only adding to it.
link to twitter.com
@Ruby 2:18
Your selective outrage is duly noted.
Only yesterday, your number one poster boy was calling most of us chumps.
TBH, I was (and still am) convinced he meant to include you.
I guess your plea to Rev Stu to step in and deal with that one went straight into moderation.
Haha, I crack me up.
Dorothy Devine
Good to see your comments regarding RoS and James Che.
If only they would leave the site, sensible discussion might actually break out.
@Alf Baird 5:09
I think that your colonisation analogy fails because the bulk of Scotland’s native population is not enslaved and exploited.
Seems to me that if they were, in 2014 say, they would have voted for Indy.
Now we are in 2022, Scottish literacy is still high, as is the capacity for rational self-interest (that’s selfish greed to Geri).
So, all the Indy movement has to do is convincingly show us the post-Indy money. I will put it as simply as I can: persuade a majority of Scots of the reality of their own personal improved wealth, post-Indy.
There’s a big problem with telling us we are too cowed, stupid or brainwashed to walk through an open door to freedom and prosperity. But it’s not a problem with the Scots. It’s a problem arising from the fundamental inability of the Indy movement and their current sorry apologies for politicians to persuade Scots they will be better off after Indy.
Ellis.
Please refrain from calling me a conspiracy nutjob.
I believe in the best polling their is. The ballot box.
Polling, as demonstrated by my examples – can be way off target & is worthless if a political party refuses to act on them anyway!
SNP could be polling at over 80% & she’d still refuse to act.
But remind us, oh oracle..was the mandate
*Vote for us for indyref2 if there is a material change in circumstances, like brexshit, taking us out against our will*
Or was it:
*Vote for us to endlessly talk about indyref2 without actually doing anything, we’ll insist on Gold standards, international recognition, 60% polling & all of Andy’s demands*
This is a bit like..
*Vote for us to reform GRA*
Okay. We’ll now push SelfID – thanks! Even though it is mentioned NOWHERE in the manifesto we’ll take it as read that’s what you meant.
They were given a clear mandate. Not on what YOU or Sturgeon later wanted it to be.
But what it actually said & within the timeframe given.
John Main @ 6:25 pm
“I think that your colonisation analogy fails because the bulk of Scotland’s native population is not enslaved and exploited.”
Around half the Scottish population live in or close to poverty today, between 3-4 million Scots were shipped out in previous centuries, our lands and resources remain outwith our control, our economic growth and economic development is woeful, infrastructure limited, prospects doubtful, and culture, language and nation ‘out of the game’ and perishing.
“Seems to me that if they were, in 2014 say, they would have voted for Indy.”
People tend to vote based on the values they hold, not what is in their best interests. There is also a colonial mindset to contend with, or what we know as the Scottish cultural cringe, and a ‘dual persona’. In colonialism “only the values of the colonizer are sovereign” (Memmi).
“Now we are in 2022, Scottish literacy is still high, as is the capacity for rational self-interest”
Barely a quarter of ‘Scots’ are educated to degree level, and Scots are still prevented from learning and respecting thair ain mither tongue (i.e. cannot read or write in Scots). And again, because imposed ‘values’ remain sovereign and are given more significance/status, people do not necessarily vote in their own interest.
Its not simply a case of telling people they will be better off when dealing with a psychological condition imposed by another dominant culture (Fanon etc).
During last night’s hiatus, I was getting the usual error message when I refreshed the tab –
504 Gateway Time-out
nginx/1.18.0
However,on two refreshes, at around 8.30pm and just after 10pm, I got a new error message –
Error 503 Backend fetch failed
Backend fetch failed
Guru Meditation:
XID: 5472455
Varnish cache server
and
Error 503 Backend fetch failed
Backend fetch failed
Guru Meditation:
XID: 2523316
Varnish cache server
Hope this info is helpful.
How should we categorise the Scots: as Cowboys or Indians?
Malory Nye
link to archive.ph
How about
Unionist are Cowboys
Independence supporters are Indians
Brexiteers are Cowboys
Remainers are Indians.
Malory Nye is also the author of the books Religion the Basics (2008) and There Shall be an Independent Scotland (2015).
Geri says:
7 August, 2022 at 7:00 pm
Ellis.
Please refrain from calling me a conspiracy nutjob.
That made me smile! 🙂
Alf Baird says:
7 August, 2022 at 10:13 pm
“Now we are in 2022, Scottish literacy is still high, as is the capacity for rational self-interest”
Agreeing with you Alf.
My Aunt, who travelled a lot as a nurse, told me that Missionaries working in certain parts of Africa only fed the children after they’d been to Bible class. So the “best educated” kids thrived, but were not the ones most in need, but arguably, the most indoctrinated.
The Missionaries were literally feeding the wolf that opened up to Christianity.
Scottish literacy can mean a lot more than the ability to read. How many Scots kids were punished or ridiculed for speaking Scots or Gaelic, and conditioned to believe it was inferior to the Queens English? Literacy in who’s language?
If people dismiss this, and sweep it away, ask yourself why it was happening, why it was happening everywhere, if not a deliberate indoctrination which altered a person’s perspective on their self interest to “accommodate” someone else’s “self” interest?
I have to keep reminding myself of Stu’s message.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
6 July, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Andy Ellis, Ruby: if either of you ever mentions the other by name (including any “clever” ways of doing so indirectly) again in any context whatsoever you’re banned. Clear? Not comment deleted, not pre-moderation, banned.
I have HAD ENOUGH of this fucking playground shit.
JOHN MAIN 6:2
link to sociologyindex.com
Scotland exhibits many of the signs.
Indeed, there is evidence of historic internal cultural colonialism, Scoticization in the Gàidhealtachd and Northern Isles, as well as external, systematic Anglicization of the whole country following the Union, an on going process thanks to the anglicized «establishment» agencies.
Scotland’s indigenous cultures were not considered civilized or capable of expressing the «modern»: a typical colonialist trope. Enslavement and exploitation may take a variety of forms. The psychological one is usually the most effective in the long run.
High incidence of drug & alcohol addiction in
Native Americans
Indigenous Australians
Scots
Any connection?
John Main @ 6:25 pm
It’s never been about the money for me, or about personal enhancement. Scotland is a country. I am a Scot. I want independence. Simples. And, initially, if I am impoverished as a result, so be it.
has , your deliberate mistake.
That should read CHAS , your deliberate mistake.
@Geri
Please refrain from calling me a conspiracy nutjob.
If the cap fits……
I believe in the best polling their is. The ballot box.
Polling, as demonstrated by my examples – can be way off target & is worthless if a political party refuses to act on them anyway!
SNP could be polling at over 80% & she’d still refuse to act.
The words of a conspiracy nutjob. Thanks for clearing that up.
They were given a clear mandate. Not on what YOU or Sturgeon later wanted it to be.
Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. What is it you assert I “later wanted the mandate to be” exactly? I’ve loudly and publicly supported challenging the britnats contention that Holyrood lacked the competence to hold a referendum without a S30 Order since 2015, and indeed before.
Like others I’ve called for the SNP to resign en masse from Holyrood and precipitate a plebiscitary election as soon as the SC finds against the upcoming case to decide the matter.
Perhaps if you spent more time interacting with what people actually said rather than what you *wished* they’d said we’d be further forward? Trying to tone police comments BTL is a pointless exercise, particularly when the thing you’re complaining about is absolutely fair comment.
@Alf Baird says:7 August, 2022 at 10:13 pm
Thanks for your reply.
You make some good points, but proceed to lose the argument by throwing in some real stinkers. Let me help:
“Around half the Scottish population live in or close to poverty today”
Meaning that around half the Scottish population doesn’t. If you define the poverty level as the median income, this will always be true.
”Between 3-4 million Scots were shipped out in previous centuries”
Naw, they were nae. Some were shipped out. The bulk left for better prospects, because they were able to go to new lands and exterminate or enslave the indigenous peoples there. The presence of large immigrant populations descended from Germans, French, Swedes, Spanish, Norwegians, etc. in the Americas proves that colonialism in the mother country was never a factor in this.
“There is also a colonial mindset to contend with, or what we know as the Scottish cultural cringe”
There certainly was, back when my parents were young. To claim that Scots are still cringing today is, I think, fatuous.
“Barely a quarter of ‘Scots’ are educated to degree level”
So what would be a rational percentage of degree educations in any population? 25% sounds high to me. You may believe that a degree is needed to be a nurse, HGV driver, small business owner, joiner, sparky, plumber, or any of the other myriad, necessary jobs that maintain our functioning society and economy, but plenty more people don’t.
“Scots are still prevented from learning and respecting thair ain mither tongue”
Naw, they’re nae. They are no more stopped from learning Scots than they are stopped from learning and respecting the rules of football. You just sound daft when you make a statement like that.
“Its not simply a case of telling people they will be better off”
At last, something I can completely agree with. You are right – telling people won’t cut it. You need to show people they will be better off, practically demonstrate to people they will be better off, prove to people exactly how they will be better off. Plausibly, believably, expertly, with the numbers, the facts, the timeline and the answers all ready in advance.
What we have right now, is the same lying, smarmy, sharp-elbowed gits we have always had, hinting at how things will be better after Indy, with little or nothing to back up their claims, whilst maximising their pension pots.
To return to your original claim that “the bulk of Scotland’s native population is enslaved and exploited”.
Rational people run a mile from that kind of hyperbole. Online statistics for the numbers of UK nationals caught up in modern-day slavery puts the numbers in the low thousands. Even if every single one is Scottish, that is very far indeed from being the bulk.
Brian Doonthetoon says:
8 August, 2022 at 6:54 am
During last night’s hiatus, I was getting the usual error message when I refreshed the tab
There’s been that many backend failures on here, WoS needs the website equivalent of a proctologist.
Any connection?
Correlation is not causation. The countries with the highest drug addiction and alcoholism related rates and deaths are often ones that nobody could regard as having been colonised.
@ DJ says:8 August, 2022 at 8:24 am
“John Main @ 6:25 pm
It’s never been about the money for me, or about personal enhancement. Scotland is a country. I am a Scot. I want independence. Simples. And, initially, if I am impoverished as a result, so be it.”
Respect DJ.
Somebody on here telling it like it is. Vanishingly rare IMO.
However, unlikely to ever be a majority view.
Luckily, an Independent Scotland COULD make everybody in it better off. The only real problem is that an insufficient number of the credible politicians have succeeded in demonstrating how it would work.
Hence, NO flatlined at 55%.
Andy Ellis says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:53 am
Any connection?
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
6 July, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Andy Ellis, Ruby: if either of you ever mentions the other by name (including any “clever” ways of doing so indirectly) again in any context whatsoever you’re banned. Clear? Not comment deleted, not pre-moderation, banned.
I have HAD ENOUGH of this fucking playground shit.
@ Breeks says:8 August, 2022 at 8:14 am
The chip on your shoulder is affecting your ability to think rationally.
Any educational establishment should teach the kids what will best serve them in their future world of employment.
It was ever thus, and it always will be.
English is the lingua franca of the modern world, in commerce, IT, politics, Air Traffic Control, etc. Which is why kids whose parents want them to get on in the world will ensure they learn English, in China, India, Germany, you name it.
If the kids have any spare time, they can also learn Gaelic, Scots, Sanskrit, Chaucerian English, Runes, whatever takes their fancy. But I guess they would rather play football or Pokemon.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
6 July, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Andy Ellis, Ruby: if either of you ever mentions the other by name (including any “clever” ways of doing so indirectly) again in any context whatsoever you’re banned. Clear? Not comment deleted, not pre-moderation, banned.
I have HAD ENOUGH of this fucking playground shit.
What I understand from the above message is I am not allowed to respond to any of Andy Ellis’s posts and he is not allowed to respond to mine.
That suits me fine.
Someone might have said…
“So, all the
Indy“Brexit” movement has to do is convincingly show us the post-Indy“Brexit” money. I will put it as simply as I can: persuade a majority of Scots of the reality of their own personal improved wealth, post-Indy“Brexit”.”I’m still waiting on “the reality of my own personal improved wealth” arriving… and that improved wealth will also need to cover the extra costs and hassles of compensating for a majority of my country folk losing the freedom of movement of oorselves and oor capital around the European single market area…
But the following is some “quality” stuff coming from a “Brexiteer” at 8.49am.
“At last, something I can completely agree with. You are right – telling people won’t cut it. You need to show people they will be better off, practically demonstrate to people they will be better off, prove to people exactly how they will be better off. Plausibly, believably, expertly, with the numbers, the facts, the timeline and the answers all ready in advance.“
John Main says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:49 am
@Alf Baird says:7 August, 2022 at 10:13 pm
Thanks for your reply.
You make some good points, but proceed to lose the argument by throwing in some real stinkers. Let me help:
“Around half the Scottish population live in or close to poverty today”
Meaning that around half the Scottish population doesn’t. If you define the poverty level as the median income, this will always be true.
”Between 3-4 million Scots were shipped out in previous centuries”
Naw, they were nae. Some were shipped out. The bulk left for better prospects, because they were able to go to new lands and exterminate or enslave the indigenous peoples there. The presence of large immigrant populations descended from Germans, French, Swedes, Spanish, Norwegians, etc. in the Americas proves that colonialism in the mother country was never a factor in this.
“There is also a colonial mindset to contend with, or what we know as the Scottish cultural cringe”
There certainly was, back when my parents were young. To claim that Scots are still cringing today is, I think, fatuous.
“Barely a quarter of ‘Scots’ are educated to degree level”
So what would be a rational percentage of degree educations in any population? 25% sounds high to me. You may believe that a degree is needed to be a nurse, HGV driver, small business owner, joiner, sparky, plumber, or any of the other myriad, necessary jobs that maintain our functioning society and economy, but plenty more people don’t.
“Scots are still prevented from learning and respecting thair ain mither tongue”
Naw, they’re nae. They are no more stopped from learning Scots than they are stopped from learning and respecting the rules of football. You just sound daft when you make a statement like that.
“Its not simply a case of telling people they will be better off”
At last, something I can completely agree with. You are right – telling people won’t cut it. You need to show people they will be better off, practically demonstrate to people they will be better off, prove to people exactly how they will be better off. Plausibly, believably, expertly, with the numbers, the facts, the timeline and the answers all ready in advance.
What we have right now, is the same lying, smarmy, sharp-elbowed gits we have always had, hinting at how things will be better after Indy, with little or nothing to back up their claims, whilst maximising their pension pots.
To return to your original claim that “the bulk of Scotland’s native population is enslaved and exploited”.
Rational people run a mile from that kind of hyperbole. Online statistics for the numbers of UK nationals caught up in modern-day slavery puts the numbers in the low thousands. Even if every single one is Scottish, that is very far indeed from being the bulk.
————-
It’s best to ignore Alf Baird and his bizarre comments. The man is a fully fledged looneytune with a fetish for the word “colonialism”.
@John Main 9.03 am
Somebody on here telling it like it is. Vanishingly rare IMO.
However, unlikely to ever be a majority view.
I think there are a lot of folk who agree with DJ, who would support and vote for independence even if it was proven to make them personally worse off, even just in the immediate post independence period or for the short to medium term until things settled down. I share his view.
It always seemed strange to me – and still does – that so many people’s attachment to their sense of national identity is centred on whether they’ll be better off or not. It seems to be the very definition of being a “plastic Scot” or a “90 minute patriot”, which is of course why those epithets trigger so many yoons and “soft No” voters.
I agree that it isn’t necessarily likely ever to constitute a majority view: there is a place for being mercenary sometimes, and it’s not a huge surprise that people will vote in self interested ways, even if they have other non-mercenary motivations as well.
The issue for britnats and yoons in the immediate future is that the prognosis has changed somewhat post brexit and post Vlad’s war. The differential calculus between the risks and opportunities of independence on the one hand, and the risks and opportunities of staying in the union on the other has changed.
It’s a lot more difficult fnow or supporters of the union to insist that the status quo represents stability, certainty and if not “good” governance, at least governance that wasn’t in the hands of a bunch of batshit insane spivs.
Of course whether the current Scottish nationalist movement is in any condition to capitalise on unionist disarray is another matter. Polls seems to suggest not, but then as we’ve seen above, some folk don’t trust polls any more than they trust experts. We just have to hope that the scales fall from the eyes of enough SNP supporters when the party fails to deliver over the coming months.
Breeks says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:14 am
Alf Baird says:
7 August, 2022 at 10:13 pm
“Now we are in 2022, Scottish literacy is still high, as is the capacity for rational self-interest”
Agreeing with you Alf.
My Aunt, who travelled a lot as a nurse, told me that Missionaries working in certain parts of Africa only fed the children after they’d been to Bible class. So the “best educated” kids thrived, but were not the ones most in need, but arguably, the most indoctrinated.
The Missionaries were literally feeding the wolf that opened up to Christianity.
Scottish literacy can mean a lot more than the ability to read. How many Scots kids were punished or ridiculed for speaking Scots or Gaelic, and conditioned to believe it was inferior to the Queens English? Literacy in who’s language?
—–
You’re on the wrong site if that’s your view on Gaelic and the Scots ‘language’. Stu Campbell shares my views on these useless and pointless languages. Scots would be better off learning a European language or Mandarin these days.
Being born a native English speaker is an absolute blessing. It is the international language of the world and opens up more opportunities in life than any other language. Gaelic is a useless waste of time and ‘Scots’ is fine if you want to speak like a degenerate ned and spend your life living west central Scotland. I don’t, I have ambition.
John Main says:
Any educational establishment should teach the kids what will best serve them in their future world of employment
I have to go now when I come back I will try to think of the best John Main style timetable for kids.
1. Will probably be how to make coffee, cook & serve chips & hamburgers. No English required just a few words of American English. ie Regular Fries.
What a quaint wee country, where only official laughter, music, words and quotes are permitted.
I hear that the Wings website has been under some sort of sustained cyber attacks lately.
I think we all know who is probably behind it.
Damned cybernats… they’ll do anything to suppress unionist opinion.
Nobody could accuse us of “talking to ourselves” in here these days, that’s for sure.
John Main says:
You may believe that a degree is needed to be a nurse,
HGV driver, small business owner, joiner, sparky, plumber,or any of the other myriad, necessary jobs that maintain our functioning society and economy, but plenty more people don’t.—-
You just displayed your own ignorance, again. A degree is needed to be registered as a Nurse with NMC.
link to careers.nhs.scot
yw,hth
“Seems to me that if they were, in 2014 say, they would have voted for Indy.”
Main @6.25pm.
They did you clown.
Breastplate says:
6 August, 2022 at 9:41 am
Garavelli Princip,
“5 August, 2022 at 11:13 pm
Is this the first prosecution of Indy supporters Mrs Robertson has been involved with?”
“No, it isn’t.”
Thank you Breastplate. Advocates are taught not to ask questions to which they don’t already know the answers.
The question was asked in an ironic tone, which cannot be conveyed here. A large proportion of readers here will also know the answer to that question, and the particulars of the cases of persecution of true indy supporters anent these cases.
Mr Robertson wants to succeed ("Tractor" - Ed) Nikkla. He is supremely qualified for that precise role.
“tractor” Nikkla- got it Ed.
She is the supreme Giant Massey Fergusson of ‘Tractors”.
Garavelli Princip says:
8 August, 2022 at 10:38 am
“tractor” Nikkla- got it Ed.
She is the supreme Giant Massey Fergusson of ‘Tractors”.
—
Nicola Massey Ferguson Sturgeon, the John Deere leader, lacks Claas.
I’ve just seen the response from Wee Child re Mark Boyle’s comments about substances.
Interesting.
Anyway… , here’s a link (chosen at random, there’s dozens) from an academic perspective re the link between synthetic cannabinoids and psychosis.
*NB psychosis is a distressing and painful condition.
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
John Main has to be one of those 60-something taxi drivers that smugly chews gum between the most banal statements of the obvious — “the roads wouldn’t be so bumpy if they fixed the bloody potholes…”
I’d just love to see his tattoos.
“Being born a native English speaker is an absolute blessing. It is the international language of the world and opens up more opportunities in life than any other language. Gaelic is a useless waste of time and ‘Scots’ is fine if you want to speak like a degenerate ned and spend your life living west central Scotland. I don’t, I have ambition.”
Pike.
English was a forced colonial language, forced on English colonies by imperialists, Scots and Gaelic may not hold any relevance for you or Stu, but they do for many others in Scotland, languages in many cases hold a sense of identity to those that speak them.
The French president has other ideas when it comes to English.
“Emmanuel Macron’s government is drawing up plans for French to replace English as the official “working language” of the EU when it takes over the Council of the European Union presidency in 2022, a diplomat has revealed.”
Whether he followed through or not I’m not sure but the idea is there post Brexit.
Independence ought to be about «reëvaluation». Under constant cultural assault from anglophone media in news and entertainment production, the promotion of a consumption fixated notion of global and modern lifestyle based on the values of Americanism and the effective commoditization and intellectual sanitization of everything, that «reëvaluation» is essential to restoration and renewal.
Peoples are not free if their freedom is conditioned by external forces over which they exercise little control. Acceptance of such external forces as normative is serfdom.
In the modern world all experience the conforming colonization of the mind.
Andy Ellis says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:53 am
Any connection?
Correlation is not causation. The countries with the highest drug addiction and alcoholism related rates and deaths are often ones that nobody could regard as having been colonised.
In the first half of the 18th century, the Gin Craze had a devestating impact throughout the British Isles, nowhere more so than London.
Using certain clowns’ “logic”, this must have been because they’d been “colonised” by William of Orange, rather than it being economic factors: ie. a crash in food prices combined with a Wild West style free for all in the production of the stuff – one of history’s moments when governments discovered that “free markets” have a price …
Ottomanboi
‘modern lifestyle based on the values of Americanism and the effective commoditization and intellectual sanitization of everything’
You complain about ‘Americanism’ and promptly use the American spelling of words! A wee bit ironic.
Mark Boyle says:
8 August, 2022 at 11:37 am
In the first half of the 18th century, the Gin Craze had a devestating impact throughout the British Isles, nowhere more so than London.
Using certain clowns’ “logic”, this must have been because they’d been “colonised” by William of Orange, rather than it being economic factors: ie. a crash in food prices combined with a Wild West style free for all in the production of the stuff – one of history’s moments when governments discovered that “free markets” have a price …
—
Given the original comment was about the natives of North America & Australia post-colonisation, both you and Ellis are being wilfully obtuse.
The free markets introduced alcohol to the indigenous people of Australia with devastating consequences on their societies, all in the name of ‘reparations’ & ‘Be Kind’.
While correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, it most certainly does in the land ‘Down Under’.
Scott says:
8 August, 2022 at 11:58 am
Given the original comment was about the natives of North America & Australia post-colonisation, both you and Ellis are being wilfully obtuse.
The free markets introduced alcohol to the indigenous people of Australia with devastating consequences on their societies, all in the name of ‘reparations’ & ‘Be Kind’.
Andy can defend himself, but this is too funny to pass up.
Champ complains I’m being “obtuse” since the original comment being about the natives in North America (even though I was replying to Andy, not him …) … then tries to back up his original “point” by waffling on about Australia – doing the very thing he’s just whined (incorrectly) I’d just done to him!
😀 Oh Scott, Scott … the gift that keeps on giving! 😀
Ruby says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:22 am
High incidence of drug & alcohol addiction in
Native Americans
Indigenous Australians
Scots
Any connection?
—
Stick that up yer jumper, Boyle.
@Dan says:8 August, 2022 at 9:16 am
Have you checked out what is going down in your beloved EU lately?
Maybes you should.
Scotland is well shot of the rancid mess, as the EU spirals around the plughole of its pending oblivion.
@ Ruby says:8 August, 2022 at 9:35 am
“Any educational establishment should teach the kids what will best serve them in their future world of employment”
“Will probably be how to make coffee, cook & serve chips & hamburgers. No English required just a few words of American English. ie Regular Fries”
Now Ruby, where’s your aspiration to do better?
But never mind. Your contribution, however humble, will still be appreciated in an Independent Scotland.
@ Scott says:8 August, 2022 at 9:59 am
Here you go, Scot, fixed it for you.
You and the SNHS may believe that a degree is needed to be a nurse, but plenty more people don’t.
@ Andy Ellis says:8 August, 2022 at 9:28 am
I agree. There are lots of Scottish voters wanting Indy just because.
The wrinkle is that they already all voted Yes. And there wasn’t nearly enough of them.
I doubt that many of them will switch to No, just because they can be shown how Yes will make them better off.
Even the counter-productive levels of ideological purity frequently demonstrated on here must have some limit.
[waits for somebody to post, claiming no true Scot would ever want to be better off]
English/British nationalists are doing their best to destroy their so-called united kingdom. We must not stint in aiding them.
To paraphrase the ultimate arrogant and ignorant English/british nationalist, Churchill, “We must give them the tools to finish the job”.
” Scotland is well shot of the rancid mess, as the EU spirals around the plughole of its pending oblivion. ”
Anything to do with it’s unfathomably stupid adherence to NATO/US policy re THAT conflict John ?
“Scotland is well shot of the rancid mess, as the EU spirals around the plughole of its pending oblivion.”
Main.
I’m all for an EFTA membership after indy, access to all markets being the objective. Right now due to Brexit and the treacherous shit that is Sturgeon who did nothing about it, we are out of the EU market, and now find ourselves in a position where Westminster is making trade deals around the globe without or input, Scotland is expected to accept whatever the shits at Westminster decide is a good deal, or in some cases not a good deal.
Full EU membership is I hope not where an indy Scotland ends up, but nonetheless access to EU markets is important to Scottish businesses.
As for rancid messes, the NuSNP aside, the PM is swanning around Europe on his holidays, and the two far right candidates who want to be the next PM are too busy grandstanding to the Tory faithful on how tough they’ll be when they are PM.
The wrinkle is that they already all voted Yes. And there wasn’t nearly enough of them.
Main.
Stop peddling your shite, Scots did vote yes in 2014.
52.7% to be precise.
Okay, so here’s a prediction based on what I think looks inevitable, and also based on various examples in history.
As I’ve said before, despite the most effective propaganda machine in the world deployed against us, cultural domination in just about every facet of life, and an array of other oppositional forces, the population is pretty evenly split on the Indy question.
That’s one premise. My second is that we are absolutely heading for a major recession and during major recessions people are drawn to political ideas and ideologies that they would not normally entertain. Specifically, I think there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that nationalist parties and ideologies in particular tend to do especially well during recessions.
Heading towards my conclusion and prediction, I’ve got to assume Whitehall and the tartan mandarins know all this too and are rightfully concerned about the potential for a surge in support for independence, whatever form it may take.
Given all of that, isn’t it likely they will try to throw us some sort of bone in order to distract and placate us? Isn’t it likely they’d want to do that before the shit hits the economic fan too? If they wait, more people are likely to see through it as a panic measure designed to thwart us in our tracks and by that stage the horse may well have bolted.
I think all of that is pretty sound reasoning which takes me to my prediction….
Whoever wins the Tory leadership contest will reveal plans that promise Scotland new powers, a say in economic policy, or some such crap along those lines, intended to undermine the appeal of independence. The MSM will tell us those plans are game-changing and massive, representing some monumental historical departure that makes independence unnecessary.
Anyone who believes that Gordon Brown has had a damascene moment and that he actually now cares for the poor folk of the UK needs a good shake.
Brown is leopard and leopards can’t change their spots he’s basically promoting himself and the Labour party cause. Every now and then he’s wheeled out by the media and like the war criminal Blair he’s allowed carte blanche to spill his guts.
Brown is no wise elder statesman as the media portrays him to be, he’s sold Scotland almost as much as Sturgeon has in the past.
The cost of living crisis has allow Brown to make political hay for the Labour party, and also it has in many cases fooled the younger generations who don’t know him, into believing that he’s some sort of wise old bird of the political world.
First off I can’t stand the Tories for all the usual reasons, but this is comedy gold from the NuSNP that they are complaining about this after what they’ve done in Scotland.
“THE SNP has likened the UK Government to “tinpot dictators”, following reports that Justice Secretary and deputy prime minister Dominic Raab plans to limit judges’ powers and make it more difficult for legal challenges to be brought against the government in England and Wales.
A leaked Ministry of Justice (MoJ) paper seen by The Guardian suggests Raab is contemplating “further reforms to judicial review”, which could potentially discourage non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from pursuing cases against the government by increasing the cost burden, as well as excluding judges from cases pertaining to certain areas of government decision-making.”
I’m sure David Llewellyn, Craig Murray and Marion Millar will be reading this with raised eyebrows, and thinking teapot and kettle.
link to 12ft.io
John Main says:
8 August, 2022 at 1:59 pm
@ Ruby says:8 August, 2022 at 9:35 am
“Any educational establishment should teach the kids what will best serve them in their future world of employment”
“Will probably be how to make coffee, cook & serve chips & hamburgers. No English required just a few words of American English. ie Regular Fries”
Now Ruby, where’s your aspiration to do better?
Hang on! I hadn’t finished the ‘John Main School Timetable’
(It’s one for kids who will go on to be employed if they are lucky not those who will be employers.
That would be a different timetable which would involve things like tax avoidance & how to pay the minimum wage & ensure CEO’s earn millions.)
Lesson 2. Get to school on time and stand in the corner for hours doing nothing.
Those who find this difficult should not go on to the lesson on how to be a security guard be it in Tesco or Buckingham Palace where they would have to not only stand still for hours doing nothing they would have to wear a giant furry hat.
They’ll be no history (except internet browsing history) no Shakespeare or Burns or any of these guys who didn’t speak proper modern English.
What good would that rubbish be in the wonderful world of future employment?
Now John if you don’t think that is aspirational enough you could give us an example of your idea of the best timetable that will serve them in their ‘future world of employment’
A long read but worth it to join up the dots on how nuSNP’s Sturgeon, and her inner cabal, work with the Establishment’s corporate lobby to the detriment of the people.
Ooops, I forgot to attach. Apologies and see below.
link to jonathonshafi.substack.com
“CRINGEWORTHY footage of the Prime Minister dancing to Rangers anthem Sweet Caroline at his luxury wedding party has emerged.”
This must’ve gotten the never directly elected MSP Murdo Fraser excited.
What I cannot understand about those Scots that support the union, is that the majority of them don’t realise that like those who vote yes for indy, they are despised by the Westminster parliament, and always will be. They are seen as nothing more than useful idiots by the English government, and by helping to keep Scotland chained in this union, which holds Scotland back they are doing the Westminster establishments dirty work for them.
A wee reminder of their work in 2014. This is what you are supporting, its time they started defending their country (Scotland) and not attacking it.
link to pbs.twimg.com
Republicofscotland says:
8 August, 2022 at 11:18 am
“Being born a native English speaker is an absolute blessing. It is the international language of the world and opens up more opportunities in life than any other language. Gaelic is a useless waste of time and ‘Scots’ is fine if you want to speak like a degenerate ned and spend your life living west central Scotland. I don’t, I have ambition.”
Pike.
English was a forced colonial language, forced on English colonies by imperialists, Scots and Gaelic may not hold any relevance for you or Stu, but they do for many others in Scotland, languages in many cases hold a sense of identity to those that speak them.
The French president has other ideas when it comes to English.
“Emmanuel Macron’s government is drawing up plans for French to replace English as the official “working language” of the EU when it takes over the Council of the European Union presidency in 2022, a diplomat has revealed.”
Whether he followed through or not I’m not sure but the idea is there post Brexit.
——-
He won’t due to it being the international language of trade, travel, diplomacy and international relations. English is the most widely spoken language in the world – the only language where the number of non-native speakers (vastly) outnumbers native speakers. China has more English speakers than any other country in the world and English is the most widely spoken language in the EU, despite Brexit. Why would you want to lose the huge benefit you were born with? It’s like being born a millionaire and wanting throw it all away.
If an Italian and German met in South Korea, they’d attempt to communicate in English. Macron is being pedantic, plain and simple. My French friend is married to a Japanese girl and living in Japan – neither can speak each other’s language, so they both communicate in English. He’s working there an as English teacher – that’s the power of the English language (you’d be hard pressed to find French teaching jobs in Asia). Most Asians assume all white people are English speakers, hence why self-service checkouts in Korean supermarkets have English language options but no German options. Every international airport will have English signposts and English is always the first or second language on flights, regardless of the airline and destination. English opens up more opportunities (educationally, careers, dating, socially, entertainment etc) than any other language.
It’s a blessing being a native English speaker and most Scots couldn’t care less about Gaelic. How many Scots do you honestly hear conversing in a dead/irrelevant language? Go learn Mandarin or Italian – it will benefit you far more. Stu Campbell is 100% correct….Gaelic is utterly useless.
P.S SCOTLAND IS NOT A COLONY.
link to archive.ph
Breaking the Code of Silence: The Irish and Drink
” Irish drinking patterns are, he writes, “evidence of a deep hole in the Irish psyche which only alcohol can fill.”
This propensity has been carried down in the Irish cultural DNA as a sort of unspoken dispensation for Irish Catholics to regard hard drinking as a justifiable consolation for 400 years of extreme poverty, shame, starvation and persecution suffered by their forebears under colonial rule, but which they themselves may never have endured.
The net effect of religious persecution, land rape, extreme poverty and intermittent abuse of military power by English colonists in Ireland during 700 years of continuous occupation was to produce a national inferiority complex in Irish Catholics which I identify as cultural malignant shame, characterized by chronic fear, suppressed rage, self-loathing, procrastination, low self-esteem, false pride and a vulnerability to use alcohol as remission for suffering – past and present.
I wonder if Scottish, Native American & Indigenous Australians drinking patterns are evidence of a deep hole in their/our psyche?
I’ll have to change my earlier question to include the Irish.
“It’s a blessing being a native English speaker and most Scots couldn’t care less about Gaelic. How many Scots do you honestly hear conversing in a dead/irrelevant language? ”
Pike.
Quite a few actually living in Glasgow, a city where there’s several Gaelic schools as well with another one about to open. Some Scots don’t care about it because the English language is taught instead of Scots or Gaelic they don’t realise that their own languages and culture have been usurped, other countries that weren’t English colonies teach their children their own language then English as a second language, Scotland should follow suit.
Oh and its not a dead language more folk mainly children are learning Gaelic, and auld Scots has persisted in Scotland many in the West of Scotland still speak the words on a daily basis without realising it.
Many of our beloved Scottish poets and writers penned their works in auld Scots and its a pity that Scots today (well many of them) cannot understand their works because the educational system chose to teach them a foreign language before their own.
I’m not saying that Scots children shouldn’t learn English it should however be as a second language.
“P.S SCOTLAND IS NOT A COLONY.”
Pike.
No its a country, which for centuries has treated as one, which is being denied its democratic right to chose whether or not to leave this union via an indyref by a Tory government in London.
Why would you bother to learn Italian or Mandarin when everyone in the world speaks English?
Personally I would say there are many good reason to learn Italian & Mandarin but none of them would help you get a job so Italian & Mandarin will not be part of ‘The John Main School Timetable’
What’s the big problem with Gaelic?
I always find it strange when people get their Sassenach knickers in a twist about Gaelic.
I would not be able to count the number of conversation I have heard in Gaelic.
Millions!
If I were to count the number of Scots I have heard using Gaelic words it would probably be into the billions.
What about Welsh? Is that also a waste of time?
How come the idea of Scotland being a colony is getting people so angry?
Pike is screaming
“SCOTLAND IS NOT A COLONY.”
Correction trillions not billions
If I were to count the number of Scots I have heard using Gaelic words it would probably be into the trillions.
“If an Italian and German met in South Korea, they’d attempt to communicate in English
It’s a blessing being a native English speaker” – Pike
I’d rather speak it as a ‘native’ than learn it as a second or third language, given how difficult it actually is to understand.
English is weird, but can be understood through tough, thorough thought, though.
‘i’ before ‘e’, except after ‘c’, is also deceit of the highest order.
In 1995, I had a discussion with an Italian on a street in Rimini, in a mixture of French & German – He didn’t understand a word of English, I don’t speak Italian, and I was trying to get him to stop 3 of his pals battering someone, which worked.
Colonisation of the Scots takes many forms,
1: The MaCrones report.
2: Bad prospects in own country of Scotland so had to leave, for better prospects in other countries, (my son was one of them,)
3: Being told that places of Scottish education are not to show images of people in kilts in 2022.
4: controling an banning certain movie’s in Scotland prior to a Scottish decision on independence in 2013/ 14.
5: Scotland being told ” NO now is not the time ” “you do not have the right to self determination”
Complicated and Simple things that all add up to controlling a mind set in Scotland by not being allowed to think, act, talk, or dress Scottish,
That is colonialism.
Ruby @4.27pm.
Should we abandon Gaelic in Scotland, where many place names are from the language including its largest city, I think not.
Many young people from the Western isles have moved to Glasgow and Edinburgh, some for economic reasons other are disillusioned by island way of life.
Due to things such as the lack of housing (a NuSNP problem) with South of the border incomers selling their London properties and moving to the islands to portray themselves as pretendy crofters etc.
I’d say its mainly unionists that oppose any further resurrection of our native languages, take the Britnat outcry from them, when the football stadium Partick Thistle football stadium announced that it was going to install Gaelic signage, anything that threatens their loyalty to a foreign power (England) is seen as threat, even their own Scottish culture and history is seen as a threat, what kind of mentality would see their own culture and history as threat to them, its madness.
Actually Sean Connery was an excellent actor, played Bond and king John of England amonsgst many other rolls in acting,
But he never gave up his own accent to play these english parts,
A man in his own right,
And supported Scottish independence.
Aye you got the cane an strap at primary School for speaking your own native language in Scotland, and not English,
The english language was literally Beaten and and thrashed into Children as young as four and a half years old, and you often had to stand in the corner for hours on end while little more than a toddler.
This happened to all native born Scots speaking children, myself and brothers and sisters used to come home with Whelp marks on our legs and arms,
Thats colonialism.
@RoS 3.10 pm
Stop peddling your shite, Scots did vote yes in 2014.
52.7% to be precise.
As has been pointed out before, you and your regressive nativist mates don’t get to redefine who qualifies as a Scot, still less to decide that the definition should be limited solely to those born here. One of the other moonhowlers insisted that polls were valueless anyway….so are you SURE it was 52.7%?
How do you know?
Would the figure have been different if the Yes movement had been captured by regressive nativists before 2014?
Luckily for the majority of civic nationalists, the movement doesn’t support franchise restriction. Not a single pro-indy party, not a single high profile figure, just a coterie of fringe individuals and sophomoric Wolfie Smith types who are so far left they’re meeting the far right Trumpist fringe at the other side of the continuum.
Both Alex Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed Sheik (the latter of whom would of course be disenfranchised if the more extreme nativists had their way, as she was born in London) wnet out of their way to rubbish franchise restriction at the Alba meeting last Saturday. Looks like you’re on a hiding to nothing guys: you’re pet policy is about as popular as a rat sandwich.
To conclude the constant thrashings and beatens eventually got to me the day I was sitting at my desk and the teacher asked me a question and I answered in local dialect,
The cane cane down across my back from the teacher more than once.
Something inside me finally snapped.
I got out my seat snatched the cane from her, ( yes female teacher) and thrashed her to she fell to the floor, the stunned long silence of the class room, is what bought me to my senses.
However I got expelled from school for hitting a english born teacher whom had been violently abusing children in a Scottish school for years.
That was colonial minded abuse to towards scottish children
Their is a up side to this story though, THE POWER OF PEOPLE WHEN THEY COME TOGETHER.
All the parents came together an wrote to the education board, I was reinstated at the same school,
But the teacher was sacked or moved on, not sure which, but she was gone by my first day back at school.
The Power of people coming together, over authorities was the first lesson I learned that day.
We can do independence agaist all the odds if enough of us come together.
We can and must do it to save future children from being beaten and enforced to use a language not natural to their mother tongue.
English is weird.
Friend called Hugh received a phone call from Italy asking to speak to Huff. 🙂
I’ve never understood people who claim to be ‘a lefty’ attacking people ‘on the left’.
But then, who am I to define who qualifies as anything?
And who do the Irish & UK Governments think they are, defining someone in Northern Ireland with the right to identify as British, Irish or both, as someone actually born in the Province?
People not born in Scotland aren’t Scottish – their birthrights aren’t my birthrights. The common law only extends so far.
“As has been pointed out before, you and your regressive nativist mates”
Ellis.
The only regressive nativists are those in government at Westminster who continue to deny Scots the democratic right to decide whether or not to leave this rancid union.
” Tasmina Ahmed Sheik (the latter of whom would of course be disenfranchised if the more extreme nativists had their way, as she was born in London) ”
Not so Ellis, a time period of residency if set, means she would be more than eligible.
If Sturgeon holds an indyref (God forbid) yes will lose hands down, if somehow Salmond’s manages to wangle his way back into the fold and holds an indyref Scots (majority) will vote yes, but lose yet again if he enfranchises everyone, 72.1% of resident from the rest of the UK who took part in the 2014 indyref voted no, I don’t see that figure dropping drastically when the next indyref comes around.
If a residency time period isn’t set prior to the next indyref, in my opinion it will be a wasted of time and effort, for yes will lose. If those who would be disenfranchised just for this one constitutional vote, feel strongly enough about living in Scotland what difference will it make to them to miss one voting opportunity.
Well done to the Scottish athletes finishing sixth in the table at the Commonwealth games, and well done to New Zealand finishing fifth in the tables with a similar population to Scotland, ahead of countries such as Nigeria and South Africa with huge populations.
Civic nationalism is a dangerous weapon in the hands of devolved government, and the snp and british civil servants are using it against the Scottish people,
There is something to be said for the natives of a country to to know whats best for them,
Wether that is Welsh people, native indians in America, aborigienals in Australia, Indians in india, etc.
It is a distinctive display of the old arrogant colonial attitude that tells natives in their own country they are not to intelligent to keep their beliefs and faiths of being native to their own country,
While the colonialists try import a new way of converted thinking into their country. Such as natives and nativism is all wrong,
The coloniser does not wish the natives to be proud of belonging as a native group to a country, as this gives the group strength as a community.
The coloniser wishes to break this up, to weaken them, make them feel ashamed of being a native. Of have nativist thoughts,
This is how the very concept of colonialism works for the outside coloniser.
If you start with the widely accepted view that colonialism was, above all else, concerned with economic exploitation and go on from there to look in detail at the extent to which Scotland’s resources, taxation, trade, labour relations, industrial policy, capital investment, borrowing, immigration, a good deal of transport policy, and so much else, are controlled by people who have no mandate to govern here and who exert control from beyond Scotland’s borders, then you cannot escape the argument that Scotland is essentially a colony.
You might think that assessment is a bit too narrowly focused on economics but I’d be happy to include other aspects of society, culture, politics, information control and the MSM, etc., where you’ll find manipulation that’s equally structural.
Economics, though, is of paramount importance in terms of determining so much else (standards of living, employment, health, housing, to name just a few) and regardless of what we call it it is truly disgraceful that we are hamstrung so blatantly in that all important area.
When you factor in the extent to which big business and private hands control just about all the necessities of life, you are struck with the realisation that the Scottish people really have virtually no control over their resources and the basic material requirements that their lives depend upon.
As Ruby asked, why would this claim annoy anyone that believed in independence?
It’s a shameful distraction to reduce the discussion to semantics.
@RoS
Not so Ellis, a time period of residency if set, means she would be more than eligible.
That depends which group of regressive nativists we are to believe though doesn’t it? The “if” statement in there is doing a lot of heavy lifting, isn’t it? I suspect your airy assertion is a case of your mouth writing cheques your brain can’t cash.
We’ve all seen examples in this very place of folk insisting that nobody who was not born here should be allowed a vote. That would include Tasmina and many thousands of others, including many who are staunch independence supporters. Even those less extreme are suggesting residence periods that no other country holding independence criteria has set, like 20, 15 or 10 years.
A couple of countries have imposed residence criteria of 24 months, which might just about be “saleable” as there is a precedent in similar votes. Those suggesting that the use of citizenship criteria for voting rights is appropriate are just plain wrong.
Again, as has been pointed out to you and other regressive nativists before, the way to ensure victory and make the “nativist versus New Scot” differential immaterial is to increase voter registration, increase turnout and persuade more of the native born Scots to vote for independence.
52.7% voting Yes isn’t an achievement, it’s an indictment.
Franchise restriction won’t work. Not only is it morally wrong, it’s politically suicidal. You don’t set out on the path of the early days of a better nation by disenfranchising tens of thousands of future citizens because you’re shit scared your arguments for independence aren’t convincing enough. It doesn’t matter whether you plan to disenfranchise all non natives, or half of them or 10% of them.
James che says:
8 August, 2022 at 5:58 pm
The cane cane (sic) down across my back from the teacher more than once.
—
Private education really isn’t all it’s made out to be, as evidenced here.
The fuhrer is trying to build her own version of China where freedom of speech and thought are illegal. I think it’s time to collectively stop voting for the SNP until she is gone and they have had a complete reset.
I want independence, but I don’t believe she does. She’s put out this plan knowing full well our owners won’t allow it.
“A couple of countries have imposed residence criteria of 24 months, which might just about be “saleable” as there is a precedent in similar votes. Those suggesting that the use of citizenship criteria for voting rights is appropriate are just plain wrong.”
You seem to be contradicting yourself Ellis with the above comment.
“Franchise restriction won’t work. Not only is it morally wrong, it’s politically suicidal.”
Yet many countries do it especially on constitutional votes, so it can’t be that wrong, oh its wrong in your eyes but not theirs.
“You don’t set out on the path of the early days of a better nation by disenfranchising tens of thousands of future citizens”
They’ll be no better nations if you give everyone and their dog the vote. I believe Scots would yet again vote yes, but no voting Scots along with the majority of incomers from the rest of the UK would yet again swing it for no.
Its all very well saying, well persuade them to vote yes, some you could, but enough? but why would they want to break up the UK when they can live in Scotland and still be part of the UK, then there’s the Britnat media machine which will yet again spew out lies quicker and far wider reaching than we can debunk them as they did in 2014.
Its interesting to note that you see a time set residency as immoral, yet you completely ignore the immorality of Westminster on denying Scots their democratic right to hold an indyref.
I see where your priorities lie, and its no big surprise.
I see the BPHB are up to their oxters again. This time it is Colonialism. Of course, there is no end product to their rantings but it seems to keep them occupied.
One of them apparently got belted or caned, on the back, regularly at school. It is unfortunate that it was not a baseball bat across the napper!. Maybe we would have then been spared the dross that he/she/it posts with monotonous regularity.
Oor Ruby has listened to billions of conversations in the Gaelic. Lucky her. I have never even heard one!
The thread common to every article that Stu writes and the posts that follow, is how unfair everything is in Scotland. It appears that the politicians in every other country in the world are actively listening to the electorate and implementing everything they want and need. The fact that 2 people might want polar opposite things seems to be irrelevant.
With the carnage that about to be foisted upon us all this winter, mainly by the Tory’s, there is going to be a window of opportunity to really motivate Scots towards Independence and get rid of the Tory’s forever in Scotland. I expect this to be wasted yet again by Sturgeon and her incompetents as neither her party or the media are pushing them. The promised papers on currency, defence and other vital matters are still awaited with no apparent timetable on when they will be produced. How do they honestly think that soft no voters will be persuaded? Nothing changes with the Secretive Nonce Party.
It will surely become obvious, to even the dumbest on here, that MONEY, or the lack of it, will be the driving factor to end this Union. You cannot eat Patriotism or use it to keep you warm irrespective of what the BPHB state. Some of them would even take Independence tomorrow with Sturgeon and the SNP running the show. ‘It will all be fine’ is their motto. It won’t.
@ Ruby says:8 August, 2022 at 4:35 pm
“Correction trillions not billions
If I were to count the number of Scots I have heard using Gaelic words it would probably be into the trillions.”
Would that be the US trillion, or the old English trillion, Ruby? One is one million times larger than the other.
The readers BTL will naturally want to know which arithmetic culture has successfully colonised you.
You seem to be contradicting yourself Ellis with the above comment.
Not so. The difference between the franchises used for self determination votes, and the franchises used by ALREADY independent countries to decide constitutional amendments or to define who is and is not a citizen has been pointed out to you before. Either you still don’t understand it, or you’re just being disingenuous for the LOLZ. I no longer really care which. Your point is still bullshit however often you repeat it.
Yet many countries do it especially on constitutional votes, so it can’t be that wrong, oh its wrong in your eyes but not theirs.
Not the same thing. See above. It really is like explaining the difference between small and far away to Father Dougal with you, huh?.
They’ll be no better nations if you give everyone and their dog the vote….& yadda, yadda, yadda for 2-3 more paragraphs…
Lots of assertion and wishful thinking there. All the same tired old tropes: we cannae do it, the MSM are against us, the vote’s rigged…. Same old, same old.
Its interesting to note that you see a time set residency as immoral, yet you completely ignore the immorality of Westminster on denying Scots their democratic right to hold an indyref.
I see whole-scale franchise restriction in this case as immoral, yes. It’d also be politically self defeating in my view both in Scotland and in our interactions abroad. It’s also profoundly out of step with international precedent, as already discussed above. The fact you can’t see the difference, or refuse to accept it, doesn’t make it any less real.
Don’t put words in my mouth: particularly when you’re lying through your teeth. I don’t ignore the immorality of Westminster’s position at all.
I see where your priorities lie, and its no big surprise.
Nativist extremists are prone to conspiracy theorising as we all know. they also have a regrettable tendency to label those that call them out for their regressive nativism as closet yoons, or Sturgeonites. It’s the same kind of othering we saw yoons use against cybernats during indyref1, or we see TRA’s using against gender critical folk today.
I see where your priorities lie too, and have had your measure since it became apparent you were an unreasoning and fanatical friend of Vlad’s and opined the people of Country 404 had it coming.
John Main says: at 1:56 pm
“Have you checked out what is going down in your beloved EU lately?
Maybes you should.
Scotland is well shot of the rancid mess, as the EU spirals around the plughole of its pending oblivion.”
Be more alert and less presumptuous Mr Main.
It’s not my beloved EU. I’ve previously pointed out that there are issues with the EU, and long before recent events. That’s why I stated single market access rather than full EU membership. 😉
And also stop deflecting from the point I was making about the improved financial reality you require to be nailed down in detail before Scotland returns to self-governing status.
Your “Brexit” had none of the detail you require Scotland to produce. Just a load of pish and shite plastered on the side of a bus, with little if any actual detail on what type of deal we’d get depending how we left the EU.
52-48% split to leave was not really a mandate for a hard exit deal.
The BBC has announced that Kate Forbes has had a baby girl. I am very pleased for her. I am sure I know what sort of baby she has had if she is a girl.
But I do wonder what the definition of a girl is in Scotland these days. Or whether I am allowed to write that question down. Or even whether I am allowed to think it.
Will common sense transcend stupidity one day?
@Chas
With the carnage that about to be foisted upon us all this winter, mainly by the Tory’s, there is going to be a window of opportunity to really motivate Scots towards Independence and get rid of the Tory’s forever in Scotland. I expect this to be wasted yet again by Sturgeon and her incompetents as neither her party or the media are pushing them.
That’s an interesting point. I share your sense of disquiet that the opportunity will be wasted by Sturgeon and her unsavoury cabal. I wonder if there are even enough “good guys” left within the party to finally do the right thing after the SC says “naw” and give her the elbow? It’d be good to think so, but I hae ma doots!
Surely there must still be a hard core of folk in the party who would finally grow a pair and defenestrate Nicola and her chums for the opportunity to hold plebiscitary elections at Holyrood? They must think that in the end, their party is bigger than one person.
Chas says:
Oor Ruby has listened to billions of conversations in the Gaelic. Lucky her. I have never even heard one!
The question is would you recognise Gaelic if you heard it Chas?
Did I not say millions of conversations in Gaelic? Could be billions. When you live in a part of Scotland where Gaelic is spoken you do tend to hear a lot of conversations in Gaelic & more so if you have friends & family who are Gaelic speakers.
So yeah I have heard a lot of Gaelic being spoken. Heard & learned quite of lot of Gaelic songs.
Ever heard of ‘The Royal National Mod?’ It’s being held in Perth (Peairt in Gaelic)this year, that’s Perth Scotland. (Check it out on Google maps) I thought I would point that out in case you thought it was something happening in Australia.
Merganser says:
8 August, 2022 at 8:31 pm
The BBC has announced that Kate Forbes has had a baby girl. I am very pleased for her. I am sure I know what sort of baby she has had if she is a girl.
Lovely!
“Being born a native Gaelic speaker is an absolute blessing.” . 🙂
“The difference between the franchises used for self determination votes, and the franchises used by ALREADY independent countries to decide constitutional amendments or to define who is and is not a citizen has been pointed out to you before.” – Ellis
Gibraltar isn’t an already independent country, it’s a colony – In the 2002 referendum on ceding some sovereignty to Spain as proposed by Jack Straw, the franchise was restricted to those with no less than 10 years of residency if they didn’t qualify through nationality.
Franchise restriction is normal, as evidenced.
Code of Good Practice on Referendums makes no distinction between the questions asked in a referendum regarding the franchise, but does state that it’s acceptable, and at times desirable, to use a register of Births, Deaths & Marriages to base it on.
link to venice.coe.int
Either you still don’t understand it, or you’re just being disingenuous for the LOLZ. I no longer really care which. Your point is still bullshit however often you repeat it.
.” The difference between the franchises used for self determination votes, and the franchises used by ALREADY independent countries to decide constitutional amendments or to define who is and is not a citizen has been pointed out to you before.”
Ellis.
You’ve been peddling this shit for a while now, and you often quote the ADVISORY body the Venice Commission on it. There’s no law that says we cannot use the same criteria as other countries use for voting on constitutional matters in an indyref.
It will be Scotland’s indyref, and within the boundaries of a free and fair indyref we will set the criteria, and it will be monitored by the international community.
“Oor Ruby has listened to billions of conversations in the Gaelic. Lucky her. I have never even heard one!”
Chas.
That’s because no one speaks Gaelic at Denison, and anyway you probably thought Ruby meant Garlic.
The Betrayer of Scots demands.
“FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon has written to Boris Johnson demanding an emergency meeting of the Heads of Government Council over the cost of living crisis.”
We demanded that she save us from this fetid union and Brexit, but the treacherous shit, sold us out, we demand her gutless and spineless MSPs and MPs crawl out from under the stones that they are hiding under and hold her to account on her betrayal.
link to 12ft.io
This bollocks, the Tories haven’t in the past, needed BLiS MPs seats to win a majority at Westminster.
“THE idea of Scottish independence is “not very nice” as it would mean “perpetual Conservatism at Westminster”, Labour’s deputy leader has said.
Angela Rayner was speaking to broadcaster Iain Dale during a show at the Edinburgh Fringe when she made the comments.”
Its a piss poor excuse.
she added.
“The UK Labour deputy leader further claimed that she did not want to be “anywhere near” a second independence referendum because the Brexit vote had been “enough” for her.”
She won’t be near it it will be held in Scotland not England.
link to 12ft.io
@”Scott”
Gibraltar is not Scotland. It’s not rocket science. Anyone who thinks they are is delusional. Gibraltar is on the UN’s list of Non Self Governing Territories and has been since 1945, much to the UK’s chagrin. Scotland isn’t on that list. The situations are therefore not comparable, however hard you wish it were otherwise.
Franchise restriction is highly ABNORMAL in self determination referendums: that’s the only comparison that counts, and the only one the international community will be interested in. Most of them regard Gibraltar as a colony.
The Venice code of practice also says: (pages 16 -17)
6) The conditions for according the right to vote are normally the same for both
referendums and elections. In particular, a period of residence requirement may be imposed on nationals solely for local and regional referendums, and should not exceed six months other than in exceptional circumstances (point I.1.1.c.iii-iv).
7) It is desirable that the right to vote be accorded to citizens residing abroad, at least for national referendums. It is important to ensure that this does not lead to fraud, however. Accordingly, it is preferable not to record such people on the same register as residents, but to allow them to vote abroad or from abroad; in addition, this will help ensure that they exercise their right to vote, which is unlikely if they have to return to their home country for the sole purpose of voting (point I.1.1.c.v).
I bet you and you regressive nativist chums won’t be extending the vote to “native born” Scots currently residing abroad huh?
The nativist turd, however lovingly polished, remains but a turd. Sorry about that.
As much as I loathe the SNP, I loathe the Tories more, a SNP MSPs congratulates our Scottish athletes on their great performance calling the games in England away games and rightly so.
This caused the Fifth Column Tory branch office MSPs in Scotland to go into meltdown. What a bunch of turncoat b*stards. If Sturgeon hadn’t been such a treacherous swine at the last Holyrood elections and backed Salmond supermajority plan, most of these House Jocks would not have been elected.
link to 12ft.io
“Franchise restriction is highly ABNORMAL in self determination referendums:”
Scott.
Ellis has been spewing out this BS for months now, abnormal, immoral, not right, yada yada yada and so forth, its really tiresome now.
Just take it with a pinch of salt, I can’t find any law that says we cannot hold an indyref using our criteria similar to that of a constitutional vote, and many countries set time residency restrictions for that type of vote so why not us.
You’ve been peddling this shit for a while now, and you often quote the ADVISORY body the Venice Commission on it.
No, I’ve discussed it when it has been brought up by “Scott” in his vain attempt to try an bolster what passes for his argument that Scotland is the same as Gibraltar and New Caledonia or Ruritania or whatever other diversionary pish he chooses to misquote.
Nobody says there’s fixed law on any of this, as there is very little in the way of precedent. What will be persuasive is precedent, what others have done, and what other have NOT done. You and other regressive nativists make achieving independence more difficult by trying to adopt a non-standard, discriminatory and xenophobic policy which will adversely impact the chances of recognition.
Of course, you’re too blinded by your blood and soil nativism to see the potential harm. The rest of the movement is having none of it thankfully: they see you for the moonhowlers you are, and treat you with derision as Alex Salmond and Tasmina did on Saturday the video is there for folks to see their reaction. They actually laugh at the idea. 🙂
James che @ 6:30 pm
“Civic nationalism is a dangerous weapon in the hands of devolved government, and the snp and british civil servants are using it against the Scottish people”
Is ‘civic nationalism’ another term for ‘plantation’? I wonder where the census results are?
“Is ‘civic nationalism’ another term for ‘plantation’? I wonder where the census results are?”
In the same vault as the missing 600k, along with the lost documents on the ferry fiasco.
Ellis @10pm.
Like I said yada, yada, yada and so forth.
“Franchise restriction is highly ABNORMAL in self determination (sic) referendums: that’s the only comparison that counts, and the only one the international community will be interested in.
The Venice code of practice also says: (pages 16 -17)
6) The conditions for according the right to vote are normally the same for both
referendums and elections. In particular, a period of residence requirement may be imposed on nationals solely for local and regional referendums, and should not exceed six months other than in exceptional circumstances (point I.1.1.c.iii-iv).
7) It is desirable that the right to vote be accorded to citizens residing abroad, at least for national referendums. It is important to ensure that this does not lead to fraud, however. Accordingly, it is preferable not to record such people on the same register as residents, but to allow them to vote abroad or from abroad; in addition, this will help ensure that they exercise their right to vote, which is unlikely if they have to return to their home country for the sole purpose of voting (point I.1.1.c.v).
I bet you and you regressive nativist chums won’t be extending the vote to “native born” Scots currently residing abroad huh?” – Ellis
—
By your own admission, some referendums on self-determination have imposed restrictions, so there are precedents already recognised by your pals in the international community. (Roughly 18% have done so)
‘normally the same…other than in exceptional circumstances’ – Scotland alone holding a referendum equates to an exceptional circumstance, which leads onto the point that it wouldn’t be a national referendum (UK is currently the ‘nation state’) so those born in Scotland but resident abroad, can be denied that which is only desirable.
However, as you’ve chosen this hill to defend from, and despite you repeatedly stating that there’s no such thing as Scottish citizenship yet, I’d like to point out that the only way to verify if those Scots resident abroad are entitled to vote would be to base the franchise on the register of Births, Deaths and Marriages. And, if it’s preferable for these people not to be recorded on the same register as residents, there’d have to be completely new register(s) of electors specifically for the referendum.
Keep thinking you know everything, if you want to. Some people are so far behind in the race that they actually believe they’re leading….that’s you that is.
Why is it `nativist` to have a residency limit on referendum
but,
not `nativist` to have a residency limit on a General Election.
Schrödinger’s nativist.
Mark Boyle 6th 9.26 .
U must have done a bit of trolling to find that Its no news to me unlike U Davie is a staunch Independence supporter .
ronnie anderson says:
8 August, 2022 at 11:19 pm
Mark Boyle 6th 9.26 .
U must have done a bit of trolling to find that Its no news to me unlike U Davie is a staunch Independence supporter.
Dave Llewelyn is such a staunch independence supporter he pissed off to Antwerp in order to make money polluting Scotland’s youth and unfortunates with lethal crap. At least all Sean Connory did wrong when being a Nat abroad was inflict the occasional turkey movie.
With “patriots” like that, who needs Scotland In Union for treachery – and if Stu or anyone else doesn’t like me calling a spade a spade with this guy, tough. Time some of you learned to be a lot more discerning on what causes to champion.
BTW that shed of yours is the most sadly hilarious thing I’ve saw since Wee Wullie “Shooders” Bluenose and the Teddy Bears “We Don’t Do Walking Away” video on YouTube.
link to 0.gravatar.com
@ Scott Finlayson
Why is it `nativist` to have a residency limit on referendum
but,
not `nativist` to have a residency limit on a General Election.
Schrödinger’s nativist.
Because General elections and self determination referendums aren’t the same thing. A reasonably intelligent 5 year old would be able to spot the difference, so it’s not surprising some of the nativists in here find it a struggle i suppose? 🙁
@Scott 10.20 pm
By your own admission, some referendums on self-determination have imposed restrictions, so there are precedents already recognised by your pals in the international community. (Roughly 18% have done so)
The fact that a few out of dozens have imposed residence criteria (I’d need to see receipts for your claimed 18% figure!) doesn’t mean it would be right in our case, nor would it strengthen our case when it came to gaining international recognition. Indeed it would do the opposite, because we’d be moving the goalposts from the 2014 precedent.
It isn’t going to encourage the international community to recognise our statehood if it is achieved in a contested referendum where tens of thousands of Scots – including many who were eligible to vote in 2014 – are disenfranchised because you and your regressive mates have a hard-on for pure-bloods.
…so those born in Scotland but resident abroad, can be denied that which is only desirable.
So you’re a hypocrite as well as a regressive blood and soil nativist then? On the one hand you insist we have to follow what the Venice Commissions’s advice is, but on the other – when it doesn’t suit your argument – it’s OK for us to ignore it?
However, as you’ve chosen this hill to defend from, and despite you repeatedly stating that there’s no such thing as Scottish citizenship yet,…
It’s a simple fact. Try applying for a visa abroad using you Scottish citizenship and passport Scott, see how far it get you, OK? Independent countries have citizens, and can set criteria for gaining citizenship, including who qualifies to vote in elections. It’s not rocket science.
And, if it’s preferable for these people not to be recorded on the same register as residents, there’d have to be completely new register(s) of electors specifically for the referendum.
And your point is caller? Parroting what the report says isn’t an argument. The Generalitat in Catalonia prepared a new register of voters for its referendum, entirely separate from that for elections. It allowed Catalan’s abroad to register vote. The reason regressive nativists in Scotland would fight tooth and nail against this of course is that they fear most Scots in the diaspora are likely to be unionists. So much for independence only being a matter for those born here eh?
Keep thinking you know everything, if you want to. Some people are so far behind in the race that they actually believe they’re leading….that’s you that is.
I know I’m in the right on this issue. I also know my views are those of the majority. If they weren’t you and your unsavoury cabal would be able to point to all the major figures in the movement supporting your regressive policy.
How’s that going? So far we’ve got Alf Baird and Gareth Wardell and a handful of mostly anonymous moonhowlers on here. Big woop.
I’d rather be on the same side as Alex Salmond, the rest of the Alba leadership, and Rev Stu. Meanwhile, you do you.
Ellis,
You’ve already accepted that there must be a restrictive franchise.
Arguing where that line is drawn has been going on for some time now.
You’re argument that the international community won’t accept Scottish independence because there weren’t enough foreigners voting in it, doesn’t hold water.
Yes, of course I’m a despicable blood and soil nativist too but there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a residency qualification.
I would suggest definitely longer than a stag weekend in Edinburgh.
I strongly object to Chas referring to me as ‘Oor Ruby’ folk might think I’m part of the ‘Travelling Morris Dancers Brigade’.
“They want to bring Morris dancing to Scotland and get rid of all the highland dancing, cèilidhs, Gaelic, tartan, bagpipes, haggis, Rabbie Burns & even our bonnie purple heather.
They hate all that stuff! Hate! Hate! Hate! It’s all too Scottish!”
Guess which place they’ve decided should be re-named Bracken Moor?
@Breastplate
You’ve already accepted that there must be a restrictive franchise.
Arguing where that line is drawn has been going on for some time now.
No I haven’t. I’ve said I still think it’s unjustified and that changes to the 2014 franchise are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I said I COULD be persuaded that minor changes to – for example – address concerns about second home owners voting, or temporary residents voting, but they still seem to me to be trivial issues and not worth the downsides pointed out by Rev Stu in his initial twitter demolition of the nativist case.
The trouble for nativists of course is that you have some extremists who would exclude everyone not born here, ranging down through those insisting on residence criteria of lengths ranging from 20 years down to a couple of years, despite the fact that in the few instances abroad where residence criteria were used it was 24 months.
You’re argument that the international community won’t accept Scottish independence because there weren’t enough foreigners voting in it, doesn’t hold water.
I don’t trust your airy assertion. International recognition – particularly in the case of a contested referendum – won’t be helped by going against the 2014 precedent, and against custom and practice in other self determination referendums. You stating it “doesn’t hold water” isn’t an argument. What’s your evidence? Why won’t it hold water?
Yes, of course I’m a despicable blood and soil nativist too but there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a residency qualification.
I would suggest definitely longer than a stag weekend in Edinburgh.
If the cap fits……? Just more assertion on your part. Go back and actually read where this started and try to engage honestly with the points Stu made about why he, and the majority of the movement, think it’s a crap idea. Having a chip on your shoulder about “furriners stealing our independence result” is not going to cut it.
@ Ruby says:8 August, 2022 at 9:04 pm
“that’s Perth Scotland. (Check it out on Google maps) I thought I would point that out in case you thought it was something happening in Australia”
WTF
Have the Scots been colonising Australia and planting their culture there? Maybes even displacing and oppressing the locals? Surely not driving the locals to alcoholism?
Well, well.
You’ll be telling us next they did the same in New Zealand, Canada, the USA, South Africa, etc. etc.
Incidentally, I once spent an interesting hour picking out the Scots place names on a map of Jamaica. Got to about 30 before I lost interest.
Makes me wonder if Alf Baird might have a point about colonisation after all, but what he is identifying is simply just karma.
Breastplate says:
9 August, 2022 at 8:15 am
You’re argument that the international community won’t accept Scottish independence because there weren’t enough foreigners voting in it, doesn’t hold water.
Aw naw! Is Scottish Independence too Scottish an aw?
This reminds me of the English holidaymakers in Spain complaining about too many Spaniards.
Ronnie , good to see you on here . Hope all is well with you.
There are folk worthy of ignoring , you’ll spot them easily enough as they have that arrogance suggesting all they write is absolutely’ top notch ‘ and those who disagree are ignorant ‘nativists’ ‘ blood and soil’ nationalists – and they do that without the tiniest awareness of irony. They even threaten to leave us ‘unappreciative ignoramuses’ to our own devices but cannot resist returning to harangue and lecture.
I wish Stu would reclaim his blog.
@ Republicofscotland says:8 August, 2022 at 9:37 pm
The idea of Scottish independence is “not very nice” as it would mean “perpetual Conservatism at Westminster”, Labour’s deputy leader has said.
Hmmm. One possible inference from that belief is that she expects Scots to all be back to voting Labour eventually, or even soon.
That would certainly swing it for Labour at WM. I wonder if she knows something that we don’t?
Another inference is that the Tories should be gung-ho for Indy, cos after Indy, they will be in power at WM for ever.
Yet they are opposed to Indy. Or so they tell us. Or so we are told. What do they know that we don’t?
Maybes she was simply channeling her inner Hatuey and pebble-dashing mince. That would explain it.
John Main says:
9 August, 2022 at 8:38 am
Have the Scots been colonising Australia and planting their culture there?
Did you not read the article I posted earlier entitled
‘How should we categorise the Scots: as Cowboys or Indians?”
There are Scots who have done a lot of wicked things not that long ago one of them illegally invaded Iraq & killed billions. He got knighted for his war crimes. Karma?
I believe there were some Scots who even sold their country for for a handful of English gold ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation’
I had the chance to watch the recording of the live stream of the Alba meeting in Edinburgh on 6th August, now available on YouTube. For the benefit of the regressive nativists, here’s what Alex said about franchise restriction (starts around 1.26.45 to 1.27.35):
“I hear people talking about restricting franchises incidentally. I have to say I don’t like it much. Our franchise should be everybody in Scotland. Because, you know if the franchise in 2014 had been restricted to Asian Scots we’d have won in a landslide.”
Ellis,
There is a restrictive franchise on every election and referendum, deny it if you wish.
Perhaps you should start by pondering why this is.
Just in case you wander up the wrong avenue again, it is not because everyone is a blood and soil nationalist.
Take as much time as you need.
Alex is entitled to his opinion and like everybody else he has the right to be wrong occasionally.
This totalitarian love you exhibit must trouble people like Alex and Rev Stu more than any proposed changes to the franchise.
@Breastplate
There is a restrictive franchise on every election and referendum, deny it if you wish.
You’ve not been paying attention have you? Go and actually do the homework, and stop just asserting things you make up. Look up the franchises used in self determination referendums since 1945. Read some of the academic articles about it. Restrictive franchises in self determination referendums are the exception, not the rule, so the truth is actually the opposite of your claim.
No wonder regressive nativism as a concept is in trouble with geniuses like you fighting its corner!
@Hatuey
Alex is entitled to his opinion and like everybody else he has the right to be wrong occasionally.
Well indeed. I understand many think the last perfect human was nailed to two bits of wood? The problem for regressive nativists on this particular issue is that not only is Alex right, he’s representing the majority view. If he weren’t, the advocates of franchise restriction would be shouting it from the rooftops, showing us their polling evidence, and wheeling out all the experts, politicians and high profile folks who supported their views. Thus far however…..*tumbleweed*.
This totalitarian love you exhibit must trouble people like Alex and Rev Stu more than any proposed changes to the franchise.
I’m not sure either person would feel some random anonymous nativist posting BTL here was qualified to make such assertions. Doubtless they can speak for themselves. I imagine they’re much more troubled by the prospect of a regressive, blood and soil minority of the movement harming our chances of achieving independence by turning away undecided voters? You do you though….if franchise restriction is such a great idea, doubtless we’ll be seeing the evidence for it soon…?
Ellis,
It is not an assertion, it is fact.
Surely the word “franchise” might deliver a clue.
That you choose not to believe it is not my problem but it makes it more difficult for you to create a coherent argument.
“Because General elections and self determination referendums aren’t the same thing. ”
Ellis.
Okay Ellis we’ll play your game for a moment, so tell us, without using the words abnormal, usual, and recommended, what’s to stop Scots from having a residency time limit in an indyref, apart from you bleating on about it.
Oh and please don’t quote the Venice Commission again its an advisory body.
Ooo…the 77th have been doing some overtime, at least 3 of them on at once…
You say that wanting a residency limit on our referendum is blood and soil nativism because it is restricting some people having a vote,
i can accept that as an opinion,
but , you say, having a residency limit on GE is not blood and soil nativism even though it is restricting some people having the vote.
Yes they are both different but surely your objection is the restriction of people getting a vote (the same people in both examples)
don`t you see how this seems contradictory in reasoning,
and if you agree that people should be restricted in Scottish GE are you not yourself by your own standard a `blood and soil nativist`.
You can`t be both for and against the same people getting a chance to vote,
there seems to be some cognitive dissonance in your reasoning.
@ Ruby says:9 August, 2022 at 8:57 am
“illegally invaded Iraq & killed billions”
Billions, trillions, arithmetic must be strictly for the birds where Ruby is concerned.
Or, maybes just never let the facts get in the way of a good old chip-on-the-shoulder rant.
Then again, maybes Ruby likes to channel her inner Stalin: mega-deaths are just a statistic.
Maybes Dorothy has a point. Rev Stu should reclaim this blog, cos one thing about Rev Stu, he believes utterly and categorically in factual truth.
The truth shall set you free. Something for Ruby to ponder before she next fires up her keyboard and thumps the pebble-dash key.
I’m not arguing in favour of changing the franchise. I’m arguing in favour of it being discussed.
As we have established, most EU countries have two franchises (one for local elections and one for national). We effectively only have one if you rule out using the highly restrictive “national” franchise which is a Westminster construct intended for General Elections.
The fact is that we would need to put in place a new franchise if we were independent, bringing us in line with everyone else… Doing so would require a discussion, unless we are to blindly follow the proclamations of some great leader.
That said, I think people on the other side of the fence arguing for a change to the franchise need to address the question of whether it is really necessary or not. I get the arguments but the there’s plenty of No voters there that are yet to be convinced and I think convincing them could (and should) be pretty easy…
Incidentally, I think the biggest barrier to converting No voters is now Nicola Sturgeon. She’s a real liability for the indy movement in any future referendum. She’s losing popularity all the time, even amongst those inclined to vote Yes.
@RoS
There’s nothing stopping us doing it, the point at issue is whether it would be the right thing to do and whether it would improve or harm the chances of achieving independence. You and other regressive nativists are quite free to campaign to restrict the franchise and tell us how many Scots would no longer be pure enough to participate, whether all of those not actually born here, or just those who haven’t lived here for 20 years, or is it 10, or 5 or 2?
You seem to have a hang up about the Venice Commission: it wasn’t me that originally brought that advisory body’s report up, it was your arch nativist chum “Scott”. Sadly for him the report didn’t really provide the support for his regressive nativism that he’d hoped.
What should and doubtless will stop the movement as a whole accepting the nativist agenda is that it’s a crap idea, for the reasons first elucidated by Rev Stu in his initial Twitter thread demolition last year. Franchise restriction is like voter-ID: an over reaction by political reactionaries where the cure is much worse than the supposed ailment.
Ellis has, for months, been steadily piling all of his eggs in the ‘franchise’ basket and appears to believe that his case is unassailable because he has Alex Salmond and/or Rev Stu on his ‘side’.
Just a reminder for Ellis and his very few fans – Alex Salmond is a politician and Stuart Campbell is in charge of the most widely-read Scottish politics blog. They both have to be mindful of a much larger audience than independence supporters.
There are some things they can’t say, some things they’d say with great reluctance and some things they’ll never even countenance saying – whether they actually believe any of them or not is another matter entirely.
Discussing ‘franchise’ may be a vote loser in the short term but that doesn’t mean it should just be ignored.
“There’s nothing stopping us doing it,”
Ellis.
Finally the truth of the matter.
Its not about taking the moral high ground, in 300+ years time (As long as we’ve been in the union) no one in Scotland is going to care about who was and who wasn’t enfranchised, all that will matter is that Scotland managed to free itself from the union.
@Hatuey says:9 August, 2022 at 9:57 am
“Incidentally, I think the biggest barrier to converting No voters is now Nicola Sturgeon. She’s a real liability for the indy movement in any future referendum. She’s losing popularity all the time, even amongst those inclined to vote Yes”
Very true, and it’s a plunge in popularity and support she has in common with most leaders across the democratic (and non-democratic) world.
And it’s all down to the universal over-reaction to Covid. People are slowly wakening up to the damage done to their countries, economies, their job prospects, their savings, and last but not least, the education, mental health and futures of their kids, due to a not very serious (other than for a small subset of the population) infection.
And people are not at all happy. So in time honoured fashion, our leaders will be replaced, the new leaders will promise that lessons have been learned, and we will all move on until the next clusterfuck.
BoJo is already gone. Sturgeon won’t be long behind.
Followed shortly by Sturgeon’s role model, Saint Jacinda of the Kiwis.
@ Ian Brotherhood says:9 August, 2022 at 10:02 am
“Discussing ‘franchise’ may be a vote loser in the short term but that doesn’t mean it should just be ignored”
Discussing ‘individual Scots prosperity after Indy’ may be a vote loser in the short term but that doesn’t mean it should just be ignored.
Haha, just my little joke.
It’s a fucking mega vote winner, so why don’t some of youse on here give it a try? Divert some of the endless screeds and rants about the franchise to topics that will actually engage the undecided and increase the Yes vote?
FFS.
Ian Brotherhood says:
9 August, 2022 at 10:02 am
Ellis has, for months, been steadily piling all of his eggs in the ‘franchise’ basket and appears to believe that his case is unassailable because he has Alex Salmond and/or Rev Stu on his ‘side’.
Just a reminder for Ellis and his very few fans – Alex Salmond is a politician and Stuart Campbell is in charge of the most widely-read Scottish politics blog. They both have to be mindful of a much larger audience than independence supporters.
You do realise you’ve just contradicted yourself in the same sentence? Saying Ellis somehow represents a micro minority of opinion and yet it being also the same opinion of those “mindful of a much larger audience” in the same breath?
Or is this another concept about to enter that same dimension as “gender identity” sprang from so it can be both a minority view and the majority view all at the same time according to expediency?
“There’s nothing stopping us doing it, the point at issue is whether it would be the right thing to do and whether it would improve or harm the chances of achieving independence.” – Ellis
—-
If there’s nothing stopping us from doing it, and there isn’t, can you kindly shut the fuck up about “precedents” being the ‘gold standard that must be followed’?
@John Main (10.23) –
I find that comment a bit cryptic but the key word, imo, is ‘divert’.
The franchise issue is used, by Ellis and ilk, as a discussion-stopper. That’s why he deploys it constantly. If it wasn’t that it would be ‘what currency will we use?’ or ‘Trident’ or somesuch similarly circular pishery guaranteed to get us all at one another’s throats.
That’s why he’s so afraid of Salyers, Baird, Grousebeater, SALVO, SSRG etc – if they are right (and many of us believe and trust that they are) then the naysayers and doom-merchants can no longer sabotage civilised discussion and will have to accept what they keep assuring us is the unthinkable i.e. that Scotland is already ‘free’ but just doesn’t realise it.
I have never heard Alex Salmond, Stuart Campbell or anyone else in the past decade of independence debate declare that they are always right. (Well, no one of any significance.)
@Hatuey
Nobody said it can’t be discussed, a point Rev Stu made right at the start. That doesn’t mean those opposing it can’t point out – for as long as it takes for it to sink in – that it’s a crap idea which is both morally wrong and probably electorally self defeating.
The franchises for General Elections or local elections are not the same thing as the franchises used in self determination referendums. The background to that has also been discussed at length and in detail, yet nativists persist in misrepresenting them as the same thing. The post independence franchise and requirements for qualifying as a citizen are already widely understood and will doubtless be enacted according to what is agreed by the first post indy parliament in accordance with international best practices and precedent.
Convincing current No voters to support independence isn’t likely to be helped by a franchise restriction policy that disenfranchises tens of thousands of New Scots according to some random classification of who is worthy in the eyes of the nativists who want to abandon civic nationalism and are convinced by the “Scotland as colony” schtick. How many percent of voters might a nativist franchise cost us as opposed to gain us?
Alex Salmond’s point last Saturday about not liking the franchise restriction concept was made on the back of his point that Scots Asians had moved decisively from supporting Labour to supporting the SNP and independence in the run up to #indyref1. How many of them might switch back when faced with a movement that tells them TM hey can’t vote unless they were born here, or had lived here for 20 years or 10 years? “Scott” on here is on record as saying only the Scots born should get a vote.
Are you and others really saying London born Tasmina Ahmed Sheik should just accept she shouldn’t get a say? Even if there’s a residence limit (how long?) do you and others know how many thousands of New Scots will be excluded for each year of residence required? How will we know how many pro independence people are being disenfranchised, or worse put off supporting independence as a result of such blood and soil nativism?
Main @9.55am.
Having a wee laugh at Ruby’s expense I see, her point though is a valid one, the illegal war in Iraq did kill hundreds of thousands, and the effects of the Great Satan (US) firing DU shells still sees Iraqi’s dying from cancers even today, then there’s the deaths from the Cash for Oil scandal as well.
Ruby didn’t get her figures on the mark, but she did make the point with regards to deaths.
@Mark Boyle (10.28) –
Let’s not waste time fencing over this. You know fine well the point I’m making.
Ellis claims to be right and to ‘know’ what the majority think about this that and whatever else. It just so happens that what he’s advocating today may well change tomorrow depending on Wings’s latest editorial.
Salmond has openly admitted, in filmed interview (perhaps the one in the garden with Stu?) that the franchise issue was one of the most difficult they had to deal with in preparing ‘Scotland’s Future’. Ellis’s claim that Salmond dismissed the issue so airily is a gross misrepresentation of what everyone knows is the reality – the question is toxic for Alba and has to be avoided, for now.
But just because Salmond and/or Rev Stu have their own reasons for avoiding it doesn’t mean that we should.
@John Main 10.23 am
As you and others like Mark Boyle on here will have discovered, the nativists in here don’t like being challenged on their regressive nationalism, nor will they debate in good faith on the supposed merits of their proposed restriction of the franchise, on the not unreasonable grounds of course that their case has little merit. At best the supposed benefits of such restrictions are likely to be far outweighed by the potential costs.
What they will do is furiously try to straw man anyone opposing their regressive views to death, by asserting that we are trying to close down debate, or that those opposing their regressive policies aren’t “real” nationalists or real supporters of independence. It is of course the same kind of othering tactics used by yoons against cybernats during indyref1, and is used for precisely the same reason: their arguments such as they are are weak, negative and politically regressive.
Of course it is true that reasonable people know that just because Alex Salmond or Rev Stu believe something, that doesn’t ipso facto make it right or unassailable. It does take a special kind of person though to look at the available evidence, at the lack of popular support for their views, and insist that they are right and everyone else is suffering from false consciousness.
You’ll also not that the nativists MO in here is often to ostentatiously announce they won’t interact with you or will ignore your input, then spend all their time discussing your posts in the third person. Most of course are happy to hide behind their anonymity rather than own their reactionary blood and soil nationalism publicly. It rather makes you wonder why that might be….? 🙂
Ian Brotherhood says:
9 August, 2022 at 10:50 am
Salmond has openly admitted, in filmed interview (perhaps the one in the garden with Stu?) that the franchise issue was one of the most difficult they had to deal with in preparing ‘Scotland’s Future’
—
And he chose the wrong option, imho.
I voted YES in 2014 and will do so again if/when given the opportunity- contrast this with Ellis, who’d actively campaign against independence if people with no previous connection to Scotland can’t land 9 days before polling day (automatically becoming one of these newfangled New Scots) and still register to vote.
Ellis’s claim that Salmond dismissed the issue so airily is a gross misrepresentation of what everyone knows is the reality – the question is toxic for Alba and has to be avoided, for now.
People can easily judge themselves whether I’ve misrepresented what Alex said by watching the video where he makes the comments. It’s pretty clear, yet we are now enjoined to accept Brotherhood’s airy assertions that the issue is toxic and that it mus be avoided. The issue is toxic because it’s politically regressive and will blow up in the movement’s face of it were ever mad enough to adopt it.
Nobody forced Alex to discuss the matter by the way: it wasn’t a response to a direct question, he brought it up spontaneously in his discussion about how it was possible to convert groups – in this case Asian voters who were formerly staunchly Labour – to the cause.
It suits nativists to try and close down debate on this of course by claiming that those who oppose them are infiltrators or not real independence supporters. Funnily enough I didn’t see or hear any of them setting out their stall at the event on Saturday. Far easier to sit behind their generally anonymous online personas and fling metaphorical shit like the grievance monkeys they so obviously are.
The bottom line on who should be allowed to vote in any future Independence referendum as dictated by the BPHB.
Only those native born Scots, currently residing in Scotland can vote but ONLY if they are guaranteed to vote Yes.
Anyone born in Scotland, but currently living out with, due to work commitments or whatever, will be denied a vote because there is a chance that they will have been corrupted by their experience in living in another country.
The vote will be extended to 8 year olds as there is more chance of them voting in favour as they do not have the life experience or maturity to make an informed decision.
The BPHB have simply got to be allowed to try and rig the vote as they see fit.
I do not know how many people living in Scotland were not born here, one of the resident experts will no doubt have the number at their fingertips, but what a great start for an Independent Scotland-alienate the non natives!
A point to bear in mind-If we are living in a democracy, on the face of it we are, compromise has to be agreed between those of opposing views. There is not much signs of compromise, on anything, with the BPHB. It is their way only.
Hawl Ellis, ya cry-baby, unless you know them personally (or are them?) how do you know that John Main and Mark Boyle are using their own names?
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, if I posted my surname too, it’d mean nothing to you as you’d not be able to identify me anyway.
Also, Rev Stu doesn’t impose the requirement to post using our own name, either in part or full.
“The same goes for signing your name at the bottom of your comment. We can see your name on the left-hand side already. If you want people to know you’re called Steve, call yourself Steve in the name box, not “Super_Sovereign_Warrior952”.”
You chose to advertise yourself and your blogs via Gravatar (one has gone, can’t think why, lolz), because you are an insecure, narcissistc fud who constantly looks for the validation that never comes.
And he chose the wrong option, imho.
It’s a tough one right enough: whose opinion to give more weight to…Giant of the independence movement Alex Salmond and the person who runs the worlds most popular Scottish politics blog, or “Scott” some random anonymous BTL poster whose main claim to fame is his belief that only pure bloods should be allowed to vote because *Freedom! Ya bass!*
I voted YES in 2014 and will do so again if/when given the opportunity- contrast this with Ellis, who’d actively campaign against independence if people with no previous connection to Scotland can’t land 9 days before polling day (automatically becoming one of these newfangled New Scots) and still register to vote.
How lucky does the movement feel though “Scott”? Would it lose more votes by adopting your extreme policy of disenfranchising anyone not born here, than it would gain by doing so? I can’t be the only one who would actively campaign against franchise restriction. I’d rather be shoulder to shoulder with those you’re planning to disenfranchise, including people like Tasmina Ahmed Sheik, lots of my pro independence friends and some family members who would lose their right to vote if you and your mates had their way, than campaign along side regressive nationalists.
We’re not on the same side, as Rev Stu said at the very start. I’m quite happy with that position.
Alf Baird.
The sad thing is If I had not been raised in Scotland most of my life I would not have experienced the colonial extent to which Scots are subjected by other parts of Britain today, for as I have said many times I was not born here.
My parents moved here while I was young enough to pick up local ways, by playing with local children,
Regardless of where my parents came from or I, it appears that if you are in Scotland’s = plantation, and spoke like a local with perhaps a dialect, they automatically had appalling attitude toward natives in and to Scots.
I would have been as ignorant as any other outsider not raised from young in a Scottish education system.
I perhaps would have thoughtlessly spoke an like a few others here,
We moved down to England in my teens, (still at school) and went through hell being teased , called and treated as jocks,
Due to fathers work we then moved to Wales for four years,
Totally different attitude to people from scotland, it was a sad moment when we had to leave, we made many friends.
The experience of living around Britain as a young person as to where prejudices lie deep Was an eye opener, how the economics is worked out unfairly and displayed across britain, how infrastructure is favoured more in one section of Britain than in others,
I was not born a native to Scotland, I am not a nativist by birth right, but I was taught that nativism is strongest the closer to London and related political shires you get,
This attempt at trying to make Scots feel that their nativism is inferior to political english nativism is just an attempt at keeping Scotland under the thumb of old structure of colonialism.
Experience both sides of life and you will find I think Scots and Scotland is often treated as inferior in this treaty of un- equals.
@Andy Ellis –
I don’t have a problem addressing you directly but you said you were ignoring me.
Anyway, how do you know none of us ‘nativists’ were at the Alba event on Saturday?
There’s still plenty of tickets left to see the comedy show ‘Andy Ellis and the Cult of Personality’ live at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Best get pished beforehand, it’ll help connect with the artist on stage.
Andy Ellis @7.37am
‘General elections and self determination referendums are not the same thing’
Indeed they are not. And you cannot turn such an election into a referendum, by calling it ‘de facto’, ‘plebiscitary’, or any other magic word.
Glad you have now come round to my way of thinking.
Clip of infamous blood-and-soil nativist Irish actor Richard Harris telling a blatantly regressive racist unfunny anecdote:
twitter.com/wetheirishpod/status/1556748086294331396
I don’t have a problem addressing you directly but you said you were ignoring me.
I understood it to be mutual, but since you seemed to be talking about me rather a lot…to the point of obsession in fact…I thought I’d respond. I suppose we should be thankful you’ve not descended to the creepy as fuck depths of stalkerdom as “Scott”?
In general, I’m more than happy to ignore you however.
Anyway, how do you know none of us ‘nativists’ were at the Alba event on Saturday?
It’s true, I don’t know for sure, it was more a reference that if they were there lurking they didn’t make themselves known in the Q&A or afterwards, or follow up on Alex or Tasmina’s points about frnachise restriction. Gareth Wardell did put in an appearance right enough….I’d actually forgotten that. I doubt he was too keen on Alex’s position given his fondness for indigenous Scots.
I’ve certainly seen no evidence of support for nativism in my local Alba branch thus far, though it’s certainly possible there are some who are that way inclined. As Alex and Tasmina said on Saturday the movement did best when it was a broad church, including independence supporting Conservatives and Labour folks.
Since “Scott” is intent on denying even former MSPs like Tasmina Ahmed Sheik the vote, I checked how many people of Asian heritage there were in Scotland. The last census (figures soon to be updated I suppose) has 3% of Asian heritage, comprising both south and east Asian. Around 100,000 identified as south Asian. I wonder how many of those folk will be disenfranchised if “Scott” has his way, or how many if those trying to impose lesser residence periods are successful? Of course, others who still qualify may also switch sides in disgust at what they see as a regressive, xenophobic plan to deny them the vote.
The law of unintended consequences, huh?
How sure are you that franchise restriction will result in a net gain of votes?
@Merganser
Glad you have now come round to my way of thinking.
I haven’t. If the referendum route is effectively closed off legally, or where Westminster imposed conditions the independence movement or Scottish Government with a mandate found unacceptable or unconscionable, then plebiscitary elections are a valid alternative.
I’d much prefer them to be at Holyrood. I don’t see how any true democrat could assert that winning a majority of the vote in a General election fought on a specifically plebiscitary platform, would not be valid. In the end however, that would be for the Scottish people to determine: Westminster or anyone else could say they didn’t accept it, but in the end it’s up to the Scottish people to “make it so”.
@Ellis (12.46) –
You seem very keen to attribute words to Scott that he hasn’t actually used.
And I’m not ‘sure’ that franchise alteration would boost or reduce Yes numbers just as none of us can be sure about anything other than the fact that there cannot and will not be a referendum next year. So, we have plenty of time to iron out the franchise controversy along with currency, royalty, NATO membership, and a whole host of other allegedly ‘insurmountable’ problems that other independent nations tackle on a daily basis.
It’s okay to admit that you don’t have all the answers. Try it sometime.
@Brotherhood
“Scott’s” reputation and his creepy as fuck stalking behaviour preceded him. Even some of those who can by no means be described as friends like Hatuey have pulled him up for it, not that it makes any difference to his behaviour of course.
He’s on record on here advocating for only those born in Scotland being eligible to participate. They’re his opinions and he hasn’t disowned them. He doesn’t even have the courage to own his extremist view, because he knows it’s about as popular as a fart in a sauna. At least Republicofscotland has the balls to not only admit his abhorrent views that the inhabitants of country 404 “had it coming” and even double down on them. “Scott” lacks the balls to own the fruits of his own fringe blood and soil nationalism. Again, not hard to see why such folk are so keen to maintain their anonymity.
I’ve never thought I had all the answers, not have I ever said so. That’s just another example of you straw manning on lieu of reasoned argument. You do that often, along with snide asides that those who disagree with your nativism aren’t really independence supporters. It’s the same kind of tactics yoons used during indyref1 and does you no credit. I’d like to say I’m surprised at the depths that some folk in here will stoop to, but it’s no longer the case.
So one person said it – allegedly . Dearie me. The whole movement is gonna crumble so Mr Ellis can get his obsessives opinion spouted on a daily basis on here.
Fecking pathetic. Grow the fuck up man!
When the culture, language, political interests etc of one country encroach or are by various means, «imposed», upon another that is colonialism.
Scotland fits the model perfectly, anglicised élite, historic military «pacification», regional divisions and all. The lack of cultural confidence that many calling themselves Scots exhibit is symptomatic.
Scottish nationalism, except on the exotic, romantic and literary outskirts, has done little to address the docile psychology of this issue.
Utilitarian, functionary driven «civic nationalism», fueled by oil revenues, green energy or whatever was/is unlikely to produce much adrenaline in the «corpus reipublicae».
It has certainly done nothing for Scotland’s intellectual life.
New Scottish «enlightenment»?…not on the current watch.
For the 100th time Ellis uses the example of Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh…
If she understood what you fail to understand, Ellis, she’d appreciate that changing the franchise may potentially make independence more likely and take it on the chin. I would.
I’m happy to be called cold on this; for me it simply boils down to whatever makes a yes vote more likely, within reason.
And to put it coldly, there’s no deterring reason for us to overly concern ourselves with the disposition of those that change may disenfranchise. If that’s not self-explanatory, I don’t know what is.
“Scott” some random anonymous BTL poster whose main claim to fame is his belief that only pure bloods should be allowed to vote – Ellis
—-
I’ve represented Scotland on the football pitch and effected policy change within NHS Scotland, what’s your main claim to fame?
“THE UK Government has submitted its legal argument against Scotland holding an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent.
The Conservative government has asked the Supreme Court for permission to publish the submission in full.”
No doubt Bain and the Betrayer (Sturgeon) will be punching the air and screaming, come on UKSC, vote against us, so I can yet again for the millionth time finger point and blame someone else for the state Scotland is currently in.
link to 12ft.io
These folk have done more to highlight the failings of the Betrayer, on the lack of cheaper energy for Scots in ten minutes, than she’s done since see became FM.
Scotland is swimming in energy sources yet come this Winter many Scots will sit cold in their homes, unable to heat them, I’d wager that the Betrayer and her spineless and gutless SNP MSPs and MPs won’t be sitting cold in their homes this Winter.
link to 12ft.io
Andy Ellis @ 12.53
‘It’s up to the Scottish people to make it so’
A so-called plebiscitary. or de facto referendum election would have no validity anywhere, not just at Westminster. Whichever way it went, around 50% of Scottish people wouldn’t agree with the decision, and many would be deterred from voting at all, so it would have no legitimacy. How the Scottish people could be expected to make a success of that scenario I fail to see,
You cannot have a general election on one issue. It is an absurdity when there are so many issues upon which people may wish to express their vote. Independence may be the most important issue for many, including me, but I have to be realistic that others have a right in an election to have other issues debated and voted on.
Sturgeon has latched on to this idea as a way of saying she kept her word to have a referendum, which it isn’t and never can be.
Republicofscotland says:
9 August, 2022 at 2:21 pm
“THE UK Government has submitted its legal argument against Scotland holding an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent.
The Conservative government has asked the Supreme Court for permission to publish the submission in full.”
No doubt Bain and the Betrayer (Sturgeon) will be punching the air and screaming, come on UKSC, vote against us, so I can yet again for the millionth time finger point and blame someone else for the state Scotland is currently in.
—-
What gets me about this referral by the Lord Advocate to the SC is that, according to Section 31 of the Scotland Act 1998 (Scrutiny of Bills), the people who should have been given the chance to say yay or nay to the competence of the Bill are the person who owns it and/or the Presiding Officer.
If Nicola Sturgeon believes the Scottish Parliament has the power to pass her Bill, she should have had the courage of her convictions to say so in the Chamber. And if she didn’t, then the PO would have, or not, as the case may be.
link to legislation.gov.uk
Something is rotten in the state of her mind.
On topic..fb can be hacked as evidenced by the warning message that locks you out if you can’t be bothered proving you are yourself when attempting to log in from a new device or location.
Accordingly, over and above the elements of farce already identified, the apparent absence of corroborating evidence for the intent behind the alleged threat(s) could also imply/ confirm
(a) emorionally charged judgment
(b) careless defence
(c ) abomination of juryless trials
(d) copfs determination to undermine Scots law(/yers)
(e) secret service collusion (with ?) to undermine the country..!
@Hatuey
For the 100th time Ellis uses the example of Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh…
With your talent for exaggeration and inflation of measurement, your partner’s must be used to a sense of disappointment, huh? The phrase all mouth and trousers springs to mind. The reason Tasmina’s case is apposite is that she’s a high profile figure in the movement who would be disenfranchised under the plans of some of the regressive nativists soiling this site like “Scott”.
Of course she’s only one of potentially tens of thousands you and others would be quite happy to disenfranchise, but to ordinary voters and the mainstream independence movement it would come across as batshit insane that some in the movement were intensely relaxed about disenfranchising swathes of the Scottish electorate, including the first female Muslim MP.
If she understood what you fail to understand, Ellis, she’d appreciate that changing the franchise may potentially make independence more likely and take it on the chin. I would.
I don’t know Tasmina, but I have my doubts about your assertion that she’d happily sacrifice her right to have a say – and that of tens of thousands of others – on the altar of your blood and soil nationalism and determination to achieve independence at any cost, including the rejection of civil nationalism.
I’m happy to be called cold on this; for me it simply boils down to whatever makes a yes vote more likely, within reason.
We should beware of people who insist the ends justify the means, or that we’re only queering e pitch for 1 day so we can win, after that everything will be back to normal again. The “within reason” weasel words are the clincher here. Not only is the principle not reasonable, but those advocating it have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are anything but reasonable or mainstream.
And to put it coldly, there’s no deterring reason for us to overly concern ourselves with the disposition of those that change may disenfranchise. If that’s not self-explanatory, I don’t know what is.
Your lack of empathy or ability to see why the thing you insist is self evident is in fact highly questionable and deeply unlikely to do anything else but loose is support is duly noted.
Scott @2.47pm.
We have a perfectly good Court of Session in Scotland that could’ve answered the question, it had no problems siding with Joanna Cherry when Johnson prorougued parliament, yet we are expected to believe that our LA needed to let the UKSC decide as she wasn’t confident in dealing with it.
AS Craig Murray said in one of his articles, (words to effect) its another way of stringing this out and adding more blockers to holding an indyref.
When the UKSC returns a no verdict on Holyrood’s competency to hold an indyref the betrayer will breathe a sigh of relief, and yet again finger point that its all Westminster’s fault. These are not the actions of a LA and FM who want to see an independent Scotland.
Mr Keating could’ve answered this question ages ago, and I think we do have the right to hold one, why else would’ve the LA and Scottish government actively opposed Mr Keatings action.
The NuSNP is not a party for Scottish independence.
Franchise a discussion point:-
Anyone in Scotland for the day of any referendum should be allowed to vote.
After all, they will be resident for the day. 😐
@Merganser
A so-called plebiscitary. or de facto referendum election would have no validity anywhere, not just at Westminster. Whichever way it went, around 50% of Scottish people wouldn’t agree with the decision, and many would be deterred from voting at all, so it would have no legitimacy. How the Scottish people could be expected to make a success of that scenario I fail to see,
You asserting things and them coming to pass are two different things. There is nothing in international law or precedent supporting your contention. If 50% + 1 vote for pro independence parties, or a combined pro-indy movement (which was Alex Salmond’s preference as stated last Saturday, though he is indeed not a fan of the idea in general) standing on an explicitly plebiscitary platform, then the union is a dead duck.
Unless the turnout in Scotland was freakishly low, which hardly seems likely in the circumstances of an avowedly plebiscitary election, then there’s no reason the international community would be less likely to accept a majority gained by this method in preference to a majority gained in a referendum.
In fact, it could even be argued a plebiscitary election mandate is actually more valuable in as much as it is harder to gain an absolute majority in such a vote, and we would be doing it in response to the bad faith of British nationalism which had failed to honour the 2014 precedent and the many mandates for a referendum given to the Scottish Government by its voters.
You cannot have a general election on one issue. It is an absurdity when there are so many issues upon which people may wish to express their vote. Independence may be the most important issue for many, including me, but I have to be realistic that others have a right in an election to have other issues debated and voted on.
Says who? If pro indy parties cooperated to form a “single purpose vehicle” to stand candidates on a specific plebiscitary platform, your criticism has no merit. Those opposed can vote for parties which don’t accept the concept: if they win a majority fair enough, but if they lose they are bound as democrats to accept the results. Even if there was no combined slate of pro independence candidates, if the votes of all the pro independence parties who had endorsed a plebiscitary platform amounted to 50% + 1, it’s game over for the britnats.
Of course, if Sturgeon and her party had any balls they’d have combined the S30 request with an assurance that any refusal would result in immediate elections for Holyrood on a plebiscitary platform. That still seems the most likely path to independence once Sturgeon is toppled. It’s certainly more likely than any of the “cunning plans for indy” that the Brigadoon Popular Feont types keep banging on about.
John Main says:
9 August, 2022 at 9:55 am
@ Ruby says:9 August, 2022 at 8:57 am
“illegally invaded Iraq & killed billions”
Billions, trillions, arithmetic must be strictly for the birds where Ruby is concerned.
Ach it could have been worse I could have posted some shit about if only Scotland voted Labour we would never have a Tory Gov ever again.
Does it make any difference if the bastard only killed millions and not billions?
I’ve represented Scotland on the football pitch and effected policy change within NHS Scotland, what’s your main claim to fame?
Representing your country in a sport is indeed admirable “Scott”, though I’m not sure why it should result in is giving you a free pass for your current attachment to regressive, blood and soil nationalism? Buster Mottram was a former British tennis No.1, but he’s not generally celebrated for his politics.
Similarly it’s great that you’ve made an impact on an area of policy in your line of work. It’s just a shame that your regressive politics makes improving the NHS in Scotland less likely as a result of the harm your views do to our chances of achieving independence.
Swings and roundabouts, eh?
“Similarly it’s great that you’ve made an impact on an area of policy in your line of work”. – Ellis
Never assume, Andy. I wasn’t working for the NHS, I effected change as a private citizen.
yw,hth.
BobW says:
9 August, 2022 at 3:28 pm
Franchise a discussion point:-
Anyone in Scotland for the day of any referendum should be allowed to vote.
After all, they will be resident for the day.
Aw come on BobW why would they even need to be resident for day they could postal vote.
Are you one of these ‘moonhowlin fringe nutters’
I bet Scott was one of those footballers who could wind up his opponents into such a frenzy they would totally lose the plot and Scott would score.
He certainly seems to be able to do it here on Wings.
He should add ‘winning wind-up merchant’ to his claim to fame.
I doubt Scott’s views on the franchise are more likely to damage National Health Service Scotland, or Scotland’s chances of returning to self-governing status, than the toxic biology denying shite being pedalled by the current supposedly pro-indy parties forming the Scottish
GovernmentAdministration of Devolved Powers.Someone always tends to talk of “Indy support” being a fixed group of folk. It isn’t though. It’s inevitable that support group will have ebb and flow with Indy Scotland’s potential positions on European membership, Monarchy, Genderwoowoo, etc.
It’s called herding cats. And as polls for Indy have barely moved in years, not considering different policy positions that may garner more support from folk that are currently unionists seems like a surefire way of not progressing the cause of returning Scotland to self-governing status.
Andy Ellis @ 3.37pm
‘Says who?’
Says all those Scottish people who are concerned about major issues like Scottish natural resources being given away; the ferries fiasco; the mis-management of the economy resulting in huge cuts to local services; the state of the health service; the state of the roads and railways; the prominence of Stonewall; the proposed introduction of trials without juries; the malicious prosecutions of Salmond, Murray and others;
to name but a few – and who want those issues in the open for scrutiny before handing another 5 years troughing to Sturgeon, Blackford, Wishart et al.
Sturgeon’s cunning plan is to take all such issues out of the equation so there is no scrutiny of the disasters of the past 8 years. She knows the game could be up and this is the best way of getting the SNP elected again for another 5 years.
I am surprised that you of all people haven’t seen what you would be letting yourself in for with this ‘strategy’. It kills three birds with one stone:
1. It fulfills her promise to have a ‘referendum’.
2. It gets the SNP another 5 years in office – regardless of the result, and without any scrutiny of her disasters.
3. It leaves Alex Salmond unable to go against it because of the risk of being blamed if the wrong result is the outcome.
Andy, I never thought I would say it, but you’ve been had.
Merganser says:
I am surprised that you of all people haven’t seen what you would be letting yourself in for with this ‘strategy’. It kills three birds with one stone:
1. It fulfills her promise to have a ‘referendum’.
2. It gets the SNP another 5 years in office – regardless of the result, and without any scrutiny of her disasters.
3. It leaves Alex Salmond unable to go against it because of the risk of being blamed if the wrong result is the outcome.
Andy, I never thought I would say it, but you’ve been had.
Very well said Merganser.
Weird that there is so much talk about the franchise and so little about the de facto referendum.
A plebiscitary election should include ALL the pro-indy parties when looking at the result. If the SNP say it has to be THEIR total, then they have blown their cover. Power is their aim, for another 5 years, as has been suggested.
As far as the franchise for an (unexpected) indy referendum goes, I would be content with anyone over the age of 16, no matter where they were born, having been resident in Scotland continuously for a minimum of 5 years, to vote on the future of our nation.
No “blood and soil” required.
@Ruby
No, I’m an internationalist moonhowlin fringe nutter.
@BDTT (5.57) –
At last – a solid suggestion for the franchise, delivered without rancour.
Civilised discussion is possible.
Hoots mon!
😉
“As far as the franchise for an (unexpected) indy referendum goes, I would be content with anyone over the age of 16, no matter where they were born, having been resident in Scotland continuously for a minimum of 5 years, to vote on the future of our nation.”
Brian.
The boot stomping Britnats at Holyrood and I include Sturgeon and her useless troughing hoarde in that, won’t be happy with that logical suggestion, and neither will Ellis and his crew, and if we’re to believe Ellis neither will Alex Salmond or the Alba party.
Brian Doonthetoon says:
9 August, 2022 at 5:57 pm
A plebiscitary election should include ALL the pro-indy parties when looking at the result. If the SNP say it has to be THEIR total, then they have blown their cover
I think they have already done that.
Link posted in an earlier thread. Do you trust her to play fair?
Oh bloody hell I forgot about the banned words.
Previous comment awaiting moderation.
Here goes for a 2nd time
Franchise for ‘de facto referendum’
Be registered to vote in the constituency;
Be of voting age – 18 years old on polling day;
Be either a British, qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland; and
Not be subject to any legal incapacity to vote – Peers in the House of Lords, prisoners serving a prison sentence or having been convicted of committing certain electoral crimes.
It’s a bit blood & soil, moonhowlin’ & fringe nutty!
What about all our new Scots from the States, EU, redacted, Afghistan etc?
The International guys are not going to like this, they will definitely not accept an independent Scotland with such a restrictive franchise.
It’s got to be a big no no to this bonkers self-ided referendum.
Tom Harris has compared Brexit to the Easter Rising.
“Mr Harris took to Twitter to make the comparison – the former Labour MP headed the Vote Leave campaign in Scotland ahead of the Brexit referendum.
He said: “[I thought it] odd that an Irishman should affect bewilderment at a nation prioritising self-determination.”
When someone pointed out that Ireland was still in the EU, he said that Ireland had “fought a war of independence and a civil war on the subject of self-determination”.”
I take it Harris thinks Brexit was the UK gaining independence, yet Harris is against Scottish independence. It would appear that independence from the EU for the UK is good, but independence for Scotland from the union is er…bad.
link to archive.ph
Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘de facto’ Scottish independence referendum at risk
However, Patrick Harvie, her cabinet colleague, has indicated that the Greens will not stand aside and are likely to field candidates — diluting the pro-Yes vote and preventing the SNP from enjoying a clear run in competitive seats.
If it were just votes from independence supporting parties that counted why would the Greens dilute the pro-Yes vote?
When it was put to Harvie that if the SNP won 45 per cent of the vote and his party won 6 per cent it would leave Sturgeon short of the majority she is seeking, he responded: “This is why a referendum is clearly the preferred route
Also in this article
It also found that support for independence had risen to 51 per cent, while 49 per cent of voters suggested they would vote No.
The Margaret Thatcher wannabe, no not Sturgeon the other Thatcher wannabe and favourite to be the next PM Liz Truss has said.
“Liz Truss has doubled down on her refusal to offer significant help to people with soaring energy bills this winter, despite a forecast that these could exceed £4,200 annually from January, and rise further during 2023.
Truss, the runaway favourite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister next month, has already said she does not want to give “handouts” to people struggling with bills, preferring to prioritise tax cuts.”
Of course the group most likely to benefit from tax cuts are the rich, whilst the unemployed and the pensioners will not benefit at all.
Meanwhile the other Thatcher wannabe Sturgeon the betrayer of Scots, who has sold what’s left in Scotland that’s not nailed down, concentrates on a far more serious matter than heating than eating in the GRA, thank God we have a FM who knows where her priorities lie.
link to theherald.newspaperdirect.com
Ms Sturgeon said on Tuesday that if she was unable to hold Indyref2 next year with the consent of the UK Government or Supreme Court, she would use the General Election expected in 2024 as a “de facto referendum” on the single question of independence.
She said the SNP would fight the election on that basis, but did not say if votes for other pro-independence parties would be regarded as also being cast for Yes.
How easy would it have been to clear up this issue.
It took less than 50 Scots to enter into a treaty of union with the English parliament,
That the majority we are looking for to leave the treaty of the union.
Ian Brotherhood says:
9 August, 2022 at 12:33 pm
Clip of infamous blood-and-soil nativist Irish actor Richard Harris telling a blatantly regressive racist unfunny anecdote:
twitter.com/wetheirishpod/status/1556748086294331396
On the same topic (and in a bid to introduce some much needed levity to proceedings tonight …) there was the tale (which like all thespians yarns take with a pinch of salt) of the unfortunate London West End manager whom thought he’d pulled off some kind of coup getting Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, John Hurt and Richard Burton on the same bill for a week’s run of “Richard III” whilst in that limbo period of the pre-digital age where each had finished movies but due to potential editing concerns had not yet been released by their studios to partake of other longer term committments.
The reality was all four could do any of the parts in their sleep and regarded it as a busman’s holiday with someone paying for a week’s worth of bar tabs – with inevitable results.
By the closing Friday evening, all four were somewhat the worse for wear – if still word perfect – and matters came to a head in Act III when O’Toole staggered onto the stage as Hastings, and delivered the famous “Woe, Woe For England!” speech with a highly noticable sway. Upon completing his lines and making shambolicly to leave, but picking up the perturbed mutters from the audience, he pirouetted and paused to roar at the audience before taking his leave, “AND IF YOU THINK I’M DRUNK, JUST WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM!” [ie. Harris]
Allegedly Richard Harris’ autobiography was never published because there wasn’t a publisher in the world brave enough to do so. Considering the bollocks Miriam Margolyes got away with (then again, she a nobody), one can only guess what ossury in the closet he had ready to tip out upon death.
Nicola will never limit the franchise she is a virtue signaler,
fear or what people think and the need to be liked holds her back and people use that to manipulate her,
“The best of us would rather be popular than right”
`This Mark Twain quote calls out one of humanity’s biggest faults: most of us would rather be beloved than correct. That desire for acceptance and appreciation drives us more than anything else`
@Mark Boyle –
Nice one!
They don’t make ‘real men’ like they used to.
😉
Scot. I must be one of the outliers when it comes to seeking popularity. I am quite happy to upset people if I know I am right.
What drives me is what’s right for my nation. I don’t give two figs if it upsets unionists or snow flake SNP evangelists.
I think the Rev is the leading light in following the right path ,not the brightly lit path to acceptance and popularity.
If only more people in Scotland were willing to fight for their nation.unlike Nicola, who runs from her own selfies if they upset her.
Hi Mark Boyle.
You pine for much needed levity and then assert that Miriam Margolyes is a nobody? You, sir, are a cad!
link to youtube.com
The little country that lost its mind.
Not really that different from the big country that lost its mind.
Despite what you may think about Donald Trump, Mr Biden has now weaponised the law enforcement agencies, raided his home. No different really from weaponised Police Scotland raiding Mark Hirst, pursuing Alex Salmond, or Craig Murray.
Difference of course is that the USA has guns. Lots of them. Part of their constitution where the guns were a mechanism to resist a government that turned rogue against the people – or to resist the return of the British.
Good thing we ain’t got guns here.Mind you, Northern Ireland did and it wasn’t pretty.
I suggest everyone reads or re-reads the personal testimony given by James Che above (9 August, 2022 at 12:09 pm). Thank you, James, for sharing this with us, and for making the point (or various points) involved so well.
The problem is not Scottish nativism as such, even if there are certain forms of Scottish chauvinism (which is something else) that are not helpful. Whatever we mean by it, or seek to communicate by it, ‘Scottish nativism’ needs to be put into the wider context of nativism in general and, especially, of two other forms of it which predominate in the UK. Namely, British chauvinism and English chauvinism.
It is hard to deny that these two, either each one individually or both combined into one, were surely a key factor in the Brexit referendum. They played a major role in the so-called ‘debate’ before that vote and undoubtedly helped to secure the (in my view disastrous) outcome it resulted in.
If no such ‘nativism(s)’ had been at play in the process prior to the vote, the debate beforehand would have been far calmer and more rational, and it is very hard to believe that the Brexiteers would have won.
These two kinds of ‘nativism’ also played their role in the 2014 vote, helping to secure the ‘No’ majority that eventually transpired. The kind of messaging appealing to these two nativism(s) is not just up front and in your face; a lot of it is subliminal, but no less effective for that.
Its being subliminal – or its existing in some grey area where a lot of it is sensed as vaguely present without people being able to pin it down or identify it precisely – probably makes it even more effective. Like the best advertising, it’s a kind of subtle brainwashing, or propaganda which nevertheless does not present itself as self-evidently being such.
The British establishment – or whatever other unseen forces actually run the place or exercise massive but unseen influence over it – have always been very good at giving the general population a sense of being in the best country in the world while in fact manipulating them (not least into the false sense of security that follows on from this illusion) and actually denying them rights which they ought to have and resources from which they too – ordinary people and not just rich elites – should profit.
The BBC is an obvious channel for this kind of thing, but it is by no means the only one. Double messaging is rampant. On the one hand, this makes it seem as if all is well, or making the ordinary people believe that the forces of good and true justice in the ‘best country in the world’ are really on their side, and have the upper hand. On – or with – the other hand, your just rights are actually being taken away from you all the time, and you are even imbibing attitudes which counter your realising and being dissatisfied with this state of affairs. What is also being conveyed is that you are superior to other people in the world, because they are not privileged to live in the best country, while you are!
When it’s ‘British nativism’ it serves the purposes of England, and its English nativism’ and ‘English nationalism’ which is really, at bottom, pulling all the strings. For anyone with eyes to see, it was perfectly obvious that this kind of thing was going on during the 2014 referendum campaign.
While admitting that it can take many forms, and that not all of them are equally laudable – and some of them are not laudable at all – I would say that, in general, what is being called ‘Scottish nativism’ as a perfectly legitimate defence against the excesses of ‘English nativism’ and ‘British nativism’. In my opinion, it would be naive to underestimate the influence which ‘English nativism’ and ‘British nativism’ are still wielding in the debate about Scottish independence.
It would also be naive, even if well intentioned, to try to eliminate from that debate all forms of so-called ‘Scottish nativism’, including those which are reasonable and legitimately held, which seek to counter these other two nativism(s).
To do that would be like saying to your opponent, ‘You are allowed to play your tricks, but we are not allowed to defend ourselves against them!’ All very noble, of course, but basically naive, impractical and, I suppose, downright daft. If you want to have a proper and correct debate, or fight, and you want it to be fair, then the rules – as with the Queensberry Rules of old (if that is the right boxing term) – have to apply equally to both sides.
It should also be added that in other crucial referenda, in particular the Brexit one, lobby groups tried (and succeeded) to fix the requirements for voting in a way that would favour the outcome they wanted. The elimination of Europeans resident in the UK, even when they had been resident for a long time, was successfully promoted by those in favour of leaving the EU. Their inclusion, however, in the voter register for the Scottish referendum was exploited mercilessly – and falsely – by the ‘No’ or ‘Better Together’ campaign to prevent the people of Scotland from gaining their independence.
The question has to be raised concerning what is really fair. Those who want to make residence the key, while distinguishing ‘real (i.e. long-term) residence’ from ‘fleeting, occasional or only temporary presence, while actually residing long-term elsewhere in the UK) can hardly be accused of propagating the wrong kind of ‘nativism’. They are not saying that only those born in Scotland can vote, which is what the word ‘native’ denotes, because they are including real (or permanent) residents, who have chosen to settle here.
They are also excluding – as the 2014 referendum did (or sought to do) – those Scots who are ‘natives’ in the sense that they were born in Scotland, but who have subsequently settled (in what seems to be a permanent or long-lasting way) in other parts of the UK, or abroad. There surely is a difference between a permanent resident and an occasional tourist, or someone temporarily here for studies or a job that won’t last long, or someone who comes for his holidays, or even a Scot who likes coming home for a visit but does not actually stay here in any permanent way.
There would still have to be some kind of debate to determine exactly which criteria should be used for defining these distinctions legally, in order to establish the roll for those eligible to vote on an independence referendum. It’s obvious that such a debate could give rise to all kinds of acrimony. In 2014, you could say that the SNP avoided this by short-circuiting it, making the decision for us. Pragmatically, they were probably wise to do so: acrimony on this point would have got the whole thing off to a very bad start. They also chose the easy way out, which would be acceptable to the British government, thus preventing Westminster from using this potentially acrimonious item as an opportunity to derail the project before it even got started.
From the SNP, pro-independence point of view, it had the further advantage of making sure that almost all Scots-born people (native Scots) working and residing in England would not have the vote. It was probably reckoned that if they did, most of them would have voted against independence, because Westminster politicians and the ‘Better Together’ campaign would have told them that if Scotland became independent they would be aliens in England, and would have to apply for work permits if they wished to continue working there, with no guarantee that they would be given them. Even most of those who in their hearts were in favour of Scottish independence would have been overruled by their heads (or their spouses!), and vote ‘No’. Scottish independence would be totally against their personal interests.
In fact, on a uniquely ‘nativist’ agenda, in the literal sense of term, whereby every person born in Scotland would be the only ones allowed to vote on this issue, and according to which they would be able to do so no matter where in the world they had settled or were resident, it seems absolutely certain that Scotland will never become an independent country.
I think we can be sure that the SNP, under Alex Salmond’s leadership, thrashed this all out beforehand. Of the options available to them, they actually one which (i) was most likely to achieve the result they wanted (independence) and to which (ii) the British government (Cameron and co.) could not raise an objection. There were some disadvantages – holiday home owners being allowed to vote etc. – but the advantages, on both the scores just mentioned, far outweighed them.
In that light, we can understand where Alex Salmond is coming from. For him it’s basically ‘deja vu’: ‘we looked at all the alternatives, an chose what was, and still is, the most practical available, and the best for gaining the outcome we desire.’
Having said that, accepting that residence is the obvious criterion to use, I think that what exactly constitutes ‘residence’ does need to be defined more tightly. Besides which, much as I admire Alex Salmond, and granted that he will still be helpful for the cause, I do not honestly think that he will ever again be the main or major player in the gaining of independence that he once was. I would be delighted to be proved wrong, and hope I will be – but, totally unjust though it was and still is, I don’t honestly think he can recover from the disgraceful and totally unjust smearing and mud-slinging exercising to which he was so disgustingly subjected. Although I have certainly enjoyed those episodes of his television programme that I have seen, which were (more than) a cut above other forms of televised politics on offer, I think he made a mistake going down that path.
To my mind, it would have been better if from the outset, when he was no longer FM, he had taken to moving around the country holding pro-independence rallies and meetings in town halls and other locations, galvanising ongoing support for the cause talking to the broadest possible spectrum of independence supporters, very much inclusive of those who were not simply SNP voters. I have always thought that that would have been the most effective use of his talents, while nevertheless respecting his option to go for these extremely interesting television programmes instead. I still hope he can continue to do a lot for us, whether through Alba if it does succeed to get fully off the ground, or through some other means if it doesn’t.
@wull (8.26) –
As usual, you provide a lot of positive food for thought and yes, James’s comment at 12.09 is valuable precisely because it is ‘personal’.
When it comes to this question of ‘residency’, no agreement seems possible. The very idea that someone, anyone, can become a ‘naturalised’ French, German, Indonesian, Australian or whatever else is, in itself, bizarre. The arguments surrounding identity are so labyrinthine that they defy any meaningful arbitration. And clinging to any one definition of nationality in a time when people are, apparently, capable of changing their biological sex ‘legally’ seems like pissing in the wind.
Here’s an example which may help focus some minds. (Alternatively, it may just add to the general confusion, in which case I apologise…)
Remember Alan Clark, of ‘Diaries’ fame? He had his estate at Eriboll, in Sutherland, which he bolted to at every opportunity. He loved the place. He also had great respect for ‘the Scots’ and viewed them as somehow superior to the English (for reasons I can’t now recall). But he was also a proud Nazi and had no problem blasting a shotgun at perceived trespassers.
If Clark was still alive, would he be entitled to a vote in the next referendum?
@Brian 5.57 pm
A plebiscitary election should include ALL the pro-indy parties when looking at the result. If the SNP say it has to be THEIR total, then they have blown their cover. Power is their aim, for another 5 years, as has been suggested.
I understand the SNP has made noises precisely about it being THEIR total that mattered. Of course it ought to be the total of all pro-indy parties. It is entirely possible that you are right and that Sturgeon’s Damascene conversion is a cynical ploy to play for time, as she has no intention of delivering a plebiscitary election, any more than indyref2.
Interestingly Alex Salmond was not too keen on the plebiscitary election route in his comments last Saturday, but said if they happened it should be on the basis of a single pro-indy slate of candidates standing on the single issue of independence. Given the fact the current SNP leadership will never go for that, it presupposes a palace coup against Sturgeon.
Of course, given the Greens MO in Holyrood elections, they will also refuse to stand down and excuse if by saying it’s a matter for each constituency. That’s what hppens when you have semi-detached nationalist parties.
As far as the franchise for an (unexpected) indy referendum goes, I would be content with anyone over the age of 16, no matter where they were born, having been resident in Scotland continuously for a minimum of 5 years, to vote on the future of our nation.
No “blood and soil” required.
Few of us expect an early referendum, but in the unlikely event the 2014 precedent is still the most likely because the SNP will be calling the shots barring some political earthquake. A five year residence criteria hasn’t been used in other self determination referendums, but I reckon you could probably “sell” 24 months as reasonable because there is a precedent and it doesn’t seem outlandishly long or too “blood and soily”.
Are you going to break it to the “only native born Scots need apply” brigade Brian?
@Ellis –
Please look at this tweet.
Then consider the situation faced by children who have been born and raised in Skye, Arran, or any number of other desirable Scottish locations which are currently being monopolised by absentee owners and/or Airbnb ‘entrepreneurs’.
What would you say to them, face to face, about your precious inviolable franchise?
link to twitter.com
For those into astronomy, in a couple of days time the Moon is going to be at it’s largest and this is one is called the Sturgeon Moon.
It seems in astrology, the Sturgeon Moon has significance:
link to trusted-astrology.com
Nicola Sturgeon has planted a lot of seeds in the public’s imagination about a second independence referendum but beware, there won’t be any sweet harvest when she is in charge.
Rather than a Sturgeon Moon that shines a beacon about what is to come, Nicola Sturgeon is a black moonless night full of despair and hopelessness.
@Brotherhood
I’d say they should vote for independence and/or for parties that would enact policies to ensure there was enough local housing, and that owning second homes was considerably more difficult. As the tweet itself shows, the situation is common in many parts of the UK and other countries.
Unless you’re going to ban second home owning altogether, or propose some radical refashioning of the capitalist system and liberal democracy I’m not sure what your alternative is? Presumably post independence, rich “native Scots” will still be buying up properties in Skye, Arran and elsewhere? How do you plan to stop that?
For the record, post independence I’d be quite happy to support regulations similar to those the Danes have in place to prevent rich foreigners – in their case mostly Germans – buying up seaside properties in Jutland. Indeed, if we had a government worth its salt (either in Scotland or the UK as a whole) we’d be making it similarly difficult here.
In the preceding post of mine, ‘Namely, British chauvinism and English chauvinism’ should of course have read ‘Namely, British nativism and English nativism.
All the same, although I distinguished chauvinism from nativism, it is true that they are often intermingled. And they are also forms of nationalism.
In the context of these islands, as forms of nationalism they have deep roots, over many centuries. The (simplistic) English version of ‘British history’, which affects many English people at least unconsciously or only semi-consciously, is that the 1707 Union was the eventual, at last entirely successful, outcome of the policies towards Scotland pursued, above all, by Edward I, at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th Centuries. At last England had done it: Scotland was subdued and politically annihilated, to all intents and purposes ceasing thereafter to exist. Basically, Scotland had been defeated and incorporated into England.
To English people who have these assumptions, the fact that this was not what the Treaty of Union said, and was not what that Treaty brought about legally, did not matter, and it never has. Right from the off, the English partner in the Union acted as if the Treaty had achieved what it did not say, and as if Scotland had been incorporated into England in the same way that Henry VIII’s statute claimed that Wales had also been so incorporated. The two cases are in fact totally different, although the Welsh are also right to object to Henry’s assumptions. This is so, even if Edward I’s assault on Wales had a very different outcome from the assault he then carried out against Scotland, and which his immediate successors continued.
The Scottish version of the Union pays much more attention to the text of the 1707 Treaty, including what it actually said and did. Even if the motives of the Scots who signed it, and their ignoring not only the well reasoned objections of their fellow parliamentarians like Fletcher but also (crucially) the wishes of the mass of the Scottish people, can certainly be used to question the validity of that Treaty, it has to be admitted that counter-arguments to that view (although I personally subscribe to it) also exist. What seems indisputable, however, is that it is the 1707 Treaty between the Scottish parliamentarians and the English (and Welsh) Westminster government that brought the UK into existence, and it is also indisputable that some (not all, but some) of its terms have been continually ignored and overridden, from the first year in which it came into force and right down into our own day. As the founding document of the UK, the Treaty (or Treaties) of Union of 1707 do have enormous constitutional relevance for both the parties that signed it.
No matter what we think of the Scots who (cravenly) signed it, or of their (no doubt unworthy) motives for doing so, they did not abandon altogether Scotland’s distinctiveness within the Union, and they did build in to the arrangements important political and constitutional safeguards to maintain that difference. Even at the end of the 12th and very beginning of the 13th Century, when all seemed either extremely precarious or almost entirely lost for Scotland, the Scots were still very able and equipped to argue their case legally. There is a constitutional and legal consciousness all the way through, on the Scottish side of the equation, which opposes and denies the (let me say it again, simplistic) English version of the affair, which is based solely on conquest, appropriation and (feudal-style) subjection.
The Scots always had the better arguments, and that can be seen even retrospectively when the relevant texts, and how they came to be formulated in the way that they were formulated, are properly studied. Even from today’s perspective, in a society which has rather different assumptions from what was the case either 800+ years ago or 300+ years ago, the Scottish arguments of those days were much more ‘modern’ than the English ones.
Of course, the matter is arguable, but I defy anyone to study the texts objectively and produce arguments to support the opposite view. I am very confident that what i might call the ‘English view, or set of assumptions’, all the way through, is legally untenable.
All this to say that English ‘nativism’, or nationalism, or chauvinism, is a very real thing, and it is very deeply embedded and widely spread in English culture generally, and in English political culture in particular, even today. Even when it operates subliminally and not altogether openly or straight in the face – as used to be more the case than it is now – it is still a real factor, and very effectively so. The fact that, over the past 30 years or more, it has become more brazen and immediate and evident, only shows that it never really died. It’s like these government adverts on the radio etc., warning us that we are never fully cured of the chicken pox we had as children – the virus involved goes into hiding in our bodies, but it is still there, ready to re-emerge and attack us once more in our old age, returning to us in a much worse form, as shingles!
So, while we may lament some of the worst forms of Scottish chauvinism, and identify it as ‘nativism’, we should not be naive about the similar and – in my view, at least – much more virulent (if nonetheless sometimes more hidden and subtle) virus which our ‘southern cousins’ also in their turn also suffer from, and which manifests also in their ‘body politic’. And we should not go around pretending that this does not exist. Nor should we be forced to ignore it out of a false ideology of political correctness, or prevented from taking perfectly reasonable defensive measures against it.
There is no point in wanting your country to be independent if you do not want to protect and defend it from attacks to which countries which oppose it, and its interests, sometimes subject it. And these attacks do not have to be through ballistic warfare; there are also cultural and political and explicit or implicit propaganda and attitudinal attacks that can and do arise. These too must be repulsed. The objective, of course, for all sane people on either side of the independence argument, is that these issues (and all relevant issues) might be debated in a rational and intelligent and mutually respectful way. Without resorting to all this negative and destructive messaging, whether subliminal or overt or whatever.
@Andy Ellis 9:07pm
Of the six routes identified as a route to Independence I personally can only support two of them. A plebisitary election or a bona fide referendum, they were my favoured routes. Your reported comments from Alex is a bit of a disappointment but I understand the rationale. Unimpeachable is the watch word. How do we defend the Scottish Government record on the street. The broadcasting companies have revealed their true colours. The diminution of Scottish Public services has reached breaking point and is so obvious to a 16 year old journalist just starting out. There are so many failures, a normal functioning MSM in Scotland can do it with their slippers on. A silver lining, muscular Unionism is pathetic and will backfire on Truss or Sunak. We need a bit more finesse from the Scot Gov but not going to happen with Nicola.
@wull –
You speak much sense.
I don’t know if ‘internalised braggadocio’ is a thing, but it should be.
It’s evident in creatures like Rees-Mogg but he is probably regarded as somewhat vulgar by the real string-pullers.
@George Ferguson 9.40 pm
I fear we are in the hands of the SNP membership, which doesn’t give me a lot of hope. If they don’t eject Sturgeon there is no realistic prospect of progress before the next GE whenever that may be.
It’s not a great position to be in hoping that either the SNP membership suddenly grow a pair, or that some political earthquake brings about more rapid progress.
@Ellis (9.39) –
Thanks for that response, which contains nuggets of positivity.
😉
@Andy Ellis 10:05pm
Agreed but I would reinforce the responsibility lies with the elected SNP officials both MPs and MSPs. They have watched Scottish Public Services disintegrate. I will never forgive them for that. I have been a member of the SNP twice. The first time I was a member, when I was young it was a rebellious organisation but I got married had bairns etc so no time for politics coupled with a peripatetic job lifestyle. I have to say that Gordon Wilson MP for Dundee was a gentleman and cared about his constitituents. And he also listened to his people. I remember I criticised a tractor with a hangman flailing in the wind as inappropriate. He immediately stopped the protest. A true supporter and hard working MP and the beacon of light when the movement was all but finished. Compare him to Nicola Sturgeon.
Ian Brotherhood @ 8.53, many thanks for the compliment, even if I hardly deserve it. With regard to Allan Clark, he is indeed an interesting case. A case, actually, of the Anglicised Scot, at one or two removes – aware of his ancestral Scottish origins but born and bred in England (to Kenneth Clark, the aesthete who became well known as the host of a late 60s or early 70s television series on Art, especially paintings but sculptures etc. as well, called ‘Civilization, which took him all across Europe). I think both Alan Clark (certainly) and his father, Kenneth, (probably), were schooled at Eton. And both were probably up in England, but not without reference to Scotland, where the whole family originally came from. Their first names – especially Kenneth, but also Alan – already suggest this Scottish background.
Were they from Scottish aristocratic stock like, for instance, Ludovic Kennedy, another ‘luminary’ of that time, who did many things but who made his (popular) reputation on television. Ludo was of the Kennedys of Castle Kennedy in Scotland’s south west. But the Clarks did not have that kind of pedigree, or these kind of (ignoble ennobled chums), to recall the Pedigree Chum adverts of the 1960s and 70s as well! They came from ‘trade’, so well down the line, and originally very low in any pecking order…
But what a trade it was! Clark’s Thread Mills, of Paisley. It was a huge factory, and they were massive employers (in terms of numbers). I am not sure what has happened to it, but no doubt some Paisley Buddie will let us know. Maybe it’s all pulled down, or been converted into flats, or whatever. I think – though I may be mistaken – that their thread mills produced the famous ‘Paisley Patterns’ garments etc. (which may all the same have been based on patterns found somewhere or other in the Indian subcontinent). I am not sure of the period we are talking about – probably early 20th Century (or late 19th) onward, maybe as far as the 1960s or 1970s. I really don’t know.
Anyway, the Mr. Clark who started the whole thing, no doubt a Paisley Buddie (or should that be Buddy?) himself, is the forebear of Alan Clark. Their mill did very well, and the family became very rich. Alan Clark would know all about the origins of his family, and of its wealth, and would have been aware of the fact they were Scots. He was a very complex man. I have never read his diaries, but know someone who did, not because he was of Clark’s political persuasions but because he was confident they would be a very entertaining and irreverent read. And so, he said, they were. His father’s television series – Civilisation – also came out as a beautifully illustrated book. I think it was probably one of the first of these television series on the history of art, or different aspects of it, and one of the first to be turned into book form as well.
With regard to the other point you mention, I am all in favour of naturalisation, if the person really adopts and identifies with the nation – the human community – he thereby joins. In his posts, whether you agree with him or not, it is obvious that someone like James Che has done this. The receiving community often receives a great deal from people who genuinely do this – in that regard, I often think of David Daiches. If I remember rightly, as far as I know, his father came to Scotland, maybe in the 1930s, as a Jewish immigrant (probably refugee) from one of the Baltic states, probably Lithuania, in the 1930s. Maybe David was a child at that time, or maybe a young man, or not yet born. I don’t know, but in his career as an academic at Edinburgh University, while obviously still faithful to his Jewish inheritance, he became the greatest living authority on Robert Burns, and maybe on Scottish literature generally. Some would say he remains ‘way up there as an authority on that subject – Burns especially – to this day.
Sometimes those who are in some ways ‘outsiders’ to a culture nevertheless have an ability to identify with that culture or nation or people, even more strongly than those who may be thought to belong to it more ‘naturally’, and can have a curiosity about it and insights into it which others, whose ancestors have lived there for centuries, lack.
The problem, maybe, is with people who live in a place or among a people which is not originally their or their family’s own, but never identify with it. Although born and bred in that place and among these people, they don’t feel any loyalty to it, or have any real sense of belonging there, or of being truly part of that people. Instead they identify primarily with somewhere else, even somewhere they have never lived or even never visited, and which they may be prone to romanticising.
That might not be their fault – there could be all kinds of reasons for it – but when you start talking about an independence referendum you can see how it does raise a wee problem. In 2014, Alex Salmond and the SNP of his time might have been right – I think they probably were – not to open up that particular can of worms. In the overall view of things, percentage-wise, these would not have been huge numbers of people. And it did give the pro-independence movement a challenge to convince such people of the justice and goodness of the Scottish cause.
Maybe demographic changes in the last eight years make it a bit more of a problem than it was then, insofar as more and more of the people living in Scotland might be or consider themselves most definitely English or (Northern Irish) rather than Scottish, and might on that account be more prone to vote against independence. Still, if they have stayed here a certain while and their intention is to remain here, it seems to me they have a real right to vote on an issue like this. At the same time, I do know one or two English people living (even many years) in Scotland who simply decided not to vote at all on the referendum – not because they didn’t have a view (they did), but because they felt it wasn’t right that they should influence the outcome. I thought that that was very honourable and respectful on their part.
Obviously, in the event of another referendum, different people will decide in different ways what they are going to do. As I think you noted, there is no absolute solution to all the issues involved. For practical purposes, some clear and simple criteria are needed, and they have to be easily implemented for establishing the voters’ roll for an independence referendum. Various posters further up the btl comments today have in fact suggested various ‘rule of thumb’ solutions, which do seem to cover most of the concerns, in a basically proper and fair way. So it seems to me at least.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence of the Scottish Government having applied its mind to this at all. Although unlikely, maybe someone in Holyrood could, at last, get some reasonable ideas here!!! That is, if ‘reasonable ideas’, like other forms of sanity and simple common sense, have not been banished forever as radically subversive of the SNP’s new ‘raison(s) d’etre’, and therefore inherently immoral, illegal, repugnant and altogether horrendous!
@wull (10.38) –
If this place was mine to command then that comment would be re-presented as a fresh post altogether.
It covers all the franchise-related bases I’m aware of. And abody would have a say, ‘on a fresh slate’ so to speak.
😉
@ wull
David Daiches was born 1912, in Sunderland. His father was born 1880, in Lithuania, educated in Germany, moved to Leeds in 1903, and then Edinburgh in 1919 to become rabbi. [sourced from the Jimmy Spooks site]
The records of Clarks of Paisley are held by Glasgow University (I’m old school – U of G is a newish term)
link to archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk
Many thanks to Ian @ 11.01 pm, and also to Scott @ 11.05 for the well researched info etc.
wull @ 9:40 pm
“British nativism and English nativism.”
Insightful. Though, at the end of the day there is only really the presence of the colonizer and the colonized, and the effects of colonialism, which includes a certain psychological condition, as well as economic plunder, external political control and cultural and linguistic domination/oppression of the native people (i.e. racism). Ultimately, as Albert Memmi stated, “independence is a matter only for the colonized”. Postcolonial theory explains much about our predicament, not least because independence is decolonisation, according to the UN.
wull says:
9 August, 2022 at 11:40 pm
Many thanks to Ian @ 11.01 pm, and also to Scott @ 11.05 for the well researched info etc.
—
De rien
link to salvo.scot
Ian Brotherhood says:
9 August, 2022 at 11:01 pm
@wull (10.38) –
” If this place was mine to command then that comment would be re-presented as a fresh post altogether. ”
Seconded . Tour-de-force of calm , rational, perceptive thought Wull . To take just one section ……
” Besides which, much as I admire Alex Salmond, and granted that he will still be helpful for the cause, I do not honestly think that he will ever again be the main or major player in the gaining of independence that he once was. I would be delighted to be proved wrong, and hope I will be – but, totally unjust though it was and still is, I don’t honestly think he can recover from the disgraceful and totally unjust smearing and mud-slinging exercising to which he was so disgustingly subjected.”
I’ve come , reluctantly , to the same * conclusion * and , like you , I would like nothing more in this regard than to be proven wrong .
They * murdered * Alex Salmond . Stabbed him in the back ( Internal Enquiry ) . He * easily * repelled them
They stabbed him in the front ( Criminal Proceedings/ Court Case ) . He survived due to the feebleness of the Prosecution case and * common sense * of the jury .
They stabbed him in/from the sides . And continue to do so .
He survived – and will survive – . But grievously wounded . A full recovery seems doubtful .
And , maybe , what ALBA and by extension the Independence cause requires is new blood at the * top * , a fresh , unsullied ( by vindictive envy ) * figurehead * . Someone also who could take Sturgeon down . It pains me to say but Alex can’t – or won’t – be able to do that
And , maybe , what ALBA and by extension the Independence cause requires is new blood at the * top * , a fresh , unsullied ( by vindictive envy ) * figurehead * . Someone also who could take Sturgeon down . It pains me to say but Alex can’t – or won’t – be able to do that
I’m not sure I’d write Alex Salmond off just yet, but even if he decided the game wasn’t worth the candle tomorrow (and who could blame him after what he’s been put through?) I can’t see anyone on the horizon capable of filling his shoes.
The movement as a whole seems pretty light on younger, charismatic figures. The current SNP, with a few notable exceptions like Joanna Cherry, isn’t a place for free thinkers, charismatic leaders or people you’d trust to lead us in the early days of a better nation. Even outside party politics, I’m struggling to think of anyone who could act as a figurehead for a broad movement to coalesce around?
I understand the motivation for proposing that progress – whether via plebiscitary elections or an alternative Constituent Assembly / withdrawal from Westminster route – should be on the basis of a unified “Yes movement” or slate of candidates, but how realistic is that given the mutual hostility between SNP/Greens and Alba, and the obvious intent of the SNP / AIM types to try and exclude anyone who won’t uncritically accept their worldview from even participating?
I’m beginning to suspect that the pro-independence political environment here will start to look more like that in Catalonia, with a number of pro-independence parties rather than one very dominant one as the SNP has been here for the past 15 years. Perhaps that was the problem all along? The SNP isn’t – and shouldn’t be – the whole movement, nor should it be allowed to try and dictate terms and be proprietorial about the direction of the movement and who is “allowed” to participate.
@Ruby says:9 August, 2022 at 4:46 pm
“Does it make any difference if the bastard only killed millions and not billions”
Oor Ruby once again demonstrating that facts and accuracy are of no account in her world.
Here you go Ruby: link to iraqbodycount.org
Their total is 288,000.
And here’s the thing, Ruby. Anybody with a couple of brain cells to rub together can see you regularly posting lies, inaccuracies and plain old made-up stuff on here. These readers judge the validity of the Indy cause accordingly.
Now go figure.
@George Ferguson 9.40 pm
Of the six routes identified as a route to Independence I personally can only support two of them. A plebisitary election or a bona fide referendum, they were my favoured routes. Your reported comments from Alex is a bit of a disappointment but I understand the rationale.
I’m sure many will agree. In a way it’s great that some people are getting energised by Salvo and SSRG’s proposals, but it still seems to me the success of their proposed way forward hinges on there being an external crisis that serves to remove the roadblock that is the current SNP.
They may be right of course: if a week is a long time in politics, who can predict what will happen with the upcoming cost of living crisis and how people will react 6 months from now, or 9 months or a year? I don’t buy the idea that the current SNP leadership are just going to disappear, or suddenly be converted to take radical steps like plebiscitary elections if (when?) the SC finds against them.
The “noises off” from both the SNP and Greens are not encouraging with respect to having a joint slate of candidates, nor are the actions of self appointed gate keepers like AIM trying to decide which voices are valid.
Perhaps the truth is that we’re going to have to wait for the scales to fall from SNP members and supporters eyes that they’ve been had before we see much in the way of movement. If we go in to the next General Election (whether at Holyrood or Westminster) with the current SNP still in the driving seat, it’s difficult to see things changing.
It might not be what a lot of folk want to hear, but I think we’re in for another few years of pain before SNP loyalists realise the Empress has no clothes.
Something that «colonialism» was not responsible for.
link to archive.ph
The oppressed minority mantra of rainbow flag wavers is ahistoric and wearisome. The people of the «commonwealth» have more pressing concerns.
Besides, the gay cult is considered neo colonial by some.
Dont be such a «big girls blouse» Mr Daley.
@Andy Ellis says:10 August, 2022 at 7:50 am
It’s worth remembering just how quickly political parties and individual politicians can come from nowhere to achieve positions where they at least are able to influence policies.
Recent examples from Europe demonstrate that. Sometimes it only takes a couple of years.
And the great thing about them is that they don’t carry any baggage of failure. It’s perhaps time for everybody to acknowledge the elephants in the room: Every crisis that has hit ordinary people recently, from the Banking Crash, through Covid, to the Energy Price Hikes and runaway inflation, has been made worse for ordinary people by the established political parties and their policies. Scotland is no exception to that rule.
When the scale of these failures is finally recognised by the voters, taking a punt on completely new politicians and parties becomes an attractive option.
The two things, above all, that the SNP lacks is honesty and openness.
Too much happens behind closed doors. They rely on the willingness of the hard of thinking for their support. We all want a better Scotland for ourselves, kids and grandkids but no one from the SNP spells out what that would/could be or how it could be achieved. I honestly think that they do not know how to proceed but are ultimately quite happy with the status quo. The media give them a very easy ride. The general public appear apathetic or ignorant. That will change.
It is clear that the SNP are economically and financially illiterate. £200k now being handed out to some Dutch Company to look at Ferguson’s. I agree that this sum is peanuts compared to the millions already wasted but is systematic of their repeated failures.
There are many on here who do not want to hear it but I will say again it is all about MONEY. If you disagree, wait until this winter when millions will be thinking do I heat or eat.
The two clowns vying for the position of Prime Minister of the UK are currently in a competition as to who can lie the best, or most, just like their predecessor, but it is all about MONEY.
What are the SG saying? Are they informing the electorate in Scotland of their financial/economic plans, currency, borrowings, central bank, projected financials? No is the answer.
I have said it before and will say it again. Money does not talk-it ROARS and SHOUTS.
Opportunities will be presented this Autumn/Winter to further the cause of Independence. Who will grasp them?
John Main says:
10 August, 2022 at 8:18 am
@Ruby says:9 August, 2022 at 4:46 pm
“Does it make any difference if the bastard only killed millions and not billions”
Oor Ruby once again demonstrating that facts and accuracy are of no account in her world.
Here you go Ruby: link to iraqbodycount.org
Their total is 288,000.
And here’s the thing, Ruby. Anybody with a couple of brain cells to rub together can see you regularly posting lies, inaccuracies and plain old made-up stuff on here. These readers judge the validity of the Indy cause accordingly.
Now go figure.
Only 288,000 killed well that’s fine! Your hero Blair deserves a knighthood.
Have you ever heard of poetic licence? Probably not!
That wouldn’t feature in the ‘John Main School Curriculum’
with everything designed to turn pupils into good little ‘epsilons’
And here’s the thing ‘Their John’
The term ‘Oor Ruby’ is a lie, inaccurate & plain old made up stuff.
Readers will judge the validity of the Indy cause accordingly.
Here on Wings the term ‘Oor Ruby’ is not just a lie, inaccurate & plain old made up stuff it’s also considered personal abuse just in the same way as ‘Ruby & her posse’ or ‘behaving like an absolute cunt’ is.
link to tinyurl.com
Chas says:
I have said it before and will say it again. Money does not talk-it ROARS and SHOUTS.
Not if you’ve got it hidden away in an offshore account. Money does not shout and roar the shortage of money is the problem. Get it?
If money shouted & roared we would all know where the missing £600K was.
A profound post by Robin McAlpine, link to robinmcalpine.org and the first signs that we can get out of this WEF, Globalist mess, more or less, intact.
I wait with bated breath to see what the neo-liberal apologists make of this.
Just like winter, change is coming.
@Ian Brotherhood,
talking to a local at the bus stop in Elie Fife he says the place is a ghost town after the summer,
the same all the way up the fife coast.
The Gov will sort out those suffering most in the upcoming ‘Winter of Discontent’ by giving them handouts and to make herself look good Sturgeon will top up the handouts.
All will be well.
Ease the squeeze!
This will stop the riots/protests and and ‘all talk and no action’ will remain the MO in Scotland.
Except the ‘Scottish Resistance’ and perhaps Alba they might do something.
Well done to ‘Scottish Resistance’ at least they are doing something. Likewise Kenny & Neil.
Ian Brotherhood says:
9 August, 2022 at 8:53 pm
@wull (8.26) –
As usual, you provide a lot of positive food for thought and yes, James’s comment at 12.09 is valuable precisely because it is ‘personal’…
I agree too.
If it’s possible to make the argument without making it my own argument, Scotland has an added complexity when compared to other Nations. It’s very typical and unremarkable to qualify for citizenship in countries other than where you are born, Scotland included.
But in Scotland, we need to be clear that about whether citizenship and rights of sovereignty are the one and the same.
If I was to qualify for French citizenship, or German, or wherever, I can quite reasonably consider myself an “entry level” citizen, but that is a thing quite different from the “sovereign” status of your Scottish National.
I would argue that these rights should not be one and the same, and there is a distinction maintained between citizenship which delivers domestic rights and privileges comparable to Scots living in other countries, but that Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty needs a level of atypical protection to reflect the atypical nature of Scotland’s popular sovereignty.
When comparing Scottish citizenship with most foreign citizenships, you are not comparing like with like. Citizenship can be traded quite freely within reasonable parameters, but a sovereign citizenship, if available at all, should demand much higher and more onerous qualifying criteria. It is not to be confused with a human right, because sovereignty is an essential security which all Nations require.
Should it matter in a Constitutional vote on Independence? Yes, I think there should be a distinction between who is actually sovereign and who isn’t. Yes, lots of hurt feelings in every direction, but only amongst people who do not understand the function of sovereignty.
But after Scotland is Independent, and our status as a Nation is no longer compromised by a piece of work like the Treaty of Union, I cannot thereafter envisage any future scenario where such a narrow and uncompromising franchise would ever be contemplated again without some unimaginable existential crisis.
Once the dust settled and an Independent Scotland started holding it’s own General Elections, then the franchise can be as liberal and inclusive as we want it to be, with the Draconian “sovereign” franchise locked up and put away for “very” rainy days.
But Scotland is not living in “normal” times. It’s Nation status is compromised and our rights are being held hostage. Bring this 315 year long Constitutional emergency to an end first, priority number one, then we can take our time codifying citizenship and developing a voter franchise that’s as liberal and inclusive as we like.
There may be a greater issue with Scottish immigrants being entitled to a vote, but that’s the nature of the beast. However, it shouldn’t be beyond us to discriminate who is actually committed to Scotland, and who have chosen to remove themselves from Scottish affairs. So yes, perhaps a layer of qualifying criteria, but with a realistic chance of securing a vote.
This whole scenario however is academic should Scotland go to the polls in a General Election fighting it as a Plebiscite General Election. The voter franchise for that would be UK’s General Election Franchise, and Scotland’s YES vote should be under one flag, with a binary manifesto; a vote for YES is a vote for Independence.
So yes, we “need” the SNP killed or cured before we reach that point.
(Notice to all thin skinned douche bags, when I say killed or cured, I DO NOT mean physically killed or injured in anyway. Sigh!)
Ruby
How many people do you personally know with an offshore account?
How many people do you personally know that might struggle a wee bit this Autumn/Winter?
I used the term ‘MONEY’ as the ‘tool’ most people need to have a satisfactory life. There is no shortage of ‘MONEY’. Never has been, never will be. The problem is that it is not equally distributed. My point is what plans do the SNP have to ensure it is more equally spread about in an Independent Scotland. GET IT!
In your everyday, overwhelming desire to be confrontational with just about everybody you have an uncanny knack of missing the relevant points made in their entirely.
Chas says:
My point is what plans do the SNP have to ensure it is more equally spread about in an Independent Scotland.
Well OK. I would however suggest you wait & see if the SNP will be standing for election in iScotland & if the people will be dumb enough to vote for them.
I know ‘billions’ of people and they all agree with me so there!
Stuart, thanks for the link. I think he’s better on more localised stuff. And the recession Scotland is going into is largely localised in nature. It makes no sense to moan about global energy markets when your country produces enough energy to sustain itself — nationalisation would remove you from those markets in an instant. Problem solved.
The same is true of money supply and inflation. The UK has complete control of money supply, unlike those in the Eurozone, for example. An independent Scotland would also have complete control over money. That gives you leverage that others simply don’t have .
The same could be said of many other aspects of the economy; the levers are right in front of us if we choose independence and take control.
The recession we are sleepwalking into is completely unnecessary for Scotland. We could choose an alternative future and are uniquely placed to do that since we are one of the most self sufficient countries in the world when it comes to everything from food and fish to energy and engineering.
“My point is what plans do the SNP have to ensure it is more equally spread about in an Independent Scotland.” – Chas
—
What proposals do you have, in lieu of any from SNP?
Ruby
If you think that the SNP troughers in both Holyrood and Westminster will simply ride off into the sunset after Independence saying ‘job done’ you are sadly mistaken. The gravy train must continue.
I do admit it would be entertaining to see the all out war that would result as the Westminster SNP MP’s and the Holyrood SNP MSP’s fight each other for positions in a new Scottish Government. I am assuming and would want to see it mandated, that a General Election would have to follow soon after Independence and that the numbers in a new Independent Scottish Government would be roughly the same?
With the SNP-who knows however we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here.
Am off to hit the spherical dimpled object now.
Have a lovely day.
Main @8.18am.
“Iraq Body Count (IBC) is a nominally independent NGO with heavy ties to the US/NATO military-intelligence community. Its purpose is systematically undercount casualties in the Iraq War and the War on Drugs, getting these low numbers accepted both, by both the mainstream and even amongst war opponents.”
I’m not in the east bit surprised that you linked to the IBC.
Stuart MacKay @ 9:50 am
“A profound post by Robin McAlpine”
Robing appears to be describing evolving colonialism by the West/USA on a global level, which was predicted by Cesaire et al since the 1950s, if not before. Nothing new to Scots, though another reason we need the return of our national sovereignty, pronto. The only bulwark against colonialism/imperialism is our nations, which it seeks to destroy and plunder.
One for John Main to explain the improved financial reality Scotland will see from all this.
And highlights yet another breach of the Treaty of Union in that no constituent part of the UK should have advantage over another.
Plus I’d also appreciate some analysis and justification in relation to the carbon impact of the lunacy of transporting refrigerated meat from just about as far away as possible on this planet, when it could be produced here.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Article in today’s Daily Dreadnought about what’s happened in dentistry, and a prime example of if you want left-wing pieces written by grown-ups it’s ironically in the UK one of the few places left to go.
“NHS dentistry is rotten to the core”: Allison Pearson 10 August 2022
Spare a thought for the Tooth Fairy. Time was when the little nocturnal creature’s responsibilities were confined to collecting Joshua or Izzy’s teeny white incisor from under a pillow and replacing it with a pound coin (it was sixpence in my day, but inflation, eh?). Today, with a chronic shortage of NHS dental places, the poor fairy is more likely to come across Gav’s dirty great molar, freshly pulled from his swollen gums. Things are so bad that Gav is quite likely to have done the extraction himself and filled the gap with chewing gum.
We are always being warned of the inequitable horror that lies in wait if our health service should ever adopt a private-state mixed-funding formula of the kind that works so well in other countries. “Two-tier NHS!” screech the usual suspects.
Well, offhand, I can’t think of a better example of a two-tier NHS than the one that currently exists in dentistry. According to a BBC investigation, nine in 10 dental practices across the UK are not accepting new adult patients for treatment under the health service (subsidised but not free) and eight in 10 won’t even take on children. In other words, if you can’t afford to go private, tough – you’re on your own, matey!
Thousands of our poorer citizens are doomed to look like a snaggle-toothed Breughel peasant, with just one or two pegs stranded in a gaping maw. Many are living with great pain. It is deeply shocking, and should be unacceptable in any civilised society, but the BBC was a bit vague when it came to who or what was to blame.
Let me help them out, shall I? In the good old days, practices could only be run by a registered dentist as a sole trader or in partnership, but not as a limited company. As Georgina, a veteran dentist, explained to me: “That provided a good career path because you came out of dental school, you worked for older dentists in their practice who supervised you and had an interest in the practice doing well. Then, maybe, you became a partner or set up on your own. In turn, you employed young dentists. It worked.”
Dental practices were allowed to become companies and that is when the, ahem, rot set in. Corporations bought up all the practices as they were sold by retiring dentists for large amounts of money. They imported lots of foreign dentists and, because there were so many of them, the owners could drive down what they paid each dentist for a “UDA” – a unit of dental activity.
For a check-up, scale polish and two X-rays, a dentist is awarded one UDA. The value of a UDA was worked out in 2006 based on the number of courses of treatment provided in a year and the average value of the claim. The range was from about £17.50 to nearly £40 a UDA for more complex work. However, it is the owner of the practice that gets the awarded UDA value, and the tight-fisted whatnots can decide to pay an associate dentist a small fraction of that sum. After Brexit, foreign entrants to UK dentistry were regulated to the same standard as UK dentists. Excellent news for a patient quivering in the chair. Less good for attracting large numbers of cheap foreign dentists.
Many greedy corporates sacked associate dentists (self-employed, so they don’t have employment protection), employed a few at the original rate and kept the extra money for themselves. “So we have a situation a bit like the airlines,” says Georgina. “They’ve sacked all the foreign dentists who went home during lockdown and have stayed there. The corporates made a killing because they were getting loads of money in and not having to pay dentists to do any work.”
As you can tell, it’s complicated, but the main point is being a dentist for the NHS doesn’t pay and taking on patients with awful teeth is a liability. “I have not had a serious NHS pay rise since 2006,” says Georgina, who is “increasingly switching from NHS to private work which has kept pace with inflation. I have a social conscience and want to provide care for kids and exempt and low-income patients, but the Government is asking dentists too much for too little.”
In another of the absurdities in which the NHS seems to specialise, a dentist gets paid the same for one crown as 10, for a simple extraction as a root treatment. “If I did 10 crowns on a high-needs patient, I would be better off paying them £1,000 and telling them to go somewhere else,” says Georgina. “I can make NHS practice work with a fit, healthy patient, but it is ruinous to take on new, high-needs patients, which is why NHS dentists simply won’t see them.”
Oh, and in case you’re sitting comfortably, Georgina says there is a “dirty little secret in corporate dentistry”. A nomadic tribe of “truly awful dentists moving from one practice to another just ahead of the complaints. All the owners care about is that there is a dentist for each chair, they don’t check references”.
Clearly, NHS dentistry is in an utterly rotten state and in need of major root-canal work. But we wouldn’t want to run the risk of creating a two-tier system in our wonderful NHS now, would we?
Some painful reading for the Lord Advocate in the submissions to the Supreme Court made by her opponent:
‘The true basis for the Reference is the creation of a self-imposed hurdle…’
‘Parliament is unlikely to have intended the time of the Scottish Parliament, or the resources of the Supreme Court on a Schedule 6 reference, to be taken up with matters which the Scottish Government’s own Law Officer considers to be outside competence..’
Ouch!
‘
@John Main 8.35 am
It’s worth remembering just how quickly political parties and individual politicians can come from nowhere to achieve positions where they at least are able to influence policies.
Recent examples from Europe demonstrate that. Sometimes it only takes a couple of years.
I still have my doubts. Historically new parties have never really taken off in the UK. It’s not like Macron and En Marche. Even with the Referendum Party/UKIP in the UK, it served largely to allow Major’s bastards to take over the Tory party and consign one nation conservatism to the history books.
Arguably the current SNP have just morphed in to NuLabour. I suppose you could argue the SNP changed relatively quickly in UK political terms from a protest party with a few MPs to a dominant force in Scotland, but unless they held the balance of power at Westminster and were able to dictate terms, they’re still a minority force until and unless they deliver independence.
Part of me would like to think that upcoming events due to the economic crisis will cause more radical and faster change, but will it…? Really? It didn’t happen in the 70’s, or in 2008, or after brexit.
I hear people in here predicting that a storm is coming, but the existing system has shown its pretty resilient and resistant to challenge or change. It wouldn’t surprise me to see whoever is in power, whether Truss or Sunak, making moves – even if it’s the minimum they think they can get away with – to stop unrest and hope they can batten down the hatches. Then it’ll be back to more of the same.
On the UKSC blocking an indyref.
“THE UK Government has set out its arguments for denying indyref2 in newly published papers detailing case to the Supreme Court.
The Advocate General for Scotland – Westminster’s top lawyer on Scottish affairs – has argued that Holyrood does not have the ability to hold a second referendum without the UK Government’s permission.
The papers, published on Wednesday, argued that the SNP’s proposed referendum bill – which is of central importance in the Supreme Court case – related directly to reserved matters as set out in the Scotland Act, which dictates the terms of the devolution settlement.
The Advocate General more broadly argues the Court should reject the Scottish Government’s reference to have the case heard, calling the SNP’s case “abstract and premature” because the bill has not yet been introduced to the Scottish Parliament.”
And here’s the crux of the matter where the betrayers partner in crime the LA slaps Scotland down.
“Their argument also rests on Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain’s admission she is not confident the referendum bill published by the Scottish Government is within Holyrood’s powers.”
We are kidding ourselves on if we think we’ll exit this bucket of sewage union with the betrayer hunkered down in Bute House, and with a complicit LA and self-serving judiciary, along with the spineless and gutless troughing SNP MSPs and MPs, who don’t give a monkeys about Scotland.
The NuSNP are self-serving, and are quite happy to govern Scotland in this rancid union, in my opinion the NuSNP has made an unwritten agreement with the Westminster government, let us rule Scotland our f*cked up way, and we will never allow Scotland to leave the union.
We’re going nowhere with this lot at the helm.
link to thenational.scot
And another slap down:
‘It is not necessary to obtain the Court’s specific view where the application of the specific case law to a factual scenario produces a clear answer. That is the day-today stuff of legal advice and of the role of Law Officers across the United Kingdom’
How long before Dorothy goes off down the Yellow Brick Road?
@Breeks 10.13 am
There may be a greater issue with Scottish immigrants being entitled to a vote, but that’s the nature of the beast. However, it shouldn’t be beyond us to discriminate who is actually committed to Scotland, and who have chosen to remove themselves from Scottish affairs. So yes, perhaps a layer of qualifying criteria, but with a realistic chance of securing a vote.
Do you mean “immigrants” or “emigrants” there? If you meant people who had left and now live outside Scotland, it does seem as if you are trying to make windows into men’s souls. How would someone prove they were committed to Scotland, or had “removed themselves from Scottish affairs? Similarly, if you did mean people not born in Scotland who have moved here, how are you going to measure their commitment? Imposing a residence criteria of “X” years is a fairly broad brush way, but it won’t necessarily answer the issue of how committed – if at all – people are who move here because property is cheap, or they like the scenery.
If you’re honestly going to propose (because of what you see as Scotland’s unique position and the urgency of the situation) a franchise which excludes lots of New Scots and prioritises “native born Scots”, you’re logically going to have to at least consider enfranchising some, if not all, Scots born people outside Scotland. The issue then is how do you judge if they are committed to Scotland? The Generalitat opened up its register of voters for the Catalan referendum, which was compiled specifically for that vote, to Catalans abroad who registered for a vote. Wouldn’t something similar be fair? How would that be done? Who would do it? How much would it cost?
After all, if you’re going to exclude *some* New Scots who have lived here for years, worked, paid taxes, married, have kids here, who may be fervently pro-independence, and prioritise those born here while simultaneously argue Scots born folk abroad should be excluded, that might be seen as both illogical and unjust.
I don’t really accept your theory that Scottish particularism means that there is some mystical distinction between sovereignty and citizenship. Weren’t Estonians sovereign before they became independent too? Or Slovaks? Why is Scotland (uniquely it would appear from your reasoning) able to treat the question of who gets to vote in a self determination referendum differently from the vast majority of other countries?
It would be hard to argue that the Baltic States, all of which had/have large “planted” Russophone populations who had deliberately been introduced relatively recently to ensure the USSR could dominate them and prevent their independence, weren’t in a much worse position than Scotland vis-a-vis their prospects for self determination, yet all of them managed it.
“Similarly, if you did mean people not born in Scotland who have moved here, how are you going to measure their commitment? Imposing a residence criteria of “X” years is a fairly broad brush way, but it won’t necessarily answer the issue of how committed – if at all – people are who move here because property is cheap, or they like the scenery.” – Andy Ellis
—
Such people are not Scottish in any meaningful sense, they are British because they prioritise that nationalism over Scottish nationalism. The trouble for them is that, as we’ve seen in recent years, the vast majority of British nationalists regard themselves as English first, or simply assume that English and British are one and the same. To them, and to most Scots unionists if they’re being honest, Scotland is just North Britain.
As I’ve explained before, Holyrood has no authority over anything, even so-called devolved matters. This was drummed home during the Brexit saga when Scotland withheld consent to a bunch of bills and the UK government proceeded regardless.
Anything and anybody that suggests Holyrood has any power over anything either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is lying. Holyrood, let’s not forget, was always intended to make independence less likely. It is an important part of the constitutional prison that Scotland finds itself in, nothing more.
Traditional routes to independence don’t need consent, devolved parliaments, or permission. All that is required is convincing majority support. I’m a traditionalist.
Here on this blog and elsewhere in the independence movement, we have one role; to inform the Scottish people and bring them to the realisation that none of this is necessary. Do that and we can make a difference.
Salvo bolsters the argument for sovereignty of the people but that sovereignty is already recognised in international law. Nobody anywhere can stop the Scottish people if they choose to take back control of their country and its resources.
Whilst I’m instinctively opposed to any political posturing that insinuates Westminster’s permission is required — and we should never forgive or forget that despicable role of Sturgeon in stating that the only route to independence is through a section 30 — it might serve our purposes later on to say that we exhausted all the so-called legal routes.
One thing is for sure, the British State has a big problem on its hands in Scotland, with support for independence absolutely guaranteed to rise dramatically over the next year. All manner of underhand tricks and bribes are to be expected.
Andy Ellis says:
10 August, 2022 at 12:44 pm
Historically new parties have never really taken off in the UK. It’s not like Macron and En Marche. Even with the Referendum Party/UKIP in the UK, it served largely to allow Major’s bastards to take over the Tory party and consign one nation conservatism to the history books.
The main problem is that thw two main combines are flexible enough to suck in plenty of the alternatives into their ranks (we are on the verge of having an ex-Lib Dem for a PM), making it hard for any alternatives to break through, not least of all because it requires funds to campaign – especially against ones with big business funding and in the case of the Conservatives a superbly professional party organisation right down to the grassroots (with a lot of social activities so it doubles as a club of friends, not merely a political party).
Or Moscow gold in the case of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but you know only too well the issue with that.
The National Front proved in the 70s it was possible to take on the big two from scratch without a sugar daddy simply by milking the members of loose change in a state of permanent fundraising – something not even the Liberals with actual MPs dared to believe possible with their remaining string of “Liberal Clubs”. But all that produced was a revolving door of fickle membership with little scrutiny as to what sort of headbangers were being allowed in (a mistake Labour was ironically to make after its own 1979 disaster, and UKIP to some degree in turn): good for “tactical politics” such as by-elections and set issues, hopeless for the strategic building up of a party machine with a sustainable future towards a long term goal.
The SNP, the SWP and the Greens – eventually – took note, but it was ironic that the Social Democratic Party shortly after the NF’s collapse was to make much the same errors as the NF (even more so when it was Labour repeating those errors that played a big part in them leaving!) despite being led with far better calibre of people (and it did have a sugar daddy of sorts, Lord Sainsbury). There were other issues of course there at play, not least of all the treachery of David Steel and Roy Jenkins with their “friends” and the tensions of the Alliance, but that’s by the by.
UKIP struggled for years. Farage tried to make it more professionally run, but its headquarters remained a joke (a dingy basement near Berkeley Square), even when the party began getting MEP money to do what its “big talk, small cheque” backers promised but never delivered. In the end it was lucky enough to be there at the right time to fill an appearing political vacuum from the collapse of the BNP and the crass stupidity David Cameron, who became fatally addicted to national referendums like any mug punter – thinking his winning streak would last forever. Those opportunities are history’s fascinating moments of chance and fate – and the abrupt manner in which UKIP and Brexit/Reform vanished proved they are all too often fleeting.
The main problem is, of course, an electoral system whereupon entry to the “big kids” Parliament – and the credibility that comes with it – is First Past The Post, dooms any insurgent “new brand”. Even the SNP were only taken semi-seriously by certain elements up here until the 2015 general election.
I hear people in here predicting that a storm is coming, but the existing system has shown its pretty resilient and resistant to challenge or change. It wouldn’t surprise me to see whoever is in power, whether Truss or Sunak, making moves – even if it’s the minimum they think they can get away with – to stop unrest and hope they can batten down the hatches. Then it’ll be back to more of the same.
In the words of the old Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine song, the system is “fire resistant and water proof”. It’s only when it falls to its own hubris, such as the Brexit vote, that it comes a cropper, and those are the moments you have to look for, or manouevre it into.
“As I’ve explained before, Holyrood has no authority over anything, even so-called devolved matters. This was drummed home during the Brexit saga when Scotland withheld consent to a bunch of bills and the UK government proceeded regardless.”
Hatuey.
It does have powers, even the ex-Welsh FM Carwyn Jones was surprised when the Betrayer of Scots Sturgeon did nothing when Brexit cut-clean across our sovereignty and I’ve read that it also breached the Treaty of union.
Holyrood looks powerless because the betrayer wants it to appear that way. Basically Sturgeon wants the status quo to remain in place, and she can continue to finger point towards the Tory government and blame them for our situation, and in the process adhere more mugs to her NuSNP party, which is not a party for Scottish independence anymore.
Looks like energy rich Scotland could find itself in days of blackouts due to a lack of power as we send it to England which will also see days of power-cuts.
Scotland has more than enough energy for Scotland, but the betrayer decided to try and save England from Brexit instead of saving Scotland from this wealth draining union, and we Scots will suffer the dire consequences of her treacherous actions.
Scotland will continue to go into decline until the Betrayer is voted out of office, I don’t even know if the SNP can be saved and put back on course, the betrayers MPs and MSPs have stayed silent and kept on troughing as Scotland circles the plughole, what does that say about them.
link to 12ft.io
The wages of Colonial administration.
Press release: Dugdale appointed Professor of Practice.
link to johnsmithcentre.com
“ … Kezia Dugdale is set to take on additional responsibilities at the University of Glasgow as its newly appointed Professor of Practice in Public Service.“
So, what exactly is a Professor? A general search reveals; “A Professor will have a PhD, generally in the field in which they teach.”, also “Professor doesn’t denote a qualification but an academic staff grade – the most senior one.”.
The Press release is quite specific Dugdale’s Professor status isn’t an honorific one, it’s a paid, staff position in the University of Glasgow. A position entirely separate from her roll as Director of the John Smith Centre for Public Service (which she continues to hold).
“A Professor will have a PhD …” well, Dugdale certainly can’t claim that. A Professor is a teaching position, the only evidence the Press release offers in support of this is: “For the past two years she has undertaken a number of teaching activities including Co-Convening the Honours Course on Youth Policy with Dr Mark Wong.” Does “Co-Convening” qualify as teaching?
Dugdale has been Director of the JSCfPS for a little over three years. It is generally believed that her starting salary at least matched that of her previous roll as an MSP (£64k). Dugdale’s responsibilities as Director of the JSCfPS include management of a soon to be staff of five. How many hours are there in a day for Dugdale? This should include a commute from her home in Edinburgh to the JSCfPS, assuming she actually undertakes this on a regular basis. Dugdale’s actual recompense at the JSCfPS remains a mystery as the JSCfPS has never published accounts.
The normal entry level for those appointed to the Professoriate at the University of Glasgow is Zone 1, £65.4k to £79.7k.
In April 2021 The Courier announced that Dugdale would be a new, regular, weekly columnist.
To this we could add side hustles including but not limited to, the five contributions to the Comments section of The Times this year alone.
Meanwhile, the income to the Dugdale household increased in January this year when her partner, Jenny Gilruth was promoted to Minister for Transport, £98k.
All in, the Dugdale household must be grossing at least a cool, quarter of a million pounds per annum.
The wages of Colonial administration? Betrayal it seems is a lucrative enterprise.
Also, check out the website for the JSCfPS and see how many entirely unconnected articles are presented in the colours of the TransCult (this also applies to the University of Glasgow as a whole). Subliminal messaging, like they think naeb’dy kens.
Dan 12.05pm.
Read that Dan don’t expect the betrayer and her party to do anything about it except finger point she’s good at that.
Scottish produce in the big supermarkets Lidl aside and possibly Aldi who do sell quite a lot of Scottish meat and veg don’t sell much Scottish meats, or they stick a Butcher Apron on it and hide in an end bay and up the price to turn folk away from it, well that’s my experience of how its done. Infact I think (I might be wrong) the supermarkets no longer need to reveal the country of origin of foods as we’re out the EU, and with no proper checks on where meat is coming from into the country due to Brexit disaster, you just don’t know what you’re getting and where its from anymore.
My local Sainsbury’s quietly removed the Saltire flag from its billboard after we were dragged out the EU.
However the bottom line here is the betrayer Sturgeon doesn’t give a toss what happens to Scotland, the more madness and mayhem she allows to happen to Scotland the more she can finger point, and the more the NuSNP nutters that think she can do no wrong will vote for her.
It has been a great pleasure reading the discussions that have developed today,
Not because it derive from a comment I had Experience in reality,
But because of the intelligence of the commenters to debate without verbal abuse to each other on both sides, and be able to listen to each other prospective points of view with no animosity,
This is what we are fighting for,
A free country, a pleasant atmosphere, free speech, no ideology and no racism, to discuss our futures as grown adults,
This has been very heartwarming.
On a gentle note I take note of the distinction of the various types of nativism around Britian , and it does exist in many forms,
When we talk of Wales being annexed against its will or of the Scots being forced into a treaty with no more than 50 barons or noble men whom had been chased out of office in Scotland before the treaty was signed,
This capturing of both countries by default methods and forced armies from the English government of its day could never be construed as voluntary,
Witnessing history, the arrogance of political nativism from the old English parliament through to its continued conversion into/ as the present position of the British parliament we see that political nativism has not died.
Old English parliament nativism turned the corner into colonialism, where the countries that made the British Isles have been captured by force and held by involuntary treaties, ( often broke ) by the act of political nativism in England through parliament,.
Nativism comes in many forms, in main stream media advertising and propaganda, Westminster claiming without evidence its Sovereignty over people,
It could be claimed the prevalence of Scottish nativism is a terrible thing for Scots to have in their system, but is it any worse than the Westminster nativism that dictates to Scotland and lords it over a treaty that Scots must abide by, but english political nativism changes to suit itself.
With out the sense of being native to a nation, community or country there would no longer be any country in existence,
One world order or globalisation would not be attempting control of all countries today.
The very concept of nativism is what makes us individuals as people, as a nation and as a country.
The problem we have in Scotland, is that a English parliament political nativism converted to a British parliament, thinks it nativism is superior in its arrogance to the other Countries in these Isles,
This in of it self is extreme nativism manifesting as colonialism,
It’s no secret that those who want to exploit people and help themselves to their resources — colonialists, globalists, liberal-imperialists, etc. — absolutely despise nationalism, particularly anything that resembles economic nationalism.
About 90% of “free” trade doctrine, including everything GATT ever did, international politics, and international law, is aimed at making sure these exploiters and robbers are able to fleece people with uninterrupted ease.
Cultural and ethnic nationalism, to be clear, can serve a useful purpose and when it suits the fleecers they will indulge and courage it, providing it serves their exploitative ends (it’s at that point vile nationalism goes through a miraculous filter and becomes patriotism).
Anyone that chastises you for feelings of solidarity towards your neighbours, community, and/or countrymen, is playing into the hands of those who want to exploit you or is actually one of them, and he or she should be held in suspicion.
The first and most important step towards systematically robbing a people is to convince them they aren’t a people at all; that’s why they hate nationalism and love individualism — individuals are very easily neutralised. Achieve that and you’re a very small step from taking not only their oil and resources but the food from the children’s mouths.
There is a distinction between Sovereignty that is given, and Sovereignty that is stolen,
In Scotland Sovereignty was given to the people.
In England Sovereignty has been stolen from its people,
Thus we find stolen parliamentary sovereignty in England trying to extend it powers of nativism converted into extremism and proceeded into colonialism, when nativism is contained within one own country it may be called patriotic, and safe to its neighbours,
But when a country extends and imposes it nativism onto a neighbouring country or countries by force it has lost the concept of patriotic belief in basically their own country, it is no longer feeling contented with its lot,
England extended its extremist nativism by force to many other countries around the world for resources it could provide itself with for its growing population and industries,
Underneath the pride in their own country is the insecure knowledge it never admits to itself openly.
It cannot stand on its own two feet in its own right,
It needs its neighbours support and resources, it just does not want the Scots that that come with Scotland takeover,
That is colonial.
They are a race to be exterminated.
Today under many political disguises England as a country still relies on sources from outside its on country ofEngland, such as from Scotland,
The MaCrone report is a good example of this, as is the Barnett formula for un- appropriated taxation, and hence the desperate need to hang on to Scotland, And Wales for water and energy as well.
These countries are also used as a overspill of population solution from a shortage of land mass from a bulging England..
The rule of law and the claim of right make people Sovereign,
Breeks.
I agree with you summarisation between sovereignty and naturalision.
James Clark and Sean Clerkin have been at it again today at the Scottish Power offices.
The staff must have been terrified, TERRIFIED!
“James Clark and Sean Clerkin have been at it again today at the Scottish Power offices.”
Boyle.
Good for them, we need more direct action, I wish they’d go to Bute House and protest there, where the butt of the problem lies.
Scots need the AUOB to stop the happy clappy flag waving exercises and become more of a demo movement aimed at Bute House and Holyrood.
Vivian O’Blivion says:
10 August, 2022 at 2:29 pm
The wages of Colonial administration.
Press release: Dugdale appointed Professor of Practice.
link to johnsmithcentre.com
Good God,
The devaluation of the Academy (and my Alma Mater) continues apace.
The professoriate of a university is it’s core academic resource – and in Scotland’s ancient universities was reserved to those who had substantial accomplishment, proven by research, teaching, scholarship and national and international recognition of the above, in areas of genuine learning and academic merit.
Oh Dear, Kezia Dugdale. What can be said?
I came across this specimen of intellectual detritus only once – ironically at a conference on the future of Scottish Higher Education at the University of Edinburgh about eight years ago – organised by the University and Colleges Union (formerly the Association of University Teachers) of which I was, and remain, a member.
We were to be addressed by Johann Lamont – at that time leader (for the time being) of “Scottish” Labour -but she called off. Ms Dugdale was her understudy – and was at the time shadow secretary of state for (God help us) Education and Lifelong Learning.
Well, what a performance!
The woman is barely able to string together a grammatical sentence, which is bad enough. But any meaningful content in the verbal effusions that followed eluded both myself, and the numerous other academic types in the audience. It was utterly embarrassing. For us – though evidently not for her.
But it gets worse: Although the conference was about the future of Higher Education, the lady openly admitted “I don’t really know much about that” (admirable honesty) “But I’m much more interested in ‘Early Years’ learning. “I only have a speech prepared for that, so I’ll give you that one”
She proceeded to ramble on incoherently about the (undoubted) importance of early years and a whole load of Woke gobbledygook about nursery education and feminist and Stonewall crap (though it was some years before I recognised it as that.
She appeared totally oblivious to its dissonance with the subject matter of the conference, and very sensibly refused to take questions afterwords.
I was even more staggered when the party of Donald Dewar – and indeed John Smith – made her its branch office leader. We all knew then that Labour was finished in Scotland.
The idea that such a person is now deemed professorial by Glasgow University tells me something very similar about that institution.
But then, as we know, the branch of the Henry Jackson society that she heads, in a ‘University’ ‘led’ by a banking economist and denizen of the Bilderburg group (and economic advisor to Tractor Nikkla), is not really concerned primarily about learning and education; rather the marketing of Neoliberal Bollocks and financial imperialism on behalf of those it primarily serves.
There are, sorry to say, no cultural or educational institutions left in this poor benighted land of ours, that are either reliably ‘Scottish” or reliably cultural or educational.
In the end it is all about serving the Masters of the Universe and dumbing down the population for its totalitarian future.
Clintonaian triangulation! That’s the phrase I was looking for.
What was Clinton’s triangulation?
In politics, triangulation is a strategy associated with U.S. president Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The politician presents a position as being above or between the left and right sides (or “wings”) of a democratic political spectrum. It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one’s political opponent.
You don’t get new parties but what you get is old parties triangulating themselves into replicas of their opponents.
Tories became UKIP
Labour became Tories
SNP became ‘The Unionist & Trans Party’
Republicofscotland says:
10 August, 2022 at 5:28 pm
“James Clark and Sean Clerkin have been at it again today at the Scottish Power offices.”
Great! Well done to them.
Nothing could ever beat ‘The Escape from the Killing Fields of Union Street’
link to tinyurl.com
Republicofscotland says:
10 August, 2022 at 5:28 pm
Scots need the AUOB to stop the happy clappy flag waving exercises and become more of a demo movement aimed at Bute House and Holyrood.
What about London? Would that not be the best place to protest? Go directly to the organ grinder & leave the monkey to take selfies, eat the carrots & try to figure out what a woman is.
Garavelli Princip @ 5:32 pm
“The wages of Colonial administration”
The wages – ‘and status’ – of colonial administration, and there is no bigger status conferring than the universities and the monarchy. A Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh is shuirly in the post too. Funny how its mainly loyal unionists getting any gongs/status going.
Still, on the plus side it is unusual to see many Scots being awarded a professorship in Scotland, tho even more especially for those without any academic record.
Maybe we’re just not ‘genetically programmed’ to make the big decisions?
link to bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk
Wow. The BPHB are out in force again.
The usual Colonialism, Sovereignty and a new one ‘Nativism’.
Where does all this impassioned pleadings lead us to, take us to? What is the end product of their rantings? The answer is nowhere!!
However it does serve to show how patriotic the poster is compared to mere mortals/closet Unionists/SNP apologists.. Living in the past is their favourite subject. Nothing ever comes from them on how to move forward.
According to some, Scotland is awash with various energy sources and is effectively subsidising England. Will one of the ‘Bravehearts’ please advise which energy sources are owned by Scotland ‘the country’ as opposed to those energy sources owned by mainly foreign owned companies.
Other than getting rid of Sturgeon and her incompetents, which the majority here agree on, what else have the BPHB got to move us forward. Everything is so unfair to poor Scotland is wearing a bit thin.
I await a response with interest.
Maybe we’re just not ‘genetically programmed’ to make the big decisions?
Would that be down to having been colonised/institutionalised for 300years?
What is the origin of the word colonised? Does it have anything to do with the large intestine?
Republicofscotland says:
10 August, 2022 at 5:28 pm
“James Clark and Sean Clerkin have been at it again today at the Scottish Power offices.”
Boyle.
Good for them, we need more direct action, I wish they’d go to Bute House and protest there, where the butt of the problem lies.
That Radio Clyde “just happened” to be there to record it all suggests they’re up to their old tricks of being a rent-a-mob for Weegieland media during the silly season. There was talk about this before when they appeared to be doing a lot of stuff which all “just happened” to be exclusives for Martin Williams at The Herald, and which mysteriously stopped the second they were called out for it.
Any clown can run into a firm’s front lobby, act like they’re Billy Big Baws like a wee radge and kid themselves they’re doing anything … when the firm’s owners are all in Spain. Don’t suppose it dawned on them the receptionist and the security guys are on minimum wages and equally shitting themselves about paying their fuel bills this winter? But naw, go for the soft targets, like that piss breathed bastard Mark Thomas always did.
I remember when at a demo with Tommy Sheridan under similar circumstances and we went round to Scottish Gas. Tommy showed how it was done, remembering the poor buggers inside were just doing their jobs, not collecting dividends, and it could so easily be any of us trying to make ends meet on what energy companies get away with paying their staff. You can have class war and still have some class about it.
Chas says:
10 August, 2022 at 7:21 pm
Wow. The BPHB are out in force again.
I await a response with interest.
Greetings to ‘Their Chas’ of ‘The Travelling Morris Dancers Brigade’ from the Bonnie ones. Hiya!
How did you get on playing with your dimpled balls in this hot sun?
We’ve got our feet, bonnie brogues & brains the size of small planet to move us foward. What have ‘TTMDB’ got?
It would appear that this site is under attack every day now we/you (Rev) must be sayign or doing something right to piss the pr*cks off…Good.
Boyle @7.57pm.
Is there a point to that long waffle, apart from you don’t like Clerkin’s tactics, fair enough a lot of folk do.
“What about London? Would that not be the best place to protest? Go directly to the organ grinder & leave the monkey to take selfies, eat the carrots & try to figure out what a woman is.”
Ruby.
Its not London that’s stopping us from leaving this shithouse of a union its the betrayer and the House Jocks that she’s surrounded herself with that’s the problem, they’ve got a cushy number going and don’t want to give it up.
Republicofscotland says:
10 August, 2022 at 10:59 pm
It would appear that this site is under attack every day now we/you (Rev) must be sayign or doing something right to piss the pr*cks off…Good.
Is it under attack or did the Rev choose a cheaper package thinking reader number would be well done by now.?
“BORIS Johnson is a “disgrace” to the office of prime minister who believed hard work was “beneath him”, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
The First Minister’s damning comments came as she appeared at the Fringe Festival alongside political host Iain Dale.
Speaking in front of a crowd at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the SNP leader said that working with Johnson had been “like nothing I’ve ever dealt with before from any senior politician”.”
I read the Betrayer of Scots couldn’t sell her venue out, but Alex Salmond sold his out. Yeah Johnson’s a disgrace, but you are a disgrace having sold an entire nation out for your party’s own benefit.
We know the arsehole Johnson is on his way out of office, its a pity you aren’t on the way out of Bute House as well.
link to 12ft.io
‘Mark Boyle says:
Don’t suppose it dawned on them the receptionist and the security guys are on minimum wages and equally shitting themselves about paying their fuel bills this winter?’
CORRECT.
This is much better from Mcalpine; link to robinmcalpine.org
And he’s right; Sturgeon’s SNP have devoted 8 years to being the establishment and we are heading fast into anti-establishment times.
This, it’s worth reminding ourselves, is a “leader” that just sold billions of pounds worth of energy resources for a fraction of their cost to the same big energy companies that are now screwing us.
She thought she was being clever with this establishment pitch but any fool can see that to support Scottish independence is to be anti-establishment. It never at any point made any sense.
The SNP are on the wrong side of everything.
Garavelli Princip says:
10 August, 2022 at 5:32 pm
There are, sorry to say, no cultural or educational institutions left in this poor benighted land of ours, that are either reliably ‘Scottish” or reliably cultural or educational.
In the end it is all about serving the Masters of the Universe and dumbing down the population for its totalitarian future.
I’m no Academic or intellectual, but I do have the benefit of two University degrees and a City and Guilds Diploma, and drawing comparisons, I found the substance and practicality of the City and Guilds training to be an infinitely superior product.
There was simply too much tiresome bullshit in the University “training”, which granted, might be down to the students attitude to some extent, but it was very clear to me that weak knowledge and a failure to grasp the substance was easily hidden behind waffle and presentation. Students could skive and not learn anything, but could talk themselves out of trouble by slick presentation.
I found the C&G training to be a much greater leveller, because if you couldn’t do the tasks, there was no hiding it, and bullshitters were skewered.
While my own perspective may be very narrow, I have the lasting impression that an Academic education is just a production line for inexpert mediocre middle managers, whereas the C&G training delivered skills, knowledge and a solid grounding upon which to build a professional career.
However the signs are not healthy, and even City and Guilds seems obsessed with downgrading a holistic grasp of what a Trade or Profession actually is, and dumbing it down into modules and NVQ’s which bear closer resemblance to boxes being ticked for the sake of Academic record, rather than a dedicated commitment to the competence of the student.
It is of course a vast subject, and pointless I suppose to generalise. Undoubtedly there are academic qualifications which do reflect professional competencies, but I felt, and feel, that education is just a business now, with qualifications increasingly a reflection of the lowest common denominators necessary to score a pass mark.
There is neither any requirement nor incentive to excel, and whatever talent does emerge is left to it’s own devices, because the College is much more concerned with getting the dregs raised up to a pass.
I think professional education, and the qualification of Tradespeople was once much, much better than it is now.
It’s easy to slag off Boris Johnson as an idiot which some fool gave an education, but in my experience, there are herds of them dumbing down and lowering the standards everywhere.
Look at our Architecture and modern construction. Look at our Art and Literature. Look at our Lawyers and Judges. Look at our Teachers. Look at our Politicians. There is an absence of calibre pretty much everywhere.
We have “IKEA’d” our education processes, and we will never again be astounded by the majestic modesty of master craftsmanship or scientific breakthroughs. It’s all about money and presentation, and getting away with it.
Ultimately, look at P utin, and BRICS, then look at Johnson and Brexit. Look at what’s lining up to replace Johnson… Are you laughing or crying?
Aye, look at Sturgeon too… painful mediocrity passed off as talent.
We have lost our way.
Scotland needs Independence now, or we will be dragged down into this great decline and cheapening of all things.
The problem for promoting and advancing Indy is and always has been the MSM. There is not one radio/tv/newspaper that educates the public about the lies regarding Scotland’s wealth and how it actually subsidises England. The average Joe only ever hears or reads a relentless daily diet of unionist deceit and until that changes in some way we are always going to be rolling the boulder uphill.
If only WoS was a newspaper or television station with Stu running it and backed by a pro Indy billionaire.
I’m allowed to dream.
Alf Baird says:
10 August, 2022 at 7:08 pm
Garavelli Princip @ 5:32 pm
“Still, on the plus side it is unusual to see many Scots being awarded a professorship in Scotland, tho even more especially for those without any academic record”.
No doubt about it Alf. You and I were exceptions as Scots-born senior academics in ‘Scottish’ Universities.
And I think you are on to something here: “even more especially for those without any academic record”
Placing a Scot (especially a colonial dupe)without any discernible academic qualities or accomplishments into the professoriate of a formerly great Scottish university, is just the sort of jolly wheeze that out colonial masters might regard as a bit of fun.
“let’s find the biggest numpty we can and make her a professor. What fun!”
“Look we do have some of the natives in senior posts – but my God, have you heard her speak?”
As for the Royal Society of Edinburgh? The plot was lost there long since!
@ Hatuey says:10 August, 2022 at 4:06 pm
“It’s no secret that those who want to exploit people and help themselves to their resources — colonialists, globalists, liberal-imperialists, etc. — absolutely despise nationalism, particularly anything that resembles economic nationalism.”
Wow, just wow.
I’ll write it again – fucking wow.
This pearl of wisdom from one of the most prolific anti-Uk raine posters on here.
Beyond parody.
McDuff, spot on. The first SNP meeting I attended after the referendum this was my question ‘How are you going to deal with the media?’
Sadly it seemed that the kent faces were the ones elected to ask questions and mine was never heard. I suspect they really didn’t expect the attendance numbers to be so high.
Now we know that Ms.Sturgeon has paid the media millions of our pounds to continue in their deception of the public.
As for dumbing down I cannot remember a time when the likes of Johnny Depp , the Wags and any other ‘celeb’ became headline news on BBBC or ITN to air their dirty linen . Neither can I remember a time when a news reporter tidied up the garbled message of a P.M and made it sound acceptable.
@ Mark Boyle says:10 August, 2022 at 12:28 pm
Great post.
The reality is that the NHS has become the nearest thing to a state religion that we have, and is thus beyond criticism or meaningful reform.
@ Republicofscotland says:10 August, 2022 at 2:28 pm
“Scotland has more than enough energy for Scotland”
Let me fix that one for you, Republic.
The foreign-based companies and the nowhere-based multinationals who collectively own and manage all of the energy sources, fossil and renewable, located on, under or around Scotland, generate more energy than Scotland can use.
Not having a dig Republic (for once), but the grown-up readers need to know how that situation will change post-Indy.
Let’s assume we somehow or other vote for Indy. On Day 1 of the new Independent Scotland, how will the external ownership of these resources be any different?
Ruby
You may not like what I post but, in my humble opinion, my scribblings generally make sense.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same regarding your demented output.
Not even an attempt to answer any points raised. Nothing unusual there from the BPHB.
John Main
Stop talking sense. They don’t like that.
We both know that you will never get an answer from any of the BPHB. Everything is so unfair in Scotland but it will all change post Indy according to the dreamers and romantics.
For those of you who are still all “English, TSH!”, the Buzzcocks’ drummer John Maher is organising a community buy out for the Bays Of Harris (where he runs his engine restoration business inbetween tours and albums … yes the man who recorded “Fast Cars”, what an irony!) to be freed from their absentee landlords the Hitchcocks based in Cobham, Surrey, who have done fk all for the area and are allowing it to be overrun with Air BnBs.
For the benefit of the self proclaimed adults in the room, tax receipts alone from North Sea oil production are expected to be around £8 billion this year, 2022/2023.
That’s just one oil-related revenue stream that Scotland would immediately benefit from if independent. There are several others.
Considering that the total Scottish budget is around £55 billion, £8 billion would be quite handy.
Note that around 60 pence on every litre of petrol bought at the pumps (fuel duty) is also tax.
You’re welcome.
Chas says:
11 August, 2022 at 8:57 am
Ruby
You may not like what I post but, in my humble opinion, my scribblings generally make sense.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same regarding your demented output.
Not even an attempt to answer any points raised. Nothing unusual there from the BPHB.
Sorry I can’t help you are any of the other members of ‘TTMDB’ I am not able to predict the future. I do not know if people in iScotland will vote for the SNP I hope not.
I do not know if the SNP will stand for election or what their policies will be.
There are definitely things that I know will change after Independence. I can if you like make a list of these things.
These won’t be things you can pick an argument with though so I expect you will be disappointed.
Voting for Indy is mostly a faith thing ie either you do or you do not have faith in the people of Scotland to make good decisions for the country.
“Actual solutions, like renationalising the utility companies and imposing a 4% price increase cap as in France, are scarcely mentioned.”
link to craigmurray.org.uk
I question Craig’s suggestion on insetivising and subsidising individual households to install solar arrays or heat pump systems though.
This is only feasible for a small proportion of properties for various reasons, plus it puts the burdens of financial outlay and ongoing maintenance of the systems onto those households.
Surely it is far better for the environment to simply have every single house in Scotland supplied with reasonably priced renewable energy.
John Main says:
11 August, 2022 at 8:52 am
Let’s assume we somehow or other vote for Indy. On Day 1 of the new Independent Scotland, how will the external ownership of these resources be any different?
Here’s ‘Their John’ of ‘The Travelling Morris Dancers Brigade’ just like ‘Their Chas’ he’s looking for answer as to what future politicians will propose and what the voters is Scotland will vote for.
The answer to your bonkers question is nothing. Maybe a couple of months or so into Independence there might be some changes but being that there is nobody here claiming to have powers like Nostradamus it’s equally bonkers to be demanding an answer.
PS What’s the big deal about external ownership? They still have to abide by the law,pay taxes and have their prices capped if that’s what the gov decide.
Are you one of those ‘moonhowlin’ ‘blood & soil’ fringe nutters?
This is empty rhetoric from Sturgeon the betrayer, she knows fine well that both Truss and Sunak has said they will not sanction an indyref next year, yet she tries to fool the Scottish public that they’ll be an indyref next year.
Sturgeon is on record saying that if she can’t hold an indyref in October 2023, she’ll use the next GE as a plebiscitary election.
The 2024 or when ever it is held GE in Scotland will be all about Sturgeon trying to get as many SNP MPs elected as possible under the guise of leaving the union, if we vote for the SNP at the next GE we’ll be voting for the status quo.
“NICOLA Sturgeon has said she believes Scotland will vote Yes to independence by a “comfortable margin”, when asked about her plans for a second referendum.
The First Minister also discussed post-independence energy prices and trade with the rest of the UK as she was interviewed at an Edinburgh Fringe show.
The Scottish Government has referred its plans to hold a second referendum on independence to the Supreme Court, amid a dispute with the UK Government over the jurisdiction of the legislation.”
link to 12ft.io
The only way we’ll hold an indyref is if we remove our MPs from Westminster and organise one ourselves.
“Chas says:
11 August, 2022 at 9:00 am
John Main
Stop talking sense ”
Ha, ha the establishment talking to itself yet again, two chinthes in the one room pretending comedy gold if you ask me.
Monitoring being the right word for energy is not a devolved matter, and as long as the Betrayer is FM, Scotland won’t control its own resources.
“THE Scottish Government is “monitoring” the risk of power blackouts and energy supply issues, The National can reveal.
It emerged on Tuesday that households across the UK could face four days of shutdowns as part of “worst-case scenario” emergency planning ahead of winter.
The UK Government’s document suggested that if a perfect storm of a drop in gas imports and below-average temperatures occurs, it could lead to organised blackouts for industry, and possibly some households.”
link to 12ft.io
So at her half-full Fringe speech in Edinburgh the Betrayer of Scots Sturgeon, told host Iain Dale that she’d never speak to Alex Salmond again.
I’d imagine she’d be far too ashamed to even look Salmond in the eye again never mind actually speak to him, but again I’d also say the betrayer is a sociopath, whilst Salmond has become a respected elder statesman, with a wealth of knowledge about his own country, Sturgeon couldn’t lace his boots and she knows it.
Sturgeon is on record saying that if she can’t hold an indyref in October 2023, she’ll use the next GE as a plebiscitary election.
Other than Sturgeon loyalists, nobody really believes there will be an indyref2 in 2023. In the unlikely event the UK SC finds in favour of the SG’s case, the terms the britnats are likely to negotiate won’t necessarily be those negotiated in the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012 either.
“Noises off” from both the SNP and Greens suggest they would both stand candidates in a 2024 Westminster GE. Given the attempt to de-legitimise any pro-independence voices à la AIM’s Code of Conduct, we can’t trust the SNP to “do the right thing” and either promote a slate of candidates representing the whole independence movement, standing on a single issue plebiscitary platform.
The real question for SNP members and Scottish voters in general, is if and when the indyref route is stymied by the UK SC, why wouldn’t the SNP precipitate an immediate Holyrood General Election?
That could happen before the next scheduled Westminster Election (presumably within weeks of a negative SC ruling?), and would include 16 & 17 year olds and EU and other citizens in the franchise, and both those groups are more likely to be pro-independence. Achieving 50% + 1 in a Holyrood election would probably be easier to achieve than in a FPTP Westminster vote too.
Even a basic ‘google’ search could inform the dumb dumb unionists in here. Maybe you’re using the unionist ‘goggle’ search instead eh!
Have a go. Type in ‘how does Norway run its oil and gas industry’
FYI – SHELL , BP etc only hold leases . Scotland owns the land and sea where the energy is produced. Now you know the reason they shat their pants in 2014 when it looked like the gravy train was coming to an end.
You should have no problems with the basics Mr Main- take back control – a good brexiteer like yersel eh!
As for thon Chas wan. That couldnae run a tuck shoap et primary where money wis concerned.
Congratulations to “Scottish Resistance” for their headline grabbing stunt dominating today’s papers … oh, sorry, it only made several pages in of The Herald, which of course has form for “exclusives” of these puddings during the silly season.
They have now vowed to gatecrash the “All Under One Banner” protest in Perth – I’m sure that they will be as polite as Craig Murray and quietly acquiesce when told their presence is regarded as “disruptive” to others.
Should we rely on the fornacation of British run elections with franchises held by tory members, to gain a NO vote before we have gone to the ballot box, any more than handing Scots Law over to the Supreme court of tony Blairs making.
Robbo
If you think anyone who queries the Scottish Governments grasp of economics and finance is a dumb Unionist it says a lot about you and your ignorance. Another proud member of the BPHB-Don’t worry-it will all be fine!
Liked the use of your ‘vernacular’ to show to all how really ‘Scottish’ you are! Your fellow numpties will be proud of you.
Dirty old man alert.
link to archive.ph
On a similar «obsessive» vein.
Ukrainophiliac Sturgeon chucking more combustibles on the fire.
link to archive.ph
Volodymyr..a want te hae yir weans…
a like them beefy!
Ottomanboi,
Ns is more american thinking than americans,
To qoute her in the old days, “Bairn’s not bombs”
Has morphed into “Bombs not Bairns”
Ottomanboi says:
11 August, 2022 at 12:13 pm
Dirty old man alert.
link to archive.ph
The Dreadnought missed the point (or perhaps feared legal action) in that the main cause of the fury was the guy was using what was clearly paedophilic content, but yet again the police don’t want to know.
The guy has form and was run out of Sweden of all places when he started up a magazine that would have done PIE proud – the irony was it took the nation’s very own LGBTQ etc organisations to force the authorities’ hands on the matter – at least they had no qualms in calling a spade a spade and a nonce a nonce.
@James Che (12.20) –
With Sturgeon’s calamitous tweeting last week perhaps it should be ‘Burns ‘n Bombs’.
She’s been taking an absolute drubbing on the Twitter yet again. Feels like the end isn’t far off.
We can but wish…
🙁
Hatuey @ 12:31 am
“The SNP are on the wrong side of everything.”
Everything except perhaps Westminster’s ‘agenda’, with little or no divergence in policy between Edinburgh and London these past 8 years or so. One should expect nothing less from a loyal colonial administration.
The real question for SNP members and Scottish voters in general, is if and when the indyref route is stymied by the UK SC, why wouldn’t the SNP precipitate an immediate Holyrood General Election? – Ellis
—
SNP are skint, and it’s not within their gift to arbitrarily call an election. Can you really see the Greens siding with SNP if offered positions by a coalition of CON/LAB/LD seeking to form a Govt?
We all know you’re desperate for everyone and their Granda to be given a vote on Scotland’s status as an independent country, which a plebiscitary HR election would allow, but you have to recognise that ‘Brits’ from E/W/NI aren’t Scottish in any meaningful way, and like the others (EU/RoW) are part of the wider ‘international community’ who may not even recognise the validity of such a vote.
Ian Brotherhood.
Wished I could see that, but I DONT DO TWITTER.
Never mind I appreciate you letting me know, and sometime maybe twitter is good for something,
Cheers Ian.
Does anyone know offhand if Sturgeon has ever been interviewed by Eddie Mair?
He’s tearing lumps off Iain Duncan Smith.
Imagine what he would do with her?
@ Hatuey says:11 August, 2022 at 9:23 am
“Note that around 60 pence on every litre of petrol bought at the pumps (fuel duty) is also tax.
You’re welcome.”
Sure. And on Day 1 of Indy, or Day 10, or Day 100, is it going to be any less?
What about VAT? 20% because we had to harmonise with the EU. Funny that it has never gone down post-Brexit. Sticking with that one in Scotland are we, just to keep that re-entry door ajar?
FFS. Scots everywhere feeling the pinch, and not one fucking concrete guarantee that post-Indy, we will be any better off. Just have faith and believe.
@ Ruby says:11 August, 2022 at 9:37 am
“Voting for Indy is mostly a faith thing ie either you do or you do not have faith in the people of Scotland to make good decisions for the country.”
Ah, I see a problem right there where you are concerned.
Sure I must have pointed this out about a billion times.
Or is it a million?
Incidentally, in Logic-Land, how does your faith in the people of Scotland to make good decisions square with the result of the 2014 Indy ref?
Dan says:
11 August, 2022 at 9:38 am
Surely it is far better for the environment to simply have every single house in Scotland supplied with reasonably priced renewable energy.
I’d say geothermal is one of the best systems for the Environment, but the down side is retrospective installation and suitability of the ground.
It’s also a background “trickle” heating system, so it won’t heat water for a Bath by itself. In my limited experience, it’s normally underfloor heating it’s best suited to, and of course, most of the energy boiling a kettle occurs over the first few degrees, so Geothermal can preheat water to reduce the strain on a hot water cylinder.
You need to bury 50m length of ground loop 2m deep for every kW energy, but that can vary depending on the ground. You can also chuck your ground loop in a pond if you’ve got one.
But once it’s in, there are zero emissions, and all the heat energy comes from the ground. All you’re paying for is driving pumps to circulate the water, or whatever else being used.
You can also use bore holes rather than ground loops, but that’s specialist machinery rather than a bloke in a JCB.
But the other big thing is going large and installing communal heating systems, because if memory serves, Geothermal Heating systems get more efficient the bigger they get, and the peaks and troughs get flattened out.
I also have my own theories about ground loops… but that’s a different story. But I’m a fan… though not for every situation.
It’s not exactly new technology either… Same heat exchange principles as a fridge, so the science works. In essence, you’re trying to freeze the Earth, which you never will, and as you circulate “coolant” around the ground loop, you extract the heat through your heat pump and send the chilled coolant off round the loop again. Zero emissions in a closed system.
If there was much greater awareness of the potential, I think Geothermal Heating will become huge in Scotland… provided the ground is willing to cooperate. Lol
The down side there’s no photo-voltaic alternative like there is for solar power, so I think a Geothermal system will always need augmentation to provide hot water for a bath so a lot of the time, it won’t be the whole solution.
@ Ottomanboi says:11 August, 2022 at 12:13 pm
On the plus side, these unfortunate people have a gut understanding of what it means to be a proud, independent nation, oppressed by an over-powerful, aggressive and violent neighbour.
Even better, they have the guts to fight for their country, culture and people.
Let’s get them onto the electoral register ASAP. I reckon they will be shoe-ins for Yes.
Garavelli Princip @ 8:22 am
“No doubt about it Alf. You and I were exceptions as Scots-born senior academics in ‘Scottish’ Universities.”
I knew something was afoot when the London recruitment agency and uni bigwigs passed me over as principal in favour of a vet from wherever. And we didn’t even have a veterinary school at Napier. Scotland’s all run a bit animal farm like, I suppose.
It did not need a majority of Scots to enter the treaty of union,
It took less than fifty Scots.
Exiting should be the same.
John Main
Dunno where you get your ideas about VAT, it’s 19% in Germany and 23% in Ireland?
Andy Ellis @ 10.55
Why wouldn’t the SNP….
Two reasons:
1 They might lose it
2. Even worse, they might win it, and then what would they do? Apart from panic. They are not very good at doing things to progress independence in a meaningful way.
@ Breeks
My point is that pretty much every property already has a connection to the existing electricity grid network. Economies of scale, if we are serious about reducing carbon emissions, mean it is surely best for all properties and businesses to be supplied with renewable power of which we have an abundance of here in Scotland.
Solar PV, solar water heating, ground and air source heat pump systems still require fitting to individual properties, and the manufacturing and energy required to produce all these devices has to come from somewhere. The ongoing maintenance and repair and replacement at end of life also needs to be considered.
Nobody wears out the 100A grid connection to their property. If the leccy supplied in those connections is from wind farm, tidal, wave, or hydro power then more people are going to be green energy powered.
Retrofitting old and often listed and conservation properties is a massively expensive and complex undertaking to do it properly.
But even if buildings don’t have the best insulation, if they are heated with renewable energy rather than oil or gas then that is still an improvement to reduce carbon emissions.
Someone on twitter should point out to Snp and NS they have fifty people, start by withdrawing our MPs from Westminster.
” Ian Brotherhood says:
11 August, 2022 at 1:22 pm
Does anyone know offhand if Sturgeon has ever been interviewed by Eddie Mair? ”
You jest Mr B .
The only hard interviewer she * allowed * in recent times was Bawheid Brillo n he gave her a * doin * . She won’t make that mistake again .
From here on the only people she’ll give an interview to are her maw n her sister n even then she’ll demand to see the questions in advance and probably redact awkward ones eg …. ” whits a wummin ? “
Anyone looking out for the Sturgeon Super Moon tonight? Use your imagination for a moment.
Hope it brought a smile. God knows we need something to cheer us up.
John Main says:
11 August, 2022 at 1:39 pm
Incidentally, in Logic-Land, how does your faith in the people of Scotland to make good decisions square with the result of the 2014 Indy ref?
You don’t half ask me some bonkers questions. In 2014 Scotland was part of the United Kingdom. Not everyone was making decisions with regards to what was good for Scotland. Lots were thinking about what is good for the UK/England. A lot of these ‘voters’ could hardly be described as ‘the people of Scotland.’
In an Independent Scotland that will not be the case.
Dan,
Renewable energy in the form britian is presently following is a farce.
All the components are quarried out the ground the blades are not recylable, they are buried in the ground, in mass turbine graves,
Solar panels have dangerous chemicals in them that go to land fill sites, and lithium batteries are shipped to poorer countries in mass dumps at the end of there life span,
The quarries and dumps are Out of site out of mind.
The before and after are far away from green technology.
At least it will be better than looking at her face.
@Dan 2:05pm
Agreed my electricity supplier is already at 100% sourced exclusively from renewable. I take your point about older properties but I am more concerned about the Scottish Government leglisation to ban gas boilers from 2024. The law of unintended consequences. Likely to add 25 to 30k to a new build. Not good if you are a young person trying to get on the housing ladder. Once again it is about how we handle the carbon transition. The Scot Gov have a poor record in implementation of policy because of their evangelical and lacking in common sense approach.
And the betrayers finger pointing goes into overdrive, in a don’t blame me Scots its all the fault of Westminster that we’re in this God awful position.
The betrayer sold Scotland out on Brexit choosing to try and save England from Brexit instead of saving us from this rotten union, and now we’ll pay the price for her and her party’s treachery.
“THE energy price cap rise should not go ahead, Nicola Sturgeon has said as she accused the UK Government of being “missing in action” on the issue.
It comes after estimates that the cap on energy bills could top £5000 next year.
Experts at energy consultancy firm Auxilione said that at Wednesday’s energy prices they expect that regulator Ofgem could be forced to set the cap at £5038 per year for the average household in the three months beginning next April.
It is more than £200 higher than previous forecasts and heaps extra pressure on households across Britain.”
link to 12ft.io
Where is the ‘Sturgeon Super Mooning’ going to take place?
Will it be outside Bute House?
link to tinyurl.com
“So at her half-full Fringe speech in Edinburgh the Betrayer of Scots Sturgeon, told host Iain Dale that she’d never speak to Alex Salmond again.”
Any footage of that interview, RoS? Hardly surprising she appears for these cosy chats at Festival time, the annual cultural scent-marking by England of its Scotland Region.
I’m sure she’d collapse from shock if she was ever in the same room as Salmond again. Guilt and shame could have very powerful effects on a blinky-blinky personality like hers.
@”Scott”
SNP are skint, and it’s not within their gift to arbitrarily call an election. Can you really see the Greens siding with SNP if offered positions by a coalition of CON/LAB/LD seeking to form a Govt?
People always bang on about parties being skint, yet somehow they find the money to soldier on and fight elections. The SNP is and will be no different. The SNP can precipitate a GE in Holyrood anytime it likes by the simple expedient of the FM stepping down and ensuring that no other FM can command a majority.
The Greens may be an odious bunch, but even they aren’t stupid enough to enable a yoon administration. If no FM can be agreed upon the Presiding Officer is obliged to call fresh elections within a couple of weeks, or it may be 21 days…I forget the exact stipulation.
We all know you’re desperate for everyone and their Granda to be given a vote on Scotland’s status as an independent country, which a plebiscitary HR election would allow…
The franchise for a General Election is established. Nobody apart from fringe nutters really disputes it. The international community won’t find self determination gained through plebiscitary elections any more problematic than if it were gained through a referendum. It’s certainly a lot more likely to be accepted than the various “cunning plans for indy” being advanced by the Brigadoon Popular Front types.
It’s not the brits form E/W/NI we should be worrying about, it’s the home grown plastic Scots and 90 minute patriots that are the issue. If the former aren’t Scottish in any meaningful way, then neither are the latter. They still put their British identity before their Scottish identity. Perhaps we should make windows in to all their souls and deny them the franchise too, eh “Scott”? You and your nativists chums could be guaranteed a victory then!
The fact a bare majority (according to one poll post the 2014 result) of native Scots could be prevailed upon to support independence isn’t an achievement, it’s an indictment.
The international community would regard plebiscitary elections post a UK SC finding against the SG as legitimate because the independence movement would be able to point to the lack of good faith exhibited by the britnats. Failing to honour the Edinburgh Agreement and 2014 precedent, and the anti-democratic refusal to accept multiple mandates and frustrate an “agreed” process would be persuasive. It’s not as if the britnats – particularly the Tories – have a lot of friends or influence after recent years and their performance over the NI Protocol.
Plebiscitary elections are simply the next step in the process: that will be seen as significant, proportionate and statesmanlike by those we need to gain recognition from. UDI and “cunning plans” are weapons of last resort, and until we’ve exhausted other avenues first, no recognition will be forthcoming.
Thankfully there are likely to be cooler heads than yours and those of the other regressive nativists in charge to make the decisions and implement them.
” In the unlikely event the UK SC finds in favour of the SG’s case, the terms the britnats are likely to negotiate won’t necessarily be those negotiated in the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012 either.”
Ellis.
That might just be the plan to allow Sturgeon, (who must now be described as unionist due to her party’s actions over the last eight year) to hold an ill thought out and ill prepared indyref with answers to many questions.
I’d rather Sturgeon was nowhere near an indyref when it comes around, infact I’d rather she was out of the country (Scotland) altogether when it happens.
She and her spineless and gutless MPs and MSPs have been promising an indyref for years whilst the COPFS has been shutting up and imprisoning those who have noticed what’s going on. There’s not a snowballs chance in hell of the next GE being a plebiscitary one as long as the betrayer is at the helm, her track record on independence post-Alex Salmond speaks for itself, she even struggled to attend any indy marches, though she does send along one or two of her troughing MSPs to the marches to dangle the carrot and keep the masses on the hook.
House Jocks and Britnats in Scotland have nothing to fear on the indyfront whilst one of their own is in Bute House.
“Sturgeon, told host Iain Dale that she’d never speak to Alex Salmond again.”
Alex Salmond is a lucky man!
Tinto Chiel.
Alas no I got a bit of info from social media, stuff like this.
link to twitter.com
“FFS. Scots everywhere feeling the pinch, and not one fucking concrete guarantee that post-Indy, we will be any better off. Just have faith and believe.”
Main.
Apart for holding a permanent seat on the UNSC, there’s nothing an independent Scotland can’t do that England currently has powers over.
A FM of Scotland needs all the powers and levers of government to run a country, we cannot do it with one hand tied behind our backs, whilst another country continues to steal our assets and makes laws for us.
Scotland is a wealthy country and but we need to keep the wealth in Scotland, independence will allow us to plan for this, as part of this union Scotland is much poorer and constrained, we will also hopefully get rid of English/US nukes which we not only host but pay through the nose for, somewhere on the Thames near the Westminster Houses of Parliament would be my first choice for relocating them and the subs.
The English government is desperate to hold onto Scotland, any fool (except you of course) knows why.
“It’s not the brits form (sic) E/W/NI we should be worrying about, it’s the home grown plastic Scots and 90 minute patriots that are the issue. If the former aren’t Scottish in any meaningful way, then neither are the latter. They still put their British identity before their Scottish identity.”
—-
Folk from E/W/NI aren’t Scottish at all is my position.
‘aren’t Scottish in any meaningful way’ are actually your words, ya balloon.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@“Scott”
Just more regressive nativist frothing on your part I’m afraid. Wipe the spittle from your monitor and try to concentrate. I regard pro independence New Scots as being more Scottish than native born Scots unionists.
The words weren’t mine originally, they were paraphrasing Derek Bateman’s intro to the Wee Blue Book if I recall correctly. Since you seem scarily obsessed with anything I wrote and can find it and quote it back even after many months, you’d think it’d be relatively straightforward to see that only xenophobic, regressive nativists could disagree with the sentiment.
You of course are on the extreme fringe of the extremist fringe, being on record saying only those born here should be allowed to vote, a bonkers position that only you and a handful of sub Sion nan Gaidheal moonhowlers would ever think was either just or realistic. You’re the type promoting policies that embarrass the rest of the movement, like the weirdos shouting at cars on the border or trying to hijack other peoples marches with inappropriate banners aimed at upping the profile of their Popular Front of Jockistan splinter groups.
Alf Baird says:
11 August, 2022 at 1:55 pm
Garavelli Princip @ 8:22 am
“I knew something was afoot when the London recruitment agency and uni bigwigs passed me over as principal in favour of a vet from wherever. And we didn’t even have a veterinary school at Napier”.
Know this person well. I have seen her academic CV. Deeply unimpressive. As you infer, they are foreign. Thick as thieves with a certain Italian in a similar post at her former gaff – and with the Polish person in a very senior position at the same place. I guess it makes a change from having the usual All-England team!
Like her Italian chum, rose without trace. God knows what kind of dinner parties are involved in all this.
I have absolutely no doubt that a decision has been made at the highest level that “No Scot need apply”.