The long slow grind of justice
Wings has been informed this morning by a reliable source that Police Scotland have now progressed their inquiry into the SNP’s “missing” £600,000 fundraiser money from an “assessment” to a formal criminal investigation into the matter, which was first revealed on this site in January 2020. We understand that an official statement to that effect will be forthcoming shortly.
[EDIT 12.27pm: the statement is below.]
”Police Scotland has now received seven complaints in relation to donations that were made to the Scottish National Party.
“After assessment and consultation with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, we will now carry out an investigation.
“Enquiries are continuing and anyone who has any information which may assist with this investigation is asked to contact police.”
We look forward to the eventual outcome and continue our retirement in the meantime. Those still loyal to the party leadership wishing to be reassured that everything is fine and above board and the whole thing is a mad conspiracy theory and a total non-story are directed to Wee Ginger Dug and to the Twitter accounts of Pete Wishart, Mhairi Hunter, Tom Arthur, Stewart McDonald, Tom Gordon and David Leask, as usual.
Stu thanks for the up date, we’re still missing you , enjoy your retirement meantime,
Nice to see you again if only briefly.
Since nothing happens in isolation is this another move in the neutering of Holyrood?
With a new ‘independent’ Lord Advocate, is a new broom sweeping through the corridors of power?
If so, that could change everything…too late for many though.
Guid auld Scots’ corruption has a lot of blood on its hands.
@Stuart MacKay
Your comment’s a bit too cryptic for me (in this heat). Extra marks are available if you show your working…
Posted this on the previous page…
Police Scotland launch ‘fraud’ probe into SNP fundraising for Indyref2
POLICE Scotland have launched a formal investigation into potential criminality involving SNP fundraising.
The force, which has been assessing a fraud allegation from a member of the public since late March, said it had escalated its work after consulting with prosecutors.
The Herald
https://archive.is/cDKy8
You’re too young to retire Stu. Scotland needs waking “Wings style” up before Indy paralysis sets in. Your country needs you 🙂
Philm,
I suppose all politics is the same across Britain when I think of the blood on Westminster’s hands through the corrupt lying about the Iraq war.
It’s always the people that suffer, never the politician.
Yah Beauty, a start one can but hope
Should I start stretching the ropes ?
Returning donations is an admission of deception ?
Hope they get the bas#*+ds.
Mind you by the time they “conclude” likely the guilty parties will be retired, cashed in and snoozing in the HoL for £300 a pop.
Cheers Stu
Wings! Wings! Wings! Wings!
Good news that a) the investigation has been ‘promoted’ and b) you are still able to bring scoops.
I still can’t say what I think their get out clause is going to be because I know that certain people read this site and I don’t want to be giving them their excuse if they haven’t thought of it themselves.
I hope my idea is wrong though and they’re hung out to dry and we see the back of Mrs. Murrell.
PhilM,
I would like to think that your comment on the new broom of the Lord Advocate was true but I’d be surprised if the judiciary had the leeway to essentially bring down the party currently in power.
Instead, I’d say that the change now has more to do with clipping Holyrood’s wings as part of Michael Gove’s remaking of the Union. A nice financial scandal to bring the ability of the Scottish Government to manage finances competently would do nicely.
Thank you for the update Stu. I dinnae care what anyone says your input and integrity are sorely needed…maybe now more than ever.
Thanks for your update…I’m still checking in regularly as hundreds more will be.
Mist001 says:
13 July, 2021 at 12:28 pm
Says:
“I hope my idea is wrong though and they’re hung out to dry and we see the back of Mrs. Murrell.”
If Mr Murrell is charged, Mrs Murrell will divorce him pronto: “See yon wee bastid Pete,he tells me nuthin so he disnae”
For Mrs Murrell, survival is everything!
Rev – many thanks again for all you have done for Scotland’s cause over these many years. I have read the Spotland twitter too and sympathise. You deserve a life lived as you would wish.
I do hope that you maintain links privately to the most energetic workers in the cause so that your hugely valuable abilities are made available, albeit not so publicly.
We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out, the outcome will gives us an idea as to how the COPFS functions under Dorothy Bain, and whether or not Sturgeon can squeeze through the eye of this particular needle.
Cheers Stu.
Well my little throwaway comment about the new Lord Advocate seems to be confirmed by Brian doonthetoon’s quote about escalation after ‘consulting with prosecutors’.
Sometimes the corrupt make a decision or an appointment thinking they’re getting more of the same but end up appointing somebody much more independent-minded than previously thought. Lord knows Scotland is crying out for the renewal of impartial justice.
Maybe the new Lord Advocate meant it when she said she would be independent…maybe she felt it really had to be said after the last useless effort of a Lord Advocate. Perhaps like many of Nicola Sturgeon’s male friends, Dorothy Bain wakes up in the morning, looks steadily into the bathroom mirror,and affirms mightily…’I am my own woman’…
Just heard “ the breaking news “ on Radio Scotland about the police investigation 15 mins ago and it’s now the top story on the 1.00 pm news .
Rev Stuart ,
Enjoy your “ retirement “ whether it’s temporary or permanent .
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZ5pGrmeTU. Hope this isn’t memory holed.
Good to see you back, however briefly. In these dark times, it’s helpful to hear from someone whom we know from experience is not lying to us, even though we might not have wanted to believe you at the time. Look after yourself.
My youngest daughter – 15 year old wido- says I have baby boomer fingers on a keyboard. I reckon she’s right.
Radio Scotland should try retirement for a time it might up their game.
Thanks for the update Stuart and good to see you having a rant on twitter – I concur with every word, stuff blood and soil
Thank you again
Stuart MacKay says:
13 July, 2021 at 12:34 pm
PhilM,
I would like to think that your comment on the new broom of the Lord Advocate was true but I’d be surprised if the judiciary had the leeway to essentially bring down the party currently in power.
Instead, I’d say that the change now has more to do with clipping Holyrood’s wings as part of Michael Gove’s remaking of the Union…
Maybe, but perhaps it might be less of a new broom sweeping clean, and more that the COPFS and Scottish Legal fraternity are acutely aware of the damage done to their reputation and integrity, and with Wolffe out the way, it is finally in a position to actually do something about it.
Thanks Stu. You have always been on the right side of history.
I share your feelings as expressed on Twitter today.
Take care of yourself. You have been missed, but I understand your reasons.
Thank you for coming back, even if it’s temporary, though I hope for Scotland’s sake you’re back for good one day.
“Wee Ginger Dug, Pete Wishart, Mhairi Hunter, Tom Arthur, Stewart McDonald, Tom Gordon and David Leask.”
Aye, whur’s yer ‘herd immunity’ noo?
Please come back!! We will need the truth more than ever in the next year. Happy to donate again if need be.
Consigliori to the utterly corrupted SNP administration is the epitaph awaiting Wolfe.
New broom making the appearance of accountability possible?
Long fuse hand grenade lobbed over the shoulder on the way out the door?
Whatever.
The phrase ‘no criminality’ will be along in due course.
The dominoes will fall.
Made my day to see Wings again.
England (Bath) calling.
Strange activity over at The National where pro-SNP, pro-Nicola Sturgeon comments suddenly received three-figure thumbs-ups. Anyone would think it was coordinated.
It’s quite likely that I contributed, but on a long-binned credit card, so I can’t quote date and sum. I’m sure I’m not the only such. I wonder if the investigators will go through the list and contact donors. They would soon have more than seven, I feel.
It is good to see you back and not that good to see a prediction come true.
Best wishes for the future!
I hope all those who accused you of lying will now have the good grace to apologise. You never publish anything that’s untrue and their cultish belief in the SNP and Sturgeon has, yet again, been proven wrong. It’s a pity that Police Scotland didn’t read your analysis when you wrote it.
Useful link –
https://www.fraudadvisorypanel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fraud-Facts-17B-Fraud-in-Scotland-Revised-March14.pdf
Hey Stu! Hope you’re keeping well.
To those rubbing their hands at the prospect of Police Scotland/COPFS having a keek at the SNP’s books, remember who we’re talking about here.
Police Scotland. Are they not the same people who pitch up and threaten to have folks kids put into care over allegedly transphobic Tweets?
COPFS. Are they not the same people who jail journalists and who writhe like an electrocuted octopus when asked to justify their actions?
The SNP. Are they not the party whose leader suffers from chronic amnesia and whose executive doesn’t even allow those tasked with balancing the books to get a proper swatch at those books?
Someone please tell the people of Santorini to stock up on whitewash – global supplies shortly being diverted to Scotland, yet again!
I live in hope that the entire nasty mess is clearly stated in a court and nothing is swept under that lumpy carpet .
All hail Stu!
A very generous write up by Guido Fawkes today on the matter:
https://order-order.com/2021/07/13/scottish-police-launch-snp-fraud-probe/
Considering Paul Staines has never exactly hidden his animosity towards Stu, very pleasing to see him giving credit where credit is due, a sadly dying trait in our times.
Well done on them also taking a side swipe at the pathetic Rangers fanzine aka The Herald (Scotland) so dependent on Scottish government and SNP run council advertising revenue for its very survival, “Guido has a feeling the move by Police Scotland would be headline news were it about Boris”.
@Hugh Jarse – The Consigliere in The Godfather had some style, you know. It was he who organized for the film-producer to wake-up in his Holywood bed with the head of his favorite race-horse beside him.
He was also one of the few folk who could disagree with the boss. I don’t think he did that very often, mind-you.
James Wolffe wasn’t a Consigliere. I reckon he was just a bent lawyer….of which there are a great many in Scotland at the moment.
Maybe the lawyers have just had enough and just want to do things lawfully again; like they do in other countries; like they used to do here 10 or 20 years ago.
Great news anyway.
When does your retirement end? We need you!
It’s a good thing that Murrell has at last come to the attention of the polis. Not soon enough! We did and do really appreciate all your hard work. This is an example of it. Thanks.
Funny how this “investigation” is announced a couple of hours before the poisoned dwarf goes large on the lifting of restrictions and moves the news agenda neatly away from any embarrassment.
Not coordinated in any way?
Aye, right!
Hopefully this is a move to wipe out corruption within the COPFS by the new Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain.
What would prove to me that she has integrity would be for the removal of David Harvie, the ex-MI5/6 Crown Agent.
A corrupt Crown Agent who has presided over much of the prosecution of the “free” press & bloggers as well as the malicious prosecutions of those involved with a glasgow football club.
She needs to clear her own shop out before we can be assured of the independence of the Crown Office. (The fact it is the “Crown” Office in the first instance is disgusting to me, as it should be to any true Scots’).
Remember, folks. According to Sturgeon, even if people are not found to be guilty of criminal acts, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…
Doug. YouTube often manipulate the thumbs up or down on their sites content.
Does anyone have reliable sources re what’s happening in South Africa?
If it’s not an actual popular uprising/revolution then it looks very much like one.
I believe Johnson and Gove would wish to close devolved government anyway according to MSM, and reinvent the treaty of the union.
Maybe NS will be promoted to the English government for her good works like Ruthie,
Johnson’s Global bitten and Scotland’s spat out.
Lovely to see you back Rev. Can I ask if you will be submitting all your evidence to Police Investigation? Please do for the sake of Scotland & the majority of good honest people. Thank you.
Magpies have a reputation for theft, but £600k is going to be a bit of a stretch forPeter to sell as a defence.
Ian brotherhood,
I think you will have to search for it under Regime change.
Must be a divorce announcement in the offing now, just before the new Parliamentary term to give maximum benefit?
As requested by Police Scotland we have given them the details of our specific donation to the fundraiser for Indyref 2. If the money has been spent it is fraud nothing less.
https://crime.scot/embezzlement/
“Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the the dishonest appropriation of entrusted property.
Sometimes, it is tricky to distinguish between embezzlement and theft. The key difference is that, with embezzlement, the accused was originally trusted to deal with and account for the property/money in question. This can be as trustee, agent or factor”.
Just one alarm bell rings. Brian Doon gives a statement from the police saying they are investigating fraud and I wonder if that could be the get out.
As I see it , if the money was intended in the first place to be used for a purpose other than that stated then that is quite clearly fraud.
However if it was collected “ in good faith” with the intention of being used for a campaign, then it is not fraud.
If it then goes on to be used for a purpose and to the benefit of something or someone not intended for then that is embezzlement.
That of course requires an investigation for embezzlement. Hmm, just wondering
Nice to hear from you Stu. I hope you are well rested and truly taking time for yourself and less fraught interests than the constitutional position of Scotland. It does our heads in too!
We’d love to see you back, of course.
Well they couldn’t make the complainants go away – not all of them anyway.
Now we’ll see how politicised the Scots legal system has become.
I’m sure that Police Scotland will have the same “blank cheque” budget for this ultra-high level fraud enquiry as they had for Salmond’s accusers?
Don’t hold your breath on this one is my advice.
Defence will be I can’t remember I have a vivid memory worked before.
This is an excellent resource for all bug-related queries.
https://www.informedparent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CV19-SARS-CoV2-An-Exploration.pdf?mc_cid=2c4b402b69
I saw this on the BBC earlier (I go there for the sport which, on the whole, it’s not bad at). However, I had to come here to be sure about the BBC’s story.
@Pixywine 2:48pm
Thanks for that. I’m just trying to remember if something similar has happened on The National’s site before. Not sure.
Missing you! But understand why you’ve ‘retired’. I too am sick of Scotland now. Always determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. There’s only so much corruption I can take.
Sanity has returned. All Hail Stu! The adult is back in the room, at least temporarily.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/lGQuawSh9299/
The enemy is coming to our doors.
I suppose the police can hardly turn a blind eye to crime in plain view no matter how much they may want to, especially after you laid it all out for them Stuart. Hope you are enjoying your vacation. You fully deserve it after the shift you put in.
Anyway, I wrote the following in response to the discussion on the previous thread about the UK increasing its arsenal of nuclear weapons and having them stationed within a stone’s throw of Scotland’s most populous city. I find it interesting that they are referred to as a “nuclear deterrent”. They are certainly a deterrent from England’s point of view – they make Scotland the primary target!
I don’t think that appealing to the UN will do much good to be honest, either with regard to these illegal WMD being foisted upon us or in relation to constitutional issues, although that doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t try. The UN have done nothing to prevent the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide taking place in Israel/Palestine, so there is nothing to suggest that they will protect the rights of the Scots any more than they have been able to protect and uphold the rights of the Palestinians.
There is also the additional complication that the UN have no real potency anymore as a global peacekeeping organisation, essentially allowing NATO to act as their paramilitary wing. The UK nuclear weapons system is only leased from the US – it is not independent of their control – and therefore it is really NATO led by the US which dictates that these WMD are stationed in Scotland due to its strategic location. It is significant that the SNP voted to join NATO as an independent nation because membership of NATO is incompatible with being a peaceful nation and removing these warheads from our shores.
Unfortunately, all around the world the human spirit is being crushed under the jackboot of authoritarianism to prevent any kind of organised resistance to the ruling order. The tentacles of neo-liberalism have spread to all corners of the globe and our right to live as individuals free from government interference and control are now non-existent. I think governments around the world are fully aware of the impending climate catastrophe, know that they are drowning in debt and on the point of bankruptcy having drained the public coffers dry, and yet their solution is to frantically print more money, slash public services, remain heavily dependent on oil, and continue to spend billions on armaments. A perfect storm is brewing and even if we do not perish in a nuclear holocaust it may already be too late to reverse global warming. No matter how ardently we pray, we cannot alter the laws of physics. There has to be a complete reorganisation of society overnight for us to have any realistic chance of survival, but that is looking less and less likely with each passing day. I think the ruling elite know full well the impasse they have led us to and, not possessing the means, ability or knowledge necessary to prevent it, are resigned to ushering it in.
Doug says:
13 July, 2021 at 1:58 pm
Strange activity over at The National where pro-SNP, pro-Nicola Sturgeon comments suddenly received three-figure thumbs-ups. Anyone would think it was coordinated.
Reply
On both ‘The National’ & ‘The Herald’ you can give as many upticks as you want.
You give an uptick then you refresh the page & give another uptick. You can tick and refresh until the cows come home.
If you have two accounts you can uptick your own posts.
The thumbs voting system on both these newspaper isn’t worth bothering about. It’s far too easy to manipulate.
I believe you can also have posters all with the same moniker.
Hasn’t it been the norm for snp members/politicians to resign when being investigated by the police.
Why no resignations this time?
Good to have you back even if only for a short interlude to your summer break.
Hopefully by the autumn you will be fuly revitalised and return like an Avenging Angel.
I hope the guilty are found and prosecuted.
I hope some of the money can be recovered and put to the use it was intended for.
A proper investigation may show some people that they are backing the wrong party.
In a parallel universe it would take one of the boys in blue less than a week to be given the case, make a plan, visit the Treasurer and whoever else is suggested, write a report and make the recommendations for prosecution.
I wonder what world we live in.
Thanks for this Stu, you’re such a tease -reminding us why you are so badly missed.
Interesting few days.
Yesterday we had the Heral/Ferret exposing the lack of transparency regarding lobbying. No records kept if all is done by phone.
Today this Police announcement having sat on the allegations for months and all reported in the Sturgeon fanzine ‘the National’. Is the £3 million bribe/bung to the press not being renewed?
Something is afoot and no mistake. Trying not to get too optimistic that Sturgeons days really are numbered.
We’ve all been here before.
sog @ 2.01pm.
I was in the same boat, but I asked the SNP for all the data that they had on file on me. The email address if I remember correctly is Data Protection Officer .
Part of the information details ‘all’ monies received by them and what it was for. It details what any donations were for such as General Campaigning Fund, Local Election Campaign or the important one, Referendum Campaign. The amounts of the donation(s) and the dates are also detailed. I used this information to request a refund of the Referendum Campaign donation which I eventually received.
So, at last, perhaps matters will come to a head. The whole thing stinks of fraud. FRAUD!
I actually contributed to the crowdfunder. At that time I was still under the delusion that when Nicola Sturgeon talked of holding a referendum and keeping Scotland in the EU, she was serious. But, alas, as we all now know, she is a liar. Mandate after mandate after mandate wasted. Still, she promises us ‘jam tomorrow’, like the good unionist that she is.
I must say, however, it is really good to see Rev Stu posting (albeit whilst in retirement). It is up to him if he wishes to get back into all of this, but I honestly think Scotland needs him. His voice is important. It was important in the last referendum. Whilst REV STU is not here, the SNP bedwetters are quite literally doing NOTHING for independence. Slowly they are turning the progress back. Worse than that, though, their are clowns making foolish arguments for birth origin voting rights (blood and soil nationalism), which completely undermines everything the independence movement has stood for.
These things are not accidental. It is part of a deliberate effort to undermine the independence movement. The SNP are quite happy to sit back, steal our money, whine about London, but do NOTHING.
Stuart Campbell has been proven right, over and over again. I have now gone from being in the SNP, to being in ALBA party. The biggest obstacle to independence right now is the SNP. A party full of political careerists, who are quite happy to keep taking their vast paychecks, whilst literally doing sweet f all. And, to make matters worse they have nothing but contempt for the independence movement which put them where they are. Charlatans the whole lot of them.
Scotland needs Stuart Campbell, and the independence movement needs him too. I totally understand why he is sick of it, I am too, and I am not subjected to the daily abuse onslaught he has suffered for the last ten years. I do hope he keeps going, but the decision is up to him. That is all I can say.
Wally Jumblatt says:
13 July, 2021 at 6:14 pm
I wonder what world we live in.
In a world where our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon not content with stealing the dreams of those who elect her resorts to stealing our money as well and this so called police investigation after countless months of painstaking no stone un-turned investigation will find no criminality, no charges will be brought, no court case held,no accountability and no money
And Nicola The betrayer will finally be able to put away the inconvenient £600,000 dark shadow hanging over her impeccable character and that of her husband & government.
My post above seems to have lost a most important part!
The email address is: privacy@snp.org with the subject access request.
Always great to hear from you, Stu.
I’m missing this site loads but hoping you are getting some well deserved r&r.
Robert Louis
I think the “blood and soil” part of the debate needs to be had since it will hash out all the issues and everybody can see what the pros and cons are. I’m sort of with the Rev. in that a restoration of our independence needs to come with 21st century thinking not 12th. It’s an issue best dealt with head on rather than trying to wheeesht in order not to scare the horses.
I thought the conversation was just here but you indicate it might be part of a broader move to taint the whole process. Is this just a twitter thing or is there a broader base to it?
What a coincidence that after all this time the investigation ‘begins’ when Holyrood is on holiday.
Stu – great to hear from you. So glad you are lurking in the background – strangely reassuring!
I note already that the current, re-elected treasurer, Colin Beattie – a former MSP who returned to the post after Mr Chapman’s resignation – said the funds had been “earmarked” when they were donated, and that a matching amount would ultimately be spent on referendum campaigning.
Oh, no they weren’t!
They were ‘RINGFENCED’ and that is a completely different ball game, although she/her has stated that the party runs its independently-audited budget on a “cash flow” basis and is under no obligation to keep funds in separate accounts.
So what do they think ‘ringfenced’ means?
Good to hear from you Stu, even if it is just a temporary comeback fora bit of well deserved schadenfreude. I’ve missed checking out the site and some – tho’ definitely not all! – of the interactions. I reckon you’re due your rest though and I understand your motivations. I share your sense of it all being a bit pointless at present: the recent resurrection of the debate about changing the franchise is just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me too.
I’ve tried to reason with some of the proponents of nativism on their blogs, but I fear it has little impact. You just can’t kill bad ideas it seems, as your blog and many articles have shown: no matter how often you’ve raised issues like the missing 600K, or how crap an idea changing the franchise is, you just can’t educate pork.
The alarming thing is, it’s not just SNP ultras, it’s some I would have expected better from. Like you, I’m beginning to wonder if Scots really have what it takes for independence, or indeed whether I’d want it under the conditions that appear likely. I’m pinning my hopes on Alba reaching escape velocity and the SNP getting the comeuppance it deserves…but it is more in hope than expectation.
I’d like to think you’ll maybe allow WoS to stay around as a platform for guest articles on issues of concern or interest now and then? Even if it’s no longer a daily update, I think the reach of the site is still valuable.
We could certainly do with a take down of the franchise change bullshit, but moving forward it’d be good to see some contributors discussing – and taking down – other spectacularly misguided policies?
The Murells could share a cell,just needs one of them to pretend to change their gender.
Got a feeling a `night of the long dirks` is ahead,
with a clear out of the cultists,misogynists and cumfy Pete,
and then Independence in time for Christmas.
What was the criteria for eligibility to represent Scotland (and the rest)
at the Euro’s ?
Stuart Mackay: “I think the “blood and soil” part of the debate needs to be had since it will hash out all the issues and everybody can see what the pros and cons are.”
Some of us have been embroiled in that debate for quite some time.
There are clear and obvious problems associated with putting an emphasis on where you were born, culture, heritage, language, etc. As I’ve said before on here, that’s the path of some of history’s worst scoundrels — if there’s a spectrum here, it’s a pretty unpleasant one with say Trump at one end and Oswald Mosley at the other.
In electoral terms it isn’t clear if changing the rules on eligibility would make any difference. I know some have argued that it would, but their reasoning is full of holes, assumptions, and impossible speculation, with no consideration given to the votes they’d lose and the divisiveness it might cause.
For example, where would this emphasis on Scottish culture and ancestry leave the half million or so voters with Irish ancestry? Answers on a postcard, right? And that’s just one demographic you’d potentially be leaving shafted and alienated — there are others.
At the root of all this is really bad science. Culture is an essentially useless classification system outside of beekeeping and petri dishes.
There’s virtually nothing that culturally binds a Scottish person from Glasgow with a Scottish person from say Ullapool. If you happen to find something, it’s probably going to make a useless and stupid banner for the cause of independence.
While I’m happy to see Wings express and share the same sort of position I take on this, I’d be happier still if people just worked crap like this out for themselves.
It isn’t rocket science, it’s snake oil. It’s the same snake oil that lubricated the wheels of Brexit — you’re special and glorious just because you happen to speak a certain language, were born here, happen to have white skin, etc. All things that are basically just cosmic accidents of birth.
@Hugh Jarse
Scottish athletics criteria:
“Be born in Scotland. Have one or more parents born in Scotland or. Have confirmed residency of three years in Scotland.”
FIFA rules:
Article 6 deals with such cases as follows:
“A player who, under the terms of art. 5, is eligible to represent more than one association on account of his nationality, may play in an international match for one of these associations only if, in addition to having the relevant nationality, he fulfils at least one of the following conditions:
a) He was born on the territory of the relevant association;
b) His biological mother or biological father was born on the territory of the relevant association;
c) His grandmother or grandfather was born on the territory of the relevant association;
d) He has lived continuously on the territory of the relevant association for at least two years.”
The four “home nations” have deleted sub-para (d) above with FIFA’s approval.
Hey, hey Stu!
Andy Ellis says:
13 July, 2021 at 8:46 pm
“We could certainly do with a take down of the franchise change bullshit, but moving forward it’d be good to see some contributors discussing – and taking down – other spectacularly misguided policies?”
—————————————————————–
So no discussion then Andy, you’ve already decided it’s bullshit & anyone with a different opinion is spectacularly misguided ?
Great to hear from you Rev c
Good to see you back Stu!
@Fishy Wullie 9.23pm
In WoS absence I’ve had some interactions on other blogs like Iain Lawson’s. For what it’s worth I’ve been arguing the toss with the the gamut of those arguing in favour of changing the franchise for a long while, from the sub Siol nan Gaidheal bunch at one extreme, to the “nativist curious” at the other.
Doubtless Alf Baird will be along presently to tell us we’re a colony and it’s all the fault of those furriners. It was bullshit before, it remains bullshit now. It obviously has resonance with a minority of the hard of thinking….but like I said and Stu has realised, you just can’t kill a bad idea.
Cheers Andy.
(d) frees all!
Residents of Scotland, of at least 2 years get a vote.
Fair enough?
Derogatory name calling isn’t exactly the same as arguing the toss Andy
@Fishy Wullie 9.43pm
Fill yer boots. I doubt you’ll come up with anything that hasn’t already been covered. The TLDR of nativism still really boils down to:
– we wuz robbed
– the furriners done it
– civic nationalism is all very well but…
Moving the goalposts because the Scots majority lack the political courage to vote overwhelmingly for their own self determination like all other self respecting peoples is shifting the blame for our own faults on to “the others”.
That’s not civic nationalism. I’m having none of it. Neither will the majority of the movement. The “blut un boden” fringe and the punters of the colonisation narrative need to realise their agenda is as popular as Better Together.
This blog used to inform and entertain above and below the line.
The anti-vax nutters have polutted it for months, and even when there is something to discuss they are still posting their disinformation.
Had two jabs, proud of the work that has been done across the parmalogical and testing industries on developing and the medical service on delivering the vaccines and every adult who has got their jabs and played by the rules.
If you are gullible enough to believe this anti vax pish, you were probably gullible enough to trust SNP fundraisers.
I reckon we’ll see the wheels come off the SNP bandwagon in all directions now as panic sets in. If it plays its cards right – under the right leader – Alba could take off rapidly. Something I’ll be posting about on my site in the coming weeks.
A quick look at the comments on La La Land confirms the contributors on that site are so deep in denial as to how much they have been taken in and fooled that anyone questioning Princess Nicola and the shit surrounding her and her inner circle is labelled a unionist.
That lot are running out of people to insult and question their commitment to a Independent Scotland the same can’t be said about that lying fkr Sturgeon who surely must realise the games up and the buzzards are circling , once her boney fingers are prised from the Plague restrictions I hope people finally realise she’s a Imposter a total fraud.
The Cult like support of Sturgeon are having a collective panic attack , and who cares it was a donation , Nicolas in charge we trust her fully , she will lead us to the promised land are among the brainless comments they simply can’t bring themselves to believe the truth that’s staring them in the face ,
She’s not the Messiah she’s a very naughty ( insert gender here ) con Artist who is in a very strange Marital situation where both people who comprise the leadership of a political party don’t appear to discuss anything.
I really hope the Investigation covers the personal finances of everyone at the top of the SNP all the waffle and double talk can’t cover the fact the missing cash can’t be easily located and given that a story has to be manufactured in order to deflect honesty asked questions must cause even the stupidest of worshippers to have second thoughts about this leadership, IS IT FRAUD ? .
I`m sorry but I don’t trust the police or the Crown Office.
Their participation and enthusiasm in the prosecutions and intimidation of Salmon/Murray/Hirst has left me highly suspicious of their motives. Suppose its an orchestrated move to investigate this missing money with a pre- planned result which clears the Murrells and thus buries this real threat to them for a very long time.
Great to see your name up there again rev, always a boost to the troops.
The unanswered question is why she would not sack Leslie Evans? I pretty sure I figured that one out but have enough respect
for Stu not to post it. Also hammers scare me LOL.
Then again you can pretty much say what you want about anyone now in Scotland as the precedent of fair comment has already been estblished as a reasonable defence so I may post it on my FB page just for the hell of it.
I have had enough of this lot riding the gravy train on our taxes.
Whatever you decide to do in the future Stu I wish you good health and happyness.
Residency – What you you have to consider is that students come from all over to achieve a Scottish university degree.
That takes 4 years, longer for a medical degree.
I don’t think that a residency qualification of 5 years is outwith the bounds of reason, for any independence referendum.
What type yooz?
It’s very good to see Stu posting. I think a so called Police Scotland investigation is a bogey. They Police for the SNP and not Scotland. Expect nothing.
Pleased to hear it but then you think,
It’s Police Scotland and the Crown Persecutors office.
As twisted and bent as a Bojo PPE Contract!
Andy Ellis says:
“It was bullshit before, it remains bullshit now. It obviously has resonance with a minority of the hard of thinking….but like I said and Stu has realised, you just can’t kill a bad idea.”
I am always suspicious of those who can make glib comments like the one above without discussion, argument or the presentation of evidence, let alone wishing its claims against any counter-evidence.
Professor Baird did not get to be a professor by following the Ellis dogmatic declaration without evidence method of discourse – indeed with Ellis there is no discourse. “I am right and you are wrong” That’s it!
Now he may not agree with Professor Baird, but if he is going to dismiss him, he must first read Baird’s very closely argued – and very persuasive book on the matter:
Doun-Hauden: The Socio-Political Determinants of Scottish Independence
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doun-Hauden-Socio-Political-Determinants-Scottish-Independence/dp/B086Y6MMH2
Profeeor Baird cites in proposing his argument numerous distinguished academic and political works on the subject of Colonialism and Imperialism and its effects on subject populations and nations – of the sort characterised by the Scottish Cringe.
Now, you might or might not agree with the arguments, and even if you agree with them, you might think that civic national generosity in giving the coloniser a say in your process of National Self Determination – some might think too generous.
But both positions are perfectly respectable political and intellectual stances.
What you cannot do, unless you are a total prick, is to glibly dismiss a carefully argued academic discourse as:
– we wuz robbed
– the furriners done it
– civic nationalism is all very well but…
and the domain of the hard of thinking.
Such a posture does not merely display evidence of being “hard of thinking” – rather it is one of no thinking whatsoever, whether through an inability to think, or being too lazy to do so.
Proper discourse requires effort and an ability at least to understand the case agains which you argue – though that last verb is far too generous a description of mindless, arrogant, demotic know-it-all assertion
Ian Brotherhood says:
13 July, 2021 at 2:50 pm
Does anyone have reliable sources re what’s happening in South Africa?
I don’t know about at-the-moment, but a couple of days ago the protests were about the jailing of Jacob Zuma. (Source: World Service)
I presume that you’re not asking for rugby scores?
Andy Ellis…yeah let’s sit back and let every second home owner and chancer like you fresh off the bus from Engerland/N.I. vote us into perpetual slavery until we are totally outnumbered. And while your at it, let all the white flighters continue to buy up all the rural houses and businesses with their over inflated property sales.
No other country has a franchise like a dissembler like you suggests. It aint about blood and soil and you well know it. But pretend otherwise with your strawman pish. Try getting your homeland to let incomers vote their sovereignty into oblivion. Oh that’s right Engerland doesn’t allow them in to vote, And there ain’t enough EU, Jocks, Taffies ( look how outnumbered they already are) and Paddies to ever matter there. England has outvoted us for 60 years. It has stolen the 1979 and 2014 Referendums despite Scots voting majorities for first Devo , then Indy.
The ‘new Scots’ from RUK are a myth. They are settlers. 72% of them voted against us. They could have abstained ,they didn’t because they despise the very idea of Scottish Independence. It is no different from what happened in Ulster with the plantation.
It’s NOT RACE,it’s IDENTITY. And trying to miscall the Scottish for being brainwashed and lied to and misled is a fucking insult. Particularly when we voted by a majority for Indy and have had electoral seat majorities, mandates and a total majority of Indy popular votes in 2015. The Rev did a Panelbase poll which showed 4 MILLION RUK would move here if they could. How would Scotland look and be if even a quarter of the actually did? Demographic studies confirm that number are already here.
You know all this but of course you are a troll, plain and simple. St,Andrews Uni(ONIST) plant. If the Scots are so fucking woke that they bottle making the franchise residential with at least 10 years qualification and no second home or away student entitlement then we are setting ourselves up for another self inflicted death wish.
Gfatheblock
How many people in Scotland in 2020 died where the cause was recorded as The FLU ? , Answer 0 Nil Zero has FLU miraculously been cured ? Why wasn’t this headline news ? .
How many on average died each year from The FLU over the past 10 years once you work your way through the numbers that are mind numbing and almost unfathomable but even carefully hidden you get the surprise that the Covid numbers don’t even come close
The figures are being inflated and the Yellow Card figures are being will fully suppressed , yellow card being the number of people having very serious outcomes and the ultimate being death , the very first day these Chemicals started being administered 40 people were recorded as having to have immediate intervention to alleviate serious concerns and problems .
It is hugely significant that the Police are now formally investigating the “missing” £667k funds at SNP HQ, previously raised and RING-FENCED for an Independence Referendum. Reason: pressure of complaints or a new Lord Advocate?
When the relevant Finance and Audit Committee and a National Treasurer such as a decent man like Douglas Chapman CANNOT establish the current salary package (and history) of the Chief Executive, then surely THAT is a sign that something financial may be amiss!
This investigation has finally reached the new reports of BBC, both London and its Glasgow-based subsidiary. Wow!
I just hope that the accusations will be fully investigated but, based on recent legal actions, I am not holding my breath!
Slainte
WGW
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qrW6lby8Ezc
There is only ONE race and that’s the Human Race and rifmght now we All have a common interest in opposing the dictates handed down to us by the criminal pharmaceutical industry through the agency of puppets like Sturgeon and Johnson.
One Human Race where every division is cynically exploited by the political media and billionaire class.
‘Treasurer Colin Beattie – a former MSP who returned to the post after Mr Chapman’s resignation – said the funds had been “earmarked” when they were donated, and that a matching amount would ultimately be spent on referendum campaigning.’
This is a variation on the shoplifter offering to pay for the stolen goods after they have been caught. How insulting.
Agents of the State are not interested in deviating from the government line spoon-fed by the corrupt media. Useful idiots.
For anyone interested in learning about the “Communitarian” agenda go to “Windows on the World” on YouTube or Spreaker. It may explain some of the SNPs motivation.
Lochside, you may believe all the drivel you spout on here, but the owner of this blog hates it and has called it out repeatedly for the utter pish it is.
I hate the antivaxxers and blood-and-soilers who defile this space. I think it is a great shame Stu can’t be bothered banning you.
You are part of the reason this blog is dead and may well never return. You are an enemy of indy, not an asset.
So why don’t you just fuck off and peddle your mince elsewhere, you total wankpiece.
Piskyswine, that goes double for you ya tube. Fuck off to a conspiracy site somewhere, there are plenty out there who will swallow your poisonous jism.
In other news, great to see you on the job again Stu, even if it is a rare one-off.
We all know that mostly English incomers have been flooding into Scotland in recent decades. Now that the EU countries are in effect closed to them because of Brexit, we can expect them to come here at an even greater rate. I dread the next census.
“blood and soil”? = wanting to use the UN rules for referendum voting?
– and let’s talk to our Soft NO voter, the kind of person we must make our case to, to win the debate …
Hey jocks – just moved in 5 minutes ago because I got a great deal on a house. BTW I disdain all you filthy porridge wogs and will be voting against you, your pretend country and your play acting political aspirations any time I get. You should be thanking me as the trickle down economy is keeping all you drunks in heroine, buckfast and irn bru. If you try to stop me voting, you are all filthy “racists” (- don’t mention the fact I moved north to escape my hometown which had become a bit “ethnic” for my taste). Gotta go, Landward are doing a bit on me, my fragrant wife and our artisanal cheese.
My point being that most of them will vote against independence if given the chance.
AYE. ye think so!
AYE
I see we are still wrestling with the uncomfortable realities of race and culture.
We can have different races, with broadly different aspects and trends, without disrespect and inhumanity.
As with the trans debate – if a skeleton is found in a landfill and the pathologist said ‘its a human female’ they would be considered useless. There would be racial/ethnic characteristics looked for and identified. Those are identifiable because there is actual differences in the races and that includes the psychological and intellectual as well as the physical. This manifests in differing cultures and social outlooks.
To deny this is to deny reality. But again – it doesnt have to mean anything negative.
The problem comes when society destroying, financier el-ites simultaneously reduce sovereign middle Eastern and African countries to utter hell holes, do everything they can to drop European countries borders and then use a group of NGO’s (a number of them Israeli) to facilite the move towards Europe. All while writing laws against criticism, structuring society to be actively anti-European while simultaneously pro everything else.
I have a direct family member (person of colour) who currently works in Canada setting migrants up with jobs and homes over the Canadians. I have a family acquaintance (another person of colour) who has told us that the big company she is a recruiter for has put white British at the bottom of the list for hiring.
This is not natural human movement and demographic change. This is an artificial construct that will lead to social hardship for the people born here, animosity towards the state/corporations and ultimately towards the newcomers.
It is utterly toxic and its meant to be.
This does not even touch on the cultural differences born of religious and social outlooks. I find it amazing that people can be so aware of the dangers of Christianity while being totally wilfully ignorant of the up-front supremacist, fascistic, pedophilic, sexist and violent teachings of the other Abrahamic religions.
I had a conversation with a Spaniard who apologetically told me ‘I dont dislike British people. There is nothing wrong with them really. But there are too many now. They come to Spain and treat it like Britain. They dont learn our language. They create their own separate enclaves in our towns and countryside.’
I couldn’t disagree with him. But what is true for the British is true for others. People stick to their own. They are in a country for the sun, or the better economy or the lack of warfare and as a group they will stick together. When there is enough of them they will vote for the politicians that promise to advance their group interests which usually is at odds with nationalistic sympathies.
This is reality. Its the real world.
For the real halo polishers the profound problem is realising that those people, the actual Nationalists, despite everything they were called, despite the stigma and ostracism, despite the media hit pieces, despite the tattooed Neo Nazi scum types getting all the publicity to help destroy their arguments, despite the massive campaigns to censor them, the efforts to take away their ability to use banking services, the assaults and intimidation by Antifa, despite it all – are actually making some sense.
Once you realise that you have a nation, a people and that these people have an identity born of something more fundamental than mere preferences and that putting the health and well being of your nation, your people, your young folk as top priority is not the same as putting others last (supremacy) then the illusion starts to dissipate.
The people who would enslave us are working hard to eliminate the natural bonds people have between each other, our connections to our history and heritage, our sense of community and belonging, our family cohesion and our connection to the country of our ancestors and the rights that come with that. In short they have recognized that social capital is the barrier to ultimate control in financial capital.
If the peoples of the world accept this move to eliminate natural connections of gender, families, nation and homeland and allow them to be mere designations on government documents then we can have absolutely everything taken from us – it becomes just a matter of policy implementation and legal maneuvering.
It is no surprise that the ones who are opening our borders and giving us no say in the matter while denying that Europeans are actually distinct peoples with a right to self determination are the ones trying to erase women as a sex.
1 thing for those criticising the ‘white flighters’.
Try living in a neighbourhood that becomes over run with people who are indoctrinated into considering women as subservient and that women who do not cover adequately are whores.
Try telling your wife or daughters that its just cultural misunderstandings. That 3rd world ideas of womens rights are just some sort of quirk to be taken in good humour.
Tell them that the call to prayer they are hearing isnt really the steady creep of an ideology that any woman (and the LGBT crowd for that matter) in their right mind would be justified in being careful of.
Arrogant clueless bastards.
Yes, thanks for that update, Joe.
We’ll call you.
So Robert Louis , Andy Ellis , Hatuey and Scotsrenewables think anyone who wants to win independence for their country by adhering to the franchise proposed and accepted by the UN are ,
RL “SNP bedwetters and clowns”
Andy Ellis “nativists and you just can’t educate pork.
Hatuey it’s a pretty unpleasant one with say Trump at one end and Oswald Mosley at the other.
Scotsrenewables I hate the antivaxxers and blood-and-soilers who defile this space.and wankpiece
WOW with those endearing words you have convinced me (not)
It’s amazing that people of such superior intellect when faced with the evidence from Edinburgh university that 72% of incomers voted AGAINST Scotland’s independence then interpret that with many more additional incomers coming here that will somehow translate into a YES vote for independence
I often wondered why Sturgeon altered the franchise and dismissed the majority of SNP MP’s in the HOC as independence declaring negotiations ,is it because like others on here she really doesn’t want independence
I have stated on here before and I will again I don’t give a fuck how we win independence or who we annoy in the process as long as we get it
What is the saying, doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome is the sign of lunacy, so good luck lunatics the rich settlers and planters will love you for it
ME 2.49am I meant to add your children and grandchildren won’t when they can’t afford a house because the retirees have upped the prices and have to leave Scotland for work, but don’t worry at least you weren’t a blood and soil nationalist
Andy Ellis’ constant ass kissing of Stu is hilarious, and reminds me of none so much as the WGD sycophants. I’m sure he is very touched by your simmering devotion.
I’m in favour of any franchise that gets us out of the Union, and if that means upsetting a few English settlers, then so be it. Maybe they’ll f*ck back off doon the road.
The fact that fanny Hazmat Hatuey is also on board with this self-defeating shit is just too f*cking good.
And they both think they’re clever cos they blindly accept the Govt(s) line on vaccines, and denial of the effectiveness of Ivermectin, despite massive success as a prophylaxis AND as a treatment, which is tantamount to mass-murder in order to enrich Big Pharma. Don’t hear much about India’s Covid outbreak any more, do you? Could it have something to do with the mass distribution of this proven-safe drug? Conspiracy!
Away and join the Green Transgender Cult ya pair of smug moronic gobshites.
*simpering*
I f*cking hate the middle-classes and their Brexit bigotry. Bunch of c*nts!
Name calling is the preferred weapon for those who cannot justify their ideology or articulate their argument, the trans mob are a perfect example as soon as you try to discuss the issue they’ll just shut down the debate and call you names like transphobe, terf etc and in some extreme cases have you arrested on some ridiculous trumped up charges
Andy Ellis is another example so far he’s branded those those who want to change the franchise or at least discuss the matter as hard of thinking natavist blood & soil nationalists without putting forward one reasoned argument for what he believes.
The term “Blood & Soil” has unfortunate connections with Nazi Germany but if I was being completely honest with myself I’m a Blood & Soil nationalist I’m a born & bred Scot, Scotland is in my blood, there’s nothing I can do to change that, I don’t believe that makes me a racist (although I’m sure there are a few on here who will disagree) and if it does then so be it,
I don’t hate other people who feel the same way about their national identity or culture, I don’t see why we can’t all respect the cultural identity of people from other nations and just get along, but I don’t think those people who come to our country for whatever reason and vote against our aspirations to be a free nation among other free nations respect our cultural identity very much
Scotland’s original devolution agreement allows its Government to hold a non-binding referendum on ‘whatever it likes’, newly released documents suggest.
The comments two decades ago by the late Donald Dewar, the original First Minister, may raise fears that Nicola Sturgeon would be free to hold a wildcat independence vote even if opposed by Boris Johnson.
Ms Sturgeon has threatened to hold such a plebiscite in the face of Westminster’s refusal to rerun the 2014 referendum, which was won by the No to independence campaign.
It would carry no official legal weight but would be a powerful propaganda tool if it returned a strong Yes vote.
According to a 1997 email found in the National Archive and seen by the Telegraph, Mr Dewar, who led the country for Labour, believed such a vote was possible.
The message from Tony Blair’s then special adviser on Scotland, the now MP Pat McFadden, highlighted concerns over Mr Dewar’s views ahead of publication of a white paper on devolution that he authored.
‘The reserved powers model means that the Scottish Parliament will have the power to legislate on anything not in the reserved list,’ Mr McFadden wrote.
‘Therefore it can have referendums on anything it wants, even if it cannot enact the result.
Hatuey – 13 July, 2021 at 9:14 pm
As already demonstrated with the vaccine arguments, your reality is not well aligned with mine.
Another poster was asking for clarity on what is going on in South Africa right now. The answer is simple. Tribal divisions, amplified by political processes and economic disruption, have boiled over into violence. Civil war may or may not follow. Who wants to make a prediction?
In your reality, this can’t happen, as the tribal differences are negligible. Maybe you should adopt a new reality.
Should this case come to court, can we assume that ‘journalists’ will not be allowed to report the prosecution case for fear of jigsaw identification of fraudulent transactions?
Any news on the Daily Record leaker?
To be honest, I’d prefer that this fraud investigation, or to coin a pointed neologism, ‘unvestigation’ be carried out by the British Transport Police, rather than the bilingual (or anilingual) Poileas Alba, the SNP’s tame gendarmerie.
At least the BTP, who la Caudilla tried very hard to steal, will carry out a disinterested enquiry.
Anyone else noticed the absence of our Deputy First Minister and Minister for Covid Recovery? Haven’t seen or heard of him since he blundered into the debate about whether we should stop folk visiting Manchester because it was a notorious Covid hot-spot. A few days later we found that it was Central Scotland that was the Covid hot-spot.
I’m sure that absolutely everyone in Scotland will get-on fine, a lot better in-fact, if his absence was to be a permanent one.
twathater says:
14 July, 2021 at 2:53 am
ME 2.49am I meant to add your children and grandchildren won’t when they can’t afford a house because the retirees have upped the prices and have to leave Scotland for work, but don’t worry at least you weren’t a blood and soil nationalist
I’m struggling a bit with this one. There is no need to bedevil this franchise by labelling it as “blood and soil” Nationalism.
If anybody cares to check, it was Scotland’s voting franchise in 2014 which was a marked departure from established normal practice in who was allowed to vote.
It would be entirely normal to adopt a more standard voting franchise, recognised and indeed described by the UN, without going anywhere near this concept of “blood and soil” nationalism.
If the Scots want to be an all-inclusive accommodating Nation for immigrants, then the Scots need to take command of their Nation to make it so. You cannot make that decision until you have made sure your decision is final. Right now, there is a foreign power usurping that right and enforcing it’s colonial will over Scotland. THEY are the ones misappropriating Scotland’s constitutional right to determine it’s own future. It is NOT blood and soil nationalism to take that right away from them.
Restrict the vote to Scottish people who would become Scottish citizens after Independence. This doesn’t exclude English or European settlers, it merely puts a prerequisite of earning the right of citizenship before they can vote…. as would be the norm in any other country, even the UK.
Sovereignty is the power to make decisions, and by definition, take those decisions out the hands of others. That isn’t blood and soil Nationalism. It is neither bigotry nor prejudice, nor an implementation of hatred or exceptionalism. It is a decision made on the future of Scotland actually being made by Scots.
Please DO NOT go down the rabbit hole of blood and soil Nationalism. Apart from anything else, it betrays a lack of understanding what blood and soil nationalism actually means. It is a loaded description of the type of activities which the Nazi’s preached.
The swastika was a traditional symbol of luck and prosperity before it was indelibly stained by nazism. The national and socialist components of the actual word “Nazi”, when combined in a particular context are synonymous with Hitlers nazism, and no longer describe the principles of nationalism or socialism.
It seems the words “blood” and “soil” are suffering from the same overtones and misappropriation.
Just wait,… Sturgeon will even describe this franchise as cheating or unlawful. She will. Please don’t put the words in her mouth because the dumb acolytes will believe it’s so, and Scotland will then be shorn of yet another raft of legitimate Constitutional rights and entitlements.
Scotland has broken the mould and defined Scottish nationalism as a constructive, civic nationalism. Scotland can do the same with a “blood and soil” voting franchise for Scottish Independence. Make it our own, and make it a benign and an un-loaded expression in Scotland. Our people are NOT blood and soil nazis, and we know this. Please, let us not tie one hand behind our back.
Taken a long time for the political Police ( and prosecution service ) to move this forward to a formal investigation.
Policing and prosecution in today’s Scotland is a rotten corrupt charade and without doubt had it not been for Wings this ‘ investigation ‘ would never have happened.
Will it move further forward, will there be charges brought, who will stand accused. Could it bring Nicola Sturgeon and her husband down. I hope so, and wouldn’t it be karma to see her in the dock where so many of us earnestly believe she and her ilk belong. Hoist by her own petard.
Independence requires the destruction of the SNP in its current form. People like Surgeon have ruined the SNP, have tried to quell the movement, so let us pray that prosecution ensues.
Enjoy your retirement Stu. Nice to see you back to post this one.
We are after all, trying to make Scotland an Independent Nation, not a hippie commune.
@Fishy Wullie 6am
Do I believe all of those calling for a limitation of or change to the 2014 franchise are blood and soil nationalists? No.
Do I believe some of them are? Hell Yes.
I have articulated my arguments elsewhere recently, as you’d know if you’d been following the argument you seem happy to pontificate on, but not actually argue in any detail here. Like so many, you’re happy to sit and throw rocks from the sidelines.
Again, I agree with Stu (which oddly I’m now being attacked for on his own blog) that nobody is saying you can’t discuss it, we’re simply disagreeing with the premise and whether it’s either the right time, or an issue that has any traction or support in the wider movement. I’d grant that some of you are vocal, but is there even a shred of evidence that anyone in the SNP, Greens or Alba supports moves to change the franchise?
Your last paragraph suggests that your nationalism is anything but civic. It may not be full on “blood and soil”, but what is it you’re actually proposing?
Limiting the vote to those born here?
A longer residence qualification before people are allowed to participate?
If so, how long? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?
If your nationalism is centred on those “born and bred” and being in your blood, do you support Scots born folk in the diaspora (whether rest of the UK or globally) being given the vote?
How about their children and grandchildren?
They are after all putative citizens, so why shouldn’t they have a say?
No system is prefect, but the 2014 system had the elegance of simplicity and both looked and felt progressive and inclusive.
I’ll post a link to an academic paper that linked to in discussions elsewhere earlier this week that well encapsulates the issues:
https://www.catedraferratermora.cat/docs/Posts/Who-is-entitled-to-vote.pdf
Not a SINGLE one of the nativists who have been disagreeing with me since has had the wit to actually engage with the issues in that paper: whether that’s due to intellectual laziness or some other motivation I’ll leave for readers in general to decide.
Despite me pointed out (several times, in different forums) that this paper actually disproves what some of the nativists are saying they simply ignore the facts.
Why is that do you think? Is it because they aren’t actually that interested in facts?
It’s far easier to come out with the “we wuz robbed” narrative than actually do the research isn’t it?
Barrhead Boy and Iain Lawsons output is full of people stating as a fact that no other country allows “non-nationals” to vote in independence referendums. I’ve shown that this simply isn’t true, but like I said:
YOU CAN’T KILL A BAD IDEA.
I leave you and the other nativists with a quote from the end of the paper above from Jure Vidmar in his discussion of the Scottish 2014 indyref in relation to a Slovenian:
‘at the end of the day, it should be, in principle, for the people who live in a certain territory to determine the destiny of that territory. Would it really be legitimate that the future of Scotland be decided by a Scottish-born person, who feels very Scottish otherwise, but has lived in London or Sydney for 40 years? Should Scotland become independent, good reasons may exist to indeed give this person an option to claim Scottish citizenship. At the same time, good reasons exist why this person should not vote in the referendum (…) An independence referendum is an eminently territorial question, so its rules of enfranchisement should also be, in principle, territorial.’
Thanks to everyone who commented on the “B&S debate”, though there seems to be more heat than light being generated.
I think it’s reasonably obvious that if the franchise had been tighter in 2014 then we’d be free. But we’d be living in Belarus II for sure given the shower of cretins in government right now.
In the upcoming referendum if you can’t present a compelling case for Scotland going it’s own way given the likes of Johnson, Hancock, Frost, Patel as the alternative you don’t deserve it. It’s as open a goal as it’s going to get.
Also that franchise might just be the passport to success if you could sell the idea that people can get back into Europe – that seems like an overwhelming advantage that dwarfs every other consideration. Sadly the shower of cretins in government right now are not only not on the field they aren’t even out of bed.
While I think a lot of the voter franchise issues are correct, they probably don’t matter as they are easily countered with a bit of vision and enthusiasm – exactly the ingredients needed to make a flying start in a newly (re)independent country.
Take for example the good folks of Caithness. We’re not Scots, we don’t speak Gaelic. Edinburgh is as far away as London. We’ve seen the cack-handed government that the cretins in Inverness deliver and we’re not much interested. These are the people you need to persuade, along with our neighbours in Orkney and Shetland. Carry them with a compelling vision for independence and you’ll carry everybody else too. No blood or soil required.
It’s important not to forget the terms on which you gain independence set the agenda for generations to come.
Andy Ellis says:
14 July, 2021 at 8:49 am
They are after all putative citizens, so why shouldn’t they have a say?
The do have a say. They can lobby and voice their opinions, and partake whole heartedly in the campaign without prejudice or discrimination, but they have to qualify as naturalised Scots to secure a vote.
That is NOT irrational “blood and soil” nationalism, so please do not conflate it as such.
@twathater 2.49am
So much rage, so little reason. Perhaps little more can be expected from someone positing at 2.29 am, huh?
Raging against the machine won’t gain us independence. If we can’t convince “incomers” of the case for independence, we don’t deserve to be independent. It’s immaterial that 72% of them voted No because “native Scots” could still easily outvote them if they had the political bollocks to do so.
Look at the list of referendum results here, Table 2, pages 42-43
https://www.catedraferratermora.cat/docs/Posts/Who-is-entitled-to-vote.pdf
Virtually all of them voted in favour of independence by >90%. It’s not incomers you should be concerned about, it’s convincing the natives and wondering why if the case we’re making for independence can’t convince so many your fellow Scots, why would it seem a great idea to recent arrivals?
You’re not going to increase the chances of independence by alienating large sections of the Yes movement who approve of civic nationalism and would be horrified at changing the franchise.
It’s far easier to hide behind the tawdry, intellectually bankrupt line that it isn’t our fault or responsibility: we were robbed, colonised, “swamped” by settlers, the vote was rigged. It’s the political equivalent of “a big boy done it and ran away”.
@Breeks 9.04 am
I meant they don’t have a say as in they are not entitled to vote (and I’ve always opposed them having the vote, including when I lived in England by the way).
I was using the example as a way of pointing out the shortcomings of the “nativist” position. If they’re so keen on excluding sections of the population resident in Scotland they consider not Scottish enough, logic surely dictates that any “new” franchise they seek to introduce should include those born in Scotland.
They would after all later qualify as citizens of an independent Scotland but currently happen to live outside the country.
Who can vote in any election or referendum in Scotland has to change. I have relatives in Canada, born in Scotland but have not lived here for decades, yet they voted in the 2014 ref.
And before folks get steamed up about a skewed interpretation of blood and soil Nationalism, let me forewarn you I will fully be expecting a similar declaration of outrage at the monopoly of bias and propaganda in the “Scottish” media which thoroughly dominates the narrative and agenda to the great disservice of Scotland.
Why shouldn’t “they” have a say? You ask… Why should the BBC be sole colonial arbiter about what and when WE have a say?
I promise you, the wanton indoctrination and disinformation throughout the media, which Scottish voters have been, and will be again, subjected to is a much bigger colonial subjugation than this bullshit “blood and soil” slippery slope to Nazism which people are feeling uncomfortable about.
We’re not even asking for a Scottish bias or advantage ffs, just fairness, fullness, and equity in Scottish media. How does Westminster’s flagrant denial of this square with an objectively neutral Scottish voters franchise which is recognised under UN protocols? If it is a slippery slope to Nazism, take it up with the UN. Don’t bind Scotland to holding elections which Westminster can rig with impunity.
And no, I am NOT changing the subject. There is a false equivalence bemoaning the “perils” of a blood and soil voters franchise (which is no such thing anyway), and the unchecked subversive distortion of Scotland’s news and political debate.
@Lochside 10.38 pm
Other countries HAVE had similar franchises and gained independence though. Asserting it isn’t the case just makes you look intellectually dishonest or ill-informed. Neither is a particularly good look.
The only sensible and defensible franchise in our situation is residence based, not ethnically based. Many other new states have achieved independence without our advantages: we’re not being denied the prize by incomers, but by lack of bottle on the part of the majority natives.
Using what passes for your argument, we’d still lose if you did gerrymander the franchise because you’d lose as many current civic nationalists votes as you’d gain amongst the nutter fringe.
Good luck persuading Alba and the SNP to adopt your regressive scheme.
Doubtless you’ll be able to point to all those influential folks supporting your plans?
What’s that…? You’ve got Alf “Colony” Baird?
Uh huh….
Andy Ellis, you are a sly and dishonest troll. You continually conflate false and contradictory arguments. I have never advocated Scots only voting in the franchise. I have always been against Scots living outside of Scotland getting to vote in a Referendum. If I subscribed to your deliberate and inflammatory phrase of ‘Blood and Soil’, I would by definition agree to Ulster Scots voting as well. I don’t. For the same reason that I believe that RESIDENTS only should vote in a Referendum.
Yes, I want a longer residency qualification because of the large demographic numbers of people moving in to Scotland from RUK who are proven to be antipathetic to Scottish Independence. The proof was in 2014’s result of 72% Ruk voting against, not abstaining, as I would have hoped. England has been voting for the tories overwhelmingly and their right wing policies for a long time, why the people moving here should be liberal wannabe ‘New Scots’ is a dangerous and foolish belief.
If you are arguing that our open border is not a risk from economic domination by another population that can outnumber and outvote us that is our biggest and closest neighbour and has historically, politically and culturally attempted to subjugate us, then you are either a fool or a liar. I suspect the latter.
Your arrogance and insulting manner marks you out for the fraud that you are. I have never bought your bogus allegiance to our Cause. Your showboating pseudo academic schtick may fool some naive elements on here, but you got short shrift on the ALBA supporting site ‘YOUR FOR SCOTLAND’. Your constant sneaky attacks towards Prof Alf Baird, whose experience and intellect makes you look the puny pipsqueak that you are is risible.
@Confused 12.04: “Gotta go, Landward are doing a bit on me, my fragrant wife and our artisanal cheese.”
That line gave me a much needed laugh but it does sum up that particular situation pretty well.
” It’s immaterial that 72% of them voted No because “native Scots” could still easily outvote them if they had the political bollocks to do so.”
Andy Ellis.
Its not immaterial, that was the exact reason we lost in 2014, no other EU countries allows such a wide franchise on elections, and I’m pretty sure none would dream of doing it in a plebiscite election.
Scots actually voted yes to independence in 2014, if we hadn’t given such a wide range to other voters we’d have won. Of course there’s the negative attitudes to leaving other/incomers out of the vote, but what really matters is we win it, and if it means narrowing the voter base just for this one plebiscite so be it.
‘ScotsRenewables says:
13 July, 2021 at 11:29 pm
Lochside, you may believe all the drivel you spout on here, but the owner of this blog hates it and has called it out repeatedly for the utter pish it is.
I hate the antivaxxers and blood-and-soilers who defile this space. I think it is a great shame Stu can’t be bothered banning you.
You are part of the reason this blog is dead and may well never return. You are an enemy of indy, not an asset.
So why don’t you just fuck off and peddle your mince elsewhere, you total wankpiece.’/////////////////////////////////////////////
Thanks for your insane and deluded comments whoever and whatever you are. You are another self appointed guardian of a moribund site. I have commented on this site for nearly a decade. The Rev has never criticised my comments apart from once, in regard to a comparison of murders committed by the Old Firm in a discussion on bigotry.
Therefore, what he ‘hates’ about my comments I am not clear. But neither are you, by the sound of it. You conflate me with ‘blood and soilers and anti vaxers’, I am neither. You obviously have something personal going on which is worrying you. I sympathise. You appear to have no logical understanding of basic arguments for the franchise. Nowhere have I ever argued for ‘Scots only vote’anything.
I don’t know whether to be flattered, insulted but I suggest you consult your G.P. for a mental health assessment for accusing me personally of being responsible for this great site’s demise. Delusional and insulting you may be, but I pity you.
Y’know Sean Clerkin gets a bad rap from many indy supporters but if there were far more Sean Clerkin’s in our ranks we’d have probably obtained indy by now. I say that because Mr Clerkin made the initial complaint to the police about the the missing indyfunds.
Mr Clerkin actually went to the Scottish border during the height of the pandemic when England was rife with the pandemic and tried to dissuade people coming into Scotland, whilst Sturgeon sat back and mumbled that its not within Holyrood’s remit, just as she’s done for years on drug consumption rooms as thousands of Scots died waiting for real help.
Freedom Day in England is less than a week away, I wonder what measures Sturgeon has taken to stop a flood of English tourists heading North when it arrives.
@Lochside 9.46 am
As usual you’re coming up empty. Short on evidence, long on assertion. You personally may not be advocating such a restriction on franchise, but many of those arguing for it do.
I’m neither trolling nor am I conflating or misconstruing any arguments. I just set out above an example: lots of the nativists insist we are unique in “allowing” a broadly based franchise for independence or constitutional votes, but this simply isn’t the case. I even helpfully linked to a scholarly article discussing the matter which point out that there are indeed examples of widely based residence franchises for such votes.
You have nothing of value to add, just lots of invective and the usual rejoinder of the hard of thinking that I can’t be a “real” supporter because I don’t agree with your minority woo-woo view. Strange then that I’m the one posting under my own name, the one who posted pictures of my SNP members card cut in two when I resigned from the party in protest at their treatment of Grouse Beater, and the one who is a founder member of Alba?
Alf Baird may have many accomplishments, but convincing more than a small minority of the movement of the validity of his “Scotland as colony” narrative isn’t one of them.
It takes a special kind of stupid to believe that changing the franchise will magically make independence more rather than less likely, but then as comments like yours demonstrate only too well there is plenty of stupid to go around.
They hid the McCrone Report, they hid the stealing of the 6000SQ miles of Scottish waters, now they’ve hid the indy polling from Scots and have appealed against it being revealed.
The first two items are of great importance to Scots and show clearly that we are not in a union of equals, but are a region to be exploited as Westminster sees fit, from the Malt tax to North sea oil etc.
However the third item of Westminster hiding union polling results during the pandemic, and the outrage among SNP MP’s is nothing more than fingering pointing, if revealed and the polls showed that indy was at say 60% or more, what does it matter, for Sturgeon has no intentions of holding a indyref, its all deflection from the SNP to keep the Westminster bad ethos going whilst nothing happens on the indy front here.
This place is busier than any other independence-supporting site. The discussion seems pretty brisk.
No single subject exists in a vacuum – plenty of folk are capable of tying their shoelaces and chewing gum simultaneously. The monomaniacs who get upset because their favoured topic isn’t the sole focus of discussion ought to celebrate that rather than resort to foot-stamping and name-calling.
They know who they are so, happily, there is no need for me to finger anyone.
Have a braw day!
😉
“Alf Baird may have many accomplishments, but convincing more than a small minority of the movement of the validity of his “Scotland as colony” narrative isn’t one of them.”
Andy Ellis.
Andy that’s because they cannot see it, our history our culture and our languages have been suppressed and in the most and replace with that of England’s. We have no control over who can immigrate into Scotland, our assets and people (Westminster wars) have also been exploited for centuries.
As with Holyrood colonial governments don’t have a full range of powers afforded to sovereign states, and as with colonies sovereignty on vital matters always lies outwith the colonial governments remit.
As much as it might pain some to read it Alf Baird is correct.
@Breeks
Firstly the word ‘Nazi’ isn’t an amalgamation of National and Socialist. It is a pejorative, something akin to a more rude version of ‘country bumpkin’ or ‘fool’. The national socialists didn’t call themselves Nazis.
This of course shows up the people in the modern day who call themselves Nazis as being doubly foolish and uninformed. Which explains why they can also act like the kind of degenerates that actual national socialists despised.
There is nothing short of brainwashed ignorance around from all sides in fact.
I am not a fan of racial exceptionalism and I am certainly not a fan of racial hatred, nor am I a fan of militant centralization of power in the hands of 1 or just several people, nor am I into banning speech that goes against my ethos. So lets get the idea that what I advocate for us as Scots is nearly akin to what we call Nazis nor could it ever be.
I have a great deal of respect for your excellent contributions to the conversation, which are often worthy of their own blog.
However you, like myself at one point, have a view on that era of history that conforms completely with one side – the winners. I.e the bankers, free masons and international communists and capitalists (neo liberals)
My view on it started to change one sunny day on a hill in Eastern Europe. I was sitting with my now wife next to a giant monument. I asked her what it was and she said ‘Its a monument to the German soldiers who died here’. I made the neutral (and accurate observation) that the young guys who fight for a cause very often don’t know how they are being used.
Then she told me something that I had to stay silent on. She said ‘there are nursery songs the children here still sing about how Hitler tried to save us from communism.’
My incredulity increased when I got to hear of the stories the people had to tell. For example 1 guy who sold eggs said that the Germans would come and take what they need but always leave something in return, they were respectful. When the communists came they took everything and beat him. This theme is common.
So I started to look beyond my own British state brainwashing. I found that a lot of people who were actually there found order and peace under the Germans but brutal savagery under the communists. Ingrid Rimland wrote a book about how she, her sister and mother were standing on the train station with many others waiting to be herded on the cattle cars to Siberian gulags. The Germans arrived on time and stopped the trains. They reopened the Churches as they advanced and gave back some freedom to people who had been under absolute tyranny. When they were in retreat they made sure to protect and look after the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were fleeing the Red Army (who were under no geneva convention or other international law). This is why many refugees died when the allies turned Germany to dust. More bombs were dropped on Hamburg in one night than the Germans had dropped on Britain throughout the war (bombing that Britain was doing on German cities months before the Germans retaliated by doing the same which is fact).
The Rape of Germany then followed with orders coming from the very top that every female between the age of 8 and 88 were to be raped or shot if she resisted. This resulted in an estimated 2 million rapes and who knows how many murders. General Patton himself spoke of how he was deliberately delayed in taking Berlin and could have protected the people. His words ‘We fought the wrong people’. The Soviets took care to bring in the most brutal units to do the job.
More than 1.5 German POW’s who had lawfully surrendered were marched to the banks of the Rhine, a fence put up around them and then left to perish.
Ultimately more than 15 million Germans died. Then as soon as the war was over the rewriting of history began and the absolute might of the media, publishing houses and education were brought to bear not just on the Germans but on all of us.
But, surely they brought this on themselves? How can any people who invade other countries and put to death millions of people in death camps expect anything else? I mean we have all seen Schindlers list, heard the survivors and seen the stories.
Well firstly Schindlers list won a prize in the fiction category.
As for the rest:
There are more than 10 references to the brutalisation and murder of ‘6 million jews’ in Western newspapers between 1915 and about 1938. They can all be found archived.
The prophesy is that ‘we leave 6 million behind’ before returning to the promised land.
6 million jews dying is the founding myth of the state of Israel. Nothing more.
So what happened? I will not go into the build up in tensions and social strife before, but I will say that Bolshevism was founded by, financed by and attempted within many countries in Eastern Europe and Russia leading to many millions of horrific deaths. The main originators of this crime were Jewish supremacists. The same was attempted in Germany. An honest look at German policies and even statements show that the ‘Nazis’ were fighting against world bolshevism and not jews themselves, which explains the apparent (western lies) hypocrisy in National Socialists having Jewish doctors, mistresses and even units of Jewish soldiers including 2 senior officers.
By 1941 communist partisans were using Jewish ghettos for storing supplies and weapons for all out attacks on the Germans. who were already under hard pressure. The answer was to move them to camps in the same way the Americans moved Japanese Americans. Because of a European Typhus epidemic the need to shave the heads and delouse the clothes of all inmates was necessary.
Ultimately the Red Cross report that was classified in 1946 (and declassified in 1996) says that the people there were compelled to work in and around the camps. There were hospitals, maternity wards, theatres and other recreational facilities.
In the end there were around 271,000 casualties in all camps due to starvation and Typhus with no evidence being found of recent murders, including gas chambers. Starvation was a theme in Germany at the time
The 7 ‘death camps’ were all the ones discovered by the Soviets. The Soviet archives opened after the fall of the USSR in 1989 and found that they made great efforts to make it seem this way, just like the Katyn massacre (look it up).
The best thing about European countries taking ‘deniers’ to court and jailing them (such as Ursula Haverbeck who has been jailed twice in old age for disputing the numbers involved) is it gives a chance for evidence to be brought out. Such as Anne Franks diary being largely a post war fabrication.
So why would there be a need for this. Because the National Socialists, for all their flaws, ended the grip of international banking on the Germans and declared that they would free all nations of the same, they kicked out the masons and closed the lodges, they stood for the rights of Europeans to not be subverted by financiers and fake democrats and advocated it for all people.
The demonisation is there so we don’t take an honest look at what was being suggested and think ‘you know, we could do some of the better ideas in this’.
I am not a supporter of totalitarianism but I am up for taking an honest look at both sides of a story. The people we need to fear now are not the ones recognising the ‘blood and soil’ aspect of real nationalism, its the ones trying to take our nations away from us.
The Germans have been brow beaten and told that they have some kind of murderous cultural or racial quality based on the lies of WWII
So that’s the ‘Nazis’ very quickly dealt with. If we are going to make comparisons then we best start to take an honest look at what we are comparing against
So the never directly elected (Though SNP both votes crowd have elected him) will face no action on telling folk on BBC radio Manchester to come to Scotland when the Scottish government explicitly asked them not to, after Sturgeon had a run in with Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham.
Reported to Holyrood’s Presiding Officers for his conduct, which surely must’ve been tantamount to breaking the law, it now turns out dealing with it is outside the Presiding Officers remit.
So basically there’s no accountability to what Fraser can say outside the chamber other than that of public opinion.
Re my above comment the focus of the comment is Murdo Fraser.
Scots Renewables. Your abusive language is unwarranted. You falsely conflate “blood and soil” with “anti vaxxer”. You’re dishonest.
Allow me to remind you that I, as well as my family, are fully vaccinated with real vaccines. The experimental gene therapy that Governments are suspiciously keen to inject into us is not a vaccine. From the reports I’m seeing it looks, for many people, to be a kill shot.
The process that has brought this mRNA experimental “vaccine” into existence was and is highly dubious at best but more likely “criminal conspiracy”. You’ve probably watched the links I’ve posted here. That will explain your Anger at me because you know you’re a wrong yin.
Why are we not allowed to question Government motives? Why are we to take the Pharmaceutical industry at their word given their track record for dishonesty and sharp practice cutting corners on safety?
Why do you get so het up if I disagree with your Governments narrative?.
None of these questions are ever adequately answered with links to BBC or other Mainstream ” news” stenographer as you should know by now the MSM are never to be trusted. What a selective memory the States Agents have. In 2014 we in the Independence movement realised the media were waging war against us I refer you to Prof. John Robertson excellent work “London Calli g”. Have you forgotten how and who the MSM work for? Or are you selectively obtuse?
London Calling. Excuse my idiot computer.
Not many people read David Irving and try and pass his “patter” off as their own.
Interesting that you always come out with this stuff when we are talking about Scottish culture, J.o.e. It’s almost as if the two subjects are connected in some mysterious way.
Andy Ellis. Why are you so focused on ” blood and soil” nationalism? Are you having a wee purge? Are you trying to create the impression that it’s aan issue? Are you trying to distract from the publics attention that rather blatant Fascist take over of our politics?
@Hatuey
If my beliefs in nationalism are going to be compared and contrasted in any way with the ‘Nazis’ then I am going to happily discuss the lies and truths around the subject of the ‘Nazis’ so we can at least start to compare against something that isn’t outright post war propaganda.
Im not going to be one of those people who say ‘yes, Scots are a distinct people who deserve the right to their own homeland for the benefit of their nation’ and be told ‘that sounds a bit Nazi’ and then throw my hands up in the air and run away from the subject.
No, if we are going to talk ‘Nazi’ lets talk ‘Nazi’
Joe. You certainly know how to queer a pitch. Fuck.
Is this not just a simple case of money missing from SNP funds.
Does it make any difference what it was donated for?
Is it any different to the Natalie McGarry case?
Money went missing from ‘Women for Independence’ funds & Natalie McGarry was charged with embezzlement.
The difference could be that Natalie McGarry was working alone whereas there is more than one person involved in the SNP embezzlement.
I read some steaming pish on here, but you J.O.E. have really taken it to new levels.
Firstly the word ‘Nazi’ isn’t an amalgamation of National and Socialist. It is a pejorative, something akin to a more rude version of ‘country bumpkin’ or ‘fool’.
‘Nazi’ was a jokey contraction based around the fact the most common Jewish group in Germany were the Azkenazis – the people Hitler and his morons blamed for just about everything.
Not that they were alone – Ottoman Empire apologists did much the same line over its collapse, and a certain Henry Ford had began publishing what became known as “The International Jew” (which Hitler and co ripped off) to keep his vanity newspaper afloat.
There are more than 10 references to the brutalisation and murder of ‘6 million jews’ in Western newspapers between 1915 and about 1938. They can all be found archived.
Oh, the lazy “whataboutery” on “6 million Jews” line – a fine example of the cherrypicking school of revisionism (much loved by people talking about Irish politics, Middle East politics, etc).
Yes, it is well established that newspaper editors lazily trotted out there were 6 million Jews in Europe, long after demographic trends alone suggested otherwise. But a combination of factors – such as the poor or even non-existent updating of census data due to various economic crises between the 20s and 30s – contributed to the paradox that there were still 4 million Jews in Europe after the war despite the Holocaust. You only have to look at the way even today Covid 19 has made a pig’s breakfast of our own census (happened in England, cancelled in Scotland) to see how easily the data can become compromised.
By 1941 communist partisans were using Jewish ghettos for storing supplies and weapons for all out attacks on the Germans. who were already under hard pressure. The answer was to move them to camps in the same way the Americans moved Japanese Americans.
So what communist partisans and Jewish ghettos were there in 1933 which required the establishment of Dachau, Lichtenberg, Nohra and seventy other concentration camps – long before the “classic” camps such as Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald were built – again long before World War 2, let alone 1941. Or did those wacky ghetto Jews have a time machine where they transported communist partisan squads back into the past to carry out sabotage raids while searching for the painting of the Fallen Madonna by Van Klomp?
Anyone who is moronic enough to believe any of revisionist crap, buy yourself a copy of “Commandant of Auschwitz” by Rudolph Hoess (the autobiography of the actual commandant) – someone who went to the gallows an unrepentent Nazi yet warned back in the day that what went on in the camps was so inhumane and at times outright bizarre that within ten years people would start pretending it all hadn’t happened, even though history had shown time and again there’s never any limit to the cruelties that can happen in a war.
Ian Brotherhood
🙂 🙂
@Pixywine 10.59am
It’s just one issue: I’m not that focused on it, but it is an issue that’s been around for a long while, and – more pertinently – it’s one that Stu discussed, so not sure what your point is…..?
I happen to believe, as apparently does Stu and id wager the vast majority of the movement, that the issue of changing the 2014 franchise is not one we need to shoot ourselves in the foot with right now. That doesn’t mean it can’t be discussed, nor does it mean we all have to agree.
Those advocating for change on this issue aren’t all regressive blood and soil types, but some undoubtedly are. Others probably do have legitimate concerns, but they’re not convincing undecideds or showing any evidence that there is any appetite for changing the existing franchise.
None of the pro indy parties have said they are interested in doing it, and I’m not hearing any “noises off” from Alba about it being a thing. Of course that might change if the members of the party decide they want to make it an issue.
I’m all ears: all we we get so far is variations on the “we wuz robbed” theme and Alf Baird assuring us it isn’t our fault we bottled it in 2014, it was because we’re a colony.
What a cop out!
This whole argument about the franchise does remind me a bit of the football fan who blames one bad refereeing decision at the end of the season for getting their team relegated, forgetting their team’s poor performance for the rest of the season. In reality, it wasn’t the referee that got the team sent down but their bad play over many games. Blaming incomers for tipping the vote over the edge to ‘No’ in 2014 (is that even proven?) is the equivalent of blaming the ref, whereas in fact it was the failure to persuade the hugely more significant number of natives that lost it.
It also strikes me as pretty desperate to be happy for independence to be determined on what could end up being a minority of citizens of the newly independent country. And those incomer citizens would then be made to feel pretty unwelcome judging by some of the comments above, one of the worst possible outcomes due to independence imaginable.
If this debate is meaningfully representative, the very just and righteous cause of Scottish independence has got to a pretty sorry state and is going backwards into oblivion, fast.
https://gordondangerfield.com/2021/05/09/letter-to-a-friend/#comments
I went to the Gordon Dangerfield site to see if he had anything to say re the ‘SNP Embezzlement case’ and found I had missed the above post.
Very interesting!
Many interesting BTL comments with one excellent on from Morag.
All getting proverbial undies in a twist over who can/can’t vote in IndyRef2, you first need a party of Government who has the desire to hold such.
You haven’t got one of those, in case you hadn’t noticed!
How about putting the IndyRef2 cart behind the Indy Govt. horse, because you’re currently doing it all wrong.
You cannot vote in scotland if your main residence is not here, and that’s how it should be, anyone that wants to vote in our elections then stay here and help us improve our lot.
Someone mentioned here that they had relatives that moved away decades ago and still got a vote in the 2014 referendum
Impossible, you don’t reside here, you don’t get to vote
I would say any newcomers to scotland should not be able to vote in national referendums and general elections for at least 10 years, but all local type elections, no problem
Its just my opinion, because in 10 years a person would have proved they have a stake in the future of scotland just by staying and living here
Seems we are getting it all wrong, seems the poor little darling is upset about something, the poor wee thing
All together now, aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
It is good to see a sign of life Stu.Fact is, Wings was 1st to inform us of most of the SNP’s dirty deeds and Sophistry.
Was worried that Police Scotland would never pick up the ball. It’s definite fraud and there have been attempts by the SNP to kick this further into the financial fog they’ve created.
With all of Scotland’s institutions compromised I’ll be surprised if this leads to any prosecutions.Living in hope !!!
I’m actually more curious as to how the SNP function financially at all.
Membership’s down, the faithful “wont be fooled again”, and they’re still employing big salaried MF’s with all those bill’s to pay for covering up their lies.
House of cards springs to mind and I won’t be sad when it falls.
Way back in 2013 I watched the whole Westminster debate re “Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013”
there were some pretty mad suggesting along with very sensible ones. In the end common sense won and I was pretty happy with the decision.
I am not particularly interested in re-visiting that debate.
At the time I thought
Mark Lazorowicz Labour MP made an outstanding contribution.
Basically he argued for the franchise we had in 2014.
Anyone who is interested can watch it on Parliament TV.
https://archive.is/ZhC9C
“Let Scots in whole of UK vote on independence, Boris Johnson is urged”
Cabinet ministers are pushing Boris Johnson to toughen up the fight to save the Union by allowing Scots living anywhere in the UK to vote in a second independence referendum.
Bonkers idea. Would be interesting to know the names of these cabinet ministers and check what they had to say in the 2013 debate.
What ‘holiday homers’ voted for in 2014 may change in the next referendum due to Brexit.
As ‘robertknight’ not much point in discussing the franchise when there is no prospect of a IndyRef2 on the horizon.
The SNP can’t do very much if all their Indy funds have been stolen.
@David Caledonia 11.59am
10 years is almost certainly too long. Others have used 2 years which would seem appropriate for me. I’d even be open to excluding “temporary” residents like students. I think it’s possible to make arguments for small changes to the franchise that might attract majority support: the problem is getting the party of power to take up a proposal that enjoys wide support and then for them to implement it.
In reality I think most people are happy with the concept that only those living here and contributing should have a vote, and that it would be invidious to try and sort the sheep from the goats in any way that sought to exclude non-native born Scots. It’s simply not the kind of civic nationalism we are *meant* to represent as a progressive movement.
Perhaps the Scottish government should take a lead from the Generalitat’s book in Catalonia and put together a specific electoral registration list for the referendum? All residents normally resident in Scotland (perhaps with a 24 month) criteria should then be eligible?
You’ll still get howls of protest in some quarters of course, both pro and anti. One of the big problems for us as part of the UK is that unlike most other states who held independence votes in recent times we don’t have national ID cards. Perhaps we don’t want to go there either?!
“Let Scots in whole of UK vote on independence, Boris Johnson is urged”
Hang on! I think I’ve changed my mind.
That might be a brilliant idea especially for the YES vote.
Scots living in the RUK might like the idea of Scotland being in the EU whereby they can have dual EU-British passports.
‘The Best of Both Worlds’
The game is hardly over and England lost yet there is a petition going round demanding a knighthood for Gareth Southgate. The plea is laced with the over the top syrup of English nationlism which if coming from a Scot would be condemned.
I am reminded of the faux excuses by the English establishment to deny Jock Stein a knighthood when Celtic won the European cup in I think ’67 but of course Alf Ramsey received one for the at home 66 world cup win.
What is it going to take to get our freedom from England.
Andy Ellis,
I like the idea of a specific electoral registration list. Whoever manages that has a lot of control over the entire process – distribution of the Wee Blue Book for example. That in itself would be a huge advantage and would go a long way of spiking the propaganda and let people decide for themselves.
I think that when you say you have retired there is an expectation that the manufactured bile will cease to be promulgated. So what happened that forced you to break this promise ? Or was it just an attempt at more self publicity ?
Hi Robert Menzies at 1:33 pm.
You mentioned,
“there is an expectation that the manufactured bile will cease to be promulgated”
What do you regard as “manufactured bile”?
Bdtt,
An example might be calling Robert Menzies a tit but not sure, some people might view that as an accurate description rather than manufactured bile.
Andy Ellis says:
14 July, 2021 at 12:39 pm
@David Caledonia 11.59am
10 years is almost certainly too long. Others have used 2 years which would seem appropriate for me. I’d even be open to excluding “temporary” residents like students. I think it’s possible to make arguments for small changes…
Feels like it’s becoming pedantic, but IF the 2014 Referendum was a victory for home grown indigenous Scottish voters, but turned into a victory for NO because the franchise was extended to (by literal definition) non-Scots, then the 2014 Referendum Result was unconstitutional because the will of sovereign Scots was overruled by the will of non-sovereign Non-Scots, who’s votes constitutionally should not have counted.
Giving votes to non-Scots is diluting the principle of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty, though it seems nobody in Scotland gives to fks about it.
Another day, another post from Ruby in which she clarifies, once again, that her settled belief is that Scotland cannot exist as an independent nation state, governed from Edinburgh, by representatives of its people, voted into office under a democratic system.
A nation of Scots, governed by Scots resident in Scotland, in the interests of the Scottish people.
Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that there are no independent countries in the EU?
What is the con trick that Ruby and her ilk are constantly trying to advance?
Who’s agenda are they following?
Are you the famous Robert Menzies?
Prized amongst the SNP elite, for a lack of gag reflex.
Sturgeon is an evil dragon. So are Evans, Lloyd, Murrell, Lord Wolffe, Swinney, MacKinnon et al.
Now, I have been wondering about an apt collective noun with which to describe those benighted balloons who wasted their regional list vote on the SNP (along with their constituency SNP vote). Both votes SNP gets you loads of Unionist MSPs after all.
Well, here it is:
KOBOLDS.
“Kobolds are craven reptilian humanoids that worship evil dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies.”
Source: Germanic Mythology morphed into Scottish reality.
Oh, and Robert Menzies is a KOBOLD.
“Its just my opinion, because in 10 years a person would have proved they have a stake in the future of scotland just by staying and living here”
Dave Caledonia.
Yip sounds about right to me Dave, if they haven’t realised after ten years that Westminster is the enemy of Scottish progress then its unlikely they’re ever going to.
Ten years residents as you rightly say should show that the person/ people have a serious commitment in the future of Scotland.
Robert Knight @11.57am.
Robert.
There’s no harm in discussing the pro-and-cons of a situation, we’re all fully aware of the current Scottish governments stance on Scottish independence.
“Blaming incomers for tipping the vote over the edge to ‘No’ in 2014 (is that even proven?)”
Southernbystander @11.35am.
Its obvious to me that you don’t have a dog in this fight, or you would’ve known this common fact.
https://archive.is/izlrV
@Breeks 2.06 pm
The sovereign Scots parliament negotiated the Edinburgh agreement with Westminster, including the franchise. If the “ethnos” (i.e. those you identify as Scots by birth) want to exclude a section of the “demos” (i.e those entitled to vote irrespective of their birth) then it is incumbent on them to make it so. They can do this by electing a government which agrees to limit the franchise according to the criteria they want.
The issue for Scotland that as part of the UK there is no current easy method to deconstruct the demos and selectively disbar particular sections or proportions of it. We can all argue the toss about what the detailed criteria of a “new” franchise might look like, but in the end I expect you’re still going to be faced with two camps. One will favour a liberal franchise encompassing as much of the demos as possible as they will regard it as the most progressive and socially just outcome. The other camp will look at the figures quoted from 2014 and seek to limit the franchise to exclude as many of the demos as possible on the grounds that they believe the result turned on the votes of (largely) incomers from the rest of the UK.
Whether those views can be reconciled I don’t know. Like others have said above, I think the view that a Yes result was “stolen” by non-native Scots is spurious. We don’t know what the result would actually have been in 2014 if the franchise had been different. Some Yes voters may not have approved and not supported independence for all we know. There is also the way it looks, and whether imposing a nativist criteria really scanned with protestations that “our” nationalism was better than that of Farage, or Orban or the Law and Justice party in Poland.
The Catalan referendum was residence based: it included citizens of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. Why shouldn’t our referendum in future follow suit? Why should some nationalities be included because they are given votes in General Elections, but others be excluded? Why, if you’re arguing in favour of a nativist criteria would anyone seek to exclude Scots born people abroad? Registered Catalans abroad were given the opportunity to participate in their referendum. I’d be a lot more convinced of the sincerity of those trying to change the franchise if they enfranchised Scots in the diaspora and explained how it was going to be done.
“The other camp will look at the figures quoted from 2014 and seek to limit the franchise to exclude as many of the demos as possible on the grounds that they believe the result turned on the votes of (largely) incomers from the rest of the UK.”
Andy Ellis.
Andy
What we believe Andy is its a FACT.
Why risk a rerun of incomers wanting live in or learn in Scotland, but they also want to remain in the union, it would be utter madness to keep doing the same thing and hope for a different result.
Andy Ellis
“I’d be a lot more convinced of the sincerity of those trying to change the franchise if they enfranchised Scots in the diaspora and explained how it was going to be done.”
Maybe you could put some kind of figure on how many voters you wish to enfranchise. Just so that we could estimate how that would affect the figures.
You could also explain why you think that people living abroad (what we used to call foreigners), should have a say in a decision of fundamental importance for the people of Scotland living in Scotland, when it will most likely have no tangible effect whatsoever on those who decided they liked the place so much they couldn’t wait to ship out.
Your position is fundamentally untenable. If Scots who move abroad are still Scots, then people who come here from anywhere are still of wherever they came from. You won’t accept that, therefore, by your own logic, Scots who move abroad are no longer Scots.
So not eligible to vote on Scotland’s future. They have new lives, new citizenships, they can vote on the matters that concern them in their new countries.
A important Scottish EU think tank closes its door, the think tank often had EU guests on which it spoke with and interviewed, on Scotland’s place/future in the EU.
It would appear that Brexit is becoming socially acceptable.
https://archive.is/CBrSF
Republicofscotland @ 2:25 pm
“Ten years residents as you rightly say should show that the person/ people have a serious commitment in the future of Scotland.”
Simply because someone chooses to live in another country does not necessarily mean they will have ‘a serious commitment’ to the future of that country or its people. Does one define ‘a serious commitment’ to a country and its people merely by working and living there? An ability to take a job and residence in a country is not exactly an oath of allegiance as required for those applying for citizenship of most countries and hence gaining access to voting rights. An oath of allegiance would be regarded as a serious commitment, whereas acquiring a piece of real estate or securing a high level job less so.
In colonial situations it is well established that the usurper merely exploits his privilege for as long as he is permitted to do so. As Albert Memmi wrote: ‘The material condition of a privileged person/usurper is identical for the one who inherits it at birth and the one who enjoys it from the time he lands. On the whole, to be a colonialist is the natural vocation of a colonizer.’
As Breeks says @ 2:06 pm:
“Giving votes to non-Scots is diluting the principle of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty”
Which is why sovereign peoples and nations never use a local election or residence-based franchise for national elections and national referendums.
@Republic 2.42pm
Why risk anything? You don’t know how everyone would have voted in 2014 if the franchise had been constructed to exclude “non natives” : how many of the bare majority who were Scots born who voted Yes might have voted No instead, or abstained? You have no clue, but it wouldn’t have taken that many.
On a different point, our nationalism – and the better nation we’re supposed to be constructing – has to be built with the consent of all those who live here and contribute if it is to mean anything. If our sense of self is so delicate and ephemeral that it doesn’t include Scots old and new, what does it really mean?
The fact remains, we aren’t getting a referendum anytime soon so this is largely an academic exercise tho’ interesting nonetheless. Another point for those arguing that we should restrict the franchise: if you’re really serious let’s look at removing voting rights from non UK citizens for General Elections. After all, why should some Commonwealth and Irish citizens be allowed a franchise, particularly if we’re possibly moving towards using plebiscitary elections instead of a referendum route?
“So not eligible to vote on Scotland’s future. They have new lives, new citizenships, they can vote on the matters that concern them in their new countries.”
A small number of Scots have always worked abroad and everyone knows that. On the basis that you want only Scots who live here to vote, that would exclude almost all of the Scotland football team, for example.
All of our teachers, doctors and engineers for example who work abroad wouldn’t get a vote either.
Holyrood has been in existence for twenty-odd years. I can remember when it was opened; it was supposed to be the most open and democratic parliament in the world. It is not though, is it?
If it was, and folk trusted them, then independence would be a very easy next step. It is not an easy next step because folk don’t trust anyone at Holyrood.
Folk are wanting to leave Scotland just now, in large numbers. When has that ever happened before?
“Why risk anything? You don’t know how everyone would have voted in 2014 if the franchise had been constructed to exclude “non natives””
Andy.
Lets not get into wild hypotheticals here, we know 52.7 per cent of native-born Scots voted Yes in 2014, and that figure has more than likely risen with Brexit, and Johnson as PM, not to mention a majority of pro-indy MSP’s now at Holyrood.
The longer we wait for a indyref the more socially acceptable Brexit becomes for some, God only knows how many new unionist minded incomers will have moved to Scotland by the time a indyref comes around, if it comes around.
No in my opinion a ten years resident status (as Dave Caledonia pointed out) should be the limit to extending the franchise on what will be a very important plebiscite for Scotland.
This isn’t meant to be disparaging of comments by others but the simple fact is that most ‘working class’ people in this country (Scotland) have no serious commitment to anyone or anything beyond their immediate family and friends. They’re preoccupied with trying to get by from one week to the next and aren’t going to waste their time listening to grandiloquence from Sturgeon, Blackford et al. They’re not fuckin daft.
Who can blame them for being utterly dismissive of political movements generally?
Labour enjoyed decades of power while purporting to represent ‘ordinary workers’. The SNP has simply replaced them and is similarly deserving of scorn.
So, who are ‘ordinary citizens’ supposed to have any faith in now?
@ John Main 2.56 pm
I’ve never supported Scots in the diaspora being enfranchised: I was using the argument as an example of the illogicality of the nativist position. I lived in England for 25 years until 2017. During #indyref1 I argued consistently against those saying the 800,000 Scots in the rest of the UK should get a vote. That still stands. It is however unarguable that if we achieve independence anyone born in Scotland or with Scots parents or grandparents will be entitled to Scottish citizenship.
The argument I used to make to them (mostly staunchly unionist Anglo Scots) was that if they were so keen to have a say, they should be prepared to vote only on condition that if the Yes side won, they automatically lost their UK passport, since they were obviously more Scots than UK. Interestingly not a single one ever said they’d do it.
Residence is the only sensible franchise, not birth. Those advocating for the latter, or for the exclusion of large numbers of “incomers” by other criteria would seem to me to be as big a danger to achieving our goal as the TRA extremists and SNP cultists who have rendered the party of government unfit for purpose.
We have a few years to turn things around. I have my doubts any party is going to accept that changing or restricting the franchise is a vote winner. I’ll certainly be arguing against Alba making any such move.
“On a different point, our nationalism – and the better nation we’re supposed to be constructing – has to be built with the consent of all those who live here and contribute if it is to mean anything. If our sense of self is so delicate and ephemeral that it doesn’t include Scots old and new, what does it really mean?”
Andy.
Its only one plebiscite, post the vote and I sincerely hope its a yes, I see no reason why votes on other issues can’t be extended, Scottish independence is far to serious a matter to be left in the hands of those who haven’t resided in Scotland for less than ten years.
I reckon the new census will not get published as it will be a shocker for England; the bureaucrats/politicians will be passing it around looking at each other “what are we going to do now?” and noting that – building yet more barratt boxes on floodplains, will not cut it.
– some junior bod, who got a A in CSE Geography, upgraded to a C pass at GCE, will point out that “Scotland has 40% of the land area, with 7% of the population, is rising rather than sinking and due to global warming will actually get a lot nicer, drier, like southern france in 1974 …” – problems “solved”!
The scottish youth future is secured, as waiters, maids and cleaners.
Anglo settlers buying Scotland out from under the Scots using the unearned profits from a property bubble, inflated by the city on purpose, fuelled in large degree by Scottish oil and gas – is a sick form of chutzpah, like being shot by your own stolen gun.
Every english who comes up here represents a loss for us – if rightwing they will be staunch unionists, and if “leftwing” they will only reinforce the SNP-Green monolith we are stuck under. The clock is ticking. If we finally get another indyref, it won’t matter, but even if we did win measures are being put in place – the 10 year economic plan – to selloff the whole thing to global capital anyway. Nothing will change (for the better), just get worse. It’s not just us – it happens everywhere – oligarchy, a captured political class, an economic straitjacket and no one to vote for; woke witch-hunts as social control; social balkanisation due to identity politics – “hard times for the little people”.
– this doom laden scenario might have happened anyway, but a meaningful independence in 2014 could have held it back for an extra 20 years.
@ Republic
No country in the world that I’ve come across imposes a 10 year hurdle. How many years do sports men and women have to live in Scotland before they can play for the national team?
For entities like Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec the default position should be residence, not birth or (ridiculously extended) naturalisation periods. Places trying to assert their self determination should be doing it on behalf of the demos, not the ethnos. There is a difference between how already existing independent states organise their franchises and citizenship rights and how people trying to assert their independence define them.
The international community will take such things into account when it comes to their recognition or otherwise of any new state.
@Confused
“– this doom laden scenario might have happened anyway, but a meaningful independence in 2014 could have held it back for an extra 20 years.”
That’s the best you can hope for.
Future Historians will see the 2014 referendum as an earth tremor before Brexit.
Andy Ellis. Fair enough man.
@Andy Ellis – mince. Again.
This endless debate over the minutiae of the franchise for a putative second referendum is going nowhere, and merely indicates that international recognition will be moot.
As Denise Findlay says, all that is needed is a democratic event that is sufficiently robust as to be widely recognised as legitimate. For example, a Declaration of Independence by a supermajority (yes …) of MSPs.
The situation in Scotland is that it now so colonised, as Alf Baird says, that the incomers will need to be winnowed out from the Scots in any such constitutional event as a referendum, and as this debate proves, that process cannot be resolved to widespread satisfaction.
Craig Murray, who has considerable experience and expertise in international relations, keeps repeating his opinion that a Universal Declaration of Independence is sufficient, though I’ve not seen him expand on the manner of actually making this.
I would promote Denise Findlay’s pathway on this and abandon all talk of referenda. Incidentally, if Alex Salmond wants to groom a successor to his leadership, then Denise Findlay would not be the mistake that Sturgeon the Betrayer is.
Scotland simply needs to be more muscular in asserting its sovereignty. Men died in their thousands back in the wars of old, and even if we can’t raise a claymore nowadays we can at least raise the spirit of old.
Republicofscotland says:
14 July, 2021 at 2:31 pm
“Blaming incomers for tipping the vote over the edge to ‘No’ in 2014 (is that even proven?)”
Southernbystander @11.35am.
Its obvious to me that you don’t have a dog in this fight, or you would’ve known this common fact.
——
Thanks for the link Republicofscotland. Is it proof though? It is based on a survey not raw data (see link below).
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FM003418%2F1
Not that that negates it all but it isn’t ‘fact’ as such. Interestingly the actual results of the study have been taken down from the internet (University of Edinburgh website) so we don’t know numbers who responded and how they then came up with statements like ‘300,000 will have voted no'(or even if that is in the study or The Records’ spin. Maybe you have seen more of this detail?
‘There were more than 420,000 Britons from elsewhere in the UK living in Scotland when the last census was taken.
And if they cast their ballots in line with the findings of the Edinburgh University study, more than 300,000 of them will have voted No. That’s a significant number in a contest that ended with 2,001,926 votes for No and 1,617,989 for Yes’.
I’m also wondering about those raw figures – disaggregating them gets tricky.
More clearly, in order for the claim to be true you have to go on the percentage given of 52.7% of native-born Scots voting Yes, so literally removing all other voters would give a majority Yes by default. We then go round in circles about how justified that was / is especially given we are talking here about native born, not resident status or anything else. You gotta admit is it pretty tight either way.
But you are right I don’t have much of a dog in the fight, just genuinely interested. As an England resident, as you can imagine, I get pretty wary of those who talk a lot about ‘native born’, real English and the like.
Southernbystander.
If you check my comments I said not just native Scots but those who have had residence in Scotland for ten years (Dave Caledonia) or more should have a vote in any future plebiscite to leave the union.
Wouldn’t it be fair to say that incomers who’ve lived and worked in Scotland for that amount of time, have shown a commitment.
I should add, why should Scotland be unique when it comes to voting, other EU countries don’t give universal suffrage on all elections.
“How many years do sports men and women have to live in Scotland before they can play for the national team?”
Andy Ellis.
Talking of sports.
Tell me Andy, how many medals has the Scottish Olympics team won as Scotland at the Olympics? Is Scotland’s World Strongest man Scotland’s or Britain’s, and has Andy Murray won Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments as a Scot or a Brit?
Independence will guarantee that Scots competing at international level compete for Scotland.
But this conversation on sports is mute, the whole future of Scotland is at stake, from its culture to its history, language and even its population growth if you take the Home Office out of the equation.
Scottish independence is far to serious a prospect to left to whiny liberals, on giving those who are not committed to living and working in Scotland, for their benefit and for the benefit of the country as a whole, that’s why a ten years resident status seem appropriate for the one-off vote.
It’s a brave new world and we must adapt. If we are going to have a discussion about changing the basis of the franchise, I hope we can at least discuss whether anti-vaxxers should be allowed to vote or not.
I’m generally sick of ‘the left’ and hope we can avoid framing independence in terms that are supposed to appeal to middle class phonies who purport to represent the bewildered herd.
The politics of independence, much like Lib-Dem politics, has been stuck in ‘Never, Never, Land’ for 10 years, providing a safe space for all sorts of unrealistic idiots and their crap. It’s a bubble that nobody ever needs to worry about bursting because it exists in an imaginary world of hot air, where anything resembling sharp realities are covered in fluffy pink cushions.
One of the biggest disappointments of the last few months was seeing Alba embroil itself in the politics of the day rather than sticking exclusively and singularly to the issue of independence. Independence is about democracy, and it should be an apolitical question; you either believe it in or you’re basically a fascist.
“I’m generally sick of ‘the left’ ”
Hatuey.
Yes the left has its problems, but its given us rights, unions and a voice, and of course the NHS among other things.
It was the 1789 French revolution that spawned the terms left and right, in the early stages of the revolution the supporters of the king sat to the right of the Presiding Officer and the Revolutionaries sat to the left in the French National Assembly.
“Treasurer Colin Beattie – a former MSP who returned to the post after Mr Chapman’s resignation – said the funds had been “earmarked” when they were donated, and that a matching amount would ultimately be spent on referendum campaigning.”
i.e. We’ll replace the money we’ve stolen.
“This echoed comments from Ms Sturgeon, who said the party runs its independently-audited budget on a “cash flow” basis and is under no obligation to keep funds in separate accounts.”
Oh yes you are when it’s ringfenced monies. How else can you prove that the money hasn’t been used for other purposes? The absence of a separate account confirms that fraudulent activity has taken place.
@Confused
This is why Scots need to start thinking of themselves as Scots and be taught that politics is just one arena in which we can push our interests.
At some point we may even be a minority in Scotland. What then? Just give over our future to the newcomers and the sleaze political tools they elect while we are slowly filtered out of the world and our memory erased?
Scots need to become an economic block that look after each others interests. Buy Scottish, hire Scottish and if we can manage it have our own legal organisations that push our rights in that sphere.
We must also look at the other nationalist movements over Europe and seek to make common cause with all but the most extreme or obviously astroturfed (i.e Ukraine)
This is why im refusing to dance with shadows when it comes to the phantom fictional ‘Nazi’ that always hovers around the subject of national preservation and in-group preference in order to survive as a people.
I would also say our first and major allies are the English in this.
Today is Bastille Day.
https://tinyurl.com/2znw2vpn
Mireille Mathieu is a French singer from Marseille who spoke with a very strong Marseille accent.
https://tinyurl.com/24ptuzvx
Here’s La Marseillaise sung by Edith Piaf.
Really brilliant national anthem.
As Andy Ellis has stated on a few occasions on here and other blogs if the franchise were to be altered to accommodate and reflect the UN template which other countries use to determine their independence aspirations Andy would not only vote against independence but would ACTIVELY campaign AGAINST it, I personally question the rationality and commitment of anyone who holds that opinion
Breeks I agree that using the terminology of blood and soil nationalist has enabled the opposition to use it with a pejorative connotation
Does it matter if the missing money is ‘ring fenced’ money or not ‘ring-fenced’ money?
It’s missing money.
Is that not all the police need to know.
It was all they needed to know re missing funds from ‘Women for Independence’ to charge Natalie McGarry with embezzlement.
Aye well once they shoot the Anti Chemical folk ,That should make Hatuey and friends happy, disappear them to make it sound better and this for refusing to be a test subject for what ever the fk is in that concoction that seems to be either in short supply to increase demand just like kids Christmas Toys or they have made so much that they are now looking for younger candidates so more pish has to be pushed out to the gullible public , like a increase in infections amongst younger children,
What about Cats and dogs I mean why haven’t they been rounded up and jabbed because they are well known super spreaders I mean everyone knows that don’t they .
With more people being given this shit than biggest uptake of real Vaccines like Polio Chicken Pox and the well known tested and more or less safe real Vaccines and we are still in the same shit creek as we were when it all first happened then the story will have to change when they run out of stories to push and people to stick this shit in .
House Arrest Ain’t working, Masks ain’t working, Chemical administering of pretty suspect concoctions ain’t working, in short the so called experts haven’t a fkn clue if they did we wouldn’t still be yapping about this Plague .
Question what exactly has changed since the first outbreak in 2020 ? Answer fk all the only thing that’s changed is the fkn fairly story they keep pushing on a daily basis to convince the mugs this shit is a cure and just as good as a mini hazmat suite .
Italy, Lithuania, Poland, all have 10 year residency requirements for citizenship and of course, don’t let non citizens vote in their national elections. Germany is 8, but they make you give up your other nationality unless it’s EU.
Dave Olga @ 6.37pm.
Dave thanks for that info, so there are precedents around the world, I doubt Andy Ellis will like it though.
Alf @3.04pm.
Alf, I get those points, and agree 100% though I doubt any indy minded government would actually stretch that far, that’s why I, sorry Dave Caledonia, proposed the ten years residency, of which I agree if your option was off the table.
twathater says:
14 July, 2021 at 5:55 pm
As Andy Ellis has stated on a few occasions on here and other blogs if the franchise were to be altered to accommodate and reflect the UN template which other countries use to determine their independence aspirations Andy would not only vote against independence but would ACTIVELY campaign AGAINST it, I personally question the rationality and commitment of anyone who holds that opinion
—————————————————————-
If that’s the case he quite simply doesn’t support independence although he might think he does.
According to his logic if 2 Olympic sprinters raced against each other in the 100 meters sprint and one runner was given a 10 second start and went on to win the race, the runner who lost would only have lost because he didn’t run fast enough not because the other runner had a 10 second advantage
Who would these voters who require 10 years residency be?
Are you referring to people who do not have British citizenship?
The vast majority would be EU citizens who would vote YES.
“This echoed comments from Ms Sturgeon, who said the party runs its independently-audited budget on a “cash flow” basis and is under no obligation to keep funds in separate accounts.”
Further to my previous comment, even if the ring-fenced money was placed in the same general account then a baseline would need to be set to cover the ring-fenced money and the total amount in this account could never dip below the baseline without the ring-fenced money being used for the specified purpose. However, as Stuart clearly detailed, the amount in this account is well below the amount of the ring-fenced money and therefore, QED, fraud has been committed.
Nicola Sturgeon herself confirms this by saying that a separate account wasn’t used.
I started looking at who is entitled to vote in elections in various European countries. I gave up after five EU countries and Norway because there seems a pattern whereby a citizen of the country can vote in any election (national/presidential/referendum, etc) but non-nationals are restricted to local and EU elections (if a EU citizen).
So I, as a Scot living in France, say, could not vote in a referendum or national election because I am not French (nor would I even if I could since it’s none of my business).
Is this the “blood and soil” nationalism I hear speak of? If so, it seems there’s a lot of it about.
@ Dave Oga & Republic of Scotland
The issue under discussion was what franchise requirements were in place for holding independence referendums, which is not the same as requirements for actual citizenship or naturalisation post independence, so…you know there is that.
In addition, citizenship requirements and qualifying periods are not necessarily the same as requirement for voting rights in many jurisdictions, particularly in the EU of course.
For you delectation, the more pertinent comparisons in relation to the franchises used in independence referendums appear here:
https://www.catedraferratermora.cat/docs/Posts/Who-is-entitled-to-vote.pdf
Table 3, pages 44-46. Extract as follows:
Quebec, 1980 & 1995: Canadian citizens residing in Quebec.
Slovenia, 1990: Slovenian citizens (internal citizenship in Yugoslav ID cards)
Lithuania, 1991: pre-1940 nationals of Lithuania & their descendants, plus USSR nationals who renounced their USSR citizenship in 2 year grace period 1989-91.
Estonia, 1991: Individuals with a permanent Soviet residence card in Estonia.
Latvia, 1991: Individuals with a permanent Soviet residence card in Latvia.
Macedonia, 1991: Macedonian citizens (internal citizenship provided in the ID cards) residing in Macedonia or abroad.
Ukraine, 1991: Residents in the Ukraine, including Soviet soldiers stationed there.
Bosnia & Herzegovina, 1992: Yugoslav citizens with permanent residency in B&H.
East Timor, 1999: Those born in E. Timor or with a parent born there, or with a spouse or parent-in-law born there.
Montenegro, 2006: Individuals with a minimal 24 months permanent residency in Montenegro and SerbMontenegrin nationality.
South Sudan, 2011: Permanent residents in South Sudan or individuals whose parents or grandparents were permanent residents since 1956.
Scotland, 2014: Residents in Scotland and with British nationality or with EU or Commonwealth nationality.
Catalonia, 2014: Residents in Catalonia and with Spanish nationality, EU nationality, or European Economic Area or Swiss nationality.
Only five of the above had provision for voters abroad to vote (Quebec ’95, B&H, E. Timor, Scotland and Catalonia).
Facts, eh?
@ Fishy Wullie 6.58 pm
You can think or say I’m not pure enough to be your kind of independence supporter Willie, but that doesn’t make your views true. I won’t support a party or movement that acts to reduce the franchise for #indyref2 from that used for #indyref1. You and others may think it’s an over-reaction, but it’s not negotiable in my case.
I quite accept that it may be a minority view, but how many pro-indy votes are you willing to lose…?
@ Tinto Chiel 7.09 pm
Info for EU states here:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/625116/EPRS_BRI(2018)625116_EN.pdf
Naturalisation for citizenship on average is just short of 7 years. Only 5 have 10 year qualifications: Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia & Spain). The lowest is Poland at 3 years. 12 states have 5 year periods. 6 have 8 year periods. 2 have 7 years and 1 has 6 years.
All of these apply to naturalisation to full citizenship. Periods for registered refugees are often considerably reduced.
Republicofscotland @ 6:48 pm
Auld Caledonia can maybe learn something from the UN sanctioned New Caledonia referendum franchise for this December which applies ‘secondary criteria’ emphasizing the importance of the indigenous community when it comes to self-determination of ‘a people’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum
“The referendum will be held using a special electoral roll. Potential voters will need to be registered on the general electoral roll, and also meet one of the secondary criteria:[9]
– Was on the electoral roll for the 1998 referendum on the Nouméa Accord;
– Qualified to be on the electoral roll for the 1998 referendum, but were not enrolled;
– Failed to meet the requirements to be on the 1998 electoral roll solely due to absence related to family, medical or professional reasons;
– Having civil customary status, or born in New Caledonia and have their material interests in the territory;
– At least one parent born in New Caledonia and have their material interests in the territory;
– At least 20 years of continuous residence in New Caledonia by 31 December 2014;
– Born before 1 January 1989 and have had their residence in New Caledonia between 1988 and 1998
– Born after 31 December 1988 and reached voting age before the referendum, with at least one parent who was on the electoral roll (or qualified to do so) for the 1998 referendum.
As a consequence of these restrictions, in the 2018 referendum 35,948 registered voters on the general list (17% of the 210,105 total registered voters) were excluded from the vote.[10][11][12] Vote restriction restricts the voting power of recent inhabitants—derogatively known as Zoreilles—and enlarges the voting power of native Kanaks, and was long sought after by FLNKS.[10]
@Lyn Hay 4.06 pm
Not sure why you thing it’s mince. I happen to agree with you that there is no referendum in sight. That’s why – like Stu – I was pushing for plebiscitary elections and super majorities before it was fashionable. Sadly the lumpen SNP cultists weren’t listening.
You’re dead wrong about UDI and declaring indy on the back of a supermajority that isn’t clearly an expression of a majority vote in favour of a mandate expressly for independence. Craig Murray’s cunning plan, while interesting, isn’t going to fly unless and until it can be clearly demonstrated we’ve tried all other reasonable routes. The international community will just treat us like they did the Catalans otherwise.
I don’t know Denise Findlay, though I did interact with her a bit on twitter in the past. Whether she’s leadership material remains to be seen: I’m not sure she’s expressed any such desire, but good luck to her if she does. Alba will certainly need some new faces, and they will have a good example of how NOT to do it from the SNP.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-14th-july-2021
Andy Ellis
“Residence is the only sensible franchise, not birth.”
I agree 100%.
If you live here, you have a stake in the game, you get to vote.
If you have already f**ked off elsewhere, too bad. Whether you are a professional footballer or a brickie.
If you have f**ked off from elsewhere to live here, you get a vote.
Seems to me that all of those who are worried that new residents will vote No are just betraying their lack of confidence in Indy. New residents are not here because they see Scotland as deserving of their charity. New residents are here to better themselves. If they don’t see that as being compatible with Indy, then go figure.
Unfortunately for you lot, no problems will be found, suckers.
RepublicOfScotland
“Yes the left has its problems, but its given us rights, unions and a voice, and of course the NHS among other things.”
Mao – Left – 45 million dead.
Stalin – Left – 6 to 9 million dead.
Pol Pot – Left – 2 million dead (must try harder).
Hitler – Right – 15 million to 32 million dead.
If I add the worst case figures for all, the left has killed going on for twice as many as the right in the 20th century.
Still, it’s all for a good cause.
Andy Ellis says:
14 July, 2021 at 7:14 pm
@ Fishy Wullie 6.58 pm
“You can think or say I’m not pure enough to be your kind of independence supporter Willie, but that doesn’t make your views true.”
I agree with that Andy but anyone who says he would actively campaign for the union unless he got his own way cannot under any circumstance call himself an independence supporter in my opinion
“I won’t support a party or movement that acts to reduce the franchise for #indyref2 from that used for #indyref1. You and others may think it’s an over-reaction, but it’s not negotiable in my case.”
If that’s how strongly you feel That’s fair enough
“I quite accept that it may be a minority view, but how many pro-indy votes are you willing to lose…?”
Not nearly as many as you’re prepared to gift to the No campaign
@Andy Ellis 7.23: thanks for that but I didn’t mention naturalisation to full citizenship rules in other countries, just voting rights for foreigners in some EU countries, so I don’t know why that was directed at me. Did you envisage some residence qualification for non-Scots living here in the future?
@Tinto Chiel 8.32 pm
Due apologies: my mistake.
I’d expect an independent Scotland to have some form of qualification criteria. From memory the white paper for #indyref2 had something about it, as it did for who would qualify for citizenship. It seemed pretty similar to the Irish system if I remember right.
@Andy Ellis: thanks, fairy nuff.
@ Fishy Wullie 8.24 pm
Purists like you are far more likely to cost us indy bud. Anyone who would vote a certain way irrespective of the circumstances is just as much a clear and present danger as the TRA nutters, anti-vaxxers and others who helped piss Stu off enough that he decided it wasn’t worth it.
Can’t say I blame him really: the sad thing is folk like you don’t see it any more than the Nicola cultists can tolerate criticism of the dear leader, or TRAs can see they are regressive men’s rights activists.
ohn Main says:
14 July, 2021 at 8:18 pm
RepublicOfScotland
Missed out the absolute Biggy. The British Empire. Killed 150 Million Enslaved about one Billion. Still it was all in a good cause eh.
“If you have already f**ked off elsewhere, too bad. Whether you are a professional footballer or a brickie.” – If these people have emigrate then fair enough; if they haven’t emigrated and have only f**ked off to work, then surely they have a stake in the game too?
@ Tinto Chiel 8.48 pm
There’s a useful map on wikipedia, but some of the info might be a little out of date:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_foreigners_to_vote
@ Andy
That’s fair enough if that’s what you think, although I think you calling anyone a Purist is a bit rich 🙂
But if you think Purists like me are more likely to cost us Indy can you explain to me how campaigning for the union helps the cause ?
@ Captain Yossarian 8.55 pm
It’s an interesting take on things. As I said above and previously I’ve never supported non-residents Scots having a vote.
Reading Alf Baird’s comment above it struck me that looking at “incomers” in Scotland, how would you separate the sheep from the goats?
If we’re going to advocate categorising all non-native Scots, how do we make a window in to all their souls?
Which ones are “genuinely” intending to stay for good?
Aren’t they welcome if they feel British not Scottish?
Doesn’t anyone else get a whiff of Lord Tebbit’s infamous cricket test?
In the end, isn’t it incumbent on all of “us” to convince those who have settled here that independence is the best way forward?
@ Wullie
I can only refer you to Stu’s exasperated thread of 13th July on twitter:
“If you want to deny 20% of the people who live in Scotland the vote in a referendum because they were born somewhere else, we’re not on the same side. If you want their votes, fucking well persuade them. If you can’t, your case is shit.
And stop whining that by saying this I’m trying to “shut down debate”. I have no power and no desire to stop you debating it. You can debate it all you want. I’m not reporting you to Twitter or the police. I’m just not interested.
We debated this in 2011 and we came to the right decision. Nothing has happened that justifies abandoning that principle in my view. You can’t just disenfranchise people because you think they’ll vote the wrong way.
As well as being morally wrong, it’s almost certainly self-defeating. The Scotland you’d be trying to sell people under that franchise is a very different place to the one we were advocating in 2014, and very much for the worse.
That, of course, is true in many ways. If we got a referendum tomorrow I don’t in all honesty know if I could bring myself to campaign in it, because it’d be a *de facto* campaign for Nicola Sturgeon’s vision of a hellish, intolerant, incompetent and corrupt Scotland.
But that’s not a decision I need to lose sleep over, because we’re not getting a referendum tomorrow, or next year, or the year after that, or the year after that.
But I’ve officially lost any urge to even think about it, if even the people opposed to that awful vision just have a different kind of awful vision, of a country where only “ethnic Scots” have a say. Bollocks to that.”
I doubt it will come to much, the twisted lying bastard should be in jail for perverting the course of justice and perjury already.
Got to laugh at the SNP1 and 2 mugs
@Alf 7.25 pm
Just so we’re clear here, your proposed and preferred solution to the franchise question is to use the New Caledonia precedent – intended to apply to a “real” colony identified as such by the UN – in your quixotic pursuit of the quixotic “Scotland isn’t independent because we’re a colony” narrative?
The two tier approach would (presumably?) allow you to disenfranchise the 20% of incomers to make a Yes vote more likely, but what kind of Scotland would that be?
Let’s assume we won under those conditions: what do you think the reaction of the disenfranchised is going to be?
Will those who are pro-indy now be positive towards the new state?
Will they (having been denied a say in the process) happily take part fully in the task of nations building?
Will they be offered citizenship…?
What message will having 20% of the demos disenfranchised send to all the immigrants we need to attract given our shrinking population, or are they just going to be gastarbeiter?
Andy Ellis says:
14 July, 2021 at 2:31 pm
@Breeks 2.06 pm
The sovereign Scots parliament negotiated the Edinburgh agreement with Westminster, including the franchise.
Sorry Andy, but I don’t think the Holyrood Government could even spell sovereignty, nevermind give you it’s definition.
And don’t be offended, but I think you too are missing an essential layer of understanding.
If you’re having a referendum about something internal your countries borders, it’s all conducted under your own domestic laws, and you can play about with voting franchise all you like, because you have nobody to upset except yourselves. It is internal. It is domestic. The world doesn’t need to pay attention.
A referendum about Independence is fundamentally different. It affects every outside your countries border, and needs to comply with International benchmarks and criteria.
If you muddy up the distinctions of who is and who isn’t a Scot, the UN and International Community, (who can’t be ignored if you want International Recognition), then come result day on the referendum, the UN will be entitled to ask whether it’s a specific people’s right of self determination being expressed, or, is it an arbitrary collective usurping someone else’s right of self determination?
There are consequences to it. If an Independent Scotland was to be recognised Internationally, then Scots would enjoy the privileges of a Scottish Passport, and Scottish Passports would carry the same weight as respect as the passports of other Nations.
But if you make it that everyone and anyone can lay claim to a Scottish passport, and effectively “self-ID” themselves as Scottish, then the gravitas behind a Scottish Passport will be compromised and downgraded. There will be places it will not be recognised, and it may even be derided as a shady passport of convenience. Who needs to bother with a fake passport if you can just pick up a Scottish one?
I know I’m talking about passports not voting franchise, but an Independence Referendum actually has a lot more in common with passports, recognitions, and International Law than an internal, “domestic” referendum, where an improvised ad hoc and constitutionally ambiguous voting franchise doesn’t actually matter.
We need to stop thinking about Scottish Independence from the inside looking out, and start thinking about making the right noises to satisfy those on the outside looking in.
Worth a read:
“The reality’s a referendum has still to be won, the cause needs separated from the Scottish government and it must come soon.”
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/nicolas-fairy-tale/
“If you want to deny 20% of the people who live in Scotland the vote in a referendum because they were born somewhere else, we’re not on the same side. If you want their votes, fucking well persuade them. If you can’t, your case is shit.” Stu Campbell
Big absolutist statement, no definitions, no analysis.
All one needs to convince is reiterate over and over again to the anti-democratic and the arrogant living in another’s country, an independent Scotland will not be a wicked place.
We will never persuade enough people, that’s what being a colony means. And to ensure that never happens, colonisation gathers pace, a London tactic. Meanwhile, Westminster and Whitehall tighten the noose around Scotland’s neck.
In any struggle for liberty some people will be outraged. Tough. If you can’t convince them, find a formula that wins self-governance, or vote for Scotland to be called North England.
Magnanimity comes *after* independence is reinstated.
Excuse me if I can just but in with my evil line of thinking –
This talk of who is eligible to vote and how long they might have to be here is all very well and good. There really is room for civic nationalism. I.e if someone comes here, sets up shop and commits to the country then why not? It would be unfair to put too many barriers to their inclusion in political decisions.
The problem is that we are not in normal times. We are seeing fast, large scale movement of people over borders, financed and implemented by NGO’s and the public purse without our consent.
Under these circumstances it makes sense to protect the Scottish democratic franchise more than you might do otherwise.
It is our country after all. The land of the Scots.
For someone to have a problem with people coming and making a life in Scotland and bringing some of their own culture with them really is extremist. But on this scale? While we are left in the dark? No consent required?
Its a bit like sex. When 2 people agree to it with full knowledge then its a fine thing. When 1 person is being hoodwinked into thinking its just a party in a car, and then being silenced when they realise something is up and the deed is done through their protestations then its called rape.
Europe is experiencing the second scenario right now, a civilisational rape, Scotland included. This fits neatly with huge increase in rapes and sexual assaults going on at an individual level also.
Worth a look, if the damned link works…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI5nw1kYwdo
Hmmm…hasn’t ‘Andy Ellis’ suddenly re-appeared and with all the facts and figures!
Alf Baird (prof) gets my vote. Cockenzie-Hamburg anyone?
Let’s get on with it ffs!
Great to see an article from Stu Campbell and how, with a single brief intervention, this seems to improve both the quantity and the quality of the BTL comments. I trust you are well, Stuart, and enjoying the break. I do hope it does not become permanent, and that you will be back some time, in some form or other, but will respect whatever decision you eventually make. You are indeed greatly appreciated and greatly missed.
It is surely significant that there seems to be a marked improvement in the performance of the prosecution services under Dorothy Bain. Now that Lord Wolf of Bad-Enough has scarpered to his lair, we are hopefully going to get a return not just to common standards of justice but also to common sense.
On the other topic exercising so many minds, great or small, it is obvious that Westminster will ALWAYS try to gerrymander the outcome of any Independence Referendum, and will ALWAYS use every means it can dream up to succeed in doing so. This factor will come into play EVERY TIME there is a discussion o voter eligibility. They will try flying any kite that is likely to suit their cause, if only to see whether and how far they can get away with it.
So, while we should set out sound and consistent principles to determine the matter, fully in accord with international law, we should not be naive about some of the wilder propositions being made. We should also not be naive about the fact that England has ALWAYS, ALWAYS – for over a thousand years at least – tried to extinguish Scotland, in one way or another. English political elites have been consistent over a huge amount of time in trying to prevent Scotland from existing altogether and, when unable to go that far, in then preventing her from existing effectively as a political unit.
That is still without a doubt the case; nothing in that regard has changed. Instead of cringing in order not to be perceived as ‘anti-English’, and giving way to all the obvious propaganda stirred up to make us so cringe and hamstring us, we have to be very clear about the anti-Scottish attitudes so prevalent among these English political elites. Scotland’s quarrel is precisely with these elites, and whoever is allowed to enter them at any given moment, and NOT with ordinary English people.
This even comes out in the Medieval texts. Try, for instance – it is only one example – the 1301 pleadings by Scottish lawyers in favour of the Scottish cause at the papal court. There the conflict is very clearly presented as that of the Scottish people against the English king. Note: NOT against the English people, but against the English king (and by association the elites closest to him, who act in his name). It is not a Scottish king against an English king, nor is it the Scottish people against the English people. Instead, it is the Scottish people against the English political authority, which is embodied in the English king.
Translated into modern terms, that would be the Scottish people against the English parliament. True, Westminster is not theoretically the English parliament, and should not be such in practice. Effectively, however, that is precisely what it is, with its never-ending built-in English majorities. These are English governments, sometimes with some numerically small Scottish and Welsh bits attached to them. An at the present time, over the last few years, these bits have virtually disappeared.
Westminster government is effectively, and more than ever, the English government, and this only adds to the strain on the Union these English governmental elites purport to love and will do almost anything to retain. To bring this back to voter registration, we do need to know who the Scottish people are. Residency might do, but with a minimum time of a certain number of years to qualify. Better might be long-term commitment to Scotland, which means paying taxes to the Scottish exchequer (or being eligible to do so) AND/OR taking out Scottish citizenship.
That means we need a register of Scottish citizens. But it also means we need a register of English citizens, and a similar register for Welsh and Northern Irish citizens too. Perhaps this would be impossible to arrange in time for Indyref2, and there may be other objections too, but the matter needs to be at least discussed. If (I really want to say when) we do become independent, it is obvious that there will have to be criteria qualifying some for Scottish nationality, and by implication disqualifying others.
It would also have to be a free choice made by those who do qualify whether or not they take up the option. Would it not, all the same, be a very strange if we suddenly find as a consequence that a large number of people (though still obviously a minority) who had the right to vote in Indyref2, and actually did so, end up desisting from taking up Scottish citizenship? If not ‘strange’, then at least rather paradoxical. It would seem to indicate that the pro-independence movement had been obliged to spend an awful lot of energy campaigning against voters who were not committed to Scotland at all.
Why should those committed to Scotland have to risk losing the possibility of independence because those not genuinely or personally committed to Scotland are allowed to vote against it? Would it not be better to sort that out beforehand, in advance of a referendum on independence taking place? If you want the franchise – that is, if you want to vote on this – commit yourself to Scotland by taking out Scottish citizenship.
I know… Plenty of difficulties could arise from this. But surely it is at least worth a discussion, and some research (including what is done in other places in similar circumstances, insofar as there are some). Why dismiss ideas like this out of hand, before even thinking about them. It does at least seem just that only those committed to a place, more precisely a country, should have the right to vote on its future.
And such commitment ought, in principle, to be exclusive: you know which country you belong to. And that means, or should mean, you do not belong to other countries, not in the same way. Of course, there is the problem of those with ‘double nationality’, and two or more passports. I know quite a few such people, but they all know which passport represents ‘their’ country, and which is just a convenience, or an insurance in case something goes wrong.
And of course, just as Scotland needs a register of Scottish citizens, so does England, so does Wales… and include Northern Ireland if you want, even if everything there is just that bit (or much) more complicated.
I wrote this comment on Yours For Scotland in response to a English incomer who voted YES in the 2014 indy ref
Brian I respect and thank you for your vote for independence , but you also have to admit the figures produced by Edinburgh university indicates that your vote from new Scots is in the minority when it comes to determining Scotland’s future
I use the term NEW SCOTS as a respect , but from the results of that vote it doesn’t indicate that the respect is reciprocal, do they consider themselves NEW SCOTS , or British , or English or English British , or Welsh or Welsh British , or Northern Irish or Northern Irish British , and so on and so on
I have 2 immediate neighbours 1 is Indian the other is Iraqi I have tried to discuss independence to find out their views but there is a total lack of interest, obviously that is not an indication that everyone from everywhere is of the same mind , but it is the issue that has a great deal of importance the longer you face the impact of unionist mismanagement and denigration. And we indigenous Scots and our ancestors have suffered that unionist mismanagement and denigration for over 300 years
I will reiterate that last part because it highlights why the franchise is biased against indigenous Scots
But it is the issue that has a great deal of importance the longer you face the impact of unionist mismanagement and denigration. And we indigenous Scots and our ancestors have suffered that unionist mismanagement and denigration for over 300 years
Nothing to see here, move along Scottish Plebs. Skirt quark is relay a good girl. Aye right. Most of the White Settlers will vote Naw. And we are getting swamped due to Covid 19 on Plague island. I know at least 12 White Settler caravan owners on the the caravan site in my wee heilen village that will vote Naw. Sorry Itinerant anti Scottish White Settler holiday makers. Well they told me in 2014 they would be voting naw and they haven’t changed their minds. There are even more of them Tory voters from the South of England on the roll now due to the English Tory plague that is Covid 19. Anti Scottish bigots most of them and the SNP gives them blow jobs.
Willie
“Missed out the absolute Biggy. The British Empire. Killed 150 Million Enslaved about one Billion. Still it was all in a good cause eh.”
Next time you pull numbers oot o yer a**e wipe them over first, cos these ones stink.
But let’s run with them anyway. When was the genocidal, enslaving British Empire at its zenith? When was the sainted NHS formed by those of the left?
1945 is the answer to both questions.
Whoops. You didn’t think that one through!
twathater says:
15 July, 2021 at 2:43 am
I use the term NEW SCOTS as a respect , but from the results of that vote it doesn’t indicate that the respect is reciprocal, do they consider themselves NEW SCOTS , or British , or English or English British , or Welsh or Welsh British , or Northern Irish or Northern Irish British , and so on and so on…
If somebody non-Scottish moved into the flat next door, from day one, I would be relaxed and sincere to describe them as new Scots. They’re here, and they’re giving it a go.
But me embracing them as new Scots doesn’t mean immediate right of citizenship. It means see out the requisite qualifying years of occupancy to claim citizenship recognised by International Law, and provided you’re not a mass murderer on the run from Interpol your Scottish Citizenship is in the bag.
These “New Scots” can vote in local elections on domestic issues from day one, but to vote on matters of international consequence, possibly General Election, but certainly an Independence Referendum, and I think, by law you’re going to have to tighten up the franchise, and restrict the voting to Scottish nationals.
That doesn’t automatically exclude English settlers, ethnic groups or whatever, it just requires them to qualify for a vote as naturalised citizens. In essence, they’ve shown real commitment to staying in Scotland and being one of us. After 5 years (say) the chances are good such a persons life has become intertwined with people around them, and it also means they’re not going to turn up on the Monday, vote for or against Scottish Independence mid week, then bugger off back to wherever they came from and suffer no consequences of the vote they took part in.
This to me seems entirely rational, and frankly, I don’t anticipate any incoming settlers from England or further abroad having any great difficulty coming to terms with pretty much global criteria for naturalisation, and to deride these criteria as “Blood and Soil” Nationalism is a bit silly.
Paradoxically however, (and dare I suggest this might be why people are getting upset), use the same naturalisation criteria to exclude New Scots and immigrants from voting in local elections and domestic affairs, and that potentially does reek of prejudice and exclusion, and borderline bigotry of the “Blood and soil” variety. – But we wouldn’t be doing that.
In England, you actually had the worst of both worlds. You had a Brexit Referendum which excluded non-UK Nationals, but a section of the English populace chuntering around the London Underground fully embracing elements of blood and soil nationalism to justify their bigotry and discrimination against EU Nationals who couldn’t influence the result. Euro citizens wouldn’t read books or speak on their phone for fear they’d be set upon. What a horror story and a disgrace, but we have to understand how and why it happened.
Scotland can and should restrict the vote in any Independence Referendum to full on Scottish Citizens, and be perfectly appropriate in doing so, but as responsible Scottish citizens, it is down to us to make sure the exclusion of non-qualifying voters is not distorted into the hatred and bigotry of those excluded. If you’re sensible, (cue cold sweat), you EXPLAIN the difference so the people understand what’s happening. You don’t jump into gothic fairytales about Blood and Soil Nationalism.
@Breeks 10.12 pm
Nobody is suggesting giving Scottish passports away in Lucky Bags. The international community will respect a result it regards as clearly expressed, definitive and fair. All the indications are that it would happily have accepted the result in 2014 if we had voted Yes, because (unlike say the Catalan referendum) it was regarded as a legitimate exercise. There is actually more danger of the international community refusing to accept a Yes vote if they regard our disenfranchisement of 20% of those resident in the country as unfair, particularly since the 2014 vote included them.
Though I agree with you that the Holyrood government doesn’t really “do” sovereignty, I disagree that I am missing anything, still less an essential layer of understanding.
A referendum IS different from other votes. It IS acceptable to have differential franchises. As I’ve been trying to demonstrate to the proponents of nativism however, the situation of places like Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia is NOT the same as already established states.
In the conclusion of the paper I referred to earlier (pages 34-35 for those interested) the authors wrote:
“The quality of a referendum can have implications in a post- secession scenario. Some of the objections to secession found in the academic literature deal with situations where fundamental rights can be affected in the new state and particularly those of potentially disadvantaged or minority groups.
These elements are also present in the process leading up to the referendum: the definition of the demos (population entitled to vote), accession to nationality, a clear question for voters to make an informed opinion about, referendum rules and so on. Therefore, the outcome of a secession referendum must also be analysed in terms of whether the new state will preserve the social and political rights of its population, including those entitled to vote – a population that having participated in the referendum may not automatically accede to citizenship – and those potentially having citizenship rights but who were not eligible voters in the referendum.
Within the framework of the European Union this distinction can take particular forms; first, residents in the new state that are not eligible for new citizenship but remain as citizens of the remaining state; second, citizens from other EU countries who, was the new state to remain within the European framework, would have specific rights; and third, citizens from non-EU countries with legal status as residents.”
The franchise is only one element of the whole. The international community will look at various elements discussed in the referenced paper:
1. Citizens must be asked a clear, neutral question resulting in an unambiguous mandate. [This is relatively easy: we did it in 2014. Many alternative schemes, including UDI and other indirect routes like Craig Murray’s proposals don’t satisfy this criteria].
2. Thresholds: proposals for reinforced majorities (e.g. the 40% rule in 1979) may appear positive to some to reinforce a majority, but the “perverse incentives” they cause outweigh any potential benefit. The argument for a participation threshold (e.g. 55% of voters in Montenegro’s referendum) is stronger. [There is no realistic prospect of Scots voters or government accepting any threshold. Plus turnout is likely to be high as demonstrated in 2014.]
3. Electoral franchise: Independence referendums are fundamentally different to other referendums or elections. The call into question who qualifies as part of the “demos” and raises issues of who should vote.
It is permissible that the demos should not necessarily extend to every citizen in the state, but those holding the referendum need to differentiate between the “demos” or current electorate, the “ethnos” or stateless national community seeking independence and “putative citizens” or those who may be entitled to or seek citizenship of the new state after independence.
The treatment of putative citizens depends on how the new state approaches naturalisation [This was laid out in the 2014 White Paper and seemd fair and logical to most I think?]. Potential voters are often a matter for agreement between the area trying to become independent and the “central” government. For acceptance the criteria should reflect clear democratic criteria, particularly if there is a dispute. [The franchise in 2014 was not in dispute and agreed via the Edinburgh Agreement. Any “new” franchise may not be as easy to reach agreement on. If it is NOT agreed between London and Edinburgh, the international community is likely to be much more concerned about the change and the impact on any result, particularly with reference to the treatment and status of “non citizens” in the new state].
It’s almost like the length of time you reside somewhere means something, or there wouldn’t be settled and pre settled status.
https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/what-settled-and-presettled-status-means
@Grouse Beater 10.53 pm
Good to hear from you Gareth!
Stu’s quote you take exception to which I referenced above was part of a twitter thread, so it’s hardly surprising that it is fairly broad brush and lacks analysis. The arguments pro and anti are fairly well rehearsed by now though I think, including BTL here.
As you know, a lot of us don’t accept the colonisation narrative, which isn’t to say we can’t see that there are structural issues. I’ve never found it convincing or helpful either as a way of looking at our current situation, or an explanation of how we got where we are.
The political scientist Rainer Bauböck discussed it in 2014 on who should vote in referendums, arguing that the default position should be that same people should vote in a secession referendum as in normal parliamentary referendums, on the principle that they are the people responsible for determining their POST-independence futures, and it would therefore be inequitable to exclude them.
In effect, it’s like a computer upgrade: the existing institutional design currently in operation is renewed or upgraded by its current users.
The only real exception to this principle should be in cases of conquest or forced displacement, which is no doubt why proponents of the colonisation narrative for Scotland are so keen to advance an equivalence between Scotland and situations of de-colonisation in Africa and Asia. It’s not a status that the UN accepts however: Scotland is not New Caledonia however much Alf Baird would like it to be. We weren’t conquered, we voluntarily entered a union. Our population hasn’t been forcibly displaced, irrespective of mass migration, and we can’t hide behind things that happened centuries ago to excuse the lack of political courage amongst current “native” Scots to vote overwhelmingly for their own self determination.
Stu is right: the better nation we seek can’t be based on disenfranchising the 20% of new Scots we’ve harped on about for so long as paying us the compliment of coming to live among us and contribute. If we haven’t yet convinced enough of them (not to mention a large proportion of native Scots) that the benefits of independence outweigh the risks of staying in the union – particularly post brexit – then that calls in to question the whole project.
A nationalism that excludes isn’t one that it going to convince people to change.
‘A nationalism that excludes isn’t one that it going to convince people to change.’
And isn’t nationalism. Its globalism/internationalism wrapped up as progressive nationalism
@John Main
I used to argue this right v left thing. The one thing that is shared between all the dictators you mentioned is the fact that they were authoritarian dictators.
Im not sure there are many here who would consider putting massive amounts of power permanently into 1 pair of hands a good idea.
The left is guilty of somewhat ignoring the absolute hell that international communism causes, just as the right is often willfully ignorant to the obvious same results that unbridled capitalism will give us.
It isn’t a coincidence that the people whose business is debt servitude, the banks, are also pushers of both communism when it suits them and capitalism when it suits them.
Wasn’t it Andy Ellis who made a comment a few years back talking favorably of world government?
Andy Ellis is not a nationalist.
His ‘nationalism’ is the nationalism of the banks, the WTO, the WHO, the IMF, the World Bank, Common Purpose and any other international organisations.
So far we have only looked at this franchise issue from the perspective of hosts.
But if I decided to live in a foreign country, I wouldn’t dream of barging in and voting on an issue like this. I’d try to remain neutral and respectful. I don’t think that sense of being a guest (and the courteous behaviour required of guests) would completely fade away after any number of years.
If there’s an argument for changing the franchise, for me, it would be driven by a determination to thwart those entitled bastards who go around the world acting like they own it, with heads full of racist and xenophobic ideas. We should be careful not to generalise but those sort of “guests” are here amongst us and they will do everything to thwart us.
There are plenty of Scots who do that too, of course. They even do it here, in Scotland. And there are plenty of “guests” who are respectful and well-meaning, and who play productive parts here; anecdotally, I’d say a majority probably fall into that category.
I’m not completely opposed to a change, then. My problem is that it would inevitably give rise and emphasis to the sort of stupid and unpleasant ideas of superiority that I hoped independence would free us from. It’s a slippery slope, necessarily and intrinsically divisive along “us and them” lines.
It’s important to remember the effect of geography. A lot of the colonisation narrative needs to be heavily modified as actions can simply be taken by individuals rather than governments. The effects may be the same, displacement from positions of importance for example, but the way these occurred and how you untangle yourself from them are entirely different.
Gravity might be an apt metaphor. It’s a lot hard to achieve escape velocity from an immediate neighbour than from a country half a world away.
@ J.o.e 9.46 am
Was it? Hmmnn…..
It’s possible that amongst many comments I may have made some passing comment in favour of the general principle at some point in the dim and distant, but I don’t think it’s something we really have to concern ourselves with in any reasonable timescale.
I don’t accept that you’re qualified to decide who is and isn’t a nationalist, or indeed that you know enough about me or my views to make statements about what my nationalism comprises.
I’m unclear what your standpoint is….. (shrugging shoulders emoji).
John Main @8.18pm.
John the capitalist right has killed more folk than the left will ever kill, infact the Great Satan’s (USA) foreign policy in its own sphere via the Monroe Doctrine, not to mention it current global killings in the ME and beyond must add up to a substantial figure.
I haven’t even mentioned the Old World powers such as Britain France, Belgium, Germany and Italy, and their capitalist conquests around the globe, nor have I mentioned the new capitalist gun for hire Nato.
Stuart MacKay,
Agreed, our proximity to England has always been a problem as we are part of their sphere of influence whether we like it or not.
The same way the US refer to South America as their own backyard, we are seen as similar south of the border.
One glaring thing that seems to be missing from this conversation, summed up by Hatuey’s point about moving to a foreign country, is that much as it is desired, Scotland is not a foreign country to the English or Welsh or NI in the same way at all. So Hatuey’s comparison makes no sense.
People moving to a different part of the UK are not ‘settlers’ or colonialists as they are staying in the same Union. This whole conversation is based on what is desired after independence, not now i.e. an actually independent foreign (to England) country. An English person who moves to Scotland and votes against independence is voting for the status quo, is not a foreigner and believes in the Union. They are doing nothing ‘wrong’ – they are not moving ‘abroad’ to a foreign country and sticking their oar in, they are moving to another part of single political union. Scots who move to England are not settlers or foreign.
I say this as a supporter of independence who would move to Scotland and vote No, but I cannot condemn others for it.
Residency status seems pretty sensible though for the right to vote. 5 years say.
Hatuey, @ 10.01 –
This is the same character who, just yesterday, was calling for a discussion on whether or not unvaccinated citizens should be allowed to vote.
Southernbystander “ Scotland is not a foreign country to the English or Welsh or NI…”
Scotland is a country. England is a different or foreign country. If you move to England from Scotland then you have moved to a different or foreign country.
Ian B, I heard that they make people who don’t wear masks in Indonesia dig graves for those who died of coronavirus. In some countries they are talking about cutting benefits for the unvaccinated.
As the world moves through this crisis we are seeing different countries coming up with different solutions. It’s still a global village when it comes to sharing ideas. If I’m anything, I’m a globalist.
At least we know where each other stands,
Southernbystander
A big reason people, no matter from where they originate, vote no is they are voting against uncertainty. Holyrood was the big opportunity to show everyone north of the border that their interests could be well-served by an administration that took decisions out of Edinburgh and not London. However the current shower of cretins didn’t just drop the ball but kicked it out of the stadium and have become consumed with middle-class virtue signalling. No wonder people will hesitate over “Yes”.
Your point over the freedom of movement enjoyed within the UK is correct. There’s no reason the same level of movement and rights cannot be maintained within the independent nations of these islands – just like they are to a certain extent with movement between Eire and the UK.
It’s all about how independence is sold. Currently the case being made is woeful, if it’s even being made at all.
Opening this thread this morning, it is a pleasure to find some very interesting comments and suggestions here concerning the issue of Scottish citizenship. It is also a pleasure to find that these comments and suggestions, even when contributors disagree with each other, are serious, well reasoned and, for the most part, mutually respectful.
There have always been perfectly acceptable, good-humoured and good-natured ways of slagging each other off in normal Scottish conversation – in fact, although it is by no means exclusive to Scots, there is something very Scottish about communicating in precisely this way. This kind of banter, usually pretty intelligent and sometimes very funny, capable of being very cutting (cutting edge stuff) while still being very civilised and very typically Scottish (perhaps even a contemporary form of the old ‘flyting’ tradition), is completely different from the heavy-handed, unsubtle, bordering-on-the-vicious and extremely-boring descent into the mutual insults that some BTL commentators (or should we say infiltrators?) on this site now seem to love flinging about.
I have the impression that this latter category of (entirely destructive and unhelpful) comment has been very on the rise in the BTL comments since Rev. Stu, for very understandable reasons with which we all sympathise, stopped posting regular articles. There was always, inevitably, a little bit of it before that happened, but ‘a little bit’ almost seems, on some days at least, to have turned into an avalanche.
The proper word for those who simply want to throw sh*t in other people’s faces, as far as I know, is ‘to smear’. Again, as far as I know, that is what the word ‘smear’ literally means. It contributes nothing – absolutely nothing – to rational discourse. In fact, it simply prevents rational, reasoned well thought out, productive discourse from ever taking place. Maybe that is what those who indulge want to happen, thereby ruining the site.
The only other effect of these mutually insulting and destructive comments has been to turn off many of the old-timers, who were among the best regular contributors to Wings BTL, or even drive them away. Maybe they still look at the site but no longer contribute; maybe they have gone elsewhere; or maybe they have despaired altogether. These were and I am sure still are very committed people – we really need them back.
As for world government, it isn’t a stupid idea. If the UN had teeth, the Israeli-Palestine problem would be over in 5 seconds. Chapters like Iraq could be avoided forever. Other problems, environmental issues, resource management, offshore banking and the corruption, could all be resolved too, as well as a much needed robust framework for managing and regulating capitalism.
It’s an unrealistic idea, but not a stupid one.
Andy Ellis says:
15 July, 2021 at 8:19 am
@Breeks 10.12 pm
Nobody is suggesting giving Scottish passports away in Lucky Bags. The international community will respect a result it regards as clearly expressed, definitive and fair.
You’re still not getting the point Andy.
You’re not giving away passports in lucky bags, but with a slack franchise, you are giving away free votes on Scotland’s destiny to non-Scots, and thus clouding the distinction of an Independence Referendum actually being an expression of self determination, and seeing it instead as a “proxy” expression of Scottish determination by non-Scots.
In other words, it isn’t Scots voting for Independence, it becomes (say) the French / German / English etc voting on whether the Scots should be independent, and that is no longer “self” determination.
Don’t forget, the French / German / English component doesn’t have to win the referendum, just influence it, and the result is suddenly ambiguous as “self expression”, leaving the prospect of International Recognition compromised, and the Referendum result open to dispute or challenge.
Do you see the difference?
In actual fact, if it’s true that indigenous Scots actually did vote YES in 2014, but the amalgamation of NO voting Scots and NO voting incomers changed the result from a “self” expression of Scots saying YES, to a “proxy” expression of NO, and a result which wasn’t the self will of Scotland, but reflected the will of the minority of Scots augmented by the will of Non-Scots. .
You could thus argue it was the flawed voting franchise of 2014 which robbed Scotland of self declared Independence in 2014, and the Constitutional illiteracy of Scotland’s politicians is laid bare once again.
@ Hatuey, Stuart, southernbystander et al.
I do think we have to distinguish between the different understandings of what “foreign” means in a UK context. I’m not sure how you open windows into the souls of citizens of the UK who move from one of the “home” nations in the UK to another.
As some on here know I lived in England for 25 years and did my first degree there, so I’ve spent almost half my life outside Scotland. I wonder how I would have felt if there had been an English independence movement while I lived there? Although I’ve never identified as British, still less English, I suppose I might have expected to be included in the franchise given I was a long term resident there. Perhaps as others have said, a 5 year qualification period seems reasonable and quite standard for naturalisation purposes in the EU and elsewhere.
Like many in the UK income of mixed stock. One grandparent was English, but I’d never consider seeking an English passport should one become an option in future. My wife is English but would probably vote for Scottish independence. Her brother married a Scot and has lived here over 30 years but would probably vote against. Things are complicated. Families are their circumstances are complicated. If it is like that for UK citizens, imagine what it is like for nationals from the EU or wider world who come to settle here: many of them don’t make much or any distinction between the UK and it’s constituent parts.
Isn’t it up to supporters of independence to convince all members of the “demos” of the advantages of independence, rather than seek to exclude them based on where they are from? In the end it doesn’t matter if it’s an English professional coming here to work or retire, a Bangladeshi coming here to study or a refugee fleeing conflict and oppression in Syria, Burma or Hong Kong.
We’re a small nation with a declining population that wants to encourage more people to make their homes and lives here: how does planning to exclude 20% of the population advance our goal?
Hatuey
You have way too much faith in human nature while ignoring the tendency for the kleptocrats to want to run the show.
We’ve had several, albeit unilateral, attempts at World Government over the past few hundred years which are partly the reason for the various messes around the world today. I’d much rather a rag-tag bag of democracies rather than a one-size fits all superstate which I suspect would be a bit like present day China.
“As for world government, it isn’t a stupid idea.”
A bit naive there Hatuey, do you actually think a world government wouldn’t eventually end up as corrupt as other governments have become around the globe.
Southernbystander says:
15 July, 2021 at 10:39 am
“Scotland is not a foreign country to the English or Welsh or NI in the same way at all. So Hatuey’s comparison makes no sense.”
Well, IF the Treaty of Union had extinguished the component Nations of Scotland and England, then who did Italy just beat on penalties to win the European Cup? Presumably you’ll be perplexed trying to make sense of that too.
Breeks @11.30am.
Bang on the money with that comment, that is the very heart of the matter, that some cannot or will not see.
@ Breeks 11.30 am
I don’t think you’re really engaging with the debate.
Your position is still basically that since a majority of the “ethnos” voted Yes in 2014, but by a margin so small that the result of the whole “demos” came out as “No”, the correct response is to disenfranchise most if not all of those who are not part of the “ethnos”.
I and others do see the difference. The issue is that what you’re proposing isn’t civic nationalism.
That makes “our” nationalism no different to the nationalism of lots of others we’d rather not associate with. It doesn’t lay the foundations for living in the early days of a better nation, it builds in exceptionalism and division.
Andy Ellis says:
15 July, 2021 at 11:46 am
Isn’t it up to supporters of independence to convince all members of the “demos” of the advantages of independence, rather than seek to exclude them based on where they are from?
Short answer is no, and for the reasons I explained a couple of comments ago.
Nobody is mentioning the enormous elephant in the room, the European Union. What does independence mean in the context of international trade, international law and international standards? If England has gravity then the EU has gravity that dwarfs England’s.
What a national government can do these days is very much influenced by it’s neighbourhood and international standards and norms. In that sense, life in an independent Scotland is likely to be little different from what it is today, other than we get to keep 100% of the money generated within our borders and use it to solve our localised problems.
The real problem is not demographics but our inability to sell the idea that an independent Scotland would be just like Norway but better.
Andy Ellis says:
15 July, 2021 at 12:00 pm
@ Breeks 11.30 am
I don’t think you’re really engaging with the debate.
Your position is still basically that since a majority of the “ethnos” voted Yes in 2014, but by a margin so small that the result of the whole “demos” came out as “No”, the correct response is to disenfranchise most if not all of those who are not part of the “ethnos”.
But isn’t what you’re describing a “Scottish” referendum where non Scot’s are given the casting vote? Thus, the result is NOT self determination of the Scots, but a PROXY determination of non-Scots foisted upon us, that is actually contrary to the self expression of the nation?
“The real problem is not demographics but our inability to sell the idea that an independent Scotland would be just like Norway but better.”
Stuart.
I suppose, to sell something in the business sense one first needs the product (independence) then to show the public that they need this product (independence, will better their live in so may ways that they must have it) thirdly you need to get the message out, the third piece of this business plan isn’t reaching the public.
It isn’t reaching the public because the MSM doesn’t want it to reach them, and that’s where things begin to stumble and breakdown, we have the product, we have the benefits of the product but we don’t have a terrestrial main stream media outlet to display it on.
“A nationalism that excludes isn’t one to convince people to change.” Andy Ellis 08.52
Non-Scots do not see it in ‘nationalistic’ terms. It is a vote – one day – but a critical day we are discussing NOT a lifestyle incorporated into a constitution.
The notion we welcome in people with no regard let alone care for Scotland is, quite frankly, the defeatism that must be rejected.
Republicofscotland
I agree entirely and that comes down to the incompetence of The Great Betrayer and her minions.
We’ve talked here about the “vision thing” before. It seems to me this would be an ideal way of breaking free of the morass that we’re in now which is entirely based on the past and nothing to do with the future. It’s just a pity that the cretins currently in government show so little interest in it.
Mired in the past – is essentially the problem we have solve and it’s one we’ve always had to solve.
Hatuey tries to sell the idea of a one-world government.
That’s how clued-up he is.
FFS, they couldn’t even establish a World Wildlife Fund without managing to end up with serial animal-blaster and Number One Deadly Virus fanatic Phil The Greek at the head of it.
What a throbber…
🙁
@Breeks 12.10 pm
They only have a casting vote because too few “native” Scots – and indeed too few “new Scots” have been convinced of the case for independence. We can slice and dice the demos all we like, but the stark fact remains that we can’t blame “the others” for the fact we lack the spirit to claim our own independence.
“They only have a casting vote because too few “native” Scots – and indeed too few “new Scots” have been convinced of the case for independence.”
How’s that Andy when indigenous Scots voted for devolution in 1979, and then for independence in 2014.
@ Grouse Beater 12.17 pm
I agree that many don’t see it in terms of nationalism, or if they do they prioritise British nationalism over Scottish nationalism. The same of course can be said of many Scottish unionists: they feel passionately that they can be both. However we all know of new Scots from different parts of the world who passionately believe in independence too.
Assuming we ever get another referendum the 2014 situation isn’t going to apply, so we don’t know what the breakdown of votes will be from native born and new Scots, and how it will have evolved in the years since #indyref1. I imagine a lot of EU nationals May vote differently, but there again many will have given up on Scotland and the UK anyway.
I can certainly be persuaded that it is proportionate and right to have a qualifying period of residence to participate, but I don’t see it as defeatism to allow people who have lived here for years to participate in choosing the future of the place they live.
Stuart MacKay
“In that sense, life in an independent Scotland is likely to be little different from what it is today, other than we get to keep 100% of the money generated within our borders and use it to solve our localised problems.”
Haud oan.
Isn’t the plan that on Day 3 of “Independence”, the troughers in Hollyrood stravaig off to Brussels to get us back into the union that we “were dragged out of against our will”.
(Days 1 and 2 are devoted to celebrating and awarding medals to SNP government members).
So if Scotland is as well off as many here claim, how do we get to keep 100% of our money? Just as the UK was a big-time bankroller of the EU, so will Scotland. That’s the rules. Wealthy countries chip in. Poor countries queue up for their hand outs.
At least one poster here has claimed that for the entire time that the UK was in the EU, it was money stolen from Scotland that the UK used to pay its subs.
Maybes Ruby could venture a reply to this question also. She sees Scottish Independence as merely a short-term stepping stone on the path leading to rule from Brussels.
@ republicscotland 12.33 pm
And your point is caller…..?
The 40% rule imposed in 1979 was indefensible in my view. I was (just) too young to vote at the time and remember the discussions and the sense of unfairness. In truth however, despite the toothless nature of the devolution on offer at the time, it is pretty symptomatic that so few Scots could even be bothered to get off their arses and even vote. Again, if Scots didn’t like the outcome, they knew what to do…..but they carried on voting Labour for decades instead. That was nobody’s fault but our own.
As for 2014, again the franchise never really registered as an issue then. I don’t recall the movement as a whole giving serious consideration to limiting the franchise or to excluding non native voters. Civic nationalism was the order of the day: for many of us it still is.
In the end, it still looks like those advocating significant changes to the franchise are trying to move the goalposts because they didn’t like the result and aren’t actually that confident of the case for independence. I doubt they’ll have much success, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did more damage to the movement than it has already contrived to do to itself over the past few years.
RepublicOfScotland
“John the capitalist right has killed more folk than the left will ever kill”
You must know that can’t possibly be a true statement. You must know that can only ever be verified when there is one single person left on Earth, and she tallies all of the totals, then adds 1 if she considers herself to also be a victim.
But then she would have nobody to share her final knowledge with of which group had killed most, left or right.
John Main
Rushing into marriage right after a divorce is poor advice for anyone. I like the idea of EFTA membership as promoted by Alba rather than jumping into bed with the EU – at least as a first step.
In any case it would be wise to get everything working smoothly before we apply for membership of any club. There will always be negotiations and the stronger our position the better the terms will be.
@ Stuart MacKay 1.13 pm
Agree with you wholeheartedly! I reckon we should reach out to our Scandinavian and Irish neighbours too. Given the EUs treatment of Greece during the financial crisis, Catalonia since the abortive referendum and their supine failure to rein in the crypto fascists in Madrid, and their lack of action in the face of Polish and Hungarian attacks on human rights and free judiciary’s, I’ve no appetite for any rush to rejoin the EU as currently constituted.
Stuart MacKay says:
15 July, 2021 at 1:13 pm
John Main
Rushing into marriage right after a divorce is poor advice for anyone. I like the idea of EFTA membership as promoted by Alba rather than jumping into bed with the EU – at least as a first step.
I used to adamant that it was EU or broke, but 75% of that was down to Brexit giving Scotland a cast iron Constitutional justification to end the Union. Scotland’s sovereign people voted remain, while the rest of the UK voted leave, so the UK had an existential crisis on it’s hands. We were galloping up the home stretch to Independence.
Then along came Sturgeon the Betrayer, who arbitrarily set aside Scotland’s democracy, squandered Scotland’s emphatic cast iron constitutional mandate, threw away Independence, and despite Scotland’s status as a Nation, didn’t even secure comparable status for Scotland which Northern Ireland secured with it’s backstop. What a fkg incompetent, feckless loser.
Sturgeon should have resigned / been impeached in ignominy back in 2016, and the world would have been a much better place for it.
I remain pro EU, but now the holy grail of Independence is no longer tied to it, then I’m roughly as despondent about EU membership as I am about Scottish Independence. It all feels like stolen goods, taken from Scotland while Sturgeon the Betrayer did nothing.
There is no doubt an argument to be had about the word ‘foreign’, and whether or not or how far Scotland and England are best described as ‘foreign’ countries to each other. But there is no doubt that Scotland is a ‘different’ country from England. And that England is a DIFFERENT COUNTRY from Scotland. And that means, without any doubt whatsoever, that England is one country, and Scotland another.
English people themselves know this perfectly well. When they talk about ‘the North’ they don’t mean ‘Scotland’ but, very specifically and precisely, ‘the North of England’. The fact that they know where their country ends thus comes through in the way they speak about it. And the way they speak shows the way they really, quite naturally, think.
Likewise, when Scots people talk about ‘down South’ they simply mean England. The whole of it. They are not making a distinction between the South of England and the North of England. That distinction – between the North and the South of England does exist in English minds, but they know England is all one country. The difference between what English people call ‘Northerners’ and ‘Southerners’ is real enough, but it is perfectly obvious to English minds everywhere in England that ‘Northerners’ and ‘Southerners’ belong to England, and they are English people. And they know that ‘Northerners’ are NOT Scots, just as ‘Southerners’ are not Scots.
As an afterthought, perhaps irrelevantly but maybe interestingly as well, there is also a vaguer place in the middle of England, somewhere in between ‘the North’ and ‘the South’, which is called ‘the Midlands’. The Midlands are in the middle of England. They have no connection to Scotland at all, or even to the political entity known as the UK. They are certainly ‘in the middle’ of neither of these.
Nevertheless, even within England (and among English people), this essentially geographical term is not so distinct as to create the idea that there are people who should really be called ‘Midlanders’. That word doesn’t really exist (hence the red line under it as I write it, no doubt based on its omission from something like the Oxford English Dictionary). There might be ‘Brummies’ who are from a particular city in ‘the Midlands’ but there are still no ‘Midlanders’ as such. Therefore Brummies can think of themselves as Brummies if they want to (even though Brummies is also getting the red line treatment), but hardly as ‘Midlanders’.
I suppose the ‘Southerners’ probably think of them as ‘Northerners’. However, I am not sure whether or not they think of themselves that way, and uncertain whether real ‘Northerners’ include them or see them as different. What is for sure – and this is my point – English people know they are English, they know what England is, and they know where it begin and ends geographically.
Scottish people likewise, with regard to Scotland. We all know what it means. We know where its borders are; where it begins and ends, its geographical and jurisdictional limits. This gives the lie to the totally fatuous politician who said there is no such thing as a border between Scotland and England. If my memory serves me well he was a Scotsman, and a member of the present Tory government at Westminster.
People who speak nonsense like this really should be debarred from holding governmental office in the UK. A basic knowledge of what the UK actually is should be a minimum and sine qua non requirement for anyone to hold ministerial office in the UK parliament.
Since government is about making laws, in order to exercise such responsibilities you need to know at the very least that the legal system in Scotland is different from that in England. And you need to know the geographical reality of where the English legal system stops and where the Scottish one starts. That means you need to know that there is a border between Scotland and England; and you need to know where it is, and what it means.
Otherwise you are not fit to exercise any governmental authority, or hold any ministerial post, in or concerning the UK as a whole or any part thereof.
Of course, the man was lying. He knows perfectly well there is a border between Scotland and England. That border is not just a fictitious invention in someone’s mind, but a reality on the ground – literally, ON THE GROUND. Someone can show it to him, pointing out where precisely that border runs.
If my memory is right, the fatuous politician concerned was Alastair Jack, officially appointed as the Secretary of State for Scotland. His holding that office makes his remark even more preposterous. If it was true, it makes him the Secretary of State for a geographical location which does not exist, since it has no borders and therefore no limits, no beginning and no end, a place that is simply the figment of someone or other’s over-fevered imagination.
What a very peculiar office to hold (and what an equally peculiar – yet again incredibly fatuous – person to hold it!).
Maybe he thought he was saying he was the Secretary of State for ‘Nowhere’. ‘Welcome to NowhereLand – the new name for some vague thing that used to be called Scotland of which I, Alister Union Jack, am the Secretary of State’.
There might all the same be some albeit slightly strange logic in all of this, all the same. Might it not be fitting for a nonentity to be put ‘in charge’ of a non-existent entity?! A man on a mission, moreover; his purpose being order to reduce that non-existent entity to its own final and total state of irredeemable non-existence!
A non-Scot in charge of making Scotland a non-country, even a non-place altogether, with a non-history and no right to existence. Edward I (and his Scottish collaborators, who – alas – were not altogether lacking) would have been proud of our – sorry, NOT ‘our’ but ‘his’ – wee Alister. After all these years, it is still the same project: make Scotland cease to be. After removing John Balliol in 1296 Edward simply called it ‘the land’, as if it was simply a giant ‘estate’ – a piece of land – that belonged to him.
Of course, to look at it another way, this Alister of the Non-existent-Border unwittingly did give voice to something that a lot of us might just agree with. As we all know, yes… Scotland does stretch out to infinity. Exists infinitely. Unendingly!
Sounds like Hugh MacDiarmid, somewhere or other, to me!
Take note, Mr. Jack!
PS By the way, if you hear some English people (not all English people by any means, but just a certain kind) protest (too much!) that England and Scotland are NOT different countries, do you not get the feeling that what they are really saying is that the whole thing is England?! If so, does it not also give you the impression that they simply do not know what the UK is. And therein lies the problem: they might apply the word ‘Unionist’ to themselves when pushed (though it might not be vocabulary that comes naturally to them), but they do not actually know what the Union is. At bottom, they are not Unionists (they can’t be if they do not know what the Union is); they are imperialists Although that is not a word they will not apply to themselves, that is what they are. Edward I had no such qualms – he, and his successors, believed England to be an ‘Empire’, and one which he had a right to expand, and was intent on doing so. Not just on the continent, but first into Wales then on into and over Scotland, and all the while continuing the policy to capture Ireland.
There still exist contemporary English people who have imbibed this stuff, in one of its mutations, from very early in their existence. It has gone through many transformations but it is still fundamentally the same, and still the nonsense it always was, based on love of power, not love of justice. Insofar as there are people who continue to be controlled by this kind of narrative and the assumptions that underlie it, even subliminally, England has a very serious problem.
The only way for England to rid herself of it, get over it and put it behind her, is to be confronted about it. And the only people who can do that in a way that will hurt enough (in the good sense, that of ‘tough love’) are us, the Scots. Once we leave the UK, the game is up for that kind of mentality. That will be both hard and, in the long run, very good for England.
The further problem is whether we modern-day Scots have the gumption to do this, or not. The Scots of old would have done. But us lot? Well, I still very much hope so. For our own good, and everyone else’s as well. That is, for the whole world’s good, and England’s too. The imperial illusion is a disease from which people need to be healed, a poisonous boil that needs to be lanced.
Scotland is not an Empire, and any time she dreamed of becoming one she immediately did herself a great deal of damage, even long-term. Think of the Darrien disaster; think of the long-term effects of joining England’s imperial programme during the Union and actually profiting from it but in a way that immobilised and punctured us at a deeper and much more important level.
The UK is an out-of-date imperial notion, and ultimately unreal: it needs to be returned to the vapour and marshland from which it originally emerged. Exorcise the ghost, and don’t let it trouble us – and the rest of the world – any longer.
The England still haunted by that ghost, and still letting him pull the levers of its political system, needs to be contained. It always did. Scotland’s historical mission was NOT to become an imperial power – though we tried it, to our detriment, and have ended up paying the consequences – but to play its part in containing that force. In the middle ages, and for a while afterwards, we did so bravely. In more recent centuries, well… … let me not say too much, or over-generalise.
To put it frankly, Scotland’s historical mission was to p*ss on England’s border. And thereby, incidentally, let England be England, and not let her get above herself. That also of course meant making sure that England let Scotland be Scotland.
Whatever the ins and outs of the Union period of British and/ or UK History from 1707 on, that period is surely over. We are back to where we were before it all started. Or, rather, we are back in a new situation which has many resonances with things and voices that have gone before, and we should heed these.
The so-called re-invention of the Union being proposed from down south, by Tory grandees in particular, is nothing other than the last gasp of the English imperial dream. And, remarkably, it is unreconstructed imperialism in its most blatant form. In no way is it modified by some of the more sensible and intelligent aspects that sometimes surfaced in the kind of Unionism that preceded it, for instance in the late 18th and some of the 19th, even some of the 20th Century.
What we are now seeing and hearing, from the palace of Westminster and its closest associates no less, bears far more resemblance to the ‘tooth and claw’ stuff of the time of Edward I and his immediate successors than anything substantially modern pr progressive.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but when you analyse in more depth the noises from Westminster in particular, it is anything but. Listen to these so-called ‘Unionists’ – i.e. those who self-identify as ‘Unionists’ – and you will see that that what their various proposed programmes are really aiming at is not the defence of the old Union, or even of any of its old ambiguities and fudges that most people learned to live with but rather, quite simply, the total obliteration of Scotland.
The Medieval history of these islands is most instructive in these regards. The echoes are really very striking, if only we could listen to them. No wonder, then, that it is still hardly taught at all in Scottish schools. And if there are schools where it is still on the curriculum, it probably will not be taught from a Scottish perspective. I expect English schools still do teach Medieval history, at least to some extent. Insofar as they do, if I was a betting man, even without checking it out, I would wager a lot on the near-certainty that they do so with a very Anglo-centric bias indeed!
History matters a lot. Revolutionaries always want to obliterate it in order to impose their own facile, baseless and untenable ideologies. Only someone who believes in the New English Imperialism could stand up and say, in all utterly blatant dishonesty, that the border between Scotland and England does not exist.
Green Party: Co-leader Sian Berry quits over transgender rights row, https://archive.is/ZvHZ3
So the Greens are now fallen into a Purity Spiral – well that didn’t take long. Anyone taking bets that the same fate will befall the SNP?
After all that Blood and Soil being spilled everywhere I thought I’d lighten the mood 😉
Breeks @ 12:10 pm
“But isn’t what you’re describing a “Scottish” referendum where non Scot’s are given the casting vote?”
Some folks inevitably look at the matter of Scottish independence through a predominantly English and Anglophone lens, i.e. from the perspective of the colonizer ‘who often forgets the nature of the colonial relationship depends on its advantages’ (Memmi).
What is truly disgraceful – even by its subterranean standards – is how the National has responded to Police Scotland launching a criminal probe into the SNP donations scandal. Glorifying Mancini whilst virtually ignoring the Murrells’ dubious dealings should destroy any last shred of credibility that rag still has among genuine supporters of independence, as I explain in my latest blistering blog:
https://jaggy.blog/2021/07/14/why-the-national-is-so-awful/
@Wull 1.42: I enjoyed your musings about the extent of the two countries but Ian Botham, sometime cricketer and Puffer of the Magic Dragon, has already cleared all this up quite authoritatively: “England is an island.”
I’m surprised Johnston hasn’t made him Foreign Secretary…..
Wull.
Many times have I heard English people refer to England as an island. I blame Shakespeare. 🙂
“This royal throne of kings.This sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars. etc. Ending with “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
Some of them seem to me to be somewhat confused. Or is it arrogance? Or a bad education system?
“And your point is caller…..?”
My point is Andy when called on to vote on devolution and independence indigenous Scots have voted yes to both.
Your 12.33pm Comment doubted that, wrongly I might add.
“You must know that can’t possibly be a true statement. ”
Why is that John?
Take the millions of Americans that have no health insurance due to capitalism, and the millions that have already died because of it.
How many indigenous folk died in Africa, in the European scramble for its wealth, how many folk died in India due the British and Dutch empires capitalist greed. Ifact such was the capitalist greed in Tasmanian that the British empire caused the death of just about everyone.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/the-tasmanian-genocide/
Then there was the British and Portuguese capitalist forays into China that cost many lives, and before the rise of the Great Satan the USA, Spain and Portugal killed an unknown amount of folk in South America, Pizzaro and Cortes.
Here in the UK the Tories decades of austerity an ideology not a necessity, has seen the deaths of many.
http://calumslist.org/
The French conquests in North Africa capitalist, the Belgian genocide in the Congo capitalist.
Even today socialist countries are constantly under war by other means, sanctions placed upon them or anyone who does business with them, by the Great Satan the USA, I have great admiration for the likes of Cuba and Venezuela still managing to functioning under these evil sanctions.
Wull 1.42
You are clearly an intelligent and eloquent individual.
However, you are doing that “thing”, I believe its called projection, where you quote a cherry-picked example of something – and then project that as being a representative sample of a view, attitude, or whatever.
Your paragraphs about what English folk mean when they talk about the north, south and midlands are of course true. Similarly, folk know where SCotland, Wales and NI are.
In addition though, and the part you fail to address from any fair or sensible standpoint, is that the only voters in the UK that have been given their opportunity to express whether they want to be in a Union – with all the history and understanding that entails – with the other countries in the UK – are the Scots. And they said yes.
So, boringly, I would advise you to stop worrying about English people. England, Westminster, Tories, etc – and work out why a majority of Scots are not attracted to the picture of an independent Scotland.
Sadly, I rather think that many good and true scots read the sort of stuff that sometimes gets written here about folk in the rest of the UK and their institutions, and come to the conclusion that they would prefer not to be associated with many of the sentiments.
@Republicofscotland
The majority of Scots born who voted Yes were doing so according to an agreed franchise though. We didn’t simply declare IDI on 19th Sept. 2014 because “we wus robbed”, any more than we went ahead and set up an assembly in 1979.
If you don’t like the results, then by all means argue the case for change. You may be happy to write off non-Scots born as not being part of the demos if they don’t believe in independence, but I’m not. I profoundly disagree with them of course and hope their minds can be changed, but if we want to start our “better nation” off on the right foot don’t we actually have to be…you know….better? We have to convince them that Scotland is their country not the UK or England or wherever else they arrived from.
“If you don’t like the results, then by all means argue the case for change.”
Andy.
That’s exactly what we’re doing, and have been doing over the last 24 hrs.
My grandson who is in P6 has just regaled me with his LBTG lessons.
I am wondering Just how aware the parents are in East Renfrewshire and if they are aware are the ‘delighted’ with the new gender issues.
“I don’t see it as defeatism to allow people who have lived here for years to participate in choosing the future of the place they live.” Andy Ellis, 12.17
We are being re-colonised faster than you can compose and post another excuse for a binge vote.
If this was India, millions of Muslims and Hindus facing no more than 100,000 English colonials, there would be no problem embracing an ‘all-comers welcome’ agenda, but this is not India.
The number of incomers is a serious problem prior to a critical vote, and there are so many other colonialist ways adding to this in operation that it presupposes a deliberate strategy by our enemies.
If you don’t realise what is happening, you really should get informed. If you know, please tell folk how you think it can be stopped or reversed.
‘Demographics’: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-q6v
If you believe the better nation you want can only be achieved with independence then surely we have to win independence first before we can build that better nation. so we need a franchise that is fair and gives us the best chance of winning.
The lovey dovey fairytale referendum you advocate (the same one that cost us our independence in 2014) will likely have the same result the next time round.
Dorothy Devine says:
15 July, 2021 at 3:43 pm
My grandson who is in P6 has just regaled me with his LBTG lessons.
I am wondering Just how aware the parents are in East Renfrewshire and, if they are aware, are the ‘delighted’ with the new gender issues.
Thanks Dorothy. You and I are both old enough to remember the arguments around the repeal of what I remember as (according to my increasingly dodgy memory) the Section 28 debate – more specifically, concerning the repeal of Section 28.
There were many aspects of that debate, and all kinds of pros and cons, but there is one in particular that sprang to mind as I read your comment. One for which either Brian Souter or Cardinal Winning, were roundly ridiculed. Both were campaigning against the repeal, and one of their arguments was that if Section 28 was repealed it would open the floodgates, and inevitably lead to homosexuality being promoted in schools, from an early age.
Well, it’s not just homosexuality now, but all kinds of other things as well, which I expect neither Souter nor Winning ever dreamed of. The floodgate, you might say, was wider and deeper and bigger than they imagined,
Be that as it may, and whether we agreed or disagreed with them, we can hardly deny that what they said was prophetic. They were assured that no such thing would ever happen, and ridiculed at the time for even suggesting that it might. Well… your post simply confirms that they were on the mark, dead right.
Question: ‘What is the sign of a true prophet, as opposed to a false one?’
Answer: ‘No one listens to you!’
Dorothy Devine
The daughter of a friend recently came home from indoctrination at school and announced that she was “pan-sexual”.
I seriously doubt the god-fearing folks of East Renfrewshire would know where to begin.
Grouse Beater
Absolutely agree. And more will be poring over the border in coming months and years as England is at saturation point. I was in the Thistle centre in Stirling this morning and the PA announcement warning of covid restrictions was in an English accent. I then went into RBS to get some cash, I thing I haven’t done for a while and was informed by a member of staff that the dispenser on the left was for English notes and the one on the right was for Scottish. Is this an attempt to eventually scrap Scottish banknotes? But it is also an admission that we are two different countries.
I then went into WH Smith and all the English newspapers were facing you at eye level while all the Scottish additions were at ankle level and upsidedown. Would any other country tolerate this.
There is no doubt that the plan is to absorb Scotland into England which given their huge population and a Scotland in a coma would be relative simple. Scotland is now a home from home for the English.
This is not the Scotland of my boyhood , so much has gone , from traditional music to television to supermarkets and the dismantling of our industries. This is the plan and with help coming from Sturgeon and the SNP, unless something changes soon it will succeed.
For that outstanding intellectual, Ian Botham, to be proved right, all that needs to be done is to encourage a joint Scottish-English project to dig a ditch along that part of the border which is not yet covered in water.
A ‘ditch’ something like what the Medieval folk would call, I suppose, a moat. But a really big one. Since an ‘English Channel’, we would just have to call it ‘the Scottish Channel’.
Unfortunately, that might lead to a stand-off between Holyrood and Westminster, the two partners in the project. Based on the English – i.e. the ‘English Channel’ – precedent, Westminster will no doubt propose a Chunnel (maybe with border guards at both end-points, since we can’t have a Schengen agreement, since Schengen is in the wrong place altogether.)
Anyway, border guards or no border guards, while Westminster will want a tunnel (we hear they have a lot of experts in ‘under-mining’), the SNP-led Scottish government will want to put ferries on the dividing waters instead, and might even offer to provide them. They have great experience in that domain, after all, and look how wonderful Caledonia MacBrayne are – they’ll be given the contract!
This, however, will raise the hackles on the heads and shoulders (or wherever hackles reside) of the Westminster elite. These hacklers – better known as ‘hecklers’ when the term is translated into a posh accent – will object that the SNP are just stirring up trouble, as usual: they know very well that their ferries policy will fall victim, like everything else, to their one overriding policy commitment, known to all and sundry (especially within their inner circles, about which MI5 knows everything) as ‘Let us Procrastinate For Ever!’
For all their promises, no ferries will ever materialise. MI5 are thus working out that these dastardly SNP people are trying to gain independence by stealth. “They are creating a border between Scotland and England”, their Union Jack Ali will say, “and not just any old border, but an unassailable one – i.e. one that is ‘not sailing today’, or tomorrow, or ever.”
“Just like they did with their Indyref2… Putting all that wind up the backsides of us nice kind Union Jack Ali’s, but not letting it billow for a single moment in their own Scottish sails, or even allowing it to swirl for a second their Scottish kilts. These damnable SNP policies of ‘feint, deceive and procrastinate’, which have becalmed everything, really must stop. So as to let us get on with our own stirring policy – of undermining everything! Including that wretched old Union itself! In order to impose our own Brave New Jacked-Up World all over these islands…!”
The third sentence in the second paragraph in that recent post of mine should begin: ‘Since an English Channel already exists…
@ Wull and Breeks Microphone drop , unfortunately as Fishy Wullie says to achieve the better nation status that we aspire to that involves WINNING or TAKING independence first
But don’t worry Andy has the recipe it is the same one Sturgeon used to determine the GRA self id proposals, just open up the consultation and referendum to everyone everywhere in the world , they can all have a vote on removing women’s sex based rights and secure places of safety , and then after a quick lunch the world can then determine whether Scotland should become independent or whether the country and nation of Scotland should just be incorporated into England because we ALL know that when furriners say England they really mean the whole UK , plus think of the bother it would save
NOW that would REALLY be CIVIC NATIONALISM Andy would you vote for it
@ wull
At the moment it’s looking like there’s more chance of Scottish MPs finally leaving Westminster due to it being submerged by the floods caused by the impending moon wobble in a decade’s time, rather than because of the Union ending.
A “still game” playing Yon Blowhard yaps: “Scotland will not be taken out of Westminster against its will…because how else will I be able to afford keeping fuel in the wife’s RangeRover”…
Express article in initial tweet of thread archived to save direct link.
https://archive.is/Egmfx
Tweet thread.
https://twitter.com/Rosmoffat/status/1415691971184799747
Dan, thanks for the Rosemary Moffat links – eye-openers to say the least.
I wonder how the faithful will react to that – maybe a big, bad Tory made her do it then ran away.
I don’t suppose there is any difference between British NO voters no matter where they come from.
The 2014 franchise was fine.
What I think is unfair is that the campaign is between Unionists from the whole of the UK v Independence supporters from Scotland.
wull says:
15 July, 2021 at 1:42 pm
There is no doubt an argument to be had about the word ‘foreign’, and whether or not or how far Scotland and England are best described as ‘foreign’ countries to each other….
Great comment there wull, and it suddenly struck me that the English view of itself as North and South has a very long tradition, given the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk being derived from North folk and South folk, which I think are Anglo Saxon names in origin.
Then there is Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Middlesex, but frankly, English geography is just a big bowl of English porridge to me. 🙂
Maybe there’s a prosaic explanation in that most of England is as flat as a billiard table, hence, by your perceived direction of travel shall ye be forever known.
Hi wull.
“Then there is Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Middlesex, but frankly, English geography is just a big bowl of English porridge to me. ?”
English porridge should be “porage” should it not?
https://ridleys.sirv.com/Images/TRimages/7/75038U.jpg?h=500
McDuff says:”This is not the Scotland of my boyhood , so much has gone , from traditional music to television to supermarkets and the dismantling of our industries”
It’s got nothing to do with Grousey’s paranoid delusions of a sinister plan to Anglicise and supplant Scottish culture – if only it was.
What you are experiencing is happening in every corner of the UK, and probably at a slower rate (depending on where you go)- the entire world.
It’s called Globalisation – and if you want someone to blame look no further than our own Hyperglobalist-obsessed First Minister.
BTW – are you really missing Thingummyjig that much it’s an issue? 🙂
Sensible Dave says:
In addition though, and the part you fail to address from any fair or sensible standpoint, is that the only voters in the UK that have been given their opportunity to express whether they want to be in a Union – with all the history and understanding that entails – with the other countries in the UK – are the Scots. And they said yes.
Reply
Sure England didn’t have an referendum on whether they wanted Scotland to remain in the Union but England did campaign to keep Scotland in the Union.
Voters in England could have voiced their objections to the campaign but they didn’t.
Conclusion voters in England want England to be in a Union with Scotland.
McDuff says:
I then went into RBS to get some cash, A thing I haven’t done for a while and was informed by a member of staff that the dispenser on the left was for English notes and the one on the right was for Scottish.
Reply
Perhaps it’s good thing!
That could mean not having to queue behind a long line of tourists wanting English pounds.
Sensible Dave says:
In addition though, and the part you fail to address from any fair or sensible standpoint, is that the only voters in the UK that have been given their opportunity to express whether they want to be in a Union – with all the history and understanding that entails – with the other countries in the UK – are the Scots. And they said yes.
—————————————————————–
No Dave the Scots did not say yes to the union they said no, it was your fellow countrymen / women who didn’t have the moral decency to abstain that turned the vote for Better Together
How long is it gonna take you to get that through your thick skull ?
I agree with a lot of the comments above, Scotland is being subsumed at an alarming rate, with Anglo resettlement in full swing and all traces of our national identity being stripped away. Look at the huge surge in house prices – few ordinary Scots can afford these prices and it is not difficult to see that the market is being driven by Anglo settlers. Scotland has become lebensraum for the Greater English Reich under Nicola Sturgeon’s watch. This is what happens when you offer no resistance – you are asking to be trampled under foot.
“it was your fellow countrymen / women who didn’t have the moral decency to abstain that turned the vote”
Fishy – have you any data to back that up? I’m genuinely surprised by that comment as i know a number of people who were born in England – and not only did most of them vote for independence – some of them were out on the campaign trail for it!
@Breeks – 1:41 pm
“Scotland’s sovereign people voted remain [ in the Brexit referendum ]”
Well, perhaps.
This thread is choc-full of posts claiming that the 2014 Indy Ref was spiked because “Scotland’s Sovereign People” were infiltrated by incomers who voted the wrong way, i.e. No.
How do you know that the Brexit vote was not subject to the same influences? Perhaps Scotland’s Sovereign People actually majority voted for Brexit, but incomers voted to Remain and pushed the result the wrong way again. After all, if incomers are flooding in at the rate suggested here, their influence is only going to increase with every voting opportunity.
I am genuinely interested, so if you have a link to information on how the Brexit vote in Scotland was divided across different groups I would be interested to follow it up.
Hi Fred
https://caltonjock.com/2019/12/30/facts-are-chiels-that-winna-ding-voters-born-outwith-scotland-decided-the-outcome-of-the-2014-independence-referendum-and-will-do-again-in-the-next-one/.
I agree there were many good English people who campaigned and voted for YES and I am very thankful for them but the vast majority quite naturally didn’t about 70% I believe. I don’t blame them why should we expect them to vote against the interests of their homeland
Dan @5.45pm.
So US big pharma has established a link with the current Scottish government, as well as multiple contracts, big pharma in the US all but call the shots on everything to do with health. Millions of Americans either can’t get health insurance or can’t afford it.
I wonder are we heading in that direction, after Johnson sells out NHS England, and by default in Scotland in the up and coming US trade deal. If so Sturgeon will have already laid the ground work for the Americans.
Thanks Fishy Wullie – i’m stunned, as it’s not been my experience at all.
Just received Mike Russel’s eight page leaflet about Indy. Can anybody explain in simple terms why I as an Indy supporter (former snp party member) want to throw up at the fact that I have received this s@@t!
RepublicOfScotland
You are over complicating things.
This is what you wrote:
“the capitalist right has killed more folk than the left will ever kill”.
I can only interpret this in one way:
The number of folk already killed by the right already exceeds the number of folk that have been killed and will be killed by the left in all time to come.
As you can’t possibly know how many people the left will kill during the unknown that is the future of humanity, your statement is manifest nonsense.
If you meant your statement to be interpreted differently, why not re-write it? Much simpler than your extensive lists of mass deaths.
Incidentally, here is one missing from your list. A novel, highly infectious, genetically engineered respiratory disease escaped/released from a lab in a left-leaning country and has killed ? And will eventually kill ? Have you great admiration for them also?
I’ve just tried to find the survey by Ailsa Henderson that is being referred to above; the link on Edinburgh University’s website no longer works, but I have found a blog/presentation by her, from which I have established that her team interviewed around 8,500 people, in 2 “waves”, one before the vote, the other split over two questionnaires immediately after it. (A third wave in 2015 is of a size not specified in the presentation.)
That is a large enough sample, if properly weighted, from which to extrapolate. Surveys of around 1,000 have a margin of error of 3%; this will be lower with a bigger sample. Quoting figures to 1 decimal place as if they were incontrovertible, however, is silly.
According to Henderson (https://blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk/scottishreferendumstudy/files/2015/03/Scottish-Referendum-Study-27-March-2015.pdf), 52.7% of Scottish-born voters voted Yes, which is really not significantly more than half.
No ballot paper in 2014 recorded the voter’s place of birth (which he/she did not choose and cannot change), or feelings of “Scottishness”* – so all data about those things have to be from surveys. Is someone like Anas Sarwar, born here, but with no ancestral ties, and always going to vote No, more entitled to vote than a woman of my acquaintance, who voted Yes, is now 93, has lived in Scotland for 92.5 of those years, but was born in England because her parents were there for a few years as economic migrants? It looks as if some people would say so.
That’s just an example, which is easy enough to counter by referring to ancestry, but how do you define the “Scottishness” of someone’s ancestors? If that is by birthplace, you’re back to square one.
*The survey, unsurprisingly, found a strong correlation between identity and voting behaviour, but the presentation doesn’t show how that interacts with birthplace. The underlying data presumably do.
“Incidentally, here is one missing from your list. A novel, highly infectious, genetically engineered respiratory disease escaped/released from a lab in a left-leaning country and has killed ? And will eventually kill ? Have you great admiration for them also?”
John the first case of the Spanish flu was found in Kansas on March 11th 1918, it killed between 20 and 50 million people.
If there was an Independence referendum tomorrow would you vote YES knowing that the current incompetent, dishonest and untrustworthy SNP would be in charge?
If your argument for voting YES is that there would have to be a General Election in Scotland to vote in a new Government, who out there, from ANY Party, is deemed competent enough to run the country? Would the SNP/Queen Nicola even allow a General Election and run the risk of falling off the gravy train? Worrying times in Scotland.
chas says:
15 July, 2021 at 9:32 pm
If there was an Independence referendum tomorrow would you vote YES knowing that the current incompetent, dishonest and untrustworthy SNP would be in charge?
—————————————————————-
Yes I would they’re in charge anyway
@Gareth 4.03 am
Simple: it can be stopped by convincing more native Scots and new Scots of the case for independence. It’s a pity too many of my fellow Scots are keener to queer the pitch by ditching civic nationalism than they are to do the actual work.
I’d thought better of them, and you sadly. 🙁
Wull and Stuart, I wonder whether the voting public had it known the direction of teaching insisted upon by the SNP would have given them the winning vote.
What is even more surprising is the year of Covid and catching up on ‘education’ allows for hours of this to be taught in school.
From what I gather it has also opened the floodhgates of ‘ banter’ calling others gay / homophobic/ transphobic – hell mend teachers for following this warped idea of what is required after the year of disruption.
And hell mend all those who pushed this into primary schools where kids are learning who they are and how to socialise .
“Simple: it can be stopped by convincing more native Scots and new Scots of the case for independence.”
And how do we do this, Andy, since we in Scotland do not have our own media? We have 35 or so newspapers which are anti-independence and one token Indy one, The National. TV is not devolved, so we have complete domination of the airwaves by hostile news channels.
We can march till the cows come home too, but lack of TV coverage will negate that pretty easily. When Norway split from Sweden in 1905 with a 99% yes vote, it had its own newspapers, not newspapers which happened to be printed in that country, owned by hostile proprietors furth of Norway.
Wings’ WBB made a huge contribution to boosting the Yes vote to the maximum but for all The Rev’s efforts, independence has stalled owing to the dead hand of the present SNP leadership and its inability to use the Brexit vote to highlight the obvious point that the union simply does not work for Scotland.
This is a genuine question: in a loaded game, how do we get our message out, when even our host has been reduced to (temporary, I hope) silence?
@ Tinto Chiel: spot on analysis of the bind we independence supporters are caught in.
No mass media on our side, no Scottish-owned media, and the independence party in the hands of people lacking in every quality required.
Could the media problem be partly tackled by having a TV and/or radio station in neutral territory [i.e. Republic of Ireland] broadcasting to Scotland? The downside to this would be the cost because it would have to be on a par with existing ones such as STV.
The only other route I can see to shifting the dead hand of the SNP government is by approaching Holyrood directly – a petition demanding the indy majority act now. Plus sizeable demonstrations in the streets of Edinburgh.
It’s been 2 or 3 weeks since I updated folk on the school that’s sinking: The Engineering Institution have been looking into it for the past 5 weeks and they should have an answer soon. It took me 6-weeks to get 40 opinions and they only need 10. That shouldn’t take long, should it?
It’s analogous to the Miami apartment collapse in a way. That was sinking for 10-years and water was getting into the foundations there too. It just shows you how quickly it can happen. That one surprised even me. This school’s only been sinking for 6-years, but it’s sinking faster and there’s more water. Anyway, it might be OK, but we’ll soon know.
In the case of this school, it wasn’t the initial mistake that did the damage, it was the subsequent cover-up and if there is one result I would like to see at the end of this it is the sanctioning of a big, bent law firm by the Law Society.
So, and with that in mind, I reported a bent lawyer to the Law Society at the start of this week.
By the way, I received another letter from Holyrood.
I keep wondering what the EIS make of all this…they just seem to let things happen. If it goes right it goes right and if it goes wrong it goes wrong. schools go back soon enough…what happens then?
Fred
Its nothing to do with globalisation its to do with a far larger country absorbing another. So tell me in what other countries is this happening. Let me spell it out for you. I`m going to compare a couple of points between Scotland and Ireland as it was the first country in the British Isles to become independent.
Scotland used to have six proper supermarket chains, now there are none, all taken over by the larger English ones and rebranded in their names.
Ireland by contrast has its own SuperValu chain in 223 locations employing 14,500 staff. There is also Dunnes with supermarkets attached to there clothing stores with over 120 outlets employing 15,000 staff. Scotland has none.
Apart from Ryanair Ireland has a national airline and although now part of the IAG group continues to operate international flights to Nr America, an Irish airline serving the Irish people out of Ireland. By contrast “British” Airways and BOAC before them once flew to Nr America from Prestwick but they ceased well over thirty years ago. So if you want to fly with the “National” carrier you have to go to England.
The two car producers in Scotland are gone but plenty in England.
A 1967 Birmingham edition of the Radio Times shows four weekly Scottish programs networked across the UK, two musical and two dramas each made in Scotland with a Scottish content. Now there are practically none. Everything is English. Take Soaps, now I don’t watch them but I watched an episode of River City and it is as good as any, yet not aired in England. Coronation Street represents the Nr West of England, Emmerdale for the Nr East, Hollyoaks and Eastenders the south, all networked across the UK but with the Scottish exception. Why? Also English football on Sat evening and Sun morning.
Scotland continually out voted by the dominant number of English MP`s on important issues such as the Iraq war and Brexit.
Now i`m up and down to England a lot and have been over the past forty odd years and have seen Scottish produce rapidly diminish in English supermarkets to salmon(a lot more Norwegian and less Scottish) oatmeal products some biscuits and water. In contrast the vast majority of produce sold in the English owned supermarkets in Scotland are English.
The national radio stations which are completely English dominated can be received from Lands End to John o Groats but radio Scotland ( not that i listen to it anymore)by contrast disappears after Carlisle.
I could go on and on but it would take a very long time.
You are either English or a rabid Scottish unionist to suggest that this is just globalisation and nothing to do with English domination and control of Scotland.
Let me ask you a rhetorical question, what would be England`s reaction if positions were reversed?
“There were more than 420,000 Britons from elsewhere in the UK living in Scotland when the last census was taken and assuming they cast their ballots in line with the findings of the Edinburgh University study, more than 300,000 of them will have voted “no”.”
So in 2014 in true self defeating Scottish tradition and in the interests of civic nationalism the “NO” side were gifted a 300,000 vote head start before one single vote was cast, that’s not including the 128,500 EU nationals who were also allowed to vote,
Put together that’s almost half a million people whose loyalties lie outwith Scotland and have a vested personal interest in Scotland remaining in the union.
Add to all that the massive advantage the “NO” side had through it’s control of the mainstream media and broadcasting and you have a referendum Andy calls fair so fair that if we tried to level the playing field he would vote against independence
@Fishy Wullie
Good points.
If the same number of non-indigenous Scots also voted Remain while a majority of indigenous Scots voted Leave then we were not “dragged out of Europe against our will”.
Nearly half a million people who were more interested in cherry-picking the most lucrative jobs and benefits, wherever they may be, and needed freedom of movement to do that. They feel no loyalty to Scotland.
Your argument can be used, and will be used, both ways.
Just saying.
@ John Main
I’ll just point out the voting franchises were different for the Indyref and “Brexit” votes.
Under 18s and most EU Nationals were denied the vote in the latter.
That’s fair enough John, but it doesn’t matter if we’ve been dragged out the EU against our will because we have a First Minister who’s chosen to do nothing about it in spite of her promises.
I personally don’t care if we’re in or out of the EU, I voted remain in the hope Scotland would vote likewise and England vote leave giving us the material change of circumstances we needed to hold another referendum which is exactly what happened the rest is history as they say
@Tinto Chiel 10.16 pm
So the increase in pro independence support from the high 20’s% to 45% over the course of the #indyref1 campaign was attributable to all that pro-independence media and glowingly positive coverage we got then…?
I’d forgotten all about that of course….
Good grief. No wonder the movement is going nowhere fast. 🙁
This whole affair really is a perfect case study in all that is rotten in Scotland.
The SNP have effectively shaved their head and raised money for their cancer treatment on crowdfunder which they then blew on fags and booze and luxuries and numerous holidays.
People do this all the time and get jail terms for it. But in Scotland the party in Government can do it and know full well they will be immune to any real judicial scrutiny or police investigation.
Which bring us to our rotten COPFS. Ohh did they replace Woolfe, gee I guess that has fixed that shit hole of bias and corruption. Rotten to the core, it always has been an instrument of power and not of justice in Scotland. That is crystal clear now if it was not before, crystal clear.
Which then leads on to our rotten Police force, Police Scotland. Shall we ask Gail Sheridan or Alex Salmond or countless others who have been victims of them. They would do anything they were told no matter how repugnant or outrageous. That is also very clear. Just paid henchmen. They are utterly ruthless to the point of making themselves look absurd. They just don’t care, they are shameless.
No political opposition whatsoever to speak of. Even before they were effectively wiped out. They political system is so bent in Scotland it is staggering.
Totally complicit and dishonest mainstream media. The Vow, the BBC… it goes on and on. Vomit inducing lying turds the lot of them. Probably the most despicable cunts of them all in my view. Vermin.
Let’s not even bother talking about arseholes like weegingermug or his sad case followers. FFS…
So whatever you think Scotland is, it is so far from any kind actual ‘democracy’ it is frightening. It is shocking. I always had my suspicions it was the case but the years post 2014 have left zero doubts anymore. Plus the way we were cheated in 2014 as well.
I never expected any of this post 2014. It is like a war has been declared on us post 2014.
Why would you do that if you really won in 2014. I think we did win in 2014 and that explains why they went after Salmond so hard afterwards. They had to destroy him.
I think Nicola Sturgeon really is Scotland’s own hellish version of Tony Blair (raised in Scotland curiously I recall) and I mean that very much in a Robert Harris in The Ghost sense. She is the same and works for the same folks I think. The whole thing has a very yank smell about it.
They have the rigged the game to the point there is almost nothing left. It is full spectrum dominance making sure Independence is crushed.
@Fishy Wullie 6.09 am
OK, so let’s assume you get your wish as a thought experiment. You convince the (currently largely sceptical) Yes movement that it is a good idea to abandon the 2014 franchise, and somehow convince the famously amenable and open to change SNP hierarchy of the SNP and Greens (seriously….good luck with that one….) to abandon the civic nationalism they’ve been using a sa central part of their pitch for decades.
You then announce that for #indyref2 (which isn’t going to happen anytime soon remember) the 420,000 non-Scots born UK nationals and 128,500 EU nationals will be disenfranchised unless they can demonstrate 10 years residence in Scotland (or 7 or 5…?).
Presumably EU nationals now are more likely to vote Yes than they were in 2014 due to brexit, though a fair number may have just given up on Scotland/UK altogether and either gone home or elsewhere in the EU. So…you’ve just deprived the Yes campaign of a decent number of votes from EU nationals who expect Scotland to re-join the EU.
The 420,000 non-native UK citizens is reduced by a significant number (I doubt anyone has much idea by how much) because they don’t meet the residence criteria. The bulk of the rest of them still vote no, because they identify more as British than Scottish.
Dyed in the wool Scottish unionists aren’t going to change their votes. Around 30% are always going to vote No. A similar number are hard core Yes voters. You’re then left trying to convince “soft No” voters to switch to Yes (having just disenfranchised a tranche of the unionist vote) and ensuring “soft Yes” voters to keep supporting indy having just abandoned a central plank of the civic nationalist platform.
We already know from Stu’s polling post 2014 that significant numbers of voters did switch BOTH ways, so there’s no reason to think #indyref2 will be any different.
So to recap: your cunning plan loses us a significant number of pro-indy EU nationals votes we didn’t get in 2014 and sends a signal to wavering voters that they’re not really welcome or regarded as “new Scots” anymore, just a potential unionist fifth column.
Yeah…that’ll definitely go down well on the doorsteps….
@ Andy Ellis
Can I ask if you have actually been out on the streets campaigning lately eg. for the recent Scottish Election?
It is incredibly difficult to do now due to covid because face to face conversations are restricted as folk have concerns about the virus.
Therefore trying to enlighten folk that the bullshit they have watched on the telly or read in the papers that they formed their opinions from over the past couple of years isn’t actually all what it seems.
Alba’s recent vote share highlights the issue. Yet a year or so previous Wings polling looked to show potential for such a Party.
1.1 million pissed away SNP 2nd votes to elect a pair of Emmas that manipulated the system to be first on their Regional Lists, unfortunately shows how dumb some folk are in voting for quality representation and improving the chance of moving the question of Scottish Independence back to the front of the queue rather than the genderwoowoo and Hate Crime shiz…
@ Dan 8.35 am
No I haven’t. I did join Alba on the first day, but it was obvious pretty quickly they were too late to make an impact at the recent elections. As I’ve been saying for quite a while now – more or less since the trial balloon of a “new” party was first floated in fact – that it was going to take several years to stand up an alternative to the SNP. If Alba lives up to expectations I’ll get involved. Even if they turn out to be a disappointment I can’t ever see myself supporting the SNP again.
Realistically (and sadly) nothing is likely to change until the next Holyrood election. Another 5 wasted years. 🙁
Police Scotland and COPFS will form a crack taskforce of detectives to investigate Gail Sheridan’s miniature collection, making sure no stone is left unturned before bring charges.
Yet the identity of the person who leaked the story to the Daily Record (who everyman and his dug knows it seems) is utterly baffling to them. lol.
Who could it be?
Gosh what a mystery, no wonder Police Scotland cant find them, I mean who could right, it is unfathomable, only maybe Sherlock Holmes would be able to crack it.
The whole thing is so bent it is approaching Zimbabwe levels but actually it is worse because at least in Zimbabwe no one is stupid enough to not realize the system is completely bent.
It is truly laughable.
@Mac,
not much i would disagree with there,
as the founder of SNP said 100 years ago,
“The enemies of Scottish Nationalism are not the English, for they were ever a great and generous folk, quick to respond when justice calls.
Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
I see police have raided 2 homes in connection with
the release of the Hancock CCTV evidence against him.
Again we see a bent government and police forces out
to stop the public from accessing the truth.
The law in the U.K. only applies to those chosen and
blind eyes available on request for those in power.
Fishy Wullie
Voting YES today would be seen as an endorsement of Mrs Murrell’s policies to date and a mandate to carry on as before.
I see this morning that the Scottish Government is maybe in contempt of court although I very much doubt that this will lead to anything. Especially as they have treated the majority of us in Scotland with contempt for the last umpteen years.
There are now two types of Independence supporters. The brain dead sheep which pollute the likes of WGD and the independent thinkers who can see for themselves the shambles we are in, with sadly no clear way to extricate ourselves. To my mind we have to start by exterminating the existing SNP. It will not be easy!
@ Andy Ellis at 8.44am
Well Alba’s recent showing highlights what Tinto and others have stated re. what we are up against with the lack of decent media informing Scots.
We all know the UK media is protecting Sturgeon and the SNP at this time because they are no threat to the union and established UK power.
Corbyn got the sights turned on him when they determined he was a threat. Yet with all that has gone on in Scotland with corruption on so many levels over the past few years they have barely touched on the damning stuff when they usually make mountains out of mole hills if it can damage pro Scottish interests.
I’ll just add that I think you are to a degree polarising the issue around the franchise question.
Implementing a minimum duration of residency prior to being eligible to vote is hardly blood and soil, and arguably a duration of a certain length of time is required for folk to get up the curve on the realities facing their chosen new location of residence.
During the recent Holyrood campaign I spoke with several young EU Nationals that have barely been in Scotland a couple of years. They have absolutely no clue of the historic and ongoing political issues and struggles Scotland is enduring within the Union.
Nor did they comprehend the implications of what a hard leave of the EU means. They also still have their freedom of movement so can leave any time they want anyway.
That being the case their priorities, along with their lack of knowledge of Scotland’s situation were not, and still aren’t, focused on helping Scotland return to being a self governing country as quickly as possible.
Ruby 6.55
OK Rubes. Let’s use this issue to examine just how “in the know” you are.
You wrote “Conclusion voters in England want England to be in a Union with Scotland.”
So, I think we can all be pretty clear that it is your warped view and fractured view that folk in England all want to desperately hang on to Scotland and keep them in the Union.
But we don’t have to rely on the mindless ramblings of a nut job do we. We have this from The National dated 21st May 2021:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19337786.scottish-independence-just-fifth-english-voters-oppose-ending-union/
QED …. again!
Andy Ellis: “So the increase in pro independence support from the high 20’s% to 45% over the course of the #indyref1 campaign was attributable to all that pro-independence media and glowingly positive coverage we got then…?”
And 45% was just about as good as it got for us, the ones who were energised by the excitement, optimism and hope of a real campaign and vote and became impervious to the almost complete negativity of the media because we believed in independence for our country.
However, your point was that we had to persuade sufficient numbers of the remaining electorate (presumably the “soft-Noes”,etc.) to vote Yes in a future referendum and not discuss changing the franchise. How we do this given the blank wall of media negativity which prevents the independence message and arguments getting out to these more “intractable” voters?
I noticed you didn’t answer my original query: “This is a genuine question: in a loaded game, how do we get our message out, when even our host has been reduced to (temporary, I hope) silence?”
It’s quite all right if you don’t want to answer it, or can’t, by the way, but I can do without the sarcastic reply to a simple question.
@ Dan 9.27 am
I don’t see the situation with the media changing though, do you? The fact remains we saw an increase in Yes support of almost 20% over the course of a 2 year campaign (on a civic nationalist, inclusive platform for the benefit of our nativist franchise limiting friends). As others have pointed out before, are we really saying we can’t gain half that number next time….? Waiting for a change in the MSM isn’t going to deliver indy in any reasonable timescale.
Perhaps the franchise issue is intrinsically polarising? In one respect it’s immaterial: as Stu pointed out before there isn’t going to be any referendum in the short to medium term, so it’s largely a moot point. Those punting the concept also have – at last as far as I can see – only a minority of the broader movement on their side, and none of the parties or people in leadership positions supporting their view. The optics of changing the franchise are a hard sell, and I’ve heard nothing in all the debate above to convince me it’s a good idea or a good time.
On reflection, I think a case can be made for introducing a minimum residence period, and possibly a separate register for the referendum, but that’s as far as I’d be prepared to go. If the more expansive plans from some quarters to exclude all non native Scots, or to set the qualifying period at 10 years, I couldn’t support it.
I still reckon there is little to no appetite for changing the franchise in practice tho’.
@ Tinto 9.41 am
Apologies for missing the second part of your question, and the snarky initial response. Given some of the interactions above you’ll perhaps understand my frustration and tendency to lose my temper when I’m accused of not being a true independence supporter etc.
I’m afraid I don’t have a ready answer to your question. I’d like to think we can pull something out of the hat for #indyref2 if and when it happens, but maybe we have reached the end of that particular road? If Stu really has hung up his boots and no like for like replacement emerges, maybe we just have to do something different?
All I can come up with really is to try and ensure Alba is in a position to hold the balance of power and force an unreformed SNP to be more radical. Other than that I’m coming up empty on the cunning plan front, sorry.
@Andy Ellis: thanks for the considered reply, fair enough.
If Twitter is anything to go by (and I’d be curious to hear from anyone who spends time on FB) then there’s a concerted effort to memory-hole any recent SNP shenanigans. By ‘recent’ I mean, say, back to when ‘The Betrayer’ was published here.
I tweeted in anger yesterday morning that I couldn’t thole the sight or sound of Sturgeon/Blackford. Received an astonishing reply from a superficially polite character who wanted to know what the ‘latest’ was on the ‘alleged’ corruption charges against Sturgeon. He was asked (by someone else) if he’s been living under a rock for the past 18 months, whereupon he said ‘Yes!’, that he’d been working 70/80 hours every week since lockdown and hadn’t had a chance to ‘catch-up’. Another demanded to see the evidence of wrongdoing. They’re so obvious it’s actually quite embarrassing.
If it’s true that John Swinney misunderstood a question about recent allegations of sexual impropriety against SNP figures, using the chance to have another go at Alex Salmond, then it may point to a pattern. If declaring ignorance of any malfeasance on the part of SNP or SG staff is to be the tactic then we can be sure they’ve war-gamed the whole scenario and actually believe they can get away with it.
The Friends of Wings Twitter account does a good job of resurrecting important posts from this place as and when they seem appropriate. Might be an idea for us all to use the excellent archive as and when the revisionists pull the auld amnesia trick. It’s probably fair to say that they are scunnered to see Wings still ‘going’ at all, even if it is in a moribund state for now.
“I’d thought better of them, and you sadly.” Andy Ellis, 9.46
Have you taken up the tactic of smearing?
You would be the same guy that sent me a scurrilous DM defaming Stu Campbell – now saying you are disappointed in my attitude to ‘long-term residents’
And you joined ALBA? That’s alarming.
‘Long-term residents’ is spurious and irrelevant. I talk of demographics. I ignored your final flourish because I had said nothing derogatory about non-Scots who have made Scotland their permanent home, though I meet too many who think the ideal of SNP the worst thing imaginable. I’m half-Italian and half-Irish.
Do you have an agenda to sustain a mass voting lobby that will defeat independence? Come clean. And stop treating me as a fool.
Sensible Dave says:
16 July, 2021 at 9:40 am
Ruby 6.55
OK Rubes. Let’s use this issue to examine just how “in the know” you are.
You wrote “Conclusion voters in England want England to be in a Union with Scotland.”
So, I think we can all be pretty clear that it is your warped view and fractured view that folk in England all want to desperately hang on to Scotland and keep them in the Union.
But we don’t have to rely on the mindless ramblings of a nut job do we. We have this from The National dated 21st May 2021:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19337786.scottish-independence-just-fifth-english-voters-oppose-ending-union/
QED …. again!
Reply
Can’t read your link Sinister. It’s behind a paywall.
Got any polls from around 2011 & 2014?
You would think English politicians would be campaigning for what voters want.
Weird that English politicians were ‘fighting with every fibre of their being’ to keep England in a Union with Scotland during the 2014 IndyRef.
English politicians are currently so keen to keep England in a union with Scotland that they are even denying Scottish voters the right to a referendum.
Got any articles/letters criticising English politician’s fight for the precious Union?
Who to believe the actions of English politicians fighting like mad to keep England in a Union with Scotland or the result of one poll?
Chas @ 9:07am,
I think that is a bit shortsighted, surely a Yes vote would be seen as an endorsement for Scotland to make their own decisions regardless who is at the helm.
After a Yes vote, the political landscape would be unrecognisable.
Having said that, I would vote for the Devil herself, if it meant an independent Scotland, we have got to look beyond the end of our collective nose to the future, it’s not about the here and now.
Sturgeon and her band of self ID-ing merry men would be gone soon enough.
Almost nobody in England wants to be in a Union with Scotland yet their politicians fight with every fibre of their being to keep England in what they describe as ‘The Precious Union’
The Royal family are even part of the campaign.
Would it not be about time for voters in England to let them know what they want?
Ruby,
“ Almost nobody in England wants to be in a Union with Scotland yet their politicians fight with every fibre of their being to keep England in what they describe as ‘The Precious Union”.
That’s because they’ve seen the books…..both sets.
@ Grouse Beater 10.42 am
Gareth, I’m allowed to be disappointed in people who I though better of. You’ve obviously forgotten or perhaps just don’t care that I was one of those in the forefront defending you when you were ejected from the SNP, who publicly supported you and resigned my own SNP membership specifically due to the shoddy treatment.
Now you’re accusing me of sending you scurrilous DM’s about Stu Campbell?
You’d be able to provide evidence of this no doubt, otherwise people will be entitled to draw their own conclusions about your output. Sad days indeed when someone I’d always had quite some regard for shows their true colours.
O tempora, o mores as your Italian ancestors would say. 🙁
Breastplate says:
16 July, 2021 at 11:03 am
Ruby,
“ Almost nobody in England wants to be in a Union with Scotland yet their politicians fight with every fibre of their being to keep England in what they describe as ‘The Precious Union”.
That’s because they’ve seen the books…..both sets.
Reply
It makes sense that almost nobody in England wants to be in a Union with Scotland when they believe they have to pay out their hard earned money to subsidise Scotland.
They have to pay for Scotland to have free university education, free prescriptions etc while they have to pay for these things.
Just why their politicians & their Royal family are so keen to keep them in a Union with Scotland is a mystery!
Does anyone look at the Guardian online? The only news of Scotland today is that the Drag Queen School for 11 to 18 year olds has sold out its places . As far as I can see it doesn’t tell anyone how many places they have – could be 2 could be 10 who knows?
It’s in Dumfries – which dumfoonert me!
@Dorothy Devine (11.16) –
I caught mention of that on Twitter earlier and didn’t even read it, thought it was a joke.
Should’ve known better.
🙁
‘I’m allowed to be disappointed in people…’ Andy Ellis 10.42
Too late, you’re busted.
Attack as the best form of defence won’t do you any good here if I republish what you wrote. That is why I blocked you. Sinister doesn’t come close, and that’s what I said to Stu. I was shocked.
Better you withdraw quietly than try to goad.
@ Grouse Beater 11.38 am
I have nothing to hide Gareth. I never sent you any scurrilous DM about Stu or anyone else. Perhaps you have me confused with another person. If so, I await your retraction and apology.
Where is it you think you’ve blocked me exactly, as I’m no longer on twitter and certainly never sent you anything on there defaming Stu Campbell?
Stu can no doubt make up his own mind about the veracity of your evidence free claim.
Have a care Gareth, your false allegation that I sent you a scurrilous DM defaming Stu Campbell sounds rather defamatory in itself.
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2021-07-15T11_28_42-07_00
Please listen to the link I’ve just posted. It’s an emergency
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/16/why-did-this-happen/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
As sobering as it is heartbreaking…
I’m just a grain of sand on a beach, but records will show this particular wee grain of sand was never taken in by Sturgeon, and her Constitutional illiteracy and strategic ineptitude was painfully clear from the moment she took over as First Minister.
Sturgeon is a dud, and the only remarkable thing about it is wilful denial of her legion of acolytes who prioritise Sturgeon the crook above Scotland’s emancipation.
Not only do they wallow in delusions about Sturgeon, they must validate their own gullibility by demonising Alex Salmond and the ALBA Party as the devil incarnate, because otherwise, they would have reconcile themselves with squandering best crack at Independence since the Treaty of Union came into being.
For all those deluded “Both votes SNP” fools, ALBA isn’t the monster, and yes, you have been a gullible dumb-fuck, and your feckless stupidity has set Scotland upon a dismal, heartbreaking trajectory. Go ahead and take a bow.
Ruby 10.45
You wrote “Can’t read your link Sinister. It’s behind a paywall.”
Not down here in the sunny south it isn’t!
On a general point that we have discussed previously, you keep using the term “English”, could you define what you mean by that please? 😉
I note that at 6.40, you confidently shared a brilliantly thought out conclusion that you arrived at after applying your limitless brain power, you wrote:
“Conclusion voters in England want England to be in a Union with Scotland.”
As glorious result of my mission to educate and inform, your knowledge improved rapidly such that just 4hrs and 24 minutes later you wrote:
“It makes sense that almost nobody in England wants to be in a Union with Scotland ….”
It is nice to see you learning new things that your shatter long-held prejudices and then embracing these alien concepts so quickly.
Well done you.
Andy Ellis, for what it’s worth — yes, I know, fuck all — I don’t believe for a second that you said anything scurrilous about Wings. This sounds like some sort of misunderstanding. I say that based on the generally complimentary things you say about Wings here, and you don’t seem to be a bastard.
Just another day…
Thanks in advance for the link, pixy. I should repay you in some way. Would you like a link to a news report from Brazil which explains how almost 2000 per day are dying with a disease that you think is imagined?
Or how about some data on the state of play in the UK where infection levels are as high as they were in February but morbidity rates remain conspicuously low, suggesting that the vaccine (which you also dismissed as fake news) is actually real and effective?
Breeks @ 12:12
Hard to disagree with anything you posted , I wonder if Alex now regrets the being nice and reasonable approach to that sly little article Sturgeon , I couldn’t bring myself for the first time in my life cast a vote for this version of the SNP it just didn’t make sense to encourage a doomed to failure approach to Westminster section 30 it was never going to work so why waste time, that amongst the other stuff she wants hidden and she and her inner circle and off the wall headbangers are being well protected by the British State because she’s doing a better job than they thought possible probably beyond their wildest dreams.
Alex on his show on RT is highlighting the lack of knowledge amongst most Scottish people about their history, I didn’t know how much was withheld from pupils in the 50s but it’s amazing how quickly you can catch up its all out there it’s just a matter of looking it’s a great pity a lot of people can’t be bothered .
Alex is still holding back from a justified retaliation I hope he’s playing a long game by keeping quiet and letting her acquire more rope because the protection of the plague looks like it’s going to end soon because Bawjaws is changing ahead with removing restrictions down south and she’s going to be left with a decision to either get with the program or risk confrontation no prizes for guessing her direction of travel given she’s known for her risk aversion .so it’s follow the leader again .
Sensible Dave says:
16 July, 2021 at 12:38 pm
Ruby 10.45
You wrote “Can’t read your link Sinister. It’s behind a paywall.”
Not down here in the sunny south it isn’t!
On a general point that we have discussed previously, you keep using the term “English”, could you define what you mean by that please? ?
Reply
Sinister claims ‘The National’ is free to read in the South of England!
Well Sinister it isn’t in Scotland so if you want me to read your link you will require to archive it.
Unlike you I will be more than happy to define what I mean when I use the word English. Just point out where I have used the word and I will explain it.
Do you require me to define what I mean by ‘English politician’?
Robert Graham says:
16 July, 2021 at 12:55 pm
Alex on his show on RT is highlighting the lack of knowledge amongst most Scottish people about their history….
Thing is, it’s not just learning about our history, it’s the history of Scotland being an Independent Nation, thinking as an Independent Nation, fighting as an Independent Nation, trading as an Independent Nation, making alliances as an Independent Nation… but doing it all without dwelling a moment about being Independent.
Independence was the norm. I’ve heard a few folk saying that, but when you take a few moments to dwell on it, it’s actually a completely different outlook on life, richer and more colourful than the bland and emaciated Scotland chained into an unwanted Union.
It’s like comparing the bonnie and bright young lass, with her whole life before her, and the miserable spouse trapped in a loveless, joyless, abusive marriage, wondering where it all went wrong but too scared and institutionalised to walk out.
Funnily enough, maybe it’s the Monarchy of all things which illustrates it.
My old Ma was and Indy-gal, but had a soft spot for the Queen which had it’s complicated origins in WW2. And I think it was complicated for her to reconcile.
Thankfully I didn’t inherit the Royalist sympathies, but I could see how the belief gave my Ma “something”.
And following my earlier comment, Scotland has too see it’s Monarch through the colourless, lukewarm smog of Britishness, and a Monarch who has no empathy for anything Scottish.
But I really do wonder if Scotland had it’s own “Independent” King, a devoted, accomplished spokesperson and ambassador for Scotland, whether Scots might truly embrace one of the oldest Monarchies in Europe, with several instances of quite remarkable heroism and leadership in dark times.
When Scotland thinks “monarchy”, the monarchy on offer is the charmless, alien “British” Monarchy, and that choke point prevents Scotland ever having another Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, or similarly “heroic” Scottish King ever again… The story of Scotland’s monarchy is at an end. There are no new chapters being written.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not promoting a Scottish Monarchy, I’m just using it as an example of a liberty denied Scotland because that liberty is tainted by Union, and a curtailment of aspiration.
There are catholic schools and there are state schools, there are catholic kids that go to state schools, and there are non catholics that go to catholic schools, I have known lots of them over the years, so I will not say which camp I came under.
But I can state this here, catholic schools will not permit anything to be taught in their schools that goes against the teachings of the bible, and I am speaking of the New Testement here, which I think has 23 sections or books in it concerning the teachings of Jesus.
I was once in a secondary school in Luton, Surrey Street School it was called, in the so called religious period most of us went to the toilet for a smoke, and the teachers went wherever teachers go to, probably to the teachers room to have a smoke and a cup of tea away from all us pain in the arses. All this nonesense will only be taught by people who have no real empathy with children, and its doomed to fail anyway, how many children will go home and ask their mothers and fathers whether they are a man or a woman.
That would be classic comedy material for the likes of me
can’t you tell jamie, your the one that gets me my red
lipstick and pink highheels with matching knickers out every
morning lol
@ Hatuey 12.42 pm
“Doesn’t seem to be a bastard.”
Why thanks! That probably ranks as high praise in here! 🙂
We never got taught about scottish history in our scottish schools, how could you possibly teach scottish children about that lovely man Edward 1, you remember him, every summer he and thousands of his pals used to take their vacations in scotland.
And centuries later that other lovely fellow, what was his name again, arshole wade i think his name was, something like that, anyway, he came to scotland with his five chins and a table and 4 chairs, somebody once asked for 3 chairs for Mr Wade in an irish accent and everybody told him to feck off lol
A guys wife died, on the day of the burial they where carrying her down the stairs of the house and the coffin hit the top of the house door, the lid sprang open and the wife was miraculously alive, omg its a mirrikill the husband cried
Two years later the wife died again, they where carrying the coffin down the same stairs and the husband cried out, careful now,
we had an awful bad accident with that front door 2 years ago
Dave Caledonia @2.23pm.
Dave.
On religion in Scotland, we would never allow anti-Semitic marches up an down our streets, nor would we allow ant-Muslim marches to do the same, so why do we allow huge anti- Catholic parades to march up and down Scotland’s streets every year.
The only reason I can see that the anti-Catholic marches are allowed to go ahead every year in Scotland, is that the Scottish government are quite happy to let them do so, what kind of message does that send out especially to those of a Catholic nature.
Yet the current FM is quite happy to bring in laws to protect the LGBTI+ community, and her COPFS office has no problems prosecuting women such as Marion Millar for taking a picture of a ribbon on a fence.
What does it say about Sturgeon’s government, that she’s willing to allow such hatred to thrive against a large section of Scottish society.
Hatstand. The links are not for your benifit. You’re a lost cause. The links are for the attention of the people who read but don’t post here.
The evidence of criminality is building up against these Fascist Governments and only the uninformed the fool or the scoundrel will deny it.
Thank you for reducing people like me to the status of ghetto Jews. My Yellow Star is my honour and your shame.
Looks like the Great Satan (USA) could be getting ready to remove its occupying forces from Iraq, not long after leaving Afghanistan.
The (PMF) the Popular Mobilisation Force, made up of Iraqis and Iranian’s along with some of the Iraqi government want the US out of Iraq, if it true, and they are going to pull out, then it seems likely they will pullout of Syria as well, for Iraq is the staging post that ships in supplies to the anti-Syrian occupying forces supported by the Great Satan.
This will have a major effect on the Syrian Kurds in the North of the country that borders with Turkey. Turkish President Erdogan, has vowed to punish them, so the quicker Syria and Russia can come to some agreement the better it will be for the Kurds, who want autonomy in Northern Syria.
Of course POTUS Biden will just defer to drone bombing both countries as these weapons of death circle both countries high in the sky 24/7, pilots in any number of US friendly countries sit at the controls and await orders of where and when to unleash their cargos of death.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/7/us-agrees-to-move-remaining-combat-troops-from-iraq
This is why we need strong nationalist institutions and a rejection of the fake progressive globalist (corporate) agenda:
Spanish Court rules lockdown illegal:
http://www.bitchute.com/video/HL5Q76Fk6cM/
Wish everyone all the best for the future have been a avid reader on here. Finally my departure flight back to Australia has arrived.i came to Scotland to retire Scottish parents and a happy childhood in Scotland. But on returning I’ve found a country devided and a lot of hate being dished about. Call me racist but giving none nationals the vote including refugees is not doing the cause of independence any favours. If they are serious about a life here they should take citizenship out.what I see of the SNP the are self serving interested in there own ajenda I’m sure Scotland will get independence but needs a good clear out of those at the top. Scotland needs to go out to the world and make allies and trade partners. Not alienate themselves from others and swapping the EU for wm is not the answer a small fish in a big pond will get eaten. My age is against me to see the Day . It’s sad that I leave but it time to put feet up.
My wife got a her voter registration within a few months of being in Scotland.
Her reaction:
‘Who in their right mind gives someone like me a vote on anything in their country? Why are they allowing people in from everywhere and giving them an instant right to vote? That is insane. Im not going to use it’
She then spoiled her ballot papers when the time came (I suggested this rather than not turning up because I could literally throw Mr Murrel further than I trust our ‘democracy’ right now)
@ J.o.e.
The Spanish courts that jailed Catalan nationalist leaders…?
Those courts?
Hmmnnn…
Crypto Francoist’s gonna do what they do I suppose….?
#Spainisafasciststate
Andy Ellis are you sure your not schrodingers cat, Alex Lomax or Scotsrenewables because you have the same sneering snidey attitude to replying to comments that don’t align with your views
You ASSERT that the majority of mainstream independence supporters support the current 2014 franchise without the evidence that you demand of others , yet by the comments here and on other blogs which raise the issue I would say the oposite view is in the majority
However the SNP with the support of people like you ,so called civic nationalists who denigrate and deride people’s loyalty to their birth country, who are content, no insistent that anyone from anywhere can decide on Scotland’s independence and Scotland’s future whilst being ignorant of the history and cost of the struggle is the reason why we lost in 2014, and unless attitudes change and people realise that Scotland is being sabotaged from within by it’s own people we will remain catched
Andy, that’s as close as I get to dishing out compliments… nobody could ever accuse the great Hatuey of playing to the crowd 😐
Now, then, you’ve all had your laughs for today, thanks largely to pixy, now it’s time for the real news;
“England’s Covid unlocking is threat to world, say 1,200 scientists”
“We believe the [UK] government is embarking on a dangerous and unethical experiment, and we call on it to pause plans to abandon mitigations on July 19, 2021.”
Today the UK recorded a staggering 50 thousand new cases, with 49 more unnecessary deaths.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/jul/16/uk-covid-live-hospitalisation-numbers-chris-whitty-coronavirus-latest-updates
This is all going to go pear-shaped, as I said. Next week we will inevitably see the spike caused by the Euro football final — amidst surging infection rates, that should wake a few people up.
Sturgeon as usual is in lockstep with the UK authorities, she hasn’t skipped a beat, and we are once again being marched into the charnel house, guided by the science.
Is it blundering incompetence or a sociopathic disregard for human life?
Just another day…
@Andy Ellis
One trend I do see – the mockery of those critical of the way the authorities are ‘responding to covid’, the discrepancies of public health bodies versus government actions, whistle blower warnings (somehow industry whistle blowers are not to be listened to in this one case), vaccine side effects and a multitude of other factors are all carried out by people who are generally opposed to any real sense of nationalism and in fact have voiced support for global governance – the opposite side of the spectrum from an actual nationalist.
That’s the trend.
Your ‘progressive, inclusive nationalist’ schtick is so fake it makes my skin crawl.
@twathater 5.20 pm
Pot…kettle….
It may be true that it’s an assertion that the majority support leaving the franchise as it is, but absent specific polling evidence all we have to go on is what we see and hear, and what the parties and organisations which comprise the broader movement say and do.
It may be true that the comments here, or those you interact with, support your view but that doesn’t really tell us much, does it? If WoS comments BTL were representative of the whole movement, we’d already be independent, and we wouldn’t have any use for your whiny arsed input would we?
We lost in 2014 for many reasons, but neither you nor any of your sub Siol nan Gaidheal posse have been able to form a coherent argument that proves the lame, regressive, “we wuz robbed by the furriners and white settlers” narrative.
We lost mainly because we didn’t present a strong enough case. Even by your own lights, a bare majority of native Scots voted for independence.
You’d know I wasn’t any of the people you refer to if you’d paid attention to my interactions with many of them in the past. There again, unlike you, I’m not a snivelling anonymous coward posting under cover of a pseudonym either, so there is that…..
@ J.o.e 5.30 pm
It wouldn’t come as a surprise to most folk here if your skin shed bud….
‘I’m not a snivelling anonymous coward posting under cover of a pseudonym either,’
That’s because its the groups on your side of the debate who dox people, slander them, attempt to get them sacked, sit outside their houses and intimidate their families and even attack them such as Antifa and Hope not Hate.
In present day Scotland one has to either be quiet or use a pseudonym to talk about anything anyone from a protected group (i.e anyone not normal white Scottish) could use their imagination to find offensive.
To call that cowardice continues to peel back your layers and reveal the utter slime you are.
twathater
I thought Grouse Beater’s comments were out of character and Andy Ellis is usually less combative. Wouldn’t surprise if there were a couple of trolls masquerading as the two. After all how would you know.
@ J.o.e.
“normal white Scottish”
Mason Boyne, is that you….?
@ Stuart Mackay 6.08 pm
In my defence, and with due apologies for perhaps being a tad more prickly than usual – me being famous for my errr… easy going online presence of course 🙂 – it was particularly galling to have someone like Gareth make the allegations he did.
As most regulars on here will know I’m happy to debate and disagree: such is life in Scottish indy cyber-land: but to have someone I literally resigned my SNP membership in support of come out with that kind of bullshit is just beyond the pale.
I doubt Stu takes the allegation remotely seriously and have messaged him to apologise for derailing the BTL comments, but I’m certainly not inclined to let what I regard as a slur on my character go without challenge.
Gareth Wardell has his own problems of course. We’ve never met, but my previous interactions with him had always been cordial even if we hadn’t always agreed on every issue. I’m genuinely sorry it has come to this, but he doesn’t get a free pass to behave this way and defame people just because he’s on the same side.
If he has any honour he will retract and apologise. If he doesn’t, people can draw their own conclusions as to his character.
Ian B , it gets less funny by the day.
@ alan turner at 4.47
Maybe you don’t know – why should you? – how long that takes and how much it costs.
A non-EU citizen I know has been here since 2007; time spent as a student didn’t count, so she is still a year or so from even getting indefinite leave to remain. Citizenship requires yet more residence (and it will have to be UK citizenship, not the Scottish citizenship she hoped for in 2014). She has already spent tens of thousands of pounds, and isn’t there yet. She’ll also have to take a test, which most of the UK-reared people she’s shown examples to can’t pass!
@Andy Ellis –
Cuts both ways though, doesn’t it?
Some of us are ‘disappointed’ that you continue to use the ‘anti-vaxxer’ smear despite ever-mounting evidence that there is something horrible going on.
Sauce for the goose an aw that.
😉
@Ian B 6.55 pm
The pertinent difference bud is that I haven’t proceeded from there to defame you or any of your other flat-earther mates by publicly defaming you and making false allegations that you had been sending DM’s to me about a third party.
If you can’t see the difference, I really can’t help recalibrate your moral compass, OK?
@Andy Ellis –
I was thinking more about the ‘disappointment’ aspect.
Your ‘flat-earther mates’ quip confirms that you have no regrets on that score. Fair enough.
As for the defamation stuff, I won’t be the only one who’s more than happy to leave you and Grousey to sort it for yourselves.
And good luck with that, bud.
😉
Here’s Kamala Harris, the vice-president of the United States of America, declaring that taking the vaccination is, essentially, ‘Biblical’.
‘By getting vaccinated, you are loving your neighbour.’
Hallelujah!!!
https://twitter.com/search?q=husserl&src=typed_query
To go ‘off topic’ from Covid associated discussions, I found this “interesting”.
I always thought that Halifax had taken over Bank of Scotland, resulting in Bank of Scotland being a subsidiary of Halifax.
Seems I got it @r$€ over T!t.
Reading my latest email from “donotreply@halifax.co.uk”, I found this at the bottom of the email…
“Halifax is a division of Bank of Scotland plc. Registered in Scotland No. SC327000. Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Bank of Scotland plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under registration number 169628.”
So, it would appear that we still have a Scottish banking industry…
Harris abuses the Bible. Do not be fooled by that affirmative action no hoper who doubles down on the CDCs criminality. I tell you. If you’re not following Reiner Feulmich you’re not following the story.
Brian Doonthetoon at 8.31
The same has happened at the Clydesdale (which was Australian-owned, but still…); it took over Virgin Money, and now that has become the “brand”.
I’m not happy. I did vaguely consider moving to BofS, but I certainly won’t now! Thanks for alerting me.
Andy Ellis “flat earthers” could be construed as defamatory. I suspect you’re a “change agent” here to trough everyone down in endless arguments about who gets to vote in a referendum as if you were having one. It seems academic while the Globalist shills of the SNP are in office.
Covid 19 is a Trojan horse policy being used to slip in loss of liberties. No freedom of movement without being strictly regulated. No freedom of speech with Muppet politicians advancing the ruinous to society “Green New Deal” Sturgeon presiding over secret meetings with the big businesses who have a controlling stake in the psychological warfare operation known as covid 19.
Im flabbergasted that so many educated supposedly intelligent people have been and are still taken in by what seems a blatant swindle.
I don’t know about you but I grew up among widos flymen and chances and that’s what runs our country now.
@Andy Ellis
Would it be fair to say you care more about how we win an independence referendum than actually winning it ?
Fantastic news;
“Restaurants, pubs and bars urged to consider using Covid passports”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/14/restaurants-pubs-bars-should-check-covid-passports-says-government/
I hope cinemas, shopping centres, and supermarkets get on board too.
Soon we’ll no longer need to walk down the fruitcake aisle worrying about bumping into a fruitcake.
O/T but I was watching Oliver Stone’s recent interview on RT discussing his latest JFK release… just wow.
Understanding that murder not only reframes the 60 years since it also explains them.
JFK was killed because he wanted peace.
Salmond got a bit lippy on subjects Sturgeon studiously avoids. He got off lightly I suppose just getting fitted up for rape and to die in prison instead of having his pink stuff blown out the back of his head in front of missus. Or a heart attack out hill walking…
This was a coup of a US president and it was in the 60’s!
They did his fecking brother just as blatantly only a few years later when he looked likely to expose them by winning the presidency.
So please stop and think… Why would anyone think ‘they’ relinquished control when the general public mostly still don’t even know or acknowledge it was a coup?
All this shit we see today…is what it looks like 60 years after you blow the peacemaker’s (and democratically elected leader of the free world’s) brains out in a public display of power.
Sturgeon is bent, Salmond got rat fucked. Welcome to the empire. It is not even a big deal for them, just for us.
Needing passports to go to the pub soon the shops. All for a low incidence disease a virus that hasn’t yet been isolated.
Why are so many presumably punters on here so keen to get us to go along with Tory politicians demands? It’s very strange. You might reply that all politicians are going along with it which alarmed me from the start. I remember when Westminster pretended to believe Blair and Alistair Campbell and voted to crucify Iraq murder its citizens occupy their territory and steal their oil.
Why the fuck would anyone believe a British scumbag politician. Are non of the plastic Nationalists on here wise enough to see all your freedoms are gone. You’ve been strung along like children for a year and a half and you kid on its not happening. You’re being prepped with lies about the unvaccinated being a threat to the vaxxed. You’re being weoponised by cynical old Estonians and fired in like rockets. People like Hatstand spread hatred of the unvaccinated “other”. To Nicola Sturgeon. Thanks for turning this country into Hell and dividing its silly people against themselves and aren’t we lucky Bill Gates is there to keep you in line.
Hatuey. You are an out and out TROLL and a Mong.
I know the SNP are trying to snare people on here with the intention of calling the police on us. Fucking go for it and see where it gets you.
No way could Oswald have scored so many hits with that shitty Italian rifle.
On a practical note, for those who use Twitter, FB etc, #ItsNotAVaccine may be worth trying.
If it wobbles anyone out of their stupor, it’s worth it.
😉
Good evening ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the Twilight Zone…
Tonight we’ll be joining the dots… JFK, 5G, and the Estonian connection
But first, all those millions of people who died of coronavirus, it isn’t true… they just imagined they died. They went to their graves imagining they were dead.
Here’s a link to some guy with letters after his name who won a noble prize for keeping a straight face whilst talking about this sort of junk….
A wee reminder, for regulars who may have been busy…
Hatuey would like to have a conversation about denying the vote to anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated.
He hasn’t had any takers, yet.
Just thought you should know, in case he has supporters he’s unaware of.
@ Fishy Wullie 9.03 pm
To quote Stu’s wise words (again!) in two of the tweets from his despairing thread of 13th July for the benefit of the hard of thinking:
“We debated this in 2011 and we came to the right decision. Nothing has happened that justifies abandoning that principle in my view. You can’t just disenfranchise people because you think they’ll vote the wrong way.
As well as being morally wrong, it’s almost certainly self-defeating. The Scotland you’d be trying to sell people under that franchise is a very different place to the one we were advocating in 2014, and very much for the worse.”
He’s right. So I suppose my answer to your question is yes. If you disagree with the principles set out by Stu’s logic above, we’re not on the same side.
Jeremy Corbyn was politically assassinated.
Alex Salmond was politically assassinated.
Both from ‘within’.
Hi crazycat at 8:53 pm.
You typed,
“The same has happened at the Clydesdale (which was Australian-owned, but still…); it took over Virgin Money, and now that has become the “brand”.
I’m not happy. I did vaguely consider moving to BofS, but I certainly won’t now! Thanks for alerting me.”
I thought that rebranding Clydesdale Bank as Virgin Money was a daft move, particularly in Scotland. After all, Clydesdale, as a brand, can issue Scottish bank notes. I believe that the “Scottish” banks – Clydesdale, RBS and BoS, have something like £4 Billion deposited in the Bank of England to cover the issue of Scottish notes.
I’ve been with BoS since 1997, no problems, mortgage sorted, good internet experience – but I must point out that I do all my online banking from the Powermac in the hoose. I don’t trust mobile apps on the mobile phone.
@Pixywine (any tweet really)
What you suspect and reality are two circles that do not intersect at any point in the Venn diagram of life.
Happy to help!
@ Andy
Ok first of all I wasn’t asking Stu I was asking you
so it was debated in 2011 and according to you we made the right decision like it’s an established fact,
Then you go on to say Nothing has happened that justifies abandoning that principle in my view.
are you forgetting we lost the vote ?
Presumably that doesn’t matter to you
If there is no connection to a particular people (nation) and no particular connection to a land (country) then surely the oil rich independent northern country you are looking for is Norway?
It’s literally only a language barrier away.
Without a people or land connection, if that’s what you push, then it doesn’t matter does it? Just find a country that suits your ethos and move there. You can then call yourself Norwegian. Or maybe ‘new Norwegian’ and kick it up with your fellow Norwegians with your shared heritage you identify with. Maybe, if you are a man, you can become one of those braw Norwegian lassies, eh?
Maybe if we all did that and moved to the country of our choices and became new whatevers, we could then repopulate Scotland entirely with people who aren’t the original Scots. What’s the difference?
Maybe if we could all go to Iceland we could pretty much so drastically take over its democratic system that we could literally rewrite their laws and even change their name to Scotland or whatever else we wanted within a few short years. They wouldn’t mind as what is it to be Icelandic except a note on a government document? It would be democratic also so what’s to argue?
Of course a nation is a people, that means ancestors. That means a heritage. That means a home to which we belong. If you are going to ignore this then there is no such thing as nationalism.
The corporate world has grown so powerful that companies are now comparable to countries in terms of value. As we know this involves a relatively small number of people having greater and greater influence.
The only structure that ordinary people have to protect themselves from this are nation states. We have no other means of organisation that can put barriers to this power.
The first step to undermine the nation state, at least democratically, is take away the connection of people to each other and to their homeland. You can do this the civic nationalist route along with mass immigration/demographic change.
When you have a mix of unattached people in a basically fragmented society each demanding democratic consideration you can then make much easier work of steadily pulling apart the nation state and then reabsorbing her into large blocks run by people even further away from the lives of the people of the country, run by people who may never even have been in your own country.
Hardcore civic nationalism plays entirely to this tune. It is as delusional as, but much more dangerous than, the trans activists.
Once a people, the Scots for example, are able to be outvoted in matters of their national interest this leaves 2 choices – either accept that you no longer have a country of your own that is run for the benefit of your people or go to non democratic methods for which virtually nobody here is likely to have the stomach for.
Time to start getting prepared for big decisions unless we get real, and FAST, about what Scotland (and all nations) mean to us.
Well meaning fools have stood by while our society has been plunged into a nightmare of unnatural and even malignant idea’s. Women fear for their rights as women, we are losing our abilities to protest and speak freely, we are on our knees as a people but are still considered to be guilty of the sin of being of the white race while we are told we are the criminals of the world, debt is being weaponised against us and to top it all off we have a healthcare protection racket now looming over us all. Funny thing is – it was all predictable (and predicted), just too horrific a prospect to get anyone to listen.
It is time to drop the apologetics and the naive happy clappy ethos and wishful thinking. A new harder Scottish nationalism needs to be born, one that is for Scots and for the future of Scots while extending a hand to all other nations who are in similar predicaments.
Ian Brotherhood says:
at 9:34 pm
“Hatuey would like to have a conversation about denying the vote to anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated”.
He must have got this brilliant idea from the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany, which removed citizenship rights, including the right to vote, from Jews and other ethnic minorities?
I’m lost for words.
@Briandoonthetoon 9:54pm
The problem is the banks themselves are reducing the amount of money you can transfer via online banking. On the mobile app, tens of thousands can be transferred as opposed to a couple of grand on the online banking facility. As I found out recently. Fingerprint technology helps on the mobile. The banks will drive access. Pity for older people they are getting left behind. My experience of Virgin Money is not good. They lost 100 million this year. I am considering my involvement with them. They look risky just now.
Oh Boy, didn’t Godwin’s Law take a shit on this thread.
O/T (though I have forgotten what the topic was anyway) – while this is too long to be a palate cleanser, it’s a cracking read with loads of goodies in it –
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/07/michael-hudson-discusses-financialization-rentierism-and-other-favorite-topics-with-jessi-ora-of-swedish-positiva-pengar-group.html
in terms of Scotland, it makes me fear for us as when I look at the SNP, what it seems to be is – “Nicky’s Pals” – taking up all the top jobs, rather than raw intellect or competence. The right sort of level for them would be … a book club, discussing the latest middlebrow doorstop, with their lattes, iphones turned off.
@ Fishy Wullie 10.11 pm
And I told you, using an apposite quote from Rev Stu showing that he, and probably an awful lot more of the readers and supporters of this site are more likely to agree with him, than with you. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp surely?
Neither Stu nor I have said decisions are immutable, just that we don’t see any compelling rationale for changing the franchise, because we don’t buy the line “we wuz robbed by them furriners” which is what you and other regressive, nativist nationalists are REALLY punting. At least have the courage to own your position, eh?
Of course the defeat of 2014 matter. the way we win independence matters too, as does the better nation we build and its foundations. You can keep your vision, which many of us pray never sees the light of day.
@ Shocked, 14th July 9.27pm,
Got to laugh at the Alba voting mugs, who actually believe that the working classes listen to them.
Framing discussions around people being disenfrachised from having a vote obviously has negative connotations that can be used to tarnish and smear folk who want to talk about the subject.
It’s clear there is no fixed protocol on this matter as many countries and states have differing and tighter rules on voting eligibility depending on various aspects.
eg. citizenship, taxes paid, length of residency etc.
Much better if the talk was about the criteria that needs to be met to enfranchise folk in the first place.
Maybe then we can hear the justifications for instantly giving the vote to folk that have only recently arrived, so have paid little if any taxes, may only be here temporarily so no long term commitment to the country is guaranteed, have no idea of the historical and current political strife and electoral systems Scotland is mired with, barely speak or understand the language so will struggle to properly comprehend what they could be voting for.
Hatuey
Cast your mind back to the wonderful good old days before Covid.
Did you ever plan to travel somewhere exotic and so you got your vaccinations as recommended?
Did you then cancel your travel plans anyway on the grounds that many of the people you would meet at your destination would not themselves have been vaccinated?
Naw, nobody ever thought like that before. So why would any rational person think like that now?
Although it’s good to have open debate about any topic can i just lob an obvious grenade into proceedings? I’m going to anyway! Regardless of what side of the debate one falls if it’s Sturgeon & Co who call a referendum then it will be franchise as per 2014 because that’s what she believes in. Well, as far as i know that is her position.
Meanwhile, here’s my tuppence worth for contemplation: There are 50,000 Orange Order members in Scotland so that’s a guaranteed 50,000 ‘No’ votes for starters. Add to that all their partners/spouses votes and those of any children they have of voting age. Most if not all will most certainly be ‘No’ votes. So i would put their contributions to circa 100,000+/-.
I think it is also wiser to say the ‘foreign vote’ rather than the ‘English vote’ because the vast majority of the wider EU citizenship would have voted ‘No’ in 2014. So English settlers certainly not being the only “outsiders” to have voted ‘No’.
The difference between Yes & No at our 2014IndyRef was 383,937. There is supposedly 400,000+ English settlers in Scotland. So from those 2 main figures alone we can clearly see that it was not just the English vote that beat us.
Then we need to add all those Scots who were just not convinced either due to our inability to get the message across &/or the relentless lies etc from the BritNat propaganda platforms.
One final fact to add, although the 85% (84.6%) record turnout was very good, there was another 15% who never bothered to vote, for whatever reasons.
There are some good reasons to both sides of this debate, and some guff, but at the end of the day it is down to whoever calls the referendum to make those decisions and if it’s Sturgeon, as she has already proven, do any of us honestly believe she will give a shit about what any of us want or say? Not worth falling out over, Troops, is it?
https://scotlandreferendum.info/
Thanks Stoker for your link at 11:53 am:
https://scotlandreferendum.info/
It reminds us all of the YES/NO numbers in each Area at the first Scotland Independence Referendum in 2014.
Thanks again Stoker for the Area by Area results.
Published by the Electoral Management Board.
@ Andy
I’ve never said we were robbed by furriners I’m saying we were beaten by a stupid and unfair franchise amongst other things,
I don’t think that makes me regressive or natavist ( you just can’t resist the childish name calling can you) and lastly You don’t know me or my image of Scotland and if you did you’d probably find it’s not all that different from yours, I just don’t believe in fairytales
@ Fishy Wullie 3.07 pm
You saying it, and it being true are two different things. There are many reasons for the 2014 defeat, and while the franchise may have played a part neither you nor anyone else can prove it was decisive, because you don’t know what impact on the vote having a different franchise would have made. It may have made things worse for all you know.
Perhaps you personally aren’t a nativist or a regressive “we wuz robbed” type, but if you’re selling their snake oil, don’t be surprised when folk lump you together with them.
Doubtless there are many people I fundamentally agree with on some issues, that I will agree with on others. I remember having a discussion pre indyref1 with Duncan Hotdogstall about whether Ireland paid a proportion of the UK debt (just before he blocked me for correcting his error) when he pointed out that he and I, being left of centre, probably agreed on many social and political issues, which is doubtless true.
Similarly, I’ve just had a pretty public falling out with Gareth Wardell on this very blog, and seen him make some pretty unpleasant and probably defamatory allegations about me, when he and I had always enjoyed pretty good relations online before. Doubtless he and I agree on most issues, but obviously not on this one.
I’m glad you don’t believe in fairytales, but sad you appear so sanguine about promoting the platform of what is almost certainly a minority of cranks within the movement.
@Stoker 11.52 am
Also interesting that the turnout in both the “Yes cities” of Dundee and Glasgow was around 10% less than everywhere else…?
Presumably it’s accounted for by being harder of register the vote in more economically deprived areas, and getting them out to vote? If both areas had the same turnout as elsewhere that’d be around 100,000 extra votes.
I know people trumpeted the high turnout at the time, but I’m sure turnouts for other independence referendums have been in the 90’s %?
The more folk included in a particular franchise, the more options you have of exerting leverage to obtain the result you want by influencing the different groups within it.
And that’s especially so when you effectively control what the franchise is, along with the information narrative during the campaign through having control of the power of broadcasting, backed up further with the mainstream media biased in your favour.
Lob in stuff like this and it will have an effect.
https://twitter.com/UK_Together/status/506899714923843584
There’s a reason Westminster does what it does with regard to voter franchises for different electoral events, and jiggery pokery with constituency boundaries and voter registration…
Turnout.
Highest UK GE Turnout since 1945 was 83.9% in 1950. Highest Scottish turnout was 81.2% in 1951. So turnout in 2014 was very high indeed. Australian turnout is compulsory and is usually low 90s (91.89% in 2019)so I think pretty well everybody who had a view voted. And No won by 10%.