The People’s Mess
Oh God. Would you look at the absolute state of this, readers?
Let’s make like everybody’s mental health and break that down.
So firstly, Labour have taken the lead in the polls for the first time in nearly a year, not because they’ve had a sudden surge of support over their Brexit policy – since nobody has a clue what that actually is – but because the Tories have leaked a bunch of voters to UKIP, which doesn’t meaningfully exist any more.
In our Panelbase poll a couple of months ago, 85% of the English public were unable even to correctly identify the party’s current leader – its SIXTH in the last 20 months, with more than half unwilling to even hazard a guess and 1% plumping for a person we’d made up.
It’s highly doubtful whether the shambolic remains of the party are in any position – either financially or organisationally – to actually contest a general election were there to be one any time soon, although any chance of that appears in any case to have been destroyed by the “rebel” Labour MPs who saved the government from what would have been a catastrophic defeat over a customs union backstop last night.
However, even if UKIP could scare up some candidates and deposits, any election would see their supporters faced with the same prospect they were in 2015 – vote UKIP and probably let Labour win a whole clutch of seats, letting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street but almost certainly reliant on the anti-Brexit SNP and/or Lib Dems.
That, it ought to go without saying, is a UKIP voter’s worst nightmare, in all sorts of ways. So in reality, having registered their objections with the pollsters, most UKIP supporters would probably grudgingly vote Tory again, leaving them the largest party but still incredibly weak and clinging to the DUP for even a chance of a majority.
Would Theresa May resign? She didn’t resign after last year’s disastrous result, and the thing that’s currently stopping the Tories from overthrowing her – the absence of a popular or even remotely competent alternative – wouldn’t have changed either, so it’s entirely possible she’d still be Prime Minister and still looking at the same shambles.
(And if she didn’t, her successor would be no better off. Indeed, they’d lack a personal mandate from the electorate so would arguably be even more of a lame duck.)
But what if UKIP voters stuck to their guns, Labour therefore became the largest party and were somehow able to form a government without conceding either a second EU referendum to the Lib Dems or a second indyref to the SNP in return for their support?
Well, that doesn’t get us anywhere either, because Jeremy Corbyn would face all the same impossibilities in reaching a Brexit deal that Theresa May does now. The Irish question is totally unresolved and the party’s “six tests” for any deal are by common consensus completely unachievable. The result would again be the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal, which pretty much every serious analysis regards as the worst possible outcome.
So what if there WERE to be a second EU referendum, or what idiots insist on calling a “People’s Vote” as if it was badgers or something who voted the last time?
Even if we imagine that it were possible to get a second referendum bill through Parliament – which, let’s remember, is about to go on holiday for several weeks – and arranged before next March, which it almost certainly isn’t, most polling suggests that the result would be pretty much identical to the last time, which would just put us back to square one.
(Results from our most recent polls of English and Scottish voters respectively.)
Bizarrely, one proposed solution to this is to make the new referendum a three-option vote with the Leave options split into two – a plan of spectacular insanity which would very likely lead to NONE of the options having the support of a majority of voters.
Imagine if the result, say, was this highly-plausible outcome:
REMAIN: 47%
LEAVE WITH DEAL: 20%
LEAVE WITHOUT DEAL: 33%
How on Earth would anyone make sense of that? “Remain” would technically have won the vote, but 53% of voters would have wanted to Leave against 47% Remainers. How could the UK possibly remain in the EU with Leave voters plainly being the majority? But what else could be done? You can’t treat the option that came second as the winner, that’s just too insane even for Boris Johnson.
The proposal is that it be a sort of Single Transferable Vote referendum with second preferences, but the Times poll suggests over 40% of people wouldn’t fill in a second preference, so the mandate for any result would likely be appallingly small.
(This whole notional option is of course also dependent on there actually BEING a deal to offer people, which we appear to be no closer to in reality than we were two years ago. And anyway, the EU is highly likely to just tell us to take a flying leap into a combine harvester if we YET AGAIN try to negotiate a deal with it which we’re then going to try to have a vote on rather than signing.)
So any government proposing a three-option vote would be immediately and rightly sectioned by concerned psychiatrists. A straightforward repeat Remain/Leave vote would almost definitely not get through Parliament, would be democratically toxic if it did, and would probably deliver the same result as the first one.
(And the horror it would unleash if it didn’t doesn’t bear thinking about.)
A general election would waste months and solve absolutely nothing, because none of the people who could possibly be Prime Minister at the end of it have any more clue about what to do than the complete idiot who’s in charge now. Both of the main current party leaders are pledged to deliver Brexit but neither of them knows what it looks like.
This is the point in the article at which readers normally look to Wings to identify the calm, common-sense answer, but we’ve got nothing, folks. Right now it’s impossible to foresee anything other than a few more months of utterly inept bumbling chaos from squawking cretins followed by a no-deal Brexit, a hard border in Ireland, the whole of Kent turning into a lorry park and food riots outside empty shops across the land.
(Remember what happened last winter after just two days of partial moderate snow?)
The rest of the world is about to quietly put the United Kingdom into quarantine, board up the Channel Tunnel and paint a giant plague sign over the entrance, shaking its head sorrowfully all the while and talking about us in the past tense.
Still, be grateful – if we were independent the cost of stamps might have gone up.
‘Carry On Brexiting’
Don’t know about a People’s Vote but I’m pretty sure there were a lot of turkeys voting last time.
There is only one answer, and the quicker the SNP deliver it the better.
Independence has always been the logical choice for Scotland, perhaps more people can see that now.
Andrew Neil, Thatcher henchman, and the BCC bastards have just described Brexiteers as comparable to ‘Scottish psychopaths’. Low life or what BBC doesn’t come into it. They are a total disgrace.
To be honest my head is completely mashed potatoes with all of this.
Can anyone tell me if there is No deal, what happens with Ireland, will there be a border, or will there need to be a vote on Irish reunification to solve this problem?
Well done, Stu, another excellent piece.
Meanwhile, most voters haven’t a scoobie thanks to their daily diet of the BBC and the Daily Mail or equivalent – or is the Tory Government’s shambolic Brexit having an effect?
Is it wrong that I am mentally trying to workout exactly how much food I can stockpile between now and March 2019? Tinned Vegs and Fruit, Flour and Sugar?
Meanwhile after a visit to Europe and discovering the cost of food over there – even if Brexit just results in prices going up to the average of say German or French Supermarkets we will have almost catastrophic levels of food poverty. How the UK has managed to keep food prices so low is beyond me.
I’m not joking but I can see the re-introduction of rationing not long after a hard brexit… when I say not long after I mean 12:01 am on the first day of post Brexit UK.
Brexit Britain might be like the film “28 Days Later” where all the Brexiteers will be chasing and eating the Remainers to prevent them saying “I told you so”.
Don’t know what the trouble is with all this Polling (suspect) statistics.
The increase support (5% or less) for Independence. Will no come from unionist or other voters. It will come from the 30%of voters that (normally) do not vote. Obvious, Why would unionists voters vote for Independence. It’s an oxymoron. Or they do not understand the voting system. Unionist Parties do not support Devolution or Independence. Cutting off their nose to spite their face.
@Breastplate –
🙂 🙂 🙂
That’s a winner!
I think that caught the general tone perfectly.
I HAVE NO IDEA!
Never seen anything like this in a UK government. I mean, they’ve always been arrogant, ignorant, venal and such, but there was (at least) an intelligence there in the past. The current houses? Dear Gawd! 😮
We have reached the cliff edge: several WM MP’s and pundits have used that exact phrase over the past 48 hours.
Stock up on toilet rolls, powdered milk, canned meats and vegetables over the next few months. The UK is about to go on a Food Bank diet.
The Neo Nazi Elite have won.
They are destroying the UK and reducing the Hoi Polloi to a crumbling dying mass of half starved serfs.
120,000 have already been slaughtered because of Red Blue and Yellow Tory Austerity ‘measures’ since 2010.
That was just a dry run; an experiment under laboratory conditions.
They got away with starving UK citizens to death by forcing malnutrition and poverty on them by government edict. And we did nothing.
The first step towards the Fourth Reich.
Why the 48% plus who voted Remain and those who couldn’t be arsed voting at all stand by when and do nothing when it is clear that Rees Mogg and Ruth Davidson and her Dirty Dozen are out to sell their precious Britain to the Hedge Fund Managers beats me.
This makes the Poll Tax look like a sensible compromise.
There will be riots Down There as the Japanese, Koreans, Germans, French, and the Swedes pull out of England and hundreds of thousands lose their livelihood.
But it is already too late for England.
We of course have an escape pod, and can take as many English Refugees as can make it across the border before the English Emergency Government erects barbed wire fences and posts border guards with shoot to kill orders to stem the Exodus.
One_Scot says:
18 July, 2018 at 11:57 am
To be honest my head is completely mashed potatoes with all of this.
Can anyone tell me if there is No deal, what happens with Ireland, will there be a border, or will there need to be a vote on Irish reunification to solve this problem?
Yes. Hope that helps!
Google couldn’t tell me who UKIP’s leader is.
But I know Farage would return. Please.
The only way is to stay in the EU. Like the majority want. Simple. This carry on will just go on until the UK stays in the EU.
May trying to cover up for the Tory crooks.
Robert Persons blog is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what a complete clusterf–k brexit has become.
The reason we are in this mess is because there was no manifesto for what Brexit meant.
Eventually the Tories will be faced to make a real world decision on Northern Ireland. Without that there can be no divorce deal (… let alone future trade deal).
Stu, I don’t know how you do it, but I just read this, am appalled, particularly at the state of Labour… this is not the first time labour walked away from a vote that could have stymied the tories, held them up and disrupted the ongoing neoliberal narrative, allowing people to think about alternatives… that said, I couldn’t help but laugh… your big red X… almost, vote Labour… almost, don’t visit this house, everyone inside has the plague.
Super, Stu.
“Can anyone tell me if there is No deal, what happens with Ireland, will there be a border”
Short answer: yes.
“The only way is to stay in the EU. Like the majority want.”
There’s no evidence at all that the majority want that, unfortunately.
This is all to do with big business and nothing else they want to keep wages down by brining in cheap labour from the EU and boosting their already obscene
profits we the natives have to share our hospitals ,housing and schools etc., for these Incomers making life more difficult for us while big business gets of Scot free from any provision for these people the E.U. Is a big business paradise never in their wildest dreams did they think this would happen and now it is about to end they will not accept it Scotland had to accept the ref., result for freedom but the London spivs won’t accept the result of the E.U. Ref.,
Ha, Ha, Ha and Ha again. Stuart you wag “the cost of stamps might have gone up”. Loved it.
Meantime, I must start resupplying the fall out bunker, last used during the “winter of discontent” (don’t forget the toilet rolls).
There seems little hope for the UK as a whole. It needs to dissolve. We need to get on with building our new state, and sadly England probably has to go through a period of pain and reflection about who and what they actually are in this big world.
While I understand the Scottish Government’s ‘hold till we see the whites of their eyes’ approach, I think it is about time YES2 in all its many forms needs to fire up in earnest. Personally, I can see no scenario where there won’t be an IndyRef2. It would take either total cancellation of Brexit or a Norway deal, neither seems likely to happen.
There’s are big differences between Parliament, Government, and parties. While Parliament and Government might not yet have called the date for IndyRef2 … there is every reason why the SNP and Greens, along with others of non party alignments, should now go into full campaign for Indy mode.
IMO polls would shift into firm YES majority as campaigning picks up against the Brexit debacle.
A majority will be shouting ‘I’m a Scot, get me out’!
Boris Johnson is meant to be delivering a resignation statement in the HOC sometime later. Perhaps he’ll shed some light on it all…
😉
Speaking with my sister yesterday, (in her seventies, and a lifelong Labour voter). She told me that she did not know what Corbyn stood for nor where he was going, she then went on to say that the people of Scotland were just going to lie down and let the Tories walk all over them again, they have learned nothing.
She concluded by telling me that she had told her children if there was another Independence Referendum that she would vote yes “there is nothing else for it”.
Regardless of what type of deal the Tories get from Europe its time Scotland went its own way, both Labour and Tories have shown us the utter contempt they feel about Scotland and its people.
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency distributed a brochure called ‘If Crisis or War Comes’ to 4.8 million households earlier this year. The UK Gov have done nothing because they couldn’t possibly admit that there’s a crisis looming.
James Patrick has put together his own version, ‘Getting Ready Together’. Both documents are available as free-to-download PDFs.
You could do worse than have a glance at them. It might save you getting clubbed to death for the last pan loaf in Scotmid.
link to msb.se
link to byline.com
As the British state dissolves into mashed Banana republic what is the SNP doing to extricate Scotland from the political mush? Is there a strategy?
My and my peers disillusion with the SNP, in its current manifestation, should not be breezily dismissed as ‘trolling’. We want independence and we want it before our hair has turned grey.
At this current rate we may be in our graves.
There is only one thing that can stop this madness and that is for the right wing media to change direction and admit they have been the catalyst of misinformation.
”..Right now it’s impossible to foresee anything other than a few more months of utterly inept bumbling chaos from squawking cretins followed by a no-deal Brexit, a hard border in Ireland, the whole of Kent turning into a lorry park and food riots outside empty shops across the land…”
Well I can foresee something Stu and that’s Independence for Scotland. I predicted it and the EU Brexit in early 2016. Posted to that effect on here. We’ve not got long to go now, folks.
Someone else who has good advice. I posted this on the last thread but seems to be equally appropriate for here. If that’s okay?
…………………………..
@ call me dave at 11:52am ……..”FGS! Lets get out when we get the chance…”
link to archive.is
Thanks for the link call me dave. That just about says it ALL, imo, when a Tory MP at Westminster comes out with this! One who is trying to tell everyone that Brexit is going to cost the UK, overall, hundreds of thousands of jobs. Will the MSM report on this?
Anna Soubry: “I personally would abandon the Labour frontbench and I would reach beyond it and I would encompass Plaid Cymru, the SNP and other sensible, pragmatic people who believe in putting this country’s interests first and foremost,” she said.
“The increase support (5% or less) for Independence. Will no come from unionist or other voters. It will come from the 30% of voters that (normally) do not vote. Obvious”
Turnout for indyref was 84.6%, an unprecedentedly high turnout thats unlikely to be beaten.
Even if you did manage to get turnout up to say 90%, you’d need to convert every single one of those votes to yes, which is unrealistic to the point of being insane.
Winning indy is going to depend on convincing soft no’s (not all no voters are die hard unionists) and don’t knows, while also retaining as many previous yes voters as possible.
When it comes to elections Scotland only ever gets what England wants
Scottish independence is the only fair and satisfactory answer for Scotland it is the only way that the people of Scotland will get what they vote for.
Brexit is what the majority of people in England voted for and that is what Scotland will get it doesn’t matter to Westminster and England that Scotland voted to remain in the EU because they believe that England owns Scotland.
Scotland is valuable to England very valuable Scottish produce is worth a huge amount to them the biggest UK export by a large margin is Scottish whisky.
As for oil and gas it should be remembered that Westminster doesn’t tax the North Sea oil and Atlantic oil companies no matter how much oil and gas they find ,the deal is that Westminster sells portions of Scottish waters to oil companies for exploration ,the oil companies pay England large one off payments for the rights to explore but then rhe oil companies get to keep the oil and gas and pay zero tax.
Of course BP Shell Esso etc have many large shareholders sitting in the House of Lords making sure that this arrangement is not interfered with and often the CEO chairman of these oil companies has been a lord in the House of Lords too so just remember there is a lot more than Brexit and immigration riding on Englands ability to keep control of Scotland and Scotlands resources.
England gives Scotland a bit of what it extracts from Scotland but keeps a large portion to spend on what it decides are “British” expenses and if ever Scotland upsets the way things are for example by having an independence referendum England hits them hard by making an example of them,cutting the money they get for council services cutting money for NHS education housing and it increases spending on the Scottish office so that it can import more English people to important jobs in Scotland as part of the getting Scotland back under control policy.
England will continue to do this until Scottish identity is dead and at some future point they will rename Scotland making it just another county ,you and I will be long gone by then and the history books will have been rewritten by the BBC and the many English people that are Scotlands university historians .
This erasing of Scotlands identity had been going on for a very long time your parents wondered why they got accordion music and a bunch of rich toffs doing crummy jokes every new year on tv but that was all part of the English plan to unsettle them and confuse their Scottish roots,it made fun of Scotland and its people.British tv still does that but in a different way, what you get now are English people marvelling at the Scottish countryside from a boat or a bike making the usual idiotic comments to belittle Scottish culture.
The local newspapers are in on it too, all they do is fill their pages with stories about how crazy Scottish people are they report all court cases police responses and every possible crime no matter how small and it is again a ploy to brainwash you and make you feel that all people in Scotland break the law they want you to feel that you cannot trust your neighbours and townsfolk.
Crime in Scotland is pretty much the same as anywhere but to read these local newspapers you would think Scotland is under siege full of lawless criminals drug addicts alcoholics and people under sixteen having babies.
In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum nearly all the English people living in Scotland voted NO they don’t want Scottish independence ,why would they ? they are English and feel the benefits of knowing their government controls Scotland ,nearly all those English people living in Scotland voted for Brexit as well and they will continue to do so ,I don’t blame them for supporting their country they are English why shouldn’t they support England it’s normal to support your own country.
Scotland is normal too in this respect ,the majority of Scottish people voted YES to Scottish indpendence in 2014 but the huge number of English people living in Scotland gave the NO vote a narrow victory .
Many EU citizens voted NO in 2014 as well and many of the men have now left UK, what was all that about ? letting people vote on Scotlands future when we know they are not here for good and are just passing through either to work or study for a while before moving on,crazy.
Next time round a majority of EU citizens will vote YES but there will be no change in the number of people who come from NON EU countries voting NO.
There will be no change in the huge ever increasing number of English people living Scotland who vote NO to Scottish independence and they once again will determine whether or not Scotland becomes independent ,that is why you have both the leaders of labour Tory lib dem going into hiding right now, they know that it’s in the bag for the NO side if English people get to vote.
Just imagine in 2014 if we’d had a three option referendum that included full fiscal autonomy. A lot of the no voters would have backed the middle ground and this could well have won.
We’d now be a couple of years into a financially successful economy which would clearly demonstrate an independent Scotland would also be in this position.
The difference being that right now independence would now be a small step AND the economic argument is already won.
That Davey Cameron wasn’t as stupid as he looked.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The People’s Mess Oh God. Would you look at the absolute state of this, readers? Let’s make like […]
The UKOK is finished. Just call it the 51st state, little America, America’s whore.
Scotland will be laid to waste unless it can extract itself from the USUK.
Get digging up your gardens now, growing your own will be essential as of April fools day next year. It’s not difficult to do, seeds might get very expensive though, already not cheap, going to order mine now.
Scary times ahead in USUK.
The Irish Border Situation:
I think it looks like a token border will need to be erected.
So many commodities will be cheaper in the Republic that the IRA
will raise £Millions taking contraband across into Ulster and selling it for a very nice mark up.
For 100 years they could send weapons across the border, even with major military patrols protecting the area.
For that crime they could have faced execution or long jail sentences for their troubles, so what would they get for cheap fuel, wines and spirits, fruit and veg, etc, confiscation, or a fine?
The DUP/UDA will want a slice of the pie so their job will be to smuggling it on again into the UK mainland.
The Westminster gangsters won’t be happy with it so maybe they will give Ulster its independence.
Have a look at this weeks’ shopping to see which items come from a EU Country or one with an EU Trading Agreement.
The cost of everything is just about to go through the roof.
Morris Dancing lessons, Union Jack Flags, Jellied Eels, and Melton Mowbray Pies will all have their prices frozen.
A letter in the National submitted by Mike Herd, Highlands.
”There are parallels between the lead-up to the Iraq war and the no-deal exit from the EU.
The true-life movie Shock and Awe depicts the madness in the US Government and how only one news agency saw through the Bush administration’s lies. Knight Ridder journalists discovered that Bush, needing a country to bomb after 9/11, had decided it would be Iraq. All he wanted was an excuse.
We are going to leave the EU with no deal, but what does that mean and why have the media not described exactly what will happen? Scheduled flights will not be able to take off and land in Europe. You can jump on the Eurostar, but you will need a visa to enter France, another to go through Belgium, another to Germany and so on.
London house prices will crash as banks relocate high earners to Frankfurt, Dublin and Paris. All goods into Europe will have to have the correct paperwork and tariffs paid. The delay in customs processing will damage perishable goods. Mile-long queues of lorries and cars will build up approaching Dover and Calais. The car industry will relocate to Europe because so many parts in UK-built cars come from Europe and of course many cars sold to Europe will be tariffed.
The UK will not have access to European intelligence, putting Britain at risk of terrorism. Britain will be excluded from the European Galileo satellite navigation system. France will refuse to hold displaced people from war-torn countries in Calais allowing them to travel to Dover, where a new holding centre will have to be built.
Farmers will lose their CAP benefits and face barriers to exporting their produce and livestock. They will also face competition from the US as it dumps cheap food onto the British market. The government will find they are in a new fisheries war, deploying frigates to see off Dutch and Spanish fishing boats from Scottish waters. Fishermen will find difficulty clearing customs quickly enough when they wish to sell their catch to Europe.
Geolocated labelled goods will be abandoned to please America, enabling all manner of fake labelled goods to be sold in supermarkets. Those supermarkets that source their food in Europe will have to substantially increase their prices. Soft fruit is already perishing in fields because of the no-migrant policies.
The health service will collapse through a shortage of nurses and doctors and people will die as a consequence. What is left of the NHS will be sold to American private medicare companies requiring insurance payments. These payments will be structured depending on what level of care you want to ensure or can afford.
The gap between the rich and the poor will soar, maybe even statutory pensions could be at risk. Pensioners living in Europe will not receive their pensions. Families may have to resort to the African and Asian extended family care system where earnings are pooled. Of course the media will blame Europe and the government will react by expelling Europeans. Politically it will move the country even more to the right, giving succour to racist groups. Order could break down.
Perhaps those in Scotland who opposed independence will be pragmatic enough to understand that the status quo is no longer an option and that there is no future in being shackled to a dysfunctional Westminster Government.
Mike Herd
link to thenational.scot
RE: the toilet roll stocks,
Should any ‘Wingers’ fail to stock up and find themselves short, may I suggest trying these alternatives:
1. Buy the Daily Record, take it to the toilet, drap yer skeggies and sit down, read the football section, then wipe.
2. Find some nicely manicured garden, that has slightly damp grass, drap yer skeggies and squat, once it’s done, place arse directly on damp grass, shuffle along on your cheeks until clean.
In my next comment I will be sharing tips on how to cook starlings or seagulls to make a nice ‘post Brexit family meal’
With the votes of late in WM then the options now facing us are:
1) Call the Whole Thing Off (not going to happen – civil war in England).
2) Hard Brexit.
3) No Deal Brexit.
One of the above WILL happen, most likely 2 or 3. These recent WM votes has taken Hard Brexit / No-Deal Brexit option beyond the point of no return.
Scotland’s FM will know this too. We are close to the ‘now or never’ point.
I suspect now there is now only one thing the FM can do about this and that is to recognise that the people of Scotland want no part of this self-inflicted catastrophe and at the SNP Autumn Conference, call IndyRef2 to be held in May 2019 (i.e. AFTER we have exited the EU). Because we would be out of the EU then, after a YES victory in May 2019, a second referendum will be held (probably Sept 2019) on the precise relationship Scotland should have with Europe:
1) Full EU Membership
2) EEA / EFTA Membership (i.e. CU + SM only)
3) Independent of EU / EEA / EFTA
This is serious now, folks. Are the NO voters listening?
Truth says:
I was told in early 2014 by someone with access to innermost ‘London Bubble’ that Cameron couldn’t lose because if the polls got too close, he would offer FFA / DevoMax.
At the time I thought, like you, that would be a fair compromise and a step forward. What I didn’t envisage was the promises and offers would be made in a manner which didn’t tie him to delivering.
A lot of NOs, potentially a winning number, were swayed by the con. For many FFA WAS what they thought they were voting.
WM, Tories of all colour, just cannot be trusted. They will never ever deliver anything which in is Scotland’s interests. They need to keep us beaten down and subservient and Labour knows this even better than the blue Tories!
Patrick Roden says:
Oor dug has that ane doon tae a tee!
I do believe that Indy2 should be declared soon. Well in advance of the leave date.
These devious Tories aided by their equally devious labour saviours, to whom lying and deception is second nature, will have many ways to hold Scotland covered already. We need to play our game, not theirs.
The longer we wait, the harder it is going to be, we need a date set now. To set the date will start the ball rolling and infuse more determination in activists. We also must have independent monitors in place or, we will, be cheated again.
I understand why the SNP are holding, but the best form of defence is attack. We need to get on the front foot not stand still.
If we fail I hate to think how long it will be until the next one. Watching events at Westminster must make us aware it is only Indy we can rely on, as it is, it is a total farce.
It was the will of the (English) people will forever be the answer when we ask ‘how did we get here’? Which of course is what the Yoons feel is best for us, no matter what madness goes on in Westminster.
O/T Is Ross Thomson gearing up to take Mundell’s place and even challenge Ruth Davidson? She is looking increasingly sidelined by her own Tory MPs.
She has tried to distance herself from the Brexiteers while he has courted them and if there is a leadership challenge it is a dangerous time to be absent from the fray, assuming she even wants to be a politician anymore.
All this chaos and uncertainty is preferable according to unionists. It would be even worse under independence they cry.
Reminds me of that clip from Life of Brian when the man who blasphemed is about to be stoned to death.
Unionist priest: You’re only making it worse for yourself!
Indy supporter: Making it worse? How could it be worse? Independence! Independence! Independence!
I see the news editor for the Cliff Richard story is now the head of news at BBC Scotland. Strange that he doesn’t seem to have the same tenacity to expose the Tory dark money story that he did with a celeb sex story.
Possibly a hint into why BBC Scotland news is so poor, being run by someone that would meld seamlessly into a Sun journalist.
Look on the bright side
The Scottish Parliament of 1706/7, long held up as the world’s primary example of an elected body operating completely against the interests of the polity it was supposed to be representing.
Has now been superseded by the Golden Retriever Parliament by the Thames.
now that treezas super duper white paper (ver2) has landed on Barniers desk, the second he tweets about how any deal will require NI to stay in the CUSM when Britain leaves…….
the rebel tories will challenge treeza
I doubt she has the will to face them off. she will resign.
a no deal candidate (mogg) will become the PM
he will announce a Peoples Vote, Brexit GE, to allow the people a say on the brexit deal, no need for a euref2
and he will win.
Just be thankful UKIP and the hard right is even more incompetent and repellent than the British establishment.
If there was a three-way referendum, I suspect it’d be run as an instant run-off/STV/AV/whatever you want to call it basis. So in the scenario you’ve outlined, the 20% voting “LEAVE WITH DEAL” would get redistributed among their second preferences, as with the YouGov poll at the start.
But who knows what’s going to happen. Everything is fucked, particularly the UK. As long as there’s no election or referendum this year, because I don’t have enough holidays left to take to go campaigning full-time.
OT Regarding the judgement on the invasion of Sir Cliff’s privacy can that be used in retrospect as in the use of police interview of Mrs Sheridan ? or indeed the media attention devoted to smearing Michelle Thomson?
@Dorothy Devine
I fear these type of results are for those that can risk the potential financial losses if the case goes against them. Sir Cliff has the wherewithal to fund this, I suspect most of us don’t.
ScottishPsyche: “Is Ross Thomson gearing up to take Mundell’s place and even challenge Ruth Davidson? She is looking increasingly sidelined by her own Tory MPs.
She has tried to distance herself from the Brexiteers while he has courted them and if there is a leadership challenge it is a dangerous time to be absent from the fray, assuming she even wants to be a politician anymore.”
Ross has no interest in Scotland. His bizarre actions and outbursts are entirely about climbing the UK Tory party ladder. He sees himself as a Michael Gove or Liam Fox – a UK Tory who just happens to originate from Scotland, rather than a Scottish Tory. There’s absolutely no chance of him ever gunning for Ruth’s job, because his sights have always been on Westminster and he’d see it as a distraction from that rather than a step up.
The Brexit stuff isn’t about undermining Ruth – he’s a true believer in it, or at least he identified being anti-EU as being key to climbing the ladder ages ago, hence why he was Brexited aff his nut during the EU referendum. Same with all his other weird right-wing neo-con obsessions.
I knew I had seen that Theresa May laugh somewhere before.
youtu.be/DRiuGCoKPT0?t=43
albuhack
My and my peers disillusion with the SNP, in its current manifestation, should not be breezily dismissed as ‘trolling’
In an independence vote you don’t vote for the SNP, Greens or anyone else. Its windy up the Khybar pass where you have been talking from for quite some time.
Another carry on film Up the corbynbrexiters
It’s all right, chaps, we’re all going on our hols. What larks! I say, that’ll teach Johnny Foreigner!
Monaco here we come!
“The ball’s in your court”: Liam Fox bizarrely threatens EU with no-deal Brexit”
Oh FFS, they really have lost the plot!
Yes, a no deal Brexit will hurt the EU but it will be distributed among 27 states. Also, I have no doubt internal EU arrangements will assist those worst hit like Ireland and Belgium.
However the damage to the UK will be catastrophically focused on a much smaller entity.
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
Instantly reminded me of the Blazing Saddles scene where … nobody move or ….
link to youtube.com
… maybe that was where Fox got this strategy from! 🙂
The Scottish Government’s planning sessions for Brexit must be something to behold. How do you plan for how you’re going to respond to someone else’s actions, when even they don’t know what they’re planning?
@galamcennalath
Liam Fox approach to negotiation.
link to youtube.com
Boris’ speech just started.
@galamcennalath
Almost forgot to add megalolz 😀
“Still positive @ 0258 pm “ , Ross Thompson giving a good impression of a “ nodding donkey” sitting directly behind BJ in HOC .
It’s no surprise that the people don’t know what they want, as we are living in an age of far-right wing, political evangelism. Nearly all the media promote far-right values and the BBC amplifies them. We are in the middle of the creation of a Greater English state, in case folk haven’t noticed.
Racist totalitarianism is alive and well in England, IMHO.
link to eprints.lse.ac.uk
Partisan Perceptual Bias and the Information Environment
link to apw.polisci.wisc.edu
Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation
link to journals.sagepub.com
It’s criminal negligence that this government is making such a mess of governance, and we are headed off that cliff.
Just had an Urgent Question about violence in NI. The Chief Constable is asking for extra resources. Nothing we hear on Reporting Shortbread, of course, we need to hear about eating insects, which will, of course come in handy next year, in the Brexit Hunger Games.
Then we hear about trying to stop pregnant MPs being disenfranchised, the obvious solution being a proxy vote, but sorry, we just cant seem to sort that, or the voting system in HoC.
Does not that scare people? The HoC are SO wedded to their archaic systems, there is no will to come into this century, even for the sake of public perceptions.
Another development. Ian Paisley has been sanctioned by the Standards Commissioner. Prohibited to sit in the House for 30 days for taking holidays paid by Sri Lankan govt.
This stuff about a vertical take off space port is giving me the heebie jeebies. There is something off about it. I can’t figure out if it’s a pre indy bribe, that will be a threat of withdrawal if we leave. Or, there is some nefarious link to the yanks.
Meanwhile in a cave in the Fraser country, Bonnie Prince Murdo awaits the call to pick up the Tory pieces.
It will come from the 30% that (normally) do not vote, 55%+ – 30% (that 30%). Not an increase in % of the total vote. The voters who (normally)do not vote will change. Not unionists votes. Prople who vote unionist because they do not support devolution/Independence. Or otherwise why would they vote that way? Or they do not understand the voting system. Cutting off their nose to spite their face,
Valerie, check out this from indycar Gordon Ross
link to m.facebook.com
Doesn’t seem to be on Youtube yet so you will need to look for it on the above page.
May is off her head. Unstable.
@ Patrick at 1:08pm ……. “Saving on toilet rolls.”
Ha, ha, ha. Thanks for the laugh. The one about making tattie soup yesterday was good too. The Scots well known for their innovative mindset would make great Brexit Budgeteers. Too bad, for them, that we’re bailing out.
Irish are acting now on a NO deal plan as is the EU countries. Like your article Stu it is bad. We have already completed one reserves stock purchase for food etc.
Am I being absurd thinking that Brexit was attractive to a fashion design student because he saw the same kind of opportunity that Hugo Boss did?
Plan A – Scottish Independence
Plan B – sorry…but if my fellow Scots vote NO again then my Irish(European) passport comes into play. Mrs Clootie has one too.
If after this Westminster farce Scots still want London to manage their future I give up
I cannot imagine every seeing Independence if recent events cannot motivate them.
To the Labour voters out there. Tory rule would have ceased this month but for Hoey, Mann and Field. That is your Labour politicians,
To the Tory voters…do you think your Scottish MPs reflected your views!
To the LibDems…it would be nice if the turned up to defeat the Tories.
@Valerie
Mixture of everything I think, yes a bribe, yes something like the Type 26 frigate they’ll use during Indy Ref 2. Space travel does have links to the Yanks, for instance NASA has been active in Scotland, at schools, and even supporting projects (I used to be a member of ASTRA). Doubut if there’s anything nefaious, it’ll be a civil project, not military.
But it is of great benefit to Scotland and satellite companies in Glasgow who won’t have to go halfway around the world to launch them, the ScotGov is behind it and hopefully would fund it anyway – it’s only a very few millions. So it’s good news, thanks UK Gov, and as always with a gift horse, get a toothbrush! Scotland apparently has 20% of the UK’s space industry, which is great. May it live long in iScotland and equal or exceed that of the rUK, once Prestwick is up and running for horizontal launches.
Satellite launches really shouldn’t need to be rocket all the way up.
@orri
The ones they were talking about are small ones, otherwise I agree with you. The real solution is more trees to hug, and appropriate shrubs and even grass, there’s little reason half of Scotland couldn’t be reforested to make us effectively carbon negative. I believe more trees are being planted than cut down, but I am a bit suspicious at times the number of timber lorries flying around all over Scotland as private estates and even houses with a bit of land make money fast.
Proud cybernat 1.10pm. A referendum after britain has left the eu wont be allowed by westminster. And british/english troops on the streets of Scotland will enforce that.
O/T
Boris J’s personal statement aka pro Brexit speech in HOC…..Ross Thomson sitting behind him nodding like a little nodding dog (poodle)…also very much joining in with a rendition of “Hear Hear” or rather “Hare Hare”…yah he looked like he was prouncing it the Tory way…..so proud that he has integrated with his wee Tory pals to the extent he’s morphed into an old Etonian chap what….aww bless…..pity he let himself doon by nodding at the start of each of Boris’s sentence as opposed to the end …where point (of sorts) was being made by Bojo….one would almost suspect he was just bloody nodding for the sake of it irrespective of actual content…..”He wants to be loved by Bojo and nobody else but Bojo…He wants to be loved by Him… Boop Boop De Boop”……….or so it would seem ….today anyway…..tomorrow ?…who knows ?
Poor Ruth is now getting the Gotye ‘Somebody that I used to know’ treatment fae wee Ross …She’s all ” But you didn’t have to cut me off. Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing.And I don’t even need your love. But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough.No, you didn’t have to stoop so low” …..Ross is now ‘Master Ross I’m my own boss Thomson’ now he’s with the BIG boys of politics and dahling he’s loving it now that he is channeling his inner posh boy what…Hare Hare for Ross…what.
@Abulhaq says: 18 July, 2018 at 12:40 pm:
“My and my peers disillusion with the SNP, in its current manifestation, should not be breezily dismissed as ‘trolling’.”
Aye!
Richt!
@ Bobp “And british/english troops on the streets of Scotland will enforce that.”
Don’t forget the Martians will be invading us as well.
We need to leave at soonest opportunity after a postive advisory referendum.
Timing is crucial.
After the way he has betrayed Scotland, from now on he should be called ‘DOUBLECROSS THOMSON’
Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, TMay’s Chequers ‘plan’ was quite literally bollocks. Though why the courtiers in the media went along with the charade is a bit of a mystery. Blind BritNat loyalty from their owners and masters perhaps.
The EU can be more open and honest. Though, it might hold back a bit so as not to fatally wound TMay. They aren’t impressed, unsurprisingly.
“Europe’s officials lay into PM’s plan, with top diplomat saying it will not be basis of talks … EU gave the British negotiating team a torrid time at the first presentation of the UK’s white paper on the future relationship … EU’s team of officials picked apart the most contentious parts of the paper as it was presented … “
Why should we be surprised? However, if you had been only listening to the line from the loyal MSM you might have actually believed TMay’s plan was credible.
link to archive.is
Bobp at 4.16
Says who?
Who knew? 🙄
link to archive.fo
Clootie my plan also if I can prove to the irish Authorities my Paternal Grannie was a Paddy.
Winter project to get plan B sussed out.
Never have so many believed in so little yet hoped for so much.
Can’t see May rushing to the polls on those numbers.
DMH 4.33pm .says, who’ll stop them if they are so inclined.
I agree wholeheartedly with les wilsons post at 1.16pm.
@DougDaniel
He does seem increasingly unhinged but I suppose extreme right-wingers like him now feel emboldened and no need to hide their views. I just wondered where his ambitions lay in the short term and you are probably right, for someone like him Scotland is seen as a stepping stone. Ruth’s branch manager post wouldn’t be enough and who would want the poisoned chalice of Mundell’s post.
We saw so many of them in Thatcher’s time along with their corresponding Labour versions, that I suppose I thought they would at least pretend they cared about Scotland for the duration of the parliament!
Labour equivalents this time around – Paul Sweeney?
From Rev’s Twitter feed:
Wings Over Scotland Retweeted
Robert Peston
?
@Peston
.@theresa_may says 70 “technical notices” for businesses and households will be published in Aug and Sept setting out how we can all prepare for a no-deal Brexit (should that be what happens). Yikes
Above, we are now officially fucked
@ Welsh Sion
Congrats to Wales – Geraint Thomas wins stage 10 in the Alps and now wears the Yellow Jersey with 1.25 mins ahead of Froome. 🙂
Orri 3.39 pm.ah you mean designing and supplying those infamous black uniforms with the double s lightning flash. Like maybe uk border guards would need after brexit to control mobs of starving unemployed rioteers.
Calling an Indyref after the EU leave date has significant advantages for Scotland.
At present the EU takes the view that it cannot side with the SG as that would constitute interference in the internal affairs of a member state.
This would no longer apply and Scottish negotiators could open discussions weakening the NO claims that we could not get a deal to suit Scotland. May 2019 would give ample time to win a YES vote.
@yesindyref2 says: 18 July, 2018 at 4:13 pm:
“The real solution is more trees to hug, and appropriate shrubs and even grass, there’s little reason half of Scotland couldn’t be reforested to make us effectively carbon negative. I believe more trees are being planted than cut down, but I am a bit suspicious at times the number of timber lorries flying around all over Scotland as private estates and even houses with a bit of land make money fast.”
Don’t worry about those timber lorries, yesindyref2. There are transporting fast growing conifers but to be fast growing they absorb more carbon. The cropping of these softwoods is great for the environment, (as long as you don’t use them as fuel).
Managed conifer forestry plants new saplings on the areas they have just harvested but the very best carbon absorbing system is coppicing:-
link to coppice.co.uk
All of which is quite different from the more permeant, hard wood, tree plantations.
Mothers fighting in the supermaket aisles for a loaf.
Kids fighting over a stale heel end.
Troops guarding fields of spuds and grannies stripping hedgerows for anything edible.
I understand nettles make a good soup, especially with a bit of chamomile thrown in for flavour.
And you all thought a three day week was bad? Welcome to Brexit 2019
Brexit must be keeping them very busy! I have not seen a programme on a great British war story for a few days. It is unlike them. Normally we have a constant drip of “…our common bond” ( The other 2 dozen commonwealth and occupied countries armed forces are an inconsequence.)
Come on BBC and Whitehall…where is this months flag waving commemoration / Royal event or RussiaBAD story? We want our license money propaganda.to mock.
@ Rick H Johnston: 5.04
Too late after we leave, May could and would impose a State of Emergency and shut Holyrood
If the EU really want us given the Westminster fandango then they will find ways of letting us know, personally I would be quite comfortable with a Norway type deal in the interim until we see how things go.
Without Indy we will have nothing but tattie soup wild rabbit and the odd stray dog.
Reuters … “Theresa May said on Wednesday she did not believe that Britain was getting close to a so- called “no deal” Brexit, where the country crashes out of the European Union without an exit agreement.”
Since we can’t believe a word she utters, that may or may not be the case!
Getting a “deal” isn’t difficult. All TMay has to do is accept pretty much what she said she had in December i.e. EU citizen rights and a backstop for Ireland. Then she gets her Brexit in March and a two year transition period where nothing changes really.
So what’s all this excitement about TMay’s White Paper on a mythical cherry picked future relationship? It shouldn’t and doesn’t need to matter. What it is about, is the Tories trying to get the EU to agree to a parallel statement of future trade and customs which makes the Irish backstop unnecessary and therefore sellable to the hard right.
That won’t happen and TMay will be left either agreeing to a backstop which is unacceptable to the hard right OR walking away from the Divorce Treaty i.e. no deal.
My guess is she will accept the backstop, get the Divorce Treaty, and the internal fighting over the future relationship will continue!
Second EURef? It will never happen.
Early General Election? Inevitably because this government just gets weaker and weaker.
Madman in charge of the Tories? Probably, because the members choose and they apparently like madmen.
I was thinking more of more conventional winged aircraft to get a satellite and vehicle to near space altitude at which point they can be launched. Obviously that’s a reusable platform. The bit that get’s to orbit may or may not be. Less waste and potentially cheaper. Especially as the satellite industry is mainly concentrated on ones small enough to make that approach usable.
Not sure where the tree hugging bit came from.
Another cracking essay over on EURefurendum.com The House of Stupid…
That vote to keep the free movement of medicines…. it isn’t do able unless we are members of at the very least the EEA.
‘For my part, I can’t remember exactly when it was that I decided that the House of Commons had lost it over Brexit. But if we needed any reminders of how far the MP collective has departed from reality, yesterday’s proceedings in the House serve more than adequately.
There are various reports on which we can rely, but they all say roughly the same thing. The PM “squeaked home” on a vote on a customs union, only to lose by 305 to 301 a vote on an amendment calling for the UK to stay in the European medicines regulatory network.
The amendment was tabled by former minister Phillip Lee, who quit over Brexit last month. In his view, continued participation “makes the process of accessing life-saving new medicines and moving medicines quick and easy”. It was vital, he said, to ensure that British citizens continued to get the treatment they needed after leaving the EU.
Specifically, the amendment required the government to make it a “a negotiating objective” to secure an agreement that would allow the United Kingdom to continue to participate fully in the partnership.
The point about this fatuous Clause 17 amendment is that membership of the European medicines regulatory network is open only to the national competent authorities in the Member States of the European Economic Area (EEA). ‘
Doh!
Away to look up what I need to buy in the way of emergency food, fuel, etc. Wish I was joking.
Iceberg? What iceberg?
Keep watching Ireland:
link to independent.ie
@frogesque
That’s good news, her business and household leaflet might as well be titled “Vote YES for Independence and get the hell out of Dodge”. Saves us the bother. Then followed in a couple of weeks or so with our leaflets, or WBB2! Sounds like a plan, thanks Theresa. Maybe we should appoint her head of YES.
@Robert Peffers
I did read that new plantings were exceeding those cut down, interesting point you make about better carbon absorbtion while they’re growing.
Yes, we do need hardwood as well, but they’re longer term. I’ve no idea if they’re mixing plantations, mixed hedges are more healthy and disease resistant than ons epcies ones apparently. maybe same for trees.
That’s fascinating about coppicing, never really thought about it before, apart from it being a swine to get rid of holly trees, they keep coming up again like rhubarb.
frogesque says:
Only one point about what you said, ie what supermarkets? they will all be wrecked and very empty!
Hunger, surviving, give people a reason to be bad, with little conscious.
@Daisy Walker
Ah well, probably a good time to upgrade house lighting to LED at between 1/8th and 1/10th the wattage, and these days as I found out, you don’t need fancy light fittings, just the standard ones with bulbs. I just got 6 Philips 100 watt rating A+ with 13 watt input for £22 from cough Amazon. Supposed to last 15 years. They’re very bright and look fine, unlike those stupid original energy convoluted tubes. It was my son gor me off my backside, reckons he’ll break even in 2 months at 4 hours a day on some cheaper Screfix ones.
Then all you need is a windmill and batteries, and a bit of ciruitry RP will advise you on I expect and there you go. Maybe a radio to catch the news from non-UK channels, as there won’t be any in the UK!
Worrying think is I’m not totally joking.
If the EU does not stand up for Scotland soon it will be too late for the EU.
I for one would not vote to join the EU.
I think it was always destined to end like this. All the posturing from May that “Brexit means Brexit” was just a load of codswallop and she knew it too when she was saying it.
I see her now like the Little Dutch Boy with his finger in the dyke trying desperately to hold back the flood.
She is doomed to failure though as the truth is that when a dyke is about to break, a finger is just not up to the job.
Dykes don’t leak gradually, they weaken and then whole sections are washed away and the flood takes place. That’s what happening with the Tory party and no finger can prevent the coming flood.
She might as well stick her fingers in her ears. She’s doomed.
@Artyhetty says:
18 July, 2018 at 1:02 pm
The UKOK is finished. Just call it the 51st state, little America, America’s whore.
===========================================
Not a state. States in the USA have a certain amount of political and economic independence (more so than devolved Scotland in the UK). More like a semi-colony.
yesindyref2, does crystal sets still work? if they do, you are laughing.
Slightly O/T but still Brexit related.
Article from Newsnet about the EU-Japan trade deal and how Scotland is likely to lose out if dragged out of EU because of Brexit.
link to newsnet.scot
@frogesque
Yep, clocked that and yes, it does mean what most folk think it means.
Also worth a read.
link to archive.fo
It is an Eton mess. Pork flavoured.
They started it.
I’ve been around on this planet for a while, and genuinely cannot think of ANY major European democracy with such an inept government AND opposition as we have in England now. With each passing day, it gets further into the realms of ‘they would never do that..would they???’.
Things are getting scary now. The only hope I literally cling onto is indyref. I think many others feel the same. We must become independent ASAP.
England has become a joke country, with a failed outdated and wholly b*stardised parliamentary system, dominated by a cloying nostalgia for a ‘great British past’, which never really existed. Their slogan could quite easily be ‘make Britain great again’.
Very scary times indeed – and for the very first time, I really mean that.
Stu mac and Artyhetty,
Puerto Rico is the example you are looking for!
link to en.wikipedia.org
clootie at 513pm,
QUOTE “Brexit must be keeping them very busy! I have not seen a programme on a great British war story for a few days. It is unlike them. Normally we have a constant drip of “…our common bond” ( The other 2 dozen commonwealth and occupied countries armed forces are an inconsequence.)
Come on BBC and Whitehall…where is this months flag waving commemoration….”
Clootie, Is this the kind of thing you mean??
link to eif.co.uk
Quote from their homepage “The 2018 International Festival season bursts into life with a spectacular free outdoor digital performance celebrating Scotland’s Year of Young People and reflecting on the centenary of the end of the Great War.
Inspired by themes of communication including telegrams sent by young soldiers in 1918...
My bolding.
@Robert Louis
It’s curious. As active politicos we’re supposedly pretty aware of what’s going on, but maybe we’re distracted by seeing it all as a path to Indy, so haven’t up till now really considered Brexit itself, the usurping by the UK Government of what should be UK Parliamentary, and the Power Grab itself for what is is, only for how much it could help a YES vote.
It’s ony beginning to dawn on me that if we don’t get Indy. we’re well and truly fucked – along with the rest of the UK.
We need a bigger engine on that lifeboat, jet-propelled.
Robert Louis and Clootie.
We have a 50 year ‘celebration’ of Dad’s Army in the offing.
wull2 says:
To be honest, I think they would struggle with DAB or FM broadcasts 🙁
To be prepared for Brexarmageddon you need the biggest EU flag you can find. You then place it out on the ground weighed down at the corners with big chuckie stanes. That way the French, Dutch and German airforces parachuting in emergency food rations know where to drop them 🙂
@Robert Louis 6:18
There were scarier times about 80 years ago, but few people survive to remember that. And the outcome was not good.
@yesindyref2
“It’s ony beginning to dawn on me that if we don’t get Indy. we’re well and truly fucked – along with the rest of the UK.”
Pretty much.
Something I posted in an article a wee while back:
Just to put things into further perspective given the impending Brexit. HERE is a link to a list of UK recessions and their effects on the overall economy, with 2008’s crash on the bottom. Worst Q was -2.2% in Q4.
So, just to be clear. It’s taken a central government, in full possession of all economic levers, ten years NOT to have ditched austerity ideology. A period which has seen unprecedented wage stagnation, draconian changes and swingeing cuts to the UK’s benefits system, massive growth of food bank culture and cuts to services reported across the board. A state legislature in FULL possession of ALL economic levers. Personally I’d say that’s worthy of a gripe or two, but then I would.
Anyway, now we get to the interesting question on the subject of those economy growing zooperpowers. Given both HMG and Scotgov’s impact assessments consider a 2-2.5% contraction is currently the best case (soft Brexit) scenario for Scotland. Also taking into account the all too evident hardships which the recession of 2008 has delivered over the past ten years. Just what do you reckon the effect will be of a 9% contraction of Scotland’s economy in event of the worst case scenario?
Readers, of course, can decide for themselves whether they consider the economic powers of the Scottish parliament sufficient for the challenges ahead.
After all… how bad could it be?”
That bad!
Who, do you think, you are kidding, Mr Rees-Hogg,
If you think Auld Scotland’s done!
Who recalls the massive effort on WW1 back in 2014 with Armed Forces day in Stirling to rival the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn and poppies all over the shop? The subsequent commemorations for the Somme, Verdun, Ypres and all the rest and the very imminent 100th of the Armistice have by comparison been so muted as to be invisible.
It looked cynical at the time and if anything it looks ever more cynical with hindsight.
Too bad we didn’t get the General Election and see Corbyn win. Corbyn on a par with May. His handling of Brexit would have seen more Labour supporters joining us on the life rafts. I’m now wondering if there was more behind the Labour MPs backing May? Could it be that it suits them, and more so Corbyn, not to be running (if you can call it that) the country at this time?
wull2 says:
18 July, 2018 at 5:51 pm
If the EU does not stand up for Scotland soon it will be too late for the EU.
I for one would not vote to join the EU.
The EU cannot interfere in the internal politics of a sovereign country. Whether we like it or not, Westminster is the recognised seat of Constitutionally Sovereign UK government, and until we Scots provide them with a different Constitutional scenario, then Europe’s hands are tied.
Once Scotland actively moves to dispute UK Sovereignty, then it becomes possible for Scotland to claim international personality and start speaking for itself with the authority of recognised Sovereignty.
I believe Europe has already given Scotland as much of a green light as the EU can give us given the current constraints they are bound by. If Scotland wants to be recognised as sovereign, the primary onus is on ourselves to argue for, and secure recognition, perhaps even probationary recognition, of our Constitutional Sovereignty.
It’s a process which Europe cannot instigate. It is only us Scots who must do that. My appreciation of the present state of affairs is that Scotland’s Brexit, the overruling of our sovereign choice to remain in Europe, together with the further subjugation of Scots Law by Theresa May’s Continuity Legislation will each constitute a material and irremediable breach of the Treaties of Union, and the Union will cease to exist as a Treaty as technical consequence. Scotland and England will thereby default to the status of two distinct and eparate sovereign Kingdoms, whereupon Scotland will move quickly to seek and secure international recognition and personality.
The Union will not even need to be repealed, because when the Treaty is formally broken, the Union technically ceases to exist and cannot be repaired or renegotiated. (That would require a whole new Treaty).
Independence is coming, and it’s rather sweet that it’s the arrogance of the BritNat Tories and Brexiteers who will deliver it.
The big question I have, and one I am content to nor know the answer publicly, is the extent to which Europe has been fully briefed about Scotland’s Constitutional Ace in the hole, and is right now making informal but meaningful contingency arrangements to recognise Scotland quickly, and facilitate how an Indy Scotland and the EU engage with each other.
It may seem remarkable that Constitutional Independence is so close, but Westminster is now so committed to a Brexit which cannot be reconciled with Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty that even supposing Westminster became alert to the realitty, there is actually very little which Westminster can do to prevent it.
And for the record, I would join the EU. I would actually join the EU in a heartbeat. Truth be known, I have never given up on the possibility that we might never actually leave, but negotiate our membership from within. If that is the will of Scotland and the EU, I see no insurmountable barrier to it happening.
the mps at westminster smell blood, treezas, so does the medja, so do the voters.
my twitter feed is full of fired up yessers looking forward to the ge especially those in constituencies where tories won last time. watching these scottish tories getting replaced by alex salmond, angus robertson etc will be very satisfying, time to bring these useless tories back up the road.
time to bring home the bacon 🙂
With reference especially to your last photo and boarding-up of the Channel Tunnel, quarantining the UK from Europe:
BREXIT is an anagram of TRIBE X (i.e. ‘The Unknown Tribe’).
Just saying.
O/T Why are folk stocking up on food?
Apart from Coffee, olive oil, rice and a good wine, I cannot think of any basics I need that Scotland doesn’t produce.
However, you are f***ed if you have a passion for Ketchup, HP sauce or asparagus,foie gras or figs.
Was concerned when someone mentioned toilet roll earlier – we also manufacture all kinds of soft paper tissue.
Imagine you are Blair McDougal, sitting at home right now!
Imagine you have been tasked with designing a referendum strategy that will again convince Scots that we are still ‘Better Together’ in the UK.
How do you even start?
How do you convince Labour to join forces with the Tories to even get the ‘Better Together Campaign’ off the ground, after the damage it did to them the first time?
Remember what Margo said (when we were scoring about 28% in the polls)
“All each one of us have to do is convince just one person, and we will have our independence”
Surely, with all that is going on at Westminster, with each passing day bringing news of an ever worsening unfolding catastrophe, each of us can find one soft no /don’t know, and convince them that we need to get out of this rotten Union!
“The big question I have, and one I am content to nor know the answer publicly, is the extent to which Europe has been fully briefed about Scotland’s Constitutional Ace in the hole.”
Breeks: at a public meeting about two months ago, Mike Russell (after becoming Brexit Minister) said he had prepared and disseminated a paper which explained to the EU Scotland’s different concept of sovereignty and the nature of the union of the two kingdoms in 1707.
It would be nice to see this briefing paper.
Hi Shinty at 7:07 pm.
You typed,
“Apart from Coffee, olive oil, rice and a good wine, I cannot think of any basics I need that Scotland doesn’t produce.”
Looking for a good wine?
link to cairnomohr.com
I would actually quite like the SNP to start taking the p—s.
Set up “Commissions” to act as Governmental Departments in Waiting… Scottish Ministry of Defence, Scottish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry,… and a Commission on Scottish Broadcasting…
Maybe these Commissions should be apolitical with private citizens invited to chair them. Maybe Angus Robertson with his fluent German would be a great appointment for the Commission on Foreign Affairs. And as for Broadcasting, hmmm, can anybody think of someone who is politically astute, has first hand experience with his own talk show, and maybe an economist to boot… Name’s on the tip of my tongue…
stu mac says:
Reading an article a few weeks ago that 11 US states want Independence. Texas, New York, California, Kentucky, I can’t remember the rest. The Texan’s fly a flag with a “YES” on it, similar to ours.
Welcome the new Mary (I love Britain) Berry’s new cookbook, Petfood for Beginners.
Special section by Clair Balding on what to do with horseshit and a horse. Also containing a guest slot from Jakey R.; the highs and lows of wizzard mushrooms at breakfast time.
Breeks says:
The EU cannot interfere in the internal politics of a sovereign country. Whether we like it or not, Westminster is the recognised seat of Constitutionally Sovereign UK government, and until we Scots provide them with a different Constitutional scenario, then Europe’s hands are tied.
I believe Europe has already given Scotland as much of a green light as the EU can give us given the current constraints they are bound by. If Scotland wants to be recognised as sovereign, the primary onus is on ourselves to argue for, and secure recognition, perhaps even probationary recognition, of our Constitutional Sovereignty.
It’s a process which Europe cannot instigate. It is only us Scots who must do that.
———–
I agree with this 100%
until we actual win indyref2, the eu cannot help us anymore than they already have. It is up to us and no one else.
that said, once we do, the eu’s attitude to scotland will change dramatically
it has been mentioned many times on wings when is the best date for indyref2, the rev suggested spring 19, ages ago, however
does that mean before 30th march or after, eg early May?
there are disadvantages and advantages with both those dates and a discussion about this topic would be useful
Interesting detail on Table 10 about Indy VI of the recent DR survation poll
link to survation.com
Got the link from a poster on SGP’s blog, and he is by the way currently reopened his fundraiser from last year as he needs some food and ketchup:
link to gofundme.com
@frogesque says: 18 July, 2018 at 5:07 pm:
” … I understand nettles make a good soup, especially with a bit of chamomile thrown in for flavour.”
Having been born before WWII in a rural area and managing to survive right through WWII rationing I think I remember enough to survive. You may not know it but the roadside banks, hedgerows, woodlands, waste ground and meadows support a great many free foods and there is the wildlife too.
I could cleanly skin, gut and prepare any wildlife that was edible before I reached school age. I had a good teacher in my Grandfather who had done a spell as a water Bailiff but that was like setting a thief to catch a thief as he had been the village poacher in his day. I could guddle a trout with the best of them too.
There is both wild onions and wild garlic growing by roadsides and wild fruit trees too in hedgerows but let us hope Scots are never reduced to those measures ever again.
Saw a no voting friend today. Still not sure but I think beginning to realize we’ve got to go. I knew after last night’s vote that the game was over and that Indyref2 must be before Brexit day. Westminster must have no opportunity to change anything. We must get out before that.
Question – why are the Scottish Government asking for another Brexit referendum?
Is this fake news, I certainly hope so.
We have a mandate for indyref2, Scotland voted to REMAIN.
Are we to sit back and wait for another Brexit referendum together with a possible GE.
Sorry, but getting impatient here. #dissolvetheunion
Brian Doonthetoon says:
Hi Shinty at 7:07 pm.
You typed,
“Apart from Coffee, olive oil, rice and a good wine, I cannot think of any basics I need that Scotland doesn’t produce.”
Looking for a good wine?
link to cairnomohr.com
——————–
cairnomohr is falling down juice
@Patrick Roden
I image Mr McDougal is at his minute contemplating the possibility of the ‘Better Together Ration Book’, with complementary Union Flag.
Brian Doonthetoon at 7:18 pm and Shinty @ 7.07 pm
There is also the Orkney Wine Company. They make a very nice red.
https://www.orkneywine.co.uk
Scotland also produces rapeseed oil which you can use instead of olive oil. Several producers now under one umbrella
http://www.scotrapeseedoil.co.uk
Also worth reading is this article from Newsnet. I posted this link on a previous thread
link to newsnet.scot
@h&s
aye, celebrating the start of WW1 did look very cynical at the time
Movy says:
I knew after last night’s vote that the game was over and that Indyref2 must be before Brexit day.
————-
why?
Robert Peffers says:
There is both wild onions and wild garlic growing by roadsides and wild fruit trees too in hedgerows but let us hope Scots are never reduced to those measures ever again.
————-
denmylne.wordpress.com/about/
“Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark” Old Arab proverb
@wull2 says: 18 July, 2018 at 5:51 pm@
” … I for one would not vote to join the EU.”
Are you going to tell us why not, wull2?
Are you perhaps like the numpties we all met on doorsteps who said, “A’h hate yon alicsammin”, or, “A’h hate yon niccolysturgeon”, and when you respectfully asked them, “Oh! Why would you hate such a very nice peson, they could not do more than say, “Jist because”.
Is that also your answer when asked why you
hatedon’t like the EU, wull2?Let’s hear your objections to the EU – what is it you do not like?
@Bobp
A referendum after britain has left the eu wont be allowed by westminster.
a) We don’t need Westminster’s permission to hold a referendum in Scotland. WM only recently agreed that Scots decide what form of Government we want.
b) It doesn’t necessarily need to be a Referendum. Delay the indy vote to the next Scottish General Election and SNP stand on a manifesto of indy with EU vote following successful YES result.
Either way, the people of Scotland will have their say. It’s up to WM which option they feel is in their interest to agree to.
@schodingers cat and Brian Doonthetoon.
Post WW2 grandfather made country wines when it was still deemed illegal to home brew. Baker’s yeast on a slice of toast to get it going and a bag of sugar (not sure how he snaffled that!) Then into the glory hole for the fermentation.
Blackberries, elder flower and berry, potato, neep, practically anything made a potent, though not necessarily exotic, brew.
@ HandandShrimp says:
18 July, 2018 at 6:50 pm
Who recalls the massive effort on WW1 back in 2014 with Armed Forces day in Stirling to rival the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn and poppies all over the shop? The subsequent commemorations for the Somme, Verdun, Ypres and all the rest and the very imminent 100th of the Armistice have by comparison been so muted as to be invisible.
It looked cynical at the time and if anything it looks ever more cynical with hindsight.
It was entirely cynical Handandshrimp – they highjacked the red poppies and started romanticising WAR…. but we can reclaim it.
The mortality rate for the Scottish Regiments in WW1 was 26%. For rUK Regiments 13%.
We wear Twa Poppies
Fur aw the pair sodjirs wha never cam hame
We wear Twa Poppies again and again and again
For aw the pair lads and men broken and maimed
We wear Twa Poppies
And at the going down of the sun
And with our VOTES
We Remember
26:13
Shinty says:
18 July, 2018 at 7:27 pm
“Question – why are the Scottish Government asking for another Brexit referendum?
Is this fake news, I certainly hope so.
We have a mandate for indyref2, Scotland voted to REMAIN.
Are we to sit back and wait for another Brexit referendum together with a possible GE.
Sorry, but getting impatient here”. #dissolvetheunion
———————————————————————
Consider this the whole unionist establishment will instinctively go against anything the SNP propose as perfectly demonstrated in the HOC this week, so if the SNP DON’T want something to happen all they have to do is propose it.
I see there’s an article re. a poll on the online Herald that highlights that 2 in 3 Scots would rather stay in the EU if it’s a no deal Brexit. I can’t see most of the article so have no idea if there’s more to it.
BDT – thanks for that, didn’t know amongst our many talents we also produce wine. Will check it out.
Maybe we just need to stock up on sugar.
Any of life necessities we in Scotland don’t produce?
Hi schrodingers cat and frogesque.
I’ve never been a wine afficiando. I did like a sweet white which one of my wives introduced me to; can’t remember its name. Turns out it was what is referred to as a “dessert wine”.
I tried the Cairn O Mhor bramble wine but it wasn’t a patch on the bramble wine my Dad made, from fresh brambles picked from the verges on the Dronley/Auchterhouse road.
That was A FINE WINE!
@wull2 says: 18 July, 2018 at 5:57 pm:
“yesindyref2, does crystal sets still work? if they do, you are laughing.”
Well, wull2, the answer is both yes and no. The crystal in the crystal set is a form of diode detector and, since transistors came on the go, we have far better forms of semiconductor diodes so it wouldn’t be a crystal set.
Anyway, the crystal detectors can only work on older long, medium and short wavebands with stations that use AM, (audio modulation), but not on VHF or the modern DAB radio transmissions.
So, yes, using a diode and a variable tuning circuit, with a decent aerial and earth, you would still get the AM radio stations. Anyway, you are way out of date as we have had wind-up radios for some years now.
EU takes the view that it cannot side with the SG as that would constitute interference in the internal affairs of a member state.
The United Kingdom is not a state nor a country. It is as the title implies, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England joined by nothing more than a treaty.
Two separate countries one is not superior to the other. The parliament at Westminster came to be seen as the UK parliament, due to the greed and laziness of those who signed the treaty in 1707.
The so called Scottish parliamentarians at the time could not be bothered with the duplication which was required between both parliaments, so the Scottish parliamentarians upped sticks and just moved to London. The Scottish parliament was not abolished, it was I believe prorogued.
So two Countries called the UK joined the EU one if those countries decided to leave the other decided to stay. Scotland and England are both member states.
The EU are taking the pish and do not appear to care one jot about their citizens.
re topic about Brexitageddon
Why is there no mention of porridge?
If Goldilocks could survive on it then I’m sure everybody else can.
Besides, bears aren’t native inhabitants of Scotland 🙂
Remember for years and years and years labour used to attack the SNP for allegedly voting with the tories in 1979 and bringing down Callaghan. I would dispute this as the then labour government were in turmoil over the continuing winter, spring, summer and autumn of discontent.
What can”t be disputed is four ignorant and mad labour arseholes heralded in brexit and secured continuation of austerity and economic instabilty under the tories. How can these four idiots look a poor person in the eye and say? What would they say, I did it for you? I struggle to understand their motivation in further impoverishing poor and vulnerable people? Why do they still hold the labour whip?
Lets not forget this labour betrayal until independence is secured and the likes of Iain Murray gets his face rubbed in it at every turn as he squirms!
Strewth! , there is a 5 pound coin minted to celebrate Prince George’s 5th birthday – a chorus of’ we are all in this together ‘folks!
@Petra
link to ccleaner.com
Go for the free version.
@Breeks says: 18 July, 2018 at 7:00 pm:
” … The EU cannot interfere in the internal politics of a sovereign country. Whether we like it or not, Westminster is the recognised seat of Constitutionally Sovereign UK government, and until we Scots provide them with a different Constitutional scenario, then Europe’s hands are tied.”
That, and the rest of your comment was spot on, Breeks.
However, if anyone has closely followed the actual live debates in the EU parliament the EU has made it very plain that they will back Scotland and I’ve, several times, posted YouTube clips that show a tremendous feeling of goodwill towards Scotland with a corresponding expression of ill will towards the Britnats.
Well, for a more domestic type of survival, the priorities are:
1. Water 2 litres a day per person, but can be less
2. (Shelter) is second because we have it already. most of us
3. Warmth of some sort
4. Food
5. Don’t tell anyone you have it, go to the standipe and look miserable, go get your rice or oats and dried egg and be dead chuffed like everyone else.
In a so-called civilised society we’re giving time for the police and army to get organised, which could take up to a month initially, and give it 3 months to get back to near normal or hope our raft will reach Ireland. Or Holland if we’re adventurous.
Brian Doonthetoon says:
18 July, 2018 at 7:18 pm
Hi Shinty at 7:07 pm.
You typed,
“Apart from Coffee, olive oil, rice and a good wine, I cannot think of any basics I need that Scotland doesn’t produce.”
Looking for a good wine?
link to cairnomohr.com
………………………………….
Orkney Wine Co. Makes a very nice red wine as well as a range of other wines
link to orkneywine.co.uk
There are a number of Scottish companies producing r*peseed oil which can be used instead of olive oil. Six of the producers have formed Scottish R*peseed.
link to scotr*peseedoil.co.uk
(Substitute an a in place of the asterisk.)
Recent article in Newsnet covered the subject of food supplies in greater detail
link to newsnet.scot
Oh yeah
6. Some kind of alternative skill we can barter for a leg of deer if we can’t shoot it ourselves, mines’s herbalist but also a tin of WD40 in case it really gets long-term!
CH4 news interviewed Mr Mann, Labour MP, tonight. Not on the web site, yet, but if you can get it on CH4 catch-up then worth watching. Have a strong drink handy though.
Anent our friends in Europe. If any doubt that we have friends please go to Edinburgh to St Giles and look west across Parliament Square to the new General Consulate of the French Republic. It’s more fitting to be housing an Embassy!
It cheered me on Monday.
Next to it is the French Institute and next to that is the National Library of Scotland.
Read Sev Carrell in the Guardian
link to theguardian.com.
Graeme @7.53pm – you are spot on – I should have known better.
Suffered most of PMQ’s today which really made me mad. Theresa looked very fetching in her African violet outfit, but as they say you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig at the Westminster trough.
No thought or respect for Scotland as an equal partner in this Union.
Sadly too many folk in Scotland are more worried about the price of a cheese & celery sandwich in Marks & Spencer’s.
@Dorothy Devine
Could have been worse Dorothy.
link to archive.is
PS:
You keep winding us up Mr Peffers. 🙂
From that Yougov poll, the Herald says:
“But 47% of those Scots polled did not think that once the Brexit negotiations were complete and the terms of Britain’s exit have been agreed, that there should be another referendum to accept or reject them.”
It’s the way they tell ’em. it means 53% are either in favour or quite frankly me dear don’t give a damn. 53 – 47 a clear majority for Indy Ref 2. Last figure I remember is 50% against, so it’s progress.
OT
I see the Regime are wanting to sell Wembley stadium, there cant be much else left to sell.
They will be selling old Bettys house next.
If the Tories call another election (in theory they can’t but the 5 year rule didn’t prove any obstacle last time) then the SNP need to campaign heavily on remaining in SM & CU and taking any steps necessary to remain members. Full EU membership can wait till later to decide on.
If we can’t get a mandate under these circumstances I think I will be resigned to never achieving one.
Ooops, that’s an EU terms accepting Ref, NOT an Indy Ref.
I think I’ll find a fig leaf to hide behind.
@Wullie says: 18 July, 2018 at 8:11 pm:
“The United Kingdom is not a state nor a country. It is as the title implies, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England joined by nothing more than a treaty.”
Well that bit’s wrong, just for starters. The United Kingdom is certainly not a country as it contains four distinct countries but it is a political state. The Treaty of Union formed a United Kingdom with a head of state common to both kingdoms. However, it has never actually been run as a united Kingdom by Westminster.
“Two separate countries one is not superior to the other.”
That bit contradicts the first statement which claimed the United Kingdom wasn’t a counter. Not to mention that the Signatory Kingdom of England is composed of three distinct countries.
” … The parliament at Westminster came to be seen as the UK parliament, due to the greed and laziness of those who signed the treaty in 1707. “
And that bit is total pish because the Scottish parliamentarians were all wealthy landowners and there were several different motives that forced individual parliamentarians to agree to the union. These included, threats, a confidence trick by Westminster that bankrupted some Scots landowners, several years of drought and bad harvests, Bribery and corruption and English troops massed at the borders with an English fleet hove to off the Firth of Forth.
” … The so called Scottish parliamentarians at the time could not be bothered with the duplication which was required between both parliaments, so the Scottish parliamentarians upped sticks and just moved to London. The Scottish parliament was not abolished, it was I believe prorogued.”
It was indeed prorogued but not by design of the Scots parliamentarians. Factually the parliament never sat to formally dissolve the parliament because the parliamentarians were running for their lives from the people who were rioting in the streets.
“So two Countries called the UK joined the EU one if those countries decided to leave the other decided to stay. Scotland and England are both member states.”
Pish! Now you are contradicting yourself again. There were not two countries that signed the Treaty there were two kingdoms and one of them contained three countries.
What joined the EU as a member state was what claimed to be a United Kingdom but wasn’t and still isn’t. Westminster has always operated as the continuing Parliament of the country of England, (and there is no such parliament elected by the voters of England), and since devolution, it has become the de facto parliament of the country of England.
The EU are taking the pish and do not appear to care one jot about their citizens.
Wullie, you have almost the right facts but not quite got it right.
Scotland, as far as I know, doesn’t have any problem signing up to freedom of movement, so I don’t think you’d need to worry about the inevitable wait for full EU membership, you could be in the single market anyway.
Do a Norway and be in the SM but out of the Fisheries Policy, that might work out better for Scotland anyway.
“Right now it’s impossible to foresee anything other than a few more months of utterly inept bumbling chaos from squawking cretins followed by a no-deal Brexit,”
Rock (15th July – “The bag carrier”):
“Not too long before Nicola declares that there will not be a second independence referendum before Brexit has been completed.
Or Saint Theresa holds a second “snap” election where the SNP loses lots of seats to Unionists United.
Or there is a “snap” Brexit and the SNP is caught napping and unable to hold a second independence referendum.”
Graham King says:
18 July, 2018 at 7:05 pm
With reference especially to your last photo and boarding-up of the Channel Tunnel, quarantining the UK from Europe:
BREXIT is an anagram of TRIBE X (i.e. ‘The Unknown Tribe’).
Just saying.
Just as EX Brit is.
Thanks Robert Peffers for the reply that’s what I thought. GM4—.
To other repliers, during 2014 there was plenty leaders of EU countries telling us it was bad for Scotland, where are they now, or do they want to get the business first, then tell us to F off.
I will always vote for Scottish independence, Once we are on our own, I will revert to my rule, (One thing at a time)
Rock (30th June 2016 – “All things are relative”):
“But the good people of Scotland must be told very soon in no uncertain terms that it is impossible to be part of the EU without being independent.
Otherwise, she will lose the momentum and goodwill she has now.
There is ZERO chance of the EU discussing anything with Scotland while negotiating Brexit.
Do we want to remain in the shadows for two years?
And then start negotiations which would force us to accept many things we might not like?
An independence referendum will have to be called very soon, and independent Scotland ready to take over from where rUK left from day 1 of Brexit.”
What followed is history partly made partly in the making.
Rock (27th August 2017 – “Underneath the Goodyear blimp”):
“Scotland was on the verge of independence immediately after the Brexit vote.
The unionist parties were without leaders and completely lost, the SNP had 56 out of 59 MPs and 50% of the vote, the EU’s eyes were (favourably) on Scotland.
But Nicola squandered a once in a 1000 years golden opportunity by wasting more than a year flogging a dead horse – a separate deal for Scotland which was never going to happen.
The result: Nicola outsmarted by the collusion between Saints Theresa and Ruth on one hand, and Corbyn on the other, fall in SNP support from 50% to 37%.
It is my prediction that there will be a “snap” Brexit and the SNP will be caught napping and unable to hold a second independence referendum.
Or another “snap” Westminster election with the SNP again losing support.
Despite the pretendy “sovereignty” and boasting of the clueless pompous armchair pundits posting here, Scotland is again as far away from independence as ever.”
Still got my fuel ration card thingy from the oil crisis in the 70s never got to use them. Might come in handy along with some WWII recipes my mother used to have in a few weeks though. 🙂
PS:
Need help from you historians.
King James 2 (VII Scot) was in a shipwreck when travelling to Scotland? Heard a part story that he escaped with a few others but many lives lost etc. On shortbread radio yesterday I think.
The guy hypothecated that if he had drowned history would have be so different. No glorious revolution from Cromwell and no William of Orange and no Jacobian story.
It was a lighted hearted discussion and I heard the end of it but missed much of the detail.
Anyhoo I had a go tonight to try and find the story but nothing!
Cannae find the history of it on the internetty so if anybody’s got a link maybe they could post it.
Thanks!
Rock,
Are you a bot ?
Rock “Rock “Rock “Rock ” ” ” ”
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’till broad daylight
Play that funky music!
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
18 July, 2018 at 12:22 pm
““The only way is to stay in the EU. Like the majority want.”
There’s no evidence at all that the majority want that, unfortunately.”
The myth of “sovereign” Scots having the “right” to remain in the EU busted by Rev. Stuart Campbell.
Rock (5th March – “Our problems and how to solve them”):
“The UK is a member of the EU and the UK voted to leave the EU.
As far as the EU is concerned, Scotland is nothing more than a region of the UK.”
You know who quotes themseleves and even retweets themselves? Mr Average!
I feel that Scots know what has to be done here. It is time to go.
@ 8:18pm
Thanks for that yesindyref2.
……………………………………..
From the National’s Notice Board.
‘Defending Popular Sovereignty: A demonstration at the Scottish Parliament will take place on Wednesday 25 July from 1pm to 7pm. See Facebook for more details.’
Mmm, Theresa May contemplates more talks at Chequers with her Cabinet:
link to youtube.com
Tax avoidance/ evasion- follow the flow of dark money to tax havens after political shocks;
‘ wealth equivalent to about 10% of world GDP is held in tax havens globally…Scandinavian countries own the equivalent of only a few percent of GDP in offshore wealth, but this figure rises to about 15% in Continental Europe, and to as much as 60% in Russia, Gulf countries, and a number of Latin American countries… Offshore wealth has a larger effect on inequality in the U.K., Spain, and France, where, by our estimates, 30%–40% of all the wealth of the 0.01% richest households is held abroad… The group of countries that do not own much wealth in Switzerland relative to the size of their economy is diverse too, encompassing high-tax Scandinavian countries(Denmark,Norway, Sweden)… flows to tax havens vary systematically with windfall gains in the oil industry and political shocks, such as elections and coups…
Offshore private banks typically require customers to have a minimum amount of financial assets to invest (e.g., $1 million, or $10 million—levels of financial wealth above which one is typically in the top 1% or top 0.1%, respectively… Offshore wealth has particularly dramatic implications for the Russian wealth distribution, where, by our estimates, around 60% of the wealth of the richest households is held offshore…very little has been achieved in terms of statistical transparency. With the exception of Switzerland, no major financial center publishes comprehensive statistics on the amount of foreign wealth managed by its banks. Such opacity makes it hard to measure the evolution of global wealth and its distribution. Improving statistics on offshore wealth should be a priority for policy-makers in this area’
link to sciencedirect.com
Migration isn’t the issue, demographic stagnation is. The Brexit perspective on this issue is particularly ill-informed;
‘the globalisation of the years 1990-2018 is primarily financial and commercial and has never reached the levels of migration observed in the 1870-1914 period. and that these migratory flows take place in a context of demographic stagnation: the annual number of births is now less than 1% of the population in a number of rich countries. This means that an annual contribution of 0.2 or 0.3% leads in the long run to an appreciable change in the composition of the population. This is obviously not a problem per se, but recent experience demonstrates that this may unfortunately generate successful bids for the political exploitation of issues of identity, particularly if adequate policies have not been set up to promote the creation of jobs, housing and the requisite infrastructures. The number of migrants entering the European Union (net of outflows) has been halved, falling from almost 1.4 million persons per annum between 2000 and 2010 to less than 0.7 million per annum between 2010 and 2018, despite the influx of refugees and the peak in 2015…
Some oil-producing countries have sometimes had surpluses greater than 5% or 10% of the GNP but these are much smaller economies relative to the world economy and are often countries with very small populations (with the result that the happy owners of these resources do not really know what to do with them, apart from accumulating them abroad)’
piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/07/10/europe-migrants-and-trade/
Leaving the EU – falling food and safety standards;
Food which is intended for human consumption must meet the general food safety requirements of European Union (EU) law. Under EC Regulation 178/2002 these requirements are that food must not be unsafe, that is:
• injurious to health, or
• unfit for human consumption.
Food from other European Union (EU) Member States is in free circulation. However strict import rules with respect to food and feed hygiene, consumer safety and animal health status from non-EU countries aim at assuring that all imports fulfill the same high standards as products from the EU itself.
In addition to the general provisions of EC Regulation 178/2002, the specific legislation applying to imported food depends on whether the food is of animal origin or not. Some products can only come into the EU through specific ports, for example:
• animal products can only enter through a port with a Border Inspection Post (BIP) and
• high risk products not of animal origin must enter through a Designated point of entry.
link to foodstandards.gov.scot
Leaving the EU- what will the Cornish pasty imported from the US be called when it loses its Protected Designation of Origin?
‘Three quality logos attest to the specific traditions and qualities of food, agricultural products and wines, aromatised wines and spirit drinks, produced in the European Union or in other countries’
ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/schemes_en
Leaving the EU – drug prices most likely to increase;
‘The NHS could face having to pay more for drugs as a result of leaving the European Union (EU), according to experts writing a viewpoint piece* published today in The Lancet.
One consequence of Brexit – the UK having to agree a trade deal itself with the US – could risk increasing drug prices in the UK, possibly reducing affordability for the NHS, said the authors from the School of Public Health, University of Michigan, USA, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and University of Sheffield.
Currently, all of the UK’s international trade deals are negotiated through the EU, but the UK government will need to negotiate new deals to replace existing agreements post-Brexit…. the US Food and Drug Administration and the secretary of Health and Human Services are prevented from basing drug approval decisions on cost-effectiveness.
By contrast, similar drugs are often significantly cheaper in the UK, where the government negotiates prices with drug companies via the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, and the NHS makes purchases based on clinical and cost-effectiveness assessments from NICE.
The authors said they had concerns that the USA could pressure the UK to change the way it regulates pharmaceuticals in trade deals and force the price of drugs to go up’
link to onmedica.com
Anent Nettle Soup, tried it & don’t care when I never try it again!
Timber lorries? soft-woods are a crop & there’s an optimum time to harvest this stuff, we still don’t grow enough & have to import timber. In many cases the land cleared is re-planted with native hardwoods & there are EU grants for riparian planting for example to improve river ecology. Brexit is a direct threat to this.
call me Dave @ 9.48
Shipwreck happened when he was Duke of York
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
The odious Ross Thomson sat nodding his heid aff during Boris’s farewell speech. The oratory was pretty shite but Thomson could barely conceal his delight. Ruth must be at her wits end!
Awesome again Rev. I have been saying since the vote to leave won. It will be a Hard Brexit. The Irish Border and the forgotten Gibraltar/Spain border and Free Movement of People wold ensure no Deal.?
@Legerwood
That’s it. Thanks.
Anyone at the BBC arrested or sacked following the Cliff Richard ruling?
Thought not…
The BBC will pay these fines with your money (if you are daft enough to be still paying them their Licence Fee).
By distancing our Scottish food and drinks brands from the rest of the UK, we benefitted greatly, synergising modern marketing with honestly sourced clean products and information.
Brexit is a regressive coup.
coming late to the dscussion – after work so i haven’t read all the posts.
And have had no time to make a post of my own to illustrate my thoughts
Given the news from Westminster and the EU response to PM May’s White Paper (shredded to bits on day 1 of the negotiations), I am convinced it’s time for Scotland to leave the UK.
Ireland is already preparing for a (no deal) brexit – it is setting up new ferry passenger and trade routes to by-pass the Uk.
It is gradually switching its import and export pattern to exclude the UK.
So are other EU member states.
The UK is being excluded, emarginalised – just as it voted for.
Scotland didn’t vote for exclusion or futher emarginalisation.
Up to us now to make our voices heard!
And man the life-boats for our country
Rev/all..
Regarding your political and cultural conundrums, fear not, this manifest stupidity only lasts til Brexit actually happens. (or other material change)
@ Danny 11.34pm “Anyone at the BBC arrested or sacked following the Cliff Richard ruling?”
Time for heads to roll along with the fining of public bodies paying fines with our money.
ben madigan..
‘after work so i haven’t read all the posts.’
Pah! I’ve been off grid for a week. A long time indeed these days.
@ louis.b.argyll who said:
“Pah! I’ve been off grid for a week. A long time indeed these days”.
know the feeling Louis. Like yourself I’ve had my computer crash-outs, the lad who fixes my set-up off on holiday and his business partner so not interested as he has better things to do with the new secretary/receptionist! time wasted,indeed!
Rober Peffers 9.25pm “Westminster has always operated as the continuing Parliament of the country of England”.
Absolutely true in practice but legally untrue. It was observed early on that all that changed was the need for English members to shuffle up the benches to accommodate “The Scotch” otherwise business as usual.
May I again recommend the book entitle The Mighty Affair by Charles Hendry Dand written before we joined the EU and a good explanation of the events surrounding “our precious union”.
Replying to Schroedingers cat at 7.34pm.
Movy says:
I knew after last night’s vote that the game was over and that Indyref2 must be before Brexit day.
————-
why?
Because if we don’t get out before then, I, for one, don’t even begin to trust Westminster not to start doing even more damage – like bringing in fracking in the central belt, selling off the fish (who trusts Gove?), etc. We cannot give them that chance.
With all the talk of Scotland’s nettle soup future –
is it a good time to point out this bit of Brexit reality?
We might be needing them, folks!
And here is that bit of reality.
link to archive.is
Re Brexit and food supply.
This from two years ago.
link to newyorker.com
@ Mike at 12:26pm
Just reading that link Mike and you’ve got to laugh at the sense of entitlement Westminster suffers from. It’s they who decided to pull out of the EU. It’s they who are creating havoc in this country and in fact destabilising all of Europe and they’re gobsmacked that they are going to be excluded from key EU institutions. They just don’t get it, do they? The best they can hope for is that they can continue to trade with the EU like other ‘third countries.’ The penny doesn’t seem to have dropped yet and that is that the EU won’t tolerate cherrypicking
Rev: “There’s no evidence at all that the majority want that, unfortunately.”
*faints*
Let it be known…
That David Mundell is the bawbag carrier.
Love all Wingers.
In amongst all of that our heat of the fucking passion.
I’m smiling at you beautiful lady…
U know who U are.
Mwah xx
Main thread goes a wondering…
Soon.
LOVE.
Same kinda feel:
link to youtube.com
Tooth n nail like.
Groovy BASS.
It is written..
David Mundell IS the bawbag carrier. FACT.
Whitta fucking mess.
It’s not the peeps.
Good day.
Toysday.
Since ahm here.
FAO Smallaxe n Co like:
link to youtube.com
BASS build.
WE good.
One has no idea where one has been or where one is going…
link to youtube.com
Just as well ah’ve got YOU Scotland, with me.
Are you growing older?
Or are you just like forever ever ready FREE!
Just like ME!
Scotland.
Yes2!
X.
Daylight savings.
Whit’s happenin’ Thursday..?
Hauf time WW.
Hoops, recent comments rattled again, aye surrender, we good.
Just like the amusements…
Back 2U…
Coconut and lime is tasty.
Unplug.
link to twitter.com
Tommy Sheppard on the ball as usual.
Lying Tory Douglas Ross on BBC shortbread pretending Scotland highest part of UK.
Rebate for military personnel based in Scotland who earn more than 26k is today’s headline.
Surprisingly Gary didn’t give him a free ride.
Will there no be free prescriptions, higher education in England 🙂
Links!
Jackie Baillie MSP says it is shameful that under the SNP and the Tories women earn less than men – But Jackie!! the Record of Scottish Labour in Office is Truly Appalling;
link to caltonjock.com
Defending Popular Sovereignty Edinburgh Protest;
link to facebook.com
Brexit: Heading to a Deal or No Deal while UK politics implodes?;
link to vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com
Dave does a Trump;
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
‘No strings’ £100,000 grant from eBay founder will help Scottish investigative journalism outfit The Ferret to ‘punch above its weight’;
link to pressgazette.co.uk
Corporate Parenting is not the same as Named Persons;
link to medium.com
It’s only the little people who pay tax;
link to twitter.com
Why is Britain turning blind eye to Leave side’s lawbreaking?;
link to irishtimes.com
Cheese to become ‘luxuries’ in UK after Brexit, report warns;
link to euronews.com
The coming Brexit cash flow crisis;
link to taxresearch.org.uk
Dark money lurks at the heart of our political crisis;
link to archive.is
May’s Tories took £5.3m off Vote Leave donors since referendum;
link to theredroar.com
Explosive new leaks show it’s Margaret Hodge who should be confronted on racism;
link to thecanary.co
The DWP just fired the starting gun for the privatisation of the welfare state;
link to thecanary.co
Pay student nurses minimum living wage;
link to change.org
MAY BACK TO SQUARE ONE AS SPEAKER RULES GOVT’S TRADE BILL IS SUBJECT TO REJECTION BY LORDS;
link to skwawkbox.org
Investigation reveals glaring gap in data on military veterans dying by suicide;
link to inews.co.uk
Abstentionism lends itself to British involvement in Irish affairs;
link to sluggerotoole.com
See the connection?
DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr suspended from the Commons for record 30 days for ‘serious misconduct’;
link to archive.is
link to twitter.com
In recording, Netanyahu boasts Israel convinced Trump to quit Iran nuclear deal;
link to archive.is
This is the most likely independence timetable;
link to thenational.scot
It is time to go;
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
Survey suggests recruitment problems are driving up pay;
link to archive.is
Have a peaceful, pleasant day, Wingers.
🙂
@joannie says: 18 July, 2018 at 9:35 pm:
” … Do a Norway and be in the SM but out of the Fisheries Policy, that might work out better for Scotland anyway.”
There is no way that a Scotland, “Out of the Fisheries Policy”, would be better for the very good reason that if the scots, “out of the Fisheries Policy”, attempted to prevent European member states fishing Scottish waters the European Union member states would ban Scottish boats from EU member states and their catches from European Union countries and that is, far and away, their largest market for their catches.
In point of fact the EU wouldn’t need to take any actions. The hard borders created by
BRUKEXIT, would take care of fish, and any other fresh food exports as they would perish in holding areas awaiting customs clearance to get out of the United Kingdom.For heaven’s sake there are reports in today’s media that private individuals, never mind commercial HGV drivers, will need to obtain an, “International Driving Permit”, just to drive in EU member states. It is estimated that 7 Million such permits will have to be issued inside a year of the UK exiting the EU.
Good luck with getting your permit issued promptly from the United Kingdom’s Civil Service post UKEXIT.
@ Doug Bryce, heard Douglas Ross also on army pay, according to him the sojers posted her do not use the benefits from the Scottish Government which sojers posted in England can’t get. So a double-dunter for our sojers, Theresa compensates them for higher tax losses plus Nicola’s list of benefits which, of course, they don’t use!
Fred
BBC didn’t point out that almost half of Army personnel in Scotland will pay LESS income tax in Scotland than conterparts based in rest of UK
@Danny says: 18 July, 2018 at 11:24 pm:
” … The BBC will pay these fines with your money (if you are daft enough to be still paying them their Licence Fee).”
No they won’t.
The BBC do not get the Licence fee money. The Licence fee is levied by the UK Government and it pays for the UK Government’s permission to watch video broadcasts from any source on any medium including the internet and satellite.
Even if no one bought a TV licence Westminster will still continue to pay the agreed BBC annual Grant and the BBC will continue to play the tune they are paid to play as the paid for pipers that they are and always have been.
The BBC gets an agreed grant from the UK government and it is paid from general taxation – not from the licence fee.
The licence fee goes into the general taxation collected by HM Treasury. That means everyone who pays UK tax helps pay the BBC whether they pay for permission to view or not.
Pop 65.6Million. Electorate 46.5Million. 33.6Million voted.
17.5 million voted Leave. (52%? of those who voted. 77% turn out?) Abusive campaign people were lied to and cheated by false claims. Not a huge majority.
16.1Million (of those who voted) voted Remain (After a lying, cheating abusive campaign. Leave cheated and lied over illegally over spent electoral funds. Not a fair playing field.)
It is now reported 50% (of those who voted?) now support Remain?
Scotland wisely voted 62% Remain. It is now reported (2 out of 3 – of those who voted?) 66% in Scotland support Remain (especially without a Brexit deal).
It is highly likely, if the Westminster unionists manage? by any chance, to take the UK out of the EU. Within two years, i.e. young voters coming legible. The UK will be in again. Renegotiation, Young people by a vast majority are reported to support remaining in the EU and EU membership.
Just as it is reported young people comparatively support Independence. If there is enough of them. In each case, more than likely. If they get out and vote. It is reported they did by a majority in both cases. Alt these matters are encouraging for Scottand to be Independent in the EU. Within two years people will vote for it. If the trend continues and there is a vote.
Police Scotland once again can’t take a joke. What is wrong with them? 6 arrive to take down an effigy, which could have been removed on requested within minutes. All because someone took offence. Once again a complete waste of time and public money. See a lawyer. The ‘charges’ will go in the bin. At personal unneccessary expense. The naivety of it.
An excess of police were sleeping in the floor (homeless) because of the Trump visit. On the other hand at least in brought money in for Scotland. Free world wide publicity. Especially for those planning a golf trip. Tourists, businesses etc.
Police Scotland totally over the top over the top as usual. A waste of time and public money. Makes a change from moving the homeless on and putting them in prison. It costs more than proper drug/drink rehab etc, These are more likely to solve the problems, even than so called ‘safe’ using rooms. Killing people.
Drink/drug driving and other serious offences. Excessive drink/drug use is linked to crime and abuse. Much crime is committed under the influence or substance abuse. Crime is gender related. Much violent ‘crime’ is committed by (16) 18 – 24 year old males while under the influence. Often again each other. 25% of accidents are committed by 10% of drivers, the under 24 year olds. It could be an argument for putting up the driving age. Safer roads and better affordable public transport.
Edinburgh Council should let all OAP’s in Scotland use the (bus) travel passes on Trams at off peak times. They are subsidised with taxpayers money. They help pay for the service. Instead of bus companies giving £Millions of profits to charity to look good. Bus companies should be required to provided proper (rural) services, Instead of buses passing by they should be stopping and picking up passengers. Provide a proper service.
The buses do not stop but by pass and pass by. Not allowed on by pass roads. Even publicly subsidised services. To stick to some incomprehensible service timetable. To lose customers then declare the service redundant. . Catch 22. Don’t stop. Less passengers. Claim the service redundant and cut services. To make vast profits and give tax free to charity. To look good. A double rammy, Not a good look or compassion for people denied a proper service, and unable to travel. A monopoly of bus transport and poor services.
All drug deaths are linked to methodone prescription and then in addition people taking other substances, A cause for concern not a solution. That is why many Medical practitioners will not prescribe methodone. Proper total abstainence ‘one chance’ rehab is more effective.
Now councils have cut funding for essential social services and drug/drink prevention services. Building grotesque monstrosities of no value instead of saving people’s lives, Councils not fit for purpose or public service. Members are not capable and two job Tories are keeping corrupt regimes in power. Wasting public money like there is no tomorrow, Borrowing and spending to excess on wasteful non mandated projects. £1.2Billion in debt.
It is just a scandal and many people are unhappy with it. Annoyed and angry. Despite the SNP group having the largest number of elected members by far. The total corrupt collusion of the other Parties. Defying their own Party rules and public code of conduct. STV can’t get rid of them. That is why it was introduced. To thwart democracy. The unionists manipulation of the political system. To give unfair advantage and illegal contribution and distribution of funds. Not complying with electoral Law or legitimate funding. Cheats and liars defying democracy.
Stop illegally sanctioning and starving people by the state of the Westminster unionists. Wasting public money like there is no tomorrow. Total corrupt ignorance. They are having to refund illegally cut repayments. Despicable causing unnessary misery, suffering and poverty. Sanctioning and starving vulnerable people. No humanity.
Military personnel based in Scotland compensated for tax rises;
link to archive.is
Avoidable death rate in Scotland highest in the UK;
link to archive.is
Why Chequers has gone wrong for Theresa May.;
link to vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com
British Man Convicted of Plotting Attack on Theresa May;
link to nytimes.com
Morning Smallaxe.
So many LINKS, so short a coffee break!
(That’s not a complaint, btw).
Keep ’em coming
@Smallaxe
Don’t go mad with the links.
How am I going to find the time to read them all with the grandbairns here? 🙂
@Smallaxe
Cheers for the links Smallaxe.
On that Indy timetable piece by Mr Kemp? I hope for all our sakes, things move along a little more quickly than that. I get where he’s coming from. I really do. Been a gradualist all of my days, but in the next two to three years a lot of people are going to suffer. Businesses will fail and those on tight home budgets will fall into the poverty zone. Those already poor and the poverty stricken areas will be stripped of what little they have left.
Two years may seem like a little time to wait for the political types and the reasonable winning strategy, but for the rest of us it’ll feel like an eternity. There are folk doing without right now.
The Government sending out papers to the public “reassuring”, them about the “realities” of Brexit brought a little “mischief” to my mind.
We have been talking about starting our campaigning as soon as possible. Well how about a wee guerilla campaign? The Letters from the state will come. They will at best be soft soap and window dressing. But they will have a “look” a format if you wish. Why don’t we copy it and tell the truth as we see it. Literally piggybacking on their Propaganda, it will hit hard at the Scot Buts… as it is from a “trusted” source.
We use their strengths against them and “oh” so funny to hear the lamentations of the yoons!
Baldeagle58 & Highland Wifie
Thanks, folks, remember we’re doing this for our children and grandchildren and of course, us!
Macart, I share your hopes, my friend.
Trump threatens Europe with ‘tremendous retribution’ as the possibility of massive auto tariffs loom;
link to uk.businessinsider.com
UK investigators believe they identified Skripal attack suspects – Press Association source;
link to rt.com
re Mr Kemp’s article. Can someone help me please. I thought we had already lost the opportunity on a ‘transitional 2 year period’ (on exiting the EU)
@Footsoldier says: 19 July, 2018 at 12:03 am:
<" … Absolutely true in practice but legally untrue."
That is utter and complete pish, Footsoldier. What is more I’m certain you know it is.
There is a legally binding international treaty called, “The Treaty of Union”.
This is a currently in force and the legal proof of that is that, “The United Kingdom”, formed by that treaty is still extant. Now the Treaty of Union is composed of, “Articles Of Union”, and each and every Article is, in its own right, a legal agreement.
The entity that the Treaty of Union formed is, “The United Kingdom”, and there were, and still is, only two, equally sovereign, kingdom partners with signatures upon the Treaty of Union document. There is absolutely no legal doubts that the United Kingdom is a partnership of two, equally sovereign, kingdoms and there is not a single instance of either of the term, “country”, or, “countries”, in the entire document.
On the last day of April 1707 the Parliament of England was permanently dissolved by the Parliament of the Kingdom of England, as reported in Hansard on that day. No person or persons have been elected to a parliament of either the Kingdom or the country of England since that day.
Westminster is undoubtedly legally The Parliament of the bipartite United Kingdom and there is no parliament of England members elected since that day.
In Scotland the Scottish parliamentarians never formally dissolved the Parliament of The Kingdom of Scotland and thus the parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland has never been permanently dissolved but was only proclaimed in recess by town criers around the streets of Edinburgh. Thus the Scottish Parliament was only legally prorogued and was legally reconvened by Winnie Ewing when she opened the Holyrood Parliament thus Holyrood is the legally reconvened Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland.
Now off you go and read Article number 19 of the Treaty of Union which states that the two legal systems of the two Kingdom must remain independent of each other in perpetuity.
There is no legally elected as such, “Parliament of the Kingdom or of the country, of England.
It really is as simple as that – Legally Westminster remains the Parliament of the United Kingdom but has never legally operated as other than the parliament of the country of England but more recently as the country of England as the masters treating the other three countries as English dominions.
Please produce any evidence you have to support your claims?
@Shinty
Here you go Shinty.
link to archive.is
The transition period (TBA) is the period which begins after the date of Brexit (March 2019). It can be extended upon request, but that requires progress and good will on all parts within the negotiation process. (Basically any member state of the EU could say no to that for any reason they feel like)
Smallaxe @ 7.21 am
Looked at the link you posted about student nurses not being paid when they are on the wards during their train in.
As I suspected the article is about the situation in England where bursaries for student nurses have been scrapped and they now pay tuition fees. In Scotland their tuition fees are paid by the SG and they still receive bursaries and allowances if they have any dependants – details of amounts etc here:
link to saas.gov.uk
Just thought I should add this for completeness. May still be a case for additional payments when on the wards but situation in NHS Scotland different to NHS England although person writing the article seems unaware of that.
Good Luck Ever Experiencing Desire Again After Reading This British MP’s Sexts;
link to thecut.com
They weren’t to know, were they?
Andrew Griffiths was made minister despite ‘touching’ allegations;
link to archive.is
Legerwood,
Alert reader badge in the post, my friend.
🙂
Most serviceman from Scotland are posted elsewhere and not based in Scotland. Involved in illegal wars because of Westminster unionist actions. Along with the Tory Royals supposed to be impartial and non biased. Breaking International Law. Costing £Billions and killing and maiming millions. Westminster lies and corruption in Defence matters. Ordering redundant weapons which are never delivered. The military personnel based elsewhere with ill equipment.
Defence spending (average £40Billion) illegal wars kept off the balance sheet. Scottish contribution £4Billion. Until recently £4,5Billion. Trident £1Billion. With no boats to patrol the shores to prevent smuggling and no adequate air force cover. Trawling vessels used as look outs of any suspious or unusual sightings. 6+ redundant subs hulks dumped at Rosyth. Dangerous contaminated nuclear substance moving on the roads. An absolute scandal which would not be tolerated in any other case.
Trident £10Billion a year. Based 30 minutes from one of Scotland’s major towns. The army personnel have been cut from 100,000 to 80,000. The reserve force intended has not been recruited. If Scotland was Independent the military would be better equipped and remunerated. Better cared for and considered. Based in Scotland with better terms and conditions. Along with a navy to patrol the shores and an airforce of suitable force. Trident would be redundant and on the scrape heap. Elsewhere? The military in Scotland would be better supported. Recruitment for the UK military is down in Scotland.
The UK Tories are demanding more funding for the under equipped military. Brexit will mean the need for more military funding and spending. There are suggestions of £20Billion. Shared military Defence costs with the EU keep military costs down. The EU contribution is worth it just to keep joint Defence costs down. Shared Defence costs stops overlap and strong negotiation can stop unnecessary action because of no threat but cooperation. Reconciliation.
The Westminster Tories spur Defence spending in the UK and buy US weaponry. It often becomes redundant even before it is delivered and they are already ordering up replacements. The redundant weaponry goes unreliable sources or is destroyed. Making the world a far less safe place,
The US/UK and France undertake illegal military action. Putting lives at risk worldwide and causing unnecessary devastation. Johnston et al was trying to start a military conflict on Russian borders. With false acusation and propaganda. Just as well he is not in Office now for the moment. Now starting up a Telegraph column again £250,000 without proper authorisation. Illegally. A criminal. Johnston was sacked by Murdoch, another lying criminal, for lying. Shows how bad it can be.
Hacking, illegal surveillance and bribing public officials. That is what is known about. How much more is kept secret under the Official Secrets Act. Illegal wars which Murdoch supported and instigated. Costing £Billions. A non Dom tax evading owner. Along with the rest. Non residents/citizens breaking UK/International Law. The sycophantic Press controlled by Westminster unionists. Iraq, Lockerbie, Dunblane kept secret for 100 years. So much for open Gov and Democracy. A cabel of criminals. Breaking U.K./Unternational Law with impunity. Will anyone be charged and convicted of electoral fraud? Doubt it but anyone’s guess. Would not bet on it.
It’s all gone a bit Ross Thomson;
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
> lost the opportunity on a ‘transitional 2 year period’
not yet.
basically UK must agree the divorce bill by March 2019. assuming that is successful there will likely be a 2 year transitional period during which trade talks commence.
however : my understanding is the divorce part of the deal can only be signed if the EU believes satisfactory progress has been on Northern Ireland. Theresa May has promised EU the backstop will be permanent regulatory alignment between EIRE (EU) -> NI -> UK. However we all know that is not the plan….
therefore it remains possible we crash out in March 2019 with nothing. the only other country in world without another free trade agreement would be North Korea.
the media seems to be confusing ‘no divorce deal’ with ‘no future trade deal’. a no divorce deal brexit would be utterly catastrophic.
Incidentally : My guess is brexit will need to be delayed. There is no way agreement can be found on NI before March. Both sides will want avoid chaos of a cliff edge. Though EU could claim A50 being revoked / delayed as a minor victory.
Just read the piece by Gordon McIntyre Kemp in the National about indy timetable. Aye right!! More ‘lets delay the referendum again kite flying by SNP leadership. Get on with it.
Do the SNP think folks like myself are going to hang around until they finally get their freaking act together and call a referendum that should have been called two years ago? simple answer NO. Indeed I will never forgive them if brexit happens in Scotland – as I have stated here before.
I really do not know what they are smoking at SNP HQ, but it isn’t helping them. They talk of post brexit like everything will be just as it is now, but it won’t, and here’s the real killer, guess who the massed ranks of the britnat media will be blaming for any post brexit problems in Scotland – Aye that’s right, the Scottish Government and SNP.
If referendum is not called by September, I’ll have had enough and will seriously be looking at my options for moving elsewhere if I can (out of the UK). I am not going to sit around and watch as Brexit unfolds in Scotland, with an SNP government in placee sitting back watching too, whilst fretting over just when a brexit deal will be finalised and if they should wait another year or two before indyref2.
No, it is time for some leadership, and a hell of a lot less of this ‘tee hee, why interrupt our enemies while they make mistakes’ etc. Yes, sitting watching as they utterly destroy Scotland and close our parliament – and make no mistake that IS going to happen. A government of ‘national unity’ will be the cover, and they are already openly talking about it – and planning it.
No, we have waited long enough. I know Brexit is a mess, I know things are not yet clear – but THEY NEVER WILL BE. Does anybody seriously expect things will be clearer in 2019 or 2020, or 2021.
There is a REAL disconnect here between the real tangible fear people have about brexit, and those who seemingly philosophise about how ‘if we just wait one more month, or year, or maybe until the next election, or maybe until brexit happens, and so on. Their is a name for such behaviour, it is called PROCRASTINATION.
Once brexit starts, the public attitude will shift. They will not view it as they do now, they will regard it as something that HAS happened already, not as something that can be changed via independence. And they will be afraid, and the overriding thought will not be independence, it will be we’d best stick together with the UK, since without them we are f*cked.
Their will NEVER be ‘just the right time’ to call a referendum, their will never be ‘clarity about brexit’, it will never be a ‘tidy, complete deal’. It is going to be messy for years and possibly decades. We should call the referendum ASAP. Enough is enough.
The people of Scotland have given The SNP Scottish Government a clear unequivocal mandate to call a referendum – and that is something they MUST do. NO more delays, no more of this tosh about waiting.
Oh, and just one final thought, I am sick and tired of all this rubbish about DIY independence. I regard that as possibly the dumbest nonsense I have heard in all my days. Indeed I would go further and now regard it as a piece of political spin, to persuade indy supporters that it is somehow THIER fault a referendum can’t be called – ‘oh, if only people would get the polls to show 55% indy support etc…’ It is frankly despicable. Yes, indy groups are re-forming and yes people are trying to get active, but NOBODY is going to start taking notice, UNTIL A REFERENDUM IS ACTUALLY CALLED (and that includes Westminster btw).
Get on with it, FFS. Just freaking well get on with it. Their will NEVER be a perfect time.
Re the National article about timing of the next Independence referendum . (I don’t say Indy2 as it implies all issues are the same as before. As we know they are not).
When the First Minister declares the Independence referendum or Brexit as the alternative it should be announced in the Scots Parliament and not at the snp conference for example.
It must be shown this is the sovereign will of the people enacted through our government and parliament.
Sinky, Fred,
re Scottish soldiers pay and tax differentials
So, WM will make up any shortfall for those ‘elite’ military folk having to pay more tax.
We all know that the majority of Privates will be £20 a year better off; if WM is compensating those who will lose out do you think they will ask those who benefit to cough up the extra £20 so that they are not better off than their southern counterparts, after all, that would not be fair on them would it?
By paying military personnel losing out tax wise in Scotland it kinda trashes Mundell’s statement that ‘Scotland is now part of the UK’ – IT CLEARLY ISN’T.
Robert Louis @ 09:30 , until recently i was with you with get Indyref2 called soon, however the events of the past few days have made it imperative that Nicola waits until The end of March before calling a Referendum. There is now a very real chance that Brexit wont happen at all, now that Parliament has voted not to have a backstop of staying in the Customs Union the only options left are either a Hard Brexit or No Brexit. The choice will depend on which wing of the Tory Party wins its fratricide.
EU will let UK have its Cliff Edge No Deal Brexit have no doubt.
Then they will mop up the businesses who flee in an exodus to EU Member States (like Japanese Auto Industry) and have a wee bit of disruption/short term pain.
They have 27 Members to spread the load.
UK is fucked.
BritNat Media is complicit in this clusterfuck for not holding those in elected office to account and for not spelling out to even the thickest members of the public that a transition deal is not a given and what the alternative No Deal actually will mean for them.
Patience is a virtue. Among the shambles.
Lobbyist outed as Tory ‘dark money’ trustee sparks call for tighter rules;
link to archive.is
Robert Peffers says:
18 July, 2018 at 9:25 pm
@Wullie says: 18 July, 2018 at 8:11 pm:
Thank you Mr Peffers for you comments.
I do enjoy your posts and have been educated by many of them. Im just ragin mad about the situation that our country has found its self in. Also Im not the sharpest tool in the box.
Wullie
The Scottish government have the mandate to govern no question. To trigger the mandate for an indyref will require the finalisation of the Brexit deal, that Scotland ‘IS’ being taken out of the EU and that the nature of that exit includes being taken out of the CU and single market. Two different beasties entirely.
Were it down to most of us here, we’d have held an indyref the nanosecond after Cameron’s EVEL speech on Sep 19th 2014. We’re not government or in government though (so far as I know).
Process and events are going to decide timings whether we like it or not and no, I don’t like it either. It is how it is though, so finding a nice relaxing hobby like bear wrestling might be a plan for at least the summer and early autumn months.
Clear as mud. Even the hard Brexit cheer leaders can’t agree …
Express – ” ‘Cake and eat it approach is OFF’ EU PRAISES May’s Brexit plan …. BRUSSELS is keen to help Theresa May reach a Brexit deal and stop Britain crashing out of the bloc in the event of no deal, according to EU officials. “
Telegraph – ” Brussels has warned EU countries to get ready for a no-deal Brexit as Dominic Raab arrives for his first round of talks. “
I had no idea it was us Fifers that made Jacob Rees Mogg the no-deal-brexit man he is today.
link to archive.is
Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true
It’s a light and tumble journey
From the Dark Side to the light
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo
But you can take the Indy bus
If it’s raining or it’s cold
And the animals will love it if you do
If you do
Seems to me now is the time to back off a little on the softer NOes and the undecided, as I think they’re looking at all this in Westminster with the Tories (and Labour) and having grave doubts – even some Leave supporters. A few short weeks of contemplation could bring them over on their own bat – just as some postings on Wings have said. Gentle encouragement and an understanding nod of the head can do it.
On 1st of July 2015. There were 250,000 MOD personal. Total 1/4 Million. Inclusive.
Then the administration in Whitehall. £Billions? The Foreign Office exorbitance expense. Nothing but the best in extravagance and privilege. Cost £Billions. Many countries share Consulate or modest premises worldwide. Shared expenses of EU members. European rights worldwide covered by membership.
17,000 MOD personal were based in Scotland. 7.1%. Less than average recent age and proportion.
The cuts to the Army personnel are separate to the total military overall numbers.
100,000 to 80,000. Trying to recruit a reserve force. Not succeeding in sufficient nos,
There are Tory demands for another £20Billion. A year? How affordable.
The Tories are psycho bastards using the MOD personnel for their manipulating aims and disasterous foreign policies. Not concerned about the MOD personnel or civil servants. All the Tories are concerned with is fleecing and embezzling the public. Trying to use false publicity and illegal funding. Electoral Commission false manipulating and manoeuvre. Same with the MOD. Getting away with false information.
Great post by Robert Louis at 9.30am. However I don’t think we are quite ready for indyref2 as the SNP battle plan is completely flawed and we need a brand new way forward.
No matter what, the chaos of Brexit whether it happens or not will cause soft No voters from 2014 (and we need them to win) to wait and see how the UK pans out.
Forget Brexit and single market et al, whatever Westminster wants to happen WILL happen.
Time to start a campaign to highlight the failings of the UK in ever aspect of life, show them up and put them on the defensive, this has not been done in any meaningful way in the last 20 years. Back pedal on the benefits of independence, that needs detail and it only provides ammo for the Unionists.
It is time for the SNP to re-think, they may have to go for bust. We didn’t want them just to run a devolved government permanently and it is starting to prove a barrier to independence, that’s why we were given it, as it is under Westminster control. We need a Scotland wide think tank on this and I do hope the SNP National Assemblies by Keith Brown are going to be radical. The Growth Commission report is fine for economists and politicians but it needs converted to “street speak” for everyone else with smart and sharp bullet points.
Time to re-group.
It is alleged Ree Moggs campaigned in a privileged car and his nanny. It would be quite funny if he was not so dangerous, giving out totally false information. Not to be trusted,
Imagine his ever being considered to be PM. A nightmare with his ideas. Johnston would not last a month and Tory support is falling. Thank goodness.
The SNP will not go bust. The SNP will win. Any other suggestion is just a distraction. Out on a limb. From dssenters who do not appreciate collective responsibility. Looking for failure and someone else to blame. The blaming game. A total irrelevance to the general discussion. Loose canons causing trouble without any thought. Or an ability to think things through. Patience is a virtue, Not rash non understanding. IndyRef2 will be called when it will be won. Not in the middle of a shambles of non comprehensible nature. A recipe for failure. Watch the Polls trying to be manipulated to cause it. The leap too soon. Not likely. The SNP will stick to good administration and preparation. Not fool hardy presumption. There is too much at stake.
Pinneys of Scotland staff offered jobs support;
link to archive.is
Translations of British Brexit plan provoke ridicule;
link to euractiv.com
The MOD Westminster controllers will give out money which will then be returned to the Defence Ministry and Treasury in underfunded Scottish based military facilities. Under funding Scottish services. The usual methods of give with one hand take back more with the other. The Barnett Formula. The Westminster corrupt unionist Gov. Scotland paying more for less.
The scandal of Trident based 30 mins from one of Scotland’s major cities. Greenham facility based 30 mins from London closed in 1992. Nuclear waste being dumped in Scotland or flown around the world. Wasted £Billions spent at Hinkley Point. The Swansea Tridal project cut. Half the cost and more productive.
The headline of Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s article is:
“This is the most likely independence timetable”
It is though just one possible scenario from a multitude of them and the chances of it being the “most likely” timetable is highly questionable.
He has neglected to consider the possibility that come December the UK and EU have failed to draft a Withdrawal Agreement acceptable to both and there are then just two possible outcomes. Drop off the cliff with No Deal on 29th March or agree in December to an extension of the Aticle 50 deadline to allow talks on the Withdrawal Agreement to continue.
I think that an acceptable Withdrawal Agreement between both sides might not happen because of a failure to agree a backstop on the NI border and/or also failure by the UK to make the necessary concessions on the White Paper that the EU will surely require.
May cannot make too many more concessions as she might not then get Withdrawal & Implementation Bill through Parliament.
What happens if an extension to Article 50 is given is anyone’s guess but a General Election must figure highly in there somewhere.
I’ve not got a clue as to the chances of something approaching this scenario happening and how it might affect the timing of a second Indyref, My view is that f you’re going to make a sensible decision on the timing of that then it would seem to make sense to have a clear idea of the political situation around you before doing anything rash.
That’s the dilemma facing the Scottish Government too and for that reason they will wait until the fog clears. I fully agree with that. The stakes are too high and we will never have a better opportunity of winning (Brexit dividend for Indy) so best we get this one right.
I’ve no doubt Indyref2 will be held before the next Holyrood elections and I really believe that the shambles that is Brexit will continue worsening and that will bring us more votes as we see each calamity unfold one after another.
Smallaxe says:
19 July, 2018 at 8:44 am
Legerwood,
Alert reader badge in the post, my friend.
………..
You’re a wee sweetie so you are
Strengthening the Union debate on Mon lol . Evel will prevalent lol.
The niggle I have is that I understand a winning philosophy of ending the Union along Constitutional lines as I described earlier, our Sovereign voice being overuled and Scots Law being subjugated constitute a material breach of the Treaty, which will summarily end that Treaty, and the Union will cease to exist.
But then I read Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp in the National advocating yet more prevarication and shadow boxing about the timing of a referendum. I am confused.
The celebrated Post from Gordon Blackhall to Ian Blackford which outlined so succinctly the former Constitutional scenario finished by saying the ScotGov was on the ball with this.
So why are we seeing such ostensibly contradictory language and strategy?
To cut to the chase, I would be massively concerned if the test case to declare the Treaties of Union breached was anything other than “imminent”, and certainly not to be predicated by an electoral majority won in a referendum. Please tell me that isn’t the plan.
The emancipation of Scotland’s Sovereignty MUST come first, and MUST NOT be predicated by Democratic prerequisites such as winning a referendum. Our Constitutional Sovereignty is NOT conditional upon democratic popularity, it’s is an absolute condition defined by law, and specifically NOT defined by any democratic mandate.
This is not a chicken and egg scenario where one chronology is confounded by the other. Be in no doubt, there is no ambiguity here. Sovereignty, not democracy, is the superior of the two and the vital essence of our Constitutional liberation. Our democracy is nothing unless it is underwritten by the legal clout of sovereignty. Sovereignty is our primary objective and we must all be crystal clear about what it means.
If Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp would have us set aside the opportunity presented to us by the phenomenon of our Unconstitutional subjugation over Brexit, and delay our “rebellion” until we have first won a referendum which has still yet to be scheduled, then with all due respect to Gordon, I fear he is not on the ball with regards to what Sovereignty actually means.
The primary roll for democracy as it relates to our Constitutional Independence is to ratify our sovereignty once we have made it safe, but we do not require any electoral mandate to make it safe, it is only the law which can do that.
Thank you for all the links Smallaxe.
This from Kirsty Hughes is particularly worth a read…it’s a long one but very detailed in outlining and more saliently covering all the scenarios leading to Brexitland from where we are now, post 16th July implode…there’s no clear way forward at all…this we all know on here.
It’s the sheer magnitude of what’s involved in leaving that I think in England especially, they failed to grasp, but possible the only positive that can be taken from all of this is that we now really do have an understanding of what being part of the EU entails/entailed. The unpacking of the complexity of our entwined laws and trade regulations et al is just staggering in itself, and that’s without the ‘optics’ of the political clusterfuck underway at WM.
link to vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com
Legerwood says:
“You’re a wee sweetie so you are”
I’m really a wee sweaty.
😉
*****************************************************************
K1,
You’re welcome, my dear friend.
🙂
It’s what we make it;
JULY 19, 2018 ~ PETER A BELL
I have news for Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp. Brexit is not the only thing happening in the world. It’s not even the only thing happening in Scotland.
link to peterabell.blog
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s article in The National says the SNP October conference is in Aberdeen. It is not, it is being held in Glasgow at SEC.
MAJOR BREAKING: Spanish Supreme Court judge withdraws the European arrest warrants against exiled Catalan politicians, including former president Carles Puigdemont and minister Clara Ponsatí.;
link to twitter.com
Scotland backs wave of innovative projects with £1.4m funding;
link to energylivenews.com
How Europe Is Bracing for Messy Brexit: Dogs, Drones, Do Nothing;
link to bloomberg.com
Brexit: European Commission publishes Communication on preparing for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU;
link to europa.eu
@Smallaxe
Beat me to the punch on the arrest warrants piece. 🙂
We could do with some good news and that just about fits the bill nicely.
@ Smallaxe at 1:15pm …….”European arrest warrant withdrawal .”
FANTASTIC news Smallaxe. Carla, for one, must be over the moon especially as I was reading recently that some obscure 15 th (?) century law could have been used to extradite her back to Spain.
And at 11:10am ……..”Translation of Brexit Plan.”
That one gave me a laugh. No one can trust their English version, so give EU countries a “Trump would / wouldn’t'” version, hah, ha.
Re the European arrest warrant withdrawal,Catalan News is reporting:
“…….From now on, Puigdemont and all pro-independence leaders abroad will be free to move around European countries. If they come back to Spain, they risk being arrested and sent
to pre-trial jail.” 🙁
Smallaxe@1249 pm “,great article from Peter Bell . Also, what about the votes of EU nationals . Presumably they will be unable to vote in any referendum if we are out of the EU on Mar 31st 2019 ?. Will the forthcoming Supreme Court case possibly have a bearing on the Scottish government position on the treaty of “ union”?
@Macart @Thepnr and others
There is a real and immutable red line however, on the date of Indy Ref 2, and it is simply this from the SNP 2017 manifesto (easy read version):
“Brexit must not be forced on Scotland no matter how damaging it turns out to be.“.
With the previous sentence giving it context:
“At the end of the Brexit process, when the final deal is known, it is right that Scotland should have a choice about our future. ”
Which means Indy Ref 2 must be before Brexit for Scotland, one way or another, even if there’s some fudge to delay Brexit for Scotland to hold Indy Ref 2.
That’s my red line, and a warning TO the SNP, and I see others would be the same.
From that point of view, half of GMK’s article about prevaricating or procrastinating (I never remember which) until after another election, is complete tosh unless Brexit for the UK is delayed – or cancelled completely.
@yesindyref2
The very same process and mandate.
Understandable, that most of us would take it poorly if this was not adhered to.
Brexit IS, without doubt, going to be an economic catastrophe for huge swathes of the population. They’ve taken so much already and they can’t take much more.
They’re not anoraks or strategists. They don’t care about politics or politicians. They just want bread on the table and a roof. The government of the UK can’t provide that. Indeed some of their number, ideologically, feel it beneath them to provide that.
The SG must be aware they can’t take much more legislative or political abuse.
@Macart
I’ve every confidence they are Macart, but people like Wishart and GMK don’t help at all, it makes you wonder if they’re flying a kite for the SNP wanting to delay things and testing the water. Some would then suspect they’re just jobsworths, and who could blame them? Personally I keep a beady eye on them.
I can’t figure out why warnings are being meted out to the SNP based on something Gordon MacIntyre Kemp has to say. He’s called Gordon. Not Nicola.
Oh deary me!
Boorach!
link to twitter.com
That’s not going to end well.
@Macart
LOL That’ll be GMK’s “most likely” timetable for Independence hit the buffers. That didn’t take long 🙂
@Thepnr
Pretty damn rapid right enough.
If that turns out to be true, then Ms May will have thrown the phase one agreement, (the one the UK signed up to), oot the windae.
Struggling for words at that point. Just wow!
@Petra
Similar happened with Ivan McKee some weeks ago, and he is an MSP. And of course Pete Wishart. The thing is if people don’t speak out, and for some reason it was more convenient for the SNP to leave Indy Ref 2 to 2022 or later even, perhaps some stupid idea of watchin until opinion polls magically and mystically rose to 60% or even just 55% for Indy in spite of there being no active Indy campaign, so they did that, they put off Indy Ref 2 until 2022 or later, they might well get a backlash in 2021 and 2022 after the shambles of Brexit actually hits Scotland full on, and because people didn’t speak up plainly at the time, and indeed mete out warnings to the SNP, then the backlash means maybe just a dozen or less SNP MSPs at Holyrood and back to 1980 levels of 2 SNP MPs at Westyminster, and until another party takes up Independence, that’s Indy dead for another 10 or 30 years. Along with many of us.
Which would the SNP prefer – warnings even if unneccesary, or disaster?
@Macart
The NI backstop is one red line that the EU simply cannot backtrack on and if May has thrown this out the windae there can be no Withdrawal Agreement signed by December and she surely knows this.
To be honest I’m totally confused now, the EU want a deal for sure but what is May’s game. Buggered if I know, let the calamities roll on. It really couldn’t get any better as far as the chances of winning Independence goes.
I hope your’e right Thpnr…this isn’t looking like any kind of negotiation at all…this seems headed toward no deal territory. Has there ever been anything like the magnitude of catastrophe coming down the pipeline in our life times?
They are destabilising UK democracy (for want of a better description). But why?
@K1
I suspect that it really is all a game in negotiations. Whitehall probably have a name for it and a big thick manual of how the game should be played.
Get to the point of no return 😉 and “OK OK we’ll concede a NI backstop but we must have A, B & C”.
That’s why I honestly don’t have the faintest idea of what is going to come next, I do think though that anyone at all in Scotland that is paying the slightest attention must be recoiling in horror at the government’s apparent ineptitude.
Relax, kick of your shoes it has a while to run yet and we might as well enjoy the show. If your reading all this on Wings then you have seats right at the front of the show and popcorn will be served on demand LOL.
🙂 aye Alex…this is def front row on that score.
Ah actually think they don’t have a manual…we’d huv hud wan if it wis us, just like we did wi our white paper leading up to indy.
If it’s a ‘game’ it’s like watching weans playing snap while the adults play chess. 😉
Oh the manual will be real, the problem is that gormless Tories like Davies, Johnson and Gove keep trying to re-write it and that’s the reason the manuals don’t always work.
Take Iraq, Blair choose to do his own thing and ignored the manual which definitely advised doing anything illegal in International Law. Result? Well we all know how that went.
@ yesindyref2 says at 10:26 pm …. ”Petra – Similar happened with Ivan McKee some weeks ago, and he is an MSP. And of course Pete Wishart. ….”
I read about it, but Gordon, Ivan and Pete don’t have any say in what is going to happen yesindyref2. It’ll be down to Nicola and I’ll put my faith in her.
Many people on here alone have been shouting for Indyref2 since the day after the EU result was called and that would have been an absolute disaster for us, if she’d listened to them.
Nicola knows what’s going on. LOADS of people ”speak out” to her. Some in fact like myself send e-mails and my daughter sends texts (to her and John Swinney re. Education) which get answered.
I know we are all champing at the bit, especially now, and it becomes disheartening and frustrating (for me too) but be patient – it won’t be for much longer. I also reckon that she has an ace up her sleeve in relation to circumventing the Section 30 order. So far, imo, she has been playing a blinder. However if you continue to feel as you do contact your local SNP MP or Nicola Sturgeon herself. Visit your local surgery, send off a letter etc.
To my mind people constantly berating Nicola Sturgeon for what other are saying, their opinion only, isn’t helpful. Just my opinion too of course.
@Petra
I’ve constantly said I have faith in Sturgeon, and that I wouldn’t have done anything different so dar. Timing really is critical, and as far as I’m concerned she hasn’t put a foot wrong. But even that is taking it on faith that she is going to go for Indy Ref 2 on the basis of that manifesto pledge, rather than be swayed by the
“we have to win this one and wait until we will”,
“it needs to be showing 60% in the polls”
“we have to totally reorganise the party and spend 25 years working on our plan for reorganisation”
“we have to reinvent our strategy and mumble away for the next 5 years”
“we need to get a new mandaate for Indy ref next election which we will lose”
“we have to work out what went wrong with the general election”
“we have to work out what we did wrong in 2014”
“why?”
All of these without my daft additions HAVE been said by various people in the SNP. And even the depute leadership campaigns started that way, it wasn’t until they got kicked by the very type of posting we’re talking about they realised they had to change their tune, wich Chris McEleny being the first to bat.
Petra, I read what other people post, here and elsewhere. There’s a lot of unrest, and ignoring it is daft. The problem is those very people get accused of being trolls or fakeys. Well, they’re not. I di have my suspicions about one who posts “free in 23” elsewhere. Nice delaying tactic until it’s all too late.
And yes I realise that she is following a very tight path and has to keep her cards to herself. But there is absolutely no harm at all in posting warnings, just in case she listens to the wrong people. Like Wishart, McKee, GMK or dare I say, Sillars!
@Petra
But for the short version, I set my own red line and that’s the 2017 manifesto pledge,, where we must be given a choice about Brexit (unless it’s cancelled). Break that and I personally am done with the SNP forever, there could be no further trust. Like, ever. My wife is Irish, I’d get my Irish passport, and we’d take a lifeboat and leave the UK to sink on its own.
@ indyref, a bit actressy I’m surprised at ye!
@wullie says: 19 July, 2018 at 10:22 am:
” … Also Im not the sharpest tool in the box.”
Ach! wullie, nane o us Wingers ir the sherpist tool in the boax. Gin ony ane wis they wad bi the FM and haed sorted oot the Westminster boorach lang syne.
@Fred
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women …
A hard Brexit, no-deal, will be a disaster. At least for a few years. And it is looking likely.
@ indyref, Ah ken kid, we live in very interesting times!
Temper your disdain – and fully expect the same three way clusterf*ck shennanigans for indyref2, specifically designed to split the yes vote, natch.
Yes, no deal.
Yes, some deal.
No, thanks
Yesindyref2 – The red line for me is the same as you. However didn’t Sturgeon set her very own red line anyway:” Freedom of movement and customs union”.
That dream died after Chequers, and certainly after today in Belfast. We are having either a hard Brexit or a no deal. Both are unacceptable in Nicola’s own terms. So waiting for either of those two things to happen is utterly pointless. It also plays into WM hands. The longer the SNP pontificate, the longer they have to dismantle Scotland.
Does anyone seriously think that WM will just let us walk away. They are carrying out strategic plans at the very moment to stop Scotland leaving. Time is their friend and time is our enemy.
We don’t want the referendum tomorrow, but we want a date tomorrow. We need the apple dangling on the tree to aim for.
The latest wheeze is the Supreme Court ruling on the continuity bill. It took them 3 months to get it to court and now we are told the result will be October for a 2 day hearing! This is the time wasting I was referring to. It’s a plan to suck the SNP into WM’s vortex.
The SC ruling is a red herring, and I hope the SNP don’t get stuck onto that time wasting exercise as well.
Tick tock….
@Big Jock
Yes, but Sturgeon will have to wait and see until it’s definite, or as definite as it gets, as there’s been that many reversals and counter-reversals from the Merry Brexiteers, it’d be enough to put a driving instructor off his or her tea.
@Big Jock (UKSC) “It’s a plan to suck the SNP into WM’s vortex. ”
I think that’s the other way around, or hope it is. I also think the Miller appeal was just getting the kinks out of the system, a trial run, so to speak!
Miller appeal?
No party can win outright at the moment, even at the NEXT GE it could well be a hung parliament.
Therefore NO party wants a GE.
Even Boris does not seem to be pushing for the leadership, it would surely be a poisoned chalice, better to snipe from the sidelines and keep his powder dry for next time, ie after the end of this fixed term.
BUT, Corbyn, ever the Brexiteer, would not countenance another vote, and, to be fair, another vote on LEAVE or REMAIN would be anti-democratic.
The ONLY vote that could be put to the public is ‘Whatever is finally agreed with the EU Vs Hard Brexit ie No Deal’
I think even Pro Brexit Extremists are beginning to realise that no matter HOW much you support an issue, providing that it depends upon politicians to negotiate it. it will be ruined by them.
Tory politicians have only their own issues at heart. We saw this when their supporters, Fisherman, who were sold on Brexit by regaining access to their own waters, saw Michael Gove on Scottish News telling them, effectively, that their access would be negotiated away again.
SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats. ANY potential good that COULD have come from Brexit will be pissed away be the Tories, they have NO concept of how ordinary people live and will ONLY consider their own interests.
I think after this EVEN working class Tories will realise that their party are ("Tractor" - Ed)s. NB not that THESE voters are reknowned for their political thinking…
@ Big Jock “Miller appeal?”
Miller took the UK Government to court when it tried to say it was going to invoke Article 50 to leave the EU without consulting parliament. She won the case, the UK Gov appealed and Ireland, Wales and Scotland “intervened” which meant they made written submissions and stated their case in the UKSC.
Miller won, and the UK parliament had to give permission for the A50. In theory Scotland lost the Sewel Convention part, but the Lord Advocate for the ScotGov didn’t push that I think. It’s why I think it was a dry run for what comes later – perhaps even next week.
Yes Indy – Yep that makes sense I rember that albeit the technicalities are a bit over my head!
Big Jock
I think you will find the SNP know exactly what they are doing.