The warning notice
Posted on
September 19, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
For anyone who thinks it’s safe to wait until after 2021 for another indyref.
Not that it’s a new idea for the Lib Dems, of course.
It really does feel like Retro Week at the moment.
Catalonia is in fact Spain’s wealthiest region. Claiming it couldn’t be independent is a bit like saying London couldn’t survive economically if it left the rest of the UK. But just like the Lib Dems’ determination to do anything and ally with anyone to prevent Scots running their own affairs, it’s nice to know that some things are universal and timeless.
We will have another referendum soon, we have nothing to gain by waiting til early 2020’s.
Once the brexit cards are played, we will hear Scotland’s say on brexit. Pensions, defence, trade tariffs and all the rest.
Its gonna be good.
With the SNP at 41% and rising, I doubt Willie will even get in as an MSP, let alone get near a whiff of a government seat.
Clearly a speech for the audience.
Would he have spoken truth, the few delegates would have left for a pint halfway his speech to drown their sorrows.
For anyone who thinks it’s safe to wait until after 2021 for another indyref.
Its also clear that a referendum on Scotland’s future is pretty good for boosting SNP vote numbers up, way up. No matter the result.
The Fib-Dems, languishing further back in the polls than even ‘Scottish’ Labour would do anything to cling to any semblance of power.
They obviously haven’t learned a thing from their disastrous coalition with the Tories and still believe people are daft enough to vote for them.
Unfortunately, some people are.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The warning notice For anyone who thinks it’s safe to wait until after 2021 for another indyref. Not […]
Lib Dems = Useless parasitical distraction; sorry but that’s the full amount of their value. There is no reason for them whatsoever.
Lib Dem = wasted vote. There is no middle way.
They are not going to win power (anywhere). They do nothing of value when they prop up. They renege on promises. They get into bed with Tories as do Labour. They talk the biggest load of mince, oh and they have ‘whining’ Willie Rennie & the big fat Liar (on its own thats enough surely ?)
Curiously I’m not sure how well London would survive if it left the UK. It benefits from so much extra public spending which all the UK’s regions contribute to and get billed for. This cash cow would disappear if London did a UDI – personally I think they are too smart down there to make this mistake – but then again maybe not!
Much of Scotland’s so-called deficit is actually a hidden multi-billion pound subsidy for London.
On second reading (Bottom left corner) the ‘Farron Hedonism promise’ is a bit more scary. Phhhwwoooaaahh !
They’ll try anything right enough, (Oh mrs …?)
Whatever else you may think of it, the fact that all the British parties are consumed by the same visceral hatred should convince you of just how crucial the SNP is to the realisation of Scotland’s aspirations.
A good rule of thumb is that whatever the British establishment fears and detests is likely to be a good thing for the independence movement and for progressive politics in general.
We must defend Scotland’s right of self-determination against the anti-democratic forces of rampant British nationalism. Anyone who doubts that the SNP is our best ally and most effective instrument in this effort needs to wake up and ask themselves why the British establishment is so frantically determined to “thwart” it.
This is constitutional conflict in the guise of a party political contest. None but the most credulous could possibly believe that the intent of the British parties is merely to oust the SNP as the party of government. Anyone with a modicum of political awareness must realise that the purpose of this British nationalist alliance is to eliminate one of the essential elements of the independence project.
The SNP puts effective political power at the disposal of the Yes campaign. It is the lever by which we will prise Scotland out of the Union. The Scottish Parliament is the fulcrum on which that lever rests. The Yes Movement is the force that will move the lever. Take out any one of these, and the independence campaign is crippled.
The British political elite is aware of all this. It’s time the whole Yes Movement got to grips with the situation.
Catalonia/Spain is totally different from Scotland/UK Independence. Totally different. They can’t be compared without the considering the differences. .
There is a dispute with Catalonia/Spanish Gov about less than £4Billion contribution. A minority in Catalonia including the admintration wants to tefuse to contribute to the poorer people in Spain, Catalonia one of the wealthiest provinces in Spain. (Ie identical to London refusing to pay it’s dues sucking up wealth from the rest of the UK) The Catalonian regime is milking the situation, There is not wholesale support for Independence in Catalonia. That is a misrepresentation.
Catalonia was as responsible for the holiday/housing/fraud/crash as the rest of the Costas, which damaged the economy. People lost £Millions in deposits etc, Spanish Law does not support others That is where the over lending from money from the London markets hapoened, That was mainly responsible for the financial crash in Spain. The Spanish Gov enforces the Law without fear of favour. They put the guilty in jail. Politicians, bankers, lawyers, royals, thieves, murderers, drug dealers etc. They are charged, tried and convicted. A deterrent. In the UK they are given honours. They are all corrupt. Some more than others. Spain has longer holidays 4 months of the year.
2.300,000+ voted in favour of having a referendum in Catalonia. The population is 7.5Million (1/5 of the Spanish pop). The numbers do not add up. There was a low turnout. 30%/40%. The Catalonia administration will not disclose. They have full autonomy. To make their laws raise taxes etc. EU citizens residents can only vote in local, EU elections. Not Regional or National elections. Ref? Under Spanish Law the government are the only ones who can call Ref.
There is higher support for FFA/Independence in Scotland. 50/50. The Catalonia Independence movement is being used to try and damage Scotland’s. Misrepresentation.
The LibDems are just dangerous liars. They lied to the electorate. They supported the Tories and enabled the Tories. Brexit. They killed maimed and sanctioned millions of people. Caused a migration crisis. The LibDems are just greedy wasting liars. Wasting £Billions of public money and causing misery to too many people.
When Willie Rennie looks around him, what on earth sustains his self-belief? Is he completely oblivious to common knowledge, to intelligent thought, to other people’s ability?
Does he not realise that he appears to be a child amongst adults?
There is nothing Liberal about the Scottish Liberal Democrats. What they are saying is that they will ‘block’ democracy from working at every turn. No change there. They are supposed to believe in Home Rule as well and they have never once tried to promote it!
Liberals are just failed Labour who themselves are failed Tories.
[…] else you may think of it, the fact that all the British parties are consumed by the same visceral hatred should convince you of just how crucial the SNP is to the realisation of Scotland’s […]
The Unionists contrived grievances indicate their desperation. An old age pensioner having his Scottish flag stolen by an “ex” Ukipper and his understandable annoyance and retrieval is turned into WW3 by a despicable media.
As more of this sort of grievance supposably suffered by Unionists is enacted the more I am convinced that the Yessers are winning. Brittish nationalism is viciously xenophobic not like the civilised,friendly,inclusive nationalism or as I prefer the internationalism of the Scottish Independence Movement led by the SNP.
Gie us peace,gie us oor independence!
Willie Rennie is basically just a wee fanny. That’s all that can be said about him.
I’m beginning to see a change with people who quite liked the ‘fu’ element of the Brexit vote, who fell for all the ‘immigration’ scare stories, even if they didn’t necessarily vote for Brexit – they’re starting to come round to what a monumental *lust*r uckf the whole thing is and the damage it is likely to do to all businesses and the economy.
The devaluation of the pound, expensive holidays, and higher food prices are just beginning to bite.
If your having the conversation folks, I’m finding the following useful.
1/ Get the immigration thing out of the way. Theresa May’s first trip after Brexit was to India, begging for a Trade Deal, the main condition of which was unfettered access for their workers to Britain. With no workers rights to protect any of us. They’re not good at protecting people… Grenfell anyone? Brexit means more immigrants, not less, that’s the tory reality. That’s it, its all you have to say, and then its neutralised and put to the side. Now you can talk about…
2/ Pick one of the many examples of Brexit disasters coming our way (I use the air industry) Banks leaving, Food Standards (chlorinated chicken), Agricultural standards, Medicine rules an regs, etc, etc
3/ Talking up Scotland, evidence it. Print the stuff off and give it to them,
Renewables – wind, wave, tide, hydrogen storage, FOUR times the size of our Oil Industry. Wow.
3rd Oil Boom/Hurricane Energy
Scotlands incredible food and drinks industry/exports
Scotlands Computer Games Industry
4/ Talk them up… whatever their skills and qualities….. what all their attributes and abilities were all going to just vanish with a Yes vote. I don’t think so. The teachers would still teach, plumbers plumb, nurses nurse, etc, etc. Make it personal for them. We all own our own skills and abilities. This is something we all stand up for.
Last time out we had the positive YES movement. BT had Project Fear.
This time round, with brexit, we own both these tactics.
The tactics of PF were to show people the danger – then show them the solution.
For our Pensioners on low to medium income Brexit means LOW VALUE POUND – HIGH FOOD COSTS.
So who do they trust to save them. It has to be us, and we need to earn their trust/recognition. At the moment I don’t see how we are achieving this in the face of MSM. Any suggestions.
Boyce
“There is nothing Liberal about the Scottish Liberal Democrats.”
Haud on there! Yer no suggestin’ there micht be somethin’ Democratic or Scottish aboot thim are ye? 🙂
Can we just all agree to be ether pro union or Pro Scotland?, this splitting support by ancient party allegiance is so last century.
Their is nothing inherent in your political affiliation that excludes it.
I support Scotland. I am Pro Scottish. I wish no harm on any other nation, but my first concern is the welfare and improvement of Scotland and it’s fantastic multicultural peoples.
Willie Rennie can’t be trusted. They even manipulated and muck up the electoral in Scotland to facilitate unionists liars. They committed electoral fraud and get away with it. They are complete fraudsters who line their pockets with public money. Willie Rennie and the rest are an embarrassment to Scotland. Fraudsters.
Lloyd George, a Liberal illegally partitioned Ireland and the illegal secret Balfour agreement. Lord Balfour and Lord Rothschild. Causing misery and death for years. Causing £Trns of debt and millions of innocent deaths.
Lib Dems,
In bed with Labour at Holyrood, In bed with Tories at Westminster. Now saying they will get into bed with anyone at Holyrood to thwart SNP.
Shows they really are the Whores of Scottish / British Politics
What Peter Bell said.
Also, why does anyone report on what the LibDems say, as if they were a proper political party? Aside from comedy value, of course.
Ken 500,
I was in Catalonia last week, I did not see one No flag, NOT A SINGLE ONE, everywhere is festooned with Si flags, Scotland is a wealthier county compared to the rest of the rUK, so what we should not become independant? And as for the rest you sound like an apologist for the Madrid government.
Peter A Bell @ 11:08,
The “rule of thumb” is well said. So when Mundell (a.k.a. Toom Tabard) says we must separate the issues of Brexit from independence, you know exactly what to think, peeps.
I just wish that the SNP were a tad more positive about the EU. After all, we’ve already got Cat Boyd to tell us how evil the EU truly is.
Nail on head there Boyce.
Surely in a parliament specifically designed to have minority governments, Rennies desperate plan would require at least one unionist party to be the largest party, or the SNP simply continue as a minority government as before.
Another slight problem for wee wullie is that before the next Holyrood election, there will be an independence referendum.
If we vote Yes, the next election in Scotland becomes a Scottish General election.
That Scottish GE will be for SCOTTISH political parties, Unionist ACCOUNTING UNITS (branch offices)
would NOT be eligible to stand in that election.
So, NO Wullie Rennie and co, NO Sarwar/other guy and co, and NO Ruth Davidson and co.
The actual REALITY will be driven home about their status, or rather NON status as “Scottish” parties.
This is why all 3 are DESPERATE to avoid even having a referendum, as they know EXACTLY what a Yes vote REALLY means to them.
Good old fashioned self preservation drives unionist politics in Scotland, and a Yes vote ensures they are finished.
Scottish people can go to hell and be denied democratic choice, just so unionist politicians can remain in a job.
That lays bare what they think of Scots, and of Scotland.
Vote Yes, and kick them all out.
Nothing about LibDem’s make any democratic or even logical sense, from Sir Daniel Alexander and his weird accent to tory Brit greatness, to this bizzaro example of tory twit/British democracy in Scotland
Lord Steven was a major beeb Scotland gimp NO camper, 2014. But his Lord biog has nothing about that or that he was a Holyrood MSP. He was one right? talk about rising without trace. He’ll be back.
link to parliament.uk
link to hansard.parliament.uk
Incidentally, both Lord Nicol’s campaign’s in his Lords blog failed completely.
If the next indyref isn’t until long after we have left the EU then we are off back to NZ, a self confident, independent nation.
We are off next May for the youngest’s wedding with plenty of time to look around for opportunities. Less than 2 years until the mortgage on this place is fully paid off. Sell up and trouser the proceeds just before Brexit kills the pound and use it for a house in NZ looks like a good plan as the SNP look craven and seem to want an EFTA deal inside of the full membership we have now.
IF the next indyref is before we leave the EU then I will exert myself to the utmost for Yes. But I’m increasingly pessimistic that the SNP has the political balls to push for it.
The Labour Party mafia. Masons? Support a secret, bigoted, racist misogynist unequal society. Infrastructure Privy council. Mucked up the Scottish electoral system.
It is illegal for a political Party/Rep to advocate their supporters/voters to vote for another Party. Under electoral Law. Gerrymandering. Representation of the People’s Act.
If the forecasts about fishing quotas are anything to go by 2021 will by then be a different scene especially in the northeast corner where the Tories did so well recently.
Willie Rennie is a man in search of a purpose. He can guff all he likes to that bingo hall full of geriatrics, neither he nor anyone else will stand in the way of independence.
Sell up and trouser the proceeds just before Brexit kills the pound and use it for a house in NZ looks like a good plan as the SNP look craven and seem to want an EFTA deal inside of the full membership we have now.”
Did you not move back to Scotland, Dundee, from NZ anyway Muscleguy? And have you not missed the NZ colonial boat, sterling cant get much lower in value, can it:D
Have to admit though, if you’re from Aberdeen, Brexit does not look good at all. They’re building huge chicken coop housing estates everywhere around Aberdeen too.
So dudes like Stewarty Milne and Mr Barrat probably know that Brexit wont be so bad, right? Brexit’s probably going to hit the low paid, unskilled, as usual.
The day the SNP stop obsessing about Independence is the day I stop voting for them. I tweeted that before the last General Election.
It is the simple truth why the SNP lost 21 seats this year. The Union At Any Cost Nationalists did not win because their numbers were up. They stayed the same.
The SNP lost 21 seats because their own support abstained voting (for anyone). The SNP forgot its raison d’etre.
Time to step up.
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Shakespeare of course.
As you say, Stu. Nothing we didn’t already know, but at least they are prepared to come out and say so.
Perhaps a similar statement from Slab is overdue?
O/T (copied from last thread as I didn’t realise this one had appeared). It occurs to me that the SNP/SG are indeed getting on with the day job, and further, considering the info on their FB feed recently, they are starting to work as if they are already the government of an independent country (as far as is possible).
Good strategy for eventual independence or not, they are doing their best for Scotland imo.
Very interesting watching the news about Catalonia, if you can find it. The Wee Ginger Dug did a good article on Catalonia’s struggle a few days ago. The difference between theirs and our desire for independence is that their written constitution forbids parts of Spain to break away. Ours does not.
Cuileanat 12.07
Exactly. SNP branches and CAs should take the initiative and start campaigning for independence right now. There are no other election distractions at the moment.
Two things to note.
I repeat if the SNP was at 6% in the polls they wouldn’t be on the telly and in the papers. So why Willie Rennie? The Greens probably have more support.
And why Cat Boyd?
O/T Very good input from Richard Murphy to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee in Holyrood this morning. The archived version should be available soon here:
link to scottishparliament.tv
Guest speakers were:
Margaret Cuthbert;
John McLaren, Scottish Trends;
Richard Marsh, Director, 4-Consulting;
Professor Catia Montagna, Chair in Economics, University of Aberdeen;
Professor Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK.
The politics of the committee were interesting too with Jackie Baillie struggling to understand what Richard Murphy has said and struggling to discredit him. John McLaren flatly opposed – he thinks GERS is fine and there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. etc etc.
Good contributions from Ash Denham, Andy Wightman and Gillian Martin. Didn’t understand what Richard Leonard was saying but interesting to see him there. Gil Paterson worth hearing near the end and the instant rebuttal from John McLaren.
Committee membership here:
link to tinyurl.com
What planet is he on? They’ve 5 MSPs. The amount of airtime he gets is totally disproportionate.
An empty vessel makes most noise.
Who Cat Boyd?
A possible dream ticket of both a Wullie and Anas governing Scotland in the Union does have a certain appropriate ring to it.
Perhaps never again shall the planets align for this once in a lifetime democratic opportunity.
Surely that combo would evoke a cringe from even the most staunch British Nationalist.
@muscleguy, 11.45am
The indy ref has to be before the actual Brexit while our current rights and our Parliament/Government at Holyrood are still in operation.
If Pigs could vote Wullie would be on a shoe in. He gets on very well with them.
Seriously I still laugh when I think of his stint with them, tame pigs have a sense of humour and those ones saw him coming and made the most of it.
Willie is two ticks short of a tock, he will say anything to get some exposure. Sadly for him it generally shows him up as a clown and a fool.
what peter bell said
————-
geoo
even if yes wins, the 2021 holyrood election will need an indy majority to ensure the unionists do not unpick the result. ie indyref3
——————
Muscleguy
the snp has not abandoned eu membership
the efta membership would be automatic after a yes vote, scotland, or indeed even the uk, cannot afford to be out of the single market for any period without economic damage.
eu membership is something that will take at least 2 years, the eu has already said that we would need to apply to join as a new member. we would need to launch a new currency which would need to be in the erm2 for 2 years, albeit, eu membership afterwards would be a quick formality.
we cant afford to be outside the single market for 2 years while waiting to join. efta is only part of a process to becoming full members.
soz geoo
that should have read unionref1 🙂
What Willie Rennie appears to be saying is that if the combined Unionist vote for Lib Dem, Labour and the Tories exceed that of the Independence supporting parties than the 3 together should form a coalition to keep the SNP out.
In other words he’s advocating that Scotland should have Ruth Davidson as First Minister in preference to Nicola Sturgeon even though it’s highly likely that less than 30% of Scots would even consider voting for Ruth Davidson or any of the rest of her incompetent MSP’s.
Rennie comes across as a deluded fool who is willing to put his and his parties trust in the likes of Ruth Davidson to govern Scotland no matter that price paid by the Scottish people for such a deal.
With any luck he will find himself on the dole come 2021 anyway.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
19 September, 2017 at 12:19 pm
Cuileanat 12.07
Exactly. SNP branches and CAs should take the initiative and start campaigning for independence right now.
———————-
in indyref1, 98% of the activists in yesnef were snp. we dropped the snplogo while focusing on the yes campaign.
98% of yesnef is still made up of snp members and supporters, yesterday, yesnef held 3 street stalls across nef, to commemorate indyref1 result, who do you think organised this?
what did you do?
Muscleguy says:
IF the next indyref is before we leave the EU then I will exert myself to the utmost for Yes. But I’m increasingly pessimistic that the SNP has the political balls to push for it.
————————————–
nicola will call indyref2 if she believes there is enough support for us to win. recent polls (yes/no/dk 42/49/9%) is encouraging and moving in the right direction but it is for the grass roots to convince others now to vote yes, nicola cant do it alone.
i suggest you start campaigning now, if we all convinced 1 other to vote yes, then indyref2 will happen and we will win
The absurd Willie Rennie was speaking at the Lib conference so saying that Sturgeon is finished doesn’t really mean anything out in the real world. Remember David Steel telling the libs….Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government! They feel warm and cosy and self congratulatory and amongst their own. But once they leave the conference centre and get on the train home there’s a grim collision with reality. The snp are still way over 40% and the libs are about 9%.
Lib dems in a pact with red and blue tories … whats new.
If “Nicola Sturgeon’s time is up”, why do they need a pro-Union coalition?
And what then?
The stark reality for the 55% who voted No is that only one part of that group won the vote. It was made up of Tories and Labour, and as the Tories are the Westminster gov around 65% of the time it was the Tories who won the vote. It is their ideology and polices that are imposed on the whole of the UK. For example, Brexit is a Tory construct and Labour has just followed on with it.
So Tory decisions are imposed on the Labour No voters and the 45% Yes voters.
So what does Willie’s coalition do in the face of Westminster Tory rule, decisions and polices?
Rennie is just a front person for a pretend party.
Politics in Scotland is all about keeping London Rule or enabling Scots to make decisions for themselves.
There is one single Unionist British Nationalist party with several pretend façades, the LibDems being one of them.
Rennie isn’t being deluded when he talks about a coalition to save the Union.
That single Unionist British Nationalist party is already in place and has been for decades.
Rennie is talking about dropping the façade; the pretence that there exists multi party unionism.
We have already seen it – it was called Better Together. Remember?
Yes, Ruth Davidson would be the First Minister in such a “coalition” but that would actually represent the natural order of things within Scottish Unionism.
Rennie is testing the waters with this speech. He’s trying to understand if the public face of the British Nationalist party that he represents can be dropped.
If people are wondering “why?” then you have to consider that careerists such as Rennie still have personal ambition. He will want a place at the top table in any “coalition”.
And Rennie’s speech will not be a surprise to his colleagues in the big British Nationalist party, of which he is an enthusiastic participant. His words will have been cleared by his masters, the string pullers of London.
Nothing that Rennie says is a genuine creation of his or said in isolation. It’s all carefully crafted by the London Establishment.
When you start believing that you have more of a divine right to rule than another contrary to the will of democracy it should be a reminder to all free thinking people of just who the terrorists are and who they respect
Because it certainly isn’t us
Ming Campbell says:
In the description below the youtube video
link to youtube.com
What schrodingerscat said
EU membership is irrelevant. What matters is Single Market membership.
If we don’t get a Yes vote, we won’t be in the EU, we won’t be in the Single Market. We’ll be stuck in Little Britain for an extended period, possibly decades. That cannot be allowed to happen. The overriding requirement is to get a Yes vote (or a direct independence mandate in an election). Nothing else matters.
As Junker (and Barrosso before him) have correctly observed, the EU is a rule-bound organisation. Any independent state can apply, and then they follow the normal accession procedure
EFTA is the big tent option. Remember the ‘Unhappy’ 11% who want independence but not the EU. There’s a 60% vote there for the taking.
There is no protection for us from being in the EU. There’s no mechanism for it. Observe how the EU is intervening in Catalonia. Or rather not intervening. Non interference in the internal affairs of member states is a fundamental, if unspoken principle in the EU. For very good reasons of European history.
The cat, and Tommy Shepherd are correct. If we can’t win a majority in a proportional system we won’t win a referendum. The referendum, if we manage to get a constented one, can be before or after Brexit. But mostly it should be when we can win.
I could see no consented referendum being forthcoming (why would Westminster possibly consent to a referendum they would lose?). The implication being a return to an electoral mandate, rather than a referendum
Willie Rennie is an idiot.
Where I disagree with the cat is on EFTA being a step on the road to immediate EU membership. It’s a precedented mechanism, but why would EFTA accept us as members on the premise we are immediately going to leave again? We have selling points that can be attractive to the Four – but immediately leaving isn’t one of them!
And I don’t think joining, just to move on to EU membership, will fly with the 11%. We need to be in EFTA immediately on Independence, the EEA as quickly as possible thereafter – Croatia took 8 months after joining the EU so we should aim to beter that.
And then let things settle down for a period. We can always move on to EU membership later, if the people wish. We won’t get the chance if we don’t get a Yes vote
Wullie Rennie’s got some brass neck standing in front of an audience in Bournemouth running the SNP / Scotland down whilst England’s imploding on all fronts and that’s even before Brexit, which he’s totally against, hits the proverbial fan. It’s clear, as I’ve said already, that he’s no more than an employee (ignorant wee stooge) of an English political party using people like him to do their dirty for them in Scotland.
We’ll be well out of this long before the next election. No we’re not waiting for a Unionist cabal to be running Scotland, that’s if Holyrood still exists by then. They can forget it, such as wee Wullie and his gang of 4 merry men.
We can all see what’s going on here. Over and above getting the word out there in any way that you can, support the SNP on the doorstep and online, join the SNP (for as little as £5 a year?), donate to the SNP to strengthen their hand and put the wind right up the Unionist’s trooser legs. Better still their smelly underpants and drawers to get rid of some of that honking Unionist whiff. Apologies to those in advance for being a wee bit crude there. Couldnae resist it!
link to join.snp.org
link to snp.org
……………………………………
@ Daisy Walker says at 11:25 am …. ”I’m beginning to see a change with people who quite liked the ‘fu’ element of the Brexit vote, who fell for all the ‘immigration’ scare stories, even if they didn’t necessarily vote for Brexit – they’re starting to come round to what a monumental *lust*r uckf the whole thing is and the damage it is likely to do to all businesses and the economy. The devaluation of the pound, expensive holidays, and higher food prices are just beginning to bite.
If your having the conversation folks, I’m finding the following useful.
1/ Get the immigration thing out of the way. Theresa May’s first trip after Brexit was to India, begging for a Trade Deal, the main condition of which was unfettered access for their workers to Britain. With no workers rights to protect any of us. They’re not good at protecting people… Grenfell anyone? Brexit means more immigrants, not less, that’s the tory reality. That’s it, its all you have to say, and then its neutralised and put to the side. Now you can talk about……”
Excellent post Daisy and you can add to that, that Nicola can use some of the EU policies on immigration that Theresa May didn’t bother her backside to use plus Westminster agencies recruiting in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philipines at £5000 a head, as they dump EU nurses / social care workers (cost £2500).
@Derick fae Yell
I tend to agree, for starters neither the EU, EFTA or EEA is a possibility for Scotland without Independence. So nothing else matters until we assure our Independence.
Now the stance of the SNP will matter regarding when it comes to another vote and the path they are choosing.
I’ll settle for now for whichever option is believed to give us the best chance of winning that next referendum and the most votes. For now that path may not be clear but by the time a vote comes around I expect it will be.
The Scotch Lib-Dems are a sham of a Party no wonder they are protecting the union-useful idiots for the britnat establishment. Soon to be redundant in an independent Scotland along with all the other British Nationalist con artists who swear allegiance to London.
Capella said at 12:23 pm TODAY:
“O/T Very good input from Richard Murphy to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee in Holyrood this morning. The archived version should be available soon here:
link to scottishparliament.tv
Guest speakers were:
Margaret Cuthbert;
John McLaren, Scottish Trends;
Richard Marsh, Director, 4-Consulting;
Professor Catia Montagna, Chair in Economics, University of Aberdeen;
Professor Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK…….”
Scottish Parliament TV.
The Economy,Jobs and Fair Work Committee proceedings are now Archived and available to view here:
link to tinyurl.com
If you can gird your loins tight enough –
here’s Mini-me Rennie’s speech in full.
link to archive.is
One of his gems.
” The SNP have at last recognised that people do not want another independence referendum “
I never knew that someone was rearing ostriches in my part of Scotland.
“Guest speakers were: “
What – no graph boy? But, but, but…
derek
but why would EFTA accept us as members on the premise we are immediately going to leave again? We have selling points that can be attractive to the Four – but immediately leaving isn’t one of them!
—————
iceland is presently considering joining the eu. The EFTA members have already said an indy scotland would be welcome. case closed.
———————–
derek
And I don’t think joining, just to move on to EU membership, will fly with the 11%.
—————————-
further eu integration would be settled by another euref once indy, that will always be the case and nothing is be certain, just the will of nicola sturgeon, same situation is now in iceland
———————-
derek
We need to be in EFTA immediately on Independence,
——————–
that is already agreed with the 4 efta members
——————–
derek
the EEA as quickly as possible thereafter – Croatia took 8 months after joining the EU so we should aim to beter that.
——————-
we cannot promise that or tie it to indyref2, regardless of how much we all want it, eea membership requires agreement by all 27 eu countries, if spain vetos it, during the campaign, BT and the bbc will slaughter us. it is a wish, not something in our power to guarentee, where as efta has already been agreed.
————————-
derek
And then let things settle down for a period. We can always move on to EU membership later, if the people wish.
————————–
eea accession wouldnt require another euref, eu membership does
—————
derek
We won’t get the chance if we don’t get a Yes vote
——————
soz, i’ve forgotten how to do italics again. this system is like dos 6.22
@schrodingers cat says:
19 September, 2017 at 12:55 pm
“even if yes wins, the 2021 holyrood election will need an indy majority to ensure the unionists do not unpick the result”.
……….
Nonsense.
The 3 unionist parties will not be contesting the next Scottish Election as they stand.
Here is why. (My response to Mr Leonard’s statement against any SNP dealings if he wins the accountancy unit election)
………
The “no 2nd referendum” line is a false narrative.
It is fake because they NEVER properly explain WHY they are against one.
Yes, they spout wooly lines like, “nobody wants one” and such drivel. It is drivel, because the ELECTORATE of Scotland made a DEMOCRATIC DECISION to give the SNP a LEGAL MANDATE to hold a referendum upon a PRECISE SET of circumstances coming to pass, which duly happened.
The PARLIAMENT of which Mr Leonard is part of, took a DEMOCRATIC DECISION to VALIDATE the electoral mandate with a MAJORITY PARLIAMENTARY VOTE.
Yet unionists to a person now wish to set aside the DEMOCRATIC CHOICES of not only the PEOPLE they claim to represent, and also set aside the DEMOCRATICALLY DECIDED MAJORITY view of the Scottish Parliament they are part of.
Want to know why ?
Good old self preservation.
Nothing more than that.
You see, in an independent Scotland, Mr Leonard and his fellow unionists, every single one of them, MP/MSP/MEP/COUNCILLOR , are OUT OF OFFICE with a Yes vote for independence.
Why ?
Simple, they are ALL members of a party which is NOT a Scottish Political Party.
All 3 unionist parties are ACCOUNTING UNITS of their party in Scotland. There is NO SUCH THING AS “SCOTTISH” labour/tory/lib dem.
As such, they can no more operate within an indy Scotland than the 35 SNP MP’s could continue at WM post independence.
The first Scottish election after independence is an election for SCOTTISH political parties ONLY.
THAT is why they are vehemently against even giving you the choice to say Yes or No, despite there being democratic mandates from both the PEOPLE of Scotland AND the PARLIAMENT of Scotland.
It might harm THEM and their future, and they are defending THEIR futures by trying to DENY DEMOCRACY TO EVERYONE ELSE.
Vote Yes and throw these people out of office, you owe it to yourselves and your generations to follow you.
……..
One for Rock, and his new bestie/fart catcher Colin A too, ofcourse.
link to thenational.scot
alex clark sums up my feelings, ie what ever it takes to win indyref2
i’m not 100% sure what the correct tactic for indyref2 is yet, i’m willing to be convinced, ergo the discussions
eg, maybe eu membership is the right way to win a yes in indyref2, although i also agree with stu, another euref once indy seems inevitable.
eg
peter bell wants the snp to lead the campaign, not yes scotland etc.
they dont do enough polls (or release figures) for us to see what the best way forward, just a gut feeling that efta is the rightway to go
@ Jack Murphy – thx for the updated link to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee. It is a 2 hour meeting but very interesting IMO with plenty of political position taking. I thought Richard Murphy handled the obvious attempts to dismiss his insights very well. We are lucky to have his expertise to draw on.
John McLaren, being a Labour man, was most dismissive while Margart Cuthbert seemed a little too keen to defend the status quo whilst still making some good points about Scotland’s “colony” status.
Jackie Baillie as devious as ever.
link to tinyurl.com
Aye Wullie – yet again as Peter Bell pointed out ,part of the unionist TAG TEAM , looks like the other members are taking a break , so Wullie gets a turn , and dosent he do well oh god what a delusional big kid trying to do an adult’s job .
Please take a second and check how many stupid people actually vote for you and your party Wullie , bask in the standing ovation offered by the delegates at your parties recent scottish conference.
away and sit doon Wullie yer times up .
@schrodingers cat says to geeo
Nonsense.
i’m not sure why you think the unionists will evaporate, cease their fight after a yes vicory? we didnt. especially if it is a narrow victory?
a unionist majority could hold another indyref within weeks of taking power, and at present, a unionist majority isnt beyond the bounds of possibility, we only have a 5 seat majority
i dont want to even consider the possibility, ergo, an indy majority is required to ensure that these parties have 5 years to reflect and make the changes you mention.
i also think that once indy and we know the true extent of scotlands wealth, not GERS figures, support for the union will shrink to a small minority before finally dying out.
the fact that the unionists would appear hypocritical if they pushed for indyref3 if they won a majority in 2021, would not stop them.
it hasnt before
look at the libdems twist and turn concerning euref2 vs indyref2
Another for Rock and his fart catcher Colin, A.
link to thenational.scot
Willie Rennie? A man without a cause’.
If he thinks the SNP will be out of office so to speak, think again.
Lib Dem’ sit on the fence and watch to which side they slide! Slimey little beggars!
And one more for UKOK luck, Rock and Colin A, private fart catcher, to the yoons:D
link to thenational.scot
Lib Dem’s yella bellies. For sure.
For an excellent instance of the political tension – listen to Gil Paterson (SNP) describe the problem for Scotland when expenditure is allocated to another part of the UK but treated in GERS as Scottish expenditure in order to bash the Scottish economy.
Richard Murphy, sitting to his left, clearly agrees with what he is saying.
But John McLaren (former SPAD for Donald Dewar) responds by totally disagreeing. Bizarrely, he attributes Scotland’s economic probelms to OIL! while conceding that London figures skew the picture because of all the high earners there.
In any normal country the solution is self evident!
Scroll to 11:23:28 – 11:27:30
link to tinyurl.com
@ Capella says at 12:23 pm …. ”Very good input from Richard Murphy to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee in Holyrood this morning. The archived version should be available soon here:
link to scottishparliament.tv
Guest speakers were:
Margaret Cuthbert;
John McLaren, Scottish Trends;
Richard Marsh, Director, 4-Consulting;
Professor Catia Montagna, Chair in Economics, University of Aberdeen;
Professor Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK….”
No one from the Fraser of Allander Institute? Have they done a runner before they get strung up?
………………………………….
@ geeo says at 2:11 pm ….. ”You see, in an independent Scotland, Mr Leonard and his fellow unionists, every single one of them, MP/MSP/MEP/COUNCILLOR, are OUT OF OFFICE with a Yes vote for independence.
Why? Simple, they are ALL members of a party which is NOT a Scottish Political Party. All 3 unionist parties are ACCOUNTING UNITS of their party in Scotland. There is NO SUCH THING AS “SCOTTISH” labour/tory/lib dem. As such, they can no more operate within an indy Scotland than the 35 SNP MP’s could continue at WM post independence ….. Vote Yes and throw these people out of office, you owe it to yourselves and your generations to follow you.”
SPOT ON GEEO!
I’m still not sure why some people are wanting to join EFTA/EEA.
We’ve been fully paid-up members of the EU for over 40 years (via the UK) and we receive all the advantages of that membership, single market etc. At least what we can also prise out of London’s grubby hands.
For us to apply for EFTA we would first of all have to leave the EU..! Either by London dragging us out against our will or by the SNP/Scot.Gov. telling the EU that we’re going.
Now AFAIK the SNP/Scot.Gov. has been fighting to stay in the EU and if London won’t abide by our wishes then we hold an Indyref2 before Brexit to get our independence and then negotiate our “continuing” membership directly with the EU.
EFTA OR EU only comes in to play when we’re outside of the EU and looking for a new partnership to gain “quick” access to the EU single market.
The EU have already said in the past that it wouldn’t make sense for an independent Scotland in the making to leave and then a short time later apply and rejoin again.
Without Indyref2 and a YES vote, all we’ll have left will be a death wish and a tory desert.
O/T
Wales steals a march on Scotland ??
Seems the Welsh campaign is up and running well
link to yes.cymru
link to twitter.com
British nationalists can’t hide from the fact that brexit is going to be an utter disaster for their precious so-called united kingdom. Those britnats based in Scotland are equally desperate for Scotland to suffer the consequences of brexit even though Scotland didn’t vote for brexit, and recent polls showing 65% of people in Scotland still supporting EU memebership.
Indeed, britnats in Scotland would happily accept Scotland suffering worst of all from brexit – along as they can hold on to their wee red, white and blue blankets, that’s all they care about.
For what’s it’s worth I believe Catalonia voting Yes will give a boost the independence movement in Scotland.
‘For anyone who thinks it’s safe to wait until after 2021 for another indyref.’
I would go one further and suggest that the SNP will more than likely never win a majority in Holyrood again, even with Green support.
BBC Reporting Scotland and STV News on their news programmes both actively highlighted key marginal SNP seats for the last UK general election, effectively telling unionist voters which party (Labour or Tory) to vote for in order to defeat the SNP. And it clearly was successful.
You can bet your bottom Dollar that they will do this at ever future election from now on in.
If a referendum is not called in this parliament, I doubt very much it ever will be called.
IndyRef2 – keep it simple. I think we have to have two separate questions / two separate referendums.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
1) Yes.
2) No.
Upon a successful YES indy result then our precise relationship with Europe will be decided in a post-indy EuroRef with 4 options:
1) Scotland as a member of EFTA.
2) Scotland as a member of the EEA.
3) Scotland as a full ember of the EU.
4) None of the above. Scotland to remain fully independent from Europe.
The pros/cons of the above options can be fully debated during the initial indy campaign AND (upon indy) during the EuroRef Campaign, allowing the population to make a fully informed decision (and it WILL BE fully informed because by then we’ll have shut down Pravda Quay).
Yes, I know Scotland has already voted to remain part of the EU by 62%-38% but if we are taken out of the EU by the UK then we will have to apply to join the EU again anyway. We might as well take the opportunity again to determine precisely what relationship most Scots actually want with Europe, a question that has never actually been asked.
By splitting the question, we can campaign for a YES on the promise that we will have a separate EuroRef to determine exactly the relationship most Scots would prefer to have with Europe. And I wager that would be the best strategy to garner the most YES votes. But I could just be talking total keech.
My twopenceworth.
Mr Cat …sorry, but you either did not read my post or did not understand it (or didn’t want to)
If we vote Yes, we are independent. No going back. It is a done deal. With 3 YEARS before a Scottish Election, all business with ruk will be FINALISED.
In that 2021 election, it will be to elect the INDEPENDENT SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT.
The 3 current unionist parties WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE as they are NOT SCOTTISH POLITICAL PARTIES. (As i explained why not) so your scenario CANNOT EXIST.
Next you will be telling me the SNP can stand candidates in the 2022 GE if we vote Yes……!!
Perhaps you should actually go read my post, then come back with the bits you feel are inaccurate and i will clarify them for you.
It all makes you wonder how much of what we see in UK and WM politics is actually all about the continuity of the Union with Scotland in a knife edge between staying and leaving.
Everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, IndyRef1 was so severely damaged that it settled nothing. It merely delayed the decision. Everyone also knows a hard Brexit will result in IndyRef2 and under those circumstances the Union is going to be difficult to defend.
Not that the mainstream rhetoric reflects that reality overtly.
Politics in Scotland comprises three things … the SNP/SG get in with the day job, the Unionists attack the SNP/SG at every opportunity, and there is widespread campaign to diminish Scottish national identity.
IMO, Scotland might impact on UK politics to a much greater extent than is sometimes obvious. Many have suggested May’s primary objective in calling the snap GE was to thwart the SNP. Perhaps the real Brexit holdup is that if the Tories have their way and opt for a hard outcome, their Union will probably end. In other words, the ‘Scotland issue’ has screwed up their Brexit plans.
If Scotland really is at the heart of all UK political discourse, then we can expect everything and anything to be thrown our way.
A union of all Unionists to save their Union is inevitable, and more important than anything else to them.
@Graf Midgehunter
I’m certainly not arguing for membership of the EEA/EFTA in preference to membership of the EU. What I am saying is that without Independence none of these are possible.
Right now whatever wins us the most votes is preferable, 11% of SNP voters did not vote to leave the EU for nothing. I may totally disagree with that stance but I am willing to compromise if and only if it can be shown that it would increase the chances of a YES vote being successful. It’s called pragmatism.
I also think it’s highly likely that we will be out of the EU anyway along with the UK who are dragging us out no matter what the Scottish electorate think.
Even if we have a referendum say in 6 months time and it is a YES vote we could still be out of the EU before negotiation on the settlement of Scotland’s Independence is settled with the UK even with any kind of transition deal as UK member of the EU will end on April 1st 2019.
Would the EU offer a special deal to keep us in? Maybe but unlikely as it looks like they will still be negotiating with the UK through some sort of transition period that is being loudly touted just now.
According to Alex Salmond, he believed that any settlement on an Independence deal with the UK would take at least 18 months so we don’t have that time.
“ALEX Salmond will name March 24, 2016, as the day Scotland could again become a free country when he launches his independence blueprint this week.”
link to archive.is
@ Alex Clark – I agree. I think there are two reasons why members of the SNP are proposing EFTA membership.
1 It is likely that the UK will be out of the EU before Scotland becomes independent. Therefore an interim solution is needed.
2 Although 62% of Scots voted to Remain in the EU there is still a substantial minority who want out. EFTA represents a compromise position until after independence when another referendum to join the EU could be held, under more democratic conditions.
Does anyone believe it will be possible for Scotland to remain in the EU on some sort of “holding” situation if the UK exit?
The UK has betrayed the Scottish electorate by pursuing BREXIT. The Referendum was won on the basis that a NO vote secures our place in Europe. That turns out to be a lie and they are doing nothing to resolve that.
geeo
tx, but i did read your post
the scottish labour party will cut all ties with london, they have been becoming more and more autonomous as the years wear on, or so they say.
of course, in the real world, no one believes a word of it.
they can rebrand as the mickey mouse party for all i care, my point was that they are unionists and will remain unionists in the immediate aftermath of a yes vote.
they could still pose a threat and possibly form a majority in 2021 and introduce a referendum bill with the intention of reversing the yes vote.
I have no idea if this would happen or not, i merely pointed out that a pro indy majority, ie the snp, winning a majority in the first independent holyrood elections after a yes vote would ensure the unionist cause withers away to virtually nothing, for the reasons stated above
perhaps a discussion for after a YES vote?
Capella
“Does anyone believe it will be possible for Scotland to remain in the EU on some sort of “holding” situation if the UK exit?”
Can’t speak for anyone else but I very definitely don’t think that. It would require an wholly new, untried, bespoke mechanism, that rips up the EU’s accession criteria, specifically devised just for Scotland. There is no chance of that whatsoever.
On the 18 month timescale from a referendum Yes to Independence Day as per 2014, and the minimum two year A49 Accession timescale, we’d need to have won a referendum in roughly 2015 to have any chance of being in the EU before March 2019.
The EFTA accession criterion is basically ‘If the Four approve membership’. No need for deficit convergence, no need to commit to join the Euro, even theoretically. It deals with numerous Project Fear scare stories. Spanish Veto? hah!
Where the goodwill we have in the EU comes in is to expedite EEA membership from within EFTA.
Let’s not rely on magical thinking. We need a clear, precedented, deliverable mechanism to get back in the Single Market asap.
“they could still pose a threat and possibly form a majority in 2021 and introduce a referendum bill with the intention of reversing the yes vote.”
But surely then, since Scotland voted to quite the UK, the people of the rUK should be given a vote to allow Scotland back in.
No?
Capella says:
19 September, 2017 at 3:17 pm
@ Alex Clark – I agree. I think there are two reasons why members of the SNP are proposing EFTA membership.
1 It is likely that the UK will be out of the EU before Scotland becomes independent. Therefore an interim solution is needed.
————-
correct capella
ideally we would hold indyref2 before we leave, and if the polls continue to move our way, then this might happen. but there’s the rub,
eg this is from todays indy on what happens if negs flounder which is being touted in todays press
“Under the WTO rules scenario, the Treasury’s modeling expects unemployment to rise by 820,000 in two years, Sterling to fall by 15 per cent, and inflation to rise by 2.7 per cent”
but this wont happen completely until spring 2019, although the effects are starting.
i believe brexit will end this union, the question is only a matter of when we chose to jump.
if support for yes remains at 46%, nicola may chose to delay indyref2 until after we have left in spring 2019.
I think the next few weeks will be critical as we may be about to find out exactly what brexit means. for everyone.
the efta idea is still only that, i think we need to see some polls asking the right sort of questions very soon.
but i think the yes/brexiters might wish to stay in the single market once they find out the reality of no deal
Willie Rennie like his leader Vince – I could be Prime Minister – Cable, are quite delusional.
He and his party in Scotland serve no useful purpose and have nothing pertinent to say on any subject matter.
Its like the old adage empty vessels make most sound and that sums up Rennie to a tee.
Proud Cybernat
fair point cybernat
but i doubt westminster would oppose it, as franky boyle says, westminster doesnt want to keep scotland because of our charm 🙂
derek
Let’s not rely on magical thinking. We need a clear, precedented, deliverable mechanism to get back in the Single Market asap.
—————–
agreed, this holding pen idea is too wooly and not in our power to deliver either. i cant see junker coming out iany more in favour of us than he already has
How apt that ” boringmooth” Rennie is speaking at
” conference” in Bournemouth.
schrodingers cat says:
19 September, 2017 at 2:14 pm
alex clark sums up my feelings, ie what ever it takes to win indyref2
“i’m not 100% sure what the correct tactic for indyref2 is yet, i’m willing to be convinced, ergo the discussions”
Here we go, another cosy wee show of strength by the SNP’s closet Brexiteers.
Nevermind your elastic principles and tactics. You don’t have a mandate to opt for EFTA. You don’t have a mandate to submit to Brexit at all. You DO have a mandate, (the mandate you’re so very keen to tell everybody how hard you worked to secure), and what’s more it’s a SOVEREIGN mandate, to defend and honour Scotland’s decision to REMAIN in the EU.
If you lobbied as hard as you claim for Scotland to Remain, then lobbying now for a backdoor Brexit with EFTA touted as the booby prize is rank feckin’ hypocrisy, and if that’s formal SNP policy, then it’s a goddamned sellout.
Away you go and read up on your history and sovereign constitution, and if you’re not prepared to defend the sovereignty of Scotland’s electorate, then just make sure that’s printed loud and clear on all those leaflets you’re shoving through people’s doors.
“Vote SNP! We’ll say and do whatever it takes to get yer vote, then we’ll do whatever the feck we like”.
O/T
Apologies if already posted
Richard Murphy- morning in Holyrood
link to taxresearch.org.uk
The Scottish and Welsh governments have today jointly published amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal Bill)
link to news.gov.scot
Nice to see the Welsh people forming a chain around the Senedd
link to twitter.com
I cannot take Rennie seriously. He talks the most awful guff and seems to forget that our memories can stretch back before 2015 to when the Lib Dems were in power with the Conservatives and where they showed their true colours.
I used to think of the Lib Dems as the nice party but the sex scandals and pretty unsavoury electioneering tactics (a complaint not only aired by SNP supporters but parties across the UK) put them well down the scale. The pretty ghastly party is a more appropriate name.
I thiunk Willie pines for the Lab/Lib Scottish Government days and hopes to ingratiate with Anas or possibly Ruth….or even UKIP I don’t think he would care.
Try turning the camera round 180 degrees and look at the situation from the EU perspective.
You have an arrogant, self-centred, non-team player UK, willing to cherry-pick its wants and get it all on the cheap. Nice but weird..!
OR, an independent Scotland which wants to work together to improve things, is energy rich, pays its dues, guards the “Iceland Gap”, has a strong manufacturing and technological base, a skilled workforce etc. etc.
I don’t know about you but I reckon the EU would bend over backwards to make sure that Scotland’s bum fits perfectly on the vacant “English” chair.
If the EU wants Scotland as much as I hear it here on the Continent, they’ll find the way to do it.
Wow !!
The Cat has really lost the plot this time…!!
“Scottish” labour ARE an Accounting unit. It STATES IT IN THE LABOUR CONSTITUTION.
While, after a Yes vote, they COULD split and form an ACTUAL Scottish labour party, they COULD NOT re form the union after any 2021 election
The first action of the SNP post Yes will be to ensure that is not legally possible.
By then, Scotland will be 100% FULLY INDEPENDENT from the uk.
Labour could no more make Scotland part of the uk again by winning an indy Scotland General Election than labour winning a WM election and declaring England as part of Uruguay, even if it was in their manifesto.
So stop it Cat, you are making a complete arse of yourself now.
breeks
ye’ll tak someones eye oot wi’ that sharp chip on yer shoulder, lol
if indyref2 is gonna happen before the next election, then surely we are talking about the yes movement, not the snp.
nicola has already offered the efta solution to westminster as a compromise, and if it becomes the snp position in indyref2, then so what, you can go join some other yes group that supports full and immediate eu membership application
no skin off my nose. the snp cant please everyone. if it really really bothers you……. vote no.
my aim is to secure a yes vote, without which, all is for nothing
for the record, i support an independent scotland being in the eu with the euro
geeo
wind yer neck in son
————
The first action of the SNP post Yes will be to ensure that is not legally possible.
———–
really? how?, those that win the holyrood election get to do whatever they want, thats democracy
Not sure why we would bend over backwards for those SNP supporters who want OUT the EU completely.
They simply cannot be trusted to vote Yes in ANY circumstance.
If they are saying that they could not back an indy Scotland IN the EU, then they WILL vote NO to independence.
So, meanwhile, all those current 62% of REMAIN voters (OR MORE NOW) who are not SNP supporters, are alienated while we sook up those SNP supporters who will not vote Yes to Indy in the EU.
Great tactics….if you want a No vote.
I don’t know what’s the best solution for the single market options, but I do know that whichever one it turns out to be It’s seems a better idea to have a foot inside the door of one than outside kicking at closed doors of many
Maybe getting out of the UK Union first concerns me more than worrying about which other one we might or might not get into next depending on circumstances nobody has any control of at the moment
It all seems a bit like having the after match interview before you played the game, or even won it
Plus it’s a tad arrogant to expect other countries to just accept what we say because we say it or want it and it’s exactly what the British Nationalists are trying to do with the EU right now and we’re having a go at them for doing it
Maybe refusing to cross bridges before you get to them is a poor principle to apply to decision making
Graf Midgehunter says:
If the EU wants Scotland as much as I hear it here on the Continent, they’ll find the way to do it.
—————
i think they probably would graf, but we arent talking about the reality of after a yes vote
we are discussing the best policy, tactic to win indyref2
lets face it, the eu didnt put the boat out for us in indyref1, i can see why you think they will change during the campaign for indyref2.
juncker repeated only yesterday, when talking about catalunya, that an indy scotland will need to re apply as a new nation.
as has been pointed out by others, the eu is not completely free to say in public what it really thinks, it is bound over not to interfere
juncker saying they would accept an indy catalan or scottish result is probably more than many eu countries would be comfortable with.
Emmm….the current government puts a motion to the parliament and vote on it. “This motion ensures the newly independent country of Scotland is PERMANENT FOREVER”.
Job done well before 2021.
@Breeks
“Brexit with EFTA touted as the booby prize is rank feckin’ hypocrisy”
And your solution and advice for the Scottish Government is. What?
Scotland has a 2nd chance at indy due to a very specific set of circumstances, namely dragged out the EU against our will.
THAT must be the starting premise for indyref2.
If the EU takes a different view or is non committal before the indy vote, then you simply ASK PEOPLE to vote Yes to independence and ask the EU question later
Great tactics….if you want a No vote.
———
Great tactics….if you want a Yes vote.
tayloring indyref2 to attract yes/leavers is the best tactic, why?
because while it may alienate some yes remainers, the balance of probability is that they will still vote yes.
yes ensures access to the single and a chance to rejoin the eu
no means out of both for good
i dare say there are some, a small amount, who will vote no out of spite, but then again, there is nothing as queer as folk eh?
geeo says:
19 September, 2017 at 4:26 pm
Emmm….the current government puts a motion to the parliament and vote on it. “This motion ensures the newly independent country of Scotland is PERMANENT FOREVER”.
Job done well before 2021.
———————
then the next government with a majority over turns it on 1st day in power.
…….you havent thought this through, have you?
geeo says:
If the EU takes a different view or is non committal before the indy vote, then you simply ASK PEOPLE to vote Yes to independence and ask the EU question later
———————
i would agree with that, a better option than a multi question ballot which confuses indy with the eu.
indeed, the brexiteers white paper was only 1.5 pages long!!
maybe we are over analysing this.
to be fair, this is a high stakes game we are playing
The Treaty of Union says ‘forever’.
Just about every treaty which has ever been dissolved said ‘forever’.
Dr Jim says:
Plus it’s a tad arrogant to expect other countries to just accept what we say because we say it or want it and it’s exactly what the British Nationalists are trying to do with the EU right now and we’re having a go at them for doing it
—————
fair doos, but the efta countries have already said that an indy scotland would be welcome in efta, we dont need the eu 27 to agree
that is why salmond is putting forward this idea
geeo says:
If the EU takes a different view or is non committal before the indy vote, then you simply ASK PEOPLE to vote Yes to independence and ask the EU question later
—————–
wait a minute……..isnt the idea of having an euref once we are indy what we have being saying for weeks now? including the rev?
Chick McGregor says:
The Treaty of Union says ‘forever’.
Just about every treaty which has ever been dissolved said ‘forever’.
—————–
like gettin’ pished, never again until the next time etc. i speak from experience
O/T……News 24
Forget ‘Quantitative Easing’…the new buzzword is ‘Quantitative Tightening.’
Yeah…i said that in my comment Cat.
What killed the Yes campaign last time was the No campaign said the EU said no to us, and because the EU wouldn’t commit, that was somehow confirmation of their position when it clearly was no such thing. Remember that Cameron COULD have gotten ABSOLUTE CLARITY on the EU position by simply ASKING the EU what the indyScot position would be.
However, the position HAS to be we would prefer to be in the EU, BUT in the absence of absolute clarity from the EU, like last time, then we go with Yes for indy THEN ask the EU question later, thus stopping the No campaign from simply repeating the same mantra.
We didn’t have a Plan B on EU status last time. This time we do.
If we are in the eu as citizens vote to remain in our independence referendum that will come the EU will not tell us to leave and then reapply. Why? Because it is not in their interest that we join efta. Personally I am content to stay in the eu or in efta but not in the one side Brit union.
At least with the 2 former groupings they can force us to go to war nor harbour nuclear weapons as the Brit nats do.
More jobs will come our way. We shall return our Coastguard duties to Scotland from Northern Ireland just as other jobs will come our way.
We don’t need Westminster holding us back.
My personal position is Indy and in the EU.
HOWEVER, my practical position is Independent then whatever Scots decide as a people, which is actually the whole idea of being independent.
If an indy Scotland voted to leave, fine, as long as Scots voted for that.
This is why we should not pander to those within the SNP who claim to want indy and OUT the EU or they won’t vote Yes.
Those guys can achieve that by voting No to indy ffs.
SNP can safely state that…”we PREFER to REMAIN as EU members post indy Yes vote, but if that is not immediately possibly, we the Scottish Government shall put any future relationship with the EU to the people of an indy Scotland to decide”
But the starting position must be to back an indy Scotland in the EU (IF POSSIBLE).
Otherwise unionist will shout we do not have a mandate for the indyref.
Isn’t it funny that 3 of the top ten countries in the OECD Better Life Index are all in EFTA and not the EU.
These three countries are Norway who are top, Switzerland in 4th and Iceland in 10th. Four of the top 10 are not European, Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand.
So the OECD deem that at least 25 of the current members of the EU have a poorer quality of life than those of at least 3 of the 4 members of EFTA.
link to oecdbetterlifeindex.org
I have no idea why Lichtenstein that last EFTA member is not in the table but I do know that Lichtenstein is:
“Economically, Liechtenstein has one of the highest gross domestic products per person in the world when adjusted for purchasing power parity, and the highest when not adjusted by purchasing power parity. The unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the world at 1.5%.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
Must be hell to be in EFTA instead of the EU eh!
I’m with Dr Jim on this.
We shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves, discussions about
EFTA/EEA/EU now are fine as hypotheticals but we won’t be nailing anything down this side of May playing her brexit cards. We will give the Brit Nats hee-haw to aim at. They are under fire now, keep it going.
When brexit is defined & the EU members vote on the deal, so will we. I’m sure the FM will put a credible alternative out there – as things stand pre or post brexit the EU rules don’t allow us to just walk in. Sure, we are probably a special case but thats not going to be addressed, if at all, until brexit is agreed.
What we DO need to talk about is that the referendum campaign is up & running NOW. As someone said earlier, we outline the #brexit problems now, repeatedly, then when the time is right – we offer the solution. We need to be working the vote, #brexit bad, very bad etc, lets watch the brexiters destroy their own pro-union better-together narrative, they can’t fire that ammo anymore. Fuck em.
Willie Rennie is a total fud.
The latest in a long line of mis-respected illiberal appeasers.
Just noticed that if you click that OECD link in my earlier post you have to click another button in the bottom right of the table to rank them by country.
The button is named “by rank” in case you miss it 🙂
link to thenational.scot
Not news to most of us here, but for first-time readers…
What Willie Rennie is claiming as the SNP’s horrendous failure in Governance really is can only be described thus:=
The best performing, by any standards, NHS in the United Kingdom. With the worst performing individual SNHS and Hospital Boards all being run by non-SNP led councils.
A unified Police service that has achieved the greatest reduction in crime figures since records began.
An Education service that has actually improved in every way since the SNP came to power and once again when every one of the poorest performing council controlled Education boards are non-SNP controlled councils.
Then there are the infrastructure improvements that Holyrood has direct control over and there is one outstanding action that all Scotland should be proud of – No Fracking in Scotland.
If you want the official list of the SNP’s record in government then look here:-
link to snp.org
Surely the only sensible way to approach Inderef2 is for the Yes campaign to go all out with a promise that the first item on the agenda after Independence will be a referendum on EU or EFTA membership. Nobody can grumble about that. No need to tie ourselves down to a particular policy and risk alienating 20% of of Yes voters.
All that matters is Independence. Nothing can be accomplished without it.
As a contribution to the EU EFTA … debate –
here’s the just reelected Norwegian Prime Minister writing four years ago about Norway’s relationship with the EU.
She was writing with the UK in mind, but that can be ignored.
Ambivalent is definitely the word for Norway’s relationship.
And here’s the link. Sorry!
link to archive.is
By the time we’re out of the UK it may be advantageous to us to change one or two of the conditions that apply in some of the other options available which at the moment those countries may welcome us in general terms but may cool a little if we do want some changes, so although I’m no expert on constitutional stuff I know a little about human behaviour and in that respect I would always say everything is open to negotiation and diplomacy and if we’re lucky enough to have our current FM and team in charge of that stuff unlike the UK losers Scotland will come out just fine with good friends and neighbours to deal with as opposed to these delusional Tossers in London who think they can impose Imperialism on the world all over again
Until that time it’s one thought one mind one aim…… Independence!
I just had to get this off my chest coz I’m so sick to the back teeth of Labour party liars
The only time Labour ever fight for anything is when they’re NOT in power, the minute the achieve power they do sweet FA and always have done, and the reason? They are NOT repeat NOT a party of Government, they’re a party of protest against everybody else while they themselves sit on their fat well paid Arses and ABSTAIN their way through politics, and the reason? They don’t want to be blamed later for the worlds crappiest decisions that they undeterringly undemocratically unbelievably always make
@Fireproofjim
If as is likely we are out of the EU because of May, Davies and Johnson then a vote after a referendum on the EU question does seem to me to be the most sensible option.
First we need to vote YES or the second vote cannot happen.
@mike cassidy and Dr Jim
Both good posts, many of them today or is it just my imagination?
Re ….the Treaty of the Union says Forever….
It my understanding that the “Forever” part is till the death of the document.
The Treaty of the Union is a “live” document and the terms and conditions are for the “Forever/Duration of its life.
It doesn’t mean till the end of all time….just till the end of the documents time..aka the death of the document..
Ofcourse there are those who will say different, usually those who think we have no wealth in the Bank of England because it’s the Bank of England.
Or those who also claimed that the wording of the Treaty Extinguished Scotland……but they would be wrong!
Aye here Willie, what ye doin’ down in Bournemouth, your citizens live in Scotland. Maybe you’re just putting on a ‘LibDem Variety Performance Show’ for your masters down below the border line (btbl).
Off T ~ hear and here a question…
Why is it that previous no voters were quick to question and believe the slightest slant made against, the always democratically elected Scottish Government (of the SNP), yet the remaining unlearn’ed continue to be completely uncritical of life, as we know it, under the Westminster systems of continual chaos and doom?
(here’s a hint… there are Weapons of Nuclear Mass Destruction on our doorstep Scotland!)
These doubts are sewn into peoples minds, yet the ones that remain, appear acceptive and unquestioning of the London domineering UK government and are forgetting that Scotlands needs should ALWAYS come first.
Must be the papers, the Main Stream Media and the BBC television.
Now is the time for Scotland to meet n make some new iFriends.
Viva iCatalunya could be one of our many new iFriends.
Sííííí!
O/T – and definitely Cat amongst the pigeons time .
The renaming of the Scottish Executive , to the Scottish government and Scottish parliament, I believe has given a lot of people unfounded hope in what devolved administrations can actual do and achieve with the limited devolved powers gifted by Westminster.
I hope I am not getting into Colin Anderson territory here by raising this, what prompted me was the announcement of Two new social security centres for Dundee and Glasgow, Jeanie Freeman was on our BBC in Scotland, and during the call Kay bit she answered questions on what she as a minister could actually achieve with the very limited powers she had, to her credit she was perfectly honest , very little was her reply, very little because Westminster retained the important bits the money.
When mouthpieces of Unionist parties refer to these vast new powers, they need to be challenged as to what powers they are actually speaking about , these ground breaking areas of control we have suddenly acquired .
So when Unionists refer to these vast new powers and
schrodingers cat says:
“lets face it, the eu didnt put the boat out for us in indyref1, i can see why you think they will change during the campaign for indyref2.”
“as has been pointed out by others, the eu is not completely free to say in public what it really thinks, it is bound over not to interfere”
———————
The whole situation in 2017 is different to 2014.
Until recently the EU has been just as much been “brainwashed” or maybe better “lulled into believing” that England (read=UK/Britain)was the mother and that Scotland the region/land was trying to break away.
Watching German TV was like watching re-runs of the Beeb reports.
Most, if not all foreign journalists are based in London and get the majority of their information/research from the MSM, Beeb, government depts, London centred sources. When they venture North they get “looked after” and “helped” with contacts.
AS was the big man, NS still in waiting at that time and “Better Together” were the protectors of the EU membership.
So yes, the EU hadn’t much of an idea of what was really going on behind the London facade and just tried to keep out of it, it’s an internal UK thing.
The run up to EUref and the absolute shambles thereafter certainly opened up a lot of eyes and Nicola’s clever tactics with the citizens and contacts to the EU big guys turned everything on its head. I also believe there’s a lot of work going on in the background beween the EU and Scotland.
Add the reasons that I wrote about above and yes indyref2 will be different – but to OUR advantage.
Cameron REFUSED to ask the EU for clarity of Scotlands place in the EU.
This time with the Uk all but out, the EU may break with protocol if approached by a Scottish Government which has officially anounced an indyref date. If not…vote Yes and sort EU options later.
@ken500
What you dont get about catalonia/spain is that general franco’s dictatorship which penalised catalonia and the other regions that rebelled against him was within last 80 years.
This is a raw nerve with people in Spain.
The way madrid is behaving revives memorys of this dark period and if it continues will turn the majority there for independence.
Imagine 1745 was 80 years ago and think how you might feel if May was threatening newspaper editors and mayors with being arrested because of their support for a referendum?
Scotland is second richest/third richest part of uk, so i dont buy your complaining about catalonia.
If they achieve independence good for them.
Whats your agenda?
Willie Rennie as a FM? really? or as a lieutenant of FM Davidson in a coalition? Really? Or as Sarawar’s ally? Really?
FFS talk about credibility gap following on from FM Nicola Sturgeon.
Given all that has happened since the Vow and, Brexit vote and Article 50, Scotland voting for any of those options would truly deserve to be dissolved as a Nation and become a region of England forever.
“nicola has already offered the efta solution to westminster as a compromise.”
True. But that’s Breeks’ point. The FM has no mandate to negotiate an EFTA or any other compromise – even if it’s a good suggestion.
The FM’s / Scot Govt’s mandate came from winning the 2016 election which said Scotland should Remain in the EU if the people vote Remain – and if that decision is not respected, Indyref.
So interesting that the pre-ref. Catalans are being threatened with the same ‘mass extinction’ stuff as Scots were. Bet they vote for indie though. Tenen collons..those Catalans.
Corado Mella … 10-47am
You quote a figure of 41% Corado…but no context.
Here are a couple of recent polls of which I’m sure most Wingers are aware….PANELBASE….SNP…43%……SURVATION….46%….and these figures relate to the question ‘Are you in favour of Independence?’…..Pretty damn solid core support right there considering the incessant attack from MSM press and TV.
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.
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.
Instead of striking when the iron was hot, she tried to be ultra cautious.
The result: She was 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%, a loss of half a million voters and 23 MPs.
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.
Scotland can never win as long as it plays by Westminster rules.
What planet does that strange wee man inhabit?
Abulhaq – Catalonia has never been (to my knowledge) a colony of England, therein lies the difference.
England seems in no hurry to mend relations with the EU. It can only benefit Scotland.
The SNP have never said that Scotland must remain in the EU, that is a goal and nothing more than that. Scotland’s relationship with the EU after Independence is up for grabs after a YES vote and we gain Independence.
The people of Scotland will decide what that relationship will be.
In the SNP 2016 manifesto on page 23 what was stated was this:
We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.
Nothing there at all about remaining as a member of the EU as being the only option that would require another referendum on Independence. Our status within the European Union AFTER Independence has never been mentioned by the SNP only that being dragged out would be a reason for another referendum if we voted to remain. Scotland voted by 62% to remain, that gives the SNP the mandate as a material change in circumstances.
This has nothing to do with remaining in the EU as there are other options which can only be possible after we free ourselves from this corrupt Union and it will be the electorate of Scotland that ultimately make that choice and only them.
@Rock
So right. The SNP and its leadership do need to change ‘radically’ or it will go down the shoot. In addition Scots need to realise that the system, as it is, is intent on burying us.
The scare stories in Catalonia are so familiar to our ears (tariffs, bank relocation, currency). These same arguments are trotted out every time. The Scottish independence movement must find an effective way to counter this sort of predictable mince.
Guardian reader, you might have missed it, but the “independence supporting” The National heavily promoted the Greens and RISE to deny the SNP a majority.
I believe this was deliberate. The National’s owners do not want an independent Scotland.
The “pro independence” supporting Greens have almost always voted with the unionists and against the SNP.
Do you blame me for The National sales being no more than 8,000 per day in a population of 5 million?
Rock said: “Scotland can never win as long as it plays by Westminster rules.”
Unfortunately, the SNP nowadays prioritise devolution – being the Scottish “Govt”.
What is the Scottish Govt? Devolution.
What is devolution? Loaned power from Westminster, under Westminster’s rules, with Westminster remaining the master.
Oh dear.
And let’s not forget, even assuming there was indyref and the people voted YES, unless UDI by default is declared – by dissolution of the Union Treaty – any indy negotiations would again be done under Westminster’s rules.
David McDowell,
“The scare stories in Catalonia are so familiar to our ears (tariffs, bank relocation, currency). These same arguments are trotted out every time. The Scottish independence movement must find an effective way to counter this sort of predictable mince.”
The difference is spineless “sovereign” Scots bottled it despite getting a free vote whereas the Catalonians are showing real spine, although they will be crushed by the Spanish state while the EU does little more than make a few noises.
Rock @7-39pm
Rock…do us all a favour…go on holiday with the Donald to Pyong Yang aboard the USS DONALD and please….stay.Thank You.
O/T
After another excursion this afternoon into the EU question by the other big EEA/EFTA promoter here (yes, that’s you Derick!), I really do get the impression that this notion is being driven, directly or indirectly, from isolationists within the SNP who lost the argument during the EURef and are trying to win by the back door. Or even worse, by those who blithely assume that we can win indyref2 by merely getting everyone who voted yes last time to vote yes again. (All 45% of them.)
The “big tent” analogy seems at first glance to be attractive, but to me it is simply evidence of shallow thinking.
Here’s why. Some of those yes-leavers are lost, their isolationism having been stoked by Brexit and they are not coming back. So trying to pander to them is a total waste of time, and in fact counter-productive because it deters other people from changing to yes. And there are many more of them.
Secondly, there are many of those who voted Leave but have the fair play and good sense to recognise the EURef result in Scotland and realise that independence is the main goal anyway. I salute such people. They will continue to rally to indy regardless, and can be sure of getting another chance for their view (if it hasn’t altered by events in the meantime) post-indy. Even if that is unlikely to succeed. But these good folk don’t have to cravenly forelock-tug to the UKGov to get their minority view imposed on us beforehand.
Lastly, there are many Remainers who are increasingly inclined to move over to indy on the explicit promise of staying in the EU. These are exactly the converts we need to get over the line. There are many, many more of them than the small minority of intransigent EU refuseniks.
You can’t assume that these people will be convinced by EEA/EFTA, an equally-costly second-rate business-friendly but people-unfriendly trade deal. No EU, no converts, and no chance of winning.
The Brexit case is already a shambles. In a day or two Theresa is going to try to rescue the failing business by attempting to put a temporary sticking plaster on it, which is already causing cracks among the Brexiteers. Hence Boris’s little escapade. Does anyone think that the wheels are not going to come off the Brexitomobile, and everyone somehow won’t see it?
Perhaps what worries me most of all though is the passivity that seems to underlie the current approach. When Alex Salmond took up the indy challenge support was down around 23%. By taking up this hard challenge he enthused people and gave them hope. He was in effect the smart lawyer who got the people into court, the court of public opinion that is, to argue their case.
We are not going to win indyref2 by passively waiting for opinion polls to change. For a fortuitous change in wind direction. Some helpful change may well come along as the implications of Brexit begin to sink in, but on its own it may never be enough. A case will have to be made in the face of all sorts of obfuscations and distortions. I think this understanding is what lies behind DMH’s exhortations. The right time might not be exactly this minute, but someone will have to come out full-bore for indy, and it will have to be soon, to inspire people and bring people on board who weren’t on board before. It’s as simple as that.
Look at the “Journey to Yes” videos and understand.
As for the transition arrangements of an iScotland to continue, all that remains to be seen. But as existing fully paid-up members how is that possibly going to be more difficult to achieve somehow than the UK’s transition arrangements to depart? The two processes don’t bear comparison.
Let them be in parallel. Mundell doesn’t want that to happen, and that should tell you quite enough.
The EU may currently be observing the diplomatic niceties, and (as someone earlier observed) may not be too aware of the constitutional position of Scotland within the UK anyway, but if you read the runes, it is clear as sunshine in Egypt at noon that in the event of an iScotland, the EU will bend over backwards to retain a part of the (former!) UK after England (and remaining attachments) have exited.
A real two-fingered salute, in the nicest possible and most diplomatic way, of course!
Doesn’t Catalunya have devolved broadcasting and a largely indigenous pro Independence press written in their own language?
Scotland would be independent now if we had that luxury.
I think if I was EFTA, I’d be a bit reluctant to expend energy and even money welcoming an Independent Scotland, but knowing it’s definitely only for 2 or 3 years while Scotland actually applied for the EU. I would feel so used and abused!
As far as the EU “transition” for Indy Scotland is concerned however, this could be fairly easy for the EU. Scotland would have to formally apply via Article 49, but as long as the YES vote is before Brexit, Article 50 is still live. This would mean that a relatively simple addition could be made to the terms of the agreement to allow Scotland to remain in – albeit on non-voting terms – when the rUK leaves, while the accession process goes through.
That might have to be done before ratification of the Terms of the Brexit Agreement by the EU-27, but could perhaps be a provisional clause in them once Indy Ref 2 was formally dated and announced.
But I’d say similarly of Scotland’s announced route was EFTA / EEA. the EEA Council (comprising EFTA + EU) could similarly provide a transition while Scotland applied formally to EFTA, and from there EEA.
As far as I can see there’s nothing in the Treaties to prevent this, and as long as the Treaty doesn’t have to be changed which is difficult and time-consuming – and opens them up to other member requests for change – anything is possible in the EU / EEA if there’s a will for it.
But perhaps the key route to transition is the UK Article 50 itself, which makes timing very precise, and a small window of opportunity. Having said that, if the UK iteslf gets a transitional period, Scotland could be bunged in fairly easily.
IANAL
I want Scotland to leave the UK union. If a Yes decision by the people is achieved then I’d be then keen to discuss/consider, and vote on the merits of the EU/ EEFTA/ leave the EU options, each of these three options has merit. We are resource rich, an exporting country, we have nothing to fear whichever option we chose.
I simply cannot fathom why May and her ministers are proceeding with Brexit, I see no merit in Brexit, certainly none for the general public.And I don’t regard any in her team as mega-brains with some unrevealed great plan post-Brexit.
I’m wary of another referendum because the Unionist establishment will stop at nothing to thwart us. A majority of pro-independence MPs and MSPs voting to leave the UK union is my preference.If we must decide by referendum then strict procedures must be put in place.
For my personal preference EU v EFTA + EEA there is none really, both have advantages and disadvantages. I would want one or the other, but even if neither, I would vote YES to Indy. Slight preference for the EU, better the devil you know, and I think iScotland would do far better as a small nation, than the UK as a big member (pun intended). The voting favours smaller members, who can therefore achieve more by haggling. The big members tend to be more set towards confrontation if they strongly disagree.
Both Breeks and Robert J. Sutherland have a point. The 2016 EU Ref in Scotland returned 62% Remain v 38% Leave, and the SNP mandate for Indy Ref 2 is to remain in the EU, not just the single market. At best the SNP mandate can be justified for Single Market / Customs Market via EFTA, ONLY if there is no chance of Scotland remaining in the EU while the rUK leaves – that would be a pragmatic acceptance of reality. But if for Indy Ref 2 the SNP made no effort to remain in the EU, the SNP voting Remainers ARE being betrayed, and so even are the non-SNP voting Remainers. Personally that wouldn’t matter to me, I’m YES anyway, but there are some who would be hacked off.
O/T….Reuters
just what Mexico city needed……another 7.1 Richter Scale earthquake.
This quote by Rock shows him for what he is, a complete fanny
…….
“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”.
……
There can be no such thing as a “snap brexit”.
Article 50 is very clear that 2 years MUST pass before the uk leaves (brexit) no matter what WM says or does.
Brexit date is known. March 29 2019, not before, not by even a minute.
Rock has been told this SEVERAL TIMES yet STILL promotes this utter gibbering pish.
Rock @ 7:57pm
“The difference is spineless “sovereign” Scots bottled it despite getting a free vote whereas the Catalonians are showing real spine”
I agree.
Peter A Bell @ 11.08 am: Agree! The SNP are leading us through this maze.
The Scottish Government’s latest 38 ammendments to the Brexit deal (alongside the Welsh Government) will no doubt land on stoney ground. All of which inexorably makes a stronger and stronger case for Independence 🙂
Daisy Walker @ 11.25 am: Well laid out plan. Will employ =)
Cactus @ 6.17 pm 🙂 So true! AND! Thank you thank you for your joyous boosts! Viva iCatalunya! =) Viva iScotland! =)
So many good posts on here tonight! Keep it up folks 🙂
Have a lovely evening everyone x
ps geeo @ 8.35 pm 🙂 WELL SAID!!
@Ghillie
The amendments (though I haven’t read them) should be another win-win situation like the UKSC appeal. Get voted in, results in more substantive powers, with Brexit itself yet to come. Get voted down, no LCM – constitutional crisis – possibly means Indy Ref 2 earlier even than expected.
The future of the United Kingdom looks to be driven by values representing England’s historic penchant for the buccaneering, privateering, ducking and diving, style; unfortunately no Spanish galleons or ports to raid but never mind there are plenty of alternatives. Out of the EU trawling the oceans for business opportunities and creative ‘dodgy’ deals, doing banking and wealth management for potentates, oligarchs and shady operatives, its cities inhabited by the mega-rich and also the undeserving mega-poor but all united in sharing the same decaying and crumbling ‘national’ infrastructure and governed by a powerful self-serving caste whose sole interest is parading the fabulousness of the British exceptionalism.
What’s not to like? It’s what the union is/was and will forever be about institutionally screwing somebody, anybody, everybody….and especially us, as we do seem to enjoy the experience so much.
@Robert J. Sutherland
So what if Derrick supports EFTA/EEA over EU membership. Does that matter if we fail to gain Independence? Of course not so then the question becomes irellevant does it not.
You yourself make some pretty bold statements that I doubt you can back up, such as:
“Lastly, there are many Remainers who are increasingly inclined to move over to indy on the explicit promise of staying in the EU.”
Who made this “explicit promise” and what is your evidence that many are “increasingly inclined to move over to indy”? Please share this evidence with all of us as I haven’t seen anything like that but could have missed it of course.
Hasn’t Alex Salmond who you quote at length already come out in favour of the EFTA option? Feel free to correct me if i’m wrong.
The point is Robert as far as I’m concerned nothing is more important than a successful YES vote in any future referendum. Right now I am looking at being out of the EU with no way back in through EFTA or any other route. That is unless we have a referendum that we actually win.
None of the squabbles about the EU or EFTA matter to me, same as those differences between left and right or the Greens because they are irrellevant unless we gain Independence first. Let’s leave whatever future we may have with the EU up to the Scottish people once we have gained our Independence.
Until then your options are zero and you will have no choice. Wishful thinking will not win you the next referendum.
geeo,
“There can be no such thing as a “snap brexit”.
Article 50 is very clear that 2 years MUST pass before the uk leaves (brexit) no matter what WM says or does.
Brexit date is known. March 29 2019, not before, not by even a minute.
Rock has been told this SEVERAL TIMES yet STILL promotes this utter gibbering pish.”
How can you claim that a “snap” Brexit cannot happen without knowing what a “snap” Brexit means?
For your information, a “snap” Brexit means the talks between the two sides will collapse without a deal being reached, which is the intention of the UK government as the EU is not going to give in to any blackmail.
The UK might technically remain in the EU until March 29 2019, but it will be de facto out.
Scotland will be at the mercy of the Westminster government, with no official status in the EU other than a region of the UK.
I can say with 100% confidence that Saint Theresa of England and Wales will deny permission to hold Indyref2.
Do you believe that Nicola will dare defy her and call one anyway and risk a Catalonia like situation?
I can say with 99% confidence that she will not.
Catalonians have a spine, Scots don’t.
David McDowell…7-57pm
I understand the fact that Catalonians have a far harder task to EVEN achieve a Referendum….and nae blood was spilt at the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement between messrs..Cameron & Salmond…can we be sure no more (history) blood be spilt here by a Spanish Gov enacting Francoesque totalitarianism…it must be opposed at every level.
@ Alex Clark at 7:49pm …. “SNP 2016 Manifesto.”
Thanks for the timely reminder Alex.
……………………………………
The “spineless sovereign Scots bottled it …. Catalonians are showing real spine….”
Spineless? What’s that got to do with it? Doesn’t it have more to do with being acquainted with true facts?
The Catalonians have their own broadcasting service, numerous newspapers that support Independence including around 16 in their own language. Meanwhile the individual who accuses No voters of being spineless wants to do away with Scotland’s one and only Independence supporting daily newspaper. I doubt he’d (she?) last 5 minutes in Catalonia.
I think that i can see a consensus forming around the idea of an euref after we have left the UK. the only point about this that i disagree with is the need to have the option of”leave” on the ballot. that question has already been settled, just options of status quo or further eu integration.
the only issue that seems to separate us is whether we have an indyref2 with no reference to the eu or one where we tie a yes vote into automatic efta membership. I believe nicola has a mandate to apply for efta without the need for an euref, the last one with 62% remain has already given her that.
i dont think we can avoid the eu issue in indyref2, indeed, leaving the single market is what will damage the uk and voting yes and staying in the single market will be our strongest economic card.
indeed, waiting for 2 years until we leave the uk before having an euref after isnt really an option. such a length of time outside the single market would really damage an indy scotland.
graf, I wonder if the eu negotiations break down if the eu would give assurances that an indy scotland could stay in/rejoin the eea immediately on a yes result being declared? that would be worth its weight in gold.
re- nicola offering an efta compromise without having a mandate, technically true, but since westminster was always and indeed has rejected it, what difference does it make? other than to make nicola look like the appeaser, willing to compromise, reasonable,, statesman like etc. it was good PR if nothing else
@cat
I think there should be an EU / EFTA / EFTA+EEA / whatever Ref after Indy Ref 2 returns a YES, but I’d go further and say that rather than some vague talk about it, it should be automatically linked to a YES vote, and perhaps even with a set timetable of, say, 6 months afterwards.
I think that could clear a lot of confusion, and mean that Indy Ref 2 could be almost completely about Independence itself, while attracting all former YES voters, plus previous NO Remainers seeing that as the only chance of staying in the EU / single market/.
I was going to suggest this a year ago, but it seemed dangerous at that time, and also I was thinking of having it as a second question which I now think would be foolish and confusing.
Alex Clark says:
“In the SNP 2016 manifesto on page 23 what was stated was this:
We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.”
——————————-
Hi Alex.
If being taken out of the EU is against our will, then that must surely mean our will is to stay in. If the SNP/SG call indyref2 then IMO this would be the status quo position because Brexit was the trigger for indyref2.
You’re right that it’s not the only option though, if mad May panics and says in 24 hrs we are out of the EU – full stop.
What then?
If we are out and alone then all options are on the table, EFTA – EU – Namibian Boys Brigade…….
What about the constituional sovereignty question? 😉 🙂
For me there is only one priority and that is independence so that we can start making our own decisions without worrying about the mad buggers in London.
@dads
fair enough
as long as an indy scotland remains in the single market during the period after indyref2 and euref2.
personally, even the most verment yes/brexiters i know are now demanding we stay in the single market. why fight a battle that is already won? one which the uk msm is presently fighting for us?
if we take the same position in indyref2, the bbc and the guardian will be supporting the same point and the economic sense that makes?
Indy Ref 2 should be about Independence for Scotland and nothing else in my view. Straight YES or NO to a simple question.
That’s the whole point, only AFTER Independence can we make our own decisions about all other areas that control our lives.
Lots of great comments today:
Especially
@Peter A Bell 11.08 am
Succinct as ever Peter.
and
@Daisy Walker says at 11:25 am
“Last time out we had the positive YES movement. BT had Project Fear. This time round, with brexit, we own both these tactics. The tactics of PF were to show people the danger – then show them the solution.”
Absolutely correct the solution is Indy.
and
@ geeo says at 2:11 pm
“You see, in an independent Scotland, Mr Leonard and his fellow unionists, every single one of them, MP/MSP/MEP/COUNCILLOR, are OUT OF OFFICE with a Yes vote for independence.”
Aye run them BritNats all oot and start again.
and
@Graf Midgehunter says at 4:05 pm
“Try turning the camera round 180 degrees and look at the situation from the EU perspective……………………”
Agreed iScotland would be a shoe in for either EFTA or full EU Membership whichever we decide after Indy.
and
@louis.b.argyll says at 5:18 pm
“Willie Rennie is a total fud”
🙂
Aye, and the reason Wee Wullie 1p is such a Fud is neatly surmised by @Robert Peffers says at 5:35 pm
Especially given this is with the SGs Budget being reduced by austerity year on year and without the full remit of fiscal levers, RP.
and
@geeo 8.35 pm
Nail, Head, Hit.
Anyway:
I see it is Rock, Paper, Scissors time so will catch up again tomorrow when I can skip past the Gish folks.
Re spines or lack of.
The British are the best propagandists to stalk the planet.
I had to, and still have to listen to Poles,Fins,Americans,Belgians,and Indians-you name it-living in Scotland tell me Scotland couldn’t survive.Not only Scots buy their shite.
It is also about the British brand and identity which transcends the Spanish thing.
I have Indian born newsagents telling me we are all British.They have the Mail,Express and the Record at the till counter.
Some Indians have no spine either seemingly.
Bad Injuns!
@cat
One of the problems is the resentment some Remainers have that their “Remain” is seen as support therefore for Scotland becoming Independent to stay in the EU. Their take is that they voted for the UK to remain in the EU, and that if the UK leaves the EU, it should not be presumed they still want to stay in the EU, it might be more important for them to stay in the UK.
Basically the two referendums conflict, and though one referendum – Indy Ref 2 – is much of the answer, there’s still the problem that UK Remainers in Scotland might be iScotland Leavers, if for instance, they think (wrongly!!) that iScotland will have no influence compared to the inlfuence they think the UK had.
Ottomanboi at 7.50
As support for independence climbs in all polls what exactly is your point. Down which shoot? (I assume you mean “shute”).
@Dave McEwan Hill
LOL usually a giveaway.
schrodingers cat at 1.05pm
“what did you do?”
Who do you think you are you talking to? What exactly do you do?
I said ‘It is also about the British brand and identity which transcends the Spanish thing.’
The British even still manage to have the butcher’s apron superimposed on significant independent nations’flags across the globe.
You won’t find the Spanish flag represented on any others independent country’s flag.
The British are very smooth operators.
If only we had a bit of rough Francoesque wooing to contend with.
scotspine says:7:13 pm
Willie Rennie as FM? Really?
Aye FUD Minister…
Sorry.
O/T
Nice to see a clip of the Yes bikers here and Mr Dornan is cool under questioning
‘SNP isn’t pushing for #indyref2, we want to see what this #Brexit deal will be, although we fear it’ll be a disaster’
James Dornan msp Video here
link to twitter.com
schrodingers cat says:
“graf, I wonder if the eu negotiations break down if the eu would give assurances that an indy scotland could stay in/rejoin the eea immediately on a yes result being declared? that would be worth its weight in gold.”
——————–
IMO everything hinges on what you’ve just written. If the eu negotiations break down and Scotland goes for Indyref2 (the mandate is there), that would signal to the EU and the rest of the World we mean it.
The EU won’t be very happy with London – utterly pissed off in fact – so yes I could imagine the EU lending its support in a diplomatic way.
Diamond studded gold… 😉
If the result is YES then EVERYTHING changes. Wow!
You know, Brigadier Cry Havoc, c/o of the 77th Brigade, was given the task of disrupting Wings, took a recce, and within 3 days issued his command to his Brigade of eager conscriptees. And do you know what his command was?
“Leave well alone, they’re doing a great job of disrupting themselves. Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake.“.
@cat, I’ve carefully re-read the posting exchange, and I’m afraid you’re in the wrong. DMcEH was active during IR1, to the extent I recognise his name long since.
Jockanese Wind Talker,
‘Wee Wullie 1p’
..Aye..
Runs through the town,
Space in the teeth
To match his mobile frown.
Peeking in yer windows,
Chatting up yer gran,
Will someone no just tell the twat,
Yer going nowhere man!
Still no good news about Brexit-because there is none. Remote and rural communities will end up marooned at the ends of the earth- what other remote and rural communities will disadvantaged? All it would seem.
‘Meanwhile, walking across the Lake District, one sees endless hillsides with grazing sheep. We are told that the UK will negotiate free trade agreements across all sectors if we leave the EU. It is the case that government money is being used to train future trade negotiators, given that this was an extinct profession in the UK. But it is hard to think that a free trade agreement in agriculture with two of the favorite go-to partners, the United States and Australia, can be designed in such a way that they could not flood the UK with sheep products, in which they (particularly Australia) have a comparative advantage. The English countryside would never be the same again…
So, what was in the newspapers? The Daily Mail was leading with horror stories about plucky British holidaymakers having to undergo four-hour security checks in Spanish airports, and opining that this was Europeans “punishing” Britain for voting for Brexit…Leaving aside the question as to why these uber-Brexiteers were holidaying in foreign parts anyway, one could say: “Welcome to Borders”.
This is what you have voted to introduce for yourselves and for everything that you buy from the rest of the EU. Think of the queues of lorries that will back up in northern France as they each wait for inspections of every item—from fresh foods to motor vehicles—that now race through to fill our supermarkets and our showrooms. It is not punishment. It arises from the resurrection of a resource-heavy activity (border controls) that is bound, for conventional economic reasons, to be underfunded for the foreseeable future.
And the final craziness: to still think that a decision made narrowly at a single point in time cannot in a democracy be reversed as new information comes in and old information is exposed as having been deliberate lies. Endless repetition does not make a nonsense a reality, whether in the Lake District, on the intra-Ireland border, or in the UK as a whole’
link to socialeurope.eu
Should WM be forced to produce Brexit impact assessment statements for all regions in England, for the countries of Wales, Scotland and the almost country of N. Ireland. If they cannot should the WM government resign- after all what integrity is left after re-hashing ‘deliberate lies’ (NHS funding for example) and ignoring the warnings about the consequences. Scotland is an unwilling passenger on the Brexit bus about to go over the cliff edge, let’s take our journey in a different direction.
Re EU and EFTA, It is my understanding that if we are in EFTA then we can have our own trade agreements with non EU Members, If we are members of the EU we have to use the trade agreement struck by the EU with the non member which will probably involve tariffs of some sort.Bearing in mind that our biggest trading partner will have left the EU surely it will be a massive advantage to us to be able to conduct our own trade agreement with England, Wales and NI? Or am I missing something?
What Les Cowan says!
Next referendum must have only one question -Yes or No to an Independent Scotland.
However the EU and EFTA question must also be settled by a referendum immediately independence is achieved. The Yes campaign must make that clear and repeat it over and over again.
That should be enough to win as the demographic changes should also give us about 1% every year as older voters are replaced by younger ones. (I am not being callous about their demise as I am an older voter too, but I am determined to hang on until the dream is accomplished.)
Yay, found it at last. Waiting around for Indy Ref 2 is like this:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
@Lenny Hartley
My understanding is that what you say is correct, when the UK leaves the EU and if we were to become Independent then all our trade with rUK would be under EU rules if Scotland were a member of the EU. That means the same customs and tariffs between our countries that the EU would apply.
If Scotland were not a member of EU but rather EFTA/EEA we could do our our own deals with the rUK I believe. That is as well as keeping Fisheries and Agriculture under Scottish control. I’m not surprised that Alex Salmond has openly stated this approach to be his favoured option for an Independent Scotland.
I think it’s best we keep our options open and that should be clear in the referendum, that after Independence the Scottish electorate will make the choice as to what our relationship is to be with the EU as well as the rUK over trade and customs.
@Fireproofjim: “However the EU and EFTA question must also be settled by a referendum immediately independence is achieved.”
The problem with waiting until after Indy is that Scotland would almost certainly be out of the EU / single market, and really have to apply from scratch to get back in. Meanwhile it would be negotiating WTO membership, and loss of much current EU business, freedom of movement, etc. That’s why I think it needs to be before, so as to negotiate a “holding pen”, presuming the referendum returned a “stay in the EU”.
@Graf Midgehunter
“If being taken out of the EU is against our will, then that must surely mean our will is to stay in.”
Mibbees aye mibbees naw as Kenny Dalglish might have said 🙂
I’m hearing that Spanish armoured personnel carriers are in Catalonia. Nothing on the usual news media.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Masters in London have issued a fatwa against Catalan separatists.
Spanish version of “shut up and eat your cereal”.
link to archive.is
@Lenny / Alex
Not too sure about that, and the talks about Ireland / Northern Ireland may well set a precedent from which Scotland / rUK can be negotiated, if something suitable is worked out about customs and tariffs for after Brexit. The EU is well able to add Protocols to the Lisbon Treaty if the EU-27 want to, which are exceptions to the Articles, without having to change the Articles themselves.
Dave McEwan Hill may be too modest or reticent to say so himself, but I’m pretty sure his commitment to independence and the SNP goes all the way back to his involvement with Winnie Ewing’s victorious campaign in Hamilton and Larkhall in 1967.
That’s 50 years ago.
@Tinto Chiel
Well said. There are some that know, work hard and generally don’t crow about it and those that don’t. The rest of us, in fact all of us to be honest can just do the best we can, don’t you think?
Bedtime for me lol.
And to think the Liberals used to be quite popular in Scotland.
A fairly rational choice. Last century.
The polarization (no, not what happened to flag boy on Sat) we see is the indicator of what this shit is all about.
The establishment, north & south, desperately trying to cling on to their cash cow, & the power that that brings.
Feck all to do with ‘normal’ politics.
They won’t go quietly.
It’s not too hard to imagine notes being taken re. Catalonia, to judge just how far to push things, when it comes to shove time.
Re DMH, yup over fifty years working for Indy,
Dave McEwan Hill says:
schrodingers cat at 1.05pm
“what did you do?”
Who do you think you are you talking to? What exactly do you do?
————————-
i was replying to your post
Dave McEwan Hill says to Cuileanat
Exactly. SNP branches and CAs should take the initiative and start campaigning for independence right now. There are no other election distractions at the moment.
————————-
yesnef held 3 street stalls yesterday, who do you think organised this? the fuckin moonies?
———————
Tinto Chiel
so what, i’ve been surrounded by auld buffers all my life that once gave mick jagger a lift and who think they are immune to criticism when they talk pish
the snp are already doing what he says we should be doing. if he campaigned for winnie, good on him, my question was, is he doing now, what he extolling others in the SNP to do now? cos that is exactly what we are doing.!!!!
Yesindyref2 re efta this from a FAQ on EFTA and EEU “Can the EFTA Member States also sign bilateral free trade agreements?
Yes, the EFTA States are not obliged by the EFTA Convention to conclude preferential trade agreements as a group. They maintain the full right to enter into bilateral third-country arrangements.
tinto
if dave is comfortable telling others in the snp what they should be doing, (when we are already doing this, why cant we ask what he is doing?
Tinto Chiel says:
19 September, 2017 at 11:53 pm
Dave McEwan Hill may be too modest or reticent to say so himself………………
bollox
Tinto Chiel @ 11.53 Agree re DMH.
I was 17 and living in EK when Winnie won that bye-election. The next day I read in the DR, ironically,that the SNP believed “Scotland is a country, so it should be independent.” I have been a supporter of independence since then.
When Nicola paid tribute to Winnie Ewing at the last SNP conference in Aberdeen in March I was able to speak to her son Fergus to tell him his mother had inspired me. His reply was that she had inspired many and was still highly regarded in the Highlands and Islands. She was MEP for that area and known throughout Europe as ‘Madame Ecosse.’
What better tribute could a woman have?
“Tinto Chiel
so what, i’ve been surrounded by auld buffers all my life that once gave mick jagger a lift and who think they are immune to criticism when they talk pish”
Classy.
Pish is a very emotive term.
One could easily say that of your speculation on the EU/EFTA question, if one were uncharitable enough.
I think you are sometimes unnecessarily dogmatic about matters which are not yet clear and which may yet be affected by EU realpolitik.
I don’t think it helps the debate to make personal remarks about someone whose commitment to independence is strong, as evinced by his radio output.
I’ve just been reading an interesting article in the National relating to three Catalan Parliamentarians writing to British (Scottish) Labour MEP Claude Moraes, Chairman of the EU Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, claiming that they, the media, civil servants and voters who are in favour of the Referendum have faced “political and judicial persecution” from the Spanish authorities. They also called for him to intervene to ensure that Spain complies with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
There’s lots more in this article which outlines that the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, President of the Generalitat and three other politicians have been charged with calling for the referendum (and are preparing to take their case to the European Court of Justice), the usual ‘economic’ scaremongering, more successful raids on warehouses / printing firms and banks now being instructed to check if payments are being used for referendum activities.
Anyway back to the gist of my post. I don’t know too much about the Civil Liberty J, HA Committee so have been nosying around checking it out. Seems that the protection of EU citizens rights and political minorities is part of its remit. Claude Moraes Chairman of said Committee was born in Aden, moved to Dundee when he was three, studied law at Dundee University, became a Labour MP and was on the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants before heading off to Brussels. Further reading highlights that he detests the Tories and of course thinks that Brexit is madness.
I’m just wondering if anyone on here (Robert?) knows more about this Committee in particular if it could ultimately prove to be useful for us?
Ahm at the Weir Gate, Glasgow Green, sitting down by ra wate,r ths water is up.
V
HOME soon
Love.
LOVE LOVE LOVE.
3 timez loverz c
1 oh clock.
Say so.something.
i.
Alex Clark says:
19 September, 2017 at 7:49 pm
“The SNP have never said that Scotland must remain in the EU, that is a goal and nothing more than that. Scotland’s relationship with the EU after Independence is up for grabs after a YES vote and we gain Independence.
The people of Scotland will decide what that relationship will be…”
What utter mealy mouthed backsliding shite.
The people of Scotland DID decide what that relationship will be, you moron. Scotland voted to remain in the EU! Stop dicking about and respect the sovereign constitution of the people!
Brexit is THE perfect juncture where Scotland has democratically expressed its sovereign will to do something which is entirely incompatible with the rest of the UK, but where Scotland enjoys moral integrity and where the reckless stupidity initiative is all Westminster’s territory, and which brings the whole Union to the point of crisis and irreconcilable collapse. Heads up SNP! That IS the feckin’ objective! Or had you forgotten?
Either the will of Scotland is defeated, or the will of Westminster is defeated, in a binary argument where Scotland has the winning hand because of its goddamned sovereignty!!! Along comes the SNP, doesn’t even recognise the significance of sovereignty and promptly pisses that advantage up against the wall, and just for kicks, sticks two fingers up to our friends Europe while we demand from Europe the same exceptions and soft Brexit options as the deluded Clowns in Westminster were demanding, and in the same breath of hypocrisy expects all our EU resident citizens to line up and vote to back it! Are you really so fecking blind you do not see that???
If that’s SNP policy then no wonder they don’t want to shout about it. The Nicola Sturgeon show is a bigger sell out than Alex Salmond’s show at the Edinburgh Festival.
I hope to God some of your members at conference have the backbone to stand up and defend Scotland’s constitutional sovereignty, and the presence of mind and tactical awareness of the tremendous advantage we have in a Sovereign Remain vote which divides us from the Brexiteers south of the Border, and steers the SNP away from disaster before we’re completely sold down the river by the SNP Brexiteers north of the Border.
Ahm bound for St Andrews Bridge Scotland, she’s blue.
Three minutes.
Glasgow G.
Soon Sco.
Alex Clark @ 20:50:
Well, that’s not very fair. You surely must have missed plenty then. Fr’instance, I hope you will take it as true, since I certainly saw it, and I guess plenty others must have seen it as well, Nicola Sturgeon being interviewed on TV during UKGE17 and giving a very straight answer to a direct question that it is SNP policy, as it is hers, for Scotland to remain in the EU. No ifs or buts. No doubt whatsoever. That hasn’t changed, whatever Alex Salmond may say nowadays.
The justification the SG has for triggering indyref2 is precisely because Scotland is being taken out of the EU against a definite vote to Remain as per the Holyrood SNP manifesto, as you very well know. This isn’t just an empty excuse, a mere political convenience, surely?
As to your point about the “reluctant No-Remainers” (if I can summarise them as that), I covered that in my response, though you seem to have missed the significance of it. The evidence provided by the “Journey to Yes” videos. A considerable number of those interviewees have clearly had their minds changed by the unexpected but very real threat of Brexit.
As I tried to say, this is not merely a case of passively relying on people realising of their own accord of the realities among the blizzard of Brexit lies perpetrated by the BritNats. It requires someone pushing firmly on a half-open door that is ready and waiting to win over former No voters who are just as dissatisfied with Brexit as the people in the videos.
Brexit doesn’t merely signify a loss of trade, BTW, but also a loss of redistributive community funding and a loss of personal citizenship rights, E111 etc, etc. None of which are provided by EEA/EFTA, which is just a business-oriented deal. (Which incidentally happens to cost nearly as much as full EU membership. A real selling-point. Whoops. Not.)
I can’t prove the above judgement call definitively, if that’s what you are seeking (whether in truth or merely as a debating point). Nothing in politics ever is, as I’m sure you know.
It requires having, above all, the political nous to see that there is a potential harvest of votes out there ready and waiting to be garnered from people who just need a little more encouragement with just the right inducement at just the right time. And there are obviously a lot more of such people than there are a few disgruntled isolationists who somehow can’t accept the will of the people of Scotland as very clearly expressed.
(As an aside, it is an all-too-typical mistake of politicians as well as military people to be fighting the last war during the next one. And consequently losing.)
In the end in order to win you have to lead con brio, not merely hesitatingly follow a sheaf of focus group results and polls. It will depend on political courage just as much in the days to come as Salmond showed in 2013-14.
To conclude, your argument works both ways. I have made several points that are worthy of careful consideration, but haven’t been addressed by anyone.
In particular, there is an enormous assumption being made, at least by some, that all of the Yes-Leavers will be reclained by an EEA/EFTA compromise, while somehow this retrograde offer will still attract enough of the No-Remainers to win indyref2. It is a “stanns tuh reasin, innit” claim that is being made implicitly again and again by this “big tent” argument, an argument that itself has never been justified.
I believe it is a dangerous and potentially fatal assumption. Our offer needs to be far bolder than that.
Ahm sitting down smoking a cigarette on St Andrews Bridge.
Love Scotland.
X.
I can see The Clyde, I can see where we all began…
I can see Scotland.
X.
It’s all SO peaceful.
Well, the Herald doesn’t cover a key story about Sturgeon and Jones amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill, whereas the Scotsman does. It doesn’t clean up its comments section in line with its own rules of posting, and the comments have become increasingly Express and Scotsman forum style. The Scotsman now has the disqus style forum allowing better threading which is good. Still overtaken by SNP-haters all the same.
The Herald has had some very poor articles recently, though ironically today it runs a story about the UKIP UK pair at the rally on Saturday – link to archive.is
Looks to me though that having flirted, well more than flirted with the dark side, but pulled itself back at times, it’s now crossing the rubicon. Very few decent posters left btl.
Having been moved up to post-moderation in Nov 2012 and one of only about 3 Indy supporters to be so, kind of forced to stay and give up the Grun as so many people (here and elsewhere) said their comments never appeared and it needed the pro-Indy point of view, I’ll be watching carefully but doubt I’ll post much if at all unless it pulls its standards up. Sad.
End of the Glasgow Herald, perhaps followed by the end of the Herald. A lot of people here would be pleased, I hoped it would pull its socks up and become the newspaper it once was, one I used to give to the kids for their close reading practice. Looks like the end of the road to me though. Another one bites the dust.
We’re on Ballater Street.
Who is partying?
Glasgow.
In the National: Europe to dominate SNP Conference.
‘The FM will give the closing address at the three day event in Glasgow next month, when Scotland’s future relationship with Europe is expected to be dominate discussions…….
Brexit Minister Mike Russell and Stephen Gethins, the SNP Foreign Affairs spokesman at Westminster have put down a resolution highlighting the benefits being in the EU has brought to Scotland and its people……..
The motion asks delegates to recognise that ‘Scotland is a proud member of the European family of Nations’, notes the protections EU law has given to workers, consumers and the environment, and urges SNP MPs to defend hard-won protections, etc, etc.
People are cool.
It’s raining.
X.
It’s raining Yes…
Hallelujah!
Tee hee.
One has arrived within ra new barren fields in front of oor Citizens Theatre..
The road is long…
LOVE.
Cheers on ra main thread,….
Ahm just having FUN!
Walking..
Scotland is beautiful.
Once upon a day, lost in pre-history (i.e. the days when Jo Grimond first ruled the roost) I voted Liberal. I would even have tolerated wee David Steel, had Jeremy Thorpe not come to pass.
There is NO WAY I will ever vote for wee Wullie or any of his henchmen. They have lost their moral compass. And wee Wullie has lost the plot if he truly believes he can become FM.
You take care now Cactus…. Safe home.
And yes yer right Scotland is beautiful
yesindyref2 @ 01:34,
I am sorry about that. Your disappointment is palpable.
Who ever would have thought that the Graun of all papers would have turned out to have feet of clay? Just another English Establishment front.
Your expectation of The Herald wasn’t unjustified, either, because I distinctly recall a leader shortly before indyref (day before, even?) saying that the Union should be given one last chance, but if Brexit ever became a reality the paper would reconsider.
Just another BT fantasy along the same lines as Jakey’s unfortunate marital analogy, it would seem.
Like the current two candidates for BritLab’s Northern Accounting Unit, they all seem to have staked all or nothing on the Union, regardless. A historical error, IMO. And the saddest part of all is that even if the Union survives somehow, despite everything, BritLab’s little outpost and The Herald surely won’t. No ideas, nowhere to go.
One is at the middle of Glasgow Bridge.
The Clyde is SO still.
Glasgow.
Hahaha, a black hack just pulled up n said where goin’ pal… Southside… 25 bucks hahaha…
Fuck you.
Cactus –
you home yet?
Mind yersel and get home safe.
Hey Meg, thankx…
One is HOME.
Two be free.
And free be FOUR.
Let the games begin!
Mwah Scotland X.
@RJS
Should have given up before probably. It’s not just now though, post-indy Scotland will need a couple of good papers, and perhaps particularly a good pink paper, and a couple of other decent papers with a good business section. The Herald could have played it wisely, and its post-EU Ref articles were very good, looked like it had shaken itself up, back on track. But then downhill again, and steadily. Even reasonable unionist posters have deserted it (yes there were some!).
As far as Indy itself is concerned by the way, I’m feeling gooood 🙂
Links
POWER GRAB – The Threat to Scottish Democracy
link to youtube.com
link to indyref2.scot
Scotland’s energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse, has confirmed that carbon capture and storage plans
link to archive.is
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to businessforscotland.com
The North Sea Is Suddenly, Surprisingly, an Oil Hot Spot
link to archive.is
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
link to randompublicjournal.com
How the UK Government overlooked Scotland’s legal system in the Brexit Bill.
link to twitter.com
link to grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com
Britain’s debt timebomb: FCA urges action over £200bn crisis
link to archive.is
link to amp.theguardian.com
link to evolvepolitics.com
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
link to politics.co.uk
link to salon.com
Franco died in 1974? Franco was 34 years in power? After the Spanish Civil. The world depression 1930. Spain did not enter 1WW. (gained?) Fluenze (Spanish word?) epidemic after 1WW wiped out more people than the war. Then Depression poverty throughout Europe/US. Major banking crash. Spanish Civil War 50/50 split. Republicans (right wing Franco church State ) – Communists Nationalists (left wing) Many deaths on both sides. Both killed and massacred many people. Brutal. Republican side killed more.
Spain became a constitutional monarchy -democracy in 1976. Quite recently. The Royals live a more modest lifestyle compared to some. Not so ostentatious as some. Joined the euro in 2002 after a three year transition period. The Eurozone/EU are doing better than the rest of UK/US economy. Growth, stability and lower debt. More stable.
In 1WW no aircraft – horses transport etc, The Spanish Civil War Hitler supplied aircraft to Franco to bomb. (Hired?) The reason why he gained power? Hitter and Franco fell out big time, Hitler despised Franco when they met up. Franco expected to gain an alliance with Hitler. 11WW to gain lost Spanish territory. That did not happen. Spain stayed out of 11WW. Hitler did want an Alliance. Spain was damaged by the Civil War. There is a large conservative, traditional sector/support in Spain. Church, State and family. Quite volatile, vigour, debat and discussion. They have time for it. Young ones changing the political landscape,
Franco. (state -church) elected King re instated as his successor. The King helped bring democracy to Spain. Separate Church and State. Constitutional monarchy. Provincial. Made up of Provinces (same as France) Federal. The Provinces in Spain are autonomous. From the elected Mayor who have a bit of powder. They often decide and make local decision.Sometimes the Msyors get in trouble. They have got shot or shot each other in disputes. There are many shooting guns in Spain especially in the rural areas. Mañana.
They have take pride in their local region/provinces but hate one another? because of Franco. How much evidence of that. Rivalry among regions. Patriotic. The Catholic Church tell them to love one another. Extremely familiy orientatedl. Love and make a fuss of children. They are not aggressive really friendly people. Traditional and laid. The like their holidays. Very hot to work outside in the summer. Long holidays. Healthy diet and climate. Happy because of the weather. Laid back.
The Catalonians and some rural areas can resent ‘foreigners’. Angry slogans sprayed on walls. Some reported resentment against visitors. ‘Too many visitors/foreigners’. They want them to ‘go home’ Although they tend to visit along the Mediterranean coast. Putting money and wealth into the region.
Most Spainards resent their Gov. Deja Vue. Corrupt but politicians, lawyers, bankers have gone to jail because of the financial/housing crisis. The King’s sister and her husband were charged with real estate fraudulent scam. Lots of people were scammed out of money. Including many foreigners. The legal system is bureaucratic.
Do they hate one another? because of Franco. Previous animosity but today?.
They are arguing about £4Billion? which the Catalonia authorities reckon they should not be obligated to pay. It is for the poorer regions of Spain. Bit mean from the wealthiest who were heavily involved and ‘benefitted’ from the credit crunch which fleeced ‘foreigners and fellow EU citizens. Out of their cash with no redress. Some losing their life saving etc. On property which did not materialise or lost value.
There are reports that the Spanish Supreme Court had decided it was unlawful financial interference (£Billion) from the Spanish Gov and it does not have to be transferred/paid. Perhaps rectified the grievance.
They should have their Referendum, of course. To end the impasse, if nothing else but on the.numbers will affirmative be the outcome? 2,300,000+ out of 7.5 million population. Low turnout. 30/40% Looks a bit dodgy. In any case. Both sides – Spain/Catalonia want to stay in the EU. It is an internal Spanish matter which they will have to solve.
The concern is the Catalonian situation is being used as an excuse to try and knock the Scottish Independence movement by constantly comparing it. Without taking notice of the differences. It already has been by the MSM. The numbers do not add up. Is they vote NO or whatever happens in Spain/Quebec or wherever. It is used to try and knock the Scottish Independence movement.
In Scotland support is higher and growing. 50/50. Scotland has a much higher case/cause of grievance, (no fiscal authonomy which 70% support), the fiddled books and figures. The damage Westminster unionists do to the Scottish economy. Promises broken. Thatcher EVEL etc. The Westminster Gov not supporting the terms of the Union in any way shape or form. Scotland not having the powers or rights to grow it’s own economy. Decisions imposed by Westminsterby politicians for whom people in Scotland did not vote. That is not democracy. In any way shape or form.
Scotland being taken out of the EU against it’s will. It will damage the Scottish economy. It is just completely deplorable.
Spanish Civil War. 1936 to 1939.
1/2 million died. 200,000 from combatant caused. 90,000 Republicans. (right wing) 110,000 Nationals (left wing). Less than in 1WW – 11WW. There would have been more injuries and death had Spain had been involved in the 1WW/11WW. Lower population at that time, Spanish population now 42Million? Catalonia 7.5million pop. (Approx 1/5 – 20% of pop). They will have to resolve their differences.it is possible they will. Despite the empasse.
Spain is a beautiful, wonderful country with really nice friendly, happy, helpful people. Amazing. There are just a few sharks surfing the waves. Spain helps the refugees. Sympathetic to their plight as are many countries in Western Europe. Germany, Italy. They pick up the pieces of UK/US unlawful aggression. Westminster unionist politicians really are the most, inadequate, ignorant incompetents.
@rock the gibbering slaver.
The Uk is under FULL EU LAWS/RULES/TREATIES until march 29th 2019.
There is NO “defacto out” if they walk out of talks and do not return.
They continue as full EU members until march 29th regardless of what they say or do.
I shall not be indulging your drivel again, so fill your boots with your usual self loathing introverted mommy issues.
You will not be getting a response, so off ye fuck sonny.
@Breeks says: 20 September, 2017 at 1:04 am:
Has there ever been so much shite in one place in that comment from Breeks since, “The Mucking o Geordies Byre”?
Armed police entered Catalan government offices an hour ago and have detained several MPs as well as searching departments like Economy, IT, Social Services, etc. the day after the Spanish government in a Congress vote failed to achieve the support of a single other party for their treatment of Catalonia.
It is not known if a judge’s warrant was issued, but there is a growing crowd of people outside the offices at present. There is effectively an undeclared state of exception in Catalonia at this time and noone knows what will happen. I’m off to see what I can do.
When gardhem moved from the Record to the herald you could see how quickly if moved further right wing and anti Scotland.
Probably the guys mindset and background. A bit like Begg at the DR. They are Brit nationalists.
It’s hard but I’ll stick with the web, the National and the Sunday Herald . Not supporting the last two only helps the rest of the 95% unionist press and we don’t need to make it 100% as we will move to and independence referendum.
The likes of rock shouldn’t get their way.
@Cactus says: 20 September, 2017 at 1:26 am:
“I can see The Clyde, I can see where we all began…
I can see Scotland.
X.
It’s all SO peaceful.”
Aye! Cactus, but it only looks peaceful.
Can ye mibbies see ony wee ducks?
Weel look afu hard at thaim – they micht look afu peaceful abin the watter – bit unerneath the watter thir wee legs ir gaun like the Bells o Hell.
@Nana
It’s the CCS initiative excites me the most. I’m about as green as a blue bin and that’s it. But the heart of a country is through its enabling economy, and though Scotland could export the technology for the second C of CCS, it’s the S that’s potentially a goldmine, comparable with oil. Scotland has some outrageous percentage of Europe’s storage facility, and this is going to get big.
I used to have a pile of links about CCS, including that percentage and estimated values. Might try to search them again if I can be bothered 😎
Nana & yesindyref2
Carbon capture and sequestration
Longannet power station was the site of a pilot project for CCS and, after other sites pulled out, hoped to get the funding to proceed to a full scale scheme but the Coalition Government pulled the plug on the project
link to sequestration.mit.edu
This is in stark contrast to the situation in Canada where the coal-fired Boundary Dam power station was refurbished and converted to a CCS power station.
link to saskpower.com
It has not been without problems since it went live in 2014 but what new technology when first introduced is without problems? It sells some of the CO2 to the oil companies who use it to extract oil once the free flowing oil has been extracted from the wells thus increasing the yields.
When you look at the dollar cost of the project and convert it to GBP it comes in at less than the projected cost for the Longannet project
link to sequestration.mit.edu
@Marga
Take care of yourself. I think the rest of the EU will be watching this carefully, and perhaps other countries. Democracy is the first of the 3 Copenhagen Criteria for entry, (and presumably part of the Articles):
“1. stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;”
yesindyref2 says:
20 September, 2017 at 1:34 am
“”Well, the Herald doesn’t cover a key story about Sturgeon and Jones amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill, whereas the Scotsman does. “”
…………
The Herald has covered this story. There is almost a full page in the Herald today and a list of the 111 powers coming back to the UK from the EU and the joint approach from the Welsh and Scottish administrations.
The online addition yesterday had two items on the issue.
Willie Rennie = Scottish Cringe.
@Legerwood
Even forgetting Scotland and Indy, the UK is one sick and wasteful short-term puppy. There’s still a few coal stations around the UK, and converting them to CCS would be both healthy and wealthy. What does it do? Cancel the “prize”.
And don’t start me on fusion and Culham, I used to know a senior guy there years ago a little and took an interest. It’s all about funding the dream, and the future economy. Successive UK Govs exist only for nightmares and political soundbites and survival. Economy? Who cares.
Onyways off to bed been working some during the night. To sleep and perchance to dream.
@Legerwood
My bad, though I can’t see one online today. I thought the Sturgeon / Jones talks result was a new story, with the 111 powers already covered.
Note to self: must keep up at the back.
@Ken500 – just a minor point, Franco died in November 75, he had been in power since 1939.
As has been mentioned before on this site, his death paved the way for the removal of foreign nuclear weapons from Spanish ports (US Polaris) and the entry (yes, entry) of Spain into NATO.
Make of that what you will.
For a good primer on the war of 36-39, read Paul Preston’s work. He is regarded a leading authority on 20thC Spain.
On the subject of Europe, its worth remembering that the EEA states have the option of joining the EU – but choose not to, some have applied and then withdrawn. Those countries that have joined the EU, have chosen to do so – and have the right to withdraw.
Its all about the right to choose – and possibly – choose again later, thats what Scotland deserves too, nobody should try to set the future in stone.
The Spanish government in full swing now.
Lock up time.
I know it’s off topic,Rev, but I just read about Craig Murry being sued by the Daily Mail’s online associate editor. This could leave him bankrupt.
You know where I’m going here…
BREXIT FALLOUT
“Bank of America strategists have been crunching the Brexit numbers and are warning the biggest risk for U.K. companies may be a decline in migration after March 2019.
They reckon if net migration fell by 1 million more over three years than currently forecast, there would need to be 400,000 fewer homes and that would have repercussions for the economy.
“Even in a mild environment we could have no house price inflation for a generation,” said analyst Andy Murphy.”(Bloomberg)
Add the Government’s social housebuilding programme and you have a collapse in property prices. Trouble ahead.
Seve LOVES Anas. Shock!
The Guardian in London, gets 100 UKOK% behind a Glasgow multi millionaire dentist, who says he’s not a tory at all, at all, or actually gets his butler to say the master is not a tory at all.
Cant think why Graun twerps love Anas so much:D
Scottish Labour candidate Anas Sarwar laughs off ‘neoliberal Blairite’ tag
Glasgow MSP says label is ‘simply untrue’ and highlights past record of attacking some of Tony Blair’s foreign policy decisions while in Westminster
Anas Sarwar
Anas Sarwar is standing against Richard Leonard to succeed Kezia Dugdale as Scottish Labour leader. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Severin Carrell Scotland editor
Severin Carrell Scotland editor
Remember when it was Daniel Defoe?
Daniel Defoe Scotland editor
then
Samuel Johnston Scotland editor.
Now
Severin Carrell Scotland editor.
Who next?
Boris Johnston Scotland editor.
Anas Sarwar – he who has £4m worth of shares in family company and says he has no influence, they don’t pay the living wage and they dont have union reps. What kind of labour man is he. His children go to private schools, he voted with tories in WM for more austerity and he still thinks he can be a labour msp never mind labour leader. What planet is he on.
Then there is Richard Leonard who is so left wing he is out of the park-and he has so much influence in the labour party that Glasgow city council took women who were fighting for equal pay through every court and still did not pay up. He has nothing to offer Scotland.
If this is the best labour can do – anyone can see where they are headed.
On the question of minimum pay I think this has badly back-fired – no-one can live on £7.50 an hour or even £10. If you work 50 hours per week this comes to £1500/£2000 before insurance and tax- How can you pay a rent/mortgage, utilities etc from this and still have enough to eat or travel to work etc. Employers seem to think they are the good guys if they are paying these rates. They are not – these are not living wages, they are subsistence wages and an insult to working people everywhere.
Now 34, Sarwar first entered politics in 2010, standing for Labour in the Glasgow Central seat just vacated by his father Mohammed Sarwar, leading to allegations of a dynastic succession.
His opponents have attacked his decision to send his children to the same fee-paying school in Glasgow that he attended, Hutcheson Grammar, and his minority shareholding in his family’s cash and carry business after it emerged the firm only paid the legal minimum wage and had not become unionised.”
Says honest Seve, not a UKOK tubthumper at all. If youre not familiar with Hutcheson Grammar school, it is really swish, a perfect embodiment of upper class Scotland’s ivory tower Q jumpers paradise.
We are now back living quite near it too and Hutcheson squats in Govan Hill, one of UKOK SLab target constituencies, with endemic poverty, blamed squarely on local MSP FM Sturgeon.
Yesterday while waiting for the bus on Victory road, near Hutcheson listening to BBC r4 Today royal arse lickers, grovel to just another royal goon, a very thin dirty old man shambled past us, spotted a crisp packet on the pavement, picked it up to check if there any crisps left… an empty bag of NicNacs for breakfast, in the 2017 UKOK Scotland region.
“For a good primer on the war of 36-39, read Paul Preston’s work. He is regarded a leading authority on 20thC Spain.”
Have to agree Jock. Perhaps surprising for an historian, but to his credit, he says he cried while researching/writing parts of The Spanish Holocaust.
Oh No!!! Not Again!!!
According to today’s editions of our favourite colonialist propaganda blats Scotland’s Oil and Gas is going to run out in the next decade.
Can anybody remember just how many times the bad guys have used this perennial scare story? – we have been fed it regularly every few years since the 70s when in reality anybody who peruses the actual situation re reserves can’t avoid noticing the regular announcements of new substantial oil and gas fields being found.
Yet another indication of the desperation of our colonialist rulers as they face the prospect of Indyref2 and the annihilation of Better Together and their disgraceful lie-driven deluge of fake news.
Can anybody remember just how many times the bad guys have used this perennial scare story?
Ha! I first threw a pair of tongs back in 81, and all the usual UKOK reprobates explained very clearly, be warned, NOT Scottish oil and gas will run out completely, by the year 2000.
Its a lot like listening to BBC Scotland gimps and OO goonshows explain, how all the giant not Scottish oil and gas installations had to be built in south east asia slave wage ship yards, because it was so much cheaper. Meanwhile, all the once great Clydeside shipyards were demolished and filled in.
You can still scope shabby scout hut buildings close to the once great Clyde ship yards, sad union jacks flap over the shabby roofs, boom boom boom of the very big drums and whatever sound a flute makes, piddles out the doors.
Gus1940
It is usually recycled when the Yes vote goes up in the opinion polls.
He
“an empty bag of NicNacs for breakfast, in the 2017 UKOK Scotland region”.
Make you weep it would, meanwhile, In Labour millionaire and Lord Land, I give you Lord Reid and his “Gift of a watch from His Excellency, Sheik Rashid bin Abdallah al Khalifa of Bahrain following my meeting with him in June 2009”
Later Human rights in that country were described as as “dismal”, and having “deteriorated sharply in the latter half of 2010”?
Wonder if he will keep his watch, he could afford to buy another after his payout for supporting private healthcare’ at the Portuguese Healthcare System Conference, Coimbra, Portugal, sponsored by the Portuguese Association of Private Hospitals. (£5,001-£10,000) Travel and accommodation also provided, or his pay from Group 4s G4S’ a security giant complicit in worldwide human rights abuses, particularly torture carried out against Palestinians.
Knows the IRA songbook by heart apparently.
Poverty abounds for decades in the west of Scotland, But not for the Red Baron Reid.
A Résumé
Home Secretary (8 May 2006 to 28 Jun 2007)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (5 May 2006 to 28 Jun 2007)
Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (11 May 2005 to 8 May 2006)
The Secretary of State for Defence (6 May 2005 to 5 May 2006)
Secretary of State, Department of Health (12 Jun 2003 to 11 May 2005)
The Secretary of State for Health (12 Jun 2003 to 6 May 2005)
Chair, Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee (30 Apr 2003 to 7 Jul 2003)
Lord Privy Seal (4 Apr 2003 to 12 Jun 2003)
Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Privy Council Office) (4 Apr 2003 to 12 Jun 2003)
Minister without Portfolio (24 Oct 2002 to 4 Apr 2003)
Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair (24 Oct 2002 to 4 Apr 2003)
Party Chair, Labour Party (24 Oct 2002 to 13 May 2003)
Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee (1 Jul 2002 to 1 Jul 2003)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (25 Jan 2001 to 24 Oct 2002)
Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (24 Jan 2001 to 24 Oct 2002)
Secretary of State, Scottish Office (17 May 1999 to 24 Jan 2001)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (17 May 1999 to 25 Jan 2001)
Minister of State (Transport), Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (28 Jul 1998 to 17 May 1999)
Minister of State, Department for Transport (27 Jul 1998 to 17 May 1999)
Minister of State (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions) (27 Jul 1998 to 17 May 1999)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (6 May 1997 to 27 Jul 1998)
Minister of State (the Armed Forces), Ministry of Defence (5 May 1997 to 28 Jul 1998)
Member, Public Accounts Committee (13 Jan 1989 to 15 Dec 1989)
Meanwhile, Almost one in four children in Wishaw and Motherwell are living in poverty,
The Campaign to End Child Poverty, a group representing 130 organisations including Barnardos, UNICEF and Save The Children, calculated the figures based on the number of households run on less than £10 per person per day.
It was estimated that 24 per cent of youngsters in the two towns are part of struggling families.
House of Lords Champagne anyone.
Morning heedtracker, re the empty bag of NicNacs…
When I got off the train at Central Station yesterday evening, I was approached by a Glasgow beggar asking for money, so I said aye nae bother pal and gave him all the silver and gold from my pocket and wished him well.
Then he surprised me by saying he needed MORE (that was a first) Before I’d even left the station, another beggar approached me asking same… I said I gave it all to yer pal, ask him to share with ye.
Then there’s the ever increasing number of rough sleepers on Argyle Street.
Something’s got to change.
@Tinto Chiel says: 20 September, 2017 at 10:04 am:
““For a good primer on the war of 36-39, read Paul Preston’s work.
No other comment than – The Spanish Holocaust:-
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
There are 10 parts in all in this series:
Here’s something else:-
link to youtube.com
The decline in the Oil sector since 2010 is because of high illegal Westminster tax. Deliberately or in total ignorance. Either is a disgrace, The tax should be in relationship to the price. Scotlabd Gas list £4Billion+ a year since 2010. More Oil &Gas has to be imported. Fracked Gas from the US and £Billions from Norway. Losing Scotland even more £8Billion a year. Since 2010 = £56Billion. Scotland had lost 120,000 jobs. Scotland could have had full employment and higher wages.
Scotland is one of the best places for producing renewable energy. Cheaper and easier to produce. Vast resources which will give alternative safer sources of fuel and energy. Scotland is surplus in fuel and energy but costs more becUse it is on average colder in Scotland. An unfair tax in UK uneven markets on the Scottish economy.
Westminster total complacency, intransigence and mismanagement loses Scotland £Billions.
Everywhere. The Oil and Gas sector has been taxed at 40% since Jan 2016. UK Corporation tax is less than 20%. Many multinationals are making vast profits illegally tax evading and paying no tax. HMRC is not fit for purpose. A disgrace, The wealthiest pay no tax. A high division between the wealthiest and the less wealthy which is increasing. A higher number of women and children are in poverty. Increasing from 18% to 20% because of Tories policies.
The Tories and their cronies want out of the EU so they can continue to tax evade and embezzle public money. The EU is clamping down on tax evasion Multimillionaire unionists politicans embezzling public money and tax evasion. Enough is never enough. Most of them should be in jail.
Recycled News! I like that. I remember first hearing that the oil was running out in 1974 – furthermore, it’s the wrong kind of oil.
I see Spain is translating all our catastrophic consequences of a Si vote in Catalonia.
Something’s got to change.
Scotland’s been gutted by this union, since the end of WW1.
Scotland’s been under merciless and unremitting UKOK propaganda assault, by red and blue tory UK for generations. That’s why all yoon culture thinks it can blatantly lie both at Scots and about Scots.
BBC Scotland creeps did not dream up Rab C Nesbit merely for high BBC comedy art, Billy Connolly did not find a huge English market for his Scottish poverty is such a laugh by chance, but you can do this all day.
A multi millionaire dentist from Glasgow, like Anas, is just what Scottish democracy needs.
There’s a giant mural of Billy Connolly on the side of an office block at St Enoch Square. Connolly calls Holyrood the pretendy parliament, from his homes in California and Venice.
You can do this all day…
Robert J. Sutherland, 20 Sept 1:08
Sorry, but you are incorrect to state that EFTA loses rights to free movement, etc. Citizens of the three EFTA states that are in the EEA – Iceland Norway and Lichtenstein have exactly the same rights to free movement that EU citizens do.
link to efta.int
Second, the EHIC applies to all the EFTA states, this time including Switzerland.
link to ukehic.com
I happen to have personal knowledge of that, as my daughter was knocked off a bicycle in Reykjavik and received free healthcare.
Will adjusting the offer to focus on the Single Market, rather than EU membership increase the Yes vote? I don’t know. I do know that the current EU focus hasn’t increased it. Yes is not at 62%
yesindyref2 says:
20 September, 2017 at 9:06 am
@Legerwood
“”My bad, though I can’t see one online today. I thought the Sturgeon / Jones talks result was a new story, with the 111 powers already covered.
Note to self: must keep up at the back.””
………….
The online stories yesterday in the Herald were: ‘Ministers to release 111 list of powers’, then ‘Ministers release list of…’
Two bites of the click bait cherry.
The story in today’s Herald newspaper may not have made it online yet. The Herald often holds stories back then post them later in the day thus keeping the click bait levels up.
I don’t often comment blt these days because their revamped web site does not seem to work too well on my laptop or tablet so have pretty well given up on the web site.
@Phronesis
“for the countries of Wales, Scotland and the almost country of N. Ireland”
I understand where you’re coming from but by no stretch of the imagination can N. Ireland be considered even an “almost country”.
It is a colony pure & simple; see the definition below from the Oxford English dictionary
OED: “A country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country”
with an example of usage: ‘In 1947 Britain lost control of India, the colony that British prime minister Disraeli had once called the ‘jewel in the crown of England’.’
If ever there was a list of links posted on this site, today’s just about sums up why we’ve got to get out of this chronically sick, sick, sick Union. I’m on my IPad so totally limited in relation to delving into each one of them and responding, however I’m going to use them later today to convince someone who’s ‘wavering’ to vote Yes next year. So thanks Nana.
A wee message for the SNP bashers on here. Check out the Indyref2 link at 7:05am …. your enemies – enemy.
Marga thanks for taking the time to pass on information to us. What’s happening in Catalonia right now is absolutely horrendous and very scary to boot. High time the UN and EU got involved to put a stop to this before it further escalates. Keep us up to date if you can. Take care of yourself and pass on our best wishes to your acquaintances X
@ Chang Sha at 11:37am …….”Colony.”
Thanks for posting the definition of a colony Chang Sha which highlights clearly that Scotland is a colony too. Simple as that.
Thanks for all those clips, Robert. That’s my afternoon sorted, although I don’t think “enjoy” will be my word for it.
I saw a few years ago a Canadian documentary on the SCW. One incident I remember was when a Nationalist general was driving past his troops, who were executing Republican prisoners. He recognise one was an American from the Lincoln Division and he ensured he was sent to a prison camp. The rest of the captives were then shot.
I have also “enjoyed” Homage to Caledonia by D. Gray and An Anarchist’s Story by Chris Dolan.
“BBC Scotland creeps did not dream up Rab C Nesbit merely for high BBC comedy art, Billy Connolly did not find a huge English market for his Scottish poverty is such a laugh by chance, but you can do this all day.”
Yep, heed: there is the phrase “wee Scotch monkey on the English organ-grinder’s barra” which springs to mind.
OT.TODAY.
“Spain’s Guardia Civil police have detained a dozen senior Catalan officials and raided regional government ministries involved in organising a banned independence vote.
Tensions were already high when Josep Maria Jové, number two in the Catalan vice presidency, and others were held.”
Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls…. 🙁
BBC World News Archived:
link to archive.is
Expressing an opinion on here about EU/EFTA does appear to stir up a hornets nest. I want to be very clear here, I favour no option as being better than the other.
Both have their pros and cons it would seem and the only person I know of in the SNP that has came out publicly in support of EFTA as an alternative to full membership of the EU is Alex Salmond.
Whatever will give Scotland the best chance of winning Independence is what I’m in favour of. There is currently only one certainty regarding Scotland’s relationship with the EU and that is staying in the UK and failing to win a referendum means neither option will be open to Scotland.
No point arguing the toss over however many options there are on any topic because unless we convince the majority of the Scottish electorate to support Independence first it’s all meaningless chit chat. Eyes on the prize remains my philosophy.
Truly the Anglo-Scottish ‘Union’ is shit and we all know where that should go. Translate that into graphic political terms for those of our population rather slow in recognizing the nature of the material and we we will start to move. Hope the SNP conference delegates are allowed to let rip on the subject. Btw Visca Catalunya!….we are with you bothers and sisters in your fight for freedom…even if ‘officially’ we’re not supposed to be. Such irony!
Derick fae Yell @ 11:13,
Hi Derick. Hope you will still read this. I explicitly didn’t mention free travel rights, since I was aware of that one.
That issue alone would provide a fair old stumbling block for the hardline isolationists, of course, which supports my own case in the same way as the cost issue does.
Thank you though for your correction re health care rights, which you clearly can talk about from personal experience. I wasn’t aware of that one.
As to your point about lack of movement of the 62%, I think I really did cover that in my previous posting. It’s latent, I grant you that, but I believe it’s available for the taking for anyone willing to go for it. That’s what good politics is all about.
We have to win votes from somewhere, after all, if we’re to win next time? And it surely won’t come from the Brexiteer camp, will it…?
Robert J Sutherland
Thank you for the polite reply.
I’m with Alex Clark. Whatever option results in a majority for Independence works for me!
For the avoidance of doubt I voted Remain last year. But we have to adapt to where were are now, and specifically to where we are likely to be after March 2019. Which is as yet unknown (but probably nowhere good).
And I very much agree with the penultimate point in this article from the Reverend. Independence should NOT be tied into one possible policy destination.
I’m attracted to EFTA/EEA because it’s the fastest and most deliverable way back into the Single Market, and potentially offers something for sufficient of the Yes-Leavers and the No-Remainers to vote for.
Focus on the Single Market, which is where the majority of the benefits of both the EU and EFTA/EEA are, not on which way to be in it. The only real question in my mind is customs union membership or not.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
The only Rennie that gives me indigestion.
Derick fae Yell @ 16:10:
We can all agree about that, I think! It’s the “how” that is up for debate.
I simply don’t accept the easy but potentially flawed “big tent” assumption that appears to underly the whole EEA/EFTA case. (And I don’t mean what may eventually transpire as a “holding pen” option to transit into the EU as a full member in our own right. About that I’m quite relaxed.)
Arguing for EEA/EFTA as something to aim for on its own merits, though, is something else entirely. It brings up all sorts of contrary arguments, some of which I’ve tried to elaborate, and which will certainly be used against us by our opponents if we try to deploy this in indyref2. Think flawed “sterling currency union” compromise repeated.
I heartily recommend seeing the new “Power grab” video by Phantom Films featuring George Reid and Alan Bisset and subject of the following thread. (Though you will likely already have viewed it by now.)
In the video, the latter argues very persuasively that without the EU at our back we are defenceless against a predatory UK. And he’s right.
Might reserve judgement on the EU’s interest, and ability, to be at ‘our back’ depending on how things pan out in Catalonia
Non-intervention in the internal affairs of member states is pretty much a founding principle of the EU. How could it be otherwise, given European history.
Derick fae Yell @ 19:50,
Hmmm, that view doesn’t chime well with the Great Federalist EU Ogre argument of the Leavers you hope to charm back, does it?
A large amount of the anti-EU case plays just like the old penny-tossing trick: “Tails I win, heads you lose”!
“the Great Federalist EU Ogre argument of the Leavers”
I know it’s mince. You know it’s mince. But if people believe it, it unfortunately has traction. When faced with a hardened position, flank it. We are talking about 11% of voters here, many of whom were Yes voters in 2014.
Regards the ‘protection’ of the EU. Also somewhat mythical.
“The Commission has no general power as regards minorities, in particular it has no power over issues relating to:
the recognition of the status of minorities;
their self-determination and autonomy;”
link to ec.europa.eu
Apologies if this has already been raised.
1st Act of Scot Parly after a YES vote – dissolve treaty of union. England can then only take itself, wales and NI out of EU.
EU then has to deal with us as a continuing member and come up with a deal for us.
Either walk away from our so called UK debt and shared assets or negotiate.
Derick fae Yell @ 11:55 (22.Sept),
Here’s trying to squeeze one last drop of life out of this thread! =grin=
Your first comment illustrated well my point about “fighting the last war”. We have to recognise (as we both may do) that an element of former Yes voters are inclined to isolationism.
Most, I believe, can read this situation right, are fair-minded enough to recognise the popular will, and will continue to stick with independence because they know that remains their only safe option.
But for a small minority (whatever percentage you think), isolationism was their main motive and independence merely a means to that end. They have been “captured” by this UK Brexit. These people are not going to be in the least interested in joining any trading union, above all a 2nd-class one that is near as costly as the EU to boot.
It is a complete waste of time trying to re-incentivise such people. Worse than that, attempting to do so brings a serious risk that it will alienate the two groups we really do need to win. Firstly all the Yes voters who prefer to remain in the EU, and all the former No’s who feel the same. And there’s 62% of them! Yet this risk is being entirely discounted, assumed-away as if it didn’t exist!
This is what I mean by looking forwards not backwards. We have to scoop new converts “from the granary”, not simply scrabble around on the ground trying to pick up a few grains of spilt corn.
As to your dismissal of the EU, who exactly is causing so much reputational damage to the UKGov right now? Not exactly Switzerland or Liechenstein, is it? The EU is already helping us enormously just by behaving responsibly over Brexit. It may even be chipping away at the belief of some of those here inclined to isolationism, as they begin to see the true costs involved.
Beyond that, we need to get thinking far more like an actual real country. Marshal as many big battalions on our side as we can. The EU is clearly only still “discovering” us, and we need to push that along, not shrug it off in our own copycat form of insularity, and believe it inconsequential.