The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Tomkins For Independence

Posted on April 30, 2017 by

We greatly enjoyed Any Questions on Radio 4 this week. Well chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby, it was a mostly grown-up and adult discussion of issues around nationalism and independence, perhaps assisted by the fact that – we gather – Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale was unable to take part and was replaced as a Labour representative by Lord Falconer, who offered some considered and intelligent views.

The only slight wasp in the ointment was Tory list MSP Adam Tomkins, who delivered his usual boorish, patrician and arrogant debating style, which was frequently met with boos, jeers and catcalls from a feisty Blantyre audience. But he did come out with one rather unexpected and off-message policy position.

(Any Questions, BBC Radio 4, 29 April 2017)
.

Wait, did we hear that last bit right?

“I would be quite happy, Jonathan, to go to my grave never having to fight another referendum campaign. I’m a Parliament man – I think what we do is we elect parliaments to represent the people, to make decisions on behalf of the people.”

Since only one Parliament – the one in Edinburgh – represents specifically the people of Scotland (and Scotland’s representation at the UK parliament is overwhelmingly SNP and likely to remain so after the general election anyway), we find ourselves in unusual agreement with Professor Tomkins – sod referendums, let’s just have a vote in Parliament to decide on independence and get it over with.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

1 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. 30 04 17 14:56

    Tomkins For Independence | speymouth
    Ignored

249 to “Tomkins For Independence”

  1. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Adam T is the BCUPS Constitutional Expert after all.

    So a straight Parliamentary Vote on Independence it is then.

    Is it in their Manifesto???

    🙂

  2. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    ” sod referendums, let’s just have a vote in Parliament to decide on independence and get it over with.”

    Works for me. 😀

    Awesome insight by Tomkins. (cough)

  3. Richardinho
    Ignored
    says:

    This of course would be a ‘UDI’, a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. I agree with this, but the SNP would need to campaign in an election on these grounds. I argued they should do that this time around.

  4. Iain More
    Ignored
    says:

    “sod referendums, let’s just have a vote in Parliament to decide on independence and get it over with.”

    I couldn’t agree more. I better go lie down as I think I have taken a funny turn!

  5. Helena Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh please let’s just do this.

  6. jimnarlene
    Ignored
    says:

    Sounds like a plan.

  7. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Despite being a member of Holyrood, I suspect when he says “Parliament” he is referring to Westminster! That is where his allegiance lies, totally and completely.

    If, and I doubt it, he was referring to Holyrood then “bring it on”, let’s just vote for Indy. Have it in the SNP and Green manifestos, call an election, and get it done. With PR it is completely democratic.

    The problem I have with Westminster is governments get elected with absolute majorities and power, despite up to 65% of votes cast being against that ruling party. (63.1% against, in the case of the Tory ‘win’ in 2015.) So in the case of WM, unlike Holyrood, a referendum is needed to pass the 50+% test.

  8. Simon Chadwick
    Ignored
    says:

    Quite right too.

    Lets have this in the SNP manifesto as well as the Conservative one.

  9. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Great, which Parliament?

  10. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve always thought the ‘lose 2 referendums and it’s all over’ argument was a bit odd. If we lose Indyref2, I would still vote SNP as I always have, because they support independence.

    Every election could be in effect a referendum if the SNP puts ‘declare independence if we pass 50% vote share and a majority of seats’ in their manifesto. What’s to lose? We get two shots at it every 5 years.

  11. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s get the Council election won first then we can deal with the GE.
    Those labour Tory lib dem authorities who have banned political banners/ posters from all elections will be defeated next week. The new SNP/ Green coalitions should immediately overturn the bans and allow the freedom to put up banners by the political parties before the GE.

    Let’s see how many labour Tory volunteers actually exist.

  12. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Listened to this the other night, what struck me when he said ‘I’m a parliament man’ was that he’s only been in the Scottish parliament for less than a year but talks as if he is some ‘old hand’, but you’re correct if as he says the parliament is the ultimate decider on behalf of the electorate that votes for the make up of Scotland’s parliament, then decisions about our costitutional arrangement with England/Wales should indeed be made at our parliament.

    Can twitterers take this argument to him directly please? Cause if he ‘dodges’ by saying ‘I meant Westminster’ then it begs the next query, ‘as Scotland’s representatives in Westminster are made up of 56 SNP parliamentarians this surely is even more of a mandate for the decision about our constitutional arrangements being taken in the Edinburgh parliament?’

    He’s also a coward, as we saw during the debate last week about the R Clause, don’t expect any honesty but he should be pursued and hashtagged relentlessly over this. 🙂

  13. Peter Macbeastie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hah.

    Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s have the pro independence majority and the vast majority of Scottish MP call the shots. Certainly works for me.

    We put all those people in their jobs and as they are all pro independence I am totally comfortable equating their position as mandated. The pro indy majority is currently secure at Holyrood and Scottish Westminster seats are, in spite of polls apparently slating anything from five to twelve seats going Tory (which begs a question; who the hell are they asking?) is still solidly SNP and will be after the election.

    Oh, the unionists will howl that it isn’t democratic but I’m pretty certain voting for pro independence candidates to the point where there are more of them than Unionists in Parliament is precisely democratic, and them pushing independence is exactly what I want to see them doing.

    The concept of referenda is fine as far as it goes, but Westminster has clearly decided it will only be required for major constitutional decisions and that’s basically smoke and mirrors. They only want the public to decide when they don’t want the blame for what results. ‘You voted for Brexit; this is your own fault.’

  14. X_Sticks
    Ignored
    says:

    Looks to me like that is what it might come to. Scotland has every right to self-determination.

    Bring it on.

  15. Geoff Huijer
    Ignored
    says:

    I wish we would.

  16. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    Unless it is all weakly worded as ‘This parliament will ask Westminster to open negotiations on Scotland becoming an independent nation’ which is open to being refused it is likely to be ruled extra vires on being on a reserved matter.

    THIS is primarily why the SNP went for a referendum in the first place, a bill in our little parliament insisting Westminster do something is pretty much pissing in the wind, as the response to the request for a Schedule 30 permission for another indyref shows.

    A referendum showing a majority of the population want independence is very much harder to ignore and will be watched by the whole world so international reputation is at stake. A bill in our little parliament not so much.

    See the problems the Catalans are having for another example. Madrid don’t want a referendum for the same reasons.

  17. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    A UDI if it is to succeed needs careful planning and fast feet on the ground. It is more than passing a bill and waiting for Westminster to agree. It has to made a fact on the ground faster than the likes of the OO can respond.

    The head of Police Scotland and the other emergency services will have to be on board. You have to be confident they won’t action any arrest warrants coming from London for eg. We may also need armed and armoured police around Holyrood in case an army unit is sent in instead.

    New institutions like an MoD to issue orders to our troops will have to be ready to roll too as well as the financial side of it and a currency solution.

    Hard to do all that in secret in advance.

  18. James Mills
    Ignored
    says:

    Adam is ‘a Parliament man ‘- but only because he got in on the list system . No one voted him into Parliament except Ruth Davidson . Very democratic !
    That’s why he doesn’t like referendums – the people get to decide , and he doesn’t trust them .

  19. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “A UDI if it is to succeed needs careful planning and fast feet on the ground. It is more than passing a bill and waiting for Westminster to agree. It has to made a fact on the ground faster than the likes of the OO can respond.”

    You do know that we’re joking, right?

  20. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    A Mr Tompkins a joy to behold , anyone know exactly how many were duped into actually voting for him ? .
    When you see the desk thumping Tories all nodding and braying in unison in the very parliament they never wanted to be re-convened , i always have a feeling of nausea and loathing , the fact that most of these people should not be sitting there , with their presumed right and arrogance they seem to believe its their parliament,and they won the last election , a sickening sight .

  21. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    The man is an absolutely dummy, ‘It’s referendums that divide people’, what kind of argument is that, and what, elections pull people together? #UtterMuppet

    So by that logic there should be no more elections. It is almost criminal that this man is taking up space that could be put to better use.

  22. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Sooo…if the SNP were to get a majority on June the 8th we default back to the 1980s position that this is a signal to begin independence negotiations?

    I am up for that 🙂

    Somehow I suspect that he may backtrack on that a wee bit.

  23. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Graham @ 13:53,

    It’s clear the Tories have never believed in Holyrood, as is revealed by their young hopefuls =cough= being eager to leave as soon as the opportunity presents to try for a seat in their glorious Westminster, the toadies.

    And then there was STV’s Colin Mackay astutely getting Annie Wells to admit on camera that Holyrood was nothing to her. Which begs the staringly obvious question as to why she was bothering to be there at all then.

    Which is true for the whole parcel of them. They will only treat our Parliament seriously when it is fully sovereign. We will actually be doing them a favour when we get that settled.

    Only then will we get serious dedicated representatives from across the political spectrum.

  24. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘astutely getting Annie Wells to admit on camera that Holyrood was nothing to her,’

    So she’s only their for the salary? Not to represent the constituents in her capacity as their MSP?

    Has anyone a link to this interview?

  25. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Adam Tomkins is a Roundhead. He was Republican not very long ago. Once “Parliament” has implemented his plans, he would dissolve it then appoint his son as successor Protector. 🙂

  26. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    there…obvs

  27. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    Referendums do not divide people. They are only held when people are already divided, in this country.

  28. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Adam Tomkins is a Round Dickhead.

    Fixed that Capella 😉

  29. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Listen, in my view at least there can never be an Independent Scotland without the approval of the majority. That could be through a referendum or a national election but in either case you still need more than 50% of the vote.

    A UDI without 50% is never to going to work, does anyone seriously want tanks in George Square again? They would have every right to claim they were looking after the interests of the majority of Scots when sending them in.

    Best that we expand our energy on persuading those closest to us to support an Independent Scotland. That’s how we win.

    As well as the army on our streets you’d undoubtedly have these nutters to deal with. I don’t fancy that at all. I’d much rather persuade people to come over to our side than try and force anyone.

    https://twitter.com/plasmatron/status/858670427681566720

  30. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh and a by the way. They want “us” talking about this shite.

  31. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ K1

    This article contains a link ot the video of ANnie Wells:
    https://www.autonomyscotland.org/annie-wells-msp-is-right-the-scottish-parliament-isnt-sovereign/

  32. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops, pressed submit too soon:

    to, not ot
    Annie, not ANnie

  33. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 @ 14:38,

    There doesn’t appear to be anything on Youtube, alas, but though I don’t do Twitter and can’t seem to play any video on there when I dip in, this should be what I mentioned:

    #ScotRef pic.twitter.com/qWCQ6w24Ku

  34. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    So if I’m the the third child and I happen to discover that my family receives three tax credits, should I then start to wonder about my ancestry or my parents relationship?

    Tory family values!

  35. The Dog Philosopher
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP seem to be going to great lengths to prove beyond any doubt the credibility of Scotland’s desire to become an independent country. If this were a game played by Westminster ‘rules’, then I’m sure the last GE result and the last two Holyrood results would have provided sustained evidence of the demand for Scottish autonomy.

    Reflecting on the Indy#1 referendum, it does seem to fit into Westminster’s continued modus operandi of obstructing at every turn the ever-growing desire for Scottish self-determination. The increasing pressure the SNP brought upon the Labour Party forced them, reluctantly, to bring about a devolved parliament (do they still prefer to call it an Executive?). This was nothing more than a sop, an act of appeasement, in order to outflank the rising tide of SNP support and hang on to their fiefdoms. Alas, it did not kill the SNP ‘stone dead’.

    And as you look back at Indyref#1 you realise how undemocratic the whole affair was. And it was the Labour Party in Scotland who chose to sacrifice itself on the big unionist cross, so that Tory right to rule Scotland remained sacrosanct. The Tories gave them some planks of wood and some nails and said, go ahead guys, knock yourselves out. And they did.

    Here endeth the lesson.

  36. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    You do know that we’re joking, right?

    Reading some of the comments I think the answer is no. Well done for clarifying, I did wonder myself.

  37. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    He is a massive gob sh_te toryboy wise, my Slovene girlfriend but something is going wrong out there. Having slammed into Scotland and England with their blitzkrieg GE June8, tory shock and awe seems to be wearing off a bit.

    http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/30/tory-lead-over-labour-falls-by-10-points-in-a-week-6606595/

    Prof Smirky’s really after Ruth D’s job, then its the Lords, the greatest reward any counter jumping carpet bagger like the good Prof could ever dream of, a Great British Law Lord, my wont that impress the neighbours, in Gillingham.

  38. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ K1 – thx 🙂

  39. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, I believe this Tomkins chappie implicitly, so let’s get to it. 🙂

    We have a pro indy majority in the parliament. Declare the end of the treaty of union. No messing, no brexit, no general election. Just an election for the Scottish Parliament.

    UDI does not require (kind of by definition) approval of Westminster.

    Thing is, we’re all joking right now, but what if following the election, the Tory Government close the Scots Parliament. We know they could.

    Actually in the unlikely event they did close the parliament, I guess it would be over my and several million dead bodies, so I doubt they would do it – or would they?.

    Anyway, I can’t listen to anymore unionist rubbish from MI5 stooges.

  40. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    The Dog Philosopher at 329pm,

    QUOTE :“And as you look back at Indyref#1 you realise how undemocratic the whole affair was. And it was the Labour Party in Scotland who chose to sacrifice itself on the big unionist cross, so that Tory right to rule Scotland remained sacrosanct. The Tories gave them some planks of wood and some nails and said, go ahead guys, knock yourselves out. And they did.

    Here endeth the lesson.”

    This is the REAL point, yet sadly the Labour folk in Scotland still have not realised HOW they have been used by the Tory party. They still actually think they are ‘saving the union’. Honestly, the Tories must laugh their socks off every time they think of how they used (and still are using) Labour to get them in and keep them in power.

    Seriously, Labour are so naive, it beggars belief.

  41. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry o/t – just watched the Andrew Marr program on the iPlayer, with Mrs Mayhem.
    Firstly full marks to Andrew Marr it’s the first time I have seen this robot being grilled on the BBC, I doubt if this will further his career, he definitely nailed her on so many points.
    A PM whose answer to the question of nurses going to food banks ,her answer was there are many reasons for people visiting a food bank , is she for real ? Does she think it’s a f/n past time a jolly day out , are normal people here acutely considering voting for this Tory party, they must have lost whatever sense they were born with , this defies reason, a collective act of Lunacy defying all logic . As for her she is a disgusting disgrace as a prime minister Totally Evil .

  42. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    So what did YOU do in 2014?

    Me? Well not enough apparently as we lost. So get back in the box, have the wounded all been bayoneted or is it the Labour Party in Scotland that have been wiped out?

    You all know the answer to that question, OK so Brexit has rocked the apple cart for some who say they previously voted Yes and some No voters have come over to the Yes side.

    By the time of a second referendum with a Tory government and a large majority in charge destroying anything decent that remains in the UK these leave voting Yessers will be back.

    We don’t need any kind of UDI we need the support of the majority living in Scotland. Anyone thinking we are are not capable of getting that and suggests use of force instead is an idiot. Are we not democrats?

    No more nonsense, Scotland’s people come with us or it doesn’t happen. It’s our choice, all of the people of Scotland. Easy eh.

  43. Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Does the original 310 year old parliamentary manoeuvre which handed Scotland to the English Empire contain any hints upon just how to unravel that takeover.

    There is the notion that the nation of Scotland was not expunged.

    If not then any parliament which now operates on behalf of the Scottish nation and the Scottish people should be able to reverse that old decision.

  44. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    How do people like May, Tomkins and Davidson dare to try and get away with statements that they want a better country fro all when the gap between the rich and the working classes/poor has got wider and wider for the last 52 years and growing.

    How can the people of England not see that it is possible to give free University tuition, just like Scotland, as it leads the graduates to better paid more secure jobs that return greater tax revenues down the line?

    Why is it they can’t see the English NHS is being brought to its knees in order to see it privatised?
    Do they now that Branson’s Virgin Health is likely to take on £1.7 Billion of English Health care?

    Why can’t they see the problems that Zero Hours jobs bring-
    No holiday pay, no rights, no guaranteed hours or pay.
    These people can’t finance anything, take out a mortgage, or offer any stability to a family that they might want to have.

    Why is it that the people who claim to be making tough decisions and tell us that we are all in it together, are multi-Millionaires?

    What wouldn’t I give to help form a fair and just society, that doesn’t attack the disabled, rely on Food Banks, and
    only has a corrupt Westminster lead media?

  45. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha ha ha… Tory lead crumbling.

    http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/

    As well it should. Bunch of evil gits.

  46. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Just testing.
    Sorry!

  47. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    this so called divisive eu referendum in scotland……..i didnt see it. indeed i was struck by the wave of apathy in this part of the world, i dont even think we did a leaflet run, neither did the yoons.

    another case of, “here is the news where you are” me thinks

  48. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Thepnr
    Yes indeed, it has to be a majority of Scotland – that’s more than 50% – in a democratic vote such as a referendum.

    The problem with UDI is acceptance. So let’s say the Scottish Government go for UDI – a Unitlateral Declaration of Independence. The UK Government would do nothing to start with, just wait. Some verbals – they don’t recognise it.

    After a month or so, nobody in the whole wide world has recognised our UDI. The EU because it’s unconstitutional in their frame of reference and the UK is still the member state. Canada / Australia / NZ don’t recognise it because they want trading relations with both the UK and the EU. Same for China. Russia doesn’t recognise it because of Crimea / Ukraine. In fact nobody recognises it, nobody at all – apart from North Korea for a bit of mischief perhaps.

    Then the UK Government moves, legally and constitutionally to close down Holyrood in terms of the 1998 Scotland Act.

    Bye bye Independence forever.

  49. frogesque
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Proud Cybernat 4.41

    Been saying it for a while on another site. Tories peaked far too early. The only way is down!

  50. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Phil at 439pm,

    I actually agree with you, but sadly not many others do- and that’s kind of important.

    As to the treaty it is just an international treaty between two nations, and as such can be ended by EITHER party – their is nothing specifically different to any other treaty, it’s just that Westminster likes to pretend it is. It is only the worst kind of Scottish cringe which says, ‘but do we need a vote in Westminster’.

    Anyway, as Thepnr points out, we’re doing things the democratic way (unless of course Westminster does otherwise, in which case all bets are off) – I think people here are just having a bit of fun – something which will no doubt be banned in the ‘not so great repeal bill’, if despotic Theresa has her way.

    I’d actually suggest making ‘fun’ a fundamental human right, but the Tories have already said they intend removing human rights legislation anyway. So, yeah, ‘fun’ probably will be banned by the Tories – or privatised.

  51. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Frogesque at 453pm,

    I too think that is the case. I think we already see signs of it happening – based upon the behaviour of the Tory party.

  52. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve been chatting to Richard Mackinnon the guy from the ‘snap’ cartoon thread btl and he like some are advocating and discussing on this thread, that the SNP should place ‘independence’ (or some sort of UDI thing needs to happen) on their GE17 manifesto. So I’m arguing my points why they ah think they should not.

    Ah think this needs to be clarified over and over again as clearly it’s finding some purchase in our movement and think what I’m pointing out tae Richard has some relevance on this thread too? Would welcome mair debate on this matter…here’s ma tuppeny worth, ah welcome any criticism or reasoned counter views:

    ‘K1 says:
    30 April, 2017 at 4:20 pm
    ‘is that I believe it should be the statement the SNP put on their manifesto’

    The Scottish parliament have already decided on this matter Richard. We already have a mandate for Scotref. The GE will be fought on many of the same grounds as the last GE against austerity and the repugnant polices that they are pursuing. This GE is also a fight against the Tories right wing hard Brexit and Scotland’s wish to remain in the EU.

    Why should the SNP play along with the Tories narrative Richard? It is as if your fears are overwhelming the rational perspective here imo.

    If the SNP place the ‘independence’ on their manifesto at this GE, ‘this’ would be playing right into that very narrative? Because as we all know there has been no ‘significant’ increase in support for independence in Scotland since the EU vote. For the SNP to take the risk of decimating their current majority ‘significantly’ by putting Independence as their major manifesto commitment when half of Scotland is against this, would be ‘political suicide’ and that is why the Tories keep this constant mantra of ‘no referendum’ front and centre?

    As a reminder to those ‘not currently’ in favour of independence to ‘keep on side’, to keep this threat level ‘high’ they have even abandoned any pretence that they are interested in the local elections and the running of services. So even they know and have conceded that they cannot compete with how competently the SNP are in all levels of governance.

    We have to pace ourselves and not panic Richard. You may believe that what Davidson is doing is effective, but the only people stating that are those in the right wing media which is completely out of touch when it comes to Scotland. It’s the collapse of Labour that is increasing Tory fortunes, that’s it. There is no swing or ‘revival’ and it’s pretty hard tae imagine within the last two years since we wiped Labour from the green benches that we’ve, a vast swathe of voters in Scotland, suddenly decided tae back the Tories?

    So the SNP don’t have to ‘play along’, they can shout from the roof tops all they want Richard, there is no evidence to support that the SNP is losing support. They would however if they cack handedly ‘reacted’ by placing ‘independence’ in their manifesto at this GE.

    It’s the Tories who are panicking Richard. They know 62% voted remain in Scotland which is more than voted No in indyref, they hope that there are more people like Ruth Davidson in Scotland prepared tae drop their principles for a ‘one issue’ nae referendum Tory party that will decimate Scotland as a whole rather than back a very competent current government that has successfully defended and protected us against those very Tory policies since 2010?

    I know that there is no likelihood at all of those same swathes of voters who backed the SNP in GE15 and who overwhelmingly voted remain last June, suddenly turning intae Tory voting numpties in Scotland Richard.

    That’s why the Tories are screaming ‘no referendum’. They’ll get the hard core remnants of Labour, shame on Labour encouraging this, but it is what it is. That’s their ‘revival’ right there. So I repeat there is no reason or need for the SNP to put ‘Independence’ in the GE17 manifesto.

    You do realise SNP support independence Richard, but they as ‘democrats’ want the people to have a say on their own future too, the mandate was clear from the 2016 HE and the people voted for them in unprecedented numbers again, knowing this ‘material change’ was in the manifesto? On that basis the Scottish parliament (not the SNP) voted for Scotref a few short weeks ago Richard. So it’s not ‘party’ only. Their track record is undisputed, the people of Scotland will have an opportunity to decide at a time when we know the outcome of negotiations regarding Brexit and not when the SNP decide.

    It would be utterly against their stated aims if they placed ‘independence’ at the core of their G17 manifesto and imo would make no conceivable sense to do so except as wish fulfilment for those fundamentally opposed to us having ‘any’ choice whatsoever by removing even the possibility of a referendum on the matter in the first place. Yes Richard, you are (possibly inadvertently) advocating we all do exactly what the Tories want us and the SNP to do.

    Naw.

    Why should we?’

  53. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    And let us not forget good ol’ Scottish Labour. (Balance you understand).

    For them it’s not about what’s good for THEM. No, no, no, no, no. For SLab it’s all about what’s NOT good for YOU–and what’s NOT good for you is exactly what they’ll give you. See for yourself:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2zI2cMuoQQ

    DUMP THE RED & BLUE TORIES – 4th & 8th

  54. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2

    2″Then the UK Government moves, legally and constitutionally to close down Holyrood in terms of the 1998 Scotland Act.”

    Yes, you get it. No more talk of UDI please it weakens our cause and lessens our position.

    We win, and we win with a majority vote of the people of Scotland.

  55. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1
    The Tories are sneaky. They destroyed Labour in 2015 by driving the campaign to make Miliband and Labour say they wouldn’t go into Government if it meant taking support on a casual basis from the SNP who have Miliband in Salmond’s pocket. In other words, in the minds of many, Labour didn’t want to be in Government. They got their wish.

    In this election, the Tories would like nothing better than for the SNP to make it all about Independence. That way they have access to the full roughly at this moment 50% who also don’t want Independence. If the SNP fell for this, they’d be playing the Tory game like suckers. Even worse if the SNP maed it about UDI, that’d lose support even from those of the 50% who support Independence but also full democracy. I’d still (reluctantly) vote SNP though I totally disapprove of UDI, but some – many – wouldn’t.

    The Tories want this election to be about the referendum and independnce. We mustn’t play their game or the (effing cruel inhumane nasty lying undemocratic) Tories win.

  56. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr says:
    30 April, 2017 at 2:49 pm
    “Listen, in my view at least there can never be an Independent Scotland without the approval of the majority. That could be through a referendum or a national election but in either case you still need more than 50% of the vote”.

    I disagree with you the Thepnr. If we Scots do not recognise the legitimacy of our own sovereignty, then how can we in good conscience ask others to respect it’s legitimacy either?

    Sovereignty is neither defined nor altered by any democratic opinion. It is an absolute, binary condition. It exists, or it doesn’t.

    I believe the SNP is making a strategic error by not ring fencing the legal legitimacy of Scotland’s absolute sovereignty.

    I have said before, the SNP should secure a benchmark Judicial Review to confirm the status of Scotland’s sovereign legitimacy. Let us then challenge Westminster for a specific resolution to the issue of how Scotland’s sovereignty can be removed from the Scottish electorate and subordinated to Westminster. Have them reconcile a situation that cannot be reconciled.

    Doing that need not be construed as a UDI, ok it is very close to it, but the actual declaration can be suspended indefinitely, but it would still plunge the UK’s existing constitutional arrangements into an untenable crisis situation. To alleviate that crisis, Scotland should quickly declare its constitutional situation as temporarily void, or placed in some kind of transitional stasis, pending the results of a Scottish plebiscite to determine how Scotland should implement its now properly defined sovereignty.

    The options available in that plebiscite should broach the whole spectrum of constitutional options available to Scotland, but exclude ratification of the existing Union, not for political point scoring, but because the the current constitutional arrangements of the UK lack competence in law and an appropriate mechanism to properly implement Scotland’s inalienable sovereignty.

    I repeat, it is not a UDI, because stopping short of any such declaration would give the UK the opportunity to propose its own plebiscite option; a far reaching package of reform to modify the illegitimacies of Westminster’s adopted practices, reform the deal and make them legitimate, and reinterpret the Act of Union in a way which affords appropriate respect for both Scottish and English sovereignties. In specific terms, the UK would cease to be a “joined” Union, and become a “joint” Union – a Confederate Union of Sovereign Nations, very similar in structure to the consensual Union of the EU. “A” Union might survive, just not “the” Union…

    This isn’t a matter for democracy. It is a chronological sequence. Suspend the Act of Union which is flawed, correct that flaw under forensic legal scrutiny, and adapt the respective constitutions of both Scotland and England to accommodate that “correction”. Then have the implications of that “correction” decided and ratified by constitutional plebiscite, and have the verdict of that plebiscite recognised internationally.

    As a side issue, the act of suspending Scotland’s constitutional circumstance would, at least in theory, allow Scotland to extend its transitional status to include EU membership provided it was understood that every possible outcome of the plebiscite would be consistent with Scotland being able to make and honour a sovereign commitment, which is exactly the whole point of the entire expertise. Scotland can enact its own sovereign will and have that will respected.

    I’m sorry, but we slam the Brexiteers for their muddled agenda concerning Brexit. But I see similar pitfalls in the way we are lining up the ScotRef referendum. It is premature, and a flawed premise to hold a referendum before first addressing the constitutional screw up which bedevils the UK and its Parliamentary sovereignty which cannot properly exist.

    What SPECIFICALLY are we voting for come the ScotRef? Are we voting to respect a sovereignty which already exists? Are we voting to contest the legitimacy of Westminster’s parliamentary sovereignty? Are we voting to create a new sovereignty without any historic precedent? Are we voting to abdicate our claim on our common birthright? What are we destroying? What are we creating? What is the context of our decision?

    Do you see? A constitutional referendum is step 4 or 5 of the process to emancipate Scottish sovereignty from the dogs breakfast of UK Parliamentary sovereignty. A vote is not Step 1 but we are putting in the mix as Step 1. That, in my humble opinion is an important error.

    Forgive me, but I see this way as better:-

    Step 1 is the Judicial recognition of what Scotland’s inalienable sovereignty actual means and quite literally, “constitutes”. Ask the specific question. “WHY” is the Union not working?

    Step 2 is the challenge to Westminster’s subjugation of Scottish sovereignty.

    Step 3 is hold everything, sort the mess, correct the constitutional errors and explode the ambiguities stage, then articulate what LEGITIMATE constitutional options are available.

    Step 4 is to explain the constitional options to the Scottish public.

    Step 5 is to vote in a Plebiscite for whichever legitimate constitutional option the country prefers.

    Step 6, is the International Declaration of what Scotland has chosen to become, with the very real expectation that all legal precedence and process is properly satisfied, and that the new Scottish Constitution can and will be recognised Internationally.

    Do you see what I’m getting at? If we take a running jump into a ScotRef referendum, then we are skipping over steps 1 to 4, and asking the population to a make a decision which results in a democratic YES for Independence but still sees everything built upon an ambiguous “hit or miss” interpretation of Scottish Sovereignty (that is to say, we still need to extricate ourselves from Westminster). In constitutional terms, we may be going off half cocked.

    The other ScotRef option is another NO vote which, just like 2014, ratifies the false legitimacy of a faux political Union which cannot properly exist without first subjugating Scotland’s sovereign integrity. See? All the constitutional absurdities remain, and the same age old problem passes on to the next generation. Nothing gets resolved.

    Do you see? Our sovereignty is not conditional upon an electoral mandate or majority. We need to stop, identify what is broken, fix what is broken, then restart the engine before there is any point to deciding where we are going.

    On our current trajectory, the ScotRef debate and referendum is going to be as fickle and shallow as the 2014 debate, and without the clarity I have just described, we will merely be swapping one dogs breakfast for another.

    It doesn’t have to be that way.

  57. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ K1

    Based entirely on his posts here – you may have additional information – I don’t believe Richard MacKinnon to be on our side.

    If I’m right, he’s just stirring it.

  58. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 @ 16:51,

    The real question about something like UDI is what the reaction within Scotland would be. The world will largely respond to that rather than any legalistic niceties. So success or failure largely rests on whether or not such a declaration would fizzle out as people felt it was an extreme and unjustified power grab by an unrepresentative few, or whether, the Rubicon having been crossed, people were to rally behind the cause, rejecting any attempt at outside interference.

    Not that I’m advocating anything of the like, but the Irish Easter Rising (and arguably even more importantly, the crass manner in which the UKGov of the day reacted to it) provides an object lesson in that respect. Beforehand there was low-level support for Irish independence together with a grudging acceptance of the status quo, afterwards there was an enormous surge in support for independence.

    The point is not an argument for violence of any kind, which after all scarred Ireland for several years afterwards, but rather that a political crisis of some kind can serve to move matters forward where otherwise everything just stagnates on and on in a way that satisfies no-one.

    It takes an exceptional politician though to recognise when a situation is pregnant of such an opportunity and to act decisively to make it happen, rather than simply passively relying on a slow accumulation of support, especially in the face of a concerted near-monopoly media operation against them.

    Equally, such a situation is clearly feared by the Unionists. Hence their heavy emphasis on “division”, which they fear could easily flip into widespread rejection of their position. Hence also their tippy-toeing over the constitutional question, despite all their bravado.

    The UKGov have learnt their lesson from the Irish situation. May dare not outright refuse another indyref, since that could well bring about the very crisis that I mean. Hence her prevarications and an attempt to persuade enough Scots that they really would really rather not have one.

    There are therefore situations in which a more-dramatic assertion of Scottish sovereignity could tip the balance, that’s all I’m saying. For something as extreme as UDI to succeed, it would not necessarily have to have immediate international support, but it would most certainly have to be capable of garnering majority support among the general public, while simultaneously convincing Unionist loyalists that their position was unsustainable.

    Not easy to do, but not utterly impossible either. It would certainly require a combination of brave and astute leadership to carry it off successfully. But people do sometimes rise to the challenge presented by a resolute promoter of a just cause.

  59. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Yesindyref2 at 518pm,

    Being serious, for a moment, I kind of agree. Besides, we already have a full mandate for the referendum, and it has already been approved by the Scots Parliament, so we don’t need to use the GE for that.

    What I do think they should have is statements regarding protecting and upholding the powers that currently exist in the Scottish parliament, and re-asserting the mandate for the referendum has already been obtained, and the vote passed by the Scots Parliament, as planned, and that it will go ahead, as per democratic norms etc..

    Fact is, as the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics, and an awful lot could change between now and June – especially the council elections.

  60. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks
    If we Scots do not recognise the legitimacy of our own sovereignty, then how can we in good conscience ask others to respect it’s legitimacy either?

    Yes, but sovereignty of the Scottish People is 50%+1. It’s not the Barons, it’s not a handful of us, it’s not 45% of us, it’s not the SNP, nor even the SNP + Greens.

    It’s 50% + 1 of the Scottish People – those who are given the opportunity to vote and exercise our right, not the electorate as a whole. THAT’S where the Sovereignty of the Scottish People lies.

  61. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    anyone able to link the Andrew marr program with treesa Mayhem attempts to defend nurses having to visit food banks , its all over u/tube with many comments on this jaw dropping gaff .

  62. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Re May’s failure to understand how foodbanks work –

    Time to remind people of this from 18 months ago

    http://archive.is/X84Pp

    ‘first they came for the patients..’and all that

  63. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland
    It’s the last resort option perhaps, where a legitimate referendum is continually denied and perhaps a consultative referendum by the SG were to be struck down in the courts. But with one sole purpose – to organise an actual referendum and abide by the will of the People. That should get some at least international support, including perhaps the EU-27, and in the case of a NO vote, would neccessarily be followed by a reversal of UDI and the resignation of the SG to precipitate a Holyrood election – to save Holyrood from being disbanded and a return to direct rule from Westminster. We’re a long long way from that route, years in fact. The normal democratic process would have to be followed all the way first.

  64. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah hear ye crazycat, some are useful…whetstones 😉

  65. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for link re Annie Well’s 🙂

  66. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    As to the immediate necessities of a UKGE rather than the strategies and tactics of a general cause, I don’t see any reason why the SNP should not include a formal commitment to independence in their manifesto this time round, unlike last time. It is their fundamental reason for existence, after all, and everyone knows it. Including the Tories, who are making it an unavoidable issue anyway.

    What’s to fear anyway? OK, the SNP may lose a few voters in the process, which they might in the present circumstances do anyway. But there won’t be any doubt whatever about the big win they will still get, and the unassailable mandate it reinforces.

    That’s not to say that the SNP should mirror the Tories and make this election all about independence and nothing else. They don’t even have to campaign on the issue at all, and instead devote their attentions to more mundane but important issues for the wellbeing of us all. But afterwards the Unionists will not be able to cast any doubt whatever on the mandate the SNP will have.

    And just to be clear, UDI is not an issue for this election either. What comes along in the future we’ll just have to see as events unfold. But let’s not fool ourselves, by the very nature of the protagonists, the election here in Scotland is about independence, and so it damn well should be.

    So SNP, nail your colours to the mast, and put an explicit committment to indy in your manifesto!

  67. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Proud Cybernat

    Another arsehole now out of a job. That went well for him, duffus.

  68. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    several posts gone AWOL:

    Yet one later to test if the web is active has appeared.

  69. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah we differ on this one aspect Richard JS, ma contention is that the SNP would in fact lose more support as it is entirely what the opposition are screaming for them to do? And they would use any manifesto independence commitment as a battering ram ‘we told you so’ at this stage, when up till now the SNP has categorically stated that they will not be placing independence (or referendum, as they already have the Scotref in the bag) in their manifesto?

    Why provide the Tories with more ammunition?

  70. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks at 5.27pm

    Breeks GREAT post and i support everything you say, OUR SOVEREIGNTY must be ratified first and foremost through law, thereafter all the further steps you identify can be implemented by the proper sovereign Scots at their behest , with the outcome decided by the Scottish electorate not imposed on us by a ruling government on a colony .

    This to me is the first and foremost thing the SNP SG should be doing , clarification in law would negate ANY ambiguity or complaint from the usual suspects and give ABSOLUTE credibility to OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES

  71. wullie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sovereignty of the Scottish people is 50 + 1. Would that include people who are not Scottish but live here. A hell of a lot of people who live here do not want to be classified as Scottish and vote accordingly.

  72. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks

    I’ll tell you something. I love your posts they often give you cause to think. I’m with you on the sovereignty issue, I do believe the people of Scotland are sovereign.

    That however means ALL the people of Scotland and if they choose to remain a part of the the UK that is the end of the matter.

    You see there is more to sovereignty than you think, surely that includes everyone of us? We are all sovereign. Do you agree?

    If we want Independence then we will have to win it, we can’t just declare it no matter what the laws are. We need the sovereign people on our side or we are doomed to failure.

    It will be up to the people of Scotland to make that decision when asked because we are sovereign. Get that? The sovereign people of Scotland WILL decide our fate and that must be a majority.

  73. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 14:57:

    I have said before, the SNP should secure a benchmark Judicial Review to confirm the status of Scotland’s sovereign legitimacy.

    I see where you’re coming from, and basically I agree. Our sovereignity is a binary thing, and non-negotiable. And it should be constitutionally underwritten by the Claim of Right 1689.

    The difficulty with your Step 1, as I see it, is that we cannot have any trust that the Court of Session would have the necessary courage or inclination (in person or corporately) to address the issue square-on and reach a fair decision that could be brought forward.

    As we saw only too clearly with the “Supreme” Court, who were obviously all too eager to avoid getting involved in such thorny constitutional issues as the Union between Scotland and England. (Which makes us wonder what on earth is their point then?)

    The “British Constitution” is a great amorphous guddle in which changes are essentially driven by political means, rather than the other way round. Which is why judges are generally eager not to get involved in such issues, even when constitutional matters should actually be their highest calling.

    It’s a chicken-and-egg thing, I suppose. There needs to be a popular will for the thing to be put to the test, but there may need to be a proper constitutional test before there’s sufficient popular will. A constitutional crisis may be what finally releases the logjam.

    I think that’s what’s coming, and the present UKGE will do nothing to avoid it. It may even help precipitate it, eg. if it finally destroys the Labour Party in Scotland.

  74. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Well as I have said on here in the past.
    I would accept a vote by the people of Scotland to stay in the Union,if and ONLY if this was achieved by an honest debate of the pros and cons of doing so!

    I wouldn’t like it and would always hold to and vote for Scotland governing herself.

    But if the Union, supporters,by that I mean the “Westminster establishment”, once again mess with our referendum,so that the result is skewed by lies and deceit and ridiculous Vows.

    Then it seems to me that there is no point in a third referendum,we must indeed use the parliamentary route,every general election would be makin a judgement on staying within the term’s and conditions of the Treaty of the Union.

    Technically it always has been (since universal suffrage) it’s just that most people never thought of it that way.
    But every general election is picking a government and if you pick one that will void the 1707 Treaty,then job done.

    I know that seems a bit out there but luckily we have “Prof Thingykins” to help to explain it all to us!
    Then we can all get on board with being Parliamentary…”Person’s”…!

  75. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    The people who must recognise the legitimacy of any Independence vote is the members of the EU parliament. We must maintain our membership of that. Personally, I prefer the EU to the UK. There is more chance of promoting open democracy in the EU than in the UK.

    Here’s a clip of Guy Verhofstadt spelling it out to Victor Orban of Hungary. Orban wants the EU money but not the EU liberal democracy principles. Remind you of anyone?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsjMJs39bFY

    Either we go the democratic route or forget about being members of the EU. If we want fascism, we can always stay in the UK. Not my option.

  76. Cag-does-thinking
    Ignored
    says:

    I think that there is always a danger of us talking to ourselves if we don’t recognise that not everyone sees the good of Scotland through the prism of independence as we do.

    Having specifically made it their mantra the Tories tink that they can make an inroad politically with opposing independence by appealing to an element of Scots for whom it is part of their ideology.

    It’s harder to justify voting for the Tories if you remind them about the foodbanks and the things that are Tory policy. They are trying to talk about the SNP not doing the day job on education. It’s time to remind people that the Tories would like to re-introduce grammar schools and so called free schools to undermine good state schools which we already have. I think if Theresa really had her Scottish hall booked as a children’s birthday party that is pure gold to label her as a children’s entertainer!

    Strong and stable leaders who can’t even book a hall honestly for a political meeting should be all over the media already.

    Remind people the first thing she ordered when in power was nuclear submarines and she intends to put them here. More importantly remind people that Brexit is the thing this election is a judgement on. We voted one way and she wants to ignore that just as Cameron did. She will ignore the will of the people of Scotland however we have decided.

    Use their policies against them and don’t do a Labour and meekly do as they want us to do.

  77. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    As an aside, Andrew Neil demanding of Alex Salmond why 1 in 5 Scottish children leave primary School illiterate? (His wee WM Bubble programme today)Perhaps it has something to do with his Darlin’ Blue Tory Party, and Ruth Davidson Up Here, plunging 260,000 Scots children into poverty. Nobody learns on an empty stomach, Andrew, but never mind, I’m sure your additional 5% tax cut will pay for extra truffles, oysters and Dom Perignon, because by the looks of you, you need fattening up.
    WATP Tomkins continues to excel as a heartless bastard of the First Order. Please keep him front and centre..he is a vote loser, rather like his political career.

  78. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Things seem to be moving along interestingly in Ireland – north and south.

    “The prominence of Ireland’s issues in the EU’s guidelines, including a statement guaranteeing that Northern Ireland could automatically rejoin the EU as part of a united Ireland, is the product of an unprecedented political and diplomatic effort that began even before the UK voted to leave the EU.” Irish Times

  79. Bill Purves
    Ignored
    says:

    The Treaty was signed by two countries, Scotland and England, for the union of their Parliaments. Either country could legally rescind the Treaty.

  80. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    When it comes to local government AS should say no thanks and pass it onto the appropriate MSP OT First Minister deals with.

  81. Tom Kelly
    Ignored
    says:

    THE ILLUSION OF SCOTTISH SELF-DETERMINATION

    The principle of self-determination of peoples is explicitly recognised in Article 1(2) of The United Nations Charter, and since it is not in dispute that Scotland is a nation, that principle clearly applies to the people of Scotland. This means that the Scottish People have an absolute and continuing right to decide on the future direction and system of governance of our nation.

    Note that in UN Article 1, self-determination applies to ‘peoples’, not governments or political parties.

    A plebiscite does not need to be a in the form of a referendum. When we choose the medium of a referendum to measure support for independence, we effectively hand control of our right of self-determination to politicians; Politicians who will organise referenda at times and under conditions which best suit their particular agenda. Arbitrary and illegitimate timescales such as once in a lifetime or once a generation are conditions often suggested to deny or delay the right of the people to exercise their rights at a time of their choosing.

    The transfer of the control of a referendum from one group of politicians in Westminster to another group of politicians in Holyrood is not the answer to this problem.

    It is not necessary to let politicians decide Scotland’s destiny, We, the people, already have the means by which we can exercise our right of self-determination. At every general election the people decide on the future direction of our nation.

    If, and only if, over 50 percent of voters choose to support pro-independence parties at any general election, the people will already have made their choice, there is no need for further consultation, and no politician can legitimately deny the result.

    we already have the power to choose Independence, we don’t need permission from Theresa May or any other politician. All we have to do is vote for a pro-independence party which will accept the democratic decision of Scotland’s people.

    Tom Kelly.

  82. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    wee ginger dug has a twitter clip of Ruthie interviewing mayhem during her mysterious trip to the north , the parting shot has them walking off and Ruthie saying well lets take your message round the doors ha ha its priceless we know shes in a f/kn Forrest , they really must believe the jocks are stupid and brain dead .

  83. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Since the EU citizens of Northern Ireland will be given full access to the Eu surely that means the EU citizens of Scotland would likewise!

  84. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    dan huil

    aye, now we know what the eu position on ni is.

    thing is, noises from the roi seem to suggest that a ref on unification at the moment is too soon, they too will wait till the brexit shit hits the fan and watch the polls very closely, if they climb above 50% consistently, i expect the roi to demand NI holds a referendum on the issue

    similar position to scotland

  85. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    we also know officially the eus starting position in the brexit negotiations
    uk and eu to agree a deal on eu citizens in the uk and uk citizens in the eu.

    over to you treeza, until you agree……..no more brexit negotiations

  86. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish100 says:
    30 April, 2017 at 7:08 pm

    Since the EU citizens of Northern Ireland will be given full access to the Eu surely that means the EU citizens of Scotland would likewise!

    i think the inference is intentional

  87. Robert Roddick
    Ignored
    says:

    I was taken aback by Tomkin’s claim that the aim of the SNP is Independence is printed on the back of every SNP membership card. I thus checked my membership card to ascertain that no such clause exists. Was Tomkin’s lying in the hope that no one would know or is he just an ignoramus ? It really bothers me that this guy holds the position that he does in my Alma Mater as he regularly displays intellectual shortcomings.

  88. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Only one thing to say to you @ K1 says at 5:04 pm and @crazycat says at 5:28 pm

    Richard Mackinnon is a Troll.

    77th in my opinion, probably part of its No.1 Column whos role is ‘Planning support focusing on the behavioural analysis of actors, audiences and adversaries.’

    Those who want Scottish Independence are the “adversaries”.

  89. osakisushi
    Ignored
    says:

    Why do the SNP need “include” a commitment to indie in their manifesto?

    I’ve voted SNP my entire life on the basis this is what they stand for. Surely anyone who thinks otherwise is a bit stupid.

  90. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert j Sutherland @ 6.29 & Breeks @ 14.57
    I for one am horrified at the thought that ” Some Judges ” would deign to think that they have a thing to say about my Sovereignty.
    Or anybody elses Sovereignty ALSO past, present or future Sovereignty.
    How dare they….who said they could.

    It’s mine and I get to say where it goes.
    Over Judges I have no say,why would I agree that they should exercise it?
    But I do have input into a political decision.
    No much input but a dam sight more than I do with Judges.

    Which is why …for me… Sovereignty by it’s very nature has to be a political decision.
    And the judges are not,I think being cowardly or partial,but rather understand that their opinions carry no more force than the time it takes for parliament to change the law.
    But also No judges have the right…here and in this time to bind future Scots by defining Sovereignty for them.
    They (Future Scots) must have control and that means through their politician’s?.
    This is one of the problems of a written Constitution but no something we can’t deal with….but it will take some thought!

    For what it’s worth…. IMHO having a constitutional high court with No actual Constitution to rule on is the most idotic farce ever invented by Westminster,the corporation that gave us the Remembrencer.
    They rule on Parliament’s law’s….and if parliament doesn’t like the ruling what’s to stop parliament….Oh Wait!!!

  91. john young
    Ignored
    says:

    cant be 100% but read somewhere that out of 122 countries seeking inependance only 3 held referendums,cut out all the confusing bulls–t and go for independence.

  92. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Jockanese Wind Talker

    Yes, I know.

  93. sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T Britain’s first full-length motorway was opened in 1959.

    Scotland’s two major cities got a full length motorway 58 years later.

    Another Union Dividend?

  94. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    How should Scotland win it’s Independence? By the ballot or the bullet?

    Fucking stupid question really and don’t you know it.

  95. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    “A UDI without 50% is never to going to work, does anyone seriously want tanks in George Square again?”

    Do you think they will send the tanks to George Square if the First Minister holds an independence referendum despite the Westminster government/parliament refusing permission?

    The latest poll says the majority doesn’t vote an independence referendum before Brexit has been completed.

  96. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Those who claim to be “sovereign” have absolutely no idea what “sovereignty” means in practice.

  97. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 @ 18:09,

    (I assume you were referring to an earlier posting of mine, even though I’m no Dick. =grin= Heh, heh, don’t y’all post in at once now to disagree! =laugh=)

    As to the substance of your case, I do appreciate that the SNP gets votes from people that don’t support independence. (Yet still, anyway.) And that could be put at risk to some extent. In some areas that support could have slipped slightly anyway. But sometimes you have to be willing to put your core beliefs to the test.

    Last time (2015), the SNP excluded an explicit committment to independence in their manifesto, and were quite right to do so at that time, since in the immediate wake of indyref there wasn’t any point of pressing an issue that was well dormant. It would have been useless posturing and be widely seen as such.

    However, things are very different now. The issue of independence is very much live again now. Everyone knows that’s the main purpose of the SNP, and whether or not it’s in the manifesto, the Tories will attack it relentlessly anyway. As they have already been busy doing, even in the local elections, FGS.

    But precisely because it’s such a live issue, people should be in no doubt that the SNP are very serious on the issue, so much so that they are not ducking it, they are stating it in cold print. They will be accused of fudging and outright cowardice if they don’t. I don’t see a renewed committment to their core policy as giving the Tories “more ammunition”.

    That’s not to confuse a manifesto commitment – a policy that is no surprise to anyone anyway – with an election strategy for this coming June. Let the Tories continue to bang on about indy as they have been doing, while the SNP campaign on whatever social issues they prefer instead. They can demonstrate that they are by no means a “single-issue” party as the Tories are desperately trying to be. So I think on that point we do agree.

    And as importantly, the SNP should campaign on the front foot, not let Rude Gal set the agenda, even with the willing connivance of the likes of the BBC.

  98. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, aye @Rock says

    Back sowing dissent and division (Greens today I note on the previous thread and No Indy Ref before Brexit on this one).

    MacKinnon of the 77th off duty now or just down the mess?

    You still haven’t answered me Rock.

    Are you boys still getting a bonus for making ‘Cybernats completely lose it’?

    Does Better together Blair have to declare your teams payments as electoral expenses now he is standing in the GE?

  99. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock at 7.36

    That particular poll which showed half of Scots wanting a referendum merely indicated their preferences as to when it should be held. I certainly didn’t establish that a majority didn’t want a referendum.
    I wonder why you would repeat that distortion.

  100. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rock

    “the majority doesn’t vote an independence referendum”

    The word you seek is want “the majority doesn’t want an independence referendum” even then you are wrong cos they do.

  101. Thomas Valentine
    Ignored
    says:

    Yesterday I say T May’s forrest hide away. Dammit kept thinking Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair, Wolfs Lair.
    Dinnae say Hitler, dinnae say Hitler, dinnae say Hitler, dinnae say Hitler, dinnae say Hitler, dinnae say Hitler.

    Open Wings twitter scroll down a bit “Wolfs Lair”.
    Aye we were all thinking it.

    Now I’m wondering who in the Tories is plotting to behead May’s leadership.

  102. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz g @ 19:24,

    I fear that view takes us into Rock territory. It’s no good asserting some theoretical sovereignity if you don’t actually do anything about it. Posturing may give a warm feeling inside, but it achieves absolutely nothing.

    One way is to use precedent in law, something we have inherited from the wisdom and perseverence of our forebears, who actually had at times to put themselves right in harm’s way to establish the rights whose benefits we enjoy today. (If not always sufficiently appreciatively.)

    That’s the benefit of the rule of law. It allows us to agree about the established givens of a situation without having to repeat all the previous grimness again. I presume you don’t actually want a return to the civil unrest of Scotland in the 17th century?

    That particular approach could potentially bring the necessary confrontation to a head fairly rapidly, especially in the face of a signifant proportion of lumpen electorate who can’t bestir themselves to recognise the necessity for a resolution one way or another, since that is the only other way the situation can be sorted.

    The recourse to law could even bring about the desired activation of civic engagement. A win-win all round.

    That’s Breeks’ position as I understand it.

    The difficulty is twofold. One is as I mentioned, getting a bunch of judges brave enough to engage with, and to rule upon, our inherited constitutional rights, especially after all these centuries of neglect.

    The second is the one you illustrate, getting round the British constitutional muddle mentality and recognising that sometimes we have to defend our rights in a legal context. All the more so when the situation is such a complete guddle anyway. Look what effect that can have, as Gina Miller & Co. demonstrated so effectively recently from their point of view.

    One of the reasons we in Scotland find ourselves in the unfortunate position we do today is because for centuries we have deferred and rolled-over with each challenge to our rights instead of resolutely defending them. Chip-chip-chip. That’s what has brought about the cringe too many of us suffer from today.

    As indicated, I have my reservations about that approach, but it would be foolish to ignore any possible way forward. I even have a hunch that Nicola & Co. were thinking of a way to use the constitutional requirements of Article 50 (and others besides) to take the Scottish situation to the European Court of Justice. Just imagine how the Mayhem Gang would like that! Which may be a major reason why they are anxious to disentangle us from that route as a matter of primacy.

    Observe carefully what your opponents fear most, since there lie their greatest weaknessness.

  103. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Apart from the Telegraph, are there ever any news reports which don’t say Brexit is going to be an absolute shite storm? From Reuters …

    “At Saturday’s Brussels summit of the 27 other EU states, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker accused unnamed pro-Brexit figures of underestimating the complexity of the task and German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated her concern that London still harbored “illusions” about negotiating a quick free-trade pact.”

    http://archive.is/MjdTc

    I can’t make my mind up whether May et al have utterly and completely lost contact with reality, or are they just playing tough guys for a domestic audience ahead of the election.

    Scotland has an escape option, and we better be prepared to take it!

  104. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Jockanese Wind Talker,

    “Waffle, waffle, waffle”.

    True to your name.

  105. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill,

    “That particular poll which showed half of Scots wanting a referendum merely indicated their preferences as to when it should be held. I certainly didn’t establish that a majority didn’t want a referendum.
    I wonder why you would repeat that distortion.”

    According to the poll, a majority don’t want a poll within the First Minister’s timescale.

    Am I distorting that?

    The question (to Thepnr) is will they send the tanks to George Square if the First Minister holds an independence referendum WITHIN HER TIMESCALE despite the Westminster government/parliament refusing permission?

    Thepnr,

    “A UDI without 50% is never to going to work, does anyone seriously want tanks in George Square again?”

  106. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah, let’s get it over with Prof T.

    The locals vote it is first, this coming Thursday am.

    Get doon on the day tae yer local.

    Less than 4 days to go.

    *****

    Aweright Ghillie, Aye it was awesome at Loch Awe, mobile reception was intermittent, none-the-more, better to be on the Awe than at the Awe.

    It was awesome to be at and on the Awe, awe around. Not lang back.

    So, anything been happenin’ in Glasgow..?

    Scotland is beautiful.

  107. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Debate is good, debate is healthy and we aught to encourage it.

    I’ll stand firm on this single point. Scotland will NOT be Independent without the support of the majority of Scottish people.

    Not that hard to understand is it?

  108. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    You have yet to post anything onto WoS that isn’t aimed at sowing division or dissent among posters @Rock says 30 April, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    You constantly attack others who do put posts up designed to inform or stimulate debate (you don’t debate you attack).

    You are entitled to think I’m waffling Rock.

    I’m entitled to think you are Trolling.

    You still haven’t answered me though Rock, have you?

    Are you boys still getting a bonus for making ‘Cybernats completely lose it’?

    Does Better together Blair have to declare your teams payments as electoral expenses now he is standing in the GE?

  109. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rock

    I told you to piss off yesterday you cringing creepy halfwit. Don’t bother me again as your back on the totally ignore list.

  110. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    “The word you seek is want “the majority doesn’t want an independence referendum””

    Thanks for the correction.

    But don’t mis-quote me: it is a poll, not me, saying that the majority doesn’t want a referendum (within Nicola’s timescale).

    Do you think they will send the tanks to George Square if the First Minister holds an independence referendum, WITHIN HER TIMESCALE, despite the Westminster government/parliament refusing permission?

    Thepnr,

    “A UDI without 50% is never to going to work, does anyone seriously want tanks in George Square again?”

  111. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @wullie says: 30 April, 2017 at 6:17 pm:

    “Sovereignty of the Scottish people is 50 + 1. Would that include people who are not Scottish but live here.”

    If it didn’t, wullie, the SNP would lose at least one lifelong activist as I will never vote for any racist party.

    “A hell of a lot of people who live here do not want to be classified as Scottish and vote accordingly.”

    Aye! wullie, but the independent law of Scotland says that sovereignty legally rests with. “The people of Scotland”. It doesn’t state that the person has to be born in Scotland.

    If two Inuit lived in Scotland, registered to vote in Scottish elections and paid tax here their child would be Scottish but by your crazy standards the parents would not be.

    The SNP have stated that no matter your country of origin, the colour of your skin or your ethnic origins, if you are mainly resident in Scotland, register to vote in Scottish elections and pay tax here you are one of the people of Scotland. The thing is they and the law of Scotland would not dream of forcing you to be Scottish – the choice would remain yours.

    To the best of my knowledge the only organisations that have ever made their rules state that that to qualify as being Scottish you had to be born in Scotland were the Football and other sports authorities and even they have thrown out such racist claptrap these days.

  112. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    “@Rock

    I told you to piss off yesterday you cringing creepy halfwit. Don’t bother me again as your back on the totally ignore list.”

    Why do know all big mouths like yourself and Robert Peffers resort to personal abuse when faced with difficult questions?

  113. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock at 8.27
    Yes. Exactly.You are distorting a particular poll.
    No idea why I bother responding

  114. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    “@Rock

    I told you to piss off yesterday you cringing creepy halfwit. Don’t bother me again as your back on the totally ignore list.”

    Rev. Stuart Campbell says: (The last leap)
    25 April, 2017 at 8:00 am

    “Wings has one moderator, and I’m it. Anyone saying anyone else has no right to post here is walking a very thin tightrope over Ban Canyon.

    Have I made myself clear?”

  115. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill,

    “Rock at 8.27
    Yes. Exactly.You are distorting a particular poll.
    No idea why I bother responding”

    How am I distorting the poll?

    I am saying what the poll reported.

    Since you seem to be aware of the poll, could you tell me what it reported?

  116. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    OT Watching Mrs Doubtfire who came from ENGLAND and it is a beautiful island with a Queen etc.etc.

    Ah! Ignorance is NOT bliss.

  117. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Points taken Robert. 😉 (nothin’ ‘dickish’ abbot ye Robert, ma post was solely directed toward you ergo Robert JS)

    Jockanese, ah very much appreciate your tackling of ‘trollish’ behaviour in your own inimitable style, we all have differing ways of dealing with those we know not to be on our side…as I said they can be useful as ‘whetstones’ tae sharpen one’s understanding and arguments on the pish they spout. This is an open forum and we can aw speak to (type to) who we want. Ah also have tae say to you what the Rev said at the end of ‘that’ exhausting thread:

    ‘Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
    25 April, 2017 at 8:00 am
    I’m getting really, really tired of the personal spats between certain people on here.,’

    I’m not getting intae any mair conversations wi people on Wings about who are and aren’t ‘trolls’, nor personal jibes, just because we don’t like some posters or with those we don’t share common ground wi. What’s the point? The Rev said give it a rest and I’m gonnae abide by what he says irrespective of whether ah agree or not with what you are saying?

    Please don’t misunderstand me, by all means keep pursuing what you feel is right for you, but ah won’t be getting intae or paying one more ounce of attention to anything written by those posters who have frequently been involved in ‘personal spats’ on these threads. And if I’ve inadvertently become one of those who fell intae that category or got caught up in the middle of some of those very spats then be assured I’ve learned my lesson.

    I don’t want tae be anywhere near that tightrope over ‘Ban Canyon’ and naebdy on here is worth that prospect. 🙂

  118. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert j Sutherland @ 8.13
    If you have the impression that I am in agreement with Rock then I really really didn’t make myself very clear.

    The only driver of our Sovereignty is our vote.

    A Court has a winning and a loosing argument and someone gets to decide.
    Our Sovereignty I don’t think could or should be ratified/ligitamatised there.
    A Court would be wrong,for many reasons,but mainly because it’s no necessary and because of the way our Treaty obligations have been interpreted historically,it would just create more heat than light.

    It doesn’t and I think shouldn’t get anymore complicated than,we are voting to decide things in Scotland now.
    We are done with this joint parliament thing it’s no working for us anymore!
    The SNP have it right…..who is saying no more joint parliament?…we are and we are the people?

    Also don’t forget…we are very sure that we have the documents that demonstrates our Sovereignty’s starting point,so why would we need to go to a Court.
    If Westminster think we are acting out with our remit let them take us to Court!

    Anyhoo …so very sorry I can’t keep chatting as I have to go out… please don’t think I am ignoring you, will reply later if I can.

  119. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland,

    “Liz g @ 19:24,

    I fear that view takes us into Rock territory. It’s no good asserting some theoretical sovereignity if you don’t actually do anything about it. Posturing may give a warm feeling inside, but it achieves absolutely nothing.”

    Why would a “sovereign” country be even talking about an independence referendum to become independent?

    Why would a “sovereign” people accept an election just because Saint Theresa of England and Wales wants one for her own and her party’s benefit?

    As I posted earlier:

    Those who claim to be “sovereign” have absolutely no idea what “sovereignty” means in practice.

    Shall we keep on posturing for another 310 years or shall we admit that the only effective right we have is to go and vote if and when someone calls an election or referendum, at a time of their choosing?

  120. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fiona says: 30 April, 2017 at 2:42 pm:

    Referendums do not divide people. They are only held when people are already divided, in this country.

    Let’s face it all Yoons are numpties that play silly games with words but they do not understand what those words mean.

    Now I am over 80 and never missed a Scottish or general elections. I have never voted in any election that did not divide people.

    The sole reason they held the election was because the candidates represented different views, or political parties. If there is only one candidate there is no need for an election.

    Adam Tomkins may be a University Professor but he sure as hell is deficient in his educational standards of English.

    Furthermore his grasp of simple logical thinking is found somewhat lacking.

  121. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    You might be right @K1 says at 8:48 pm.

    Maybe they aren’t worth it.

    It winds me up though, when a good thread is ruined by posts which are obviously intended to disrupt.

    WoS is a great resource (the greatest resource, possibly) we have to win over Soft Nos and the undecided.

    The more the reality of Brexit becomes, the more inevitable Indy Scotland becomes and the more the Trolls try to disrupt.

    When an election vote is about to be cast, the more the Trolls try to spread dissent.

  122. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz g @ 20:55,

    Apologies Liz, I wasn’t attempting to equate your views in any way with you-know-who. (Who seems intent on self-indulgently wrecking another thread tonight. Say no more. Don’t engage, peeps.)

    I merely meant a sterile debate in general about what “sovereignity” means.

    Debate though is good. It helps us weigh up possibilities, seek directions forward, and in a broader way than politicians are generally free to do, in public at least.

  123. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    He was talking about politicians who were elected to parliament
    He wasn’t elected to a parliament he’s a list seat filler so he’d like that decision taken by the big England parliament so then it follows obviously not by him

    So once again he disrespects the parliament he’s sitting in by basically being the pompous prig of an Arsehole that he is
    and taking my tax money to warm that pompous Arse on a seat I paid for
    I can’t take my seat back so I can only hope his pompous Arse gets a skelf aff it

  124. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 says: 30 April, 2017 at 3:35 pm:

    ” … Reading some of the comments I think the answer is no. Well done for clarifying, I did wonder myself.”

    Want to know the truth of what Westminster does to Scots who try for UDI?

    Read this :-
    http://www.baronage.co.uk/bphtm-01/wallace3.html

    WARNING.Not for the squeamish or those with weak hearts.

  125. Auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, the b’stards would do the same again, slaughter by any means.

  126. anon
    Ignored
    says:

    How much longer are we going to allow the lying two faced fascist tory scum to continue abusing our country.

  127. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Jockanese, it’s no me that’s right, ah just don’t think we should risk getting banned…just as irked by ‘obvious’ pish as you but we gotta fight them on the substantive arguments, if it gets personal the Rev is probably capable of banning the lot of us in an instant? Then how does this brilliant forum benefit if we’ve aw inadvertently brought about the demise of our input on here?

    Seriously don’t have any option on this when ye think on it 🙁

    And btw, the Rev isn’t one tae shy away from doing exactly what he’s threatened to do. If those of us who know what I’m referring to when ah say, ‘cut off their fuel’, not because of them but to ensure self preservation…that’s a whole different approach? Then it’s markedly clear ‘who’ the ‘certain people’ indulging in ‘personal spats’ are? it would make it much clearer for the Rev to hone in and ban someone for pursuing ‘personal’ vendetta’s against other posters?

    Those of us, including me who have always said ‘fight them’ have to now step back, cause Stu’s made it clear that he regards anyonel who is getting intae these repeated arguments where it gets ‘personal’ as potential ‘certain people’. That’s where am coming from. There is no one on here worth getting banned for Jockanese.

    Rev’s the moderator. And if we aw walk away because so called ‘trolls’ take over…cause we cannae stand it anymore. Then at least we walk away wi clear a conscience because we didn’t inadvertently cause the demise of this great resource.

  128. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Smashing! = )

  129. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    @People Make Glasgow

    People Make Glasgow, it’s true, we all do, but hear a thought…

    Is it time for a rebrand / new slogan Glasgow? I have a suggestion, keeping with a theme which revisits an old friend of times past…

    *****

    Do you remember back in the 20th century, driving into Glasgow City on the M8 (going westbound). Do you remember the two big gas tanks with the big banner on your RHS as you drove by? Do you also remember seeing on that poster on the two gas tanks.. our slogan which said:

    ‘ Glasgow’s Miles Better 🙂 ’

    That was then with Mr Happy.

    A ‘future council’ (excellent!) could put a poster back up on the tanks, with the new and all knowing, Mr Wink or Miss Winky and with a new middle word too:

    ‘ Glasgow’s Much Better 😉 ‘

    Aye, luckily for you Glasgow, you can vote for change this Thursday and if there is indeed a change of hoose, then mibby they might consider it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow%27s_miles_better

    In addition:

    The message is good but I cannae quite go that pink/red background colour on our current slogan, especially that big poster on the face of the college building at Freedom Square, it jars on the eye (light blue would be more suited) it’s like walking by a ‘Malibu Stacy’ pyramid:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaOgZwk9rN8

    Glasgow’s Much Better 😉

  130. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Hope everyone’s seen Teresa campaign door knocking today in Aberdeen, on SKY news? First Aberdonian approached says no thank you, then no one else answers their door to them, as Ruth grovels hard to her boss.

    https://www.facebook.com/skynews/?fref=nf

  131. Wullie B
    Ignored
    says:

    OT, Maggie Mayhem supposedly under investigstion for financial reasons since Brexit, EBC and ETV not reporting it, but other media outlets are, I wonder why, the more the establishment keep schtum, the more believable it is

  132. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Glasgow’s Much Better 😉

    And will be soon again.

    Don’t be a tory.

    Wink.

  133. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater says: 30 April, 2017 at 6:16 pm:

    “Breeks GREAT post and i support everything you say, OUR SOVEREIGNTY must be ratified first and foremost through law,”

    I’ve been harping upon the subject of sovereignty for a very long time but it is very hard to cover such a subject without long screeds of historic and legal facts.

    However, there are lots of stuff on-line but it is rather hard going to pull it all together. Let’s start with this from Wiki :-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty#Scotland_and_the_Acts_of_Union


    Scotland and the Acts of Union

    Some jurists have suggested that the Acts of Union 1707 place limits on parliamentary sovereignty and its application to Scotland. Although no Scottish court has yet openly questioned the validity of an Act of Parliament, certain judges have raised the possibility.

    Thus, in MacCormick v. Lord Advocate, the Lord President (Lord Cooper) stated that “the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law”, and that legislation contrary to the Act of Union would not necessarily be regarded as constitutionally valid.

    Also, in Gibson v Lord Advocate, Lord Keith was circumspect about how Scottish courts would deal with an Act, which would substantially alter or negate the essential provisions of the 1707 Act, such as the abolition of the Court of Session or the Church of Scotland or the substitution of English law for Scots law.

    The establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1998 has implications for parliamentary supremacy. For example, although nuclear power is not within its competence, the Scottish government successfully blocked the wishes of the UK government to establish new nuclear power stations in Scotland using control over planning applications which is devolved. While it remains theoretically possible to dissolve the Scottish Parliament or legislate without its consent in relation to Scotland, in practice such a move would be politically difficult.

    So there is indeed legal precedent of Scottish Law NOT recognising that Westminster can claim legal sovereignty as under Scots law the people, not the Monarchy or Westminster Parliament are sovereign.

    Then, in the same Wiki article, although it contains some quite blatant errors :-

    Parliamentary sovereignty (also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy) is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty, and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies. It also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation, and so it is not bound by written law (in some cases, even a constitution) or by precedent.

    Parliamentary sovereignty may be contrasted with separation of powers, which limits the legislature’s scope often to general law-making, and judicial review, where laws passed by the legislature may be declared invalid in certain circumstances.

    Many states have sovereign legislatures, including the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Barbados, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

    Note though that the United Kingdom is, by definition, a union of two only kingdoms and not actually defined as, “A Country”.

    The Article continues :-

    During the 17th century in England, a notion developed that Parliament (made up of the House of Lords and House of Commons) shared in sovereignty with the King, based on an entirely erroneous notion of the history of parliament. It was not until the changing of the Coronation Oath in the Coronation Oath Act 1688 as part of the Glorious Revolution that Parliament was recognised as part of the constitutional structure, with laws being considered to emanate from Parliament and not just the King. The Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 were passed the following year which asserted certain rights of the Parliaments of England (which at the time included Wales) [error here as it reads as if it also included Scotland]and Scotland and limited the powers of the monarch. Furthermore, in 1698 parliament created the Civil List, a financial arrangement that left the monarch reliant on parliament for income.

    After 1689 English parliamentary supremacy became evident in the relation of the English parliament to those of Scotland and Ireland. The Act of Settlement 1701 made a presumption upon Scotland: the Scots retaliated with the Act of Security 1704, which was countered by the Alien Act 1705: the issue was settled by the Union of the parliaments of England and Scotland in 1707 which created a new British parliament, though “in essence it was just an extension of the English parliament”. It is arguable whether the concept of parliamentary supremacy arose from the Acts of Union 1707 or was a doctrine that evolved thereafter. The autonomy of the Parliament of Ireland also came under attack and the Declaratory Act 1720 made the Irish parliament a dependency. The so-called Constitution of 1782 removed British parliamentary supremacy over Ireland for a short period but then the Irish parliament was merged with Britain’s in the Acts of Union 1800.

    I’ve highlighted parts were there are obvious factual errors. Read the article for yourselves and perhaps get a better idea of the weak case that the UK parliament has.

    As I’ve pointed out so often there was no legal United Kingdom in 1603 except as a personal one for the monarch who wore two, still independent crowns.

    Furthermore, the Glorious Revolution was in the Kingdom of England only and thus Westminster had no legal effect on either the Scottish crown nor upon the still independent parliament of Scotland. Yet the judgements being made assume that they affect Scotland. I would argue there is a watertight case for Scotland being an equally sovereign partner and indeed there are only two kingdoms signatures on the Treaty of Union.

    The very obvious problem is that Westminster has assumed full sovereignty and also instigated the Supreme Court and thus Scotland would need to rely upon an international court for a fair judgement. The Brexit situation is the chance of such support and the first lucky break we Scots have had since before 1603.

  134. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Wullie B, Smallaxe reporting the same thing, with tweets, over on OT.

    That’ll pit the ba’ oan the slates eh.

  135. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/858770741000638465

    “UK (Scotland), Panelbase poll: Independence referendum
    Yes: 52% (+7)
    No: 48% (-7)”

    Don’t ask me for details, or whether it’s a subsample! Found the reference while having a laugh on the Scotsman 😎

  136. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker @ 22:05,

    What a pantomime. It’s the one time though when they are not our lords and masters, just other human beings scrabbling for a job.

    So is Rude Gal still entitled to be deferentially addressing Theresa May as “Prime Minister”? She’s currently just another candidate standing for election.

    That’s the whole point of the thing, after all, isn’t it? Or is this another case where Ruthie seems to know something we mere mortals don’t?

  137. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Poor auld Rock’s like the Phantom Raspberry Blower – turns up, drops one, causes upset and then fucks off.

  138. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2

    All ready been reported it seems, the results you quote appear to be a combination of two questions. Yes and in the EU plus Yes and not in the EU.

    A way to go yet.So get in there with the head down, our job, your job.

  139. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    LINKS ON O/T UNCONFIRMED BUT IMPORTANT IF TRUE!

  140. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Theresa May: “every SNP MP that is elected to Westminster puts a step closer Jeremy Corbyn getting into Downing Street

    Yay, she’s got the message, she’s our secret agent, our own 66th.

    #toriesout

    @thepnr
    Yes, it is right enough. Oh well.

  141. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1 says: 30 April, 2017 at 9:38 pm:

    “Jockanese, it’s no me that’s right, ah just don’t think we should risk getting banned…”

    All very true, K1, you may have notice I disengaged with such a person quite some time ago and no longer attempt to engage with him. You may also notice a certain person never fails to take a sideways swipe at me in his passing.

    I deduced I was wasting my time and that it hurts him that I ignore him. Which is why the continued sideways swipes. There is your answer – ignore him for he has failed if ignored.

  142. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    Strong and stable ?

    I would hae thought that was a “given” for all rational politicians.

    Theresa May I smell …..

  143. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Quite so Robert (Peffers), now whit wis that aboot herding…squirrels… 🙂

  144. Still Positive
    Ignored
    says:

    Attention: long-time SNP members.

    I’ve been reading a lot on FB that people want Nicola to put in the manifesto that if we vote in a majority of MPs we can negotiate independence.

    In the late summer of 2015 Marco Biagi told me they had voted at conference to make a referendum the only way to get indy. This was after I had told him I had lived in hope every election in the 70s we would vote in a majority of SNP MPs.

    Does this mean that it would have to be a vote at conference to change that? And that, as we are sovereign, she cannot legally change that so, therefore, cannot put it in the manifesto?

  145. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @ronnie anderson says: 30 April, 2017 at 9:44 pm:

    http://www.facebook.com/Buidheann.Dubh/photos/a.130587086957221.22991.127993583883238/1736802566335657/?type=3&theater
    Iconic

    Aye! Ronnie, that photo went right into my collection.

  146. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    I wouldn’t normally play a tune on the main thread, I’d play my tunes on Off Topic. This though is the one I played on Wings on the 19th September 2014. I thought some might like to hear it.

    Probably the worst I’ve felt in my life that day was.

    I bounced right back up again, I was getting in no box in fact I was more determined to fight them. You do realise that the Tories are fascists? If not you need your head examined. Any way if you like you can hear my tune from that day. I still weep.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBwAYIxUso

  147. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    ****** X ******

    Glasg 😉 w’s Much Better

    ****** X ******

  148. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Tomkins is a lying ‘psycho bastard’. A 3rd rate reject usurper who is an insult to the majority of people in Scotland. A self interested, self seeking chancer. How he ever got a job to spread the Tory/Unionist lies at a Scottish University is a mystery. The fact he is troughing on public money is an insult. The Tories starve and kill their own voters, the elderly. Target the sick, the vulnerable without relief. Illegally take cars away from disabled people. The food banks.. Imagine living in a place where people are sanctioned and starved. It is just despicable. The bureaucracy costs more than any benefits. Common decency is not considered a factor of people’s lives. The Tories have cut Education/NHS and essential services.

    May calls an election to hide the criminal activities of her Party. Then tells a pack of lies to cover the deceit. They illegally borrow and spent public money in the rest of the UK. So they can embezzle and waste £Billions. On obscene, overpriced grotesque projects. There more credible, cheaper, cleaner alternatives. The Tory/Unionists are despicable. £Trns in debt. Worrying people and giving them mental health problems and unhappiness. The UK is in a total mess. Except for the SNP in Scotland. Standing up for Scotland and the people. Protecting the vulnerable as much as they can. Soon vulnerable people will not be sanctioned in Scotland.

    Now Brexit. Illegally called by an illegitimate Gov. The Tories committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies. The Tories will ‘negotiate’ an EU deal that will cost more and destroy the world economy. Then use the usual propaganda to say it is the best deal. Unless Scotland is out of the fraudulent, unequal UK Union.

    There is no doubt they will get their comeuppance. If there is any justice. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

  149. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @ 23:15,

    Great choice there. We never stopped dreaming, did we? And we won’t either. That’s what our opponents are slowly realising.

    They have no dreams, only fears.

  150. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s a link to article about the Peter Lilley connection to electoral ‘service’ provision in Scotland.

    I referred to this a couple of nights ago after seeing a tweet mentioning it, but it didn’t have any link.

    I’m sure this company, ‘Idox’, had its logo on table-banners and suchlike at the postal-vote count in Ayr when Jim and I were there representing WOS as observers.

    Can anyone who was doing likewise remember if they saw that name at other venues?

    Very dodgy stuff altogether…

    https://archive.is/O9mWT

  151. Phydaux
    Ignored
    says:

    A snappy headline to match the snappy rhetoric and cliches of Adam Tomklins, who seems a bit of a buffoon.

    There are no visible signs on the streets of Edinburgh that an election is taking place on May 4th.The council banned parties from erecting candidate placards and party posters on lamp-posts and street signs in 2011.Most Scottish councils have this ban in place.The main reason cited was the expense of removing election material from council property after an election.Legislation exists requiring parties to remove election material.

    Before the ban, the streets were more colourful at election times.It also helped, in my view, create the backdrop and highlight awareness.Edinburgh council are happy to have the entire city centre plastered in Festival fringe posters every August.What about celebrating a festival of democracy in action?

  152. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Roothy is not going to be flavour of the month down Westminster way now that Sky have shown that ‘meeting the people’ vid.

    The whole ‘hut in a wood’ story has been a disaster for her.

  153. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert J Sutherland

    So is Rude Gal still entitled to be deferentially addressing Theresa May as “Prime Minister”? She’s currently just another candidate standing for election.

    Parliament will not be dissolved till 3 May. At that point, she will become the prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidenhead. Until then, she’s still an MP; she will remain PM throughout the campaign and even after the election until a successor is chosen (government still has to “function”). So she will be TMPM but not TMMP!

    That’s why Carmichael had to be so careful when he admitted lying – he remained Secretary of State until the new administration was formed.

  154. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t be a tory!

    You’re much better than that Glasgow, by miles.

    Same goes out to all of our other beautiful cities, towns and villages.

    Let’s make this Friday one for celebrating!

  155. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah more clarity cearc, thanks…she’s still the pm all the way through.

    *thinks…ah really was that disaffected voter who cared not a jot about the ‘how’ of it all for decades*

  156. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker says: 30 April, 2017 at 10:05 pm:

    “Hope everyone’s seen Teresa campaign door knocking today in Aberdeen, on SKY news? “

    https://www.facebook.com/skynews/?fref=nf

    I saw a comment on that clip. “She should go on the streets were homeless people live”. but the commenter missed the wee bit at the end out “… and die”.

  157. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood @ 23:29,

    I was accredited observer at one of last week’s Glasgow postal vote validations, and Idox run that there also.

    I note however that the procedure itself has been tightened, and the ballot envelopes themselves are now handled quite separately from the validation process (apart, that is, from those extracted because they are deemed invalid), They are only opened immediately prior to transferring their contents unseen into the ballot boxes.

    Perhaps as a consequence, no party representatives made an appearance in the several hours I was there.

    I was told that the actual vote counting process will not be handled by Idox, but some other firm. We’ll see.

  158. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘You do know that we’re joking, right?’

    That’s not OK.

    I can joke about death,Christ and maybe even Mohammed.

    But for the love of me please Never Never Never make jest of Scotland’s Independence.

  159. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    me @ 23:50,

    For clarity re my previous posting, although Idox do the grunt work of opening the envelopes, and also provide the validation software, supervision of the whole process is carried out by council employees.

    And I have to add I witnessed nothing but sheer professionalism of operating what in a big city like Glasgow is effectively an industrial process, and by all the staff’s obvious dedication to getting things right.

    I was very impressed, without any reservations whatever.

  160. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland

    I did this also as a Wings rep in Angus for the first referendum. No shenanigans there either. If there could possibly be any hocus pocus it doesn’t take place there.

  161. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland and Thepnr –

    Cheers for the feedback.

    I’m not inciting mass adoption of tinfoil hats, but we should be mindful of these connections.

    If any Tories are involved – however tenuously – in the electoral process, we should be all over them 24/7.

  162. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s whit Maggie said.

    There seems to be a bit of a problem here. Before devolution it was seen as by WM that a majority of pro independence parties sent to WM by Scotland would be enough to start negotiations on dissolving the union.

    But since devolution, the preference for the commencement of negotiations has been a referendum by the majority of people living in Scotland, as championed by the snp and which would be the most peaceful way the now preferred option?

    We seem to be in a situation that would have favoured us 25-30yrs ago but only brought on by the ’14 ref where now the rules have changed, by our own doing.

    I’m thinking out aloud here

  163. Sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Re May’s visit to Crathes ‘hide-away’.
    She’s probably read that previous witch’s memoirs about her visit to Scotland when she attended the cup final between Dundee United & Celtic. The capacity Hampden crowd were in unison. Uninterrupted booing & cat calls. She then attended the Church of Scotland Synod in Edinburgh She wasn’t booed as such but was politely told to ‘go away’. Now, we all know that Scotland is one of the most welcoming countries in the universe, so she must have left wondering, “What have I done wrong to hurt these nice people so much”.
    May is no fool, just feart.

  164. bugsbunny
    Ignored
    says:

    310 years to the very day since the Union of 1707. I remember 10 years ago to this very day Alex Salmond saying, “Where’s all the Union flags?” I didn’t expect it then that we would still see the Union intact 10 years later. Let’s try and make sure it doesn’t see it’s 315th Anniversary please.

  165. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland

    “They are desperate to shut it down. Looking for any reason they can find”.

    Ruthie is wanting an English safe seat as her reward, the rest are just desperate

  166. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    @ bugsbunny

    I think I must have missed the celebrations as its the greatest thing to ever have happened in human history. Cant wait to see all the yoons out on the street celebrating, her majesty on telly giving a speech about a glorious revolution in these islands….. oh that’s the 12th July, sorry, my mistake.

    It is quite strange though, they are missing an opertunity to rub our noses in it, not like them.

  167. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sandy

    Your talking of the 1985 cup final of course between Celtic and Dundee United. As a United fan I was there and outside the stadium just loads of guys handing out Red Cards.

    And that’s what we did, when Maggie stood up and waved we waved back with the Red Card. I can’t find any footage of that but maybe someone else might because it was a beauty.

    Dundee United lost that day but Scotland won we told Maggie to GTF. In fact we sung that throughout the game both Celtic and United fans LOL. We were as one, as we should be anyway.

    Good game and here’s the goals.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3oWqvPfXo

  168. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Fecked it again 1988 not 85. Dickhead oof.

  169. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    This is Scotland and I don’t care if it’s another team. Because we’re all on the same team. Let’s support each other to win.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdP_KK75ThI

  170. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Thepnr

    close enough

  171. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Now guess what? You get the original. You have the option of ignoring this post of course, but you might be interested.

    That’s why I’m writing this, wee smiley face and tongue between my cheek.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDj4mr0fBc

  172. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    It is inconceivable to me that an argument to authenticate the legitimacy of Scotland’s historic sovereignty would flounder, and fail before the counter argument backing the legitimacy of UK Parliamentary sovereignty.

    The Declaration of Arbroath and its Papal recognition provide us with a clear and unambiguous benchmark which didn’t create Scottish sovereignty, which surely existed beforehand, but what it did was to reaffirm the existence of Scottish sovereignty and see its legitimacy properly recognised by all the standards of its day.

    If we were challenged to produce documentary evidence to support the case for Scottish sovereignty, as a historic Nation we could readily do so.

    I don’t believe the Act of Union could or would survive the same degree of scrutiny. Contrived amidst the bribery, corruption, intimidation and threat of military invasion, of 18th Century UK Imperialist politics, there are fundamental questions that cannot be answered, such as reconciling the inalienable nature of Scotland’s bottom up popular sovereignty with the English top down divine sovereignty. The two are simply not compatible.
    There are also further paradoxes which would need to be reconciled, such as the very existence of a separate Scottish Institutions for Law and Religion, and indeed Monarchy.

    Furthermore, even if the Act of Union was found to be of solid foundation, which I cannot see but nevertheless, there is the definition of Act as a Union of equals which the UK parliament routinely abuses.
    If, as people like Mundell assert, the nations of Scotland and England were extinguished by the Act of Union, then how does that argument reconcile itself with the very existence of a devolved Scottish Legislature? Why does the UK define itself with the UN as two countries, one principality and a province?

    I feel very confident that if Scotland’s sovereignty and the UK Parliamentary sovereignty were both examined in the same scrupulous detail, such close and rigorous inspection would enhance the standing and legitimacy of Scottish sovereignty whilst the reverse would be true for the Act of Union, and the further constitutional abuses beyond.

    And even then, supposing by some ungodly and unnatural turn of events it was Scottish sovereignty which was found to be wanting, then even in our darkest and most forlorn constitutional despair, we actually remain no worse of in our quest for independence than any other population of a geographical land mass which aspires to recognised as a sovereign nation.

    If all our history means nothing and can be swept aside in one stroke, then we can start all over tomorrow and write our own Declaration of Holyrood in the exact same spirit as our forefathers did 700 years ago. We can assume the same freedoms they did.

    I say test the issue. Let the Court of Session validate the truth about Scottish Sovereignty, or deny it and sign its own death warrant for the very concept and constitutional authority of Scots Law.

    Test the issue, then at least the three hundred years of confusion and detritus will be swept away, and whatever we want Scotland to become, or become again, is built upon a pure, honest and inviolable foundation.

  173. Swami Backverandah
    Ignored
    says:

    from the National

    Here’s Alistair darling, campaigning in Edinburgh:

    “On June 8 people can vote Labour to send Nicola Sturgeon a message that Scotland doesn’t want or need another divisive referendum,” he will say.”

    repeating the Tory mantra.

    How original.

  174. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood @ 12.29
    Just as an FYI….my oldest as a council employee at the time was drafted in for N. Lanarkshire’s Postal vote in the referendum.
    She was paying attention and would have been one of the first to shout from the roof tops and I would have been straight on here had she saw any jiggery pokery.
    But she did say ….later… that the ONE day she was there and from what she could see,yes voting N.Lanarkshire had a heavy no postal vote….

    Robert j Sutherland @ 9.08
    No need to apologize I knew you ment the direction of my argument.
    And I am really just concerned that I am not being clear.
    Again I am sorry that I could not stay and continue to debate with you,and,the others.
    Constitutional stuff is and always has been an interest of mine.
    Also don’t worry about Rock,he tried to make a fool of me months ago,so I don’t even read his stuff, never mind respond to him anymore anyway.

    Breeks @ 2.38
    Unusually….very unusually I really disagree with your take on our Sovereignty issues.
    Had a bunch of middle class,appointed, establishment figure’s looked at all of it …in the round…. would you be willing to accept their decision,no matter what it was?
    What if they said Fluffy was right… would you go along with it?
    How long would you go along with it for?
    How long should Scotland go along with it for?
    Because if they say we are extinguished that’s a forever kind of thing.
    Why should a bunch of Judges in 2017 get to make that kind of decision?

    If I am not prepared to accept that Judge’s have that right and would always see a Fluffy Flavoured decision as among other things invalid….then don’t you think that those who believe in the Union would think the same way too,if a Court found in our favour?

    There are indeed issues? that could or should end up in Court’s, mostly the international one’s I think…. espically if our self determination is looking like it was going to be subverted….but not Sovereignty.
    Well not in the way you describe,we can’t go around signing agreements and Treaty’s then have our Court’s insert get out clauses.

    The “so called” Supreme Court did not deny our founding documents as recently as December 2016…well it couldn’t could it?
    What it did say was everything is as it has always been,and if you had really wanted Vow power’s for Scotland you should have gave us something to rule on.
    Batting back Sovereignty issues to Parliament,as IMHO they should have done.

    Because Sovereignty is a subjective issue and it means different things to different people,all that you can actually do with it is either fight and win it as in the past,or take the majority of the people with you.
    The paradox is ….if you have the bulk of the people in agreement it can be left to a group of Judges to decide things…..but if you have the people,the judges aren’t necessary.
    It not..well for me anyway…just an academic debating point, it’s a campaigning and voting point.
    It’s the people/plebs/electorate finally realising their power.
    Nicola spoke recently of the Scottish people discussing the finer points of a Central Bank ect….so an engaged informed electorate is no the stuff of pipe dreams either!
    I just think we have to take the bulk of the people along first, the Court is a rubber stamp,or for clarifying details,but the voter’s first…. there’s yer Sovereignty.

    Hope I made some sense cause I rambled long enough!

  175. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    The Nightmare Scenario would be an IndyRef2 result mirroring that of the second Quebec independence referendum of 1995, when No won with 50.58% to Yes’ 49.42%, less than one percentage point, or 54,288 votes.

    Could such a close No win happen in IndyRef2? Oh yes, it could, easily.

    The upcoming referendum for Scottish independence will not be, and never could be a ‘fair fight’. As in IndyRef1, it won’t be a straight Yes or No vote by the voting public of Scotland with no illegal outside interference taking place – there are far too many ‘interests’, internationally as well as domestically, at stake.

    It would be unthinkable for the Yes side to win in a fair and free referendum by powerful and influential forces who need Scotland to still be something that constitutes ‘the UK’. The actual people who live there are not given a shit about, of course. To misquote Bill Clinton: It’s the resources, stupid.

    But, if Yes were to actually win, it would be an amazing, almost miraculous result in the face of such hostility from, for example, Westminster’s (and ‘friends’ of) secret services’ actors, corporate interests and an incredibly biased corporate-owned media.

    It will be incredibly difficult to achieve that Yes result, yet not a totally insurmountable problem.

  176. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    So, how to counter such hostility (above)?

    It can’t be done. As simple as that.

    The only chance, for now, is by countering the lies and deliberate misinformation by whatever means possible. WOS does a great job of this, as do others on social media and the like.

    But, if the 800 lb MSM propaganda-gorilla beaming out of the Scottish people’s TV screens day and night is left unfettered and free to broadcast falsities, or oftentimes, just pure lies as the ‘truth’, as news, then the equilibrium is out of balance severely, with the odds stacked on the No side.

    So back to the Quebec result, then.

    It would not be out of the question for an extremely narrow victory for No as a result of manipulation, lies and dark arts to be ‘allowed’ to happen.

    Then the desired scenario could occur: The Yes voters would be left utterly dejected by almost getting there, but ultimately, No would stand – much to the agreement of all those bodies of interest. The result would then be settled for… who knows how long.

    Meanwhile, Scotland’s resources continue to be plundered while it’s people’s lives go economically backward.

    Conspiracy theory, paranoid nonsense? Could/Would never happen? Well, let’s hope not.

    Scotland’s survival and future prosperity depends on that result in IndyRef2. May the truth, hope and sincerity of Yes be the winner. Otherwise, Scotland and its people are doomed.

  177. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dal Riata- don’t we at least try Craig Murray’s suggestion of asking OSCE to monitor our media prior to an election/referendum?

    I know we need UK Gov’t permission [tho’ I don’t see why as we are 2 countries in partnership, but still] but if the Scottish Government wrote to both simultaneously the UK Gov’t would be in an awkward position if they refused.

  178. Gerry
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting story here…

    failure to declare an enormous conflict of interest on Brexit related to profits of billions of pounds said to have been made by her husband’s investment-banking company…………
    https://skwawkbox.org/2017/04/30/theresa-may-under-investigation-re-brexit-profits/

  179. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    May finally being found out.

  180. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah at 7:17 am

    Yes, Sarah, I agree with what you and Craig Murray are saying. Especially when Craig Murray says the following:

    “I believe international observation to be absolutely essential to another independence referendum.”

    … he is, of course, totally correct.

  181. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dal Riata – I think NOW would be a good time to ask OSCE. The drip, drip, drip of lies and manipulation on TV, radio and press is working away and must be stopped.

    I’m getting desperate. How Alex Salmond and the like stand it, I don’t know!

    @ Gerry – can you post your off-topic piece from the German Economist re the Downing Street dinner [Juncker] here, please?

  182. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    This was put on O/T but I think ALL should see!

    gerry says:
    1 May, 2017 at 6:10 am
    Sorry for the length of this, apologies if you have already been made aware
    “This is From Jeremy Cliffe the Berlin Bureau Chief at The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/kaffeeklatsch) – Citing [FAZ](faz.net) – http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/brexit/eu-kommission-skeptisch-vor-brexit-verhandlungen-14993673.html
    In full:
    1) May had said she wanted to talk not just Brexit but also world problems, but in practice, it fell to Juncker to propose one to discuss.
    2) May has made clear to the Commission that she fully expects to be re-elected as PM.
    3) It is thought [in the Commission] that May wants to frustrate the daily business of the EU27, to improve her own negotiating position.
    4) May seemed pissed off at Davis for regaling her dinner guests of his ECJ case against her data retention measures – three times.
    5) EU side was astonished at May’s suggestion that EU/UK expats issue could be sorted at EU Council meeting at the end of June.
    6) Juncker objected to this timetable as way too optimistic given complexities, eg on rights to health care.
    7) Juncker pulled two piles of paper from his bag: Croatia’s EU entry deal, Canada’s free trade deal. His point: Brexit will be v v complex.
    8) May wanted to work through the Brexit talks in monthly, 4-day blocks; all confidential until the end of the process.
    9) Commission said impossible to reconcile this with need to square off member states & European Parliament, so documents must be published.
    10) EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted glasses. “Let us make Brexit a success,” she told them.
    11) Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: “Brexit cannot be a success”.
    12) May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.
    13) She cited her own JHA opt-out negotiations as home sec as a model: a mutually useful agreement meaning lots on paper, little in reality.
    14) May’s reference to the JHA (justice and home affairs) opt-outs set off alarm signals for the EU side. This was what they had feared.
    15) ie as home sec May opted out of EU measures (playing to UK audience) then opted back in, and wrongly thinks she can do same with Brexit
    16) “The more I hear, the more sceptical I become,” said Juncker (this was only half way through the dinner)
    17) May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.
    18) Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club
    19) Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.
    20) …leaving EU27 with UK’s unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made repeatedly before).
    21) “I leave Downing St ten times as sceptical as I was before,” Juncker told May as he left
    22) Next morning at c7am Juncker called Merkel on her mobile, said May living in another galaxy & totally deluding herself
    23) Merkel quickly reworked her speech to Bundestag to include her now-famous “some in Britain still have illusions” comment
    24) FAZ concludes: May in election mode & playing to crowd, but what use is a big majority won by nurturing delusions of Brexit hardliners?
    25) Juncker’s team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.
    26) What to make of it all? Obviously, this leak is a highly tactical move by Commission. But contents deeply worrying for UK nonetheless.
    27) The report points to major communications/briefing problems. Important messages from Berlin & Brussels seem not to be getting through.
    28) Presumably, as a result, May seems to be labouring under some really rather fundamental misconceptions about Brexit & the EU27.
    29) Also clear that (as some of us have been warning for a while…) No 10 should expect every detail of the Brexit talks to leak.
    30/30) Sorry for the long thread. And a reminder: full credit for all the above reporting on the May/Juncker dinner goes to the FAZ.”

    Hope you don’t mind, Gerry.

    Peace Always

  183. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    Who the hell has been advising Theresa May?

    She goes ahead, after saying no such thing was going to happen, and makes the bonkers announcement of a snap general election (although investigations into Tory voting shenanigans during the last election might have influenced that decision!).

    Since then, her election campaign has been disastrous.

    And now the latest revelations of Brexit conflicts of interest involving non-declaration of her husband’s investment bank earning billions of pounds…!?

    And then there’s Labour gaining thirteen percentage points in voting intention polls!(although those polls may have been taken in England and Wales only…?) Labour… ffs!

    What a shambles!

    Nice of Theresa to open up more cans of Tory corruption worms for our delectation!

    Great work there, Theresa May’s advisers. Great work!

  184. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah

    No, we don’t need an agreement to hold a referendum. We can hold one every day of the week and twice on a Sunday. What we require an S30 for is a mutually and legally binding agreement of the outcome. That is all that the S30 is. It prevents unwarranted legal challenge by either party of the outcome.

    The EU ref was a consultative referendum. Its outcome, or rather facets of it, were open to legal challenge and duly it wound up in the Supreme Court. How and ever since then it has been debated, voted upon bandied about between houses, chambers and committees in W1 and is in the process of passing into law.

    The ‘Edinburgh agreement’ of indyref 1 saw no such challenge and duly became a legal and binding result regardless near immediately. It takes one partner to default on the promises made or material circumstances to radically alter the outcomes, for a second indyref to become inevitable and possible.

    THAT is all that an S30 is. A way of circumnavigating costly and exhaustive legal challenge by binding both parties to an agreed upon outcome. It is vastly more appealing than the harder slog of fighting W1 over every i undotted and t uncrossed through the courts.

    How and ever, make no mistake. The legislation for holding a referendum has already been passed in a fully mandated Scottish parliament. I strongly suspect it WILL proceed with or without an S30 because the resolution of the constitutional clusterfuck Westminster has dumped upon the UK needs settling. The Scottish population need to settle it and it is only right and proper that the Scottish population have a means of avoiding an appalling economic and societal catastrophe NOT of their own, or their Scottish governments making.

    The choice IS and SHOULD BE ours.

  185. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe (and Gerry) at 7:51 am

    Thanks for posting that! Very, very interesting!

  186. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe/gerry 7.51

    OFFS!

    This is beyond people’s worst nightmare and the poor souls have no idea what’s approaching. They’re too damn busy reading dog whistle headlines and the latest gossip on f**king xfactor.

    They’re going to sleepwalk right into this and not a thing will convince them otherwise.

  187. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    LINKS!

    https://www.sochealth.co.uk/2017/04/19/pfi-case-national-self-harming/

    Brexit: UK may have to recognise ECJ court rulings to keep security cooperation
    http://archive.is/Prbbs

    Peace Always

  188. Brian Powell
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe/Gerry

    The EU is right to release this information as we can see more and more just how chaotic the Brexit ‘team’ is and how little they understand of what is happening.

    Having blustered their way through Brit politics the Brexiters think it will work with the EU. I think as EU countries realise the possibilities of transferring EU projects from the UK to their own economies they will be less and less interested in doing deals with the UK.

  189. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Links? The first lot went astray, maybe caught in the Jammer, so I’ll leave it for now, I’m not risking Rev’s HAMMER!

    Just let me say with a big happy smile: The “Lady” is back on her Own Homeland Isle.

    Peace Always

  190. Brian Powell
    Ignored
    says:

    If Mrs May did say, ‘every vote for the SNP puts Jeremy Corby a step closer to being in Downing St’, then in Scotland that could be a big backfire.

  191. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Please don’t thank me I’m just the man in the middle passing on PROOF of the Westminster FIDDLE.

    Jeez, talk about while Rome burns.
    😎

    Peace Always

  192. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Fran says: 1 May, 2017 at 12:32 am:

    “There seems to be a bit of a problem here. Before devolution it was seen as by WM that a majority of pro independence parties sent to WM by Scotland would be enough to start negotiations on dissolving the union.”

    There is a problem, Fran, and it is obviously one brought about directly by devolution. Devolution, in itself, has changed everything.

    I’ve been highlighting the facts ever since but it seems to be flying over most Scottish heads. Let’s take another wee look at the facts.

    First let’s look at the pre-1707 situation both in fact and how it was viewed differently by The Kingdom of England and by the Kingdom of Scotland.

    Until 1707 both kingdoms were legally independent but from 1603 the two crowns rested on the same head. The monarch tried, unsuccessfully, to form a United Kingdom. He then packed up his entire Scottish court and decamped to England. Who could blame him? Under Scots law he was NOT sovereign.

    Which meant he was legally the subject of the legally sovereign people of Scotland as, “Defender of the People’s Sovereignty”. In England, in 1603, he was the sovereign Monarchy and all England, Wales & Ireland were his subjects. The English rule of law was still, “Divine Right of Kings”, and remained so until 1688. When the English Kingdom became a, “Constitutional Monarchy”. Which left the monarch as legally sovereign but forced to legally delegate the Divine Right, (Sovereignty), to the Parliament of the Kingdom of England.

    The essential point is that while the Kingdom of England was a sovereign Monarchy Westminster has wrongly claimed ever since that there was, “A union of the Crowns”, in 1603 but legally there was not, and could not be, such a union. In simple language in 1603 England claimed there was a United Kingdom with the monarchy being the King of England.

    However, if that had been true, why did they force a Treaty of Union upon Scotland in 1707? What they did was to start what England still claims was, “The Jacobite Rebellion”, in 1688. However, the truth is that you cannot rebel against a monarch who is not your own and the Kingdom of Scotland were still legally independent in 1688.
    The actual rebels were the English Parliament who rebelled against their sovereign monarch, deposed that monarch and imported King Billy & Queen Mary to replace him but that could not change the monarchy in the still independent Kingdom of Scotland. England was still slaughtering innocent Scots non-combatants at Culloden in 1745 even after the Treaty of Union in 1707.

    So we come to 1707. The evidence is that the Westminster Establishment forced the Treaty of Union upon the Scots but the Treaty is, without doubt, a union of two equally sovereign Kingdoms and both former independent kingdoms closed down their former parliaments. In the case of Scotland, though, their parliament was only prorogued.

    Thus Westminster ceased to legally be the Parliament of the Kingdom of England at midnight on the last day of April 1707 and opened on 1 Mat 1707 as the United Kingdom Parliament. i.e. it opened in the same building but was no longer the Parliament of England and until the day devolution began it remained the parliament of the bipartite United Kingdom with neither former independent kingdoms having an individual parliament.

    Now comes the biggest anomaly of all –

    After devolution there was a devolved legislation for Scotland, a devolve legislation for Wales and a devolved legislation for N. Ireland but no devolved legislation for the country of England.

    In effect Westminster had made itself the de facto parliament of England and was thus devolving English sovereign powers to three English dominions but Scotland was never previously an English dominion but the ONLY equally sovereign partner kingdom of the United Kingdom.

    Not only that but Westminster instigated for itself the Supreme Court and thus ignored the legal fact that under the Treaty of Union the two legal systems were sacrosanct forever. In the view of Westminster there was no longer a United Kingdom.

    This was stated by the Scottish Secretary, David Mundell on National TV as, “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom”.

    Fact is the Treaty did nothing of the sort – Westminster did that on the day they split the former United Kingdom up as four unequal countries with England master over the other three.

    So just how does Scotland legally claim her rightful place when the Supreme Court is a Westminster creation?

  193. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Macart 8.07

    Thank you [and may I say that I always pay attention to your posts]. It is useful to have the s30 issue clarified for those who’ve not seen it and to jog our memories.

    My post wasn’t clear – I was referring to the need for the Scottish Government to get UK Gov’t permission to ask OSCE to monitor elections of any kind. It has to be the UK Gov’t asking, theoretically [tho’ if one’s own gov’t is at fault then surely OSCE could make an exception?]

    Mr Murray suggests that a way round this is if the Scottish Gov wrote to OSCE asking for monitoring AND at the same time wrote to UK Gov asking them to support Scottish Gov’s request. How could UK Gov refuse?

    Such monitoring, per Craig Murray, involves media monitoring which could presumably start well before the 6 week campaign, and I would like it now!

  194. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    We are definitely in the shite!

    From WoS twitter

    “German paper’s damning account of PM’s talks with European boss”

    “Juncker’s team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.”

    Do we really have such a totally deluded fool as PM? Looks like it!

    A must read ….

    http://archive.is/QS20t

  195. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah

    Gotcha and no worries. Just catching up on thread myself. 🙂

    Yeah, this time round I’d go along with that. Some kind of exterior monitoring or oversight of the campaigning would go far to easing a lot of worries.

    The breaking of purdah rules by HMG/BT didn’t so much as raise a ripple with the EC last time out. No oversight of delivery on outcomes and pledges in the aftermath, other than by Westminster houses (sigh), has a rather big logic hole requiring attention t’boot.

    Worth thinking about fer sure.

  196. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    How to win friends and influence people?

    http://www.politico.eu/article/uk-block-on-eu-spending-infuriates-brussels/

    As Gerry posted in off-topic earlier, the comments from Faz.net on May/Juncker dinner.

    “This is From Jeremy Cliffe the Berlin Bureau Chief at The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/kaffeeklatsch) – Citing [FAZ](faz.net) – http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/brexit/eu-kommission-skeptisch-vor-brexit-verhandlungen-14993673.html
    In full:
    1) May had said she wanted to talk not just Brexit but also world problems; but in practice it fell to Juncker to propose one to discuss.
    2) May has made clear to the Commission that she fully expects to be reelected as PM.
    3) It is thought [in the Commission] that May wants to frustrate the daily business of the EU27, to improve her own negotiating position.
    4) May seemed pissed off at Davis for regaling her dinner guests of his ECJ case against her data retention measures – three times.
    5) EU side were astonished at May’s suggestion that EU/UK expats issue could be sorted at EU Council meeting at the end of June.
    6) Juncker objected to this timetable as way too optimistic given complexities, eg on rights to health care.
    7) Juncker pulled two piles of paper from his bag: Croatia’s EU entry deal, Canada’s free trade deal. His point: Brexit will be v v complex.
    8) May wanted to work through the Brexit talks in monthly, 4-day blocks; all confidential until the end of the process.
    9) Commission said impossible to reconcile this with need to square off member states & European Parliament, so documents must be published.
    10) EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. “Let us make Brexit a success” she told them.
    11) Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: “Brexit cannot be a success”.
    12) May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.
    13) She cited her own JHA opt-out negotiations as home sec as a model: a mutually useful agreement meaning lots on paper, little in reality.
    14) May’s reference to the JHA (justice and home affairs) opt-outs set off alarm signals for the EU side. This was what they had feared.
    15) ie as home sec May opted out of EU measures (playing to UK audience) then opted back in, and wrongly thinks she can do same with Brexit
    16) “The more I hear, the more sceptical I become” said Juncker (this was only half way through the dinner)
    17) May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.
    18) Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club
    19) Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.
    20) …leaving EU27 with UK’s unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made repeatedly before).
    21) “I leave Downing St ten times as sceptical as I was before” Juncker told May as he left
    22) Next morning at c7am Juncker called Merkel on her mobile, said May living in another galaxy & totally deluding herself
    23) Merkel quickly reworked her speech to Bundestag to include her now-famous “some in Britain still have illusions” comment
    24) FAZ concludes: May in election mode & playing to crowd, but what use is a big majority won by nurturing delusions of Brexit hardliners?
    25) Juncker’s team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.
    26) What to make of it all? Obviously this leak is a highly tactical move by Commission. But contents deeply worrying for UK nonetheless.
    27) The report points to major communications/briefing problems. Important messages from Berlin & Brussels seem not to be getting through.
    28) Presumably as a result, May seems to be labouring under some really rather fundamental misconceptions about Brexit & the EU27.
    29) Also clear that (as some of us have been warning for a while…) No 10 should expect every detail of the Brexit talks to leak.
    30/30) Sorry for the long thread. And a reminder: full credit for all the above reporting on the May/Juncker dinner goes to the FAZ

  197. Abulhaq
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland is not an élitist parliamentary democracy but a popular one. The referendum is the people’s voice, the direct and unmediated one.

  198. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe says:

    This was put on O/T but I think ALL should see!

    Looking back, I see this story about May’s deluded state has appeared already.

    Just checked on my news scraper app and NOTHING has appeared yet in the UK press. They can’t possibly ignore this, can they?

    To my mind, it’s the biggest Brexit story since Leave won!

  199. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    LINKS! More from the Lady;

    https://twitter.com/RealNatalieRowe/status/858957191755313152

    A new business for UK funeral services opening across the land, the strong and stable kind of course!

    https://twitter.com/andree_frieze/status/858945952345985024

    BTW, an Italian guy on https://wingsoverscotland.com/this-is-how-it-begins/ thinks we are all sitting mumbling when we should be out with the pitchforks “so British of us” he says.

    Peace Always

    BTW, an Italian guy on the “Thi

  200. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Liz g

    I’m happy to respect people’s opinion Liz, but I’ll bounce one point right back to you.

    “Breeks @ 2.38
    Unusually….very unusually I really disagree with your take on our Sovereignty issues.
    Had a bunch of middle class,appointed, establishment figure’s looked at all of it …in the round…. would you be willing to accept their decision…”

    What you describe there Liz sounds to me like the way the Union was created. Our “Lords and Masters” fudging the constitutional reality, steamrolling the awkward legal niceties to get their own way and give nobody the chance to contest their perspective.

    But where we really disagree is in our definition of sovereignty. In my opinion it is absolutely not subjective. It is exact opposite. It is the one essential truth that is the very nucleus of any country that exists. If you do not have sovereignty, you have no nation.

    Sovereignty is like energy. It cannot be destroyed or created, it can only be changed in form. There is no dispute over whether Scottish sovereignty exists, it very much does. That is not the argument which undermines UK Parliamentary sovereignty. It is how that sovereignty is being misinterpreted and abused.

    What makes the Act of Union lack competence in law is that it assumes it can remove sovereignty from the people of Scotland, and then subjugate that sovereignty by treating it as something beneath and inferior to a superior sovereignty. Westminster does have the power to do that. We, the people of Scotland are sovereign, absolutely. But if you say we the people of Scotland are sovereign but not as sovereign as the UK’s sovereignty from God, then you are actually saying Scottish sovereignty was a myth and never really sovereign in the first place. An absolute condition has no better or superior.

    I do not need our sovereignty to be defined by a judge. It already is defined, and defined forever in the words of the Declaration of Arbroath and critically too, the international / Papal recognition of that unique popular sovereignty which was enshrined forever upon the people of Scotland.

    When I call for a judicial review, it is not to redefine what our Scottish sovereignty actually is, there is no need for that. It is to reconcile how our inalienable absolute sovereignty is somehow inferior to Westminster’s sovereignty. Where is the legislation and clever device which makes it so? How does Westminster take command of Scotland’s sovereignty when it is not Westminster’s to command or overrule? It is ours. Forever ours, and ours alone. The judicial review I am calling for would have to answer such unanswerable questions, or declare the Act of Union lacks legal competence in professing to do something that cannot properly be done.

    You know who Robert Peffers strives to explain how the Divine Right of Kings legitimised the conquest of one kingdom by another, because the subjugation of one sovereignty was given by God and taken by the same God. There was competence to one divine sovereignty being consumed by a greater divine sovereignty. That’s the principle which allowed tribal boundaries to amalgamate into regional entities, and by a process of conquest and submission become recognised as countries.

    But Scotland was different. In recognising that Scotland’s sovereignty was not a divine sovereignty coming from God, but a popular sovereignty enshrined in its people, everything changed. In doing so the Pope, the expressed will of God on Earth, conceded that Scotland had a sovereignty which could not be amalgamated by conquest or domination. Sovereignty in Scotland was not in the hands of God, because God had acknowledged that in Scotland sovereignty lay in the hands of the people.

    No act of God, no conquest or subjugation by any divine sovereignty can legitimately remove the Scottish sovereignty enshrined in its people. The only way Scottish sovereignty can cease to exist is when every last one of us is gone and there is no such thing as a Scottish person or people.

    Don’t you recognise that very distinction in the Act of Union itself? Centuries of wars, invasions, and intrigue were confounded by incomparable laws and constitutional incompatibilities. England could invade Scotland as often as it liked but no force of arms could unseat Scottish sovereignty with any lasting legal legitimacy.

    It is the same legal legitimacy which escapes the Act of Union. It is an artificial construct which has enjoyed three centuries conventional recognition, a period when Britain few but the very brave or foolish dared to question the might of the rampaging British Empire, but it was all built upon a lie. Now, in these quieter times, it is time to reexamine the truth of it all, and audit our history and rediscover our proper sovereign legitimacy. It is time to take back what belongs to us, not Westminster.

  201. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart

    I have the impression that this GE was not of Ms May’s choosing. It was forced on her by Tory grandees and they corporate backers. I am inclined to believe that she meant it when she said no election: and has been overruled.

    I think this for a number of reasons:

    First, I never did understand why there appeared to be a split in the plutocracy’s ranks. Most of them were clearly against brexit, yet media supported it. It puzzled me.

    But what I see now lends itself to a speculative narrative which seems to fit what facts I have.

    They were aware that support for brexit was side effect of their divide and rule tactics of blaming EU for their austerity polices and blaming immigrants for the effects on public services. That is of long standing and quite consistent (though it is noticeable that it is not that long since EU immigration was presented as a good thing: all those cheap Polish plumbers).

    In their bubble, it was unthinkable that they would lose brexit vote, however. They are nothing if not arrogant and they were playing, they thought, to a minority of thicko’s who would buy in so strongly they would vote for brexit. Most would hold their noses and vote remain, despite the distrust and active resentment fostered by the media stance.

    They miscalculated. It seems the media don’t know their own power when coupled with really bad outcomes for the poor of the policies they have been pursuing here and in US etc. Very probably they have not grasped just how poor those outcomes are and how far up the ladder they have reached by now

    So they got brexit. And they needed to regroup. Particularly in light of the fact that their opposite plutocrat numbers in EU failed in solidarity, in favour of their own corporate advantage and so made it plain they were not prepared to save UK profit at expense of their opportunity.

    A pause filled by the surprising realisation that Ms May is actually, truly racist: or is too stupid to realise their interests are genuinely threatened. Account of the negotiations so far suggest both, and her record at the home office lead me to conclude that Ms May’s only concern is halting immigration. which necessarily entails hard brexit.

    So what then? No need for a GE cos legislation is going through and there is no real problem to solve in those terms. Electoral fraud cases might be difficult, but it is a gamble, and there is no real reason to think many will be prosecuted: they aren’t usually.

    Yet they cannot tolerate hard brexit.

    Solution: force GE on Ms May. She is too arrogant to recognise danger and polls make the tale of now is the time plausible: she wins by a landslide and that appeals

    So she calls it, reluctantly and under pressure but with insufficient reason to break the habit of a lifetime and stand up to her “mentors”

    Then the media turn hostile to her, as we see. BBC was late in getting the memo but they have it now, as Marr and Peston interviews show (still soft ball but not what she expected). Media can make anyone look bad, if we focus on personality rather than policy, and that is their strength. Full force of that is now turned on May, and it is working, per the polls. Time it tight, but it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. May is coming across as an obstinate clown, with a seasoning of corruption and in the context of talking up her expected “landslide”. Never helpful to tell voters you take them for granted so that looks supportive but it isn’t.

    They don’t have time, nor I suspect,inclination to overturn her prospective victory. But if she gets an increase of 50 votes it is easy to portray that as a defeat (see narrative re SNP at present): and then there are the electoral fraud cases, which won’t go away for mysterious reasons we are not used to. Any by elections resulting from those will be fought on the issue of fraud: and Ms May supports those frauds overtly, which means she cannot be unsullied.

    The result is she will go and a soft brexiteer will replace her. The right wing of the party will still not be happy, but I do not think they can do more than make the usual level of trouble in this scenario: and that is a lot better for plutocrats than hard brexit.

    Ms May can’t row back, but the new leader can. It is is also their best shot at defusing Scottish independence, for SNP have relied on hard brexit for their narrative recently: and nobody actually loves EU so it has not played as well as they hoped.

    If tories now negotiate soft brexit, indy has nowhere obvious to go in this situation, despite the fact that tory govt remains as damaging, whether in or out of single market: europe was never the problem in the first place. It is not the reason for indy at all: But many will probably withdraw support if soft brexit achieved in these circumstances.

    The initial miscalculation has made this hard for the plutocrats: but they have been at this a long time and are not to be underestimated.

    Be careful what you wish for in terms of this election: I fear it is not what it seems

  202. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Kerr – thanks a lot!! That’s really cheered me up!!!

    @Macart – if you’ve got blood pressure problems, there should be a health warning on Robert K’s post.

  203. Free Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Strong smell coming from the stable.

    https://twitter.com/JPonpolitics/status/858646232893411328

  204. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry about repeating that from FAZ, I had refreshed the page but only got comments up to 7.00am. (Thought it looked strangely quiet of a morning here).

  205. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for the mistakes above. My proof reader is a dog, and frankly not very good with English. But I forgive him completely because English isn’t his first language, and his attention span struggles with the length of my comments.

    So I should really pay much closer attention myself. Sorry to all.

  206. Gerry
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for re-posting the OT thing smallaxe. I wasn’t here or I would have.
    I should credit the twitter account that I got it from, which was here https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/858810953353367552
    Been trying all morning to get someone to cover this properly, and also the property and ethics group @ Westminster, who are rumoured to be investigating May for not declaring £billions that her hubby made from brexit.
    Alas, a fool’s errand it seems, but I had to try. Thank goodness we have this site in order to raise some awareness to these shenanigans.
    My own take on it is that the rEU have looked at May’s conduct domestically and shook their heads and decided “NO DEAL”.
    May, facing this prospect, along with the electoral fraud issues, and also the possibility of the property and ethics investigation re brexit, knew that she could not survive beyond 2020 so doubled down on a bad bet by calling a GE in order to legitimise her reign.
    She looks dangerously unhinged, and her body language was giving this away already,(look at her right hand when she was “answering questions” last week in Wales for example) but to see this from FAZ in black and white re the EU meeting makes the UK position several hundred times worse.
    It’s Indy or bust now for Scotland. Literally.

  207. Ken Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T After watching Andrew Neil giving Alex a hard time on education, I tried to find a post here from a few weeks ago which dealt with this issue. A link was provided to a blog which challenged the SNP/bad. Passages from the Scottish schools report were used to give a more positive view of our schools. Can’t find it. Can anyone help with name of author or link. Thanks.

  208. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fiona

    I don’t think there’s any doubt that this GE is purely for party political reasons. There is absolutely no need for a GE based on Brexit as an excuse.

    This is ALL about securing Conservative dominance of Westminster politics for the next couple of decades. I suspect there are, as you allude, a great many reasons for this snap election and complete reversal by May on her stated positions on same.

    How and ever I do believe the fraud inquiries and the CPS investigation do have some bearing on the upped timetable. I reckon with 15 police forces worth of evidence, enormous pressure could be leveraged against the sitting Tory government.

    They cannot afford to lose up to twenty of their sitting MPs mid term and so… the straw that broke the camel’s back.

    But yes, I’d say purely political opportunism front to back.

  209. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Ken Clark @ 10.02

    The report you may be referring to is the OECD report: ‘Improving Scotland’s Schools’ published around December 2015. If you do a Google search on the info above you should get a link to a pdf version of the report.

    It was a fairly major study of Scottish Secondary Education but all mention of it quickly disappeared from the MSM when they realised it had more than a few positive things to say about education in Scotland’s schools.

  210. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks says: 1 May, 2017 at 2:38 am:

    “It is inconceivable to me that an argument to authenticate the legitimacy of Scotland’s historic sovereignty would flounder, and fail before the counter argument backing the legitimacy of UK Parliamentary sovereignty.”

    That is a fundamental truth, Breeks, that would stand up in any legitimate court. However, you miss out a rather critical point :-

    “Why does the UK define itself with the UN as two countries, one principality and a province?”

    It doesn’t in fact do that but we can make it something to Scotland’s advantage.

    The title, “United KINGDOM,” is, by definition quite obviously describing a union of KINGDOMS.

    It cannot be assumed that the term, “Kingdom”, is synonymous with the term, “Country”, and World history will provide a plethora of evidence the two terms most certainly are not synonymous.

    However, the point does not end there for what is omitted from the Westminster description as offered to the United Nations is that the description should include that Wales, historically a principality in its own right with native born Welsh princes wearing the Welsh crown was annexed by the Kingdom of England at Rhuddlan Castle and the document known as, “The Statute of Rhuddlan”. Is ample proof of that annexation.

    However, the proof does not end there for until the present day the current, “Prince of Wales”, is the first born son of the monarch of England. On the death of Elizabeth Regina, they will announce, “The Queen is dead: Long live the King”, and the Prince of Wales will instantly become King Charles and his first Born son will subsequently become, “The Prince of Wales”.

    Thus if Westminster claims that Wales is a United Kingdom Principality then upon Scottish independence Scotland will legally own a share of Wales.

    Likewise, with the Kingdom of Ireland that became an English Kingdom’s Province by, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, 1542, and Ireland was subsequently partitioned. Scotland could claim a share of Northern Ireland if Westminster describes it as a province of the United Kingdom.

    As always, Westminster twists the terms used to suit their argument to claim sovereignty over the whole United Kingdom but thus leaves itself open to the consequences of England’s well known, and Worldwide, perfidiousness.

    They cannot legally have it both ways.

    The plain truth is that Westminster has assumed itself to be the Kingdom of England renamed as the United Kingdom but there is not a single bit of documentary evidence that this is so.

    In fact the evidence is that on the last day of April 1707 the Kingdom of England Parliament ceased to exist while the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland was legally prorogued. On the first day of May 1707 a new United Kingdom Parliament had a first sitting in the old Palace of Westminster.

    Furthermore, as the Palace of Westminster burned to the ground and was rebuilt as the present Houses of Parliament with United Kingdom funding, an independent Scotland owns part of that edifice or a cash settlement or other asset as compensation.

    It would, I imagine, make a rather handy independent Scottish Embassy in the independent Kingdom of England. Very handy for future international business with a Kingdom of England outside the EU for a Kingdom of Scotland as an EU member.

    I’m sure that would be a handy bargaining point for an independent Kingdom of Scotland claiming the legacy UK membership in the EU. An EU state’s embassy slap dab within the Kingdom of England’s own parliament building.

  211. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Haven’t noticed in the labour Tory bumpf through my door of whether they are proposing the son or daughter of devo Max plus v4 , federalism ( remember when the lib dems believed in that one – around the time a wee doggy got shot) . The Tories never believed in any devolution. They are as totalitarian as Stalin.

    Will fishing and agriculture be passed to Scotland in its entirety? Of course not. Because bathe brexit case was lies. It will be controlled by London. Many fishing owners sell off their rights.

  212. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks, I must have the same proofreader, he left a bit on my last thread.

    They are out in force early in Gretna, just had a leaflet from Fluffy put through my letter box, in capitals on the front;

    WE SAID NO TO INDEPENDENCE.WE MEAN IT.

    On the back;
    1. Secure a hard-working local MP who will put our communities first.
    2.Say No to a divisive 2nd independence referendum.
    3.Support Theresa May’s plan for Brexit

    DAVID MUNDELL 39.8%
    SNP 38.3%
    LABOUR 14.8%
    LibDem 2.7%

    The guy’s up the LUM! DAVID MUNDELL Party, Who Dat?

    Peace Always

  213. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    When the guilty are seen to be guilty they will fight even harder to defend their righteousness

    Expect all Unionist lies to be even bigger and bolder than last time

  214. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Macart says:

    This is ALL about securing Conservative dominance of Westminster politics for the next couple of decades.

    & @Fiona

    There are those on the right who believe they will benefit from a hard Brexit by changing the UK to a low wage, low regulation country. Do they really have total control of the Tory party?

    I suppose another underlying thought among the many Remain Tories must have, if hard Brexit goes pear shaped would they have won a 2020 election?

    Another angle, how easily could a weak shoogly majority government do a u-turn to a soft Brexit?

    There are a many good (from a Tory perspective) reasons to have this election, get a bigger majority, and delay the next GE for five years.

    The trouble I have is they seem so chaotic, ill prepared and deluded I find it difficult to believe there is an underlying plan to get themselves (and the UK) out of this mess!

    A soft Brexit, with all its benefits include solving the Scottish and NI problems, seems obvious.

    Is this election perhaps about more internal party politics to allow that?

    Should I give them more credit than I do? Time will tell.

    Honestly, I have my doubts.

  215. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart.

    My point is that this is not, IMO, about party political opportunism as that is normally perceived. It is directly about corporate interest in the single market and in Scottish resources (secondarily,perhaps).

    This is based on mitigating brexit: and so in a sense it is honestly about that for them. Just not in the way Ms May would have you believe.

  216. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the real point of it is to ditch May. That is why the media are so uniformly hostile to her

  217. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    They really are slow off the mark. Finally the May / Juncker dinner confrontation leak has been picked up by the msm. I was beginning to think they would bury it! The Independent …

    ” Theresa May’s disastrous Brexit meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker laid bare

    PM’s statements appear to expose fundamental misunderstandings about the EU and Britain’s withdrawal, with officials reportedly telling her the bloc is ‘not a golf club'”

    http://archive.is/WFlDQ

  218. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Macart 9.30 – that was so funny it needs circulating far and wide. Theresa May unable to hand out even one leaflet in Banchory. First house “No thank you”, nobody answered the door.
    Alexander Burnett (of Leys) the MSP was in tow, in a green jumper, along with Ruth Davidson in her new jaiket.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Fergoodness/status/858815839847559173/video/1

  219. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Swami Backverandah says: 1 May, 2017 at 3:01 am

    “Here’s Alistair darling, campaigning in Edinburgh:
    “On June 8 people can vote Labour to send Nicola Sturgeon a message that Scotland doesn’t want or need another divisive referendum,” he will say.”

    It’s a Westminster establishment thing, Swami.

    They all do it. I remember when Alistair would proudly carry the banner in front of far left marches through the housing schemes of Edinburgh and Leith.

    But as their careers in, “The Establishment”, get closer to their retirement, or when their majorities get slimmer, they migrate, inexorably, towards the right.

    If Alistair moves any further rightwards we will witness May and co, shuffling furtively sideways to the right in order to catch up with Alistair.

    Here’s Al in an old photo:-
    http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/sutra6583.php

  220. Gerry
    Ignored
    says:

    @ galamcennalath 10:54
    The Property and Ethics thing is starting to seep through as well, not mainstream yet, but today could turn out to be very interesting. Here’s hoping.
    Not hearing much from the PM yet. Strong and Stable is starting get very weak and wobbly looking.

  221. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fiona

    Party politics has been hopelessly corporately compromised for decades to the point where the joining is seemless. For party see under vested interest (Tories most of all).

    If May secures Tory dominance of Westminster in this GE, I reckon she’ll be allowed to see out Brexit sorta thing and if (publicly) it all goes pear shaped and unmanageable from their perspective, carry the can. She made the Brexit team appointments after all. What the party itself will be left with, is the dominance of the political scene they require and most importantly time to implement the GRB, the British bill of rights and most likely enact the Henry VIII clause.

    Having said that, with such total dominance of UK politics and its media. So long as Ms May stays on message, she could possibly see out both terms. PMs have survived far worse at the expense of junior ministers and MPs careers and the establishment always need a face to front their policies and ideology.

  222. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Last LINK! + A wee bonus one for all you good people

    http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/tory-economics-save-6000-in-benefit.html

    The LADY says;
    Have a laugh before they take this down!
    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kcaga_jeremy-bernard-corbyn-what-was-done_fun

    Peace Always

  223. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Would have love to be a fly on the wall when Theresa got back into that car in Banchory.

  224. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart.

    Well we’ll see. I do not believe they will allow a hard brexit. And Ms May is wedded to that.

  225. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, Rev.Stu. you’re a proper Gentleman sir. (he crawlingly says)very truthfully I may add, your Wonderfulness.
    😎

    Have a good Bank Holiday everyone.

    Peace Always

  226. Gerry
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry the above should obviously read “propriety and ethics” not property.
    Sue Gray heads up their team apparently, and I have spent all morning trying EVERY single phone number that I can find to contact even one of their team.
    Not a single answer as yet. Even getting rubbered from their switchboard reception. People are pushing this issue.
    If you are thinking of giving it a try yourself, avoid 070 gov numbers, they are apparently about £3.40 a minute. Lots of members of the public and journos pushing hard for a statement on this story today.

  227. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    German newspapers heavily criticized today for criticism of Theresa Mays UK Tory government and for writing that criticism in German

    Devious Bastirts eh!

  228. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “It is time to take back what belongs to us, not Westminster.”

    It’s a bit like the time my former boss confiscated my laptop (’cause I was always on the net when I shoulda been working). Later found he’d sold it to someone. I tried getting it back from the person he’d sold it to, explaining to them that my boss had no right to sell what was rightfully mine.

    Person responded, “Tough. I bought it in good faith. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

    I could have dug my heels in and gone all legal but didn’t have the funds at the time nor was I sure if I’d win my laptop back.

    I still don’t have it back. I do hope, however, that my Scottish sovereignty will be fully restored to its rightful place in my lifetime from people who presently believe it to be theirs but who have no legal or moral right to have it whatsoever.

  229. Orri
    Ignored
    says:

    @RP

    On previous threads you’ve said William of Orange effectively usurped the throne of Scotland. However a very brief reading on wiki, so all caveats apply https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_risings , paints a slightly different story.

    First that James not only pissed off the English enough that he ran for his life but that it wasn’t Scotland, still an independent country, that he ran to. So in effect he abdicated both. One wonders if he’d even bothered with actually getting crowned in Scotland.

    Scotland was slow to accept William, who summoned a Convention of the Estates which met on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh. It reviewed a conciliatory letter from William and a haughty one from James. On James’s side, a modest force of 50 horsemen gathered by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee was in town. Graham attended the convention at the start but withdrew four days later when its support for William became evident. The convention set out its terms and William and Mary were proclaimed monarchs at Edinburgh on 11 April 1689. They had their coronation in London in May. William and Mary definitively accepted the Church of Scotland as a Presbyterian institution after decades of intermittent efforts by various monarchs, including James VI, Charles I, Charles II and James VII to mold the Church of Scotland into an Episcopalian institution more pliable to Royal control.

    So in effect William became King of Scots via the proper procedure and in accordance with the Declaration of Arbroath leaving intact that part of our constitution. Portraying him as somehow conquering Scotland is foolish given that then Scotland would really have become another part of an English empire at that time. The Jacobite rebellions were a form of civil war as far as Scotland was concerned. Bonnie Prince Charlie’s insistence on a Divine Right of Kings would certainly not sit well with many in Scotland give his father had been told to fuck of previously.

    To be clear, I in no way condone the imported, from Ireland, version of what William embodies. Certainly not the supression of any religion or its followers as long as the favour is reciprocated.

  230. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah says: 1 May, 2017 at 7:17 am:

    ” … I know we need UK Gov’t permission [tho’ I don’t see why as we are 2 countries in partnership, “

    Please Sarah, stop playing the Establishment’s game for them.
    We are NOT, and never have been, two countries in partnership and by going along with that idea you play right into the Establishment’s hands.

    Read the title ir says in great bug black letters that what is united is :

    THE UNITED KINGDOMN OF GREAT BRITAIN & NOTHERN IRELAND

    In 1603 a king of Scots. (not the king of Scotland), inherited, (because of a royal marriage of convenience around 100 years earlier), the crown of the KINGDOM OF ENGLAND.

    In 1603 that KINGDOM OF ENGLAND was composed of the three COUNTRIES of England, Wales, (annexed in 1248), and Kingdom of Ireland under the Lordship of England, (by appointment of the Holy Roman Se during the Norman Conquest of Ireland), and when the Lord of Ireland forced the Parliament of Ireland to pass, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, 1542).

    There could thus NOT be a Union of the Crowns in 1603 because as King of Scots James VI of Scots was not sovereign under Scottish Law – he thus did not have Scottish Sovereignty. If he had then, when he inherited the crown of England then England, Wales & Ireland would, under the rule of law of England, made them all part of his existing Kingdom of Scotland. The rule of law in England, (Kingdom of), remained Divine Right of Kings until 1688 and the English Glorious Revolution.

    Scotland were legally NOT under the laws of Divine Right from 1320.

    In 1688 the three country Kingdom of England deposed their rightful monarchy in The Glorious Revolution and imported King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange to replace them.

    Then Westminster assumed that because England had deposed their monarchy it affected the still independent Kingdom of Scotland. Thus began what England claimed was a, Jacobite Rebellion – but you cannot rebel against a monarchy not your own and the English were still killing what the termed Scots rebels at Culloden in 1745 almost 40 years after the Treaty of Union.

    Now why, if there had been a union of the crowns in 1603 would they need a treaty of union in 1707?

    So the Treaty of Union has only two signatories and they are both equally sovereign KINGDOMS. The treaty never uses either the word country or countries in the entire document.

    So, you may ask, what’s the problem?

    Simply that Westminster made the House of Lords the Highest court in the United Kingdom, (it contains English Law Lords, Church of England Lords, (Archbishops), and Hereditary Peers)).

    It has now instigated a Supreme Court so Westminster has just assumed it has sovereignty and sown up the legal pathways to justice.

    Which is why Scotland will require outside, international, justice to break the Westminster stich up of Scotland’s legal sovereignty. It very well could be what is behind Brexit. It would remove the UK or at least the Kingdom of England from the international courts of human rights.

  231. Artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    Re;cearc@9.33

    Just unbelievable. The britnats really are an arrogant bunch. Brexit on their terms, in their dreams. They really are on a different planet aren’t they.

    Looks like UK is heading for one long scary nightmare with the tories at the helm. Last week T.May invaded my nightmare, said she was going to ‘win’, though we were shouting tories out! Even Tank commander was there! Truly the stuff of nightmares!

    Did they really think it would be a picnic, as opposed to the strategic mess it already is. What a shambles, T. May is a walking disaster.

  232. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Orri says:
    1 May, 2017 at 11:36 am

    Certainly William, though a monarch and only for limited democracy for the “right” kind of people, was not a bigot and disagreed with the attitudes of the Scottish Presbyterians of the time. Being from Holland he had that country’s more relaxed attitude to religion (live and let live, including Catholics). He would have had disdain for the kind of folk who nowadays shout his name in support of bigotry.

  233. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers 11.52.

    Whoops! Should have known better after my in depth Wings education….

    [P.S. I hope you don’t have to type these out afresh every time!]

  234. Ken Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Ledger wood @ 10:11 Thank you. I believe the report you mention was used by the writer as a means of challenging the unionist narrative. The concluding remarks were especially positive. I don’t have my computer and present and making do with my partner’s I phone. When I can prise it from her grasp! 😉

  235. Orri
    Ignored
    says:

    Where normally he is spot on when it comes to WoO I’m afraid the estimable Prof Peffers is unwittingly supporting a unionist narrative where England finally managed to impose a king on Scotland and have it stick.

    If Scotland had not accepted WoO’s petition to become King and he in turn not done so under Scotland’s terms then the outcome of the Battle of the Boyne and the whole campaign in Ireland might have been different.

    A Scotland where James was still king would have been a strategic nightmare when England came to mount a campaign abroad. Nor should we forget there were clans as well as lowlanders on both sides of the Jacobite rebellions. Many lowlanders wore tartan in battle. That’s the main reason it was banned.

  236. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Smallaxe and The Lady – many thanks for the link to the Jeremy Bernard Corbyn video. It’s brilliant and deserves a wide circulation. looks like it was made by the same team that made the “cry of pish” video about Jim Murphy. Great archive footage as well.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kcaga_jeremy-bernard-corbyn-what-was-done_fun

  237. K.A.Mylchreest
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for that link Capella, a brilliant and inspiring video. The historical part is entirely true, “many a true word …” as they say. As for the rest, who knows, but it’s nice to see that someone has both hope and creativity, qualities we’re greatly in need of just now.

  238. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Capella;

    The thanks all belong to the Lady, who I am happy to report is enjoying a visit to her homeland on the island that she loves.

    The video was good, I hope lots of people take the time to watch it.

    Hope all is good with you, my Friend

    Peace and Love Always

  239. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 9.37
    Hi Breeks have only just seen your reply.
    Unfortunately we are discussing the one subject that takes paragraph upon paragraph to try to make any sense.
    But fortunately there is a new thread so I don’t feel so rude writing for …..ever LOL.

    You kind of made my point Breeks,when you described what you think Sovereignty is.
    It’s also worth noting when you ask 10 different people and you get 10 different answers,and that there are a lot of books written on this and even they have all interpreted Sovereignty a wee bit differently.
    Sooo…. if there are many different ways of looking at the issues…up to and including yours and mine….. that’s what I mean when I say Sovereignty is subjective.
    I would also argue that to define it actually limit’s it and limited Sovereignty is no Sovereignty at all.

    In my view…. there’s nothing at the moment to be taking Westminster to Court about.
    We have not had our Sovereignty removed,it however you define it,is being exercised in the seat of government.
    You could also argue that by freely taking part in General Elections and continuing to send our representatives to Westminster the People of Scotland approve of the current arrangement.
    While it’s fair to say that during the relatively recent notion that the actual people get to vote,that most Scots were not aware that they had a choice, ignorance is no excuse in law.
    It can most definitely be argued that the people of Scotland consented to the Treaty of the Union in September 2014.
    Ok it might have took over Three hundred years but….
    they freely choose to ratify it.
    And we weren’t tricked into doing it either.
    So our Sovereignty was right there in our own hands and we chose to let it be exercised by Westminster,in the full knowledge that it would be operating within a system that holds it’s self to be Sovereign.

    There’s only a problem from the point of view of going to Court…if we (the Scots) can’t? or are prevented from making any adjustments we see fit to the Sovereignty…such as voting on it or redefining how it’s exercised.
    But as far as I can tell we are no at that stage yet.

    I am not sure that I understand your position in the bit where you write about the ” God ” role.
    You seem to be saying that even God can’t take Scottish Sovereignty away.
    Well my understanding was that ONLY god could remove it,but either way that’s no something a Court could address and rule on,but I would love to see them try.

    So I hope you see why my position is that we can’t start in a Court, unless and until we are actually prevented from exercising our Sovereignty.
    We have to create the demand to exercise our Sovereignty first!
    The best way I can think of at the moment to help explain myself is…..
    I wouldn’t go to Court to prevent my Neighbour building an extension if that Neighbour wasn’t actually trying to build one.
    I would need to wait till they attempted to do it, before I could ask a Court to stop them.
    But don’t get me wrong Breeks I do see the point you are making,and I am as keen as you are to get this Sovereignty thing sorted, I just don’t agree with how your suggesting we tackle it.

  240. Davosa
    Ignored
    says:

    Seeing the Buffalo Fucker creeping up Fuhrer May’s arse after she was ignored and re-buffed in Aberdeenshire was priceless. Anyone seen this from twitter – expect most have but quite funny – Kim Jong May indeed !

    t.co/o2Q7iWTn9O



Comment - please read this page for comment rules. HTML tags like <i> and <b> are permitted. Use paragraph breaks in long comments. DO NOT SIGN YOUR COMMENTS, either with a name or a slogan. If your comment does not appear immediately, DO NOT REPOST IT. Ignore these rules and I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS.




↑ Top