Where you stand
Posted on
June 22, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The media is aflame today with some rather woolly “news” to the effect that Theresa May might possibly, in some unspecified manner, have conceded a veto over Brexit to the Scottish Parliament.
We can see no evidence suggesting such a thing has happened or will happen, and would instead direct readers to a report published yesterday by Unlock Democracy. We strongly advise taking five minutes out of your day to read pages 26-33 of it, but if you’re really in a rush this paragraph will give you the basic conclusion:
Remember your place, lesser nations of the UK.
Well Rev, it;s possible thgat in Round 2 of Wolffe v Keen, if it happens, there could be a different set of people saying “We’ll be the judge of that”.
As cautioned by several commentators on Twitter this morning this now gives truth to Mays little trick of take the bait so we can crush you for challenge against WM.
The other part to the trick is that Scotland is given a veto and uses it, May throws up her hands and says ‘oh well, can’t do Brexit because of the Scottish veto, blame the Jocks for thwarting the will of the people’. Win-win from her perspective.
Holyrood IS the most powerful parliament in Holyrood
with all the powers of my bathroom cabinet when it comes to opposing England
Dont it feel good
Just how long is it going to take for all the Scots NoButs to actually see and understand what is happening to their country?
In effect we are less than an English county in terms of decision-making, as WM have complete control over us in all matters.
We do ourselves no favours by infighting and bickering (I know it’s hot!!) about what the SNP should/should not be doing. For goodness sake, get behind Nicola.
I’ve seen the argument a lot already, that this is a trap by May so she can cancel Brexit because the Jocks have vetoed it.
But it doesn’t work.
The rUK can have a quick referendum on independence from Scotland, i.e. cancel their Act of Union with Scotland and end the Union.
Then the rUK can leave the EU, in accordance with the Constitution of the memeber state as specified in Article 50. Westminster might in that case have to re-invoke the Article 50 on its behalf.
And I doubt the Brexiteers would take long to find this out.
So I say – go ahead – make my day.
Scotland and England. Two equal partners? Afraid not. Westminster is where the power lies and is an English Parliament in all but name.
Scotland will do as its told. Including giving back the powers we already have.
Forget a constitutional convention.
The devolved administrations are being stitched up to the nth degree and here in Scotland Nicola must now push on with an independence agenda with the whole YES movement behind her.
Nobody else is looking after Scotland’s interest. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
And the fine Brits of Scotland’s unionism cabal delight over the fact that we remain a Subculture to Westminster’s greater ambition and Dominion of parliamentary sovereignt in all things meaningful to the people.
Dont give a toss about May or her tory cronies, lets look closer to hame.
On sovereignty Burns called it right & the PoR are still amongst us.
I’m just wondering here.
Does this mean we now have the “Prime Minister” of the (dis)United Kingdom confirming that anything Scruffy Fluffy spews about “further new powers” for Holyrood are exactly what WE all know it to be … SHITE! 😀
When I asked Lallands Peat Worrier about this he said basically that while it is not judicially enforceable, there are no cases to his knowledge, of consent not being respected.
Three reasons why Scotland always has difficult Uniting
1 The sectarian idiots
2 Their Mammys always made all the decisions so they’re feart
3 They’ve been prison institutionalised
England will rally behind a monkey if they think it means winning but in Scotland we say, Nicola Sturgeons no perfect so Ahm no voting fur independence because of a dugs tail, which saves the day Phew!! good excuse
Then there’s the big reason the daddy of them all
“Och jist coz” as they look sideways, down and skyward
@sassenach says: 22 June, 2017 at 10:00 am:
” … We do ourselves no favours by infighting and bickering (I know it’s hot!!) about what the SNP should/should not be doing. For goodness sake, get behind Nicola.”
That comment, by sassenach, on this particular subject cannot be bettered in any way. It says everything that needs to be said on that subject.
Even the late shift of the usual suspects will have a hard job attempting to put Scots and Scotland down on that score.
Mind you I’m sure they will try.
The Scottish constitutional question sits 50:50, swinging either way depending on how you ask the question or what’s been in the news lately. Everyone knows it. It keeps us going as the goal is within sight, and it terrifies the Unionists.
It is inevitable that a big political mistake will be made regarding Scotland, because it is the nature of the WM Tory Brexit beast, and it will deeply offend millions of Scots. When a clear majority what Indy, it will happen. That is how it happens in every other country on the planet.
The only questions are, what will be their screw up issue and when will they do it?
Here’s Wullie The Rennie saying as much, three years ago.
Every day’s a holiday for this tube. Perhaps helps explain why he’s always so sanguine about presenting himself as a carefree fud rather than ‘a serious politician’:
link to youtube.com
Holyrood has no power to veto BREXIT. End of story. The Supreme Court ruling made it clear that it was not “justiciable” i.e. courts could not decide the issue because it was a political decision. For that you need a majority in Westminster.
I think the key thing to realise is that Westminster can and will piss on Scotland where and whenever they want. That will never change, unless we choose to go Independent.
Mischief is definatly going on , look at some of the postings on every Independence supporting website since the election , these people are activly trying to undermine Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP government , all the wee snide remarks have not gone unnoticed .
As for this report advocating changes at Holyrood , authored by a ex BBC placeman , this report should be politely received then filed under ” Aye in yer dreams “,I wish the SNP would stop pandering to the unionist parties , they dont want answers they are intent in gumming up the works .
Isn’t there power from the EU to insist that others are involved in Brexit negotiations or is it in the sole power of Westminster to decide who sits at that table?
Can’t remember who said recently that Brexit isn’t just about what the tories want but it is for all people to have a say. Might have been ?Barnier or ?Verhofstadt.
As for the document Stuart’s directing us to. It’s chilling reading. The cards are well and truly stacked against Scotland. When, oh when, are we going to have breaks in our favour?
There is subtle distinction here…
Legally Scotland can not veto Brexit.
However : the Scottish parliament should be given a vote on the great repeal bill (as it involves devolved issues). If the Scottish parliament votes against the great repeal bill then we have an interesting confrontation.
In this scenario Westminster might ultimately be forced to use its ultimate sovereignty. For the first time in history of devolution Westminster would actively veto a decision made at Holyrood. Which of course would create a real constitutional and legal mess.
This is the real story which media have failed to pick up.
Interesting times.
Nope, I can’t see the SG attempting to veto Brexit for the UK even if they could. They’ve never said they would prevent England and Wales, or NI for that matter doing what they’re going to do.
How and ever, throwing legal and constitutional road bumps at the GRB where it intersects with Scottish law? That may a different kettle of fish entirely. Now that, I’d say, is what is really grinding their gears in No.10.
ALL the SG have ever stated is that they will fight for Scotland’s interests and ensure that the Scottish electorate reserve the right to decide their own fate on the back of an overwhelming vote to retain EU membership.
As addition to my previous comment… The Westminster establishment are clearly terrified of having to use their veto over Holyrood for the first time (in order to pass the Great Repeal bill).
Doing so will provoke democratic outrage and expose the current balance of power in the UK. It can only be a catalyst for the YES movement and further justify claims for independence.
I did wonder why the press were going ‘big’ on the ‘Scottish Parliament could block Brexit’ thing when the Supreme Court ruling in the Gina Millar appeal case was quite clear that Sewell is a convention and has no legal standing therefore it is up to Westminster what does, or does not, come our way.
But then the MSM are probably playing their usual game of trying to stir up antiSG/SNP feeling by making it look like the SG was going to deploy the wrecking ball.
The MSM seem to have forgotten the Supreme Court judgement but then they do have the attention span of gnats.
Of course, the other thing we should not forget about that Supreme Court judgement is the section where they say the Scottish Parliament cannot be closed unless the people decide in a referendum on that specific issue.
Saw the Onionist MPs walking up and down in front of the SNP leader’s speech. Even the Speaker had to draw them to “order”.
They could not care less about Scotland and our MPs are just a minor irritant.
Interesting times indeed. And yes, the amount of anti-SNP propaganda is getting mental. I even unfollowed Angry Salmond last night as he’s gone full-blown anti-SNP now.
The imperial power never provides the colony with the powers that one day the colony could use to embaress it.
The colony can obtain power via demonstrating and appealling directly to the people. However this will only have limited impact and you return to the above paragraph.
The only true way the colony can obtain power is to gain independence.
Ask the Irish or the Norwegians if they would give up their freedom?
Walking on Sunshine @ 10.09
“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
We do in fact have something to lose and that is our devolved parliament.
If we don’t ge tout before the Brexit Calamity comes to a head one of the first things they will do is shut down Holyrood and the Welsh Assemblies. Not sure what the deal is in NI.
Walking on Sunshine @ 10.09
“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
We do in fact have something to lose and that is our devolved parliament.
If we don’t get out before the Brexit Calamity comes to a head one of the first things they will do is shut down Holyrood and the Welsh Assemblies. Not sure what the deal is in NI.
Spoke to a legal person who knows a bit about this. Says it’s about how the devolved competences at Holyrood are impacted by the GRB. Holyrood (technically) has to approve by vote any impact that might occur on any devolved competence.
If Holyrood refuses to allow the devolved competences to be impacted by WM then we have a stand-off. WM can, of course, simply over-rule Holyrood and implement the changes. Which will then have many all across Scotland wondering what the hell is the point of Holyrood if, even in devolved competences, it gets told by WM what it can and cannot do. As such many may well decide that they would rather have a truly independent parliament with full sovereignty; a parliament in which WM could NOT over-rule.
That’s where it’s going.
Gordoz 10.13am. I think ‘rogues ‘is to lenient a term for them.
I believe what is being reported in the unionist press is just one big con job and won’t happen.
As Stuart has pointed out there is no evidence for Theresa May having conceded to giving Holyrood a veto over Brexit.
We have already seen the behaviour of unionists over Scotland having voted yes to remain part of the EU.
Can you imagine how the unionists would react if Holyrood had the temerity to block the great repeal act and Brexit?
The other side of the trick is that if Holyrood does consent to the legislation, every argument for Scotland in Europe will be countered by ‘Why didn’t you block Brexit when you had the chance?’
The fact that May didn’t dodge the question when she could have, suggests to me that the Tories regard a LCM as a useful card to keep up their sleeves. That alone make me highly suspicious.
The Supreme court ruled that WM is sovereign over Holyrood. It did not rule that WM is sovereign over the votes of the people of Scotland.
The people of Scotland voted to remain in the EU, Theresa May will need to overrule the rights of the Scottish Nation to take Scotland out of the EU.
I wait with baited breath for her decision, democrat or despot?
The report itself is a classical Labourite analysis. It identifies (surprise, surprise!) a problem with devolution and the overweening power of the UKGov (a power that Labour administrations have been no more keen to give up than the Tories – the creation of Holyrood being the one salient exception, mainly driven by political expediency though than by principle), but its proposed solution is to have a “constitutional convention on the future of the UK”. This would be a talking shop composed of a randomly-selected bunch of individuals who would be assailed for some undefined period by academics and pressure groups, then their ultimate conclusions (if they reached any) would be put forward to Westminster for consideration and implementation.
Leaving aside the proven utterly untrustworthy nature of all Unionists with regard to Scottish autonomy, the nature of these deliberations would likely span several UK governments of different political motivations and inclinations, with little confidence that anything concrete would ever emerge from this long-winded process.
It’s a typical Labourite piece of do-good puffery that would simply fiddle uselessly away while the UKGov continued to merrily trample all over us for real. What we need urgently is some political action, not years of empty chatter.
As an example, the authors seem quite happy to let Brexit roll all over us here in Scotland before this talking shop of theirs is even brought into being -errm- by whom and how, exactly?
Oh, and with a bitter little pill thrown in for good measure at the end. (Shades of 1979.) The notion that any constitutional change (including independence?) might need supermajority decisions and turnout quotas. Get used to those chains, Scottie upstars!
me @ 12:02,
That posting should end, of course, with “Scottie upstarts”.
I had a scan of page 2 of the daily stranger and it claims these power are the result of vow.
Well I suppose it needs to keep trying to flog the dead horse of the vow.
In order to keep up the pretence that the leaders of the unionist parties believed in and took such nonsense as the vow seriously.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
The Treaty of Union is, without doubt, a legal bipartite contract between two equally sovereign Kingdom’s. The two Kingdoms do not form a single unified country. At best they are a political state of two Kingdoms.
Westminster has made the above statement abundantly clear by splitting the unified kingdoms up as four separate countries but have retained for themselves the Westminster parliament of the United Kingdom as the Kingdom of the country of England and that is where Westminster is acting illegally. In short Westminster has assumed that it is the Parliament of England that has assumed it is legislature for both the United Kingdom and of the Country of England now promoted to be the masters and their former partner kingdom of Scotland illegally relegated to being an English dominion just as are Wales & N. Ireland.
They are thus illegally devolving the sovereign powers of England upon Scotland and ignoring the truth that Scotland is also a fully equally sovereign partner in a bipartite union of Kingdoms.
In other words the actual United Kingdom has now actually ceased to exist.
Here, though, is the problem that the United Kingdom/England Parliament of now must face.
The laws of The Kingdom of Scotland and the laws of the Kingdom of England, as acknowledged by Article of Union number 19 of the Treaty of Union, state that the two legal systems are basically incompatible and must legally remain so in perpetuity.
That brings us to the point that there is now a constitutional crisis that can only be solved by a majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland asserting there undeniable legal sovereignty by a referendum and taking the matter of Westminster’s illegal actions to the international courts.
There’s the rub – we must have a verifiable majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland, united under a recognised organisation, before we can take the matter to the international courts of human rights.
The fact is plain – the United Kingdom Government at Westminster are signatory to the Council of Europe, The European Union, The United Nations and the Geneva Convention. How can they hope to justify their illegal actions to those organisations that they are signatories to all the rights of Human Rights and specifically the international human right of self determination?
All it needs is a verifiable majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland in a democratic referendum. This then stands against the sovereignty of the Kingdom of England that legally rests only with the sovereign Queen of England that is legally delegated to the, (elected by no one), parliament of England that is now operating as if it were the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Anne Bruce @ 11:00,
jfngw @ 11:57,
Article 50 requires that we apply to leave according to the constitutional requirements of the leaving country (the UK, in our case).
This situation re Scotland has only been contested in terms of the Sewell Convention as it appears in the Scotland Act 2016, on the tail end of the Supreme Court case brought by Gina Miller and others. And as we all know, in those very narrow terms been found wanting, and rightly so in those terms, since it was just one little piece of the Smith betrayal.
However, Brexit has never been tested against the one and only written-down constitutional fundament of the UK, namely the Treaty of Union. This guarantees the people of Scotland certain inalienable rights to be carried into the new UK, rights which have thereafter been neglected by the Scots themselves for far too long in the interest of a very lop-sided unity.
Even now I believe that the SG should be legally exercising these rights, and taking the Brexit case beyond the narrow-minded Supreme Court to the ECJ. (That guarantor of our rights which Mayhem is determined to close off as quickly as possible.)
Nicola sturgeon is a fantastic leader. She and us will get us there.
Just listening to a n other yoon red tory charlatan, ranting away at SNP austerity, so er, vote red tory again Scotland.
link to medium.com
“Labour and the left teeter on the brink of disaster. There, I said it. I’ll explain why.”
JC bad, baddest, v bad, v v bad, we’re doomed, I told you so,
6. What’s the strategy to win over Scotland?
This was identified as a key priority during Corbyn’s last leadership campaign. It is difficult, currently, to see how Labour can win a general election without winning a considerable number of seats North of the Border. At the last Holyrood elections, Scottish Labour came a disastrous third.
That’s not to blame Corbyn: here was the manifestation of problems that long predate his leadership. But polling in Scotland really is beyond awful. Just 19% of people who voted Labour in 2015 think Corbyn is doing well: and while Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has a +58 net rating among Scottish Labour voters, Jeremy Corbyn languishes on -47% among Scottish Labour voters. It no longer seems as though Scotland is any kind of priority. Where is the strategy to win back Scotland?”
Keep lying at us with hour and minute of BBC Scotland day basically.
What a difference a year makes, in the UKOK zone of charlatans and chancers.
All heil Scottish First Minister Ruth Davidson.
Keep lying at us with every hour and minute of BBC Scotland day basically and all the rest too! Nice display of stinky old Graun’s bizzaro world of whatever passes for UKOK tory hackdom these days,
link to archive.is
Labour Opinion
Jeremy Corbyn has caused a sensation – he would make a fine prime minister
Owen Jones
Owen Jones
Dickheads one and all.
“Even now I believe that the SG should be legally exercising these rights, and taking the Brexit case beyond the narrow-minded Supreme Court to the ECJ. (That guarantor of our rights which Mayhem is determined to close off as quickly as possible.)”
I don’t understand why this has not been done before now whether Brexit was on the horizon or not.
The relationship was supposed to be of equals under the Treaty, that is has not been, has not been legally challenged in international courts. It may very well become too late do so shortly in the ECJ as you suggest.
I don’t think the majority of people in Scotland see the coming dangers for our democracy from Brexit and the repatriation of powers which will inevitably end up strengthening Westminster and hobbling Holyrood.
Hollyrood is a ‘parish pump council’ (Tony Blair ) and May is kite flying to see if the SG will walk into a trap: halt Brexit and get blamed by all and sundry, particularly the confused Brexiteers anti Indy 62%.
Or get overruled anyway and still villified by all and sundry media again as ‘undemocratic ” to the UK. Either way being set up for abolition by WM as an irritant. Unfortunately, I don’t detect a groundswell of support of a majority of our population to fight WM via this scenario.
Scotland via the SNP government reps in Westminster (where our real representative sovereignty resides)should be appealing directly to the European Court for support in running a plebiscite without any Westminster involvement or assent. Bypass the bear trap and get the anti Indy but probably EU body of voters back behind the binary choice of EU membership tha the other EU REf majority of 62% Scots voted for.
@Robert J. Sutherland 22 June 12.27pm
Scotland should be asserting its authority – its sovereignty – within the Union.
I have no objection to your principle of doing it via the Union Treaties in Court.
However, as much of the UK is an unwritten constitution an non-legally binding conventions such as the Sewell Convention.
I think it’s a good idea to assert political authority at the same time. A two-pronged assertion of sovereignty within the Union.
Hopefully the courts would uphold Scottish sovereignty on the basis of the Union Treaties ( but I suspect they would come to a conclusion that it’s unclear what are the limits of Scottish sovereignty and WM sovereignty, so the ScotGovt have failed to prove WM has exceeded its authority. But that’s sheer speculation at this stage.
Already we see the misinformation that Scotland would be consulted and have a say on Brexit. We know that’s mince, but does the average Scottish voter?
If we had a referendum on Scottish sovereignty -and Scotland’s population voted for that- there would be the democratic mandate from the Scottish public for Scottish sovereignty.
The UK Govt would face a clear political challenge and would have to accomomdate that in law or defy the public of Scotland, which they can do. But it would show WM Govt to be undemocratic and autocratic. That Scotland’s place in the Union is one of servitude to WM.
Nicola knows that the Great Repeal Bill is coming.
This will impact on many rules that we have in Scotland.
She has known for some time that any changes to UK rules that affect Scotland will require a Legislative Consent Motion – i.e. Holyrood will have to debate and accept these proposed changes, or not, as the case may be. ( Legal requirement of the Scotland Act.)
This requirement for a LCM was initially tested in the Gina Miller case but the nub of that decision was simply that the actual triggering itself of Article 50 would not change any rules as they applied in Scotland, Wales or N. Ireland.
That change would only happen once the Article 50 negotiations resulted in proposed alterations.
( Don’t forget, there is currently a legal case going through the ECJ considering whether Article 50 has actually been triggered – on the basis that it required an Act of parliament to trigger it.)
The N. Ireland judge summed it up poetically with words to the effect of,
we know that the wind of change will be blowing but the question is .. in which direction?
In other words, as Nicola has maintained all along, we need to wait to see the shape of the Brexit deal – what will be affected, what rules will be changed, where we might gain or lose etc. if it changes any laws in Scotland, it will require an LCM then we will really see the mettle of our SLabour/Lib Dem and Tory MSP’s.
Ironically, maybe T May will succeed in bringing the people of Scotland together!
I think we are in a safe position just now and still have several cards to play.
All things come to he who waits.
Some posters here are expecting Westminster to try to close down Holyrood.
I would suggest that this is unlikely as the resulting constitutional row would dwarf anything seen in Scotland since 1707. There would be riots in the street.
At the very least all SNP MPs would withdraw from Westminster and set up a new parliament in Scotland, with like minded MSPs.
Many soft Yes and No voters would be horrified at this high-handed arrogance and would rally to the cause and a referendum for independence would sweep to victory.
I don’t think they would dare to do it although the current lot seem stupid enough for anything.
They could well be egged on by our very own “Proud Scot buts” but the majority of real Scots are quite pleased with our Parliament.
After watching FMQ’s I see tRuthless’ strategy.
She is highlighting the SG ‘s poor handling of the Farm payments, the weak IT system that still has faults and that fact that many farmers are still ostensibly without their payments.
Despite the FM explaining the availability of Loans etc and other mitigating factors.
It’s obvious that the SG cannot be trusted to deal with the distribution of farm payments so that will have to go to WM.
tRuthless also has her ex-candidate, an extra Tory Lord representing rural Perthshire who will do what she tells him, in the Scotland Office along with Fluffy so we can probably kiss that all goodbye now.
Fireproof Jim
If they close down Holyrood, Tavish Scott, Jacquie Baillie, James Kelly and Willie Rennie would have to find real jobs.
They’re not Turkeys and they won’t vote for Christmas.
Off Topic.
FIRST MINISTER’S QUESTIONS.Thursday 22/06/2017
Scottish Parliament TV
ARCHIVED. YouTube:
link to tinyurl.com
O/T
Heard on BBC Radio 4 this morning but yet to see it in print:
The victims of Grenfell fire may have died from cyanide poisoning as the tiles gave off cyanide fumes.
Survivors in hospital are being treated with anti-cyanide medication!!!
Also, Ian Blackford was being subjected to a Nick Robinson interruption interview this morning, about 8.35. I thought he did extremely well. Very cool, level-headed and clear.
Kept twisting Robinson’s arrogant questions back to a conciliatory, concise answer.
Brilliant.
Meg merrilees
UK Government was fine £650 million for late payments, so good luck to farmers until 2020 when the subsidies stop.
Also good luck to them if there is no deal and they need to operate under WTO regulations. Immediate 14.5% tariff on farm products for export and 40% tariff on dairy exports. Plus competing with those countries have had experience in that environment and have alread worked out deals.
So many people don’t understand UK success depended on allowing access to the EU, that will be gone no matter what deal happens.
Scotland has a choice if folk here get their heads out of their asses.
Meg @ 1.54 – The SNP have to present the whole history of these Farm Payments, and the small inconvenient item ,being the Westminster Government has misappropriated these funds earmarked for Scottish farmers, and has never managed to pay these funds on time , Ruthless is having fun when the whole facts are not well known, This is when the Scottish Government must step in .
Unlock Democracy Page 26 end of paragraph one.
“If Westminster fails to respond to this sentiment and treat the devolved administrations as equal partners rather than subsidiaries, then the breakup of the Union may draw ever closer.”
This must be a typo, and should read ‘and treat the devolved administrations as subsidiaries rather than as equal partners, then the breakup of the Union may draw ever closer’.
Apologies if already reported.
Robert Graham says:
Yes, they most certainly have.
Also, the CAP payments received by the UK have always been disproportionately low. Goes back to Thatcher objecting to ‘large’ CAP payments to farmers across Europe and insisting in getting the much heralded rebate. (Also VAT was involved.) Accordingly WM never requested large CAP payments. It does appear that the rebate was in fact partially a trade off for low UK CAP payments. Another Tory political con.
The net effect is, DEFRA take lower CAP than it could, and then (as you say) pockets money which was meant for Scottish farmers.
I have read that a croft on Skye is receiving half the CAP payment it would have received in Connemara!
An iScotland in the EU, and receiving its due share of CAP for hill farmers and crofters could further increase its agricultural productively, grow rural economies, and stimulate expansion of our quality food industry.
Indy offers soooo many opportunities. Brexit UK offers social bankruptcy and a collapsing economy. Choice should a no brainer.
Hurray!! At last! Westminster and Holyrood finally get to the crux of the constitutional issue!
What is “Holyrood”?
Is Holyrood the “super committee” created as an inferior lesser legislature subordinate to Westminster? Or is Holyrood the formal assembly of the elected delegates of Scotland’s sovereign people? IT CANNOT BE BOTH.
Holyrood is as much of an oxymoron as Westminster, because neither institution can reconcile the irreconcilable problem of two distinct and inalienable absolute sovereignties being joined to become one single entity.
What we are seeing in such written passages, and the Supreme Court adjudication, is the attempt to assert sovereignty in the absolute raw. Westminster is planting its flag in the sand and saying it has sovereignty over Holyrood.
It is now incumbent on Holyrood either to concede that fealty and bow before Westminster, or to pull Westminster’s flag out the ground to plant a saltire there and invoke Holyrood’s legitimacy, its very right to exist, and ultimate power to act as Scotland’s government, as a direct consequence of Scottish sovereignty, which has precedence, and older recognised legitimacy, and is thus a superior sovereignty to that of Westminster.
Who has sovereignty over Holyrood? What a thoroughly excellent question. Let’s ask the Court of Session…
Because for what it is worth, and you may not like it, I think Holyrood as it stands IS a super-committee, empowered by delegated authority, and is subordinate to Westminster.
However, the assembly which meets in Holyrood, not the super committee forum but the actual Scottish MSP’s in person are not drawing any sovereignty from Westminster, because their power comes from the sovereign people of Scotland. It is not Westminster who appoints them and places them. Scotland does that, so they are the manifestation of Scotland’s sovereign will.
The Institution of Holyrood, the business of the day which it has been given to deal with, is indeed a subordinate arm of Westminster government. The composition of Holyrood, the principle of Scotland’s elected government sitting in council to govern, is subordinate to nobody except the Scottish people.
Holyrood cannot be both. It can only be one thing or the other. In short, Westminster supplies the building, but Scotland supplies the people inside, and both claim ownership of the sovereign legislative product. That situation is simply untenable.
What must happen next is not a referendum, because democracy cannot determine the principle issues. It has to be a formal test of sovereign legitimacy. We need an arbitration procedure to legislate whether Westminster’s claim of sovereignty over Scotland is superior to Scotland’s own claim of inalienable sovereignty. Someone, I presume the Court of Session has to make the case for Scottish Sovereignty, and the High Court of England or perhaps the Supreme Court of the UK has to make the case for Westminster’s Parliamentary sovereignty.
There is no democratic resolution to this constitutional stand off. It requires to be determined by a tribunal of International law. Forget Brexit, forget ScotRef, this issue of sovereignty has to be determined as a preamble and precondition of both. There is no choice in the matter.
Not only does Scotland have a veto on Brexit, Scotland may have a somewhat dusty and under appreciated veto on the whole concept of the United Kingdom.
For God’s sake, get this to a Court on time.
I notice some posters are again suggsting a withdrawal of SNP MPs from the House of Commons. This would have no effect, the Unionist parties would simply carry-on without them, far easier than having to answer their questions.
It is quite one thing for Sinn Fein to not take their seats, their position is clear, Ireland was conquered by force by England and should have no part in the English Parliament.
But, Scotland, voluntarily agreed a Union with England.
(OK, I know, we were railroaded into it by yon parcel o’ rogues, but, we have accepted it).
Over the following 310 years, we have more or less accepted the – we are in a permanent minority in the de facto Parliament of England. What England wants it gets.
Our main battle-ground towards Independence IS NOT HOLYROOD – IT IS WESTMINSTER. That is where we should be fighting hardest.
Alex Salmond may be gone, but, he remains our leading expert on how Westminster works. We should be asking Eck to put together a campaign of guerrilla warfare, within the House of Commons, which will bring us closer to Independence.
The SNP MPs MUST get the Scottish Grand Committee up and running again inside Westminster. If an item is not designated as EVEL, then the Scottish Grand Committee should have its say on the matter.
We know what will happen, the SGC will reach a Scottish position on things – the English majority will vote it down. Once the people of Scotland sees that happening on a regular basis, support for Independence will soon pass the 50% + 1 we need fo Independence.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Government in Holyrood can get on with running Scotland as well as they can. But, the main battleground has to be Westminster.
Some farmers and fishermen are abject liars. Multimillionaires who want bailed out with public money whenever they go wrong. Enough is never enough for them. The larger the wealth the bigger the lies. They will soon get found out.
If residence does not matter. Why did Luke Graham give a false address instead of an address in Swindon. Is he sleeping in a car or in temporary accommodation. Or taken in by some good Tories friends. Committing electoral fraud. The public haven been taken in. Would someone not report it?
Do the English MP’s have a vote on the SGC. They can influence but not vote. What about EVEL?
The main thing we lost at the GE was the potential to force a virtual referendum.
Anne Bruce says: 22 June, 2017 at 11:00 am:
Isn’t there power from the EU to insist that others are involved in Brexit negotiations or is it in the sole power of Westminster to decide who sits at that table?”
I’m not sure about that Anne, but I am sure that The Council For Europe, (It is bigger than the EU and the EU is part of it), The EU itself and the United Nations and perhaps a few others as well all have as a part of their Human Rights laws the rights of any identifiable group, be it ethnic or cultural, to have the rights of, “Self Determination”, and the United Kingdom Government at Westminster has signed up to all those international Organisations.
The Council For Europe has great powers and they run The International Court of Human Rights.
Just as an aside several of these organisations have already openly criticised the Westminster Government for abuses of human rights. Among other things that for their recent bad treatment of the old, ill, disabled and the jobless poor.
Holyrood should use its veto. Britnats will blame Scotland – likes that’s something new! It’s time Scotland kicked a few britnat butts.
If you think it’s confusing and a little alarming, be calm, and try a wee twist in the perspective.
For Westminster to properly claim sovereignty over the Scottish parliament, then just as it devolves powers, it would properly have to remove the MSP’s put there by Scottish voters, and replace them with delegates appointed by Westminster.
It can’t do that. It hasn’t the command or authority over Scottish sovereignty to make it stick.
Any hanky pansy the Scottish Gov can appeal to the EU about Scottish citizens having their EU rights over run and not being respected by Westminster. The EU can respond by not giving the Tories any concession for breaking EU Law/rules. Enshrined in Devolution and EU Law. They can’t make any agreement that breaks the rights of EU citizens and breaks EU rule/Laws. That would be illegal for EU Officials. The Tories are going to get a deal that costs more for less rights and will more regulations and red tape.
@Robert J. Sutherland and @Meg merrilees
Yeah, the Miller case ruling was on the 2016 addition, and considered the word “normally”, in a clause supposedly enacting Smith to make Sewel statutory, and it turned out it wasn’t.
But it doesn’t mean that Holyrood not passing an LCM can be ignored, nor does it mean Westminster can override Scots Law as passed by Holyrood. And there’s Holyrood laws have been passed that are involved in the Grand Repeal Act, so Holyrood would presumably also have to have a mini Grand Repeal Act for matters that have been devolved.
As I see it, if Holyrood refused to pass an LCM, and also refused to repeal such laws, Westminster would only have two choices. Disband Holyrood which it could do by repealing the Scotland Act, or live with the consequences.
Holyrood is not powerless in this, despite people’s fears. But it’s far more complicated that any media has written so far.
I also suspect that when the Brexit deal comes before Westminster, then Holyrood will also have another shot at an LCM. So this time can be traded off for – whatever (according to the Herald a seat at the Brexit negotiating table in Brussels). But final consent would be on the basis that Scotland would also have agreed to the terms of the Brexit deal, same as the UK Gov, same as the EU-27.
Current analysis including Chalmers is too one-sided I think to have the answer. The truth will be some of each, plus some the two sides – acquiescence or defiance – have failed to think of.
My take on Miller, by the way, is that it was a limited objective foray, and was possibly successful in its aim, which may have been to have various items like the Act / Treaty of Union, and indeed the prior Claim of Right, read into court, even if not ultimately considered. I think the UKSC gratefully bypassed those things, and focussed on the Scotland Act and 2016 clauses. But that may not have been the point from Wolffe’s and the SG’s point of view. Who knows!
And this why we need Independence asap, before Westminster take everything away from us.
I hope the SNP have read this article. Especially pages 26-33.
A third thing by the way about Miller is the competence of the UKSC itself to hear various matters. In the case of Miller it was totally competent though reluctant to be involved in political matters. It was also totally competent to rule on the Scotland Act 1998 and subsequenet amendments, as that’s an instrument of the UK Government.
The question is surely its competence to sit on purely Scottish matters that actually predate the Union itself, like the 1706/7 Act of Union with England, and the 1688 Claim of Right – both instruments of purely the Scottish Parliament, and presumably, or possibly, totally outside its area of cometence.
This may never be tested as perhaps the UK Gov is aware of such things through its Advocate General Keen and others. But it could control what actions it can – and can’t – take, without opening a brand new can of worms.
And no, Sovereignty was not decided in the Miller case for the reasons above.
Back to work after a long needed sleep!
Davidson is such a liar. It is unbelievable. A fund was set up for all farmers to get their payments before time for those who applied for it. If they did not apply it was because they were not bothered. Multimillionaire farmers with £Millions of assets. Westminster took extra funds that were give to poorer Scottish farmers and gave it to farmers in the south.
The IT scheme was required to be set up by the EU authorities. It is a complex scheme. The EU funds are paying for it. All the expense is covered by the EU. Including any fines. That is a complete bogie. The IT scheme is being set up to eradicate fraud and overpayment. It will save €Billions throughout the EU. Davidson is such a fraud. Brexit will harm the UK even more.
It is beginning to look like Davidson and her mates do not want the fraud eradicated. To save money. They want to continue to defraud funds. With £Millions in assets being bailed out with public money..
And finally finally. All the atttention was focussed on the Appeal hearing itself, the arguments, and the results.
But it’s entirely possible that the ScotGov and Wolffe’s purposes were entirely successful, in that before the hearing even started, Wolffe’s writte nsubmission into the court and the ScotGov’s intervention were both – accepted.
That could have been the only purpose, and Wolffe then sitting in court with a smile on his face, not caring a whit or a jottle as they say, job already done.
Who knows?
And finally finally finally.
That purpose could have been as simple as actually having an intervention accepted by the UKSC, from the Scottish Government, hence recognising its legitimacy.
And a very cheap way of doing it too, as the burden of costs was msotly on Miller and / or the UK Government.
@Robert J. Sutherland says: 22 June, 2017 at 12:27 pm:
“Article 50 requires that we apply to leave according to the constitutional requirements of the leaving country (the UK, in our case).”
That’s a wrong conclusion in the first place as the United Kingdom is legally exactly what it describes itself as – A united kingdom with only two signatory kingdoms that agreed the Treaty of Union that united the only two kingdoms extant in the British Isles in 1707.
” … However, Brexit has never been tested against the one and only written-down constitutional fundament of the UK, namely the Treaty of Union.”
“Indeed it has not and neither has several other legal issues This guarantees the people of Scotland certain inalienable rights to be carried into the new UK, rights which have thereafter been neglected by the Scots themselves for far too long in the interest of a very lop-sided unity.”
Including the fact that the United Kingdom is now run as Westminster being the, (unelected as such), parliament of the country of England that has assumed that England are the masters and that their one and only, (equally sovereign), partner that is signatory of the Treaty of Union, (which is the United Kingdom’s birth certificate), is being treated not only as just a country but a country, like Wales in 1284 and Ireland in 1542, that are dominions of the Kingdom of England that legally gained them under the, “Rule of Law”, all three were under when the monarchy of England gained them by virtue of defeat in war.
Scotland not only was never taken by the Kingdom of England under The Divine Right of Kings but the Kingdom of Scotland’s rule of Law was not Divine Right of Kings after the then international authority, (The Holy Roman Se), accepted that Scotland was not only an independent Kingdom in 1320, but that the Scottish Monarchs were NOT Kings/Queens of Scotland but only Kings/Queens of Scots.
This was a very politically radicle decision at a time when all the rest of Europe was under the Divine Right of Kings. Scottish Law is based upon the premise that the people, and not either the monarchy or the government are sovereign.
In actual fact the term, “sovereign”, is derived from the fact that monarchs were legally sovereign and in the Kingdom of England the monarch is referred to as the Sovereign but there is no such concept under the independent Scottish Legal system.
The problem that prevents the legal eagles of Scotland from enforcing the concept of the people of Scotland’s legal sovereignty is a two edged sword. To exercise their sovereignty requires that the sovereign people of Scotland must not only have a democratic majority vote to enforce their sovereignty but must, obviously, have a single organisation they support to make the matter enforceable.
We presently have only that one organised party but have, as yet, not quite given them the majority vote the require. We have, though, given them a mandate to hold a referendum to get the majority needed to end the Treaty of Union that has so obviously long ago broken down.
However, the fact that the Kingdom of England has a sovereign monarch is also a double edged sword.
While The Glorious Rebellion, (The Englanders prefer to call it a revolution), of 1688 forced the foreign monarchy the English imported to legally delegate the Government of England to exercise the monarchy’s sovereignty it means that if the people of Scotland reclaim their sovereignty then the people of England need to force their monarchy to request the Scottish People to renounce their sovereignty but the people of Scotland, if acting together, can sack their monarchy and replace them with someone better able to protect the Scottish people’s sovereignty.
It is a concept a bit hard to grasp – but once grasped it is so obvious, powerful and legally enforceable.
I personally am not interested in a veto of any kind regards hard or soft brexit , as many have commented here this is just ANOTHER ruse to blame the jocks if the loonies from either side don’t get what they want , Nicola don’t listen to their shite ,
YOU and your SG government were elected on the basis of your manifesto, that if Scotland were DRAGGED out of the EU against its will there would be a referendum ,it is happening , all the ar**holes are doing is panicking and trying desperately to STOP the referendum ,let’s face it they have done nothing but go on and on about it , all day and every day even now after the election.
What you and the SG should be relentlessly doing just now is constantly PROVING that we CAN be an independent successful country . We should be consulting with Richard Murphy , The Cuthberts and any other indy supporting economists alongside indy supporting business heads to prepare for the inevitable pish assault , and we should get our arguments out first
The usual shite will be endlessly repeated , currency , deficit, oil and all the others . You have to have answers and you have to arm the footsoldiers with them
Me personally I just want independence even if it makes me poorer for a little while ,but you have to convince the many fcuk you jacks and Jill’s that it will be better for them too
@ manandboy at 2.37
I don’t think it’s a typo.
The sentence you have quoted uses “Westminster” as a singular noun – “Westminster fails. For your interpretation to be correct, that would have to apply to the next verb, ie treats. But they use “treat”. That’s a subjunctive, rather than the present tense.
Therefore, what they mean is:
If Westminster
a) fails to respond and
b) fails to treat……
The report as a whole is badly-written and contains a lot of typos.
To make the bit you have quoted clearer, it could perhaps be re-arranged, eg:
“Unless Westminster responds to this sentiment by treating the devolved administrations as equal partners…”
27 EU countries all make sure each one is consulted and agrees with a joint position. Their stance is well prepared and ready. The UK gov consults with none of it’s devolved nations and isn’t even well prepared for its own position as the Tories don’t have a majority. What a contrast.
yesindyref2,
All very interesting to ponder over.
Where the UKSC is not competent to rule (as it seems to have already declared itself!), where next? Breeks seems to think that that should be the Court of Session, which has some merit, but I believe it is likely to shrug off judgements on such matters as well.
There just is no proper place in the UK setup to properly consider constitutional issues; the whole thing has been an almighty bodge right from the start. The Great British Bodge!
With the Great Repeal Act(s), it’s going to coming to the crunch soon, and can’t be avoided. In that respect Breeks @ 14:25 is right, there are two mutually-incompatible statuses for Holyrood, and the dilemma must be resolved. By legal means if ordinary people don’t have the gumption or don’t get the chance to resolve it in a straight plebiscite.
Legally speaking, the next stage up is the ECJ. That’s the rightful place for constitutional matters to be considered, not least in respect of Art.50.
Which is why Mayhem is desperate to cut off that exit route.
All this makes me think more and more that she called this UKGE precisely to try to stuff Scotland back into the box before Brexit really begins in earnest.
And failed.
And why we shouldn’t just roll over now and let her.
@Anne Bruce says: 22 June, 2017 at 12:55 pm:
“ … I don’t understand why this has not been done before now whether Brexit was on the horizon or not.”
I’ve been telling any wingers that would listen why not for what seems like an eternity, Anne.
To make it legal, and thus to make it stick, we need to unite behind a single political party, (or other form of organisation), and give them a democratic and distinct majority.
There have been past attempts to do so by way of, “Scottish Claims of Right”, for example. However these, “Claims of Right”, were just ignored by Westminster and for obvious reasons.
The last such, “Claim Of Right”, :-
You will see from that quote above taken from :-
link to en.wikipedia.org
That many of those, “several MPs who would later attain high office.” Were also very prominent Westminster Unionists and add to this that, for very good reasons at that time, the SNP were not too inclined to sign the document.
In essence the push being made at that time was to just help push Westminster towards the instigation of a Scottish Assembly and not for full independence.
However, even although the claim did get a good response from the people of Scotland Westminster, as Westminster had done before, just ignored it.
However, that has to be the way to go. Get a democratic majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland calling for independence and then take the Claim Of Right to the International Courts of Human Rights.
I see the subject of Westminster closing down the Scottish parliament has risen again.
Please read this paragraph from the UK Supreme Court judgement in the Gina Miller case. This as you will see states that the Scottish parliament is permanent and can only be abolished if the people of Scotland vote for closure in a referendum.
Scottish Parliament and government is permanent
“”149. In the Scotland Act 2016, the recognition of the Sewel Convention occurs alongside the provision in section 1 of that Act. That section, by inserting section 63A into the Scotland Act 1998, makes the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish government a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements, signifies the commitment of the UK Parliament and government to those devolved institutions, and declares that those institutions are not to be abolished except on the basis of a decision of the people of Scotland voting in a referendum. This context supports our view that the purpose of the legislative recognition of the convention was to entrench it as a convention.””
“This context supports our view that the purpose of the legislative recognition of the convention was to entrench it as a convention.”
Doesn’t this mean that, as a convention, WM would only ‘normally’ abide by such but will ignore in ‘abnormal’ circumstances (where they get to decide those circumstanes)?
And surely, since no WM Gov can bind the hands of its successors, a future WM Gov merely needs to pass an Act in WM to remove the need for a Scots Ref on its parliament before any abolition?
It rather seems to me that, no matter how the cloth is cut, WM will always trump anything Holyrood does.
Which is why Indy has become essential. It’s bad enough about to be chucked over the Brexit cliff but tied in a WM straight-jacket at the same time doesn’t help.
Dugdale on Education. What a dunce.
There are more students pro rata in Scotland than nearly any other nation. Students with straight ‘A’ s could not go to University because Labour/Unionists were means testing loans on average household earning. Students of household of average earning could not go to University or College because they could not get a full student loan. There are now an increased number of students going into Uni because they can now get a full loan. There are less students in colleges because there are 100,000 good apprenticeships available. More pupils are going into training. Tradespeople can earn a comfortable living.
Unemployment in Scotland is 4%. If the Tory/Unionists were not been illegally taxing the Oil/Gas sector at 40% since Jan 2016. Losing thousands of jobs. Scotland could have had nearly full employment and increased revenues.
Unionist liars just hold Scotland back. To line their own pockets. It is Unionists Councils who do fund education properly but waste £Millions/Billion on non mandated grotesque project and cut public services. Appalling.
I have a great line in boxes for the ” jocks” to get back into. That is probably the bit issuing from the queens speech .
We are being set a bear trap. The Sewel Convention, is now simply a ‘self-denying ordinance’. It doesn’t have any legal force at all. WM could close Holyrood if it wants.
Nobody asking what the Tories long game is . Tories see Davidson as a hero, so now they will put placemen in key roles in the Scottish office to help her run Scotland as a regional council.
MSM and Labour will be the foot soldiers again delivering it. Back to two party politics for the “Union”
I’m afraid if anybody thought the empire would give up its last corner without a fight needs to look where the sun don’t shine.
Have a look at history WM think there are enough Yoons in Scotland that would allow it .
I’m not going back in THIER box until I am put into mine in the ground.
@Robert J. Sutherland
It’s why I post things that are food for thought, they’re not the gospel!
But that, Peffers’ history, and Breeks all action are not mutually exclusive, they’re mutually supportive. Even the UKSC showed the importance of the history of the Laws, as though it didn’t rule on the basis of the Acts of Union nor the Claim of Right and the English equivalent, it did discuss them. And then avoided them like the plague, I think.
Law though, and whether the legal route is followed or not, is subject to politics. If by politics a satisfactory outcome (whatever that is) occurs for Scotland if not us Indy types, then there’s no real reason for resort to the Law, so at that point it becomes almost irrelevant.
For testing the sovereignty though, I think the SG / SNP gets given a chance first so as not to mess up their plans (if they have any). But there is still the Miller method, which could be used after a Brexit deal is reached, and if we, the people, aren’t happy with the SG’s response to it. Crowdfund, appoint a QC, and let rip on the legal system, first I think, the Court of Sessions as Breeks says. But there’s still plenty of time for that, the moment a hearing is accepted and scheduled, any actual actions by either government, UK or Scottish, are totally on hold.
Miller showed that, actually, even in the UK the people are Sovereign, as governments themselves are just as subject to the Law as we are.
I think Wolffe as the Lord Advocate is the SG’s man and couldn’t do private, but for me I’d want Aidan O’Neill as a candidate to discuss for who could be our QC, unless we can make it Scotland wide, rather than just the Indy movement. I’m aware of his apparent Unionist inclinations, but I think the Law itself fascinates and drives him more.
I don’t think that Westminster are “just” going to close Holyrood down.
As I see it they have two choices.
Either
Create civil unrest …and I think that they are beginning to try…. that gives the excuse to impose direct rule.
Espically the control of police Scotland…they already have Broadcasting..
We would have two sides who can’t agree Yes & No and a huge chunk of the population who will just want peace from all the arguments,like we used to have before “that” Parliament started aw the bother..
They don’t bat an eye lid about causing death and destruction to get what they want,and they are fast running out of time.
Or
And the most likely way…is to wait for the Union parties to get control of Holyrood the SNP can’t go on forever, and,we saw how they got organised for the General Election.
Then make the Parliament so unpopular we vote to get rid of it ourselves… that’s partly what is behind these city deal things,and all the calls for more local democracy..
Westminster is out to by pass Holyrood where it can.
They need time for this though and probably their only chance is the next Holyrood election,so they need to delay Indy ref 2 till at least then.
The tricky bit will be getting an extension on Brexit from the EU!
Probably why the are being so reasonable at the minute and not having the argument of the summer…. buttering the EU up to get an extension.
While saying Scotland must wait to see what it is voting for.
When it’s really all about getting control of Holyrood before we can have another vote.
What I would do???
Announce the ballot for the next Holyrood election will also have the Independence question on it…..and start campaigning.
There’s the line in the sand…..we don’t get past that Election without being asked if we want to stay in the Union.
Because if the Indy parties loose control of Holyrood we won’t get Indy ref 2 anyway.
And there is a big risk of doing just that if we campaign on year’s of good management,and,Yes voter’s stay home.
If it’s about Indy the Yes vote will turn out,and we head off any boycott and cries of too much voting…
So the devolved legislatures are subservient to Westminster? That will certainly give the unionists up here in North Britain a raging stauner.
Unionists are so strange. They love being told what to do and love seeing their country be “put in its place.” I’m convinced that you must be a masochist before you can be a unionist.
@ John Walsh says: “Nobody asking what the Tories long game is”
I’m not convinced they have one, or at least if they do, have the brains to achieve it. The GE foolishly called by May proves that one. The Tories can’t see past their own arrogant and self-satisfied noses.
Proud Cybernat says:
22 June, 2017 at 5:00 pm
“This context supports our view that the purpose of the legislative recognition of the convention was to entrench it as a convention.”
Doesn’t this mean that, as a convention, WM would only ‘normally’ abide by such but will ignore in ‘abnormal’ circumstances (where they get to decide those circumstanes)?
And surely, since no WM Gov can bind the hands of its successors, a future WM Gov merely needs to pass an Act in WM to remove the need for a Scots Ref on its parliament before any abolition?””
……….
A future UK Government could try to remove the part of the Act that makes the Scottish Parliament permanent. It would probably need a new Scotland Act to replace the 2016 Act.
What do you think their chances of succeeding would be? What do you think the reaction of the people of Scotland would be? Especially if it was a Tory Government that tried to do it.
And the fun and high jinks for May’s troubled government continue:
link to twitter.com
“Theresa May faces legal challenge over proposed deal with DUP ” [from the Greens – article in Guardian].
On the basis it breaches the Good Friday agreement.
Mr Peffers at 12.24pm
How do we define the ‘legally sovereign people’ of Scotland?
Might this exclude resident English/Welsh Northern Irish and EU residents?
Gove interfering with farming.Goodness. Put £9000 on students. The farmers had better watch out. More money for less rights with, with more regulation and red tape.
May/Tories lost a legal case on CAP on benefits. Verdict it was illegal. Things not going well.
STV is getting even more rubbish. Nonsense.
STV up your game for goodness sake. Colin McKay get a grip.
Minimum pricing coming in.
The knife convict was reported to a non green councillor, a Labour MP and the Police who do nothing. So the Council redacted the Report and blamed the kids. To cover up.
Is the DUP deal going ahead? There are reports the DUP wanted £2Billion. Foster is a criminal Defrauding public funds. Embezzlement and extortion. Getting away with murder financed by £Billions of public money. Wasted. A Law unto themselves.
Re Lizg@ 0543 pm . Right on the money as regards timing of Indyref2.
The anti SNP propaganda ” barrage” will continue unabated , led by Pacific Quay
and the end game is a ” unionist government” at Holyrood at the next opportunity.
As you state that is the ” line in the sand ” as regards the timeframe for the Independence vote.
@ Robert Peffers 4:11
“The problem that prevents the legal eagles of Scotland from enforcing the concept of the people of Scotland’s legal sovereignty is a two edged sword. To exercise their sovereignty requires that the sovereign people of Scotland must not only have a democratic majority vote to enforce their sovereignty but must, obviously, have a single organisation they support to make the matter enforceable.”…
I see the logic of that, but a legal clarification of something like a Nations sovereignty wouldn’t change whether there was a democratic majority for it or against it. Sovereignty is an absolute condition. All we can change is how we interpret what it means. The Supreme Court Case over Brexit was fronted by Gina Millar, it was not a group action for the Remainers.
In my opinion, the legal opinion which gives legitimacy to Scottish sovereignty leaves the Act of Union nowhere to go. It is incompetent in law, and the Act is void. But that is a dangerous and sudden predicament to leave ourselves facing, so don’t listen to me, listen to someone more moderate.
However, a more expedient solution would be to take that affirmation of sovereign legitimacy as a mandate to secure our sovereign Independence, but to stop short of enacting it, (even though that’s exactly what it is), but choose to place Scotland into a state of constitutional stasis, a neutral state from which we only remove ourselves after a formal plebiscite. We could take Europe’s lead and devise our own constitutional “holding pen” status.
It could even be like the Euro, we might nominally commit to being technically Independent and sovereign, but defer the decision to enact our sovereign independence until there is a suitable majority in favour.
To say something more controversial however, this whole constitutional dog’s breakfast is something that should have been defined and laid to rest decades ago, and all ambiguity removed from the constitutional position. There are times when I am incredulous that we stand having lost one Independence Referendum, having won an outright majority at Holyrood, and returned 53 out of 56 SNP seats to Westminster, and now stand on the brink of yet another Independence campaign, but yet collectively we still have no formal constitutional road map to plan the A,B,C of our journey, and we even seem to be unsure whether we will recognise the threshold when we cross it.
I grew up thinking all Scotland needed was a majority of Scottish MP’s Westminster. Were those people wrong back in the ’70’s? Or is it us who are runnin up the rang dreel now?
We seem to be pedantically doing this by the book, but unfortunately have no book to work from.
Frankly, the cynic inside me sees us heading to a ScotRef victory, which will turn into a confused and befuddled loss because we’re suddenly unsure about the constitutional status of Holyrood. Please don’t interpret it as criticism of Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon, but we need more leadership, and to have much more formal, clear, and exact roadmap of where we are going so that every Yesser in the land has a crystal clear understanding of what has to be done and who’s job it is to do it. We need unprecedented clarity of purpose like never before. We need to know the process and mechanism for every step of the way.
Mr Peffers, we need a Phantom Power Film from your good self.
“Legally speaking, the next stage up is the ECJ. That’s the rightful place for constitutional matters to be considered, not least in respect of Art.50.”
We have to be very careful here.
The ECJ is a judicial body which passes judgement on EU Law. As such it is bound by the European treaties which the EU member states are signatory to. It can also be used to settle dispute (on points of law) between EU members and monitor the functioning of EU institutions.
That is what it does.
Most EU member states have a constitution and the highest court within each country is often the constitutional court.
So the ECJ can be used to clarify the legality/compliance of interpretations of points of law made by these national high courts designated as interpreters of EU law, i.e. whether they actually do comply with EU law or not.
However, when you are complying with EU law again equates to whether you are complying with the various EU treaties.
These treaties contain human rights – right to life, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, right to assemble etc. and other matters like no death sentence, democratic elections,plurality of state media, procedural legal rights etc.
What none of the various European treaties specify, and it isn’t hard to guess why, is anything to do with national self determination leading to secession of a people.
So the ECJ cannot rule on Scot’s right to self determination.
EU treaties and their judicial bodies do not care either whether a nation state is a constitutional monarchy, a republic, has centralized government, is a federation or is devolved. They don’t care whether FPTP or some form of PR is used for a member state’s election procedure.
All that matters is that the agreed human rights and other aspects of the treaties are complied with. And in the case of the EU, that agreed community principles like freedom of movement and other EU specific agreements which are enshrined in EU law, are complied with.
Furthermore, those constitutional courts or highest courts in each land are required to adjudicate on a principle of compliance with the various treaties and hence with EU Law for EU members.
In the case of the ECJ, for any ruling by such a ‘highest court’ to be adjudicated on it must be referred to the ECJ by that ‘highest court’ itself.
In the example you cite, art 50, then it is possible that some procedural non compliance could be identified by the ECJ, but to what useful end?
If we are brought to the point of being point blank deprived of our right to self determination then the only recourse is through the UN and the ICJ.
None of the European courts would touch that.
Aidan O’Neil was totally against Independence. He went to court? to try and prevent it. He said a IndyRef would never happened. He changed his tune after Brexit because he is a big shot EU human rights? lawyer. He earns a fortune of public money in the EU. What a total hypocrite. He didn’t care about people in Scotland’s human or EU rights. Or a right to self determination under EU/Internstional Law. Do not give him a penny of Scottish taxpayers money or public funds of any kind. Totally forgot any principles.
And just a small note:
I think people are misinterpreting what the Supreme Court said about the Sewel Commission.
The Supreme Court did not judge the issue of Scottish Sovereignty, the Supreme Court merely interpreted what the Sewel commission actually said, and such betrayal as there was suffered upon Scotland came from the text of Sewell, not the Supreme Court’s interpretation of that text.
The Supreme Court did what courts are supremely good at doing, and that is splitting hairs and finding clarity from ambiguity. They are arbiters. They are judges who judge things. Go figure. Sewell was ambiguous about the word “normally”‘ and the Supreme Court delivered clarification.
I’m not a lawyer, but the Supreme Court didn’t sell out Scotland. They just read the small print.
Reading through this thread, I had a sudden: “Eureka” moment.
(Auld Boab – keep me right on this please)
As I understand this, in 1706/1707, the parcel o’ rogues sold-out Scotland via the Act/Trety of Union. This deal was allegedly done in a hurried, underhand way – the upshot being the parliaments of Englan and Scotland were disbanded and replaced by the new Parliament of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland (which included the anexed English dominions of Ireland and Wales).
However: While the Parliament of England dissolved itself, handing its powers to the new Parliament of the United Kingdom – the Parliament of Scotland, whilst agreeing to be represented in the new Parliament of the United Kingdom, merely suspended itself.
Threfore, when, in 1999, Winnie Ewing declared the Parliament of Scotland
Shite! Don’t know how that happened, any way, as I was saying. When Winnie Ewing re-convened the Scottish Parliament, and the Parliament of the UK failed to say: “Haud oan – ye canna dae that”, then surely, when it was reconvened, the Parliament of Scotland became once again the true parliament of this northern country.
Should the SNP not be getting Scotland’s leading legal and constitutional exerts on the case, to show, since the Parliament of Scotland is older than the Parliament of the United Kingdom, what it says goes in matters Scottish?
WE should thus be telling England: “Sorry, we’ve decided to take back control an have a strong and stable Scottish parliament”.
Kismet.
Dynamite revelations on Channel 4 just now on Tories breaking electoral law using Axe Research to phone voters in marginal seats.
Have any voters in North East of Scotland have had these cold calls from the Tories?
CH 4 news report on news NOW
BLUETELECOMS Another fraud company attached to tories cold calling people from Nesth Wales during GE- totally illegal
Will be swept under carpet again will it????
Breeks @ 6.26
My tuppence worth….as a roadmap!
What we need to do and what we should have been doing since 2013 is write a draught Constitution!
Because of American TV the population generally speaking knows what a written Constitution is.
But more importantly the propoganda that it’s a desirable thing has already been done.
And Westminster couldn’t match it with either our Constitution is better or nobody would want a written Constitution!
Write one and offer it to the people of Scotland.
Campaign on getting for your self all these rights
Most people can actually rhyme off bits of the American Constitution,make ours sound similar,and people should feel positively about it.
Make the vote about gaining this wonderful thing, a yes vote is the instruction for the Current representatives in Holyrood to set up the form of Government as written in the new Constitution ……we should start with that…IMHO….
If as I said earlier we make Indy ref 2 happen along side the next Holyrood election we still have time!
To get one written and make the offer, The Union or Your Constitution, what would you rather have.
And that should be the Only thing we campaign on.
We already know we are perfectly capable of doing all the things other normal countries do.
We are adults!! Well hopefully!!!
THE FRONT
Blue Telecoms
1 Charlesville Place
Neath, SA11 1PY
United Kingdom
The marketing company Axe Research doesn’t exist and that’s what people were told who was calling when people asked!!
I don’t usually add anything to the pot as you guys seem to say what I think and agree with. So here’s my question. Mr Peffers said that all it takes is a majority to get behind a party or organisation to use our sovereignty. Why not use the YES movement there are yes hubs all about Scotland all doing their bit. Can these groups be given a written paragraph or so. The intent of this document would be to get the public to sign if they agree that WE the people of Scotland are sovereign and have right to self determination. However we feel Westminster is trying to stop us. Or something else with better wording than mine.
Having done this who do we contact…the U.N.,NATO? Who should write this letter Craig Murray or ?
I would honestly say WE have now got to make our voices heard…we have to put the wheels on this bogey and give it a push. I think it is on us. The time for saying they should say this or do that…that’s not how this works. We have to get off our knees.
I hope some of that makes sense.
@Socrates MacSporran
[reconvened] “Should the SNP not be getting Scotland’s leading legal and constitutional exerts on the case”
Maybe, but maybe too it’s kept as an ace in the hole.
Socrates Mac Sporran @ 7.26
I see what you are saying but, that’s legal Sovereignty you are getting at.
What we actually need is Popular (political) Sovereignty and that’s what we gave back to Westminster in 2014.
We confirmed that we wanted to be bound by the terms and conditions of the 1707 Treaty of the Union…. which says we are to be governed by the Westminster system and according to the Westminster system Westminster is the boss of Holyrood.
We have to reject that Treaty first before we can name Holyrood as the Sovereign Parliament.
We are legally Sovereign…. always have been…we are just in a TREATY agreement and need to get out of it before we can get decent government.
Nobody surely can argue that Westminster is a better Parliament than Holyrood any more??
Response to Herald article claiming SNP leadership say they could block Brexit via LCMs or Sewell Convention which said:”Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, made clear: “We certainly know this morning it is the case the Government is going to have to come to Edinburgh in order to get through an LCM.”
He emphasised how his party’s approach would be one of seeking “compromise” rather than confrontation with the Conservative Government.
“Let’s not talk about blocking, let’s talk about how we can compromise, which can satisfy the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom,” he told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.
Oh dear. Nothing inspiring from the SNP. No wonder many independence supporters saw no point in going out in the rain to vote SNP on 8 June.
Hold a referendum on Scottish sovereignty within the Union. If the people vote for that, then there’s no doubt about the situation. If the law is not in accord with the will of the people of Scotland, then the law needs to be changed to meet the requirements of Scottish democracy.
The law should make it absolutely clear that Scotland’s people via the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Govt have the final say on matters affecting Scotland ( for as long as we are in the Union). That’s something I’m sure the majority of us would agree on.
Come on Scot Govt, less empty rhetoric and some action please.
Just to add Petra wrote how we should get behind Nicola.
That wee lassie is working so hard, for you and me. Stop criticising, help her, do something, put posters in your windows, fly your yes flags proudly, wear your badges! When i look out my window I see 4 flags flying it gives me a feeling of pride to see our nation’s flag blowing in the wind.
Nice work Breeks and Liz g 😉
No one appears to have been concerned about Scottish sovereignty at the time of the Union.
The people were never consulted then. Some big boys did it and ran away tae England. So will anyone bother their backside in 2017. Ah nae ma doots.
Re the Chan4 allegations. Will these scumbags and cheats ever be brought to book for something?
This is just the latest to come out.
A candidate having their win taken away? A constituency result declared null and void? Someone charged, fined, sent to jail?
The more they get away with it, the more they will do it. They are making fools of the Electoral Commission and election law.
Rules are for ‘little people’, not the ‘privileged special people’.
Referendum please: Should Scotland’s Parliament have the final say on issues affecting Scotland?
If Scotland’s people vote YES, the UK Govt must accept Scotland is sovereign within the Union in all matters affecting Scotland.
The Scotland Act and Sewell Convention will be scrapped. The current devolution FROM Westminster practice would be scrapped
New legislation would be required explicitly stating within the Union Scotland is sovereign on all matters that affect Scotland.
Scotland will therefore be able to amend or veto the parts of UK wide legislation where that legislation applies to Scotland.
Scotland would decide which areas of government it wishes to devolve to Westminster.
Scotland would be legally empowered to decide if she wishes to accept or reject any Brexit deal that the UK negotiates.
Democracy for Scotland within the Union.
Of course some Unionists would hate that idea. For them the Union is about Westminster domination of Scotland.
It’s about English Votes for English Laws ( EVEL ) and UK votes (mainly English votes) deciding if Scotland should leave the EU or if Scotland can have a legally valid referendum.
It’s about UK votes ( mainly English votes) deciding if Scotland can have any sort of parliament and England deciding which if any powers that parliament has.
I believe there are many No voters who agree with Scottish sovereignty within the Union. I also believe the majority in Scotland would prefer Scottish sovereignty within the Union, instead of Westminster having the final say, if asked.
So, let’s ask the people of Scotland. That would settle any arguments from the: “Westminster rules, so it’s Westminster’s rules” type of Unionist that frequent the comments page and probably do not represent the views of many people who voted NO in 2014.
I believe many who voted YES and NO support Scotland’s sovereignty, instead of Westminster domination, for as long as Scotland remains in the Union.
The tories may have broken electoral law which the CH4 news has uncovered.
link to twitter.com
@aitchbee 2017 22 June 9.50am.
If they don’t like the Scots blocking what the English ( and Welsh) electorate voted for, then they can always seek independence.
James Caithness says:
What makes me angry is they clearly now believe dodgy tactics are the way to win, and if they get caught and found to have transgressed the penalty will have been worth the gains.
When will some constituencies be forced to have a rerun?
My guess is that enough of a sop will be thrown to Holyrood to justify arguing that further powers have been devolved. To offer nothing would invite reaction and the question to May then would be “Do you feel lucky?”
That said May and her team have shown considerable propensity for the bloody stupid.
It is my view that this “statement” is merely an attempt to justify another election. May will threaten to use the veto and will go to the people for a mandate to use it. It is her last chance to stay in Number 10 before the knives are used on her.
Rock (12th June – The cannon fodder),
“For heaven’s sake Nicola, stop flogging a dead horse. You have wasted months on it already.
What is the point of a seat at the Brexit table?
Let Saint Theresa of England and Wales and Saint Ruth of Scotland do the dirty work.
If you have the spine, state clearly now that there will be an independence referendum before Brexit is completed, with or without Westminster’s permission.
Or admit it once and for all that Scots are not “sovereign”.”
The only powers the Scottish government could possibly be given would be where the Scots could be blamed for the consequences.
Too many clueless armchair pundits posting here grossly underestimate the British establishment.
@Rock –
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Aw, man, ma sides, ma sides…
Looks like we’re in for another *rocktastic* session!
Ian Brotherhood
Surely you are not suggesting that some people actually read Rock’s stuff??
Personally, I’m selective when it comes to a ‘shift change’!!
All very embarrassing re CAP today, based on the politicking at FMQs and then the subsequent 14 week extension request. Unlike Ken500 suggests, farmers are not all liars, but hard grafting small business owners. The admin and hassle of the ongoing contingency loan scheme is an overhead they can neither afford to administer not should be expected to rely on for repeated years.
Interesting to see what reception Nicola gets at RHS tomorrow.
O/T
Useful little piece
link to youtube.com
Robert Peffers,
“the legally sovereign people of Scotland”
The pretendy “sovereignty” of the Scots is not worth the paper it is written on.
The “plebs” of Scotland have never been “sovereign”.
We will soon get the opportunity to put our money where our mouths are.
My prediction is we will bottle it, as always.
Colin Alexander @ 8.03
Keep telling ye Colin Westminster is not allowed to do that.
The one and only rule that a Westminster Parliament’s past, present and future is that it cannot dilute it’s own Sovereignty.
Only God can do that…and unless there’s something your no telling us dual Sovereignty is not happening.
Fireproofjim,
“There would be riots in the street.”
Spineless, pompous, armchair pundits rioting?
There is a higher chance of pigs flying.
yesindyref2 @ 17:43,
Yes, the UKSC was correct insofar that the simplest way to resolve tricky problems within the UK’s tangly constitutional swamp is via political action. Hence indyref2.
The problem we are facing though frankly is that people in Scotland are currently ducking the issue at a position of rough equality, confused even further by the Brexit debate, with some changing sides without any definitive shift either way. If we had more backbone and insight we would already have been well out of it by now, but we ain’t.
Add to that a very co-ordinated Unionist campaign intended to stall and fossilise the situation, as Liz g correctly intuits, with their aim now of jointly defeating the SNP at the next Holyrood elections. Utterly cynical and stagnant, with nothing significant likely forthcoming from whatever coalition of negativity they would have to muster if they, in their own terms, were successful.
Chick McGregor @ 18:33,
I take your carefully-presented points, and don’t disagree. My thoughts on this though (not being a legal person) are very simple, and twofold:
1) After being passed the buck by the Court of Session (say), the ECJ might well not be competent or willing to rule on the matter itself, but it could certainly bat the issue back on the grounds that there was sufficient evidence from the historical constitutional framework of the UK to show that Art.50 was not being complied with, and that it must be sorted out by the highest local court before Brexit were able to proceed. The ECJ has done this kind of re-referral before.
2) Going to the ECJ would delay the whole exit process and annoy the hell out of the BritNats. This could provide additional leverage to get a suitable political way forward, to indyref2, for example.
There really has to be some kind of constitutional showdown, and it’s just a question of time (and timing). All this historical background of rights needs to be put to practical use somehow for moving things on again.
A full-blown constitutional standoff would be an excellent thing, in my view. There is so much at stake.
What we need to refresh is hope of progress, a believable route forward, a flag around which to rally – and I don’t mean a party political one, I mean a procedural one. A referendum, an important court case, whatever it takes to get people fully re-engaged.
Robert Peffers,
“The Council For Europe has great powers and they run The International Court of Human Rights.”
Why does it protect war criminals like Blair and Straw?
Why did it jail the innocent Megrahi?
It is no more than a pretendy court to deal with easy targets.
Ken500,
“Aidan O’Neil was totally against Independence. He went to court? to try and prevent it. He said a IndyRef would never happened. He changed his tune after Brexit because he is a big shot EU human rights? lawyer. He earns a fortune of public money in the EU. What a total hypocrite.”
The Scottish justice system is rotten to the core and the vast majority of lawyers, especially judges, are the lowest of the low.
So called “human rights lawyers” included. They trouser hundreds of thousands while people starve in Scotland.
IndyRef poll over at the paper I don’t read and won’t link to – article on Fluffy telling the FM she’ll be out of a job…
81% want a Ref so far, so that’s going well Fluffy
Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all
And that’s supposed to be a lullaby!
I just watched PMQ and I heard Jackie Bailley say “now that Indyref2 is off the table”
Is there something I’ve missed ?
Graeme
If small business farmers are so hard up. Why is Mundell not sorting out the underpayment by Westminster to Scottish poorer farmers. Gove’s always there to help. The Tory minister who refused to give the farmers their extra cash actually said, ‘Better together’ . Why is Davidson and Chapman not complaining about that, Not a peep. They are always trying to blame the (SNP) Scottish Gov for any delay. Never heard Davidson mentioning the under payment. There are plenty of wealthy farmers who get CAP payments and buy up more land to get get even more payments. Any struggling farmer can get a payment from the fund.
The Scottish Gov has pay out £Millions to the farmers already. They must be getting nearly £3/4Billion all together How much does each farmer get (pro rata) . It looks like quite a substantial sum. Some farmers are never satified. Some do support the SNP and give support and donations. Same with landowners and fishermen.
Some are struggling but not all of them. Every time something goes wrong they get bailed out with public money. £Billions was spent on mad cow disease and swine flu. Beef could not be sold for exported for years. After sheep were being fed to cows. Whose idea was that? What do they want even more public money to do their admin. Everyone has to cover their costs in any business on admin in many jobs. Often low paid as well. Especially if they are self employed. Some jobs are not permanantky secure and people have to diversify. They get grants for investment etc. Set aside. Some farmers grew barley for the distilleries. Many dairy farmers had to diversify. They get into wind farms or are growing tomatoes. Run B & B’s or activity centres. successfully. It often depends on the weather.
That’s why it is better to bring back FPTP abd get rid of the lot of them. Gerrymandering the electoral system. No co operation with the Party who gets the most number of councillors. Or any co operation in Holyrood by the 3rd rate rejects.
They are away to change the Offensive Football Act. They can just get charged with Breach of peace in stead. If the authorities take action. They always could. Minimum pricing could come in soon. July last hearing. After three years? because of the Unionists disaproval. Letting people die.
It’s funny, I was dead against a written constitution back in 2013. I figured we’d quarrel amongst ourselves and get nowhere. Our republicans and our monarchists are not going to agree about a constitutional monarch for one thing. My thinking was to get Indy in the net first, then worry about more fractious issues later.
But I wondered whether the trick isn’t to write a new constitution, but to update the de facto one we have, in the Declaration of Arbroath, perhaps even calling it the Written Constitution of Arbroath; the Constitution of Scotland agreed by common consensus but maybe consecrated at a ceremonial event in the same Arbroath Abbey.
Don’t know about you, but 21st Century Scotland bringing final and permanent closure to the constitutional wrangle that our Scottish patriots began over 700 years ago makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. What they wanted was their country to flourish and be left in peace by their neighbour. Funny that.
@Cherry.
I like the idea of YES taking on the Constitution. It’s a healthy thing to be promoting, and a great way to give YES some great fuel and forward momentum.
I also have high hopes for YES taking on Brexit too, with EuroYES groups finding common purpose and camaraderie. It seems a natural progression to build on the Catalans and Basque flags we all seen at YES rally’s. Be thoroughly outstanding parade of colours to blend all our Pantone 300 with all the flags of Europe.
If we follow where the US has led, then some day Scottish kids might take to learning the Scottish Constitution off by heart. And maybe see them ribbed a bit that if they don’t remember the words, then Rock will come and get them. Lol
The other reason I didn’t fancy the idea of a Constitution in 2013 was the ridicule it would get from bickering Unionists. But somehow, if took our lead directly from the Declaration of Arbroath, then that ridicule becomes an act of desecration, and I’ve a sense it won’t be well received.
Aye. Maybe a Constitution is the very thing.
Ken500,
“That’s why it is better to bring back FPTP abd get rid of the lot of them.”
We just had a FPTP election where 21 SNP MPs lost their seats and not a single SNP MP got more than 50% of the vote as far as I know.
Next time, the unionists will field single candidates and unseat almost all SNP MPs.
Is that what you want in the Scottish parliament as well?
The FPTP voting system is undemocratic and I am totally opposed to it being introduced in Scotland, or in any “democratic” country.
The SNP would never have come to power in Scotland under FPTP.
Thatcher and Blair had “landslide” majorities because of the undemocratic FPTP.
They would not even had enough MPs for a majority government under a Scottish or European style democratic system.
Westminster is nothing more than an elected dictatorship.
Do you want that in the Scottish parliament?
Despite what was posted at 9.09, it was not the ICHR that (wrongly, in my opinion) convicted Megrahi.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Ken500 – do you know any farmers and speak to any regularly? I am not from that background, but will spend the next two days with friends and family who farm at the highland show, many will be feeling the pain of the CAP debacle.
Are you suggesting the Westminster government come in and sort out a devolved matter?
Are you suggesting that farmers diversify to offset government incompetence?
Do you know how to ‘get into wind farming?’ This involves set georgraphic features, massive capital investment, extensive panning permission and public consultation. For a minority. This has proven a massive windfall, but is fantasy for most farms.
After being a pedant earlier today, I would have been better expressing my first sentence at 10.11 as follows:
“Despite what was posted at 9.09, it was not by the ICHR that Megrahi was convicted (wrongly, in my opinion).”
Rock and Robert
The judicial body of the Council OF Europe is the ECtHR (usually just ECHR) which sits in Strasbourg.
The International Court of Justice (usually ICJ) is the main judicial body of the UN and sits in the Hague, Netherlands.
The ICJ court was used for the Lockerbie trial but under Scots law with 5 Scottish judges.
Robert J S
The ECJ would have to normally be passed the buck by the UKSC. However, in the case of Article 50 it may be submissible by the EU since it is not just a UK matter, not sure about that.
While the picking over of some alleged procedural error may be possible, I do not see how that is on the pro indy side. i.e. I don’t see that time is on our side.
Do you want a second independence referendum?
This in the Herald I voted yes reply sorry a mistake,silly me I ticked no and every thing ok damn that will put the no vote up.
link to caltonjock.com
Lunatics brexiteers out in force in QT audience tonight…!!
Breaks has made the crucial point everything since section 50 and section 30, related to Scotland is about sovereignty of either kingdom.
There are 2 ways now, Supreme Court,or EU court. The follow up to either is then UN to ratify declaration of Independence.
This is further compounded by David Mundells outburst to the media where is quote in one paper this evening online that NS should give up her 2nd independence referendum or she risks losing her First Minister position.
How on earth will be achieve that by putting the troops in. This is the kind of rhetoric that caused strife in many countries over the last 70 years. Who led this type of approach in many of them UK unionist politicians.
Time for Scot Gov to get firm in resolve and plan a route out of UK soon.
Daily Mail hack on QT claiming the tories have a majority over all other parties even without the DUP….gotta love when people do not understand how a parliamentary majority works…dear god he is a fanny.
Oor man Ian Blackford being well received by the audience as the only voice of reason.
This always seems to be the case on QT from England, QT in Scotland on the other hand….where the BBC go full retard.
OMG seriously what a nob that toss from the Daily Mail (Osborne)is needs tae shut the feck up. Most irritating tosser I have ever seen in QT.
link to archive.is
That’s it. All over. Game’s a bogey. Time to shut down the server and switch off the lights.
Fluffy says so.
@ Liz g 2017 22 June 8.52pm
WM cannot accept any dilution of its sovereignty, you say; it managed to accept the EU had supremacy if EU law and UK were incompatible. UK legislation had to fall in line with EU law.
If it’s WM that legislates that it’s giving that power to another authority, strictly speaking it’s exercising sovereignty by giving sovereignty to another body. ( WM proved it always had that sovereignty it gave to the EU, because it’s now in the process of recalling that supremacy of the EU over the UK).
Likewise, if it’s WM that legislates that Scotland will have the power to scrutinise and amend or veto the parts of the legislation AFFECTING SCOTLAND, then it’s by WM decision that that’s done.
In reality, one day WM could say we will not allow Scotland the final say on matters affecting Scotland, just like they have done with the EU, but like the EU the result is an end of that Union. Stripping Scotland of such powers would also in all probability end the UK Union.
“Over the years, Parliament has passed laws that limit the application of parliamentary sovereignty……….These developments do not fundamentally undermine the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, since, in theory at least, Parliament could repeal any of the laws implementing these changes.” (Source: Parliament.uk website)
It’s nice to read you acknowledge political sovereignty ( the democratic will of Scotland’s people) should take precedence over arguments about legal / constitutional sovereignty.
Guy thrown out QT studio audience for constantly shouting out…!!
Clearly not a plant then…!
Gina Miller told to stop talking midway through telling the audience the Tories HAVE NOT been fiscally responsible…just about to say that the debt has doubled since 2010…go figure huh !
@Scottish Steve says: 22 June, 2017 at 5:48 pm:
“So the devolved legislatures are subservient to Westminster?”
They always have been, Steve. That was the Westminster Establishment’s plan from the very beginning. You may not appreciate, or know, what really was behind the whole devolution thing and it isn’t what most people think it was.
There is a long history behind the, ” Scottish Claim of Right”, beginning in 1689: –
link to thecrownandtheunicorn.wordpress.com
In reality what both the English Bill of Rights and its Scottish equivalent actually did was start what the English still call, The Jacobite Rebellion. This uprising ran on for almost 40 years after the Treaty of union was signed until 1745 at the Battle of Culloden. The truth is that you cannot rebel against a monarch who is not your own and Scotland remained independent until 1707. So there you go Westminster was spinning the lies and distorting truths at least as far back as 1603 when they claim there was a union of the crowns but there was no such union as both kingdoms remained independent until 1707.
The three acts by the parliament of Scotland were :-
The Scottish Sovereignty Act 1584:
The Scottish Sovereignty Act 1606:
and The Scottish Sovereignty Act 1633.
The truth, of course was a wee bit different. The real rebellion was by the Parliament of the Kingdom of England who carried out what they call, “The Glorious Revolution”, of 1688 by driving out their King of England, James I of England who also happened to be King James IV of Scots.
This was plainly the English Parliamentarians deposing James 1st of England and replacing him with the foreign joint monarchy of Queen Mary of Orange and her Husband, King Billy. The immediate problem being that as the two Kingdoms were still independent their actions could not be legally applied in the independent Kingdom of Scotland and what the English regard as Jacobite Rebels were factually Scottish patriots fighting for their rightful King of Scots.
To be absolutely honest, though, James VI was not very popular in Scotland as he had packed up his Scottish Royal Court where he was not legally sovereign and decamped to England where he was fully sovereign.
Then the Paircel o Rogues in the Scottish Parliament passed, “The Scottish Claim Of Right”, more or less giving Scotland’s sovereignty away to Westminster and accepting Queen Mary & King Billy as also Monarchs of Scots – note, not monarchs of Scotland.
Note also that as that Scottish Claim of Right occurred in 1689, only a year after the English Parliament imported Mary & Billy of Orange as Monarchs of England and the Scots were still fighting for the direct Stewart line at Culloden in 1745 the people of Scotland had been fighting, (and dying), for Scottish independence from Westminster from 1688 until 1745 and that was for 57 years and almost 40 years after the paircel o Rogues had sold the people of Scotland’s birth rights and freedoms.
There is a great difference between the truth and what England dictates to us as our history. The actual Union has always been a pack of downright lies. See yon Paircel o Rogues? Their descendants are still selling Scotland short today at Westminster, Brussels and Holyrood.
When devolution came about there was much pressure coming from the Council of Europe, The EU and from Canon Kenyon Wright and The Scottish Constitutional Convention.
Canon Kenyon Wright, who played a central role in the creation of the Scottish Parliament, chaired the executive committee of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, and it was they who laid down the groundwork for The Holyrood Parliament.
Scotland’s got no say in anything teamGB, so Fluffie’s well with in his rights to dictate this. Fluffie’s got the makings of fine Lord has hes not
link to archive.is
Scotland’s got no say in anything teamGB, so Fluffie’s well with in his rights to dictate this. Fluffie’s got the makings of fine Lord has hes not
link to archive.is
Drop plans for second independence referendum or lose top job, Nicola Sturgeon warned”
Speaking at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, Mr Mundell said: “I want the next step to be no step, that it’s finished, that it’s off the table, it’s gone.”
Asked if he believes the SNP is likely to commit to such a move, he added: “If Nicola Sturgeon wants to carry on as First Minister of Scotland, she will.”
Lord Fluffie.
Balaaargh
What an extraordinary statement from David Mundell – of course tRuthless expects to be First Minister in 2021, she has said so herself and he obviously believes everything she says.
But read it again – isn’t he actually saying that without Indy on the table she would get re-elected?
What a vile little man of the most weak and feeble order.
@Ian Foulds says: 22 June, 2017 at 6:17 pm:
“How do we define the ‘legally sovereign people’ of Scotland?
Might this exclude resident English/Welsh Northern Irish and EU residents?”
The only organisations that were stupid enough to apply such idiotic rules were the SFA and other sporting bodies who classified people by their place of birth.
I posted, just yesterday, the accepted definition of, “The people of Scotland”, “Anyone of any colour, creed or country of origin who is mainly resident in Scotland and is registered to vote in Scottish elections”.
These are the terms for voting in Scottish elections and the only thing different to qualify as one of the people of Scotland is that you pay your taxes here and that, for the moment, applies mainly to indirect taxation and Council Tax.
Sorry wasn’t clear at 11.56
Mundell said:
“Otherwise people will conclude that the only way to stop independence being talked about is to remove her as First Minister in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.”
Is he admitting that without Indy ref on the table she would still get elected as FM anyway?
This is bullying.
It is threat to our democratically elected FM and to our democracy.
Has he heard of Spartacus?
Wonder how it as received at the RHS?
@Socrates MacSporran says: 22 June, 2017 at 7:26 pm:
“Should the SNP not be getting Scotland’s leading legal and constitutional exerts on the case, to show, since the Parliament of Scotland is older than the Parliament of the United Kingdom, what it says goes in matters Scottish?
WE should thus be telling England: “Sorry, we’ve decided to take back control an have a strong and stable Scottish parliament”.
Kismet.”
Aye” Socrates, I’ve been posting that comment for what seems forever. I’m glad to see the light is dawning. BTW: I have expanded a wee bit more of the real truth of the matter a bit up thread. The bit about how the Paircel o Rogues drew up the original, “Scottish Claim Of Right”, that agreed to accept King Billy & Queen Mary and prevent RCs from ever being monarchs.
In effect they accepted that when the English Parliament rebelled against their King James I of England and imported the foreign house of Orange joint monarchs as king & Queen of England it also applied to the then still independent Scotland and the English parliamentarian troops were still slaughtering innocent non-combatant Scots at Culloden nearly 40 years after the Treaty of Union.
@COLIN ALEXANDER says:22 June, 2017 at 7:59 pm:
Awa an bile yer wee pointy Yoonyoonist heid ye muckle donnart numptie ye.
@Ian Brotherhood says: 22 June, 2017 at 8:34 pm:
“Looks like we’re in for another *rocktastic* session!”
Perhaps more like a rockslide, Ian.
Or perhaps it his ain stains hae drappit.
Just seen a brilliant tweet on the Rev’s feed
Drop in numbers of 16-19 year olds going to college in Scotland could have something to do with the fall in birth rate.
Roughly 16,000 fewer births in 2002 compared to 1991. Has to have an impact!
twitter.com/markybooth97/status/877980229188419585
Colin Alexander @ 11.
Ye do realise that you simultaneously agreed and disagreed with me Colin?
Westminster never gave the EU any Sovereignty it made a Treaty with it.
It (Westminster) could strike down the Treaty any time it wanted to….nae referendum required…..why?? because it’s Sovereign.
While the Treaty of the Union is still a live document Westminster can make any law it likes for Scotland as we have agreed to be governed under their system but what it cannot do and will not do is share Sovereignty.
If it portrayed it’s self as doing so, it is lying,as just like with the EU it always always has the power to decide to end the new the agreement,and go back to the original arrangement.
Because they are Sovereign and that bloody Treaty is still in place.
The arrangement you are suggesting isn’t possible for Westminster and or Either Sovereignty.
Westminster is expressly forbidden to dilute it’s Sovereignty why do you not know that?
Robert Peffers @ 12.24
I got this Robert
Seems to me the yoonyoonists, and Fluffie in particular, are building up a fine head of superheated steam.
The usual result of such a build up of wasted pressure is the operation of the safety valve.
This blows very hot water vapour very high into the air and is accompanied by a lot of very loud noise, a waste of fuel, and not a lot else.
I’ve just watched the channel 4 report on the Tory Party call centre – what a pile of charlatans. Hope they get the book flung at them.
I found this too.
This video is possibly one of the most moving interviews you will see/hear about the Grenfell Tower fire.
“There were 24 floors each with 6 flats full of people – do the math(s)”
Those who are gone are gone – but those of us who remain have this video burning inside us. It’s on constant replay and we can’t shut it down.
link to channel4.com
Robert Peffers @ 12.55.
Very well said.
Love you man and your education of us who dearly want independence for our beautiful country.
Yeah, I watched the Plymouth QT on a guest screen tonight.
There were quite a few animated peeps in the audience.
Jimmy White got asked to leave the studio to! 🙂
Is that unprecedented?
Is it a first?
Morning.
@Robert Peffers
I am an avid fan of history and the history of Britain is indeed fascinating. The differences between Scots and English law and the way they perceive sovereignty makes for a hodgepodge of constitutional confusion.
I am a republican and would vote to abolish the monarchy if we had a referendum on it in an independent Scotland. On the whole, I think Scots are less enchanted with the monarchy in general than the English but I do believe there would be a narrow majority in favour of retaining the monarchy in an independent Scotland.
I do wonder, however, what would the status of the Sovereign be post-independence? After the Union of the Crowns, James VI and I proclaimed himself King of Great Britain (this title was not recognised by the English Parliament but I think it was by its Scottish counterpart.) So technically, the monarch was known as the King of England, Scotland, Ireland and France and was not officially called King of Great Britain until 1707.
If Scotland became independent, would the monarch retain their title as King/Queen of Great Britain? Or do you think they would revert back to their pre-Union status of being King/Queen of Scotland and England?
@ meg merrilees who put up a link with a grenfell survivor
RIP all those who are gone. let’s hope a burning inferno like that never, ever happens again
There are a couple of other short videos in here from grenfell people asking how many people are missing, presumed dead
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Re mundell
1. Who is going to “remove” Nicola as FM…Him ??
2. Scotland will be out the union by 2021 so he will be irrelevent.
SO Holyrood closes for summer recess soon. I’m sure Nicola’s measured statement will address all issues responsibly. Maybe Nicola’s speech will close something like this..
“Everything remains in place, we’re going into summer recess, it’s up to you, citizens of Scotland, to push for Yes, good luck and have a great summer, see you soon!”
Throw down the gauntlet and challenge ourselves.
Yes becomes #indyref2.
FM takes her cue from us.
We take away the unionist party’s FIXATION to PERSIST in CONTINUALLY talking down and poo-pooing independence with the FM during debate, to the point where battered and bruised voters reach saturation point. (It’s intentional, by the way).
During debate, Nicola can then refer the opposition to us re #indyref2.
#Scotref, that’s the SNP’s.
#indyref2, that’s Yes.
Lead ourselves.
Yeah, seen the Herald piece and Mr Mundell’s threat. That is what it is right? A threat.
So let’s be clear for the sake of the terminally hard of thinking Tory readership (we know you do).
YOU HAVE NO MANDATE.
HMG, Conservative central office, the massed ranks of the UK media and yer helpful wee friends in both the Labour and Libdem northern franchises have thrown the kitchen sink at the SNP over three ballots and two years.
Politically you’ve opposed for the sake of opposition. You’ve lied, smeared, dissembled, misrepresented, misled, broken electoral rules, tactically voted, pished whatever ethics you had left up against a wall and otherwise acted according to the proud tradition of politics as it is practised in the UK.
The SNP HAVE WON every single ballot across three sets of electoral rules at every time of asking. Those are electoral rules which you flaunt and also put in place by the by. They still won.
You’ve run down our institutions publicly. Voted in concert across chamber. Got into bed with each other so many times at every level of politics it now resembles a West End bedroom farce and in point of fact it seems a complete waste of time to consider yourselves separate parties. In real terms you’re not. You’re the same party and really should simply get it over with and make it official. I’d suggest registering as the Yoonytunes. The opportunity to play with catchphrases such as ‘that’s all folks’ seems entirely too good to miss.
In short you’re a disgrace to true political practice, open democracy and (yes) human rights. I’m pretty certain, given the current behaviour of all these parties, that protection of our democracy and our human rights really is NOT entirely uppermost in their minds.
In their world losing is winning, betrayal is loyalty, transparency is ignorance, debate is manipulation, a massive material change in political, societal and economic circumstance is strong and stable better togetherness… black is white.
One more time with feeling. NO political leadership, of ANY stripe, has the right to take independence as an option off any table, especially under such constitutional circumstances as faces the electorate at this time. No political party or national leadership worth the name, in a modern western democracy has the right to remove the electorate’s right to choose.
THAT is what Mundell/Harrison (never gets old), Dugdale and thingy propose. To either convince you to give up that right, or take your right to choose away.
Only Ms Sturgeon and Mr Harvie appear willing to ensure that we as an electorate, as a population, retain that right. That’s YES voter, floating voter and NO voter. ALL of Scotland’s population.
If you don’t want to use the life raft of independence in any future referendum simply vote no. It’s that simple. But DO NOT, under any circumstances, EVER, give up your right to choose.
At that point you really aren’t living in a democracy.
Well said, Macart.
I eventually switched off last night’s Question Time in disgust – that such a boorish, obnoxious arsehole as Peter Osborne should be given the oxygen of publicity to spout his right-wing tosh.
Mind you, some of the audience proved to be great recruiting sergeants for Scottish Independence – do we really want to be tied to such people!!
I thought Ian Blackford, of whom I admit I knew very little until his recent promotion, came across very well.
Drop in numbers going to Colleges. More are going to Uni. Before they could not get a full loan. Probably another cause why there were less students from lower income households going to University. The loan system that was in place, until recently. Last two years. Previously it was the one put in place by Labour/Unionists. Student loans were means tested on household incomes on a sliding scale. So students from households of average earning, especially in two parent/career households. Could not get a full loan to go to University.
Students in Scotland with the full qualification could not get a full loan. They could not afford to go to University. Even with a loan they can still need financial help. The scheme was the one still in place that had been introduced by Labour /Unionist.That has been changed now the Scottish students can get a full loan. Intake in Scotland will increase.
Labour/Unionist policy was responsible for what the Unionists complain about. Less intake from households of average earning. It was their policies that was causing the problem but they were blaming the (SNP) Scottish Gov which has only been in majority in Holyrood for over five years. They have done more in five years than the Unionists did in over fifty. Since before 1928. Universal Suffrage.
The Universities are/were also taking ‘A’ levels as a higher entrance qualification compared to Scottish ‘Highers’. They are not it is a different education system. The Scottish one is more broadly based to give a better all round education and to give better choice. The ‘A’ Level system is more narrow and restrictive. It covers less subjects and gives less choice. If a pupil can get 4/5 Highers. They would easily manage to get 3 ‘A’ Levels.
The Uni entrance system were limiting the places for ‘Higher’ and giving priority to ‘A’ level students and other students from a different education system qualification. Restricting places for Scottish students who can’t get a place in their own universities. If preference is being given to students with other qualification from other educational system. They should not be. Scotland needs more professionals.
There are also more students taking up well funded, good quality apprenticeships. in preference to going to going to College. There are 100,000 funded apprenticeship. In engineering placements etc, Many pupils are taking them up after fourth/fifth year. Rather than going to College. Trades people earn a comfortable living. They can always go back into education if they want. Scotland has lifelong learning. 25% of students are mature students. They do really well. Are dedicated and enthusiastic, with less distractions.
@Macart at 4:44am
Spot on!
Links From the Lady;
Tales of two Cities!
link to newsnet.scot
Scotland’s Reputation Abroad!
link to businessforscotland.com
Tails You Lose!
link to rbs.postach.io
Peace Always
Here’s Richard Murphy’s take on it:
link to taxresearch.org.uk
In previous years there was more money available (pro rata). In 2010 Labour were raising £600Billion in tax revenues in the UKBorrowing and spending £120 = £720Billion. Extremely high pro rata but less debt pro rata than now. In the rest of the UK. £720Billion,
Now the Tories are raising £533Billion. They are borrowing and spending £100Billlion in the rest of the UK. £50Billion on public services. £50Billion on the private sector. = £633Billion
Massive increased debt rstio. Trns. .
The Scottish budget (Block grant) has been cut since 2010 by Unionists at Westminster. Cut approx 10% a year. Now £3Billion less a year. Scotland can’t borrow and spent like the rest of the UK but has to unfairly. make loan repayments on the rest of the UK debt. Approx average.£4Billion,
The Scottish Gov can’t make relevant choices on spending. To free up more cash. Instead of spending on groteque projects. Trident, Hinkley Point, HS2 and Heathrow. They all do nothing for the Scottish economy but damage it. Unionist Councils overspend on grotesque non mandated projects and then cut the allocated education/essential services budget.
The Tories unfair, illegally high taxes on the Oil/Gas sector has lost £Billions in revenues and thousands of jobs in Scotland. Scotland could have had nearly full employment and more revenues to fund education etc. To make it even better,
Macart 4.44am. Great post,says it all that really needs to be said.
Links!
A Curious Concession!
link to indyref2.scot
Scottish Government confirms that no Scottish tower blocks have been clad in the type used on Grenfell Tower!
link to archive.is
Secretive Tory Call Centre!
link to channel4.com
Peace Always
Links!
The Defence Angle!
link to medium.com
Plan to register EU Citizens!
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
Peace Always
Ta Smallaxe.
Kettle’s on.
(well somebody had to say it) 🙂
The amount and scale of CAP payments could be disclosed in. In light of the Tories lies. Full disclosure could lead to some surprises. Some Unionists voting/supporting Tory farmers might not be very enthusiastic about that. Full disclosure of subsidy. Especially the wealthier ones. The Tories mucking up their own nest. Trying to feather their own nest with public money.
The outrageous suggestion that Nicola would/should go. It will be Mundell who will be going in an election coming sooner rather than later. The Tories are imploding. What a bunch they are. Many Illegal Criminals. Getting chased by the Law.
Many thanks Mr Peffers for your response to my ‘people of Scotland’ definition. Sorry I missed your previous post.
I concur with your definition but it will make voting a tad interesting again!
Macart,
Thank You, my Friend, black coffee no sugar, Ta!
🙂
Peace Always
Smallaxe says:
This piece highlights a HUGE problem we have – we have absolutely no idea what the Tories are up to!
TMay seeking a legislative consent motion from Holyrood. Why?
More questions than answers!
“genuine respect for the democratic will of Scotland’s people”? Nae chance.
“wants the Scottish Parliament to have a veto?” Stop the Brexit process, and blame the Jocks. Well, any sane person would try to derail Brexit! I am quite sure there is a very large faction within the Tories who would wish to bring all this nonsense to an end and simply stay in the EU. All they need is a fool proof excuse where someone else gets the blame … that might be where we come in!
“threat to the process giving them some leverage in negotiations?” Perhaps. An excuse to get the EU to allow as soft a Brexit as possible. Again blaming this on the Jocks. Unlike the Tories the EU team won’t be idiots.
“are they setting a trap?” Again perhaps. An excuse to close down Holyrood in the greater name of the will of the British people.
Interestingly, these various possibilities are not mutually exclusive!
Whatever they plan, it won’t be to the benefit of Scotland.
Just listened to Michael Gove being interviewed on GMS
this morning.
Gove is visiting fishermen in Aberdeen , well he is visiting like minded unionist Bertie Armstrong of the SFF
In an earlier news item, Bertie Armstrong is quoted as stating that Scottish fishermen will be able to sell their produce overseas. The idiot Gove repeated that same statement. Fact is Scottish Fishermen ALREADY sell fish products overseas, both in the EU and outside the EU.
Nothing will actually change. However the EU market will become difficult due to customs barriers.
Everything that Gove stated during his interview on GMS was a complete and utter load of lies and twisting facts
Even Gary Robertson was beginning to flag at some of the crap being uttered
The Tory/Unionists will negotiate a Brexit deal which will cost more with less rights and more complicated restrictions and red tape. Lead to a decline in the economy. It is already going that way. There is nothing surer. Many Unionists are criminals getting away with murder. They are above the Law. They make the Law and break the Law with impunity. They should be held to account as a deterrent. Instead every criminal act is just swept under the carpet. Kept secret under the Official Secrets Act. In other countries they are held to account and go to prison.
4 Barclay bankers have been charged. Will it just lead to another fine which the taxpayers pay. In banking charges? Business as usual? Most of the Westminster unionist criminals are tax evaders, embezzlers, fraudsters, murderers, provoking murder. The Tory cabinet is full of them. Westminster Unionists kill innocent people, the world over. Truly disgusting. Wasting public money.
QT was lively last night! I quite enjoyed it, but I like a robust debate.
I thought Ian Blackford came across very well. I was a little uncertain about him as leader, but he’s got a calm, reaussuring manner about him which I think will help bring (if there are any left or middle factions of the party) together.
I also noticed that he was not even talked over by the crowd unlike the rest of the panel.
That Oborne journo was honestly a parody wasn’t he? Like Nick Ferrari/Hitchins/Quentin Letts all rolled into one -a southern Conservative voting’s dream man, no doubt 🙂
As for the dog tagging. A poor decision from the SNP.
I really do hope the SNP are having a thorough investigation in to what went wrong in the election, but legislation like that is not the answer.
As for Nicola’s Indyref speech next week announcement thingymajiggy then I’d just hope she keeps up the same. Continue to ask/offer for a cross-party-country Brexit coalition talks. Don’t take Indyref2 off the table, but say ‘we will come back to this depending on the Brexit deal that is secured’ – so pretty much as she and the party’s line was!
Gove and Mundell will not help the Tory cause. Some fishermen will be seriously disappointed. Being mislead and told lies about Brexit.
O/T
65.6 million is now the population of the UK take away the Scotland figure I wonder how the rest would cope without Scotland’s exports going to London I’m sure someone like Richard Murphy could examine this and give us a picture on both scenarios.
I note with interest the poll in the Herald yesterday giving an up vote for Independence has gone anyone seen the result.
Edward says:
Justifying Brexit takes many perverse twists and turns.
The reality is Brexit is a manifestation of rampant out of control English Nationalism. Brexiteers are driven ideologically. Everything else they say is just excuses and lies to try to justify that.
The biggest lie of all is that world trade trade will be better outside the EU.
The EU is a big and rich block. Then there are the huge number of trade deals with third party countries in place which all EU members benefit from.
To replace this, the UK would fall back on trade with WTO tariffs.
They say the UK can make it’s own deals. It cannot better trade with the EU, only worsen. It cannot better the EU deals already in place with third parties because they aren’t allowed to offer anyone a better deal than the EU.
That leaves countries the EU doesn’t have extensive deals with, e.g. The US, and India. The obvious question here is, if the EU can’t achieve it, then why would the UK. The UK is very likely to get thoroughly shafted!
Ian Blackford was very good on QT but what I found interesting was the loud,derisive laughter from a large percentage of the audience when the Daily Mail was referenced as a serious commentator.
@Scottish Steve says: 23 June, 2017 at 1:22 am
“I am an avid fan of history and the history of Britain is indeed fascinating. The differences between Scots and English law and the way they perceive sovereignty makes for a hodgepodge of constitutional confusion.”
In truth there really should be no confusion for the Treaty and both Acts of Union are quite precise and clear.
There are only two signatories on that treaty paper and they are equally sovereign kingdoms. There is not a single mention of country or of countries in the entire document. What there is, though, in the prequel, is references to the English, “Dominions”. These Dominions mentioned were actually referring to Wales & Ireland. Add into that mix the three Crown Protectorates and from only a personal viewpoint James I & VI was indeed the monarch of the whole of the British Isles.
“I am a republican and would vote to abolish the monarchy if we had a referendum on it in an independent Scotland.”
I used to be totally relaxed about the status of the monarchy but due to the total and overbearing attitudes exposed during Indyref1 I am now very much anti-monarchy in any shape or form.
” … On the whole, I think Scots are less enchanted with the monarchy in general than the English but I do believe there would be a narrow majority in favour of retaining the monarchy in an independent Scotland.”
Most Scots do indeed have a quite different attitude but that has always been the case as are most Scottish attitudes to our politicians. Could you imagine any English Prime Minister walking around on the streets of any part of the United Kingdom in the manner of our First Ministers?
I came across an old verbatim quote while researching something else but couldn’t find it again later it was in the Lallans and from the Capital City. It was along the lines of, “Ah dinna like oor politeecians gannin doon tae yon Inglis pairliament. Wi canna stane thaim if they dinna dae whit wi want thaim tae dae awa doon yonder”.
Our attitude to the Monarchy is also still quite different. Our Monarch is not legally sovereign and is defender of the people’s legal sovereignty. They are not sovereign monarchs. In England the words Queen/King and Sovereign are regarded as synonymous.
“I do wonder, however, what would the status of the Sovereign be post-independence? After the Union of the Crowns, James VI and I proclaimed himself King of Great Britain (this title was not recognised by the English Parliament but I think it was by its Scottish counterpart.) So technically, the monarch was known as the King of England, Scotland, Ireland and France and was not officially called King of Great Britain until 1707.”
The legal truth is that the monarchy’s legal status is indeed different in Scotland, England and the Crown Dependencies.
” … If Scotland became independent, would the monarch retain their title as King/Queen of Great Britain?”
The monarchy has never, ever, been Kings/Queens of either Great Britain, Britain or the United Kingdom. They have, since at least 1320, the monarchs correct designation in Scotland is legally King/Queen of Scots but never King/Queen of Scotland.
This is because they are not legally sovereign and thus Scotland belongs to the people and not to the crown. This is why there is no English style law of trespass in Scotland. Scots own Scotland and thus have legal right to roam.
It is also why it is illegal for a private landowner to clamp a vehicle parked on private land. The most they can legally do is sue the vehicle’s owner if the vehicles has caused any damage.
There are Scottish laws of invasion of privacy but these are restricted to the close proximity to the dwellings. Big Estate Landowners cannot prevent people from access to their land but can restrict people coming close to dwellings.
” … Or do you think they would revert back to their pre-Union status of being King/Queen of Scotland and England?”
As stated above the royal status was, is and would continue to be King of the three country Kingdom of England, Protector of the three Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and Man and King/Queen of Scots.
I really believe that, since Indyref1, there is probably now a majority of Scots who would vote for a republic. The Royal Person has done herself a power of no good over the matter of Scottish Independence. Even if Cameron only imagined he heard her purr over the phone.
Terrific post Macart @ 4:44
As heartening to read as it is to believe because every word is absolutely true.
Maybe in addition to persuading Robert Peffers to think about giving us a Phantom Power run down on constitutional issues, we can push for a similar run down on the political perspective from Macart.
Jeezo people. Just imagine how unstoppable we’d become if we had Free Scottish Broadcasting.
I’m serious by the way. Just like there were big players in the YES matrix, like National Collective to name one, Phantom Power are going to be massively important for ScotRef.
Whether YES does it or the SNP, or both and others besides, I hope we can get a new ScotRef (literal) Collective to host all the pro Indy media; from London Calling, all the Phantom Power Journey clips, and the most aspirational clips like Alan Smiths EU standing ovation. Get our draft constitution up there in lights too. Let’s get serious about the ScotRef merchandising too. Let’s see these Tories eat their words when the Pantone 300 starts flying all over the place. Get Jack Foster on the phone.
Surely there are talented Web designers who are itching to gives us a flying start. Who is it they need to make themselves known to? Give them a name. Is it a YES coordinator? An SNP coordinator? If the YES website and SNP website are a weak as in 2014, then that’s everybody’s fault. Demand better, but be constructive and for every grumble, it doesn’t count unless you make two constructive suggestions.
Let’s hope for positive developments in Broadcasting, but prepare ourselves for the worst. Let’s beef up both YES and the SNP presence online and make their home websites a lot more media savvy and truly central to the ScotRef campaign.
We have decent proactive and reactive sites and bloggers, but I respectfully suggest we need a ScotRef “hub” to coordinate some kind of easy access archive of the permanent essentials. We need more Wee Blue Books, Wee Brexit Books and Wee Constitional Books. You’ve nailed the franchise the Rev Stu, but we are going to need Anti Brexit and pro ScotRef literature in hip pocket size format. A box set of Wee Books. How about a box set of Teeny Books for pledge rewards or even a mini bookcase?
We should aim for a benchmark in production where nobody who visits the ScotRef Hub leaves disappointed or unfulfilled. It’s not just the web design, it’s the staffing. It needs a live forum, moderation against trolls and wreckers, but progressive questions and answers, interactive media. European links.
Ask Nicola and other pro Yes people to put the hub on their distribution list for topical developments. Get the right people doing what they do best and help them. If it needs crowd funding, then get the thinking caps on for good rewards that make contributors smile and also spread the word.
Maybe ScotRef needs a mascot like Clyde for the Glasgow games, or Duggie Dug, or just some new hairy wee gonk that sits on the dashboard and nods YES. (A nodding Duggie Dug mibees? Hmmmm…bit cheesy but might work)
Let’s cross reference thinking too. What about crowd funds for one pro Indy function giving rewards which promote others? Pledge funds to ScotRef, and get Phantom Power merchandising in the rewards.
Rev Stu has pioneered so many of these paths already, but we need more of everything and 10 or 100 times the quantity. All the CyberNat stuff, the badges, the whole shebang. Let’s get some central ScotRef motifs thought about and give our creative people a ScotRef vocabulary to work with and do their stuff.
Let’s start acting like a country that actually DOES want a Referendum.
We already have less time to get coordinated than YES had in 2013. Exactly what are we waiting for? There IS going to be a referendum.
Ref Galamcennalth @0915 Is it the case that the LCM is to allow May and Davis
to “reassure” the EU that Scotland will have a ” democratic” say in the Brexit outcome
via Holyrood , when the subject is broached by the EU negotiators? They can then say that Scotland doesn’t require to have a seat at the negotiations as Holyrood will have a vote at the end of the process
In the ” short term” this conveniently gets Scotland ” out of the way” as regards being involved , with the EU ” being assured” on ” Scottish democracy”. It will all be forgotten 2 years down the line and either the UK will use the Supreme Court to overrule any vote by Holyrood and/or they will try to put extreme pressure on the SNP government ( and greens) via the usual propaganda blitz and or the usual Tory methods of ” arm twisting” financial ” inducements ( or possible threats), etc. Etc..( Has the threats actually started against our FM??).
Anyway , you get the picture folks , every trick in the book will be used ” when the time is right” for May ( now is not the time) or her ” cabal successor”. The immediate priority is to exclude Scotland from the Brexit negotiations .
Very well said, Macart (4.44am). Thank you.
@geeo says: 23 June, 2017 at 3:02 am:
“Re mundell
1. Who is going to “remove” Nicola as FM…Him ??
2. Scotland will be out the union by 2021 so he will be irrelevent.”
Mundell is the very epitome of raving insecurity.
link to youtube.com
If you want to see what the Whitehall UK government has done regarding past independence situations and how it treats its divisive seperatists read ‘UK defeated in UN vote on Chagos Islands’ on the BBC’s website today.
Re farm payments – Andy Wightman asks a complaining Tory to say how much he has received in payments but he doesn’t want to answer.
link to twitter.com
If the general public knew how much public money went into farmers and landowners bank accounts they would be outraged in these “austerity” driven times.
You can search per beneficiary here
link to cap-payments.defra.gov.uk
Macart 4.44am
One of the best posts ever.
Michael Gove this morning was a parody of Michael Gove in his bluster and diversion. Theresa May, in bringing him back, has surely set him up to take all the flak that is coming over fishing and farming?
How he had the gall to say the FM had ‘grandstanded’ over negotiation when his government would not even consider ‘Scotland’s Place in Europe’ is astonishing. It will be interesting to see how much of the paper will now be used as a strategy as the Brexit team have none of their own.
One thing is clear, Tory voting farmers and fishermen are no friends of Scotland and never have been.
Ian Blackford was good last night even if he went on a bit.The knives are out for him, rehashing anger over his campaign team’s tactics against Charles Kennedy. I remember at the time it was portrayed as aggressive stuff but indicates he is no pushover and is maybe what we need at present. After trying to be all things to all people, a clear vision is needed now.
As for tail docking, maybe there are good reasons, but I can’t quite see it. I wonder how many more bits of ill-timed, ill-conceived legislation are about to scupper this Holyrood government? A bit like getting your appendix out in case you might get appendicitis like they used to do for sailors?
@Capella
Couple of points on farm payments.
EU compromised with UK on payments to large landholders – limit to reduce amount was optional. In the UK all the devolved government used the cap, but England didn’t.
EU parliamentarians are considering making the limit mandatory and using the money saved for other things – like cybersecurity and anti-terrorism.
@ScottishPsyche
Can you explain just exactly what tactics Ian Blackfords Campaign team are supposed to have used?
I was an activist on both campaigns and I am not aware of any such tactics.
This last election it was the Lib-Dem candidate who put out a leaflet with a big photo of her and Charles together.
@ bjsalba – agree there is a cap but it is at a very generous level 150,000 Euros AFAIK then 5% reduction. Who would complain about getting that grant to conduct your business – and keep the profits.
It is hard to get comprehensive information but worth digging around.
ScottishPsyche says at 10.43 “A bit like getting your appendix out in case you might get appendicitis like they used to for sailors”
Some women get their breasts removed if there is a strong history of breast cancer in their family. Is that wrong too?
I’m not saying I agree with tail docking dogs, but maybe sometimes there are medical reasons for this? Also I believe it was not just the SNP who voted this through and some SNP voted against it.
@Liz g
I think we have reached a general consensus on political sovereignty. That if Scotland asserts herself politically, then the UK has to adapt to suit that assertion of political power or the Union is likely to be over.
I think we are getting closer to getting an agreement on sovereignty too.
There is theoretical sovereignty and sovereignty as it’s used in the day to day real world.
Aye, Westminster is sovereign. Theoretically it’s always sovereign. But in practical reality of operation, others can overrule that sovereignty if WM gives it permission to do so.
In the real world, WM allowed the EU to have the final say.
To exercise ( or reclaim) that sovereignty again, WM is ending the UK’s membership of the EU Union. WM could not force the EU to change to suit WM.
Likewise, WM could give the Scottish Parliament that authority over WM’s laws where they affect Scotland.
Aye in theory, WM would still be sovereign, but for practical purposes, until WM made new legislation ending that legislation that gave Scotland sovereignty, Scotland would for practical purposes be sovereign over matters affecting Scotland.
WM could re-assert authority by ending that setup, but as in the EU situation, the ending of Scottish sovereignty would probably be the end of the UK Union too, as Scotland could say we don’t accept WM taking away our sovereignty.
@bjsalba
I am referring to one of many articles which have recently been resurrected eg: link to archive.is
You know the truth of it, many did and do not. However, the impression given is of someone who is determined and driven in their aim and that is perhaps why all this stuff has resurfaced.
@tatu3 The breast cancer argument differs in that there is a known and quantifiable risk which allows women to make that choice. My example of sailors was that in those times, some sailors died of peritonitis from a burst appendix, some died of the operation itself. The risk was there but the method used at that time was a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
No time to comment just now
O/T
just a thought.
Prince Harry says ‘who in the current generation wants to be queen/king?’
Does he sense that there might not be a Queen of Scots in the very near future??
or is it just selfish, after all, in many ways his ‘royal’ status has completely mucked up his private life. All the money in the world won’t bring his mother back or make it easier for him to be with his girlfriend.
Life is tough! – but money makes it a bit easier eh?
We are going to get independence via an indyref2 seems to be the absolute belief on here.
Well, the SNP have one week left to announce whether that’s going to happen.
Here’s my predictions:
1. Indryref is delayed, because we need to see how Brexit goes first, will claim the SNP. Brexit is unlikely to be completed before 2021 and the end of the ScotGovt parliamentary term.
2. ScotTGovt will seek to work with UK Govt to get best Brexit – including Scotland.
3. ScotGovt will rely on threat of Sewell Convention to block WM taking control of fisheries, agriculture and a whole lot more. ( it already is)
4. Everybody already knows Sewell or LCMs are kidology. SNP will huff and puff, UK Govt will pretend they are listening, all scared at the power of the SNP.
5. When it’s obvious Scotland is being shafted again. SNP will claim they are sticking up for Scotland by attempting to block the shafting by Sewell, the courts will again rule Sewell is a political etiquette that it is not a rule or law that can be legally upheld.
6. Scotland is out of EU and Single Market ( unless kept in it by someone else, not by anything the SNP does). Westminster will cherry pick control of the best bits of Scotland’s powers returned from the EU.
7. UK Govt will pretend the ScotGovt forced concessions and so throw a few EU crumbs the Scot Govts way. The Scot Govt will pretend they won best deal possible for Scotland.
8. The SNP will argue they did the best possible. The only other solution is independence, so vote SNP in 2021 and keep the SNP in power another five years, so they can ask for another indyref and get told not now and so it goes on.
9. The SNP achieve nothing of substance.
10. SNP try to get re-elected as kings of devolution – the best regional council in the world. Fantastic pay and perks and incredibly long holidays for the SNP politicians.
Business as usual: blame all failures on WM and self-congratulation for any good things that happen. Keep pretending we will get indy via a referendum by voting SNP and continue with devolution on Westminster’s terms.
11. The penny will drop eventually, that the SNP don’t want an indyref because they don’t believe they’ll win, many independist people won’t see a reason to vote SNP, because many of their other policies aren’t that good.
12. The SNP won’t win a majority at Holyrood in 2021. The Unionists will have a majority, especially a large rise in Labour support. Independence will be cancelled indefinitely.
I really hope I’m wrong. Come on SNP, prove me wrong.
@Robert Peffers
I would very much like to see Scotland become a republic. The monarchy would forever be a symbol and hangover of the British state post-independence. I cant comprehend why countries like Australia, Canada etc. retain the monarch as their head of state. Why have a foreign king/queen as your head of state? It’s bizarre.
Breeks 10.04
You know if everything that you proposed there was to actually get done in co-ordination with billboard/advan campaigns, mass leaflet distributions, full page ads in the Scottish Sun and other more creative out of the box type ideas for countering unionist propaganda the only place it counts, i.e. throughout the general and largely misinformed public then quite possibly we’d be independent before we knew what had hit us.
Problem is of course that sitting banging away at a keyboard about it will change nothing, action – constructive action – must be taken. That’s not, I hasten to add, a criticism of you or anyone else, it’s just that you see a lot of good ideas and suggestions coming up on here but nothing ever actually comes of any of it. The message doesn’t appear to be getting through to where it counts, i.e people who are passionate about indy and who have the resources and know how to make these things happen for real.
Who and where are they?
BREXIT—– EUROPEAN UNION PREPARES TO MOVE TWO AGENCIES FROM LONDON.
“EU leaders have officially launched the competition between member states to decide which will host two London-based EU agencies, responsible for medicines and banking.
The relocation must take place by the Brexit deadline – 30 March 2019.
Some countries are bidding to host both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and European Banking Authority (EBA).
It means hundreds of jobs moving from London, along with significant revenue from hotel stays and conferences.
The deciding vote will take place in November.
The EU 27 agreed on the selection process on Thursday night, after UK Prime Minister Theresa May had left the Brussels summit……..”
BBC. link to archive.is
The departing European Medicines Agency monitors the safety and quality of medicines EU-wide and issues scientific advice.
It also provides a single route for evaluating medicines, avoiding duplication by member states.
@clipper says: 23 June, 2017 at 3:15 pm:
” … Who and where are they? … “
They are you, me and every other independence supporter who are doing the most sensible thing. They see that the present tactics are slowly winning over voters to independence.
Now it may be slower than many of us like but it sure as hell is working and you do not fix something that is working in case you stop it working.
I’m in my 80s now and I began supporting Scottish independence when I was still a schoolboy. I can verify that things are moving along a bloody site faster now than they did when I first began seeking independence.
I believe that when it comes it will come all of a sudden and from what seems like nowhere.