I’ve been no fan of the remain campaign. Its scaremongering has been alternately appalling and risible. It’s been high handed and arrogant, treating the electorate like fools who must be herded in a certain direction and if they don’t comply they must be morally suspect and probably racist too. They don’t deserve to win on their own merits, and I really wish it were possible for both sides to lose, because they’ve been matched in every lie and deception by the same crap from the leave campaign. This pathetic excuse for a campaign is how the British political elite conducts itself.
Bereft of anything positive, lacking in anything worthwhile, intelligence insulting and patronising, that’s how the supposed cream of British politics treats the electorate. All this campaign has proven is that a broken, incompetent, and inadequate political system produces broken, incompetent, and inadequate politicians. We deserve so much better, but we’re not going to get it as long as an unreformed Westminster remains in charge.
But if the UK as a whole votes tomorrow to leave the EU, our horizons will be narrowed, and the world will look on this state of which Scotland yet remains a part as being insular, parochial, and xenophobic. The UK will become the pariah of Europe, the party pooper, the one who refuses to cooperate, refuses to share, refuses to be a partner. Britain will have traded a place in Europe for a flag waving bunting bedecked insularity which will only benefit the rich, the well connected, and the powerful. When Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage talk about taking back control, they don’t mean to deliver it to impoverished and marginalised communities.
Scotland’s future is being held hostage to a debate that we didn’t ask for, and in which our minds are pretty much made up already. Scotland is a European nation which sees no conflict in sharing part of our sovereignty with our European neighbours, in cooperating with other countries for the common good. Ever since the Pictish aristocracy’s disastrous dinner party with Kenneth Macalpine, the history of Scotland has been as an outward looking European nation. From the Scottish pedlars and settlers in the Polish Commonwealth, the merchants of the Baltic trade, and the Scottish mercenaries of the Swedish Crown, to the Auld Alliance and the Garde Écossaise of the French monarchy, Scots have been actively involved in Europe, shaping and making the continent along with other European peoples.
We are not an insular island nation. We are not content to be alone in glorious isolation viewing Europe suspiciously from the top of a white chalk cliff. That’s not Scotland. The vision of Boris and the dream of Nigel is not our destiny. The backward looking red white and blue tinted nostalgia of the British patrioscoundrels contains no place within it for a strong, confident, self-assured Scotland.
I’m a supporter of Scottish independence, and I believe that should the UK vote to leave the EU but Scotland votes to remain it will create the best chance for Scotland to hold another independence referendum and for the independence campaign to win it. But that will come at a price to the people of England and Wales. The price they pay will be heavy. Contrary to the myth beloved of certain Unionists, I don’t hate the English, and I don’t wish that fate upon them. In an ideal world I’d like Scotland to be an independent member of the EU alongside English and Welsh neighbours which were likewise a member. But that decision is in the hands of the voters of England and Wales tomorrow.
If Brexit wins that broken, incompetent, and inadequate Westminster will reign unchallenged and supreme. Take back control the Brexiteers keep repeating. A vote to leave the EU is a vote to put all power, all decisions, all control, in the hands of a ramshackle and corrupt excuse for a parliament. They want to take back control for the posh public schoolboys who have a disproportionate chance of getting into a position of power, not for the poor. They want to take back control for the financial industries of the City of Westminster, not for the trade unions. They want to take back control for the Westminster parliament with its unfair voting system and its unelected House of Lords so that Michael Forsyth can rest easy on his ermine clad arse, not for popular democracy. When the patricians tell the plebeians that they want to take back control that’s not good news for the people.
The last handful of polls on the eve of voting show a narrow advantage for leave, but it’s within the margin of error. This referendum could easily go either way and only a fool would predict the outcome with any confidence.
Irrespective of how tomorrow’s vote goes, the lesson that Scotland must take from this pathetic slanging match, in which one side has sought to make political capital out of naked racism while denying it’s doing any such thing, and the other side has sought to make political capital out of the tragic murder of a woman MP while denying it’s doing any such thing, is that as long as we remain a part of this dysfunctional state we are condemning ourselves to dysfunction.
Scotland’s future, what’s best for this nation which has always been an active and enthusiastic player in shaping the destiny of Europe, is held hostage to the concerns of a Westminster elite which is only interested in its own power and self-aggrandisement. We are not the masters of our own fate. We do not tread a path of our own choosing. The Brexit campaign’s slogan of take back control rings hollow in a land in which decisions are made by an unaccountable Tory government at Westminster and imposed upon us whether we like it or not. It’s time for Scotland to take back some control too.
All independence supporters need to vote remain tomorrow. Either leave narrowly wins in England and Wales and a remain voting Scotland finds itself with a trigger for a second indyref, or remain narrowly wins and the Tory party descends into civil war producing a weak government and giving Scotland a chance of taking back some power from Westminster and fending off the worst of Tory rule. Or there’s even the outside chance, a very slim chance, that a remain vote in Scotland could swing it, and then we’d get to watch the Tory right, UKIP and the Daily Mail implode in an anti-Scottish nervous breakdown. Whatever happens tomorrow, the United Kingdom is the Union that is weakened most, but only if Scotland votes to remain.
A remain vote for Scotland tomorrow is the first step on a journey that could lead to Scotland taking back control of its own.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
I fear Idox has it rigged already
“Ever since the Pictish aristocracy’s disastrous dinner party with Kenneth Macalpine…”
That made me smile, an achievement on the last day of a dreadful campaign which has brought us to the edge of a disastrous Brexit and total exposure to the Tory wolves.
I have often wondered why there is so much insularity in English society and a fear of the continent. There are many factors but I think the French Revolution really put the wind up the Establishment and it was of course, eh, French, which was obviously a Bad Thing, QED. And of course the Empire seemed to encourage a feeling of superiority and exceptionalism.
All academic, anyway but I think many on here want The Schadenfreude Option, where those pesky Sweaties keep The Frothers in by a narrow majority.
Delightful that it’s a Geman word too.
Hehehehehehe.
😎
Please, please let the schadenfreude option come to pass. I can hardly wait for the subsequent ‘anti-Scottish nervous breakdown’. Bring it on 😀👍.
Surely two world wars started by Germany loom much larger in the collective imagination than the French Revolution? That combined with a re-united Germany dominating the EU. It´s easy to imagine it becoming a Fourth Reich by stealth, at least to people of the immediate post-war generation, brought up on an endless diet of war-films and documentaries with the subliminal message that ¨the only good German is a dead German¨.
Since Germany surrendered unconditionally at the end of WWII, I´m unable to understand why it still exists as a nation, it should surely have been colonised by the allies or at the very least broken up so as never to pose a threat to the rest of Europe. How was the reunification at the end of the Cold War even contemplated?
I realise this is 95% irrational, but that is probably how many Britexer are thinking. A Europe in which Germany had been wiped off the map would have been a great deal more palatable.
I´m pro-Europe (ideally open to more democratic control) and have no time for the likes of Farrage … just a powerful Germany at the heart of Europe still gives me the creeps.
There, I´ve tried to be honest.
With their massive 16% of the EU population, and their negative population growth, its clear that Germany is to the EU what England is to the UK. Whatever the voters of Germany want, we all get. The words Germany and Europe will be interchangeable – except when another European wins some game, when he will be German – ( but European when he loses obviously).
And this mighty German Empire will one day encompass the globe, bringing Christian values and good sportsmanship to lesser races. Maybe a bit of slavery and a class system, but they will surely be better for speaking the universal global language.
We’re getting there. The Monarchs are already all Germans…….
As much as I hate the monarchy, the whole “They’re bloody German” line does my tits in.
Why is it that a second generation immigrant born in Glasgow can be Scottish (a sentiment I wholeheartedly support), but a family who’ve lived in the the UK for several generations/centuries, still have their ancestral Germanity flung against them?
Us mongrels don’t know who our ancestors were, but yon pedigree dugs know back for ever. Its their very claim to rule at all. And they are Germans. Wee Prince George ( a Hanoverian name ) is probably English. His maw is English. But Even Phil the Greek is descended from a Danish king ( of a minor German family ) and his German wife.
So I would reckon they are Germans. As are the other European monarchs ( all closely interbred! ).
Up the republic!
Whatever the result there’s big trouble ahead unless, and this seems very unlikely, there is a strong win by remain. If Brexit loses but England voted Brexit, English nationalism is still out the bag with a vengeance. The “anti-Scottish nervous breakdown” could be very nasty. The immigrants will just be swapped back out for the scrounging Scots in the English nationalist iconography. We’ve already seen it in the penniless Scottish immigrant imagery. We’ll be the new scapegoats for all the evils they see themselves beset with.
[…] Wee Ginger Dug Taking back some control of Scotland’s own […]
So it’s a crime against Scotland to be taken out of the EU against her will but funny as fuck for England to be kept in against her will. Juvenile crap I have to say.
I doubt it will be funny. The English Brexiters will rage against the Scots if this happens. It’ll it ugly.
Simple answer Joe, The UK returns to the state of play before 1707 and England can do what the hell it wants.
Hear hear
“Juvenile crap,” his comment was
And he’s serious, I fear.
But how can he be serious,
When he’s only jokin’ ‘ere?
Then fuck off and comment somewhere else more to your liking Joe.
Well said!
It would indeed be a crime, either way, but that crime would be committed by Westminster, not by Scottish or English voters.
Ermmm…yup.
The Schadenfreude Option – I will vote for that.
Come the day, come Friday, at last, the in, out, hokey, pokey, Englarendum, tedium will, briefly, be finished and we will, absolutely and finally, maybe know what the future holds. I do wonder, given the way the markets have been responding during the day whether, perhaps, someone has been sneaking a peek at the postal votes. Perish the thought. Rooth the Mooth was darn sarth for other reasons.
It is difficult to pick the lows of this completely unnecessary waste of time and money, there being too many to choose from though Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of articulation is, um, maybe, y’know, on one hand, and on the other, a multitude of wasted opportunities.
Meanwhile, I see the little white moustache is spouting pish again… “But the real price was deepening divisions in Scotland and creating a scary degree of one-party dominance and intolerance”. The little white moustache must be watching a different channel with the sound turned down.
well said paul, completely sums up the whole shambolic state of remain and brexit….im afraid its muddied the waters for indy 2, even if its a brexit win we’re no nearer to getting away from wm and its kippers/tories and english patriots…what makes me more than annoyed is a close relative saying ‘nationalism is bitter and divisive and time we all joined together for the good of the country…truly gobsmacked the no brigade cant take off their blinkers and see reality…
Thankfully the so-called united kingdom is finished whatever the result.
Good article,Paul.I really hope Scotland votes firmly Remain.It would be viewed as a statement that Scotland is an outward and forward looking modern country.
Pretty much.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for…
50.0000000% Remain
50.0000000% Leave
That would make my day.
Fingers crossed for 50% +1 vote for Remain…and it’s my vote that does it!
Ooh, that Daily Mail would hate me!
We would all love you though. 👍😊
[…] via Taking back some control of Scotland’s own — Wee Ginger Dug […]
There is a view that because of the Independence Referendum, we Scots citizens are much more phlegmatic about, (and have gone through our allocation of pinches of salt) the EU Referendum campaigns.
Who can forget Lord Carmichael of Portsmouth visiting that town, and declaring on the front page of their local Blah that should Scotland vote YES, then BAE systems would shut up shop in Govan, Scotstoun, and Rosyth, and Portsmouth would be ‘best placed’ to build those pesky frigates?
It is not unreasonable to assume that not a few shipbuilders voted No out of fear for their jobs.
We now know that Carmichael is a self confessed lair. But hey ho, it’s only ‘politics’;
except that it’s not .
The £200 million refurb of Scotstoun will not now go ahead.
I’ve lost track of the number of frigates they’re going to build up here, but not until October 2017..is it 6 now? Shipworkers are losing their jobs.
HMRC are moving thousands of jobs from Scotland to Crawley.
There is a sense of deja vu about the double barreled Project Fear EU campaigns.
Both Cameron and Gove are terrifying the life out of our English neighbours.
At least we only had one project Fear with which to cope.
Asda was putting its prices up.
Standard Life threatened to fuck off to London if we voted YES,
Iain Davidson chaired a Westminster Committee which produced 13 very expensive papers rubbishing the country of his birth, ‘proud patriot’ that he was..
Along with the rest of the ‘Fucking Useless’ 40 Labour card carriers, we ‘bayonetted’ him at the UKGE 2015 elections.
We were too wee too poor too stupid to go it on our own. We were forbidden by Osborne, Balls, Darling, Brown, and Danny Boy from using the pound. Russia and North Korea would invade. The oil was running out.
RBS was moving. Barrhead travel was moving.
We were to be severely punished by our Imperial Masters if we even thought of taking back the grouse moors and the Belted Earls’ Estates.
In short we’ve heard it all before.
I agree, Paul. Scotland is an outward looking country. We are in the main ‘Europeans’ with the exception of the knuckle draggers in George Square 19/9/14, and the not inconsiderable band of Brexit Tories, and UKIPpers
Next time we’ll be ready.
The pound, defence, the EU, borders with England, a peace treaty with North Korea and Russia, need to be addressed before a second Referendum is proposed.
There will be no Scotland 2016 I hear.
PS., 4 votes for Remain in this household, but with a sense of, ‘let’s get this bliddy thing over and done with’, since the whole shambles is a SE Eton bunfight, by a Government for whom we didn’t vote.
OT:-The Herald’s readership is that engrossed with the EU debate, that 8 out of 20 of its most popular items today are about Rangers Football Club.
I can’t believe the amount of fools i know that are voting out…I have gave them all the info and links on how this will affect Scotland..and for now we are better in than out..til Independence….but sad to say…these people have been duped..by the media …i now worry if we will ever get Independence at this rate!
So it’s OK for the likely very narrow minority of English remain voters to suffer the consequences of evidence free choices on the part of bigoted, xenophobic, anti expertise/intellectual cap doffers and forelock tuggers having a tantrum on the back of extremely non subtle dog whistle commands by the feudal aristocracy just so Wolfie Joe Smith here can sneer because he can’t get his own way?
Ah diddums. See, it cuts more than one way Joe. You are not down here amongst the poison. You are not hourly experiencing the unreason and the vitriol. You sit there in your ivory tower pontificating on behalf of the revolutionary vanguard of your puerile imagination and in a way you are as bad the emotional little Englanders down here.
The reality is they are both bad choices because the outcome either way is differentiated only by degree. Remain and you still have a neo liberal edifice, leave and you have a neo feudal backwater which will demonstrate to the dwindling cadre of Soviet era nostalgic’s still alive in Russia what a command economy should really look like. The real option on the table is which one of those choices represents the likeliest scenario of progressing and which represents a leap backwards into the neo feudal dystopia you are cheerleading.
I know of no serious thinking individual thinking of voting remain who thinks the EU as it stands represents a good choice. But it’s a less bad choice than the alternative. It is a neo liberal edifice largely because the UK State and British establishment has used it’s influence, dipomatic, technical, economic etc, to advance others with the same mindset in and into the EU and work with them to make it so. The only chance to turn this around is to use the current chaos to seek practical and real changes along the lines laid out by people such as Paul Mason here
socialeurope.eu/2016/06/remain-renegotiate-stop-brexit-bandwagon/
and here
medium.com/mosquito-ridge/dear-jean-claude-juncker-e0d9855924d0
It will certainly take hard work but it’s a better alternative than the year zero fantasy of extreme delousionists at both ends of the political spectrum. If you get your way after today’s vote Joe I’ll think of you when Boris and Gove and IDS are burning protective worker legislation, scrapping consumer protection regulations, privatising the tax office ( they’ve already done the same for land in the 2015 infrastructure bill and the land registry is to be privatised), cutting funding to science based enquiry like global warming because they don’t believe in it, and doing away with environmental legislation. Because at the moment recourse to the higher bodies in Europe are the only protection from this which us English have.
I’ll especially be thinking of you on my the date of my late mothers birthday,which is 5th November when I can assure you it will not be the effigy of Guy Fawkes I will be burning.
One is better than the other but they are both bad choices. The choice is an illusion of real choice. The referendum will solve nothing. Neoliberalism wins one way or the other: Take back control? The untold story of the EU referendum.
Worth a read.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/powers-without-pennies/
Voted remain today!
I have read that because Nicola Sturgeon has a minority government now and no referendum mandate in her manifesto, that she will be unable to force another referendum in the event of a Brexit.Is this correct or more Project Fear?
Project pants. 2 of the 6 greens are SNP who quit because of NATO. The others have 2 at least with solid pro-indy credentials. It is highly unlikely the 6 greens will vote against. They will either vote for or abstain. Either way its Nicola’s call;.
It’s not correct. The Greens have said they would support another indyref if there’s a Brexit, so there’s a majority in Holyrood for it.
The ” winds of change” are becoming more perceptive. Michael Fry in The National, June 23, a journalist, writer and historian – not noted for independence-thinking, and who has been”maligned” by some letter writers in The National, stated: ” …the UK will continue on its course of relative decline. When we get the chance, let’s take Scotland out of it”.
Whatever one’s political views are – Left, Right or Centre – strategy is a priority first!! Out of the UK and the Westminster ancien regime with its HoL and faux procedures and then we create our own body politic for the people of Scotland by the people of Scotland! We choose our governments and political – social – economic directions and vote! We can always undo our “bad choices”, but they will be our choices and our corrections.
Just as predicted, Davidson of the Tories in Scotland has stated the Tories will stay together. There goes a doomed party; which wing of the party will the Tories in Scotland be linked to? Yoons to the last! It’s Labour in Scotland that holds the key to the future, in many ways. Their main party has seen its core areas lurch to the UKIP right. Is the branch still better together with those in Labour dahn sath? We await Corbyn’s statement, the man who was lukewarm about the EU all his life and who does not even countenance more devolved government to Scotland.
Or will Labour in Scotland go into denial and carry on with SNPBaaaad and disown the mandate the people of Scotland have given for remaining in the EU and ergo becoming independent in Europe?
It really should be Westminster-Tories baaaad!!
I was woken up by a rumble of thunder – a portent of doom perhaps. There has been a narrow vote by the residents of what may become the former United Kingdom (fUK) to leave the European Union. What happens next? As they say in QI, ‘nobody knows’. However, as quoted by Winston Churchill, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”, and there will be some, perhaps many, in Scotland who see this as an opportunity. We will see. Meanwhile, the pound nosedives, holidays in mainland Europe become more expensive, inflation takes off, there is a run on the banks, the European Bank has to bail out the fUK with a proviso: The Schadenfreude Option.
I’m sure I just heard, faintly, on the wind from the South, the battle-cry of the Brexiteers – “FREE-DUMB!!!”