On Friday, Theresa May gave her considered response to the entirely predictable rejection of her Chequers Plan by the EU. The rejection should not have come as a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. The EU has been signalling ever since the Chequers Plan was cobbled together that it wasn’t going to be acceptable. For the past two years it has been patiently and consistently explaining that the four freedoms are indivisible, and the British Government can’t pick and choose those parts of them that happen to suit the interests of maintaining some sort of semblance of unity within the British Conservative party.
It’s just unfortunate that the British Government counts amongst those who weren’t paying attention, and so it reacted to the EU’s refusal in much the same way that a toddler reacts when it goes in a huff and knocks its sippy cup off of the high chair and then discovers that there’s such a thing as gravity. Only with somewhat less maturity and more of a sense of entitlement.
There are a number of ways to react when you discover the existence of gravity. You could do what Isaac Newton did. Newton was a busy man, in between taking the credit for the work of Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed, nursing a pathological hatred for Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz and trashing their reputations at every opportunity, and ensuring that part time dildo manufacturer William Chaloner was hanged and publicly disembowelled for the crime of counterfeiting a few coins, he sat down and worked out a detailed and rigorous exposition of the nature of gravity which underpinned all scientific understanding on the phenomenon for hundreds of years after his death. Think of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, only with the power to have people tortured to death, and you’ve got a rough idea. And you’d think that, being a nasty and petty minded vindictive git who allowed his grudges to become all-consuming, Newton would have been an ideal role model for the Conservative party.
Or you could do what the baby in the high chair did, which was to throw its dummy after the sippy cup and have a hissy fit while screaming that it wasn’t fair and threatening that if it didn’t get its own way, it was going to soil its nappy. The British Government went for option B. That’s where we currently are with Brexit. The British Government is threatening the EU that it had better come up with a compromise plan that the UK can agree to, or the UK is going to pee in its pants. And then the EU will be sorry. Over two years after the Brexit vote, with just six months to go until Brexit day, with just four weeks to go until time runs out for reaching agreement, this is what passes for a plan. Not only do our Westminster rulers have no concept of the theory of gravity, they have no concept of the gravity of theory.
The Brexists are full of the I-told-you-so’s, but none of them have the foggiest idea what to do either, other than wish the Irish border out of existence and tell themselves that everything will work out just fine because they’re British and being British means being better and having Union flegs plastered on everything in Tesco. Brexit might cause a few problems for people who don’t manage hedge funds, but hey, blue passports. And anyway, it’s all the fault of the EU for refusing Britain’s perfectly reasonable demands for unicorns, cherry bedecked cake, and a Schrodinger’s Irish border that simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. We won the war you know.
The blame for this mess lies entirely with the British political establishment. Largely it lies with the Conservatives, who have selfishly put party interest before all other considerations and who have failed miserably to engage with the realities of Brexit. But a portion of blame also lies with the Labour party, which has equally spent the past two years consuming itself in internal battles and refusing to confront the realities of Brexit or to challenge the Conservatives’ lack of planning in any meaningful way. It was telling that today, when the British Brexit befuddlement finally crashed into reality, the Labour party couldn’t find anyone to go on Channel 4 news and speak about it.
It has always been obvious that the EU was never going to agree to a division of the four freedoms. It was always obvious that the EU was never going to agree to any border on the island of Ireland, a position which the UK agreed to last year when it consented to the so-called backstop. However instead of engaging with these realities and preparing the country to accept a concession, the Prime Minister and the British political establishment have wasted the last nine months in posturing and party in-fighting. And now that the EU is taking the initiative and laying down to the UK precisely what the UK had agreed to, Theresa May is acting all surprised.
Now Theresa May is telling us all that no UK Prime Minister would ever consent to a customs border down the Irish Sea, because that would be tantamount to the partition of the UK. Her concern about retaining Northern Ireland as an integral part of the UK is not unrelated to her dependence on the DUP’s votes in the House of Commons. Just today, a reader of this blog (thank you Michael Bruce) pointed out to me that Winston Churchill, that PM so beloved of the Tories, offered to give up Northern Ireland to Eamon De Valera in 1940 when he was courting the support of the Irish State in exchange for Irish support in the war against Germany. The episode is detailed in the book Operation Sealion by Leo McKinstry.
Northern Ireland, just like Scotland, is and always has been disposable if it’s in the interests of the British state. That’s why it’s Scotland which hosts Westminster’s nuclear viagra, because if there happens to be a serious accident at Faslane, it won’t affect anywhere that the Tories really care much about. Theresa May’s concern for the integrity of the UK is so much cant.
That’s the biggest single argument in favour of independence. We are governed by people for whom our interests and concerns are at the very best minor considerations, and which all too often don’t even figure in their calculations at all. The Brexit process exposes that. Brexit has been carried out entirely in the interests of sections of the Conservative party. This is a process which has no positive outcome, and you can be certain that the people who are going to suffer the negative consequences will not be those people in the Conservative party who argued most strongly for it. That’s why Scotland needs a government which is answerable to the people of Scotland, and which the people of this country can remove from office when they do not respond to our concerns. We need to teach the Tories the gravity of the theory of political accountability, and we can only do that in an independent Scotland.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
As a retired physicist I think you are being a tad unfair on Newton. He was a great intellect and a major promoter of the concept of rationally based science over the alchemy, astrology and quackery that had hitherto been credulous components of the ‘scientific’ world.
Having said that, he was no doubt the object of lionization by the English promoteratti of the period (and ever since). How much he was complicit in that is moot. IMO, not much.
However, if we are going to list those who’s ideas have been assigned to Newton then we cannot miss out Scot James Gregory. Newton virtually admitted in his own notes that it was after reading Gregory’s work on the calculus (published in Padua) that he came to his own version of theory of the calculus (fluxions). It is also well known (amongst physicists) that the invention of the reflecting telescope attributed commonly to Newton has far stronger claim by Gregory who had published detailed designs for it before Newton’s telescope.
I could go on but it is very late.
I don’t deny Newton possessed a great intellect. He was still a dick though.
Q.E.D
He certainly had a lot of ‘issues’. In particular, after his, possibly heavy metal poisoning induced, mental breakdown the vigour with which he pursued the punishment of coin counterfeiters in his role as Master and Guard of the Royal Mint was excessive to the point of psychopathy even by the ‘hung for stealing a loaf’ standards of his time.
His latter self-interest judgement was questionable too. Despite, presumably, insider knowledge of economics and business through his work in introducing the gold standard for currency and such, he was suckered into investing heavily in the South Sea Bubble* and lost a great deal of money.
* The South Sea Bubble was the first major scam which involved the collusion of business and political perpetrators. The business model premise, which involved the, licensed from Spain, exploitation of the slave trade in South America was known by the perpetrators to be flawed from the start, since no great capacity for slavery existed there. It was the first deliberate national money grab scam.
It dwarfed the Scottish Darien scheme of a few years earlier in terms of investment lost and the Darien scheme had a viable commercial business plan. The establishment of a cargo transference facility on the American isthmus, in the days when there was not the technical capability to dig the future Panama canal, made sense and was only defeated by Anglo-Spanish political machinations and underestimation of local tropical disease risk. It was at least an honest endeavour.
Crikey, you get a better class of vile cybernat on this site.
Lol
[…] Wee Ginger Dug The gravity of theory On Friday, Theresa May gave her considered response to the entirely predictable […]
I would only amend your last words with “…via an Independent Scotland.” Which is no certainty, but is becoming increasingly likely.
But moving the nukes, and cleaning up the site, is a bill that Whitehall and No.10 are utterly terrified of. It almost happened four years ago. They almost stumbled into defeat in 2014, and it scared the willies out of them.
Thinking of it, it can be reasonably be argued the media strategy of orchestrating an unending dirge of “Scotland is shite” is solely designed to undermine the confidence of Scots in themselves and in their fledgling government. All Scots – including those who are born here, have chosen to make Scotland their home, and across the entire political spectrum of this land.
We have all been victims of this deliberate policy of cultural suppression and psychological warfare for the past four years. The poor benighted souls that are our fellow country men and women, who have been duped by this strategy, are still a sizeable portion of the electorate. Obdurate in the extreme in some cases. There are some who will never read the writing on the wall.
But it has become vital to separate ourselves from this Union.
Compounded with the disaster that is Brexit, England and Wales will drown in debt. And Scotland will simply become the source of paying off that debt. We all will become denizens of a failed state. It’s ironic really. The lunatics and dementia ridden pensioners will get exactly what they all wish for -returning to a 1950’s sized economy.
We must be on our guard. They have a history of resorting to clubs when cornered. They will stop at nothing to prevent Scottish independence. It is a threat to their ill gotten gain. In the end, that is all that the British establishment really cares about.
Don’t worry; once the shelves run bare and they run out of food/grass there will be a refocus of minds amongst the better together herd of frightened sheep…”Help!…where’s that Collie?”
“They will stop at nothing to prevent independence”
i fear that statement is oh so true. The Tory party are the outward face of government and appear to be in some disarray but don’t be fooled, I suspect there are cold calculating minds in Whitehall who know exactly what needs to be done to keep their vital resource rich colony.
“Winston Churchill, that PM so beloved of the Tories, offered to give up Northern Ireland to Eamon De Valera in 1940 when he was courting the support of the Irish State Ludges in exchange for Irish support in the war against Germany.”
That’ll go down well in a few ‘Ludges’ up and down West Central Scotland.
You are spot on though re Theresa May.. she is a bit of a cant.
It seems strange that De Valera would pass up the chance of Irish unity. He built his party and political career on it after all.
His main reason for doing so? Well he didn’t want those brightly coloured folks in bowler hats to become citizens of the Irish state. Understandable.
And when the Irish refused Churchill’s overtures, he threatened invasion.
The British Army had just been thrown out of the continent with their tails between their legs in the space of 3 weeks.
Could it be that De Valera didn’t believe Churchill’s bluster of ultimate victory?
Could it be that De Valera didn’t believe Churchill‘s offer of Irish reunion?
indeed who’d believe that snake.
The Ludge members won’t believe you. They (a group of young lads I happened to be talking to) refused to believe that the Pope had a thanksgiving mass sung after the Battle of the Boyne.
Q… when is a club not a club?
A… when it’s a racket.
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of EU membership for a moment, should it not be possible to hand in your membership card at any time and stay on good terms with the remaining members? In this case the answer is a resounding NON. We’re effectively being told that we must continue to obey club rules and continue to pay our subs if we want to stay healthy and keep trading. Reminds me of the line from Hotel California “you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.”
Obviously it is possible but not with the Tories. There has been internal party animosity to anything which gives ordinary people protection as the EU has done.
Why anyone seriously would leave a ‘club’ which has so many benefits, is what you should be concentrating on. If we are outside of that ‘club’ we lose out, it’s as simple as that!
No, what the ‘UK’ is trying to do is akin to saying you hate the way your golf club is run and don’t like the fees, so you are going to leave. Then you say, but we really like the subsidised bar and sunday roasts in the club house, so we’ll keep coming for that. The golf club politely replies, saying ‘then you will need to be a member of the golf club’. Those benefits are for MEMBERS only.
You cannot leave the golf club, tell everyone you hate the way it is run, yet still expect to drink in the member fee subsidised bar. That, however, is exactly what the UK Government wants to do with the EU. It is utterly untenable. Beyond stupidity.
Well when you’re faced with a spoilt brat that want’s their cake and eat it what do you do?
The UK started the process of leaving – why should the EU have to do anything to accommodate these eejits – just get yersel tae f**k!
And I hope they stick to that.
Also, if the EU *don’t* make brexit hurt for the UK, then the EU dies.
So the EU were obviously always going to make brexit hurt.
It’s quite simple for the EU. If a country is better off by leaving the EU, then there is no point to the EU. So naturally they’re not going to favour a deal for the UK that makes the UK better off outside the EU.
Yet the UK government wanted all the benefits of the Eu without being a member so the eu must of been good for them when they was a member if they originally wanted to keep all the benefits stupid English got greedy now it’s bit them in the backside.
Britain operates the largest group of off-shore tax havens in the world. These places are essential for reducing the tax burden and social responsibility of the rich and super/mega rich. The EU plan to outlaw tax evasion from April 1st 2019 through the Eu Finance Bill which after years of discussion and planning comes into effect that day. The Tories and New Labour have had no contribution to this because their paymasters said: We are leaving the EU! The “consultative” referendum was the surprise vehicle of justifying this decision.
Exactly. To see just how deeply the UK is embedded in tax evasion around the world watch this video on YouTube when you have time (1h20min). We are talking £trillions!
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire (Documentary)
They may make demands for Unicorns but they’re not getting ours.
Another brilliant post Paul.
Yesterday, I nearly responded to a post on fb which an acquaintance in Manchester had staked her empathy on the unjust and inhumane manner in which TM had been dealt at the EU meetings…stating that she was ‘not commenting on the political aspect, merely humanity, that TM had been treated in such a disrespectful way and that we should all get behind her and give her the support as she was the only one who was brave enough to take the job on…’ then there were the comments such as, ‘behind you 100%’, ‘don’t really want to get involved with politics but I do agree with you’…
Jeezo, the britnats are drowning in their belief that TM is actually competent…
She gate-crashed an informal, non-Brexit meeting then lectured the attendees. WTF did she expect? Capitulation? Reality check.
Finally starting to see how blockheaded the English people can be it’s like banging your head against the wall with them as some of them still believe they are right when the evidence says they are wrong.
Yes Robert, watch any debate and irrespective of any concerns raised and facts given they still refuse to accept the obvious obstacles and practicalities of UKOK being able to have SAME arrangement with the EU that we had pre Brexit vote…..and having this WITHOUT contributing financially and accepting ALL of the freedoms of EU membership.
Delusion drives this supposed ‘democratic’ mass mania darn sarf which has been instigated and driven mostly by both the media and irresponsible self serving politicians darn sarf…Ruth does what she is telt so can include her in darn sarf agreements.
Have any of these “ordinary” people, who seem so determined to leave the EU , ever considered and listed what they expect and want post Brexit on a personal level . Have any of them considered potential impact on both their own and their families lives. If , as they say, they have made an informed decision then surely they must be confident on how their lives will be post Brexit …..perhaps that is something the media , who have been grossly negligent in ignoring this aspect, should have been addressing in a more forceful manner .
I suspect some of them will just continue to quote the Rule Britannia headlines courtesy of the biased press as opposed to giving honest and subjective reasons that they feel would benefit them on a personal level in living in a country no longer a part of the EU.
It is worth also mentioning that the certainty the Brexiteers have expressed, that a UKOK outwith the EU will be more prosperous and give more opportunities for them is NOT PROVEN…. and they fail to consider that post Brexit they will be at the mercy of a ruthless Tory government who are no longer bound to rules and regulations courtesy of the EU which actually PROTECTED their, the Brexiteers, rights.
Watch political discussions and note that Brexit loving politicians and members of the public Brexit fan club constantly interrupt those who challenge Brexit and they do this hiding behind a supposed people’s ‘democratic will’ which they have hijacked to enforce their case.
There is indeed no fool like a gullible fool…..they are signing off on the dotted line without looking at the small print…which we all know can be a recipe for disaster further down the line…which seems to be what Brexit is turning out to be….i.e. a disaster…however on a lighter note ….how lucky are we, in Scotland, that we have a way out ….because we have actually made an informed decision and it is one that does not include enduring any more of this mess that was NOT created or wanted by us….up North !
Ayup! The EU have made their position on the four freedoms abundantly clear over the past two years. Just as the UK government and their media have spent the same period telling folks that Brexit would be a sooperdooper slam dunk and the EU would come round to essentially granting the privileges of membership without actually being members because… reasons. In that period both central government ministers and the media have regularly insulted the EU and its representatives. They reduced the diplomacy of nations to gaming analogies, reducing the interests and lives of populations to cards and pots. People’s lives and livelihoods.
Over two years to find out that what the EU said on day one? They actually meant it and would stand by it.
UK government and their go to meeja however, they had invested in a narrative. That narrative is now ash. Their response? Shock and outrage. Or rather faux shock. Faux outrage. Faux hurt. Hurt that their ‘bluff had been called’ and their appalling attitudes had been returned in kind. And so the rewriting of history begins. Cue the demonisation of the EU’s leadership and representatives. WHEN the UK suffers inevitable outcomes of this Tory pissing contest, it’ll all be Johnny Furriners fault. They did it deliberately. They hated and envied us so much. How dare they treat our PM in such a way… etc. etc. etc.
Not – We screwed up big time and dropped those in our care into a societal and economic mincer of our own making. Not – We catastrophically divided our populations and undermined trust in our own institutions to suit our own personal agendas. Divided and undermined to the point by the by, where the word ‘united’ became a sick joke.
These folk took people into a multi-national ballot (The UK being comprised of more than one nation) with ZERO plan for an exit strategy which would protect the interests of the populations involved. A ballot which would carry hefty constitutional and economic consequences for ALL concerned. They then proceeded to enact one of the most shameful, deceitful and misleading campaigns in the UKs post war political history. Kinda why you have whitepapers and agreements on outcomes produced before you go to ballot you’d have thought. (shrugs)
Their choice. And it was their choice that brought our populations to this place.
No. Brexit was always going to fail at a ‘negotiating’ table. Mainly because the UK had nothing to bargain with that would persuade the EU to effectively break itself apart. Some knew that, some didn’t and others simply didn’t care regardless.
Also? Unity of purpose is, you’d think, fairly essential in any joint diplomatic or negotiating scenario. The EU has it and the unfortunately named ‘United’ Kingdom doesn’t. Mainly because the UK is anything but united. Not in its politics and not in its society. Who knew?
Helluva handicap to take into that world and a helluva price to pay for a Tory pissing contest.
The second best thing about Wee Ginger Dug, after Paul’s articles, are your responses Sam. Very well said.
The only “pissing” being done is the Tories “pissing” themselves with laughter at the stupidity and gullibility of the voters. After the Coalition Government we handed Cameron a majority, enabling him to call for a referendum, albeit a consultative one. Then, when May called a snap election we left her as Prime Minister with the backing of the DUP. Brexit is a financial must for the tax avoiders and off-shore banking havens. The Tories (of every political colour) are carrying out their masters’business.
On the news tonight the UK government are saying that the EU now has to step back from the abyss. What abyss do they need to step back from?
None than I’m aware of Anne. The only folk teetering on the edge of anything? That would be mainly the folk on these islands and some of us (cough) are backing away from that edge.
That’s what those english supremacist propagandists report they make out the other sides the problem when it’s really them and the fact there’s people stupid enough to swallow it without question makes me mad.
A Q.E.D. moment.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-speech-eu-no-deal-chequers-plan-leaders-a8549346.html
Bravo. What a truly excellent piece of writing.
Then there is the killer sentence; ‘We won the war you know’. That really says it all.
Superb.
Apologies for being off topic – but I know there are a few supporters of Scottish Gaelic here and I wish to share the good news regarding my mother tongue (and 1st professional language) of Cymraeg/Welsh. I hope this encourages all lovers of minority languages of this Disunited Kingdumb – especially fellow ‘Celtophones’.
Headline:
“A survey by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggests 874,700 people [in Wales] are able to speak the language, up from 726,600 in 2008.”
https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Welsh-Language/annualpopulationsurveyestimatesofpersonsaged3andoverwhosaytheycanspeakwelsh-by-localauthority-measure
A wee victory against the BBC. Please raise your glasses.
This morning, BBC Wales featured the ONS story that there had been an increase in the number of my mother tongue (and 1st professional) language of Cymraeg/Welsh speakers in Cymru/Wales from 726,600 in 2008 to 874,700 people now, 10 years later.
They headed the piece with a 1950’s style signpost, which to all intents and purposes was monolingual English (as they were back then).
An irate phonecall from me to BBC HQ and a promise to refer the matter to the Head Honcho of BBC Wales online followed (apparently the “Complaints Department” is not open on weekends).
Subsequently, some time this afternoon, (I’ve been out), the picture has been removed for a stock one featuring solely the word “Cymraeg”. Thus, the photo used is 100% Welsh in language.
Pints of Brains SA all round! Here’s to us, Celtophones! “Who’s like us?”
PS I was wise enough to make screenshots of both photos. It goes to show (as if we didn’t already know it) that Aunty Beeb can amend graphics, text, photos at any time – often, if we are not careful, without our knowledge.
I am a history buff Sion and have been reading a lot about language in these islands over the last 2000 years. Good to hear about a rise in Cymraeg.
Fully aware that chicmac is a retired physicist, and that my knowledge of that Black Art lies somewhere between a faint childhood memory of an experiment involving glass beads and paraffin wax, and having watched Matt Damon’s ‘The Martian’ twice, I seem to recall that light bends when influenced by the gravity pull of a big chunk of matter, like a planet, or a Brexit crock of ordure.
May bent the truth and light in her ‘my country’ rant yesterday.
The EU is not threatening her Government. Arlene and the DUP are.
It is reported that we should all rally behind her because the EU 27 ‘humiliated’ her in Salzburg.
Aye, right.
Chris Cairns’ excellent take on the Chequers Fudge over on WoS where Professor Two Jobs WATP ‘It’s The Law!’ Adam unelected List Tory Tomkins flogging the Chequers dead horse while Rees Mogg looks on with smoking gun just about sums it up.
Tusk revealed that the EU had rejected the Chequers Deal weeks ago, and informed HMG at the time; yet May lies to the ‘British people’, implying that she only knew on Thursday that the EU says ‘Non’.
If only someone had addressed all of this months ago, say in December 2016, to present alternative proposals where Scotland, and if they chose, the rest of the UK could remain in the Single Market, and Customs Union.
well, NS Government sent such a document to David Davis via Mike Russell in January 2017, and Davis threw it in the bin.
God, if only we had been on this site discussing all of this for 27 months we might have avoided Eurmageddon.
It is difficult not to conclude that the Brit Nat politicians, Up Here and Down There have just gone stark staring bonkers.
It is akin to trying to fix a fault on your TV by taking it to bits checking out the connections, then looking at the bits and realising that you haven’t a clue how to put it back together again.
The UK is in bits. It is impossible to put it back together.
‘Bye, England and Wales.
I’m sure that a goatherder in the Macedonian Hills will buy one o those coffee makers that they are making in Birmingham.
Huh!
THIS
Oh and the EU leaders, if they insulted anyone? Didn’t insult the British people. I’d say they allowed the UK government and their media to humiliate and insult themselves.
Personally, I don’t feel the least bit insulted. Not entirely sure Mr Hunt is qualified to speak on some folks behalf tbh. Might also be appreciated if he didn’t put words in folks mouths. (shrugs)
Also? Just in case you thought Labour were any different.
THIS
Just sayin’ like.
It is looking as if the MOGGIES have won and that the UK will ‘crash out’.
I look forward to hearing what the ‘Moggies’ do at the Tory conference. More infighting I am sure.
To me the whole ‘opera’ is a farce. The UK being part of the EU for ages was part of the effort to write and agree the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties. The fact that they seem to have forgotten everything amazes me. It is simply politics and media manipulation. They have not forgotten they just want to get party agreement knowing the EU situation.
Like many of you as soon as I heard what was in the Chequers joke document I new instantly the EU could never accept it. So does the cabinet.
I have never scene a bunch of numpties like this in my whole life.
An excellent summation from the dug.
I would include, in the blame for this mess, the mainstream media, complicit, without exception, in an abject failure to either understand or analyse Brexit. The facts have been available for some time, such as from EU via the notices to stakeholders (search for EU Brexit preparedness notices) but, instead, the msm produce endless vapid nonsense, preferring to focus on the drama of personalities, confusing the production entertainment with the production of news and preferring the quick fix of bis-bash politics to any serious analysis. If I want to read a comic, I prefer the topper to a red top because the numbskulls is based on real characters.
The msm then has the gall to complain that the msm is not respected. This is because the real information and analysis is taking place elsewhere; the Irish Times perhaps or in blogs such as sluggerotool, mainlymacro, chrisgreybrexitblog and eureferendum (No URLs as adding them triggers moderation and, possibly, automatic rejection).
The Baroque Cycle novels by Neal Stephenson contains, amongst it motley collection of characters and supposed events in the late 17th and early 18th century, an alternative take to Sir Isaac Newton, some of which may be based on fact.
Anyone remember “Just William” and the fragrant Violet? “‘i will scream and scream until i am sick” Teresa’s position has precedent.
Reblogged this on scottishmomus.
Paul, a small but vital point. You write:
“Northern Ireland, just like Scotland, is and always has been disposable if it’s in the interests of the British state.”
I suggest that should read ‘in the interests of the English state’. We need to be clear that the ukstate is the shagged-out fag-end, along with a few small scraps of land scattered across the world, of the English empire, still awaiting it’s salutary final dissolution – which Scottish independence will help to usher in, of course.
The rest of the nations of The Isles* were swept up into the rise of English imperialism, and contributed generations of cannon-fodder for the vicious English imperial wars, because we were amongst the earliest victims of English imperialism. Empires always recruit such naifs from amongst their defeated, newly-incoporated provinces. Doesn’t make the main source of the imperialism any more dilute. In this case it was always – and still is – the insane scheme to “make the world English”, the better to make it all lootable.
This comment isn’t meant as any sort of racist hatred of the English people. In my book, the common citizens of any rising infant imperial state racket are always the very first victims of the imperialist gangsters-in-charge (the gics). And so it has been with our poor bloody English neighbours for centuries, along with the rest of us in The Isles. Class-solidarity across national boundaries always trumps crude ethnic nationalism. We – the common plebs of Britain and Eire – are ALL the victims of the English gic-class’s still-just-smouldering-on imperial instincts. The Official Tory party in Paedominster is their political wing, obviously (the B’liarist rump of Corbyn-haters in the parliamentary Labour party being the Unofficial Tories, of course).
It’s noticeable that even despite the constant recruitment of compradors-on-the-make from the Celtic nations – Dafydd LLwyd-Sior, aka ‘LLoyd-George’, from my own nation being a prime example – the English gic-class always remains unmistakably ‘upper-class’ English in its overall nature – and in its world-looting purposes. That’s why the empire’s compradors in Scotland sound so ludicrous, with their laughable attempts to ape the English ‘gentry’s’ manners and accents, in defiance of their real Scots inheritance.
I know that this is all a small aside from the main thrust of your post. But – ye ken – the Rectification of Names (qv) is always important. Let’s call the English empire by its right name…
———————–
* Historian Norman Davies’ politically-neutral name for the whole Britain-Eire archipelago.
Labour have officially lost the plot.
If they gain power what they’re saying is that a UK party should have a veto on the voting rights of the population of a nation partner. They’d deny your right to self determination and your right to decide the governance of your choice. A veto on your inalienable human right to choose.
Labour – For the few NOT the many. That’s yer kinder more honest politics in action there people.
Are we crystal clear on the nature of UK politics yet?
But, Sam, there are lots more of them than we.
If we don’t get back in tgheir Imperial box Ian Murray will don his butcher’s apron suit and lead a battalion of the First Light Westminster Rifles North and bayonet the wounded, or what ever.
There has never been such arrogance and imperialism expressed as the nonsense that Dick Leonard uttered on Sunday’s Brewer’s Droop, and Yes But, Hang On A Minute, Let Me Be Clear, For The Avoidance Of Any Doubt, Brewer let him away with it.
You are a colony. You are occupied by our Army, Navy, and Air force.
We are 55 million, you are only five.
We will ban you from anything we like.
Jesus Christ Almighty.
Where the fuck did they find Leonard?
In the Union Mail Room addressing envelopes to the Comrades?
He’s just won the Referendum for us.
I repeat, from which wee Union Shop Steward Back Office did they get him?
He is completely out of his depth, and would drown in a fruit fly’s belly button full of water.
Donalda MacKinnon, what a tawdry little Brit Nat Branch of the Ministry of Truth your stockade on Pacific Quay has become.
You and your team are fast becoming a laughing stock.
Brewer shows all the signs of a man who cant be arsed any more.
Also and mibbies just me? But I’d say they’ve just handed the Scottish government one of those open goals opportunities.
Can you imagine going into ANY national ballot on a ticket of ‘vote for me, I’m going to take away your rights’?
This reeks of playing to the anti democratic stands in Scotland and the gutter press readers in middle England who’d end Holyrood in a heartbeat if they thought they could.
You YES yet?
Yep Macart…..always said that “For the Many” was England and “Not the FEW” was Scotland…
Richard Leonard just confirmed that today …..perhaps that will now be clearly defined for those Scots who support remaining in the union and who thought they had democratic rights in UKOK… that their democratic rights as a UKOK citizen are to be LIMITED and RESTRICTED as dictated by a UNIONIST party.
We will ALLOW you to vote for this but NEVER again vote for that….how democratic of them…wow Brexit aside, democracy really is in jeopardy…………… if you live in Scotland !
How ironic if the Labour delegates vote for a second EU people’s vote and it is then adopted by Labour…..reasons ?……….will of the English really…..yet again…..cause Scotland already voted to remain so we do not need to participate in this charade….how are Labour going to sell this to Scots….LIE probably, cause to justify it they cannot use an honest argument while denying OUR right to another Indy Ref……mind you double standards is par for the course for all Unionist parties…………is it not !!
o/t – We have seen Kezia – the dick Leonard – Wullie ,Every Scottish unionist under the sun get Air time , and it’s amazing what crawls out from beneath the rocks up here when offered a wee stint in the sunshine their own personal 2 minutes of fame .
Where are the SNP ? , is there a General blackout of the Party who actually form the Scottish Government ,if its a self imposed ploy to let the others make a total arse of themselves ok fine , if they are being blocked that is an entirely different matter and they should be raising merry bloody hell . and using their position in the parliament to insist this is addressed immediately .
The Unionists are scoring and our goalkeeper has been marked absent Wakey bloody Wakey .
I doubt that any Pro Independence politician or activist could keep a straight face, or resist the temptation to burst out laughing if asked to appear on TV or Radio to comment on May, Corbyn, Leonard The Scarf ,’Kez’, or Dominic Raab’s take on Brexit.
They have gone completely stark staring mad.
I’m reminded of an episode of The Goon Show (dad was a fan) where Eccles is acting as jailer to Grytpype-Thynne. Grytpype moves and Eccles, startled says “don’t move or I’ll blow my brains out!”…