They’re at it again. Not content with attacking the foundations of the devolution settlement, the latest Conservative wheeze for winning the hearts and minds of the people of Scotland is to attack the foundations of the Treaty of Union itself. Stung by the use of the courts in order to hold his government to account, most notably when the prorogation of parliament last autumn was ruled unlawful, the Conservative government of Johnson has embarked upon a review of the powers of judicial review.
Judicial reviews exist in order to provide a legal check that a government or its officials are exercising their powers in a fair, lawful way, for the purposes for which such powers were intended, and without exceeding their authority. It was a judicial review which found last autumn that Johnson’s government had exceeded its power and authority when it unlawfully prorogued parliament in order to prevent MPs from holding the government to account over Brexit. This review was initiated in the Scottish courts by the SNP’s redoutable Joanna Cherry MP.
Naturally Johnson and his puppet master Cummings are not at all happy with anything that can restrict them. The British Government has now announced a committee to examine the power of judicial reviews. The committee is to report its findings before Christmas. This is clearly a part of the commitment that the Conservatives buried away in their manifesto for the last election that they would seek to restrict the ability of the legal system, parliament, and the people to hold them to account. The Tories talk a lot about grievance mongering on the part of supporters of Scottish independence, but the greatest practitioners of manufactured grievance in the UK are the Conservatives themselves. How dare anyone try to hold them to account. How dare anyone try to ensure that they remain within the law. In their own eyes they’re the real victims here.
Johnson’s government’s aim is to reduce the power of the courts and hem in their ability to hold the government to account. In other words, Johnson and Cummings want to limit the ability of the courts to rule that they are acting unlawfully or that they have exceeded their powers. Where the courts no longer possess an effective power of judicial review, a government will be able to act unlawfully. And it will.
That would be bad enough. However the review is not to be restricted to the English legal system, which also covers Wales. It is also to encompass the Scots legal system. The reason for this is that the British Government is answerable to courts everywhere in the UK, so if Johnson succeeds in his bid to restrict the powers of the English courts, someone who believed that Johnson and Co were acting unlawfully – again – could simply use the courts in Scotland. This is what happened in the prorogation case last autumn, when the case was heard in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Unfortunately for Johnson the independence of the Scottish legal system is one of the fundamental guarantees of the Treaty of Union. Article 19 guarantees “That the Court of Session or Colledge of Justice do after the Union and notwithstanding thereof remain in all time coming within Scotland as it is now constituted by the Laws of that Kingdom and with the same Authority and Priviledges as before the Union…” This article has always been understood as the guarantor of the independence of Scots law. Until now, no British goverment has attempted to undermine it in such a blatant way.
The independence of the Scottish judiciary causes problems for Johnson because it means that there is an independent authority within the UK which is able to rule that some of his actions are impermissible. This is not a government which is prepared to recognise any limits on its power and sovereignty. So for all their preaching about how precioussss the union is to them, the Conservatives are now not only embarking upon a power grab at the expense of a devolution settlement which they promised could only be altered with the express permission of the Scottish Parliament, they are now also attempting a law grab at the expense of the Scottish legal system. Moreover one which is in direct breach of the treaty which established the UK in the first place. For a government which claims it seeks to make a positive case for the union, it’s really not making a very good fist of it. The only fist evident here is the one that the Conservatives are using to punch Scotland in the groin.
Johnson and the Brextremists in the Conservative party did not seek to “take back control” from Brussels in order to strengthen democracy in the UK. They did so because they could not countenance any restrictions on the absolute power of a British Government. They have consistently sought to sideline parliament, they have embarked upon an assault on the devolved governments, and now they’ve turned their guns on the legal system. This is a dangerous development in a state such as the UK where there is no codified constitution and little to restrain an authoritarian government which is willing to trash the precedents, customs, and practices which have previously passed for checks on the absolute power of the Prime Minister.
We are now witnessing a direct attack on the very basis of the Treaty of Union. The foundational document of Scotland’s place within the UK is now itself threatened by a government which hypocritically preaches about how much it loves the union.
The case for independence has now moved on from the claims and counter claims of the referendum campaign of 2014. Then the arguments were all about currency, about the need to prove that the average Scottish family would be better off by the price of a weekly Chinese takeaway. British nationalists still want to make it about those things, because they seek to blind us all with manipulated statistics. But the real case for independence is now about the very basis of democracy itself. It’s about ensuring that Scotland has a government which is answerable to the people of Scotland. It’s about ensuring that the government in Scotland acts lawfully and does not exceed its powers. It’s about having the guarantee that those in power and authority use those powers for the purposes for which they were intended. We can no longer be certain of any of those things within the UK. The campaign for Scottish independence is a campaign to secure the fundamentals of democracy itself.
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[…] Wee Ginger Dug The Tory law grab that threatens the Treaty of Union They’re at it again. Not content with attacking the foundations of the devolution […]
this is a terrifying development, if the people cannot turn to the courts to uphold the law and hold governments to account and we can’t turn to the EU for support then we are well and truly *****
Let’s hope that every lawyer in Scotland can see where this is going and support an independent Scotland
The Imperial method was always to undermine then control in every country they ever invaded or bought so they could remove the wealth of that country, unfortunately for the British Nationalists they could not and were never allowed to undermine and control the EU so that’s why they always wanted to remove themselves from it
The world is not the Vampirical British Nationalists oyster anymore, they’ve been sussed, found out, caught in the act by every country on earth it would seem except for their familiars in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland who still defend their right to theft of peoples wealth anywhere they can find it and get away with it
While the EU that Scotland voted to remain a part of practices the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few the British Nationalists believe in the needs of the one and that one is England, but even then not all of England, just the bit that’s important to them, and that’s the London within London, the place that even Londoners don’t realise exists, and that place hosts the lair of the real British Nationalist or as they used to be called, the English Nationalist, a gaping black hole of a maw of that sucks the life and wealth from all then removes it to the safety of the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands or some other place invented to protect the savings and investments of the real elite of the English Nationalist, places where their ordinary familiar defenders will never go or even get the chance to go because they’ll never have the wherewithal in their lifetimes to experience the thing that they think is about Britishness
It’s not y’know, it’s about money, will Scotland continue to allow this or do we say we will become as other countries and refuse the British Nationalists further access to Scotland’s wealth by saying YES to our Independent ability to tell them NO
I assume you’ve seen ” The Spider’s Web ” . I had been aware for some time of the despicable ” culture ” of Tax Havens and their facilitating of Tax ” Avoidance ” ie dodging , but had not fully realised their role in enabling the plunder of , for example , poor African countries by their elites , many of whom were also enabled to achieve power by the British State , not to mention money-laundering by some of the most vicious , homicidal criminals on the planet . Your excellent comment lays the whole stinking ” arrangement ” out and rightly identifies the real motives behind Brexit . I only wish more people in Scotland were aware of this poison at the very heart of the UK financial and political system
English MPs don’t become so in order to *help*, they do it to advance to the holiest of holy’s the inner higher circle that leads to the Grail of money for life, and if you’re a Tory you’re prepared to skin your children to do it, well you can always get more children, but if you are ready to join that club then there is nothing you wont do for the ferrymen who can guide you to the other side and all you have to negotiate is the price of your soul, but so what once you get to the other side you can buy another one of those
I agree with you Dr Jim but remember the people in Scotland Wales are Northern Ireland in this and previous generations are a product of their educational system so of course they have not seen the truth and the real nastiness that Englands Westminster uses to devour every nation it inveigles.
The next generation is different it already knows that the poison of England’s Westminster can be nullified , already 70% or 80% of them say they are in favour of Scottish Independence.
SNP investing effort expertise and more in Scottish education has broadened the scope of Scottishness amongst young people in Scotland and they are demanding that their identity be protected they reject the Englishing of Scotland .
I do too
Already more than ten percent of the people in Scotland are English I’m sure like people everywhere else in the world they are very nice people but they don’t have Scotlands interests at heart why would they they’re English and when push comes to shove they will vote for mother England , we already know and have proof that England’s thinks British and English are the same we already know that England thinks England and U.K. are the same they really do believe this whole island belongs to England .
It doesn’t
The law is on our side
England will change the law …in England …and claim to change Scottish law even though they can’t
They will ignore EU law as they have
And ignore international law as they have
But Scotland has its own legal system controlled by Scotland
They can change English law and ( British law whIch they consider to be English anyway )
But they can’t change Scottish law only we can do that
If some in the Scottish legal profession betray us and change Scottish law to work against Scotland it will be a setback but we will always be able to change it back
That’s the beauty of being Scottish
We might be ultra patient
Exceptionally accommodating
Suckers for shortermism
But when we fight back
We are unbeatable
That’s because it’s inbuilt in so many of us that we don’t give up and will sacrifice all for THE cause
It’s not often that we have A CAUSE that we think worthy of such sacrifice
But this is the end of the road for the britnats
We will overpower them
The Plantation of Scotland, like the Plantation of Ulster is well underway
Near where I stay there is a family where the husband is Royal Navy and English. And outside his house, and on his garage roof he displays the Union Jack.
A hostile immigrant people like him are what made the Ulster Unionists what they are, and it’s not difficult to know which way he would point his gun.
The SNP/SG must fight back against this cynical britnat maneuvering. They must do so forcefully and loudly so that even the most politically disinterested person in Scotland knows exactly what these britnats are up to. Get radical!
The English majority have no idea what is happening and won’t see the police state coming until it affects them seriously. Who could have imagined this most ignominious end to what we (50’s born) were taught at school to be proud of. Please find some way of protecting Scotland from this smash & grab politics before it’s too late.
……and the unionists, tories, Lib Dem and labour in Scotland will allow this to happen. Wonder what pathetic excuse will come forward to excuse this very assault on Scotland as a nation.
It’s in our best interests
It’s not really changing anything
Scotland complaining again
Just dae as yir telt.
The ‘Union’, the Queen, the Flag, Wars wot we won, Rule Britannia, the generosity of Ye Olde Englande Taxpayere.
Surely if it breaks the Treaty of Union, not the articles which are a bit different, then that will be that. We would not need a referendum, we would be able to walk away from the UK or whatever they might want to call it after we have gone.
This is serious stuff, and I can’t see the lawyers, judges etc of our legal system, just sit back and take this on the chin. Joanna Cherry is already on the case, god bless her, she is indeed a dougty fechter.
Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work like that. We still need a referendum. It’s just that now we can point to how the British govt doesn’t respect the treaty that founded the union it claims is so precious to it.
Surely if a treaty is broken by one of the signatory parties, then the treaty is defunct and no longer exists?
The independence of Scotland is a political question. It demands a political response. That can only come once the people of Scotland have clearly expressed in a democratic vote that they want independence. There is no clever clever legal trick that is going to bring about independence.
The Treaty of Union consists of 25 Articles. Thre Articles are not a thing apart from the Treaty but are part and parcel of the Treaty.
Its all to do with reducing scrutiny of the government via the courts, and as the UK government is answerable to all jurisdictions within the UK, then Scots law will have to be neutered somehow. Its very unlikely that the Scottish government or Holyrood would agree to such changes to Scots Law, and the Scottish legal profession would be up in arms if Westminster tried to hinder our ancient laws.
Its in effect its another attempted power grab, and to limit Scots law, surely an attack like this would warrant our right to dissolve this union once and for all.
Edward Ist would often interfere in Scots law, over ruling and diverting settled cases in Scotland south of the Border to undermine Scots law and embarrass our Toom Tabard John Balliol.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a 50+ Female and commented:
I’m pretty sure this is all Cummings’ and very little to do with Johnson.
I expect removing the right to judicial review is a necessary precursor to stopping the SG from challenging the power grab, but as we’ve witnessed already altering current or proposed legislation while the SP sits on its hands would get them through most constitutional problems. I’m thinking then that this attack on the legal system is actually aimed at the Treaty of Union, a last ditch and desperate attempt to stop Scotland leaving the union using the new Act of Union.
The SNP are not sitting on their hands!
Last time I looked Joanna Cherry was an MP in the SNP and she is the one leading the fight against this, she is the one highlighting this outrageous attack on our democracy and she is the one best placed to do so from within the SNP.
I’m getting pretty pissed off with those who choose to slur the SNP for “doing nothing” or “sitting on their hands” when the focus of our ire should be on Westminister where our real enemies are and NOT the party that is the only possible vehicle to Scotland becoming an independent country.
There are enough critics of the SNP in the Unionist MSM and establishment we really don’t need more on the Yes side feeding them ammunition that they will fire straight back at us. What’s so difficult to understand about that?
SP = Supreme Court and their lack of action regards the Continuity Bill.
Red mist cleared Alex.😉
OK Golfnut, I had a bit of a rant there, maybe too used to seeing, hearing, reading posts where complaints of the SNP doing nothing are all too common.
I apologise for misunderstanding your meaning. I do though stand by the gist of my post.
The SNP absolutely should be criticised where and when it is justified, I see though that such criticism from the Yes side is being used as a tool by the UK government as a means of creating division. This is not a conspiracy theory, simply because if they weren’t trying to divide the Yes movement then they would be failing to do their job.
The job of the UK state is to keep the UK as a state and the best chance they have of doing that is to rupture support for an Independent Scotland. There are things I don’t like about the SNP but for now I’ll keep my opinion to myself until we gain Independence. I will not aid our opponents in dividing the Yes movement by voicing my complaints in public.
Now is NOT the time but it will come 🙂
Now will always be the time, the same as all the other countries that claimed their independence.
Alex Clark (and Terence Callachan), perhaps people criticise the Scotgov/SNP for not doing something because in some instances they have a valid point.
GERS has been around for 28 years. For a long time I never criticised them for continuing to just accept the figures but just how long do they need to do something about GERS. They find time to produce crap like the Hate Crime bill, remove Salmond from the SNPs history etc etc
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read or had someone say to me that GERS is a Scottish gov report.
Alex Clark..I agree with you.
It’s odd that people choose to criticise the SNP when England’s Westminster takes everything from Scotland and gives a bit back with a message attached that says be grateful to England for this !
WOS is a crazy place for those kind of people continually guessing what the SNP intend to do
and then they slam the SNP for not having a plan of action that mirrors their guesses !
Their guesses are wacky so there’s no way the SNP are going to mirror them
I think some people like to be able to say “ told you so “
So they continually guess what will happen in the future then
complain that their guess isn’t the SNP plan of action
Then duck for cover if their guess turns out to be totally wayward
But to be frank it’s diabolical that a sizeable media should criticise a political party for not doing things next year ? I mean how crazy is that ? What do they want crystal ball politics ?
OK, but why is it being left to Joanna Cherry to do all the work? Opposition to this must visibly come right from the top. “What’s so difficult to understand about that?”
How many more years do we have to put up with this constant grabbing of things Scottish that threaten the union. Does not seem to matter what is grabbed nothing gets done about it. Then along comes the next grab ooooh this will be it this will finish the union. 7th decade getting pissed off.
The treaty was broken by Westminster within two years of signing it. So it’s 31 decades of getting pissed off.
One of the articles in the treaty guaranteed the continuation of a mint in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh mint ceased to produce coinage in 1709.
O/T but something worth complaining about.
“A Tory MP who touts his green credentials asked for NINE PENCE in expenses for a car journey of 330 yards.
Records show Alex Stafford put in another six mileage claims for journeys that set him back less than £1 within four months of being elected in December.”
https://archive.vn/qOa3K
No shame.
Should the Westminster regime succeed in this throughout the UK could it not be seen as the first dangerous steps to a fascist state?
There is no doubt about it in my mind, clamping down on the powers of the judiciary is one of “the first dangerous steps to a fascist state”. It won’t succeed and it will be Scotland that stops them.
I’m thinking that it just might be a big strategic error on their part as this will bring the Act of Union into public conscience, something they have until now tried very hard to avoid.
Not surprised though that they might make such an error when you have the three stooges in charge, Johnson, Cummings and Gove are even more clueless about Scotland than they are about governing the UK.
I forget to mention, look at what they are doing with the sackings of those at the head of the Civil Service. Five Permanent Secretary’s to government ministers sacked in a matter of months, that looks very much like another dangerous step towards a fascist state from where I’m sitting.
I’m normally – even in politics, but then I wouldn’t be a YESSER – an optimist.
But, with respect, I think you’re wrong to suggest that these are ‘the first dangerous steps to a fascist state’.
We’ve been toddling along (and even in certain circumstances) been taking huge strides towards a totalitarian state in the Disunited Kingdumb for a good (?) many years – since at least the era of Thatcher, if not earlier. Have not nationalists (both in my country and Scotland) been bugged, shadowed, their speeches recorded and archived by so-called UK Security Forces for decades? Are not their names, and doubtless ours (as anti-State subversives) similarly on file at MI5 HQ? Ditto for peace campaigners, far lefties, anti-nuke campaigners and so many others who don’t fit happily with how the State wants us to be?
How about the ‘Arbeit macht frei’ philosophy of DWP and their privatecontractors such as Capita and ATOS ensuring that those who can walk a couple of paces are not sufficiently disabled to qualify for benefit? What of the sanctions imposed on those who are to sick to report for ‘work interviews’ – and then rely on neighbours, relatives, charities and foodbanks? And if they can’t access these, they die squalid, undernourished and often unreported deaths in neighbourhood neglected by central Government? The I-don’t-care attitudes of the Johnsons, the Goves and the Ian Duncan-Smiths who self-perpetuate and force the rest of us into the mud under their jackboot? The complicit media who never question Westminster policy – but regularly trots out everything from Holyrood as SNP Baaaad or that the Taffies are ‘too weak, too poor, too stupid’ to do anything for themselves?
Then there’s the Hitlerian echoes of rags such as the Daily Vile who abhor anyone who is not white, English, middle class and anti-Brexit? How else to explain the headline – straight from Adolf’s playbook – of ‘enemies of the people’ for those judges only doing their job in trying to rein in the over-weening Executive? English xenophobia and bigotry is on the rise and all this is being encouraged by Johnson and his gauleiters, most notably Cummings who is constantly looking to persuade the gullible that black is white and that he and his commandants are above the law.
First steps on the road to Fascism? Hardly. We’re long down the swastika-covered road of English totalitarianism. The sooner we (Wales and Scotland) get out of this rotten, divisive and this self-aggrandising ‘union’ – monstered as we are by the new illiberalism on the rampage in England – the better.
I wouldn’t disagree with a single word you have said. The facts remain though that until now they have attacked the trade unions, the welfare state and even undermined the NHS. It is only now that they have turned their attention to those that are capable of resisting even greater threats to our democracy.
So as far as I see it, this is now at an entirely different level from has happened in the past and where the targets are members of the existing establishment such as the senior civil servants and the judiciary. They are now culling those that disagree with their ideology, just as they have already done with their own Tory MP’s who opposed Brexit and the road they are leading the UK down.
We have a lifeboat and it’s being powered up as I write this.
Drunk under a bridge drug addicts and lazy beggars the Scots have been called by Johnson Gove Ruth Davidson and others of the Tory persuasion and when you come to think about that if we weren’t mostly white people they’d be rightly accused of racism, but in the Tory rule book Scots Welsh or Irish don’t even rate as being races of people
We have our own languages, cultures, laws, religions yet we don’t qualify as people in our own countries, would they publicly use these terms about the French or Germans or Belgians or Syrians or Iranians or Africans these days, no they wouldn’t but it’s OK to call us names
” The campaign for Scottish independence is a campaign to secure the fundamentals of democracy”
For me that is what it has always been about – everything else flows from that.
An excellent article.
It was of course a judicial review in Scots law that proved Salmond had been unfairly and unlawfully treated by the Scotgov.
Just how many articles of the Treaty of Union can be binned before it is declared null and void. If Scots law is binned then the Treaty should be binned and a referendum established asking the people of Scotland if they want a new Treaty of Union to be negotiated or independence.
Bending and breaking rules, agreements etc is par for the course for Westminster, there are already pressure groups demanding that the Withdrawal agreement with the EU is torn up, its terms no longer suit some factions, so naturally it has to go.
As for the Treaty of Union, its terms have already been broken, ignored because at the time it was inconvenient or interfered with the process of draining revenue south. They acted with impunity, reasonably certain there wouldn’t be serious opposition to their schemes. Bribes and threats have always worked in the past. Even now, a border is being set up between NI and the rest of the UK, equal trading terms across the UK were guaranteed in the Treaty, but of course that was ditched to get the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. Times have changed though, its not compliant Scots libs and labs or even Tories and the media, ready to throw in the towel after just enough opposition to convince their constituents they were doing there best to protect Scotland.
Now, its the SNP, the current democratically elected Government of Scotland with 4 referendum mandates in their back pocket, 80% of the MP’s, and potentially a thumping great majority of the people of Scotland voting for Independence.
Attempting to by pass Article 19 is perhaps their last desperate hope of saving their union.
The people who purport to be sympathetic to the Independence movement who decry the SNP Scottish government for (no daein sumthin) are using people’s lack of knowledge of the system as a tool of subversion and deception against them to imply our Scottish government have more powers than it does then they complain to all and sundry about their lack of implementing those non existent powers
When you think about it logically no one would expect the Welsh or Northern Irish administrations to overturn any decision by the UK government because they know those assemblies do not possess that power so why do they believe Scotland’s devolved administration has more powers than those places, well unfortunately that was a well intentioned mistake of recent history by renaming Holyrood a government, which it is but only for *local* governance in the same way as any colony the UK possesses, and many people get confused by the difference, they hear the word government and they think that means the same as the House of Commons only smaller, it doesn’t
We’re not supposed to be in this position but because of mainly the Labour party in Scotland that’s who connived to put us in this invidious position of powerlessness
People are Scotland’s power, our government cannot move without the guaranteed support of Scotland’s people, once they know they have that, they can then *dae sumthin*
We the people cannot sit back complaining and leave it all to our politicians to fight this battle, their power is us the people that’s why the Unionists and their little helpers work so hard at making the public believe things that aren’t true, they’re undermining and lying about our politicians so we’ll withdraw our support from them thus removing their power to fight on our behalf
Nicola Sturgeon has the authority of the position as First Minister of a devolved assembly with little actual power except over some areas which when given the chance as we’ve seen with Covid she will exercise that power well, but she is not the Prime Minister of Scotland, Boris Johnson is the ultimate Prime Minister of all, even though he is scared of the FM
Only the people of Scotland being free can create a Prime Minister of Scotland accompanied by all the powers that go with it, that’s why they want to stop us doing it
There is a basic principle underlying the concept of democracy which is that the job of a politician is to govern a country in the interests of its citizens. In the UK this has been corrupted to become a system of choose your dictator which is not the same thing at all.
Unfortunately the SNP has fallen into this trap, putting the economic policies in the hands of bankers, the housing policies in the hands of the landlords, and social policies in the hands of a set of gender activists who do not represent anyone but themselves. The GRA and hate speech bills are vote losers at a time when we need every vote we can get.
The job of politicians in a democracy is to find out what the wishes of the majority of the populace are and bloody well sort it out, not tell us we can’t afford it while spending billions on military hardware. The housing market for example is a disgrace, getting rid of ripoff slum landlords and upgrading our national housing stock should be a top priority.
If the SNP could start listening to what ordinary people actually want they would wipe the board with the competition. Unfortunately they seem to have adopted the UK politicians mindset that they know best and the lower orders are there to be told what is what by their lords and masters.
The SNP are listening and the people are responding by switching their vote to them.
By the way, do you care to give any concrete examples of where the SNP have “fallen into this trap”? It looks to me that your post is no more than another SNP BAD piece of garbage.
The SNP spend NOTHING on “military hardware” they have built 10 times more social housing since coming to power than any other party when in power. You come across as a Labourite that wishes they were in power. Maybe it’s you that has fallen into a trap, you’ve been duped.
“Unfortunately the SNP has fallen into this trap, putting the economic policies in the hands of bankers, the housing policies in the hands of the landlords, and social policies in the hands of a set of gender activists who do not represent anyone but themselves. The GRA and hate speech bills are vote losers at a time when we need every vote we can get.”
I doubt Rotten Latrine could have came up with better.
What a load of shite but with GRA and hate speech tacked on at the end hahaha. You need to try better.
For a trap they’ve fallen into they seem to be doing remarkably well in the opinion polls.
Again a comment endowing the Scottish government with powers it does not possess then complaining about them not using those powers, as to housing in Scotland I’m afraid that comment is a million miles from being correct, economic policies in Scotland can only be managed within the limits of yet more of those imagined powers, now we move to the listening to people argument, 55 % of the polling displays the opposite of your thinking there, and in the middle of a global pandemic where the only people actively politically campaigning are the opposition they’re getting angrier and more desperate every day because the SNP won’t engage with them to suit their timetable, and that strategy is the very reason why support for Independence is the most it’s ever been and can only continue to rise as soon as Brexit rears its ugly head for real
Then the SNP will campaign on the facts as they are before the people
In no shape or form have the Snp ever supported slum landlords. At every turn they have tried to stop these scumbags. It is the Uk government who is responsible for the piles of money that goes to these landlords via Universal Credit and Housing Benefit Theu also brought in changes to Local Housing Allowance which limits the help people can get with rent in private lets. It is often the poor who cannot afford to buy houses who suffer the worst by these parasites hands. The snp changed private let leases to limit reasons private landlord can evict so have done their best to combat slum landlords.
Your right Alex What s load of old hire, nothing more than SNP baaaad !!!!!
Shite. Not hire.
As with shutting down Holyrood,I doubt they will be that stupid by making Scots law directly accountable to Westminster.
They will no doubt find a way to do both of those things without being too explicit.
Scotland no more.
Your moniker is “bringiton” yet with your “Scotland no more” crap you seem to have already given up before the fight has even started. Where’s your bottle for the fight or have you just submitted and accepted that Scotland will never be Independent because they won’t let us??
There are far too many doomsayers around these days, no doubt as a hangover from the too wee, too poor, too stupid narrative that has been around forever and so many believe it.
We cannae dae it! They will stop us!
The cringe writ large, yes we can do it, no they cannot stop us.
Scotland will be an Independent country WHEN YOU CHOOSE IT TO BE SO!
Ditch the negativity, get right behind the SNP and show Westminster that WE mean business, throw off that guilt at feeling useless. We are not, and NOW is the time to make them listen by driving up support for Independence and not the time for saying we’re awe doomed since that is total bollocks and is only giving the Unionists succor.
They want us to be demoralised but our job is to demoralise them, not encourage them. Seriously, Independence supporters of a faint heart really need to get a grip. It was NEVER gonig to be easy and we will have to fight for our Independence. We cannot afford to throw in the towel before the battle even starts.
It will come and it will come soon and then YOU get in there with the head down!
This is a battle we must win, there win be no further chances.
“This is a battle we must win, there will be no further chances.”
Pretty negative comment Alex. Not a view I hold – there will always be further chances in the future.
What I was referring to was their intent and not how I feel about our country.
I will never give on the principle that Scotland needs a government in Scotland elected by Scots for Scots.
I was too harsh, so sorry for that, emotion can get in the way. I took your “Scotland no more” remark as how you felt rather than a statement of their intent. I really don’t like seeing supporters of Independence in a defeatist mode and there is a lot of that around, even now when we are clearly on the up.
Scotland will flourish, I like that much better.
We’re Independence supporters, that’s for Scotland (or Wales!), so nataurally we see things through a prism that focusses on Scotland – and our Independence.
That may be short-sighted, and hopefully we have International Relations experts who are looking at the situation overall – i.e., in terms of the UK.
For the focus on Scotland we can look at the very first paper that the UK Gov put out in February 2013, where the two directed constitutional experts Crawford & Boyle put forward an argument that the Treaty of Union was extinguished,
That does two things, first and most obviously from our point of view it puts out a claim that Scotland no longer has a treaty with England, it is hence a permanent part of the UK but if it wants to break away, the rest of the UK is the Continuing OK. That clearly affects us.
But secondly, and this is where the IR experts looking from the UK point of view, might wonder what such disrespect for a Treaty by the UK Government could mean in International terms. Because the very fabric of International Relations is – Treaties.
But secondly it is of course, Conventions, such as the Sewell Convention so contemptuously put aside by the UK Gov in the UKSC, the highest court of the UK itself, but also the whole series of Vienna Conventions which, while not every country is signed up to and ratified to, is a fabric of International Relations, and a very important part. Take the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Nuclear Treaty. And then extinguish them. And what about the Geneva Convention? It’s just a convention, after all.
And THAT of course is where, apart from the Courts of Scotland and the UK, any attack on our Treaty should be fought – Internationally. The argument being that if the UK is prepared and willing to ignore just one Treaty, of what value are all the other 15,000 odd that are still extant, or at least, not mutually extinguished?
“Continuing OK” should of course be “Continuing UK”.
Or even “Continuing NOT OK” 🙂
If “Scotland no longer has a treaty with England, it is hence a permanent part of the UK but if it wants to break away, the rest of the UK is the Continuing UK”
There is not a lot of logic in that claim (unless ‘extinguished’ has a particular constitutional implication?). If we no longer have a treaty which joins us to England, then surely we would no longer be joined? And if we were to then break away the whole concept of a ‘UK’ becomes meaningless, and thus any continuing states could not be unique successors?
But as you say, rendering one treaty defunct in the interests of one of the signatory parties throws all of their signings into question. A master-stroke really, and what we would expect from that bunch of incompetents.
Excellent comment, the international aspect of this debate is often ignored, restricted mainly to the non recognition of Scotland’s status as an Independent nation for .. name reason. I expect the ICJ will be involved for various reasons, the international law of the sea will have a lot to say about the stolen seas and ex regio status of Scotland’s waters and a lot more, perhaps even which country inherits Trident.
And like a good wee boy Douglas Fraser of the bbc just accepts the GERS figures as a fact of live.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/douglasfraser
So much for investigative reporting and analytical thought.
I think this government may have made a major mistake here in setting up a committee to look at the powers of judicial review.
It’s petty clear that judicial review is a necessary function in any democracy else the government can run riot and there is no block on their powers. As this article points out proroguing parliament was found to be unlawful by a Scottish court and the government had to back down.
Without judicial review, they cannot be held to account and that is clearly wrong.
The reason that I think it’s a mistake is that this won’t dip under the radar, nor can it be hidden. I’m certain at least that here in Scotland it will be made into a big issue and Joanna Cheery has already sent that ball rolling.
It looks to me like just another blunder by a government unable to actually govern and will result in another U-turn. By then it might be too late and another couple of % points will have been added to support for Independence.
Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings were a gift to the Independence movement and we will reap the rewards, long may they continue to increase our support with their pathetic governance on show for all to see. Even Scots tories now have their doubts and that’s saying something.
62 countries have taken their Independence from Her Majesty’s Kingdom of England’s UK and every one of them receives congratulations from the UK on their respective Independence days, why? because England needs to trade with them
62 countries that were full of discontented people, 62 countries who demanded their freedom, 62 countries who were stolen from, 62 countries that are doing fine on their own, 62 countries that the British insisted were too wee and too poor to go it alone without the broad shoulders of the UK, 62 countries who have their own money, their own constitutions, their own laws and make their own decisions but uniquely Scotland can’t be number 63 say the British who said the same thing to all the above, eh including America who they’re now trying to sell Scotland to because lets face it as long as they have London eh
Not one of those 62 countries has ever asked to come back
The SNP is committed to building or renovating 6,000 low rental, affordable cost housing a year. 17,000 houses are built by private builders. 50,000 people die in Scotland a year. More houses become available. There will be enough houses built for the population. In three years.
There is a backlog at the moment because councils etc do not have the provisions to re let houses because of the pandemic. Staff not being not available. It is estimated there are enough homes in Scotland but many are sitting empty. Or in the wrong areas etc.
There needs to be more proper total abstinence rehab facilities, Addiction problems put back under NHS. Not social care. Doctors can refer people. Local authorities do not provide proper care but put people on methadone for years. That makes the social problems worse. Proper rehab facilities have to be paid privately. Instead of private/public funded facilities. More cost affective.
The SNP have provided kinship payments so less children have to go into care. They are looked after in their extended families. In February children under 6 in low income families will receive £10 child benefit. That could eradicate child poverty.
The Tories have lost their lead. Tories and Labour now polling the same in the rest of the UK. Johnston will not be there much longer.
Scotland will be Independent when people vote for it. Support for SNP/Independence rising.
The legal system needs an overhaul but not from Westminster. The fees that are charged can be extortionate. The public monies being wasted on legal cases by Westminster appointed civil servants.
People put in prison for organising a march. It is beyond comprehension. The way Alex Salmond has been treated. He needs an apology and compensation. He did more for Scotland than anyone. It is an absolute disgrace.
Historically, governments seem to make and break agreements as the mood takes them. (cynical I know *shrugs*) They tend to work on the principles of:- 1.Mutual self interest (nationally & internationally) 2. Pure self interest (same) 3. Political expediency (morality rarely coming into their decisions)
UK gov’s historical track record on making and breaking agreements ain’t the best it has to be said.
What matters (what has always mattered) is popular opinion. That thing which validates and underwrites the actions of governments. Kinda why they go to so much trouble to manipulate the mood/opinion of populations. They can’t act without your say so. Which is also why they go to so much trouble constructing nasty narratives, ensuring they have as much media control as possible and otherwise behaving like bad bastirts toward home based opposition and major demographics of their own populations. It’s also why they go to so much trouble to convince folks that you can’t tie your own shoelaces without their supervision. Convincing folk to act against their own interests or better, kinder, natures seems to be a hobby for empathy free types in government.
Without the support of popular opinion, of populations though? Probably worth remembering that there’s more of you than there is of them.
True
The £15 billion GERS deficit, isn’t a deficit, its a surplus.
If the tories break the treaty, we could declare it null and void and no longer applicable by their actions.
Thus saving us a referendum as we are no longer a part of the UK as by breaking the treaty, the tories have broken the UK.
We could then hold a referendum on if we wanted to enter into a new treaty with England or revert back to being an Independent state.
If the tories try to say no, to them breaking the treaty of union and the integretity UK
as its a 300 year old treaty,then I’m sure spain will look at the treaty of utrecht where Spain ceded control over gibraltar to the United Kingdom. And come to the conclusion, it an just take back control over Gibraltar.
Thats why an international court would uphold Scotland being independant under above circumstances as to ignore it would jeopardise not just Scotland, but would allow any country to break international treaties with no consequences and would be the end of international law.
Leading economist backs independence.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18685878.economist-mark-blyth-im-now-convert-scottish-independence/
This article by Mr Wilson in the Times seems to have tipped Professor Blyth over the line into a pro-independence stance.
Here’s the archived article.
https://archive.vn/gIcRm
And Professor Blyth’s response to the article
Scotland’s public spending deficit makes case for independence
BA, MA, BPhil, PhD, Professor of International Economics at Brown University, acclaimed author. On the Times article
https://mobile.twitter.com/MkBlyth/status/1299412577487912961
There’s a mistake in that article. It says “spending in Scotland amounted to £15.1 billion more than ministers received in revenues.”
That’s not correct. Expenditure *assigned* to Scotland was £15.1 billion more than revenues from within Scotland under a UK wide tax regime. That’s not the same thing.
I’ll pass it on.
I meant in the article in The National.
A couple of other articles for you to chew over.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/30/nicola-sturgeon-should-not-limit-scotland-economic-options
Nicola Sturgeon should not limit Scotland’s economic options
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/23/covid-19-crisis-breakup-uk-brexit-pandemic-scottish-independence
The Covid-19 crisis is accelerating the breakup of the UK
I think we need to remember that Ireland ceded from the UK in 1921. It was also admitted into the union in 1805 with an amendment to the act of union. So the idea that we were extinguished as a nation (this was the much awaited positive case for union) but England wasn’t, then this would have applied to Ireland. Since this was not the case, then the idea of being extinguished was an act of desperation. Much like the idea to promote the notion of Scotland as being a subsidy junky was, for Ian Lang and John Major back in the 90s. That this approach is being tried again, shows you the degree of panic in Westminster. But they have finally ran out of wriggle room as was predicted by Lang in an interview of the continuing non popularity of their party in Scotland.
They can’t get rid of our parliament, it would be a suicide for them. All they can think of doing is stealing power and money, maybe spend some of it in Scotland and stick the butchers apron on it, and just like that, we’re all true believers in Britishness (whatever that means these days).
The trouble is in doing this, they are taking responsibility for something that 80% of Scots clearly stated that they did trust the tories with. So no matter what they do and no matter how many flegs they stick on it, they are going to be roasted for it, when the votes are counted. This move is up their with their Poll Tax experiment.
If they go after our independent institutions, like the judiciary, which is protected under the act of Union, then they could be triggering an event like the Great Schism, back in the 1840s, when they stupidly tried to merge the Church of Scotland with the Church of England. This crisis, which could have triggered the collapse of the union had their not been some furious back pedaling, ultimately led to the CoS being protected under a parliamentary statute, which protects it from interference from parliament and crown…Someone really should have explained this to Thatcher before she appeared before them and delivered her “greed is godly” speech.
Back to the present then and this fuckwitttery can be laid fully at the feet of Cummings and Mogg, with Johnson as their ever faithful sidekick. Cummings, a poundland Dr Evil if there ever was one, has like so many others in the Westminster bubble, a staggering level of ignorance of the Union and the Act that sustains it. He is also a man who doesn’t give a shit about convention. To create a fire you need heat, fuel and oxidisation. The tories are the heat, the union is the fuel and cummings is the oxidiser. I think this could be it. This is what convinces more Scots that the union wasn’t worth saving in 2014.
If a thing is worth saying then it’s worth saying well and you have certainly done that. Cheers.
David Agnew,
I think your section on the Church of Scotland is a bit confused. It was the Great Disruption that occurred in the 1840s and patronage, the right of the congregation to appoint its minister something that was the cornerstone of the CoS from the time of the Reformation, was the issue.
In 1707 the pre-Union Scots Parliament passed the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Act designed to ensure the position and continuity of the CoS post-Union.
In 1711 the Patronage Act whereby lairds and landowners could appoint the ministers was passed. This was one of the earliest breaches of the Treaty. Congregations were rightly furious as was the Kirk. Some congregations went so far as to nail up the church door when a new minister was appointed in this way. The Kirk was equally incensed and petitioned Parliament on an annual basis to repeal the Act and fought at least two expensive cases in the Court of Session to try to get the Act overturned.
In the 1840s the Great Disruption took place in large part on the Patronage issue but it was not the first time seccesion had taken place on this issue. In the 1730s the Seccesion Church was formed by a breakaway group from the CoS because of the Patronage issue.
In 1874 the Patronage Act was repealed and full rights restored to the congregations to appoint their ministers. A right that pertains to this day.
I was recalling from memory a section in a book called union and unionisms. I will give way on this one to your more detailed explanation and put it down to misremembering the text.
Your a wee sweetie. I only know it because I found it out when I was doing some research into my family’s history.
Thank you for filling-in something of an evident blind spot for me there. Heretofore I had assumed that the patronage situation had just somehow “evolved” over time through a kind of creeping takeover by the landed gentry, and hadn’t realised that it was in fact deliberately imposed by fiat of Westminster. And so shortly after union too. (Were they possibly afraid that the Kirk would prove to be a locus of dissent over the recent “shotgun marriage”, and might need a “stiffening” of secular and doctrinal control?) It leaves me wondering who – if anyone – among the Scottish faithful besides the gentry actually wanted such a (for a Calvinist body) theological abomination…
The Kirk was opposed to the Union and were obviously well placed to promote and organise opposition to the proposed Union.
The Act passed by the Scots Parliament to ensure the position of the Kirk was designed to bring them inside and it worked. An 18thC version of the Vow with a similar transient lifespan.
The Treaty was a busted flush within a few years when a tax that had been specifically mentioned as not applying to Scotland, was applied. Scottish members got a debate to end the union in 1713, but were outvoted by English members. English politicians said “we have catched Scotland and shall hold her fast,” and “have we not bought Scotland and the right to tax her?”
And that’s basically where we still stand today.
I think this might be the best summing up of the mindset and arrogance of this Johnson government that I have ever read.
The character of government is shaped by the personality of the person at the top. When he was US president, Harry Truman had a sign on his Oval Office desk that was inscribed: “The buck stops here.” If Boris Johnson had a sign, it would read: “Not me, guv.”
https://archive.vn/vAocw
Everything the current Conservative administration has been about, in the past six years especially, has been about centralizing power and avoiding responsibility. They kinda hope that people don’t join the dots. That folk are just dumb enough to believe that you can hold the offices and the power, but that when poop hits the fan you get to slide on the responsibility of holding those offices and that power.
They need reminding every so often that the buck very definitely stops with the offices of central government and the PM. It’s kinda why the posts exist in the first place. 😉
O/T
A wee VOW-2 prediction.
During the IR2 campaign, near to the end (during purdah naturally, WM will drop in a wee piece of jam for the pro-EU soft NOs. It will be punted as an oven-ready deal. If Scotland returns a NO vote then UKGov will permit Scotland to apply to (re)join the EU Single Market & Customs Union and thus Scotland can have a similar deal to N.I. inside the EU & the UK – the ‘best of both worlds’. This ‘oven-ready deal’ will swing just enough pro-EU soft NO voters to change their minds and give NO another victory.
Of course, the moment the NO win is in the bag, WM will then work tirelessly to block Scotland’d re-entry. There will be Commissions, Judicial Reviews and so on – everything WM can think of in order to frustrate Scotland’s ascension to the EU SM&CU.
Remember – this VOW-2 won’t be targeted at the committed indy-folk but at those soft NO, pro-EU folk. WM will probably only need to swing between 5-7 % to win IndyRef2 so we need to be ready to fight such a ‘Vow’ and persuade that 5-7 % to NEVER TRUST A TORY.
I agree with you P C, but do you not think that any late promises or (Vows) will be ignored by us Scots and independence supporters, ie we have heard it all before. I may get shot down by saying ,I think our F M and the SNP has played an excellent long game and is allowing the Unionists enough rope to hang themselves, the fear tactics just do not wash. We can all see that they are throwing the kitchen sink at us but with little notable effect. My opinion for what its worth is that the Unionists will get very increasingly nasty, and that tactic will only sour the soft no voters to a yes vote . I believe the momentum at 54%-55% will gradually climb before Dec and the Unionists will have let this happen through their lies and broken promises.
I am inclined to believe that you are right, and that the deployment of fear tactics is now begining to backfire on those (politicians and media) who try it. Not least because of the examples being set by the daily virus briefings, where the contrast between the SG practical “do-ers” and the trouble-seeking media “nay-sayers” couldn’t be more stark. People are increasingly investing their belief in the SG instead of its ultra-negative opponents.
What I also sense is a mirror-image weakening in the resolve of our southern neighbours and their government to keep us. As if there is a growing acceptance in society down there that our departure is inevitable, it’s more just a question of how and when. The latest Cummings-inspired attempt to curtail judicial overview rather betrays growing desperation and insecurity, a last reckless throw of the dice that could well precipitate our communal resolve to cast off these largely self-imposed shackles and definitively reject London’s unwarranted interference.
There was a point in time when Scots didn’t believe a word the Conservatives said, back in the late 80s/90s, but somehow with the passage of time, people who should have known better forgot what a bunch of shysters they are, and believed ‘The Vow’ in 2014. It seems that right now, people have finally woken up to them again, and nothing they can say in the next two years would be believed by the electorate. But how long would that last? Another 5 years? Would we have forgotten what liars they are in 10 years, if we are still thirled to the union?
Proud cyber at.
Interesting prediction.
Of course the argument should be now why has Scotland got less rights than Northern Ireland in relation to the EU.
If only Johnson could build that bridge quicker!!
@Hamish100
Perhaps what we’re seeing is WM playing the long game, holding back a differential EU (oven-ready) deal fro Scotland until such time as they need to play that card i.e. during IndyRef2. This card may have been held back deliberately by WM in order to play it at the most opportune time and that would be during IndyRef2 campaign to peel off just enough soft Yessers back into the UK camp (‘best of both worlds’ and all that guff).
I really can see them trying this or something very similar and we need to have the arguments ready to counter it and to get the soft Yessers back onside.
Agree. Vow – version 2, 3 or 4.
No trust for Westminster.
Another symptom of CoVID found on WOS. Extreme stupidity as opposed to ordinary stupidity.
A fellow called (Stan) believes the best way to get Independence is to lose the next election.
Yip, let the tories in , shut down everything -( I am assuming he doesn’t mean hospitals) and heh ho we will become independent.
Why didn’t we think of this before?
I am wearing my face mask in case it spreads!
I figured to muffle the laughter,,,
I guess there’s no accounting for the wierdness in some (alleged) thinking caused by The Cringe. “Lose to win”? Where else in the world would anything that self-defeating ever occur to anyone?
https://www.righttoroam.org.uk
came across this today The English are getting restless.
Also there is a book
Author Guy Shrubsole
Who Owns England
Well, I have to say that this is a right cheerful place today.
Here we are, trailing 10 points ahead in the opinion polls and there is nought but doom and gloom from many quarters.
Just as well that I have no time for nit picking. Scotland will become independent when a sufficient majority of the population have thrown off the cringe and have sufficient courage to commit to radically changing their way of life. Then nothing will be allowed to stop it. The increased numbers of committed people will bring their weight to the proceedings, their ideas and their intellect. They will demand the change and they will get it.
But how will it be delivered? I don’t know and and neither does anyone else. I don’t need to know right now. The Brits will continue to do their usual thing of being totally incompetent and equally despicable because that is what they are and always have been. But we are past the point of no return. We are now at the stage where they can do no right. Whatever path they take it will be self defeating. They have told so many disgusting lies, sickened so many people the world over and got themselves into such a mess, that they are retreating into a bunker and pretending, ever more ludicrously, to be on the verge of success ….. just one last world beating battle to turn it all around.
In the next few months the proverbial is going to hit the fan. The umpteen hundred thousands of unemployed in London and other English cities, who have no money and no future prospects, are going to express their determination to stay alive by whatever means they have available to them. Johnson is going to hide. His team of upper class thicko’s are going to be finding excuses to ship out. Gove, Cummings and co are going to be ordering the expulsion of any voices that are defeatist. And all that is to say nothing of the general air of panic that will be pervading Britland.
How is that going to affect our move to independence? It is uncertain. Which is why I don’t know exactly how we will achieve our independence, because there is such huge uncertainty. Anyone who can tell me how it will all pan out is talking through their jacksie.
But I do know that we are moving inexorably forward and nothing will stop us when the people are ready. We will know they are ready when they are widely and openly and un-self-consciously saying that they want independence. I think we have a little way to go but I am optimistic that we will soon be there.
FFS, lighten up folks.
The question is, Arthur, what would the English do if the boot were on the other foot. Would they care about the niceties of ‘The Treaty’? Would they care about whether Scotland agreed to their being ‘independent’ or not? Would they care if Scotland said, “Naw, we’re no’ gonnae let ye leave the Union. It’s forever.”? Of course not. They would find a way and do it, because “We’re English and we do as we please. It’s our country.”
The Scots (have to admit, myself included) find it difficult to shake off the feeling which has been inculcated into our brains, particularly so recently, that we are somehow subservient to and captured within this Treaty by England, which must be the only Treaty in the world that cannot be undone by at least one party and must remain in place until the sun is a giant red star and the solar system is no more (approx 5 billion years from now). Nonsense. When the people speak, the time is right.
Well, I for one don’t see why we can’t just tear up the treaty of Union and stick it where Westminster’s sun don’t shine. We can be waiting for the 5 billion years you mention before the tories will agree to another referendum.
We need a legitimate mandate for independence. That doesn’t currently exist.
You have considerably more confidence in the ability of the Conservatives to resist another referendum than the Conservatives do themselves.
It’s not a question of confidence in anything. It’s a question of what is the most expedient way to ensure independence in the face of a mendacious and intransigent tory party in Westminster. It is also not a question of ‘either’ or ‘or’. All practical measures must be in consideration to achieve our aim, and must take into account all conceivable eventualities.
We should not be ruling out in advance anything which might give us an advantage in future e4ventualities.
Plus – this option of repudiating the treaty of Union seems to be in vast disfavour within the SNP – and I can’t see why. I have tried to bring the matter up but have been shut down. However far as I know, no intensive investigation of this option has been carried out – please correct me if I am wrong here.
That’s because it’s genuinely not a politically feasible option.
The only way that independence can be legitimised is via a popular vote where a majority back independence.
Attempting to dissolve the UK without such a vote is a recipe for civil war. British nationalists in Scotland will refuse to accept it. That’s really not a path anyone wants to go down.
How do we know it’s not a feasible option? If it was part of a manifesto commitment, then it would have legitimacy as a pre-approved, voted for, option if the party proposing it was elected. And ‘civil war’ – this is not the Balkans. If as I say, it was a voted for manifesto commitment, what excuse would there be for a ‘civil war’?
I don’t sit here hovering over days old threads. And I’m not your personal answering service.
I gave you my opinion. You disagree. I don’t feel the need to keep banging on about it. Clearly you do. Bang away.
If I was really intolerant I’d have blocked you and removed these comments.
Arthur, my comments were merely a sense of what may come, i did not try to promote despondency or impending disaster . I am encouraged by the recent polls and I sincerely believe the Scots have had enough of the bile and sneers from Westminster and want and long for something better. We are slowly getting where we want to be on our terms and not dictated to by the Dark Force . Presently I am happy and content at our direction of travel .
When all the Unionist press have left is to call Kate Forbes names because she told them they were wrong, you know we’ve got them gubbed, because they know that we know that Kate Forbes is right
55% of Scotland agrees with Kate Forbes
Yup, and probably at least another 20% don’t know the facts, either because they are “information poor” (ie. being largely interested in other matters) or rely solely on the BBC for their information.
With the inaction of the Scottish Government since 2014 I have to wonder if it has not been compromised.
That’s a ludicrous thing to say.
I was going to make a detailed response, but frankly your comment is so far out there in the weirdo conspirasphere that I really can’t be arsed.
Hahaha, goan yersel son 🙂
The bottom line is we are f*cked, let’s face it, who is going to stop them.
I don’t have the cringe, I don’t have the cringe, honest I’m telling the truth, I don’t have the cringe.
Nor do I Alex. Far from it.
“We the people” are going to stop them. So man-up and get persuading instead of publicly trading in disillusion and impotent self-pity. (Or is this deliberate negativity?)
People, One_Scot, People!
I remember watching a fascinating documentary years ago about the super rich and how they had accumulated their wealth and it finished with a billionaire making what I thought was a very poignant prophecy. He had been talking about how you can push people only so far until eventually they snap.
The statement he made was ” Are the people with pitchforks coming, maybe not yet, but they will come”.
People have been pushed to the brink of the precipice magnified ten fold by Covid in the fact that their job has gone, no money to buy food to survive, cannot pay their mortgage so no roof over their head and no safety net to fall back on because the Tories have cut all the ropes
And we are seeing that today with Extinction Rebellion, Black lives matter and many more instances of a general public totally disgusted with the way things are managed.
All over the world the public are close to anarchy and the super rich and elite better run for the hills.
So, if I may say, We’re not fucked. Because people will stop them, ordinary people from ordinary walks of life, who if they have nothing more to lose, won’t give a fuck.
The other day, my son showed me a couple of graphs of wealth distribution, one from modern day America, the other from pre-revolutionary France. They were uncannily similar, not least in their extreme lop-sidededness.
The over-privileged everywhere now routinely rely on mass confusion and distraction, which is an advantage they possess in an information age that the French aristocracy lacked. But people can still compare their actual situation with all the confected spin, and truth will out. Interesting that the current “democratic” administrations on both sides of the Atlantic now appear to be turning to authoritarianism for insurance (for which there is always a reliable slab of support from the extreme reactionary change-averse), but that could be their ultimate undoing, just as in the past.
Thankfully we here in Scotland do have a pressure release available, if we only have sufficient gumption to avail ourselves of it in a timely and effective way. It would benefit virtually everyone, maybe even those few with good reason to fear an eventual outbreak of “pitchfork-itis”.
Thank you One_Scot, for the obligatory channelling of Private Frazer that is required on every thread.
War doomed n marooned… Nope…
A delegation of Labour MSPs led by James Kelly has called for the resignation of Rupert Lepton the Labour branch manager in Scotland over concerns they’ll be wiped out at the next election, I guess we’ll await the pretendy election procedure before Sir Kier Starmer the England Labour manager appoints the next Scottish branch manager
Or maybe they’ll do it like the Tories and just appoint a Tory MP
this law grab is just another brit establishment ploy to undermine the indy movement. they have been getting more and more brazen since 2011. media bias, fake gers stats, undermining holyrood etc.
to an extent, they have succeeded, the indyref1 result and subsequent elections, although majorities of snp mps and msps have been elected, the results have always been below 50%. that is until now. regardless and because of the brit establishment antics, the polls have finally swung to 50%+
we need to convert these 50%+ polls into an election result. the unionists have been prevaricating about the bush ever since 2016, brexit negotiations GE’s Peoples Vote etc, with a hope of delaying us until this 2021 holyrood election. Covid has helped them in this delay, but their attempts to reverse the direction of travel have failed.
the only way the unionists can stop a 50%+ majority happening is to stop the next holyrood election from happening at all
Well, why not.
for F!#ks sake … when are we going to wake up and smell the Coffee …. I am Pissed off with NS playing _*Soft Ball” with Westmidden … Nicola … STAND UP FOR SCOTLAND …. or get the you Know what out the way …. Sorry Paul, :but I’ve had it with her … you KNOW it’s true … I wanted to ” give me the reason to believe” …. another false dawn …. Alex Salmond … a Patriot with fire in his belly !!! … I know this is “off the top” …. but it has to be said … thoughts ? ….
Westminster had a referendum in Scotland in 2014, they made all the rules then broke all the rules, the BBC and British media were allowed to be in charge of all scheduling, there were no Independent observers, the UN has a set of guidelines over referendums every one was ignored, the English referendum that was held in Scotland never had a chance of winning because it was never designed to , I won’t even mention Alex Salmond but I will refer you to Nicola Sturgeon’s statement immediately after that loss…. “I don’t want to just hold a referendum, I want to win one” There’s a great deal of meaning in that very important statement and perhaps something to reflect on
‘ thoughts ‘
Fi#k off.
ffs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLgt0LAv4oc
Scots Canuck – when will we smell the coffee?
Hopefully never, Mr Tetley single bag with draw string for me. With a dollop of milk no sugar.
Everything in perspective.
The time of greatest tension is the time just before we win.
What exactly do you expect to happen right now? The pandemic still isn’t over.
A good article from Iain Lawson.
Indeed
Will it materialise or not, lets hope it does.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18686670.former-msp-marco-biagi-forecasts-snap-indyref2-holyrood-poll/
I saw Richard, what’s his name, outside ASDA yesterday, he looked a worried man, anyway,
Well when I said Richard, erm..thingy Labour branch office leader in Scotland, looked like a man waiting for a tap on the shoulder to tell him he’d been found out ( I saw him outside ASDA yesterday) it looks like I was right.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18686281.holyrood-elections-group-labour-msps-call-richard-leonard-resign/
Here we go again.
‘Conservative Party threatens to abolish ‘unaccountable’ electoral commission.’
https://amp.lbcnews.co.uk/uk-news/conservative-party-threatens-abolish-unaccountable-electoral-commission/?__twitter_impression=true
……………………………………………….
‘Some of today’s politicians have learned propaganda tricks from 1930s fascists, says Yale professor.’
http://www.channel4.com/news/some-of-todays-politicians-have-learned-propaganda-tricks-from-1930s-fascists-says-yale-professor
That 10 minute Channel 4 interview with Professor of fascism Timothy Snyder was well worth a watch. I’m glad there are still people like him who are doing something that might help people to see more clearly the state of politics. particularly where politics in the US and UK have been heading.
Please do remember that Snyder’s excellent synopsis was in Oct 2019, long before they actually got into #10 and the real trickery started….
Thanks for that Bob, I had just assumed it was recent and was unaware that it’s almost a year old. Makes it even more chilling in light of recent events, especially the Trump carry on over postal votes and refusal to say he would stand down as President if he loses the election.
Scots law must be protected from the increasingly autocratic bunch in London. I hope Scotgov is on the case.
Land law although of topic is another case in point but the change here has been since 1066.
I have recently read Andy Wightman’s book ‘The Poor Had No Lawyers’. This explains how land ownership grew over the centuries and how the land owners used lawyers to modify law via parliament to protect themselves from taxes and take new land in five distinct land grabs over the centuries.
I now understand why we need land reform to allow in time more people to own our land. Landed estates do not pay business rates and other taxes. The Royal family have for instance Balmoral covered so that they do not have to pay inheritance tax and under laws going back to 1292 only Charles can inherit the estate.
Apart from independence land reform is the best assistance we can give ourselves. People that have legal title must be able to keep their land but the law needs changed on taxation, inheritance etc.
Annual Ground Rent will do some of these changes and give Scotgov funds to provide citizens basic income.
I’m very busy with some real life stuff at the moment, Duggers, but still ‘tune in’.
On Land Reform, ban blood sports entirely and ‘buy back the 18% of Scotland laid waste to accommodate chinless wonders blasting guinea fowl for sadistic fun, rendering the land worthless to the Robber Barons and belted earls and dukes.
Offer £1 an acre and drive these privileged tyrants from our land.
Evict them from their Private Wee Fiefdoms.
That just over 400 hundred beings ‘own’ most of Scotland is an outrage.
When Brexit hits and Oi Polloi ‘harvest’ the crops on these giant farms and estates. helping themselves to everything from turnips to cattle, the gentile ‘Right To Roam’ movement will seem redundant.
People are starving now and relying on food banks, while Ruth Davidson collects money for nothing and a Get Out Of Scotland card next May.
Mike Rumbles has been sitting in Tuscany for two months on £1200 a week reportedly. How much of a mug do these bastards take us for?
We are at revolution strength resistance now.
Who is going to stop the Lumpen Proletariat taking the law into its own hands?
The submariners at Faslane? The fighter pilots at Lossiemouth? The Chocolate Soldiers at Edinburgh Castle. The 3000 new pen pushers at Castle Butcher’s Apron in Edinburgh?
We are careering headlong towards disaster in November not January 2021.
And this of course is the English Iron Hell Oligarchy’s Grand Plan.
Scorched Earth repression of the people by military force and financial penury.
It’s happening in Trump’s America as I clack.
The Hitler Gambit.
The gypsies whom Douglas Ross would drive from this land. The Independence supporters in whom Baroness Brown Envelope would ‘put the boot’. the 320,000 Scots children, whom Willie Rennie made poor, consigned to ill educated hell, and mentally unstable through the laughingly described 1984 regime, and now the relentless attempt by the Better Together Red Blue and Yellow Tories to undermine the Scottish Government’s attempts to beat Covid, by their lies, exaggerations, and downright policy of non cooperation with our Government, health, Police, and Civic Institutions to smash the SNP no matter how many Scots they kill or maim in the process.
The storm clouds are gathering.
What will it take for Scotlsand to wake up?
A snap of a wee urchin at the roadside gnawing on a mud splattered carrot filched from a field?
This is not hyperbole.
While Kevin McKenna prattles nonsense about ‘working class’ Celtic Supporters being ignored by the Bad SNP (See what I’m getting at here, Paul?) and Brian Wilson, fellow Sellick Supporter, and on the Board perched in the dear seats while tens of thousands of McKenna’s Working Class Heroes sing songs celebrating the killing of Brit Soldiers,, writes New Labour ‘Nuclear Power is Brill’ shite in the Hootsman, out there, in the Real World, the roof is about to fall in.
WE need to kick start Indyref 2 now.
Check out the typos. I have literally clacked this off in a stream of consciousness rant.
‘Genteel’ Land Reform, not ‘gentile’, just to be clear, for fear Liam Fox Chairman of the Friends of Israel WM Lobby, or any of the two hundred or so Red Yellow and Blue Tory Friends of Israel MPs, charge me with some sort of anti Semitism slur…
It is the Iron Heel Oligarchy, to which I refer, not the Freudian typo ‘Iron Hell’, a lift from Jack London’s ‘The Iron Heel’,
from which I quote the following apocryphal stanza:-
“At first, this Earth, a stage so gloomed with woe
You almost sicken at the shifting of the scene,
And yet be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth act what this Wild Drama means.”
Scotland is in its ‘fifth act now’.
Independence or death.
Things to do.
‘Later.
andyfromdunnig…I’ve read it too, shocking how much the church helped along the theft of land
Land is exempt from tax to keep farms together. To produce more. Food and drink exports produce £Billions. Tax evasion is the problem. Whisky companies etc evade tax. Pay little tax. HQ in London.
There will be changes soon. Average farmer is over sixty.
When you refer to “ farmers “ Ken 2 , do you mean the people who actually farm the land or the people who actually own the land and the farms because most of the people who farm the land do not own the farm.
It’s a common trick the britnat media use now , they continually refer to “farmers” as being poor struggling to get bye but they are referring to people who either rent a farm or are employed to run it.
The people who own the farms
( many farms are now part of a group of farms owned by the one business which in turn is owned by the person who owns the land)
are rarely mentioned in the media in fact a great deal is done to hide the name of the owner by registering the ownership in the name of a company which is owned by another company and so on.
Just like the fishing industry in Scotland much of farming is owned by a few
An interesting article by George Kerevan in the National about George Galloway and Alliance for Unity. What is the purpose of this group? It can’t be to win list seats on behalf of the Unionists as the only list seats it can realistically hope to win are from Unionists parties. Keravan has some thoughts as to what the main purpose of this group might be.
What of Galloway’s latest sally north of the Border? Its real import has less to do with Galloway himself and more with the fact the Tories – directed by arch-plotter Michael Gove – see him as a tool to sow division in the working-class, Eurosceptic wing of the national movement.
One danger is that Galloway will provoke enough media attention to divert the focus of the indy campaign – such as it is, officially – towards defending the European Union rather than asserting the case for Scottish self-determination. Galloway’s local minions are also ramping up attacks on the SNP’s alleged infatuation with identity politics. They are busy accusing Education Secretary John Swinney of promoting over-explicit sex education in primary schools.
https://archive.vn/vMalM
The state has many tentacles and it will use them as they throw everything they have in their attempt to halt the rise in support for Independence.
Galloway doesn’t even live in Scotland these days, so what difference does it make to him? He is settled in London with a new baby. I say to people who choose not to live here, if you’re not involved in the day to day life of Scotland, don’t live here and/or have no real interest in Scotland other than demeaning her, then butt out and go your own way. Mind your own business and stop interfering. Stop doing the English Empire’s dirty work. It makes you look ridiculous, petty and vacuous.
Indeed had read that earlier and could only agree…
The Tories have been throwing millions at all sorts of failed (theoretically) enterprises so why not George Galloway. The Hat/Cat Man is shrewd enough to know the shit has hit the proverbial and banked it up front before undertaking his schlock and awe campaign…
Yes indeed the dirt is going to fly, perhaps PQ will need to bring their crack squad out of incontinent pigeons out of retirement…
Your last paragraph is right, of course, Alex but I am bound to wonder whether Galloway or Kerevan is more of a pest. I use the word “pest” because I don’t think either is more than that.
Galloway is the pits and I don’t think he is going to resonate with Scottish voters who have had more than their fill of self serving gobshites like him. He will be seen as no more than another very unpleasant clown along with Gove and his Tory chums. As such he will damage rather than improve their chances.
Kerevan, in the piece you linked to, has started the process of giving publicity to Galloway. Why? To give him publicity, that’s why. And Kerevan treats us to nudge, nudge, wink, wink insights into the Labour Party of old – the one he clings to, that has shrivelled up but won’t die as long as he and significant others have a platform to promote its malign influence.
Fortunately, no one who has twigged that their only hope for a decent way of life lies in an independent Scotland will be influenced by either of these prats. Those who are swithering will look to their own personal life experience, weigh up the carnage around them and decide to stick with the crap they know or ultimately be brave enough to put their money on Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.
For us to succeed we need to have a majority of people who are solidly committed to independence regardless of purile distractions. My hope is that we are already there. We are soon to find out.
Well said, I don’t trust Kerevan either. I thought it worth posting the extract from his piece simply to reemphasise the point that the UK state will not be playing fair in the next referendum just as they didn’t in the first.
Most of us already know that of course, but wee reminders now and again of just how sleekit they might be are always worth bringing to the attention of those not yet steeped in the use of Government propaganda to influence opinion. I’m thinking of the soft Noes and the undecided who were unlikely to have noticed how the BBC behaved for example in the first referendum.
I also think Galloway’s party is a complete waste of time and the winning of list seats for the Unionists is a load of old cobblers considering that in 2016 the SNP only won 4 and the greens 6 then they can really only threaten to win seats already held by Unionists.
Being in Scotland in order to cause mischief and confusion is as good a reason as any for the existence of this outfit. It doesn’t come free to set up such a party, so who’s paying? I doubt any money will be coming out of Galloway’s pocket.
Good to see Michelle Thompson coming back and going for a seat in Holyrood, she’s a good sort and it’ll really annoy the British press as well, so two birds eh
Yes Dr Jim well put.
Former SNP MP Michelle Thomson is bidding for a Holyrood seat in the 2021 Scottish elections.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18687506.former-snp-mp-michelle-thomson-launches-bid-holyrood-seat/
Thomson received prolong negative British nationalist media coverage long after charges of skullduggery were proven to be false.
In friendship:
https://nation.cymru/opinion/why-negative-comparisons-between-the-independence-movements-in-wales-and-scotland-dont-add-up/
Why negative comparisons between the independence movements in Wales and Scotland don’t add up
I believe once Scotland does this Wales will inherit momentum from it and support will rise for Independence in Wales surprisingly for some more quickly than it did in Scotland because Wales has the advantage of not being subject to sectarian loyalty to the crown above all else making logical reasoning with some people in Scotland an impenetrable task
From the piece …
” … here in Wales, support for independence currently stands at 32%. Not only is this the highest ever recorded but is in excess of that in Scotland at the outset of the 2014 referendum.”
it would be interesting to see a welsh poll asking indy voting intensions should scotland offski?
snp mp Neil Gray has thrown his hat into the ring to be selected as a candidate for Airdrie & Shotts in 2021
https://mobile.twitter.com/neilgraysnp/status/130039254516024524
”Bonnie Prince Charlie repealed the Union on the 9th October 1745 in the name of his father King James VIII.” https://twitter.com/traquir/status/1300449223771435008
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One big myth about the 1745/6 rising, particularly amongst sectarians, is that it was a Catholic uprising. Wrong.”.. https://twitter.com/Rog_Anderson/status/1135266994767519749