‘Tis the Season to be easin’

It’s that time of the year again when we eat too much, drink too much, and wake up the next day with a killer hangover, which is just your body’s way of saying :”Go and stay in your room young man/lady, and think very carefully about what you have done.” This is because getting drunk is more fun than being drunk, both of which are more fun than dealing with the aftermath the following day. But it’s also the season for gift giving. Given the Westminster mismanagement of the energy industry and the ruinously expensive fuel bills we are all facing, together with the threat of blackouts in a Scotland which produces and exports far more energy than it needs for domestic consumption, this year a lump of coal might actually be a good Christmas present.

This is also the season when all good supporters of Scottish independence get to indulge in the annual Christmas Day tradition of rushing to change the channel when the heid bummer royal’s Christmas Day message to the peasants comes on the telly while muttering, “Well, he’s not MY bloody spaniel!” This year following the death of the Queen, it’s the King’s Christmas Get That Pish Aff the Telly. According to her death certificate, the Queen died of old age. This is as plausible as Prince Andrew’s peculiar sweat free medical condition. No one dies of old age. Your body is not an egg timer or a certain brand of smart phone. It doesn’t automatically expire after a particular period of time. People die because something goes wrong with them. Things have been going wrong for the Windsors for quite some time, but we still have to endure Nicolas Bloody Witchell, to give him his full name, wittering on about them.

Royalty, they are basically just state sponsored influencers, like having to pay extra in tax so Kim Kardashian / Kate Middleton (delete as appropriate) can model some ruinously expensive coat and use their children as lifestyle accessories so that some sweat shop in China can flog off ridiculously over priced merch that will end up in a charity shop in the not too distant future.

It’s also the time of year when there is bugger all worth watching on telly, particularly if you are of a Bah Humbug persuasion. It’s wall to wall enforced jollity. The older I get, the more the festive season makes me understand why the Grinch just wanted to live by himself with his dog.

The other thing that traditionally happens this time of year is that politicians bugger off home to spend time with their families, or in Rishi Sunak’s case, to spend time with his money. Boris Johnson doesn’t go off to spend time with his family, because that would mean acknowledging that he has one. This means that there are very thin pickings for those of us who write about Scottish independence politics, and that is my cue to take some time off for the holidays. In the meantime have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes. I will see you all in 2023, when there is bound to be plenty to talk about.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

The Aye right reflex

Well I am back online again, thank you to everyone who helped. I have lost some data, my own fault for not backing everything up for a few weeks, but it’s nothing I can’t live without. The problem was that the SSD drive in the old laptop gave up the ghost. The old laptop froze just as I was about to start work on that day’s blog, and then would not boot back up again into Windows. I just got an error message saying “no bootable device”. These things are sent to try us.

But thanks to the wonderful readers of this blog I now have a lovely new laptop which I spent most of yesterday configuring and setting up. Luckily I was able to recover all of my log ins and passwords. I also plan to get a second refurbished laptop soon so that I always have a back up. Then if there are future technological disasters it won’t interrupt blogging and writing.

It seems that there were some interesting developments during my enforced absence. On Sunday we got the seventh poll in a row to show a majority for independence, this time by Panelbase for the Sunday Times. This confirms the pattern established since the massive own goal for British nationalism, the Supreme Court ruling that Scotland is too wee and too stupid to be allowed to decide for itself whether it wants another independence referendum. This poll puts support for independence on 52%. This categorically does not represent a slipping back in support for independence, as some of the frothing British nationalists on social media would like to believe. In recent years Panelbase has tended to place support for independence at a lower level than some of the other polling companies so to have majority support for independence in a Panelbase poll is very good news indeed.

Together this run of polls confirm that there has been a real shift in Scottish public opinion since the Supreme Court ruling. Far from killing off support for independence, all that the ruling did was to provoke Scotland’s famous “Aye, that WILL be right” reflex. The key now is to ensure that momentum is not lost in 2023.

With that in mind, the SNP has announced the date of its special conference to decide the strategy for using the next election as a de facto referendum. The polls seem to show some public hesitancy about this strategy, which hopefully should be alleviated once the details are made clear. For my own part I feel that there should be a two pronged strategy.

Any pro-independence MPs elected to Westminster in this de facto referendum should refuse to take their seats in the Commons if there is a Yes majority in the popular vote. Their only job is to force the British Government to negotiate independence. SNP MPs and all MSPs should form a Scottish National Convention to chart the country’s path to independence, forming a de facto Parliament for an independent Scotland. This convention should seek to reach out to the international community to put pressure on the British Government and bring it to the negotiating table. All MSPs from all parties should be invited to participate in the convention, because an independent Scotland will not belong just to those who voted Yes. Scotland cannot and must not repeat the arrogance of the Conservatives following the Brexit vote.

However if the SNP wins the election and trounces the British nationalist parties, but does not achieve a majority of the votes cast, this must be regarded as a mandate for another referendum and it should be the duty of the SNP to disrupt Westminster by all lawful means until the referendum takes place. The message from Scotland must be clear, the days of being ignored are over. Every arcane and obscure rule in the Westminster playbook must be utilised to bring the business of Westminster to a halt until Scotland’s demands are heeded. After all, if Keir Starmer believes that Labour can win a mandate for constitutional change on a minority of the popular vote then the SNP can win a mandate for another referendum on a minority of the vote too.

These are just my opinions. I am sure that SNP members and representatives have opinions of their own, but one thing must be clear, the current undemocratic constitutional log jam is intolerable and must be broken.

In other news while I was offline, the Scottish budget was announced. Feathers were spit by the usual suspects when John Swinney announced in the Scottish budget that the £20 million which had been set aside for the referendum will instead be used to help alleviate fuel poverty.

The first thing to make absolutely clear here is that this move has zero effect on the route to independence that we find ourselves on following the Supreme Court ruling. Sure, Scotland could have pressed ahead with an unlawful referendum anyway, but that would not deliver independence. Not only would the British parties boycott it, but neither the British state nor the international community would recognise the result. We would end up in the same situation as Catalonia, which you may have noticed, is still not independent. We are in yhe business of winning independence here, not making grand and futile gestures that risk setting us back for many years.

The £20 million was not set aside to campaign for independence, it was earmarked for paying for the practical and technical considerations of holding a vote. Democracy costs money. Those costs will now be subsumed in the costs of the next election. Assuming that is a UK General Election, the independence vote will be paid for by the British state. Westminster will then have to foot the bill for its own destruction in Scotland. Serves them right.

Importantly, the Scottish Government has confirmed that it will still be publishing its series of papers setting out the case for independence. The case for independence is still going to be articulated.

£20 million is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to tackling fuel poverty, but it deprives the Conservatives of one of their attack lines. But Tories gotta Tory, and they have now switched from demanding that the Scottish Government do something about the health service to complaining that the Scottish Government is doing something about the health service. This is of course because the budget also contained the announcement that taxes in Scotland will rise, the extra funds raised will be used for the NHS. There is now a clear distinction in policy and outlook between Scotland and the rest of the UK. These distinctions will loom ever larger as that independence vote grows closer.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

Tech disaster

Sorry, but there won’t be a new blog post today or for a couple of days. Unfortunately I have had a major tech disaster. My laptop has died and I am going to have to buy a new one. There’s nothing sinister going on, it was just an elderly machine and it has finally given up the ghost. I have borrowed my husband’s work laptop to write this. I had hoped that the old laptop would last out until the next annual crowdfunder in the summer, but the machine would not boot up at all this morning and my resident tech expert tells me it is a gonner.

This is a big expense I have not budgeted for. I hate to ask, but if readers could help by making a donation to my PayPal account I will be able to get up and running much more quickly. Thank you very much.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

Starmer doesn’t need Scotland and Scotland doesn’t need Starmer

In an arithmetic defying display of preemptive petulance, no doubt encouraged by the resounding ‘meh’ with which Gordie Broon’s constitutional tinkering was received, Labour leader Keir Starmer is getting his excuses in early. If his party is unable to form a government following the next UK General Election, this will all be the fault of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, not the fault of a Labour leader who has wholeheartedly espoused the Conservatives’ hardline Brexit, in the process alienating the millions of remain voters in England, and who is trying to out-nasty Suella Braverman in his desire to be vile to desperate undocumented migrants.

Aping all the worst policies of the Tories in order to appeal to English nationalists in Brexit supporting constituencies in northern England is not giving the electorate a choice. It’s depriving the electorate of choice and is effectively disenfranchising not only Scotland but that majority in England which thinks that Brexit was a mistake.

As polling expert John Curtice noted last week, Labour has effectively abandoned Scotland, making a tactical decision to pander to the English nationalism of the Brexit supporting constituencies in England which it lost to the Conservatives in 2019 and to sideline the interests of a Scotland in which Brexit is as popular as a bridie at a vegan wedding. But if Labour doesn’t need Scotland, Scotland sure as hell doesn’t need Labour.

So if Starmer fails to win a Commons majority with his Tory lite policies he will only have himself to blame, it’s not Nicola Sturgeon who does not want membership of the EU, the single market and customs union and has set her face against the reintroduction of freedom of movement. That would be Starmer. It’s not Nicola Sturgeon who is denying Scottish democracy and lecturing Scots on what their priorities ought to be, that would also be Starmer. It’s not Nicola Sturgeon who is insisting that the UK is a voluntary union but is refusing to say what the democratic route to another referendum is. That would be Starmer too.

Yet this man in his Tory-esque arrogance demands that Scotland’s electorate must vote for him in order to get the Tories out, so that Scotland can be ignored and treated with contempt by a different English nationalist party that denies that it is a party of English nationalism. Vote for the other cheek of the same arse that’s crapping all over democracy in Scotland is hardly a very appealing message, but that’s the reality of what Starmer is offering.

Starmer for, all his channelling of Tony Blair reincarnated as the pub bore droning on about his collection of novelty golf tees, is very much old Labour. It’s his way or no way. He lives in terror of finding himself in need of support from a more progressive party like the SNP, a party which won’t assist him with his centre-right migrant hating Brexit loving agenda.

In an interview with LBC radio on Monday the left cheek ruled out doing any deals withe the SNP in the event of a hung parliament – and then had the total cheek of blaming the SNP for allowing in a Conservative government. This is the very same Labour party which is propping up the Tories in local authorities across Scotland, yet wants people in Scotland to vote Labour to protect themselves from the Conservatives whom Labour is enabling and whose policies Labour is copying. Starmer would rather see the Tories in power than respect Scottish democracy and the rights of those in Scotland to choose their own future. And then he has the gall to blame the SNP and the voters of Scotland for the consequences that he himself has made in order to pursue the English nationalist vote.

Starmer claimed the the challenges facing the UK “Ukraine and security, a pandemic, how we grow our economy, the climate crisis … these are issues which will be better met as a union of four nations going forward together.” After dismissing Scotland’s voters and Scotland’s concerns, he preaches about four nations working together.

But as we all know now, the UK is not a Union, it is a unitary state in which the smaller nations are compelled to do what the largest union decides, and in which they have no means of ensuring that their interests and concerns are taken into account. This is a union in the exact same way that Lex Luthor is in a partnership with his minions. That arrangement suits Lex Luthor just fine, but it’s the minions who get sacrificed on the altar of his vanity. The UK is not a union, it’s the not so super villain Westminster and its minions.

We all know that how Scotland votes makes very little difference in determining the Westminster government. Westminster is set up to ensure that what England wants England gets, at least within the constraints of the unfair and unrepresentative first past the post voting system, which allows a party which wins less than 50% of votes cast to end up with a crushing majority in the Commons. Scotland’s 59 seats can only hope to make a difference when the balance of power amongst MPs elected to represent seats in England is very finely balanced. Even if Scotland had voted for a Labour MP in every one of its 59 Westminster seats in 2019, Boris Johnson would still have a crushing majority in the Commons, and Scotland would still be every bit as marginalised and ignored, more so in fact. Labour only pays attention to Scotland when it fears the rise of support for independence. That’s the only reason we got Gordie Broon’s non-alcoholic constitutional review, or rather Labour’s promise to consult on constitutional review, as long as it didn’t change anything important.

Labour’s much vaunted constitutional review had this to say about reform of the House of Commons, the ground zero of British constitutional and political dysfunction : ……….. The sound of no hands clapping. Vote Labour and nothing is going to change. As the SNP’s new Westminster deputy leader Mhairi Black said: “The choice facing Scots at the next election is between an escape from the broken Westminster system with independence or the same old chaos and destruction we’re forced to live through right now as part of that system.” At the next General Election Scotland can show a Starmer that doesn’t need Scotland that it doesn’t need Starmer.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

Not Scexit but Scenduk

Over recent months there has been a concerted attempt by the frothier – read ‘deranged’ – end of the “Rule Britannia, God Save the King, Keep out migrants, we hate nationalism when it’s Scottish” types in social media and newspaper comments sections to get the term ‘scexit’ established as the preferred term for Scottish independence. This is getting more insistent as opinion polling continues to show that support for independence is in the lead and the British nationalist troll account which calls itself ‘The Majority’ is in fact ‘The Minority.’ Today the fifth poll in succession gave a lead to Yes, with now even the traditionally No-friendly YouGov putting support for independence up 4% on 53% once don’t knows are excluded.

The moon howlers of British nationalism use the term ‘scexit’ because they see it as a pejorative. The word independence has positive connotations and the diehard supporters of Anglo-British supremacism cannot permit anything that might portray a Scotland that is in charge of its own affairs in a positive light. Naturally they seek to use a term which is Anglocentric not Scottocentric. Independence centres Scotland and Scottish aspirations, ‘Scexit’ like ‘separation’ centres the British state. It implies that the important consideration is the act of ‘leaving’, not the end state of independence. It’s like describing emigrating to a better life in the sun as a trip to the airport. It’s a term which puts Scotland in a subordinate position, the very antithesis of what independence is all about.

It is however richly ironic that the same people who champion Brexit are trying to get a term derived from the word Brexit established in Scotland as a negative alternative to the standard term independence because they understand that Brexit is widely reviled in Scotland and is seen by a large majority to be a dismal failure. But then logical consistency is not the strong suit amongst people who take to social media accounts bedecked with flags and declarations of loyalty to a monarch in order to tell us all how much they hate nationalism.

However the preferred neologism of the staunch mob will however never catch on beyond the narrow confines of GB News – which apparently stands for Gammon Bampot News, and the RANDOM capitalisations of the Express, a publication which regularly and knowingly publishes misleading and false stories – such as an interview from beyond the grave with the ghost of Princess Diana – and yet still insists that it’s a newspaper.

In no small measure this is because independence is the standard English word for the state a nation finds itself in when it ceases to be a political dependency of another country, no one talks about the Ausxit of Australia or the American declaration of Usaxit. The idiotic word Scexit attempts to make out, entirely falsely, that independence for Scotland is somehow conceptually and qualitatively different from the independence of any other nation that takes the step of becoming an independent state. It’s a bit like insisting that a bus is no longer a bus because it is carrying a Scottish set of passengers, everyone can see that that would be a nonsense, and a nonsense is exactly what the word Scexit is.

But even on its own terms the word fails. At its core it attempts to draw an equivalence between the UK leaving the European Union, and Scotland becoming an independent state once more. Yet the equivalence fails. The British state wields far vastly greater power over Scotland than the European Union ever did over the UK. The UK could and did negotiate opt outs from EU policies which it found politically unacceptable, such as the single currency or the Schengen Zone. Scotland gets no opt outs from what Westminster determines, it just has to, in the words of Alister Jack, “suck it up.”

The UK was already an independent state prior to Brexit and did not need to seek the permission of Brussels in order to hold a referendum on the question of British membership of the EU. Scotland, as the proponents of Brexit are very fond of asserting, does require the permission of Westminster in order to hold a referendum on independence. The EU is a voluntary union of nations in which each member has equal status and a voice in making decisions which affect them. The UK is not. The UK is a unitary state which lies about being a voluntary union of nations and in which the smaller nations do what the largest nation decides .

Another crucial distinction is that when the Brextremists hijacked the narrow leave vote to impose their hardline version of Brexit, they stripped European citizenship from all British citizens, leavers and remainers alike. Scottish independence will not strip British citizenship from residents of Scotland who are currently British citizens. The parliament of an independent Scotland does not have the power to decide who is or is not a British citizen, only the British government can do that. In the exact same way the government of an independent Scotland cannot decide who gets to be a Danish or a Greek citizen, only Denmark and Greece can make those decisions. If, following Scottish independence, British citizens in Scotland lose their right to British citizenship, that can only be as a result of a decision made by the British government, not the Scottish one. Unlike Brexit, Scottish independence will not result in anyone being stripped of their citizenship against their will.

The use of the joke word Scexit is a crude and blatant attempt by Anglo-British nationalist supremacists to gaslight Scotland into fearing that an independent Scottish Government will behave exactly as the English nationalist Brextremists of Westminster have done.

But there is yet another reason why the word Scexit is an idiocy and anyone who uses it to argue against Scottish independence should be dismissed as a fool. The departure of the UK from the European Union left the EU down one member but still intact. Scotland becoming independent does not leave the UK intact. Scotland becoming independent does not mean ‘leaving’ the UK, it means ending the UK. The polity that remains after Scottish independence can call itself what it likes, but it is no longer the United Kingdom in any meaningful sense. The United Kingdom was so called because two kingdoms united, the Kingdom of Scotland, and the Kingdom of England and its crown dependencies. After Scottish independence all that is left is the Kingdom of England, trying to tell itself it is still the United Kingdom, even as Wales thinks of following Scotland’s example and Irish reunification gets ever closer. After Scottish independence there is no UK any more.

But if they insist on silly made up words for Scottish independence, then at very least be accurate about it. It’s not Sc.exit, it’s Sc.end.uk. Scotland will not be exiting the United Kingdom, it will be ending it.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

Borrowed time

There have been some significant developments over the past few days in a campaign for Scottish independence that was supposed to have been killed off by the recent Supreme Court ruling that it is up to a Prime Minister that Scotland didn’t vote for and not the people of Scotland to decide if Scotland can ask itself about the nature of its relationship with the other nations of the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Since the court ruling there have now been four opinion polls in a row showing majority support for independence, the most recent being a poll from Find Out Now which put support for independence on 54%.

Notably, and most damaging for those British politicians who cite opinion polling as the rationale for their undemocratic blocking of the mandate for another independence referendum which the people of Scotland gave to the Scottish Parliament in the May 2021 elections, one of these polls demonstrated that a majority want another independence referendum within the term of this Scottish Parliament, a large majority want another independence referendum at some point, and only 26% never want another referendum at all. The polls also concur in showing that independence is overwhelmingly the preference of the younger generations, with only the oldest age group still showing a majority for No. Westminster rule in Scotland is on borrowed time, and the longer that British politicians succeed in defying the democratic will of the people of Scotland for another vote on independence, the more comprehensive the defeat for Westminster is going to be.

The demographic implications are crystal clear, you might imagine that a sensible and tactically thinking UK party leader would understand that the longer they prevaricate, the harder they are going to find the inevitable vote on independence is going to be to win. Logically therefore, the parties opposed to independence ought to be seeking an independence vote as quickly as possible in order to maximise the chances of the decisive victory that they need in order to park the independence issue for a couple of decades.

But Westminster is cursed by short term thinking. For the current party leaders it suffices to kick the can down the road until after the next election, by which time they hope that the issue becomes someone else’s problem, and they won’t be remembered in English history books as the man or woman who lost Scotland – and make no mistake – these people very much regard Scotland as a possession which is theirs to keep or to lose. Despite their claims to the contrary, the views of the people of Scotland are to them but a trifling consideration.

This is abundantly clear in the arrogance of both Starmer and Sunak. Starmer thinks so little of Scottish opinion that he has fully subscribed to the economic and cultural suicide of the Conservatives’ hard Brexit. In this prison that calls itself a union, only England’s opinions matter. Writing in the Observer newspaper over the weekend, former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain noted that for Labour as much as the Conservatives Brexit has become a taboo subject which cannot be questioned and whose negative effects cannot be mentioned or acknowledged, far less addressed and remedied. Brexit is the reason why the UK is the only major economy which has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, Brexit has created a labour shortage, driven up food prices by 6% according to the London School of Economics and decreased UK trade by 15%. Yet neither Labour nor the Conservatives are willing to admit that Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster, in thrall as they are to the right wing press and English nationalist exceptionalism.

Hain warns : “As these Brexit failings become more evident, support for Scottish independence appears to be edging up. Unless Labour does something about it, we could get independence driven at least in part by Brexit, which Nicola Sturgeon continually stresses in making her case.” Brexit is not the sole reason for the rise in support for independence, although it certainly is an important factor. Another crucial factor is that the UK Scotland is a part of is not the UK that Scotland was told it could be a part of in 2014. That UK was a voluntary union of nations in which Scotland was an equal partner, a union which guaranteed Scotland’s place in the European union and in which the devolution settlement was to be protected forever from Westminster meddling. It was a voluntary union which was about to become federal, a union in which Scotland’s voice and opinion was always going to be represented and respected at the highest levels of British government.

But none of this will change until Labour starts to address Scottish concerns seriously, not trying to fob us off with Gordie Broon’s frankly pathetic reforms, proposals which represent a rowing back on what Labour was proposing just a couple of years ago. However for Labour as much as the Conservatives a desire for Scottish independence is seen to be evidence of intransigent Scottish wickedness at worst, and Scottish foolishness at best. The Westminster parties can never properly start to address the reasons for the rise in support for Scottish independence as long as they continue to view it as a consequence of some sort of Scottish moral failure, and not as a consequence of British political and constitutional shortcomings. It’s far more comforting for the parties of Anglo-British nationalism to tell themselves that the blame lies with anglophobic, foolish or grievance mongering Scots rather than with their own failures and shortcomings.

So the next time some delusional “I’m not a nationalist because I’m British’ opponent of Scottish independence whines about the 2014 referendum not being respected, remind them of what they promised in order to win it, and ask when they intend to start respecting their own commitments and vows.

Although plans have been afoot for some time, the recent excellent polling results for independence support give a huge boost to the announcement over the weekend that a Scottish Independence Congress is to be created in which all organisations campaigning for independence will be welcome, regardless of party affiliation. According to Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp : “The goal of the event is to bring the Yes movement together, to agree goals, tactics and behaviours that will speed up Scotland’s progress towards independence.”

Increasingly, it’s clear that Westminster rule in Scotland is living on borrowed time.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.

Off to a flying start

Stephen Flynn and Mhairi Black could not have chosen a better day to kick of their new leadership of the SNP’s Westminster group. We are going to be seeing a lot more of both of them in their new high profile roles, and that can only be a good thing. The new leader Stephen Flynn had a baptism of fire, being thrown into the bear pit of Prime Minister’ Questions within hours of being elected as the SNP’s Westminster leader. It’s safe to say that he easily rose to the challenge, giving a confident and assured performance, completely unrattled by the baying mob of Conservative MPs facing him across the chamber and clearly enjoying the discomfort of both Labour and the Tories when he asked Sunak if the greatest achievement of the Conservatives was Brexit, leaving the Single Market, denying Scottish democracy, or seeing the Labour party adopt all those policies.

But the knife was really turned when he revealed that not fifteen minutes previously a new opinion poll commissioned from Ipsos-Mori by STV had found a sharp rise in support for independence. 56% of those polled would vote Yes if given the opportunity, an opportunity which Labour and the Conservatives are united in wanting to deny to Scotland. This is now the third poll since the Supreme Court ruling which has given a lead to Yes, it seems that Scottish people do not after all take kindly to judges sitting in a court in London telling them that they don’t get to decide what happens to their own country, and are giving that typically Scottish response to being told that they are not allowed to do something. Aye, pal, that WILL be right.

It’s not just the 6% rise in support for independence which is significant about this poll, it is also the fact that it gives good grounds for believing that a UK General Election used as a de facto referendum could actually be winnable. The poll gives SNP support at a Westminster General Election as 51%, with Labour trailing in a distant second on 25% and the Tories far behind on a paltry 13%, a drop of 6%. This would not only give the SNP the majority of votes cast that it sought in a de facto referendum, it would also deliver an almost complete wipe out of all the other parties with the SNP taking all but one of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats. Both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems would face electoral obliteration, losing all of their MPs. Labour would be the sole anti-independence party to retain any representation, being reduced to a single MP, presumably Ian Murray, who would then insist that Scotland had rejected nationalism.

Scotland would have rejected nationalism, it would have rejected the English nationalism which has been espoused by both Labour and the Conservative party, but we all know that Ian has a blind spot as far as the English nationalism of his own party is concerned. You don’t need to be confirmed supporter of Scottish independence to see it. On Wednesday polling expert John Curtice was reported as observing that the Labour party has effectively given up on Scotland, doubling down on its support for a hard Brexit in its pursuit of leave supporting constituencies in the Midlands and north of England. Despite Starmer’s protestations to the contrary, the party has calculated that it is not worth the loss of support in England to court popularity in remain supporting Scotland by adopting policies favouring closer ties with the European Union.

What Scotland wants, and what even Anas Sarwar was until recently insisting was in Scotland’s best interests, is to be sacrificed on the altar of English nationalist exceptionalism and its Brexit delusions. But that’s not nationalist at all. Oh no.

The polling news for the SNP is even better if the party contests the next UK General Election as a de facto referendum in which it seeks a mandate for independence itself. Then 53% of respondents say that they would vote SNP, and a further 2% would put their cross next to candidates from the equally pro-independence Scottish Greens, support for other pro-independence parties is not explicitly given in the poll, but Alba achieved 0.7% of first preference votes in Scotland’s most recent elections, the local elections in May 2022, and 1.66% in the regional list vote in the previous year’s Scottish Parliament so it is entirely possible that the total combined pro-independence vote across all parties in a de facto referendum could reach 57%, or possibly even more given an effective and co ordinated campaign from independence supporters. Even the Holy Grail of 60% support for independence no longer seems totally out of reach.

60% support for independence has already been reached in Glasgow,South Scotland and Fife are not far behind. There is now a majority for independence in every region of Scotland. 33% of Labour voters now back independence. Field work for this poll was carried out before the non-event that was the unveiling of Gordie Broon’s profoundly uninspiring constitutional review. The paltry nature of Labour’s promises to Scotland may very well drive even more Labour voters to back independence.

The data set for the poll confirms that support for independence enjoys an apparently unassailable lead amongst people under the age of 55. These are the voters that the Yes campaign needs to ensure are both registered to vote, and that they turn out and vote on the day. Another fascinating finding from this poll is that a majority of those with higher educational qualifications or a university degree support independence. Opposition to independence has majority support amongst those with no educational qualifications, putting a lie to the frequent British nationalist slur that support for independence is the preserve of uneducated neds. In fact the uneducated neds are disproportionately to be found amongst opponents of independence, many of them infest social media professing their love for the royals and a particular fitba team.

Meanwhile the BBC on its Scottish politics page was studiously avoiding any mention of the opinion poll that gave support for independence a resounding lead but was instead asking whether not Nicola Sturgeon is “losing her grip on the SNP”. The answer is no, but the British state is most certainly losing its grip on Scotland, and the BBC has lost its grip on credibility.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

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Passing the baton

The SNP Westminster group has chosen its new leader and deputy leader to replace Ian Blackford and Kirsten Oswald who have stood down as leader and deputy leader respectively. The leading contenders were Aberdeen South MP Stephen Flynn , who ousted Tory Ross Thomson at the 2019 General Election, and Alison Thewliss, who has represented Glasgow Central since 2015. Stephen Flynn chose Paisley MP Mhairi Black as his running mate and as his deputy, whereas Alison Thewliss chose Stuart McDonald, who represents Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East – not to be confused with the similarly named Stewart McDonald, the MP for Glasgow South since 2015.

The Thewliss and McDonald team was perceived as being close to Nicola Sturgeon whereas the Flynn- Black team is reportedly in favour of a more robust and confrontational approach for the SNP in Westminster and a greater willingness to adopt positions at variance with the Scottish Government. Stephen Flynn has already signalled that he is in favour of granting new exploration licences for oil and gas in the North Sea, an issue which resonates in his own constituency.

In the event the Flynn and Black team won, by 26 votes to 17, in a vote of the party’s MPs, one MP did not vote, thr result gives the Aberdeen South MP a greater margin of victory than some had predicted. Shortly after his victory was announced, Flynn chose Mhairi Black as his deputy, the new leader and deputy leader represent the leadership baton being passed to a younger generation of politicians, Stephen Flynn is 34, while Mhairi Black is 28. This could be significant given the demographics of independence support, the new leadership team belong to an age cohort amongst whom there is a large majority in favour of independence. Both are too young to have had any political awareness of a time before there was a Scottish Parliament, Stephen Flynn was just nine and Mhairi Black was only three when Scotland voted in the 1997 referendum in favour of a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. They belong to a generation for whom the idea of Scotland making its own decisions is entirely normal.

Congratulations Stephen and Mhairi – now let’s get this thing done.

The new SNP Westminster leader has said that under his leadership : “SNP MPs would be relentlessly focused on standing up for Scotland’s interests and our democratic right to decide our future in an independence referendum.” He added : “SNP MPs will work harder than ever to hold the Tory government to account – and make the case that independence is the essential route to safety, fairness and prosperity for Scotland.”

Of course the anti-independence press are spinning this development as a ‘blow for Nicola Sturgeon,’ well they would say that wouldn’t they, and in order to make their case they rely on quotes from Conservative politicians who would describe absolutely anything as a blow for Nicola Sturgeon and who proved just how good their judgement is by backing Liz Truss just a few weeks ago. In fact all that it proves is that Bute House does not have the iron grip on the party that the SNP’s detractors claim it does.

This is good for party democracy and demonstrates a healthy independence of thought amongst the party’s Westminster representatives and a willingness to explore the new tactics that will prove necessary now that the independence campaign is operating in a new post ‘voluntary union’ landscape. But of course it’s a blow for Nicola Sturgeon, because, you know, everything is.

If the vote had gone the other way the story would have been about how the SNP group at Westminster was a creature of the leadership in Edinburgh and not permitted any freedom of thought and action. No matter what the development is a negative spin is going to be put on it. That’s what Scotland’s media exists to do.

The first test for the new leadership team comes on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, although it would be more accurate to call it Prime Minister’s contemptuous evasions. Stephen Flynn’s rise has been rapid, he has only been an MP since 2019, too short a time for the usual jibes of the critics of the SNP’s Westminster contingent to be at all accurate in his case. He’s not an MP who intends to settle in at Westminster, but rather to settle the score with Westminster, even more so given that he becomes Westminster leader at at time when the British state has destroyed the traditional unionist claim that the UK is a voluntary union and we are looking at a de facto independence referendum at the next Westminster General Election as the most likely means of ensuring that Scotland gets its say on its place within the failing democracy of the British state.

The braying boors on the Conservative benches will not be giving the new leadership team any time to settle in. There are reports that the new Westminster leader plans to shake up the party’s front bench team. It has also been suggested that he will be more prepared to be confrontational in the Commons, rather than playing by rules that are stacked against Scotland.

I have seen, and been mightily impressed by some of the speeches that Mhairi Black has delivered in the Commons, she takes no prisoners in her condemnation of the misdeeds of the Conservative party, and that no holds barred approach is exactly what is required. I am less familiar with Stephen Flynn, but I hope that he displays the same strength of character and an unwillingness to be shouted down by the jeering English nationalist bigots and morons who populate the Conservative benches. He has certainly displayed a more combative approach in some of his interventions in the Commons, an approach which has won him the support of a majority of his colleagues in the Commons.

Fire must be fought with fire. That’s what Scotland needs right now, Westminster’s contempt for Scotland must be countered robustly and head on. We are in new territory now, with a Westminster and both Labour and Conservative parties which do not disguise their contempt for the democratic choices of Scotland. It must be no more Mr and Ms Nice Guy from here on in. Here’s hoping that is exactly what this new young leadership team will deliver.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

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An insult to damp squibs

There’s been a bit of time now to properly digest the latest offering from Gordie Broon and his big bag of vows, but you know that no one has been remotely whelmed by it when not even the Gordie Broon Fan Flub, otherwise known as BBC Scotland news, can be bothered to lead with it on either its lunchtime or Evening news programmes, preferring to lead with a story about dualling the A9. Calling it a damp squib is an insult to water soaked fireworks, which can at least be coaxed into a farting noise after being dried out, Labour is more like a firework at the bottom of the Mariana Trench which is not just thoroughly drenched, but crushed out of recognition by the weight of seven miles depth of water.

Of course the BBC wasn’t going to ignore Labour’s big announcement entirely, even though there’s as much chance of them actually seeing the light of day as there is of Gordie admitting that he ran away and hid and failed dismally to ensure that his 2014 Vow was implemented in full as he promised he would. When the piece was announced the presenter said: “I warn you that it contains… ” and I thought that she was going to say in a rare outbreak of constitutional honesty from BBC Scotland … “grade A bollocks delivered by a discredited liar.” But no, it was flash photography that we really had to be wary about.

It was so dire that not even BBC Scotland’s Glenn Campbell could muster up any enthusiasm for the new proposals, pointing out that they did not even go as far as the Labour manifesto commitments in 2019, never mind rehashing some of the promises made in 2014 such as the commitment to ensure that the powers of the Scottish Parliament are made safe from potential meddling from a future Conservative Prime Minister who is hostile to devolution. It was difficult to escape the conclusion that even BBC Scotland knows that the Labour party is merely going through the motions and the real purpose of these proposals is not to have something which can be implemented, but just to have a story to tell the voters of Scotland, a story that can conveniently go the same way as the Vow and previous Labour proposals to reform the Lords the moment that Starmer gets into Number Ten.

The BBC put up a protective cordon around Starmer, Brown, and Sarwar and did not ask them why we should believe that this time they are going to deliver something that Labour actually vowed to deliver in 2014 only for the UK Supreme Court to rule in no uncertain terms that it was a constitutional impossibility in a UK in which the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament is deemed to be absolute and in which no Parliament can bind the hands of its successors. So given this constitutional and legal framework, which Brown’s proposals notably did not address, how exactly does Labour propose to ensure that a future Conservative government which is hostile to devolution does not attempt to undermine or by-pass the devolution settlement without the express consent of Holyrood. The BBC did not see fit to ask.

This is not a hypothetical question either. The Sewel convention, which says that the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament was written into the Scotland Act, albeit with the addition of the weasel word ‘normally’ but that has proven no defence against successive Conservative governments determined to use Brexit as as excuse to hollow out the devolution settlement. So how exactly is it going to be different this time round?

You might think that if Labour was at all serious about putting these proposals before the people of Scotland as an alternative to independence they might have a credible answer to that question, but there has been no mention of it, if indeed it exists, and the BBC and the anti-independence Scottish media do not appear overly concerned about pressing them on it.

Even senior figures in the Labour party are unimpressed by this plan or more accurately a plan to consult on a plan. Labour peers have warned Starmer not to waste political capital on an issue which they claim is of limited interest to voters. Former senior Labour advisor David Clark was deeply unimpressed, writing on Twitter: “I’m surprised and disappointed at how unambitious this is. It isn’t even quasi-federalism. More tinkering with the Heath Robinson contraption of the British state will create new anomalies without resolving the pressures pulling the UK apart.”

The proposals do not help Scotland restore closer ties with the EU, a few months ago Anas Sarwar said that 300,000 Scottish jobs depend upon British membership of the Single Market, this week Keir Starmer says there’s no case for rejoining the Single Market, and Anas Sarwar says nothing.

Starmer also finds himself exposed to a charge of hypocrisy. Just a couple of weeks ago Starmer dismissed the Scottish First Minister’s plan to use the next General Election as a de facto independence referendum, saying issues at a national poll cannot “be reduced by somebody else into a completely different constitutional question”. But that is precisely what Starmer is proposing, claiming a Labour victory in the General Election, even a victory in which Labour fails to win more than half of votes cast, would give him a mandate for far reaching constitutional change. He will claim this mandate even as he continues to deny that the Scottish Parliament has a mandate for another referendum. British nationalist double standards strike again.

Starmer denies Scotland a referendum on the basis of his claim that voters are more interested in bread and butter issues than the constitution, but insists that his constitutional proposals are necessary in order to deliver on those bread and butter issues while denying the exact same claim made by independence supporters about the necessity for independence in order to deliver on bread and butter issues.

A constitutional proposal for more consultations which puts Scotland on the same par as the English regions and mayorships. Yeah that will really win back hacked of Scottish voters angry that they have been lied to about the nature of the UK as a voluntary union. Especially when the proposal is being made by one of the politicians who has been doing the lying. Starmer used this launch to pontificate about allowing the people and not politicians to make the decisions while still refusing to allow Scotland to decide for itself whether it wants a referendum.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

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Now is the winter of this contempt

The UK is bracing itself for a winter of discontent, of strikes affecting numerous sectors, even nurses are being driven in their desperation to take strike action. Across the UK we are facing rising food prices, the looming threat of another unaffordable hike in energy bills, soaring rent and mortgage costs, and presiding over it all a Conservative government determined to ‘tough it out’ no matter what the suffering caused to millions of households which are already struggling to stave off hunger and the winter freeze, terrified about keeping a roof over their heads. The are hoping that the public will blame the striking workers for the disaster that the Conservatives have created.

The Tories have run a programme of austerity and slashing public services to the bone for the last 12 years, they have blatantly worked on the basis of one rule for us and our mates and another for the rest of you – most obviously with the so-called ‘VIP lane’ giving the Conservatives’ cronies and donors preferential access to PPE contracts during the pandemic,now the consequences of corruption of Conservative institutional corruption are breaking through in a Britain where everything is broken, where everything is shoddy and shabby, more difficult, poorer in quality and yet more expensive, where shit is pumped onto beaches and where the most simple tasks like booking a driving test or a dentist appointment entail herculean effort.

Britain is broken and it’s the Tories who broke it. They broke it with their ideologically driven hard Brexit, their privatisations, their austerity, their contempt for decency in public office, their enrichment of their cronies and their pillaging of public funds for private greed.

Yet according to the Sunday Times, the priority for the government which has created and is presiding over this mess is new laws on asylum seekers, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman proposing that asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats should be locked up indefinitely and banned from ever settling in the UK.

When you have royally screwed up everywhere and have no tools to clean up the mess, try blaming desperate foreigners in order to appeal to the xenophobic English nationalists who still believe in Brexit. The UK has an ageing population, and serious huge skill and staff shortages. Food is rotting in the fields, the NHS is desperate for staff, whole industries are desperate for staff and immigrants are needed in order to rescue the British economy from the problems that the Conservatives created when they ended freedom of movement.

Despite the claims of Keir Starmer and the even more lightweight Anas Sarwar, a vote for Labour is a vote for things to remain the same. Labour will not seek the UK’s re-entry into the Single Market or Customs Union and has ruled out the restoration of freedom of movement. And just like the Conservatives, Labour will continue to ignore the decisions of the people of Scotland as expressed through the ballot box if these are decisions not to Westminster’s liking. Starmer is as hypocritical and evasive as Douglas Ross when it comes to detailing what Scotland’s path to another referendum is. They both insist it exists, they both refuse to say what it is, it’s top secret.

The shadow health secretary Wes Streeting believes in continued, and even increased, private sector involvement in the NHS. Both he and Keir Starmer have taken donations from private health providers. On Sunday, Labour peers warned Starmer against ‘wasting political capital’ on reform of the House of Lords, insisting he would get bogged down in a constitutional quagmire.

Gordie Broon hadn’t even unveiled his much vaunted proposals for constitutional reform, proposals which you can be certain will be broadcast with much fanfare on BBC Scotland News ,yet we could already hear the screeching sound of Labour doing a sharp handbrake U-turn. The proposals will be touted as Labour’s great alternative to independence but you can be certain that they will not include ensuring that the UK really is a voluntary union of nations with an internal Scottish democratic route to another independence referendum or effective means of placing the devolution settlement beyond any possibility of Westminster meddling.

But lack lustre and milquetoast as these proposals will most certainly be, what they will boil down to is a series of consultations which will result in whatever it is that BBC Scotlandshire orgiastically announces being watered down more than a homoepathic remedy in which nothing of the original substance remains. This has always happened with Labour’s proposals for constitutional reform. For example the devolved parliament we ended up with is not the devolved parliament Labour promised before it was elected in Blair’s landslide of 1997. That was a Scottish Parliament which would have had control of broadcasting and with extensive powers over taxation, including even a promise to grant Holyrood powers over VAT ‘should this be possible.’ Surprise surprise, Labour decided it was not going to be possible, just as it decided that control of broadcasting was not going to be possible either.

The early signs are that Brown’s proposals will go the same way. That is because the purpose of Brown’s constitutional proposals is not to articulate a plan that is going to actually be implemented, the real purpose is to provide some political cover to the Labour party in Scotland in its manoeuvres against the SNP. Labour in England has no real interest in constitutional reform, and it is certainly not about to agree to any meaningful restrictions being put on the power of the Prime Minister in order to rescue the credibility of Anas Sarwar.

The Observer newspaper has reported that some at high levels of the party have cautioned against a manifesto commitment to drive through Lords reform as soon as a Labour comes to power, Starmer did not mention reform of the Lords in an article he wrote for the Observer at the weekend in which he promised to pursue a wide range of reforms to restore trust in politics and politicians.

He could start by recognising the mandate for another independence referendum won by the Scottish Government at the last Holyrood elections, but we all know that’s not going to happen. Labour announced that the people best placed to decide what works in Stirling, Sunderland or Swansea are the people who live there, except that if they decide they want an independence referendum, then Westminster will decide.

The proposals themselves landed on Monday with a resounding ‘meh’. As predicted these are not firm commitments for radical change, but a promise to ‘consult’. Significantly absent from Labour’s promise to distribute power away from the centre was any mention of reform of the Commons. It’s like promising to do something about a dragon jealously guarding a hoard of treasure by rearranging the placement of the treasure and leaving the dragon firmly in place.

Gordon Brown loftily proclaimed that as far as Scotland was concerned the debate is no longer between independence and the status quo, it was between independence and a reformed United Kingdom. That is exactly what he told us in 2014 and we can see what happened. Now Labour hopes to pull off the same trick again.

Both the main British parties deny Scottish democracy and seek to keep Scotland trapped in an everlasting winter of Westminster contempt. That’s why as soon as possible, Scotland must vote to leave this broken Britain.

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My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £7 P&P within the UK. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £22 to weegingerbook@yahoo.com (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button.