The law as a serving suggestion

Oct19 by weegingerdug

Sigh. Uggh. Sigh. Where’s a brick wall that I can bang my head off? Eh? What? Oh God. Uggh. Sigh. Wankers! Sigh. Uggh. … That’s British politics these days. I hope that you’re all enjoying the stability and security of the United Kingdom that Scotland was promised in 2014. There are precarious piles of nuclear waste contaminated with the bacterial contents of the bowels of a dead herd of mad cows which are more stable, and considerably better for your health too.

So, where we are now is that the House of Commons gazed upon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s Brexit deal, and went – “Screw you.” Then they spent the day turning parliamentary procedure into a mechanical digger to dig a ditch for the Prime Minister to die in. This happened partly because he had decided to throw the DUP under the Brexit bus, and the DUP called upon some of their paramilitary pals and put a bomb under it. This, by the way, ought to be a lesson to Scotland’s unionists. For the British establishment you are disposable. Your protestations of loyalty, your obsequeousness, your toadying, it all counts for naught. Because the second that your interests stand in the way of what the British government wants, you will be abandoned. Your loyalty is not reciprocated, and one sided loyalty is indistinguishable from being taken for a fool.

This Commons defeat also happened partly because this is a Prime Minister who can’t be trusted not to use his deal to crash out of the EU without a deal anyway. According to this deal, the UK and the EU have a year in which to negotiate a free trade deal, and if that can’t be achieved then the UK crashes out without a deal. This is not a Prime Minister who can be trusted to negotiate in good faith, any more than you could trust Dracula to look after your prize winning collection of garlic plants.

And that, by the way, is one very good reason why it would have been double plus folly for the SNP to have supported it in return for an agreement on an independence referendum. If he’d got his deal through, this Prime Minister would have his early General Election, he’d be posing as the deliverer of Brexit and would win an absolute majority. Then he’d have no brakes on him making unreasonable and unrealistic demands on the EU, and would just take the UK out of the EU without a deal in a year’s time. It was the prospect of that happening which allowed him to get the Brextremists of the ERG on board. Then in the meantime the SNP would have been hammered in the General Election because they facilitated Brexit, which in turn would allow Johnson to say that Scotland didn’t want an indy referendum and go back on his promise to allow one.

Anyway. That’s not where we are, thank all the gods whose names can be remembered and those whose names have been forgotten. The Prime Minister’s untrustworthiness bit him in the arse today when the Commons voted to pass an amendment put forward by the former Conservative MP and one time leaver of government papers in rubbish bins Oliver Letwin to delay approving of the deal until the withdrawal bill implementing Brexit has been approved. This means that the Benn Act comes into play, which compels the Prime Minister to ask for an extension if the Commons hadn’t passed his deal by 11pm today. He’s now legally obligated to request the EU for an extension to Article 50.

For some weeks now, there has been speculation about how the Prime Minister could continue to insist that he wasn’t going to ask for an extension to Article 50 despite the provisions of the Benn Act. Perhaps he had discovered some clever loophole in the law? Perhaps there was an obscure measure hidden away in the bowels of Parliamentary procedure that would allow him to escape. We’ve now discovered that all along the clever plan was to scream like a baby and stamp his foot.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has reacted to the passage of the Letwin Amendment with all the grace and good nature of a small child who has been told that it’s bedtime. Noooooo! Don’t wannnnnnaaaaa! You can’t make me! If he had an actual dummy he’d have spat it at Oliver Letwin. What passes for statesmanship in the UK these days is the Prime Minister saying that he’s not going to ask the EU for an extension and claiming that the law which compels him to do so does not in fact compel him to do so. Because words mean different things when you’re the World King whose entire life has been a rehearsal for your inevitable ascension to infallability. Possibly this is the real reason why the DUP has fallen out with Johnson, because they’ve only just realised that he doesn’t understand the distinction between being the Prime Minister of the UK and being the Pope.

The nature of the debate, well I say ‘debate’, was summed up by an exchange between the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford and the Prime Minister. The SNP leader remarked that Scotland had been shafted by this deal. Asked how the Prime Minister could justify himself to the people of Scotland in the general election after his government has ignored them and treated them as a second class nation, and whether he would respect the mandate given to the Scottish Parliament for another independence referendum, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson replied, “I hope that you’ll want to join with me in congratulating the English rugby team.” What. The. Actual …

Forget about your democracy Scotland, forget about a mature and grown up consideration of your future. Forget about being treated with respect and consideration by the government of the UK as an equal partner within the UK. England won a rugby match, and it’s simply jockanese anti-English racism of us to want to have a grown up discussion about the constitutional and political future of Scotland instead of congratulating an English sporting team for doing terribly well in a contest that Scotland has already crashed out of.

Still, the entire painful process during the Commons today was almost worth it because it allowed us to see the look on Jacob Rees Mogg’s face. He gave a very good impression of a man who knew he was about to fart very loudly in a very public place, and was equally sure that it was going to be a wet one. This was as he saw the Prime Minister’s chances of surviving the Letwin amendment go much the same way as the squillions of pounds he stands to lose when there isn’t a no deal Brexit at the end of the month.

We are now waiting to see if the Prime Minister of the UK will in fact obey the law and ask the EU for the extension that the Benn Act demands of him. That’s where we are now in this pile of nuclear waste ridden craziness that passes for a United Kingdom. We have a Prime Minister who believes that laws are a species of serving suggestion, and that binding resolutions of the House of Commons do not apply to him. The SNP’s Ian Blackford has warned Johnson that if he doesn’t seek an extension to Article 50, he’ll find himself in court. The Scottish Court of Session plans to review the case brought by Joanna Cherry on Monday if the Prime Minister hasn’t done what the law demands of him. It could very well send the letter on his behalf, and find him in contempt of court for not having done so.

The longer this sorry mess goes on, the more that any residual faith that ordinary voters in Scotland had that Westminster works in their interests shrivels up and dies. Every refusal that the Boorish one makes to obey the law is another knife in the back of the union. The gods alone, named and nameless, know what’s going to happen next week, but one thing we can be sure of is that yet more faith and trust in the UK in Scotland will die. Political sanity means independence.

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Dugcast – 18 October 2019

Oct18 by weegingerdug

Welcome to this week’s dugcast. This week The National’s editor Callum Baird and I discuss the SNP conference and Nicola Sturgeon’s speech. We also chat about the long jail sentences imposed on former members of the Catalan government and Catalan independence activists. And finally we of course talk about Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, the chances of it getting through the Commons on Saturday, and why it was right for the SNP to refuse to back it.

There won’t be a dugcast next week as I am off to the USA for a week to celebrate my first wedding anniversary with my husband. He’s unable to travel here just now as his passport is with the UK visa office while we wait for a decision on his visa to come and live here in Scotland. The next dugcast will be on 1 November.

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The road to the moral high ground

Oct17 by weegingerdug

moralhighground
Boris Johnson didn’t want a deal with the EU. His original plan was to force a no deal crash out, putting the blame for the resultant chaos on evil Brussels bureaucrats, the elite that he doesn’t belong to despite being an extremely wealthy former pupil at Eton and Oxbridge, remainer MPs, and uppity Scots. However the Commons tied his hands with the Benn Act, and that forced him to try and get a deal at the last minute. What he’s come up with, reeking with a faux triumphalism, is worse than what Theresa May negotiated.

This is a deal that rips up worker and environmental standards in the name of deregulation. It will take the UK out of the European model of high wages and high standards of social protection into a low wage low tax low public services model. Prepare to see more homeless people in our streets. Prepare to see more people stuck in low paying precarious gig economy jobs. Prepare to see the disabled, the chronically ill, and the vulnerable thrown on the scraphead. Prepare to see the elderly forced to work until they drop. Prepare to see American health corporations move into the NHS. Prepare to see your kids never being able to afford a home of their own. Prepare to see more and more people anaesthetise themselves with drugs and alcohol as their sole means of coping with the hopelessness of their lives. And you won’t be able to dream of escaping to a retirement home in the sun. Freedom of movement comes to an end. Except for the small number of the very wealthy, the Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnsons of this world. They’ll do just fine.

Look at the Tory party, and you can see the future. It’s a future of mediocrity, a future where compassion is a weakness, a future of hypocrisy and cant. It’s a future of small men and women with vastly inflated egos, substituting bluster for wisdom. It’s a future of cruelty, a future of greed and avarice. It’s a future which fetishises WW2 but which trashes the achievements of the post-war settlement that those men and women fought for, that they sacrificed their lives for. The message of our Tory masters is that it is glorious that the working classes die for the British establishment, but the British establishment owes them nothing in return except for a poppy and a parade.

For Scotland, this deal is especially bad. England voted to leave. It’s leaving, so it’s getting what it voted for. Wales voted to leave. It’s leaving, so it’s getting what it voted for. Northern Ireland voted to remain. It’s staying within vital EU institutions, so it’s getting what it voted for. Scotland, you can fuck off back into your shortbread tin.

The SNP has announced that it will not back this disaster of a deal. The Labour party and the Lib Dems have likewise said that they won’t support it. The DUP has refused to give it its backing because they no longer get a veto. And if the DUP won’t back it then the swivel eyed Brextremist faction of the Tory party, those for whom even Jacob Rees Mogg is a suspicious liberal, won’t back it either. There is every likelihood that the deal will not get through the Commons on Saturday.

There’s also a new legal challenge. The legal campaigner Jolyon Maugham is arguing that the new deal is unlawful as it breaks section 55 of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018. This section says that it is “unlawful for Her Majesty’s government to enter into arrangements under which Northern Ireland forms part of a separate customs territory to Great Britain.” He has started an urgent case in the Scottish courts.

The SNP is perfectly correct not to back this deal, a deal which looks dead in the water before it’s even set sail. It is a disaster for Scotland. It is contemptuous and disrespectful to Scotland. Agreeing to this deal in return for a Section 30 order or for the transfer of the power to hold independence referendums to Holyrood would be seen by voters in Scotland as an epic betrayal by a party which has sworn to protect and defend Scotland’s interests. It would be 1979 on steroids, and all in order to trust in the word of a man who’s notable only for his lies and deceit. Just how much can he be trusted to fulfil any promise to the SNP once he’s got his deal done and the SNP’s Commons votes are in his bag? About as much as you can trust him not to spill red wine on your new sofa.

Boris Johnson knows that if he gives ground to the SNP, he weakens his right flank. He’ll be accused by sections within the Tory party of breaking up the UK in order to secure his own position. One nation Tories who currently support him would desert in droves. The chances are that he’d still not get his deal through the Commons. The SNP would have sold its soul and the deal still won’t have passed in the Commons.

Yet even if the Tories agreed to such a proposal from the SNP, which is highly unlikely, by carrying out such a betrayal the SNP would destroy itself in the General Election that’s coming, and severely damage the chances of the Scottish Government being able to lead Scotland to a successful Yes vote. Because then the narrative would be, but Scotland doesn’t want a referendum, the SNP supported the Tories, the SNP betrayed Scotland over Brexit. And on those last two points the critics would be right. Then the Yes campaign would be fronted by a party which had just suffered one of the worst defeats in its history, a party which is about to face the further trials and tribulations of the Salmond trial. It’s an epically bad idea. It’s risking Scotland’s future on a long shot, a desperate gamble with a poor chance of success. Responsible and compassionate people don’t play poker with other people’s lives. Tories do that. And we are better than them or we are nothing.

There are no short cuts to independence. The path to victory for the Scottish independence movement is the path of honour, the path of compassion, the path of doing the right thing. We will not win the hearts of the Scottish people through betraying their interests on Brexit. There is only the long hard slog of proving to the people of Scotland that Westminster operates in a way that damages Scotland’s interests, that it consistently sidelines and ignores us. We cannot be complicit in the damage that the Tories wreak. If we are as cynical, as lacking in compassion, as driven by short term gain as they are, then there is no reason for independence at all. We’d only end up with an independent state governed by cynics and chancers who’d be prepared to sell out their granny for a short term advantage. We already have that in the UK.

The argument for Scottish independence is a moral argument or it is nothing. This deal must be defeated and we should all fully support the SNP in their efforts to do so. The only road to independence is the road to the moral high ground.

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Arguing from a position of strength

Oct16 by weegingerdug

This blog has a long standing policy of not attacking or criticising other pro-independence groups, blogs, or organisations. I’m not in the business of doing the anti-independence media’s job for them. For the same reason, that’s why I always ask that people who comment on this blog refrain from using it as a platform to criticise or attack other pro-independence campaigners, although this does not imply that I endorse what those other campaigners have been saying. It is just that I feel strongly, and have always felt, that when the independence movement turns on itself, the only beneficiaries are those who oppose independence.

Right now we are facing the likelihood of an early Westminster General Election. This is the first and most immediate electoral challenge that the independence movement is going to face. A Westminster General Election could take place as early as the end of next month. Even if it is delayed for a short while longer, it is most certainly going to happen before any other elections take place in Scotland, and before there’s any vote on independence itself. Sensible politics demands that the independence movement should focus on the electoral challenge which is most immediate. That’s the next Westminster General Election.

Due to the nature of Westminster’s first past the post system, the only pro-independence party which has any chance at all of taking seats in the Westminster General Election is the SNP. I might have considerable sympathies for some of the policies of the Greens or the Scottish Socialists, but they’re not going to win any seats in this election. Only the SNP can do that.

This coming election is vital. Before we can make any choices about the best route to an independence referendum, we have to cross the General Election bridge. All routes to an independence referendum, irrespective of what they are, pass first over the bridge of a Westminster General Election in the coming months. If we fail to cross the bridge successfully and in style, if we fail to bring about a resounding and unquestionable victory for the SNP in that election, there will be no point at all in arguing about different strategies for bringing about a referendum, or debating the merits or demerits of another pro-indy party for the list vote in Holyrood. We will already have lost independence.

There are many people within the independence movement who have deep reservations about the strategy of the SNP leadership for achieving another independence referendum. However the risk here is that constant carping about the SNP, the attacks on Nicola Sturgeon because of disagreements with her strategy for bringing about a second independence referendum, will only succeed in reducing the overall level of support for the SNP in the coming General Election. It risks alienating those who are open to persuasion about independence but who are not quite there yet. It risks alienating and discouraging some long standing supporters of independence. It risks turning some SNP supporters off from getting out and campaigning for the party in the General Election, and that in turn can reduce turnout and vote share for the party. It risks making the independence movement seem divided, confused, and obsessed with in-fighting, and that’s going to discourage soft yes voters from making sure they vote for the party, just as they were discouraged in 2017 by the SNP’s apparent lack-lustre enthusiasm for independence in the General Election that year.

Yet there is nothing to replace the SNP in the General Election to come. There is no other party which can hoover up the votes of those independence supporters who have been alienated by a seemingly over cautious SNP leadership. All that the independence movement will have achieved with its criticisms will be to have punched itself in the face and to have reduced the total number of people in Scotland who get up off their backsides and get out and vote for the only pro-independence party in this country which has any chance at all of taking seats in a Westminster General Election. The only people who benefit will be the anti-independence parties. When we as a movement attack one another, it’s anti-independence politicians and journalists who rub their hands in glee.

We all know what the British media is like. The British media being what it is, if the SNP do not perform well in the coming General Election, this will not be seen as a reflection of the independence movement’s difference of opinion with Nicola Sturgeon about achieving an independence referendum. The BBC will not be telling us that it means that people would prefer to vote for another pro-independence party in the list vote for Holyrood. It won’t be portrayed simply as a defeat for the SNP leadership’s strategy or even for the SNP as a whole. It will be painted as a defeat for the entire independence movement. It will be taken as a reflection of a lack of support in Scotland for independence. That’s how the British media will portray it.

If the SNP do not perform as predicted, and fails to pick up a significantly larger amount of votes and Westminster seats, the constant carping message from the British media will be that Scotland has lost interest in the idea of independence, that Scotland doesn’t want independence any more, that the steam has gone out of the independence drive. That’s going to make it even harder to achieve a referendum or to pursue any alternative strategy – whether there’s a new pro-indy party or not.

Judging from Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP party conference in Aberdeen yesterday (Tuesday), it appears that the party leadership has indeed learned the lesson of the 2017 General Election campaign. The question of independence, the question of ensuring that it’s the people of Scotland who have the absolute right to decide the future path that Scotland takes, will be front and foremost in the SNP’s General Election campaign. This General Election in Scotland will be dominated by the question of independence as Scotland’s route out of the mess and chaos of Brexit.

It is always a good thing to ensure that political leaders, of any party, are held to account. But right now the priority for the independence movement must be to work our socks off to ensure that we get as many votes for the SNP and as many new MPs for the SNP as we possibly can in the coming General Election. A resounding victory for the SNP in the General Election to come will drastically alter the political landscape in Scotland and make it far harder for the anti-independence parties to resist a demand for another referendum. A continued refusal from Westminster under those circumstances will make it easier for the independence movement to bring soft yes voters and undecideds with us if the need arises to pursue another strategy to bring about an indyref. A large increase in the number of SNP MPs will ensure that the UK media pays attention and will make it far more difficult for them to peddle the false narrative that Scotland doesn’t want a referendum. It will immensely strengthen the hand of the First Minister in her demand for a referendum. There is no downside for the independence movement in ensuring that the SNP does extremely well in this coming General Election. There are potentially severe consequences for independence if our infighting means that the party doesn’t do well.

There may very well come a time when we need to pursue another strategy for getting to an independence referendum. That time could be soon, but we can say with absolute certainty that it’s going to be after this approaching Westminster General Election. The crucial task for the independence movement is to ensure that if the need arises for us to debate a Plan B, or C, or D, for getting an independence referendum, that we are doing so from a position of strength. That’s only going to happen if the sole pro-independence political party which can win Westminster seats achieves a resounding victory in the Westminster General Election that’s ahead of us and is able to argue for that independence referendum with the wind in its sails and the votes of the people behind it.

Let’s work to make that happen. Let’s argue for independence from a position of strength.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
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The fundamentals

Oct15 by weegingerdug

comingyet
Another day, another exercise in Scotland being patronised by columnists in the Guardian. This time it’s Zoe Williams’ turn, opining that Nicola Sturgeon’s plan for a referendum has a fundamental weakness. Because, according to Zoe, the only hope that Scotland has got of getting a referendum is if there is a Labour Prime Minister willing to authorise one, but then if there is a Labour Prime Minister Scotland wouldn’t want independence. To which the only Scottish response can be: Aye. Right. Uh-huh.

The article runs the predictable gamut of British nationalist bingo. The referendum was divisive and bitter. Scots living in England didn’t have voting rights. The whole thing was an excerise in narrow and reactionary nationalism. It is quite remarkable that even now, after Brexit has dominated British politics for years and will dominate it for years to come, that there are still those who cling to the religious belief that support for the British state magically protects you from accusations of nationalism.

If we’re going to talk of fundamentals, the fundamental truth about the Scottish independence debate that commentators south of the border wilfully refuse to understand is that this is not a debate between nationalism and non-nationalism. There are nationalists and non-nationalists on both sides, and the toxic xenophobic nationalism, characterised by hatred of foreigners and the nostalgic harking back to a glorious empire, entirely belongs to opponents of independence. While I have no doubt whatsoever that Zoe Williams is a left of centre politically moderate person who is appalled by the excesses of nationalism, I’m not going to take any lectures in nationalism from someone who has the Orange Order, the Brexit party, and the far right on their side of the independence debate. Check out the beam in your own eye before criticising the mote in mine.

The article writes about the supposed fundamental weakness in the plan for another independence referendum, but itself is characterised by a fundamental weakness. Zoe assumes, like so many I’m-not-a-nationalist-because-I-support-the-UKs before her, that an independence referendum is the gift of a British Prime Minister to grant, and Scotland is merely a supplicant begging on its knees at the doors of Number 10. That is not true, even though it’s a comfort blanket that so many opponents of independence cling onto in the dark nightmare of Brexit Britain. There are, as this blog has argued frequently in the past, other routes to bringing about a lawful and legitimate vote on Scottish independence, routes which do not require the permission of a British Prime Minister. We are not yet in the political space where those alternative routes need to be activated, but that most certainly does not mean that they do not exist. The Scottish Government, even at this stage, is still prepared to give a British Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt to prove their democratic credentials. Anti-independence commentators confuse that with the belief that Westminster holds all the cards.

The entire article is riddled with flaws, as is entirely typical of pieces penned by the London metrocommentariat who seek to explain Scotland to those of us who actually live here, deprived as we are of the benefit of the view from within the M25. The patronising quasi-colonialist mentality that it is based on, that Scotland must seek permission from its masters in order to be allowed to decide its own future, is merely the most egregious. It’s all very bow down before your imperial masters.

However the other big flaw is the assertion that a Labour government would stop people in Scotland from wanting independence. Given that after the next General Election, and indeed right now, the Labour party will receive less support within Scotland than the Conservatives, why exactly should voters in Scotland go off the idea of independence because England has chosen – for once – to elect a party that Scotland has rejected in dismay? We didn’t fall out of love with Labour for no reason. We didn’t lose faith in the Labour party without experiencing a long history of the betrayal of its promises. Labour in Scotland is a toxic remnant. All too often Labour can only get itself elected in England by aping the Conservatives. We saw that with Tony Blair. Independence isn’t just necessary because of Tory governments, but because of Labour ones too. But most of all Scotland has long since learned the painful lesson that even if England does decide to elect a Labour government, there will be a Conservative one along sooner or later. It is no longer enough to hope that things will get better for a short time in Westminster. Scotland can’t build a future on that.

The other flaw is the categorical rejection of any notion that a Conservative government would authorise an independence referendum. This overlooks the fundamental truth about the Conservative party. The only interest for the Conservative party is the narrow party interest of the Conservative party. If the Conservatives believe it is in their party interests to authorise an independence referendum in Scotland, that’s exactly what they’ll do. It was, after all, a Conservative Prime Minister who agreed to a Section 30 order the last time. He did so because he made the calculation, wrongly as it turned out, that opponents of independence would absolutely crush the dream of independence, and then David Cameron could pose as the Saviour of the Union and boost Conservative chances in Scotland.

We currently have a Conservative Prime Minister whose sole political principle is what is good for his own career. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson leads a political party where a majority of members would be happy to see the back of Scotland in order to pursue Brexit. He would be prepared to countenance an independence referendum if getting rid of Scotland would assure him of Brexit and a secure majority in the Commons.

As I write this, Nicola Sturgeon is giving her keynote speech to the SNP Conference. She demanded that Westminster respect the mandate that the Scottish Government already possesses for a referendum. It is time for British Prime Ministers to prove that they understand and respect the concept of democracy. Scotland will demand an independence referendum next year, and that demand will be front and centre in the General Election campaign which is about to commence.

More and more people who voted No in 2014 are coming over to support for independence. They’re changing their minds because they can see that the promises and commitments that successive Westminster governments, and all the main UK parties, have made to Scotland have been hollow and worthless. They’re changing their minds because the UK that Scotland was told it could be a part of doesn’t exist. They’re changing their minds because they don’t want to be a part of a right wing xenophobic Brexit characterised by a nostalgia for a Britannia that used to rule the waves.

There’s only one fundamental that need concern us. That’s the fundamental truth that it is time to place Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands. It is time for independence. One way or another, Scotland is on a path to returning to its rightful place amongst the independent nations of the world. It’s comin yet.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
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The one sided love affair

Oct15 by weegingerdug

onesidedlove
Yesterday we had the pointless spectacle of a Conservative election manifesto dressed up as a state opening of parliament. None of the measures which the Queen announced were going to be implemented by her government will ever see the light of day this side of a general election. The entire episode was a waste of time and ermine dry cleaning bills. Still, from the point of view of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson it guaranteed him a lot more TV exposure from gushing BBC commentators who were caught up in the flummery than would ever have been possible in a five minute election broadcast that no one paid attention to because they were waiting for Eastenders.

This is the second time within a couple of months that this Prime Minister has used the officially politically neutral head of state as a tool for giving himself a political advantage. At this rate we can expect Prince Philip to drive the Conservatives’ campaign bus during the General Election. Which would be entirely appropriate since it’s going to run over the plebs before taking us all over a cliff.

The measures themselves were the kind of mixture of electoral bribes and right wing dog whistles which we’ve come to expect from Conservative manifestos. Although it is surprising that the Conservatives announced that they are proposing to make photo IDs compulsory for voting. It means that many of them won’t be able to vote themselves. Aren’t vampires invisible to cameras as well as mirrors? Certainly the Conservative party has long since lost the ability to look at itself in the mirror. This may explain much about them. They still imagine themselves as suave and debonair superhumans, when everyone else sees blood sucking undead monsters who still walk the earth even though they belong in the grave.

Meanwhile over in the Guardian, the newspaper’s leader writer gazed upon the sad state of affairs in Catalonia and opined that Nicola Sturgeon is right to eschew the Catalan route and reject an illegal referendum. Unfortunately the leader writer neglected to explain to us mere Caledonians what the UK law is exactly that would make an independence referendum illegal. This is not Spain, there is no constitutional prohibition on independence referendums here. The Section 30 order agreed between David Cameron and Alex Salmond in 2012 did not create a law which provided that Westminster is the only body which can authorise a referendum. It merely provided a political guarantee that neither party would seek to challenge the referendum’s result.

We can only assume that the Guardian meant a consultative referendum being carried out by Holyrood without Westminster’s consent. However this matter has never been tested in the courts. There are good legal arguments as to why such a referendum would in fact be perfectly legal. Whether the court would accept those arguments is very much a moot point. As things stand, the lawfulness of a consultative referendum, which is in essence a glorified opinion poll, remains untested. Those who, like the Guardian’s leader writer, assert that a referendum without a Section 30 order are giving us a political opinion and not a statement of legal fact. Indeed, when newspapers start to prejudge a referendum without a Section 30 order as being illegal, they are guilty of the very inflammation of a delicate situation which they purport to condemn.

Equally the newspaper signally failed to point out that the responsibilities it places upon Nicola Sturgeon should equally fall upon the British government. If Scotland votes, yet again, to reinforce the existing mandate that the Scottish Government already has for an independence referendum, it is incumbent upon the British Government to respect the decision of the Scottish electorate. Because if the British Government doesn’t do so, then the quality of British democracy becomes every bit as questionable as Spain’s.

It’s becoming ever more clear that the rest of the UK is getting to the point where they’d be happy to see the back of Scotland. An opinion poll published this week showed that 55% of voters in England prioritise getting Brexit done over keeping the four nations of the UK together. A further 9% apparently want neither Brexit nor to keep the four nations of the UK together. A whopping 64% of voters in England have priorities which are more important to them than ensuring that the UK is kept together.

Well that must be a big slap in the face for Scottish unionists, to discover that the rest of the UK is just not that into them. England is in love with the vision of itself from the 1950s, when it could still tell itself it was a global power that the rest of the world looked up to. It’s like spending weeks and a fortune courting the object of your affections in the hope of persuading them to go on a date only to discover that you’ve been rejected because they’d rather go out with their racist granddad and listen to him reminisce about the empire.

The increasing lack of enthusiasm for the United Kingdom in the rest of the UK is definitely a development which works to the advantage of Scottish independence. It is a vindication of the SNP’s determination to resist Brexit. When voters in England see that Scotland is standing in the way of what they believe England wants, they are not going to concede that Scotland has a point. They’re going to seek to remove the obstacle. This means that British governments are going to find that there is ever less enthusiasm and energy within England for campaigning to keep the UK together, and makes the circumstances more likely to occur when a British government might see it advantageous not to block an independence referendum in Scotland.

However it also highlights the futility and bankruptcy of Scottish Unionism as a political philosophy. The refusal of voters in the rest of the UK to compromise for Scotland merely throws into stark relief the uncomfortable truth for Unionism that within the UK it’s always Scotland which ends up having to accept a position that it doesn’t want. You cannot realistically talk of a partnership when it’s only the one partner who always has to make the concessions while the other always gets what they want. Scottish Unionism is a one-sided love affair.

Right now, Scotland is caught in a nightmare created by English nationalism. It’s a nightmare populated by Tory vampires, by racist grandfathers who hark back to the days of Empire, and Prince Philip driving us off a cliff. It’s a nightmare that the rest of the UK is not going to wake up from, no matter how much Scotland screams. All we can do is leave them to their bad dreams and wake up to a better Scotland.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
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The murder of Catalan democracy

Oct14 by weegingerdug

There’s been, shall we say, a spot of falling out in certain quarters of the Scottish independence movement of late. Rattles have been tossed from prams. Dummies spat out. Feet have been stamped. I’m naming no names, and pointing no fingers, but let’s keep a sense of perspective here. This is a dispute about the means of achieving independence, it’s not a dispute about the worthiness of the goal itself. It’s a dispute about tactics, not about fundamental principles. We have the luxury of having such spats because we live in a state where the right to Scottish self-determination is legal, is constitutional, and is recognised. Even though the anti-independence parties have of late being giving a very good impression of sticking their fingers in their ears and going la-la-la-I’m-not-listening, they do understand that when all else is said and done, Scotland only remains a part of the UK as long as that is the will of the majority of the people of Scotland. That’s why they’re so desperate to avoid the question being asked, even though they understand on some level that they can’t stall it forever.

In Catalonia they don’t have the luxury that we have of openly debating different legal tactics for achieving independence. Today, Monday, the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced prominent Catalan politicians and independence campaigners to lengthy prison sentences for the “crime” of democracy. For facilitating and organising an independence referendum without the permission of a Madrid government which had refused under any circumstances to concede the right of Catalans to decide their own future, the politicians and activists were convicted of sedition and the misuse of public funds. Those who tried to vote during the referendum were brutally assaulted by police officers brought into Catalonia from elsewhere in the country, yet not one of those officers has had to face any legal consquences for their violence. Instead it was those who organised a peaceful exercise in democracy who were charged with violent rebellion.

Even though the most serious charges of violent rebellion were dropped, the sentences that were handed down were severe. Former vice-president of the Catalan government, the leader of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalonia) Oriol Junqueras has been sentenced to 13 years in prison. The former foreign minister of Catalonia, Raül Romeva, the labour minister Dolors Bassa, and the Catalan government spokesperson Jordi Turull were each sentenced to 12 years. Carme Forcadell, the former speaker of the Catalan Parliament, was sentenced to 11 years and six months. The former territorial minister Josep Rull and the former interior minister Joaquim Forn were both sentenced to 10 years and six months. Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, respectively the leaders of the pro independence civic organisations Òmnium Cultural and the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, were each sentenced to 9 years and six months.

In a further assault on the democratic right to self-expression of the Catalan people, the Spanish electoral authorities recently ruled that in the forthcoming Spanish General Election, the Catalan parties are not allowed to mention the phrases “political prisoners”, “exile”, or “trial of repression” in their electoral materials and the Catalan public media is prohibited from broadcasting them. In Scotland on this blog I can describe Oriol Junqueras, Carme Forcadell and the rest as political prisoners, because they have been convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms due to their peaceful and democratic belief in the right of the Catalan people to democratic self-determination. In Catalonia the Catalan language television channel TV3 is banned from using the same description. Pro-independence Catalan parties are prohibited from using the same term in their election campaign materials.

In Catalonia you are not allowed to say that the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is in political exile in Belgium or that former education minister Clara Ponsati is in political exile in Scotland. You are allowed to describe them as “fugitives from justice” because the Spanish electoral commission has ruled that this highly judgemental and emotive term is a neutral description. In Spain, you’re only considered to be neutral if you support the viewpoint of the Spanish government and the Spanish establishment. So rather like the BBC in Scotland then.

The Catalan crisis is a political one. You can’t solve a political problem by imprisoning those who have a different political opinion from you. Yet that is precisely what the Spanish government seeks to do. The Spanish state has just sentenced Catalan politicians and civic leaders to long terms behind bars for the supposed crime of peacefully pursuing a mandate given to them by the electorate of Catalonia. When a peaceful democratic mandate is castigated by prison sentences, democracy is dead.

Catalans have reacted with predictable anger to these harsh, disproportionate, and unjust sentences. There is a massive demonstration taking place at Girona railway station, another at Barcelona airport. Throughout Catalonia, roads and railway lines are being blocked by protestors. The sad reality is that when the peaceful democratic route to independence through the ballot box is blocked, punished, and criminalised, then people will seek an alternative route and who knows where it’s going to end. The anger and fury of the Catalans is only going to increase, and we risk a spiral into violence and oppression as the police react violently to the protests. This is a potential tragedy of Madrid’s own making.

In 21st century Europe, we should have learned the lessons of the past. We should have learned that the right of a people to self-determination cannot be blocked, cannot be punished by prison, because that is the way that madness lies. And this is a lesson that Scotland’s anti-independence parties must take on board too. It is perfectly legitimate to oppose Scottish independence or Catalan independence. It is perfectly legitimate to propound arguments against independence, to seek to persuade people against it. It is not legitimate to prevent the question being asked. It is not legitimate to criminalise those who seek to ask it through the ballot box. It is not legitimate to seek to remove supporters of independence from democratic discourse. When democratic politicians seeking a peaceful resolution to a political issue through the ballot box are silenced behind the bars of a prison, democracy has been murdered.

Visca Catalunya lliure.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

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Wee Ginger Dug

Biting the hand of Project Fear

Category Archives: Uncategorized

The law as a serving suggestion

Dugcast – 18 October 2019

The road to the moral high ground

Arguing from a position of strength

The fundamentals

The one sided love affair

The murder of Catalan democracy