This week at Westminster was fiery. A lot of theatre and guffawing however not much in the way of real genuine debate or democracy. Neale Hanvey asked the £1,000,000 question of PM Sunak. “Is Scotland in a voluntary and respectful Union of equals, as claimed in 2014, or are we hostages in a territorial British colony?” The Tory and Labour clapping seals groaned and grimaced as Neale uttered the words so many Scots want answered. The SNP MPs sat frozen in horror. They were yet again being embarrassed by a genuine Independence seeking MP. One of only two sitting on the Westminster benches.
Needless to say Sunak failed to give a direct answer. He waffled and answered a question he had not been asked. Meanwhile, the Speaker Lyndsay Hoyle sat silently. He should of course, have intervened and directed the PM to actually answer the question he was asked, he didn’t, PMQs like everything else about Westminster is a farce.
Week after week the opposition members ask questions and the government give soundbite replies rarely ever about the actual question posed. The opposition participants are equally guilty in this pretend democracy. They use the weekly circus as an opportunity to grandstand and promote themselves as smart operators and clever parliamentarians. It is not and never has been about holding the executive to account. It is all done to convince the gullible citizens of the island of Britain that they have a functioning democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth, we have an autocracy posing as a democracy!
In our TV and Radio newsrooms the Metropolitan talking heads tell us each week who “won” the weekly roustabout. Nobody has actually ever bothered to tell us the scoring method deployed that results in winners and losers. They love to talk about ‘exchanges over the dispatch box.’ It is not exchanges it is soundbites compounded with dated and ancient language.
‘ My honourable friend,’ ‘the member for such and such a constituency’, never the name of the person asking or answering the question, unparliamentary you see! Directing the questions through Mr Speaker as you cannot ask the question directly to the minister, unparliamentary don’t you know.It is farcical and not even a semblance of democratic or accountable.
The people of the British Union are duped every single day in life. That you are given the opportunity every 5 years or so to scurry down to your local school and put your X in a box is nothing more than a sop to make you believe you have some sort of control over these gravy slurping troughers.
This week a Tory MP Andrew Bridgen was found to not only to have broken Parliamentary rules he also made abusive threats to those investigating him. Such is the sense of entitlement that even when UK MPs are caught with their fingers in the cookie jar they believe they are above reproach.
The committee found the MP had breached the Code of Conduct by making multiple approaches to ministers and public officials on behalf of Mere Plantations, a Cheshire-based teak reforestation company with forests in Ghana for which he was initially paid £12,000 a year as an adviser.He failed to register his interest in the company in the time frame stipulated by the code, with the committee saying he had a “very cavalier” attitude to the rules.
The committee also found Mr Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire since 2010, had attempted to improperly influence Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone during her investigation into his lobbying.
Now in any other walk of life such behaviour would be deemed industrial misconduct resulting in instant dismissal with no severance pay and no reference, possibly even criminal charges for fraud! Not so in Westminster.
Mr Bridgen though is an MP his ‘punishment’ is like everything else at Westminster, farcical! This vile man faces a suspension of two days for three breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct and a further three for the “unacceptable attack upon the integrity” of Ms Stone. MPs will now have to vote on whether they accept that recommendation. So even after these blatant breaches verging on crimes he may get off free if his fellow crooked MPs so decide. We have no say. We have no protection from corrupt MPs or a corrupt government! There is no recall, no retribution and little in the way of meaningful punishment!
The situation in the other ‘Parliaments’ in the union is no better. In Northern Ireland the DUP British Unionists having lost the recent election are refusing to form a government with Sinn Féin, simply because these British Unionists do not think they should be the junior partner in the governance of Northern Ireland even although the voters in the six occupied counties voted for that very outcome. Again there is no retribution and no punishment for this flagrant affront to democracy. The British establishment is happy to condone this undemocratic move by their British lickspittles in Belfast.
Holyrood is not much better indeed in many ways it is the worst of all. Despite having multiple mandates from multiple elections from the Scottish electorate to proceed to an independence referendum our elected government has delayed, deferred and ignored the wishes of their voters. Multiple excuses and reasons for not proceeding have been deployed. There never is it seems a reason or justification to remove Scotland from the Union. They are more intent on promoting Self-Identification than independence. Self-ID is something that Scots have never mandated but Sturgeon’s SNP are making it law while ignoring the mandates for independence! Again, contempt for the electorate it is universal in this accursed union.
So when Neale Hanvey did ask his question of Sunak, the SNP MPs did not view this as an opportunity to progress our case for independence. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to attack a real Independence Party for exposing the British Government hypocrisy and imperialism!
The sleekit MP for Perth and North Perthshire was the first of our so-called independence warriors off the blocks to attack the concept of Scotland being a colony. He was actually defending the Union against independence! I sadly do not believe he has the intellectual capacity to grasp that fact! Maybe his desire to be Speaker in the English Parliament is a clue we should have heeded!
I have since invited Mr Wishart to debate this issue on any platform and at anytime. To date only silence! On Through A Scottish Prism we have put out several open invitations over time. I repeat them here again today. I invite Wishart or any British Nationalist to come on to TASP and debate ‘Is Scotland a defacto English colony?’
I invite any Unionist to debate the Positive Case for the British Union and a British alternative to independence for Scotland.
I invite any supporter of GRR to TASP to debate the merits of this legislation. To define and explain what rights is it just now that TRAs do not have. What is the scientific definition of a male and a female. Why do we need this legislation and why do we need self-identification?
Through A Scottish Prism and its viewers love a debate. We are not afraid to hold such events because we believe in free speech and freedom of belief. We believe in democracy and debate and most of all in truth. So step forward with the assurance there will be no ambush, no censoring and no editing out of any of your points. Unlike MSM we do not fear the people or their beliefs and views.
New Media is the only place where these virtues are upheld and it is why the liars and deniers are afraid to appear!
Well said Roddy, their silence is deafening.
A troughing politician would need to be Houdini to escape the logic of this article, Roddy. It is another one of your finest.
The SNP name is all that gives those MPs and MSPs any cudos. But this generation of SNP politicians are going out of their way to redefine what the SNP can be trusted to deliver. And it is dependence, silence and fear of command – not independence.
That is a broad range of debate topics you proposed for a political debate with one of them. I would like to think someone would take you up on the offer, say one of the Nicolas Sturgeon or Peter Murrel, Angus Robertson or his wife, Alyn Smith, Pete Wishart, Ian Blackford, Mhairi Hunter… We can but hope.
I believe there is as much chance of that as Scotland landing the first person on Mars or the SNP delivering an unwhipped majority on GRA reform.
Thanks Roddy. Respect.
Could the SNP get GRA “reform” through Holyrood without a whip?
There were 7 abstentions and no-votes on the first reading, so 62 votes required for a majority.
Votes aye: Labour 21, LibDem 4, Green 7 & Con 2
There are 25 SNP Cabinet members and Ministers, so a total reliable vote of 59.
Yes, the majority of SNP backbenchers are a fairly sensible lot. Middle aged with life and career experience and for these very reasons Sturgeon won’t let them within a mile of the Ministerial payroll. Not at all the 20 and 30 something humanities graduates that have never had a job in their lives that didn’t consist of leaching off the State, that Sturgeon can rely on for sycophantic support.
My guess is that if Sturgeon regarded the arithmetic as problematic in pursuing her monomaniacal GRA obsession, she’d create a few more Ministerial positions. That has been established practice at Westminster for some time now.
An aside, under D’Hondt it would suit Sturgeon to loose a few constituency seats. At the time of writing, the constituency associations control candidate selection (we’ll see how long that lasts). Through blatant gerrymandering HQ controls list candidate selection.
Vivian: you are so right. If there was any prospect of the constituencies defying the leadership and re selecting MSPs that the leadership won’t support again because of their opposition to this stuff, they would jigger the rules and make sure their young, sycophants were supported instead. I think a number are being groomed now to step into the shoes of those who are out of favour. Stuart Campbell has an interesting take on the SNP-Green informal coalition today.
Scotland specialises in missing open goals and here we go again with the troughers in yellow.
Quelle surprise that you had no answer from Pension Pete.
Well said
Thanks Roddy for a great piece of writing. I look forward to seeing Pete and any one (or all) of your regular speakers on the Scottish Prism!
Sunaks father in law is head or creator of a hugh spiders web , INFOSYS / FURTUNE500/FINACLE and listed
as a leading partner of WEF,.aiming at a global social credit score system
AGLOBAL LEADERin next generationdigital services and consulting ., enabling them through their digital journey withARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENC POWERED CORE that helps prioritize change, (brain washing?????)
Apologies for mess but had to get this spread across our beloved little country ,May God protect this Sacred realm and cleanse away the rubbish . Thank you BB. from remembrance poppy
It’s quite simple really: Scotland will be independent when the vast majority of Scots want to be independent. Currently, despite everything, only a minority want that right now and most of them misguidedly only want independence because they think an independent Scotland would be ‘rich’. We wouldn’t be we’d be poor. Most Scots understand too well how reliant Scottish public spending is on taxpayers in the rUK (we receive £2000 more per capita than the UK average) and don’t want that to go away. Sorry.
It is always easy to spot unionists on here. They are always talking £everything in the unionist life is about money. Meanwhile those seeking independence talk democracy, fairness,justice, equality. Incidentally the last poll showed 58% in favour of independence but you knew that. If you lot truly believed it would be a No vote you would agree a referendum tomorrow. You are among people far smarter than you on here up your game or begone!
Very Poor show Roddy. Its not about “Personal Money” though at all , its about the funds that pay for Scotland’s Public Services and only yesterday She that must be obeyed admitted that the SNP Scot Gov could not afford to pay NHS workers any more money without getting more English Taxpayers money from the UK Government to pay for it. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-westminster-prime-minister-scottish-government-unison-b1039082.html
Which of course would mean that Scotland’s 8.1% population of the UK which is currently receiving 9.2%
of the whole UK spending budget would end up getting even more of it , which ultimately would just make achieving Indy harder. https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers-2021-22/pages/1/#:~:text=Share%20of%20UK,9.2%25
Sturgeon has effectively just told everyone working in the NHS that if Scotland Voted YES in the future that it would mean they would all have to accept wage cuts for that to be able to happen, how do you think that’s going to go down with them ? The Traitor is serving Her masters well.
Tripe!The usual unionist tropes too wee ,too stupid,too poor. Yet the English parasitical politicians hang on to Scotland for dear life. They cut spending left right abd centre but keep subsidising Scotland . Do you think we are all as gullible and ignorant as you? A colonised little House Jock grow a spine man and educate yourself!
Chris, if you genuinely think a country like England that needed a professional footballer to convince its politicians to feed its starving English schoolchildren is giving an extra £2000 per head to Scots then the only word I can think of to use that is not to offensive is you are a fool.
Chris, you mean poor like Norway with its trillion dollar public savings fund.
Next thing you will be telling us is that the renewable energy from the windfarms will soon stop as the wind will stop blowing due to global warming.
Funny how all these new oil fields are being opened up and the original oil fields are still pumping out oil yet Better Together and all these Britnat politicians told us it was all finished – nowt left.
Better Together should be renamed LIES R US.
The smell of the cringe is reeking from you. Scotland will become an independent Nation, Ireland will reunify, your precious Union will become past history, and I for one can’t wait. If Scotland had a First Minister with the political will, we would already be a normal, democratic , independent Nation. The polls for independence are rock steady in the high forties, not a bad jumping off point. Tick Tock.
Chris, can you explain why a country that consistently has the highest GDP per head of any area outside Londonshire, is the only UK country that exports more than it imports, and has a wealth of natural resources, somehow cannot afford to be independent?
GDP doesn’t pay for our Public Services , Scotland’s GDP is blown out of proportion by Oil revenues which are mostly barely profitable and the Taxes Scot Gov gets are only from actual profits made not so much from marginally profitable Oil being recovered , while the OP may be higher thanks to Vlads War it won’t stay high more more than a couple of years then much of it will be unprofitable to recover again. Its only worth recovering if it can be sold for a profit after taking off the high costs of recovering it from 1/2 empty or 3/4 empty wells.I’m sure you know most of our Exports are Oil so where do you think they are going to go in an era of Electric Cars in the future ? We cannot base Indy on Oil any more, only over 65’s are likely still stuck in that old out of date argument.
Spot on article. Well said. Wishart just wants another 10 years in the House of Commons in which he will probably start lobbying for the SNP to send people like him to the House of Lords. Lord Wishart of Cosy Slipperland.
I have always thought that legally we may be in a union but from day 1 after the 1707 union England has treated Scotland like a possession. Which in other words is a colonial relationship and therefore Scotland is in effect a colony. Same for Wales and Ireland ( now N. Ireland).
no, Wales came under England as a principality at the time the treaty was drawn up and ratified. Northern Ireland came under England when it was illegally annexed and is considered a province of England. Scotland is not treated as a colony but rather in terms of governance is treated as an English region due to the Scottish government (MPs) and their administration (MSPs) deferring governance. As a foreign government forced to set policy they have to think along the lines of regions even if it is detrimental to those it affects. England is colonialist in nature but that is not the case with Scotland. They had no need to colonise Scotland as the Scots assumed and continue to assume an inferior position all by themselves.
This site is called through a Scottish prism yet Scots fail to actually view Scotland from its true status as a sovereign state that is party to a treaty and to look at how Scotland is actually run by its own representatives. Once you do look at it from Scotland’s true status you cannot unsee just what the Scots are doing to themselves and are setting up for future generations.
I detest the English establishment and all it stands for but they are not to blame for the mess Scotland is in. The Scots are. It is not the English government’s job to assert and exercise Scots sovereign authority, That falls to the Scots who currently only view it as a soundbite.
Gayle, please do not assume you know what I know. Wales was the first colony of England. You can call it a principality if you want but it was a conquered nation.
I totally disagree that England has no responsibility for the subjugation of Scotland. There were British forts and garrisons all over Scotland to subdue the people. The Scots did not assume an inferior position – they did not want the union and expressed that position very forcibly. It was Scotlands politicians who assumed an inferior position and betrayed the people of Scotland just as they do to this day.
It is possible to be legally sovereign and legally in a union but still be treated as a colony. That is what Scotland’s politicians have created.
You really should pay attention to Gayle because she is correct and you are 100% wrong so its not too hard to see what your “knowledge ” is , knowledge and just having an opinion on something isn’t the same thing.
A unionist trying the divide nonsense. Why not try and tell us just 3 things that can only be achieved by the British Union that cannot be achieved by an independent Scotland?
Can anyone name anything any of the SNP Benchwarmers in WM have done recently (perhaps ever) to advance our cause. Anything, at all?
You are right Roddy, Pete and the SNP bourgeoisie elites understanding of what independence means remains at best rudimentary.
Postcolonial theory gives us a most precise template of Scotland’s wretchedness. We are effectively in a decolonization process, of which the mankit crumb of devolution forms a part, as does the rise of an independence movement. The deceitful compromise and co-operation of the dominant national party that becomes a colonial administration explains its ‘petrification’ and inability to leap the final hurdle at the decisive moment. But fowk cannae ser twa maisters – they aye love one and despise the other, which is why the SNP elite now attack (even persecute) and hold back the independence movement; this is what precipitates the split we see. Unfortunately, prolonged and unnecessary delays to liberation are what leads to a further drama to unfold.
I’d be happy to explain postcolonial theory to Pete anytime, and why our cause is most urgent, so urgent in fact that he and his 46 SNP MP colleagues (plus 2 ALBA MPs), being the third elected majority of nationalists in Scotland, would be well advised to liberate Scotland now, as they are constitutionally and lawfully entitled and obliged to do.
Well said, Alf. Constantly frustrating the need for independence is a very dangerous path to follow. Something will give soon and Petey had best duck.
The SNP is a party of home rule, not independence. The SNP government, by watering down the worst of Westminster policy pertaining to Scotland, is actually preserving the union. The SNP leadership knows this. Home rule is London rule.
You’ll not get the would be Speaker of the House on anything as challenging as Women’s Hour far less a Scottish Prism.
Great article Roddy, I’d take exception though to your description of westminster as only an autocracy, surely it is also a kleptocracy ?
A crime syndicate!
An English mafia.
I may disagree with Wishart on many things, not least his desire to be Speaker of the House, but he is right. Scotland is not a colony. It is a sovereign state and merely party to an international Agreement. Deferring governance is a political choice not something imposed by Scotland’s treaty partner.
When Scotland consistently lies down, the English government cannot be blamed for standing up.
Ordinary folk may not like it but the simple fact is that the Scots are wholly to blame for their predicament. Failure to hold one’s own government to account, failure to distinguish between a devolved administration, and from whom it is devolved, and the government of the sovereign state of Scotland, the constant language of inferiority and need to maintain that sense of inferiority rather than acknowledging Scotland’s true status as a sovereign state is wholly on them.
The English establishment, its people and every man and his dog globally recognises Scots sovereignty and its true status but the Scots, especially those of an indy persuasion, bizarrely do not. They promote themselves as inferior in status and law. Many indy supporters ask for reasons for maintaining the union and are often told by the opposition that they need to hold their own government to account and demand that they actually govern Scotland. Granted their stance is from within GB rather than outwith it but they are right. Many of them also state the true status of Scotland and that Scotland is not a colony.
How strange that it takes the opposition to point out the truth when this should be the starting place from which indy supporters argue their case and move forward.
Scotland will never denounce in word and deed the treaty so long as the Scots fail to recognise their true status and assume a weaker, inferior position. What is worse is that should it ever terminate the treaty it will likely adopt the same mental stance of inferiority when it enters treaties yet again with England! And any state witnessing just how inferior the Scots act especially with a pissant government like England that is isolated on a tiny island will view Scotland as an absolute push over. Negotiators will be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of taking Scotland for a ride as the Scots cannot even stand up to such a weak treaty partner.
Spot on, Gayle. We are the architects of our own misery. Having said that, we are definitely moving towards a colonial status of mind that reflects the quasi colonial status of our country.
Like you, and after a great deal of study in my own time, and augmenting with the writings of eminent lawyers and experienced politicians, I have come to the conclusion that both legally and politically, we have the means at our fingertips to get us out. Working within the UK system is a waste of time and effort, and the only thing to be done is to form an informal and very loose independence alliance between the SNP and all the other parties and movements to place candidates for election, and, immediately thereafter, according to seats won, not votes (that would be entirely undemocratic and a major departure from UK political precedent) declare UDI, while, simultaneously or ahead of the election, preferably, place our case with the UN and the international court to have the Treaty adjudicated on as an international agreement between two equal sovereign states, with the intention to create a new state where both partners were to be equal and the union was to be a mutually-beneficial one.
The blatant evidence that England as the UK hi-jacked the Treaty, the Acts and the British State to the detriment of Scotland cannot be gainsaid. We need to have the Treaty recognised for what it was intended to be, and not what it became, and then have it resiled on the grounds of deliberate and persistent breaching by England as the UK. That way, we will have a strong hand in post independence negotiations for assets, and so on. If we don’t do this or don’t take our future into our own hands soon, it will be too late to do so via the ballot box. I’m not making any kind of threat, just reading the runes as they fall – and, crucially, historical precedent in this area.
You are correct of course , when you read so many YES people still calling Scotland a colony you do have to wonder about the state of the nations Education standards
If we are not a colony why do we need our ‘equal partners’ approval to hold a referendum?’
Because the SNP does not speak for the majority of Scotland only around a third want an Indyref in the near future. https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/less-than-a-third-want-independence-referendum-next-year-poll-suggests-3684893
The SNP themselves stated previously they wouldn’t want another Indyref till the Polls were showing at least 60% wanted one, otherwise they would likely lose again and that second loss would finish them for good. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13877169.snp-want-polls-show-60-support-independence-whole-year-calling-referendum/
Another unionist that thinks every independence supporter is SNP. You lot really need to get out of your bubble and educate yourself.Simpletons abound!
Well said, Lorna, I agree that what you suggest is perfectly possible but, as you and Gayle, point out, our elected representatives do not have the will or courage to do what is needed.
The problem is, what can we, the people, do about this wretched situation and are there enough of us to push for a change of policy?
I think more people are beginning to see the cracks in the SNP position ‘ as time and ‘events’ move on and just hope that the ‘stronger for Scotland’ facade will break soon.
Lindsay Hoyle has to be the most useless waste of space currently warming the speakers chair at WM in living memory. When I think of some of the legendary characters that served before him (not so long ago), how on earth did we end up with a wet paper bag like Hoyle?
Quote from Gen Timothy M Ray Air Force Global Strike Command commander –
“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Richard said. “The big one (i.e., a conflict with China) is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested in a long time.”
And with comment like that you know the real reason for the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. America is being surpassed as the world’s biggest economy. The power is moving from west to east. BRICS plus others is now reality and the US is set to lose its primary Reserve Currency domination. Without that advantage the US is bankrupt.
Britain used to be the world’s reserve currency before the US took over. America in a mere 70 years is now headed the same way.
The world is realigning.
and those of us pleadingvfir peace keep being attacked as Pro Putinist apologists. They are so stupid they cannot see they are bring apologists abd fools fir US aggression!They are tge warmonger nation of imperialism not Russia and not China.
Willie: the US and UK have given little thought to what happens if Putin falls, as they push and push. If the Russian Federation goes belly-up, we will have a re-alignment along the same lines as Eastern Europe – lots of states pulling out and the Islamic ones aligning with either Saudi or Iran.
China will, rightly,, see this as Western aggression one mad (they do already). Having said that, the forces that are causing structural cracks in the West, the ‘trans’ issue and the consequent rise of the right, ushered in by the stupidity of the far left, as per, are weakening the West from within.
America, in particular, but the UK, too, have pandered to unfettered capitalism to the extent that there has arisen a whole new generation of narcissistic and, frankly, psychopathic/sociopathic oligarchs in the West who exploit every opportunity to make mega bucks, weakening the struts that support Western liberal-conservatism. If we have to go to war, are the men in frocks going to fight? About a quarter of the American military are reckoned to be ‘trans’ or thinking about it. Unfortunately for the West, the Chinese military and those of the Islamic world are not thinking about ‘becoming women’.
I think we had best hone our diplomatic skills now and accept that we have no clout at all. Undermining heteronormativity might sound like a good virtue-signalling enterprise, but it leaves you wide open to being so weakened that you have no defence left. I suppose that is the intention, of course, and there are mega bucks available, too, if you happen to have a finger in the military-industrial complex, as well as Big Tech, Big Pharma, etc. Can’t lose.
So your against Independence for Taiwan then ? And Ukraine and other Countries have to stay harnessed under the hand of the Dictator Putin and are not allowed to seek their own rights to Independence ? Isn’t that just a wee mite hypocritical ?
You obviously know nothing about Taiwan or Ukraine except tbe lies the western corporate media and the war mongering US apologists feed you. How the elite love the gullible simpletons.Away and educate yourself