Yesterday was a watershed moment in the struggle for Scottish independence. Everybody in Scotland, independence supporter or unionist alike has been left in no doubt. The British Union is not a voluntary union of two equal states. It is an English hegemony, nothing less.There cannot now surely be a single person left in Scotland who can deny that our nation is a defacto English colony?
40 out of 59 Scottish MPs yesterday were outvoted 228 to 48 by the English majority at Westminster on Neale Hanvey’s Scotland (Self-Determination) Bill. This piece of legislation was to transfer the power over to Holyrood to determine Scottish Independence Referendums. This, after all, has been the settled will of the Scottish voters since 2007. In eight elections since that time the SNP have won crushing victories on independence mandates. On eight occasions the English majority in London have ignored the votes of Scotland!
At every turn the democratic wishes of the people, of Scotland have been traduced by the English majority in London. Yesterday was no different when the English registered Parties united to defeat the majority of Scottish MPs.
The only question now is how do the independence parties react to this blatant undemocratic action by the English majority? To me the answer is very simple, every single Scottish MP that believes in democracy leaves that anti-democratic building at Westminster and they refuse to go back until such times as the English Nationalist MPs start respecting the will of the Scottish voters.
What yesterday highlighted beyond any shadow of a doubt is the futility of any independence supporting Scottish MP going to the English dominated House of Commons. As I reminded everyone in a recent article, in 2015/16 when the Scotland Bill was going through that chamber over 100 SNP amendments to that Bill were defeated by the English majority. It was at that point when we had 56 out of 59 Scottish representatives at that place when we should have acted.
Sturgeon should have pulled all her MPs out of the House of Commons and sent a clear message that Scotland would not be messed around. The will of the Scottish voters expressed at the 2015 UKGE had to be respected by the English parties!
That she didn’t sent the opposite message, she in effect said to the English Nationalists, do what you like boys, we Scots have no bottle, no clue and no strategy! Treat our voters and our nation as contemptuously as you like! Because that is exactly what our English imperial masters have done, aided and abetted by a few Scots born English Nationalists!
It is not too late now to do the right thing. Any SNP or Alba, MP, that remains at Westminster is in fact accepting that Scotland is an English possession and their attendance in the House of Commons gives authority to the English imperialists to do as they want with us, with our democracy, our nation and its resources!
Today Humza Yousaf and Alex Salmond have to recall their MPs until democracy is restored. Any of the members that refuse the request should immediately have the whip removed and be deselected from standing in the forthcoming General Election. Those Scottish born English nationalists that represent English parties at Westminster should be shunned by every self-respecting democratic Scot. They are colluding with English MPs in the undemocratic treatment being meted out to their country of birth.
A Scottish Constitutional Convention should be called for next week. The old Royal High School in Edinburgh would seem an ideal choice of location for such a body. All parties interested in Scotland’s self-determination should be encouraged to attend. Trade Unionists, COSLA, clergy, civic Scotland and other interested parties should send representatives. We need everyone on board.
These good folk of Scotland should start formulating a strategy to ensure that the will of the Scottish people is met. Civil disobedience, demonstrations, should be positively encouraged. We should make Scotland ungovernable. If the English Nationalists refuse to accept democracy then why should we? Being supine and playing the English game at Westminster and at Holyrood was never going to set our nation free.
We need to get creative and belligerent. History has shown us our English neighbours have never stood on their own two feet. They have never respected democracy or self-determination of others. The Americas, India, Africa, Arabia they came, they saw they conquered, they stole, pillaged and raped because their green and pleasant place is incapable of sustaining itself without stealing from others. All of those nations in those continents had to fight for their independence. Scotland can be no different. England will not just agree, we are too valuable to England’s well being. We keep England afloat financially.
They treat us like a colony and keep us in their union not because of our charm and bonhomie! They keep us captured to steal our resources and to keep England from bankruptcy. Since 1066 England have always lived beyond their means. To make up for this they have invaded and colonised half the world. We along with the Welsh and the six occupied counties of Ireland is all that is left for them to exploit. It is time to end that exploitation!
They are the subsidy junkies, the parasites and warmongers. It is time for Scotland to break free. Playing at being English politicians with a Scottish accent inside the defacto, English Parliament is a complete waste of time and effort. It won’t do anything to set our country free.
Every day any Scottish MP remains is to the detriment of our nation. The time has come to stop pretending to be advancing our cause by tinkering with the limited powers of devolution, we need revolution!
Scottish MPs that think by standing in that chamber playing along with the Brits advances our cause are kidding themselves on. It is time for Scots to seize our independence. Our undemocratic neighbour will never recognise our democratic wishes. Everyone must surely now realise this fact?
Withdrawing our MPs is the first step in the process of independence. Any other course of action is self-defeating. There is now no justification whatsoever in Scotland sending anyone to that undemocratic place in London!
You are right, so let’s hope Scottish history is made a d both parties do a recall of MPs to Edinburgh.
I totally agree.
It’s time to go All Out!
There has never been a time in my life, and I’m 53 that Labour or the SNP MPS from Scotland has managed to win anything meaningful for Scotland out of Westminster, Yes the Labour Party gave Scotland a parliament and look how it’s been abused by trapping Scotland into the Union, and it’s been abused by the SNP for the last ten years.
All my years as an SNP member and supporter (33yrs) I’ve argued that 1 we had to remove the monarchy from Scotland before we became Independent or how could you say you’re Independent. I 100% believe the real force holding Scotland in this union is entirely down to the SNP and its MPs, MSPs and councillors putting their own interest before that of the people who gave them a job in the first place. I would prefer it if the Indy movement started using its brain rather than its heart, because if Alba, ISP stood in ever seat and for every vote they took off the SNP and allowed the Labour Party to wipe the board and remove every single SNP MP from Westminster I believe then we’d see a change in attitude from the SNP. It isn’t hard to see that the next Westminster election is going to be a complete waste of time for the Indy movement, and it’ll entirely be down to Fyn and Humza let’s get rid of the SNP for good and look to the next Holyrood election with Ash Regan as leader of the Alba party working with ISP and Salvo. While the SNP is active as a party, Scotland will always be tied to this union, so the SNP collapsing as a party is the best way forward for us and the movement. Hannah Bardell is my MP and in this household we have every intention of voting against her to stop her being re-elected, she’s done nothing for Scotland or the Indy movement she’s a carer politician and is happy to remain at Westminster and do nothing for Scotland as long as we are daft enough to keep sending her there, well she finished in this household we want her gone and gone for good.
Well said. Everything to gain, nothing to lose but our chains.
Nothing to be gained by presence at Westminster.
A series of defiant interventions and walkouts should be used to inform the Scottish public…then out for good.
Been saying it for years especially when we sent the 56Mps down there and they got absolutely ZERO from being there other than HIGH salaries subsidised food and drink and expenses & a pension that set THEM up for life, leaving everyone here in Scotland struggling for months now to choose between heating, eating or even using washing machines..
This in a country with so much OIL is just a bloody disgrace.. I saw yesterday on a daily politics show which I just happen to hear in the background as I was changing channels, so tuned in for all of 2-3minutes, The London Mayor is saying g Londoners are £3000 a year worse off now, (shame) someone else said LONDON is £35BILLION out of pocket, jobs are being lost right left and centre.. It wasn’t the UK or even ENGLAND it was all about poor LONDON.. If London is in such trouble no wonder they are taking as much assets as they can from Scotland, to SELL not just back to us at higher prices but sell off to other countries to get LONDON back on it’s feet again..
I see ALLAN PETRIE of ALBA has put forward a REAL plan for the next GE.. I just hope every INDEPENDENTISTA no matter the party they belong or parties they have left do as he suggests & vote for NO one NO Party, Scotland should NOT stay home but go to the polls and WITE ..NOT MY PARLIAMENT across the ballot paper.. Peter A Bell has been suggesting this as well for sometime, it is good to see ALBA come out with a route that will see us Scots IGNORE WM & be willing to take back our country.. Because if LONDON is suffering right now, that means the rest of us are going to suffer even more…
#END THE UNION is maybe a better statement to make on ballot papers, unless the national parties can get their act together.
Therein lies the nub of the problem, bud: MP’s removed from Westminster ‘AND NOT RETURNING UNTIL..’
Do people NOT get it..? They do NOT return, FULL STOP – NOT TODAY, NOT TOMORROW, NOT THIS SIDE OF ‘THE BLACK STUMP..’
When you play the game, any game, by the other guy’s rules, YOU WILL ALWAYS BUT ALWAYS LOSE.. If our representatives at the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ ( what an obscene joke that is.. ) cannot see that – that which is staring them in the face – they should be looking elsewhere for gainful employment..
I agree with BB and the above comments. It really is time to assert our sovereigny which is totally subsumed in the Westminster sewer. We must explain to those who do not understand this and recall our MPs, pointing pout that when that happens, according to the terms of the 1707 treaty, the ‘UK’ Parliament has no power or legitimacy over Scotland.
This snub and that delivered to Kenny Mcaskill on his plea to allow the Grangemouth refinery to continue to process Scottish oil are enough to show that scotland is regarded as an english colony for London to treat with disdain, while plundering our resources to shore up their rotting economy.
Spot-on , Roddy .
THIS is the Spirit . No more passivity in the face of Brit State assumed superiority .
Like any bully , they’ll wilt in the face of unflinching resistance . Look at the state of them currently , flexing their atrophied muscles attacking a much less well-armed , easy target , this time the Houthies in Yemen – as it their want .
Things not going well for the governing Brit party domestically ? Solution/distraction …..bomb some poor/brown people way over yonder where the * squirrels * roam , get the entire MSM to pump-out garbage about * defending Democracy * or some such bollocks , and some chinless wonder to spout totally lies to a nice , well-paid compliant BBC * reporter * . Job done . Same as always .
Let’s GTF out of this shit as soon as possible .
1st out of Westminster .
2nd out of Union .
Watershed moment? What, yet another. Just how many of these have to happen before Scotland doesn’t just get serious but equally important, grows up. Some examples –
1979 – accepting the massive corruption pass rate for the 1979 Devolution vote that turned the outcome to be the opposite of what had been voted for.
1974 – 2005 – The McCrone report remained hidden for 30 years, but even when it was published in 2005 due to the recently passed Freedom of Information Act (that Blair regretted having happened), the exposure of the fact that successive UK governments blatantly lied about North Sea oil revenues for 30 years has had minimal impact on the push for independence. The sheer scale of the demolition of trust and exposure of financial fraud that McCrone represented, and still does, should have blown the delusion of a ‘united’ kingdom into it’s rightful place of a union that is based solely on what the powers that be in England want it to be, regardless of how disunited and economically repressive it is in reality.
2016 – England’s Brexit result overriding Scotland’s.
These are just three clear watershed moments that you’d have thought would have, as the saying goes, changed everything. But they didn’t. Just what will it take for people in Scotland to stop accepting being used and take responsibility for their own future? I’ve no idea, but watershed issues don’t have a great track record. They should have but don’t.
I agree with everything you wrote Roddy BUT who is going to DO IT and who is going to ARRANGE IT , Alex Salmond the leader of ALBA only has 2 MP’s so it would be simple for him to instruct Kenny and Neale to leave WM which I presume they would do , BUT humza the useless (not my FM) has 40 + and hell would freeze over before he would instruct those troughing clowns to walk out , and TBH even if he did I believe more than half of them would refuse because they know he is so inept and ball less that he wouldn’t and couldn’t do anything to penalise them
The Scottish Nonce Party is dead to any REAL independence supporter and TBQH anyone who would vote for them deserves all they will get , and ANY female who votes for them deserves the deviants and perverts revenge
In reality when you stop to look at the betrayal of Scotland and Scots that has taken place over the last 10 years WE are ALL to blame to some extent , politicians are only doing what they have always done , looking after themselves first and ALWAYS , OUR problem is that we fell for their LIES and some people are still believing their lies
I believe that we have lost the battle but not the WAR , I believe that the current snp and the liars within it has to be destroyed before any headway can be made on independence and sadly at 73 YOA I will not see it, WE have to prepare a MASS voting opposition to show politicians that WE have had enough of their lies and failed promises and they WILL answer to the voters
I regularly argued, sometimes vehemently with Peter A Bell on his blog as I do with Roddy on his blog but I have never questioned their dedication to the independence cause only their partisan approach to political parties or leaders , but I agree with Peter that we have to vote en mass to REJECT and DESTROY the current political setup and that can only be done collectively and towards that end I will be adopting and voting his #EndTheUnion on my voting slip and my family will do the same
After yesterday I just cannot understand how any independence might ded MP can sit in that cesspit. What is the point?
I may be optimistic, Roddy, but could this initiative by ALBA be part of a cunning plan, whereby:
1. England’s MPs are demonstrably shown to block the right of Scots to self-determination, in defiance of international law and UN conventions;
2. Scots MPs and MSPs vote by majorities declaring our right to self-determination.
Which logically leads to two possible courses of action:
1. Scots MPs and MSPs assert our right to self-determination, however this may best be achieved, under international law;
or
2. Scots MPs and MSPs continue to sit on thair erses.
All my own work Alf, no party input.😋
Falkirk Flyer. (First Post)
Yesterday was another slap in the face to the Sovereign people of Scotland, time for a long over due re-think (300 year + over due), as stated before, we can “NEVER” hope to win an amendment / vote in that place to advance Scotland’s cause.
Alex Thorburn, wrote an article on the Salvo site (well worth a read) The first Parliament of Great Britain, a quote in this article by Daniel Defoe sticks in my mind.
“The Scots will be allowed to send to Westminster, a handful of men who will make no weight whatever. They will be allowed to sit there for form’s sake to be laughed at.”
Yesterdays vote proves he was right, the MPs who support Independence must now be re-called to Edinburgh and a convention call asap..
The fact is that we are an equal union; it’s just that neither the Scots nor the English populations acknowledge the fact. Many Scots behave like downtrodden, beholden idiots. Many English behave as if they are our masters. The thing is: those rUK migrants up here can have a good life and their offspring will be Scots by birth, while retaining their English ties and heritage. They have much to gain and a huge amount to lose if they try to stymie our independence again. We are going. Nothing is going to stop us so they should reconcile themselves, with their Scottish Unionist counterparts, that independence will happen. How it happens and how they will fare afterwards, it up to them. We are going regardless of them. They should look to their own best interests, and they do not lie with England.
From Wikipedia,
‘On 21 January 1919, twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin’s Mansion House and proclaimed themselves the parliament of Ireland’
That’s the way to do it.
Absolutely, Alan. In the end, we will all have to understand that we will never be given our independence but will have to take it. We must hope that the SNP gets a thorough doing-over in the GE and that it learns the lesson, or, at least, the loyalist members do who still have not allowed sense to penetrate their skulls. We cannot get independence the SNP way, or, to be absolutely honest, the ALBA way either, which is broadly similar. Both parties need to stop playing the Westminster game because HOW we leave the Union – and we are leaving, make no mistake, will be down to them and their consciences.
Yes, we need a win in the GE of 2026 (on seats, at 50% + 1, or more if we can manage it, or on a majority of the votes cast on the day pro rata per party) with all independence supporters voting for independence on the day, regardless of party), then an immediate declaration of independence, based on both the ballot box (democracy, and the above conditions must be stipulated: either a majority of seats or a majority of votes cast for each party, not of the overall voting potential, which happened in the first referendum); and via the constitutional route, with evidence provided by SALVO/Liberation.
We cannot change the GE voting rules, but we can set the SE ones via the party in power, the SNP/Greens, and set them democratically, which they are not at the moment. No point whatsoever in winning again only to go cap in hand to Westminster for a referendum – total waste of time and breath. A win at the ballot box and UDI; then invoke the Treaty Articles and threaten Westminster with international court action if they try to fleece us and deny us our REAL rights under the Treaty, not a cooked-up facsimile. We need a decent settlement on resources and assets, and international law goes a long way, but we still need the Treaty Articles to prove that we are entitled to much more.
1) I am 100% sceptical that the MPs would do it – we shall see.
2) If they do it as a complete – that’s it, we won’t be back – then I feel reasonably sure that the Scottish Tory, Labour and LibDem MPs would soon be lauded as the true and only representatives of Scotland and suddenly be granted much more time on the floor of the HoC, and membership of Committees. Is a one of walk out as effective as those suggesting it believe?
3) So a suggestion: They should walk out en masse once a week! I would suggest stand up and walk out at th very start of PMQ’s each week. And do that every week until the General Election. Leave that action as a latent threat for after the GE.
4) But see 1) above. I don’t see anything happening tbh.