This week my special guest is Prof. Alf Baird who discussed the possibility of ending the Treaty of Union. Should any future referendum be a franchise just for Scots and the Scottish diaspora? What constitutes being a colony? What does Petrification mean to our quest for independence
My regular blogger spot has Iain Lawson of Yours for Scotland and Karen Kelly of Weedetour blog join me to discuss the political talking points of the week. the ring fenced money, where is it, who spent it, is it in a safety deposit box or what? The reappointed Treasurer of SNP to be grilled by the NEC, really? Martin Keatings and the vindictiveness of the departing Lord Advocate. How will Scottish farmers cope with Australian Trade Deal.
All this and so much more. Don’t miss out.From Noon on Sunday.
Alf points out we are sovereign but ‘not enough folk know it’. I’d argue our Parliament knows it but won’t exercise sovereignty. They are far too timid, the SNP scared to do anything.
Great stuff again, Roddy/Alf/Iain/Karen. I don’t think it’s a leisurely choice, if it ever was, to become independent, but a matter of survival for our people and our nation. What right does another people have to subsume us? What right do they have to try and partition us, as some have suggested. Would England jump with joy if we decided to partition off Northumberland and Cumbria because the people there were once Scots and we still have similar dialects? The legality is always questionable too, but never once have I heard a SG member state that. They just go along with it all. It makes my blood boil. If they ever wanted independence, they’ve forgotten it; the appointment of Michael Russell to some pretend unit is just a feint yet again. An independence unit should have been set up immediately after 2014.
I once had a right ding-dong with a man from the South who told me that he had not come to Scotland to have a border established which might impede his granddaughters’ sojourn North in future. I asked him if he believed that an entire people’s future should rest on whether his granddaughters should have to pass over a border to reach him, and, quite blatantly, he more or less, said yes. His individual circumstances, that he chose by coming to Scotland to live, were more important than the right of the Scots to their independence. That is the mentality of so many I have encountered. Having said that, there are people who have moved here, English, Polish, etc. who are of a very different mindset, so we should not tar everybody with the same brush. Many are happy to settle down and become Scots of English/Polish, etc. heritage, and welcome.
What Alf or Alfie has said, is right: we are being, and have been for a long time, squeezed out of jobs that are to do with culture, the environment, the sciences, the arts, literature, education, and so on. No one would dare to do a proper survey of these types of jobs, especially the top jobs in the areas, because of what they would show. No one is saying that only Scots should hold them, but we should be asking why so few Scots hold them. These are the jobs that will determine how we advance as a nation, and, while there is always room for input from others – in fact, it is healthy and enriching to have that – we do need to ensure that our culture is not lost amid the clamour of others’ cultures drowning ours out forever.
Land ownership and property ownership are two other pressing items that need to be dealt with. No one should have the right to own huge swathes of Scotland, and no one should have the right to prevent local young families from settling in their own areas. Feudal land rights and second home ownership are now dire areas of inequality and entitlement in Scotland. A proper tax regime to discourage speculation, out-bidding locals, and so on, can be constructed; other countries have done it. Alf mentioned Denmark, which introduced such laws when rich Germans were snapping up properties and land to the detriment of locals. Without such laws in place here, we will continue to be milked like a milchcow. Enough is enough. If GRA reform comes along, and independence is still not on the table – properly on the table, not paying lip service and setting up pretendy wee units, I, for one, will lose it completely.
This is the first time I’ve heard Alf Baird speak. His approach seems to me to be eminently sensible.
The problem with the S30 as we are seeing, is that it will be gerrymandered to suit the oppressor. And we see from history that Westminster will be more than happy to break the rules it previously agreed to in order to achieve the desired result – see purdah!
I think what we are saying (and I believe what ALBA’s policy is) is that each and every election from here on is an independence election. A victory kicks off negotiations on secession with WM and any confirmatory referendum is designed and organised by the newly elected Scottish government (without WM interference)
If newSNP (in light of the donations debacle) are saying now that everything they do is about independence, then they should have no hesitation in making the next WM election a plebiscite to end a treaty of union which has been completely abused.
Scotland already is an independent nation. What it isn’t is an independent state. It is its statehood Scotland needs to reassert. Additionally, Scotland doesn’t need permission from the English government and the English government does not have dominion over Scotland. The problem is that Scotland’s government does not act as a government of a sovereign nation and country nor the equal partner with equal authority to the state. Instead they hand the reins of governance to a foreign country’s government and the Scots are raised to believe that this is how things are meant to be. Scotland merely acts as a colony but again this goes to the way Scots are raised. They need to stop treating the English government as their overlords and start asking some basic questions. As Alf rightly points out Scotland is an independent country and it needs to act accordingly.
With regard to the lack of a state constitution, this is because what was entered into was an international trade agreement which came on the back of the Alien Act act the sanctions against Scotland trading internationally using English controlled sea routes. The constitutions of both countries remained intact and enshrined in the treaty. It is only Scotland that refuses to acknowledge theirs which also enshrined their ancient laws and customs which include their sovereignty and independence in perpetuity.
Prior to devolution the accepted legal route to Scotland’s statehood was merely sending a majority of indy supporting Scots MPs to the parliament of GB. Scotland has repeatedly done so yet again refuses to act. So the question is, why not? There is no legal reason for them not to do so.
Well said, Gayle. The Union was brought about by pressure from England, and, in 1707, it slammed the ‘back door’ and locked it against France and other European rivals of England’s, not ours. Our merchantmen once roamed the seas, and, if we look, we will find references to Scottish merchants, sailors, architects, scholars, soldiers, et al, in almost every known country pre Union. Many countries owe at least a part of their trading, their army or navy, civil service or architecture and politics to Scots. We have much to be proud of as an independent people, and much to be ashamed of as partners in the British Empire.
The SNP I remember never stood back and let Westminster spew out propaganda the way it does now – and not just propaganda, but lies and obfuscations, half-truths and evasions. I often wonder what we would be like now as a nation and a state if we had never caved in to English pressure. I think our relationship with the world, and with England, would be much better.
Noticed a few eejits giving it the blood and soil nationalism pish to you on Twitter Roddy, Boils my pish is an understatement.
The reason us in the Radical Independence Campaign prefer a non-party-political referendum as the route to independence is, quite simply, we trust the people more than we trust any politicians. A referendum campaign involves mass mobilisation. That is preferable to something involving just a few lawyers and professional politicians. However, we don’t care about being “nice”. Boris can shove his “permission” where the sun don’t shine. And, as far as we’re concerned, a Yes majority should be regarded as our immediate Declaration of Independence, signed, not by a few professionals, but by THE PEOPLE
In early 1979 the Labour Government held a Scottish referendum on establishing a Scottish Assembly in Edinburgh. People from England living in Scotland got to vote. Me, born and raised in Scotland but living down south, and working as a bricklayer on London building sites, I didn’t get to vote. And it was RIGHT that English folk living in Scotland got to vote, while I, a Scot living in London, couldn’t vote. It is RIGHT that voting entitlement goes solely by residence.
There is no need to change the rules on who can vote. We reject all “ethnic” nationalism as the enemy of the working class. The likes of Iain Lawson and Alf Baird are DEFEATISTS. They are saying they can’t win unless they rig the rules their way. We, on the other hand, say we can win, and win decisively, without that.
Mind you, some of us think it’s a possibility that, sooner or later, after Independence, there could be a Scottish civil war. With us principled working class folks on one side of the barricades, and fascists like them on the other side.
And you sir are a dreamer, a fantasist and living in cloud cuckoo land.
PS Name a single nation on the planet that allows foreign nationals to vote on Constitutional matters?
You might wish to read this, Dave.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/canongate-wall-and-the-indyref-franchise-question-2/