Scottish Independence Quotes

"I hereby declare the union between Scotland and England DISSOLVED" Charles III (aka Charles Edward Stuart/ Bonnie Prince Charlie) in 1745.

— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) May 12, 2013

"I have devoted myself to the cause of the people, it is a good cause, it shall ultimately prevail, it shall finally triumph."- Thomas Muir
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) April 14, 2013

"We English, who are a marvellous people, are really very generous to Scotland." Baroness Thatcher #indyref #scotland
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) April 14, 2013

"What are advantages Scotland reaps from so called Union that counterbalance annihilation of her independence and her name?" Robert Burns
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 12, 2013

"it is much easier to corrupt 45 Scots at London, than it is to corrupt 300 at Edinburgh!" Fletcher of Saltoun 1707#scotsnotbrits #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 8, 2013

@uk_together 2008 When asked about #Scots and #Wales opposing TeamGB Seb Coe said "F*ck 'em" #indyref Mutual Respect? twitter.com/freescotlandno…
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 4, 2013

Tony Blair on devolution "Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay." Scotsman 1997 #scotsnotbrits #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 7, 2013

"I'm an English nationalist and never you forget it," said Mrs Thatcher to James Naughtie in 1986. #scotsnotbrits #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 7, 2013

England called the shots..because..union was seen as a way..of amplifying England's power worldwide Jack Straw 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme…
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 10, 2013

"I have devoted myself to the cause of the people, it is a good cause, it shall ultimately prevail, it shall finally triumph." Thomas Muir
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 25, 2013

WINSTON CHURCHILL 'of all small nations of this earth perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.'
— Independence Celebs (@Celebs4indy) November 22, 2012

I like this: Pat Kane "I want to live in a progressive country. Where the peopleliving here have ideas way beyond their station." #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

"It's a racist argument that Scots uniquely cannot run a country when there are smaller nations than ours that do it just fine." Osama Saeed
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

"It is not for glory nor honors nor riches that we are fighting but for freedom for that alone which no honest man gives up" Arbroath 1320
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

"Is it better that we deliver on our agenda inan independent Scotland or continue to fail to deliver in a United Kingdom?" John Duffy FBU
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

Iain (M) Banks: "Scotland could have viable future as independent country. We could become a low-inequality society on Scandinavian model."
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

Ken Loach: "If I had the change to be independent from the Tory-Liberal-New Labour bunch, I'd jump at it." #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013

The Scots Covenant Campaign proved Westminster ignores Scotland's wishes

There was a large amount of moves towards a Scottish parliament at Westminster in the 19th century and a number of home rule bills were proposed and supported by Scottish MP's at the end of the 19th and the very beginning of the 20th century.

It wasn't until the Scottish Covenant Campaign however led by one of the early leading figures of the SNP John MacCormick (who would eventually join the Liberals) was launched in 1949 that the full support for some form of Scottish self government was revealed.




Excerpt from Restless Nation (1996)

An incredible Two million Scots in 1950 demanded home rule but were completely ignored by BritGov. This experience (not unnaturally)  disillusioned many. The election of Winnie Ewing in Hamilton in 1967 began the long march towards power of the SNP.

In the 70's fear of the SNP's rise in support (and the discovery of Scotland's Oil which boosted the SNP's credibility) led to Labour's 1978 devolution bill. There was a clear vote in favour at the subsequent referendum but Labour's wrecking clause (the 40% rule)  meant no devolution was delivered. The Tories had said if the people did not vote for the referendum bill as proposed by Labour then they would provide a stronger alternative. In fact when Mrs Thatcher gained power she immediately said no devolution would happen in Scotland (a move which then caused a younger Malcolm Rifkind to resign from her front bench, though he came back and acted as Scottish Secretary/Governor General for some years).

Thatcher then proceeded to decimate the Scottish economy which had heavily relied on manufacturing industry. This caused the Conservatives to gradually become less and less popular in Scotland and at one point they had zero MP's (they still even now, only have one!). Labour when out of power campaigned hypocritically for the devolution they had cynically denied Scots while in office and when Blair was elected he was forced (reluctantly) to introduce devolution. The rest as they say is history. We should never forget though that Westminster ignored that 2 million strong petition fo Devolution in 1950 and proved forever that they could not be trusted to act in Scotland's interests.

The true origins of Britain and Britishness

This relates to a discussion with someone on Twitter who declared that Britain as a geographical entity existed long before Scotland.

The modern state of Britain was deliberately named after the ancient Roman colony of Britannia (ie the Roman name for England) and this state which was created in 1707 has no actual connection with the ancient Britons (who were in fact Celtic Gaels who eventually ended up pushed into the ancient countries of Cornwall and Wales) and is in fact an attempt to impose a false identity on modern Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Even in Roman times Scotland (Caledonia) and Ireland (Hibernia) were recognised as seperate geographical entities from England and the islands were occupied by our ancestors for a long time before the Romans tried to conquer and take notice of us. So why should we be currently dominated by their terms for what they would have considered barbarian tribes?

Britannia is in fact their slave name for an area they conquered.

Britain and the 'British Isles' is described in these terms today because of the historical dominance of the Union over the last 300 years and the name was chosen deliberately to hark back to the terminology used by the Romans.  

My debator believes that it is a geographical term with no political significance whatsoever, however I say that if Scotland and England's fortunes were reversed then we would now be sitting in a Scots dominated state called Greater Caledonia and only the most gullible Englishman would think that this state was representative of England or the English!

This may seem a small point but I think it cuts to the quick of British propaganda and the constant talk of ancient and stone age Britain is a slight of hand which defies the truth, that Britishness is and was a false identity imposed upon the true identities of the Scots and Welsh and Irish and it has only actually genuinely existed (in historic terms) in a comparitively recent period.

Here are some facts:

With the Roman conquest of England the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman occupied Britain south of Caledonia.

In this post-Roman period, as the Anglo-Saxons advanced, territory controlled by the Britons became confined to what would later be Wales, Cornwall and North West England.

The Historia Brittonum claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings, followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England.

During the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was applied to the Welsh people.

King James VI and I advocated full political union between England and Scotland and on 20 October 1604 proclaimed his assumption of the style "King of Great Britain" though this title was rejected by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland and so had no basis in either English law or Scots law.

Despite opposition from much of the Scottish and English populations a Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 that was then ratified by each parliament passing Acts of Union 1707. With effect from 1 May 1707, this created a new sovereign state called Great Britain.

After 1707, a British national identity began to develop though initially resisted—particularly by the English —the peoples of Great Britain had by the 1750s begun to assume a "layered identity", to think of themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish, English, or Welsh.

(Note that this wasn't long after 1745 so the population had just been brutally ethnically cleansed of Catholics, Gaelic Highlanders and other Jacobite Scots independence supporters. It is also notable that for the first fifty years of union our economy had actually declined, so much for an instant age of prosperity!)

It is also forgotten that for much of our history Scotland was effectively a police state and those who argued for political reform were sent to Botany Bay. Thomas Muir is an obvious example, while some of the rebels of 1820 who marched under the Banner 'Scotland Free or a Desert' were actually hung by the state. There was also a vast network of informers and bribery led by the Dundas brothers so for some considerable time it wasn't exactly easy to state any opinion against the status quo!

Particularly in the 19th century, "North Britain" or "N.B." was widely used for postal addresses in Scotland, a fact which annoyed Robert Louis Stevenson:

"Don’t put N.B. on your paper; put Scotland and be done with it. Alas, that I should be stabbed in the house of my friends! The name of my native land is not North Britain, whatever may be the name of yours."

from a letter written by Robert Louis Stevenson in April 1888

Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English, Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resist notions of a homogenised British identity.

- Colley, Linda (1992), Britons: Forging the Nation, 1701–1837, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-05737-9

So what does it matter if the state we live in is effectively called Greater England? It matters because politically that is precisely what it is. A false state which amplifies English power internationally at the expense of the individual identities of Scotland and Wales. This fact has already been admitted by Jack Straw:

“historically England called the shots to achieve a union because the union was seen as a way, among other things, of amplifying England’s power worldwide.

A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interest of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England. Our [England’s] voting power in the European Union would diminish. We’d slip down the world’s GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN.”

Scotland is not British and Britishness has never represented our interests. It is a false identity which has been imposed by politicians who want to ignore us so yes names matter and we should not be afraid to shout the fact that we are not 'British' and never have been.

In actual fact the reverse of the simplistic British view of history are true and in fact England was once part of a larger Celtic Alba according to Dr Alex Woolf (who lectures in medieval history at St Andrews:

"When the Romans occupied the island they gave the name Britannia to their province, with its fluctuating boundaries, and it is probably their failure to gain any lasting foothold in Ireland that gradually led to that island becoming ‘less British’ than this one.

The two islands had their own names, Iwerijo for Ireland, and Albijo for the larger island. These names survive as Eire and Alba, the Gaelic names for Ireland and Scotland respectively."

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Bella Caledonia on a 'British' Football Team.

"England will run out at Hampden Park representing ‘Britain’ in 2012. What a depressing end to Gordon Browns dreadful attempt to stoke up Britpop-New Labour and the Imperial End Game at the fag-end of Blighty. Thatcher, Blair and now Brown are the haggard smokers outside the pub still heaving away at the last fag of British identity. This is the last shameful wheezzie gasp, achievable only by the self-colonisation and collusion of the Scottish Football Association."

The full article from the above link is excellent. Highly recommended. JOE

Scottish Chess - Rampant Chess

A bit 'off topic' this but I thought I would mention this new book by Geoff Chandler and Keith Ruxton. Rampant Chess - Over 60 Great Games by Scottish Masters

‘Rampant Chess’ is a collection of games played by 13 Scottish Masters annotated with an eye to humour and entertainment value which so many games collections lack. This book sets a style which others are bound to mimic as its approach makes it easy to read and understand.
This is the first time that such a ‘Scottish’ collection of seriously good games have been put together into a book and as such make it eminently collectable. The authors annotation avoids reams of variations but focuses rather on ensuring that the reader understands what is going on and is drawn into the game being discussed. This book is as much an experience as a read. It is there to be enjoyed.

Geoff and Keith are both Edinburgh players connected to Sandy Bells club (who I play for, in the II team). The book sounds excellent and can be ordered from here:

http://www.newinchess.com/Rampant_Chess-p-1731.html

Opinion-poll verdicts on independence are not the full picture

CONSIDER this: the Union – safe in Alex Salmond's hands. The SNP may be miles ahead of Labour but support for independence is sinking like a stone.

Bizarrely, a successful SNP government is helping to cement Scotland's place in the UK by demonstrating how devolution can deliver for the people. Who needs separatism when things are going so well? Former defence secretary George Robertson was right after all – devolution has indeed killed nationalism stone-dead, albeit not in the way he intended.

That's the general suggestion offered in the wake of the latest opinion poll showing support for independence at 23 per cent. There's only one problem with this analysis – it's utter rubbish.

Full article in the Scotsman

Interesting article. Personally I don't believe support for independence is as low as this though I am sure people will be happier with an ambitious devolved Government led by the SNP than a timorous devolved Government led by Labour.

If the unionists really believed that Scots supported the union they would be happy to allow the Scottish Government to hold a referendum on independence. They don't which is why they want desperately to avoid one.

If the positive arguments for normal powers for Scotland were articulated against the usual scaremongering campaign from the unionists (which ultimately failed at the last elections despite mass media support for it) then I have no doubt independence would win. JOE

DISINFORMATION AND HYPOCRISY FROM LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

The story in the Herald re Ming Campbell today is interesting as it shows up his utter hypocrisy - pity they don't allow any comments.

The Scotsman is more biased (the Herald is biased as well but is slightly more subtle) but at least you get a chance to comeback.

Check this out:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1230481.0.0.php

'Sir Ming' [who obviously has a vested interest in the status quo] argued Scotland would forfeit much international influence if it went independent, for instance losing a seat on the UN Security Council. "Our ability to influence the kind of world we live in would be very severely dented," he stressed.

Is he really so stupid? It's not SCOTLAND's seat at the UN security council. Scotland is not represented in the UN at all.

Jack Straw was a hell of a lot more honest when he said he was worried England would lose their seat at the UN Security council if Scotland became independent.

Straw is quoted by the BBC as saying: "Historically, England called the shots to achieve a union because the union was seen as a way, among others things, of amplifying England's power worldwide. And the reverse would certainly be true. A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England."

He adds, "Our [England's] voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN." [Security Council]

Harry Reid joins the Convention

One of Scotland’s most eminent journalists, Harry Reid, has joined the Scottish Independence Convention, throwing his weight behind the campaign for a referendum and proclaiming his belief that the Treaty of Union is dead.

Mr Reid is a former editor of The Herald who ran the paper during its acclaimed campaign for a Yes/Yes vote in the 1997 devolution referendum. He has since written authoritative books on the Church of Scotland and the state of Scottish football. His latest book, Deadline, is a fast-selling history of the Scottish press.

He explained his decision to embrace independence: “I’ve been a ‘fellow traveller’ for a year or so now, yet somehow I’ve never quite faced up to what both my heart and my head have been telling me: that an independent Scotland could – and almost certainly would – be a better Scotland. I further believe that the Union is finished, and that England could benefit greatly from rediscovering itself by going through the potentially positive process of becoming English rather than British.

“And then my old friend and colleague Murray Ritchie bludgeoned me into writing this short piece. SO LET ME COME OUT AND SCREAM IT: I BELIEVE IN, AND NOW I EARNESTLY DESIRE, AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND.”

He said there were many reasons for this, some subtle, some crude, some cerebral, some emotive, some obscure, some historical.

“But the clincher for me has been the way this man Blair – surely the worst British leader in living memory – has been responsible for the worst thing I can recall the British state doing. That is, the reckless and illegal invasion of a sovereign foreign country, Iraq. I’m not sure if the invasion would have been justified had our security been genuinely at risk, but without doubt a case could have been made. Whereas the case that Blair presented was utterly false.
“And it was easy enough to invade, easy enough to topple Saddam: but how to secure the peace and how to construct a new and stable Iraq? How to persuade that country’s people – those of them who have not been slaughtered - that their life is better and the invasion has been beneficial? Not a thought seems to have been given to these crucial policy decisions. And thus, for the people of Iraq, life has slipped towards the abyss.

“The invasion of Iraq has been supremely and horrendously counter-productive. Our fine military have been shamelessly sent on a grotesque fool’s errand, a mission that was supposed to help us defeat terrorism but is instead creating and mentoring a whole new generation of terrorists.

“And what has this to do with an independent Scotland? It is quite simple. An independent Scotland would never ever misuse its power in this manner. I could never imagine, in a thousand years, an independent Scotland sending its army to invade a far-off country on such phoney pretexts.

“Iraq must dominate our current political agenda. But as I have tried to explain, Iraq is relevant to our constitutional debate.

“There are many other, far more positive, arguments for Scottish independence and I look forward to discussing these in the months ahead. The key point in the here-and-now is this: the British state – and it pains me to write this – has done something that is seriously wrong and very stupid. A Scottish state would never have behaved in this way.”

Murray Ritchie, convention convener, welcomed Mr Reid to the campaign. “Harry’s an intellectual heavyweight. He has thought through the arguments for and against independence and, like most of Scotland’s leading thinkers, reached the conclusion that the benefits will be overwhelmingly in favour. We are delighted to welcome him to the winning side.”

from Scottish Independence Convention www.scottishindependenceconvention.com