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.

Independence gives us chance to choose our destiny and right a historic wrong

Independence gives us the opportunity to choose our political destiny.

The British Union forces us to accept another country's choice as ours.

That current choice (the Conservatives) has a backward hatred of the poor in
society that it is simply not acceptable to our countrymen. Also the fact is
that we got 20 years of direct rule from London after a vote in favour of
home rule in 1978 and that had followed an estimated 2M support for
devolution in the 1950's!

If you look much further back into history there is significant evidence of
political oppression, paid spies and deportations to the colonies of
advocates of human rights. Prior to that armed revolt and the effectively
ethnic cleansing of the Gaelic population and Roman Catholics all because
they preferred the true heirs to the throne rather than a set of English
owned puppets.

There was even large attempts to remove the name of Scotland altogether and
rename us as North Britain and Ireland as West Britain. England didn't need
to be renamed as South Britain because they already understood that it was
the same thing. Britain = Britannia ie the early name for England and Wales
(the seperate country which they have controlled for so long that they treat
it legally as a part of theirs).

The union has been a grotesque and massive fraud which has hidden the
constant exploitation and sacking of our small country by a much larger one.

It needs to end and this generation has a chance to end it.

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."

British Union has always been about amplifying England

Letter to the Editor
The Scotsman

11/02/2013

Dear Sir/Madam,

If the UK state is legally the same without the Scots in it as the British Government is now claiming then this proves that Britain (Britannia?) has always been a 'greater England' and not an equal union at all.

Jack Straw MP said in an interview with the BBC that "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." *

Not only has Scotland been effectively internationally invisible within the union we are now told that every action by the UK Government and every treaty organised by it had nothing to do with us at all!

What this means logically is that Scotland has never been part of any true union just a convenient fiction which has justified England claiming a larger international profile than it deserves.

Ending the union will mean for the first time that our flag will fly at the United Nations and the Olympic Games. I suspect the European Union will be desperate to keep us within it but if they do not want us then we could easily join EFTA and still have a trading relationship with Europe.

Why should we stay a part of Britain when Westminster officially says we are an irrelevance to its continuing status?

 Unionists say that Scotland and England are equal within the union but the reality is that we are no more equal than the UK would be if it was attached to a larger nation like China or Russia or the USA.

Scotland can do better. Independence is normality for almost every other nation and there is no country that has been unable to negotiate independence. Britain seems to officially imagine that Scotland is uniquely incapable of either ruling our own affairs or of negotiating independence.

Any Scot who supports such a dismal view of their own country should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Yours faithfully,

Joe Middleton

* full interview with Jack Straw is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5388078.stm

Independence referendum moves forward

by Joe Middleton

I was watching the BBC programme Dinner with Portillo the other day, which was discussing Scots independence, and some of the reactions of the English guests were instructive. Rod Liddle initially tried to doubt the existence of Scotland at all, but later admitted that he was really worried an independent Scotland would take away all the Scots Labour MP’s from Westminster. As a leftist of sorts he thought this might not be in his interests as England would become a permanent Tory zone.

Portillo himself seemed to imagine there would be no consequences whatsoever for England, with London remaining the centre of the universe, he was therefore quite happy for the Scots (and Wales) to become independent because essentially we don’t really count.

An Oxford academic worried about how England might change without the influence of Scotland and Wales and might become a less tolerant country as a result. None of them were particularly interested in the effect independence might actually have on Scotland, an omission which perhaps perfectly illustrates the nature of the union!

On the ‘other side’ Hardeep Singh Kohli, who appears to have wangled a berth for himself as a TV expert on Scotland, proved his own ignorance by declaring that a separate military presence for Scotland was impossible and also bizarrely claimed that he didn’t even know the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons.

He seemed to imagine Scotland as a jealous lover, spurned by those nasty English types who don’t care for our affections! In fact a battered wife might have been a better analogy but when people claim ‘the English’ as a whole believe a certain thing they are generally on a hiding to nothing and this was clearly the case with Mr Kohli.

Former Labour party First Minister Henry McLeish could have enlightened him on SNP policy no doubt but perhaps couldn’t be bothered, he was more interested in whether the RBS should be considered a British bank rather than a Scots one.

Meanwhile historian Michael Fry made some decent points but his political analysis seemed to be that we would be so skint with independence that we would have to slash public spending (as a Tory he liked the sound of that) even though the actual evidence is that Scotland puts more money into the union than we receive!

I mention this programme because it indicates the kind of mish mash which passes for serious commentary on Scots independence through the British prism of TV news.

Anyone watching this programme would have been no wiser about Scots independence at the end than they would have been at the start, yet the case is very clear and easily described.

As long as Scotland and Wales are outvoted by a factor of 10-1 and 20-1, in the important arenas of defence, foreign affairs and other important areas like pensions and social security, within the British parliament, then we do not live in a genuine democracy and our views are easily and effectively ignored.

So what moves are being made towards holding a referendum on independence and what is the current situation of the SNP Government?

Right now the SNP are being attacked by the ‘Scottish’ press for various imaginary sins. Possibly to deflect attention from actual fraud at British parliamentary level by Jim Devine MP, the press have decided that an auction for a lunch with Alex Salmond is the height of corruption. The fact that the individual who bought the lunch, could have made the same donation directly to the SNP, and that there were no policy implications escapes our journos.

No, the most important issue for them is that the SNP might have used the parliamentary canteen (parliamentary facilities!) for the lunch in question… If it sounds pathetic, it is.

Nicola Sturgeon has also been dunked into luke warm water for the heinous crime of representing a constituent. Yes, because Nicola wrote a letter asking a court to consider that a custodial sentence might not be advisable for a benefit fraudster with ten kids this is seen as a shocking lapse of judgement.

The Edinburgh Evening News claims “the honeymoon is finally over for SNP”. This claim that the SNP’s popularity was a ‘honeymoon period’ was always designed to be a stick to beat them with, however given that the SNP won the elections in May 2007 it’s been a hell of a long honeymoon! The unionists have yet to hit the SNP with a charge that will stick. In reality they have governed extremely well, a fact which sticks in the throat of many a biased journalist.

The unionists attempted to kill the SNP’s referendum bill by trying to arrange one of there own flunkies as committee chairman. Margo MacDonald’s assisted suicide bill which should have gone to the health committee was instead given to a newly created ad hoc committee with a view to ensuring a unionist chair on the proposed referendum bill which was expected to follow it.

In fact however the SNP neatly sidestepped this abuse of parliamentary procedure by publishing the Bill in draft form meaning that they can delay its actual implementation to a more opportune time.

The SNP plans to hold the referendum in 2010, after the result of the UK elections and at a point where any new Government will have revealed its hand in respect of Scotland. Labour and Liberals might find it more difficult to deny a choice on independence in the face of a hostile Conservative UK Government!

At the moment however all the unionists are pledged to deny Scots a choice and to publish a bill would simply hasten its demise. Timing in this case is everything, and the SNP have organised through their national conversation a proper consultation with the public. SNP ministers have travelled up and down all of Scotland and held numerous public meetings to properly consider independence.

The ill fated Calman commission, designed to scupper independence without actually going as far as considering it, has given its findings which have subsequently been entirely ignored by both Labour and Conservatives. So called devolution max, is actually devolution minimal as no unionist party is willing to countenance any actual financial level of independence.

Without the purse strings of course a devolved assembly remains effectively controlled by central Government, a fact they are all well aware of. Calman was designed to outflank the national conversation, however because it ignored independence all it has done is reveal the poverty of ambition for Scotland of all unionists. Job well done!

What this means is that the line between independence and devolution remains clearly drawn. When the referendum happens the Scots will get a choice which is clear between those who want the best for Scotland and those who don’t.

The unionists can delay that vote but ultimately they cannot deny it. If the SNP needs to spend more time talking to the public and dealing with actual political issues then I’m sure they are happy to do this. If they have to fend off ill aimed allegations without much actual weight then they seem entirely capable of that as well.

According to opinion polls many people in Scotland remain unconvinced by independence, probably because the actual issues are rarely properly addressed through the British media. Those issues will only be properly addressed by those who believe in independence making a case for it. This is what the SNP is attempting to do and gradually they are moving towards their ultimate objective.

Scotland must finally be given a choice and when that choice is properly debated through a referendum campaign their patient groundwork through the national conversation will hopefully pay off.

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