MacCormick v Lord Advocate (1953)

"The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law... Considering that the Union legislation extinguished the Parliaments of Scotland and England and replaced them by a new Parliament, I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done."

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/MacCormick_v_Lord_Advocate

Extract from the Judgement in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 the famous case brought by Ian Hamilton and John MacCormick (one of the most important early Scottish nationalists if not the most).

 

Also some background info on the Treaty of Union which clearly establishes that it was a treaty under international law not an act of Parliament. The acts are seperate and ratified the treaty.

 

http://www.journalonline.co.uk/Magazine/52-6/1004238.aspx

 

While I'm sure the intention of England was to subsume Scotland within her parliament and the effect of the treaty was perhaps similar (we got roughly the same amount of MP's as Cornwall at the time) the legal position is that this was an internationally binding treaty between two seperate and equal nations.

 

The reason why they could not just conquer Scotland (though there was a threat of military force and the equivalent of economic sanctions in effect at the time) was the 400 years or so of relative peace after we defended our liberty in the Wars of Independence.

Without that historic event we would now be in a much shakier legal position. Thank you William Wallace and Robert the Bruce! Also the foresighted Scots Nobles who signed the Declaration of Arbroath on our behalf which is the basis of Scotland's Claim of Right and which was agreed in modern times by every unionist politician.  

LONDON CALLING! CONFUSION NOW REIGNS OVER WHETHER LABOUR WILL SUPPORT 2010 REFERENDUM

London has called and Labour's support for an independence referendum is now looking decidedly dodgy.

Let's be clear about this the British Government DOES NOT support the sovereign right of the Scottish people to choose independence. The proof is here:
www.independence1st.com/comment/not_acceptable.shtml

Up till recently it seemed that the Scottish branches of Labour, Tories and Lib Dems didn't either because all refused to countenance a referendum on independence and yet this is the only point of genuine conflict.

Scottish Labour (if there is such a beast) in the shape of Wendy Alexander seemed to have changed their tune for a brief moment but they have rapidly returned to form with Brown now clearly pulling the strings.

All the parties would supposedly support more powers for the parliament, I say supposedly because the Tories simply cannot be trusted in this area as their last period in Government showed quite clearly.

If all parties support more powers then the SNP can easily accept the Calman commissions recommendations whenever they are published, but as they will still be far short of independence this won't resolve a thing.

We would also then have to rely on Westminster implementing any changes and not fiddling with the powers of the parliament in a detrimental fashion. In fact Labour have already fiddled the electoral system in the Welsh parliament so they can't be trusted in this respect either.

Gordon Brown has already signalled that he wants a number of inconvenient powers removed forom the Scottish Government, an obvious example would be planning rules which allow the Scottish Government to block new nuclear power stations.

The Blair Government ignored elements of the last broad based Scottish Constitutional Convention (this body which included the Liberal Democrats and 'Scottish' Labour recommended broadcasting powers be returned to Scotland but this power was removed at Westminster, also the bill suddenly gained lots of new bits where it was explicitly claimed that Westminster had full power over any future change to the constitution in Scotland even though this violates international law and specifically Scotland's rights to self determination).

Given that episode Westminster can easily ignore their own hand picked cabal of safe unionists whatever froth is recommended (in fact they are so pro-Government they will probably say the status quo is just fine!).

The only way to guarantee as much power as the parliament requires is by voting for independence. Those who oppose that choice don't support the sovereign right of the Scottish people to decide their own destiny and as such don't deserve one vote in Scotland.