Sunday, March 10, 2013

With enemies like the Better Together campaign who needs friends?

Iain MacWhirter Columnist (Sunday Herald). Sunday 10 March 2013

Things aren't looking good. "The public finances are likely to come under pressure over the longer term primarily as a result of the ageing population ... the Government would end up having to spend more as a share of national income on age-related items such as pensions and healthcare ... non-demographic trends are likely to reduce revenue from sources such as North Sea oil."

Oh, well. That's it – we're stuffed. Why weren't we told this before? Actually, we were. That quote above is not from John Swinney's leaked report to the Scottish Government. It is from the report by the Office For Budget Responsibility's Fiscal Sustainability Report, presented to the UK Coalition Government in July 2012 – and the country it refers to is the UK. These affordability issues are the same north and south of the Border – actually, they are less of a problem in Scotland.

< p>Swinney's "bombshell report" wasn't about "cutting pensions" as some parts of the press claimed, it was about how much Scotland could reasonably put into an oil fund for the future given its social-spending commitments. Choices have to be made. You can't expect an independent Scotland to be immune from economic uncertainty, immune to the ageing population, immune to recession and fluctuating oil prices. But no credible economist seriously argues today that Scotland could not survive as an independent small nation like Norway, Denmark or Finland.

< p>Actually, in an age of economic uncertainty, John Swinney is a useful guy to have around. He is ultra-cautious, often to the despair of his Cabinet colleagues. But this Finance Secretary has achieved a remarkable feat over the last six years in managing to afford all of Alex Salmond's giveaway policies – abolition of student fees, free prescriptions, free bus passes, free personal care – within a static budget that has been squeezed in real terms. Commentators like me kept saying it couldn't be done, that the SNP Government would find it impossible to balance the books without cutting spending on health. We were wrong.

< p>SO, the fact that cautious John was trying to rein in his high-spending Cabinet colleagues by telling them a few home truths is no bad thing. The fact it was leaked last week will, I think, be to the Yes campaign's long-term benefit, provided they don't retreat into a defensive shell, snarling about the "Unionist press". The press coverage was over the top, economically illiterate and rather childish. But you don't get to choose the press and this is the same media that will be covering the independence campaign next year.

< p>The SNP will have to find ways of addressing Scotland's fears if it wants to get this anxious, risk-averse nation to step into the unknown. This is the downside of basing the case for independence on economics alone. It's not called the dismal science for nothing. Even the most benign economic picture can look bleak if you focus on risk. Better Together leaked Swinney's "secret files" to coincide with publication of the latest Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures, an annual statement showing the balance between spending and tax revenues. This year it confirmed Scotland's deficit would be 5% of GDP – but that is substantially less than the UK deficit of 8%.

< p>In other words, Scotland is in a much better place financially right now than the rest of the UK. Did no-one notice that the UK lost its AAA rating the other week? And remember that if Scotland were independent, the UK would not be able to rely on the £11 billion a year from the North Sea, so its deficit would rise.

< p>This is important. It means Scotland is in no danger of becoming another Greece, or Ireland – unable to pay its way and suffering a sovereign debt crisis and internal devaluation. This is not exclusively because of the £1.5 trillion of oil in the North Sea. Scotland has five of the world's leading universities, one-quarter of Europe's offshore wind and wave energy, one of the most valuable tourist brands in the world and luxury exports such as whisky, which brings in £4bn a year. We might even be capable of making things if we had any industry left.

< p>But there is nothing certain in economics, and the job of a finance minister is not to tell people what they want to hear. Oil revenues are volatile. Ten years ago, the price of a barrel was less than half what it is today. It would be unwise for an independent Scotland to rely on natural resources alone, and a proper industrial strategy would have to be introduced to diversify the Scottish economy. But an independent Scotland would be less dependent on oil income than Norway, which has the world's highest standard of living.

< p>We have an ageing population, a situation marginally worse in Scotland than in England. I say "worse" – in fact, people living longer is a very good thing. But it does mean you need lots of young workers to pay the taxes to look after them. Ten years ago, everyone believed Scotland's population was going to decline below five million. In fact, it has risen to 5.3 million: its highest level ever. All those young Polish workers coming here are having large families, which has turned the situation round. But with the UK imposing ever tighter immigration restrictions, this may be choked off if Scotland stays in the UK.

< p>Meanwhile, Scotland exports many of its graduates and skilled workers because we don't have jobs for them here. When I was rector of Edinburgh University, I was acutely aware this world-class institution was churning out large numbers of brilliant graduates who would never find work in Scotland. They take their learning south or abroad, which is what Scots have been doing for the past 200 years.

< p>Now, an independent Scotland might make this worse; there is no guarantee of anything. But I am finding it increasingly hard to see how Scotland's problems can be addressed without substantially greater economic powers and investment. Scotland's industry has long gone; the start-up rate for new businesses is dismal; the financial sector – look at RBS – is in crisis. Scotland is falling off the economic map in a UK dominated by the city state of London.

< p>It's the HS2 factor: Scotland pays, through taxes and oil revenues, to build a high-speed rail network which starts in London and stops at Manchester. Last week, we learned that 6000 troops which were supposed to come to Scotland will go to Salisbury and Northern Ireland. Even Lord Heseltine says that the greatest problem facing he UK is over-centralisation of economic life in London and the southeast.

< p> Devolution has begun to address the "democratic deficit" in Scotland, but what the Scottish Parliament lacks is power to address very deep-seated economic problems. It isn't only Nationalists who are concerned about this.

< p>As I pointed out last week, the Labour shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, is proposing a national convention, to look at ways of preventing a No in the referendum leading to a decade of despair in Scotland.

< p>If Scotland votes No, there will be no Union dividend to fall back on. Living on handouts from Westminster is no longer an option. Debilitating dependency will only turn Scotland into the introverted, negative and depressed little country that is presented to us every week in much of the Scottish press.

< p>That is the true message of Swinney's secret bombshell. The SNP should start leaking these bombshell reports on a monthly basis.

      
Oh, well. That's it – we're stuffed. Why weren't we told this before? Actually, we were. That quote above is not from John Swinney's leaked report to the Scottish Government. It is from the report by the Office For Budget Responsibility's Fiscal Sustainability Report, presented to the UK Coalition Government in July 2012 – and the country it refers to is the UK. These affordability issues are the same north and south of the Border – actually, they are less of a problem in Scotland.

Swinney's "bombshell report" wasn't about "cutting pensions" as some parts of the press claimed, it was about how much Scotland could reasonably put into an oil fund for the future given its social-spending commitments. Choices have to be made. You can't expect an independent Scotland to be immune from economic uncertainty, immune to the ageing population, immune to recession and fluctuating oil prices. But no credible economist seriously argues today that Scotland could not survive as an independent small nation like Norway, Denmark or Finland.

Actually, in an age of economic uncertainty, John Swinney is a useful guy to have around. He is ultra-cautious, often to the despair of his Cabinet colleagues. But this Finance Secretary has achieved a remarkable feat over the last six years in managing to afford all of Alex Salmond's giveaway policies – abolition of student fees, free prescriptions, free bus passes, free personal care – within a static budget that has been squeezed in real terms. Commentators like me kept saying it couldn't be done, that the SNP Government would find it impossible to balance the books without cutting spending on health. We were wrong.

SO, the fact that cautious John was trying to rein in his high-spending Cabinet colleagues by telling them a few home truths is no bad thing. The fact it was leaked last week will, I think, be to the Yes campaign's long-term benefit, provided they don't retreat into a defensive shell, snarling about the "Unionist press". The press coverage was over the top, economically illiterate and rather childish. But you don't get to choose the press and this is the same media that will be covering the independence campaign next year.

The SNP will have to find ways of addressing Scotland's fears if it wants to get this anxious, risk-averse nation to step into the unknown. This is the downside of basing the case for independence on economics alone. It's not called the dismal science for nothing. Even the most benign economic picture can look bleak if you focus on risk. Better Together leaked Swinney's "secret files" to coincide with publication of the latest Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures, an annual statement showing the balance between spending and tax revenues. This year it confirmed Scotland's deficit would be 5% of GDP – but that is substantially less than the UK deficit of 8%.
In other words, Scotland is in a much better place financially right now than the rest of the UK. Did no-one notice that the UK lost its AAA rating the other week? And remember that if Scotland were independent, the UK would not be able to rely on the £11 billion a year from the North Sea, so its deficit would rise.

This is important. It means Scotland is in no danger of becoming another Greece, or Ireland – unable to pay its way and suffering a sovereign debt crisis and internal devaluation. This is not exclusively because of the £1.5 trillion of oil in the North Sea. Scotland has five of the world's leading universities, one-quarter of Europe's offshore wind and wave energy, one of the most valuable tourist brands in the world and luxury exports such as whisky, which brings in £4bn a year. We might even be capable of making things if we had any industry left.

But there is nothing certain in economics, and the job of a finance minister is not to tell people what they want to hear. Oil revenues are volatile. Ten years ago, the price of a barrel was less than half what it is today. It would be unwise for an independent Scotland to rely on natural resources alone, and a proper industrial strategy would have to be introduced to diversify the Scottish economy. But an independent Scotland would be less dependent on oil income than Norway, which has the world's highest standard of living.

We have an ageing population, a situation marginally worse in Scotland than in England. I say "worse" – in fact, people living longer is a very good thing. But it does mean you need lots of young workers to pay the taxes to look after them. Ten years ago, everyone believed Scotland's population was going to decline below five million. In fact, it has risen to 5.3 million: its highest level ever. All those young Polish workers coming here are having large families, which has turned the situation round. But with the UK imposing ever tighter immigration restrictions, this may be choked off if Scotland stays in the UK.

Meanwhile, Scotland exports many of its graduates and skilled workers because we don't have jobs for them here. When I was rector of Edinburgh University, I was acutely aware this world-class institution was churning out large numbers of brilliant graduates who would never find work in Scotland. They take their learning south or abroad, which is what Scots have been doing for the past 200 years.

Now, an independent Scotland might make this worse; there is no guarantee of anything. But I am finding it increasingly hard to see how Scotland's problems can be addressed without substantially greater economic powers and investment. Scotland's industry has long gone; the start-up rate for new businesses is dismal; the financial sector – look at RBS – is in crisis. Scotland is falling off the economic map in a UK dominated by the city state of London.

It's the HS2 factor: Scotland pays, through taxes and oil revenues, to build a high-speed rail network which starts in London and stops at Manchester. Last week, we learned that 6000 troops which were supposed to come to Scotland will go to Salisbury and Northern Ireland. Even Lord Heseltine says that the greatest problem facing he UK is over-centralisation of economic life in London and the southeast.

Devolution has begun to address the "democratic deficit" in Scotland, but what the Scottish Parliament lacks is power to address very deep-seated economic problems. It isn't only Nationalists who are concerned about this.

As I pointed out last week, the Labour shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, is proposing a national convention, to look at ways of preventing a No in the referendum leading to a decade of despair in Scotland.

If Scotland votes No, there will be no Union dividend to fall back on. Living on handouts from Westminster is no longer an option. Debilitating dependency will only turn Scotland into the introverted, negative and depressed little country that is presented to us every week in much of the Scottish press.

That is the true message of Swinney's secret bombshell. The SNP should start leaking these bombshell reports on a monthly basis.

Reprinted from Sunday Herald
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/with-enemies-like-the-better-together-campaign-who-needs-friends.20449422

Posted by Joe Middleton at 9:22 AM 0 comments

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Saturday, March 09, 2013

Useful Scottish Independence Quotes - Please pass on!
















Posted by Joe Middleton at 12:09 AM 0 comments

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

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.

Posted by Joe Middleton at 11:40 PM 0 comments

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Why Young Scots should Take Heart

Re SNP youth wing vice-convenor expelled and reinstated story on Scotsman:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/snp-youth-wing-vice-convenor-expelled-and-reinstated-1-2811027

I am glad the YSI reversed their decision to expel Mr Murray from their NEC because disagreeing about strategy and arguing about it are all part of any strong campaign. I would suggest that the YSI should take heart from the amount of No supporters who are rushing to condemn their organisation below (on the Scotsman forum, before a spammer hijacked the thread).
 
It shows that the YSI (or YSN as they used to be) still maintain an essential role inthe independence movement and our opponents are very, very jealous of that support.   

Young Scots are massively in favour of independence (which suggests the YSI have been doing a great job spreading  the word within their section of society) and Yes-supporting Glasgow students who are eligible to vote are almost certainly reserving their votes for the genuine poll next year.
Even if there are a quite high level of young Brits in Glasgow Uni, who really cares? There are plenty of bitter Brits in the outside world as well, sadly, but I think one can see from the comments on here that they are not winning many friends or influencing people.

Brainwashing is a powerful thing and the media has been feeding us  constant lies while past Scots history teachers (some who rarely mentioned Scotland at all!) have ignored the most important events in our history. It is no wonder that a third of our population don't know what to think  but I believe that third can be convinced if the true facts are put before them.

The fact that Britain tried to rename our country as North Britain or the fact that Britain used to run a network of 20,000 paid spies in Scotland who would report supporters of human rights and send them to the colonies are two very large facts that are mysteriously missing from the official history.
Our young people are our future and the young people of today are living in an age where the SNP are in power and a vote for independence is happening next year!

Divide 'N' Rule has been Britain's most effective tool. Causing Scots to fall out is their greatest wish and for years they have bitterly divided the people of Glasgow between token Brits and Irish and made many forget or submerge their true identity as Scots. Those attitudes are changing fast and the SNP has won seats all across Glasgow and has massive support throughout Scotland.

The internet has provided the people of Scotland with a voice which is not controlled by the media and the Yes campaign is massacring the Brits online. That is where the ideas war is being won and where the knowledge will be disseminated that will ultimately counter Britain's lies. even the papers have been forced to notice the fact that nationalists massively outweigh unionists online which is why they have tried to tar us all with the term Cybernats which an online blogger has cleverly described as Countering Your British Establishments Relentless Negativity And Tripe!

We can win and we will and the YSI will have a massive role in that victory. There is no doubt about that.

Yours for Scotland

Joe M (@freescotlandnow)

Posted by Joe Middleton at 11:01 PM 0 comments

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Can Scotland escape the killer zombies?

 


LIKE me, you probably don't pay too much attention to the monthly unemployment figures, since they don't seem to be going anywhere in particular.
     
In fact, something quite extraordinary is happening, which is transforming the world of work, making a nonsense of Government policies such as the much-criticised Work Programme and turning a once prosperous and relatively secure society into one driven by insecurity and debt. It also poses a very serious question about Scotland's future.

      
You see, UK unemployment – at 2.5 million – is a lot lower than it should be. Indeed, the number of those out of work has been falling even as the country heads into a triple-dip recession. Unemployment rose to 8% in November 2011 and has been falling more or less ever since. Yet, in the recession of the 1980s, which was mild compared to this one, unemployment rose to 12% and stayed there.

Stranger still, unemployment in Scotland has been running at a lower rate than the UK.
This month, 7.7% of Scots were out of work, against 7.8% for the UK. In the 1980s, unemployment in Scotland soared to 15% – almost double what it is today and far ahead of the rest of the UK. Indeed it was nearer 18% in the west, as Scotland's industrial heartlands were ripped out and thrown on the scrapheap. So, although this recession has lasted twice as long as the 1980s' and is far deeper, unemployment is falling when it should be rising.

This is all exceedingly strange, because I defy anyone to look around Scotland today and regard it as a country in economic recovery – despite the claims made by the Scottish Government, which can't seem to decide whether Scotland is being dragged down by UK Chancellor George Osborne's austerity or being held aloft by Alex Salmond's Plan McB.

What has happened is something we haven't seen in Britain since the 19th century: a productivity recession, in which the economy is going back in time. The reason unemployment hasn't increased is largely because people are accepting lower wages. Pay (except, of course, for bankers) has been falling by 1% per year, in real terms, which may not sound like much, but equates to about £1500 in reduced income for average households so far, and earnings will continue to fall until 2018 at least. This is unprecedented. Firms are using cheap labour instead of new machines – which is why productivity is falling in Britain. We're getting poorer by making ourselves less efficient. This is why high-street shops have been closing and Britain isn't recovering through exports, despite the fall in the value of the pound.

This only sounds counter-intuitive because our political culture is still essentially neo-liberal and assumes that, if you hold down wages, the economy must do better. In fact, quite the reverse is true. Low wages breed economic stagnation because worker-consumers lack money to buy goods and firms have no incentive to apply new techniques and machinery because labour is so cheap. That's why this depression is unlike any during the past 140 years. You have to go back to the 1870s to find a recession as long and as deep – although even then, industrial output continued to grow through the application of new technologies. Today's Coalition policies are taking us back to the days when people wore top hats and the Government was run by ex-public schoolboys. Oh, I forgot, it still is.

In all previous recessions this century – and this includes the 1930s – recovery has come through consumer spending led by housebuilding. In the 1930s, the recession ended as a result of a building boom in the southeast of England, plus new consumer industries such as radios and cars. This time around, housebuilding has been falling year on year and is at its lowest levels since the second world war. Britain has largely opted out of the productivity race because firms have been told that the falling value of the pound will boost British exports by making them cheaper. But that only works if the economy is producing something that other countries want to buy. All Britain has produced in the last decade is debt, and the rest of the world has plenty of that.

So it's hardly surprising that the Government's Work Programme is failing. Equipping workers for employment – quite reasonable in its own way – can only succeed when there is a buoyant labour market, with lots of turnover, to create openings, and that isn't happening. We have a cobweb labour market, with lots of under-employed workers hanging around in companies that would be out of business were it not for near-zero interest rates and the low pound. There are a million extra part-time jobs, mainly among male employees, plus 4.2 million self-employed – mostly redundant workers who have set up on their own and are staying alive through the burgeoning "cash-only" black economy. There are also nearly a million people of pension age still working.

We've heard of zombie households, which can't pay their debts and are only surviving because of near-zero interest rates and forbearance by the banks. We also have thousands of zombie companies that would go out of business the moment interest rates returned to normal. On top of them, we have the zombie banks, which only cling on to existence because the Government is printing money and guaranteeing the value of their bad debts. So it won't surprise you to learn that the UK is turning into a zombie country, which is about to lose its credit rating.

And the only remedy the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, can offer is yet more inflation. The euphemism currently employed by the governor, who has missed his inflation target for the last four years, is that we have to "see through" high inflation, to the sunny uplands beyond. But there aren't any. Inflation applied to a stagnant economy will only lead to further falls in consumer spending, as wages are eroded by the rising cost of imports. Fuel and energy are rising at 10% year-on-year even though Scotland is sitting on massive energy reserves.

There is a third way. Scotland could conceivably depart from this by becoming independent, using its natural resources – oil and green energy – to develop a high-value economy based on Scotland's lead in higher education. We have more top universities than France. There's no guarantee, of course, and some might regard it as morally wrong for Scotland to cut adrift from the zombie UK.

But Scotland bailed out the UK economy in the 1980s with Scottish oil revenues, and received precious little in return except factory closures and the highest mortality rates in Europe. And it doesn't take a genius to see that any improvement in the UK economy is going to happen in London and the southeast, rather than in Scotland. Like the high-speed rail link, it might eventually extend to Manchester but no further. Scotland is on its own whether it likes it or not. A very big choice for those in and out of work.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/can-scotland-escape-the-killer-zombies.20312845

Posted by Joe Middleton at 1:01 PM 0 comments

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Monday, February 18, 2013

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.  

Posted by Joe Middleton at 1:11 AM 0 comments

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Friday, February 15, 2013

Hope will trump Fear - the case for YES

The case for independence is very simple. We are in an unequal union with a country ten times our size who has very little in common with us politically. What we need is equality in world affairs ie a seat in the UN and full control over all domestic and foreign policy. That is likely to be from within the EU but if the unlikely prospect of being forced to leave the EU actually happened (in which case England would be in the same boat) then EFTA is actually a reasonable and probably popular alternative.

Of course what the UK is now saying is that England and its dominions (as they see it though I am sure Wales won't accept such a status for long post Scots independence though NI probably will) would be treated entirely differently from Scotland because the rest of the UK (rUK) would be treated as the successor state.

Westminster is so desperate for a legal opinion that rUK/England will be the only successor state that they now are saying that Scotland was politically extinguished by the union, that Scotland leaving the UK would have no effect on its status whatsoever and that every treaty signed by Britain had no connection with one of the main countries that was a part of it!

Logically this means that Scotland has got nothing from being in the union apart from a tenth share in Britain's enormous national debt and if we had zero status within the union there is no reason why we should accept that either!

This doesn't strike me as a positive case for the union and directly contradicts their traditional narrative that we have all being doing great things together for the last 300 years and we just can't afford to break our beautiful friendship. No doubt this will be deployed as well in time but it rather undermines that case when you admit that what was supposed to be an equal British union was actually just a device to expand English power abroad. (That's the raw truth but Westminster must be in dire straits to be actually admitting it).

The Tory Government and their friends in the press seem to think that its OK to stigmatise the unemployed as lazy wasters and chancers and that workers should be encouraged to sell out all their working rights to their employer at the beginning of their working life This type of political attitude is alien to the Scots psyche and the obvious choice is to remain with Conservative rule (or their Labour imitators) or take a chance on trusting ourselves.

Eventually hope always trumps fear so I suggest the YES campaign has an excellent chance of victory.

Posted by Joe Middleton at 11:19 PM 0 comments

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Thursday, February 14, 2013

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."

Posted by Joe Middleton at 12:32 AM 1 comments

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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Excellent letters in Scotsman today

Hidden options in referendum report


Published on Wednesday 13 February 2013 00:00
The No Campaign’s press conference on Monday emphasised that its expert opinion concluded that the UK would continue as an existing state, holding on to all the benefits, and that Scotland would have to be created as a new state, with all the disadvantages that this could bring.

The media followed this line in their reporting. It now appears (your report, 12
February) that the expert opinion offered three scenarios, not one. The second was that two new states would be formed, and the third was that Scotland would be resurrected as the state that existed before 1707. Why were these options hidden? 
It is clear that the Westminster government would prefer the first option.

It may profess great respect for Scotland, and a strong 
desire for us to remain in the Union; but as soon as the 
status quo is threatened it will try to take all the benefits for itself and positively work to make things difficult for Scotland.

Those who are timorous about voting Yes, and are hoping for a form of devo-plus following a No vote, should realise that once England has seen off the threat of independence the devolutionary process will come to a shuddering halt.

Westminster will continue to work and legislate for the majority, English, voter. We have been warned!

Alison Halley
Newbattle Abbey Crescent
Edinburgh
As Scottish Secretary Michael Moore proclaims the benefits to Scotland of staying in the UK with the launch in the first of a series of UK government information reports, one has to ask some fundamental questions: is 
anyone naïve enough to 
believe that significant 
information which undermines this proposition will not be withheld if possible, especially given the UK government’s non-disclosure of the true status of North Sea oil reserves prior to the referendum on devolution?

If unsure, is the UK Government’s reluctance to seek clarification from the EU on Scotland’s possible position in the event of a positive vote in the referendum not at odds with any sincere desire that the Scottish people base their decision on facts, not fiction?

Does anyone actually believe that those parties, which so recently endorsed the recommendations of the Calman Commission as being a great deal for Scotland (with some Tories expressing the view that perhaps devolution had gone too far), will immediately work together after a negative vote in the referendum to deliver substantially increased powers for Scotland (“devo-Moore”), whatever the result of the UK elections in 2015 and whatever is contained in their
manifestos?

Those with short memories should note that these same parties unashamedly reneged on key promises such as reform of the House of Lords and a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.
Has anyone such little understanding of basic economics and politics that they think that whatever benefits Scotland would still derive as a member of a Union whose influence around the world has dramatically declined would come without paying a considerable price for sustaining the bureaucracy around an increasingly 
redundant Westminster parliament, never mind the social cost of further governments pursuing policies not in tune with the wishes of the people of Scotland?

Hopefully now that we are entering a period of more serious debate on Scotland’s independence that will determine the prospects we 
bequeath future generations, more people will make the effort to look objectively 
beneath the surface of what is presented by the UK Government and a media predominantly committed to the constitutional status quo.

Stan Grodynski
Longniddry
East Lothian

I am not an expert on international law, unlike the respected professors James Crawford and Alan Boyle of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities, who have provided legal advice to the UK Government on the legal implications of Scottish independence (your report, 11 February), but there appears to me to be a fundamental misconception of the position of the two countries, England and Scotland.

The Treaty of Union 1707 was an agreement between two sovereign independent states to form a political union. If Scotland elects to secede from that union, then the two countries, Scotland and England, revert to being two separate countries.

England would not continue to be the “rest of the UK”, as that entity would not exist. Wales and Northern Ireland are part of the English state by military conquest. There would be no question of a “continuing state”, as England and Scotland would be newly restored independent states.
The examples quoted of new states are quite different from the position of England and Scotland, being mainly the result of the break up of empires.

Interestingly, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, on becoming independent of the USSR in 1991, were admitted to the United Nations without any question.

George I M Chapman
Moor Road
Glasgow

AND THE NO CAMPAIGN SPEAKS OUT TOO:

Big questions

Published on Tuesday 12 February 2013 00:00
I write as a disillusioned observer of proceedings at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament.

Donald Dewar, advocate of the concept of the Scottish Executive, would have been appalled at the behaviour of certain SNP politicians within the debating chamber in today’s parliament.
The Labour leader, Johann Lamont, was completely justified recently, during First Minister’s Questions, when she accused SNP backbenchers of braying when opposition leaders put quite valid questions to Alex Salmond.

She also made the point that most questions asked by SNP members are so well vetted by their leader that they become irrelevant to the debate.

First Minister’s Questions is appallingly awful – Salmond makes every attempt to ridicule, in turn, the points made by the Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat leaders. In this ploy he gets full support from the rows of “hyenas” on his back benches.

Also one of these days, John Swinney, in his usual state of misplaced mirth, is quite likely to fall off his chair, which is usually perched precariously on just two legs.

As 2014, the referendum year, approaches, let us reflect on the status quo – what the UK has achieved, and will continue to achieve: stability in an even more complex political and economic scenario; under very difficult circumstances, maintenance of a strong voice in the EU; a continued special relationship with the USA.

So prithee, what will Alex Salmond’s concept of an independent Scotland really achieve? I really do feel that we Scots deserve more than he is capable of providing.

Just some of the pitfalls of his policies/assertions are obvious: Scotland would certainly have to apply to join the EU, and join the queue; if Scotland, as a new state, did gain entry eventually, it would require to adopt the euro; how effective would Scotland be within Nato? (its much reduced level of armed forces and weaponry might be unacceptable to other members); as would the SNP’s rejection of the established Faslane submarine base.

Then, of course, terms would have to be negotiated with the Bank of England – perhaps more difficult if Scotland is admitted to the EU and has to accept the euro as its currency.

So think carefully, fellow Scots, before casting your vote in the Scottish referendum.

If you make the wrong choice then you and your family might regret it forever.

Robert I G Scott
Ceres
Fife

Translation: "I write as a biased Brit who has no interest in his own country and is content to  be ruled from England. While Westminster is a shambles where Scots are outvoted by a margin of 10-1 I prefer to criticise the Scottish Government for having political debates and Alex Salmond for winning them.

It is far better to be bitter together with Tory England than have the gross effrontery to imagine that the Saltire could fly in Europe and the UN and that we could rule ourselves. Don't vote for equality or we will all be D-O-O-M-E-D and S-K-I-N-T. We need London to rule us as we are too wee and too dumb to ever rule ourselves."

Another positive message from the NO YOU DON'T! campaign. Gee thanks Mr Scott!

Posted by Joe Middleton at 9:52 PM 0 comments

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Monday, February 11, 2013

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

Posted by Joe Middleton at 6:21 PM 0 comments

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Thursday, September 20, 2012

POLITICAL RALLIES NEED TO INCLUDE EVERYONE

As someone who has been involved in helping organise such events in the past (through Independence First) I very much hope that this new rally on Saturday organised by http://www.independenceforscotland.com/ is a success and leads to victory in the referendum in 2014.

Obviously the website is very professional and the organisers have made good use of social networking to publicise and advertise the rally. They have also apparently attracted wide support from across the political spectrum with some very famous faces lined up to speak at the rally including the First Minister himself.

Nonetheless banning the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement (SRSM) from events (based on the opinions of someone like Jim Murphy) is entirely counter productive. 

The story is here: http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scottish-independence-snp-under-fire-over-extremists-at-rally-1-2529585 and was also reported in the Glasgow Herald.

As a current member of the SNP and a former member of the SRSM I obviously have an interest in these developments.

Scottish republicanism is a legitimate political position to take which is supported by somewhere around 50% of the Scottish people. The British Queen has as much interest in Scotland as the Spanish King has to Catalonia and he made it clear where his loyalties lie this week. At the height of the devolution debate in the 70's 'our' Queen similarly distanced herself from Scotland and I'm sure would do the same again. Given the contemptuous title of England's Queen Elizabeth II it has always been clear where her personal loyalty has lay.

The British flag is a symbol of imperialism, racism and divide 'n' rule politics. Showing contempt for that flag by burning it is a legitimate political response and more honest than smiling wanly while it is thrust down our throats during sporting events where Scotland is excluded from participating as ourselves.

Brittania was the Roman name for England and Wales, not Scotland. Great Britain was always a device for expanding English power (a fact which was admitted by Jack Straw MP) at the expense of Scotland and Wales and it remains precisely that today.

All groups who support independence should have been made welcome at the rally. Past organisations (like IF) which organised events were deliberately set up on an entirely non-political basis so they could be made bullet-proof from divide 'n' rule style stirring by the British unionists and their allies in the press.

Radical elements are all part of what makes independence movements tick. The SNP is a broad church but it won't enthuse everyone by promoting a pro-European and pro-monarchist position or by watering down it's opposition to nuclear weapons. That radicalism needs to come from groups outside the SNP and the SRSM have always been 100% committed to Scottish independence and a republic in the tradition of John MacLean. He wasn't popular with the establishment either but his name lives on while most of his Brit loving supposed 'international socialist' contemporaries are deservedly gathering dust.
 
In his early years Salmond was a republican and part of the '79 group. Without the fire in his belly of those early experiences it is unlikely he could have risen to the position he holds today. The SNP should realise that it does not speak for everybody and welcome support from outside its ranks. Any group organising a rally needs to do the same thing otherwise it will ultimately be dictated to by a unionist lobby which ultimately includes low lifes like the BNP and the Orange Lodge (guess who organised the only jubilee street party in Glasgow!). Given the company they keep and the war mongering actions of the state they represent British unionists have no right to criticise any element of Scotland's independence movement.
 
If we want to gain the mass support recently demonstrated by activists in Catalonia then we need to widen our ranks to include every supporter of independence from the right to the left of political thought in Scotland. If we don't do that then we are very unlikely to win independence in 2014.

Posted by Joe Middleton at 11:15 PM 1 comments

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

BRITISH POLICY: CONTEMPT FOR SCOTLAND AND WALES

British Petroleum has been in the news a lot recently. A massive eleven billion loss will decimate pension funds for future generations. Strangely enough though a similar sum can be found for the London Olympics. Yes this mass extravaganza will be entirely wonderful for everyone (well everyone in London anyway) and please don’t question the enormous cost because we all know that it’s the London metropolis that keeps all us beggars on the outer fringes afloat. The fact that the facts don’t agree? You’ll never get that through the media.



The thing I think about most when I consider the London Olympics is Lord Sebastian Coe (see above) who when asked about what Britain should do if Scotland and Wales didn’t want to be part of Britain’s football team. His answer? F*** ‘Em! Strangely enough however despite this comment being picked up in the press Lord Coe is still fronting the London Olympics and to my mind that fact represents a two fingered salute to every other country in Britain outside England.
Of course all has changed recently. We have a wonderful new coalition Government. Yes the new Conservative Government has added a dash of Liberal Democrats and we are now supposed to accept their drastic monetarist cost cutting medicine as inevitable and indeed entirely just. After all that nice Mr Clegg would hardly get himself involved in any shenanigans would he? Oh, no! The coalition Government has a new found lovey dovey respect for Scotland and Wales which lasted oh, two whole weeks before things returned to business as usual.
The pleasant Mr Clegg decided that the best thing for us Scots and Welsh was to have our national elections at the same time as his AV referendum bill. Thus ensuring a big British campaign which can drown out all those irrelevant local issues like who is going to run our countries for the next four years. After all didn’t that work well at the last election? Scotland and Wales ignored and only the big English parties getting equal TV coverage. Just to be on the safe side the 2015 elections for Scotland and Wales will be on the same day as (you guessed it!) the next Westminster elections.
Yes the respect agenda is alive and well. We get told what to do and are given less money and are expected to get on with it. Strangely enough the new coalition bears a startling resemblance to a Conservative Government. Every big post, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Defence Secretary and Prime Minister are all held by the Tories. Mr Clegg became the new John Prescott while Vince Cable is the new Lord Mandelson. If Mr Clegg says the Iraq war is illegal he can be ignored as speaking for himself yet if a Conservative minister makes an announcement then that is party policy. I think I can see how this works.
Of course Mr Clegg didn’t give up the Liberal Democrats votes for nothing. Oh no! He got that aforesaid Alternative Vote (AV) referendum which was what he had always wanted. Well no, he said during the election AV was a waste of time. Which it is, marginally better than First Past the Post but by no means proportional, unlike STV (Single Transferable Vote). Personally I would have supported AV as a small step in the right direction however given that Mr Clegg has stuck it right in the middle of Scotland and Wales election campaigns Plaid Cymru and SNP would be both amply justified in telling him exactly where to stick it.
Still the Liberals did get another wondrous prize, yes the post of Secretary of State for Scotland, the cabinet post that the LD’s said should have been abolished during the election is now the greatest thing since sliced bread. You can tell that by the fact that Danny Alexander wanted to hold on to it for oh, weeks before rushing off to bigger and better things. We now have a new puppet Michael Moore who will no doubt regularly tell us that the Tories are right and that we Scots can survive on less money.
The sepulchral figure of Jim Murphy was of course our last SoS for Scotland. Murphy had a very simple law, if you are comparing Scotland with other nations make sure you never mention anyone with oil. After all that’s utterly irrelevant. Norway? No! Finland? Yes! Still voting Labour will definitely keep the Tories out. We did, but strangely enough we got ‘em. It makes you think that perhaps there is another country ten times our size who has rather more influence on the UK than Scotland. Still I’m sure thin Jim will get his reward some day with a job in the House of Lords or as I like to call them, the House of Losers. Yes, it doesn’t matter how incompetent you were as a politician or how you made no useful contribution to public life. So long as you were in the British cabinet you get a guaranteed spot in a plush retirement home with a nice new ermine red coat.
That real working class hero John ‘two jags’ Prescott has been punted up to the Lords. John Reid the man who did so much for British rule in Ireland and was rewarded with the chairmanship of a supposedly Irish nationalist football club has had a further ‘promotion’. Joining him is Helen Liddell (another SoS) various other Labour non-entities and Jack McConnell. Yes McConnell the former First Minister was considered to have been such a decent suck up that he didn’t even have to wait to lose his seat in the Scottish parliament before receiving his ‘just desserts’. The thought of this detritus of politics joining the ranks of such illustrious political hate figures as Lord Ian Lang and Lord Michael Forsyth makes me feel that what goes around comes around. Nonetheless, where is Guy Fawkes when you really need him? He could cut public expenditure at a stroke and no-one would be the worse for it.
William Hague is the new British foreign secretary, well he was but now it appears David Cameron prefers to make the rounds of other countries on Britain’s behalf. Mr Cameron doesn’t let the facts get in the way of sucking up to America. Oh, no he’ll re-write history and insult past generations if his supple tongue requires it. What’s that sir? You want Turkey to forgive Israel? Count on me!
Foreign policy for Britain is about asking America just how high they want us to jump. Don’t think of irrelevant stuff like the human rights of the Kurds or that silly old Turkish annexation of half of Cyprus, no think only of Uncle Sam and the rights of Israel to commit acts of terrorism that will ensure world respect.
Personally I would like to see Turkey in the EU. But only after they have relinquished half of Cyprus and improved their record on human rights. Strangely enough that is what the EU wants as well but it would be mad wouldn’t it to think we have a common interest with those European types. No far better to maintain an irrational xenophobic dislike of all Johnny Foreigners. Those mad continental types don’t even speak the Queen’s English.
BP’s trouble in the USA has led to the Americans taking a sudden interest in Scottish affairs. Of course Mr Cameron did the decent thing when asked to explain BP’s dodgy dealings. Don’t look at me he said look at Scotland who let out the mad terrorist Al Megrahi! It is of course true that Kenny MacAskill showed compassion for a dying man. It is also probable that the man in question had no connection whatsoever with the Lockerbie bomb. The US demanded to hear from the lowly Scots in person and were amazed to find that our Government had learnt a word which no British diplomat had ever used in recent recorded history: ‘No’.
There was indeed a ‘deal in the desert’ BP did in fact lobby a foreign Government. However it was the last Labour British Government, not the Scottish one. Mr MacAskill decide to grant compassionate release to a dying man. This has put those lovely types from the tabloids and the unionist politicians together in a basket in which they each hold a stopwatch and guess how long he’s got to go.
The fact the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission reckoned his conviction was ‘unsafe’. Who cares? The indisputable fact he’s dying of cancer? What does that matter? What matters is he is not dying in three months like he should have done!
I joined a US website a while back because I wanted to leave a comment re an inaccurate report about Scotland. Since then I have received numerous mail shots. If they are anything to go by the art of politics has died in America in favour of pathetic idiotic semantics. America might have the power the money and the secret agents but in terms of moral authority or fresh political ideas it has nothing. An independent Scotland and Wales would be far better throwing their lot in with the rest of Europe. The fact UKIP, the BNP and most of the Tories all want us to disengage from Europe gives us an idea of the right and wrongs of the issue!

Posted by Joe Middleton at 1:34 PM 1 comments

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Saturday, September 24, 2011

Labour don't put Scotland first

Letter to the Editor

The Scotsman

24/09/2011

Dear Sir,

Your interview with former Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy which

was printed today (http://tinyurl.com/3vey85t) was illuminating on a number of points.

Firstly his comment: "We need to be where most Scots are - Scottish first,

British second." is unlikely to be popular amongst his fellow unionists but

it has the whiff of realism about it.

Unfortunately for Labour they do not have a history of putting Scotland

first and in any contest of patriotism with the SNP they are likely to fall

far short.

Mr Murphy regrets his own lack of input to the last Scottish elections and

according to the article writer appears to suggest that MSPs will never be

left alone again to run their own campaign. This suggestion rather

undermines the supposed plan for operational independence from London which

has been reported recently in the Scotsman.

As far as his own ambitions go it is clear that the future of Labour in

Scotland is not Mr Murphy's main priority. He prefers to pretend to be a

Defence Minister in London. Being Scotland's party leader might be of some

interest in the future, but only after twenty years!

So long as Labour sees Westminster as the most important parliament and

their top politicians are openly declaring that their own personal

priorities lie outside Scotland it is no wonder that the Scottish people

will prefer a SNP that places Scotland first.

Yours faithfully,

Joe Middleton

Posted by Joe Middleton at 11:25 PM 0 comments

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

Scotland - Referendum Campaign say YES to independence

Still true today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWNmoCFZ3Io

Posted by Joe Middleton at 2:17 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 04, 2010

Don’t rule out odd alliances as election campaign hots up

Interesting article in the Herald. Certainly the Scots Conservatives would benefit from cutting the ties from London and a change of name. It is their attachment to the union however which is genuinely holding them back. From the nationalist perspective it would help our cause to have more than one party which advocates independence. To have it advocated from both a left and right perspective might be useful because the reality is that no-one can accurately forsee what policies would prevail in an independent Scotland. JOE

If, as the song has it, it’s a long, long time from May to December, then the opposite is also true.

Either way, by the end of September the days are growing very short indeed, politicians of all parties feel, and it’s time to start making preparations for what they’ll be doing in six months.

So we had Iain Gray giving his broadest hints yet that Labour might attempt to form a minority government if, as the polls suggest at the moment (though remember, again, it’s a long, long time etc), the party has the largest number of seats but falls short of a majority in Holyrood.

It is worth noticing, however, that he did not rule out coalition with the Lib Dems, even though the party is in coalition with the Tories at Westminster. Meanwhile, we had Annabel Goldie declaring that polling analysis put the Scottish Conservatives in “a strong, clear and consistent second place”. Well, it is the business of politicians to maximise their options and talk up their prospects.

One interesting aspect of Westminster having discovered (some time after Scotland) the realities of coalition government, and the way in which apparently odd alliances can lead to more imaginative and productive policies, is that there is almost no possible configuration of government which one could rule out at Holyrood with certainty.

Even the most bizarre pairing, a Labour/Tory coalition, is very remotely conceivable, in circumstances where a referendum on independence became the urgent, dominant political issue. But that seems unlikely. The equally strange prospect of the Tories shoring up a Nationalist administration is, however, one which has a good deal to recommend it, for both parties.

The Scottish Conservative party needs to do something imaginative. The Conservative blogger Tim Montgomerie suggested yesterday that it should cut its ties with the national Tory party altogether.

Mr Cameron’s attempts to remove the “toxic brand” aspect of Conservatism failed completely here, though it is a policy which won round much of Middle England – a position which, furthermore, may well be consolidated if Ed Miliband’s leadership moves Labour leftwards. The “Respect for Scotland” agenda did no good at all.

There has been no electoral return for the Scottish Tories from the support they have given the Scottish Government on a range of issues (diverging from the party’s national stance), whether it was backing free care for the elderly or opposing tuition fees. Nor have they profited from the measures they have secured by this pragmatism – extra police officers, a new approach to drug rehabilitation, further cuts in business rates, a £60 million town centre redevelopment fund.

It may simply be impossible to sell anything with the Conservative label on it north of the border, though the paradox is that many of the party’s current priorities emphasise localism, devolution of powers and grass-roots initiatives, all of which ought to appeal to supporters of greater Scottish autonomy.

If Mr Cameron is serious about the existence of a “new politics” ushered in by the Westminster coalition, he might welcome the solution once suggested by Murdo Fraser, and content himself with support in the House of Commons from an entirely separate, distinctively Scottish, centre-right party.

There used, of course, to be such a thing. It was the Unionist party, and it is possible to track the decline of support for the centre-right in Scotland not – as is the usual analysis – from the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, but from the moment that the nomenclature was abandoned, and the Conservative label adopted. As late as the 1950s, some little time after the Red Clydesiders now held to be the fons et origo of “natural Scottish political sentiment” (ie, a whining, slavish dependency on the state), there was a natural centre-right majority in Scotland.

Until that point, too, there was – despite the name – a considerable strain of Nationalist sentiment amongst Unionists; the sort of attitude embodied by figures such as John Buchan. There was then, too, a good deal of centre-right support for the SNP; I suspect that there still is, particularly in areas such as Perthshire and Angus.

Of course, the Nationalists are now an avowedly left-of-centre party, but they would be wise not to rule out some form of co-operation with the Conservatives, and not merely for the fairly compelling reason that it might allow Alex Salmond to continue as First Minister even if Labour wins the largest number of Holyrood seats.

I admit that it’s unlikely that the SNP membership could bear the thought of being in a full coalition with the Scottish Conservatives (though a name change and full autonomy from the UK party might just make it less unthinkable). But the party has made much of dissociating itself from knee-jerk opposition to anything English, and it may be time for it to realise that an automatic opposition to anything which happens to be advocated by Conservatives is equally infantile.

Because the truth is that the proposed reforms of the welfare state which have been hammered out between Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne are likely to do more to help the poor than the indiscriminate profligate spending of the Labour party, which made the gap between the richest and poorest the widest ever, and left Scotland with a GDP per capita considerably lower than the EU average.

The practical lesson of having formed the government should also have impressed on the SNP leadership one overwhelming truth: that it is the Labour party’s reckless endangerment of the UK’s finances which now makes it financially impossible for Holyrood to maintain many of the distinctive policies that Scots might prefer. Though the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Nationalists may now all, in their various coalitions and governments, be imposing cuts, they are in reality the Labour party’s responsibility.

The main priority for all other political parties should be ensuring that these lunatics, who nearly bankrupted us all, should never govern again.

That may mean radical realignments of normal politics. For Scotland, the slogan “Together, in the national interest” at the Tory conference may mean an arrangement with the Nationalists which is far from conservative.

By Andrew McKie

Posted by Joe Middleton at 9:17 AM 1 comments

BRITISH PARTIES REFERENDUM REFUSAL INDICATES THEIR FEAR

Quality letter which hits the nail on the head. JOE


Referendum role (Recent letter in the Scotsman)


The dropping of legislation to hold a referendum on Scottish independence (Comment, 6 September) can surely not be a setback for SNP credibility.


Rather, it must be interpreted as terror on the part of the Unionist parties.


Otherwise, why should they show their fear by opposing the chance to allow the Scottish people the opportunity to show they preferred independence to continued London rule?


Were this not so, they would be eager to back a referendum that would allow the Scots to oppose a second Battle of Bannockburn that would win their freedom again.


ANDY MACPHERSON


Trinity Crescent
Edinburgh

Posted by Joe Middleton at 8:43 AM 0 comments

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