"A lot of people think we’re all going to fall flat on our face if we do this. We’re too feisty a people to let things turn bad if we went and tried it. Why not? Why not try at least?"
Kevin McKidd
Kevin is a talented Scots actor from Elgin who appeared in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and currently stars in US TV series Gray's Anatomy.
Bitter Together are fuming, they can't find anyone famous to back their campaign!
All they can come up with is English people who have a tenuous link to Scotland like J K Rowling who once lived here while writing a kids book or Emma Thomson who can do an almost passable Scottish accent. Oh and of course there's the famous bra manufacturer and a fitba manager who plies his trade in England and soup and teacake makers. Oh and a millionaire Tory donor (based in London, what a shock) who is funding most of their campaign!
Against this parcel of minor level and irrelevant rogues we have:
Author and Booker Prize Winner: James Kelman A large number of genuine Scots actors including the patriotic Mr Kidd above and the most famous Scotsman ever Sean Connery (who has backed indy since endorsing Winnie Ewing in Hamilton at the height of his fame as James Bond) Alasdair Gray, our greatest living writer Joseph Stiglitz a Noble Prize Winner Iain Banks one of Scotland's most brilliant and successful authors Blair Jenkins a former head of the BBC Michael Fry a leading historian Dougie MacLean writer of Caledonia Dick Gaughan, perhaps our most famous folk singer Various TV actors Irvine Welsh, writer Brian Cox, famous Scots actor Frankie Boyle, comedian who has 1.4M followers on Twitter! Plus top Scots singers like Karine Polwart, Eddi Reader, Pat Kane, The Proclaimers and Deacon Blue
and many others...
In fact almost everyone who has actually made a significant impact on Scots culture in the last few decades is backing normal status for Scotland.
Also from outside Scotland:
Adrian Dunbar - Irish Actor and Director Ken Loach - English Director Peter Tatchell - English Civil Rights Activist and Equality campaigner John C Reilly - American Actor
All of whom back Scots indy
and from the past the greatest figures in Scottish History!
Robert Burns William Wallace Robert Bruce Sir Walter Scott Robert Louis Stevenson John MacLean James Connolly Hugh MacDiarmid
The signers of the Declaration of Arbroath also ring out from history
"It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
Given that the Yes campaign can boast all the above and also the direct support of our elected SNP Scottish Government it's no wonder the little Britons of BT are so bitter about Mr McKidd, and they are very bitter indeed as can be seen on the comments on this article in the Scotsman:
He says he's a patriot and I believe it. I don't believe the various non-entities on the Bitter Together site who claim to be patriotic about absolutely everything apart from actually wanting Scotland to rule our own affairs!
The British unionist campaign
in the Scottish independence referendum is called Better Together but the
question needs to be asked Better Together for who? There are clear advantages
for England in retaining the Union and it does not surprise me when English
people in Scotland like J K Rowling or Emma Thomson argue in favour of its
retention.
If you see the Union Jack as equivalent to the
English flag and given the dominance of the St George's Cross in the centre, who
couldn't, then the flag could credibly represent England.
Given that ancient England was named Britannia by
the Romans then Britain is also quite acceptable and indeed it backs up the
English preferred view of Wales ie that it doesn't exist.
Therefore if you are English then you can be quite
comfortable with either of these symbols in the knowledge that they really
actually mean England.
Similarly Queen Elizabeth II of England has a
certain ring to it and celebrating bashing those rebellious Scots who England
regularly fought with over hundreds of years doesn't really present a problem.
Similarly singing about Brittania ruling the waves doesn't really reflect on any
other country apart from England a fact made quite evident by the British naval
flag.
Since England has approximately 90% of Britain's
MP's Westminster could legitimately be claimed to be as good as and in fact a
lot better than any devolved English parliament.
Britain means retention of the Scottish Oil Fields
under English political control and the use of that money in capital projects
like the London Olympics, or duelling the A1 or indeed the Channel Tunnel. It
also keeps the pound as a credible currency and magnifies British importance in
Europe much like the Scottish fishing grounds.
The Bank of England is effectively Britain's
central bank. The inclusion of Scotland and Wales's GDP keeps Britain in the G8
and these additions mean that not only does Britain have a seat in the UN they
also get the added boost of being a member of the security council. Both of
these places which England relies on would be at risk after Scottish
independence.
All in all England gets every advantage from the
Union and zero disadvantages. So a piddling amount of Scottish or Welsh MP's
might vote in a different way to the English but in reality any party who gets
into power in Westminster has to have huge support in England by definition.
The Trident Nuclear Deterrent means England can
boss other countries around and interfere in their domestic policy while
sonorously declaring that no-one else should have nuclear weapons. They are
unpopular in Scotland of course but it's handy to keep them somewhere.
Retaining Britain means
that England also retain control of little outposts like the Falklands or tax
havens like the Channel Islands which means that the filthy
rich can still work in Britain while avoiding paying any nasty tax
there.
Do we want or need these? David Cameron certainly
sees them as important.
Unfortunately all these additional benefits for
England come at a cost. Wales and Scotland have to pretend we don't exist
internationally. David Mundell (Scotland's lone Tory MP) doesn't have a problem
with that but Better Together can't count him as very representative of the
general viewpoint!
The truth is 'independence' for England would mean
an actual reduction in power not an increase and England would have to accept
that their imperial dream was finally over.
This is something that no English MP will ever
countenance voluntarily (though they will be forced under international law to
do so after any democratic vote for independence) which is why every London
based party is 100% against Scottish independence. It is not in their national
interest.
Can Alistair Darling whose ultimate loyalty to London has never been in doubt really convince the Scots who live in Scotland (and don't flip their mortgages) that they actually benefit from English control of everything?
In light of the disgraceful image in todays Scotland on Sunday (below) which attempts to link the Scots self determination movement with both the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan and the scaremongering associated article it is worth considering whether the British themselves have something significant to hide in terms of links to fascism both before and after the second World War.
I should start off by saying that the Scots, English and Welsh all played an honourable part in defending the World from the fascist threat of the Nazis. During that time however Churchill regularly referred to Britain as 'England' and during the war Scots were buried under an avalanch of propaganda that rarely if ever mentioned Scotland.
Perhaps it is because of this (possibly unintended) insult that the post war years saw a gradual but ultimately impressive increase in support for the Scottish independence movement.
London's actual attitude towards Scotland at the time however is rather more disturbing. According to official documents Britain would actually have allowed an invasion of Scotland to happen and that England was seen as "the total priority for defence".
The book also exposes fascist Scots in Scottish society however as the above article notes these were linked within the British Unionists (which was the old name of the Scottish Conservatives) and landed aristocrats.*
Hitler's ultimate agenda was not entirely understood before the war. Though there were obvious indications of his hatred of the Jews the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust was only exposed fully afterwards.
In England in particular there was substantial support for fascism and in fact Oswald Mosely who was a politician who had been a Westminster MP for both Labour and Tory formed his own army of Brownshirts under the label of the British Union of Fascists.
The BUF (flag above) used to martial support in the thousands and held various parades. After the war started their support died away however an English minority attraction to fascism has continued until today with some modern support for Nick Griffin's British National Party who have even managed to gain enough support in England to get MEP's elected to the European Parliament!
The BNP and the non-fascistic but still xenophobic and offensive and anti-Scottish UKIP (UK Independence party) an oxymoron as the UK are already independent have made zero headway in Scotland. In England however UKIP are rising fast and the British Conservatives (who with one MP are also as popular as the plague in Scotland) have taken them so seriously that an in-out referendum on the EU is officially planned in the next few years.
In short then England had a real pre-war problem with home grown outright fascism and has an on ongoing problem with a modern equivalent of the French National Front in the BNP.
Given the above facts the attempts by the Scotland on Sunday today via a book named 'Fascist Scotland' which is illustrated on the web by a picture of Oswald Mosely but had a disgusting mock up of a Saltire shaped into a Nazi flag in the paper (see top of article) to suggest there was real support in pre WW2 Scotland for fascism based on much innuendo and speculation are desperate and rather absurd and I suspect this has been a desperate attempt to bury the bad news of the original damning book and its conclusion that Scotland was seen as expendable by British military planners during World War II.
Clearly the writer desperately wants Scotland and early Scots nationalists to be tarred with the Nazi brush but he admits himself that BUF demos which were organised up here were disrupted and fought against in Scotland just like the English Defence League (which they renamed as Scottish Defence League in Scotland but no-one believes it) demos in Scotland involving a few hundred English skinheads have been in recent times.
The Orange Lodge can muster 10K anti-independence Union Jack waving marchers down the Royal Mile (much of them imported from NI) but no-one could argue that they credibly dominate the political debate in Scotland. In fact their sectarian views are rightly seen as repugnant by the vast majority of Scottish society.
The summation of the article shows the writers intentions and marks a new low even for the Scotsman:
Today, the ruling party of Scotland has nationalism as its creed and is suspiciously coy about its own history. Elsewhere in the nationalist family, the BNP, before it plunged into fratricidal warfare, trounced the Far Left in recent Scottish elections and, in 2010, received a respectable 1,000 votes in Alex Salmond’s stamping ground of Banff and Buchan. To this should be added growing sympathy for the agenda of Ukip. The Scottish electorate now appears more receptive to radical nationalism than Mosley’s blackshirts could ever dream of. With fears of globalisation and mass immigration on the rise, and the political “old gang” unpopular, there might still be living space in Scotland for the “Brown Beast”. In this way, we would be very much in line with our European cousins. Wha’s like us? Quite a few.
The facts are that the SNP are a civic nationalist grouping which warmly welcomes support from all sections and ethnic groupings in Scottish society. Even in it's earliest incarnations it supported self determination and opposed right wing extremism. Read the Flag in the Wind by John MacCormick to read the early (and proud) history of the SNP.
Even early outspoken radical Scots like Wendy Wood (who was often involved in civil disobedience such as moving the border post to it's more accurate position just after the River Tweed) were firmly rooted in legitimate campaigning and democratic politics.
Despite the British State's best efforts the Scottish independence movement has never ever been linked credibly to any political violence of any kind. This is despite the fact that the UK authorities (as exposed by Gaelic doc Diomhair still available on Youtube) attempted to supply young Scots students with fake explosives. MI5 have also regularly spied on Scottish demonstrations and the British Government itself deliberately and persistently lied about the extent of North Sea Oil during the original 1978 devolution referendum.
British mainstream parties like Labour and the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are also nationalists but of the British type. It could be credibly argued that British nationalism which constantly harks back to the glory days of the British Empire and seems to embody a distrust of foreigners and immigration is of a much more negative nature than the 'national freedom' type nationalism of the SNP which has much more in common with those countries who eventually escaped the imperial yoke.
To insult the SNP and the wider Yes campaign in such a desperate and sickening fashion shows the desperation of the No lobby which has came up with zero positive arguments for union. A fact effectively illustrated in this video which was temporarily banned from youtube for daring to use embarassing pseudo-patriotic footage of Better Together's own activists.
* Incidentally the former English King (Edward VIII) was in fact known to be a Nazi Supporter who had meetings with Hitler and who would almost certainly have been installed as a puppet ruler of Britain if Germany had succeeded in their invasion plans.
Peter Tatchell: If Tiny Malta can be independent, why not Scotland?
Equality and human rights campaigner and former Labour Westminster candidate Peter Tatchell has called on Scots to vote Yes in the 2014 independence referendum.
The well known gay rights activist and social justice campaigner suggested that an independent Scotland would be “more left wing” than England and could have a “progressive future”.
Mr Tatchell is well known for his direct style of campaigning and is also famous for when he stood as a Labour candidate in a bitterly fought by-election in Bermondsey, south London in the 1980s, when it is claimed he was subjected to an anti-gay campaign.
Mr Tatchell claimed that an independent Scotland could follow the example of nations that had won their independence in recent decades.
He said: “If I were Scottish, I would support independence. Lots of small breakaway states, like Slovenia, have been success stories. Scotland has historically been more left wing than England. Independence would give the Scots people the opportunity to chart their own progressive future. If tiny Malta can have self-rule, why not Scotland?”
It should be remembered that Tony Blair was reluctant to provide any devolution for Scotland but felt it was inevitable. The scheme he did offer had Broadcasting powers removed and he also moved to block a Scottish 6 O'Clock News!
The fact is that Labour only provided devolution 20 years after a clear vote in favour (not implemented due to their own wrecking 40% clause) and they only did that after repeating the referendum process.
Labour would have had no credibility whatsoever if they had completely ignored demands for devolution so Blair was forced into it.
At the time he also bluntly reminded us of where he perceived the power would continue to be: "Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay." Scotsman 1997
Given all the above his attempts to stop Scots taking the next logical step to self-rule is entirely predictable and his claim that SNP are like UKIP is risible.
I think the SNP's change in policy on NATO was questionable, however it is now pretty clear there will not be any nuclear weapons in an independent Scotland. I also think that claiming the UK or British identity will continue post independence is self defeating. Yes, England probably will pretend to be Britain after we leave but that does not mean it reflects reality.
Blair's influence on politics in general was a negative one. Yes he was in power, but what did he do with it? In most areas he continued or worsened Conservative policy. He wishes to maintain the Status Quo because he believes it benefits England and he misrepresents the SNP's motivations so as to more easily attack them.
Independence is about representing ourselves as Scots on the world stage. Do we need to do this? Does the union not actually represent ourselves as well? The answer to that is a resounding No. In fact our voice is smothered under the British label. Britain comes from Brittania and as Jack Straw admitted England created the union to expand their power internationally.
"Historically, England called the shots to achieve a union because the union was seen as a way, among others things, of amplifying England's power worldwide.
And the reverse would certainly be true. A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England.
Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council."
Scottish and Welsh independence would reduce England's international muscle and the loss of Oil would mean a drastic cut in her finances. That is why all English/British nationalists want the union to continue. Mrs Thatcher was also an English nationalist by the way as she admitted herself: "I'm an English nationalist and never you forget it," said Mrs Thatcher to James Naughtie in 1986.
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."
< 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.
"I have devoted myself to the cause of the people, it is a good cause, it shall ultimately prevail, it shall finally triumph."- Thomas Muir
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) April 14, 2013
"We English, who are a marvellous people, are really very generous to Scotland." Baroness Thatcher #indyref#scotland
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) April 14, 2013
"What are advantages Scotland reaps from so called Union that counterbalance annihilation of her independence and her name?" Robert Burns
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 12, 2013
"it is much easier to corrupt 45 Scots at London, than it is to corrupt 300 at Edinburgh!" Fletcher of Saltoun 1707#scotsnotbrits#indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 8, 2013
Tony Blair on devolution "Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay." Scotsman 1997 #scotsnotbrits#indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 7, 2013
"I'm an English nationalist and never you forget it," said Mrs Thatcher to James Naughtie in 1986. #scotsnotbrits#indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 7, 2013
England called the shots..because..union was seen as a way..of amplifying England's power worldwide Jack Straw 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme…
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) March 10, 2013
"I have devoted myself to the cause of the people, it is a good cause, it shall ultimately prevail, it shall finally triumph." Thomas Muir
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 25, 2013
WINSTON CHURCHILL 'of all small nations of this earth perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.'
— Independence Celebs (@Celebs4indy) November 22, 2012
I like this: Pat Kane "I want to live in a progressive country. Where the peopleliving here have ideas way beyond their station." #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
"It's a racist argument that Scots uniquely cannot run a country when there are smaller nations than ours that do it just fine." Osama Saeed
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
"It is not for glory nor honors nor riches that we are fighting but for freedom for that alone which no honest man gives up" Arbroath 1320
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
"Is it better that we deliver on our agenda inan independent Scotland or continue to fail to deliver in a United Kingdom?" John Duffy FBU
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
Iain (M) Banks: "Scotland could have viable future as independent country. We could become a low-inequality society on Scandinavian model."
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
Ken Loach: "If I had the change to be independent from the Tory-Liberal-New Labour bunch, I'd jump at it." #indyref
— Joe Middleton (@freescotlandnow) February 23, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
