Bedlam

With other pressing needs to occupy myself, in the real world, I haven’t put finger to keyboard for well over two weeks now on the subject which I, and many readers care passionately about, the return to self-government for our country, Scotland.  Did I miss anything?

It seems, from a quick glance at the goings on, mainly from the Cabinet Office in Downing Street (where, it seems, they’ve appointed so many extra numpties to try and portray a strength in numbers actual functioning government that they are running out of seats) that those most in need of a coin in their pocket, as usual, are to be further penalised by cuts to their income. What a surprise.

It seems too that the empty shelves in Tesco continue to attract dust, apart from the kidney beans shelf, there’s always plenty of them, and, we are running out of the fizz that goes into ginger (expect the Irn Bru wars to kick off soon which might just be the final straw on this letting another country govern us lark, once and for all).

Apparently there is petrol somewhere in England but nobody can find out where, mibbees the BBC’s ‘British’ army will find it (I always thought they were our army too) and the Covid-19 passport Hoaky Coaky continues, one in a long line of mis-steps and instances of gross incompetence demonstrated by a government of dim-witted self-servers unfit to serve during a worldwide health crisis.

Giving the rest of the world an excuse to shake their heads in disbelief, the galoot reputed to be in charge, incredibly, stood up in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations and started waffling on about the Muppets, and then subsequently started slagging off the French in pidgin French for being just a trifle miffed at the UK for dishonourably withdrawing from a contract deal, It’s alright though because according to the Express giving the French the elbow and signing up to a new defence treaty with America and Australia will make Britain a superpower again in ten years-time. Oh my goodness. Saints preserve us from fools!

it turns oot ‘Sir’ Keir Stauner is as much a Tory as the real Tories, (who knew?) and he, like the rest of the union triad, has no understanding of the movement for an Independent Scotland or respect for the democratic wishes of Scotland’s people (hence Labour are an extinct species in our country) having made some weird and sinister comment during his ninety minute content-free speech at the Used To Be Labour Conference about blood transfusions and nationality (ah la Gordy Broon’s despicable falsity regarding Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and gravely ill Scottish children of 2014).

Talking of Gordy the Interventionist, it seems he’s tae be brought in again to run yet another organisation that will settle the question of union once and for all, without any mandate, agency, authority, or the democratic permission of the people of Scotland to do so, from a party with one MP in Scotland. How arrogant and out of touch can they get? Good news for the Yes Movement I’d say.

Looking in, it is almost as if those of conservative nature are trying to self-sabotage their precious Union and its pillars. They are not though, it’s just arrogance and ignorance on their part of their actual situation as a country in the 21^st century world, and the inappropriateness of a relationship with their closest geographical neighbours which becomes more irrelevant every day.

Whew! And it’s supposed to be us that are the bad apples for simply wanting to be a normal self-governing democratic and progressive country?

I’ll leave you with this, a position which I believe to be true, leaving the current constitutional arrangement in an untenable position (rejecting a section 30 request, when it is made, and then enforcing that through the courts if they choose to do so, makes this position even stronger and brings the end of the Union closer) from the pre-eminent historian of all things Scotland, Tom Devine…….

“We have now moved quite dramatically, and very swiftly, from a Union by consent to a Union of enforced law. A Union of that type cannot stand,

Remember 1707 was an agreement between two historic nations. It was not an imposition. What we have now is imposition.”

It is coming.

Legitimate authority?

The First Minister of Scotland’s keynote speech at her recent party conference was still in progress when the spokesperson mouthpieces of British nationalism breenged-in with their responses on behalf of the Conservative, Unionist and Nationalist Triumvirate, as we should really refer to them, (seeing as nobody really knows which one between Boris Pcaffufle Johnson, Mikey Gove, the private dancer, or the scary grown up Horace Broon, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is running the show) and secondly, because they are forever referring to us falsely as the narrow nationalists ‘the Scottish Nationalist Party’ when in fact the only real nationalists in play are themselves.

Guffaw guffaw, snort, they dribble. We never agreed to a second referendum, we never would agree to a second referendum, we never will agree to a second referendum, and Mikey G (drunk, high or sober) on the dancefloor has never said that if the people of Scotland want a referendum they should have one, oh and Alister Jack, who? He never mentioned anything about polls having to be consistently at 60% before they’d think about it. He was misheard at the time and was actually talking about the percentage of local grouse he expects his party colleagues to blow out of the Scottish sky over a season on his land. No, no, nothing tae see here, Referendum is it? No no, ye’ll have had yer YES in 2014. Once in a generation you said. 

What they don’t seem to be grasping, which is not unusual because they are pretty dense, and on the whole grasp very little about what is going on around them, apart from if whatever it is directly impacts their own personal wealth, is that the Union is now increasingly becoming hemmed into a corner with no way out, apart from winning a second referendum.

What the forces of Union, and to be frank (why does poor old Frank always get it) some of those purporting to be advocates of self-government who disagree loudly with the current approach to regaining Scotland its rightful independence should consider is this. The First Minister of Scotland, in compliance with current legislation, will at a time of her choosing formally request leave to call a referendum of Scotland’s people regarding their views on their future governance. 

It matters not a jot our own personal views as on whether we need to seek the permission of another country to carry out something that our people have already democratically decided to do, which  clearly anywhere else in other modern democracies is totally barmy. The First Minister will carry out this act for one reason, and for one reason only, it is compliant with the law. To do anything other than that will compromise the case for the restoration of independence, giving our opponents an out.

Nicola Sturgeon, Baw jaws, Murray Douglas, you, me and wee Tam the windae cleaner all know that the British government, if they don’t really give some serious consideration to what happens next, will refuse this request. But, and here’s the thing, they do so at their own peril.

To refuse a section 30 order completely changes the picture. We all know that Scotland is not, and never has been, an equal partner, in the political relationship that constitutes the Union, and as it has developed over three hundred years. In modern times the intense spotlight which that relationship has been under since the turn of this century, and the return of a Scottish Parliament, surely makes that position clear to even the most biased of unionists.

However refusing to comply with the majority democratic will of the Scottish people officially, and then having that refusal ratified that by way of a decision in the highest court ,in England, after much too-ing and frow-ing no doubt, has enormous repercussions. The cloak of pretence is dropped. A stark confirmation that the position of the British government, the state, officially is that the Union of the countries which make up the United Kingdom is demonstrably not of a democratic nature, an admission that England as a nation states see’s the other countries involved as having been subsumed, becoming their possessions, or their provinces, and that in all things the will of England’s government outweighs everything and comes first. An admission that the Union is officially run for the benefit of England first and foremost, would be jaw dropping.

Would the people of Scotland stand for that? Having it factually, and legally, pointed out to them that they don’t actually live in a democracy? What implications would this admission have for the British State, its political arm at Westminster and all of the other deeply entrenched interwoven strands of power designed to keep things just exactly the way they are?  I figure that light bulbs would come on all over Scotland in a consciousness-raising version of many hundreds of thousands of 14lb hammers giving the Berlin Wall a thoroughly good skelp. It’s a no contest.

This is not sustainable. There is no political fence mending or patchwork negotiations that can be done to fix the consequences of that admission in favour of the red, white and blue of Britannia, even if they had a decent crop of politicos and diplomats in situ to try and weasel their way out of it ( look at the complete horse’s erse they made of Brexit).

In the face of a London government and British law declaring a referendum unlawful it is within the First Minister’s purview to call a Brexit-like advisory non-binding referendum anyway, or not (bearing in mind, Brexit wasn’t binding, and in the case of what was such a narrow result shouldn’t have been implemented anyway). Either way unless Westminster come to the party, and agrees to a second legitimate referendum the ‘neverendum’ they keep taunting us with might just become irrelevant as their grip on Scotland dissolves away in the face of them losing their own perceived legitimacy to govern us.

It’s coming, maybe not as quickly as some would hope, but it is coming.

Away and play at yer ain bit!

Regular readers of this blog may know that I have absolutely nothing against the wee old lady in the golden hat who lives in various palaces around the countries of the UK, as a person. In fact as a person I actually quite admire her devotion to what she sees as duty, which I think is genuine. 

I am though entirely, in every shape or form, against what her title, the institution of royalty and everything that goes with it, represents, the immense and obscene wealth obtained via a God-like birth right, being just one of its archaic symbols. Upon her passing I hope for significant reform, and when the time is right, sometime in an independent Scotland’s future, I hope to see a further vote transforming my country into a 21^st century European progressive republic. 

What I do find distasteful, as certain sections of the media have been telling us about this week, is the image in my mind of one of her offspring jooking aboot the place, dressed in a trench coat, a hat, dark glasses and a fake moustache (It’ll stick well because he doesn’t sweat) scuttling from behind one tree to another, like Inspector Clouseau, across the grounds of various royal properties, trying tae avoid a wee fella in a dark suit with a summons in his hand.

What I also find very distasteful is that when he’s gotten a bit stir crazy looking at the same four very expensively decorated walls at his Windsor luxury digs he’s up and bolted for Scotland, again, tae hide behind his auld dear, him and his ex-wife, who is well known for her ability tae squeeze a buck or two out of her connections to royalty!

Those looking in on the increasingly disunited, bizarre and now farcical UK, and it’s wobbling Union, those in Europe and further afield, already bemused at what is going on in Britain, astonished at who the British ended up having as a Prime Minister, bewildered at the frankly bonkers, and self-destructive decisions he and his government have made, and continue to make, surely see this act of avoidance by a member of the British uber-elite as yet another solid chisel whack at the inflated reputation that Britain always thought it had in the rest of the world. What an embarrassment.

It’s not a good look. Whether the eighth in line to the Golden Hat has actually been involved in any of the things that have been alleged, or whether he is innocent, or whether he was eating a Pizza in Woking at the time, if he has any integrity he should at least co-operate with the investigation and any inquiries taking place.

His wee Maw is 95. Like any mother she could be doing without all of this.

Getting ready

The announcement has been made, kinda. Covid-19 crisis permitting, an independence referendum will take place before the end of 2023. The preparations, halted when the virus struck, are to restart, work on the updated positive case for independence is to recommence. However, this upcoming ballot of the people of Scotland’s views on the future governance of their country is not going to be like the referendum of 2014.

For one thing, our opponents this time will no longer be blasé, sure of themselves and convinced that their side are a sure bet for a victory by at least 10% in the vote (as they were last time until the final weeks of the campaign brought forth a poll predicting a narrow win for Yes, sending them into a blinding panic, with train coach loads of Westminster troughers heading north, PMQ’s disrupted, unwilling saltires being raised above Downing Street, greetin’ pop stars claiming broken hearts, and wee Betty of Balmoral geared up with just the right set of words to be quoted as saying outside the Kirk on the Sunday etc etc etc, and then there was ‘The Vow’).

No, the forces of Onion (sic) are going to be way way better prepared this time than last. You think you heard some whoppers the last time about the world as we know it coming to an end should Scotland get the power to change the price of a postage stamp. You ain’t heard nothing yet!

Peeling away the significant impacts of the layers of what Covid-19 and Brexit have brought to the debate, disregarding them for one moment, Scots have lived in a post-Scottish referendum campaign increasingly broken Union now for seven years. That referendum changed attitudes, on both sides. We’re seven years in, where we on the Yes side, have frustratingly not progressed, apart from a consistent period of favourable polls for a while there. In fact we have in some senses fragmented, to varying degrees, depending on whom you speak to.

Meanwhile, our opponents and their media, initially having had to become campaign match-fit through necessity as they realised that there actually was a real prospect of a Yes victory on 18 September 2014, have been running at, if not campaign readiness, only a few notches down in their combined intensity to cascade widely British nationalist propaganda, propagate anti-independence slurs, insult and ignore our representatives in their parliament, undermine our leaders, remove us from Europe against our democratic will and keep up a continual 24/7 theme of Scotland is too wee, too poor, too anything negative you can think of, a kind of a ‘cold referendum’ campaign undermining of confidence at levels never as intensely generated before perhaps the end of 2012, as the initial independence campaign began to take form and shape.

They are ready for us. Are we going to be ready for them?

Rosco the ranter

He’s like a wee spoilt wean, is oor Murray Douglas of Ross. Independence, Independence, Independence, that’s all these daft Tory wannabees, desperate for the someone in the mothership back in London to noticed them, concern themselves with. The fella is obsessed. He floats about there, behind his Holyrood Chamber podium, on the away bench, moving from one foot to the other like he’s trying to avoid a dose of the skitters, ranting, like somehow he is surprised. He appears surprised that the currently democratically elected but still limited powers government of Scotland, (a government made up specifically of a political party who’s principal reason for being in existence is to re-establish an independent Scotland, and now enhanced by the addition of the Green Party, also of an independent mind) have a commitment to that very thing, independence.

Who knew, Murray eh? What a shocker!

Off he goes, Scotland’s answer tae VAR with the plug out the socket, prattling on about how governing ourselves in the aftermath of a worldwide human disaster, a tragedy, shouldn’t be a priority. What we should do, according to Rosco, is let the same bunch of dangerously and criminally incompetent, half-witted toffs, exploitative corporate business heads and semi -geriatric former yuppies in blonde wigs and union jack braces, oozing in selfishness and entitlement, excited, and slobbering at the smell of money (the same lot that have made, since day one, a complete and tragic disaster on a massive scale into an even bigger complete and tragic disaster than it could have been if only they’d given a thought to the needs of other people than themselves now and again) manage the long road back to recovery!

As if they haven’t done enough damage already? Is he mad?

Away wae ye man. We see you. Keep stamping your feet, wringing your hands and squealing like somebody has stolen your KitKat, or pulled your hair. Don’t worry, you’ll get your ermine, your daft title, and your expenses someday, like your blawhard predecessor, but I very much hope by then it won’t be the people of the country you do a great dis-service to who are paying for your life of privilege. You’ve made your choices.

A man on emission

Aye, nae bother Boris Pcaffuffle Johnson, you make sure you get your priorities right neebs. Don’t you even straighten one tiny little unkempt hair, that sits awkwardly on that big dairy coo’s heid of yours, with worry. Naw, don’t stress yerself about anybody else coming doon wae the Covid-19, or the impact all of this pandemic nonsense has had, is having, and will continue to have, on the punch drunk staff of the NHS , neck-deep in post-traumatic stress disorder, physically exhausted and desperate for real support, real leadership and real supplies of effective PPE ( no’ the Tory kind that comes via big contracts and backhanders to first time producers through the old school tie network that ye could spit peas through).

Ye know, ye could even just have offered a wee bit of empathy, (like stupidity, which you have offered, another word that ends in ‘Y’) It widnae have cost you anything. Naw, that’s too hard, but mind and squeeze their car parking fees out of them, medical staff parking at their work is a privilege after all. 

Aye, forget too about all of those Afghan interpreters, guides and bureaucrats who’ve worked closely with the West, and their families whom you’ve left behind. Out of sight, out of mind, and pretty much soon, for the poor sods, out of time. Despicable. The man couldnae even spell the word conscience.

Never mind aboot the 33% increase in the deployment of 2.5 million emergency foodbank food parcels to people in crisis in the UK between April last year and March this year, ignore it, and the nearing empty supermarket food shelves for those that still can afford it, following the drivers and distribution staff who previously ran the network of food distribution going back to the EU, not wanted.  

Naw, what to concentrate on most is what has been reported over the weekend, the important stuff, working oot strategies tae keep the First Minister of Scotland, and her government,  as far away as you can from a major United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, being held in Glasgow, which is in Scotland for anyone who might have missed that, in November. This in fear of being exposed to world leaders and a global audience as a total top rank numptie by comparison if Nicola Sturgeon is in attendance, and speaks publicly. I’ve got news for you, that ship has sailed!

You should maybe take your strategies tae dilute the impact of Scots in Scotland on the conference that wee bit further, you’ve a few weeks tae go yet. Plenty of time. 

Although the main event is taking place out at the SEC the delegates from around the globe are sure tae want take a look at the toon as well in their spare time. That is a given.

So now is the time then tae start sweeping the streets of Glasgow clear of actual Scots,  those both born here and those who pay us the compliment of being new Scots (after all we only make the place look untidy) for the period of the Conference. Clear us oot the way. We’re too authentic.

Then you can bus up thousands of wee auld wummin wae blue hair fae Essex and the South Coast, and a few recently infrequently-used ocean liners (pumping out some seriously environmentally unfriendly emissions) bursting wae total Rockets partying hard on a Brexiteer n Booze cruise up the Clyde as far as they can go without running aground. Ye can get the army tae set oot hunners of wallpaper pasting tables with paper Union Jack table covers in George Square, break out the sponge cake, turn Vera Lynn up tae max on the boom box, place a spitfire, picked out in a spotlight, swinging fae a crane in front of the Cooncil Chambers, and have every lamppost decorated in Union flag bunting, like Horse-guards Parade during a Saxe- Coburg and Gotha shotgun wedding, and you can then have a proper apples n pears, jellied eels, knees-up Gordon Brown for a week.

The world-travelled delegates will surely then think Scotland must always looks patriotic, that we really appreciate being nestled in the loving embrace of Britannia, and wonder what all the separatist nonsense they’ve heard of is all about. 

Or, you could just resign, that would be far more impressive.

# A country which governs itself is normal. A country being governed by another country is not normal.  

Not again

And there it is again, the accusation of being anti-English. During a response by the First Minister to a question in the Holyrood chamber yesterday about the continuing blight of anti-Scots of Irish decent racism in Scotland there was a wee snidey made from a sedentary positioned Tory made to the effect that the leader of the government of Scotland was quite happy to make a stand against racism as long as it wasn’t racism against English people. (She later retracted her comment and apologised, but it’s too late, it’s already said, and reported on).

It never goes away this, does it? Even when it’s very easy to show that many in our number of new Scots, choosing to live in and contribute to our country, are English born, it’s still there. It gives those that spout such nonsense a false sense of justification, a means to create mischief, and in some cases, unforgivably, it’s spun as sinister fallacy to generate hate, but for me it also denotes the deep-seated arrogance that goes with British nationalist logic. Wildly flawed thinking that somehow, because a significant number of Scots wish to have their country governed by, and from, Scotland, rather than from London that this therefore as a consequence means we must hate English people.

The desire for self-government has absolutely nothing to do with the longstanding close-knit relationships we have with the people of England, our friends, neighbours and in many cases relatives. Our desire to govern ourselves is not a matter for them. The fact that we will become an independent outgoing northern European country does not mean that any of our existing relationships will change. In times of need the remaining UK will find us to be very good neighbours. There is absolutely no reason for anything to change, once the government in London come out of the inevitable spiteful huff that they’ll go into.

This false portrayal of the independence movement in Scotland is perpetuated from the very top of the British nationalist tree, Boris Johnson and his cronies for example constantly referring (despite being corrected) to the “Scottish nationalist party” across the Westminster parliamentary chamber. This stuff represents the last dying bitter curses of a long past relevant union, destined to end.

Someday all of this spiteful childish nonsense will be behind us. Imagine trying to explain it all to maturing grandchildren of the future, not yet born, who will never encounter propaganda mind games from neighbouring countries frightened to see their grip on power declining and the reach of their influence receding. Bring it on.