Break the shackles

A generation hasn’t passed, says Tom Tugendhat, a completely unknown (in Scotland until about a fortnight ago) and uninspiring Westminster politician, who is vapidly telling us about how he will rule our country, not his.

Another non-entity of the same ilk, Penny Mordaunt, answering Sunday politics interview questions about whether there were any circumstances that she as Prime Minister would grant a section 30 order looked bored, displayed a why are you asking me about this nonsense look on her face, and gave us the benefit of the words, should she end up ruling us, ‘it’s a settled question.’

Yes, it is quite easy to take the temperature of where the people of Scotland’s democratic rights sit in order of the priorities of those intending to take over the lead role in the government than governs Scotland from another country.

In whatever form your views, aims, aspirations or will are expressed it means zero to them, the middle of a doughnut. You are not worthy of consideration.

The opposition bench nearest the exit in the Westminster Commons chamber could have the arses of 59 members of political parties in Scotland who seek independence parked on its archaic dusty benches in the 59 available seats.

In an electoral system designed to stop such a thing there could be a Holyrood chamber overflowing with independence- supporting elected and list members in a state of near self-combustion about disrespect of democracy.

There could be an independence march so well attended that those crossing the start line at the front passed a thriving chippy at opening time and those at the back didn’t cross that same start line until the bucket of raw crinkle cut Ayrshires was empty, the fryers were switched off and the shop was in darkness for the night.

It still wouldn’t matter to those who have the legal power to control our country from elsewhere. You are of no importance to them. 

They need the income you generate, the resources your country had, has and potentially will have, they need the strategic geopolitical weight of your country’s added value to its own, they need your country’s geographical position and its deep-water access for defence, and as a buffer against nuclear accident, but they don’t need your votes, so they don’t need you. They only require use of what you have.

What they fail to understand though is that every single time one, or many of them, insults us in this manner, disrespecting the people of Scotland, then we re-double our efforts to make sure that we succeed in our goal of returning our country to its rightful state, a state like most other countries in the world, of self-government.

I’ve scoffed in the past at those who would suggest that we are a colony of the British state, Scotland having played a part too in much of what went on as many countries around the world received the benefit of becoming ‘civilised’. As countries like India watched their assets and resources being systematically stripped from underneath them, taking years to rid themselves of their beneficent colonisers, often after much blood had been spilled between factions in internal conflicts at times manufactured, or at least flamed, by the empire to mask their own criminality, we were part of that corruption, often as cannon fodder marching at the back of a bayonet.

However, if the Supreme Court can be bothered giving it some thought, after our masters in London suggesting to them last week that they shouldn’t waste their time on us, we may be just about to find out that although democratically we as a majority wish to have a referendum on our future governance we legally and legitimately cannot have one as we need the permission of another country to do so. I’d say that puts us more in the range of being a colony or provincial region than a member in a consenting mutual partnership, wouldn’t you?

Independence is normal. Independence is inevitable. Independence is coming.

Fearties

And there you have it folks. The denial of your democratic will has taken yet another insulting and disrespectful turn.

The government who currently govern our country from another country, from a political party which the people of Scotland haven’t voted for in any significant numbers for nearly 70 years, has contacted the Supreme Court on your behalf to stop you doing something they insist that you don’t want to do.

They know you don’t want to do what they don’t want you to do because they have their fingers on the pulse when it comes to Scotland. They are encyclopaedic when it comes to being aware of the challenges and issues which specifically impact you, the people who live there and your day-to-day lives in Scotland. In fact they are so switched on about life in Scotland that they often get things like the name of their party branch steward there wrong when mentioning him in dining room conversations around the cocktail hour.

Because they know you better than you know yourselves and they don’t want you to burn your fingers by sticking them in a fire they’ve kindly suggested to the Supreme Court that they needn’t bother considering the question of whether the mandate you provided, (several times now, but most recently at the last Scottish Parliament Elections) your instruction to our devolved parliament to hold a referendum on the future governance of our country, should be carried out. What are you like? That’s several times you’ve made that electoral mistake. Stop putting your X’s in the wrong box on the ballot paper or Big Jacob’s nanny will come round and smackabum.

No, keeping your interests firmly at the centre of their thoughts they decided that it was for the best to request that the Supreme Court call the whole consideration of law thing off. It’s clear to them you see that the wee diddy extended toon cooncil set-up in Holyrood, (that they kindly allowed you to occupy yourselves with to delude you into thinking democracy is alive and well in the UK) really does not have the powers to hold a raffle never mind a referendum. That’s why they set it up that way in the first place. C’mon now, you are standing too near the edge of the kerb Scottie, move back.

There, there, you know it’s for the best, they say. It’ll save lots of time and money and we can all concentrate on getting behind the next dynamic political powerhouse Prime Minister to emerge from the mother of all parliaments, those in one chamber elected and others there by patronage. It isn’t really a corrupt out-dated archaic sewer of democracy denial, greed and back scratching. Honest, it isnae. Ask Ruth, she’ll tell ye.

It may well be that the Supreme Court, following the request of the First Minister of Scotland, will, once it has considered the matter, come to the conclusion that decisions of this nature are reserved to Westminster anyway, and if that it is the case the intention of the request to consider the matter of whether the Scottish Parliament has the power to hold an independence referendum without reference to London will have been carried out and Plan B will come into operation at the next General Election.

It will legally be factual to say that there is no lawful means within the current Union for Scotland to leave if we withdraw our consent to be a partner in that Union. But it would only be good manners to let us get the benefit of the matter being considered first, wouldn’t you agree?

I think they are scared. They don’t want the message that the partnership of Union isn’t really a partnership at all as a Supreme Court judgement of this kind would starkly highlight, which would also be a huge boost to the independence cause. 

They know it’s going to happen one way or the other, there is no escaping it. We will have our day. Independence is normal. Independence is inevitable. Independence is coming.

Disrespect

So, there you have it. The Tory party, who haven’t been in power in Scotland for almost 70 years, have started their leadership campaign and for only the umpteenth time the people of Scotland’s cumulative nose has been rubbed in the stinking pile of keich that is ‘Union by consent.’ I don’t know about you but rubbing a dod of Vick under each nostril doesn’t quite take away the stench of injustice, disrespect and corruption anymore.

My goodness folks, if you can’t see it now you are either just not looking, or you don’t want to recognise it, or, you are quite happy to believe, and have others believe, that the country you live in is just a region of another country.

If it wasn’t enough, the other day, to have the plastic leader of New Labour, who wouldn’t look out of place running in the leadership race for the other side, Lord Stauner (Oh how far Labour have strayed from the path of their origins) tell us with glee, pointy-finger at the ready, that he would never consider any discussions with the SNP or an agreement of confidence and supply in parliament should for some reason the voters of England, suddenly jump from one form of conservatism to another in his favour (even though his party’s cooncillors in various parts of Scotland have been doing back door deals with the Tories to work together to keep the SNP from forming workable authorities).

If it also wasn’t enough that Lord Starmer tells us that granting a Section 30 Order is out of the question under any government he would lead, until at least Lucifer is in training for the Winter Olympics downhill slalom, we now have the succession of clown shoe wearers who have propped Boris Johnson up for the last few years, several of them desperate right down to their last ten million in the bank, to seize control of the corruption factory for themselves and their sponsors, freens and acquaintances, tripping ower themselves tae tell Scots tae shut up, because you mean nothing. You’ve had your referendum.

Alarmingly, when they also all seem to be competing to see who can win votes by reducing taxes the most (a real inflation buster that would be, not, with banquets for the few and foodbanks for the many growing in equal measure) they are mad keen to prove, individually and collectively that the Union, their Union, is about control, and we don’t have that control.

Jeremy Hunt, the limerick writer’s dream, who incidentally let it slip at the weekend that if elected he would bring forth the dreaded mis-leader of Parliament, Esther McVey, as his Deputy, oh dear, says it would be 10 years at least before the broad shouldered loving arms of Union would consider opening to allow a second referendum.

His wee pal Sajid Javid, more than happy to agree, stuck by the old ‘once in a generation’ trope, although I suppose we should be really thankful that he followed up with ruling it out ‘not forever, but at least for a decade.’ Aw shucks, thanks for that morsel of hope Savid.

However the best put-down we experienced was from the outsider of the race Tom Tugendhat, who’s condescension went way beyond the dry boak/regurgitated Sunday dinner test. 

Going down the David Cameron route, prior to dropping us like a hot tawtie on 19th September 2014, Mr Tugendhat, call me Tam, suggested that the Union itself was more a Scottish entity than it was English. In his humble opinion the views and ideas of the Union are in many ways Scottish ideas that have spread, developing a new form of liberty around the world over the last 70-80 years. Wow! That there is a new level of smarm that will have those strange individuals, Scottish Tory voters, rubbing their silk Union-flagged kerchiefs across their noses and mouths like wee weans reunited with their comfort blankies.

I can only think, when he mentions Scottish attitudes of the past developing a new form of liberty that he means the work that was done in the five or six years after WW2 by a socialist government in developing a social contract which looked towards providing the best for the many rather than the few, rejecting the principles of greed, the institutions of which the government he represents (and more recently, shamefully the official opposition) have been trying to strip, dismantle and privatise ever since.

Further the bold Tam, when asked if the Union was a voluntary one, with a nod to Orwellian double-speak, responded ‘of course’ and made it entirely clear that there are no rules or barriers stopping one country leaving the Union should they wish to do so. Wow, that’s a tall one! He has clearly missed his calling as a media officer for the Kremlin.

In all seriousness folks, where do these people get off telling us we need their permission, and then refusing that permission, to put into place a process which we as a majority of the voters of our country have decided is something that we want to do?

Scotland is not part of a Union of equals, the people of Scotland have no voice at the table when it comes to government decisions, our assets and resources used and borrowed against ‘on our behalf’ to benefit the agenda of another country. This is not a democracy.

#It’sNotNicolaSturgeon’sReferendumIt’sOurs

The deficit which must cease to exist

I originally wrote this during the Brexit debacle. However we find ourselves again in July 2022 in the exact same situation. Scotland is ignored, the views of the people of Scotland disrespected and once more 150,000 Conservative members in another country will decide your future and choose a government which will impose its will on you, without your consent or consultation. That, folks, is a democratic deficit…..

‘Scotland continues to suffer badly from a democratic deficit. 

In the 2015 General Election a government of the disunited Kingdom was returned to power on the basis of the votes of just 36.9% of the electorate.

In that same election the party who currently forms the devolved limited power Scottish Government, a party which advocates self-determination for Scotland, received the votes of 50% of Scottish voters, and in terms of constituency votes almost wiped the other parties involved in the election off the map. 

Is Scotland therefore currently involved in a process to achieve self-government? No, Scotland is still substantively governed from Westminster.

In the recent Brexit Referendum the voters of England voted by a clear majority 53.4% to 46.6% to leave the EU, The voters in Scotland voted decisively to remain by 62% to 38%.

Therefore will Scotland retain European Union membership once England takes steps to remove itself? No, Scotland would need to become an independent nation to achieve this, but as mentioned earlier is still, currently, substantively governed from Westminster.

Currently there is a crisis in Westminster politics where both of the major ruling parties (the way far right, the far right, the right and the middle right, apart from the leader of the opposition) are in transition, ostensibly as a consequence of Brexit.

The governing party has a leadership contest on foot which has presently been narrowed down to two candidates, both of whom have demonstrated that they have dubious views regarding social justice and equality in the past, key priorities promoted by the limited power Scottish Government. 

Just 0.3% of voters, 150,000 Conservative members (the readers of the Daily Mail) will get to decide who will be the Prime Minister of a government which will take major decisions about the future of Scotland.

This government will decide whether to renew weapons of mass destruction, at staggering costs. It will decide whether to continue to store these horrific weapons within a short distance of Scotland’s most heavily populated area. It will decide how funding which maintains Scotland’s public services is calculated. It will decide how Scotland ‘s abundant natural resources are utilised, and it will decide, unless current circumstances change, to take the people of Scotland out of Europe against their will.

Comments from the much-vaunted polling expert Professor John Curtice suggest that this privileged 0.3% of voters are likely to be mainly. “Over 50, disproportionately male, and overwhelmingly middle class.”

The democratic deficit continues, and that deficit is getting bigger.’ We really must end this soon.

Independence is normal. Independence is inevitable. Independence is coming.

Peaking too early

They are peaking early, the wobbly pillars of the anti-independence cabal of Union.

If it isn’t the having only one MP in Scotland, entirely un-self-aware New Labour Party, ensuring yesterday, hoisted by their own petard, that they will continue to be banished to the political wilderness in Scotland for the foreseeable future, it’s the Grand-Marshall of waffle and bluster himself, Boris Johnson, describing independence for Scotland, and the impact that would have on Britain’s armed forces (the Ministry of Defence having systematically dismantled and diluted Scotland’s traditional regimental structure for many years now) as being ‘utterly tragic for the whole world.’

Yes, it’s clear that those who disrespect democracy are in a wee bit of a tizz and suffering from a severe bout of premature exaggeration.

What is it about the threat of canvassing our people on self -government that causes Labour to scuttle around like headless chickens? 

As we’ve seen before they conjure up yet more Vow’s, promise to do away with the House of Lords (half of which is loaded with their own trough swillers) for the umpteenth time since around 1910 when they first mentioned it (do they really think the voting public has a memory span as extensive as Bob the Goldfish?) and propose yet more legislation to try and fetter Scotland to a continued future of subsumed deference to London. 

Cue, no doubt, much public utterances over the next few weeks from Gordy, the zombie son of the manse.

Nobody’s falling for it. The Scottish voting public have been there, seen that and been done good and proper in the past. It won’t happen this time. 

His Lordship, their leader, (what a chinless wonder he comes across as) making it clear that he’s changed his mind since standing behind a banner in a march seeking a second Brexit referendum a couple of years ago and if successful in achieving office (guffaw) will not seek to re-join the EU, or the single market or do anything in the slightest that might upset the Mail, Telegraph and Express readers of England, has sealed their fate.

Labour are done in Scotland. They sold out their roots, they became what they were supposed to detest and we will not forgive them for that. In our independent Scotland hopefully a real Scottish Labour Party can emerge, brushing the charlatans aside, committing themselves to their original aims and values.

As for the other eejit, he’s fond of the one-liners is Johnson. There must surely be a remote Amazonian tribe in the Brazilian jungle absolutely beside themselves with worry after a copy of last Wednesday’s Daily Record fell out of the back pocket of an oil tanker worker from Prestonpans somewhere on the edge of the Atlantic coast and somehow ended up a couple of thousand kilometres upriver, bypassing all the tributaries and ending up floating beside the local women washing their clothes on the banking.

They’ve taken it bad. There’s been wringing of hands and loud exclamations of “What about the currency?” Some of the younger lads have started sharpening their spears and forming a perimeter line at the thought of Trident not being in the Clyde anymore, and the chief has had to stop the wise elders of the village from queuing up tae spend all of their savings on tinned goods before the Unionist canvassers and Archie Macpherson arrive in their canoes tae confirm the world is coming to an end.

Aye, it’s gonnae be a long campaign. Save us fae chancers!

Independence is normal. Independence is inevitable. Independence is coming.