Indyref 2 (2)

[Dave78]

Back to Indy....

I thought this was a great article from a wise old head - Neal Ascherson.

His plan of direct confrontation with Westminster is an interesting one. It's more a plan than i've heard from all the constant carping from the sidelines by critics in the Yes movement (i'm looking at you Alba).

The ideal time to enact it of course was under Strurgeon in the wake of Brexit, but her cautious nature prevented that.

Similarly, i'd be surprised if Swinney had the balls.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/the-snp-may-be-laid-low-but-the-call-of-scottish-independence-is-loud-and-clear

 

Like an arthritic old tree in autumn, the Scottish National party is shedding its voters. It does this almost seasonally, a shrivel followed years later by another spring. And yet the SNP’s soul and cause, independence, isn’t shedding its supporters. Backing for that stays roughly where it’s been for a decade, at just under half (occasionally just over half) the poll samples. How does that make sense?

Scotland can seem an imperturbable land. Every year, the hills change colour from russet to green, as the geese end their loud argument, rise and head north. And yet vast things have happened suddenly here. Ten thousand years ago, the climate abruptly shot up by 9C in little over a century. Glaciers melted, trees appeared; deer, human beings, wolves and bears ventured back to a cold but habitable Caledonia. Two thousand years later, the coast of Norway collapsed into the sea (the “Storegga slide”), sending a mountainous tsunami roaring across to scour eastern Scotland and its terrified hunter-gatherers. Scottish politics in our time can seem dreary, pettily fractious. But when they do change, it’s precipitate. The old landscape is scoured clean of its previous ecology.

 

Over the past century, Liberal, Tory and then Labour power monopolies have vanished under Storeggan mind-changes by Scottish voters. Now the deluge is racing towards the SNP – but not towards believers that Scotland should be a sovereign European nation again. Pollsters always report that independence is “a low priority”, well down the list behind NHS reform, the cost of living, bad roads and dud ferries. But this is a misunderstanding. The idea of independence lives in a different place to what the BBC (in its most English accent) calls “bread and butter issues”.

An unassessable number of Scots who would never vote SNP have moments when they find themselves thinking: “Wouldn’t it be fine if we were just a normal wee nation again, alongside all the others?” Only to dismiss the thought as absurd, “divisive” or “crazy in times like these”. It’s like a tiny blue-white pellet lodged in the back of the brain. Normally inert – but when it lights up, Scotland’s history changes.

The SNP, a neurotically law-respecting and “civic” nationalist party, has also cuddled some nicely dressed illusions. For example, that by governing devolved Scotland well, they would persuade the electorate to take the next step into independence. But even if the SNP had passed that test (which the Scottish public doesn’t concede), where is there an example of a “provincial” administration whose success convinced its people to risk a further step into secession? Come to that, what nation ever chose independence because a careful weighing of its possible impact on pensions, interest rates and the price of imported duck soup came out positive? Things just don’t happen in that logical way. Instead, independence usually falls out of the sky. It’s dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion.

Independence usually drops out of the sky, dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion

The Poles fought for 123 years to regain free nationhood – but they won it in 1918 only because three partitioning empires had folded almost simultaneously. The same was true for other post-Versailles states. Some, such as Czechoslovakia, were almost spooked to find that the Habsburg empire had abandoned them. Ireland became free through miserable bloodshed and then civil war, while civil war and revolution devastated the new-born sovereignties of Finland and Hungary.

The dissolution of the British empire is now craftily presented as Westminster’s far-sighted mission, a plan to lead all those underdeveloped natives to civilised parliamentary democracy. The truth is that it was furious protest in most of those “possessions”, sometimes leading to years of brutal repression, that persuaded an unwilling, cash-strapped and increasingly weakened Britain to back out of empire. The decencies were preserved, of course. There would be an independence day with happy crowds, fireworks, a plumed governor or perhaps a royal, and the union jack wobbling slowly down the mast at midnight …

I am holding in my hand a postcard, almost 30 years old. It shows the Scotsman’s front page on “Independence Day”. An outburst of fireworks over Edinburgh; an expectant floodlight trained on the flagpole on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. The card proclaims: “Now’s the hour: As 300 years of the Union ends, ‘a nation again takes its place in the world’”. But it’s just a publicity item, designed for STV to go with a 1996 “independence” documentary by George Rosie and Les Wilson, which was followed by a televised debate.

Since then, devolution, the return of a Scottish parliament and the 2014 independence referendum have laid out a new constitutional landscape. The “No” side narrowly won the 2014 referendum. But the “Yes” campaign, though it lost, turned out to have blown a transforming wind through Scotland’s grassroots; excited thousands gathered to hope, argue and demand (“Scotland Yes! But what sort of Scotland?”). One outcome was to lift independence from dream status to a practical, serious option for Scotland’s future. Another, following the “Yes” defeat, was an unexpected stampede to join the SNP. By 2019, the party had 125,000 members. Today, the leaves are falling; that total is about 70,000. Some have just given up on “politicians” and the SNP’s “failure to deliver”. Many others are shifting to Scottish Labour – but often carrying their faith in independence with them. They form a growing, unreliable crowd of nationalist squatters inside a leaky unionist building.

It’s very possible that the next Holyrood election (due in 2026, if not earlier) will end the SNP’s 17-year hegemony. The Scottish parliament could have a narrow unionist majority. Even if Humza Yousaf’s successor survived in government, his or her prospects would be bleak. The SNP leaders still believe that the Scottish public wants them to play by the rules. So they will keep on demanding London’s permission for another referendum, while any foreseeable British government will keep on refusing that permission. So stalemate … unless a far more impatient and radical nationalist formation emerges, pushing the SNP aside as Sinn Féin pushed the old Irish Home Rulers aside in 1918.

There’s no sign of that yet. Nevertheless, if a hard-line SNP leadership with a strong majority did emerge in the future, there are several ways in which it might provoke a head-on collision with London, a showdown that could rally public sympathy. Let’s call these strategies “As if” and (in parliamo Glesca) “Gonny no dae that!”.

Only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland tackle intractable ill-health and infrastructure underinvestment

“As if” means acting as if Scotland were already independent. It means marching ahead with legislation officially reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Acts and daring the UK government to intervene. The second strategy – Glaswegian defiance – would mean simply refusing to execute UK laws or orders that Holyrood thought morally or practically wrong for Scotland. Examples: refusing police protection for Home Office snatch vans driving from England to seize asylum seekers for deportation (see previous crowd actions in Glasgow and Edinburgh to block the vans and free their prisoners).

Another: to refuse to apply anti-trade union measures from the UK government, such as the strike-breaking Minimum Service Levels Act. Both these are already popular causes. Flat-out and sustained confrontation with the UK government over such laws could end in sanctions against Holyrood or even the suspension of the Scottish parliament; a provoked crisis, but one that could shift Scottish opinion irrevocably towards ending the union. However, there’s not the slightest sign in the SNP of the fearlessness such “illegal’’ behaviour would require. So the wish for independence will survive, even though the vehicle to carry it sits on the hard shoulder with flat tyres.

Why wish for it, anyway? There’s an enduring pull and an enduring push. The pull is that only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland do the heavy lifting needed to tackle the legacies of intractable ill-health and a century of staggering underinvestment in all kinds of infrastructure. Independence within the EU could nerve a Scottish state to block the haemorrhage of economic control to London or to US hedge funds. That government might even dare to dismantle the toppling stacks of flabby, often pointless quangos and “authorities” which now suffocate effective decision-making in Scotland.

And the push? It’s the steady veering away of the UK – Tory or Labour – from standards valued in Scotland. Above all, it’s the integrity of the public sector, whether that is health, care, water or transport, which matters to this “statist” nation. It’s the gathering damage of Brexit, punishing a country that voted against it and which desperately needs European immigration to help its labour shortage and ageing demography. There’s a democratic problem, too. Ironically, by introducing democracy into the antique 1707 union, devolution showed why it no longer works. “Partnership” in a democratised union where 85% of the citizens belong to one member, England, can only be a fiction.

Then there’s the matter of England. London media imagine Scotnats hugging their hatred of the English. The truth is more wounding. The preoccupied Scots seldom think about the English at all. But they should. Whatever happens when independence floats back to the agenda, Scotland’s leaders must accept one basic fact: the relationship with England has and always will have a special and supreme intimacy. It will overshadow Scottish choices even if Scotland becomes a free republic inside the EU with a seat at the UN.

It’s true that England has its own identity crisis, now a spreading infection of authoritarian nativism and performative xenophobia. But English politics could be steadied by the shock and example of Scotland’s withdrawal from the union. It’s a narrow path. But a more genuine partnership waits at the end of it.

[StirlingEgg]

22 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

Back to Indy....

I thought this was a great article from a wise old head - Neal Ascherson.

His plan of direct confrontation with Westminster is an interesting one. It's more a plan than i've heard from all the constant carping from the sidelines by critics in the Yes movement (i'm looking at you Alba).

The ideal time to enact it of course was under Strurgeon in the wake of Brexit, but her cautious nature prevented that.

Similarly, i'd be surprised if Swinney had the balls.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/the-snp-may-be-laid-low-but-the-call-of-scottish-independence-is-loud-and-clear

 

Like an arthritic old tree in autumn, the Scottish National party is shedding its voters. It does this almost seasonally, a shrivel followed years later by another spring. And yet the SNP’s soul and cause, independence, isn’t shedding its supporters. Backing for that stays roughly where it’s been for a decade, at just under half (occasionally just over half) the poll samples. How does that make sense?

Scotland can seem an imperturbable land. Every year, the hills change colour from russet to green, as the geese end their loud argument, rise and head north. And yet vast things have happened suddenly here. Ten thousand years ago, the climate abruptly shot up by 9C in little over a century. Glaciers melted, trees appeared; deer, human beings, wolves and bears ventured back to a cold but habitable Caledonia. Two thousand years later, the coast of Norway collapsed into the sea (the “Storegga slide”), sending a mountainous tsunami roaring across to scour eastern Scotland and its terrified hunter-gatherers. Scottish politics in our time can seem dreary, pettily fractious. But when they do change, it’s precipitate. The old landscape is scoured clean of its previous ecology.

 

Over the past century, Liberal, Tory and then Labour power monopolies have vanished under Storeggan mind-changes by Scottish voters. Now the deluge is racing towards the SNP – but not towards believers that Scotland should be a sovereign European nation again. Pollsters always report that independence is “a low priority”, well down the list behind NHS reform, the cost of living, bad roads and dud ferries. But this is a misunderstanding. The idea of independence lives in a different place to what the BBC (in its most English accent) calls “bread and butter issues”.

An unassessable number of Scots who would never vote SNP have moments when they find themselves thinking: “Wouldn’t it be fine if we were just a normal wee nation again, alongside all the others?” Only to dismiss the thought as absurd, “divisive” or “crazy in times like these”. It’s like a tiny blue-white pellet lodged in the back of the brain. Normally inert – but when it lights up, Scotland’s history changes.

The SNP, a neurotically law-respecting and “civic” nationalist party, has also cuddled some nicely dressed illusions. For example, that by governing devolved Scotland well, they would persuade the electorate to take the next step into independence. But even if the SNP had passed that test (which the Scottish public doesn’t concede), where is there an example of a “provincial” administration whose success convinced its people to risk a further step into secession? Come to that, what nation ever chose independence because a careful weighing of its possible impact on pensions, interest rates and the price of imported duck soup came out positive? Things just don’t happen in that logical way. Instead, independence usually falls out of the sky. It’s dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion.

Independence usually drops out of the sky, dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion

The Poles fought for 123 years to regain free nationhood – but they won it in 1918 only because three partitioning empires had folded almost simultaneously. The same was true for other post-Versailles states. Some, such as Czechoslovakia, were almost spooked to find that the Habsburg empire had abandoned them. Ireland became free through miserable bloodshed and then civil war, while civil war and revolution devastated the new-born sovereignties of Finland and Hungary.

The dissolution of the British empire is now craftily presented as Westminster’s far-sighted mission, a plan to lead all those underdeveloped natives to civilised parliamentary democracy. The truth is that it was furious protest in most of those “possessions”, sometimes leading to years of brutal repression, that persuaded an unwilling, cash-strapped and increasingly weakened Britain to back out of empire. The decencies were preserved, of course. There would be an independence day with happy crowds, fireworks, a plumed governor or perhaps a royal, and the union jack wobbling slowly down the mast at midnight …

I am holding in my hand a postcard, almost 30 years old. It shows the Scotsman’s front page on “Independence Day”. An outburst of fireworks over Edinburgh; an expectant floodlight trained on the flagpole on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. The card proclaims: “Now’s the hour: As 300 years of the Union ends, ‘a nation again takes its place in the world’”. But it’s just a publicity item, designed for STV to go with a 1996 “independence” documentary by George Rosie and Les Wilson, which was followed by a televised debate.

Since then, devolution, the return of a Scottish parliament and the 2014 independence referendum have laid out a new constitutional landscape. The “No” side narrowly won the 2014 referendum. But the “Yes” campaign, though it lost, turned out to have blown a transforming wind through Scotland’s grassroots; excited thousands gathered to hope, argue and demand (“Scotland Yes! But what sort of Scotland?”). One outcome was to lift independence from dream status to a practical, serious option for Scotland’s future. Another, following the “Yes” defeat, was an unexpected stampede to join the SNP. By 2019, the party had 125,000 members. Today, the leaves are falling; that total is about 70,000. Some have just given up on “politicians” and the SNP’s “failure to deliver”. Many others are shifting to Scottish Labour – but often carrying their faith in independence with them. They form a growing, unreliable crowd of nationalist squatters inside a leaky unionist building.

It’s very possible that the next Holyrood election (due in 2026, if not earlier) will end the SNP’s 17-year hegemony. The Scottish parliament could have a narrow unionist majority. Even if Humza Yousaf’s successor survived in government, his or her prospects would be bleak. The SNP leaders still believe that the Scottish public wants them to play by the rules. So they will keep on demanding London’s permission for another referendum, while any foreseeable British government will keep on refusing that permission. So stalemate … unless a far more impatient and radical nationalist formation emerges, pushing the SNP aside as Sinn Féin pushed the old Irish Home Rulers aside in 1918.

There’s no sign of that yet. Nevertheless, if a hard-line SNP leadership with a strong majority did emerge in the future, there are several ways in which it might provoke a head-on collision with London, a showdown that could rally public sympathy. Let’s call these strategies “As if” and (in parliamo Glesca) “Gonny no dae that!”.

Only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland tackle intractable ill-health and infrastructure underinvestment

“As if” means acting as if Scotland were already independent. It means marching ahead with legislation officially reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Acts and daring the UK government to intervene. The second strategy – Glaswegian defiance – would mean simply refusing to execute UK laws or orders that Holyrood thought morally or practically wrong for Scotland. Examples: refusing police protection for Home Office snatch vans driving from England to seize asylum seekers for deportation (see previous crowd actions in Glasgow and Edinburgh to block the vans and free their prisoners).

Another: to refuse to apply anti-trade union measures from the UK government, such as the strike-breaking Minimum Service Levels Act. Both these are already popular causes. Flat-out and sustained confrontation with the UK government over such laws could end in sanctions against Holyrood or even the suspension of the Scottish parliament; a provoked crisis, but one that could shift Scottish opinion irrevocably towards ending the union. However, there’s not the slightest sign in the SNP of the fearlessness such “illegal’’ behaviour would require. So the wish for independence will survive, even though the vehicle to carry it sits on the hard shoulder with flat tyres.

Why wish for it, anyway? There’s an enduring pull and an enduring push. The pull is that only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland do the heavy lifting needed to tackle the legacies of intractable ill-health and a century of staggering underinvestment in all kinds of infrastructure. Independence within the EU could nerve a Scottish state to block the haemorrhage of economic control to London or to US hedge funds. That government might even dare to dismantle the toppling stacks of flabby, often pointless quangos and “authorities” which now suffocate effective decision-making in Scotland.

And the push? It’s the steady veering away of the UK – Tory or Labour – from standards valued in Scotland. Above all, it’s the integrity of the public sector, whether that is health, care, water or transport, which matters to this “statist” nation. It’s the gathering damage of Brexit, punishing a country that voted against it and which desperately needs European immigration to help its labour shortage and ageing demography. There’s a democratic problem, too. Ironically, by introducing democracy into the antique 1707 union, devolution showed why it no longer works. “Partnership” in a democratised union where 85% of the citizens belong to one member, England, can only be a fiction.

Then there’s the matter of England. London media imagine Scotnats hugging their hatred of the English. The truth is more wounding. The preoccupied Scots seldom think about the English at all. But they should. Whatever happens when independence floats back to the agenda, Scotland’s leaders must accept one basic fact: the relationship with England has and always will have a special and supreme intimacy. It will overshadow Scottish choices even if Scotland becomes a free republic inside the EU with a seat at the UN.

It’s true that England has its own identity crisis, now a spreading infection of authoritarian nativism and performative xenophobia. But English politics could be steadied by the shock and example of Scotland’s withdrawal from the union. It’s a narrow path. But a more genuine partnership waits at the end of it.

Thanks, that was a good read and a fair assessment. Still sharp at 91! Got one of his books kicking about here, Death of the Fronsac though not read it...

[phart]

22 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

Back to Indy....

I thought this was a great article from a wise old head - Neal Ascherson.

His plan of direct confrontation with Westminster is an interesting one. It's more a plan than i've heard from all the constant carping from the sidelines by critics in the Yes movement (i'm looking at you Alba).

The ideal time to enact it of course was under Strurgeon in the wake of Brexit, but her cautious nature prevented that.

Similarly, i'd be surprised if Swinney had the balls.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/the-snp-may-be-laid-low-but-the-call-of-scottish-independence-is-loud-and-clear

 

Like an arthritic old tree in autumn, the Scottish National party is shedding its voters. It does this almost seasonally, a shrivel followed years later by another spring. And yet the SNP’s soul and cause, independence, isn’t shedding its supporters. Backing for that stays roughly where it’s been for a decade, at just under half (occasionally just over half) the poll samples. How does that make sense?

Scotland can seem an imperturbable land. Every year, the hills change colour from russet to green, as the geese end their loud argument, rise and head north. And yet vast things have happened suddenly here. Ten thousand years ago, the climate abruptly shot up by 9C in little over a century. Glaciers melted, trees appeared; deer, human beings, wolves and bears ventured back to a cold but habitable Caledonia. Two thousand years later, the coast of Norway collapsed into the sea (the “Storegga slide”), sending a mountainous tsunami roaring across to scour eastern Scotland and its terrified hunter-gatherers. Scottish politics in our time can seem dreary, pettily fractious. But when they do change, it’s precipitate. The old landscape is scoured clean of its previous ecology.

 

Over the past century, Liberal, Tory and then Labour power monopolies have vanished under Storeggan mind-changes by Scottish voters. Now the deluge is racing towards the SNP – but not towards believers that Scotland should be a sovereign European nation again. Pollsters always report that independence is “a low priority”, well down the list behind NHS reform, the cost of living, bad roads and dud ferries. But this is a misunderstanding. The idea of independence lives in a different place to what the BBC (in its most English accent) calls “bread and butter issues”.

An unassessable number of Scots who would never vote SNP have moments when they find themselves thinking: “Wouldn’t it be fine if we were just a normal wee nation again, alongside all the others?” Only to dismiss the thought as absurd, “divisive” or “crazy in times like these”. It’s like a tiny blue-white pellet lodged in the back of the brain. Normally inert – but when it lights up, Scotland’s history changes.

The SNP, a neurotically law-respecting and “civic” nationalist party, has also cuddled some nicely dressed illusions. For example, that by governing devolved Scotland well, they would persuade the electorate to take the next step into independence. But even if the SNP had passed that test (which the Scottish public doesn’t concede), where is there an example of a “provincial” administration whose success convinced its people to risk a further step into secession? Come to that, what nation ever chose independence because a careful weighing of its possible impact on pensions, interest rates and the price of imported duck soup came out positive? Things just don’t happen in that logical way. Instead, independence usually falls out of the sky. It’s dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion.

Independence usually drops out of the sky, dropped by some external crisis: war, revolution or imperial exhaustion

The Poles fought for 123 years to regain free nationhood – but they won it in 1918 only because three partitioning empires had folded almost simultaneously. The same was true for other post-Versailles states. Some, such as Czechoslovakia, were almost spooked to find that the Habsburg empire had abandoned them. Ireland became free through miserable bloodshed and then civil war, while civil war and revolution devastated the new-born sovereignties of Finland and Hungary.

The dissolution of the British empire is now craftily presented as Westminster’s far-sighted mission, a plan to lead all those underdeveloped natives to civilised parliamentary democracy. The truth is that it was furious protest in most of those “possessions”, sometimes leading to years of brutal repression, that persuaded an unwilling, cash-strapped and increasingly weakened Britain to back out of empire. The decencies were preserved, of course. There would be an independence day with happy crowds, fireworks, a plumed governor or perhaps a royal, and the union jack wobbling slowly down the mast at midnight …

I am holding in my hand a postcard, almost 30 years old. It shows the Scotsman’s front page on “Independence Day”. An outburst of fireworks over Edinburgh; an expectant floodlight trained on the flagpole on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. The card proclaims: “Now’s the hour: As 300 years of the Union ends, ‘a nation again takes its place in the world’”. But it’s just a publicity item, designed for STV to go with a 1996 “independence” documentary by George Rosie and Les Wilson, which was followed by a televised debate.

Since then, devolution, the return of a Scottish parliament and the 2014 independence referendum have laid out a new constitutional landscape. The “No” side narrowly won the 2014 referendum. But the “Yes” campaign, though it lost, turned out to have blown a transforming wind through Scotland’s grassroots; excited thousands gathered to hope, argue and demand (“Scotland Yes! But what sort of Scotland?”). One outcome was to lift independence from dream status to a practical, serious option for Scotland’s future. Another, following the “Yes” defeat, was an unexpected stampede to join the SNP. By 2019, the party had 125,000 members. Today, the leaves are falling; that total is about 70,000. Some have just given up on “politicians” and the SNP’s “failure to deliver”. Many others are shifting to Scottish Labour – but often carrying their faith in independence with them. They form a growing, unreliable crowd of nationalist squatters inside a leaky unionist building.

It’s very possible that the next Holyrood election (due in 2026, if not earlier) will end the SNP’s 17-year hegemony. The Scottish parliament could have a narrow unionist majority. Even if Humza Yousaf’s successor survived in government, his or her prospects would be bleak. The SNP leaders still believe that the Scottish public wants them to play by the rules. So they will keep on demanding London’s permission for another referendum, while any foreseeable British government will keep on refusing that permission. So stalemate … unless a far more impatient and radical nationalist formation emerges, pushing the SNP aside as Sinn Féin pushed the old Irish Home Rulers aside in 1918.

There’s no sign of that yet. Nevertheless, if a hard-line SNP leadership with a strong majority did emerge in the future, there are several ways in which it might provoke a head-on collision with London, a showdown that could rally public sympathy. Let’s call these strategies “As if” and (in parliamo Glesca) “Gonny no dae that!”.

Only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland tackle intractable ill-health and infrastructure underinvestment

“As if” means acting as if Scotland were already independent. It means marching ahead with legislation officially reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Acts and daring the UK government to intervene. The second strategy – Glaswegian defiance – would mean simply refusing to execute UK laws or orders that Holyrood thought morally or practically wrong for Scotland. Examples: refusing police protection for Home Office snatch vans driving from England to seize asylum seekers for deportation (see previous crowd actions in Glasgow and Edinburgh to block the vans and free their prisoners).

Another: to refuse to apply anti-trade union measures from the UK government, such as the strike-breaking Minimum Service Levels Act. Both these are already popular causes. Flat-out and sustained confrontation with the UK government over such laws could end in sanctions against Holyrood or even the suspension of the Scottish parliament; a provoked crisis, but one that could shift Scottish opinion irrevocably towards ending the union. However, there’s not the slightest sign in the SNP of the fearlessness such “illegal’’ behaviour would require. So the wish for independence will survive, even though the vehicle to carry it sits on the hard shoulder with flat tyres.

Why wish for it, anyway? There’s an enduring pull and an enduring push. The pull is that only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland do the heavy lifting needed to tackle the legacies of intractable ill-health and a century of staggering underinvestment in all kinds of infrastructure. Independence within the EU could nerve a Scottish state to block the haemorrhage of economic control to London or to US hedge funds. That government might even dare to dismantle the toppling stacks of flabby, often pointless quangos and “authorities” which now suffocate effective decision-making in Scotland.

And the push? It’s the steady veering away of the UK – Tory or Labour – from standards valued in Scotland. Above all, it’s the integrity of the public sector, whether that is health, care, water or transport, which matters to this “statist” nation. It’s the gathering damage of Brexit, punishing a country that voted against it and which desperately needs European immigration to help its labour shortage and ageing demography. There’s a democratic problem, too. Ironically, by introducing democracy into the antique 1707 union, devolution showed why it no longer works. “Partnership” in a democratised union where 85% of the citizens belong to one member, England, can only be a fiction.

Then there’s the matter of England. London media imagine Scotnats hugging their hatred of the English. The truth is more wounding. The preoccupied Scots seldom think about the English at all. But they should. Whatever happens when independence floats back to the agenda, Scotland’s leaders must accept one basic fact: the relationship with England has and always will have a special and supreme intimacy. It will overshadow Scottish choices even if Scotland becomes a free republic inside the EU with a seat at the UN.

It’s true that England has its own identity crisis, now a spreading infection of authoritarian nativism and performative xenophobia. But English politics could be steadied by the shock and example of Scotland’s withdrawal from the union. It’s a narrow path. But a more genuine partnership waits at the end of it.

It also ties into a civil disobedience vibe as well. At some point you pull back the curtain on how power works and then see what people think of it.

[TDYER63]

17 hours ago, Malcolm said:

We have a big problem.  The UK has a big problem. Fundamentally, too many people dont work, therefore we over tax those that do, and we can no longer support our infrastructure. 

i was in Spain recently and what struck me was how clean, well developed and technologically advanced it was.  it was like stepping in to an economy far more successful than our own.  basic things- the streets were not pot hole ridden and beautiful,  there was virtually no litter, things worked and  it was beautiful.  Coming back to Edinburgh felt like entering the third world. Oh yeah, and good food and wine was priced entirely reasonably. 

No more can we laugh at thr “backwards” nations like spain like we did in the 70s.  the uk is fast becoming a relative shit hole. 

 

 

 

Over tax ?? UK is one of the lowest taxed places in most of Europe, Spain included.

https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/09/20/wedge2022/

We also have a very low unemployment rate. Far lower than Spain . 

[Dave78]

27 minutes ago, phart said:

It also ties into a civil disobedience vibe as well. At some point you pull back the curtain on how power works and then see what people think of it.

Aye.

Every so often i think the SNP need to spend some time out of power, to refocus on the main goal. Articles like this only add to that thinking.

I notice he mentions how Sinn Fein pushed out the gradualist Irish Parliamentary Party. I remember making that point to @aaid as a warning to the Sturgeonite wing of the SNP.

A hard-line SNP administration that takes on this civil disobedience strategy might cost the party an election defeat, but that might be necessary in the long run.

[Goozay]

3 hours ago, glasgow jock said:

I actually (for once) agree 100% with Malcolm 

That's a pity, because Malcolm is 100% wrong on this one. Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union at 11.7%

(source: https://www.destatis.de/Europa/EN/Topic/Population-Labour-Social-Issues/Labour-market/EULabourMarketCrisis.html#:~:text=Unemployment rates in EU&text=Data ranges from 2.6 to 11.5.&text=End of interactive chart.,%) and Sweden (24.2%).)

UK's is 4.2%

(source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/april2024#:~:text=The UK unemployment rate for,increased in the latest quarter.)

[RanelaghScot]

On the topic of confrontation, the "good wee parliamentarians" act of the SNP MPs was/is quite boak inducing. Basically each of them is ripping the tap aff it at the chance to say "the right honorable gentleman" and be included in the grown ups' event.

Until they agree to a referendum I'd have every MP turning up with a vuvuzela, set of bagpipes, fart machines, letting them all go off until that C* Lindsay Hoyle pushed himself over the edge to the point of needing medical assistance.

 

Edited May 8 by RanelaghScot

[Alibi]

19 hours ago, RanelaghScot said:

On the topic of confrontation, the "good wee parliamentarians" act of the SNP MPs was/is quite boak inducing. Basically each of them is ripping the tap aff it at the chance to say "the right honorable gentleman" and be included in the grown ups' event.

Until they agree to a referendum I'd have every MP turning up with a vuvuzela, set of bagpipes, fart machines, letting them all go off until that C* Lindsay Hoyle pushed himself over the edge to the point of needing medical assistance.

 

Yes, rather than co-operate in the unionist wankfest that is the British establishment, they should be kicking up shit every day, disrupting the house of commons and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Make the UK parliament itself ungovernable. Lots of unparliamentary language.  Would achieve a lot more than "being good wee parliamentarians".  stop co-operating and start resisting.

Mind you, having seen the "new" Scottish Government cabinet with absolutely everyone unchanged apart from the removal of the minister for indy and the forced inclusion of Kate Forbes (she's the only positive in this "re-shuffle"), I'm not expecting much.  Swinney will probably be daft  enough to persist with prioritising the Greens' perversions rather than introducing vote-winning policies.  I have a strong feeling that Sturgeon is pulling his strings (not sure who's pulling hers).

Edited May 9 by Alibi

[Dave78]

Interesting article on the indy movement in Catalonia. There are a lot of parallels with Scotland

 

https://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/catalan-elections-is-catalonias-independence-push-still-a-thing

[Hertsscot]

On 5/8/2024 at 4:48 PM, RanelaghScot said:

On the topic of confrontation, the "good wee parliamentarians" act of the SNP MPs was/is quite boak inducing. Basically each of them is ripping the tap aff it at the chance to say "the right honorable gentleman" and be included in the grown ups' event.

Until they agree to a referendum I'd have every MP turning up with a vuvuzela, set of bagpipes, fart machines, letting them all go off until that C* Lindsay Hoyle pushed himself over the edge to the point of needing medical assistance.

 

Every opportunity they need to be pointing out the fundamental lack of democracy at the heart of the UK. They need to say it often and loud until we get an answer about how we can quit if we decide. If England wanted out of the Union they'd just go.

[Redz]

1 hour ago, Hertsscot said:

Every opportunity they need to be pointing out the fundamental lack of democracy at the heart of the UK. They need to say it often and loud until we get an answer about how we can quit if we decide. If England wanted out of the Union they'd just go.

This

I want them to be asking this time and time again at PMQ's until we get an answer. Regardless of the protocols, and even if it means we're asked to leave the commons. 

All whilst the world watch

Edited May 9 by Redz

[Malcolm]

 

FFS… the Greens.  Far too much airtime for wee dicks that got a tiny percentage of the vote.  I have had enough listening to bleAting on about LGBTQ rights (still no idea what the queers are) - they have plenty rights.  I’m not interested in the slightest 8n hearing any more about it.  Far far bigger issues.
 

 

 

[Hertsscot]

9 hours ago, Malcolm said:

 

FFS… the Greens.  Far too much airtime for wee dicks that got a tiny percentage of the vote.  I have had enough listening to bleAting on about LGBTQ rights (still no idea what the queers are) - they have plenty rights.  I’m not interested in the slightest 8n hearing any more about it.  Far far bigger issues.

I'm surprised that Harvie is talking about how 'fearful' the LGBTQ community (as if that's one single thing) is about rolling back rights. As a society we've moved on and I can't see us taking away rights that have already been granted. That doesn't mean that society shouldn't be less prejudiced, that it should be more accepting etc. but I feel there's a level of scaremongering going on. Some of it might be held quite sincerely but some of it could be tactical in order to keep the Greens in the headlines, 'champions' of a cause that has already been settled.

[Malcolm]

2 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

I'm surprised that Harvie is talking about how 'fearful' the LGBTQ community (as if that's one single thing) is about rolling back rights. As a society we've moved on and I can't see us taking away rights that have already been granted. That doesn't mean that society shouldn't be less prejudiced, that it should be more accepting etc. but I feel there's a level of scaremongering going on. Some of it might be held quite sincerely but some of it could be tactical in order to keep the Greens in the headlines, 'champions' of a cause that has already been settled.

Swinney should grow a backbone and tell Harvie and the other weirdos to fuck off.  Embarrassing listening to harvie and Grier.  he needs to back his deputy FM.

he should be clearly saying he isn’t interested in working with the Greens.  
 

 

 

 

[vanderark14]

20 hours ago, Alibi said:

Yes, rather than co-operate in the unionist wankfest that is the British establishment, they should be kicking up shit every day, disrupting the house of commons and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Make the UK parliament itself ungovernable. Lots of unparliamentary language.  Would achieve a lot more than "being good wee parliamentarians".  stop co-operating and start resisting.

Mind you, having seen the "new" Scottish Government cabinet with absolutely everyone unchanged apart from the removal of the minister for indy and the forced inclusion of Kate Forbes (she's the only positive in this "re-shuffle"), I'm not expecting much.  Swinney will probably be daft  enough to persist with prioritising the Greens' perversions rather than introducing vote-winning policies.  I have a strong feeling that Sturgeon is pulling his strings (not sure who's pulling hers).

I could not agree more with this. Its time to start breaking their rules and resisting their rule. 

[vanderark14]

10 hours ago, Malcolm said:

 

FFS… the Greens.  Far too much airtime for wee dicks that got a tiny percentage of the vote.  I have had enough listening to bleAting on about LGBTQ rights (still no idea what the queers are) - they have plenty rights.  I’m not interested in the slightest 8n hearing any more about it.  Far far bigger issues.
 

 

 

You are starting to get it, not the LGBTQ issue but you are absolutely right, Harvie is a nobody now that he doesn't have the SNP coat tails to hang on to BUT he is getting a lot of airtime, ask yourself why?

[Hertsscot]

45 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Swinney should grow a backbone and tell Harvie and the other weirdos to fuck off.  Embarrassing listening to harvie and Grier.  he needs to back his deputy FM.

he should be clearly saying he isn’t interested in working with the Greens.  

From what I saw Swinney dealt quite well with Harvie the other day As a minority Government the SNP will need the support of others but that doesn't mean the tail wagging the dog. Nor does it mean alienating people unnecessarily.

[vanderark14]

47 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Swinney should grow a backbone and tell Harvie and the other weirdos to fuck off.  Embarrassing listening to harvie and Grier.  he needs to back his deputy FM.

he should be clearly saying he isn’t interested in working with the Greens.  
 

 

 

 

Would love to see a journalist ask Harvie a simple question, why do you attack a christian woman like this but you never mentioned any of these issues when a devout muslim was.........not the deputy FM but the FM of Scotland? 

[exile]

24 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

You are starting to get it, not the LGBTQ issue but you are absolutely right, Harvie is a nobody now that he doesn't have the SNP coat tails to hang on to BUT he is getting a lot of airtime, ask yourself why?

I heard Ross Greer on radio 4 the other day. The BBC give the Greens of England almost no airtime (relative to Reform party, etc) and suddenly giving the Scottish Greens airtime...

[exile]

What a messed up country we are

Politicians pushing forward too much on trans rights --> A reason to not vote for a pro independence party

Politicians too traditional in views on LGBT --> Another reason to not vote for a pro independence party

Parties with the same mix of views but who don't see Scotland as a country --> No problems voting for them, apparently

 

[Caledonian Craig]

15 minutes ago, exile said:

What a messed up country we are

Politicians pushing forward too much on trans rights --> A reason to not vote for a pro independence party

Politicians too traditional in views on LGBT --> Another reason to not vote for a pro independence party

Parties with the same mix of views but who don't see Scotland as a country --> No problems voting for them, apparently

 

Precisely. Excuses, excuses, excuses is all it is. But lets be honest dyed-in-the-wool unionists will never change which I just do not get. I'd love to be a fly-on-the-wall in their houses when the news is on reporting the continuous Westminster shit show and watch their reaction and conversations on it behind closed doors.

Edited May 10 by Caledonian Craig

[Malcolm]

47 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

You are starting to get it, not the LGBTQ issue but you are absolutely right, Harvie is a nobody now that he doesn't have the SNP coat tails to hang on to BUT he is getting a lot of airtime, ask yourself why?

 

I really don’t understand why.  The SNP would be far better off and more powerful if they moved on from the greens.  It’s a massive distraction alienating the middle ground.

I could vote for the SNP with Forbes leading, but not with the greens holding any influence.

[vanderark14]

3 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

 

I really don’t understand why.  The SNP would be far better off and more powerful if they moved on from the greens.  It’s a massive distraction alienating the middle ground.

I could vote for the SNP with Forbes leading, but not with the greens holding any influence.

The SNP have moved away from the greens, thats what you wanted. 

The reason they are given airtime is because they are now attacking the SNP - see post from exile above. The Media will be all over anyone who does this. Douglas Ross is quite possibly the worst and thickest politician I have ever seen but he is always in the media because he attacks the SNP

[StirlingEgg]

9 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

The SNP have moved away from the greens, thats what you wanted. 

The reason they are given airtime is because they are now attacking the SNP - see post from exile above. The Media will be all over anyone who does this. Douglas Ross is quite possibly the worst and thickest politician I have ever seen but he is always in the media because he attacks the SNP

It's baffling that anyone can watch or listen to him and think "he represents me" 😳 There is a lot of assumptions I think still about the parties and what they stand for based on historical perception/policies. Particularly the older generation, thinking that the Tories are about working hard and getting somewhere off your own back. Not sure if they ever were and all the corruption and eagerness to cut corners while avoiding responsibility is just more blatant now. 

Labour saying they'll scrap Rwanda and divert money to a smuggling squad still doesn't address the root cause of it all. I know this is all a bit off topic but if these issues feed into folk's voting intentions then it is all relevant to independence. 

[Redz]

- The SG is held to a much higher standard 

- WM break / don't play by the rules 

- UKG lie continuously and ridicule 

It's long overdue that we play them at their own game. Disruption is required, whilst simultaneously evidencing the above