The
Scots sent Westminster a message in 2007 by electing a minority SNP
Government that a new Union settlement was required. We were ignored by
Brown and Darling who used their Labour proxies at Holyrood to make things as hard
as possible, simultaneously heavily cut Scotland's Westminster budget and removed a further £20 million from the annual welfare budget of Scotland for our temerity of putting in place a home care package for the ill and the elderly (the only truly great achievement of the Libdem/Labour coalition in their eight years of control of Scotland). In 2011 we sent a final warning
negotiate fiscal autonomy or the Union could well be finished - this
time the Tories tried to ignore us, cut the budget further but by a
quirk of Scots law and constitutional practice discovered they could not
ignore the referendum - it was all down to the considered will of the people of Scotland being paramount.
This 'considered will' said we Scots wanted a referendum on a new Union settlement, Scots Law and constitutional practice said we had to have a referendum, the UK Parliament could not obstruct this wish with out major embarrassment before the UK Supreme Court who made clear in AXA and others vs the Scottish Parliament and others in 2012, the UK Supreme Court had no power or jurisdiction to overturn any act, bill or statute of the Scottish Parliament which reflected the 'considered will of the people of Scotland which remains paramount'.
The 'considered will' is also the reason the referendum is only being held in Scotland as the 'considered will' is not recognised in English law or constitutional practice. Scotland is constitutionally a Representative democracy where the people are, in effect sovereign, which means a Scottish Parliament is always checked by the 'considered will' and is bound to a large extent by the majority manifesto. England is a Parliamentary democracy where the parliament is sovereign and can, to a large extent, ignore its electorate once it is elected and can not be bound by its manifesto.*
Westminster had one last chance to put up an effective new Union solution, they turned it down - instead we have had the gun boat propaganda of Tory ministers sneaking into Scotland, talking down to Scotland, then sneaking away under a barrage of press and media bilge.
Is it any surprise the Westminster politicians and English public sense increasing antagonism towards them from the Scots while denying is in fact what they claim to want a community of Union - the Scots are increasingly deciding to preserve what we hold dear - community, welfare, health care - the only way is to get out from under Westminster. Maybe the increasing bile seen on the London based media threads on Scottish stories (I was tempted to write 'Fairy Stories') is the simple realisation, by the people of England, they are stuck with the mess they have elected.
So folk in England do not blame the Scots for Westminster's deaf ears, the Westminster austerity program, the destruction of the glue (NHS / Welfare) which held the Union together and do not blame us for getting out of it. This is a right wing, neo-liberal, touching almost Fascist, Westminster Government, England elected. If you are worried about your communities time to get off your butt and make change happen. You can not expect us to wait as all the 'Left' in England is apparently good at is hand wringing and the wild hope that 'Labour' will not be as bad as the Tories and Libdems - given their track record is naive in the extreme. 'Sitting on your hands' - hardly an activity which will create much change in an English political landscape. A landscape being dragged ever more rightwards and authoritarian by the toxic presence of UKIP threatening Tory hegemony in the South of England.
People of England - remember, when you point the finger at Scotland for 'abandoning you to your self elected neo-liberal state' there are four fingers are pointing back at yourself. Shouting Scotland down, howling at us that we Scots are inadequate and doomed to fail, we Scots are naive in thinking we will create a land of milk and honey, whining its our ball and we are taking it home is neither endearing nor does it convince many Scots the UK Union, in any shape or form, is now worth preserving.
The campaign in Scotland is at the 'Then they come to fight you' stage with Tory, Labour and Libdem MP's and their intimates in the CBI, IoD and other London based organisations scuttling north to lecture us about how naughty we Scots are being for not listening to our elders and betters' tales of impending doom and disaster if we leave Westminster's hind teat while the London based and biased press and media turn up the volume on their loud-hailers and become ever more frenetic and ludicrous in their claims of 'cybernatery' and self promoting hatred of the First Minister of Scotland, comparing him to 'Auld Nick, an aa his airts'.
The more this happens, the more crazy the stories from London get, the more certain we Scots, in the Yes Campaign know we are now heading for the ' And then you win**' stage of the process.
Notes: *'UK Law' does not exist, as the two sovereign realms which make up the UK Parliament each have their own, unique code of law and constitutional practice, preserved for all time by the articles of the 1706 Treaty of Union. A point conceded in law by the UK Parliament in 1953.
**"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win." (M.K. Gandhi)
This 'considered will' said we Scots wanted a referendum on a new Union settlement, Scots Law and constitutional practice said we had to have a referendum, the UK Parliament could not obstruct this wish with out major embarrassment before the UK Supreme Court who made clear in AXA and others vs the Scottish Parliament and others in 2012, the UK Supreme Court had no power or jurisdiction to overturn any act, bill or statute of the Scottish Parliament which reflected the 'considered will of the people of Scotland which remains paramount'.
The 'considered will' is also the reason the referendum is only being held in Scotland as the 'considered will' is not recognised in English law or constitutional practice. Scotland is constitutionally a Representative democracy where the people are, in effect sovereign, which means a Scottish Parliament is always checked by the 'considered will' and is bound to a large extent by the majority manifesto. England is a Parliamentary democracy where the parliament is sovereign and can, to a large extent, ignore its electorate once it is elected and can not be bound by its manifesto.*
Westminster had one last chance to put up an effective new Union solution, they turned it down - instead we have had the gun boat propaganda of Tory ministers sneaking into Scotland, talking down to Scotland, then sneaking away under a barrage of press and media bilge.
Is it any surprise the Westminster politicians and English public sense increasing antagonism towards them from the Scots while denying is in fact what they claim to want a community of Union - the Scots are increasingly deciding to preserve what we hold dear - community, welfare, health care - the only way is to get out from under Westminster. Maybe the increasing bile seen on the London based media threads on Scottish stories (I was tempted to write 'Fairy Stories') is the simple realisation, by the people of England, they are stuck with the mess they have elected.
So folk in England do not blame the Scots for Westminster's deaf ears, the Westminster austerity program, the destruction of the glue (NHS / Welfare) which held the Union together and do not blame us for getting out of it. This is a right wing, neo-liberal, touching almost Fascist, Westminster Government, England elected. If you are worried about your communities time to get off your butt and make change happen. You can not expect us to wait as all the 'Left' in England is apparently good at is hand wringing and the wild hope that 'Labour' will not be as bad as the Tories and Libdems - given their track record is naive in the extreme. 'Sitting on your hands' - hardly an activity which will create much change in an English political landscape. A landscape being dragged ever more rightwards and authoritarian by the toxic presence of UKIP threatening Tory hegemony in the South of England.
People of England - remember, when you point the finger at Scotland for 'abandoning you to your self elected neo-liberal state' there are four fingers are pointing back at yourself. Shouting Scotland down, howling at us that we Scots are inadequate and doomed to fail, we Scots are naive in thinking we will create a land of milk and honey, whining its our ball and we are taking it home is neither endearing nor does it convince many Scots the UK Union, in any shape or form, is now worth preserving.
The campaign in Scotland is at the 'Then they come to fight you' stage with Tory, Labour and Libdem MP's and their intimates in the CBI, IoD and other London based organisations scuttling north to lecture us about how naughty we Scots are being for not listening to our elders and betters' tales of impending doom and disaster if we leave Westminster's hind teat while the London based and biased press and media turn up the volume on their loud-hailers and become ever more frenetic and ludicrous in their claims of 'cybernatery' and self promoting hatred of the First Minister of Scotland, comparing him to 'Auld Nick, an aa his airts'.
The more this happens, the more crazy the stories from London get, the more certain we Scots, in the Yes Campaign know we are now heading for the ' And then you win**' stage of the process.
Notes: *'UK Law' does not exist, as the two sovereign realms which make up the UK Parliament each have their own, unique code of law and constitutional practice, preserved for all time by the articles of the 1706 Treaty of Union. A point conceded in law by the UK Parliament in 1953.
**"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win." (M.K. Gandhi)
You have summed it up perfectly. At the start of the year I was actually down at the perceived way the yes campaign was going but now after a totally inept month from and for the unionists things have really brightened up. The only ammo they have left is soggy and damp while the yes side are sitting with a entire warm and dry arsenal just waiting on the order to fire. The unionists are all ready shell shocked at the latest polls they ain't seen nothing yet.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Peter,thank you.
ReplyDelete