Sunday 2 October 2016

1689 Claim of Right, yer claimed May ...

In 2012 I was told by Andrew Ticknell that the provisions in the Claim of Right of the Scottish Parliament  had been superseded by the evolving nature of the unwritten British Constitution. He argued for the primacy of UK Parliament's sovereignty over all issues to do with Scotland and the Scottish Parliament (via the 1998 Scotland Act). His considered view was while this piece of Scottish Parliamentary statute remained in law it in effect had no force of law with respect to the UK Parliamentary Union, the legal equivalent of the human appendix - if you will.

This, I thought, was odd as Lord Cooper in his review of McCormack vs the Lord Advocate in 1953 stated the UK Parliament's sovereignty was in fact limited by the Treaty of Union under article 19 which preserves the purely Scottish Law and constitutional concept of the considered will of the people of Scotland being paramount as clearly expressed in the 1689 Claim of Right. A few weeks ago I wrote a precised article based on my early piece on this issue. 

It appears we will discover the reality of the limitation of the UK Parliament's sovereign power after Mike Russell stated today the Scottish Parliament will be able to block Ms May's 'Big Bill' as it will require Scottish Parliamentary consent to be made law. Some commentators have further argued the move to initiate Brexit by Ms May, without reference to a vote in the UK Parliament, is in itself an illegal act, unconstitutional and outside her powers as Prime Minister, a claim she is currently facing a court action over and as a result her government has been forced to publish its legal advice on the matter.

Further the considered will of the people of Scotland will be represented by the majority of Scottish MP's in any UK Parliamentary vote but with the cosy Unionist controlled patsies from Jockland having been reduced to three in number they can no longer claim any of the Unionist Parties represent the majority considered will of the people of Scotland in any shape or form. The SNP at Westminster is the legitimate voice of the Scottish people's considered will, one which - no matter how much she wishes otherwise - Ms May can not ignore or if she does once again her government will be open to challenge in the UK Supreme Court for being in breach of Article 19 of the Treaty of Union.

Worse for the rabid, SNP hating, Scotch Labour Blairites, Corbyn - who they first thought they were going to kill off last week, then at least sideline by having the NEC in their pocket - has started mumbling about an electoral pact with the SNP at Westminster to prevent Brexit with the inevitable trade off for more Scottish Devolution this will involve. It appears Dugdale and Murray were left seething into their conference porridge at the idea of the possible requirement of Scotch Labour working with their worst nightmare against their bestest pals in Scotland, Ruthie's Tories, but if Corbyn says that is how it is,"They'll jist hae tae dae whit thir telt". So much for Dugdale's autonomous party in Scotland nonsense. The flip side for the SNP is how far can you throw Corbyn, an arch Unionist, and can you trust him or Labour even a third of that distance? I think we know the answer, to that one, given their past performance of which 'How Now Brown's Vow?' is but the latest manifestation.


Ms May is about to pass into the maelstrom which is the Tory Party Conference of which today's TV performances were the warm up act. On the one hand she announced when Brexit will be triggered. "Hoorah!" says the Tory, British Empire infatuated, membership, "That'll show Johhny Foreigner damn well who's boss." On the other hand she failed to mention a single detail of how Brexit was going to be achieved and its fall out.

Her problems start when the self same membership, who have been oversold the delights of Brexit, start trying to get their head around just how far divorced from the EU they wish to be and what the impact of each different option will be when they want to buy or sell goods to "Johnny Foreigner" or even jog off to France on their holidays or if they will be able to afford to trade or go on holidays, as the value of the pound plummets ever lower as capital does a runner from the City of London after Brexit. Of course, with Ms May under the eye of her own trio of Macbethian Brexit Witches in Gove, Fox and Johnson, all hubble, bubble toil and troubling their little heads off, she can not actually make clear just what a kicking the UK economy and currency (and of course electorate) is going to take, as that would be scaremongering. Instead we had the 'I've got plenty of nothing and nothing is plenty for me' presentation as she made her way around her media pals this fine Sunday morning, all nodding as if she was actually saying anything of substance and saying how super, wizard, that's cleared things up - not one having the guts to say she actually looked a bit chapped, nippy and goose bump covered running around in the nuddy in Autumn, as she was. Older generations would recognise Ms May's performance today as being up there with Harold Wilson's 'pound in your pocket' pipe sucking claims on the old black and white BBC, a devaluation which was the result of an IMF bail out in the late 60's, this in turn resulted in the hyper inflation which ravaged the UK in the 70's and early 80's.


Here's the truth of it for all the EU phobic chaps and chapettes of the Tory and UKIP memberships. There will be only one Brexit and it will be as 'hard' as Mr Verhoffen and the EU negotiators can make it, so make ready, at best, to have the UK's nose ground into the dirt because that will be as good as it gets.

In the meantime here in Scotland we are not seeing the same chorus of threats to close factories and withdraw investment in fact the opposite. Take Liberty. Just why would a global steel player look to invest in reopening a steel manufacturing plant their competitor and major Indian rivals said needed closing? Stat Oil must be mad to be enlarging their Aberdeen HQ at this time and not just Stat Oil, other big players in the reusable energy and oil and gas recovery business are at it as well. In the back ground the big energy companies like Shell and BP are investing in reusable technology and power storage experimental developments in Scotland, via their 'charitable' and 'community' funds. 


There can only be one of two reasons why Scotland is not getting the same message as the UK Government, either Scotland is going to become an independent nation state, once more, by mid 2019 or the UK Government at Westminster is going to be forced to go cap in hand to the EU and ask to be forgiven for its stupidity, temper tantrums over Brexit, can we still be pals - can we?, go back to play in the EU pen and let bygones be bygones while accepting England will burn from end to end if they do.

Ms May is stuck between a rock (the considered will of the people of Scotland to remain in the EU) and a hard place (the over sold, EU phobic benefits of Brexit, English folk have supped at). 

What do you think, readers?

4 comments:

  1. I think it's time we exited stage left, and left them to stew in their own cauldron.

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  2. A hard place for her, even harder for the nation. We are so screwed....but we may as well try and enjoy the spectacle, at least it might destroy the Tory party.

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  3. Whichever way things turn out for Westminster,everyone is going to pay a price for England's xenophobic nationalism.
    All we can do in Scotland is try to mitigate the worst effects of this by getting the best trading arrangements possible with the outside world.
    The Tories are going to try to sell the message that continuing trade with England is in our best interest but an England unconstrained by EU regulations could impose any sort of sanctions on our exports that they wished and given the attitude portrayed by May,would likely do so,even if we are still part of their union.
    The only guarantee of some sort of protection for Scottish exports will be as membership of a trading block which has the power to see off any punitive efforts from a belligerent English state.
    Clearly,there is no Better Together anymore,just do as you are told,or else!

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  4. Excellent article. Even in the extremely unlikely event of rUK begging forgiveness and to be allowed to stay in the EU, I can imagine that the other member states and their populations would still stick their two fingers up at May and her yookay. Trade etc would still suffer.
    Independence for Scotland is the only way forward, our southern neighbour is on a backward trajectory. Notice the word, tory in that, backwards into god knows what sort of country they want to see, that is the red tory stance as well. The labour supporters in england are clamouring for their lefty saviour to save them, he won't, and he can't he is not in power. Something to keep the people of England feeling like they have a choice, and to distract from tory electoral fraud and whatever other corruption they are capable of. I would say I feel sad for people in the NE of england, but most of them sided with the unionists in 2014, sorry to say.

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