Simplifying the Complications

I have spent all my adult working life dealing with large amounts of often contradicting information and seeking to find out what actually is happening (better known as diagnosis).

For some reason humans appear to have a preference for over complication, over thinking and generally disappearing up their own fundamental argument. This is clear when you read letters pages of any newspaper or similar media. The problem for the readers of the letters is to make sense of what is being written within their own over complicated views and bias. Sadly so much of what is purported to be "fact" is in reality an assumption which fits with that person's experience and so becomes "fact" by being repeated; for example the Daily Mail meme that "Scots (or Scotch) hate the English". This is also true about many "facts" about Scottish Independence.

Take the claim that Scotland needs Westminster's approval to hold an advisory referendum because the Scotland Act says so. The reality is that Holyrood can run an advisory referendum on any subject it likes, even on supposed "reserved issues" as long as it is the majority opinion of MSPs, representing the considered will of the people of Scotland at Holyrood, that such an advisory referendum should be held. The new Scottish Referendum Bill passing through Holyrood will establish and fully protect this right under Scots Law.

We need a Scotland Act section 30 approval to have an advisory referendum. A section 30 order is a mechanism in the Scotland Act 1998 which can – temporarily or permanently – grant legislative authority to the Scottish Parliament in certain areas. For example if Scotland wanted to hold a binding referendum on independence, as happened in 2014 with the Independence Referendum.

Westminster can not stop the Scottish People from holding an advisory referendum on independence. They could if they had an army to stop us. Luckily the Tories have wrecked the UK Armed Forces to such an extent this will not happen and under Scots Law the UK Military would have no legitimate basis to do so. Equally, Police Scotland are beholden to the people of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament, Scots Law and not Westminster. Then there is the small problem of international opinion if Westminster tried such a move as the EU would ensure Brexit UK suffered severe repercussions in the UN for stopping a nation state from seeking its independence under UN Statute. The Russians and Chinese Governments would cynically get behind any such EU move on human rights, simply to embarrass the USA.

The smart part about the current SNP strategy is if, as is expected, independence would be voted for by the majority of the Scots who exercised their franchise in this advisory referendum, just where does that leave Boris Johnson and his Brexit Pals? The sovereign people of Scotland will have expressed their considered will on the form of government it wishes and where it directs its sovereignty to lie; in the Scottish Parliament, not at Westminster, subverting the need for a Section 30 order.

My suggestion is the SNP will ensure the Referendum Bill (Scotland) will be in law before the end of October this year and a "No Deal Brexit", leaving the way open to run an advisory referendum on independence well before the assumed September 2020 date.

So to those who continue to claim Westminster will stop us having a referendum on independence by not giving a Section 30 order I suggest you look at the facts and not Westminster's , The BBC's and Unionist media's misbegotten assumptions.

Calamitous Reign

From the Tory Production team which brought you the disastrous "The Cameron is coming" and the utter failure of "May's Days" their latest production stars Boris Day in a predictable flop musical "Calamitous Reign"

Listen as Boris repeats the old lie, "The Brexit Stage is comin' right over the hill". Grate your teeth in agony as Rees-Mogg joins in the "Chief Whip crack away" chorus. Head for the sick bag as Boris pours his heart out in " A Million Gallons of Slurry with Priti Patel on the Top" (I have lost the will to go on with the review)

The web site "Rotten Tomatoes" refused to review the film stating, "Our reviewers would rather sit in a sauna having their eyes pricked with blunt needles in the expectation of a red hot poker up their rectum than go anywhere near this dissembling crock of shit."

The Charge of the Shite Brigade

" Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,
Into the Central belt rode the Unionist hundred."

So the worst prime minister in recorded history is coming to Scotland to tell us to get back into our box and "dae is wir telt" at some press shoot, some where she will not have to face any actual ordinary Scots folk except for those in her selected audience of Scotland in Union supporters.

We are no doubt going to be told our "narrow nationalism' is a bad thing where as British Nationalism is the best thing since sliced bread. We will be given the "Paul Birrel"  view of a too poor, too wee, too stupid Scotland - yet again - by Mistress May along with the threat of cutting ourselves off from our biggest market without any explanation of just where highly dependent England will get all the goodies it needs from Scotland from elsewhere under WTO tariff restrictions.

Hey Meggie May just what happens when Scotland switches off the 7000 mega watts a day, in electricity supply, England needs from Scotland to keep the lights on in London or screws down the North Sea gas tap?

A tumble weed twists and bucks across the stage; as this, like most questions on not so subsidy junky Scotland, is met in silence.

OK then what about UK white fish landings, Meg, you do know 62% of all white fish landings are in Scotland?

The silence only becomes ever deeper as we sink into the Atlantic sized trench of Tory denial.

Maybees you could tells us about the export value of the Scottish economy, in foreign currency exchange alone, to the UK Treasury?

You must be making a few bob in excise tax from the 5 bottles of whisky a second that are being exported, according to the industry's own trade body.

What about the increasing problems of fresh water supply in SE England?

You do know that Loch Ness holds more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined? Oh, you have plans to sell Loch Ness to Nestle to bottle water as fresh water is now a commodity and not a universal right, Good luck with that one then.

That nice, comparatively, Mr Hammond ( the man who does the actual UK sums) says England and Wales are screwed if Scotland becomes independent, taking its £200 billion economy into the EU. The analysts over the pond reckon the new Scottish currency will rapidly increase in value over the "pound" to an exchange rate of 1: £1.20 sterling. Any comment on the rising cost of imports to England and Wales from Scotland in terms of exchange rate alone? What about the impact of an EU backed Scotland imposing WTO tariffs on England?

That's not going to happen, how so?

Oh, you will refuse Scotland the right to decide its own future and fate because the worst UK prime minister on record says so.

Hen, your actual legacy as worst UK prime minister has a very short life span as Boris the Hunt will quickly demonstrate.

Aye, and please don't let the door smack yer erse on the wey oot, as ye bugger back aff doon sooth.