Tuesday , March 19 2024

Tag Archives: Scottish independence referendum

How to wreck an illegal independence referendum

How should Pro UK people in Scotland respond to threats from the SNP to hold an independence referendum without permission or to use the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections as a proxy referendum on independence leading to a unilateral declaration of independence? The answer as always is to do what your …

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Indyref2 has already been decided. Someone, please tell Nicola.

The Scottish Government has announced that there is to be a draft bill for a second referendum on Scottish independence – indyref2. There is already much comment about what the question will be (perhaps a variant of Leave/Remain to comply with Electoral Commission guidance post 2014), whether independence will win …

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How to stop Scottish nationalism

The British Government has already ruled out a second Scottish independence referendum during the course of the next Parliament. It was in the Conservative Party manifesto and the Conservative Party won a large majority. That should be the end of the matter. Constitutional matters are reserved. The Scottish Parliament should …

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What if a Yes vote had been blocked like Brexit?

Some independence supporting Scottish journalists and SNP politicians are attempting to portray the Scottish independence referendum as some sort of joyful, peaceful yearlong party. They contrast this with the referendum on the EU. But they are not comparing like with like. Worse there is a tendency to exaggerate on all …

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All the First Minister’s men

Imagine if sometime in mid-2014 we had discovered that Alex Salmond had been accused of committing a serious crime in 2013. What sort of effect would this have had on the independence referendum? Imagine too if between the alleged crime and the summer of 2014 the SNP Government had made …

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Don’t let Labour ruin Britain again

Governments are very powerful in Britain. The power of Parliament on the other hand is limited. It can pass or fail to pass laws and it can vote a Government down. Governments have been able to declare war and make peace without asking the opinion of Parliament. What this means …

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What did you learn Nicola?

I don’t want Mrs Sturgeon to click her ruby slippers together while repeating endlessly that there’s no place like Scotland. Nor is it helpful to once more hear nationalists repeat clichés like “A hard Tory Brexit makes independence inevitable.” But it might be useful to revisit Scottish independence in the …

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Check hers

September 2014 The Yes side win a vote for Scottish independence by 53.4% to 46.6% November 2014 Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon begin negotiations with the UK Government led by Michael Gove. December 2014 Michael Gove announces that the UK will only support a free trade agreement with Scotland under …

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Scottish Chequers

I only really started to support leaving the EU after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Until then I had been able to balance the benefits of EU membership with the flaws inherent in that organisation. What changed my mind was that I could see the path we were on was …

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The £ of flesh

There is an interesting scenario that Scottish nationalists haven’t thought about. Let’s imagine sometime in the future there is a referendum on Scottish independence and the Leave side wins. There would then be negotiations between the United Kingdom and the representatives of the soon to be independent Scotland. The negotiations …

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Beware Shops Selling Swedes

It’s easy to mock those Scottish nationalists who spend their time looking around supermarkets for Scottish produce labelled as coming from Britain. There are other Scottish nationalists who want various vegetables to be called by their Scottish rather than by their English name. I imagine some want to go round …

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And there’s another country

I supported Brexit for these reasons. I thought the UK could in the long term be more prosperous if we could trade freely with whomsoever we chose. The EU runs a club that allows us to trade freely with other members of the club but imposes a common external tariff …

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Fighting on the ice

In 2014 when I was campaigning for Scotland to remain a part of the UK it never occurred to me that the result of the referendum might be ignored or obstructed. If the Yes side had won, I fully expected that in a short time Scotland would become a fully …

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Realms of Gold

I imagine sometime back in the late 1690s there were broadsheets handed out in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland promising “realms of gold”. Perhaps our ancestors studied all 354 pages of the scheme. Maybe they studied in detail the cunning plan to turn Scotland into a great economic power. The …

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It’s only the SNP that holds Scotland back.

I have long held the view that Better Together ran a terrible negative campaign that nearly cost us the referendum in 2014. For this reason my response to the SNP’s latest attempt to encourage more Scots to support independence is not going to be to explain why Scottish independence is …

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Pommes frites à l’écossaise

Apparently the Scottish Parliament has just refused to consent to Brexit. The Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and SNP all joined together to thwart the plans of those wicked Tories to undermine the powers of the Scottish Parliament. There is a peculiar logic going on here. There are various issues that …

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To let the punishment fit the crime

A St Andrews academic Clara Ponsati is facing extradition to Spain. The Vice Chancellor of the university has come to her defence, as have many other people in Scotland, on the grounds that Ponsati is being “targeted for her political beliefs” by the Spanish government. Ponsati is not alone in …

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Bought and sold for RT gold

Does it matter very much that Alex Salmond has chosen to appear on Russia Today (RT)? No. I sometimes glance at this site. It has a perspective, but then again so does the BBC, CNN and the New York Times. RT has a Russian perspective. It’s not a perspective we …

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