Weekend events show difference between pro- and anti-Scotland campaigns

On Saturday, men, women and children from every city in Scotland poured into our capital city in their thousands to show their support for Scotland becoming a democracy. It was one of the largest political demonstrations in Scottish history. 

The march attracted members of almost every serious political party in Scotland, and people who are members of no party. Speakers from the National Party, the Socialist Party, from the Labour Party, the Green Party, non-party lawyers, and the doyenne of pro-democracy politics, Margo MacDonald, spoke passionately about the future of Scotland to an enthusiastic crowd of over 10.000. 

The YES campaign has shown itself to be an incredibly broad church. The support of many of our fellow Europeans on the march (demonstrators came from Padania, Catalunya, Wales, Ireland, Bavaria and Flanders, amongst others) shows the affection in which Scotland is held in our European Union. 

There was only one slight sour note to the day. The presence, and eventual arrest, of several Better Together supporters, who attacked some marchers and attempted to incite disorder, spoke volumes of the type of campaign which will be run by the anti-Scotland side. 

It is clear that the Better Together campaign is well aware that they cannot win a fair referendum based on an analysis of the debate. More than three centuries into the union between Scotland and England, the unionists have still not managed to elucidate a single positive argument for creating or maintaining the union. 

The Better Together campaigners, a motley crew of Labour, BNP, Conservative, the fascist Orange Order, and Scottish Defence League members know this. 

They know, that if they were to organise a pro-union march, they would be humiliated. With no way to outdo the pro-Scotland demonstration, the next best option is to disrupt it. 

This is why the Better Together campaigners were sent out to Edinburgh to cause trouble. An outbreak of violence would have been a dream come true for the Better Together organisers. Fortunately, the pro-Scotland marchers behaved with honour and dignity, an allowed the police to do their job. We must be on our guard always, for this is a tactic they will use every time we rally.

Aware that sending their SDL and Orange thugs out to attack families and incite violence on a sunny day in Edinburgh will not in itself persuade people to vote in favour of the union, the Better Together organisers have already decided that it they can only win the referendum by acting outside the law. 

On Sunday, the Herald revealed that the Better Together organisation had been gathering intelligence on voters without their consent - a criminal offence. 

Not a technical offence, not an overlooking of the rules, but a criminal offence.

The Better Together campaign have already indicated that they intend to continue using this illegally-gathered information stolen from innocent voters. 

It is possible to overlook a criminal offence in the first instance. However, when the perpetrator of a crime asserts openly that they will continue to completely ignore the criminal code, and benefit from the widespread theft of data, then there is only one option. 

The Better Together campaign must be ordered to destroy all data received by it before it properly registered with the Data Commissioner. And if it does not do so, then its directors must be prosecuted from their crime. 

The Better Together campaign has started with violence and criminality. 

Is this the positive case for the union?

Anti-Independence Campaign Tell Outright Lie in Leaflet

This weekend saw the anti-Scottish Squadron Volante of British Nationalist Parties and the Orange Order getting together with literature to instil fear of normality into the Scottish people. 

Jim Murphy went out to campaign with SCUP MSP Jackson Carlaw (Labour believe Carlaw is  unfit to hold elected office but are happy to campaign with him to preserved the unequal, unfair and aggressive United Kingdom.) It's quite probable that apart from their obsession with holding Scotland back from joining the nations of the world, they had much to talk about: Carlaw was appointed Deputy Leader of SCUP after telling racist jokes at its  manifesto launch in 2005 - perhaps they was able to swap stories about the "good old days" of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, which SCUP so loudly and proudly supported, and from which Murphy benefited so gratefully. 

In other areas of Scotland, woman abuser Ian Davidson went out with the party's "leader" Johann Lamont in Govan to obstruct people's shopping Saturdays with a smattering of bitter Unionists. Quite how Lamont can bear to be gallivanting with such a violently misogynistic ned is beyond me. Perhaps she puts her principles in the same box as she keeps her views on Weapons of Mass Destruction. 

They handed out the following leaflet:

Anti-Independence leaflet, courtesy Nic Prigg

The leaflet, as a whole is laughable. It contains the whole anti-Scotland argument in one document; the argument being "you are too small, too poor and too stupid to possibly be able to operate your own democracy". 

If these ten points are the reasons to remain part of the most aggressive and destructive empire in the history of mankind, then it cannot be credible that the people of Scotland will choose this option. 

1. Scots are represented by over 270 embassies as part of the UK.

This is not one of the typical and cynical distortions of the truth by the British Nationalist Parties which we know and love - it is a simple, blatant, outright and easily provable lie. 

The British Government's very own foreign ministry shows the lie. It tells us that the United Kingdom has embassies in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Chile, PR China, Colombia, DR Congo, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, DPR Korea, South Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, FYR Macedonia, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, The Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, The Ukraine, UAE, USA, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe. 

Phew!

It's an impressive list, to be sure.

But it's not "more than 270 embassies".

It is, in fact, little more than one hundred - of which  more than one third (in italics) are in this very continent of Europe.

It's hardly a worldwide system of influence and presence, is it? Indeed, during the secession negotiations, Scotland will be owed money for many of the properties in which these embassies are based. Is it beyond comprehension that the Government of Scotland may strike a deal with the British regime that sees the UK representing Scottish consular affairs in place of this money? 

Scotland, as part of the United Kingdom, fails to be represented diplomatically in almost half of all sovereign states in the world. Is it beyond comprehension that in these places in  which we need to be represented, we can either open an embassy, or strike a deal with one of our European partners to do so. This isn't just an option for tinpot dictatorships: even the United States makes use of this arrangement on occasion. 

2. Scotland exports twice as much to England, Wales and Northern Ireland as to the rest of the world. 

Between 2006 and 2010, Scottish exports to the rest of the world increased by 18,7%.

For a small nation like Scotland, it is only natural that our major export market is our closest neighbour: the British are also our major import partner. 

This is not only a nonsensical reason for remaining part of the United Kingdom (Britain's second largest export market is the Russian Federation: should they join in a political union? Surely they'd be richer, stronger together, and with a much better chance of winning medals in the Olympics?), but it has more than a slightly veiled threat of trade barriers and embargoes if we dare to take our independence back. 

If there are to be no trade embargoes, then why would a change in the seat of government affect our export markets?

If there are to be trade embargoes, is bullying and threats really a reason to stay in the Union? 

3. One in five Scots are employed by English, Welsh and Northern Irish firms.

How awfully nice. Not quite sure why it is an issue in an independence referendum, however (notwithstanding even the fact that this means 80% of Scots are not employed by British firms). 

Is this an implication that these firms will flee for the hills the minute Scotland takes control of its defence and foreign affairs? If so, why are there so many British firms operating contentedly in Ireland?

There hasn't been a single British company which has spoken of leaving Scotland after independence. Quite the contrary: with our dedicated and highly-skilled workforce, we are an attractive location for companies. 

Of those which have spoken, GlaxoSmithKline, the major pharmaceutical company, has said it will be "business as usual" following Restoration of Sovereignty, with its CEO, Andrew Witty, commenting that 

“Obviously the very big investment we’re making in Montrose and Irvine signals our confidence in the future of Scotland. What we’ve done speaks louder than words.”

Since the independence-supporting SNP took control more than five years ago, outside companies have invested in Scotland, including Diageo (which only this week said that it would be business as usual for them after independence), GSK, Taqa, Avaloq, Ineos, PetroChina, Dell, Gamesa, Amazon, Mitsubishi, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsui and Life Technologies, with Scotland becoming the market leader in inward investment in the United Kingdom since the SNP won its second term and announced the Independence referendum. 

4. 31,000 workers in Scotland have jobs with the UK Government

This figure represents fewer than one percent of the Scottish workforce.

This includes people working for the Department of Work and Pensions. Is it inconceivable that the functions of the DWP will not be duplicated by the new Scottish Government? Put it this way: if welfare was devolved, would it not be the case that all of these people would transfer automatically to the Scottish Government?

When the British government leaves Scotland, will all of its functions leave? 

Do the British Nationalist Parties genuinely believe that none of the functions which are held in Scotland at the moment will be required post-independence? Do they genuinely believe that there would be a welfare staff of zero? Do they genuinely believe that there would be no Inland Revenue? Do they genuinely believe Scotland will have no Customs staff? Do they genuinely believe that we will not have a passport office (we'd better have a passport office if we're going to need a passport to visit the granny in Newcastle that every bitter Unionist seems to have)? Do they genuinely believe we'll have no Coast Guard?

Stop the scaremongering: people just don't believe your lies any more. 

5. Scottish banks were bailed out with £470 bn from UK taxpayers

The collapse of the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland were a direct result of the refusal of the British government to properly regulate the banks. 

The "too poor, too stupid" leaflet from the British Nationalist Parties implies that only Scottish banks collapsed. When Labour speak of the collapse of the many British banks, they are quick to refer to the "crisis which originated in America". But when Janus speaks to the Scottish side, it was a Scottish collapse, in which we were saved by the largesse of our generous, paternal neighbours, who forgave our flirt with independence to pat us on the head.

In fact, the average Scot didn't want (or need) these banks bailed out, as so many UK banks were. We would rather that, like Iceland's banks, they were punished for their crimes. 

The fact is that this was an act not of generosity from the UK taxpayers (Scottish parasites, subsidy junkies et cetera ad inifinitum), but one which - funded partly by Scotland's generation-long subsidy of the British exchequer and the money stolen from our country to pay for London's sporting vanity project this summer - was intended to maintain, for political reasons, the facade that the British economy was strong. 

And ask this: if we are indeed Better Together, why should our banks collapse anyway?

6. 800,000 Scots live and work in England and Wales without the need for papers and passports

As is natural and healthy with a neighbouring nation to which our economy is so strongly linked. 

This will continue after independence - unless the inclusion of this passage is a threat to revive the Alien Act of 1705. 

As neighbouring, fellow EU nations, British people have the right to live and work unmolested in Scotland, and vice-versa. No amount of hate and bitterness by the British Nationalist Parties, acting in concert with the fascist Orange Order, can prevent this. 

7. The UK has the world's second biggest aid budget

In 2011, the UK donated € 9,881m despite employing less than 500 staff in Scotland 

Last year, the USA donated US$ 49 bn, and Germany donated € 10,453m.

Either a Euro is worth more than five US dollars, or this is a lie. 

8. The UK means Scots get a seat at the top table of the UN

Really? Mark Grant is currently occupying the seat. He isn't Scottish, is he? His predecessors, Robert Sawers,Emyr Jones Parry, Jeremy Greenstock, John Weston, David Hannay, and Crispin Tickell, Anthony Parsons, Ivor Richard, Colin Crowe, Hugh Foot, Patrick Dean, Pierson Dixon, Gladwyn Jebb and Alexander Cadogan aren't/weren't. Scottish. 

John Thomson was Scottish, to be sure. The last Scotsman to "get a seat" at the UN Security Council. Someone who was born the day he vacated that seat would have been able to vote in the 2005 General Election. 

The only other Scotsman to "get a seat" at the UN Security Council was Donald Maitland, who was Permanent Representative for a few months in the 1970s. 

So, the very last time a Scotsman sat at the top table was 1987. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to write "the UK meant Scots briefly got a seat at the top table at the UN in the past". But maybe that would hit too close to home: a Union which may have worked in the past but which Scotland has outgrown since the days of Thatcher doesn't really fit the narrative of the British Nationalist Parties. 

9. Scots save billions on the cost of mortgages due to the UK's AAA credit rating

It is implied that a restored Scotland will not have an AAA credit rating. Quite why this should be the case when Denmark, Norway and Finland - like us, stable, northern European countries with a population around the five million mark - with their almost identical economies retain an AAA rating is not explained. 

Apparently, we would be too poor and too stupid to manage to set up our own welfare system. Who can forget the chaos when Montenegro left Serbia-Montenegro with absolutely no idea of how to.....oh, wait, that didn't happen. 

10. The pensions of 1m Scots are guaranteed by the UK welfare system

Again, the UK welfare system is not some benevolent act of charity. Scots have put into the welfare system and are entitled to those pensions. 

There are 27 sovereign member states of the European Union. The United Kingdom does not administer 26 of them. They seem to cope alright. 

Yes, the pensions are guaranteed by the UK welfare system. That is because the British regime refuses to devolve welfare to Scotland. 

Their refusal to offer it means we must take it. And in a democratic Scottish socialist republic, we can be sure that - unlike the British system - our pensioners will never, ever again have to choose between dying of hypothermia or dying of starvation. 

Farcical Olympic Games: Culmination of Long-Running British Security Obsession

When I arrived home from the ancient City of Stirling this evening, I started a bath running and switched the television on. It defaulted to one of the BBC's eight new channels dedicated to the London Olympic Games (in contrast, the BBC provides only 25 minutes of Scottish programming on BBC One Scotland, 20 minutes of Scottish programming on BBC Two Scotland, and a scant six hours of BBC Alba. The BBC provides only two radio stations in Scotland), on which a football match between America and France was being played in front of an almost entirely empty and eerily silent National Stadium in Glasgow. 


It is the latest sign that the people of Scotland have utterly rejected the London Olympic Games in their millions. It's not surprising: the organisers of the London Olympic Games have "reallocated" millions of pounds of National Lottery funding from Scottish communities to millionaire athletes and security agencies. 


The build-up to the Games has been farcical in the extreme. The imposition of segregated road lanes for such contributors to world peace and prosperity as Chang Un of the DPRK and Prince Nawaf of Saudi Arabia, and for thieves and spivs like Switzerland's J Sepp Blatter (sadly, Brazil's Dr Joao Havelange has now resigned to avoid expulsion and prison and will not be picking pockets throughout London), has made it abundantly clear to the people of this country that these games are not for us - they are for the enjoyment of the oligarchs. 


A major financial backer of the Games is Union Carbide, which perpetrated the world's worst-ever industrial disaster, slaughtering through its criminal negligence more than 3.700  of India's poorest people, and injuring over half a million more. "So maye much be spyed also, by the company and pastyme that a body vseth. For a man is for the moost parte condicioned euen lyke vnto them that he kepeth company wythe all", as Bullinger so correctly noted


The British regime hired G4S, the security company which killed refugee Jimmy Mubenga four months earlier, to provide security for the Games. I need not go into any great detail about the utter failure of this company to secure the event adequately. 


The failure of G4S to fulfil its contract, however, led to an unexpected boon for the British regime. 


18,000 British soldiers - if the BBC report this week is accurate, 2.500 of whom can be expected to commit acts of violent thuggery over and above their systematic rape and destruction of much of the Middle East  - have now been set upon the streets of London. 


This is more than the armies of Costa Rica, Mauritius, Monaco, Iceland, Haiti, Vanuatu, Palestine, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Seychelles, Barbados, Gambia, Bahamas, Luxembourg, Belize, Guyana, Cape Verde, Equitorial Guinea, East Timor, Suriname, Malta, Lesotho, Central Africa, Liberia, Kosovo and Jamaica combined. 


It is worrying that visitors to the United Kingdom, should they make it through the hours of queues at "UK Border Force" control points, will see a country totally swamped with soldiers armed to the teeth, in scenes reminiscent of some class of Third World banana republic.


This has been a long-term policy of successive British regimes, however - to increase as much as possible the militarisation of the country. 


First, by attempting to normalise the military - having them wandering down the streets dressed in their uniforms, having them delivering the FA of England Cup to be presented to whichever racist scumbag wins it in a particular year (congratulations, John Terry), or having them sit like startled chickens on the corners of flags at Six Nations matches. 


Secondly, by changing the image of the military from the (generally accurate) perception of a gang of neds with two O-Levels between them who come back from a couple of months shooting "ragheads" to bottle people in bars and knock the bird around a bit, to the new "Wur Heeeeeeroz" shtick, eagerly lapped up by The Sun and other outlets for the hard of thinking. This has even penetrated to television stations which now apparently host some sort of Military "Oscars". 


God, you can just imagine it, can't you? "And the award for 'Best Cold-Blooded Murder of An 18-Year-Old-Kid Who You Shot In The Back' goes to............Mark Wright and James Fisher!".


Thirdly, if you cannot get the military into the country quickly enough, just turn the country into the military. Ten years ago, the vast majority of us had never seen an armed policeman in our life. Maybe if one happened across a hostage situation, or perhaps the odd one at an airport. Now, though, the police force has been transformed into a paramilitary force, armed to the teeth, and which is visibly armed and patrolling almost all public spaces with machine guns. 


Since 1990, 1.433 people have been killed by the police in England and Wales (roughly eight times more than have been killed by "terrorists"). In that time, not a single police officer has been convicted of manslaughter.


The regime has been cunning, and they have done it well, but Friday represents the apogee of their militarisation of Britain: the moment where finally, they have managed to have patrolling the streets of the United Kingdom an armed militia, ready and willing to protect the regime from the people. 


If Russia is "Upper Volta with missiles", then Britain is North Korea with a friendly face. 

How Should Scotland Function After Independence?

The most important thing to remember about independence is that it is not and cannot simply be a matter of ripping the British flag down and replacing it with our own. It cannot be a matter of replacing the discredited and failed, centralised and corrupt British government merely with different accents. 


Therefore, independence cannot be - and is not - a manifestation of nationalism: it is the recognition that to change our system of government for the benefit of the many, not the few, cannot be achieved through the Westminster system: an affront to democracy which has three branches of legislature, only one of which is elected. 


The Westminster system is autoresistant to attempts to reform it: the system itself is inherently unreformable, for if it was to be reformed, and was it to transition to a democratic system, then the system would cease to exist. Just as the Soviet Union found out that you can't reform the Soviet system without destroying it in the process, so it is with Westminster. 


With that in mind, and bearing in mind that if a reformed, fair Britain was on the agenda, one which treated Scotland with the respect and esteem we demand and deserve, support for an independent Scotland would dip, we cannot simply transfer the functions of Westminster to Holyrood. 


We have to genuinely make our case for how Scotland should look after independence is regained. And it must be substantially and visibly fairer than Westminster. We should also remember that within every country, one group holds too much power and another is marginalised. In the United Kingdom, the marginalised part is played by Scotland. We must remember this as we build our new republic. 


So, here's my 2 eurocents on how the administration of the country should work. 


Scotland should be operated as a symmetric, co-operative federal republic, taking as much power as possible out of the hands of the bureaucrats and central ministers, and placing power over local affairs into the hands of local people. 


But we have to balance that against the dangers of having duplicated layers of salaried politicians.


The Head of State should be the Chairman of the Council of Federation Ministers - elected directly by universal suffrage for a maximum of two consecutive or nonconsecutive seven year terms. 


The Council of Federation Ministers would be the Federal Cabinet, comprising the Ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Economy, International Assistance and Defence. This Cabinet would be selected from the Federal Assembly using the d'Hondt method of proportional representation.


The Federal Assembly should be a unicameral assembly with of fifty members serving four-year terms - 26 elected by the Single Transferable Vote using a nationwide slate, and two members appointed by each of the 12 constituent parliaments. 


In terms of the constituent regions (provinces, republics, states, whatever), the 12 should be designed to maximise the diversity of Scotland, following a mix of the old Regions and the current Parliamentary Regions:


1. Strathclyde
2. Glasgow
3. Galloway
4. Lothian/Border
5. Central Scotland
6. Fife
7. Tay
8. Grampian
9. Highland
10. Western Isles
11. Orkney
12. Shetland


This ensures that genuine devolution of powers go to the more isolated regions of Scotland, which often feel themselves as distant from Holyrood as they do from London. Going "too far" in terms of devolution may be preferable. 


Each province would be in control of all powers (local taxation, sales taxes, police budgets  etc) that the Federal Cabinet does not control. 


It would be up to each province to design its own internal parliamentary structures and its own measure of internal devolution as long as these comply with the provisions of the constitution.


I'm sure there are many reasons why this would be unworkable! However, this is my vision of how a Federal Republic of Scotland could look. 

Yes, we can save Scottish football

1. Scotland should have a league which runs from March to October. This will allow us to strike a deal with British TV networks, which have little to show between May and August. Scottish TV networks will show Scottish football regardless. All television money should be split evenly between all teams in the league system, as should all general sponsorship money. It means that our season will be four months old by the time the UEFA games start, meaning we will not be going in cold to qualifiers and our teams have more chance of qualifying, with the exception of Motherwell, who could select the 1970 Brazil team and still manage to lose to a group of confused waiters from Montenegro. It means also that, rather than having some games through our extremely harsh Nordic winter with postponements, we play through the best weather of our year, attracting families to matches.

2. There should be a First Division of 18 teams. We play once at home and once away. This gives 17 home games in a 34 game season. With a March-October season like our neighbours in Ireland, Sweden and Norway, this gives us two entirely free weekends. Moving four matches to midweek, this gives us six free weekends, which allows us to fulfil international obligations (4) and allow the latter stages of the Scottish Cup to be played. Of the 18 teams, two ought to be relegated, and two enter a relegation playoff. 

3. A semi-professional Second Division of 22 teams running the same March-October season. Two teams promoted automatically, two teams to enter the 1st/2nd Division playoff. This gives the opportunity for the top flight to renew itself massively each season. One team to be relegated, one team into the relegation playoffs.

4. The Highland League, Eastern League, Southern League and Superleague champions to playoff in a pool stage. The winner is promotes to the Second Division, the runner-up plays-off against the team finishing second bottom of the Second Division. These regional leagues to be organised in further regions according to the needs of each specific region, with relegation and promotion to and from them based on defined SFA rules. 

5. The Scottish Cup to continue with no change. Except with that utter fanny Gordon Smith gone, we might get a sponsor for it. 

6. The Challenge Cup to be reformed into a competition the bottom eight teams in the First Division and top eight teams in the Second Division. We might do something with age limits, I guess. 

7. The League Cup to be a competition for both divisions. Eight pools of five teams played pre-season on a one-off basis, with the winners of each pool qualifying for the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals and semi-finals to be played as a one-off match in a mid-week, with the final being played on New Year's Day.

The SNP has to weed out the bigots

I have this afternoon sent the following letter to the SNP regarding failed prospective candidate, and a man who is utterly despised in his branch, Jorg Herr:

I should like to refer to the following Article of membership:

6 Every member has a responsibility not to discriminate in his or her conduct on the grounds of race, colour, gender, religious belief or non-belief or sexual orientation.

In SNP member, Herr Herr's, blog, he continually refers in a pejorative sense to "Muslim MSP" Humza Yousaf (he does not refer to any other MSP by race or faith) and also to "corrupt foreigner" Anton Muscatelli, Principal of Glasgow University. 

Mr Muscatelli is a British citizen, resident in Scotland. He is not a "foreigner" in any way other than in race, which Herr Herr seems to focus on. 

Herr Herr's blog, which also contains attacks on the parents of Madelaine McCann, is openly racist. This can be seen in his attacks on the only other Asian SNP candidate, Osama Saeed. 

He carefully focusses on Asians for his abuse, and those he deems to be "foreign" 

It reflects badly on the SNP that he remains a member, particularly given his homophobic views also. 

It reflect poorly on the SNP that this man, who was judged as inappropriate to represent the SNP as an elected member, remains a member.

There's Only One Way to be Sure of a Labour Government