Politics Home has noted that:
The SNP leader and Scottish first minister will on Thursday launch a renewed push for a so-called Section 30 order, the transfer of powers from Westminster to Holyrood that is needed to call a referendum.
Launching a new paper called Scotland's Right to Choose, Ms Sturgeon will claim that the SNP's strong showing in last week's general election combined with the pro-Brexit Conservatives' dominance in England boosts the case for a re-run of the 2014 Scotland poll.
The timing is relevant. Today is Johnson's government's Queen's Speech Day. And the occasion will be used to reject any claim from Scotland for such a referendum.
But along with his Brexit deal - which if it is anything but soft will be Johnson's Poll Tax - Scotland will be the issue that gives Johnson most grief in this parliament, both only being overshadowed by the next global financial crisis, when it arrives. The reason why is noted in an excellent article on the Bella Caledonia website by Siobhan Tolland. In it she says, with considerable insight:
I often think Elections can act as a mirror reflection of who and what societies are at that moment in time. Reflections that we perhaps didn't even recognise in ourselves. The General Election on Thursday certainly did that and, for Scotland, it has shown us something really quite remarkable. It reminded us of what our modern Scotland now wants. We want to be European, we want so much better than austerity politics, and we want to make our own decisions.
As significantly she notes:
Equally importantly, however, the election results down south have allowed us to see an England that is pretty much the exact opposite of the kind of society we want. England voted Brexit and they voted the party of austerity. These two election results, then, raise one of the most fundamental issues in the history of our Union: What Scotland wants is now completely incompatible with England, and the strength of our vote means we are clear, solid and confident in what we want.
And she concludes the open8ng part of her article saying:
I think Scotland made the decision to become independent last Thursday. I don't think we have realised that yet, but I think that's what we've just done. I am not saying that people went to the polls and actively ticked a box hoping that would make us independent. Some did, but that is not the case for most of us yet. But the momentum now gathering in Scotland means that something shifted last Thursday. A combination of intentional decisions and uncontrollable political circumstances have created a Scotland that has now changed to its very core.
I strongly suspect that this is true. The fact is that many in England do not appreciate (partly because they have never been to Scotland and have not the slightest intention of ever doing so, but want a say in its affairs which they consider must be subordinate to their own, come what may) that Scotland does not want to become independent because of economics, party politics, oil (or its absence), spite, or anything else the English might imagine. It wants to be independent because it is an identifiable nation state that thinks quite differently from the country that is seeking to control it. And history shows that this, almost invariably, is a fact that leads to independence.
Johnson cannot make Scots want to be ruled from London. What he can do is increase their alienation. And like it or not, 48 SNP MPs will be a running sore for him that will distract him from his ‘English vision'. If he believes in that ‘vision' he needs to be rid of Scotland or it will be a constant reminder of his failings. If I was him I would concede, and soon.m
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I know I may be accused of being simplistic but is not there an irony in the Johnson position?. Brexit was argued for so that we can ‘take back control of our money, laws and borders’ and yet he will deny that same choice to Scotland.
Not lost at all.
Considering the tories have already made moves to consolidate power, citing they want to get rid of fixed terms for elections (so they never have to have one), moving failed MP’s to the lords so they can remain in cabinet, moving the election boundaries to guarantee Tory rule, already citing people should pay to see a GP, start with voter ID to prevent people from voting?
Taking control seems to be taking control from the public, and putting it in the hands of the abusers.
I note that in the House of Commons ,this afternoon, a tory MP said that the Scottish nationalists did not have a mandate for independence as they only polled 46 per cent of the vote but he did not acknowledge that overall in the UK general election that the tories and Brexit Party had just 46 per cent of the vote and therefore they have, by the implication of his support for Brexit, been given a ‘mandate’ on the same percentage of voter expression to be able pursue our exit from the EU and yet they deny Scotland there right to self determination with the same percentage. You just cannot make this faecal matter up.
Scotland is a Country the people of Scotland are Sovreign. Scotland wants to have all its powers to run its own Country. But these are held by Westminster England. This is supposed to be a union of two Kingdom’s
But David Cameron’s EVEL. Has made it an Unequal Unjust Union of Westminster Tory Corruption. Scotlands People are Sovreign. They Decide. Not Westminster Corruption. #EndTheUnion #ScotlandIsSovreign
Scots can look to Ireland to see the benefits of self-government. In the latest UN Human Development Index (2019) report Ireland is up a place to 3rd, behind Switzerland And Norway. The UK falls a place to 15th, on a par with US.
Other benefits include a seat the table in the EU with a veto on trade deals.
Alas, Richard – Johnson is not as bright, as humane or as democratic as you! So…. despite his apparently limitless capacity for cynicism, I fear he is going to prove, like his predecessors were re Ireland, a woefully slow learner.
However, domestic political advantage may, in the end, move him. Westminster unionist governments have spent so long spreading the garbage that Scotland is a financial burden, that even Johnson may come to realise that there is absolutely zero chance of making resistance to Scotland departing into a popular electoral issue. Westminster’s lies are about to come back to bite them – and hell mend them
He’ll find he’s between a rock and a hard place, he won’t want Scotland but he needs Scotlands wealth. Where else will he get oil, water, power (now much of it green) and even agriculture. Nor would there be income from Scotlands exports currently routed through English ports.
It seems the only thing we don’t send is competent MPs. They’ve all joined the SNP!
FMs statement today re ‘Scotland’s Right to Choose’ now on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=828&v=URp2tCjAOJc&feature=emb_logo
only about ten minutes – the rest is as ever, but unlike some we could mention, Nicola happy to take questions.
I don’t think Boris will give us permission. We will have to find other routes to achieve our independence. I’m sure our Scottish Government will be working on this.
Bojo intransigence is what the SNP wants above all else. At present there is much ambivalence North of the border about indyref2, but a shambolic Brexit and lectures on the permanence of the Union will be fantastic recruiting sergeants.
I seriously doubt if Boris the Terrible has any vision for the Union, England, Scotland or NI. There is nothing in any of his utterances in two Queens speeches or any of writings that I can remember which offer or anticipate any vivid
concept of where we are going or how we are going to get there. There are loads of reactive claptrap and hot air but much like the brexit negotiations to date no plan as to how any of it will or can be delivered.
No politician least of all a Prime minister wants to preside over the break up of the union with the withdrawal of Scotland which would see a diminution of the standing of what remained of the UK in the world. Certainly, they would not want to see an independent Scotland as a member of the EU and the flight of capital, financial services and manufacturing which would take place from the south to the north. So as Boris the Infantile so ably demonstrated after the Queen’s speech when studiously ignoring the SNP’s reply by playing with his mobile phone he will ignore any calls for a referendum or any breakaway and ignore Scotland’s legitimate claim just as he will all those misbegotten northern souls who voted for him
Suppose they also campaigned for England to have a referendum on whether it wanted to stay in the UK? An awful lot of the people who have won the Brexit vote would happily lose the Celtic nations from their little England. And everything they said about Britain’s relationship with Brussels is a lot truer
about Scotland’s relationship with London, so they can make no sound argument against Scottish independence that does not invalidate their own Brexit position.
I think you overestimate how much people in England care about Scotland. I’m pretty sure that polling has shown that Scottish independence is more popular amongst English folk than it is amongst Scottish.
Most people in England do not sit around plotting how they can control Scotland; they simply don’t care.
I thought I had made their colonial indifference clear
I think they’ll be waiting a long time for England to let them have either independence or the use of their own resources.
They should unilaterally declare independence from England!
The UN will undoubtedly support them.
Then the English can remove the radioactive hulks of nuclear submarines and relocate them somewhere else: The Thames near the palace of Westminster!