The capacity of the current government to shock is astonishing. Yesterday there came this:
Under Labour, our constitution was vandalised and the whole of the United Kingdom suffered. We must undo their foolish tinkering. pic.twitter.com/06jOYP5tYS
— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) November 27, 2020
The message could not have been clearer. A day before the SNP has a conference that should be discussing a second independence referendum (but let's not go there) Rees-Mogg is pouring oil on the flames by threatening devolution.
Why would he do that?
Because he is an English nationalist, of course.
And because he has, I have no doubt, the English colonialist's exploitative mindset.
He us also playing to his natural audience, who believes everyone should recognise English supremacy.
But also to deliberately provoke. He knows the SNP is divided on whether to have a referendum with or without Westminster consent. What he is doing is not just provoking that debate. He is trying to say that any debate in Scotland only takes place with the consent of the likes of him.
What are the right words to describe this? Contemptuous? Aggressive? Bullying? Incompetent? Arrogant? It is certain that nothing positive comes to mind.
And it will backfire. I have no doubt that Rees-Mogg can ably increase the pro-independence majority (for that is what it now is) in Scotland.
And that majority will have its way. I do not agree with the SNP leadership on the issue of IndyRef2. I have no doubt at all that Westminster consent is not required. Kosovo legally proves that the consent of the power from whom independence is sought is not a pre-condition of that independence. That is hardly surprising, and the relevant legal opinion came from the UK government, to add a warm and welcome twist.
The era of England's colonial power has to end.
It's almost a century since it did in Ireland.
Around the world large numbers of countries have secured their independence since then. None want to go back.
Now it is Scotland's turn.
Rees-Mogg was not actually as clever as he thought yesterday. All he was offering bravado to cover his fear.
He knows what is happening.
He knows what is inevitable.
Scotland is leaving.
As it should.
As it will.
And all he provides is evidence as to why that is absolutely essential for its wellbeing.
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I wish to offer one caveat. The illusion is that it was ever up to vulgar faux-aristocrats like Rees-Mogg, or his ilk. Scotland entered this Union freely (not the ordinary people but they were unconsidered – everywhere). Scotland, for most of the last three hundred years has been at the very heart of the Union. Two world wars and the end of Empire changed everything. Thatcher and Brexit have cumulatively destroyed the last bitter illusions, and too close inspection of the coarse, reeking Brobdignanians in charge of running Britain during Covid-19 is merely the final coup de grâce for a redundant enterprise that has outlived its usefulness to Scotland. Leaving has always been in Scotland’s own hands; it is a mere excuse to suggest that it was ever anywhere else.
Freely huh? there was one regiment of foot and one of dragoons poised to invade Scotland should our parliament not sign the Treaty of Union. That looks like standover tactics to me.
The ordinary folk of Edinburgh and elsewhere rioted for several weeks following the signing.
In the ’45 Jacobite rising the clan chiefs extracted from Prince Charles Edward Stuart a written promise of the reconvening of the Scots Parliament. Showing that it was not freely or popularly signed.
You may be aware of the words of the Bard on the matter:
Sich a parcel o’ Rogues in a nation.
There was no universal suffrage, anywhere; the electorate was peculiarly narrow in Scotland, but it was scarcely unique in Europe in being indifferent to popular opinion in constituional matters. This was a Union connived at in England, and heavily pressurised there, but made in Scotland by its own Parliament, and supported by the post-Glorious Revolution, determined interests of the Presbyterian establishment, notably by the guiding hand of the church’s leader, William Carstares. The idea that Jacobitism represented popular opinion is, frankly naive. Indeed you protest the facts, and then concede them in a single closing comment: “Sich a parcel o’ Rogues in a nation”.
Rees-Mogg is part of what I increasingly think of as the Blind Arrogance Banana Republic which has a very large constituency. I call it this because on at least two key aspects affecting this republic, how money’s created and what the problems are in global trade, there’s an enormous intellectual black-hole which is regularly filled on a daily basis with counter shallow platitudes. (I use the term republic because the UK is a union of four countries. Not for long probably!)
Thinking further perhaps “Blind Allegiance Banana Republic” is a better term. This “blindness” is one that intellectually cannot link how the country creates its money to why global trading policing has broken down. One of the principal objections is to China’s insistence that all foreign exchange in its country takes place through state owned banks. In those banks the government strips out “value” to stop China’s currency value rising. The Chinese state then buys the treasury bonds of target export countries which has the effect of artificially boosting the value of these countries currencies which of course enables them to buy more Chinese imports. Clearly if voters in these target countries didn’t believe their governments needed to borrow to cover their deficit spending the treasury bonds wouldn’t be available for rogue states like China to buy them!
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/007122.html
See “NotProgressive” comment 30th April 2010
I have to admit that my favourite alternative name for England is Ruritania, with due acknowledgment of all that that implies.
We are sunk!
Ruritania is quite a good name for the banana republic the UK’s become. It’s lack of understanding how the country’s medium of exchange is created reminds me of the Dark Ages period after the Romans has abruptly left and indigenous creation of a medium of exchange never got going for 200 years. Now the country will come close to collapse yet again for lack of this know-how because the majority of natives don’t want to be bothered thinking about such stuff! Consumer society has replaced woad painting for the Pretani although the tattooing is back!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain_(place_name)
Speaking as a Scot, the nation is proud of the Scottish parliament, across all political parties. So there is wide dismay across the spectrum to the London Tories dispariging remarks.
They are undermining their own support never mind gifting support to the independence movement. Any hopes these people had of Devo max or federalism are shot and they know it. At some point soon some of them will see sense and endorse independence. If they want to influence the nature of independence they need to get on the right side of the argument.
This weekend sees the SNP conference where the grassroots are attempting to wrestle control of the NEC away from the Sturgeon cabal. The grassroots movement have lost patience with them. The gloves are off. There is a very real chance that the SNP will implode at a time when independence is gaining ground.
It is a very Scottish trait to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
One thing that unites us is being told what to do by Etonian toffs! The level of disgust at this mob is rivalling Thatcher. Now that takes some doing!
I don’t violently disagree with anything you say, except not to make too much of the internal strife within the movement, a lot is the product of the Twitter bubble.
Secondly, Scots can self sabotage, but vast majority know it’s not about them, and will put their shoulder to the wheel, knowing this is the final shot for the foreseeable. It’s now about our survival, as England drags the rest down the toilet.
Hopefully, not long now. Surgeon must be seeing good private polling, and knows the utter chaos of Brexit is worth even more points, prior to May.
It is not a Scottish trait at all to ‘snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’. British historians for two hundred years saddled us with that kind of defeated stereotype as part of the story that England’s destiny was to absorb lesser breeds unfit to rule themselves. This particular ‘jaws’ stereotype is now supposedly what cripples our football team. ‘Just can’t get it together you see’
The Scots were presented by Oxbridge as plucky losers with a chaotic country constantly snatching defeat etc etc and ripe for civilising. In fact Scotland’s government was consistently pretty stable compared with England’s, remarkably so considering the relentless aggression from England. And if you measure it in terms of the relative number of dynasties and the number of kings murdered by their subjects, England’s history is a bloodbath compared to Scotland’s.
So enough of the defeatism.
Agreed
My worry is that if /when Scotland goes, people like Mogg will want to exact a high price.
I also worry that winding the Scots up like this could affect how rationally they deal with independence. Don’t take the bait is my advice.
How can you take seriously a self identified Roman Catholic who does not even seem to have listened to what Jesus said about the rich and poor?
Rees Mogg is the symptom of a society where money trumps humanity, intelligence, empathy, statesmanship, capability and grace. He has none, and is only there because Pater set him up.
Couldn’t agree more, Pilgrim. I was absolutely gobsmacked to hear this crap. While I wasn’t surprised to see that he thinks this way, it was more than a tad disconcerting to hear him declaim this sort of rubbish publicly.
Is Rees-Mogg being paid by the SNP for this? Highly effective publicity.
Very clever media planning as well, just a few days after the SNP agent Johnson made a similar contribution.
Sshhh! Our agents and able recruiting sergeants should not be endangered in their most excellent work on our behalf.
Here is an interesting newsworthy event in Scotland for the future of the currency debate. Professor DG Blanchflower, past member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, is joining the University of Glasgow (I think as a Visiting Professor), reportedly to look at issues surrounding independence, including a Central Bank and currency options. This appears to have been an invitation inspired by the Principal, Sir Anton Muscatelli, an economist.
I think this is significant. Glasgow University, traditionally a very old, slow moving institution in many ways, under Muscatelli has already embarked on a major £1Bn redevelopment of its core Gilmorehill campus, and recently made a principled acknowledgement of the significance of slavery not just to the 18th century Scottish economy (including some effort to make reparations through higher education in the West Indies), but to the University itself, into the 19th century. The University has in consequence now been awarded the University of the Year, 2020 title for its “sector-leading efforts to tackle modern-day race-based inequalities by addressing uncomfortable truths in its past secured” (Times Higher Education Awards 2020).
I suspect he and I will talk about this
We have a long friendship
I spotted the news of Mr Blanchflower’s appointment in Saturday’s Herald and, in case he wasn’t aware of it, mailed Tim Rideout to alert him to contact Mr Blanchflower and let him know that a great deal of work has already been done on currency in Tim’s http://www.scottishreservebank.scot website. It’s clearly better that DB gets an understanding of where matters of currency planning have reached before he starts his work.
A good move, if I may say; but it would also be a good idea to put Professor Blanchflower in touch with Robin McAlpine, and his currency and monetary team at Common Weal, Craig Dalzell and Peter Ryan.
I hope he will be
It’s morbidly interesting watching this debate over the last decade. I for one would be sad to see Scotland leave the union, however I’d probably vote for independence had I been born north of the border. In regards to JRM, he knows full well who’s jurisdiction this falls under, just like he knew the effects Brexit would have on the population of the UK. I dare say it’s just an extension to his ‘tear it all down to rebuild it’ and get wealthy in the the meantime strategy…
You can, of course, move your permanent home to Scotland, pay Council tax, etc, register on the voters’ roll and you can vote. People born in Scotland who live outwith Scotland do not have a vote.
As a current Scot (though not by birth) one is aware of the growing clamour for independence fuelled by Moggie, BoJo and Mickie. What concerns me is that no one knows what they are getting. A local view is “better a crook in Holyrood than a crook in Westminster” .
Perhaps so. But they will be crooks that Scotland elects, not ones imposed by a foreign country!
Not only will we elect them ourselves, but, more importantly, we will be able to vote them out if they fail to deliver and that’s something we will never be able to do with any Westminster Government.
I think by now the Scots electorate are just a bit more sophisticated than that.
Don’t take this the wrong way BSA but the Scottish electorate had better be more sophisticated.
Scotland has of course loads of qualities that enhance its independent sovereignty – but none is more important that that of having its own currency – an issue amplified since 2008 and with the current pandemic and the way in which the British Government and even the ECB have pretended that there is no such thing as Government money (UK) or that their only role is to prevent inflation ( EU – even during crises!).
Being honest now, how many Scottish voters might realise that? BTW – I hope its a lot of them!
Domestic currency = sovereignty. Simples!
You will know what you’re getting ,and it’s not “different crooks”. We know what SNP stand for, their manifesto for Scottish society.
In 2014, there was an 800 page prospectus for Scottish Independence. We won’t be voting for SNP with indyref2 in their manifesto, without knowing what it will look like. It will look very different to life under Tory austerity Pt 2. They know full well they have to fill in the blanks for voters from last time e.g. Currency.
I’m not a red not SNP fan, but they are head and shoulders above any current political Party today, and Scotland needs out of this corrupt Union, if it’s to survive.
You would think that Ress-Mogg would be pleased that the Catholic Stuarts would have a chance to gain sovereignty over Scotland again.
“Under Labour, our constitution was vandalised” – What?!?
We live in a “constitutional monarchy” that has no written constitution. How could Labour have vandalised a document that doesn’t exist? If this is the result of Eton education then it’s high time their governors sacked the teachers and closed the school down.
It’s not Devolution that’s been a disaster, it’s the economic performance of the UK. It’s very noticeable that Rees Mogg publicly avoids the reality of what has happened to the UK but as usual, his personal actions expose the truth of his duplicity.
The UK Moody’s credit rating has been reduced six time since 1978 when it was AAA (largely due to North Sea oil?) and now stands at Aa3, with most of the reductions happening in quick succession since 2012, a period over which austerity was the key UK government policy/dogma. And this relentless decline is all before Brexit truly kicks in.
No doubt Rees Mogg’s personal investments will do well for him but not for the UK. Gutting Devolution, under the guise of ‘standardising UK wide rules’ would create a situation where no doubt more wealth could flow to him personally. The NHS in Scotland would inevitably be among his main targets to privatise, as has been happening increasingly and for years elsewhere in the UK. The UK Government Covid contracts for chums makes this process quite clear.
As usual, pay attention to what they do not what they say.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jacob-reesmogg-defends-own-firm-after-it-moved-to-dublin-amid-hard-brexit-fears
When the Minister for the 18th century enunciated his “foolish tinkering”, aside taking a swipe at the SNP conference, he was also dashing hopes of Regional devolution in England after years of hard lobbying to emulate the success of Holyrood.
Then consider his timing – During a public health disaster orchestrated by Tories, with corruption scandals with “friends” still ringing in their ears, floating the Austerity Scam yet again, Brexit looming large on the immediate horizon, could he really have chosen a worse time to raise the spectre of further centralisation?
Scottish Independence is only a matter of when and Mogg knows it, I strongly suspect his long-term fear is greater democracy in England, and erosion of Tory influence.
If it is right, as you say, for Scotland to leave the union, why is it wrong for UK to leave the EU?
It is togetherness that the whole world needs – and quickly too!
One reason for Scotland to leave the UK is to be in a better Union – with the EU
I have no doubt that scotland will leave but whether or not its a better union with the eu is open to debate.
Let the scottish people decide for themselves as they did in 2014.
But this time sturgeon must tell them they have to get it right otherwise we will just have to have another scots referendum in a few years time until they do.
Funny that sturgeon comes out with indy ref 2 stuff just as the uk and the eu are midway into end game negotiations ! her timing is brilliant every time.
Oh by the way i hope the scots have loads of fish in their surrounding waters otherwise the eu wont be interested.
LOL
Are you a comedian ?
Mr Underwood,
I am so glad you put up this comment. It speaks so revealingly of what it stands for, and why so many Scots have had enough of such mean-spirited, grudging advice, telling Scots how they should live in their own country; by those, largely who do not live in Scotland, and clearly care little for those they gratuitously choose to lecture.
Please keep digging; I am sure I can find you an even bigger shovel.
“Rees-Mogg is pouring oil on the flames by threatening devolution. Why would he do that?”
Just possibly, he is being deliberately provocative so that Scotland does leave the UK. He and Johnson may have recognised that it might now be unstoppable so they might as well be rid of the SNP in the Westminster parliament so that Tories can rule rUK (with or without N Ireland) with an even greater majority — they hope and believe
…. until sea-level rise floods parliament and
… even richer ministers and their wealthy astoundingly-profligate-carbon-dioxide-emitting friends can enjoy life
… by abandoning this overheated, polluted planet and going to Mars. [It looks as though they have not thought this bit through!]
If if that were Mogg & Johnson’s plan, would it not just be easier for Johnson to say, “Here is your Sec.30! Have it with my blessing. Now GO!” That really would make it crystal clear & we could just start negotiations now, and avoid all the messy when-to-go, what-currency, blah-de-blah-de-blah? Heck, we wouldn’t even have to have a Ref for awhile, just start the process!
Great article, and the comments from across the U.K. on it, are encouraging for this Scot.
The irony is that Rees Mogg’s Catholic ancestors would have fully supported the Jacobite risings in the 18th century. The high Tories on the wrong side of history yet again.
Every time a Tory opens its mouth re Scotland, the Indy movement gets a boost. They are so feart of the Scottish electorate that they dare not hold a public meeting anywhere in the Central belt. They know that their brand has been toxic here since Thatcher. The current shower have no traction out with the BBC and the mainstream media. The old wizened unionists like Andrew Neil and Gordon Brown are being wheeled out to lecture us again that we are too wee, too poor and too stupid to conduct our own affairs.
Carry on Mogg; we just love it when you open yer gub and prove that you haven’t a clue about Scotland.
Soar Alba!!
Thanks!
Interesting discussion and an understanding by most that England and particularly the establishment class and its media have absolutely no understanding of Scotland.
They commit the cardinal political sin of believing their own spin.