There was discussion on the SNP's new strategy for independence on Debate Night last night. The BBC clipped this contribution from me:
“Independence isn't going to happen yet. Because Labour and the Tories are united in their desire to retain Scotland as a colony”
Political economist @RichardJMurphy says Westminster is denying Scotland a referendum, against democratic values #bbcdn https://t.co/VMihf6vgsN pic.twitter.com/LIvTKdGPPD
— BBC Debate Night (@bbcdebatenight) October 18, 2023
As was apparent, this went down well with some in the audience. Some told me so afterwards. I clearly kept some people happy.
As is also clear from Twitter reaction, it did not go down well with everyone. The colonisers do not like being named. It's a characteristic of the breed.
I am happy with the choice of language and the provocation implicit in it.
I hope the SNP rises to the challenge. It will have to change a lot of its thinking to do so, from abandoning neoliberalism to embracing a Scottish currency straight after independence, if it is to do so.
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It has been suggested, and it might be worth looking at, is that given the crisis that led Scotland to join the union there is some sort of ‘national obsession’ with sterling rather in the same way that Germany has a great fear of inflation.
There may be
The SNP ha to address it
There is no obsession with the GB£. In our Panelbase poll 59% were strongly or moderately in favour of our own currency asap.
What there is, is a determination to keep our Scottish pound bank notes as these are a symbol of Scottish identity and that it is not England.
I used to have a guest house in York for 10 years, and we had lots of Scottish people staying, often coming on the train from Edinburgh.
I would accept all notes, Bank of Scotland and RBS. But I discovered that various shops in York would not take Scottish notes, saying they were not legal tender.
If guests told me that, I would swap Bank of England notes for Scottish notes and spend them in York shops. If anybody told me they were not legal tender I would ask if Scotland was part of Britain. I would say if they wanted Scotland to remain part of Britain they should accept their banknotes, and they definitely were legal tender.
My bank then was RBS! Probably should have been Yorkshire, although I believe the Yorkshire Bank is now owned by an Australian bank which merged with Virgin.
Hard to keep on top of these things.
Yes, in spite of views to the contrary; Sterling is fundamental to the hold the Union has in Scotland. It has been since the genius of the Bank of England, William Paterson (who also made the Darien blunder), used Sterling to ensure the Union happened; creating with David Gregory the first real application of mathematical present values in international banking (the Equivalent), and compensating the Darien investors for their losses. Dr Rideout insists to the contrary, but the reliance on public opinion is oversold. The most influential voice in Scotland is money, and money is Sterling. Wishing doesn’t change it. Shuffling around talking public opinion isn’t going to fix it. They have to build confidence in their solution, not assume it. It doesn’t exist, and worse, is scarcely even discussed. It is the elephant in the room. By all means ignore my opinion; but the fact is you are stuck in independence purgatory, because the drive for it isn’t active; even in the mess we a re in. Sterling is the reason. Fix that and it can be done.
I discuss this in my article in The National today
@John S Warren
This is dense, interesting stuff.
Opportunity for an independent explanatory blog perhaps?!
Please
Eh, I assume that request is actually directed at Richard regarding his ‘National’ piece?
Confused.co.uk
Is it?
I thought it as directed to you John
I looked at the broadcast, all of it. Tory1 & Tory2 were reading from a script – calling them ciphers hardly does them justice. I also sensed that there was an unwillingness to confront the elephant in the room: money & BoE/Treasury control of it – by all parties Tory1, Tory2 & ToryT (Tartan tories). However, this reflects the political grooming that the representatives of the 3 parties have gone through (& they would not be sitting on those seats – were they not loyal apparatchitks). As per usual, much of the audience were somewhat more radical than the politicos – who were bland & said nothing – they conveyed no information.
The Labour and Tory reps were terrified of putting a foot wring, I think
I found it staggering: they have put all that effort into becoming politicians to become glove puppets.
Too many of our politicians are accomplished liars – corporate lackeys or hostages to ‘political advisors’ traipsing out lies because it s beats real work – whatever of that is actually left.
I have read many of the comments and some being abusive towards you should stop and think what they can lead up to.
It is very interesting to hear these people doing the same thing towards the SNP are they so unaware that when independence comes there will be an election and the people will have a vote to form a government and the parties standing will have to be registered as a Scottish party not an offshoot of London parties.
Thank you Richard.
Thanks
Abuse comes from doing such things – and it probably always has
I canvassed throughout the lead up to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, and while I agree with your opinion about a Scottish currency Richard, it very rarely came up in doorstep discussions. Whether this has now changed I don’t know, but I agree it’s a very important point, and will have to be addressed.
Agreed
Colonisation can have different meanings. Colonisation does not just mean a transfer of people from one place to another. It is also about who has control. And the England-Scotland relationship does not have shared control or equal status of power. Clearly one side has the final say and only provides a limited form of having a say to the other. Scotland outsourced their politics to the mother of parliaments. As demonstrated by the 2 largest UK political parties, Westminster has the control of Scotland’s political destiny and not Scotland. ‘The English’ might not like to see it that way, but what else is it?
Precisely
Being more concerned with Wales, I have had several arguments where the colony observation goes down badly, principally with Tory incomers. You are absolutely correct.
Always the Tories…
The unionist side made a good point – right now the major political voice for independence is the SNP, and with all that goes on in the party the SNP often does the independence cause no favours.
Recently there has been a rise in alternative voices for independence – increasing support for the Greens for example. If the SNP really care most about independence I wonder if it might be time for them to step aside or reform and allow a wider range of smaller pro-independence parties which might actually drive the conversation forwards. As it is, if they remain the de facto choice of political party for pro-independence voters, they are guaranteed votes regardless of what they do, and so they don’t really have any incentive to do treat the issue seriously.
You might want to read my article in The National today
I have thought for a long time that the first thing that would happen after a vote for independence is that the SNP would split, and this would be a good thing. Unfortunately, if it happens sooner, under first past the post the result would likely be a lot more unionist MP’s from Scotland. Conversely, under the Scottish electoral system, there would probably be more pro-independence MSPs at Holyrood. I sometimes wonder if elected SNP politicians think the same, and do not want to risk their nice well paid jobs…..
On the currency issue I remember being surprised to see a poll before the 2014 referendum that said a majority of Scots favoured having their own currency. You are right, the SNP need to change their attitude on this.
I watched that this morning. Very well done, Richard. And BTW it’s much better than QT which I have stopped watching in order to keep my blood pressure down.
I also watched last night a programme I recorded on Monday “Britain’s Housing Crisis: What Went Wrong”.
The latter showed that one of the restraints on building more houses is that developers rely on the inevitable increase in the price of property to bolster their profits, and therefore have a vested interest in not building too many, which I am sure is the case.
To me, having been involved with helping what Professor Standing calls the precariat, another very big factor is the lack of building of social housing. One person I was assisting actually couldn’t rent anywhere even though she had around £135,000 in the bank because she had only a small income from three pensions, including the state one, which meant she did not meet the criteria set by letting agents. They would not even accept an income from an annuity which I could easily have arranged with her cash holding. Worse, she had too much to qualify for council or housing association properties. Even when we did go to look at a property available to rent there were at least 10 other people on the agent’s list and they always gave preference to young couples in stable employment. My client was in her late seventies and single. In the end I helped her to buy a retirement apartment for cash.
In the fifties my father was a well-paid local goverment lawyer, and chose to rent a council house, intending to buy with his retirement lump sum, which he had no difficulty in doing (albeit maybe pulling a few strings). But after Thatcher a huge amout of the council housing stock was sold off and the local authorities were not allowed to replace them. I even bought one myself. Today, housing lists are extremely long (at least two years here).
We really do need to get back to the fifties when anybody can rent a council house should they wish. That was not addressed in Monday’s programme, but there is a second episode next week which may do.
Not sure I agree with that idea.
To us, living in a council house was taking away from people who could not afford to buy. My husband was an architect and we twice moved into council housing when he got jobs with the council. We rented for six months each time as we had moved to areas we did not know. But we knew we could afford to buy a house, so we did.
And nothing I say would change any of that.
Have you understood what I am suggesting?
It is a charge only when the last surviving spouse ceases to use a home. What is wrong with that?
Was that a reply to my comment? I was saying I don’t agree to people living in council houses when they can afford to buy a house, as Nigel Hargreaves father did in the 50s.
Sorry
I got the total wrong end of the stick!
It was different in the fifties. There were plenty of council houses and it was an available choice. I would agree with what you, Jenw, are saying if my father had been depriving someone else of a council house when he could perfectly easily have afforded to buy, but he wasn’t. The trouble was that when he got his pension lump sum it wasn’t nearly enough to be able to buy a house. So more fool him as it turned out. My uncle, who was on the same grade as my father, did buy in the fifties and when he retired he had a tidy sum that he was literally sitting in plus the lump sum. After he died his sisters sold it for £115,000.
I would add that in the late forties and fifties council estates were going up everywhere, so there is no earthly reason why a government that issues its own currency could not be doing it now. That isn’t part of the political dialogue. They expect the private sector to fill the gap, which they won’t do when there are profits to be made from keeping housing scarce.
Nigel, you said your father was a well-paid local government lawyer, but he chose to rent a council house. My parents bought their own house in the late 40s. My dad was a bus driver and my mother was a nurse. Not well-paid, but they could not get on the council list despite Hull being the second worst hit city during the war. I don’t accept your reasoning.
Jenw. I possibly concede. I did say that my father may have pulled a few strings. It was 1948 when we move into that estate, and I really don’t know what the housing list was like in those days where we lived in Taunton. I was only 5. I’ve no doubt it was considerably worse in areas that had suffered from the devastation of the Lufwaffe, which we had largely escaped. A few years later we moved to a privately rented house in a very much more select area of the town.
But I do still say that today councils should be providing adequate housing to anyone who wants it irrespective of their race, creed or income. Social housing has to be rationed simply because there isn’t enough of it.
Prof. Alf Baird has shown in his book “Doun-Hauden” that while Scotland may not be officially a colony it ticks almost all the boxes on how the United Nations defines a colony. (And the UN is largely made up of ex colonies!) Colonial status is not confined to political control and lack of self-determination but also impacts on things such as suppression of language and culture and the existence of institutions dominated by outsiders or people who have accepted outsiders’ way of thinking.
Correct
And colonists do not like being called out
90% of the twitter feedback is hostile towards you re the Colony term. i would “put that to bed” Richard or it will stick and haunt you in Scotland .
You mean you think I should listen to the To9ry trolls? No way!
I don’t think it is Tories objecting on the Scotland debate website it it seems mainly Scots ridiculing the notion they live in a colony..
Nationalists think they do
So, it’s Tories and Labour doing that
Which are you?
“Nationalists think they do”
Well some might but probably a small minority. Most i’ve spoken to today thin the Colony notion is absurd. Still you got some attention albeit many now view you as a bit strange i fear.
Politely, I think you have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about.
Your posts also have all the classic troll qualities as if to confirm that.
I wouldn’t bother to call again.
Richard, thank you for being brave enough to speak up on behalf of Scotland, which is WITHOUT DOUBT, an English colony.
Were we genuinely in a “union of equals” (Yeah right!) we’d have no difficulty in holding another referendum on independence with or without the permission of our imperial masters in Westminster.
Our country was sold by the “parcel of rogues in a nation”. As If that wasn’t bad enough our language and culture has been ridiculed to the point where a lot of our people have found life easier if they tone down their Scottishness.
If Scots understood more about their history we’d be independent by now.
We are not too wee, too poor and too stupid. We are big enough, smart enough and we’ve had enough.
Right then. I’m off for a lie down 😉
Thanks
That is because Scotland is the only country that voluntarily had a vote (not a referendum!) to join the Union. Then, making ‘siller’ on an un-dreamed of scale out of an empire fuelled by a colonial economy built on slavery; gradually allowed the vast amount of political freedom for Scotland retained under the Treaty as originally interpreted, by everyone (including Parliament), gradually allowed that freedom drain to Westminster and dissolve slowly, by unnoticed increments; into quasi-colonial status.
Britain cannot afford to let Scotland go, that is the unmentionable truth lurking behind the condescension of Unionists; the trade surplus, energy, resource and political leverage lost in the global world by Scotland’s departure is simply unacceptable to a Parliament confronted by Britain’s insurmountable decline refuses to contemplate the nightmare of abandonment by its defining partner; and the PM responsible will, beyond doubt sink beneath Lord North and Neville Chamberlain in the pantheon of guilty men.
Quote – That is because Scotland is the only country that voluntarily had a vote (not a referendum!) to join the Union.
When did this vote take place John?
A long form post on this is coming soon from John.
Unfortunately it has taken far too long for people to realise that they are in what constitutes a colony , if investigated properly I think the evidence would show that the people who object to this characterisation or who refuse to look at the breakdown of the meaning of colony would fall into the British first mentality rather than Scottish first , which would naturally encompass the tories and lib dumb voters , liebour voters are much more of a puzzle , normal working class people should be more able to recognise that capitalism is a bed fellow of colonialism and should identify Scotland’s subservience as being forced
Scotland as a colony thought has gained more prominence and publicity through the great works and words of Professor Alfred Baird in his Doon Hauden book
That Scotland is a colony just shows how we in Scotland have and still are being betrayed by all politicians and their respective parties in Scotland , the unionist parties should be despised for enabling Scotland’s vast resources to be stolen and utilised for the benefit of others whilst our own people suffer hunger cold and poverty
The supposed independence parties and their politicians should be despised for not highlighting the egregious position we have been in for centuries and for NOT utilising the Sovereign right of Scots to determine their own future , to BEG for a sect 30 agreement , which is NOT permission for a referendum but is simply an agreement to honour the outcome of said referendum indicates the cowardice endemic within the vichy Scottish pretend parliament
Doon Hauden.
I’m nearly half way through it now.
It backs up my own “lived experience“ that we are indeed an English colony and that “the Scottish cringe” has been “educated” into us. It’s taken me many years to work that out.
To understand the United Kingdom, the series by the historian David Olugosa current airing on BBC 1 is to be greatly recommended. The whole series is available on IPlayer.
He tells how the Act of Union was voted through by the Scottish Parliament, and that the members of that parliament were elected by a tiny minority of the population who were the big land owners. Its purpose was to get access to Enland’s colonies, particulary in North America. One of the architects of the Bank of England left after only a year and started up a company in Scotland which raised (Sterling) money to found New Caledonia. The Union was all in the interests of the lairds, not the people as a whole. When the people rose up in the Jacobite Rebellion it was brutally crushed by the English army.
As for Ireland it is an even sorrier tale, in episode 3, which I watched last night.
John Warren will be addressing all this here, soon
John and Richard there has been an interminably long argument NOT discussion over on Wings Over Scotland re the colonised argument , the opposition to the premise consists of what I would consider to be unionists and tories not necessarily the same thing , their arguments always refer to the brutalisation of other countries who sought freedom from their oppressors so ergo Scotland isn’t colonised
Over on Yours For Scotland there doesn’t appear to be any dissenters but that maybe down to Iain Lawson the blog owner and official of SALVO , SSRG and Liberation.Scot unwilling to entertain the spurious ramblings of the unionists
Professor Alf Baird wrote many posts on Yours For Scotland explaining what the cringe consists of and how it has been and still is used to keep the peasants in ignorance , but the good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of their REAL POWER and are so disillusioned and outraged at the standard and calibre of politicians that change must come , Prof Baird along with a Scottish Australian ship and ferry designer proposed plans for ferries whose designs and capability would have saved Scottish taxpayers £millions of pounds and HUGE EMBARRASSMENT but the narcissist and incompetent Sturgeon repeatedly ignored them
I know Stuart Campbell and his Wings site, bur readily admit I do not share his or its approach. But he has an appeal to some, undoubtedly.