In the world we now live in, the crazy is possible, and I'm suggesting that we need to prepare for it.
This is the audio version:
And this is the transcript:
Will Trump go for Scotland next?
I've already noted, and the whole world has noted, that Trump is trying to seduce the people of Canada so that they become the 51st state of the USA.
He's threatening Panama with military action if they don't give him the Panama Canal.
And he's threatening Denmark with military action if they don't give him Greenland.
Trump has expansionist plans. But once a megalomaniac has got such plans, and when he's begun to succeed - and I suspect that he will in some way succeed in some of these claims, which really worries me - he won't stop there.
He won't even stop there before he succeeds. Once he's begun the process of demanding more economic room for the USA, as he would put it, he will increase his demands made to other countries. And I happen to think that one of the next places that he will demand for the USA is Scotland.
This might sound absurd, but I'm not quite sure it is. Trump, like most people in the USA, has remarkably little experience of travel outside that country. In the case of Trump, the place that he would appear to have travelled to most often is Scotland because he likes to claim it is the land of his forebears. He has golf courses there, and what else matters in the world as far as Trump is concerned? This is a place that he thinks is in some way his own.
And what he will have noticed is that, like Greenland, Scotland has enormous economic potential.
The economic potential of Greenland is realised if climate change happens. Once the ice recedes, there are minerals there that could be mined, which Trump wants to get his hands on. That is what motivates his demand for change of its ownership.
And when he looks at Scotland, he'll notice things like its enormous potential energy generating capacity, whether it be tidal, or wind, or hydro, or whatever, Scotland is the energy hub of Europe from now on. And it also has another resource which England is going to be desperate for, which is clean water, in quantities that England simply cannot replicate. So, Scotland is an economic powerhouse of the future, particularly as climate change gets worse. And I believe, for that reason, that Trump will see in Scotland something that is very close to the situation in Greenland, plus one other thing.
Scotland is a nuclear base. It is, at Faslane, the place where the UK currently keeps its nuclear submarines. But I have a very strong suspicion that Trump will realise that an independent Scotland will threaten that, and therefore, he will want to circumvent that risk by claiming Scotland for himself and keeping a nuclear base in Scotland in perpetuity.
He will claim it's for security reasons. I would beg to differ. As some people who watch this channel will know, I write a column for the National Newspaper in Scotland, and I put forward this idea that Scotland might be the next country that Trump tries to buy in a column in that newspaper very recently. And I think it's entirely possible.
And I also think it's entirely possible that England might sell. You've only got to imagine something which is now within the realms of possibility, which is Farage in Downing Street. And Farage in Downing Street with an economic crisis on his hands, which is very likely, because Farage is incompetent and Trump is going to create an economic crisis.
Suppose Farage desperately needs to convince his supporters that he is doing the best for them. And remember, his supporters are in England. Scotland really doesn't like him. So, what will he do? He will say to Trump, here you are, have Scotland. Give us sufficient billions in dollars, and it's all yours.
Do I think that is a plausible situation? Yes, I do, in a world where Trump is creating this new idea that territories can be bought and sold at the whim of the USA. Now, it might be economic fantasy - it might be political economic fantasy - to discuss this, but we are living in a world that is so absurd that we have to think about what might be on the agenda of somebody who I think is frankly out of control.
And I don't dismiss this as a possibility, as something which might be on his agenda. Scotland up for sale to Trump? Why wouldn't he want it?
What do the Scottish people think? Farage wouldn't care, and nor would Trump.
And that's why Scotland needs to think about this. And indeed, that's why people who believe in the Union within the UK need to think about this.
I don't believe in the Union. I do think Scotland should be independent. But what I am certain of is that wherever you stand on that issue, if you believe in the right of Scotland to choose for itself, this is the moment to think about how that's best achieved. Because I believe a right-wing alliance between Trump, or his heirs in Washington, and Farage, or frankly, the far-right Tories in the UK, could give rise to a situation where Trump demands Scotland, and London is willing to give it.
You heard it here first, and I might be completely wrong, but in the world we live in, the crazy is now possible. And I'm preparing for it.
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But England tells us Scots, ad nauseam, that Scotland can’t possibly go it alone as we are subsidised by England. If that’s the case, then England must be wealthier than Scotland and it’s England which will be in Tangerine Man’s sights.
So has England been lying to us? Surely not?
Faslane not “Fastlane”.
I will edit
That is a transcription error
The reason why Scots can’t go it alone is because a majority of Scots won’t vote for it.
Here’s a fun exercise though – work out what price Scots would be willing to be offered to swing a referendum in favour of independence. I reckon it could be as little as £1bn (calculation available on request to the pendant blog), but you may think it would be significantly more.
Unfortunately Scottish water isn’t monitored for cleanliness as much as it could be and there are problems similar to England
https://www.edinburghinquirer.co.uk/p/the-dirty-truth-about-e-coli-in-the
@ el Deco,
Scotland has 90% of Great Britain’s fresh water and 9% (1/11) of the population: ~100 times the volume per capita. Most of it remote from population centres, industry or industrial agriculture.
Without challenging the veracity of the claims mafe, in your link, I don’t see how issues at a saltwater estuary adjacent to a major city has much relevance to a discussion of freshwater resources.
Looks, to me, you’re just having a pop at Scottish Water and, therefore by extension, the Scottish Government too.
The relevance of your comment is very hard to work out.
I think the relevance of Drew’s comment is easy to work out. England only needs fresh water – they have more than enough salty stuff than they need, polluted or not, so el Deco’s (alias) intervention is irrelevant. I question why el Deco’s assertion is not backed up by a source other than a digital publication just seven months old, and run by three Journos who used to work for Scotsman Publications – one of whom is the ex-editor of the Edinburgh Evening News. Scotsman Publications is Scotland’s premier supporter of Unionism (aside from the 26 English-based papers to which we are subjected). Up here, we are so used to ‘Scotland bad’ propaganda that it hardly causes comment, but the widespread reach of your addictive blog means that such blatant misdirection by trolls can’t be left unanswered. You can’t catch them all yourself.
@ Richard,
I was pointing out that Scottish Water has a much greater job on its hands, than that of any water company in England and Wales. Not only that, but it has to manage 9x the volume of water (and a similar proportion of waterways) to all the companies in England and Wales combined.
References to lack of testing are a common misdirection tactic, because lack of data means doubt. That doubt can be used, as el Deco does here, to insinuate that Scotland may have “similar” water quality issues to England and Wales. But to scale up the level of testing, to anything like those of E&W, would be an enormously expensive, time-consuming task, when the resources would be better deployed doing what they’re currently doing; which is:
– charging less than anywhere in E&W for domestic water.
– investing 15% more, per capita, in infrastructure upgrades.
– not threatening an approximately ⅓ hike in bills, to kick-start an investment programme that they’ve avoided, in order to prioritise shareholder dividends.
As Alan Laird points out, “Scotlandbad” propaganda is commonplace up here. The link used has absolutely nothing to do with freshwater resources; it is being employed to misdirect. Portobello is on the coast, it is not adjacent to a body of fresh water. It is also only a couple of miles east of Edinburgh’s major sewage works; which can, and does, get overwhelmed in very heavy rainfall. It, obviously, would be better if spills didn’t happen; but they are spills, not deliberate releases as used by cynical operators in E&W to save money.
Noted
Thanks
Portobello beach has been an issue but it is seawater !
Scotland’s rivers are not tested as much as England’s because they don’t need to be. Possibly because Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Do a bit more research.
I think that is a little naive. It would be odd to assume a state enterprise cannot pollute.
Unable to reply to Richard @ 7.11pm as there’s no Reply option.
With regard to water, its quality and testing in Scotland is concerned, as Drew Anderson @ 10.43 am has already pointed out, there are vast tracts of unspoiled land in Scotland where there is no industry, agriculture or towns and cities to cause water pollution in the first place.
Scottish Water, which is publicly owned, provides most households with their domestic water supply and, on the whole, does a very good job of it.
That does not, however, mean that there are no problems but nothing on the scale to that which plagues England’s rivers and sea and which is reported at great length in the media.
It’s a complete mystery to me that England endures endless floods, does nothing to catch that water in reservoirs but allows it to run to the sea polluting it – often intentionally (by private water companies) – en route.
PM Johnson said Scotland should provide water via canals to England; of course, he did. Why do anything to help yourselves when you can snaffle another country’s resources.
@ A C Bruce,
No doubt Scottish Water could, maybe even should, be doing better.
But, managing 90% of the mainland’s water on lower charges, with greater per capita investment levels, suggests they could be doing much, much worse.
Loch Ness, alone, has more fresh water than in all of England and Wales. To put things into perspective, if Scottish Water put in an intensive testing regime there, it would be testing more water than all of E&W. It would achieve absolutely nothing, because the Unionist trolls would still be able to claim testing percentages are still in single figures.
Intimidation Bullying takes many forms. Currently the world is seeing it in the form of the yobbish behabiour of Trump and Musk but it makes sense to recognise it is a built in feature of private enterprise capitalism which is aided by corrupt and/or incompetent politicians.
The issue of energy generation in the UK is a classic case. It is very obvious that the UK needs to catch up rapidly with other European countries in terms of storage capacity for electricity generated by renewables yet we have a Labour government that can’t even recognise the simplest of concepts that the government can simply create money for such storage capacity investment with a few key strokes on a computer despite this knowledge being brought to the fore nearly fifteen years ago in regard to rescuing economies from the Great Financial Crash of 2007/2008:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiCs_YHlKSI
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-bills-gas-electricity-renewables-b2672760.html
Given this country’s lead in being the first to develop an Industrial Revolution through our exploitation of our native energy supplies you might have thought our politicians would have this at the forefront of their thinking and leave no stone unturned as to how we can rapidly fund an affordable energy supply without decimating other aspects of our national well-being.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/01/10/when-was-growth/
Yes, it sounds absurd, but very right to ponder it. Thanks.
Paul Rogers in his Open Democracy column has a similar take here on George W Bush and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). As always, Paul Rogers in Open Democracy is well worth a read:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-buy-greenland-panama-us-neocon-war-on-terror/
You may have heard of Phil Moorhouse, the Labour YouTube commentator. I find some of his daily comments on political news interesting (especially (as a pro-European myself) his pro-European take on Labour’s current strategy – which in his words ‘they are doing all the right things’ (which I am certainly not convinced of!)), and I join the live comments on his Saturday politics discussion.
I joined last night, and the discussion (in the comments bar) got onto Reeves and a defence of what she is doing, and I mentioned that: ‘Reeves needs to go and be replaced by John McDonnell, but McSweeney would rather have Liz Truss as chancellor!’ and the opprobrium I received was something else. When I mentioned Corbyn, one response was: ‘two election defeats’, I responded with: ‘as if 2017 never happened – that election was meant to crush Labour by May’. After the Reeves comments, I promoted your work and commented: ‘Richard Murphy is the person to listen to on economics’, but apparently according to the comments you have to be a ‘professor in economics’ (and not accounting) to be qualified to comment on economics. Very, very pathetic.
It is the last time I comment (or even look at the comments) on that discussion forum. Infuriating Labour Together/McSweeney nonsense.
Sometimes those of us on the left, need to monitor what’s happening in the ‘centre (right)’, but I’m done with engaging with it!
Labour is very antagonistic to me
But then, I am to it
The least one could have hoped for was an internal dialogue in the LP. What we got when Corbyn resigned was a charade camouflaging a coup. McSweeney has family ties with Fine Gael which is not known for its leftist policies. He picked the wrong candidate, Kendall, to push in the leadership election. Starmer probably looks on him as Labour`s Cummings. Starmer patently couldn`t run a whelk stall (whatever that is), as reports about his constituency office have suggested. What I`d like to ask is, what is the objective of the Labour government? The only changes in a very swift 6 months have been very retrograde, one might almost say `Tory`, and I fear that we are looking at the predicted premature deaths of some thousands of people over the current spell of cold weather.
To Mr Griffin, I`d like to say that at least 2 papers have published pictures of Corbyn over the last 2 days, so he hasn`t been completely vanished! But how can we promote humanism and decency in the days of Trump, when we should be able to discuss Palestine and Ukraine and Africa. The trouble is, the press is so accomplished in its manipulation that any topic is out-of -date as soon as it is raised, therefore of no value. The same applies to TV `news`, 3 topics and a cat story.
So, we are rather over a barrel. Mass political meetings are subject to state oversight and biassed banning. Leftist participation in LP voting is disallowed.
Which is all to say that the Right are exerting all their considerable powers to sit on the Left, because they are very scared, they nearly lost in 2017. Corbyn`s manifesto then was very powerful, and was seen as a Good Thing by many who were asked after the election: those same people condemned him as a revolutionary firebrand. Such is the power of propaganda.
We have to get our own propaganda in there, how that can be done I don`t know. I do know that the post-war election which elevated Attlee was accomplished by the efforts of many humanitarians in the forces, and the compliance of many officers, necessarily not aristocratic by that time.
Certainly, the `adults` are not in charge. There is not an adult in the whole of the LP who hasn`t been ejected. The sadness is that there can be no contact between the citizen and the representative. The whole thing is a scheme. Suggestions welcome.
Sorry, too late tonight. I am fading out by now. Others?
And Phil Moorhouse last night mentioned that ‘Scotland could never leave the UK as there is no ‘exit mechanism”. Which is true in one sense, that there is no exit mechanism written into the constitution because the UK doesn’t have a written constitution!
On the contrary, all it needs is for Westminster to grant an indy referendum – Section 30 agreement – through a simple act of parliament like in 2012.
Scotland (unlike just about every other country) can leave, if Westminster grants Holyrood a S30 to hold a referendum, and that referendum is won.
Phil Moorhouse is not an expert on these things!
Obviously not
Westminster will never grant Scotland another referendum. That is why Salvo and Liberation are working on alternative means such as a Universal Declaration of Independence (UDI).
Independence is not there to be granted, but to be taken (by peaceful means).
Thought provoking. Whether or not this happens, many thanks for highlighting the energy, and other potential attributes, of my country.
Are there people in Scotland who will encourage him or give him a foothold as there seems to be in England (I profess not to know)?
Some canny Scots might know when any form of imperialism benefits them or not, what to tolerate and not what to tolerate – they will have a limit.
Is Scotland England’s to sell?
When you ‘flood the zone with shit’ as Trump and his henchman are doing, anything might be possible and nothing. It could just be big talk to which the questions arises ‘What are they really up to?’. Its blitzkrieg isn’t it all over again and it all starts with the information exchange systems first which are now much faster and have more reach than they did on the 1930s/40s.
No, England cannot sell Scotland, as Westminster does not own it! The Treaty of Union is International Treaty between 2 equal Nations, not a British Domestic legal document, although our own politicians choose to ignore this fact!
Do you really think that would worry Farage or Trump?
Richard,
My personal view is that as I am English I wont take a position on Scottish independence.
BUT I am married to a Scot and before that was much involved with an English based Scottish run ship which gives me an insight into the difference between English and Scottish thought, and my conclusion that it wont be the Nationalists that will win the argument for Independence but The Unionists who will lose it.
I suggest that were Farage to offer Scotland to Trump then all hell would break loose both sides of the border, the English would feel humiliated and the Scots outraged which might mean a run on Pitchforks.
Its possible there could be a more subtle variant of your proposal but I dont see it playing well anywhere in the Union for different reasons.
Might I also add what about Wales? It already exports water to England and its much closer to the major centres of population in England than most of Scotland the infrastructure is in place and the energy costs of pumping would be much less
I think you may well be right about the consequences of such a suggestion, but since when did Trump think such things through?
The Scots were never much into pitchforks – Scots preferred Claymores.
Despite what certain people in England may care to think, Scotland is simply not England’s to sell.
I know that
You know that
Most in England would happily sell
Certain people, absolutely. The same people that casually and even gleefully auction off the rights and future prospects of ALL working-class people for their own short-term gain. Many of them might ostensibly be English, but that is certainly not exclusively so. The interests at work here are truly international in their focus and have no respect for the nation state except as a device for creating distraction and suppressing dissent.
To say that most English people (i.e. the ones who are themselves colonial subjects) are willingly complicit in this proprietorial attitude towards Scotland seems a little harsh. But perhaps I’ve just been lucky in my experiences.
Looking at what happened as the US expanded its not as odd an idea as it initially sounds
Wouldn’t Scotland being sold to Trump’s USA by England make us Scots slaves?
Maybe…
In the land of the free, as defined by Trump
Sold into slavery twice in not much more than 300 years. Firstly, by the personally bankrupt group known as the ‘Parcel of Rogues’ and the second time by the country we were sold to.
That’s a pretty tiresome thought.
Given the amount of lies fed to the British public about Scotland, that is very true Richard.
I have had a similar disturbing thought myself, and as someone who lives in Scotland I found it very disturbing. But in the cold light of day I do think it is very unlikely. Trump has been saying a lot recently, talk is cheap it will be very difficult for him to act on everything. I doubt much of it will happen, with the exception of trade tariffs I can’t see Trump doing anything. These trade tariffs will hurt everyone, but none more than ordinary Americans that may cause his own voters to turn against him quickly. It has to be remembered Trump is salesman and a bully, people who like a lot of talk but often don’t deliver on that talk. He will take one or two actions, so he can point out that he is doing something. But it will be impossible for him to do everything he is claiming he will. Those who run political communications, along with those in corporate marketing and many real of the media, understand Freudian psychology. They know that populations can be viewed as being made up of individuals who are bundles or irrational emotions and constantly use that to feed a narrative that creates hysterical reactions. What ever he is saying now I suspect it will change after the inauguration. It will still be highly offensive delusional nonsense, but it will be different highly offensive delusional nonsense.
The things I will be watching for after the inauguration, are:
– Executive orders (not the “outrageous” ones, but the ones that actually change things.
– Tariffs. Will he follow through his threats? If he does, he will lose a lot of support, because it will raise prices, but of course that may not bother him.
– Troops. What will he ask the military to do, at home and abroad? He’s not a warmonger, with regard to invasions – will that continue (leaving Greenland, Canada and Panama on one side)? Will he try to use troops in an illegal way at home? How will the military respond (both top brass and other ranks)? I think Trump prefers to fight with US money rather than US troops.
Another unknown is how long might he be in office (the men in white coats could take him away, he could die, of natural causes or unnatural ones, he could be impeached & replaced by fellow Republicans). Or he might declare himself President for life and dismiss Congress.
The predictable thing is that he is unpredictable.
Meanwhile, the best thing OUR government could do would be to realise that they have the capacity, and the responsibility to GOVERN the UK by investing in the areas that need (and can respond to) significant cash injection from HMG. That is the most powerful way to disempower Fa***e in this country.
I agree it is looking at what is going on in the background that is actually important after he is inaugurated. But he will still be spouting lots of nonsense, he or the people advising him understand the power of distraction.
I also agree that it is possible for our government to be doing much more, but I suspect the current lot are too blinded by neoliberal dogma to be of any use to anyone other than the super-rich.
Please, no more talk of a “referendum” to settle the future of Scotland (or Irish reunification) My good friend Peter Emerson, founder of the De Borda Institute, has pointed out on many occasions that the typical referendum with only two outcomes “yeah or nay” is a form of majoritarianism which inevitably solves nothing, leaving a discontented” minority… and endless squabbling.
Interesting thought there TonyW.
Surely the nature of Richard’s blog is in seeking solutions by discussion. You will know that a referendum at seven years (or above) is written in to the good Friday agreement and to deny this would provoke, without fail, renewed violence on the ground, and international condemnation, maybe even sanctions, by the international community.
But surely you have an alternative to offer should a 50% plus one wish for reunification (the North of Ireland partition), or Independence (the Scottish Nation).
Then that would be domination of the majority by the minority. You surely don’t mean that?
Perhaps bloody insurrection is your preference rather than to ask the question?
Thanks for addressing this. I should have done, but was busy.
As you say, Mr Laird: The task is to “[seek] solutions by discussion”. Strangely, you wish to ask me for a solution to the problem of a two outcome referendum by resort to heavy and rather impolite sarcasm. It appears to me that you have not followed up my suggestion to follow the De Borda institute’s more thorough study of binary referenda and their outcomes. And do some thinking.
If it’s a matter of “Where shall we have the next office party?” then perhaps two options are enough. Political decisions require (as you say) discussions of the implications of the possible outcomes.
There is currently a big justification PR being run by Labour, and I’ve noticed on BlueSky that trolls are appearing, uttering BS. I offered some fact-checked points and was accused of lying, being deluded, a Corbyn supporter, etc. Going by that and the PR pushed via some media and some MPs, the Corbyn era is being white-washed from history. Dissenting voices are marginalised, and basic morality ignored. “Shut up, sit down, the adults are in charge” ..oh no they’re not!
What an interesting thought. Playing devils advocate as a Scot who supports independence, would it really be worse than being part of the UK? Under the federal model, the US states seem to have more freedom from the central government, surely that would almost be best of both worlds, semi independent but also part of the worlds biggest economy?
I think it would be catastrophic, just as Greenland views the idea.
@P
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/12/will-trump-go-for-scotland-next/comment-page-1/#comment-1001785
(No reply button on the post itself )
Starmer’s government is oppressing the country in EXACTLY the same way Starmer & his supporters undermined Corbyn, ousted him, then took over the Labour Party with a mixture of lies, smears, insincere promises, underhand tactics, authoritarian central control and harsh punishment of dissent.
The style (and incompetent authoritarian dishonesty of his premiership) should be absolutely NO surprise to any active Labour Party member following events from 2015-2020.
I’m v angry about it, but surprised? Not one bit. This is what I expected. We had plenty of warnings, but no one paid any attention (accusations of being Tory enablers. Corbyn cultists, antisemites, Putin apologists, fantasists, Trots – all grist to the Starmer mill).
The idea of Scotland being ‘up for sale’ is wild but oddly fitting in today’s geopolitical climate. Do you think an independent Scotland would be more or less vulnerable to these types of scenarios, particularly if it gained control over its energy resources? It’s fascinating to think about how independence could both protect and expose Scotland in different ways.
An independent Scotland would never put itself up for sale. Who would sell it, for a start?
If we are talking about the theatre of the absurd…. so Trump Jr rushes off to Greenland, and today I read that Trump Jr accuses Californian government of sending most of its precious firefighting equipment to Ukraine, (which of course sets up the nice argument that “The fires are out of control because of Ukraine so defund their defence”).
With Trump Jr heading for more limelight , my absurd thought is are the Trumps aiming for a Dynastic Dictatorship ?
A route to independence from Respect Scottish Sovereignty, published yesterday on Bella Caledonia: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/01/12/respect-scottish-sovereignty/
Here’s the text:
It is widely acknowledged that the Scottish People are sovereign, which means that they are the highest legal and constitutional authority in Scotland, so why is it that we seem to be bogged down with “legal” red tape which prevents the Scottish people from using that authority.
The answer to that is simple, although it is hidden in a man-made smoke screen designed to mislead and confuse the Scottish people, and most importantly to stop them from having a voice.
One example of that is the recently invented so-called UK Supreme Court. This is not as described a UK court, because there is no such thing as UK law, it is an English Court (because it takes the English definition of sovereignty) has ruled that the Scottish Government can’t organise a referendum of the Scottish people on the subject of independence.
This is widely interpreted as a claim that the UKSC is the sovereign law in Scotland and has ruled that the Scottish people have no right to hold such a referendum. But that is not the case, it is a distortion. The UKSC would not claim to have sovereign authority in Scotland or to be able to prevent the Scottish people from holding a referendum on independence because that is not the case. They have ruled that the Scottish Parliament does not have this power under the Scotland Act.
Now, many people in Scotland, including some of our elected representatives seem to be confused by this legal chicanery, but it is not difficult to cut through particularly if you keep your eye on the essentials.
The Scottish People are sovereign so they are the highest constitutional and legal authority in Scotland.
The Scottish People have Human Rights under UN Covenants which ensure that they can determine the Government and economic structure they want, and can hold a referendum on civil and political matters any time they like and as often as they like, among other rights
Is the UK Government opposed to these UN rights? No, they voted for them at the UN and ratified them when they were published by the UN in 1976,
Can these Human Rights Covenants be applied today in Scotland? Well, some can, like the Rights of the Child, which have been consolidated into Scots law (last year), but others have not been yet been consolidated into Scots law.
Can the other UN Covenants be consolidated into Scots law now? Yes they can, that is what the petition number PE2135 on UN ICCPR is calling on the Scottish Parliament to do
Can the UK Establishment stop the Scottish Parliament from consolidation these UK Human Rights into Scots Law? No they can’t. The Scottish Human Rights Commission have been urging the Scottish Government to do this and their lawyers, like us, see that such a move is possible, and not subject to “reserve powers” in the Scotland Act.
If the UN ICCPR were consolidated into Scots law could the Scottish Parliament then organise a referendum on political issues such as independence? Yes, if the Scottish people called for such a referendum in sufficient numbers about 2% of the electorate.
The decision by the RSS to set up this petition is to give the Scottish people the right to have a say on this issue. Unfortunately many people in Scotland will not be aware of this Petition and therefore will not participate, so it is vital that we get this knowledge to as many people as possible so that they can take part in this petition
If you go to the Scottish Parliament website, then to petitions, then to petition number PE2135, you will be able to see the petition in full and to vote on it.
See PE2135: Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Scottish legislation: https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2135
Find out more about the Respect Scottish Sovereignty group: https://respectscottishsovereignty.scot
Thanks