Joanna Cherry asks “what will we do if court action [over refusal of a Section 30 order] fails or if we win but this rogue Government refuses to respect the judgement of the court?” But we already know the answer to that question. We already know what must be done. We already know what is was always going to come to in the end.
So why is Joanna Cherry talking about having the issue tied up in court for months or more? Scotland’s predicament is such that action is desperately urgent. We have already delayed far too long. With every passing day the British Nationalist juggernaut rolls over another aspect of devolution or human rights or Scotland’s capacity to have and develop a distinctive identity and political culture. With every passing day another part of the British Nationalist ‘One Nation’ project becomes a fait accompli. With every passing day Scotland comes closer to being subsumed in a new British state whose ugliness is now evident to even the most blinkered Unionist.
And what has our government done to prevent any of this? What has the SNP administration actually done to defend and protect the people of Scotland against this British Nationalist onslaught on our fundamental rights and the very existence of this nation? What has our democratically elected government DONE?
Waited!
That’s it! That is all! The ‘strategy’ for the past six years has been to wait. Wait for the British government’s next attack on our democratic institutions. Wait for the next act of coldly calculated contempt from the British state and it’s agents in Scotland. Wait for the next assault on our dignity. Wait! Just wait!
And now Joanna Cherry suggests we wait some more. She suggests we wait knowing what is coming. She suggests we wait in expectation of more of the same and worse. She suggests we wait for proof of what we already know to be a proven fact – the UK is a rogue state. So why are we waiting? Why would we wait any longer? Why not do now what we know we will have to do anyway?
There is not now and never was any route to the restoration of Scotland’s Independence which does not involve confrontation with the British state. It was always a nonsense to suppose that, in the wake of the 2014 referendum and with a rising wave of democratic dissent in Scotland, there could ever be a viable process that was critically dependent on the full and honest cooperation of the British government. However long we waited; however much public support for independence grew; however angry the people of Scotland became, the British establishment was never going to allow any process that threatened their ‘precious’ Union far less cooperate with it.
So why are we waiting? Why are we waiting when we know what is coming if we wait and knowing that what is coming is nothing less than the dismantling of Scotland’s democratic institutions, the eradication of our distinctive political culture and the obliteration of our identity as a nation? Why?
The British state must be confronted now! Not with the mere threat of legal action but with immediate political action. The idea that the British political elite might be dissuaded from its plans for Scotland by public opinion has been shown to be delusional. The assumption that ultimate they would respect democratic principles and the rule of law has been shown to be utterly false. The notion that the British establishment is basically decent has been shown to be tragically naive. It is long past time for political action. It is far too late for pointless litigation.
Before this month is out the SNP must adopt a Manifesto for Independence explicitly rejecting the Section 30 process and undertaking, if returned to government in the 2021 election, to take immediate steps to assert the exclusive competence of the Scottish Parliament in all constitutional matters on the basis of its indisputable democratic legitimacy and the sovereignty of Scotland’s people effectively denied – or denied effect – by the Union.
This Manifesto for Independence must further commit the Scottish Government to initiate a process by which Scotland’s participation is the Union is ended subject only to the agreement and consent of the people of Scotland. And that this shall be done within the period of the Parliamentary term immediately following the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections.
If there is to be court action then let it be the British government that takes that action. Let it be for the British government to make its case. Let it be for the British government to justify its behaviour.
Scotland has no need to justify itself. We have the right of self-determination guaranteed to us by international laws and convention. What we do not have is the freedom to exercise our right of self-determination. This is effectively forbidden to us by British law. If the sovereign people of Scotland are to exercise their right of self-determination British law must be broken. It was always going to come to this.
Why are we waiting?
Peter A Bell 
I agree it is exceedingly frustrating that the Scottish Government’s response to this predicted and expected onslaught is feeble at best.
Among many fresh outrages, we now hear the BBC will cease broadcasting the FM’s daily Covid-19 briefings. However, I am also puzzled as to why the FM is still – 6 months in – the person delivering this daily update. Hasn’t she got a perfectly capable health minister to delegate this task to? Isn’t she fully aware of the other, growing existential threat to Scotland taking place in broad daylight on her watch? Shouldn’t the FM be turning her attention to these issues as a matter of extreme urgency?
My guess is that the SNP leadership is not confident that, if it made the first strike in the upcoming war for independence, it would carry the support of a fickle Scottish electorate.
On the other hand, perhaps it may also be the case that the SG doesn’t need to do anything at the moment because the English Government is doing their job for them.
I believe the increased support for independence is due to a combination of the Scottish electorate’s satisfaction with its own government and growing awareness of the dangers of remaining in a union with the current English regime.
I don’t buy your argument that these are ‘just opinion polls’, they are indications of an increasing and sustained majority support for independence.
I also think you have more confidence in the abilities of the Johnson regime and their Scottish lackeys to pull off their audacious plans. They are just a bunch of spivs with their eye on the main chance. They have turned the governance of the doomed UK into a ‘get rich quick’ scheme for themselves and their greasy spiv friends. Their disaster capitalism will surely crash and burn very quickly. They will make off with their hordes and someone else will be left to clean up the mess.
This actually could represent Scotland’s best opportunity to regain her independence.
I do agree though, I wish the SG would do something to let us know they’re on the case!
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“the English Government is doing their job for them”
One of the more inane rationalisations of inaction. By this argument, Scotland’s independence will somehow be restored by the forces that are working to prevent it. And it will happen when the make it impossible. Fucking stupid!
The Johnson regime may give the impression of being “a bunch of spivs”. But they’re a bunch of spivs who have so far got pretty much everything they set out to get. And they’ll succeed in locking Scotland into the British state if people continue to dismiss them as a bunch of spivs who will actually do the opposite of what they’ve set out to do.
Complacency kills.
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I’m not advocating inaction. Where have I said this? I said twice that I shared your frustration at the lack thereof.
The spivs are better recruitment sergeants for independence supporters than our own government.
They are only getting everything they set out to get because of the – as you might say – fucking stupidity of the English electorate who voted for Brexit and then handed this Johnson administration a licence to do whatever they please with a thumping majority at Westminster. What a fucking double whammy that is – and what a boon for Scottish independence.
Their success – like all spivs – is down to exploiting gullible fools. Now we will get the chance to see if the Scottish electorate and their government are another bunch of gullible fools or if the spivs have bitten off more than they can chew.
I’m not dismissing them. Where do I say this? If the Scottish government continues with its inaction, then the spivs will again get what they have set out to get as sure as night follows day. Bold and decisive action is required and fast. Have I made that clear now?
This English government is the biggest existential threat to Scotland since Margaret Thatcher’s regime. Thatcher was intelligent, fiercely determined, well resourced and her government contained many powerful big hitters. Johnson is of limited intellect, lazy and conceited. He does not appear to have the stomach for a fight if challenged. His resources are stretched to the limit and his government only contains big missers who can’t even organise the delivery of PPE in a pandemic.
Thatcher failed to impose her will on Scotland because the people would not buckle down. Johnson’s administration will also be sent packing if Scotland’s government and people get their collective arses in gear. It will be the end of the United Kingdom this time and Scotland will regain her nationhood.
It is still in our hands but the clock is ticking. We need decisive action. We need to fight back. We need to take this all the way. We need to do it now.
Am I being complacent?
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I agree Peter, It is an absolute disgrace that Scottish Independence has not progressed one jot over the current term of this Scottish parliament. We all know Nik has done a good job on the virus issue but so what ? why should we expect anything less ? The AS issue has undoubtedly created fissures within the party resulting in an opportunity for the Brit Nats to drive a wedge into the heart of the movement so far it has failed, but urgent action is required. With the onset of winter and the potential for a covid total lockdown we desperately need a independence route map out of this mess. If our politicians were up to the job we would have a host of methodologies on the shelf waiting to be brought into action but all we hear about is S30 bollocks. Where has all this got us to up to now, nowhere. If the politicians won’t do it, it is up to the people to get organised and take back our sovereignty as a Nation. Let us get AS back in the saddle together with the those loyal and long serving, recently or about to retire SNP politicians for the final push to independence.
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‘Let us get AS back in the saddle together with those loyal and long-serving, recently or about to retire SNP politicians for the final push to independence.’
I agree we need someone who isnae feart of bold and direct confrontation because that is needed now. Would AS be up for it? Intriguing.
I saw NS’ interview where she described the latest Westminster shenanigans as ‘an abomination.’ She went on to say that ‘the only way to preserve devolution now is independence.’ I’m no lawyer but is that not a contradiction in terms? Has the FM given the game away here? Has she dropped her guard and let slip that her real goal is to preserve devolution?
Its looking more and more like we really need to shake things up starting at the top! Nicola is a fine politician and a good administrator with a kind heart. I haven’t seen any signs that she is a wartime consigliere.
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I think she was being ironic.
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Well said Peter, I am not quite sure that they are employing a waiting strategy in terms of what Westminster might or might not present to them as a reason not to prosecute the case for Independence, it just suits them to prioritise the negatives at the expense of the Yes movement and the greater good for Scotland.
However I do believe they are waiting excitedly for the next Holyrood elections in May 2021 buoyed by opinion polls which, in their presumably considered opinion, will afford them another period of office in which to take stock of the mandates they have previously begged for whilst waiting for the next negative which will quite obviously require unbridled priority.
I took the opportunity to watch on You Tube the interview of the late Margo Macdonald by Mavis Nicholson and was immediately struck by the simplicity in which she made the case for separation from Westminster by describing the stark nature of cuts and the resultant stifling of Scottish enterprise created by decades of neglect by Tory AND Labour governments from their Westminster stronghold.
I was likewise struck by her candour and humility in describing her background and how she came to politics.
It was clear to me that her passion was laced with an innate anger borne of her own experience and a shared empathy with her fellow Scots. That passion and belief is totally lacking in too many of our elected representatives whose personal circumstances have protected them from the rigours of Westminster diktats unfortunately so prevalent in affecting the lives of so many of the population in Scotland today.
Nicola Sturgeon and her fellow travellers do not possess that anger nor unfortunately do a sufficiently large enough number of the Scottish populace but coming up the line from Westminster is a demand nay a COMMAND that Scotland must defer to the structures of an internal market and when that comes to pass please believe me when I tell you syne they will shin ken whaur their styes are grippin them then.
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Robert when I was a student Margo came to my yooni. I knew nowt about politics or the UK political prison at that time. I was brought up to believe the Labour Party fought for the working man. Despite that a Scottish fire always burned within me and Margo gave me the gift of understanding why that was so. I am forever in her debt I just wish she had been able to see her vision for independence become a reality.
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The time to strike may be when the second wave of corona cripples Blighty. Like the Irish did in 1916 when UK gov was up to it’s @rse with war games.
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