Stu Campbell has just published an article on Wings Over Scotland which despite the obvious anger and bitterness makes a very salient point about the vacuum in the SNP leadership where strategic thinking should be. I felt obliged to respond to the effect that Wings Over Scotland wasn’t alone in warning of the British state’s malign intent. In 2016 I wrote,
The fiscal framework is crucial to the entire Scotland Bill. We know that the legislation is a mess cobbled together more as a means of making life difficult for the SNP administration than with the interests of Scotland’s people in mind. John Swinney will be the one who has to find a path through the minefield of fiscal traps that the Scotland Bill will lay. It makes perfect sense that he would seek to make this task slightly easier by ensuring that the fiscal framework does not support the malicious intent of the Bill itself.
We know who speaks for Scotland
And this a couple of years later,
Devolution itself, initially intended as a device to kill the cause of independence “stone dead”, latterly has been reshaped as a political and economic weapon wielded against the SNP administration.
Powers over such things as taxation and welfare have been transferred to the Scottish Parliament, not for the purpose of further empowering the Parliament or improving Scotland’s governance or enhancing our democracy, but as a complex of political and fiscal traps designed to make life as difficult as possible for the Scottish Government and force the SNP administration into implementing unpopular policies. The British parties would then reap the benefit of the SNP’s declining electoral fortunes without the need to improve their own appeal to voters.
Every little thing they do
There is at least one very good reason for harking back to such comments. And it is not, as some will shallow-mindedly assume, simply to lob grenades at Sturgeon and the SNP. One of the defences that will surely be deployed by Sturgeon’s army of sycophantic loyalists and obsequious apologists is the claim that there was no way she or anybody else could have known what the future would bring. Stu Campbell holes that argument below the waterline. And my own articles demonstrate that he was not alone in identifying the malicious purposes of the British establishment.
If others can see, why not Sturgeon? I am persuaded that it is a matter of mindset – the individual’s starting point for considering events and developments. This morning, Angus Macneil MP Tweeted the following quote from a BBC News piece.
Ms Sturgeon acknowledged that whether Holyrood had the power to legislate for a referendum was contested, and had not yet been tested in the courts.
My response I think makes the point about mindset.
That is NOT what must be tested in court! What must be tested is whether the British state has the rightful authority to deny our right of self-determination. It’s a question of mindset. Sturgeon’s is NOT what it should be.
I had hoped it would be possible to ‘modify’ that mindset. I still must cling to that hope. Because Scotland’s cause depends on Sturgeon waking the fuck up!
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Peter A Bell 
The longest serving First Minister is singularly ill-equipped for a process that would take a wrecking ball to all the administrative and political structures they had put into place since coming to power. They are a product of the system and lack the knowledge and will to destroy it.
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Sturgeon plays by British rules.
Scotland loses.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Why can’t we use the EU decolonisation legislation a fair and legal route to independence. Instead of a lottery referendum that’s depends on a lot off variables that Westminster controls.
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Describe the process.
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Peter – I’m sure you are already aware of this but see the UN’s website for details https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/c24/about
Scotland is not on the current list of Non Self-Governing Territories, but there is a mechanism whereby it could be placed on that list. There are those who doubt that Scotland qualifies as an NSGT, but – We are a “territory” and we are not self-governing, so effectively we could be on that list. For comparison, although Ireland is not of course on the list of NSGTs, it is classified as a “former colony” and before independence held a similar position to Scotland in terms of representation at Westminster as part of the UK of Britain & Ireland.
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I am aware of this process. But it comes back to the issue of time. Getting on the NSGT list might take years. And that is before we start the process of restoring independence. And then there’s the matter of cost. Not financial cost but the cost in terms of our status. What impact would being an NSGT have on the process by which we restore independence. Again, I know C-24 has set out principles governing this. Nonetheless, we would have to be sure that we were actually better off in relation to restoring independence than we are now.
But all of this is academic. The Scottish Government has shown no interest in going down this route. As I say, there may be good reasons for this. But it is ruled out anyway because of the time factor. We cannot proceed on the basis that the British are going to do nothing about the ‘Scotland problem’ while we fart around with this and that cunning plan. They can alter Scotland’s constitutional status at the stroke of a pen. We dare not assume that they won’t do so. And soon!
We must, for the sake of the nation, proceed on the assumption that the British government will act to put further impediments in place in an effort to close down the entire independence project. Perhaps the most obvious illustrative example would be the Spanish constitution. You may say the Brits would never get away with this. I suggest you look at all the other stuff they’re getting away with.
You may say there would be protests. And you’re probably right. But the British can now be more relaxed about such things because the independence movement is so fractured and fragmented that there is little to no possibility of a combined and coordinated protest. They would just ignore it.
The UN route MIGHT have been an option 20 or maybe 10 years ago. It is not an option now. It gets added to the long and growing list of cunning plans that just won’t work. Like replacing Nicola Sturgeon with somebody as determined to restore Scotland’s independence as you or I. Not happening! Or getting the mythical ‘supermajority’ in the Scottish Parliament only to then dissolve that Parliament and hold a plebiscitary election. Not happening!
Nor will independence be restored if Sturgeon compromises our sovereignty and drags us into the Section 30 process. Nor will independence be restored if, as I anticipate, Sturgeon delivers only a pretendy referendum when the Section 30 plea is rebuffed.
We could spend a lot of time listing the ways independence WON’T be restored. Maybe then we’ll get to the thing that will work. Before time runs out.
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Here it is Peter. Though does the UN see Scotland as a colony?
Click to access Decolonisation.pdf
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Just another cunning plan.
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It is the UN De-colonisation process
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Its early days lets not get carried away in the moment that Sturgeon has suddenly changed her mind on Scottish independence, lets wait and see what she does over the coming months, that will determine if she’s serious or not about dissolving this union, or not.
A poorly organised indyref is as bad as no indyref, furthermore if Sturgeon is serious about holding a indyref, will she carry on through with it when Johnson says no to an S30, or will see fold as many expect she will, again its still far too early to say.
Also is this new found desire for Scottish independence a bread and circuses attempt to turn heads away from her poor tenure that’s led to Scotland being in a bit of a state, and lets wait and see time will surely tell.
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