The people of Scotland are sovereign.
All discussion of Scotland’s constitutional status proceeds from this point.
Any discussion which does not proceed from this point or which deviates from this point does not concern Scotland. Because the people of Scotland are sovereign.
Being sovereign, the people of Scotland are the ultimate source of all legitimate political authority.
All legitimate political authority in Scotland derives from the people of Scotland.
The only political authority exercised in Scotland which is legitimate is that which derives from the people of Scotland.
Any political authority exercised in Scotland which does not derive from the people of Scotland cannot be legitimate.
Sovereignty is absolute and indivisible. Political authority exercised in Scotland which claims as the source of its legitimacy something other than the people of Scotland, cannot be legitimate.
This is the Scottish Parliament. The Parliament democratically elected by the sovereign people of Scotland to oversee the management of the nation’s affairs in accordance with the will of Scotland’s people.
It is the only Parliament which derives its legitimacy from the sovereign people of Scotland. It is, therefore, the only Parliament which can legitimately exercise political authority in Scotland.
It is the only Parliament which can rightfully claim to speak and act with the authority of the sovereign people of Scotland.
It is the only Parliament which can be Scotland’s voice. The voice of the sovereign people of Scotland. The voice of the ultimate political authority in Scotland.
No other Parliament can speak for the people of Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament is in all regards bar one, the national Parliament of a sovereign nation. The sovereignty of the nation being a function of the sovereignty of its people.
Where the people are sovereign, the nation which comprises all the communities of Scotland must also be sovereign. Which is another way of saying that this nation ─ this community of communities ─ is rightfully an independent nation.
All of the foregoing is true. It is a statement of what is.
The one regard in which the Scottish Parliament is not as the Parliaments of truly independent nations, is the Union.
The Union is an anti-democratic abomination which denies all of the preceding stated truths.
The Union denies the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.
The Union denies the democratic legitimacy of the Scottish Parliament.
The Union places the Monarchy above the people of Scotland. The Union asserts the Monarchy as the sole source of legitimate political authority.
The British Parliament ─ Westminster ─ derives its political authority from the Crown. The British constitution identifies the Crown as the sole source of legitimate political authority.
The Union decrees that this should also apply to Scotland. It decrees that the sovereign people of Scotland are subordinate to the Monarch and therefore not sovereign at all.
The Union decrees that the British Parliament is sovereign. The Union decrees that the Scottish Parliament is subordinate to Westminster.
The Union decrees that the democratically expressed will of the people of Scotland is subordinate to the interests of the British state.
The Union decrees that the Scottish Parliament may only be the voice of the sovereign people of Scotland unless and until it is contradicted by the voice of the British Parliament
The Union decrees that Scotland shall not be a nation like other nations. The Union decrees that Scotland is less than other nations.
The Union decrees that the people of Scotland may not be as the people of other democratic nations. The Union decrees that the people of Scotland must be less than the people of normal democratic nations.
The Union today serves the same purpose it did when it was first imposed on Scotland by the English elite with the connivance of an avaricious and treacherous Scottish elite.
Politics being the management of relationships of power, the purpose of the Union was to guarantee England-as-Britain an overwhelming political advantage over Scotland in all matters and in perpetuity.
The purpose of the Union was to make Scotland wholly subordinate to what is now the British state.
The purpose of the Union now is to keep Scotland subordinate to the British state.
The Union is an act of blatant anti-democratic imperialism which has blighted Scotland for 316 years. Time enough for some to grow comfortable with the arrangement. Time enough for some to become dependent on the arrangement for gain, status and power.
The Union has always been opposed in Scotland by people other than those who have found ease and profit in Britannia’s imperial embrace.
Today, almost half of Scotland’s sovereign people indicate opposition to the Union in some form and to some extent.
Of course, this is not expressed as opposition to the Union, but as a desire for independence. That is because the people of Scotland have never been asked if they consent to a grotesquely asymmetric political Union which decrees that they be less than the people of normal democratic nations.
The people of Scotland did not give their consent to the Union 316 years ago. Neither did we consent to the Union in 2014, because that is not what we were asked.
I do not consent.
I do not consent to the Union.
I do not consent to the people of Scotland being made subordinate to some British aristocrat because the British ruling elite knows that the people of Scotland will never grant legitimacy to their rule over our nation.
I do not consent to the only Parliament that possesses democratic legitimacy in Scotland being made subordinate to a parliament that has no democratic legitimacy whatever. That is wrong.
The Union is wrong. It is an ancient affront to modern democracy and an abiding insult to the people of Scotland. The Union is an anachronistic injustice that urgently demands to be rectified.
The Union must end!
I come here today to assert and affirm the sovereignty of Scotland’s people. The concept of parliamentary sovereignty is wholly incompatible and utterly irreconcilable with the concept of popular sovereignty, I choose the people of Scotland over a foreign parliament in which we have no meaningful influence and in which our democratically elected representatives are treated as unwelcome intruders.
The unwelcome intruders are the members of British political parties squatting in Scotland’s Parliament.
I assert and affirm the sovereignty of the people of Scotland.
I declare that I recognise as legitimate only that political authority which derives from the people of Scotland.
I do not consent to the anti-democratic constitutional aberration that is the Union.
I repudiate the Union and I demand that the Scottish Parliament also repudiate the Union in order that we may restore to this nation of ours the status, powers and responsibilities that all nations and peoples properly regard as theirs by absolute right.
Right the wrong! End the Union!
Peter A Bell 
In a single word, brilliant; hits the nail on the head, REPEATEDLY AND CONSISTENTLY..
I find myself wondering as to the last occasion that many of our Independence-minded MSP’s ( truth be known, it is abundantly clear that too bloody many of them do not and have not bothered their hind-ends.. ) took the time, the opportunity – ‘trouble’ hardly enters the equation, the document in question happens to be only 43 words in length – AND READ THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH..? Having read it, DIGESTED IT..? ABSORBED IT..? THOUGHT ABOUT IT..? PONDERED UPON ITS PRINCIPLES AND FUNDAMENTAL MESSAGE..? ITS INHERENT IMPORTANCE TO THE PEOPLE AND NATION OF SCOTLAND..?
Or is it all just a gimmick a la that which is to be trotted out by individuals such as the SNP’s former leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, when they are bored and have nothing better to do with their time..?
Time for a serious shake-up . . . AND HOW.. G.
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Heard it all before!
(Insert big smiley here, I think.)
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Well said Peter.
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“As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”.
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Very obviously, that proved to be rubbish in the long-term. On a less bloodthirsty note, Gandhi said ‘Real freedom will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity of all to resist authority when abused; in other words, freedom is to be attained by educating the people to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority’. Very obviously, most of the SNP didn’t believe Gandhi.
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Unfortunately, too many people are quick to “rubbish” words that were uttered in a different era and the circumstances of another age. However, some of us will continue to respectfully venerate our forbears… Most of what is gradually dawning on Scotland’s people is relatively strange to most of us – even we who’ve been really supportive of Scotland regaining its independent status in future. And this needs to be done as soon it possible can be done!
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I don’t know about “venerating” our forebears, but we certainly shouldn’t be dismissive of words that were “uttered in a different era and the circumstances of another age”. Those words may have much to say that is relevant today. Some ideas are timeless. At the same time, we must be mindful that these words were uttered under circumstances that are highly unlikely to be replicated today. It’s a case, I think, of drilling down into the words to find the sentiment they seek to express. The bits about slaying and being slain can maybe be read as metaphor.
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“Very obviously, that proved to be rubbish in the long-term.”
Only if you believe that there is no Union, and Scotland is now ruled by England, as opposed to some theoretical UK Westminster parliament.
Well, do you believe that? Is it England over all for you?
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I like it.
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I’ve got to admit I don’t actually know what to make of this, which is a rare thing for me.
The people of Scotland are sovereign, but the parliament at Holyrood isn’t. Nor is the parliament at Westminster, and neither is the King. WHERE it all goes from there is another story.
I guess if the 4.23 million voters all stood up and said feck the Union it’s over, and if Good King Charles accepts that and helps implement it he can stay as King for a bit, then that might all work. Not sure if it would work if the King refused – we might have to discrown him first. As is our right, possibly even within the Union.
It’s actually possible discrowning him might end the parliamentary Union at the same time in one fell swoop. Fell being the operative word!
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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