If the British state chooses to prevent the Scottish Government spending money to fulfil manifesto pledges, then that is precisely what it will do. The SNP Scottish Government will be totally ineffectual in opposing such moves because the SNP Scottish Government defers to the sovereignty of the parliament of England-as-Britain rather than asserting the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.
Given that our politicians – and it’s not only the SNP – lack the backbone to insist on the sovereignty of the people of Scotland, then the people of Scotland must do so themselves.
The National, in common with the openly pro-Union British media, has chosen to ignore the Stirling Directive that was launched on Saturday 22 July just as the Scottish political elite has chosen to disregard the legal and constitutional rights of Scotland’s people. But support for the Stirling Directive is growing apace despite the notionally Scottish media turning a blind eye. There is a reason for this.
The Stirling Directive has struck a chord with people. It has awoken the spirit of the Yes movement. It is not entirely fanciful to say that it has awoken long-dormant memories of a time when the relationship between the governed and the governors in Scotland was markedly different from what has prevailed since the imposition of the accursed Union.
The Stirling Directive is an instruction to the Scottish Government from the Scottish people exercising the authority vested in them by the Scottish constitution. This instruction directs the Scottish Government to take immediate and specified action to facilitate the exercise by the people of Scotland of the right of self-determination guaranteed to them by the Charter of the United Nations and other international laws and conventions. It states that failure to do so will result in the matter being referred to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The Stirling Directive is, above all, a powerful statement affirming the sovereignty of Scotland’s people. Which makes it something feared by Scotland’s overly comfortable and woefully complacent political establishment.
The SNP Scottish Government, together with all the Scottish (not British) political parties, must choose. Will they, from fear of confrontation, continue to defer to the illegitimate authority imposed on them by the British state? Or will they serve the people of Scotland according to the solemn duty imposed on them by the laws and constitution of Scotland?
Peter A Bell 
Have you identified any individual Scottish politicians in Holyrood or Westminster who have a stiff enough backbone to confront Westminster and see the process through? I can’t think of any fighters. They’re all a bit wishy-washy when it comes to independence.
Would a referral to the ECHR next year be feasible?
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I don’t think we’ll see who has the backbone until the popular campaign starts to bite. It’ll take something momentous happening in the real world to shake a politician our two out of that bubble of complacency. Are there any MPs or MSPs who POTENTIALLY have the cojones? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to name them at this stage.
The answer to your second question is yes. So much work has been done in preparation that the lead time can all but certainly be cut to a matter of months. But it needn’t even get as far as the ECHR. When the SNP Scottish Government realises the referral is actually happening, it will probably have a quick rethink and choose to jump on the bandwagon.
Why do you think the British state is currently moving to prevent the Scottish Government spending money on anything relating to Scotland’s cause. If the ECHR case goes ahead and the Scottish Government decides to participate it could help fund the case. The Brits want to make that impossible by making it illegal – even if it’s what the people of Scotland vote for.
I’m not saying (before the usual suspects jump in) that the British states latest moves were prompted by the Stirling Directive. But the British would have been expecting something of the sort.
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I’d like to think they would jump on the bandwagon, as you say, but I wouldn’t put it past the SNP government to actually oppose the attempt on some spurious reasoning, e.g., that it undermines their independence plans! Prior to 2014 I would never have imagined even thinking like that but since the Sturgeon era it’s difficult to know who and what we are actually dealing with at Holyrood.
The British state’s current attempts at suppression are certainly relentless and oppressive. It remains to be seen if they will backfire.
I think we must be the last colony of the British Empire. Hopefully not for much longer.
I’ve yet to read the Stirling Directive in full but have watched the video. I have high hopes for the movement.
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I agree, particularly your point regarding making it illegal for the SG to fund moves furthering the cause of independence. They can’t of course stop the party(SNP) from participating and it will be interesting as well as informative as to whether or not the current stushie on party finance intensifies the closer we get to taking action at the ECHR.
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Just a suggestion to force publicity, would be to use – sympathetically – other events such as the forthcoming “approved” march / rally, the SNP Conference where perhaps Yousaf will be pinned to the wall on a de facto referendum or face a leadership challenge.
So it needs banners, a warcry, a simple in your face slogan that directly relates, but all done without confrontation with the SNP for instance, whose members may well work with it.
Just off the top of my head – “Claim Our Right”, “Resistance is not futile”, “antidisestablishmentarianism is irrelevant, we want to end the Union”, “Our Scottish Parliament is not a Westminster toy to be thrown out of the pram”.
That sort of catchy number.
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And here’s another thought. If you have any friendly SNP branches and activists get them to put up a resolution to try to enact this:
“at the end of every session of the Scottish parliament and that was the Act of Salvo (salvo jure cujuslibet – let whosoever sue the Crown)”.
It doesn’t even matter if it’s within competence, that helps the debate.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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“We boast, then we cower”.
Craig and Charlie Reid’s astute observation back in 1988 could, and perhaps should, be adopted as the strap-line for the SNP/Scottish Government, and any other set of politicians or persons who tug their forelocks and doff their caps in respect of the British state.
The National ignored the Victims of The Union/Notice To Quit/Edinburgh Proclamation protest on 1st September 2022 organised by Salvo outside Queen Elizabeth House so I am not entirely surprised that they did the same this time around. Especially now as that newspaper seems pretty much only to employ ‘journalists’ under the age of 35 and virtue signalling ‘celebrity’ columnists and political wannabes, both groups having gender ‘identity politics’ to the fore (excepting a couple of decent contributors like Joanna Cherry and George Kerevan).
But the genie is not going back in the bottle.
Supposed pro-Independence politicians and theoretical proponents of Scotland’s Cause had better get with the program.
Or get out of the road.
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The National seems have morphed into being an SNP publicity outlet, and with precious little dissent of SNP policy given any space.
This has been disappointing.
And The (Glasgow) Herald has become truly appalling in the past few years.
As for Scottish politicians, it is way past time they left Westminster.
If 56 out of 59 MPs walked out over Brexit, the Union could be over by now.
They didn’t as they all took the Sturgeon line of do nothing, and it must be admitted, that included Alex Salmond at the time.
He must regret both that and his resignation as First Minister when he did, and especially how his replacement turned out.
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Regards The National, there’s a strange thing where they have an online top page story,…………
“Why I launched a bid to challenge Humza Yousaf for the SNP leadership job”
It was up an hour now, but when trying to read this report, we get a message saying this ……….
Sorry, we can’t find that page
It may have been moved or the address mistyped
It has now disappeared entirely from the webpage!
Doesn’t look too good for The National.
Maybe they might put it up again, or might be in the print edition tomorrow,
but it kind of looks like what I said above.
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Having done some reading / re-reading around, yes I agree, the first step is to demand the Scottish Government take action. This pre-empts the potential defence of “Did you give your duly elected Scottish Government the chance to do x, y, z?”. And as with all these things, set a date for compliance, and not less than 3 months is a good date as that’s in Article 65 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of treaties for action on a treaty between States, so it’s good to keep the same deadline for initial “internal” action.
Now then, apart from the great catch-all Article 50, I like this one:
“Article 53
Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (“jus cogens”) A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”
because, if the UK proceeds with its breaking of International Law with its complete disregard for human rights, then “we” can hopefully terminate the treaty of union on the grounds of human rights – and get a sympathetic hearing at the ECHR on that third party issue, never mind on our own ones.
Click to access 1_1_1969.pdf
If I post too much tell me to keep it cool, but it’s good to be doing normal positive stuff rather than hoping the SNP stick to their guns on the de facto GE referendum.
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This is all useful stuff. Even if the Stirling Directive committee is aware of it – we have a LOT of research material – it will surely be of interest to others. And there’s always stuff that might have been missed. For example, I don’t recall being aware of the book about the Union you referenced in an earlier comment. Please, continue.
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I’ve probably got the old hard disk that had the links from my days on the national conversation forum (2007) and before, when I’ve got time I’ll try dig it up and maybe make it an external caddy and export them.
There was a lot of people with knowledge in those days, and back to the 90s, even through the Indy, but they seem mostly to have disappeared or sadly died, taking their knowledge with them. I see that Robbie the Pict is still apparently alive though 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_the_Pict
Yes, I got my refund on the part used book of bridge tickets.
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Adding this:
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-6
for instance that Article 33 stated in A65 of the VCLT (which would after 12 months be followed by A66):
“Article 33
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the parties to settle their dispute by such means.”
yeah, I know “Security Council”. but the UK doesn’t actually “own” it. It has 15 Members, and each Member has one vote.
WDMWM
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Here’s some info about UN security council members for 2023 and 2024.
Guess how many are likely to support Scotland/oppose the UK with regards to Scotland’s right to Independence?
2023 Albania, Brazil, China, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Russian Federation, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
2024
Algeria, China, Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
https://research.un.org/en/unmembers/scmembers
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Can’t find what I really want,which I think was named as written by some Glasgow uni professor, so here’s meantime:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/devolution/scotland/briefing/1707.shtml
“Parliament was adjourned on 25th March and the Estates were ordered to reconvene on 22nd April. No such meeting appears to have taken place and on 28th April the Scottish Parliament was dissolved by proclamation. The Treaty and Act of Union came into effect on 1st May 1707 having swiftly passed through both Houses of Parliament in England.”
I always use BBC and UK Gov whenever I can by the way as nobody can argue that they’re biassed towards Independence.
The thing is that the Scottish Parliament had to be dissolved not adjourned, as otherwise the treaty and act of union couldn’t have come into effect on 1st May. And I’d argue that without them being in effect, Queen Anne wouldn’t have had the authority to send a commissioner (the unionist Queensberry I think) to dissolve the Scottish Parliament by proclamation through the streets of Edinburgh.
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