Category: Miscellaneous

A home for hope?

~ Peter A Bell ~ 7 Comments

I was encouraged in my hopes of Joanna Cherry when I read that she was urging the SNP to accept that the anti-Brexit campaign was over and lost. I would have been happier if she were to explicitly acknowledge that the obsession with Brexit should never have been permitted to supersede and supplant the commitment to restoring Scotland's independence which gets top-billing in the party's own constitution. But we take what we can get.

Never mind the journey! Look at the destination!

~ Peter A Bell ~ 6 Comments

It isn't difficult to understand why Alyn Smith is so anxious to steer discussion away from independence and the process by which it will be restored to Scotland. It's easy to see why he wants to talk about the conjectural policies of a hypothetical SNP administration in an imagined future rather than the process by … Continue reading Never mind the journey! Look at the destination!

The Union abides

Union no more
~ Peter A Bell ~ 6 Comments

The purpose of the Union is to give England-as-Britain a permanent and significant advantage in the management of its relations with Scotland. Or, to put it another way, the Union serves to keep Scotland at a disadvantage relative to England-as-Britain. It does this in a number of ways, not the least of which is denial of the sovereignty of the people of Scotland.

Know your power

~ Peter A Bell ~ 10 Comments

One would therefore be forgiven for supposing that he'd be aware that power is relative. What matters in the context of the constitutional issue is not the "sheer might" of the UK in relation to the rest of the world, but the power relationship between the British state and Scotland. From that perspective, the might of the Union is as sheer as it needs to be.

So what?

~ Peter A Bell ~ 4 Comments

If you want to worry about Russian interference in Scottish elections and referendums then you are, of course, perfectly at liberty to do so. But doing so makes no sense unless you also worry just as much about American interference and EU interference and Israeli interference and Chinese interference and - worst culprit of all - British interference.