When Boris Johnson shows me something and says look at my plan I expect to see a bungling buffoon stuck on a zip-wire. For no reason other than that is the image I simply can't help associating with the vacuous ideologue.
The man with the plan
Tag: Mike Russell
Numpty fodder
It is not until the final step that we find something which with a generosity of spirit to which few will be inclined might pass as a bit of a plan.
George Osborne tells the truth!
Mr Russell is correct about the British government denying the people of Scotland our "basic democratic rights". But it is Section 30 of the Scotland Act which legitimises this denial with authority derived from the Union. He is correct when he observes that this denial of our right of self-determination is "illegal under international law". But Section 30 makes it legal under British law. NICOLA STURGEON SAYS THAT SECTION 30 IS THE ONLY PROCESS WHICH IS "LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL"
None of his f****** business!
Mike Russell may be correct to say that the people of Scotland can vote for a referendum in the Holyrood election. He declines to add, however, that for them to do so the SNP must go into the election on a very explicit and quite unambiguous manifesto commitment to a process which will deliver a free and fair referendum at the earliest possible date. He might further have noted that, as things stand, the party of which he is President has given no such commitment.
What should we make of it?
A more concise way of putting the two options I mentioned in the first paragraph is that we can have a Scottish referendum or we can have a British referendum. One or the other.
Where is the logic? Where is the sense?
The weasel word "normally" is all it takes for the British political elite to retain the asserted authority to ignore and/or overrule the democratic will of Scotland's people as expressed by the Parliament elected by Scotland's people. Supposedly, this will only happen in exceptional circumstances. Who decides whether the circumstances are sufficiently exceptional? The British political elite, of course!
Why won’t they see?
From the moment the EU referendum was called I tried to persuade people that they should be at least as concerned about the constitutional implications of what would come to be called 'Brexit' as with the economic consequences.
What do we want to hear?
As ever, I take issue with the identification of British Nationalism exclusively with the Tories. As if British Labour and the token third party in British politics were any less insistent on the divinely ordained supremacy of the English parliament.
Know your power
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.
Endeavour to persevere!
Keeping going is, it would seem, good advice so long as you don't keep going with the things that certain people would rather weren't kept going.
