I can't say that Nicola Sturgeon is wrong in her remarks regarding the complexity of personal identity. I can't even deny that even I am British in the rather trivial sense that I live in a nation located on the Northern part of the largest of the British Isles. By a similar argument, Canadians are … Continue reading Scottish not British?
If you are considering the matter of how the Yes campaign in a new independence referendum should be managed, I wouldn't bother reading the article in today's Sunday National which purports to address that very question. If, however, you're wondering what a desert of imagination looks like then the responses to the question from "senior … Continue reading Do we need a new Yes Scotland?
Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's my age. Or maybe it's the fact that I've been spending too much time online 'engaging' with people who would be best ignored were it not for the fact that the constitutional issue is so important. The aggravation and the frustration and the sense of futility are very wearing. … Continue reading Down and out
For a process to exist there must always be an answer to the question, what happens next? So, Yes wins by a comfortable margin in the proposed referendum ─ what happens next? More specifically, what happens next in the series of linked actions which form the process leading to the restoration of Scotland's independence? If … Continue reading What happens next?
British Labour Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner's remarks about Scotland as reported in The National (Scottish independence 'not very nice' and means 'perpetual' Tory rule) raise some highly relevant and very significant issues. It is unfortunate that she herself seems quite oblivious to this relevance and significance. I see nothing to suggest that she has given … Continue reading The future is grim! The future is Tory!
I attended only the Friday panel session of the 3-day Scottish Sovereignty Research Group (SSRG) Conference which comes to an end today (Sunday). I did so reluctantly. In part, this was for personal reasons. I am distinctly uncomfortable with the thought of crowds these days, partly as a hangover from Covid precautions and partly just … Continue reading Yes Campaign
The threat to which The Sunday National refers has been looming for years (Tory leadership race 'poses Thatcher threat to Scotland amid lurch to the right'). Arguably, it has been looming for decades. But it can be said with certainty that it is over the last decade that the threat of far right-wing British governments … Continue reading The threat
Now may well be "the time for us here in Scotland to start getting mobilised for an independence referendum", as Mhairi Black says. Some might say this mobilisation is long overdue. Nonetheless, it would be great if we were at last gearing up for an independence referendum. It would be great if there was an … Continue reading We are not robots!
I really do wish The National and others would stop referring to it as an "independence referendum". The referendum proposed by Nicola Sturgeon is not an independence referendum. Not in the sense of being a referendum on restoring Scotland's independence. Not in the sense of being a referendum which might lead to the restoration of … Continue reading An unremarked contradiction
At what point does Nicola Sturgeon accept that the Section 30 process is dead? What does it take to convince her that it is not viable even if it wasn't anathema to anybody who holds that the people of Scotland are Sovereign? When will she rid herself of the plainly daft notion that the 'international … Continue reading A chance to change?
Peter A Bell 