The Motherfucker of all Parliaments

To recap:

The Unelected Head of State has agreed with the Unelected Prime Minister to dissolve our elected representatives in the name of popular sovereignty. This is for a plan which nobody voted for and which we know will cause economic self-harm.

Are you following?

The Left want to leave the EU because they want Labour to sweep to power and don’t want to be constrained by EU competition rules.

The Right want to leave the EU because they are engaged in a dream-fantasy politics about England/Britain’s Past/Future (and because they’ve mainstreamed overt racism).

The Middle doesn’t understand Brexit but won’t support Corbyn because they’ve swallowed a whole heap of ridiculous propaganda smears about him and ‘the People’? Many of the people won’t vote for Corbyn because they don’t think he could organise a tombola.

British Democracy today became like the infamous Vietnamese provincial capital Bến Tre: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

If people didn’t have their alarm bells ringing when they saw the Brexit Party rallies or the “Unleashed” Cabinet, or the Hostile Environment, or the Hate Van, or the attacks on civil liberties or the economic violence of austerity, they might hear them ringing loud and clear now.

British democratic institutions are broken and irredeemably so. There are no checks and balances, Johnson and his colleagues couldn’t give a fuck about Scotland, or Ireland, or anywhere really.

As the day wore on it became apparent that neither the Queen (surprise!), Sinn Feinn or the Archbishop of Canterbury were going to ride to the rescue at the very last moment. Liberal Britain is so confused and aghast its clinging onto anything and everything it can as it watches its institutions and beliefs swirl down the kazzy.

Now what?

All exits are cut off.

I’m dubious legal challenges are credible, but bringing down the government with an immediate vote of no confidence is.

Only this doesn’t work either.

Earlier in the week it had been revealed that the Brexit Party would do a deal with the Conservatives in the event of a General Election, thereby virtually guaranteeing them a victory in England and ushering-in some of the most swivel-eyed monsters from the Brexit gene-pool. It had also been revealed that Johnson was considering flooding the Upper House with Brexi-enthusiastic Lords, like the Wetherspoon tycoon Tim Martin and other intellects.

This is what happens when you live in a semi-feudal country of unreconstructed and broken institutions unfit for the 19th never mind the 21 century.

So a General Election can be forced and may result in a huge SNP majority in Scotland and a Brexit confirmation in England, where would that leave us?

It would leave us in (further) constitutional crisis but there are gains to be made amidst the chaos.

Given that the crisis has been inherited but not created by the SNP it seems clear there’s a few other things they should add to the mix.

Here’s five ideas:

  1. Any SNP manifesto should be demanding a Section 30 Order and making clear they’d be assuming a big majority would be a mandate for such.
  2. I’m not sure it’s worthwhile returning to a Johnson-Farage Westminster. It might be worth considering refusing to sit and staying in the north creating dual-power institutions.
  3. Currently its proposed Scottish police go to Northern Ireland in the event of No Deal. That’s a devolved matter and should be refused.
  4. Plans should be advanced to hit the Unionist networks in the three areas where they are most vulnerable: land, defence and education. Extensive land reform of the kind not yet seen would cause apoplexy in the Scotland in Union networks, as would the reform / closure of private schools.  Defence is reserved but there are still ways in which the Scottish Government can insist on changes and assert power.
  5. Scotland needs to get serious about enforcing its soft power, on which more tomorrow.

The gloves are off.

It may be necessary to destroy Britain to save it.

Comments (38)

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  1. Squigglypen says:

    Can anyone tell me why there are STILL Scots who would vote against Independence…help me out…

    1. Bill says:

      Because they are feart!! Scared to perhaps lose some of the paltry resources that they have, been clutching the forelock and doffing the bunnet too long to stand up and be citizens. Unlike Europe, where the people were peasants, England and Scotland had serfs. Serfdom does become them. Plus, some are just seriously intellectually challenged.

      We need to go back to the Declaration of Arbroath and determine our own future, in a country headed by an elected Head of State. But for most, that is a step too far and the thought of independence leading inevitably to that position is just too much for them

      Nae Passaran

      Bill

      1. Welsh Sion says:

        Updated it for you, Bill – in time for the 700th anniversary.

        “For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive and posting on Bella Caledonia, Wee Ginger Dug, Wings over Scotland and other pro-indy blogs, never will we on any conditions be brought under Westminster 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 or woman gives up but with life itself.”

        1. Bill says:

          But also remember the paragraph where it was indicated that if Robert, our chosen sovereign lord did not shape up, then we would ship him out. Now given the esteem in which Mrs Windsor is held, it seems unlikely that she will be shipped out. However, since Charlie is nobody’s darling and the thought of queen Camilla offends even the best royalists, the time could be close.

          Thank you Sion for your thoughts

          Bill

    2. Irene crichton says:

      I recently visited Scotland for 4days i asked the hotel owner if he was a member of SNP , his reply shocked me ,he said no he hates nicola sturgeon because she wont reduce tax for the rich (of which i am sure he is one) so he wont be voting yes . Maybe that will give you a clue .

    3. Frank says:

      Certainly! I am a life long Nationalist, originally I would confess to being what I would call a “heather and haggis nationalist” or perhaps a romantic nationalist. But by the mid 70s I was becoming a political nationalist, I believed that an independent Scotland could, and I emphasise could, be a good little country to live in – a country run for the benefit of the people in Scotland. So intent was I in promoting independence that I missed something, the SNP was changing. In fact and in hindsight I would say that it had been hi-jacked. Alex Salmond started going on about Scotland not being a narrow nationalist country but an outward looking one (Did any nationalist ever claim otherwise?) To demonstrate our outwardlookingness an independent Scotland would become a member of the EEC (as it was then) subject to a referendum, of course. In due course the EEC morphed into what it was originally intended to be, the EU (But not yet in full bloom) Over time the commitment to a referendum was quietly dropped, now it was “Independence in Europe,” we would be full partners at the top table and anything that was against Scotland’s interests we could veto. Dream on, in the interests “efficiency” they are talking about abolishing the veto and resorting to majority voting and in the interests of efficiency they will.

      We hear a lot from time to time about the poverty/attainment/health divide, without going into detain no one will ever solve these problems without land reform and I mean land reform from the top to the bottom – because landlordism sucks, it sucks the wealth and opportunity and health of a people. Once upon a time land reform was a main plank of Nationalist policy but now? Well we have the occasional buy out that solves nothing really. This is another policy that has been quietly dropped and as Kenny MacCaskill lamented in an article in the Herald a couple of years ago – “We cannot get meaningful land reform because of EU laws”. Well, as we all know an Independent Scotland ain’t leaving the EU – so forget about “meaningful land reform” and accept that the poor, and the cost thereof to them and us, will be with us always. And anyway, the Scottish government, full of townies, are more interested in “re-wilding the Scottish countryside than they are in re-populating it. We will just continue subsidising landowners to plant trees and look after the wildlife – and of course this brings in the tourists, lots of them.

      If independence was to be about anything it was to be about a better country for the people of Scotland, you know, the natives. But while over 90,000 languish on the dole our illustrious leader is preoccupied with “migrants to boost the economy” and as an alibi they are to be skilled migrants. This despite record numbers of our young people graduating from Colleges and Universities, it makes you wonder what they are studying when we need skilled migrants. Can we not train our own people for the skills that the economy requires? The fact is, as members of the EU, we will not be able to restrict migrants to skilled workers only, we would have to open the doors to anyone from the EU and that includes taking our share of Merkle’s guests. If you look at a lot of the policies being implemented by the Scottish government they appear to come from the EU but these same policies are common throughout the Western world and they originate at the UN and although they may appear innocuous they are in fact socially subversive and no good will come from them. Increasingly people are realising this and it is causing a backlash.

      Well Squigglypen. I could go on. I had intended answering you in one line but I got kind of carried away. The one line is – No one can vote against independence when independence is not on offer. Wakey wakey!

      PS. I still believe Scotland could be a good little country but I am afraid that possibility is fading into the distance.

  2. Graeme McCormick says:

    Why would closure of private schools help Independence. Many independence supporters are connected to private schools and the last thing we want to do is alienate soft no voters connected to private schools. When you consider the extended family with kids at private school that’s a big number of voters.

    Also yes let’s have land reform. But care needs to be taken. Many landowners would happily sell a lot of land which they don’t do anything with. Instead you need to define a way which doesn’t involve a cash payment. However except for a form of AGR the European Convention on human rights protects the rights of rich people .

    1. Care does not need to be taken.

      The power networks in this country run through land and education.

    2. Now is the Time says:

      Agree. I think this is,an own goal red herring.
      Let’s get Scotland governing Scotland. Big picture.
      Issues like private education & gender reassignment are total red herrings that only cause unnecessary division at a time when unity is the key.

      1. Nobody mentioned gender re-assignment as a tool to destabliise Unionist networks?

    3. An Duine Gruamach says:

      No. The class who can afford to educate their children at private schools, and who buy into the social networks tied into them are fundamentally reactionary, right-wing, and culturally British. For every floating Maybe voter or eccentric Scottish nationalist among them, there’ll be dozens slipping into the circles of OTC, “The City”, the Tory party and The New Club. Breaking the networks of patronage and privilege that sustain this numerically tiny but politically and economically powerful parasite class is abosutely the right way to go. This class, en mass, will never vote SNP or Yes – a nationalist government should absolutely be doing what it can to break their power.

      1. Exactly and I say this as one of a only a few people who was leaked the Scotland in Union data last year. I know how they are.

  3. Peter Gunn says:

    Let’s do this, it is time to get up off our knees and look after our family.

  4. Bill says:

    If they get away with this one, then where do they stop? With Priti Patel as Home Secretary – how likely are concentration camps for immigrants, legal or otherwise, and other undesirables or ne’er do wells? With Rees-Mogg acting as propaganda minister, how likely a Ministry of Truth? Unfortunately, according to some interviewed on the Beeb today, this move is a good thing. God help us with such a lot of intellectually challenged in our midst. They cannot all have dementia, can they?

    I agree with you Mike, the time for action is now and the SNP need to get their act together with other supporters and prepare, seriously for independence

    Bill

  5. henry mcintosh says:

    I cannot agree more with Mike. Well past time for the gloves to come off and lay it on the line to the voters, there is no way to reform this broken union, we need independence now as our only salvation.

    1. Indeed. And there can be some creative ways of talking about how we do this.

  6. Daniel Raphael says:

    From across the pond, solidarity and best wishes to you all. The mask has been removed, and the pretense of democracy almost entirely gone with it.

    Get rid of the monarchy, if you can survive it all long enough to do so; get a written constitution (or whatever you choose to call it).

    This is happening all over the world–if it helps at all to remind you. Yes, you are alone in your own immediacy, but the issues are global and the struggle likewise.

    If ever there were a time for the long lessons of union activity, organizing, and 99% activism to congeal, this is it. Greetings from a lifelong socialist and veteran of Occupy. Rise up like lions…you know the rest.

  7. Welsh Sion says:

    Meanwhile … west of Offa’s Dyke …

    https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-government-to-consider-the-future-of-the-uk/

    Too late, Drakeford, too late.

  8. john lamont says:

    I think some of this should be saved until brexit actually happens. The public won’t give a fuck until it hurts them/gives them hassle individually. Being out of the EU will do that: food prices, holidays, job losses… Let’s face it, Scotland will exit the EU on Oct 31st. The question is for how long.

  9. Wul says:

    I live in a country:
    with no written constitution
    governed only by precedents, which have been ripped up
    ruled by an unelected, old, magical lady
    whose parliament can be shut down by one man
    which voted to abandon it’s Court of Human Rights

    Not good.

    1. Frank says:

      If you live in Scotland Wull then you do have a written constitution, it’s called the Scotland Act and it limits the power of the Scottish government to acting within the parameters of various international human rights agreements. You would never have guessed would you?

  10. MBC says:

    It is clear that in any general election the SNP would sweep the field in Scotland whilst in England a Tory majority would be returned. In such circumstances we should by-pass Section 30. The manifesto should be that a vote for the SNP is a vote for independence if there is a No Deal Brexit.

  11. MBC says:

    You know, they are all trying to keep it together here. Maybe things have to get much worse and break apart before anything can get better.

  12. Clare Galloway says:

    Familiar discomfort is deeply complex, as is the inherent belief that we ‘can’t’ do it – that size and authority do matter; the more obnoxiously arrogant the voice from Westminster – perhaps even the more absurdly contrary, the more many Scots bow sit down under it, numb.
    It’s very hard for anyone in an abusive situation – especially family, relationship, politics, religion: all-encompassing paradigms – to understand a) they are being abused and b) the alternative (until they have it spelled out to them in a language and on a scale that they can understand and visualise).
    Many folks who passionately support independence have a strong understanding of being able to make our own future/ our own reality, whereas many who are against it are deeply invested in passivity/ the current ‘reality’ as ‘how it has to be’, or are so worn down by their perceived lack of involvement in power structures, that it is purely logical to stay ‘where we are’. Of course, ‘where we are’ is rapidly changing….
    But folks are not about to get up and campaign, change their habits, be more responsible, nor to *reclaim their individual and collective power* – until something visibly interrupts either their day-to-day ‘comforts’ (no matter how challenging they are), until a clear bullet-pointed plan in an accessible language is presented, and until there exists a clear dynamic powerful momentum of the critical mass – who additionally are *not* speaking from a combative stance (and rousing fear, anger or conflict).
    I feel that it will come in its time, likely brought into being by consequences of further dissolution of political stability in the south, and by clarity of thinking in the north: if we can see these as necessary and creative polemics, and focus on the solution rather than the disastrousness of it all: the more we focus on the trauma of potential instabilities, the more the feart will cling onto the coattails of the ‘ abusive parent’ authority figure. The unknown is mortally terrifying to a neurotic, destabilised, dis-empowered population who have only ever known this condition – particularly if the unknown is soon to become *their* collective responsibility.

    1. Muiris says:

      ‘The great, only appear great, because we are on our knees, let us rise’. Jim Larkin 1875-1947, Liverpool born Irish Tade Unionist, To paraphrase Obama ‘Is féidir libh’ (yes you can). Excellent post, Clare

  13. Rory says:

    All very good right up until the end where it suggests we “close private schools “… What the fuck are you talking about??

  14. meg macleod says:

    Queenie could have said no couldn’t she…?.otherwise..why ask her.?what a mockery and pretence of democracy…this event has focussed the light on places that ordinary people have not seen before…people with their noses locked to the grindstone trying to live…….

    1. Lynsey says:

      She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t – that is the position she was put in by the BJ. Anyone who is in any doubt about what is going on here only needs to reflect on that a little. What kind of leader puts their Head of State in a position like that?

  15. Andrea says:

    Oh look. Independence.

    Then what?

    The usual ‘steering committee to tide us over until we can restructure and reorganise’?

    The usual hat tip to ‘democracy’ so the apolitical folk feel they’ve done their bit every, what, five years?

    A big focus on ‘righting wrongs’? Or will there be effort and imagination spent to make what follows
    fit for purpose in the twenty-first century?

  16. Thomas Mckee says:

    Dissolving the uk union should be
    an alternative.

  17. PictAtRandom says:

    “1. Any SNP manifesto should be demanding a Section 30 Order and making clear they’d be assuming a big majority would be a mandate for such.

    2. I’m not sure it’s worthwhile returning to a Johnson-Farage Westminster. It might be worth considering refusing to sit and staying in the north creating dual-power institutions.”

    If 1 successful then 2. Butat some point there has to be a decisive popular majority vote in favour of independence.

    I think that almost anything Holyrood politicians now do (collapsing the Edinburgh administration, trying to grab debatable powers etc) could be used as an excuse for a full-on attack on the parliament.

  18. Craig Devine says:

    What this whole farce of Bojo’s utilising the Royal prerogative to suspend parliament in order to frustrate democratic accountability reveals is the need for a proper cogent & lucid constitution- the UK does not have a real commonly agreed set of rights & protections that defines a constitution- that’s what an independent Scotland needs to prevent this sort of nihilistic opportunism from a cabal of opportunists & spivs. Would it not be possible to organise a preliminary online consultation of the Scottish people- set up through a Scottish Government website- and then once all the data is collated structure it as the framework of a new constitution voted on by means of Referendum? This is what happened in Iceland. Can we have more referendum’s- for me they galvanise & stimulate voters to directly participate in the democratic process, as citizens actively do in Switzerland where referendums on major constitutional decisions are very common indeed.
    I have to agree on Land as well. A new Scotland must have it written as part of its constitution that the sovereign people own the land in common. If development is to be encouraged on common land then it must be rented from the common. This would prevent land banking, speculation, accumulation of land into private hands & bring a reliable & permanent stream of income into the public treasury for the common good of the Scottish people rather than as tax-avoidance schemes for offshore private trusts. This is what happens in Crofting: the commission assess your right to land if you can justify a worthy use for the land, if you can’t then you’re simply refused.
    As for education, private schools are machines for promoting class division, elitism & are ultimately anti-democratic (aside from recent revelations of their tests & GCSE’s being easier than state schools)- hence the Rory Tory types obsession with ‘what school did you go to old chap?’ This sort of feudalism is not compatible with the modern world, neither is aristocracy or Royalty, and why ultimately Capitalism is incompatible with democracy- accumulations of power & wealth & private networks of corruption are elitism and by their very nature are anti-democratic- we see this in the UK where inequality accelerates steroidal derangement. In Finland we see a system where private schools are illegal & so rich parents redirect their wealth into state schools and by consequence raise the standards for the disenfranchised majority who lack capital, rather than a select few, and thereby increase the fitness & vitality of social democratic society as a whole.
    Other Northern European Social Democratic nations, often Republic’s, very close to us, are doing these things to alter positive changes & sustainable progress to their societies- we can do the same if we seize the opportunity independence promises.

    1. Craig Devine says:

      Another thing I should have said is the restructuring of the media in Scotland post-independence in the mould of somewhere like our near neighbour Denmark; the main Public broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) runs national TV networks and national and regional radio stations. It is funded by a licence fee. Government owned national broadcasters operate and subsidise first rate regional outlets all over Denmark, and sustain journalism of a very high order indeed. Quite unlike the bloated commercial print media in Scotland that is more or less a propaganda organ for powerful private interests. There are also very many local commercial and community radio stations, as well as national and semi-national commercial networks, that compete with DR’s networks in a true mixed social democratic economy that the UK once had.
      And going back to the very real need for a constitution: in Denmark Freedom of expression is provided for in law. Freedom House says the media reflect a range of political opinions and are often critical of the government. Danish people are very media savvy and digitally erudite and 97% of the population use the internet. And they have a newspaper readership, of bewildering variety, that we could only dream of, even in the golden days of the British newspaper era. It is possible that the media in Scotland could be saved by what they so ferociously & blindly attack at the moment, which of course an Independent Scotland.

      1. Clare Galloway says:

        Your comments are so beautifully and intelligently put, Craig.

        1. Craig Devine says:

          thanks Clare. Mikes article is also ‘beautifully and intelligently put’, as I should have said earlier- its an article that might appear radical in these uber conservative times but in reality its proposals are absolutely necessary & completely, soberly sensible.

  19. J Galt says:

    Johnson is preparing to betray the hard brexiteers.

    He is rehashing May’s withdrawal agreement and this requires a Queen’s Speech.

    Davidson was openly backing him today and probably gave more away than she should have.

  20. nottheonly1 says:

    While I see doom for the British, there are lots of opportunities for the Scottish, Welsh and Irish. For one, these regions could create their own union based on real values. Independence from the UK should not lead into dependence of other powers. Like the EU. It may be a bit over romanticizing, but personal experiences showed me that the Scottish people do value honor and honesty. That might have changed over the last 35 years, but I cling on to the belief that they can indeed create free themselves from any kind of outside control.
    The real opportunity lies with the acknowledgement of interdependence. Scotland must seek trade and exchange with like minded regions – no matter where these might be. As long as it limits itself to the status quo of survival, it too, will be in trouble. And on top of political troubles, there will be challenges galore that cannot be solved with wishful thinking. Scotland must separate itself from the chaff. It has the ability and the means to be an example for others to follow.

    A referendum would be the best way to find out where Scotland really stands at the moment. The haters are in the minority. The question of “when, if not now?” for filing a divorce from an abusive spouse is essential for the future wellbeing.

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