It's been obvious for some time that the Tories' number one objective is to push back the timetable for the independence referendum, but it's now becoming clear that at least one of the notorious Tory "sources" has also been floating the idea that they might demand there needs to be a fresh mandate at the 2021 Holyrood election before a long-delayed referendum can finally take place. This story has appeared in two slightly different forms - the Spectator claim that the pro-independence parties between them would have to win an overall majority (ie. a repeat of exactly the same mandate they've already got), while the Times claim that the SNP alone would have to win an overall majority in their own right (a plainly indefensible idea if several parties are all standing on a pro-referendum platform). Either way, if this is to be based on hair-splitting objections to the mandate for a referendum that currently exists, it's hard to see how the line can hold, because the facts are stacked against the Tories -
* The SNP manifesto last year contained a specific pledge that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to call a referendum in the event of Brexit.
* That manifesto was backed by the biggest percentage vote that any party has received in the history of devolution.
* The SNP's share of the vote was roughly 10% higher than the Conservatives achieved at the UK general election in 2015. If the SNP do not have a mandate to implement their own manifesto, then by definition neither do the UK Tories. (That would mean there was no mandate to hold the EU referendum, for example.)
* 69 pro-independence MSPs were elected, and only 60 anti-independence MSPs were elected.
* That majority will be formally confirmed next week when the Scottish Parliament votes in favour of holding an independence referendum.
* The Scottish Parliament elected Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister by an overwhelming margin of 63 votes to 5, on the specific basis that she would be forming a single-party SNP government.
It doesn't even end there, though. Regardless of any implausible objection raised by the Tories to that impeccable mandate, the SNP would always have the option of calling their bluff by bringing about an early Holyrood election to satisfy any arbitrary conditions that are set for the 2021 vote. If that is successfully done, the excuses for thwarting a referendum on a reasonable timescale will run out.
That I would absolutely love to see happen.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't even need a referendum then.
If needs be can the Scottish Elections be used as a referendum?
DeleteYes
DeleteFrank Zola @mrfrankzola 4 hours ago
DeleteTories confirms pensioner back door bedroom tax of £1500+ per year
https://speye.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/tories-confirms-pensioner-back-door-bedroom-tax-of-1500-per-year/ …
The Tories don't want us to launch a lifeboat until after they have hit the rocks.
ReplyDeleteCurrently claiming that those rocks are nice friendly enterprising rocks which will set us all free.
Not many Scots button up the back however.
The poker analogy which Brexiters use to describe the Article 50 process is very fitting, but not in the way they think.
DeleteIn terms of understanding the negotiations in Brussels it is largely useless. Poker is about hiding cards. Article 50 is about negotiating when your opponent already knows your cards. But it is fitting on the basis that it relies on reading someone's face. And the three Brexit Musketeers have terrible poker faces.
On Sunday, all three were asked what the government had prepared to do in the event of a no-deal outcome at the end of Article 50. Boris Johnson's face contorted into a kind of pained grin as he insisted the UK would be "perfectly OK" if we fell back onto World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
Liam Fox looked nervous and confused as he pretended everything would be just fine. David Davis also looked hesitant. The swagger and arrogance we have come to associate with the Brexiters appears to be drifting away. The closer the reality of negotiations comes, more their confidence seems to desert them.
Their words are even less convincing than their expressions. Leaving the UK with no deal will not be "perfectly OK". It will be catastrophic. Davis likes to call it "most favoured nation", because it has the ring of privilege to anyone who does not know what it entails. In fact, the WTO's 'most favoured nation' rule mean the opposite of what it sounds like. It means you cannot discriminate in your tariff arrangements. So if you set tariffs for oranges at five per cent for one country, you must set it at that level for all other countries. It does not mean Britain holds any special status there - quite the opposite.
No major economy relies on just WTO rules for its global trade. They have full-fat comprehensive trade deals and then a variety of trade arrangements below that level. They all have trade arrangements with the EU, for that matter. The reason for this is that tariffs don't really matter. Sure, their sudden introduction will force some car companies to move to Europe and pulverise Britain's export market in agricultural products, but awful as this would be they are nowehere near the worst aspect of a no-deal Brexit.
The major concern is about non-tariff barriers - things like mutual recognition of health and safety standards. Without them, goods are stopped at the border for lengthy and bureaucratically expensive checks. Organising a society for suddenly starting a trading life like this requires lots of work setting up domestic regulators and transferring legal requirements. Without them, there would be chaos: Lorries queuing at the border, shipments stopped and detained, airplanes unable to fly.
That would just be the start of the nightmare if Article 50 ends with no deal. A hard border in Ireland would spring up overnight. The chances of Scotland voting Yes in an independence referendum would shoot up with it. Millions of EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU would be thrown into even worse uncertainty about their status, with no end for it in sight. The broken-down negotiations over the divorce bill would probably lead to a legal challenge - God knows in which court - forcing Britain to try to sign trade deals with other countries while battling an unseemly dispute with its main trading partner. Trade disputes would also start against the UK in the WTO, as the schedules it puts down for trade are potentially contested by the EU and others, particularly on tariff rate quotas.
If the UK crashes out the EU with no deal, it will be a moment of humiliation on a global scale, engraved on the memory of those who went through it. Suez and Black Wednesday would seem dignified in comparison.
http://archive.is/KOlHZ
I hope they do block indyref2. It'll be easier to win a majority at Holyrood anyway.
ReplyDeleteNot even May is that stupid/arrogant though....
I beg to differ. I think she is all that. See you at dawn, your choice of weapons?
DeleteTo be fair you could have asked central casting for a comically out of touch tory with the overpowering stench of witless arrogance and a thoroughly clueless patronising manner and they would have given you.. David Cameron. :D
DeleteUnless you asked for that in a female and then they give you - Theresa May. :D
It was mindboggling how they somehow okayed May's 'response' to the First Minister yesterday. Did nobody in tory central office think, 'Hmmm.... perhaps with a less fingernails on a chalkboard manner towards the jocks?' LOL
She is clearly no good at this PM lark and has even less chance than Cameron did of leading any campaign against Scottish Independence.
They'll put her safely in the bunker for the duration where she can help the three Brixtears look for their own arses with a flashlight.
We know from the odious Neil Lovatt that our enemies want to delay the referendum until EU citizens have been rounded up in cattle trucks and 160,000 guaranteed Yes votes have been incinerated.
ReplyDeleteTheresa May can rant all she wants but the witch has no power over us anymore.
In other news the pretend Yes supporter and friend of racist sexist bigots V Moyes has an article in the Guardian lamenting the abusive yes campaign and asking for guarantees about pensions. Now that's somebody blowing their cover as a 5th columnist for NO in the most public way possible.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely the Scottish Election can be run on independence versus the union. What better platform. Majority pro independence = independence. This is the route many nations have taken over the years. The referendum is a polite way of asking the voters before proceeding.
ReplyDeleteAnother option would be for all SNP MPs to resign and make ensuing by-elections a replacement call for Indy.
ReplyDeleteA more explicit mandate wouldn't hurt their credibility. I know a few people who voted SNP because they want a centre-left govt and consider Labour to be in meltdown. They're not pro-independence, they just feel the SNP do a decent job running Holyrood and they don't have any other alternatives.
DeleteNot everyone bases their parliamentary vote 100% on Scottish Independence, some of us have other priorities.
Mark Oosterveen @MarkOosterveen 10 hours ago
ReplyDeleteMy dad. 82. Lived here 20+ years. British wife (dead), two British kids. Can't walk, has Alzheimer's. DUTCH. Been told to prepare to leave.
Kate McCannVerified account @KateEMcCann 10 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteEXCL: Tory MP Craig Mackinlay interviewed under caution for six hours over South Thanet election expenses:
There are Council elections coming up in May, I think we need to ensure that as many people as possible vote in these elections and vote for SNP, Green and any other pro-independence party, using the STV system in the informed way that James has explained.
ReplyDeleteMay should call the tune and refuse a referendum. The neo fascists should need reminded about democracy. It would be good if the Nat si MP'S expelled themselves.
ReplyDeleteConfrontation is a good thing and we Unionists are up for it.
The troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteWhats wrong pervert were you unable to get into her knickers?
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteNeo Natzi perv.
DeleteThe national socialists led by adolf nicla are nothing but English haters and plan to herd and expel the English.
DeleteNeo Natzi perv
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteNeo Natzi perv.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist Neo-Nazi hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister
DeleteRobert Peston saying in his blog that indyref2 will "certainly" be pushed back until after the 2020 UK General Election.
ReplyDeleteYou'll get your referendum, when we decide.
"The undecideds and the bottlers will put it in the back of the net for 'remain'. I'm sure Cameron also has a few tricks up his sleeve to deploy in the dying days of the campaign."
DeleteAldo
Mark Oosterveen @MarkOosterveen 10 hours ago
ReplyDeleteMy dad. 82. Lived here 20+ years. British wife (dead), two British kids. Can't walk, has Alzheimer's. DUTCH. Been told to prepare to leave.
He will not know how to walk.
DeleteWe have won the argument that is why yer erses are nippin. Call the referendum Nat sis.
DeleteWe have brexit, we are treating Knickerless with contempt like the frumpy numpty she is and she will still not call it.
Jock bottle merchants. Up yer lederhosen.
Jocks are shitebags. You should dae whit we done and go on a murder spree against the Brits and anyone else you do not like. It gets you elected.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteNeo Natzi perv.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses Neo-Nazi racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecesso
DeleteNeo Natzi perv.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist Neo-Nazi hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister
DeleteNeo Natzi perv.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteKate McCannVerified account @KateEMcCann 10 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteEXCL: Tory MP Craig Mackinlay interviewed under caution for six hours over South Thanet election expenses:
Frank Zola @mrfrankzola 8 hours ago
ReplyDeleteTories confirms pensioner back door bedroom tax of £1500+ per year
https://speye.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/tories-confirms-pensioner-back-door-bedroom-tax-of-1500-per-year/ …
Mark Oosterveen @MarkOosterveen 10 hours ago
ReplyDeleteMy dad. 82. Lived here 20+ years. British wife (dead), two British kids. Can't walk, has Alzheimer's. DUTCH. Been told to prepare to leave.
Wings Over Scotland @WingsScotland 17 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteYoons hate Scotland so much they even hate English people who move there.
pic.twitter.com/4X7vd6mjU8
James, 'The National's' front page for tomorrow mentions a new poll, any details?
ReplyDeleteNo vote at 57% yougov poll
ReplyDeleteDont think there is Much change since last one
Where do the Neo Natzis get such ugly ranting women to put on Newsnight. Talking pure shite with no regard to the Scottish people. May I hope tells wee jimmy krankie and her fellow fash tae fuck aff.
ReplyDeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteI challenge any globalist Nats to tell me now one issue that the 58 msps disagree on.I wont hold my breath,they would not dare challenge the dear leader Krankie for fear of retribution and oblivion from her globalist national socialist utopian pipe dream.Krankie wants to separate from Ireland,Wales and England,but will unite with 27 other mostly globalists.so she can wine and dine, freely of course, on the world stage.
ReplyDeleteCheltenham's little helper. A gift that keeps on giving.
DeleteEveryone's talking about permission for indyref2, why? Just hold a consultative referendum. The EU referendum was consultative and no one would dare ignore the result.
ReplyDelete