WHAT DID THE QUEEN TELL MURDO ABOUT HER FOOTBALL PREFERENCES?

The Three Brexiteers. 

In the last post Dean made some observations about Brexit and Scotland's reaction to it. 

In this post I'd like to look at Brexit and what our response might be. 

Firstly, I don't think we should ever give up on what we believe in. Brexit or no, many people simply believe that Scotland is best served being governed for itself, by itself, although clearly working with other countries in international organisations. 

The Brexit débacle may have swayed people in this in one direction or the other, of course.

Let's be clear, Brexit was, and is, made in a perfectly legal referendum decision, not an unreasonable aspiration. I don't knock anyone who believes in it.

Maybe because I see the four constituent members of the UK as separate countries with their own needs and economic and social realities, however, I think that any case that can be made for Brexit is far less compelling if you are from Scotland, or NI, or clearly, Gibraltar. London is rather different, given its status in the financial world. 

Different people in different countries were voting for different things. Northern Ireland for example, already marginalised by Great Britain, is worried that being outside the EU while the rest of Ireland is in it, will be damaging to its economy. It is also a recipient of a great deal of EU money which almost undoubtedly will not be forthcoming from the UK. Scotland, whilst not in the same category still profits from its membership of the EU.

One of the disturbing aspects of the Brexit campaign at least from the 'popular' press, and one that seemed to take root in England in particular, was a level of xenophobia, the likes of which I've never seen before. By heavens the editors of the Sun, Mail, Telegraph and Express seem to either have a visceral hatred for foreigners ... or have worked out that their readers do and from this they can make money. 

How to create a solid wall of hatred.

Of course I will never give up on the idea of independence for Scotland, but like most of us, I have had to accept the will of the Scottish people in a referendum in 2014, to stay in the UK.

But it's fair to say that that vote was based on some assurances, not least one propounded by British politicians of both colours (and probably the LDs) and the EU authorities, that the only way to stay in the EU was to stay in Britain. That Scots voted 62-38 to stay in Europe is a real indicator that that was something that may have influenced them in their 2014 decision.

Aye, Fluffy, whatever...

In any political campaign we know that people lie and politicians of every shade manipulate statistics and facts to their own advantage. Hard though it is for a normal person to understand Mr Mundell's volte face, I'm sure that he and his side are not the only ones to do this. 

Lord knows the NHS staff and some patients may well have been swayed by the implied benefit of £350 million a week from Boris, Nigel and crew.

No, we aren't really being served. But we're only Jocks, Irish, or Gibraltarians.

On our side (independence for Scotland), we have had "the settled will of the Scottish people" rammed fairly hard down our throats for some time. Fair enough. Certainly the politicians at the top, the FM, the cabinet and minister, accepted that, although they continue to work hard to persuade the Scottish people that they made the wrong choice (well the 55%). There's nothing unreasonable about that. You don't give up on a dream if at first you don't succeed. 

Had Nigel lost he wouldn't have said, "oh well, that's it, we'll abandon any hopes of coming out of Europe; I'll just learn French so that I don't have to shout/slur loudly at the bar staff in Brussels".

Our parliament has a majority of members who were elected on a platform that included the proposal that if there were to be a material change in the political or economic situation, then another referendum on independence was possible. Their election too, might be called the settled will of the Scottish people, as might be the 62% for Europe vote in our country.

The 'settled will' in any case is not ever really settled, regardless of what the odious Jack Straw says (in between celebrating  Berexit getting Chilcott and thus his sorry backside off the front pages almost immediately!!) He would have made it illegal for there EVER to be another referendum on Scottish Independence.

To be fair Mr Farage was never one to see irony

Populations are changing all the time, because population is a moving thing: people come of age and people die. People arrive and people move away. It's the way of things. A 'will' in 2014 may have changed dramatically by 2019 because of a change in demographics, particularly given that statistics show that the younger people tend to be much more pro-independence than older ones. So 'settled will' even a few years later, may be very different.

Nicola is doing the right thing in my opinion, to see if the 'will' of the Scottish people, in both referenda can be accepted: ie, Scotland remain a part of the UK and a part of the EU.  That's after all what the Scots said back in 2014 and 2016.

It's not as fantastical as it seems. In the Kingdom of Denmark, part is in and part out. And the Irish situation may well demand a much more flexible viewpoint, for the sake of peace or again the possibility of a part of the UK breaking away.

If, as Westminster seems to be indicating it will, that fails, then the views of the Scottish people may be sought again. Not to do so would be letting down the 62% who are about to be dragged out of Europe with the attendant loss of jobs and increased costs. Particularly because of the specific promise made by UKOKers in 2014.

Well, there you go. The Queen must hate Celtic, Murdo?
Did you ask her how she feels about you telling the world that?

Murdo Fraser, seems to be unaware of what his government is doing in London. He says that the Scottish government must explain what Brexit means, while Mrs May and her Three Brexiteers (Johnson, Fox and Davis) are steadfastly refusing to explain that even to their own MPs. (Maybe that's what Murdo means.) 

How the hell can Nicola, or the Scottish public, possibly know what it means when the folk that are supposed to be in charge won't tell us (or don't know themselves)? And how can the Scottish government plan for something that the Brits haven't sorted out?  This is a good read.

What the Scottish government has tried to do is establish the facts. So Nicola has been to Brussels to meet with people there. What she wanted to know was, what would this mean for Scotland...was there a possibility of a Greenlandic solution in reverse... and how would the EU react to Scotland if it decided independence in Europe was superior to dependence in the UK?

She seemed to get more done in the first few weeks than the mighty British government which acted like a rabbit blinded by headlights from the four winds.

But of course, all negotiations must, in the end, be between London and Brussels.

We are dependent upon people who seem to have little regard for us, and certainly won't much care about our wishes when it comes to negotiating. To be fair they all represent English constituencies and the English population is massive in comparison to ours.

Boris wanted the yacht to travel the world with his two buddies (and presumably Mr Werrity). His boss said NO.

Seriously do you imagine that Johnson, Fox and Davis will give much thought to the people in Gibraltar, Scotland or Northern Ireland when they are sorting out the future?

At the moment they seemed to be more interested in getting the royal yacht recommissioned so they can steam around the world like the colonialists they are, striking up trade deals with anyone who is impressed with a royal yacht. Opium anyone? Watch out, Dean, if some suspicious looking English fellow with a haystack on his head  comes up to you in the street saying "Me sell you opium. Velly good stuff, ask Lord Sewell". Oh no sorry, that was coke!

I'd be interested in people's views on this, and on whether parliament should be given a chance to debate Brexit, albeit with no veto on the referendum result, or whether it should all be done by the back door, privy council, statutory orders or whatever they have up their sleeve when they want to be sneaky... 

DISGRACE

There can be few Munguin readers, I imagine, who haven't by now heard of the furore over Wings of Scotland's suggestion on Twitter that Siobhan McFadyen was a disgrace. 

Stuart was reacting to her "pack of lies" article on the possibility of a second Scottish referendum. And she in return went ballistic. 

As you can see, however, from the above Tweet, McFadyen seems to think it's OK for her to use the term "disgrace" in the same way.

You can read all about it here, here,  here, and here, on Wings (or just look at the last few Wings' posts now that Blogger has got round to fixing the side bars).

I've read the Express articles and they were, without doubt, a disgrace. They bore not even passing resemblance to the truth, and like much of the Express coverage in the run up to the European election, they could easily have been taken, particularly by the average avid Express reader, as an incitement to violence. 

(It's not any surprise that there has been a massive rise in violence towards disabled people, and foreigners of any kind, in the recent past since papers like the Express [the Daily Mail and the Sun in particular, and their Sunday issues] have run campaigns of hatred against scrounging hordes of sick, disabled and foreign people, here apparently to deprive good hard working British family folk up and down the country, of what is rightly theirs!) 

Actually, far from abuse, and this may have annoyed McFadyen more than anything else, many independentistas by way of answer posted photographs of peaceful, happy rallies, or pictures of Nicola with bairns, with captions ridiculing McFadyen's piece.

She's become a laughing stock. Then again she works for the Express! It goes with the job.

Of course, when a complaint is made against someone, I think that Twitter is quite within its rights to suspend that person's account while it investigates.

However, it seems that Twitter isn't too good at communications. It seems near to impossible to get in touch with them. They investigate in their own good time without any interference from anyone. These of course, are the benefits of being big and powerful.  I'm pretty sure that when Twitter does investigate it will reinstate Wings' account.

In fairness there have been calls from some other unionist journalists to do so. Maybe McFadyen is a disgrace even to them.

Stuart isn't well known for political correctness. He doesn't suffer fools gladly and he calls a spade a spade. I make no bones, sometime it makes me cringe.

But he is one of the real and powerful driving forces of the independence movement. In the years he has been publishing, for all the hard stuff he's handed out to people, no one has ever taken action against him.  Now one has ever sued, including lawyers who could do so at no real expense.

He backs his stuff with hard facts and links to where he got them and he appears to have an encyclopaedic memory. Perhaps that's why no one sues him.

How the unionists must hate him.

He is quite simply, irreplaceable.

NICOLA'S STATEMENT ON THE OUTCOME OF THE EU REFERENDUM

Nicola Sturgeon gave a statement on the outcome of the EU referendum. She set out what action the Scottish Government will now take to safeguard our future in Europe, following the unequivocal vote for Scotland to remain in the EU.

Here’s what you need to know.

1. Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014.

During the 2014 referendum we were told that only a No vote would guarantee that Scotland would remain in the EU - this has proved not to be the case. We believe this is a democratically unacceptable situation.

2. We will take all possible steps and explore all options to secure Scotland’s continuing place in the EU and in the single market in particular.

We are clear that the Scottish Government must be fully involved in all decisions about the next steps the UK Government takes. The Scottish Government will also seek discussions with the EU institutions and its member states, including the earliest possible meeting with the President of the European Commission.

3. The Scottish Government will begin to prepare the required legislation to enable a new independence referendum - if and when Parliament so decides.

When the process for the UK to leave the EU begins in three months time, it is expected to take two years to leave. If the Scottish Parliament decides that a second referendum is the best or only way to protect our place in Europe, it must have the option to hold one within that timescale.

The need to act decisively will be tempered with the need to build consensus. While many people who voted No in 2014 are reassessing their decision, we will not simply assume their support - we will be straight and honest with them.

4. For citizens of other EU countries living here in Scotland - you remain welcome here, Scotland is your home and your contribution is valued.

The Remain vote in Scotland was won by a campaign that was positive about the EU and about the benefits of migration. Scotland has voted to renew its reputation as an outward looking, open and inclusive country.

5. Our business community can be reassured that as of now we remain firmly in the EU.

Trade and business should continue as normal - we are determined that Scotland will continue to be an attractive and stable place to do business.

The survey Nicola referred to is available HERE

LETTER TO MONICA

Dear Monica,

Have you ever organised one of these events? I ask, because I have and I know what it involves.

And what happens is that the organisation requests certain things of the minister or official. Will you open our new wing; talk to our staff/pupils/6th form or whatever? Oh and would you sign the book on the way out, or say a few words over our new library... or whatever!

Normally the minister/official does his/her best to comply with as many of these requests as limited time will allow.

Jack McConnell and Margaret Curran (separately) were both most accommodating to our requests when they visited our premises to talk about career opportunities for people living in areas of multiple deprivation.

I suspect that in this case the head teacher requested that the First Minister give up 5 minutes to have a few selfies with the girls she was talking to about equality in careers. In fairness, regardless of your politics, Nicola must be a bit of a role model for a teenage girl who wants to make a career for herself.

And the FM, being the kind of person who will always make time in her day if she can, agreed.

You have to wonder if Ms Dugdale would have said ... "NO, I'm far too important and busy to take selfies with school children". 

And the answer is, no, of course she wouldn't. Just like Nicola she'd have said "Yes of course I will".

If you want to have a go at the first minister try to up your game a bit, Monica. Try politics for example. Don't quibble about 5 minutes of Nicola's time. It makes you look incredibly petty. And most of all don't pick on something that your own leader would have readily agreed to. That just makes you look silly.

Maybe one day someone will ask YOU to be in a selfie.

Yours sincerely


Tris

TODAY THE LONDON PARLIAMENT WILL DEBATE SPENDING £210+ BILLION ON TRIDENT REPLACEMENT

WHILE CHILDREN GO HUNGRY, THE SICK GO UNTREATED AND PENSIONERS GO COLD...

BUT....

THE FIRST MINISTER IS LOOKING AT EVERY POSSIBILITY

MURDO THINKS THAT Messrs JUNKER and SHULTZ ARE BUSKERS! TORIES, HUH?

Murdo Fraser ‏@murdo_fraser  2h2 hours ago

LATEST from Brussels: Nicola emerges 'delighted with progress' from high-level talks arranged with busker she met in Grand Place

C

To fail to plan is to plan to fail

By Panda Paws

I’ve not written for a while but Tris’ mentioning that MR might be in jeopardy compelled me to churn something out. I’d set up one of those online petitions to save Soppy Sunday if I knew how. Luckily we are cursed to live in interesting times so there’s lot to chew over.

So you know those people who are so sharp if they fell over they’d cut themselves, who think they are such great strategists but actually fail to see the obvious?

Well they’ve just taken the UK out of the EU. A power play about who would succeed Cameron and be heid bummer of the Nasty Party whilst keeping their ultra right wing happy and out of UKIP, has blown up in their faces in a way that made the Big Bang seem like a disappointing sparkler out of the pound shop. After years of telling folk their ills were not due to neo-liberalism, but foreigners and the EU, they seemed completely surprised that more of the electorate believed them than not.

Yes, England and Wales, in a fit of pique, voted to save the country the money it contributes to the EU and in doing so crashed the pound so hard it had the third largest one day drop in value of ANY currency in history. Excellent work! 

The working class voting to protest against the elite by voting for equally elite but more right wing bunch. Not so much turkeys voting  

for Christmas, as them turning up on Bernard Matthews’ doorstep and prostrating themselves.

Meanwhile Northern Ireland voted 'in' – and have certainly reacted to the Brexit result in a very clear manner.

Lots more people are showing an interest in genealogy these days in search of the Irish grandparents they now hope they have.

At the Leave leaders' press conference on Friday Gove and Johnson looked like rabbits caught in headlights. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a narrow Remain but enough to damage Pig Lover and bring in someone even more Thatcherite. 

"Bugger!”

Clearly they had no plan going forward. What do we want? – to leave the EU. When do we want it? – whenever. However the EU and particularly the six original members are in no mood to mess about. Get article 50 in next week and be gone, they said.

It just goes to show you how clueless our so-called betters are. For all their Eton and Oxbridge education they didn’t plan for one of only two options. FFS. But somebody did plan; they planned for every eventuality and how best to stick up for their country and its 

people. The daughter of an electrician and a dental nurse from the playing fields of Greenwood academy. Brought up in a council house and the first in her family to go to university – Nicola Sturgeon. 

And yesterday and today she demonstrated her qualities of statesmanship and leadership. The first thing she said was reassure EU citizens that they were welcome and valued. EU citizens who two years ago were a demographic that voted no and broke her, mine and a hell of all lot more hearts. 

But there were no recriminations – just a hand of friendship. She then said she’d do all she could to keep us in the EU and ALL options are open. She and her advisors have planned for every eventuality. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a bid to give England and Wales the “finger” the EU fall over themselves to accommodate a Scotland that voted so clearly on the 23rd to be an outward looking modern 

European country. 

There were narrow minded nationalists in 2014 and 2016 but they 

weren’t on Yes or Remain’s side. Unionists seem to be under the mistaken impression that British nationalism isn’t actually a

nationalism. Well denial isn’t only a river in Egypt – which is a foreign place full of Muslims so they wouldn’t like it. 

Not everyone who voted Brexit is a narrow minded bigot but 

most who are narrow minded bigots voted Brexit and that’s company I wouldn’t like to keep.

Much though it pained me at the time, I wonder if the No vote in 2014 was necessary. It gave us a chance to normalise the idea, it gave Westminster the opportunity to prove itself utterly deceitful in its promises and Thursday’s leave vote demonstrated beyond doubt that

Scotland and England have irreconcilable differences. We can fix the mistakes of the last time and it MAY be that the MSM wouldn’t be as universally hostile as previously if  the headline in the Daily Record is anything to go by. People are going on twitter to say that they’ve changed their minds and will now vote Yes. Mike Dailly of Govan Law Centre, a No voting Labour activist, was so rude to me when I spoke out for Yes in 2014 at a public meeting that people I didn’t know came up to see if I was okay. Today he tweeted this.

The EU will likely be much more amenable than in 2014 in order to give Westminster a bloody nose and we’ll get the independent Scotland we wanted, just a wee bit later. 

Until then Saor Alba Gu Brath.

THANK GOODNESS WE HAVE NICOLA

\

Oh and for those of you who wonder where George is...

We're not too sure... but then, neither is he.

IS THIS AS SIGNIFICANT AS I THINK IT IS?

Given the comments on the previous post, I suspect it may well be.

ON M'A DIT QUE JE NE SUIS PLUS EUROPÉEN

I was gardening till 11 o'clock last night. All the news all day had been of a big turn out and a swing from Brexit to Remain across the UK. So I watched the last North British News, had a very hot bath and went to bed.

I was a bit surprised then this morning, to find that Dodgy Dave has gone, shares have crashed, the pound has bombed and negotiations are to start on Brexit. Still, it seems the Queen will be purring, even if it's not down the phone to the Eton Boy. So I've jotted down a few random thoughts here.

England voted to exit the UK, and by a tiny amount so did Wales, 

Scotland and Northern Ireland, on the other hand, returned resounding victories for Remain and already I've seen a bunch to Tweets from people who are indicating a change in political allegiance North of the Border, as they understand now that the promises made by politicians from across the Better Together campaign, were no more than piecrusts and made to be broken. 

The results:

UK: Remain: 48.1%. Leave: 51.9%.
England: Remain: 46.8%. Leave: 53.2%
Scotland: Remain: 62%. Leave: 38%
Wales: Remain: 48.3%. Leave: 51.7%
NI: Remain: 55.7%. Leave: 44.3%

As you all know, this blog has taken an indifferent attitude to the EU referendum. The whole campaign was depressingly lie-filled on both sides. (Gordon Brown, who holds no position whatsoever in the UK and sits in none of the parliaments appears to have promised 55,000 new jobs in Scotland had the UK stayed in Europe... How? Why? Why would the status quo suddenly generate new jobs?). Nigel Farage promised a massive boost to the  NHS if we brexitted. Apparently he has already denied saying it. Still he called for a national holiday for "Independence Day" so that's something to look forward to. 

Turmoil everywhere. Tony Blair is blaming a lack of leadership from Corbyn, who is facing a confidence motion in his own party. Blair probably thinks the man should have organised an illegal war and killed a few million foreigners.

There's already a petition for a rerun, because of the closeness of the vote... Londoners are already talking about an Independence referendum and Martin McGuinness is talking about an all-Ireland referendum.

Some people of course are happy... but what are these imagrents of which we're not going to have any more? 

We live in interesting times, as the Chinese say... and I'm sure that, after the statesman like speech of our First minister, there will be much of interest for Munguin's Republic in the coming weeks... and indeed months.

NICOLA ON THE NEW SOCIAL SECURITY POWERS