MIA ANSWERS SOME CHALLENGES

—“The Catalunia and Quebec indyrefs both included all residents in the franchise”

Catalunya and Quebec are not in an international treaty with Spain and Canada respectively. Catalunya and Quebec did not enter to form part of Spain/Canada voluntarily as independent sovereign states. Scotland did.

Trying to reduce Scotland’s case to the same as Catalonia and Quebec’s has, for long now, been seen as a deliberate attempt to present Scotland as a region, rather than what it is: a sovereign country who entered voluntarily an international treaty, and therefore voluntarily can exit it at any time of its choosing.

The UK is a bipartite political union taking its legitimacy from an international treaty between 2 sovereign states. Pretend it to be the same as Spain or Canada is, again, another deliberate attempt to mislead and undermine Scotland’s real status in this political union and its rights. It is, in my view, an attempt to big up the perceived status of the UK gov and parliament in terms of their legitimacy to “rule” over Scotland, to veto its perfectly legitimate right to unilaterally terminate that treaty and more importantly, to violate the Scotland’s Claim of Right, which clearly states absolute rule is constitutionally unlawful in Scotland.

—“An indyref usually uses different franchises to internal referendums held by already independent countries”

Possibly because, quite deliberately, in occupied countries there is not a system of citizenship in place that allows for that. The Falklands and Gibraltar have that system though. If they can, which are substantially smaller than Scotland both in geographical size and population, and did not enter the UK after an international treaty like Scotland did, surely Scotland can have that system too. The only thing you need is the will to do it. Clearly Sturgeon never had that will.

—“I did hear somewhere that the UKG intends to insist on a majority of areas voting Yes, in addition to a simple majority”

1.
Scotland is a sovereign country who entered voluntarily an international treaty. Scotland entered that treaty against the will of its people and simply because a majority of corrupt MPs were bribed and coerced by the crown to force Scotland into that treaty. There never was a referendum to enter the treaty, despite several anti-union MPs demanding one. 

Ironically, some of those corrupt MPs who forced the ratification of the treaty without paying any attention to the many protests and thousands of complaints of the Scottish people sent to parliament, suddenly, and conveniently for the union, turned democrats in 1714 when the union was in peril. At that point, those pro-union MPs were demanding a referendum of the people before Scotland’s MPs could contemplate agreeing to demand the termination of the union in 1714. Absolute rulers demanding democracy when convenient to their political views, huh? just as we have been experiencing for the last 8 years from the Scottish gov and parliament, and the UK gov and our representatives in the UK parliament.

Those same corrupt pro-union MPs deliberately denied the people of Scotland a general election in 1707 because they feared that election would become a plebiscitary one – one where enough anti-union MPs would be elected to terminate the experiment of the UK union before it even started. 

If you read history books, you will see that the “union” that today is claimed to be so “precious” by some quarters (particularly those with a vested interest in continue to control and profit from Scotland’s land and assets), in the 1700’s it was seen only as an experiment which many did not have hopes it would last. 

In fact, both in 1711 and 1714 the was at the verge of ending. It lasted because the crown wanted it to last, because our MPs and peers at the time were thinking mainly in themselves and the financial and prestige advantages for themselves that remaining in the union would bring, and because since then, real anti-union MPs and peers have been side-lined . This continues today and there is no better example than the way Mr Salmond or even Ms Cherry have been treated, or the way real pro-indy supporters were sidelined in the SNP lists for the last Holyrood election in favour of erosion of women’s rights and self-ID, or even the way Sturgeon did all what she could to block Alba from entering Holyrood in 2021 even when that involved asking pro-independence voters to waste their list votes to open Holyrood’s door to pro-union MSPs.

Since the moment it was publicly announced the SNP would win by a landslide GE2015 in late 2014, Sturgeon changed SNP policy to deny the people of Scotland the opportunity to vote to terminate this union. This has all the appearance of having been quite deliberate and she has done this in two ways:

a. By denying us the opportunity to use general elections as a plebiscite
b. By deliberately transferring hers and the SNP’s own responsibility to deliver the referendum to the representatives elected by England. In other words, Sturgeon has handed them a fabricated veto. When this failed to quiet the masses, this faux democrat proceded to hand the veto to the Kingdom of England’s judges. All her tenure has been a massive dereliction of duty. It is not the obligation of the Kingdom of England elected representatives, never mind judges, to uphold the democratic mandate given to Scotland’s representatives by the Scottish people. It is the obligation of Scotland’s representatives, and that includes the SNP and Sturgeon herself, to deliver those mandates.

What we have seen since 2014 is nothing but the modern version of what the people of Scotland experienced in 1707: being denied the opportunity to use democracy to exit this union.

You should be able to exit a treaty in the same way you entered it. International law recognises the three: changes of circumstances, violation of fundamental conditions of the treaty and lack of good faith from a partner in the treaty as perfectly valid reasons to unilaterally terminate the treaty. We have experienced the three. Scotland does not need a referendum to exit this treaty in the same way it did not need one to enter it. The only thing we need is a majority of anti-union MPs WILLING to use their mandate to terminate the union. Clearly the overwhelming majority of those we elect in 2019 are not willing.

2.
If we had a proper pro-independence FM rather than a Westminster tool, Scotland’s legitimate right to unilaterally terminate this treaty would have been already asserted. For the last 7 years the people of Scotland have been sending a majority of anti-union MPs to Westminster, therefore there is no credible excuse for this not to have happened already. 

Nicola Sturgeon and the hopeless SNP MPs have refused to act upon this. This does not mean they cannot or that they should not. 1707 showed us that a majority of MPs is enough to determine if Scotland should be or should not be in the union. If they are as democratic as they claim to be, the treaty of union should have been repealed in 2015 already. 

What this means is the minute Scotland’s MPs find a backbone and assert Scotland’s right to unilaterally terminate that treaty, UKG becomes meaningless, just the same as the UK parliament. Why? Because both the UK gov and UK parliament are by-products of the treaty. They get their authority and reason of being from the treaty and the treaty itself gets its authority as a constitutional tool from the parents of the treaty, which are the former Scotland and England parliaments. It is them who have the final authority, not the UKGov. In 1707 we clearly saw that it was needed the consent from BOTH parliaments to enter the union. What this means is that if today Scotland’s old parliament removes its consent, the union ends.

We are been told repeatedly by unionist apparatchiks that the Parliament of Scotland closed down itself forever and somewhat the England parliament morphed into the UK of Great Britain’s parliament. I think this to be the most ridiculous assertion ever made. I do not know how such thing could have even been possible or who was perceived to have the authority to close Scotland’s parliament. I have not yet found the document that states in black and white and beyond any reasonable doubt that THE old Scottish parliament rather than THAT particular parliament those MPs were part of, closed forever.

I don’t even know if the crown in 1707 had the authority to deny Scotland a parliament. Considering the Claim of Right, I think it unlikely. If the crown had such authority, it would have organised the union itself without the charade of nominating commissioners, bribes etc and then having the MPs to ratify the treaty. In any case, this is not the 1700s, so the idea that in the third decade of the 21st century the crown can even contemplate openly breaching the Claim of Right to exercise absolute rule denying Scotland’s MPs or the people of Scotland the opportunity to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament, and expect to get away with it for long, is not credible. 

If the Mps of a parliament had the authority to close forever a parliament, then the UK parliament would be closing itself down forever every time a new GE is called.

It is my personal view the old parliament of Scotland can be recalled at any time by either, current Scotland MPs reconvening it, or the people of Scotland forcing it by electing new MPs to sit in it. In the past, the convention of states was called by the people. That convention of states would then go on to become the actual parliament of Scotland. There is nothing stopping us doing the same again.

There is a fundamental reason why Scotland needs to be seen as a region of Greater England, why the UK of Great Britain has to be seen as a unitary nation state like Spain/Canada and why they have to get us to believe the old Scottish parliament closed its doors forever:

1. Because if Scotland were to unilaterally repeal the treaty of union, it would end the UK as a state. The problem is that ending the UK as a state would mean to lose every international treaty, every trade agreement, every seat in international organisations/committees. 

2. Because if other countries (and the markets) perceive Scotland to have the power to terminate the union at any point of its choosing, giving that close to 50% of the Scottish population want to exit the union, the prospects of the UK being seen as a stable state and reliable from the point of view of investment and trade agreements diminishes greatly.

Hence the need of the powers that be for everybody to see the indyref as a mandatory exercise to be able to even contemplate independence. As usual, it is never about honesty or the needs of Scotland. It is always about the needs and wants of the establishment, the 1% and the crown.

Personally, I think it is an absolute disgrace that our own elected representatives in Westminster and Holyrood are playing along with this deception of the Scottish people and lying to us on our face. 

—“As an aside, it is always assumed that the map of Scotland will be the same after Indy as it is now”

Because it will be. If Scotland unilaterally repeals the treaty of union, which is all what it needs to do to finish the UK of Great Britain as a state and revert to its status of sovereign country, Scotland’s boundaries will remain exactly as they were in 1707 when that treaty was ratified. 

I guess what you have in mind is the plantations strategy the UK establishment used in the past to divide up countries and steal from them some of the richest parts. They did this to Ireland and we have seen plenty of attempts of unionist apparatchiks attempting to put a claim on the borders and particularly Orkney and Shetland (because of the oil, of course), and even Falsane, to do the same to Scotland.

I understand that to be a direct violation of International law under the current Vienna convention of the law of treaties of which the UK is a signatory.

“It’s hard to argue that the population in the borders doesn’t have the right to self determination”

No, it isn’t hard. It is very easy, actually. Scotland is a sovereign country who entered voluntarily a Treaty of union and therefore voluntarily can exit it in full without losing any of its bits. The borders the same as Shetland and Falsane are part of Scotland, not plantations owned by the Kingdom of England. So no, the same argument does not apply

MY COMMENTS

Any debate about the flawed franchise in Scotland has one blatantly missing component, not a single word from any elected Independence supporter, neither in agreement it needs changed or in defence of the current franchise. It’s as if some Dark Lord has cast a spell to strike them all silent on this matter.
I think the Thought Police are working overtime on this, they know the growing impact it will have in any future contest but their “wokey” credentials restrict them in acting. Better to sacrifice an independence victory than engage in conflict with the Dark Lord. As Mia states they are scared to challenge Westminster on anything. We have elected nodding dogs. It’s pathetic!

We are indeed dealing with an evil empire.

I am, as always

Yours for Scotland

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