Fraud by Semantics
The difference between the Scottish and English Crowns is far more than a historical curiosity: because of the nature of the Scottish Crown, Scotland remains a sovereign territorial nation, that is, one whose resources remain the property of that nation and that nation alone.
Crown property rights in Scots law, which are an important part of Scotland’s system of land ownership, are also distinct from Crown property rights in the rest of the UK and belong to Scotland as a sovereign territorial nation.
The separate national sovereignty of Scotland’s people, the indigenous laws and the territorial integrity of the land and its assets, however, have been dealt with by successive colonial-style UK governments by pretending that they simply do not exist.
No university law department teaches Scottish constitutional law. No weight has ever been given to the Claim of Right Act as a legal instrument by which government may be limited. Scotland is represented as having extinguished itself entirely and voluntarily, the clear terms of the Treaty and the history of the negotiations for those terms notwithstanding.
The Crown in England with its ‘property rights’ over the land became simply, ‘the Crown’. And the kingdom and Crown of Scotland were extinguished by the mere use of those words. We became, according to the arguments of jurists, courts and parliamentarians, a voluntary colony.
But force of argument and wishful thinking does not make legal fact.
At no point did the authority to manage Scotland’s territorial assets pass legally to the UK government. It has simply assumed this authority as though the “voluntary political union” conferred the right to our territorial assets. It did not. And today, international laws and agreements which did not exist when Westminster attempted to reclassify Scotland as ‘North Britain’, (1950’s), hold governments to the terms of their treaties and uphold the sovereign rights of both nations and peoples.
Thus Scotland’s judicial and territorial sovereignty, distinct from the political and economic ‘Union’, ensures that, though a stateless nation, Scotland retains the legal and territorial rights and protections due a sovereign, territorial nation. And one of the fundamental rights of a sovereign territorial nation is the right to the control and the benefit of the resources it owns.
In international law, this is known as the principle of permanent sovereignty of peoples and nations over their natural resources:
The Land of Scotland and the Common Good, Report of the Land Reform Review Group
(a) The right to permanent sovereignty is a right to freely use, control and dispose of natural resources. It is permanent and inalienable, inherent in sovereignty and a basic constituent of the right to self-determination.
(b) The right to permanent sovereignty is a right of both States and peoples. While there may be some confusion in certain passages, this conclusion clearly emerges from the resolutions as a whole. It also necessarily follows from the status of permanent sovereignty as a basic constituent of the right of peoples to self-determination. In resolutions 837 (IX), 1314 (XIII), 1803 (XVII) and 2692 (XXV), the General Assembly refers to “peoples and nations”…..
(c) …
(d) The right to permanent sovereignty includes the right of peoples to regain effective control over their natural resources. In resolution 3171 (XXVIII), the General Assembly: “Supports resolutely the efforts of the developing countries and of the peoples of the territories under colonial and racial domination and foreign occupation in their struggle to regain effective control over their natural resources.”
(e) The right to permanent sovereignty also includes, in case of violation, the right to restitution and full compensation. In resolution 3201 (S-VI), paragraph 4 (f), the General Assembly includes the following principle: “The right of all States, territories and peoples under foreign occupation, alien and colonial domination or apartheid to restitution and full compensation for the exploitation and depletion of, and damages to, the natural resources and all other resources of those States, territories and peoples.” (See to the same effect article 16 of resolution 3281 (XXIX) and paragraph 33 of the Lima Declaration endorsed by the General Assembly in resolution 3362 (S-VII)). 11
The UK government has assumed control of Scotland’s mineral, hydrocarbon and renewable energy assets as if Scotland were in a full, territorial, not merely a political and economic Union. It has behaved as though there were no difference in law between the English and Scottish constitutions and, under that pretence, has defrauded a sovereign territorial nation and a sovereign people of the assets and resources which are exclusively and inalienably their own.
It has done this by applying the English principle of the monarch’s ownership of the land and its resources and assets, not as personal property, but ‘in right of the Crown’:
“Crown interest” means an interest belonging to Her Majesty in right of the Crown or belonging to a government department or held in trust for Her Majesty for the purposes of a government department.12
It is well understood by the UK government that ‘right of the Crown’, means something different in Scotland from the rest of the UK, that no government department can lawfully own or hold in trust for the monarch that which is not vested in the monarch in right of the Scottish crown.
11 Implications, under international law, of the United Nations resolutions on permanent sovereignty over natural resources, on the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories and on the
obligations of Israel concerning its conduct in these territories, General Assembly of the United Nations, Thirty-eighth session Item 12 of the preliminary list, REPORT OF THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
12 “Promoting Development in Scotland” CEC 1998
10
And yet this is precisely what the UK government does, deliberately obscuring the problematic distinction between the Crowns which means that what is held in trust for the monarch in England, is held in trust for the Community of the Realm in Scotland. Within the laws and policies that govern Scotland’s territorial assets a single ‘Crown’, English in character, is imposed across the entire United Kingdom:
An Act to vest in the Crown the property in petroleum and natural gas within Great Britain and to make provision with respect to the searching and boring for and getting of petroleum and natural gas, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. [12th July 1934.]
BE IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Vesting of property in petroleum in His Majesty
(1) The property in petroleum existing in its natural condition in strata in Great Britain is hereby vested in His Majesty, and His Majesty shall have the exclusive right of searching and boring for and getting such petroleum.13
It is as if the application of an identical description gives the British government an identical license to manage and dispose of the territorial assets of Scotland as that afforded by the ‘interest of the Crown’ in the rest of the UK. But in fact, by assuming the administration of the assets of a sovereign territory it has placed itself in the position of a trustee for the owners, the people of Scotland:
However, the rights to a number of specific minerals are held in the national interest. They are the right to gold and silver, the right to petroleum (oil and gas) and the right to coal. The public ownership of the rights to these natural resources is a very important part of public land ownership in Scotland….(but) while all Crown property rights in Scotland belong to Scotland as a sovereign territory, the Crown’s ownership of ‘petroleum’ in Scotland is administered by the UK Government.
It is arguable that the Petroleum Act 1934 was unlawful in Scotland in that it vested the ‘property’ of Scotland’s oil and gas in the person of the monarch rather than the Crown with no distinction between the territorial rights of the monarch in the nations of England and Scotland. It did, however, vest those rights in the Crown and they have continued to be recognised as vested in the Crown.
It also appears that there was some recognition, subsequent to the 1934 Act, that in order to obtain control of the assets of Scotland, the UK government would have to establish itself as a kind of trustee for the owners, the people of Scotland. (It is worth bearing in mind that any trust is required to operate in the interests of the ‘beneficiaries’, in this case the Scottish population.)
13 Petroleum (Production) Act 1934 CHAPTER 36
14 The Land of Scotland and the Common Good, Report of the Land Reform Review Group
MY COMMENTS
I cannot stress enough the crucial importance of this research. As politicians most know a little about the Treaty of Union, but Sara’s research displays that it is the previous Union of the Crowns that is being used illegally to rob Scotland. Even the title “Union of the Crowns” is a total lie. There was no union. What happened was our King also assumed the Crown of England. It became the same monarch between Scotland and England but both crowns remained separate and stayed in existence. They still exist today. This is crucial because no King ever owned Scotland’s land, assets and resources which remain the property of the community of the Realm. We need to get this information to as many Scots as possible. As many of our people face huge difficulties they need to know it needn’t be this way and we do have the power to claim back what is ours PLUS compensation
I am, as always
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Extremely important info. which, as you say Iain, must be spread throughout Scotland and beyond.
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Splendid stuff , unlikely that Sara’s good work will be challenged by any reputable jurists . She has established that the Scottish people have rights that were/ are not extinguishable . Now the task is to get these rights justiciable , i.e. Into a court of international law . Where are the international lawyers that can successfully assert our case for a day in court?
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Without giving away names I was contacted by one yesterday, who self identified as a Indy supporter and was looking to get a copy of the full paper.
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Thanks Iain and, especially, to Sara.
My takeaways:
1. The ‘Crown’ has been conflated deliberately by the British State to describe the whole landmass plus all the resources and assets and to imply that these are owned by ‘the monarch’.
2. In reality the Scottish ‘Crown’ has SFA to do with the occupant of Buckingham Palace.
3. The territorial integrity of Scotland remains intact as the land, resources and assets were never merged.
4. The Scottish people have ‘Permanent Sovereignty’ over the land, resources and assets of the country.
5. There are reparations due given the systematic asset stripping and rip-off of Scotland’s resources by its ‘trustees’ in the form of the British state.
6. The ‘Union of The Crowns’ was, in reality, the ‘Union of The Monarchs’ i.e. in the form of the (royal) individual not the land, assets and resources of Scotland.
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Exactly.
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The misuse of Power by applying an interpretation of a contract is fraud. We have seen dozens of Scottish councils “sell” off land deemed “for the “common good”. Towns, villages and Cities across Scotland had parcels of land that belonged to the People. The passage of Centuries did not change their Rights but the knowledge of their Rights faded and it became the norm for Councils to sell off land which did not belong to them OR to keep income which once was held in common good funds.
Those who challenge these Councils always win their case or receive damages because the Councils implied control over that which was not theirs to control.
When you scale this up to Westminster the principle remains the same. They applied English Law to Scotland and by simply stating “This is ours” they carried on in a manner little different from the gun boat diplomacy of the British Empire elsewhere.
Anyone who has ever tried to obtain records of Common Land or details of Common Good funds for their area meets the same brick wall as local church records became part of a bigger region which became a giant council monolith. They apply a simple rule “It is ours unless you can prove otherwise”. Land and Money has been stolen for Centuries.
Westminster has far more power, control of the Courts and limitless funds and that is how they will approach it.
Did India ever receive back any of the £45Billion stolen? Did any African Nation get a return from the assets such as Copper stolen from them. Did Iran or other Middle East Countries receive a penny in compensation for the Oil theft. The two dozen Nuclear bombs tested in Australia without concern for the aboriginal people did anyone get compensation on the scale deserved?. The Uranium theft from Canada…..etc, etc
London has no meaningful records of these Centuries of plunder. Billions poured in to London from the Empire and yet no significant National Wealth fund ever appeared. It made a handful of People very, very wealthy including our a Royal Family.
The work being done to highlight the fraud executed on Scotland is unlikely to get a penny back. However it will highlight that the Union like the Empire is a fraud designed to make ordinary theft look legal.
It is like burglary. I am unlikely to get me property back but I must secure my home from the thieves who robbed me. Scotland would have been a far wealthier Nation with a population of around 15 Million had we not been TAKEN by England.
The Empire was a crime syndicate and Queen Victoria was no different from any Mafia Don.
Showing Scots what the true purpose of this Union was, and is, should be the key driver of this campaign.
Where did the Wealth of the Empire go? It lasted for Centuries and the UK is Trillions in debt?
Norway had a few decades of Oil & Gas and have a Sovereign Wealth Fund that will ensure the Nation is secure for several Centuries.
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Everything we have been told about the glorious benevolent Union is a pack of lies. 3oo years of gaslighting doublespeak and deception. A complicit anglophone aristocracy enriched by a foreign neighbour to sell their own kins future and prosperity off to their self appointed masters. The true nature of colonial control has now been exposed in all its nasty self interest. Every Westminter politicians knows the truth and has continued the lie that we are a basket case. They are complicit to in the robbery and there is the Genocide and Ethnic cleansing to, not to mention the Glorious dead who died for their Empire but had no real choice except fight or starve, like other oppressed peoples. Have we not suffered enough in this Zombie coercive Union. Now we have Brexit but our colonial masters tell us they are not racist. We are told we must respect their colonial laws that hold us hostage there supreme imperial court gerrymandering law to keep their charade going making up rules that have no basis in international law. And last but not least the colonial administration of Scotland who is more than willing to play there game. No you couldn’t make this up could you.
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If you have specific examples of any of those cases, that would be very useful indeed!
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Andy Wightman used to write about this on his blog. From memory, there was a ‘good’ example of this kind of sell-off in Edinburgh about fifteen years ago. There was also a big fuss in Peebles as well around the same time.
Edit: in trying to find these older stories, I quickly came across this website, http://commongoodwatch.org.uk/
For some reason, the website comes up as ‘connection is not secure’. Looks quite good though.
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Good post which many will have experienced in our lifetimes.
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“The misuse of Power by applying an interpretation of a contract is fraud. We have seen dozens of Scottish councils “sell” off land deemed “for the “common good”. Towns, villages and Cities across Scotland had parcels of land that belonged to the People. “
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Of course councils would likely have done this to raise revenue, but that doesn’t matter. It should never have been done.
This is great stuff. It needs to be spread far and wide
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Too right Cloonie in so many of your comments.
The sell off of common good land by councils for a notional £1 sum to a sham charitable development company who then pass worth tens and tens of millions to developers is common practice. Or the sell off of ex council land for peppercorn sums to dodgy developers is another regular practice.
Our local councils are rotten to the core. They are not to put too fine a point on it the same as the dirty money businesses and only the little people, the ordinary folks lose out.
Thatcher sold off huge assets for chicken feed.
Look at the Ports Authorities and the huge land assets now in the hands of companies like Peel Holdings.
Look at the Scottish Government’s continuing attempts to sell off iconic land at Loch Lomond to a property developer for an undisclosed peppercon sum.
The corruption and plunder of our assets resides within our very own local and regional government. It is all around us and the SNP are part of it.
England’s plunder just comes on top, facilitated by, as we can now see, a thoroughly rotten regional Scottish administration based in Hollyrood.
Once a peasant, always a peasant. That is the way it works, and our current SNP are just the latest pheasant pluckers.
Time they were gone at all levels and replaced. And for that people need to wake up, take an interest, be involved, and make our country what it should be.
Truly, we are the rotten colony we are because of our own inaction.
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Yes, on seaports specifically, Westminster’s 1991 Ports Act enabled the unlawful sale of vast tracts of urban dockland and thousands of acres of land along the Forth, Clyde and Tay, all of which is now ‘owned’ by non-transparent offshore private equity ‘funds’. Major Scottish airports were subject to the same ‘procedure’, as were other ‘utilities’ assets such as in energy. This unlawful sale of land has also enabled the offshore ‘funds’ (as private ‘port authorities’) to impose taxes (‘dues’) on shipping and Scottish trade. So not only has our port lands been stolen, we are also subject to additional tax burdens for using them, with revenues mostly extracted outside the country, not reinvested in it, making the nation less competitive.
https://reidfoundation.scot/2016/01/sort-out-our-ports/
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Apologies to cut across the theme but most interesting Ian Blackford’s resignation as Westminster Leader.
Reports suggest that SNP deputy Westminster leader Kirsten Oswald, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson Alyn Smith and Joanna Cherry QC will be among the leading contenders to replace Mr Blackford. Indeed Ms Cherry – who has regularly been at odds with the SNP’s leadership in Edinburgh and London on a range of issues in recent years – openly welcomed Mr Blackford’s exit.Commenting on Twitter she said – “I’m pleased to hear this. It’s time for fresh leadership and tolerance of debate and diverse viewpoints,” – before warning Ms Sturgeon and her team not to interfere in selecting the new Commons chief. “I hope the SNP Westminster group will be now be left to choose our new leader without outside interference and in accordance with our standing orders”
Outside intrrference.. Outside interference from Sturgeon!
Now that’s an interesting thing to be said as Sturgeon’s lackey in Westminster departs!
Skids, Nicola, Under, Change. Who knows. We shall see.
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I am of the opinion that Blackford’s removal is a distraction to get peoples minds off the decision by the UKSC. He will be given a nice cushy earner to keep his enormouse belly intact
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Even the Nicophants on WGD are growing frustrated.
Sturgeon is caught between a restive base and her handlers.
I imagine her trying to explain to her case officer that she has to be SEEN to do something.
Shuffling the deck at Westminster to give the illusion of positive intent.
The wheels are coming aff operation “Dae nuthin’”.
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Whatever the original plan following Blackford’s resignation the real story will be WHO actually gets the job and the front bench team they select.
Sturgeon is unable and unwilling to have any group out-with her control.
If the Westminster Group elect a Nicophant and select Nicophants then nothing has changed. If Joanna Cherry were selected as leader then Sturgeon has finally lost rigid control and her days are numbered.
However I expect it to be an unpredictable elevation such as Flynn. The tipping point for change will be if the exceptionally skilled Cherry is on the front bench…or not.
Joanna Cherry KC is the Litmus paper whatever happens. If she is neither leader or a front bencher then Sturgeon remains EMIR of Scotland.
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Where does this leave the following, the first clause of Article 1 of the Treaty of Union?
‘That the two Kingdoms of (fn. 1) Scotland and England, shall, upon the first Day of May next ensuing the Date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain’
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“Scotland is represented as having extinguished itself entirely and voluntarily, the clear terms of the Treaty and the history of the negotiations for those terms notwithstanding”.
I have read the terms of the Treaty an the Act of Union carefully, several times, and nowwhere can I find any such “clear terms” except as they relate to a few specific features of pre-union Scotland, in particular the law and the Kirk. Can nayone point me to these “clear terms”?
“But force of argument and wishful thinking does not make legal fact.”
I certainly agree with that, although not perhaps in the way the writer intended.
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It is not a matter of reading a Treaty to se if it says, “And by the way, Scotland is not being extinguished here” or “We are making sure our constitutional identity is protected in this political and economic union”! It is about understanding what the Treaty did and was able to do through a parliamentary agreement and what it was not; what is stipulated and what is not.
Scots law, which includes the constitution just as in England, is reserved under the articles of Union and alterable by Westminster in *either* nation, only where incompatible with the Treaty itself. Interestingly, there has been no attempt to alter those constitutional acts which might result in the counter argument that the English law, rather than the Scots, is what should be altered. In particular, the Claim of Right, wholly incompatible with the (even more sectarian) English Bill of Rights, was made a pre-condition, not amenable to Westminster alteration. Presenting it as a purely religious provision, because the Scots were canny enough to name it within the religious reservation, does not alter its legal force or its effect in preserving the distinct character of the Scottish nation. Even the English spy Dafoe understood that it applied to the constitutional reach and limit of government in Scotland *after* the Union. And the primacy of that law, which includes protections against the imposition of the military in Scotland in time of peace (violated), civil rights and penalties for government violation of those rights, represents the determination of a heavily pressured, indeed threatened and bribed, parliament to protect Scotland from absorption by England. If you are interested in the discussions and debates in the Scottish Parliament prior to the signing of the Treaty, these should give you good sense of the context and intent behind the final wording which, as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (hearing constitutional claims referred by former colonies), is keen to point out, always informs the interpretation of charters, treaties and constitutions.
Further, the terms of the Union are political and economic, two thirds of what constitute a ‘kingdom’! We therefore have what Prof. sir Neil Mccormick called ‘the Scottish anomaly’. A sovereign territorial nation and a ‘stateless state’. (See Robert Cannongate’s seminal book, ‘How Scotland is Owned’.)
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Daveytee19
So if you just take Wales in the 13th. Century by brutal force and declare it the property of England then that is the subject closed?
Sweden owned Norway until 1904.
Nothing removes your Right to Self Determination. No generation can sign away or surrender the Rights of future generations. Look at a World of 200 Countries that had 50 after WW11.
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DaveyTee19;
We already had this conversation. Clearly you’ve already forgotten it. The Kingdom of Scotland still exists fully intact inside the United Kingdom along with the Kingdom of England. The Treaty and Acts only joined them under common governance by a single Parliament. There is literally nothing in the Treaty and Acts that says either Kingdom was extinguished. Your assertion of the contrary smacks more of wishful thinking than a reasoned conclusion.
I’ve just made the claim they remain distinct and separate though under common governance, and my supporting argument and reasoning is below.
The Crown of Scotland even today confers powers and privileges to its Scots wearer, and those powers and privileges differ very significantly from England’s Crown which also still confers powers and privileges to its English wearer. Since these powers and privileges were conferred literally only weeks ago and televised across the entire planet with more yet to come, then both the Kingdoms of Scotland and England clearly still exist as distinct functioning Kingdoms, even if both sit within a nominal larger state.
The very conferral of those powers and privileges also confirms the continued existence and authority of Scotland’s constitution and its associated legal and judicial systems, without which those regal powers and privileges cannot be properly defined, limited, exercised, policed or defended. The same argument applies to England’s Crown, thus both Kingdoms and their associated crowns, constitutions and legal systems are proven to exist as functional entities today. It is their differences that distinguish the two Kingdoms from each other, and which demonstrate the separate and current existence of them both.
The existence of a clearly defined border that identifies where those differences meet is further evidence that neither country was extinguished.
Just because the Treaty and Acts don’t explicitly assert that both Kingdoms were to be retained, certainly doesn’t mean that they were extinguished by default, because the word ‘united’ doesn’t require that, and extinguishing of nations isn’t a default property of Treaties! And the evidence of the crowns says extinguishing never happened anyway.
Your turn! You have claimed that Scotland was extinguished, and previously that England also was extinguished, so go ahead, make your case, and be sure to spell out the specifics.
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That is not a legal definition, much as the British establishment would like you to believe it is. It is aspirational only. We are doing x in order that y (which is what Queen Ann would like) may take place. ‘Y’, being the creation of a single kingdom. That did take place, in the sense of the creation of a single state and of one political and economic – but not territorial – ‘kingdom’. While the institution of the Crown remains distinct in Scotland, as it does today, the existence of the kingdom, separate from the kingdom of England also remains. (Where there is a crown, there is a kingdom.) And Scotland enjoys the curious and anomalous position (though not the unique position) of a stateless nation.
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Hi Sara
Can I just ask you a question. Does the Union Parliament have the right to legislate across the UK and/or in Scotland specifically? See TOU Article XVIII. If it does, we appear to have a territorial union.
Regards
William
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1. It has assumed that right but, no, it does *not* have that right. Prior to the creation of the Supreme Court, which Lord Cullen, (no independence supporter), warned was legally dubious, (others point out it constitutes a breach of the Treaty), the Court of Session had the authority to veto any Westminster Act which violated Scots law. It threatened to do so three times, I believe, forcing amendment in the legislation. That standing condition of the Claim of Right, (which Cullen cited), was breached by the creation of a ‘superior’ court without the authority to defend Scots law against Westminster.
2. Your definition of what constitutes territorial sovereignty is not relevant here. The existence of the Scottish Crown as an institution and the difference thereby in the constitutional instruments acting ‘in the right of the Crown’, prevented the possibility of territorial union. In Scotland today, the Crown Estate manages the land assets not poached by a Westminster ‘administration’, in right of the Crown, (also the Community of the Realm, also the Common Good and also ‘the major regalia’ of Scotland just as the Crown represents the Community of the Realm). In the rest of the UK, right of the Crown means the monarch, whose holdings are no longer personal and administered in trust by the state. It goes a long way back. Just as Scotland did not owe fealty to Edward because Brice did, because of the sovereignty of the people not the monarch, so neither Queen Ann or the Scottish Parliament could hand the crown of Scotland (the community of the Realm), of the ‘major regalia held by that Crown, (the land assets), to the control of a Westminster Parliament. They didn’t read the large print. Then they made it small print. then they hid it. But it just won’t go away.
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With two separate crowns, representing two kingdoms. The statement is aspirational, a bit of international marketing. The people of Scotland, through the Community of the Realm own the assets of Scotland. The King never did. You cannot treat, gift, sell away something never owned in the first place. The Claim of Right and Scotland’s written constitution remains and exists.
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As I read it from the above article, if Scotland were to legally reject The Crown and the monarchy, would those present issues with any future claim of return to Scotland of assets usurped by Crown Estates etc. i.e., if Crown Estates ceases to exist, there would need to be careful laws to ensure legal title to Scotland’s Crown assets could be returned to Scotland without legal challenge.
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Hi riggerfellow
The careful laws already exist and their legality is in perpetuity its called the Scottish constitution and claim of right
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Guid luck extracting reparations fae rUK. They’ve nae liquid, movable, tangible assets. Precious little untapped mineral wealth. A net importer of food. Assets are concrete and in situ in the SE of England. The contents of their London museums and galleries are looted fae around the world (and I dinnae want stolen goods in payment).
Their remaining “assets” are intangible and illusory. The “profits” of casino capitalism. I widnae accept an IOU fae the Ponzi scheme disguised as “industrial” policy.
The one percent, the City of London and the aristocracy prepared for any day-of-reckoning by silently moving the cash and bullion to their Caribbean tax havens.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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If the Scottish Government were serious about Independence it would be (in fact should already have done) instructing The Scottish Funding Council to make funds available for Establishment of Scottish Constitutional Reseach and Teaching Institutes in our publicly funded Law Schools.
This area seems ripe for many good PhD projects.
This among many other preliminary measures ahead of Independence should already be underway.
More evidence that the SG is NOT serious about Independence
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Iain
I see that Salvo are arguing that despite the TOU, Scotland “remains a sovereign territorial nation, that is, one whose resources remain the property of that nation and that nation alone”. This leads to claims for oil and gas reparations. I am afraid that “Stop the Steal” isn’t going very far.
1.The main problem is that, as I Wright mentions, Article I of the TOU states that ” the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall [post Union] be united into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain”. This implies a conjoining of the two realms into one new realm and is thus a political, legal, economic and territorial union. Furthermore, TOU Article XVIII gives the Union Parliament the widest rights to legislate throughout the UK including Scotland. Additionally, TOU Article III created one sovereign Parliament for the UK so who would be left to administer Scotland’s “resources” on a separate basis? And how wide is the concept of “resources”? Surely land is the ultimate resource? Could the Union not regulate agriculture in Scotland? If not, how could the TOU have been a “political and economic union”?
2. The Petroleum Production Act of 1934 was unquestionably a valid exercise of the Union’s legislative powers under TOU Article XVIII. This was nothing other than a nationalisation decree as oil and gas rights were owned by landowners before this.
3. However, the following argument is made:
“It is as if the application of an identical description gives the British government an identical license to manage and dispose of the territorial assets of Scotland as that afforded by the ‘interest of the Crown’ in the rest of the UK. But in fact, by assuming the administration of the assets of a sovereign territory it has placed itself in the position of a trustee for the owners, the people of Scotland”
There is no evidence that the people of Scotland owned the rights to oil and and gas in place in Scottish reservoirs prior to the PPA 1934. This oil and gas was owned by the landowners but the resource has hardly been used. More than that our Scottish onshore oil and gas has never been developed in recent times because of the actions of our lunatic government in Holyrood which actually has the licensing power under the Smith Commission legislation.
4. The vast majority of UK oil production has accrued from waters which fall under the International Law doctrine of the Continental Shelf, which doctrine was only first enunciated by President Harry Truman in 1945. The UK’s Continental Shelf Act was only enacted in 1964. The Scottish nation has never held any continental shelf jurisdiction because the concept only developed hundreds of years after the TOU.
Is Salvo arguing that any other entity ( eg Scotland?) than the UK could have been the appropriate signatory party under the Law of the Sea Treaties (which establish the Continental Shelf doctrine)?
5. Resolutions of the UN General Assembly are not worth the paper they are written on.
Sorry to be a bearer of bad news.
Regards
William
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Its OK. You’re not. You have perfectly rehearsed the argument of the English dominated ‘legal’ (reinterpretation) of what the Treaty actually accomplished. Luckily for Scotland, the background discussions, contextual arguments and correspondence, provision for Scots law and pre-condition of the Claim of Right, and the clear and demonstrable intent of the Scottish signatories, along with the legal character of a Scottish Crown of which neither any parliament or monarch had ‘ownership’ and thus any power to ‘treat’ or surrender, means that you can breathe a sigh of relief at having delivered no bad news at all!
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Sara
I am glad that your case has such strong “backroom” support because it has none in the TOU itself.
By the way in a post above you write:
“Scots law, which includes the constitution just as in England, is reserved under the articles of Union and alterable by Westminster in *either* nation, only where incompatible with the Treaty itself.”
This is not correct. If you read Article XVIII it is clear that Parliament may amend any law of England or Scotland, whether or not contrary to the TOU except that “no alteration be made in Laws which concern private Right except for evident utility of the Subjects within Scotland”. The TOU grants no general reservation of Scots Law , and the very limited reservation in favour of “private Right” most certainly does not include the constitution.
William
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I do not have time to rehearse you in the methodology for reading a 300 yr old treaty. I refer you to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, who hear issues relating to Norman feudal law, Roman Venetian and even more obscure branches of ancient law and who, as with all international courts, examine context, intent, the agreements behind the wording and settled law prior to the instrument in question. Your reading of the Treaty would change all of that to conform with the now desperate British argument that it always meant what England, and now the UK government wants it to mean.
We shall see, now that we have discovered the circumvention of the ‘govt only’ access route to the ICJ, whether the international community agrees with the demonstrable provisions and intent of the time, the protestations against the over reach and violations since and the standing decisions of the JCPC in the establishment, not of what the highest court of the oppressive nation has to say, but of the terms, laws and agreements expected or guaranteed as original conditions of the contract. It should be instructive.
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You can go on about background discussions, etc, all you like, but what matters is what actually went into the Act of Union. Only if any uncertainties arise will a court look at what may have preceded it and what the intention was I see no uncertainties as to the conjoiunment of two realms into one – that is clearly stated and was subsequently acted on. I see nothing to indicate that the Claim of Right was to be given any importance other than as a protector of the protestant religion in Scotland. As for the Crown, the Scottish kingdom was specifically united with the English one in 1707 (Act iof Union 1) and the fact that a rather nice piece of Jewellery now sits in Edinburgh Castle does not mean that the institution it once represents any longer exists.
As for Scotland’s territory being owned by the Community of the Realm, whence did that concept arise? As I undertstand it the Community of the Realm was a 13th/14th century concept of governance or parliament, not of land ownership – the nobles of Scotland, who ran the parliaments insofar as they were permitted to do by the monarch, would have ensured that that was not going to be the case. Yet another case of Salvo atempting to rely on another ancient concept with no relevance today?
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Forgive me for being blunt, but a lack of knowledge and understanding on your part does not constitute error on mine. The constitutional literature that makes these points clear is extensive and difficult to unearth but it most certainly exists. By all means hold to your opinions and we shall see what international jurisprudence makes of the terms and conditions of the Union.
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Davey you must be hell to live with. You seem overcome with negativity and all too ready to accept lies and propaganda from the Unionist side. Come along to Salvo event do a little bit of research. It will cheer you up no end.
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I have actually done quite a lot of research, Ian, but I’m both a trained lawyer and sceptical (the two probably go together) and I accept propaganda and lies from no-one. Instead, I prefer to find out for myself and I know how to carry out research. Unfortunately, the more I’ve dug the weaker Salvo’s case has appeared. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that with one exception (that’s you Xaracen) virtually every time I’ve asked a question of a Salvo proponent in an attempt to clear up some unlikely feature of their case no pertinent answer has been forthcoming. That even applies to Sara and indeed the Salvo website – lots of statements of supposed fact, little if any evidence to back it up when questioned. Even now Sarah is failing to answer any of the specific points raised. That’s not to say there aren’t ways to obtain independence – of course there are – but harking back to medieval documents and making doubtful claims as to their validity today isn’t one of them.
Sarah says: “we shall see what international jurisprudence makes of the terms and conditions of the Union”. We probably won’t because it is extremely unlikely that any tribunal would agree to hear a case brought on Salvo’s grounds. The only likely international tribunal I can think of as relevant is the ICJ and I have little doubt that a case based on Salvo’s agruments would be thrown out before it ever got to court on the basis that there is no valid case and that in any event the court would not consider that it had jurisdiction to hear it. Perhaps Sarah would care to enlighten us how Salvo intends to satisfy the conditions required by the ICJ that give them jurisdiction to hear its case? If the ICJ is to hear a case on Scotland’s independence it’ll be because of modern law on the rights of people to self determination, and the various UN charters and resolutions relevant to that, not on ancient documents and a 315 year old treaty.
And Ian, it’s not negative merely to disagree with someone, particularly when I make it clear why I disagree and I’ve put forward alternative and, IMO, better ways to proceed to independence. Or do you want a forum where everyone asks no questions and merely agrees the party line? There’s someone in Bute House who does that…..
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I would not normally do this. The amount of time and effort required, when both of these are at a premium for me, mean that I tend to leave those who challenge the case for Scotland’s constitutional rights to verify the factual claims in my research or disprove them by the same method. There are only so many times that I can point out the fallibility of ‘UK law’ in terms of its recasting of clear agreements and of the treaty principles of bona fide and pacta sunt servanda. It is just possible. However, that this response might serve as more than a reply. It might provide a useful precis of the case Scotland must make under international law and of the context of that case.
Firstly, you are arguing from within the ‘UK politico-legal bubble’. That is a kind of snake eating its own tail. It feeds into itself, self-referencing its own authority – and the basis of that authority – and relies heavily on the precedent of self-agreement for its legality. This character becomes apparent, however, only when you remove it from the context of its own self-reference. The real context of the ‘independence debate’ is not internal UK law but international law and principle.
The state titling itself the United Kingdom was created by international Treaty. As Professor David Walker so elegantly demonstrated, it is simple nonsense to pretend otherwise. Two independent nations agreed terms for a political and economic union, for the creation of a new state and a new parliament and ratified those terms of agreement by acts of parliament. Those acts, in turn, gave force to the Treaty which thereby replaced both parliaments with a new body, the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
That this normal operation of a Treaty has been turned on its head by the Diceyan argument, (recasting the ratification by which a treaty comes into force as the ‘active principle’ in place of the Treaty itself), is an absurdity as close to the fairy tale of the Emperor’s New clothes as it is possible to get. The only real argument to support it has been the circular argument of Parliamentary sovereignty: Parliament is sovereign and therefore we can make anything mean whatever we want it to mean. The English principle of parliamentary sovereignty continued in the new Union because the Treaty was replaced by the English domestic Act of Union (at ratification) and this occurred … because the Parliament (English) was sovereign.
There are no words for utter absurdity of this position. Yet even doughty independence supporters, from MP’s to lawyers and judges, even those on the Supreme Court, have accepted and upheld it. This is the conditioning of a colonial mindset, whatever your definition of a colony, within which the constitutional basis of a new (1707) state begins with the English Magna Carta and stands unchallenged. What better illustration of the persistence of the colonial mentality of the empire and its establishment?
To really begin to see the wood from the trees, however, it is necessary to step outside the bubble of a Westminster/establishment system, including courts, jurists and commentators, which is almost entirely self-referencing. It has to be made to appear on the world stage, where its nakedness becomes immediately and breathtakingly obvious.
And for the greatest clarity, we should look outside the arena of the Scottish question, to the behaviour of the UK government – and its ‘follow-the-sovereignty’ legal system – in respect of international legal principle in general:
“More recently, in relation to the Internal Market Bill, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith argued that through section 38 of the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 — which states that ‘[i]t is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign’ — the UK Government had ‘reserved to themselves the right to make clarifications’ in respect of the Withdrawal Agreement and were therefore ‘quite within their rights’ to rely on section 38 as a basis for declining to implement parts of the Agreement. These arguments are united by the erroneous notion that the domestic concept of parliamentary sovereignty somehow bears upon the position of the UK as a State under international law, thereby supplying the UK with a ‘get out of jail free’ card to be played when it finds itself inconveniently bound by international obligations. This elision consistently bedevilled political discourse about the UK’s membership of the EU and has equally served to obfuscate debate about Brexit.
Criticism of the Internal Market Bill has so far resulted only in a limited concession from the Government, whereby a further vote in the House of Commons would be required to trigger the relevant ministerial powers. This, perhaps, is testament to the resonance of an exceptionalist argument that has long served the causes of Euroscepticism and Brexit and which plays well in political terms to certain domestic audiences. None of this, however, can change the fact — as international reaction has attested — that the argument disintegrates upon contact with legal reality.”
(Legal kryptonite? Parliamentary sovereignty, international law and the Internal Market Bill, Mark Elliott, Professor of Public Law and Chair of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee 2022)
Allow me to repeat that critical statement: These arguments are united by the erroneous notion that the domestic concept of parliamentary sovereignty somehow bears upon the position of the UK as a State under international law, thereby supplying the UK with a ‘get out of jail free’ card to be played when it finds itself inconveniently bound by international obligations.
Now let’s consider that critique in the light of Scotland’s position within the United Kingdom:
Is the Treaty of Union an international agreement which imposes international obligations?
The usual ‘self-referencing’ answer from those who would answer no, is that since the state of Scotland was extinguished by the Union, the treaty no longer applies. (Based on what is known as the Diceyan argument, though he did not invent it.) This position, of course, has never been tested in international law. Were it to be, its fundamental deficits would be exposed.
Firstly, and most obviously, the nation of Scotland was not extinguished when the new state was created, any more than the nation of England was extinguished. In fact, Scotland retained territorial sovereignty through the institution of the Crown, and is, thus, a “stateless nation”:
“Under the articles of Union, Scotland surrendered its independent statehood but continued to be a sovereign nation. The status of Scotland as a stateless nation is fairly unusual internationally and has attracted particular sociological and political study…” (R Callander ‘How Scotland is Owned’ p. 43 (Canongate, 1998)
That an international agreement continues to apply in the case of nations, statehood notwithstanding, is so basic a principle in international law, it should not need further elaboration. It should not – but we are discussing these issues from within the coils of our tail-eating, legal-political UK snake. We can reference, therefore, the position of Native American nations (tribes) within the USA.
These remain sovereign nations within a larger state, their governments, with whom the original treaties were agreed, having been removed or reduced to the status of a local council. Tribal law still applies along with State and Federal law and still allows some exceptional rulings and decisions within the reservations. Language, culture and religion remain distinct though heavily threatened. And the conditions of every treaty with these nations have been violated in the expectation that the absorption of these nations into the larger State, (the coloniser), would allow the United States to avoid the inconvenience of enforcement.
There are many differences, of course, between the plight of Native American nations and our own. The parallels with Scotland’s position, however, are startling. And the important point here is that, in international law, these treaties – however unlawfully imposed – hold good between the government that signed them, (the USA), and the stateless nations which now exist.
It has been international pressure, via the special representatives of the ‘tribes’ to the UN, that has led to ruling after ruling in the US Supreme Court, upholding their territorial rights. This, incidentally, has major implications for the territorial rights of Scotland as distinct from the rest of the UK)
In short, the continuation, or not, of the statehood of a signatory to an international treaty does not bear upon the obligations between nations or upon international law with respect of the violation by a state of the rights of a signatory nation, stateless or not.
Does the Treaty grant Westminster the authority to alter its terms at will?
The Treaty governed those conditions that were to apply in the nations within the new state. These include stipulations which establish its conditional character:
“And that the said estates of parliament have agreed to and approve of the said articles of union, with some additions and explanations as is contained in the articles hereafter inserted. And likewise, her majesty, with advice and consent of the estates of parliament, resolving to establish the Protestant religion and presbyterian church government within this kingdom, has passed in this session of parliament an act entitled, act for securing of the Protestant religion and presbyterian church government, which, by the tenor thereof, is appointed to be inserted in any act ratifying the treaty and expressly declared to be a fundamental and essential condition of the said treaty or union in all time coming.”
We are not concerned, yet, with the religious character of the condition but only with the ratification of a proviso to the treaty or union, on which the agreement between the two nations depends and whose violation is to render it void. This ‘precondition’ is not amenable to Westminster alteration. Even if it were true that every article within the Treaty of Union may be amended or repealed by the Parliament at Westminster, this stipulation is not.
The precondition is purely religious and is now irrelevant?
If the clear intention of the architects of the Treaty was to create a permanent and unalterable union, the equally clear intent of the Scottish signatories was to establish a conditional basis for the union. Understanding the context for that conditional basis is essential.
The Claim of Right Act is the sole, named statute in the “Act for securing of the Protestant religion and presbyterian church government”, ratified as a condition of treaty and union. It is included in the articles (though it remains a separate condition) in the religious provisions. Those provisions, like those in the English Bill of Rights, have become almost irrelevant in a modern, secular society. But because part of an act has fallen ‘by implication’ does not negate the force of the remainder.
The remainder is not religious in character. The remainder is constitutional in character. And the application of the constitutional provisions was both intended and understood by both parties to the treaty.
“The Laws of Government, (in Scotland), continue as the Government continues establish’d in the Claim of Right, I mean as to the Limitations of Government and Obedience (Daniel Defoe)”
The nations of Scotland and England became a single and united kingdom requiring one set of constitutional principles:
The nations of Scotland and England, in fact, united in a political and economic union. It is not possible to create a single, homogenous nation out of two nations with disparate constitutional characters , at least not without an agreed, single constitution which would require elements of both constitutional characters to be combined. As we know, this has never happened and, as Lord Cooper might have added, it is not clear why the permanence envisaged by the architects of the treaty should now eclipse the permanence of the conditions imposed by Scotland!
In fact, the authority of the people in Scotland was expected to remain in place while the territorial integrity of Scotland never passed into the control of the political and economic union that was formed. The Crown in Scotland is representative of the Community of Realm, the people of Scotland. Ownership of the land of Scotland was, (and remains), vested in the Crown, the people of Scotland, not in the monarch, just as political and legal sovereignty was, (and remains), vested in the people. The creation of a new ‘kingdom’, a new state and a new parliament could not, therefore, transfer the territorial ownership of Scotland, via the monarch, to this new kingdom.
The legal limits of government and monarchy and the constitutional definition of the Scottish Crown mean that, despite the creation of a single political and economic ‘kingdom’, it was not legally possible for either the Scottish Parliament or the reigning monarch, Anne, to transfer judicial, political or territorial sovereignty from the kingdom of Scotland to the Crown and Parliament of the new United Kingdom.
Conventional feudal theory and practice was based (in England and elsewhere) on the premise that a kingdom was first and foremost a feudal entity and, in that sense, the property of its king or queen. In Scotland’s feudal system, this situation was radically tempered by the Crown’s status as representative of the Community of the Realm which vested that ‘ownership’ in the sovereignty of the people.
Although this distinction has been treated by the British establishment as an irritating irrelevance, it is key to the true, constitutional character of the political and economic merger which self-identifies as a ‘united kingdom’. The institution of the crown in Scotland represents the people of the nation rather than an individual. A monarch in Scotland ruled, not by ‘divine right’, force of arms, or feudal entitlement, but by consent of the people, the source of power and highest authority of the nation . Such authority is what we term ‘sovereignty’. It is from the constitutional character of the Scottish crown that the constitutional sovereignty of the Scottish people derives. They are the sovereign power, represented by the institution of the crown. This is why Scotland had no king or queen of the ‘land’, only of Scots. And this is why Queen Anne had no power, as the Scottish Parliament had no power, to merge the territories of England and Scotland into a single, territorial nation.
Neither Queen nor parliament could transfer to the foundations of the new kingdom a sovereignty which neither possessed.
These rights and distinctions remain in international law, whatever the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the territorial rights of a sovereign, if stateless, nation are well described under international law as is the effect of any domestic ruling:
“The characterization of an act of a State as internationally wrongful is governed by international law. Such characterization is not affected by the characterization of the same act as lawful by internal law”
Summary
The character of the Union does not fall to the UK government nor its courts to define. It relies on the conditions of the treaty, as understood by the signatories, and on the character of the constitutional protections and provisions which are either guaranteed by that treaty or excluded from the reach of the political and economic union by virtue of the limits of the authority of either monarch or parliament.
Precedent for this approach to treaty and constitutional law may be found in the rulings and decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which regularly applies the internationally accepted benchmarks of context, intent and good faith to even more obscure and ancient constitutional issues than those I have described here. It simply does not extend that courtesy to Scotland.
“The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council originated as the highest court of civil and criminal appeal for the British Empire. It now fulfils the same purpose for many Commonwealth countries, as well as the United Kingdom’s overseas territories, crown dependencies, and military sovereign base areas. Over the years it has been asked for final rulings and interpretations of many different kinds of law, from Roman Dutch law in appeals from South Africa, to pre-revolutionary French law from Quebec, and Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu law from India.” (See JCPC website)
The self-referencing, (and entirely self-serving), ‘exceptionalism’ of the British legal and political establishment, therefore, does not constitute the benchmark for either justice or legality.
A New Approach
It is possible for non governmental organisations, in particular a Liberation Movement to gain standing with the General Assembly of the United Nations. With such standing, a UN committee may refer to the ICJ for a ruling on behalf of the LM.
Our question is a simple one. Is Scotland in the voluntary union claimed by the UK government or is it a de facto colony?
If the first, does the UK government agree that the terms and conditions of that Union are not subject to the determination of a heavily English dominated parliament under an English domestic Bill (the Act of Union) but to the international standards governing internatinal treaties?
In this case the constitutional and territorial rights of Scotland within the Union must be restored. These include the sovereign rights of the people, which ‘trump’ those of Westminster in legal standing and provide the authority to exercise precisely that degree of self-determination provided in modern, international law. They also provide for the re-establishment of nonparliamentary bodies, including civic assemblies, which formerly protected and promoted the rights of the Scottish people.
In this way, the means by which to exercise the self-determination currently denied by Westminster under snake law, (yes, I know, but indulge me), can be restored to the people of Scotland with a guarantee that any democratic vote, with or without Westminster or Supreme Court ‘permission, will have the international recognition that we require. It is, if you like, the route to the route to independence.
It will also expose the territorial abuses and, under international law, economic plunder perpetrated under the pretence that ‘right of the Crown’ means the same thing in Scotland as in England i.e. the right of the ‘crown in state’ to manage the assets of the territory. This is clearly false and equally clearly understood by the British government which has carefully assigned itself an ‘administrative’ position as insurance against any such challenge, however unlikely.
Management of our own assets, even with a tax liability due to the UK Treasury, (though potentially offset by the action of a trustee which has impoverished the owners with their own assets), is a significant step towards full self-determination and certainly guaranteed under international law. It includes not just oil and gas, but renewable energy and water. It allows Scotland to separate its national grid from that of England and to provide its people with cheap renewable energy before exporting to England or anywhere else. It allows Scotland to set its own license terms and profit share prior to tax and to relieve Sunak of the new licenses he is flogging and develop a responsible energy policy that allows responsible, staged exploration and recovery of new forms of energy from existing fields. In short, it is a game changer.
If these lawful and internationally recognised conditions do not apply, we are a de facto colony and will be referred for listing and decolonisation.
All this has depended on just one thing. Knowledge of the constitutional position and its implications, knowledge which has been hidden, distorted or subverted by the self-interested and self-authorising legalism of the British establishment for over a century. And knowledge of and access to an international forum where the absurdities of the this establishment can be exposed by the spotlight of international scrutiny.
Without doubt, this approach will employ the application to Scotland’s case of “the notion that the domestic concept of parliamentary sovereignty somehow bears upon the position of the UK as a State under international law” as the political kryptonite it really is. It is long since time that the people of Scotland and the establishment that has so relied on it, watched it as it “disintegrates upon contact with legal reality.”
I suspect that as we have no intention of demanding support for UDI or even a referendum but only the answer to a clear question and the concomitant regularisation of the ‘voluntary’ union, there are many former colonies who will enjoy delivering the rather painful slap on the wrist that the UK government so richly and is so widely now seen to deserve.
We have a great deal of work to do but we can be sure of one thing at least. We will not be following the coils of snake-law round and round in the same circles it has described for us until now.
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I will reproduce this as a main article on Monday…there goes the holidays!
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I would not worry William Sara has addressed your points and I am satisfied that when you strip away the disguise Sara views are accurate but congratulations you are the first to actually challenge Sara’s case the rest of Unionism has been happy to just throw juvenile insults or cower behind the sofa.
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Iain
Many thanks for your kind response. The only thing I would have to take issue with you on is that I am somehow the voice of “unionism”. I strongly supported YES in 2014 and did so all my life. As a professional oilman I try to be the voice of realism.
I will not further participate on this email trail ( and I have enjoyed it). I would only ask Sara to clarify if I am right or not in my interpretation of Article XVIII? Where in the TOU is Scots law reserved in the sense that Sara means it?
Over and out for now.
William
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This is phenomenal stuff from Sara. She’s all over the legality of this, regardless of what’s thrown at her (the English/british rehearsing for court battle).
I’m very overjoyed, encouraged, bullish.
My question (an exaggerated projection): assuming a small country of say, 5.5m inhabitants, where 4.5m are not indigenous inhabitants; can not the 4.5m overwhelm the hopes of the 1m?
Also, at what point do the 1m have the right to present to International Courts, assuming 990,000 ‘aren’t interested in politics’?
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The UN have rules about this. They make sure it is fair.
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Kenny paraffinlamp, there is no right to present anything to the International Court of Justice. Instead, the proposed parties have to satisfy certain stringent conditions before the court will even agree to hear their case. For contentious matters, for example, it will only hear cases brought by states against other states provided both states agree. It will not hears cases brought by organisations or individuals (https://www.icj-cij.org/en/contentious-jurisdiction)
However, the Court will hear applications from organisations but will only give an advisory opinion which is non-binding. The snag about that is that there is an approved list of such organisations, most of which are affiliated in some way or another to the UN. The saving grace so far as Scotland is concerned, however, is that the UN General Assembly can ask the Court to give an advisory opinion in certain cases – no need for a specific organisation to do so, or for the Respondent state to agree. Matters referred by the General Assembly in the past have included, for example, the International Status of South West Africa, the Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo, and the Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, which latter involved and found against the UK, which has subsequently ignored the ruling.
So how would Scotland proceed? Scotland is not a state as defined by the UN, and so could not itself bring a contentious case. It could possibly get a friendly state to bring such a case on Scotland’s behalf, but I doubt if that would succeed as both states to any such action have to agree to the court dealing with it and I’m pretty sure that the UK, as the Respondent State, would not agree. That leaves the advisory ruling route and I would hope that the Genetal Assembly might be persuaded to ask the Court to deliver an opinion on Scotland’s case.
I’ve no idea what this business of 100,000 signatures is about. It’s cetainly nothing to do with the iCJ.
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why don’t you correspond with Sara Salyers of Salvo. If you do I will happily publish your questions and her answers.
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Look at the “invention of a new World” the Continental Shelf Act 1964. It was smoke and mirrors to distract from the simple fact that it was Scottish Oil & Gas. Out of thin air a new area around the UK was created and in 1964 they already had seismic survey data and the coverup was being planned….the early work for McCrone.
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There has forever been a part of me that was suspicious of all sources of authority in Scotland. A suspicion that eventually brought me to wonder, amongst many other things: whatever happened to our Scottish, bourgeois revolution? Whatever happened to the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment? Why was 1066 and the Bayoux tapestry a feature of my early education? Why was received pronunciation and the speaking of ‘proper’ English so assiduously promoted by authority, along with the unquestioned primacy of Harrow, Eton and Oxbridge? Who, apart from authority, has benefited from this equally insidious example of Fraud by Semantics?
With the arrival and analysis of Salvo, the publishing of the genuinely revolutionary Doun Hauden, along with the realisation that Scotland’s Claim of Right would suffer asphyxiation by authority if argued solely within our own borders, my once gnawing suspicions regarding authority, seem vindicated. The ousting of the arch-authoritarian, Blackford, may yet deal a bigger blow to patronage-fattened authority than anyone might have imagined. An interesting question to Blackford, for me, at least, would’ve been: if the SC, by its recent ruling, is effectively preventing SNP MPs from delivering their party mandate, why are they still sitting in Westminster?
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Iain comments: “What happened was our King also assumed the Crown of England.”
—————
That being true and Scotland nevertheless having been subjected thereafter to unremitting and exhaustive exploitation, one can only imagine how England’s mystical royalist mumbo-jumbo would have been exponentially spun if the historical case had been the reverse, ie if an English monarch had inherited the Crown of Scotland. My gut feeling is that it is way beyond time now for republicanism to be made the steel-tipped battering ram of of the Scottish independence movement.
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Oh the irony! “The battering ram of the Scottish independence movement” steel-tipped wi a big dod o’ yon armour plate produced in South Wales so that we could say TATA tae rule fae Westminster.
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Republic of Scotland = Poblachd na h-Alba; republican (adjective & noun) = poblachdach; republicanism = poblachdas; a republican party = pàrtaidh poblachdach: The Republican Party = Am Pàrtaidh Poblachdach; Scotland will be declared a republic = Thèid Alba a ghairm na poblachd.
Below is a link to a good online dictionary (the top of the left-hand results-column usually being the most established contemporary term). NOTE: nowadays Irish uses only the acute accent on vowels (á é í ó ú), while Scottish uses only a grave accent (à è ì ò ù). This fairly comprehensive Scottish dictionary, however, conservatively (and rather confusingly) retains the older style of using both —
AM FACLAIR BEAG
https://faclair.com/index.aspx?Language=en
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Gaelic-medium schools (and most contemporary writers) use only the grave (à è ì ò ù). See for instance this (more limited than above) school-terminology dictionary —
AN SEOTAL
https://www.anseotal.org.uk/
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Slightly off-topic but nonetheless relevant.
Should a Scot die intestate – no Will – no family whatsoever, no one to benefit from whatever fortune in property, savings, etc, the estate of the deceased will go to ‘the Crown’.
We’re being thieved from not only from the cradle to the grave, but beyond the grave, too.
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The ‘Crown Office’ official charged with the disbursement of such funds is known as the K<R – King’s and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer.
Such a title is therefore a misnomer (at the very least) as it implies that the King of England has a say in the allocation of funds gathered in Scotland
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Thanks for earlier reply, Iain;
‘The UN have rules about this. They make sure it is fair.’.
My question was more ‘when can we go?’
Much to get excited about, I’d like to know what the conditions are that determine the point we can set the wheels in motion. If it’s a matter of Salvo gaining x members by next Dec then I’ll quit my job early and get to work. Will we need 5,000 members or 100,000? I don’t mind waiting (within reason) and working towards that goal. If I’m given to believe we can approach international courts as soon as we have x ‘signatures’ then I believe that’s a goal that’ll gather a great momentum very quickly.
What would I do if I were unionist? I’d be planning right now to explore every legal and illegal route to block Salvo’s course. I’d also introduce a more concentrated effort to make SNP appear more attractive – yes, absolutely – and that would of course involve exposing pro-indy to more toxic-Tory; there’s nothing more riling to SNP cult than the red herring of a Murdo Fraser or an Alister Jack, spouting and antagonising. Yes, that’s what I’d be doing right now if I were unionist, for that utter garbage makes Jock bite.
Unfortunately, until we can point out the devious, ‘Old Firm’ collaboration between Alister Jack and the SNP we’ll get nowhere. From a personal point of view, I never, ever rise to the bait of Tory ‘telling us what to do’ on a union front page. They have nothing – bugger-all – as the ball has always been at our feet. SNP like to tell us the ball is at *their* feet, of course they do, and that’s a convenience for the unionist press. As soon as we educate the people about the cosy relationship between SNP and Westminster the better.
Thanks for your essential work, Iain, Sara and everybody else involved, it’s incredibly important to us all.
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Recruitment is progressing steadily. There are a few others steps that will be necessary but securing the large membership is the most difficult. Our site has been under constant attack but we have taken new measures including moving it outside the UK to make taking legal action a better chance of success if needed. Everyone needs to recruit friends and family. Plus we have some new thinking on campaigning which we think will be much more successful than public meetings, of which more later.
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If you haven’t signed up to Salvo/Liberation.Scot do it now right this minute. This is very important work that Sara and her friends are doing for the benefit of Scots, we’ve been lied to and robbed, hopefully the day is coming that Scots are recompensed for this blatant theft.
This is one of Iain’s other excellent articles from the other day on the same subject but with far more info, if you haven’t read it do so.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2022/11/26/reclaiming-the-rights-of-scotlands-people/
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The barrack room lawyers seem to be out in force all over the internet so if nothing else Salvo has got people talking and thinking about our position in the union. The one thing to remember about lawyers is that in any case one of them loses so do not take everything they spout as gospel. Off topic I was humbled to meet a Ukranian family today hosted by a friend on his croft. The man has spent a lot of his own money to provide two well appointed mobile homes for an extended family of six and is a hero in my book. The family are from Mariupol which on looking at the web Vlad would be as well renaming Stalingrad on sea given the levels of destruction. It will be an interesting time with the older generation having very little English and should be a Christmas to remember. A winter in a mobile home on Mull will be a steep learning curve for those used to a cold dry Winter and snow. Anyone that is making excuses for Putin can do one as far as I am concerned.
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Whatever valid grievances Putin had at the outset, the interminable carnage he now presides over is a hellish abyssal nihilism which has long since moved beyond any commensurate justification. Abstract rationalisation should die on our lips at the sight of such raw mass human ruination as we are daily witnessing. I have circumspectly posted before the following crushingly anguished words of the communist Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) from his Spanish Civil War poem ‘Explico Algunas Cosas’ —
“[…] Y una mañana todo estaba ardiendo
y una mañana las hogueras
salían de la tierra
devorando seres,
y desde entonces fuego,
pólvora desde entonces,
y desde entonces sangre.
Bandidos con aviones
[…] venían por el cielo a matar niños,
y por las calles la sangre de los niños
corría simplemente, como sangre de niños.
[…] Preguntaréis por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?
Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!”
“[…] And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings —
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes
[…] came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children’s blood.
[…] And you’ll ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets,
come and see
the blood in the streets,
come and see the blood
in the streets!”
(English translation by Nathaniel Tarn)
“[…] Agus madainn a bha seo cha robh ann ach lasraichean
agus madainn a bha seo siod tùrlaichean
a’ leum às an talamh
gus daoine a shlugadh,
agus bho sin a-mach teine
a’ bhuidealaich bho sin a-mach,
agus bho sin a-mach fuil.
Slaightearan le itealain […]
thàinig iad tro na speuran a chur às do chloinn,
agus tro na sràidean siod fuil na cloinne
a’ ruith gu sìmplidh, mar fhuil chloinne.
[…]Theid fhaighneachd carson nach ann a-mach air
aislingean agus duilleagan a tha a chuid bàrdachd,
agus air beanntan-teine tìr a bhreithe?
Thigibh is faicibh an fhuil anns na sràidean,
thigibh is faicibh
an fhuil anns na sràidean,
thigibh is faicibh an fhuil
anns na sràidean!”
And so here also is a Gaelic version of the ‘RED VIBURNUM’ anthem:
“AN CÈIR-ÌOCAN DEARG
O chèir-ìocan dheirg anns a’ chluain ud air do chromadh sìos.
Coltas bròin air an Ugràin ghlòrmhoir, saoil gu dè is brìgh?
Togaidh sinn an cèir-ìocan dearg seo suas an àird
An uair sin a dh’ Ugràin na glòire (hèi! hèi!) nìthear iolach-aighear!
An uair sin a dh’ Ugràin na glòire (hèi! hèi!) nìthear iolach-aighear!”
I have now posted the Ukrainian, English, and Scottish versions of ‘Red Viburnum’, along with Pink Floyd’s video, here —
https://gobha-uisge.blogspot.com/2022/11/ukrainian-red-viburnum-in-meadow-pink.html
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Sound sentiments Fearghas but what I don’t get is the selective nature of our society’s concerns about human ruination as you describe it.
There have been many worse human sufferings, and recently so, than that of Ukraine. That however is not to make light of the suffering.
My concern is that we all too often focus on one tragedy whilst effectively ignoring other much worse human tragedies.
Ukraine could be sorted. Should be sorted. But sadly there are too many vested geo interests to let it be sorted. And so we pump ever more weapons, ever more sanctions, and Ukraine, well what about Ukraine.
Any from my street view Taiwan and China could be the next hot spot.
Why Jaw Jaw when you can War War to misquote a once uttered dictum. Like independence, or subservience, we get what we choose.
But maybe it’ll be better later this morning. Matt Hancock is back from the Jungle.
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Nice try, but the Act of Union with England refers specifically to the Kingdom of Great Britain. This cannot be interpreted in any other way than being territorial.
This is a good blog and would aid the indy cause better by demonstrating to No voters how they will practically benefit from indy. People vote with their wallets, and are not particularly impressed by being asked to believe three impossible things before breakfast.
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Yes Daisy but you can’t explain why that is. How could it possibly happen when the King of Scots never owned the territory to give it away in the first place. It is an aspirational phrase designed to,please Queen Anne and a bit of international marketing, a bit like a Carlsberg ad!
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You’re absolutely right on both counts, Daisy. As for Iain’s comment, the Act of Union was entered into not by the monarch, but by the Parliament of Scotland. So in the extremely unlikely event of the territory being owned by the people or the Community of the Realm (in reality it was largely owned by the nobility and the Kirk) they gave it away through parliament. This business of not having given the territory away is nothing more than a red herring that doesn’t stand up to even minor scrutiny.
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TheParliament never owned it either Davey. Check your facts.
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Iain, if you read my post properly you’ll see that I didn’t say that Parliament owned the territory – I said that in the unlikely event of the people or the Community of the Realm owning it, it was given away through parliament, which was the only way the people (which in those days meant the Establishment) could express themselves. I made the comment because you said “This is crucial because no King ever owned Scotland’s land, assets and resources which remain the property of the community of the Realm”.
My own view is that it’s nonsense to suggest that the Community of the Realm ever owned Scotland’s territory. Initially, land was held on feudal principles, with the monarch “owning” everything. I live in Angus and if I look at the county’s biggest tourist attraction, Glamis Castle, I note that back in the 11th century the land on which the castle was built was owned by the monarch who had a hunting lodge there. In 1372 King Robert II gave the land to Sir John Lyon, who happened to be married to the King;s daughter. The Lyons retained the land until 1537 when James V, who had fallen out with the Lyons family due their association with the Douglases, retook possession of the land and in fact lived there for some time, popping into nearby Forfar every now and again to buy some bridies from McLaren the baker. Anyway, John Lyon 7th Lord Glamis managed to ingratiate himself sufficiently with the king to have the lands returned to the Lyon family, and they have retained it ever since.
So why that little history interlude (in which some of you may have noticed a small inaccuracy)? Merely to show that land was vested ultimately in the monarch who had full control over who got it and who lost it. The people, or the Community of the Realm, had no say in the matter and no control over it. That is not surprising as in Scotland the people, far from being sovereign, had virtually no power at all and by 1707 less than 1% of Scots had the right to vote. The Establishment – Crown, nobility, big landowners, wealthy merchants and, of course, the Kirk – controlled everything and everyone. Unfortunately that situation still applies to a large extent today, even though the make-up of the Establishment has changed somewhat.
So there are some facts, Iain. I haven’t seen any to suggest that the Community of the Realm owned Scoltand’s territory.
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Oh Dear. See Prof David Walker et al. The ‘Acts’ of union were acts of ratification and the trestynthey ratified (brought into effect) was prosecuted by Queen Ann. The Commissioners negotiated the terms the articles with both parliaments but the instrument was completed and presented to HM Queen Ann and then ratified by the parliaments. You should be aware, also, that the characters of these parliaments were very different with the result that the imposition of parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland is not lawful in Scotland – and could not be made so by the treaty – and that powers not possessed by the Scottish Parliament could not be ‘transferred’ with that parliament to Westminster. It really isn’t rocket science
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The ‘Kingdom of Great Britain’ is the title given to a state containing two Kingdoms and a single Parliament that provides joint governance of both. It is only territorial in the sense that it covers a specific geographical area distinct from the rest of the world. Its ‘territorial integrity’ applies only to external threats, it is owed no protection from internal ‘threats’. Internally, recent events have made it crystal clear that the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England continue to exist as separate entities (see my reply to daveetee19), and the KGB (that’s now my favourite acronym) does not itself own any of the territories within it, it only manages aspects of them on behalf of the true owners of those territories.
That management can be complex due to several direct contradictions arising from key differences between the two Kingdoms’ internal constitutions, legalities, and sovereignties, including differences in how their ownership of their territories actually works. The KGB is obliged under the Treaty to recognise and respect several continuations of those differences, and thus it does not have a free hand to eliminate those differences which it deems inconvenient to the aspirations of those in charge.
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“People vote with their wallets”
People tend to vote according to their values, and it is our values and culture that influence and determine our identity, i.e. British or Scottish. A key objective of colonialism is cultural assimilation and with that comes the subordination of native culture and identity, giving rise to a people developing a ‘false persona’. Wallets have rather less to do with the desire for or against independence.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/06/27/paper-one-in-the-10-part-baird-series/
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Not to nit pick but…. ‘the Act of Union with England refers specifically to the Kingdom of Great Britain’
Doesn’t the original document say……. act of Kingdoms? Plural
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No edit function.
Not to nit pick but…. ‘the Act of Union with England refers specifically to the Kingdom of Great Britain’
Doesn’t the original document say……. Kingdoms of Grat Britain,? Plural.
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What the Act says is: “That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England shall upon the first day of May next ensuing the date hereof and forever after be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”.
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It says it but doesn’t do it Davey, firstly because it’s impossible, neither the Scottish Parliament or the Monarch held the powers, secondly both crowns and therefore kingdoms exist to this day as was the ceremony King Charles executed last month.
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Aspirational not fact. Did not happen neither in 1603 or 1707.
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It did.
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I’m not sure about this one. That isn’t doubt, it’s simply I don’t know. It’s a bit of a head scratcher.
I think Daisy is correct, the Kingdom of Scotland does, to me, imply the territory, but at the same time, the Treaty of Union treats constitutionally dissimilar Kingdoms as being entirely the same, and as Sara is pointing out, they are very much not the same, so how and where are the differences, dissimilarities, and distinctions reconciled? It would appear the answer is nowhere, so we have another anomaly to augment the incompatible anomaly of dissimilar and irreconcilable sovereignties. It would seem there is fertile ground to at least try to undermine the Treaty.
I think Iain has a valid point too, because whoever actually owned the territory of Scotland seems academic; you cannot make a bargain with somebody else’s property, whoever that someone else might be. Furthermore, off the top of my head, I’m not sure it’s a simple as ownership of a property, because “ownership” might include mineral rights below that property, or airspace over it.
The extraordinary thing is a Treaty of Union purporting to alter the ownership of territory, or minerals and resources thereby derived, attempts to do so without any appropriate title deed.
Without any such reference to a required title, isn’t it the “sloppy” Treaty which suffers for the omission? Isn’t it something along the lines of Holyrood’s Scotland Act, where matters unforeseen in the Scotland Act will be presumed devolved, and fall under Holyrood’s jurisdiction by default?
Maybe to resolve this matter, it would help to look at this situation from a different perspective; If we look at what the individual English citizen lost, or had taken from them under the terms of the Treaty of Union, individually, they lost absolutely nothing. However, if you were to consider what each individual “sovereign” Scot lost or had taken from them, there is a very clear disparity, because the Scots were robbed of a sovereign stake-hold in their Nation.
That lost stake-hold was arguably England’s first “plunder”, and Scotland’s first exploitation, carried out under the phoney charade of a Treaty purporting to be a Union of Equals, but which was never any such thing.
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For those who persist in ignoring the present constitutional character of the Scottish Crown, it remains representative of the Community of the Realm, the land of Scotland is the ‘major regalia’, the parliament had absolutely nothing to do with it then or now, and the status of Scotland as a ‘sovereign territorial nation’ is not up for debate. It is the status of Scotland then and now. Not an open question, just a long hidden fact. And applied by the UK government in its administration of the energy of Scotland. Argue all you wish. Them’s the facts.
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“forgive me for being blunt…a lack of knowledge and understanding on your part does not constitute error on mine”.
Easy on Sara and Iain, you’ll chase Daveytee19 away to the Wee Ginger Dug blog, for comfort.
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I’ve been posting a bit on WGD. I’m now under moderation there, and a recent post I made to james Kelly’s blog did not see the light of day. Oh what it is to be popular…..
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Great post Iain. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t read all of this in-depth and am appreciative of those having the legal debate – on both sides btw! This needs stress-tested. Of that I’m in no doubt.
Yet, Regardless of how we interpret the law, there is now a huge moral imperative . Enough is enough – (No, not the campaign group I held so much respect for, until labour MPs hijacked it)
You know, I watch people dutifully put canned food in the ‘food bank’ trolley in my local supermarket – I’ve been doing it myself. Yet inside I’m screaming – “it doesn’t have to be like this!” It’s like continually watching Sisyphus pushing the giant boulder up the mountain, all whilst the over-indulged ‘foulkesian’ (new word) socialists gorge on their ‘less than a tenner’ steak dinner in SW1.
Councils facilitating ‘warm spaces’? – how about facilitating the end of private energy companies who choose (under govt supervision) to euthanise the population by method of hypothermia?? How about turning ‘excess’ energy into calories, as opposed to paying fat cats to shut off wind turbines. We are treating the symptoms, rather than remedying the cause. We need to end the ‘corporatisation’ of our public ‘servants’. We need people to understand that none of this suffering is necessary. To paraphrase Martin Luther king, we need to change the very system which gives rise to such facilities as food banks and ‘warm spaces’.
For every food packages dispensed, and warm bowl of soup poured, perhaps there needs to be appended the message – ‘rise up’
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Historic copies of valuation rolls of property are held in the National Library of Scotland or Central Library in Edinburgh and these are publically available for inspection, or certainly used to be. In Edinburgh and presumably in all council areas the valuation roll ledgers showed details of properties owned by the various Common Good Account funds.
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Any amount of pouring over deeds of sasine or land registry documents will get us nowhere . Scotland had one of the earliest systems ( if not the earliest) of recording land transactions but that all started in 1617 , though there was earlier partial collecting of information .
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The land assets of Scotland as a whole are separate but also ‘Common Good’ assets!
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I have just read that the icon of Scottish civil service and faithful servant to the people of Scotland, a one Leslie Evans is retiring with a £2m pension. Seems she is picking up a £256k tax free lump sum and a £90,000 per year index linked pension.
I am sure Yours readers will join with me to pay tribute to this great Scottish servant and her not inconsiderable pension.
Ther’s always good money for those that deserve it.
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Sara Salyers’ long comment above (Dec 7.22 pm) has been reblogged (with due respect to Iain’s Monday publishing intention) here:
https://gobha-uisge.blogspot.com/2022/11/sara-salyers-reclaiming-rights-of.html
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