The Union is Over Thank You Justices
“In truth it’s not for Glory or riches, or honours that we are fighting, but for freedom, for that alone, that no honest man gives up but with life itself’ – Declaration of Arbroath 1320
Reproduction of this article is permitted
Paper written by lain-Smith: Kerr. 26th December 2022 11:22:33am Ver 3.0
Executive Summary
A Brief History
The cause of Scottish Independence has been a long and difficult road,in the latter part of the twentieth century the SNP gradually gained votes and Devolution happened with the passing of the Scotland Act 1998.We all know where that ended, #normally” became a lexicon for Westminster deceit, a skill they have practiced over many centuries. With Devolution came the rise and rise of the SNP and the Independence cause. Alex Salmond and David Cameron agreed a referendum proposal and in 2014 Scotland voted No. Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister in favour of his Deputy Nicola Sturgeon. Since then, we have had Brexit, the UK withdrawal from the European Union and despite this material change in circumstances and ever more mandates to hold a second Independence Referendum, the UK Government has been resolute in saying No to another Section 30 Order. This has been the position of the last four UK Prime Ministers.
A New Approach
Nicolas Sturgeon’s approach has been very different to her predecessor. Having gained several electoral mandates for a referendum she has repeatedly asked for the transfer of powers from Westminster to uphold her election promise. This has been denied by successive Prime Ministers and therefore she rightfully posed the question to the United Kingdom Supreme Court.
The Court Judgement1
This came in two Parts,
Firstly, they said No, the Scottish Parliament in its present incarnation is a child of Westminster and therefore cannot do anything reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act1998. The Union being a reserved matter, so No, and I agree. The commentators and politicians have largely focused on this aspect of the judgement and echo Nicola Sturgeon’s Statement
“Let’s be absolutely blunt a so-called partnership in which one partner is denied the right to choose a different future or even to ask itself the question cannot be described in any way as voluntary”
2 Secondly it categorically stated that the United Kingdom Parliament is sovereign. This being the unanimous decision of the UK Supreme Court from which there is no appeal. This seems to me to be in direct conflict with the 1706/7 Treaty of Union3
3• In my opinion it is, both a definitive statement and incontrovertible evidence of the perpetration of a fraud.
Fraud makes The Treaty of Union null and void ablnitio and therefore I believe that Scotland is now lawfully and legally an independent nation State and no referendum is required.
The Evidence for Fraud
Mark Twain – How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work”
How Scotland was Cheated
The Bait- Treaty ofUnion 1706/7
Article1 is as follows
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 And that the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall appoint and the Crosses of St Andrew and St George be conjoined in such manner as Her Majesty shall think fit and used in all Flags Banners Standards and Ensigns both at Sea and Land
This Article does not mention the Constitutions of either Scotland or England and neither does the rest of the Treaty, I believe that neither Constitution can lawfully or legally take precedence over the other. We signed at the point of a-gun. Gordon Ross put it well
“It is now shown to be a forced Union there is no voluntary aspect to any of this. We knew this right from the start. TheTreaty of Union was signed in the middle of an English military blockade where English ships basically blockaded Scottish ports and threatened to sink any Scottish ships trying to export anything or to resupply the colony at Darien, Panama. As well as that there was a ban on exports of Scottish wool which was a primary export into England at the time so there was-a trade embargo. There was one English army massed across the border threatening Scotland with yet another invasion. Then the English State bribed the remaining Nobles (who were in debt because of their investments in Darien) by paying off their debts and threatening to seize their lands. So, nobody in their right mind and certainly nobody in the United Nations knowing how this Treaty come about could ever say there was any voluntary aspect.
“4 The Switch – The Scottish Constitution principle was ignored and discarded. The English Constitutional principle was promoted and enforced to Scotland’s detriment.
The evidence for this is
A. On23 November 2022 the Judgement of the UK Supreme Court on Devolution issues declared:-
The essential question was Does the Scottish Parliament have power to legislate for the holding of a referendum on Scottish independence?”
The answer came with two observations
Firstly, that the Scottish Parliament as currently constituted is a child of the Westminster Parliament and therefore cannot hold an independence referendum without permission from that Parliament as this is a matter which is «Reserved” under the Scotland Act 1998.
- .. A lawfully held referendum would be a political event with political consequences. It is equally plain that a Bill which makes provision for a referendum on independence – on ending the sovereignty of the Parliament of the United Kingdom over Scotland – has more than a loose or consequential connection withthe sovereignty of that Parliament.
- For these reasons, we reject the Lord Advocate’s submissions that the proposed Bill does not relate to reserved matters.
I agree, Holyrood is born of Westminster, and the proposal relates to reserved matters, so No is the correct answer.It seems to me a statement of the obvious.
Secondly the justices asserted that the Westminster Parliament is Sovereign. They reinforced this view by references in paragraphs 63, 76, 77 and 82 where the Sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament is expressly stated or referred. This is no mere 11obiter dictum”.
As the UK Supreme Court is the highest Court in the UK and there can be no appeal. It means that the justices in their unanimous judgement have ruled that the UK Parliament is Sovereign, thus negating the Scottish constitution.
Discarding the Scottish Constitution is a material breach of the Treaty and is a clear admission to a Bait and Switch FRAUD.
B. In the case of MacCormick and Another v Lord Advocate 1953 Court of Session (on appeal)
6 LordPresident Cooper remarked
The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law. It derives its origin from Coke and Blackstone and was widely popularised during the nineteenth century by Bagehot and Dicey, the latter having stated the doctrine in its classic form in his Law of the Constitution. Considering that the Union legislation extinguished the Parliaments of Scotland and England and replaced them by a new Parliament, I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done. Further, the Treaty and the associated legislation, by which the Parliament of Great Britain was brought into being as the successor of the separate Parliaments of Scotland and England, contain some clauses which expressly reserve to the Parliament of Great Britain power.; of subsequent modification, and other clauses which either contain no such power or emphatically exclude subsequent alteration by declarations that the provision shall be fundamental and unalterable in all time coming, or declarations of a like effect. I have never been able to understand how it Is possible to reconcile with elementary canons of construction the adoption by the English constitutional theorists of the same attitude to these markedly different types of provisions.
Lord Cooper nearly got there, but evidently did not consider fraud in his judgement. So, this state of affairs was probably intentional and has been there since the beginning, but only noticed In a legal sense In 1953, even then its true nature as a criminal act was misunderstood.
Then there is a more recent Act of Parliament which further asserted the Sovereignty of Parliament. A perplexed Mark Drakeford commented negatively on it at the time and couldn’t understand why it was necessary to be included. He obviously realised it was a particularly prickly issue and was concerned about its impact on the Scottish Devolution settlement.
C. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020
38Parliamentary sovereignty
(1) Itis recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign.
(2) In particular, its sovereignty subsists notwithstanding-
(a) directly applicable or directly effective EU law continuing to be recognised and available in domestic law by virtue of section 1A or 1B of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (savings of existing law for the implementationperiod),
(b) section 7A of that Act (other directly applicable or directly effective aspects of the withdrawal agreement),
(c) section 7B of that Act (deemed direct applicabifrty or direct effect in relation to the EEA EFTA separation agreement and the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement), and
(d) section 7C of that Act Onterpretation of law relating to the withdrawal agreement (other than the implementationperiod). the EEA EFTA separation agreement and the SWiss citizens’ rights agreement).
(3) Accordingly, nothing in this Act derogates from the sovereignty of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
In this Act the UK Par1iament openly asserted its Sovereignty and replaced the Sovereignty of the Monarch with their own. In England an act of Treason.
. 8.Except that this apparently received Royal Assent I ponder that is not something that the Monarch would consider to be in theirs or their heirs and successors best interests and therefore unlikely to consent. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances!
Conclusion
The Sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament has been stated by the UK Supreme Court in direct conflict with theTreaty of Union. Scotland was bludgeoned and deceived into joining a Union with England by lies and outright fraud. This is enough to lawfully end the Treaty of Union and gain international recognition as an independent nation state.
“As is becoming clearer by the day achieving Independence is not now just desirable, it is essential ff Scotland is to escape the disaster of Brexit, the damage of policies imposed by governments we do not vote for, and the low growth high inequality economic model that is holding us back” Nicola Sturgeon
A new Scottish Parliament has to be elected and the already extant Scottish Constitution needs to be resurrected and Acts of Parliament created to kickstart Scotland. Attention can be turned to the matters of the European Union and a possible new Union with England. This will of course take a considerable time to undertake given the volume of legislation that needs to be prepared, scrutinized, debated and passed by Parliament.
MY COMMENTS
An excellent paper and explanation of where Scotland lies at the moment and explains the urgency of taking quick steps to start the process of defending and promoting Scotland’s Constitution that provides ample measures to defend the Scottish interest…if the political will exists to make use of those measures and protections. Is there? It should form the major considerations of the SNP SPECIAL CONFERENCE and certainly the growing membership of Salvo/ Liberation will be looking for signs that this crucial party is catching on to the effective tactics that can be employed to move forward.
I am, as always
Yours for Scotland
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YOURS FOR SCOTLAND 
This is all very well, but independence needs more than talk.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Scotland’s big issue is fear. Fear kills, psychologically and physically. It is the weapon of choice to frustrate advance, change, development, seeking the alternative. You will regret it, we will make certain you will regret it, we will come for you in the small hours and lay waste to your world.
I’ll be 20 this year. I know the power of fear and its capabilities to wreck lives, ideas, cultures, nations. The psychological impact on «hearts and minds» is made manifest in the politics, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism of recorded human history. It may present as an «it’s for your own good» notion as in the normative narrative of latter day paternalist colonialism which aspires to «protect» you, from yourself usually, but also protects the stressed and worn colonialist fabric from tearing asunder.
If psychologically «change» freaks you out no amount of rhetoric will overcome that state. It rests with those for whom that is not the case to take the initiative. Converting a majority is a forlorn and timewasting exercise.
Things have gone too far for lectures, for sticking to their set of rules.
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Fear? I think that you will find it’s cheating and other forces at play here. That’s also part of the narrative by convincing people that you have to convince others where the first vote was flawed in many different ways but there’s folk unwilling to address them.
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What we did get was I don’t agree with you a wee gloss over and that’s that. Well now it’s not a case of I, it’s a case of we and you either listen to the folk that are perhaps going to vote for you because it’s them who you will serve. People take wrong decisions however doing them over again and expecting different results is well a suggestion that you are not willing to listen or learn. It doesn’t mean your a bad person it just means that you previously were used to making decisions without engaging with the folk and their concerns first.
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Interesting watch for all.
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They tried to stop me from getting a vote, I filed an official complaint with the electoral commission. I has to insist and cause a fuss and tell them that I wasn’t leaving until I got my vote. I had my card, went to the registration office to check two weeks prior. The response was they were concerned however I was taken off the register that day but added again and so my vote would have been valid.
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The final vote of 1707 wasn’t exclusively of the Nobles (Of the Nobility & Of the Barons) but rather included representatives of the Burghs (Of the Burrows). Many of no title are listed for both the Approvers and the Noe’s. This is a crucial aspect of the political dynamic. Although in a substantial minority, a form of democracy incorporating property owning males was already in place by the early 18th century.
Also, I believe the author may be thinking of Carwyn Jones (FM of Wales 2009 to 2018) rather than Mark Drakeford. I seem to remember distinguished lawyer Jones forensically dissecting the constitution wrecking ramifications of the (then nascent) United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 on the floor of the Senedd.
Neither point is a criticism, but rather an attempt at firming up our argument against its detractors.
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Think you are right I remember that good speech from Carwyn Jones. I shared it asking why nobody in our Parliament had said similar.
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I think quite a lot of us shared that and we’re grateful that he brought it up but said it wasn’t for him to take on but rather Scotland.
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My impression of Scottish nationalism, as an alien from an ancient culture, is that it has developed cultural tunnel vision to the point where it see the trees but cannot envisage the forest.
Too much factionalism, fractionalism, legalism and a readiness to be wary of the «extreme».
Many of Scotland’s existential problems have their roots elsewhere and their solutions might be found there too. To be generous, I might attribute that purblindness to the peculiarities of the British way of seeing lurking in the collective consciousness.
As I get on with my life, I wish Scotland and her people well, and a wider optic field.
Beannachd leibh.
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The British way of seeing has reached more than just here. In fact some ancient cultures are secret flag wavers of them because they too got swamped, perhaps in deals or whatever, who knows?
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Excellent and informative article, I recall reading that the ToU was signed in the basement of a corner shop in Edinburgh well away from prying eyes, and whilst this was happening the people of Edinburgh above in the streets were rioting because they di not want this union, this was backed up by comment make of the English spy and author Daniel Defoe.
The unionist rosy version of the signing of the ToU has it signed in a Sumer House/Gazebo in some garden of a stately building, if I recall correctly.
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This is another Salvo type article but I am afraid that it is wide of the mark.
I quote the author as follows:
“As the UK Supreme Court is the highest Court in the UK and there can be no appeal. It means that the justices in their unanimous judgement have ruled that the UK Parliament is Sovereign, thus negating the Scottish constitution.
Discarding the Scottish Constitution is a material breach of the Treaty and is a clear admission to a Bait and Switch FRAUD.”
It is encouraging that the author has read TOU Article 1 which sets up the incorporating union but he appears to be unaware of TOU Article III which is as follows:
“III. ‘That the United Kingdom of Great-Britain be represented by one and the same
Parliament, to be stiled the Parliament of Great-Britain”
The Justices in the recent Devolution case were thus 100% correct to assert that “the UK Parliament is Sovereign”. The TOU was all about creating a new country. How could discarding the Scottish Constitution be a material breach of the TOU? Which provision in particular is the author thinking of?
The former Scottish Constitution falls on the provisions of the TOU. The only issue is which constitutional law governs the new Union state. This could either be Scots Law, English Law or some other third law. It is not Scots Law (even assuming that a clear Scots Constitutional Law existed in 1707) and not a third law. English Law clearly governs. What Lord Cooper alluded to is his obiter dicta language was clearly ridiculous. The new UK State could not be governed by an undefined eclectic mix of English and Scots Constitutional Law.
This is all going nowhere.
William
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William, why don’t you justify English constitutional matters taking precedence and point me to the statement in the Articles where this is explained and agreed? I can point you to where the Claim of Right is agreed and made a pre requisite to Union.
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Iain
The TOU does not explicitly say which constitutional law governs the new Union State but it is clear from Article I that there is to be a new Union State. The reality of the incorporating union is made clear in Article I and Article 3 provides that the new Union Parliament is sovereign and overall. Only one out of three possible constitutional laws could govern the new Union State, English Law, Scots Law or a third kind of Law. Scots Constitutional Law was poorly developed in 1707 and may or may not have been based on the “sovereignty of the people” In any event, “sovereignty of the people” had ( and has) no clear meaning. The TOU itself was agreed over the fervent wishes of the Scottish people. Clearly no third law was made applicable and thus the only candidate is English Constitutional Law. TOU Article XXII strongly points to English Constitutional Law as the provision provided that the Union Parliament would have a House of Commons and a House of Lords just like the prior English system. See also TOU Article XXIII providing that the new 16 Scots members of the Lords will have “all the Privileges of Parliament which the Peers of England now have….”.
Do you think that the English, compassing Scotland around with armies, and being 35 TIMES richer than Scotland, were willing to give up the supremacy of Parliament to the Scots, without even explicitly agreeing that they were doing so? Andy why no objection from us for 325 years?
I would like to know where the CoR is made a pre-requisite of Union. I hope you weren’t thinking of the Act for Security of the Church of Scotland?
Happy New Year to You
William
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William, there is nothing in the Treaty that permitted the new Parliament of Great Britain to extend England’s constitution over Scotland, and nothing that gives it any power over Scotland that neither Scotland’s own Parliament nor monarch ever had. The English Parliament’s sovereignty was confined within the borders of the Kingdom of England, and neither Scotland’s commissioners who negotiated the Treaty, nor the Scottish Parliament which ratified it nor the monarch Queen Anne who signed the Treaty and gave assent to the two Acts of Union had the authority to remove the sovereignty of Scotland’s people from them and transfer it to the new GB Parliament. That is still the case today and it cannot ever be changed.
Scotland’s constitution, well-developed or no, is part and parcel with the sovereignty of the Scots, and needs no explicit preservation in the Treaty because literally no body had or has the legitimate authority to abolish either of them. Only the sovereign Scots can agree to a change of their constitution, such change cannot be forced on them, and it is literal treason to try. Thus any sovereignty Westminster can wield over Scotland must be exclusively Scotland’s own, devolved to Westminster in the form of the Scots MPs in the new Parliament, and who alone represent the Scottish partner in the joint governance of both Kingdoms.
Several things follow from this; Scotland’s MPs are not just any old MPs like Englands, they are Scotland’s ambassadors who alone can speak and treat for Scotland as the Scottish Partner negotiating governance with the English Partner. Their majority vote IS the sovereign voice of the Scottish Partner, and it cannot be legitimately overruled by the English Partner, full stop. Joint governance requires joint agreement, nothing less. That Westminster refuses to recognise the authority of the Scottish Partner’s representatives/ambassadors is an utter disgrace and a clear breach of the Treaty, and an unlawful denial of the sovereignty of the Scots. England’s MPs have no sovereignty whatsoever over Scotland, they never have, and we didn’t give any to them. England’s MPs have no legal right to snub Scotland’s MPs and enforce legislation on Scotland against the will of the sovereign Scots as expressed by their official and democratically elected representatives in the only place where that is both expected and required to matter.
“I would like to know where the CoR is made a pre-requisite of Union.” I would like to know where England’s Constitution is made a pre-requisite of the Union, and where the legitimate authority came from to impose it on Scotland anyway without a clear pre-requisite! You don’t get to presume that England’s authority will always be the default answer to any unclear situation. In Scotland the sovereignty and constitution of the Scots is not just the default it is mandatory, unless a clearly agreed exception is defined within the Treaty. If it wasn’t agreed in the Treaty then England’s interpretation is worthless.
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“The Justices in the recent Devolution case were thus 100% correct to assert that “the UK Parliament is Sovereign”.”
No, they were not! The UK Parliament is sovereign within the borders of the Kingdom of England, and it may be ‘unlimited’ there. But its sovereignty over Scotland is entirely different because it does not own that sovereignty; it was only given a devolved or delegated form of Scotland’s sovereignty, the original still retained by us. As such Westminster’s use of that delegated sovereignty is subject to the limitations Scotland’s genuine sovereignty imposes on the exercise of power in Scotland, and that genuine Scottish sovereignty outranks Westminster’s devolved version. Westminster may have carte blanche in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it certainly does not have the carte blanche it thinks it does in Scotland.
The sovereign Scots also retain the authority to withdraw their devolved sovereignty from Westminster, in precisely the same way that Westminster insists that the powers of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood are only devolved and can always be overruled or withdrawn by Westminster.
Westminster has never had the authority to set aside Scotland’s sovereignty and Scotland’s constitution, except where the Treaty provides clear agreed terms provide for it.
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Yes, it’s an interesting observation, that the union Parliament created by the ToU is itself in reality a devolved parliament and rather than exercising unlimited power is by any sensible analysis limited in its reach by the Treaty of Union. That the parliament or at least those elected to it were well aware of its limitations at least so far as the United Kingdom was concerned was clearly demonstrated by the 1746 Wales and Berwick Act which defined the legal jurisdictions of both Scots and English law. There was of course no need to include in either the English or Scots Articles of Union mention of Constitutional law, in general terms the notion of Constitutional law was in its infancy and would not have been thought of as anything other than simply law. Dicey himself, defined the principal of ‘Sovereiegnty of Parliament ‘ as English common law rather than constitutional.
Magna Carta, commonly accepted as the bedrock of English Constitutional law, when submitted as evidence in the Keating case, was rejected as ‘ having no standing in Scots law as it was created at a time when England was independent from Scotland ‘, an interesting use of words.
Treaty law trumps domestic law and no matter how many abuses of power exercised by the union Parliament and the judiciary against the Acts of Union, the Articles of Union are as extant today as they were on the day the Treaty was signed and no matter how many times Lord Coopers statement is dismissed as ‘ opinion ‘ he like the Lord Advocate during the hearing, states clearly the that the union Parliament had no power to alter the ToU, were founded in law.
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“Scots Constitutional Law was poorly developed in 1707 and may or may not have been based on the “sovereignty of the people” In any event, “sovereignty of the people” had ( and has) no clear meaning.”
William, both of these statements are unsupported by you, and are simply wrong. Here are some correct statements;
Scots Constitutional Law was well developed in 1707. For details, see Salvo.scot, and the several articles that Sara Salyers and others have presented on this blog over the last year.
The ‘sovereignty of the people of Scotland’ has very clear meaning. It means that they are the ultimate decision takers in Scotland, and from that it follows that they may only be governed by their consent, and that the governmental authority of a monarch, or a parliament or a court may be removed by them. That threat is not an idle one, as it has been exercised on more than one occasion as several monarchs experienced. It also follows that their sovereignty is recognised by their constitution, and that in turn sets limitations and obligations on Scots law and on any agent of governance of the people.
Even Boris Johnson discovered that he was answerable to Scots law when Joanna Cherry KC required him to reverse his prorogation of Parliament because under Scots law Parliament was not allowed to evade the oversight of the sovereign people of Scotland.
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Good to read this piece. For the life of me, I’ve never understood how the Treaty of Union could be considered in any way legitimate. The bribery alone should mean it is invalid.
Force of arms and violence kept Scotland in its place until 1820. Scotland’s growing home rule aspirations were fobbed off just Ireland’s were – until Irish MPs refused to take their seats at Westminster after the 1918 Sinn Fein pro-indy landslide.
Finally, a more method of persuasion was used against Scots – hiding the true state of our economy. A method which has now morphed into a series of cynical lies since the advent of GERS in the 1990s.
The last time they printed the truth was 100 years ago. It explains why they began to hide this information from the Scottish people:
“The totals for the year 1920-21 were as follows:
Revenue contributed by Scotland … … … £I19.753,000
Expenditure on Scottish Services
£33.096,000
Balance retained in London for Imperiat
Services *
£86,657,000
*It is to be noted that so far as Imperial or British services are concerned, most of the money is disbursed in England.
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I totally agree. The fraud and corruption alone should have invalidated the Treaty of Union before the ink was even dry. It seems incredible that Treaty stood, but presumably that’s where the bribery and coercion smoothed out any bumps in the road.
The same could, and should be said about Brexit, particularly with Michel Barnier stressing how the Brexit negotiations had to be legal and Constitutional. What a farce, when they clearly were not. Scotland’s Brexit was an unconstitutional outrage, and in my opinion, an Independent Scotland should revisit this “conclusion” as part of any future negotiations with the EU.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I formed the impression Barnier was reaching out to Scotland and dropping big hints about our sovereign Constitution, but unfortunately he got the cold shoulder from the constitutionally illiterate numpty, Nicola Sturgeon.
With regard to William Ross above; I would concede that a popular sovereign democracy in the 21st Century was not properly envisioned in 14th or even 18th Century Scotland. How could it have been? However that distinction is largely academic. We should remember that Scotland’s doctrine of popular sovereignty is the constitutional corollary of the similar assertion that the Scottish monarch WASN’T sovereign. Scotland’s affirmation of that constitutional situation was quite unambiguous and unequivocal.
Scotland didn’t set out to empower the “little people”, but instead, limit the power of the Monarch… but that’s the same deal in constitutional terms.
Medieval Scotland perhaps was less than precise when it came to codifying what we would now call a popular sovereignty, but it was more than explicit in asserting the reigning monarch was not sovereign, and given the binary nature of sovereignty, the Constitutional precedent is set.
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Would that there were those in power who had an interest and a cogent argument for independence – instead it seems that those in power are mired in a world of perversion , presenting a danger to women and children.
Has the NSPCC made any comment? The Church which is heavily involved in child protection – particularly since some of its number were caught in odious practices against children- where is its voice? Where is the Fourth Estate – fearless reporters in dirty macs- informing the public of the dismantling of rights and the infringing of others? Or are they too scared that they may be caught by the ridiculous ‘Hate crime Bill” ? Or are they just bought by the Scottish Government?
Right now I am ashamed to be Scottish , ashamed of the so called Scottish Government and will never again vote for the distorted SNP or Greens. I look forward to a huge loss of seats for both parties come the next election and many thousands of spoilt ballot papers where there is no ALBA , ISP, SALVO standing.
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All this talk about annulling the Act of Union or of wriggling out of it somehow is a nonsense and will achieve nothing. The union has been recognised, domestically and internationally, for over 300 years. It is not going to be annulled. The best way of securing a legal and immediately recognised Scottish independence would be by another Act of the UK parliament dissolving the union.
I’m far from convinved that the Scottish people are sovereign. Certainly I used to think they were, and that the Scottish monarch was first among equals. That’s because a lot of people said it and I had no reason to disbelieve it. Not until Salvo came along with some unlikely theories did I start to actually look into it and I can find no evidence whatever that the Scottish people were sovereign. Right up until 1707 the Scottish monarch thought himself to be sovereign, acted as though he were sovereign, and was treated as though he were sovereign – indeed, eventually they believed that their sovereignty was derived from God and that they could not therefore be wrong. There is no evidence anywhere that “the people” were sovereign and it should be remembered that by 1707 fewer than 1% of Scots had a vote and the vast majority of the people were disregarded when it came to politics. If you want an example of that, just look to the Treaty and Act of Union – the people were dead set against both, but they were passed anyway, an indication perhaps that in Scotland as in England the sovereignty of parliament exceeded any sovereignty that the people might have had. If the peole genuinely were sovereign, the union would not have taken place.
As for the constitution, Scotland’s constitution, whatever it was, was extinguished along with Scotland’s national sovereignty when Scotland was incorporated into the new nation of Great Britain. It is laughable to suggest that the new nation could then work with two opposing constitutions, indeed with three as the new country would have its own constitution. For reasons set out by William Ross, it was inevitable that that constitution should largely follow the English model. Such matters as Scotland wanted reserved were specifically stated in both Treaty and Act, but otherwise the union was to be “complete and entire” with one sovereign overall parliament. There is no evidence anywhere that the Scottish Constitution was to continue and without evidence there is no case, particularly in such an unlikely scenario.
Now in 2023 the people in Scotland, as in the UK, exercise their sovereignty by electing representatives to parliament in the hope that they will do what the poeople want and, sometimes, what they think is best for the people, and unfortunately in recent years, what they think is best for themselves and their chums. Every few years the people have the chance of electing different representatives if they think that the old ones haven’t been doing their job properly. That is modern popular sovereignty and something like it is parctised in most democratic countries. I really don’t know how people here think that “sovereignty of the people” as they seem to envisage it would ever work in practice.
None of the above means that Scotland should not be independent – of course it should. I just hate to see people grasping at straws when there are other admittedly difficult but much more realistic ways of going about achieving our independence.
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With arguments like this you are clearly auditioning to be the next Lord Advocate Davey
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Well, if she was to approach me, Iain………
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I’m inclined to agree about an annulment. The Treaty being breached however is a different matter.
Brexit was an unconstitutional outrage, which naturally prompts a wider review of the Union’s wider integrity.
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Daveytee19
You say that “when Scotland was incorporated into the new nation of Great Britain.”
Whatever the rest of your argument the event that your words *that I have quoted) describe never happened. A state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain was created in 1707. This was not a unitary state but a multi-nation state consisting, then, of England and Scotland. A state, not a country and not a nation.
It might be a typing error on your part but it’s important to get that right otherwise you’re just giving the Unionist ammunition. Language matters.
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No typing error, just an accurate descrition of the reality, a “complete and entire” union.
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OK. Let’s just spell that out:
You believe that Scotland is not a nation and that the UK is a nation.
I believe that Scotland is a nation and that the UK is not a nation.
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Ironically your “complete and entire” quote is anything but complete and entire.
Article XXV, which you yourself have referenced in other comments on this paper, states:
“WHICH ARTICLES OF UNION and Act immediately above-written Her Majesty with advice and consent foresaid Statutes Enacts and Ordains to be and Continue in all time coming the sure and perpetuall foundation of ane compleat and intire Union of the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England”.
So the kingdoms were united. Not the countries or the peoples.
Your quotation has been curtailed so as to give a misleading meaning.
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James VII of Scotland forund out the hard way that he was not sovereign when he was deposed in 1689, only 18 years beforethe 1707 Union and people would not have forgotten that.
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And in England Edward II, Richard II, Charles I and James II were all deposed in one way or another, so does that mean that in England the people were sovereign? In the UK Edward VIII was sacked, not so much because he wanted to marry Wallis Simpson (a fact, incidentally, that was kept from the British public until the day before abdication) but more because the Establishment had decided he was unsuitable. They may well have been right. Power to the people? No, just the same as it always has been and still is, power to the Establishment.
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Ultimately the people of Scotland are sovereign simply because they say so, Davey, just like Westminster did. It self-ID’d as being sovereign in 1689, on the simple basis that it didn’t like being ordered around by a self-entitled monarchical family quoting the Divine Right of Kings; and being composed of arrogant English establishment types, Westminster’s sovereignty obviously had to be ‘unlimited’, and stand above all other sovereignties, basically to acheive parity with the Divine Right of Kings. And when the Union came along and Westminster began to govern Scotland as well, it naturally re-self-ID’d as having ‘unlimited sovereignty’ over Scotland as well, even though Scottish sovereignty was already taken, by us, because we’ve been saying we are sovereign in our own country for quite a few centuries before it ever occurred to Westminster.
If it’s good enough for a mere parliament then it’s certainly good enough for a whole population. We’ve been saying we are sovereign for many centuries though not in such stark terms. We’ve been saying it instead in terms of expectations of how we should behave to each other and how we expect our governments, our monarchs and our courts to behave towards us and towards each other. We’ve said it in the way that we, via our Conventions of the Estates or Assemblies of the Realm, have held our governments, monarchs and courts to account, and we have said it in the form of our Scots law which has basically recorded the rights, obligations and behaviours we demand of us all in Scotland along with the penalties for any breaches. And we’ve been saying it in the form of the people having certain rights and privileges that cannot be taken away by any monarch, parliament or court, and any breaches will see penalties imposed and redress required and given.
When Scots law required Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK Parliament to reverse his prorogation of Parliament because under Scots law Parliament was not permitted to evade the oversight of the sovereign people of Scotland, that was the voice of Scottish sovereignty tearing a strip off him that Boris was hearing.
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You said: Ultimately the people of Scotland are sovereign simply because they say so, Davey,
You know, I reckon that’s not far off the truth. The only snag is that you can say something until you’re blue in the face but it still doesn’t make it true. I’d like some actual evidence that the Scottish people are sovereign – can you give some examples as to when they exercised their alleged sovereignty? I’ve pointed out several times that the passing of the Act of Union contrary to the will of the majority of the population was a clear negation of the theory of popular sovereignty. I suspect you’ll come back and say that by inviting William to become monarch in 1689 the people were exercising their sovereignty, but of course the invitation was extended not by the people but by the Establishment – the people themselves were not consulted. It didn’t really differ from the English Bill or Rights when their Establishment offered the English crown to William.
But what does it matter if the Scottish people are sovereign or not? How does it help the cause of independence? Who are the people? How do you assess what they want? How do you then put their wishes into effect? What if what they want is contrary to the welfare of the nation, eg Brexit, or doesn’t accord with modern day values, eg if they want capital punishment restored, or immigration of people from certain countries or of a certain race banned? What if they want money to be spent on something that the state cannot afford and doesn’t need? Personal sovereignty is neither practical nor important; what is important is that we are a people who have a right of self determination under the UN Charter to which the UK is a signatory. Decided UNCJ cases such as that involving Kosova have demonstated that we have a right to leave the union even if the UK doesn’t consent, although that would be a last resort. Once we’re independent we’ll be a sovereign state once more and I bet that in our new independent state pariament will be sovereign.
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When Robert the Bruce was crowned king he became King of Scots not King of Scotland, because the Scottish people are sovereign. I thought that most Scottish people knew that.
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” is laughable to suggest that the new nation could then work with two opposing constitutions, indeed with three as the new country would have its own constitution. ”
Yet that is exactly what they, the English Parliament signed up to. The Treaty was signed by Queen Ann, subsequently the Acts were ratified by both both parliaments with only the Scottish parliament making acceptance of the Claim of Right conditional. There were no changes, no small print or conditions for the English ratifying Act.
The very reason why there is no written UK constitution is because of the incompatibility of the English and Scottish constitutions.
If the Union Parliament can’t alter the ToU it therefore follows that it cannot dissolve the Union, when Scotland withdraws from the union the union Parliament will cease to exist and England will once again be an independent country with its own parliament.
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Point me to where the Scottish parliament made the Claim of Right conditional. I might have a long wait because it didn’t. The only mention of the Claim of Right comes in the tenor to Article XXV which specifically was “for securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government”, nothing more.
As for the UK constitution, much of it is set out in written documents but these have never been codified. Back in 1707 countries did not have written constitutions – the USA was the first in 1788. According to the Constitution Unit at University College London, “Codified constitutions are typically produced following a major historic turning point, such as the grant of independence, revolution, defeat in war, or complete collapse of the previous system of government. None of these things have happened to the UK, which is why it has never had cause to codify its constitution”.
I think that it’s true to say that the UK parliament could dissolve the union if it so wished. One undeniable fact about the UK is that Parliament is sovereign and can enact basically what it wants, which is not necessarily a good thing. As long ago as 1989 Lord Scarman said “We have achieved the total union of executive and legislative power which Blackstone foresaw would be productive of tyranny.” 24 years later it seems to me that we may well have reached that point.
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“Codified constitutions are typically produced following a major historic turning point, such as the grant of independence, revolution, defeat in war, or complete collapse of the previous system of government. None of these things have happened to the UK, which is why it has never had cause to codify its constitution”.
And you seriously expect us to pretend and accept that the Union of 1707 did not constitute a major turning point in history in these islands? The ‘grant of independence’ warranted it, but the ‘loss of independence’ of Scotland, and the ‘acquisition of a major addition to England’ didn’t?
The UK’s constitution is an utter mess because the UK establishment wanted maximum authority and minimum paperwork to justify it, along with minimal oversight by any body which could hold it to account, especially the Scots. The existence of two competing and incompatible constitutions wasn’t resolved by negotiations between their two owners, but by the mere pretence that England’s constitution was always the intended one, and that Scotland’s no longer mattered because it no longer had a Parliament to uphold it or defend it. That Scots law depended on it, and could also defend it was of no significance to the English. It may indeed have been intended by the English commissioners, but there was no negotiation over it, nothing was actually agreed and there is not the slightest trace of any such agreement in the Treaty.
You yourself have said that you can only go by what is written in the Treaty, and the Treaty literally says nothing whatsoever about England’s constitution becoming the UK’s constitution. If it was ‘assumed’ or ‘understood’, tough shit, it required to have been stated in the Treaty. But it wasn’t, so it was not agreed therefore abolishing Scotland’s constitution is not permissable under the Treaty. Westminster’s enforcement of England’s constitution on Scotland is beyond the lawful powers of Westminster, being unjustified, unwarranted and constitutes a direct breach of Scotland’s national sovereignty. And spare us the nonsense about Scotland’s national sovereignty no longer existing because the border, the Crown, Scots law, and all the rest says very clearly that it still does. If the accession oath in Scotland required a form of words irrelevant to England’s Crown then that’s the Scottish constitution’s heart still beating!
On top of all that, if Westminster had deigned to recognise that the Scottish representation was there to partake in the joint governance of both Kingdoms by the joint agreement of BOTH Kingdoms’ representatives, (the only reason they were there in the first place) then the issue of the incompatible constitutions might have been amicably resolved or managed on their respective merits on a case by case basis, but that would have been conceding too much power to the Scots MPs for the English establishment’s liking, so it never happened. That’s why what we actually have is joint governance of two Kingdoms by joint agreement within England’s representatives alone, the Scots representatives’ agreement being entirely unwanted and unnecessary. Hell mend them!
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I thought I’d made it clear, Xaracen, but I’ll try again. In 1707 no country in the world had a written constitution. The whole question of writing a constitution would never have entered anyone’s head. It would be another 71 years before the United States produced the world’s first written constitution, then 13 years after that Poland did, and then in 1814 both Norway and the Netherlands came up with written constutions, and after that lots of countries began to adopt them. Why not the UK? Because nothing sufficiently major happened to require the UK constutution to be codified.
I’ve been over the matter of Scotoand’s constitution in the past and am not going to bother to do so again. The suggestion that an active nation state would have two or three disparate constitutions is just so daft that it doesn’t really merit further comment. It makes no sense, is backed by no evidence whatever, and William Ross has covered the point well. I do think that you and Salvo are grasping at straws that have neither substance nor merit and will advance the cause of indepepndence not one whit.
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DaveyTee19 said, “In 1707 no country in the world had a written constitution. The whole question of writing a constitution would never have entered anyone’s head.”
In which case I find it hard to understand how on earth the Treaty negotiators understood, as you have claimed, that the two kingdoms’ unwritten and uncodified constitutions were thoroughly incompatible and that it was obviously utterly insupportable and unthinkable for the new UK to host two active, unwritten, and uncodified constitutions with all the attendant problems their incompatibilies entailed, and that therefore only one of them could be permitted to continue, and that it was agreed that England’s was the one to be adopted over the whole of the UK. If it really was agreed then it required to have been stated as such in the Treaty. But clearly it was not, or this conversation would never have begun.
If you are expecting to find Scotland’s constitution in anything like a modern form as one or a few codified documents, then sorry it doesn’t exist, no more than England’s, or the UK’s did or does. But that doesn’t mean Scotland’s constitution wasn’t real, because it existed in the form of the body of Scots law, an analysis of which would, and via Sara Salyer’s researches, actually does, reveal the underlying principles that ran as a common theme throughout that body of law. Both kingdoms understood their own constitutions in that sense. That body of Scots law was explicitly preserved except for specific areas around trade and the succession, as well as the rights relating to Scotland’s religion. Those rights are NOT disconnected from the secular rights of the Scots, they were required to conform to those rights, and the presence of ‘in prosecution of the Claim of Right’ in the Tenor was no accident, and not exclusive to the preservation of the religious rights as you have claimed, because it also set bounds on those religious rights to protect the secular rights of the Scots, all of them. And setting those bounds also set bounds on the UK Parliament because it accepted the Tenor in its entirety. It is my understanding from historic sources that the Claim of Right was inserted in the Tenor to deliberately limit the authority of the new Parliament, as a counter to the numeric dominance of the English representation over the Scottish representation, and that both sets of the commissioners, and both sides of the Scottish parliamentarians clearly understood that that was its purpose.
The Claim of Right of 1689, passed by the Convention of the Estates, is the one document that best summarises the Scots ‘constitution’ around the time of the Union. It did not introduce or establish the constitution nor espouse all of its principles, and it certainly didn’t name it as a constitution, it merely identified some key specifics of the law as a reminder and a justification for what the Convention did next, which was to depose King James VII for his abuses of those specifics, thereby upholding the rights of the people of Scotland, and demonstrating that not even the monarch of Scotland was above the law of the land, and that neither monarch nor parliament nor secular nor religious officials had carte blanche in the setting or removal of the rights of the Scots.
Censuring, and/or sacking monarchs! Constitutional principles rarely get any more stark than that!
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I understand that the UK government, despite there only being a couple of handfulls of voter fraud across the UK is preparing legislation to make it a legal obligation to show approved photographic ID to be able to vote.
That most certainly will disenfranchise and reduce numbers of people voting.
More and more it is the case that real democracy will have to be taken by other means than sham rigged voting.
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I wonder how that will affect postal voting which is surely more susceptible to fraud?
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“I understand that the UK government, despite there only being a couple of handfulls of voter fraud across the UK is preparing legislation to make it a legal obligation to show approved photographic ID to be able to vote.”
Willie.
I think this is another step in the Americanisation process of the UK as a whole, in the US many, many folk are disinfranchised from voting because they don’t have or cannot obtain the proper identifying documents. I think if you’ve had three-strikes (prison sentences) you are also ineligible to vote as well.
Over here putting in place these draconian measures will remove many non-Tory voters from the voting pool, that’s the whole idea of the plan
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It is pretty hard to know where to begin in responding to Xaracen (X). But let us start with a quote from the beginning of his first contribution:
“Scotland’s constitution, well-developed or no, is part and parcel with the sovereignty of the Scots, and needs no explicit preservation in the Treaty because literally no body had or has the legitimate authority to abolish either of them. Only the sovereign Scots can agree to a change of their constitution, such change cannot be forced on them, and it is literal treason to try. Thus, any sovereignty Westminster can wield over Scotland must be exclusively Scotland’s own, devolved to Westminster in the form of the Scots MPs in the new Parliament, and who alone represent the Scottish partner in the joint governance of both Kingdoms.”
This is pure assertion from X. Where did the “sovereign Scots” come from? What specific rights did they (do they) possess? How could the TOU possibly have happened in the teeth of the opposition of these mythical “sovereign Scots”? X’s only authority for his much-asserted position is that of Salvo. What a surprise. Those who assert the existence of a definable Scottish Constitution pre-1707 have the onus of proving the actual existence of the same.
Instead of relying on constitutional whigmaleery, we should look at what the TOU actually says.
Article I, which creates the incorporating Union, is as follows:
‘That the two Kingdoms of 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, and that the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom, be such as her Majesty shall appoint; and the Crosses of St. Andrew and St. George be conjoined in such a manner as her Majesty shall think fit, and used in all Flags, Banners, Standards, and Ensigns, both at Sea and Land.
So, Scotland and England are united into “one Kingdom”
Article III, which creates the Union Parliament, is as follows:
‘That the United Kingdom of Great-Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament, to be styled the Parliament of Great-Britain’.
That means that the Union Parliament is sovereign. The Scottish Parliament had voted itself out of existence.
Article XVIII which is the main article dealing with law in Scotland, is as follows:
‘That the Laws concerning Regulation of Trade, Customs, and such Excises, to which Scotland is, by virtue of this Treaty, to be liable, be the same in Scotland, from and after the Union, as in England; and that all other laws in use, within the Kingdom of Scotland, do, after the Union, and notwithstanding thereof, remain in the same Force as before, (except such as are contrary to, or inconsistent with this Treaty) but alterable by the Parliament of Great-Britain, with this Difference betwixt the Laws concerning public Right, Polity, and Civil Government, and those which concern private Right; that the Laws which concern public Right, Polity, and Civil Government, may be made the same throughout the whole united Kingdom; but that no Alteration be made in Laws which concern private Right, except for evident Utility of the Subjects within Scotland.
This crucial article gives the Union Parliament the right to change any law applicable in Scotland, except to the extent that any change in Private Right would not be for the “ evident utility of the Subjects within Scotland”. To my knowledge not a single UK law has ever been struck down on the basis that it it is not for the “evident utility” of the Scots. That wording is simply a figleaf. Article XXIII gives the Union Parliament untrammelled authority to legislate for Scotland whether by British Law or by altering Scots Law.
Additionally, TOU Article XXII provides that Scotland would supply 16 Lords to sit in the House of Lords and forty-five MPs to sit in the Commons. That meant that Scottish representation in the Union Parliament would be swamped by English Lords and MPs. Ludicrously, X asserts that the Scots representatives had (have?) a veto right over Scottish and (presumably) British legislation. There is not a sliver of evidence for this assertion. Quite the contrary, it is obvious that representatives of the Union Parliament have exactly the same voting rights no matter where they hail from. There is no “joint governance of both Kingdoms”, there is one UK.
Regards
William
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Add to which the tenor to Article XXV, which I understand was required by the Scots, states: “WHICH ARTICLES OF UNION and Act immediately above-written Her Majesty with advice and consent foresaid Statutes Enacts and Ordains to be and Continue in all time coming the sure and perpetuall foundation of ane compleat and intire Union of the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England”. Note the words “compleat and intire” and that they were included at the insistence of the Scots. I do sometimes think that the Scots may have been so obsessed by religion and the preservation of their form of it that they were perhaps a little careless about other matters.
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In your own words DaveyTee19, please explain your understanding of why King Charles III, sovereign King of England, swore a public oath of fealty to the Claim of Right in 2022.
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Breeks, you have asked me this repeatedly over the last few days and I have answered it on each occasion. However, here’s the answer again. First, the pedantic bit. Fealty means loyalty, and you swear loyalty to a person or organisation. You don’t swear fealty to a document.
Secondly, and more importantly, Charles swore to protect the Kirk and the protestant religion, nothing more. Here’s what he said:
“I, Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of My other Realms and Territories, King, Defender of the Faith, do faithfully promise and swear that I shall inviolably maintain and preserve the Settlement of the true Protestant Religion as established by the Laws made in Scotland in prosecution of the Claim of Right and particularly by an Act intituled “An Act for securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government” and by the Acts passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms for Union of the two Kingdoms, together with the Government, Worship, Discipline, Rights and Privileges of the Church of Scotland.”
Why did he swear this? Because the tenor of Article XXV of the Act of Union requires that he should do so: “And lastly, that after the decease of her present majesty (whom God long preserve) the sovereign succeeding to her in the royal government of the kingdom of Great Britain shall, in all time coming, at his or her accession to the crown, swear and subscribe that they shall inviolably maintain and preserve the foresaid settlement of the true Protestant religion with the government, worship, discipline, right and privileges of this church, as above established by the laws of this kingdom, in prosecution of the Claim of Right.” Don’t get too carried away because the Claim of Right is mentioned – the sole (and specified) purpose of the tenor was “securing the Protestant religion and presbyterian church government.” It reflects the fact that the Kirk is self governing in all that concerns its own activities. Its supreme authority is the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. And that is the aspect of the Claim of Right to which Charles was referring, nothing more.
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Now you’re just being disingenuous DaveyTee19. You know very well an oath of fealty is acknowledgment of loyalty and subservience to an overlord; in other words, to be pedantic about it, the essential and literal essence of what the word sovereignty actually means. King Charles III did not swear fealty to a document; he swore fealty to the principle of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty knowing full well that he would not be King of Scots if he refused.
Unfortunately I believe you’re being similarly obtuse and disingenuous about what the Claim of Right actually is; both in terms of the “claim” and the “right”. You’ve also body-swerved that distinction too, and more than once in earlier conversations.
You are make these brazen, sweeping assertions which you MUST know are factually untrue, and accordingly this is the last interaction between us. You would deny the truth put in front of you, so there is really no purpose to further conversation with you.
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Just the one question William, how did this happen. Who held the powers over the assets of Scotland because neither the King or the Parliament did at any point. So on what legal basis could these powers be transferred to England when they were never in the possession of the King or Parliament in Scotland to start with.
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William, I have never said the UK Parliament isn’t sovereign, it clearly is, because it cannot govern properly without at least some sovereignty. What I have I said is that its sovereignty is limited, at least over Scotland because the UKP’s sovereignty derives from its creation via the Treaty of Union. Prior to the Union there were two sovereignties in the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England.
‘Sovereignty’ means ‘ultimate authority’ or ‘ultimate decision taker’. In England until 1689, that ultimate authority was embodied in the monarch, so the monarch was sovereign, but in 1689 the English Parliament asserted that the sovereignty of the Crown really meant the sovereignty of the Parliament. But essentially that sovereignty was just the English monarch’s sovereignty derived from the Divine Right of Kings that was doing the rounds in Europe at the time, and England had been getting heartily sick of their monarch’s abuses, and decided that enough was enough, and took his sovereignty over. (Hmm, that’s a sentiment that has a strange familiarity to it, I wonder if I can pin down why?)
In Scotland it was accepted across the kingdom that the people embodied sovereignty, but delegated that sovereigny to the Scots monarch for the day to day governance of the Scots as a whole. That tradition goes back well before the founding of the Kingdom of Scotland under Kenneth Macalpine in 843 AD. Some of that pre-history is described on the Salvo site if you can bring yourself to visit it. While the monarch exerted authority, and along with his parliament could set or amend or repeal legislation, he was nevertheless still beholden to the people for his authority, because he governed only on their behalf. It was understood that if he acted in a manner that displeased the people generally, he could be sanctioned by them, or sacked or even executed.
The Declaration of Arbroath didn’t come out of nowhere and wasn’t even the earliest document to mention that Kingship was permanently probationary. The Declaration of the Clergy 1309/10 is the earliest I’m aware of, and it explicitly includes the ‘plebs’ among the ‘people who count’ in choosing or approving or disapproving and removing their next king. You wanted to know where the sovereign Scots came from, that’s them right there.
So, come 1707, the new UK Parliament of Great Britain has the sovereignty of England that covers only the territory of the English Kingdom, that is, England, Wales and Ireland, and it now also has the sovereignty the Scots King and his Parliament had in Scotland, covering the territory of the Scottish Kingdom, that is, Scotland. And guess what, that sovereignty is the same old delegated one the Scots King and his Parliament had, not the genuine original still embodied in the people of Scotland, even the plebby ones. Just because we’ve never exercised governance doesn’t mean we can’t be sovereign, and it doesn’t mean we can’t exercise our sovereign right to hold our agents of governance to account. As Breeks said elsewhere here, the link between the sovereign Scots and the institutional structures they had in the past to exert their sovereignty were illicitly broken by the Union, and we have to work out how to reconnect to them, and when we do, and we WILL, watch out Westminster, we are going to put you on trial!
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Iain
Thanks for your follow-up questions. I am running a bit right now so will try to be short.
1. What do you mean by “assets of Scotland”? There was a system of private and royal landholding in pre 1707 and the TOU did not interfere in any way with property rights. Far from it, Scottish property law remains in vigorous health up until this very hour. Re “assets” are you thinking of gold, zinc, coal, oil and gas, fish etc? Prior to more specific governmental regulation, the general rule was that these assets went with the land. There was no continental shelf jurisdiction in the World until 1945 and none in the UK until 1964. Are land, sun and wind included as “assets”? I am sorry, I am just lost by the “assets” point.
2. You are quite wrong to suppose that any “assets” ( of any kind) were transferred to England as a result of the TOU. England as an independent sovereign nation, was , like Scotland, eliminated by virtue of TOU Article I which is twice quoted above. Scotland naturally became part of the territory of the United Kingdom of the TOU. Was that unconstitutional?
3. The idea that Scotland somehow retained independent sovereign territorial integrity post-TOU is frankly preposterous. This notion is entirely inconsistent with the terms of the TOU. How could the Union Parliament have acquired the broadest rights to legislate for Scotland (including the explicit right to abolish the Scottish Privy Council (done in 1708)) if the Union did not extend to Scotland’s landmass.
See TOU Article XXVIII which I have quoted in full above. And all of this happened in the context of the abolition of the Scots Parliament. Who would have legislated for Scotland?
I am afraid that you chasing SALVO red herrings!
William
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westminster is presently in four international disputes. it has been told to hand back the chagos islands some time ago and has ignored it. it has been in dispute with spain over gibraltar, dispute with argentina over malvinas and has also a dispute over british antarctic territories. It is ignoring them all and there are virtually no sanctions possible.
Having them pay attention to any dispute over the treaty of Union which is in international terms is a domestic dispute under article 2.7 of the UN charter is unlikely.
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Question for davetee19 and William Ross
scottish Politicians aside? Are you for the Union or for Independence?
Also
Will help me put your obviously hard worked on answers into context, must have taken some effort from especially Davey, trying to understand where your agenda lies.
Thanks in advance
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Paultbird
Thanks for your enquiry.
Regarding the first point, I have all my life supported Scottish independence and I campaigned for YES in 2014. I am now pessimistic about it ever happening I have to say.
On the second point, I respect the author of this blog as being a genuine patriot, a successful man of business, an internationalist with major experience and someone who encourages open and honest debate as few political bloggers do. I am very interested in Scottish history and constitutional law. I think articles of the type above are seriously misguided and will not help anyone. So I clarify matters to the extent I can. I act entirely alone and my name is a synonym. I am a professional oilman.
Regards
William
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Many thanks for your honest and considered reply William, it helps.
My fear is you have no idea who folks are and wether their points are valid or perhaps designed to disrupt and mislead, especially when I see the effort required for your replies.
I despair at our current politicians, they have the keys but seem to be reluctant to start the engine.
I was all for accepting that the SNP would be working flat out on this, but recent events have left me in a quandry, I feel the weaponising of the recent GRR has severly wounded support for SNP and am more concerned that we will struggle to get independence majority in any future election. I am also concerned that this has caused an even bigger wedge in the movement (of course well planned and well played by UK Gov and their MSM cohorts) and I despair when I see all the good work undone, when will we stop bloody fighting.
Then there are those that are so scared they would accept the current regime in the UK rather than take a chance on freeing their own country.
I find it extremely frustrating that folks are so wrapped up in their own wee worlds that they can’t see the bigger picture, this is of course only exacerbated by the deliberate propaganda employed by the UK MSM, I fear until we have our own media outlet we will be pissing in the wind.
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Paultbird
Thank you for your response and sorry for my confusing second response to you. I thought that my first response had not made it and so I composed a second comment.
I think that the GRR is a total disaster but the SNP simply no longer represents me in so many ways and in fact no political party does. I am more of an observer right now than a participant.
Keep the faith dear Sir.
Regards
William
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Paultbird
Thanks for your enquiry.
I have always supported Scottish independence and I campaigned strongly for YES in 2014. I am now pessimistic that I will see independence in my lifetime.
I am very interested in Scottish history and constitutional matters. My view is that this kind of article comes from fantasyland and visiting that land will not help us. So I add my tuppence when I think I can contribute something of value. Iain has graciously allowed me to participate on this blog.
Regards
William
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The history is so interesting, but I would so like to know how close we are to getting the numbers of signatories needed for the sovereign people of Scotland to apply to the international courts, United Nations, anyone legitimate who will take this away from politicians/political parties whose interests have become so insular and so intellectually poverty-stricken (sorry Alba, probably not you) that the only way we are going to be able to develop a self-sufficient society (and we can) is to bypass them.
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It is going to take some time but we are growing stronger every day. The major recruitment campaigns will greatly increase in the coming weeks.
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Has Kenny’s highly important article been printed in “The National”? Surely that incredibly disgraceful info should be broadcast throughout Scotland. I suppose the best we can expect is for every YES blog to print the article in full.
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We need people who are not afraid to ignore/break Westminster law for the benefit of Scotland. At the moment the SNP leadership is the most loyal Westminster-law-obeying group of people in all of politics – certainly more Westminster-law-obeying than Westminster’s corrupt tories. If Westminster passed a law stating all Scots had to be branded with a hot-iron-design of a union flag the SNP leadership would be the first to line up for the honour and be the first to condemn any who would protest against it. We need political martyrs, not political fearties.
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Something is wrong over on Wings.
Posts are disappearing into the ether after being sent with some turning up much later.
Over on Barrhead Boy Roddy Macleod is saying that many of his subscriber mailings are going missing.
Without doubt a reflection of the society in which we live.
But as Sir Frank Kitson said of the management of colonies, control the media, or crest your own if you can’t, and infiltrate every group from protest groups and local associations up. And moreover use the police and the law of the colony to jail political opponents.
Well I think we can all agree that we are in the grip of that.
At least they are not yet killing us, or removing testes and the like with bolt cutters as they did to thousands of innocent Kenyans trying to exit colonial rule.
Or the secret shadowy military units so beloved in Northern Ireland.
Don’t anyone think these establishment assets have gone away. They’re there all right.
Our Colony is no different from previous British colonies and we need to better and more widely recognise it.
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