A NEW SCOTTISH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

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A guest post from a new writer to this blog Mary MacCallum Sullivan. A quality piece which I hope is the first of many.

A NEW SCOTTISH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Back in 1989 Canon Ken­yon Wright set the tone, aimed at capturing the moral high ground: the Convention would show that it had the sovereignty of the Scottish people vested in it. “There will be no turn­ing back. We will find a way. The forces against us will be strong, the way ahead will be difficult and even dangerous, but we will go on.

For what is at stake is the real life of our nation and the values of our com­munity and of justice we hold dear. The stakes are high, but the truth will prevail.”

The Convention prevailed, of course: we have had our wee parliament since 1999. 

But there is still work to do, which becomes ever more urgent with the scale and urgency of the climate breakdown we face, with the resulting dangerous disruption to all aspects of human life, costly in terms of financial implications and also in terms of the trauma inflicted on people and communities. There is urgency as our UK polity becomes ever more degraded and dis-empowered by an increasingly undemocratic far-right so-called government concerned only with party and self-enrichment.

Kenyon Wright spoke of kairos – a time that is ripe for something. He spoke of a new political climate. Well, here we are in a new and more dangerous time. But it is well known that crisis can also represent opportunity for change. 

The Scottish clause in the oath of accession taken in May 2022 by Charles III – the Claim of Right – was, and is, as Kenyon Wright reminded the Convention, “directed against the des­potic use of power by an arbitrary Government which claims for the ‘Crown in Parliament’ ab­solute unlimited authority”. 

The recent work of Salyers et al has highlighted the very Scottish constitutional reality that sovereignty lies ulti­mately with the people and not the State. In 1706/7, Scotland was a nation, but it is now clear that the Treaty of Union, then and now, had not brought about the consensual and equal union proclaimed in 1707. The sovereignty of the Scottish people was over-ridden in the interests of the magnates and nobles of the time, paid off by Anne, Queen of both Scotland and England. The monarchy was well-served, perhaps, but a wrong was done to the people, as Scotland was annexed to England, and given the sop of a few seats in the English parliament. 

Scotland and its people have served as a resource for England in many ways over the last three centuries. Scotland has exported people, who ably served and enhanced the Empire and its armies; subsequently invented and underpinned the Industrial Revolution, and is now providing the wind and waves for a new energy revolution. Scotland as England’s ‘backyard’ has provided a recreational facility for the aristocracy and the wealthier middle classes, with their ‘second homes’ and shooting estates, led by and emulating the English monarchy.

Well, now we have a further constitu­tional crisis, an insidious assault on our iden­tity and our deeply held values, as despite Scotland’s clearly stated desire, in accordance with its history and values, to remain embedded within the Europe Union, we have been unceremoniously and undemocratically cast out into mid-Atlantic – neither European fish nor American-style fowl.

Kenyon Wright was clear about the validity and urgency of Scotland’s sovereignty back in 1989. He said: “This is not just a con­stitutional claim, it is a moral claim. It is not only about past history, but about present justice. It is not just about politics, but about people; not just about legislation, but about life.”

We need a new Constitutional Convention and we need it now.

Ó Mary MacCallum Sullivan

ABOUT MARY

I’m a semi-retired psychotherapist living in mid-Argyll (my ‘ancestral heartland’). I left Scotland at 20, for London and elsewhere, and returned to Scotland at the advent of devolution. Since then, I began the ongoing work of repairing the gaps in my cultural and historical knowledge. I have been a strong advocate of independence since about 2012, when I realised that ‘devo-max’ meant more of the same old, same old. I seek Scottish independence as a means towards real interdependence among the nations.

35 thoughts on “A NEW SCOTTISH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION”

  2. So well expressed and totally on the ball. Being supportive of the work of Salvo is so important at this time of stasis in party political thinking. Progressing the cause of independence has hit the buffers for professional politicians.

    Liked by 10 people

  3. Time is most certainly not on our side (despite the assurances of our most recent, former FM).
    There have been five polls conducted with their field work exclusively in the period after Braverman was sacked on Monday. In four out of five, ReformUK attain double figures. Achieving double figures in any one poll is a feat they have failed to attain in their relatively short existence. This obviously comes at the expense of the Tories. For the foreseeable future, the Tories will be split and engaged in an existential civil war over the future of the Party.
    The average of the five polls gives Labour a 27% lead over the Tories. In our first past the post election system, this would give Labour 81% of MPs in the House of Commons. That equates to an elected dictatorship.

    Starmer is perhaps like no potential PM before him, an instrument of the British Security Services. After all, they acted in symbolic partnership to depose Jeremy Corbyn. A Starmer premiership represents government by the Permanent State (more so than any recent Tory PM). While the Tories were beholden to “old money” (Duke of Westminster, etc.) and “new money” (hedge funds, etc.), Starmer could function exclusively via the Security Services and their behind-the-scenes control of mass media (particularly the BBC).
    With the absolute power of an elected dictatorship, nothing is off the table. Yesterday, Starmer stated in relation to Holyrood, that he would “ … want people round the table that want to work with … “ him.

    Faced with an elected dictatorship and the potential neutering (if not outright abolition) of Holyrood, what hopes have we of the indolent, ineffectual careerists of the SNP rising in revolt? I would hypothesise that a significant number in the senior ranks are in position through the covert manipulation of and acting under the instructions of the same agencies that work through Starmer.

    Time is however on the side of the British Security Services. Another ten years of prevarication on the part of the elected representatives of our curiously inactive “national movement” will see independence rendered unattainable under the rigged, Local Government franchise.

    Liked by 18 people

  4. Recognise it or not Britain has slid into a fascist state. The main political parties have all been compromised and are under the control of the ruling elites.

    Tory or Labour they are both the same. And in Scotland, the SNP have gone the same way.

    And for those who disagree, they are taken down by the apparatus of the state. This week, for example, Craig Murray who was at the airport and on his way to Switzerland wasc apprehended by Police Scotland, issued with a Section 7 terrorism notice, and had his phone and other electronic equipment seized for investigation.

    But that is just one example. The state brutalization and jailing or attempted jailing or ruination of individuals who are political threats is very real. The Nazi brown shirts are here. Totalitarian control operating under a thin veneer of so called democratic process.

    How long can this go on before there is a clash between the power of the non elected puppet masters and their apparatus of control..

    Ah well, in the mid 1800’s over one million people in Ireland died of famine whilst over two million emigrated. And in Scotland around one third of the population of the Highlands and Islands were cleared from the land with most going to Canada or Australia.

    As someone once said, maybe we haven’t had our faces sufficiently ground into the gutter yet. Or is it some still actually believe that we live under the benevolence of the world’s greatest democracies.

    But aside, for those that cannot decide ask yourself this, question. Is Brittannia ruling the waves again, a mighty military country, with a powerhouse industrial economic.

    England’s difficulties, and they will compound as we move forward should be Scotland’s opportunity and no SNP needed. Just Scottish will before it is too late.

    Liked by 15 people

    1. A very good read Mary is bang on the money. Westminster is now a residential place for hooks, crooks, and bottle washers. They have no principles, nor do they want them, money is their god.
      England as well as Scotland are unhappy places.

      So much needs to be put right, but many of the elites do not want to change anything. As Reese Mogg’s, hedge fund manager, famously said,
      ” Buy when blood is in the streets” so that is what they ultimately want. They can make their fortunes by buying all the bargains at cheap costs. Then, if not already many will either be already resident in a warmer place, or will be setting up to do so.

      Well England can do what they want with what they are getting, Scotland needs to band together
      and use our claim of right and the sovereignty of our people to ditch Westminster and make our own way, for the common good. So Scotland, stop bickering and act as one. Or we will go the same way down ( if not more so) as England. If you want to know what the British Elites are really doing, apart from stealing everything Scotland has on a daily basis for 300+ years.

      Look for the ” The Spiders Web” on you tube which shows how sneaky the English elites and companies really are.

      If you have not yet done it, sign up to Salvo.scot and liberation.scot. Positive things will come about quicker. For myself, I cannot wait for the fireworks display across the country on Independence day.

      Liked by 8 people

      1. However great Daniel O’Connell’s contribution to Irish freedom, he seriously flunked it regarding language, as this letter by Éilís Ní Anluain to the Irish Times reminds us —

        DANIEL O’CONNELL’S IRISH LEGACY
        Mon Aug 26 2019

        A chara,

        “Though Daniel O’Connell was against discrimination on grounds of religion, sex or colour, he did not see all languages as created equal. In 1833 when Irish was the still widespread throughout the country he said:

        « I am sufficiently utilitarian not to regret its gradual abandonment. A diversity of tongues is of no benefit; it was first imposed as a curse, at the building of Babel. It would be of vast advantage to mankind if all the inhabitants of the earth spoke the same language. Therefore, although the language is associated with many recollections that twine round the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication is so great, that I can witness, without a sigh, the gradual disuse of Irish. »

        “O’Connell did not singlehandedly turn the tide against Irish, but was a person of great influence whose indifference to the fate of the language, a decade before the Famine, certainly compounded the policies of the Maynooth seminary and the national schools of replacing of Irish with English.

        “Sixty years later Douglas Hyde, realising the psychological damage of O’Connell’s utilitarian argument, wrote of the feeling which made people blush and hang their heads in shame when overheard speaking their own language.”

        Is mise,
        ÉILÍS Ní ANLUAIN,
        Bré,
        Co Chill Mhantain.

        https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/daniel-o-connell-s-irish-legacy-1.3995431
        ——
        It seems to me (dismal outlook) that that the majority of Scots would almost certainly assent to O’Connell’s view in our Scottish context. In stark contrast to the Welsh, the Scots seem to be linguistically boneless and gutless. Or is that oblivious and impervious? Scots don’t seem to realise that our linguistic heritage offers us an immediate (and therapeutic) “Republic of the Mind”, despite of our ongoing political grief. Isn’t it ironically startling that the Sturgeon-legacy of language-planning is actually very highly honed, even to the extent of threatening domestically intrusive police-enforcement? But of course that is only as an Orwellian strangulation of language – a cynical enforcement of further silence).

        So I am in complete agreement with Alf Baird that language is a fundamental determinant of personal and communal identity, and that imperialist regimes have long appreciated that. The late Brian Friel’s play ‘Translations’ is a brilliant critique of the remapping of Ireland by the conquering English Ordnance Survey. The Irish were dispossessed of both external and internal landscapes, as of course were Scottish Gaelic-speakers (cf meaningless babble like “Kingussie” — which actually means “End of the Pine Forest” [Ceann a’ Ghiùthsaich]). 

        John Montague, in his 1972 poem ‘The Rough Field’, speaks of:

        “The whole landscape a manuscript
        We had lost the skill to read.”

        Language substitution is worldview substitution. John Montague again:

        “And who ever heard
        Such a sight unsung
        As a severed head
        With a grafted tongue?”

        My home territory was An Leamhnachd/ The Lennox (broad environs of Clydebank, Dumbarton, Vale of Leven, Loch Lomondside, the Trossachs etc). The last native Gaelic speakers apparently died around the 1950s-70s. Academic researcher Michael Newton has a specific interest in the Gaelic heritage of the area, and provides us with many literary examples, including this 15th century quatrain (perhaps by the eighth Earl of Lennox) –

        ’S mairg duine a chaill a ghuth
        Aig a bheil sruth de dhàn 
        Agus nach fhaod gabhail leò
        Agus nach eòl bhith na thàmh.

        [Pity the man who has lost his voice 
        Who has a stream of songs
        And who cannot sing them
        And who is not used to silence.]

        Liked by 3 people

      2. O’Connell is considered the Liberator in Ireland because he freed the Irish people from the injustice of the Penal Laws, which among other things forbade the use of Gaelic in the Courts of law..
        I agree with you that colonization led to the substitution of English for Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland. The utilitarian encouragement to use English (helps you get a job) was flanked by harsh imposition of English once National Schools were set up (1831 in Ireland).
        Despite his efforts, O’Connell failed to repeal the 1801 Act of Union between Ireland and England.
        He did however achieve Catholic Emancipation (1829) from the appalling penal laws
        The concept underlying his “monster meetings”, the first to use non-violent expression of public opinion by means of gatherings of the masses, influenced people as disparate as Thoreau in the USA and Ghandi in India. And still today provides the basis for civil disobedience.

        So Ok he didn’t do much, if anything, for Gaelic language rights, but I think we can agree he did a lot in other fields to emancipate the Irish people and provided a tool for all seeking redress from injustice

        Liked by 2 people

  6. Mary is a welcome addition to those who write so eloquently for our blogs and help to provide factual and accurate information and updates on how Scotland and its people have been, and still are, a colonised people.

    With the interference of the British State at all levels of digital output and their pet propagandists in the MSM, our blogs are more important than they have ever been as a method of delivering the truth and educating the People of Scotland to their true history, what is taking place today and what we can expect for our children and grandchildren, if the people let this travesty continue.

    Our values are not the values of London or southern England but for over 600 years they have tried to make it so. The assimilation of Scotland and the loss of our values and culture began long before the Treaty of Union, so we can be thankful that our predecessors in 1689 left us with the opportunity to rid Scotland and its people of this toxic union.

    However, it is now clear to so many of us that this union will continue unabated if we leave our destiny in the hands of our elected representatives, who are even now collaborating with our oppressors by allowing the exploitation of our land and seas for the sole benefit of Mother England and its Tory Governments – no matter which colour of rosette they may wear.

    As far as the restoration of our right to self-determination and independence is concerned, it is obvious that there is no future in the continued belief that they can be achieved by the use of colonially-driven domestic politics or legislation.

    Our oppressors know this to be true, which is why, as Mary has mentioned, we received “the sop” of the Scotland Act 1998 to establish their indirect colonial administration here instead of directly from London. That is why it is so vitally important that a People’s Movement takes on the task of restoring what we so desperately require.

    Although I wish that the revelations from Sara and Salvo regarding our true constitutional position had arrived much sooner, it is absolutely essential that this opportunity to build a People’s Movement and a Scottish National Congress receives support from all who believe in the restoration of our rights.

    Salvo and Liberation Scotland have no electoral aspirations and they welcome support from all political parties and from those who are not members of any party to swell the numbers of those from all sections of Scottish society who are already their members.

    Mary reminds us of our true values, our true history and our ancient culture, and as important as they are, more important is how we can use them to restore our place in the world as an independent nation governed by its sovereign people.

    Liked by 7 people

    1. Though sympathetic to a peoples plight, the native assimilated bourgeois ‘intellectuals’ on the left never quite ‘get’ colonialism, so said Frantz Fanon. This is because, being part of the privileged class, they are too embedded in the colonial system. They even reject the offer to learn the reality about the peoples oppression, or discovering the only remedy. Theoretical frameworks are available, however:

      Click to access THEORETICAL+CASE+FOR+SCOTTISH+INDEPENDENCE.pdf

      Liked by 2 people

  8. A good article , spoiled by this……..” which becomes ever more urgent with the scale and urgency of the climate breakdown we face, with the resulting dangerous disruption to all aspects of human life, costly in terms of financial implications and also in terms of the trauma inflicted on people and communities. ”

    There is NO ” climate breakdown ” : there is only – as there has been since the planet evolved an atmosphere – changing climate/s .

    The ” Climate Emergency ” ( so-called ) is just the latest , alarmist agenda being promoted by those who would happily see us all regress to some agrarian fantasy , ” own nothing and be happy ” ( aye , nae bother , * you * first , let’s see the loudest , shrillest , most ludicrous advocates own nothing , hahahahaha , THAT ain’t happening ) live on insects – fine for all those neurotic Vegans n Lotus Eaters – and never venture further than the confines of our designated pens .

    Again , what we’re seeing is the completely bogus insistence of a * consensus * of * experts * and our auld malleable pal ” THE Science ” being ruthlessly deployed to advance highly questionable propositions/conclusions requiring – surprise , surprise – * urgent * drastic restrictive action and tighter control on basic societal freedoms by the State – on the People . Fantastic !

    Scotland will NEVER regain it’s Independence as long it’s supposed * Leaders * – aye , that includes those in ALBA – uncritically adhere to every Globalist directive and versions of * reality * .

    Before anyone lazily dismisses the above as ranting ” Conspiracy Theorising ” , here’s a link to just some of the credible critics of the Climate Scam . Another is veteran Climatologist – Judith Curry ; someone who was once a * believer * , going along with the narrative , until she started noticing and pointing-out discrepancies , contradictions and outright absurdities within that narrative ; after which she became persona non grata , a Climate Crisis heretic , to be scorned and abandoned by the * Faithful * ; sound familiar ?

    You’ll NEVER hear/see any of these credible , dissenting voices on MSM or referenced by the collection of babbling cardboard cutouts that comprise * our * political class . Wonder why ?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ten-most-important-climate-change-skeptics-2009-7?r=US&IR=T

    Liked by 5 people

    1. You can’t fight a climate ever changing but you adapt instead. I am always wary of fear campaigns and favour common sense and real natural ideas that don’t involve making a group of people more wealthier and trees being cut etc.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. How does taxing people more fight the heavy rain? Surely the answer is developing technology or infrastructure that takes the water from the surface before it reaches houses? Why do we still use pesticides and poisons that then run into our water and soil and therefore food chain? Why are we not planting more?

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Here’s a film that gives different experiences and points of view. It’s good to get different people’s perspectives rather than just one. It’s like freedom of speech, you might not agree with the person, it may offend you however they should have the right to be heard too.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. “Climate change” has been happening for countless millions of years and anything that we do will have no impact against the might of the sun.

      We have had warm and cold periods throughout recorded history and now with technology and ice core samples we see that climate change is normal – just like independence! It was only back in the 1970s when MSM were warning anyone who would listen that we were fast approaching an ice-age!

      As always, when fortunes are to be made from changing lifestyles it’s a case of “follow the money”! Who will benefit financially from all of these efforts to prevent “climate catastrophe”, “Climate Disaster”, Climate emergency” etc etc.?

      Their latest ruse is to take this to the International Court of Justice to get a ruling so that the “major polluters” are penalised financially – well good luck with enforcing that on the USA, China, Russia India etc. How much are our Green MSPs in the coalition government of Scotland expecting us to pay by increasing taxes and to change our energy from fossil fuels to anything that they dream up next?

      There is only one case we need to be decided by the ICJ and that’s Scotland’s Right to Self-Determination!.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. You’re too knowledgeable and think for yourself. Tin foil hatter label whilst the labeller is eating their cricket burger and lab created frankingstein beef to save the world and taxing ye mair for the privilege. 😄

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Yes , SoA , another bit of duplicitous sleight-of-hand is the selective way they choose to scream about climate change ..eg.. select a period of ( relative ) climate stability and subsequent period of rising global temperatures , whilst completely ignoring all the recorded periods of fluctuating temperatures BEFORE the date selected – BINGO ! * Climate Catastrophe Imminent * . Likewise the recent absurd claims of ” the highest temperatures ever recorded ” , none of which exceed those recorded eg in the 1930s . It’s all nonsense/propaganda designed to create fear and compliance . NET ZERO is simply the current alarmist weapon to be used against the masses ; Co2 another chimeric * enemy * being deployed to further the agendas of the globalist elites and if allowed , the most grievous assault on individual liberty yet seen . Yet , not a single Scottish Politician has so much as questioned this blatant exercise in mass mind control , rather , they all – without exception – parrot the same ludicrous narrative .

        Liked by 3 people

    4. Robert you are correct about the extremely selective “evidence” used by those who are conning the gullible, many of whom can be regularly seen in the MSM and on the streets berating those of us who prefer to think for ourselves and undertake comprehensive and unbiased research.

      For example, almost every day we hear about how CO2 is dangerous for our planet and causes MMGW (Man-Made Global Warming). I agree, but our contribution to global warming is miniscule compared with the natural cycle. What they do not tell you is that CO2 is only “dangerous” at extremely high levels and that independent research states would only be so if we continued at the same level of increase well into the next century. By that time technology will have moved on and no doubt in the meantime it will be all change and we need to start buying new and extremely expensive heaters for which we will fill the same pockets that we are today due to our current “climate catastrophe”.

      It may also have escaped the notice of the green bandwagon-jumpers that CO2 is an essential for plant and tree growth and again is only dangerous at extremely high levels.

      “Ladies and Gentlemen, when leaving this Global Warming Train, make sure to take all your belongings with you and your connection to the Global Freezing Train will depart in 10 minutes from platform 2”.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Talking about conning the public!!!! Can Mathieson not afford to buy his children iPads? Why were they allowed to use Government issued IT equipment for Football or god knows what else? Why did he then think it was ok to claim the bill on expenses?
        This whole situation needs to be clarified and if he is found to be dishonest he should go.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. The brass neck of Alyn Smith MP (who is a participant) and continues to be a key team player on behalf of TEAM SNP which has since 2014 avoided at every opportunity the move towards Scottish Independence thus ensuring ‘Break up of Britain’ does not occur any time soon.

      Liked by 6 people

  10. It is believed in the metropolitan-centre that the idea of Scottish independence can be suitably subdued, even negated, by the election of either a red or blue, pro-unionist administration, with the destruction of the nominally, national party as a welcome bonus. But the concrete “problem” of the demand for independence isn’t at all likely to diminish in the minds of a now critical number of Scots, across the demographics, whose ambition of political and cultural freedom, however expressed, will always be incomprehensibly-foreign to the reckonings and machinations of the coloniser. Inevitably, any attempt to fix a complex problem which isn’t based on a clear understanding and knowledge of the problem itself, can be expected to fail. It is Scotland’s tragedy that no avowedly, anti-colonial party yet exists to take advantage of that glaring, if inevitable weakness, a party to speak on behalf of those of a liberated-consciousness who have come to understand the true nature of our country’s age-old politico-economic subjugation along with our cultural oppression. We are long-since passed-the-point where old-fashioned, politics-as-usual, wholly posited on the coloniser’s template, is of any damn good to anybody in Scotland, anybody who wants to see their country flourish and develop to its full potential as an independent entiy amongst the sovereign-nations of the world.

    Liked by 6 people

  11. There can be no place for ANY current SNP politician who feigning a Damascene moment think they can barge into the active Independence movement without challenge to their past deplorable deceit in office.

    Having watched some of Scottish Parliament proceedings this week it is quite beyond belief that we are so bereft of intellectual presence within the SNP grouping of MSPs. If, as you suggest Iain some politicians might be ‘destroyed in the process’, so be it, Scotland requires representatives of the highest calibre to reinforce the case for Independence and none of the current batch at Holyrood have demonstrated to date that they possess the political nous, or for that matter, backbone, to advocate in our favour.

    Liked by 4 people

  13. KAIROS

    Mary MacCallum Sullivan wrote:

    « Kenyon Wright spoke of ‘kairos’ – a time that is ripe for something. He spoke of a new political climate. Well, here we are in a new and more dangerous time. But it is well known that crisis can also represent opportunity for change. »

    « The Scottish clause in the oath of accession taken in May 2022 by Charles III – the Claim of Right – was, and is, as Kenyon Wright reminded the Convention, “directed against the des­potic use of power by an arbitrary Government which claims for the ‘Crown in Parliament’ ab­solute unlimited authority”. »

    « Kenyon Wright was clear about the validity and urgency of Scotland’s sovereignty back in 1989. He said: “This is not just a con­stitutional claim, it is a moral claim. It is not only about past history, but about present justice. It is not just about politics, but about people; not just about legislation, but about life.” »

    ————————
    I am interested in Kenyon Wright’s use and application of the term “kairos”, and your own reiterating of it. I have recently finished reading (with considerable labour let it be said) Giorgio Agamben’s book ‘THE TIME THAT REMAINS: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans’ (Stanford University Press, 2005). Agamben on the second page says that in his book (or seminar as it originally was) “we attempt to understand the meaning of the time Paul defines as ‘ho nyn kairos’, the ‘time of the now’.”

    Later he says that kairos is “seized” chronological time.

    “Messianic healing” happens in ‘kairos’.” (p69).

    “Messianic time is a summary recapitulation of the past.” (p76)

    “For Paul recapitulation means that ‘ho nyn kairos’ [the ‘time of the now’] is a contraction of past and present, that we will have to settle our debts, at the decisive moment, first and foremost with the past. This obviously does not imply attachment or nostalgia; quite the opposite, for recapitulation of the past is also a summary judgement on it.” (p78)

    So I just find it fascinating to reread your references to Kenyon Wright’s ‘kairos’ in the light of Giorgio Agamben’s ‘kairos’.

    Thanks again for your post.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. It may be necessary to say “we need a new Constitutional Convention and we need it now”, as Mary MacCallum Sullivan does; but is it sufficient? That some kind of national convention is required is something so obvious that even Humza Yousaf acknowledges it. But the entity he envisages is, I confidently suggest, a very different beast from what Mary MacCallum Sullivan has in mind. My own conception of a constitutional convention is likely to be different again. Every one of the people who say precisely what Mary MacCallum Sullivan says will, in turn, have their own ideas as to what this constitutional convention is for and how it will work. Everyone, that is, who has actually bothered to think beyond the words that name the thing.

    The problem is that if Mary MacCallum Sullivan doesn’t define what the words mean, Humza Yousaf will. And I guarantee that neither Mary MacCallum Sullivan nor myself nor anyone outwith the ranks of the SNP loyalists and apologists will like what Humza Yousaf comes up with.

    It is simply no use to say we want a constitutional conventional unless and until we can stipulate a remit which will allow that entity to be effective.

    By the same token, it is not enough to say we need a referendum without stating the criteria for the kind of referendum we want. Nor is it enough to say we need to restore Scotland’s independence without having a firm idea of what that will look like. NOT what Scotland will be like after independence is restored. That can never be more than an exercise in wishful thinking. We need to be sure we know exactly what will have to change for Scotland to be genuinely an independent nation again. Or, perhaps more readily defined, what would make Scotland less than genuinely an independent nation again. We must identify what continuing ties to the former UK are not acceptable.

    If we, the people, do not specify what we mean by independence then the politicians will do it for us. And they will tend to deliver less than we hope for.

    If we, the people, don’t set the criteria for a proper constitutional referendum, the politicians will do it for us. And they will all but certainly get it wrong.

    If we, the people, don’t tightly define the purpose of OUR constitutional convention, the politicians will ensure that it serves THEIR purpose.

    Liked by 5 people

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