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EU In or Out


Alex MacLeod

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I hereby formally launch the NAME THE BREXNATS campaign!

No, not quite all 400,000 SNP voters who chose Leave but the 5 SNP MSPs  in addition to Alex Neil who dared to defy Party Central and had an original thought of their own hence also contributing to defying the myth that June 23 was an affront to the whole of Scotland.

We deserve to be told!!

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6 hours ago, Laurence said:

 The recent High court ruling that  Parliament is soverign and referendia's do not make the law is a great talking point.

Must be a different ruling to the one that I saw.  It said that Parliament is sovereign and Government ministers do not make the law.  Nothing to do with referendums.

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1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

So, in that case, are you going to talk about it ?

And, at this 3rd time of asking, are you going to justify your assertion that Charles and I are ignorant when we state that a 2nd indy referendum needs the consent of Westminster before it can take place?  

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7 hours ago, Laurence said:

 The recent High court ruling that  Parliament is soverign and referendia's do not make the law is a great talking point.

 

Referendia!  That could be a new anthem for the SNP!

Oh, and let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Referendia you're calling me
We want another one.

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On ‎08‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 1:01 PM, Kingsmills said:

So, in that case, are you going to talk about it ?

 

The Royal prerogative was mentioned in court

Apparently after the Since Civil War and the reinstallation of the Monarchy in  Great Britain , Parliament  have the last say in all  constitutional matters

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  • 2 months later...

Well now it has come to a wasted 5 days of parliamentary time

The Government should have used the guillotine motion

A straight forward vote in or out

Now we have the ridiculous spectacle of Scots Nat hypocritically moving amendments in a most undemocratic way to a desiccant made by the people to leave the EU.

Can you imagine the furore it would cause if God forbid Scots'  won a vote to leave the UK and parliament blocked it.

We have  3 line whip on Labour to support the will of the people .  Will those members from constituencies' which voted to REMAIN follow that whip , I hope so

Will the speaker have the guts to curtail posturing from the SNP  I also hope so

This pantomime has gone on for too long ,  It should be voted through on the nod

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13 minutes ago, Laurence said:

Well now it has come to a wasted 5 days of parliamentary time

The Government should have used the guillotine motion

A straight forward vote in or out

Now we have the ridiculous spectacle of Scots Nat hypocritically moving amendments in a most undemocratic way to a desiccant made by the people to leave the EU.

Can you imagine the furore it would cause if God forbid Scots'  won a vote to leave the UK and parliament blocked it.

We have  3 line whip on Labour to support the will of the people .  Will those members from constituencies' which voted to REMAIN follow that whip , I hope so

Will the speaker have the guts to curtail posturing from the SNP  I also hope so

This pantomime has gone on for too long ,  It should be voted through on the nod

Not a fan of the democratic process then Laurence ?

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3 hours ago, Laurence said:

We have  3 line whip on Labour to support the will of the people .  Will those members from constituencies' which voted to REMAIN follow that whip , I hope so

 

They are already starting to rebel :ohmy:

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40 minutes ago, IBM said:

They are already starting to rebel :ohmy:

and their solitary Scottish MP. much like the solitary Scottish Lib Dem MP will vote against triggering article 50 following the lead of the SNP representing the interests of Scotland and the vast majority of Scottish people.

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What a farce this has been and continues to be.  It looks as though there will only be a solitary Scottish MP who demonstrates any respect for the EU referendum result and the result of the 2014 referendum.  In 2014 (just in case people have forgotten) the Scottish people voted to remain in the UK.  In doing so, it must be implicit that we accept the result of UK ballots, even when they don't go the way we might like them to.  The result of the UK referendum was that the UK electorate voted to leave the EU and we should therefore respect that.

By voting against triggering article 50, MPs are explicitly saying that they don't wish to respect the instruction given to parliament by the people.  It is fundamentally anti-democratic.  And what is even worse is that they have pledged to vote against the bill before they even know what will be in it and, of course without having the remotest idea of what the subsequent negotiations might offer us!

The SNP are not acting in the interests of the Scottish people, they are simply doing what they always do which is to claim some contrived grievance in order to pursue their independence agenda.  What is in the interests of the Scottish people would be for the Scottish Government to respect the results of both referendums, support the UK Government in getting Brexit negotiations under way and then working with everyone else to get the best deal for the UK as a whole and Scotland specifically.

All this talk of a 2nd independence referendum is certainly not in the interests of the Scottish people and is not what the Scottish people want.  To suggest that we should have another referendum before we even know what the outcome of the Brexit negotiations are (or any subsequent trading deals elsewhere) displays a complete lack of respect for the voter and is recklessly irresponsible.  Not to mention the fact that the SNP would plunge us into another referendum without us knowing the terms under which Scotland might be invited to stay in / join the EU.  For goodness sake, let's respect the decisions of the electorate, work to get the best deal and then evaluate.  If after that there appears to be a constructive case for Scottish Independence, then that would be the time to raise that issue again.

 

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All 59 MPs elected in Scotland  were elected on the basis of manifestos promoting continued membership of the EU. All 59 represent constituencies where the majority voted, usually very clearly, to remain in the EU in the recent consultative referendum.. It appears that only one is prepared to disregard the will of the people who elected them.

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2 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

All 59 MPs elected in Scotland  were elected on the basis of manifestos promoting continued membership of the EU. All 59 represent constituencies where the majority voted, usually very clearly, to remain in the EU in the recent consultative referendum.. It appears that only one is prepared to disregard the will of the people who elected them.

The vast majority of people didn't vote for their MP simply because of their party's position on the EU.  But this is not a party political matter, it was a UK wide vote which simply must be respected.  It's all very well to claim that the Scottish MPs are adopting some moral high ground because at the end of the day, we know that enough MPs will vote to trigger article 50 and therefore this pathetic political posturing won't over-ride the democratic will of the electorate as a whole. 

But let us suppose a 2nd independence referendum resulted in a majority for independence. Now most English MPs represent parties who support a unionist position.  So by your reasoning they would be completely justified in voting to block any process which would allow the referendum result to be taken forward.  Somehow, though, I take it that if that should happen,you would not be coming on here and applauding them for their principled opposition.

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4 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

The vast majority of people didn't vote for their MP simply because of their party's position on the EU.  But this is not a party political matter, it was a UK wide vote which simply must be respected.  It's all very well to claim that the Scottish MPs are adopting some moral high ground because at the end of the day, we know that enough MPs will vote to trigger article 50 and therefore this pathetic political posturing won't over-ride the democratic will of the electorate as a whole. 

But let us suppose a 2nd independence referendum resulted in a majority for independence. Now most English MPs represent parties who support a unionist position.  So by your reasoning they would be completely justified in voting to block any process which would allow the referendum result to be taken forward.  Somehow, though, I take it that if that should happen,you would not be coming on here and applauding them for their principled opposition.

Ultimately were it to come to pass, that matter is governed by clear and long established principles of international law wherein the answer to your repeated question on the matter of the validity of such a referendum, whether formally sanctioned by Westminster or not, also resides.

In short, a defined people within a defined geographical area have the right to self determination should a majority of them so decide in a properly constituted plebiscite.

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On 27/01/2017 at 0:33 PM, DoofersDad said:

The vast majority of people didn't vote for their MP simply because of their party's position on the EU.  But this is not a party political matter, it was a UK wide vote which simply must be respected.  It's all very well to claim that the Scottish MPs are adopting some moral high ground because at the end of the day, we know that enough MPs will vote to trigger article 50 and therefore this pathetic political posturing won't over-ride the democratic will of the electorate as a whole. 

But let us suppose a 2nd independence referendum resulted in a majority for independence. Now most English MPs represent parties who support a unionist position.  So by your reasoning they would be completely justified in voting to block any process which would allow the referendum result to be taken forward.  Somehow, though, I take it that if that should happen,you would not be coming on here and applauding them for their principled opposition.

 

MPs are not elected to represent the positions of their Parties on every individual  manifesto promise, they are elected to represent the positions of their constituencies. It is a very rare occasion that the members of a constituency have the opportunity, en masse, to tell their MP what their vote should be.  As a result, MPs are honour (if they know what that means) bound to vote in response to the wishes of their constituents. That will mean that Article 50 should be triggered, but it will also mean that those MPs whose constituencies did not vote for Brexit should ignore Party Whips and vote against that triggering. Party whipping has no place in a vote on a referendum result  (It has no place in politics at all, imo, but certainly not in a case like this.)

The Scottish representatives in the House of Lords attempted in 1713 to extricate Scotland from the Union, and despite there being, as there is now, a large difference in relative numbers, they lost that attempt by only 4 votes. I suspect, given the chance, if English MPs voted as their constituents wished....there would no barrier put up to Scottish Independence. However, if a second independence referendum resulted in a majority for independence, and English or any other MPs chose to ignore that result...then there is a case for declaring UDI. And the difference would be, as you know very well  that the Brexit  referendum was a UK one, an independence referendum would be limited to Scotland. Did all the EU representatives in the EU parliament get a vote on whether we were to be allowed to leave the EU........because that is the comparison to be made?

 

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2 hours ago, Oddquine said:

MPs are not elected to represent the positions of their Parties on every individual  manifesto promise, they are elected to represent the positions of their constituencies. It is a very rare occasion that the members of a constituency have the opportunity, en masse, to tell their MP what their vote should be.  As a result, MPs are honour (if they know what that means) bound to vote in response to the wishes of their constituents. That will mean that Article 50 should be triggered, but it will also mean that those MPs whose constituencies did not vote for Brexit should ignore Party Whips and vote against that triggering. Party whipping has no place in a vote on a referendum result  (It has no place in politics at all, imo, but certainly not in a case like this.)

The Scottish representatives in the House of Lords attempted in 1713 to extricate Scotland from the Union, and despite there being, as there is now, a large difference in relative numbers, they lost that attempt by only 4 votes. I suspect, given the chance, if English MPs voted as their constituents wished....there would no barrier put up to Scottish Independence. However, if a second independence referendum resulted in a majority for independence, and English or any other MPs chose to ignore that result...then there is a case for declaring UDI. And the difference would be, as you know very well  that the Brexit  referendum was a UK one, an independence referendum would be limited to Scotland. Did all the EU representatives in the EU parliament get a vote on whether we were to be allowed to leave the EU........because that is the comparison to be made?

 

As usual, Oddquine is simply wrong on just about everything she says. MPs are not elected to represent the positions of their constituencies. They are elected to represent their constituents. That is quite a different thing.  Just as with a General Election result, following a referendum there is an expectation MPs will respect the result and then work in the interests of their constituents thereafter.  With respect to the EU referendum this means accepting the will of the wider electorate by allowing negotiations to start and then making their voices heard during the negotiations.  It is interesting though that the SNP take the line that MPs have to vote against triggering of article 50 because leaving the EU does not reflect the views of their constituents. Just compare that with the SNP MSPs who are supposed to represent the interests of us in the Highlands but who meekly kowtowed to their political masters and betrayed their constituents on the recent vote of the HIE.

And of course EU representatives did not get a vote on whether we be allowed to leave the EU.  Why should they? There is not a European state and there is no legislation which requires such a vote.  Oddquine suggests that is the comparison to be made, but clearly it is not.  Just as Scotland, as part of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom, requires the consent of Westminster to hold a referendum, it needs the consent of Westminster to leave the Union.  Not that I am suggesting the English MP would try to block the wishes of the Scots if we voted for independence, I am merely putting the SNP's current antidemocratic posturing into some context.

It is, perhaps, interesting to make one more comparison.  For all Sturgeon's pathetic bleating about the Westminster Government having no plan for Brexit, one wonders just what plans the SNP has for tackling the negotiations to disentangle a Scottish state from the complex infrastructure of the UK?  We heard nothing of any such strategy during the lengthy independence referendum campaign.  At least the British Government knows what currency we will be using following Brexit.

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DD....I won't quote your post, because mine is more than long enough to fill the space

Let me get this straight....MPs are paid £70,000 a year plus expenses to represent the political party for which they stood, to help individual members of their constituency, if they have problems caused as a result of government/government policy, but not elected to represent the majority in a constituency, when that constituency opinion/position is clearly understood?  Aye, right!

I am sitting right now looking at a leaflet from my local list MSP, which has, appended to it, a survey proclaiming that my views are important to him, but you are saying that they aren't and he is not elected to represent my views and the views of all his other constituents....just to deal with those individuals who go to him with problems and the survey on the leaflet is just a bit of window-dressing to pad out his succession of photo-ops and self-promotion?

Given that relatively few of his constituents will complete and return the form, he will still take it upon himself to take those responses as "the opinion/position" of all his constituents, and respond appropriately, yet you claim that in a constituency which voted in a majority(even if only just)  for one specific position, he would have no  obligation to take heed of that "survey" and could ignore it. And you think that is acceptable?


Regarding HIE, was there an indication that the majority in the Highlands and Islands were against the centralising of the committees which oversee the actions of those who actually produce the plans that you say "betrayed their constituents on the recent vote of the HIE"? Can't say it bothered me, given those who were being "amalgamated" were not the workers but the overseeing quango....and they don't need to be in Inverness to oversee.

Regarding "there is no EU state"...there is no UK state either. There are treaties signed forming the EU out of 27 different countries, and there are treaties signed forming the UK out of three countries and what is now a province. Treaties are not set in stone, however much Westminster would like to think they are when it suits them. If Treaties were set in stone, there would have been no Irish Free State or an independent Ireland now, would there........or, if it comes to that....a Brexit?

I agree that there is no comparison between the EU and the UK..the EU is democratic, for a start, the UK never has been. It might have been considered so in 1707 when there was an accepted version of democracy which was not applicable to citizens if they were not lords, landowners or burgesses, but, apart from the advent of universal suffrage, Parliamentary democracy is still no more democratic than it was in 1687, when the English Parliament took over the sovereignty of the monarch and reduced him to a figurehead...controlled by the peers, landowners and burgesses, elected by their friends and cronies...or than it was in 1707 when the English Parliament, with all its historic idiosyncracies, became the Parliament of Great Britain and later of the UK....in effect(and probably intention) making the UK a bigger England, with the addition to the English Parliament of MPs from the other countries...(but not enough of them to overrule the English ones even if they all voted together).
 
A sovereign Parliament, created by and for just one of the countries within that Union and which writes the rules and regulations to govern its own actions, with no way for it to be held to account by the people it governs, because there is no jointly agreed written UK constitution for it to be judged against, is not a democracy. Representative democracy in a two party FPTP system with an unelected revising chamber and a whipping system which is intended to prevent MPs actually representing their constituents,is not democracy....that is an elected dictatorship. And into the bargain, instead of a written constitution, we have "conventions" to guide the behaviour of our Government, and "conventions" like devolution, are the gift of the sovereign Parliament which can ignore them at any time. You call that democracy?

Scotland does not require the permission of Westminster to hold a referendum on anything, Scotland requires Westminster to pass a bill making the result of a referendum binding. As far as I am aware, nobody in the UK needs Westminster permission to hold a consultative referendum, not even me.  However,in the end, it doesn't really matter if the referendum is only consultative....because if it is a vote for independence,and Westminster doesn't agree to put forward a Bill to repeal the Acts of Union, Scotland can declare UDI or, as it works nowadays, call on the right to self determination under the UN charter.

The "complex infrastructure" of the UK is not nearly as complex as that of the EU. The biggest problem re negotiations is going to be Westminster, not Scotland, if you are going to take the indyref1 Project Fear pronouncements as any guide, just as the stance of the EU is going to be the problem for the UK in the EU negotiations. I haven't yet seen Theresa May say one word about her plans for negotiating with the EU..just her vision of what the UK can expect to get from the negotiations...can you give me a link to her plans?

The negotiations with the EU are the "terms of withdrawal from the EU", not what the UK will be like or do after we withdraw, but what our relationship with the EU will be after we withdraw. The negotiations with Westminster  will be the same,an apportioning of assets and liabilities, how to deal with the transition period and how that is to be achieved. Given it was just fine for the UK to step off the EU cliff without having a safety net prepared and spread out ahead of time...why is that being demanded of Scotland.

And we do know what currency we will be using after we vote for independence, we always have known....the pound until the end of the transition period....and whatever we decide after that.

 

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What she says !! Seriously though, I don't think anyone who has the slightest knowledge of international and constitutional law could take exception to a word of that.

Sometimes it appears that many unionists believe that if they say often and loud enough that something is so it will be so. The Treaty of Union was and remains a bilateral treaty between sovereign states and at no point subsumed Scotland into a new state. It certainly didn't make Scotland a mere region or province.

It's often said that parliament is sovereign. That is the case in England. In terms of Scottish constitutional law and practice, the people are sovereign. The Treaty of Union and subsequent Act of Union did nothing to alter that.

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