Joanna Cherry: Unionists shouldn’t be so confident about stopping indyref2 –
You can read the full article HERE and it is an interesting read. Joanna states in the article that “I have long argued that we should test the argument in court as part of a wider political strategy, so I am pleased that the idea of court action has now been embraced”. While I won’t pretend to be anything as near as smart as the tip of Joanna Cherry’s finger nail I have never been convinced about going to the Supreme Court, mainly because I just don’ trust the courts in the UK, or Scotland for that matter any longer, while we have never had any real reason from the SNP Government why they made it virtually impossible for Martin Keating’s to win his case which was for me unforgivable, Joanna also goes on to say
However, my plan was that the case would be heard after the Scottish Parliament had passed the bill. This might have avoided any arguments about prematurity and I think it would have strengthened the case by demonstrating that the democratically elected Parliament was foursquare behind the bill, thus making it more difficult for the supreme court to overturn.
She goes on to say “However, the Lord Advocate’s advice has led to testing the case in advance and the FM has won plaudits from many on what could prove to be a canny strategy”. Again, what is so different from what Martin attempted to do and that Sturgeon fought so hard against, all the more reason for myself to just not trust Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP Scottish Government, in my opinion anyway. Earlier in the article Joanna also states that
It would be a strange thing indeed if the Scotland Act 1998, an act designed to enhance democracy in Scotland, should have reduced or hobbled in any way Scotland’s right to self-determination.
For me the whole idea of the Scotland Act 1998 is designed to trap Scotland in servitude for as long as the British State can, in fact we know that was the plan as
George Robertson of Scottish Tory Labour once said that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead”
That was the plan then, and that remains the plan now as far as I am concerned. Alex Salmond said this week “Your Lord Advocate is not your Lord Judge – that’s the President of the Council of the UK Supreme Court; the Lord Advocate is your advocate – it’s your lawyer. “So, you might want, if you’re going into a court case, to have a bit more enthusiasm from the person that’s meant to be representing you”. This was in relation to the Lord Advocate admitting she had no faith in the draft bill, I must admit it is hard not to disagree with Alex Salmond on this one. So while I would love to have the confidence of Joanna Cherry when she says
In Scotland it is the people who are sovereign. But it is perhaps on the issue of the right to self-determination that it is most important that they are heard.
I have never really accepted the sovereignty of the people thing being recognised because we have never had the guts, or politicians with guts since 1707 to actually test that theory. But anyway have a read of the article as it is interesting.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
JC knows that the strategy is flawed and fatally at that.
This is whys she applies the caveat to the 2nd prong of Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘plan’ in her comment “HOWEVER, my plan was that the case would be heard after the Scottish Parliament had passed the bill.”. Like wise she ends her article with the somewhat lukewarm “the FM has won plaudits from many on what COULD prove to be a canny strategy”. (My block capitals in each quote).
This is hardly an endorsement. It must be particularly frustrating and galling for JC the QC who has twice brought the UK government to heel in the courts in recent years to have been excluded from the process by the SNP leadership.
It looks like JC is keeping neutral so as to avoid drawing any more flak while waiting on the sidelines for the ‘strategy’ to go belly up.
Duncanio
Very good assessment and you are more spot on than myself. I often get frustrated that people like JC remain in the SNP to be honest as I just could not do it given the party is a shadow of its former self having gone all Scottish Labour basically. It was an interesting article though and good to hear another opinion from within the SNP and not just the usual sycophants who are usually churned out.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Sovereignty – the authority of a state to govern itself or another state
Privatisation – the transfer of a business, industry, or service from public to private ownership and control.
The UK governments may go on about parliamentary sovereignty, but when privatisation is their sole economic and social goal, all they are really doing is handing over their sovereign powers to business interests. The UK government has and since 1979 wanted to ‘rollback’ the State and that’s what they’re doing. Who would argue that for years that it is business leaders that make the big decisions, with politicians simply ‘acting’ (in every sense of the word) as middle managers. The revolving door between politics and business is the clearest sign of that. Money talks and increasingly in the UK it makes all the big decisions.
The most valued institution in the UK is by a long way, the NHS. However the creeping privatisation of the NHS in England , particularly since 2012, shows where the future lies for it, despite huge public opposition to privatising it. Scotland may have avoided some of the ‘UK’ privatisations (eg water), but not for much longer if it remains part of the UK. Privatisation clearly also means transferring State power to business interests. Sovereignty and privatisation can therefore be seen as two sides of the same coin.
Westminster’s ‘sovereignty’ has already largely been sold off to various big business interests (eg Labours ‘light touch business regulation’ from 1997 – 2010), so in making it’s claim of it’s sovereignty over Scotland, they are just acting as the mouthpiece for the real decision makers in the UK. The future of a privatised ‘UK’ was decided 40 years ago when the selloff of it’s sovereignty began. The matter of sovereignty in Scotland remains central to it’s still to be determined future. So, retain Scotland’s sovereignty and powers of decision making, or surrender it to a puppet UK government? That is the question that needs to be answered PDQ.
https://archive.ph/1MK6Q
Ian
Thatcher and her never ending plan wasn’t it. You are spot on, the politicians are middle managers and the SNP MPs in the main appear happy in that role and the current lot of MSPs are not very good at it hence the state of Scotland that they are allowed to mismanage from their bosses in the English parliament. JC appears to have some confidence in this approach while having a little go as Duncanio pointed out in his comment, I am not so confident as I don’t trust the courts and I don’t trust the SNP in this area after the Keating’s case. We are playing the waiting game now until October when we either lose or the court refuse to make a decision but either way time is running out for Sturgeon I hope.
Thanks for commrnting.
Bruce
Sovereignty will only benefit Scotland if it can make sensible use of it. If a government leaves the economy (eg energy) and increasingly other areas (eg water, NHS) to ‘the market’, as the UK government never tire of saying is the right thing to do, it begs the question of what is the UK governments role? When so many functions are now operating in a privatised weakly regulated way, where does that end – Fire brigades, police.
Compare the energy position in the UK with Norway. The Norwegian government own and benefit hugely from their direct involvement and/or ownership in many industries, including energy. While Norway collects huge taxes from energy companies, the UK staggeringly, not only often doesn’t receive a penny in tax, it effectively makes payments to them.
Shell tax paid to governments in 2020 (US$) –
Norway : 1,799,551,670
UK : -99,107,681 (minus)
Click to access shell-payments-to-governments-report-2020.pdf
Same story with BP –
https://archive.ph/Heqjt
So while Norway has an economic model with very strong government involvement in industry, the UK model is one of a hands-off low regulation free market And what exactly is Scotland’s plan as an independent nation for the future? In light of the recent cheap selloff of renewables energy licences, the SNP Government appears to be following the UK model of virtually giving key resources away rather than doing what the Norwegian government has done, namely taking an active role in key industries so that they also benefit from them as a nation, rather than for the benefit of a small number of shareholders.
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/#:~:text=The%20State%E2%80%99s%20Direct%20Financial%20Interest%20%28SDFI%29%20is%20a,are%20awarded%2C%20and%20varies%20from%20field%20to%20field.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_enterprises_of_Norway
Ian
We will never have anything like Norway any time soon even if we did become independent but with independence there would be an opportunity to look at models that benefit the community. I would go for nationalisation of energy, transport, mail, similar to the Scottish Water model if I could but then I would also have a higher tax economy like Norway to be for excellent public services butt then I would also have a work scheme that being unemployed was not an option either, if you found yourself out of work then you would automatically go onto a public community benefit scheme for at least 2 years on the living wage where you maybe looked after parks etc but had a chance to retrain etc. Maybe fanciful but having people sitting doing nothing is a waste. Either way the UK model is let their masters do what they want and it won’t change, only get worse as you imply the longer we are part of this nightmare.
Thanks for commenting and the links for everyone to look at.
Bruce
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
As far as I understand, In 1707 it was agreed that the UK Parliament would be formed to deal with the selection of a monarch and to deal with international relations armed forces and commerce. The act of the Scottish Parliament which accepted the treaty into Scot’s Law, did not detail any changes to the Scottish Constitution to deal with other matters. Therefore, there has been no transfer of powers over the Scottish constitution to Westminster, for them to withhold and these matters are ultra vires. So the Supreme Court of the UK holds no authority in these areas.
The present Scottish Parliament was voted into Scots Law by a National Plebiscite and no matter what the UKs intentions is beyond their control. It is my belief that we can arrange our own vote without interference by any arm of the UK State.
Wullie
I really don’t know enough about it to be honest other than what I have read and mostly don’t understand all that much. I do think that the Scottish Constitution, if this is something that can be shown to actually exist, would need to be tested in a Court but who could trust them or would it have to be an international court. I have always taken the view that we will only become independent again if we take it back ourselves, we can’t trust the courts or the British to just give it back to us but if what yourself and many others feel is the case then how do we test it and do the SNP Scottish Government have the guts, I am not so sure.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce