LAST November’s UK Supreme Court decision denying the Scottish Parliament the right to hold a future independence referendum wouldn’t stand up in international courts, according to the expert legal opinion of Professor Robert McCorquodale (International routes to indy set out in new legal opinion, Jun 21). Quelle surprise.
His opinion poked numerous holes in the UK Supreme Court’s reasoning, such as its faulty comparison of Scotland’s position to that of Quebec. More damningly, the UK court’s decision was based solely on a UK Government statement that was not supported by the International Court of Justice in its Kosovo Opinion, where it found that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia didn’t violate international law. And the UK agreed with that opinion, recognising Kosovo as an independent state! But applying the same criteria to Scotland doesn’t suit the UK’s colonial interests.
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The UK only exists because of an international agreement, the Treaty of Union, made between two sovereign states. But from the beginning, the stronger partner, England, has violated the limits and conditions of that treaty, from the 1708 Treason Act, to the military occupation of Scotland, to the ongoing plundering of Scotland’s land and resources and oppression of its people, language and culture.
The UK knows its self-serving Supreme Court judgement keeping Scotland imprisoned in the Union would melt like snow off a dyke once exposed to the glare of international law and justice.
That exposure has begun. This isn’t a consensual Union, but an annexation, which is why the UK is terrified that the lie will be exposed.
Every former British colony has gained its freedom via a people’s liberation movement. So will Scotland. The Scottish Liberation Movement’s goal is to restore the constitutional settlement in the Treaty of Union, handing back control of Scotland to the Scottish people and establishing a government that reflects the sovereignty of the people.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
BETWEEN Keir Starmer intending to appoint dozens of new peers from his party acolytes if he wins the next election – despite claiming yet again to reform the House of Lords (yawn) – and Ian Murray vowing Labour “won’t give Scotland another independence referendum” (thenational.scot, Jun 21), doesn’t this demonstrate clearly that a vote for Labour is not a vote for change, nor improvement, nor common sense, and especially not democracy?
Don’t these noveau-fascist control freaks promise the same old broken Union desperate to maintain the Tory culture they share of osmotic shift of power to the centre, and control and wealth to Westminster’s tired, antiquated and democracy bereft political system?
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Perhaps we should thank them for their “honesty” because aren’t they warning us that a vote for Labour is a vote to remain rooted in the failed British colonial past they are determined to protect, and at the expense of we in Scotland striving to make the sensible leap to freedom and lead our nation down a different, better and more accountable and prosperous path?
With nary a cigarette paper’s thickness difference between the blue and red Tory parties, whichever of them reaches the top of the political pile after the next election it will be a case of business as usual, and with little prospect of meaningful reform of the system, won’t Britain’s descent into the abyss of failing state continue unabated?
What really angers me, and should anger all Scots – even those who have yet to understand the independence argument – is Murray’s belief that he and his democracy denying party can “give” us a referendum? Such arrogance!
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Scotland’s constitutional rights are not in the gift of Murray, his party or even Westminster. They forget, choose to ignore, that Scotland is an ancient historical nation by right that was sold into more than 300 years of penury in the UK Union despite widespread opposition at the time, and by a few undemocratic, unaccountable and self-serving nobles bailed out financially by the English Exchequer wielding bribes – a wrong all real Scots should want to redress.
Murray’s message shows we need to take back our independence, it’s not going to fall into our laps. And the starting point must surely be renouncing the Treaty of Union and repeal of the Act of Union 1707. This will foment the constitutional crisis that is the only way forward to regaining our independence and launching the direct action to press the issue home, both within Westminster and internationally.
We made a huge mistake by engaging with the English Supreme Court with ill-considered argument, and clearly on the wrong premise.
One indy-supporting candidate per constituency at the next General Election. Send red-Tory Labour hameward with a flea in the ear.
And let’s take Scotland back, supported with the mandate won at the ballot box.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
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