Category Archives: scottish independence

THE WESTMINSTER ELITE OFFER TO SELL ENGLAND DOWN THE RIVER TO BUY OFF SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE – let’s hope no takers!

THE WESTMINSTER ELITE OFFER TO SELL ENGLAND DOWN THE RIVER TO BUY OFF SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

Constitutionally there is no power to make such promises because no Parliament can bind its successors. 

The promise to retain the Barnett Formula is shamelessly at the expense of England which loses £49 billion per year by the Barnett Formula. 

Having different tax regimes in different parts of the UK (Wales and N Ireland will surely demand the same) will set one part of the UK against another. That is a recipe for perpetual conflict. The same would apply between English regions if the Westminster elite manages to break up England.

Here is the report:-

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg sign joint historic promise which guarantees more devolved powers for Scotland and protection of NHS if we vote No

WESTMINSTER’S three main party leaders have signed up to a historic joint statement that was demanded by the Daily Record on behalf of the people of Scotland.

Three party leader’s promise to Scotland
The joint statement also rubbishes claims from the SNP that the Barnett Formula for calculating Scotland’s budget could be changed to leave Scots less money for public services.
It pledges: “Because of the continuation of the Barnett allocation for resources, and the powers of the Scottish Parliament to raise revenue, we can state categorically that the final say on how much is spent on the NHS will be a matter for the Scottish Parliament.”
Last night, Brown said more powers for Scotland are now “locked in” to a No vote on Thursday .

“Not even the most ardent and optimistic nationalist would claim that there is an overwhelming majority for separation, as there was for devolution.
“I believe that there is, however, a programme of change that can bring the people of Scotland together.
“I sense that people want change that can unite Scotland, rather than divide Scotland.
“They want to know that a No vote does not mean no change and instead seek guarantees of change, locked in and clear assurances that from September 19, the pace of change will not stall but speed up.
“But they want a promise of change they can trust – without the risks and uncertainties of an irreversible separation. I believe they are saying to us, ‘Give us the guarantees of change and with
these guarantees, we can vote for a strong Scottish Parliament within the UK’.
“We have heard important statements in Glasgow on Friday by Ed Miliband and Scottish Labour Party leader Johann Lamont and in Aberdeen by the Prime Minister.
“I believe that tonight, having listened to what the pro-devolution parties are saying, we can give these guarantees, that lock in change that is better, faster, fairer and safer than anything the SNP can offer through independence.
“So let us lock in three guarantees that will deliver the best deal for a stronger Scottish Parliament
within the United Kingdom. The guarantees that we now have pave the way to the future – a great
Scotland as a driving, successful and vibrant nation playing its full part in Great Britain.
“I believe what I am saying locks in a period of constitutional improvement and progress in preference to the risk-laden and dangerous change offered from an irreversible separation from which there is no going back.” Cameron backed the timetable for more powers in an emotional speech in Aberdeen yesterday .
He told more than 800 party members and activists that the UK is not a “perfect country” and pledged to change it.
The PM added: “The question is, how do you get that change?
“For me it’s simple. You don’t get the change you want by ripping your country apart. You don’t get change by undermining your economy and damaging your businesses and diminishing your place in the world.”
Cameron said the plans outlined by the pro-UK parties amounted to “real, concrete” change.
He added: “The status quo is gone. This campaign has swept it away. There is no going back to the way things were. A vote for No means real change.
“We have spelled that change out in practical terms, with a plan and a process.
“If we get a No vote, that will trigger a major, unprecedented programme of devolution, with additional powers for the Scottish Parliament – major new powers over tax, spending and welfare services.
“We have agreed a timetable for that stronger Scottish Parliament – a timetable to bring in the new powers that will go ahead if there is a No vote. A White Paper by November, put into draft legislation by January.
“This is a timetable that is now agreed by all the main political parties and set in stone and I am prepared to work with all the main parties to deliver this during 2015.
“So a No vote means faster, fairer, safer and better change.”
Cameron seemed close to tears as he made a direct appeal to Scots to vote No. He admitted that many people might be tempted by a Yes vote just to get rid of his Government. But he warned Scots not to “mix up the temporary and the permanent”.
With his voice breaking, Cameron added: “Don’t think, ‘I’m frustrated with politics right now, so I’ll walk out the door and never come back’.
“If you don’t like me, I won’t be here forever. If you don’t like this Government, it won’t last forever. But if you leave the UK – that will be forever.
“The different parts of the UK don’t always see eye-to-eye. Yes, we need change and we will deliver it.
“But to get that change, to get a brighter future, we don’t need to tear our country apart.”
He asked Scots to consider what would provide the best future for them and their family when they cast their vote.
Cameron said: “As you stand in the stillness of the polling booth, I hope you will ask yourself this – will my family and I truly be better off by going it alone? Will we really be more safe and secure?
“‘Do I really want to turn my back on the rest of Britain and why is it that so many people across the world are asking, ‘Why would Scotland want to do that? Why?’
“And if you don’t know the answer to these questions – then vote No.”
Promises

Guarantee One
New powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Holyrood will be strengthened with extensive new powers, on a timetable beginning on September 19, with legislation in 2015.

The Scottish Parliament will be a permanent and irreversible part of the British constitution.

Guarantee Two
The guarantee of fairness to Scotland.

The guarantee that the modern purpose of the Union is to ensure opportunity and security by pooling and sharing our resources equitably for our defence, prosperity and the social and economic welfare of every citizen, including through UK pensions and UK funding of healthcare.

Guarantee Three
The power to spend more on the NHS if that is Scottish people’s will.

The guarantee that with the continued Barnett allocation, based on need and with the power to raise its own funds, the final decisions on spending on public services in Scotland, including on the NHS, will be made by the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Parliament will have the last word on how much is spent on health. It will have the power to keep the NHS in public hands and the capacity to protect it.

Here is the full article:-http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron-ed-miliband-nick-4265992

English not voting for independence would be "an astonishing act of self-harm"! – George Monbiot’s logic?

All of what George Monbiot says in his Guardian article below would apply equally to England.

I must say that it is a great article and I would certainly have given him full marks if he had submitted it to me when I was teaching and he was he was a very academically bright pupil at Stowe Public School back in the early eighties, if only there wasn’t a slight confusion between the ideas of England and of Britain. Actually, of course, that confusion may be the Guardian editors’s deliberate interpolation in their subheading and not what Gorge wrote at all.

Here is George’s article:-

Scots voting no to independence would be an astonishing act of self-harm

England is dysfunctional, corrupt and vastly unequal. Who on earth would want to be tied to such a country?


Imagine the question posed the other way round. An independent nation is asked to decide whether to surrender its sovereignty to a larger union. It would be allowed a measure of autonomy, but key aspects of its governance would be handed to another nation. It would be used as a military base by the dominant power and yoked to an economy over which it had no control.

It would have to be bloody desperate. Only a nation in which the institutions of governance had collapsed, which had been ruined economically, which was threatened by invasion or civil war or famine might contemplate this drastic step. Most nations faced even with such catastrophes choose to retain their independence – in fact, will fight to preserve it – rather than surrender to a dominant foreign power.

So what would you say about a country that sacrificed its sovereignty without collapse or compulsion; that had no obvious enemies, a basically sound economy and a broadly functional democracy, yet chose to swap it for remote governance by the hereditary elite of another nation, beholden to a corrupt financial centre?

What would you say about a country that exchanged an economy based on enterprise and distribution for one based on speculation and rent? That chose obeisance to a government that spies on its own citizens, uses the planet as its dustbin, governs on behalf of a transnational elite that owes loyalty to no nation, cedes public services to corporations, forces terminally ill people to work and can’t be trusted with a box of fireworks, let alone a fleet of nuclear submarines? You would conclude that it had lost its senses.

So what’s the difference? How is the argument altered by the fact that Scotland is considering whether to gain independence rather than whether to lose it? It’s not. Those who would vote no – now, a new poll suggests, a rapidly diminishing majority – could be suffering from system justification. System justification is defined as the “process by which existing social arrangements are legitimised, even at the expense of personal and group interest”. It consists of a desire to defend the status quo, regardless of its impacts. It has been demonstrated in a large body of experimental work, which has produced the following surprising results.

System justification becomes stronger when social and economic inequality is more extreme. This is because people try to rationalise their disadvantage by seeking legitimate reasons for their position. In some cases disadvantaged people are more likely than the privileged to support the status quo. One study found that US citizens on low incomes were more likely than those on high incomes to believe that economic inequality is legitimate and necessary.

It explains why women in experimental studies pay themselves less than men, why people in low-status jobs believe their work is worth less than those in high-status jobs, even when they’re performing the same task, and why people accept domination by another group. It might help to explain why so many people in Scotland are inclined to vote no.

The fears the no campaigners have worked so hard to stoke are – by comparison with what the Scots are being asked to lose – mere shadows. As Adam Ramsay points out in his treatise Forty-Two Reasons to Support Scottish Independence, there are plenty of nations smaller than Scotland that possess their own currencies and thrive. Most of the world’s prosperous nations are small: there are no inherent disadvantages to downsizing.

Remaining in the UK carries as much risk and uncertainty as leaving. England’s housing bubble could blow at any time. We might leave the European Union. Some of the most determined no campaigners would take us out: witness Ukip’s intention to stage a “pro-union rally” in Glasgow on 12 September. The union in question, of course, is the UK, not Europe. This reminds us of a crashing contradiction in the politics of such groups: if our membership of the EU represents an appalling and intolerable loss of sovereignty, why is the far greater loss Scotland is being asked to accept deemed tolerable and necessary.

The Scots are told they will have no control over their own currency if they leave the UK. But they have none today. The monetary policy committee is based in London and bows to the banks. The pound’s strength, which damages the manufacturing Scotland seeks to promote, reflects the interests of the City.

To vote no is to choose to live under a political system that sustains one of the rich world’s highest levels of inequality and deprivation. This is a system in which all major parties are complicit, which offers no obvious exit from a model that privileges neoliberal economics over other aspirations. It treats the natural world, civic life, equality, public health and effective public services as dispensable luxuries, and the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor as non-negotiable.

Its lack of a codified constitution permits numberless abuses of power. It has failed to reform the House of Lords, royal prerogative, campaign finance and first-past-the-post voting (another triumph for the no brigade). It is dominated by media owned by tax exiles, who, instructing their editors from their distant chateaux, play the patriotism card at every opportunity. The concerns of swing voters in marginal constituencies outweigh those of the majority; the concerns of corporations with no lasting stake in the country outweigh everything. Broken, corrupt, dysfunctional, retentive: you want to be part of this?

Independence, as more Scots are beginning to see, offers people an opportunity to rewrite the political rules. To create a written constitution, the very process of which is engaging and transformative. To build an economy of benefit to everyone. To promote cohesion, social justice, the defence of the living planet and an end to wars of choice.

To deny this to yourself, to remain subject to the whims of a distant and uncaring elite, to succumb to the bleak, deferential negativity of the no campaign, to accept other people’s myths in place of your own story: that would be an astonishing act of self-repudiation and self-harm. Consider yourselves independent and work backwards from there; then ask why you would sacrifice that freedom.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

Click here for the original >>> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/scots-independence-england-scotland

Independence Debate hots up!

Ian Bell, the Sunday Herald Columnist, wrote for his Scottish readers this article published on Sunday 24 August 2014

The Anglophobia that never was


IT all sounded ominous.

IT all sounded ominous.

“English backlash”; “Scots will pay a heavy price”; “English reject”: no matter the ending, the independence referendum would be tear-stained. Salty tears, too, familiar to those greetin’-faced Jocks.

In headline patois, the proposition was this: vote Yes and you’ll be sorry; vote No and it’s sorrow all the way. Affirm independence and you can forget a shared currency or a helping hand internationally. Reject independence and the bribes will stop. We’ll have you by the Barnett consequentials. Westminster over-representation no more. West Lothian Question no more.

GK Chesterton’s people of England, the ones who have “never spoken yet” in his poem The Secret People, appeared to suffer a change of heart. That they spoke through a sociological survey didn’t add much to the poetry. That they were talking through researchers in Edinburgh and Cardiff was a small contribution to the irony stockpile. The crack of backlash, predicted so long and so eagerly by some, was loud.

Well, yes and no (so to speak). The latest instalment of the Future of England Survey of 3695 adults, conducted by YouGov as part of research by the universities of Cardiff and Edinburgh, had a discord in the battle hymn. When they were done backlashing, the (surveyed) people of England expressed a wish – 59% to 19% – for the United Kingdom to continue. There was a nuance to their alleged exasperation.

It was as much as to say: stick around, and welcome, but we’re changing the terms of the lease. Stick around – for we like having you around – but once you’ve done trashing the place you’ll pay your whack, or lose the privileges we granted. No more hush money. No more hogging the parliamentary conversation. And if you must flounce off, don’t come running to us for a sub or a reference. But, Scotland, please don’t go.

Otherwise, the stats spoke. So 56% to 12% were reported as believing that levels of public spending in Scotland should be cut to levels – notional and in practical terms fictitious – called the UK average. So the claim on a post-independence currency union was rejected by 53% and supported by just 23%. So 62% said Scots MPs should be banned from voting on “England-only” laws.

In one question, the largest number (36%) thought the residual UK should have no truck with supporting Scotland’s membership of the EU and Nato. Elsewhere, fully 37% (against 21%) agreed that England and Scotland are drifting apart regardless. A big number – 53% against 10% – denied the claim promoted by Alex Salmond that it will be happy families after independence.

The survey found some English pragmatism to suit the Scottish majority taste. There were 42% (to 25%) prepared to say that Holyrood should control “most” of domestic taxation, given the removal of what’s called a subsidy, in the event of a No vote. There was a better than two-thirds showing that border controls would be a nonsense in the event of Yes. Still, it all made the “Scotland, don’t go” idea seem anomalous.

Personally, I’ve always thought it the easiest argument for independence. If you happen to be English, and if you happen to be fed up with what you call Anglophobia, and griping subsidy junkies, and the denial of English democracy, and appeasement of the northern neighbours, and Scots who refuse to see what’s glorious about Britain, put your back into Yes. It can all be solved in a few weeks.

That pat solution would not answer all of England’s questions, however. For one thing, the survey findings seem (to me) to have far less to do with a backlash, or with an animosity towards Scotland, than with Chesterton’s ordinary folk speaking up, finally, to say: “What about us?” Those ordinary people are less interested in withdrawing public spending or the chance of democracy from Scots than in asking why they can’t have the same. A very good question.

A truly representative parliament? An NHS still holding out against private-sector zombies? Free, mostly free, personal care for the elderly? So on and ever on. If you happen to be in Liverpool or Newcastle and contending with a government that, as usual, you didn’t vote for, what might you say? You might say Scots are subsidised while you struggle. You might notice one set of numbers and ignore another to show the first isn’t true. But you will find a reason to speak, finally.

The singer Billy Bragg and a few others have pursued this line for a while. They treat a Yes vote in Scotland as an opportunity, even an inducement, for England. They see profound imbalances and inequalities in that country, especially in the relationship between overbearing London and the rest, and they accept that it might not be Scotland’s job to make up the numbers should progressive England falter. It is an idea of solidarity by inspiration and emulation.

Pick through the survey stew and you find some sense. If Scotland can say it is not well-served by the nexus of Westminster, City and media, much of England can say the same.

Ken Livingstone used to like to remind Scots that some boroughs in his London were as poor as any districts in the islands. This was, and is, absolutely true. It was also beside the point. Part of the reason why England’s democracy needs to be broken apart on the wheel of devolution is to prove that you needn’t point a finger at others to get justice for yourself.

An English majority for a continuing UK suggests that animosities, where they exist, do not run deep. The desperate search for demented Scottish phobias has not been well-rewarded. The cheering-for-all during the Commonwealth Games turns out to have been more typical than the Daily Mail’s internet cybernat hunts. True hatred between Scotland and England is as hard to come by as truly irrational people.

The sole reason to worry comes from those behind the headline trench warfare. Did they want that English backlash so badly? Did they reason that Scots would react, for we have form, to old-fashioned provocation and show our colours as – what’s the formula? – ethnic separatists with weird notions about our neighbours? It didn’t work. It won’t work. It’s not true.

Just before the First World War, GK Chesterton published a novel containing a few poems. One of those has to do with St George. The writer called it The Englishman. I always think the last lines would suit those who sit in London offices and yearn for a resentful England.

But though he is jolly company

And very pleased to dine,

It isn’t safe to give him nuts

Unless you give him wine.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/the-anglophobia-that-never-was.25112516
My reply was:-

Dear Mr Bell

Re: The Anglo-phobia that never was” – Sunday, 24th August

I enjoyed your article, but, with respect, the point about the opinion polls is somewhat undermining the No Campaign’s pitch as they demonstrate that the inducements to vote No which have been promised by Unionists in fact may be politically undeliverable.

In particular any promise to maintain the proportion of public spending currently spent in Scotland stands little chance of being honoured. So NO voters may well be voting for a £1,500 per annum cut in their living standards!

Do you think that thought will make a difference?

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook

Chairman,
The English Democrats

Lie back and think of England? For many English people, the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence is a reminder of England’s Cinderella status in the United Kingdom.

On the 28 August 2014, in “The Conversation“, Prof Eunice Goes, the Associate Professor of Communications at Richmond American International University (Surrey), published this article:-  

As Scotland decides its future, lie back and think of England

For many English people, the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence is a reminder of England’s Cinderella status in the United Kingdom. While Scotland and Northern Ireland enjoy a large degree of self-government, Wales has significant administrative autonomy (and is in the process of gaining a wide range of new legislative powers), England is entirely governed by Westminster and Whitehall.

But this constitutional state of affairs is no longer considered acceptable by many English who feel overlooked by Westminster politicians and short-changed by asymmetrical devolution. In particular, English voters seem to resent the fact that Scottish MPs can vote on matters that affect England whilst Scottish issues are (mostly) decided by the Holyrood parliament.

An opinion poll commissioned by the universities of Edinburgh and Cardiff revealed that 62% of English voters agree that, following a no vote, “Scottish MPs should be prevented from voting on laws that apply only in England”. This hardening of attitudes towards Scotland is hardly shocking but what came as a surprise to many is that 54% of voters supported the idea of an English parliament.

Until now the Westminster elite assumed English voters were not interested in self-government. That was a comforting thought to those who believed that the best answer to the “West Lothian question” was not to ask it.

But in reality the English were never given the chance to taste genuine self-government. Proposals for an English Parliament were never contemplated and for good reasons too. As a representative body of the largest and richest nation of the United Kingdom, an English Parliament would dwarf the devolved bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and would reduce Westminster to political and constitutional irrelevance.

The eight English regional assemblies proposed by the last Labour government in 2003 were an unsatisfactory solution too. Those regional assemblies had so few legislative powers that they were little more than talking shops. So it is not surprising that in 2004 voters from the Northeast of England voted no on the referendum that proposed to create what they saw as an extra layer of politicians and bureaucrats.

The 2004 referendum in the Northeast of England put an end to the debate on English devolution, but maybe it is time to revisit the idea of regional assemblies. The result of the Scottish referendum may make it a necessity. If, as the opinion polls suggest, Scottish voters reject independence, the train is already in place for Westminster to grant further fiscal powers to Holyrood. The three main parties have recently given assurances to Scotland about the scenario of “devo-max”.

And as MPs and peers return to Westminster in the coming weeks they will pen the final amendments to the Wales Bill which will grant more powers, including borrowing and taxation powers, to the Welsh Assembly. These two developments will emphasise the asymmetrical nature of devolution and will foment further English resentment towards the non-English MPs sitting in Westminster.

More importantly, the mood also changed in England. English devolution is no longer a cause defended only by fringe groups such as the English Democrats. This cause is gaining some momentum amongst English (and some Scottish) MPs. More importantly, English voters seem to be open to the idea. As Professor Professor Michael Kenny showed in his book The Politics of English Nationhood, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh devolution, rising mistrust towards the European Union, and the sense of economic and cultural insecurity brought by globalisation have contributed to the rise of an English national identity.

In Westminster, the three main political parties have been aware of the changing mood in England but for a variety of reasons – namely electoral considerations and a fear of stirring the wrong type of nationalism – do not know how to respond to it. The parties of the coalition seem to be in two minds about it. Having abolished the English regional development agencies in 2010 the coalition has recently promised a £6bn fund to boost development in the English regions.

The Labour Party seems less confused but it is equally timid. This spring, Labour leader Ed Miliband made proposals for devolution of fiscal powers to English cities. But they are too modest, too technocratic and do not seem to either recognise rising English national identity or to address the constitutional problems created by Scottish and Welsh devolution.

In fairness, these are not easy problems to solve. Having ruled out big bang solutions like an English parliament, piecemeal proposals such as regional representation in the House of Lords or those made by the McKay Commission leave the fundamental problem of the English question unanswered. But this does not mean that there are no other options.

As the Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael recently suggested there is a “logical conclusion” to this constitutional conundrum. That logical solution is federalism and English regional assemblies. He may well be right.

Click here for the original >>> http://theconversation.com/as-scotland-decides-its-future-lie-back-and-think-of-england-30993

My response to her was:-

Dear Professor Goes,

Re: Your article “As Scotland decides its future, lie back and think of England”

I was interested to read your article and would thank you for your mention of the English Democrats.

The IPPR opinion polls suggest that all our hard work and expense in now distributing over 30 million leaflets and attendance on numerous television and radio interviews is beginning to pay off.

I do however very strongly disagree with your final remarks. Alistair Carmichael’s reported comments would be outrageous for any Scot to call for the dismemberment of England.

His neo-colonialist comments neatly show the very reason why the demand for English Independence is growing. Support for it now being greater than support for the status quo – 19% to 18%. That is a far greater proportion of the population of England than voted for his Party!

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook

Chairman,
The English Democrats

Prof Goes seems to be an internationalist Far-Leftist, if this is to be believed >>> Beeb Bias Craig: WHO’S LEFT OUT? http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/whos-left-out.html

…. the far-left Portuguese writer Dr Eunice Goes…..The lovely Eunice thought that “the public at large are not too bothered” about (immigration)….Eunice Goes …. wholeheartedly … sung the praises of mass immigration. Gavin Esler intervened at this point to back up Eunice, saying “I’ve conducted some public meetings and ordinary members of the public have said precisely that, our health service could not exist without people who are migrants.” When Saul raised the point that many people think immigration has been “excessive” and that the UK is a rare example of a country that doesn’t know how many immigrants it has, he was leaped on by all and sundry, including…. Eunice (who) had a few angry goes at him too. Ah, the old rallying cry of the Left against the Right: “Shut up!!”
*
Incidentally, for regular viewer of Dateline (if there are any, other than me and Martin at B-BBC!), the role usually provided by French lefty Marc Roche was this week taken by Eunice Goes, who said “most of the Conservative MPs who will come to parliament on May 6th, they are not urbane, metropolitian guys like David Cameron. They are, most..many of them, climate change deniers, homophobes, xenophobes and supporters of the death penalty.” Yasmin Alibhai Brown loved it and laughed uproariously. That’s the quality of commentator they have on Dateline!

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ VERDICT ON 2ND SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE DEBATE – Darling defeated!

yes Darling but not for England!

Our Press release on the debate which is on iplayer here >>>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04g1w4s
What did you think?

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ VERDICT ON 2ND SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE DEBATE – Darling defeated!


Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the English Democrats, said:- “Thanks to the BBC, watching this  debate was very informative for any Englishman. Seeing Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond debating was often somewhat like watching two Scotsmen arguing about how best to pick English Taxpayers’ pockets!” The opportunity to see this debate is bound to pour further fuel on English resentment, particularly with Alistair Darling’s cavalier and increasingly desperate (and stuttering) promises to filtch yet more money from English taxpayers in order to bribe Scots to vote NO!”

Robin also said:- “Alex Salmond clearly won this debate for his vision of “Team Scotland” but I expect the effect on many English viewers will be to make even more English people determined to end the unfair Barnett Formula if the Scots vote NO. This would then reduce the British Government spending on the average Scottish family by over £6,000 per year!”

“Even in mid April, when the recent IPPR research was done, 56% of the English already agreed with the statement:- “Levels of public spending in Scotland should be reduced to the levels in the rest of the UK” (click here to see the evidence >>> The English favour a hard line with Scotland – whatever the result of the Independence Referendum – Wales Governance Centre – http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/wgc/2014/08/20/the-english-favour-a-hard-line-with-scotland-whatever-the-result-of-the-independence-referendum/). Now that figure will be even higher and English people will be even more resolved!”

Robin continued:- “At least however the BBC actually broadcast this debate outside of Scotland unlike the ITV debate which was only broadcast in Scotland! The BBC and Glenn Campbell also did a much better job of hosting and chairing the debate”

Finally Robin stressed:- “The outright abolition of the unfair Barnett Formula is now a near certainty if Scots vote “No”. Scotland’s voters will therefore shortly be faced with a stark choice between that certainty of a reduction in their living standards or with the uncertainties of being their own masters in an independent country. As an Englishman I am very jealous of their opportunity. If I was faced with that choice I would choose freedom any day! I say that the future of England should also be in the hands of the English Nation”

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman,
The English Democrats

Scotland ‘should not take on UK debt’ unless it can keep the pound says leading economist

Professor Sir James Mirrlees

Scotland ‘should not take on UK debt’ unless it can keep the pound

Yes campaign’s economist plots way ahead if Westminster refuses to share sterling

In this article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in the Daily Telegraph today 25.0.14, the usual British line that the UK will continue as RUK if Scotland “leaves” is still being peddled. However if you ignore the blatant RUK nonsense then this article also illustrates why England would be bettter off independent from the near bankrupt UK too.

Here is the article:-

An independent Scotland should walk away from its share of the UK’s national debt if Westminster continues to refuse a sterling union, one of the Yes campaign’s leading economic gurus has advised.

“Britain inherits the debt,” said Sir James Mirrlees, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a prestigious figure on Scotland’s Council of Economic Advisers.

“It is hard to see how Scotland can take on the debt unless there is a full currency union,” he told The Telegraph. “This is implied by the hard-line taken by Westminster. It is Scotland’s bargaining position.”

Crawford Beveridge, chairman of Scotland’s Fiscal Commission Working Group, warned last week that any such move would be “morally difficult” and likely deemed a “default” by credit ratings agencies.

Not even the Baltic states entirely repudiated Soviet-era debts in the early 1990s, even though the Soviet occupation of their countries was never recognised by the West. It would be hard for Scotland to invoke the “doctrine of odious debts” – where debts run up by despotic regimes can legitimately be reneged on – under international law. The Czech and Slovak republics divided the Czechoslovak debt on a pro-rata basis after their “velvet divorce”.

Sir James said Scotland could continue to use the pound as legal tender inside the country if necessary, whatever London decides. “No country has stopped its currency from being circulated in another state that I know of,” he said.

He suggested that Edinburgh could equally issue a Scottish pound that is pegged to sterling and backed by a currency board along the lines of Hong Kong’s model. But, in his opinion, neither option, if forced upon Scotland, would entail any obligation to take on UK debt.

Sir James said this clash can be avoided. He believes the common sense option for all involved is to agree on a co-operative union. The British themselves would enjoy a “non trivial” benefit from being able to use their own coin in Scotland. “The easiest transition would be to keep using sterling for five to 10 years,” he said.

All three parties in Westminster say they will oppose a currency union after independence, insisting that the eurozone crisis has revealed the perils of trying to share a currency with separate fiscal policies. Sir James played a central role in First Minister Alex Salmond’s Fiscal Commission earlier this year in drafting plans for a future currency. A former Cambridge professor, he is now professor-at-large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

He said the eurozone currency experiment has gone badly wrong – and has previously called for the weaker Club Med countries to withdraw – but insists that a UK-Scottish currency union would be a different animal. “The risks have been greatly exaggerated,” he said, speaking at the Nobel laureates’ gathering in Lindau, Germany.

Sir James said the English and Scottish economies are closely interwoven, like Germany and The Netherlands. There is little danger of an “asymmetric shock” for Scotland alone, though he acknowledged that declining oil revenues are a “little worrying” and might force fiscal cuts. However, he appeared to suggest that this would be outweighed by the benefits of eliminating the entire public debt, freeing up interest payments.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates Scotland’s share of the debt to be £143bn. The UK authorities have announced that they would stand behind these liabilities in order to reassure markets – and will even stand behind RBS and Scottish-based banks temporarily – but this is intended to be a holding action, not a settlement.

Debt repudiation would cause the UK’s gross debt ratio to jump by seven points to 98pc of GDP on the Eurostat gauge. Critics say it would be an inglorious way for Scotland to begin its life as a sovereign nation, poisoning relations with its chief economic partner.

Use of sterling in the face of British opposition would leave Scotland without a lender-of-last resort in a crisis. Sir James said this is manageable if bank support is restricted to high street operations, excluding the global arm of banks such as RBS.

Sir James has equally radical views on taxation, though they are not specifically aimed at Scotland. He proposes “negative taxation” or subsidies for the West’s poorest workers to shield them from low-wage competition from Asia. He also endorses a top marginal tax rate of 100pc for “very high incomes” on the grounds that some people will continue to work regardless, specifically citing tennis players. This may come as a surprise to Scottish tennis star Andy Murray.
Click here for a link to the original article>>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11054359/Scotland-should-not-take-on-UK-debt-unless-it-can-keep-the-pound.html

Below is what Wikipedia says about the Professor. Who do you believe – him or Ambrose from the Telegraph?

Sir James Alexander Mirrlees FRSE FBA (born 5 July 1936) is a Scottish economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in 1998.

Born in Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire, Mirrlees was educated at the University of Edinburgh (MA in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1957) and Trinity College, Cambridge (Mathematical Tripos and PhD in 1964 with thesis title Optimum planning for a dynamic economy), where he was a very active student debater. One contemporary, Quentin Skinner, has suggested that Mirrlees was a member of the Cambridge Apostles along with fellow Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen during this period. Between 1968 and 1976, Mirrlees was a visiting professor at MIT three times. He taught at both Oxford University (1969–1995) and University of Cambridge (1963– and 1995–).

During his time at Oxford, he published papers on economic models for which he would eventually be awarded his Nobel Prize. They centred on situations in which economic information is asymmetrical or incomplete, determining the extent to which they should affect the optimal rate of saving in an economy. Among other results, they demonstrated the principles of “moral hazard” and “optimal income taxation” discussed in the books of William Vickrey. The methodology has since become the standard in the field.

Mirrlees and Vickrey shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Economics “for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information”.

Mirrlees is also co-creator, with MIT Professor Peter A. Diamond of the Diamond-Mirrlees Efficiency Theorem, developed in 1971.

Mirrlees is emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He spends several months a year at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is currently the Distinguished Professor-at-Large of The Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as University of Macau. In 2009, he was appointed Founding Master of the Morningside College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Mirrlees is a member of Scotland’s Council of Economic Advisers. He also led the The Mirrlees Review, a review of the UK tax system by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

His students have included eminent academics and policy makers Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor Huw Dixon, Lord Nicholas Stern, Professor Anthony Venables, and Sir John Vickers.

We must choose our words carefully – Letter:- Western Daily Press (Bristol, England) – Friday, August 15, 2014

We must choose our words carefully

Letter:- Western Daily Press (Bristol, England) – Friday, August 15, 2014


I have just watched Andrew Neill’s programme on the BBC about the implications of Scottish independence for “the Rest of the UK” I am not a lawyer, but the constitutional legal position has been explained to me by a solicitor with expertise in constitutional law, and it seems fairly straightforward.

Wales and England were united in a 16th-century Act of Parliament under which, constitutionally, Wales became part of England.

The Kingdom of England (E) and the Kingdom of Scotland (S) were united by the Act of Union of 1707 as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, (G), with a single parliament, (the British Parliament) in Westminster.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland through a further Act of Union in 1801. With the partition of Ireland in 1922, we were left with the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.

For Scotland to leave the UK, it would be necessary to repeal the 1707 Act of Union. From the moment of that legislation’s receipt of Royal Assent, there would be no more United Kingdom. (E+S=G ergo G-S=E.) The British Parliament would have no constitutional validity and the British Government would also cease to exist.

Since the union of Ireland, in 1801, was with Great Britain, once Great Britain ceases to exist, so does any union with it.

So, any talk of “the Rest of the UK” is codswallop.

Scottish independence (bring it on!) will mean the dissolution of the United Kingdom and any negotiation of the terms of exit will have to be undertaken by representatives of England, as the former British Government will have ceased to have any mandate.

Clive Lavelle

Weston-super-Mare English Democrats 

Here is a link to the original >>>
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_topdoc=1&p_docnum=1&p_sort=YMD_date:D&p_product=UKNB&p_text_direct-0=document_id=(%2014FB8976864149B0%20)&p_docid=14FB8976864149B0&p_theme=aggdocs&p_queryname=14FB8976864149B0&f_openurl=yes&p_nbid=S6AR60NXMTQwODM2MzU2MS42MzE3OTI6MTo4OnJmLTE5MDcy&&p_multi=WDP1

Leading historian says – "Yes to Independence!"

Leading historian says – “Yes to Independence!”

Just consider these quotations:-

“The Union of England and Scotland was not a marriage based on love. It was a marriage of convenience. It was pragmatic.”

What about the present?

“From the 1750s down to the 1980s there was stability in the relationship. Now, all the primary foundations of that stability have gone or been massively diluted.”

The alternative?

“Devo-max” would merely prolong a running sore. “If more powers are granted, many English people will be unhappy; they’re already unhappy about the Barnett formula.”

The solution?

“Only through sovereignty can we develop a truly amicable and equal relationship with our great southern neighbour.”

All these remarks are just as pertinant from either side of the Border!

Here is the whole article:-
 

Scotland’s leading historian makes up his mind: it’s Yes to independence


The marriage with England was based on convenience, not love, says prizewinning author Sir Tom Devine. Now it is time to split
Scotland’s leading historian has delivered a major boost to the campaign for Scottish independence with the announcement that he will be voting yes in the forthcoming referendum.

The eagerly awaited announcement by Sir Tom Devine, made in an interview with the Observer, will provide much-needed support to the pro-independence campaign, which has seen support for a yes vote stall in recent weeks.

Neither side in the campaign has openly courted Devine, but each has been eager to receive the endorsement of a man who is considered to be Scotland’s foremost academic and intellectual.

The professor of Scottish history counts several senior figures on both sides among his friends, including Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister and now a driving force of the no campaign. Last week he also shared a platform at the Edinburgh book festival with the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond. The latest news will be welcomed by Salmond, who was perceived to have performed below par in the recent televised head-to-head debate with Alistair Darling, leader of the no campaign.

In an exclusive interview, Devine said that at the outset of the campaign he had been a firm no supporter, though he had favoured a “devo-max” arrangement with extra powers devolved to Holyrood. He had been persuaded by what he believes has been a flowering of the Scottish economy in a more confident political and cultural landscape. “This has been quite a long journey for me and I’ve only come to a yes conclusion over the last fortnight,” he said.

“The Scottish parliament has demonstrated competent government and it represents a Scottish people who are wedded to a social democratic agenda and the kind of political values which sustained and were embedded in the welfare state of the late 1940s and 1950s.

“It is the Scots who have succeeded most in preserving the British idea of fairness and compassion in terms of state support and intervention. Ironically, it is England, since the 1980s, which has embarked on a separate journey.”

He also analysed the progress of the Union since its birth in 1707 and the reasons why it had worked for both countries, but why he believes it is coming to a natural end. “The union of England and Scotland was not a marriage based on love. It was a marriage of convenience. It was pragmatic. From the 1750s down to the 1980s there was stability in the relationship. Now, all the primary foundations of that stability have gone or been massively diluted.”

Devine received a knighthood in this year’s birthday honours list for “services to the study of Scottish history”. One newspaper wrote: “He is as close to a national bard as the nation has.”

Devine is the author of 34 books and holder of all three of Scotland’s most coveted prizes for Scottish historical research. His analysis of the issues at play in the independence campaign is forensic. “We now have a proper modern history of Scotland which we didn’t have until as late as the 1980s. We have a clear national narrative underpinned by objective and rigorous academic research. This wasn’t always the case.”

Devine also points to what he calls the “silent transformation of the Scottish economy”, based on the metamorphosis in manufacturing from heavy industry through de-industrialisation to a more diversified model. “Our economy is now based on some heavy industry, light manufacturing, electronics, tourism, financial services and a vibrant public sector which provides sustainable jobs.

“We have a resilient economic system and reserves of one of the most important things for an independent estate: power, power through the assets of oil and also through the potential of wind energy. In this, Scotland is disproportionately endowed compared to almost all other European countries.”

Devine, who is from a working-class family of Irish immigrants, is fiercely proud of his ethnicity. It is a theme that informs much of his research and figures prominently in his writing. He believes the emancipation of the Catholic Irish in Scotland has also contributed greatly to a more robust economic model. He is scathing about the views espoused by George Galloway and some others that Catholics in Scotland would become more vulnerable in a smaller country. “This is nonsense. George, as usual, is talking rhetoric. None of those assertions is based on any academic understanding or knowledge.”

He also cites the enhanced reputation of Scottish higher education and research, with four Scottish universities among the world’s top 200. “We get 16% of the UK’s competitive funding despite having only 10% of its population. If we can apply this research to industry and the economy, Scotland will have a head start in the future which will all be about brain-intensive industry. That adds to the potential resilience of the economy.”

He now says “devo-max” would merely prolong a running sore. “If more powers are granted, many English people will be unhappy; they’re already unhappy about the Barnett formula. Only through sovereignty can we develop a truly amicable and equal relationship with our great southern neighbour.”

Devine believes the union served an important purpose and has now simply run its course. He believed it united citizens on either side of the border from the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 until the dawn of Thatcherism and that the cornerstone of the union and its main pillars have either crumbled or become rotten.

He cited the loss of empire and the dilution of Protestantism as a unionist ideology and the primacy of European markets over English and imperial ones. The loss of 12 Scottish regiments since 1957 had loosened military ties,” he said.

“There’s also the weakening influence of the monarch and the absence of an external and potentially hostile force which once would have induced internal collective solidarity, such as fascism and the Soviet empire.

“When you put all of these together, there’s very little left in the union except sentiment, history and family.”

(Click here for the original >>> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/17/scottish-independence-tom-devine-yes-vote-referendum-alex-salmond)

My verdict on Andrew Neil’s "What’s at stake for the UK"

My verdict on Andrew Neil’s “What’s at stake for the UK”

Mainly a good effort and worth watching but Neil avoided the constitutional law consequence of Scottish Independence on the dissolution of the UK. He also failed to interview ANY English nationalists.

Mr Neil fully confirmed that the only argument that Unionists appear to have for maintaining the Union is to enable our leaders to strut their stuff on the “World Stage” and to”Punch above our weight” there!

This is thin stuff indeed to justify maintaining such a hubristic pantomine of Great Power status as the UK which, since the end of the era great power politics, has been a persistent drag on the English Nation.

The United Kingdom State is expensive, incompetently authoritarian and vain-gloriously addicted to its great power status whilst draining the wealth of England with its vanity projects, its international interventionalism and its failure to focus on the best interests of the English Nation.

Here is a link to the BBC2 programme:- BBC iPlayer – Scotland Votes: What’s at Stake for the UK?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04dr69k/scotland-votes-whats-at-stake-for-the-uk

Below there is an article by the highly respected and fair-minded Scottish Journalist, Iain MacWhirter, which is also worth reading:-

Time to stop opprobrium that is heaped on Scotland

Thursday 14 August 2014

Iain Macwhirter 

‘Never go below the line’, friends tell me.

They mean don’t look at the comment sections on UK newspapers if you want to retain your sanity. But you would think the liberal Guardian would be an exception. After all, it is the organ of the thinking classes and supports constitutional reform and self determination for all nations.

Not this week it hasn’t. There has an been an air of jeering triumphalism as the Yes campaign appeared to founder on the rocks of opinion polls.

“Salmond and Sturgeon are just mouthy, groggy pub drunks who think they can make a point into fact by screaming it the loudest…” was one typical comment under a report on Mr Salmond’s continued insistence on currency union. Others celebrated “the demise of the Yes campaign [which] is setting up to be a must-watch bonfire of some preposterous vanities”. “Can we delay the referendum for a year and watch Salmond’s mental breakdown play out in glorious tartan Technicolor” said another.

The personalisation of the campaign, as if independence was just about Mr Salmond’s personal vanity, is typical of much conventional journalism. But what is jarring is the widespread assumption, even, it appears among many Guardian readers, that Scotland has been living of English taxpayers money and finally been found out.

“The sound of bleating and mewling was so loud coming from your end that we paid out just to shut you up …” said one correspondent demanding an end to Scottish subsidies. “They could always form their own Dollarisation Union with Panama and Zimbabwe”, said another. “Scotland soon to be known as ‘Greece of the North’.”

Well, everyone’s entitled to their views and these are moderate compared to the vituperative ejaculations in the English red top press’s comment section. (Just don’t go there.) And we had better get used to it as I suspect it is going to become worse as we get closer to the referendum. The mood in Westminster is changing from one of anxiety that Scotland might actually mean it, as when the polls began to narrow in the early spring, to a confidence that Scots have bottled the referendum.

This is being followed by a sense of indignation that the UK has been put through this whole business in the first place.

That certainly is Nigel Farage’s take on things. He inevitably featured prominently in Andrew Neil’s documentary Scotland Votes on BBC2 the other night. “We see this man Salmond, on the telly”, said the Ukip leader, “his supporters are rude about us, they don’t like us, they don’t support our football team … ” Along with other interviewees in the programme he said there would have to be a reckoning after a No vote, not just on the West Lothian Question but on finances. No love-bombing here.

I have considerable respect for Andrew Neil as a broadcaster, and have no complaints about his documentary, despite his long hostility to devolution, independence and the Scottish chattering classes. Just a pity the BBC in London would never let a non-party political Yes supporter of comparable broadcasting clout like, say, Lesley Riddoch, loose on this subject. It would make riveting television for a start. But I digress.

Scotland Votes was very much an establishment view of the dangers of Scottish independence for the UK. It avoided currency and economics and stressed Britain’s diminished footprint in the world if Scotland left, ejecting Trident; rather as if Scotland’s only real contribution to the UK has been as a repository for weapons of mass destruction. Neil’s thesis is that Britain is yet to wake up to the implications of losing a third of its landmass, five million citizens and all its nuclear weapons. It would no longer be a “great nation – a significant figure on the world stage”.

But many of his interviewees – Tory and otherwise – clearly did not take the threat of independence very seriously. They were more concerned with what Neil called the coming “constitutional revolution” if and when Scotland votes No. Now, optimists believe this will involve greater powers for Holyrood, some form of democratic decentralisation to the English regions and even full scale federalism. And I hope they are right – I really do.

However, the first issue on Westminster’s mind is clearly not federalism but curbing Scotland’s over-representation in Westminster and our alleged feather-bedding through the Barnett Formula. A succession of voices this week has been spelling this out.

The former Tory leadership candidate, John Redwood, in his McWhirter Lecture (no relation) to the Freedom Association called this week for an English parliament within Westminster with Scots excluded. Another former Tory leadership challenger, David Davis, said Scottish over-representation was untenable. There will have to be either a reduction in Scottish MPs or – more likely – a move to exclude them from votes on exclusively English issues.

I must say I find it hard to disagree with this on democratic grounds – though this “in-and-out” solution, as it was called in the days of Gladstone and Irish Home Rule, is not as easy as it looks. It is often difficult to define what is an exclusively “English” Bill even on devolved issues. “English” measures, like the various higher education Bills under Labour, often have implications north of the border, and involve Scottish taxpayers’ money.

This is why we need a proper written constitution, federal parliaments and a new upper house or Senate in Westminster based on regional representation. But don’t hold your breath.

As always, Boris Johnson has spoken the mind of most of his Tory colleagues. “Alex Salmond has been thrashed in these debates” he said this week. “But for some reason we are promising the Scots more tax raising powers. There’s no need. What has England ever got out of this devolution process?”

As mayor of London, Mr Johnson should know that a colossal amount of public spending has been poured into London infrastructure – more than all the other regions of Britain combined according to the Institute For Public Policy Research. But he has long argued Scotland gets more than its fair share of public spending.

He is clearly after the Ukip vote, both on Europe and Scotland. As he edges closer to the centre of the Tory party power, Bullingdon Man will have a big say in the post-referendum world is ordered. He will be leading the non-conciliation party, which includes MPs of all political denominations, in seeking to cut Scotland’s cloth after a No. And he may strike a popular chord with English voters who think Scotland, its independence bluff called, should be appeased no more.

The historian Patrick Hennessey told Neil that many English voters think negatively. “Scots have done nothing but whinge for a generations, you can hear them say, all we hear is a constant drizzle of complaint.” The solution is for Scotland to have proper fiscal and economic autonomy and, as I say, there are optimists who keep telling me this is definitely on the cards. I really don’t see it short of a Yes vote in the referendum. But in or out of the Union, the drizzle will have to stop.

(Here is a link to the original >>>
Time to stop opprobrium that is heaped on Scotland | Herald Scotland
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/time-to-stop-opprobrium-that-is-heaped-on-scotland.25023400)

English excluded from the debate and from even watching it – Alex Salmond v Alistair Darling Scottish Independence Debate

English excluded from the debate and from even watching it – Alex Salmond v Alistair Darling Scottish Independence Debate


Yesterday I issued this Press Release. What do you think?

Tonight in Glasgow is the televised debate between Alex Salmond v Alistair Darling on Scottish Independence, yet (we) in England will not be able to watch the debate as it is only being shown in Scotland.

This is an affront to democracy as the English will not be able to make their own decision on who wins the independence TV debate. Instead we will have to listen to news coverage telling us what the results are by the “British” media.

Who could forget that after the Nick Clegg v Nigel Farage TV debate the British media immediately claimed that Nick Clegg had won, when it turned out that the UK public overwhelmingly thought that Nigel Farage had comprehensively won the debate?

Scottish Independence will impact on all the nations and on all the peoples living within the UK as it will mean the legal dissolution of the UK.

E + S = GB therefore GB – S = E

Where E = “Kingdom of England”
S = “Kingdom of Scotland”

GB = “United Kingdom of Great Britain”

Exclusion from democratic debate is worrying but it is worse than that, as not only have English, Welsh and Northern Irish voices been excluded from this debate, we have now been excluded from being even allowed to watch the debate as well.

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats said:- “England’s Unionist Masters don’t want England to have a voice on Independence and don’t want us to see what offers of special deals they are making at our expense to keep Scotland at least in appearance within the UK regardless of how much that costs English taxpayers and how much it is against the interests of the English Nation!”

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman,
The English Democrats