The Scottish Government

494. Kev - Edinburgh

Hi Kev

At first I found your postings funny but I’m becoming tired of your refusal (inability?) to respond to my postings without resorting to name calling and fraudulently misrepresenting me.

Can I respectfully suggest we both refrain from commenting on each other’s posts in the future?

Having said that there is one question I have to ask you: are your postings based on genuine beliefs or are they ‘made up’, with the specific intention of making English people want rid of Scotland whilst people with your views live in it?

Cheers mate!

Mike

490.

Mike, I can now see were this is going and it leave's a bad taste in the mouth, the good people of NI will decide there own future and wither you like it or not a united Ireland may well be here in a few decades.


Your comments on Ireland and the Act of settlement show were your Loyalties lie, and belong in the dustbin of history.
As stated previously Scotland future lies within our own hands, and quite frankly your attitude/opinions do your cause no favours and indeed if you were in my country you would seem to pamper to the far right and bigot's that are Scotland's shame.

I would respectfully ask that if you wish to continue to comment on Scotland's future you keep your overt religious believes to yourself.
Or to look at it another way instead of treating the Act of Settlement as not "significant" perhaps if you sought to have it repealed/scrapped it would in fact help strengthen the very union your profess to love.

492. Dave Eastabrook,

I would urge you to distinguish between the leadership of the SNP and the party as a whole. As with most issues there are a range of views. Just because people don’t feel strongly enough to leave over policy toward the EU (in any serious numbers) don’t assume the issue is completely closed within the ranks. As I have previously stated: the leadership’s position is to retain the Queen as head of state whereas I am a republican. There is no necessity for me to leave, rather I prefer to stay and make the case for change.

Indeed, a friend of mine recently carried out a study in to the uniformity (or otherwise) of the SNP. Many of those he interviewed on the subject - including some who are now MSPs - opted for the option of not feeling terribly strongly either way. Some of them certainly chose that answer as they don’t want to oppose the leadership, should the results ever become public knowledge. Prof. James Mitchell and others are now carrying out a far more definitive survey of opinion within the SNP membership which I would think should be published in the not too distant future.

I personally favour EU membership. However, that would have to be membership very much on terms. For example were there to be further moves to strengthen the centre I would oppose membership. Clearly those Western European states that opt out (e.g. Norway and Switzerland) don’t suffer, but I feel there is still value in membership to retain a level of influence while the rules for trade etc ... are being set.

In a more puerile way, I would be totally opposed to membership of the EU while it had a "President Blair" as its titular head.

485. PMK
I'm one of those strange people that have read some European Directives, and the corresponding acts of parliament, which have to make allowance for our (Scotland's) separate legal system and parliament. The acts make provision for appropriate ministers of state to make exemptions where there is a social or economic need peculiar to the country. One exemption I'm aware of is the land conservation grant (crofters), if I've got that right.

A benefit for Scotland of being independent is that we would be better able to make our own acts that would correspond to any EU directive, but take into consideration our own needs, rather than as present, the overall needs of the UK, which are often different.

However, our parliament already has some powers of exemption and variance, and it would be interesting to know how many of these have been exercised by previous ministers of state for Scotland - and how many are planned or even considered by present ones!

As for the EU debate being better done after independence is gained I agree fully - however, as the party being the main focus for obtaining independence, I think it would behove the SNP to make very clear that membership and continued membership of the EU will still be open for debate after that independence is gained. And though I'm often against the EU as it presently affects me / us in Scotland, it's possible that with our own distinct and vociferous part in EU negotiations, and sympathetic implementation of national law as required by the EU directives I might become in favour of the EU, as I used to be before it went politically and egotistically beresk!

To be honest kev from Edinburgh, i wouldn't mind seeing the Republic of Ireland rejoin the UK under a federal umbrella, where a new sense of Britannia can be developed, one which encompasses the passion and nationalism of the nation (scotland) and that at the same time the Union.

when you say not letting another country have there union, a big part of Northern Ireland wants to stick in the UK, there democracy, they choose.

483. kev - Edinburgh

Re your posting above: “So your fine with your sense of "national identity" but you frown at other's!”

Kev: are you not doing the same re the Northern Ireland Unionists right to remain within the UK?

I don’t want to argue over semantics (or your habit of capitalising Scotland but not Britain) so if any future postings of mine refer to Britain please assume by that I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which IS a sovereign state.

Whilst on the subject of semantics, Kev, I must advise you that I don’t ‘claim’ to support the Union, I DO support it.

I have not responded to your point about the Act of Settlement & its disenfranchising nature as I don’t think it’s a significant point. Whether your interpretation is correct or wrong I don’t see it effects the debate.

As I’ve repeatedly said if you don’t feel British then vote SNP & take Scotland out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!

Regards

Mike

I was for over sixty years member and supporter of the labour party,however I am now convinced that it is now time for Scottish Independance. It would appear that wwhile we remain part of the UK, we will continue to fail to recognise that we live in a small offshore island, and cannot continue to attempt to policing the world. Instead of using what resources we have,squandering them on nucleur weapons and submarines, we could put such resources to building a better and more caring society

487 - Douglas,

Good post what a ridiculous idea, this clown get's paid a fortune and all he comes up with is a pseudo idea copied from America.
At least the Americans for all the problems embrace all Nationality's and Faiths ie one is an Italian, Catholic and an American.

That's not Ever going to happen in Britain, the teachers have already ridiculed the idea.
A british state were Scotland is a region, a flag despised by many and an English Queen who acts as a figurehead for bigot's and racist's a like, its pointless and undemocratic.

Mike King and other's how can you claim to support a union were the Act of Settlement dis-enfranchise's many of the population? and as I stated before and you've not yet answered, "So your fine with your sense of "national identity" but you frown at other's! "
Well>?

"Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat"! This tag is now often attributed to Enoch Powell, but he only quoted it from classical sources. Surely the latest suggestion from Gordon Brown, hiding, as usual, behind someone else, in this case, Lord Goldsmith, that all our school leavers should have to swear an oath of allegiance to the British state, the British flag, and the British monarch, as a "rite of passage" to adulthood and citizenship shows that the gods have, indeed, made them mad, and are driving them to destroy the union, and achieve that which they are most desperate to obstruct, the independence of Scotland.

Scotland should have it's independence and she will in time. In the past i voted Labour, which i'm now even ashamed to admit. I get exasperated by my own fellow Scots who fall fot the Unionist propoganda especially the freeloading Labour party who's politicians are more interested in feathering their own nest than to further Scotlands interest. They are just a total embarassment and i even have more respect for the scottish tories. As for England They would and should be our biggest ally, market and friends in the world community but as separate countries as is normal.