From now until the referendum, I shall give ten per cent of my income to the campaign for Scottish Independence. My income is both meagre and unreliable, and I can’t really afford it, but people have died for freedom willingly, and this is a much smaller sacrifice by comparison.
I urge all my fellow Scots to do the same. The media is viciously anti-independence and the massive resources of the British establishment are going to be concentrated fully against us. This is our first chance for national self-determination since 1707, and if we are not to be “Bought and sold for English gold” again, we need to raise some of our own.
I’d be happy to contribute, Craig. Just tell me how. But come independence what future will we exiles have in England?
@ Mr Craig Murray,
No need to be rude. Cameron is a zionist shill and the EU is a Corporate banker created entity, They put on political pantomimes to fool people into thinking that a debate is taking place.
Do you live in Scotland?
In response to the individuals who think Scotland should stay in the UK as a political counterweight to the Tories in England – dream on.
The reason democracy is imperilled in England is because of that deluded, rotten, corrupt, so called sham of a parliament that is Westminster. Fix that (or preferably blow it up) and you should be ok.
You might think you need us but brother we do not want Westminster or even a reformed UK making decisions for us Scots for any reason and longer. 300 years – was far too long. The union experiment is a dismal, miserable failure.
I wish luck to Scotts, but I don’t think they will be allowed to throw shoe on Zionist Establishment. In the eyes of Israel Lobby – Most Scotts are a bunch of anti-Semites. They support Iranians will of independence and join the Boycott Israel movement.
According to Israel daily, Ha’aretz (June 12, 2011) – the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (FJMC) – a partnership of 250 Jewish men’s clubs with more than 25,000 members in the US and Canada – has joined with many Synagogues in Israel, US and Canada to boycott Kiddush-favorite whisky brewed in West Dunbartonshire Council in Scotland.
The British Jewish Chronicle, the mouthpiece of the British Friends of Israel has equated the Dunbartonshire Council with Islamic Iran and Saudi Arabia (though the later is a close ally of US and Israel).
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/judea-declares-war-on-scottish-whisky/
Hope you succeed, you would hearten us Yanks. Disintegration looks to be the only hope for the saner enclaves of America. Otherwise it’s INGSOC in Oceania for all of us.
Many of the posters on here are evidently clueless re the proposals for independence.
So why independence? It’s all about decision-making! We want self-determination; the opportunity to make all decisions in Edinburgh, particularly foreign policy decisions. The mind-set of the London establishment, both Tory and Labour, does not serve the interests of Scotland.
What currency? Until the independent Scottish parliament debates the matter, we will retain the pound. This was done by many countries prior to breaking from London control. It will be a temporary measure and is not unusual. We may choose the Euro or we may create our own currency, which, incidentally, will be stronger than the British pound. The Euro is in crisis, but so is the pound. All through their problems, Ireland, in the Euro, and Iceland, not in the EU, both managed to sustain stronger GDPs than the UK. Iceland is on the mend, and Ireland is getting there too. The UK is not. Westminster arrogance is breathtaking and ill-informed.
Retaining the pound in the short term does not compromise the principle of self-determination; where we make the decisions, not a government in a foreign capital city. Open your eyes and ears, folks, and do some growing up. It must be sore on your knees so much of the time.
Personally, I’d rather create our own currency and stay out of the EU, but at least we will have the opportunity to decide in a referendum when we leave the Union. Many nationalists take this view.
Finance generally? Yes, the bankers rule the world, but that doesn’t mean that we should continue to surrender the political decision making to London.
If most of the doubters get their information from the mainstream media, which is universally hostile to independence, then I suggest you look elsewhere for the facts. The Unionist inspired mythology is becoming hilarious.
And Craig; saw you speaking at the SIC at the Piping Centre last year. Good stuff!
@mike
Oh dear, I know we usually cross swords on this. Or claymore and sabre.
.
Look a little further down the posts at Mark’s comment: “a divided Britain falls”. Mark is offering this as an argument against Scottish separation. I believe – and more than suspect that Craig agrees – that the ending of Britain™ ought to any thinking Englishman to be a major justification for Scottish separation. We all want to bring down the Dark Lord: perhaps the hyperborean hobbits have figured out the first step, even if you can’t approve all of their motivations. Of course dismantling Ukania won’t instantly solve England’s problems with its ruling zillionaire junta, but it’s a bit like the despairing engineer’s blow on the side of the cylinder block with a large hammer – it’s fucking going to change something, and it can’t be for the worse.
.
I’m embarrassed by your argument (and Michael’s), a common one, that Scottish voters save the English from visiting some terrible indecency upon themselves. It isn’t true – what a despondent assessment of your countrymen, and how distant from my own experience of them. I’ve posted on other sites (and maybe here – don’t remember) long, dull lists of data showing that Scottish votes don’t affect British outcomes. You need the Scots to protect you from yourselves? Oh, puullleeese. And even if it were true it wouldn’t be an argument against separation. Join us in leaving you Mike.
Anyone for the Royal Bank of Scotland?
Dear Craig, the fact of independence is the least of Scotch peoples’ worries. Look what happened in America and Ireland, the king was ousted and little kings were installed, the better to run English protectorates. You’d be better off exposing the Snats’ dealings with constitutional paragons like the bandits of Stagecoach than extolling independence.
Well done.
Since losing our jobs we don’t have much but I too have started donating. It’s not much but i’m sure every penny counts.
Sorry Craig but my mind went straight to Mel Gibson and then to this (I’m sure you’ll love it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jWFq-v7TKdQ
Good on you Craig it has been long road and the end is in sight.
As to the dissenters crying poor me could get off their own backsides and do something about it like educating yourselves about your own country and who actually runs it. The following link was on telly the other night and those outside UK will have to search utube to see if it has been copied there.
2011 2012 Inside Job
The tax haven in the heart of Britain
Well done Craig there is still work to do but the arguments are being won day by day.
It will be nice not to be ruled by the unelected.
http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporation-city
and how corrupt our money markets are. (try utube if outside UK)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0183l0t
SNP are a bunch of currupt dogs. If independence is gained who will stop the favouritism? and corruption. The SNP have delayed the vote and seem confused what people would like to see. Do they want to remain in the EU? are they getting a choice, will there be a Scottish central bank, run by government and not private interests ala BOE. Will they deal with the corruption in scottish law? No they bloody won’t the Law Society of Scotland run the SNP, and Fatty Salmond loves to help out his mates, while such a bloated fellow has the cheek to lecture scots on the diets and drinking habits and punishing them for it. Don’t get me wrong I would love to see a fully separated Scotland, free from the EU and the english political witchhunts. An independant Scotland would be as corrupt as it was within the unholy union. T
I wish good luck to Scotland. There are a few states here in the U.S. that need to break the bonds from the corrupt government in Washington too.
DM : Strange, don’t you think, that the American states that mutter about breaking from the union, are generally also those which are net recipients of general funds?
Am disappointed that only Vronsky addressed the argument/debate aspect of my previous post. But even you, sage V, fail to realise that the embodiment of that counterargument is as important as the votes cast by its territorial representatives. Those other pro-separation commentators seem to hew to the sentiments in the first para of my previous post – ‘hey, its all about our self-determination. They’ll just have to (shrug) get on wi’ it.’
As for this from Daibhidh
“You and your coterie seem to be dead in the water (in the metaphorical sense, and soon to become literal in the global, diplomatic sense – embassies and “Ambos” have been prepping for years).
Whither shall thee and thine venture next upon the waves of imperial greed, wicked exploitation, and folly?”
To which coterie do you refer? And why do you imply that I am motivated towards undertakings of ‘greed, wicked exploitation, and folly’? I dont know you and you dont know me, but if you did you would understand that my motivations are quite the reverse of what you suggest. Before you attempt to malign someone, perhaps you should ascertain their actual standpoint on civilised issues.
Craig
I’m humbled.
I’m going to re-appraise how much I’m giving.
In an interview in Holyrood magazine Margaret Curran Labour MP said if a bus ran over Alex Salmond she wouldn’t be asking who the driver was.
………………………………………………………
Mr Salmond was discussing the Scottish government’s trade mission to China on BBC Radio Scotland when presenter Gary Robertson confronted him with claims from Labour party MSP Paul Martin.
Quoted in the Scotsman newspaper, Mr Martin had questioned the attendance of Alan MacAskill in a recent trade delegation to the oil rich gulf region. The Labour MSP had suggested that Mr MacAskill’s attendance was due to family connections.(Brother of Kenny MacAskill, Justice Minister)
Responding, the First Minister described the claims as “absolute and comprehensive rubbish” and “turgid nonsense” and explained that Mr MacAskill had attended due to his “world renowned” experience in the renewables industry.
……………………………………………………..
If you want to see how dirty politics in Scotland is check out Newsnight Scotland on the BBC iplayer or sky channel 990.
also check out http://newsnetscotland.com
Mike Cobley
You are a Tory. You stood as a Tory in the previous bad years, knowing what the Union had done to Scotland.
There is nothing you can ever see, no matter what, that can shake your faith in this Union, even though it is run for a cabal of Rich boys who would never, ever admit you to their inner circle.
If there is anything sadder than someone being nasty to their own in the hope that the bully won’t hit them, I gave yet to see it, and that is what ou are doing
Well, what dye know? – I have a fan! Yes, indeed, Erchie, m’man, I did stand as a Tory in 1984 in the Glasgow local elections, part of my less-than-2-year-long fling with the Tories. What can I say – I was young and unschooled in the way of the world and its greediest members. But I learned better, and my horizons expanded and my conceptual understanding of what it means to be a citizen likewise grew wider and deeper and, hopefully, more perceptive. So, aye, touche, ya got me.
.
Oh, except that since the mid-80s I never voted Tory again (you must ask me who I cast my first ever vote for back when I was 18!)
.
As for the very tedious gnawing on the bone of Unionism, I confess that I am interested in a union, namely that union of enlightened people no matter where they are from. People who know that problems are shared problems, and who are willing to join in that same fight, regardless of what side of a line on the map that they live on.
.
I certainly understand the nature of the Rich Posh Boys Club, but why you imagine that I would wish to be admitted to their malign circle is beyond me. And as for being nasty to their own – what in the name of the wee man are you talking about? Y’see, I guess I must be an internationalist of sorts, which in your eyes must make me hopelessly naive.
.
Slainte!
@Scot Abroad: The referendum electorate will be the Scottish Body Politic: all those who live & vote in Scotland, no matter where born.
@Angrysoba: The answer to the currency issue and all such “What will policy X be on Independence Day+1/100/1000” is “It’s for the Scottish People to decide”. That’s the point – we’re explicitly not binding the future Scottish People (wherefrom authority derives, per the Claim of Right, signed by all Scottish political parties with national representation bar the Tories) to any given course of action. While I have very strong preferences on which political direction we should take, I would accept as legitimate a different course of action deriving from the will of the Scottish populace.
So all such questions are entirely irrelevant to the national question: we’re electing a future for the nation, not a government for the next 5 years.
So who will be eligible for Scottish citizenship?
DLJ – Here is my Canadian two-cents on Tibet.
Mona Eltahawy writing for Israeli mouthpiece ‘The Huffington Post’ (July 12, 2009) said: “Pity the Uighurs – the wrong kind of minority, the wrong kind of Muslims, fighting the wrong kind of enemy……I thought if only the Uighurs were Buddhists like the Tibetans with whom the Uighurs shares almost mirror grievances against Beijing…..The Uighurs are not Buddhists but are Muslims and us Muslims don’t get much love these days. You’d not think the US would be paying a bit more attention to Uighurs after locking up four of their brethern at the prison camp at Guantanamo without charges for seven years. they were release earlier this year to Bermuda….. Perhaps Israel can save the day and invade Xinjiang….”
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/uighur-are-not-tibetan/
@MikeCobley
Not a fan sorry, tried reading a couple of your books, had to give up.
Internationalism is a good notion
Except you can’t equate internationalism with the Union, as events are showing.
Scotland is showing more capacity for Internationalism as a devolved nation than the UK does as a whole.
An independent Scotland could be so much more of a partner with other nations than the UK has any intention of being
According to the NIC whois, you appear to live in Barnsley. If so, you won’t have to suffer the consequences if the referendum is successful. Nor, indeed, do you have to suffer the consequences of Salmond’s current and previous administrations.
I, on the other hand, do and will. Keep your money in your pocket, please.
@Erchie; Good God; not Malawi again. As far as I can see, that’s the only country that Salmond’s been ‘international’ with. It wasn’t even a new contact; Jack MacConnell was there first.
It’s amazing how much I am suffering under Salmond’s administration
No prescription charges
Trying to tackle the evils of sectarianism & drink
Keeping Council tax down, trying to replace it with a airer system
Trying to stamp out corruption like the Labour Council’s ALEOs
Disgraceful I tell you!
I hope Scotland gets to be independent,pity they could not have done it before the British government pissed away all their oil wealth.
All these comments from various sources, some with some knowledge, some with obviously no knowledge of Scotlands politics. Or indeed some who are so blinkered they can’t see right or left! I have been involved in politics since I was 17 years old through the union movement. Never a member of a political party, but a socialist through and through.
I’m old enough to have lived through Thatcher and remember what she and her henchmen did to Scotland. I remember Tebbit stating ‘it does not matter how mmany people are unemployed, as long as the city recovers financially’. They are doing it again! Scotlands industry was ravished and will take many years to recover. We have gone from being a country of industry to a country that services industry elsewhere in the world. We have lost a full generation of Crafsmen and only in the past few years have govenments realised this. Not the fault of any Scots Government, but the fault of successive Westminster Governments. I’m away down the pecking order as far as academia is concerned and I’m not easily swayed by the London based media and their anti-independance stand and I can fight my corner in any discussion on independance. I think deep down many Labour activists feel the same as I do, its only their masters pulling the strings and their life long connection with the Labour movement that leads them astray. I’m a socialist and really hope I see Scots indendance in my lifetime.