I am so old I can still remember when the English referred to themselves collectively as the British. Is it just whimsy or fashion that causes our partners in the 1707 Union of Great Britain to refer to themselves as ‘The Rest of the United Kingdom’?
If you have never lived amongst them you could argue that they are trying to make the empire loyalist community of Northern Ireland feel valued and respected. A more plausible explanation for me is that they are claiming ownership of a source of money which they call the ‘United Kingdom Continental Shelf’. The Scots should take an interest in this particular source of money; it includes all the oilfields off our coast.
The United Kingdom Continental Shelf is physically attached to the continent of Europe. However it is not in the European Union. Within the convoluted morality of imperialism, a future six-county-statelet version of ‘Scotland’ could be ‘granted’ a fraudulent independence that left our oilfields, the northern isles and sundry military bases as directly-ruled colonies of United Kingdomland of London.
It may be that before we can return to the light and exercise the sovereignty which was not relinquished in 1707, we must explore, as a nation, the darkest and dirtiest corners of the constitutional cul-de-sac. I understand that the Irish have had a long and difficult struggle. John Chilembwe in Malawi and Marcus Garvey in Jamaica both witnessed the greed and hypocrisy of the London Empire; Stokely Carmichael called it the ‘Brutish Empire’[1].
The evidence for perfidious diplomacy is consistent from Daniel Defoe to Denis Thatcher and the 1975 bankrupting of Burmah Oil Company (of Edinburgh). With their overwhelming control of the various communication medias it is their choice of language that will stifle any debate. It is in their choice of language that we gain clues to the likely course of their defence of United Kingdomland’s most profitable colony.
In 1707 the non-sovereign Parliament of Scotland joined Great Britain. The flag of the 1707 Union did not have the red diagonals which represent an English claim on Ireland. Presumably the Holyrood Parliament would formally claim to be a successor-body to the previous Scottish Parliament, prior to making constitutional/bureaucratic changes with regard to the 1707 Union; the union which created Great Britain.
The size of the oilfields in the Atlantic to the west of the Shetland Islands is consistently underplayed by London. Serious money is currently being spent to put in pipelines to exploit these deposits of oil and gas. Serious money has already been spent (by Norway) in developing and building the floating production facilities necessary to exploit these hydrocarbon deposits beyond the Scottish 12-mile-limit. The evidence I see in Aberdeen Harbour of old boats chasing little work suggests, to me, that Aberdeen is not part of United Kingdomland’s plan for west of Shetland. The only practical alternative would be to service these oilfields through Stavanger and Lerwick.
The position of the Liberal Party in the northern isles gives United Kingdomland of London much political leverage in ‘securing’ (stealing) the petro-dollars that will reward the big-bone-us class of Empire Builders.
It is a shame that the people of Scotland’s Central
Belt are so obcessed with their Glasgow/Edinburgh bigotry. The Hutus and Tutsis
could not see the broader picture as their eyes were drawn to the bullfighter’s
cape of imperialism.
Only a Swiss or Dutch (or Scottish) model of
de-centralisation can hope to make Scotland attractive to the northern isles.
It is only through the northern isles that Scotland can build the close
relationship with Norway that would be necessary for stability in the North Atlantic.
Shetland will certainly survive without Scotland. An independent Scotland
cannot survive without Shetland; a Shetland that wants to be a part of our
country.
Bibliography
Kurlansky, Mark; Nonviolence:twenty-five lessons from
the history of a dangerous idea; 2006; Random House, New York
[1] Kurlansky 2006; attributed to Stokely Carmichael; p. 169
