With a little more self-confidence we might embark on a programme to print a commemorative postage stamp. There would be little point in asking the Brenglish Imperial Post Office to sell them. We could of course order the Postal Service of Scotland to do so. If we had the self-confidence, leadership and constitutional savvy that goes with being a nation.
Some readers may wonder what the Irish Free State is and why it should matter to Scotland. The 26 counties (minus Sovereign Base Areas) of the Irish Free State together with the six (or 41/2), counties of northern Ireland are England's constitutional partner in the 1801 Union of Parliaments. This is the union that brought about the 1801 version of the Brenglish Imperial Flag. This is the union that London wishes to impose on Scotland.
The existence (or non-existence) of this particular union is important to Scotland. We cannot leave the 1801 union; simply because we never joined it. It is purely and constitutionally a union between the Parliament of Ireland and the Parliament of England. It's relationship to the Irish Free State is a precedent for us to learn from.
The Scottish Royal Family were involved in the 1603 Union of the Crowns. The Stuarts gave up a full-time (and relatively secure) job in favour of a time-share arrangement; which ended badly for them.
The Scottish Parliament in 1706 negotiated the union that created Great Britain; the 1707 union. As the Scottish Parliament was never sovereign, they could not have surrendered our sovereignty in so doing. It was under the name of Great Britain (and Northern Ireland) that the London Empire negotiated Scotland's entry into the (European) Common Market. That they are now negotiating to leave the European Union under another name might just be, "One of these things old boy".
The complexity of all these various unions has come about through the devious or perfidious nature of imperialism (a close cousin to totalitarianism). Under Salmondism the Scots put much energy, finance and faith into exploring just one of the constitutional cul-de-sacs of imperialism.
The importance of the Irish Free State to Scotland is partly in the constitutional precedents. It also gives us a real-world insight into the problems that lie before us. I cannot hope to educate you on these important legal niceties by myself. You have to want to learn.
The constitutional responsibility for teaching you rests with the empty-minded-banditti who draw wages from the Scottish Education Department. Fattie-Fattie's Niece can only get good press coverage if she continues to explore constitutional cul-de -sacs.
"Even a great nation may fall, but only a contemptible one can be destroyed."
Staniswuf Stushits
Bibliography
Coogan, Tim Pat; Micheal Collins; 1990; Random House, London.
Eccles, Clancy; Fattie Fattie; 1969; New Town Sound, Kingston, Ja.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRXMEhhH2GQ
