We'll be Back

Barriers in the Sea

I find it strange that the media are discussing the idea of a customs barrier in the Irish Sea as though it was something new and completely unprecedented. Our partner in the 1707 Union, the Parliament of England, has operated a customs barrier in the North Sea and the North Atlantic for many years. I am referring to the customs barrier that separates Scotland from an area known as the United Kingdom Continental Shelf.

Every worker or piece of equipment that makes the journey from Scotland to an oilfield installation off our coast, crosses this customs barrier at the 12-mile-limit. Workers carry passports and equipment clears customs as it leaves (or enters) Scotland.

Our partner in union traded away the “expendable” fishing grounds but they are keen to retain control over the oilfields. Their misuse of the term ‘United Kingdom’ has become so routine that it is perceived as being an ancient usage. Yet it has only become fashionable in the past half-century. The name of the 1707 Union as a federal state was and is Great Britain. It is a state composed of two nations and the Duchy of Cornwall. Wales was incorporated into England by military conquest a long time ago.

England’s attempts to subdue and incorporate the entire island of Ireland (Lesser Britain to geographers) have proved to be a deferred success. These imperial adventures gave rise to the 1801 Union and the name of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This was abbreviated to ‘Great Britain’ or ‘Britain’ until the 1970s. The 1801 Union was a fraud entered into by the ‘Parliament of England’ and a colonial ‘Parliament of Ireland’. The treaty is drafted so as to be in clear breach of the 1707 Union which constituted a single Parliament of Great Britain.

The 1707 Union Flag

If we are to proceed towards a meaningful and stable independence we will need to know who we are negotiating with. We will need to know who the competent parties to the negotiations are. We must try to set out our stall so as to make the terms and conditions that end the 1707 Union difficult for our former partner to wilfully ignore or imaginatively misrepresent.

If we stick to the two equal states model of the 1707 Union things will be complex enough. If we admit any little Englander fantasies such as the ‘Rest of the United Kingdom’ we could open the door to a Welsh solution. The Old English word ‘wales’ means ‘foreigner’. If Scotland shoulders an equitable and agreed proportion of the debts of Great Britain we would be taking a first shaky step towards a more dignified and adult future.

If Scotland takes on a fair share of Great Britain’s debts and liabilities we underline our moral and legal claim on the assets and equity of Great Britain. This seems to me to be essential if we truly aspire to take on the tricky business of recovering from the Darien Disaster. By claiming stewardship of the Parthenon Stones, The Malvinas, Gibraltar and Albania’s gold we would announce to the world that we are serious.

The European Union Flag in October 2019

It is to be hoped that the continuing state of England would see the wisdom in returning to us the Book of Deer, the Burghead Bull and the Cutty Sark. However that would be up to them. If they really wanted to make a pacific gesture there are Berwick and Cumberland to consider. They might offer to take the old nuclear submarines away from Rosyth; but I’m not holding my breath about that.

Another approach to our resumption of all the outward trappings of sovereignty would be to start at the top. If we revoked the 1603 Union of the Crowns the constitutional muddy water becomes much clearer. We could then lay claim to the Koh-i-Noor diamonds. The fake coronation stone would, of course, be returned to us under a treaty obligation from auld lang syne. If our former partner was being level-headed and well-intentioned they might also return the Bishop’s Chair that was stolen from Scone Palace. But I’m not holding my breath about that.

Re-constructing our Identity

We cannot with any certainty claim to be Europe's oldest nation. Yet we have as good a claim as the Welsh or the Irish. Perhaps the Basques or the Same were here first; it was a long time ago. We can take a collective pride in being one of the two European countries that have never indulged in pogroms aimed at the Hebrew community.

More recently we have tended to take an anti-Zionist stance. The Palestinian nation have struck a chord with us in their long exposure to the brutality of the Zio-nazis. It is regrettable that our current state of constitutional castration reduces our sympathy to the meaningless gesture level. Our meek acceptance of what has degenerated into colonial rule has silenced our voice in the wider world.

It is easy to moan about it; but more uplifting to consider what might be done to re-assert the value of what we have learned in our long history. Civilisation in Northern Europe has left some enduring monuments on the Orkney Islands. The building of the Brodgar/Stenness spiritual landscape was a prototype for the spiritual landscape that was subsequently created in the south-west of Great Britain. The Battle of Moytura records that: "The Artistic People (Tuatha de Danann) were in the northern islands ..."

The written records that have survived from auld lang syne have a distinctive style and they are firmly based on a tradition of highly educated poets. They are open to a variety of interpretations. If we are to gain confidence in our own abilities it is our own interpretations of the sources that are important.

The Kingdome of Scotland 1662, John Speed

© Crown Copyright 1982

In an Irish epic of uncertain date, the Hound of Cooley (Cú Chulainn) is sent as a young man to Scotland to learn the use of arms from a woman. The story very clearly identifies the exact castle in Scotland to which the hero eventually gains entry. There is hard factual information in these old tales, if you have the ability to tease it out.

Abbot Linton's literary masterpiece was the prototype for the American Declaration of Independence; we have come to call it The Declaration of Arbroath. You can see some of the good Abbot's flowery language as mere window-dressing. He was certainly not the only Celtic Holy-Willie to use flattery in addressing the Bishop of Rome. That this approach was effective stresses the banality and worldliness of God's self-appointed Number-One Bag Carrier.

The good Abbot's history of the Scots might seem like a nonsense tale. Yet it has a clear, hard-edged content. Abbot Linton associates our nation with a historical period before the creation of the Roman Church (294 CE). He clearly gives our christianity a direct link to St. Andrew that is independent of Roman distortions.

Can any of this ancient history help us to see a way to approach our current dilemmas with optimism? One alternative to fixing and overhauling our cultural inheritance could be to start again from scratch. That would invite internal division which would be ruthlessly exploited by the fearties. Leaving out the fearty desire to submit to "chains and slaverie!", you have to look at rebuilding the "auld sang" on the foundations of what went before.

We are looking to take our place in the North Atlantic and build the friendships and alliances that will enhance the peace and security of the region. We have clear cultural and historical ties with Ireland and Norway. We also share mutual interests with Iceland and Denmark.

To police our own long coastline we will need to generate the economic surplus to finance two flotillas of inshore submarines. One for the east coast and one for the west coast. This implies the need for training our navy in a challenging environment. The Norwegian Navy are the best in this inherently dangerous business. We would have to offer Norway something of substance to seal a deal. That it could lead to co-operation in maritime reconnaissance and deep-water boats would be to our mutual benefit.

Norway's influence and economic success were enhanced by their oilfield wealth. Yet they were a very poor colony of Sweden until 1905. Their current success is linked to Peer Gynt but also to a written constitution that has served them well. A translation of the Norwegian Constitution into Scots would be a worthy project for those with the skills.

The rest of us can consider updating and overhauling the Declaration of 1320. Which finally brings me to my point: it will soon be the 700th anniversary year for Abbot Linton's letter. How best to celebrate that written statement of our collective identity?

For my bawbee's worth I would humbly submit that a revised Declaration should preclude any outside employment by the Monarch. We should make it clear that in future we shall require the Monarch of Scots to accept their post as a full-time job and to relinquish all other employment.

Bibliography
Blamires, Steve; The Irish Celtic Magical Tradition; Harper Collins, London; 1992

References
Burns, Robert; Scots Wha Hae;
Seafield, the Earl of;

Fattie & The Bairn; What will we learn from past mistakes?

In 1976 Alex Harvey sang about The Boston Tea Party. There was a clear reference to our constitutional aspirations. The 7:84 Theatre Company were looking at our history from our own perspective. Jack Bruce, the creative talent in Cream, was back hame in his ain countrie. There was an air of expectation. To be of lasting value the arts must reflect experience and challenge the silent majority.

In the grubby world of politics Willie Wolfe and Gordon Wilson were given a rough ride by the alien press; as you would expect. They seem to have been genuine leaders of an independence movement that was expected by many to achieve much.

In Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari the great travel writer quotes an imperial auxiliary called Uncle V.S.: “Empires do not lie they simply elide”, or words to that effect. It was during the sixties and seventies that the Brenglish Empire elided our oilfields out of the territorial and constitutional jurisdiction that we call Scotland. This loss of sovereignty does not feature in the stunted and deformed discourse that is tolerated by our imperial masters.

When artistic endeavour is over-shadowed by imperial brutality the stories cannot be told in an easily accessible format. Many critics have compared the stories of The New Testament with the stories in Josephus’ The Jewish War. They are accounts of the same historical period, the same places, the same people. The accounts were written in a totalitarian world that had no tolerance for dissent. They are great literature but the intersection of The New Testament and The Jewish War is an empty set. The two accounts seem, on the face of it, to have beamed down from different star-ships.

If any keen young historians wish to test my hypothesis on imperial censorship, they might care to research a third commentator on the same period. Tacitus wrote an account of a ‘Swordsman’ who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a ‘Farmer’. The characters are better known as Calgacus and Agricola. To a totalitarian creed of a master-race it is inadmissible that a farmer should defeat a swordsman. They were clearly of different social classes. Even if it did happen, a responsible writer would elide the names so as to restore order and discipline to the world.

Just suppose, o ye historians of this poor little colony, that Tacitus was writing an allegory, in a way that would be understood by his contemporaries but would not be rewarded by a trip to the lion’s den. Just suppose that the events in Agricola took place on the eastern, and not the western, edge of the empire. Just consider that there are clear hints of the Emperor Vespasian, the hero of Josephus, in Tacitus’ Agricola. Can the battlefield for Mons Graupius be located by reference to The Jewish War?

I can think of only two men of the twentieth century who may have had something of the prophet in them. I mean no disrespect to The Last Messenger, may God grant him peace. One of the voices of the twentieth century whose honour has increased with hindsight is Marcus Garvey. Garvey famously said: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

What should these words mean to the Scots? Our history begins with the great stone monuments of Orkney. Yet the strange anomaly of Mons Graupius, a battle without a battlefield, is used by our enemies to skew the whole historical perspective. If you question Tacitus you might go on to question Bede. We should be trying to match the written sources to the archaeological record. Our overseers will continue, for as long as we permit them, to tell us of defeat, dependence and devolunion.

The other great voice of the twentieth century said: “The Revolution winnae faa intil yer haan like a ripe aipull. Yi mun mak it haapen!” Though to be fair to Che Guevara he said it in Spanish. Che’s revolutionary adventures were a bit of a catalogue of well-intentioned fiascos. The exception was Fidel and Raul Castro’s well-publicised and well-financed Cuban Revolution.

© quotefancy

The importance of Che Guevara’s example for us is his clarity of vision. Despite his privileged background he won the internal struggle within his own mind before moving on to influence others. Che took the personal responsibility for plucking his own apple from the tree of knowledge. “Nothing on airth enduris bot fame”, as they say in Inverurie.

In 1707 we retained control of all the important powers, levers and structures of a nation-state. The Kirk included social security, popular entertainment and much more. Our legal system included enforcement of law and the collection of taxes. The Scottish Exchequer exists in constitutional law, though it was illegally elided out of the deal by the Brenglish on both sides of the border. The education system in 1707 even had a couple of its own M.P.s. It regulated professions and put knowledge to work to defend our customs and ideals.

By contrast the smoke and the mirrors of devolunion are supported by all the imperialists, from raging to closet; the imperialists who suck the soul from our nation. When Norway voted for independence from the Swedish Empire it was a very poor country. What it had was a belief in itself and a clear vision of what constitutes a self-reliant community. There was no half-baked scheme to entrust their gold reserves to the Swedes. There was no time-share monarch, to be the servant of two masters. The Norwegians voted for a known constitution and then put in the hard work and sacrifice that builds a nation.

When the history of our times is considered by a generation as yet unborn they may well puzzle over Brexit. The sudden out-pouring of well-financed and carefully-polished lies must surely have had some purpose? Might it have been that the imperialists feared that bad-european-regulations widnae thole the protestant succession? The European courts would have been unlikely to rubber-stamp the blatant anti-Catholicism at the heart of the Brenglish monarchy. Have they sacrificed the economic security of the many over the aristocratic obsession with a family of their choice being closer to God than the rest of us? These ideas have no place in the constitution of Europe’s oldest nation-state. Just read the written exert from our oral constitution that is entitled: The Declaration of Arbroath.

Our opportunity to start a new verse of an auld sang canna be far awa. “Bigg thy hoose upon a rock.” We need to advertise our nation’s requirement for a monarch; a King, Quine or other gender of Scots.

“Even a great nation may fall, but only a contemptible one can be destroyed”; Staniswuf Stushits.

Bibliography

Josephus; The Jewish War; 1981; Penguin, London.

Linton, Abbot; The Declaration of Arbroath; 1320; Arbroath.

Sax, Jamie (ed); The Holy Bible; 160-;

Tacitus; Agricola;

Theroux, Paul; Dark Star Safari;

Zamoyski, Adam; Poland, a history;

Fattie-Fattie's Legacy

The 6th of December 2021 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Irish Free State. What will we do to commemorate this constitutionally important moment in history?
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 Irish Free State flag (London version)

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

Numpty Trumpty

Numpty Trumpty talked a good wall.
Numpty Trumpty lied to us all.
All the kiss-asses and all the deep-south,
Couldn't get Numpty to shut-up his mouth.

Your President Needs all the help he can get

President Trump is like a child. President Trump wants to build a big wall. when President Trump can't get his own way he starts to fiddle with the big-red-button.
You can help to make the world a better place. Take positive action! Just place one Lego™ brick in an envelope and mail it to:
President Trump
The White House
Washington D.C.
U.S. of A.
All Lego™ bricks are created equal but President Trump likes the white ones best.

With thanks to Pinterest

The Summer of Love seen from afar

The summer of 1967 was also-known-as the Summer of Love. I was at school in the deep sooth; a school that helped shape a few notable individuals. Daniel Kohn-Bendit, also-known-as Danny the Red, had attended briefly around 1964. His moment of youthful activism produced memorable photographs in the Paris Match of June 1968. I remember studying them in the library.

An iconic image from long ago and far away.

Another pupil was incensed by the closure of the pirate radio stations. In September 1967 they persuaded me to make my first political protest; I signed a petition which was duly ignored by the powers-that-be. I did not know then that this young person would go on to spend much of their life in jail. It takes all sorts to make a world.
On a return to the school some years ago I was told that another old-scholar had changed their name. This was, according to the story, to evade the consequences of being involved in one of the small groups that occasionally became news stories in the seventies.
The Jimi Hendrix years began in October 1966 in Evreux, France. They ended with his tragic death in September 1970. Many young people believe that those four years were 'The Sixties'. But the sixties was longer and it had its share of tragic deaths. I don't know if it was grief at the tragedies or disappointment as youthful dreams turned to ash in my mouth but I blame the sixties for all my wrinkles and the uneasy feeling that a better world was possible.
Fifty years ago, in September 1967, Che Guevara was in Bolivia; fighting for his vision of human dignity. "One, two, three ... Lots of Vietnams!".
What went wrong?

An MZ motorcycle smells the flowers, Port Elphinstone, Scotland, August 2017.

Louis Mair