@ James Che
Thank you for your kind words. It is appreciated.
You say that you perceive the treaty of union as one of the biggest hoaxes played on Scotland due to how Westminster treats it as a joke.
I think it was not a hoax. I see it as a frontal attack and Scotland’s MPs refused to protect their country from such attack because they were far too preoccupied with their own financial gain and social status. This is exactly what we have seen for the last 10 years with the SNP. History indeed repeats itself.
We established in the past that while we agree on a lot of things, there are some minor aspects on which our opinions divert a little. I think the matter of the ToU might be one of those things.
Personally, I see the treaty of union as perfectly legitimate. But it is not something Scotland entered in voluntarily and it was most definitely instigated, if not forced, by the monarch through the control she was allowed to hold over Scotland’s parliament and aristocracy.
Those who effected the treaty and the frontal attack on Scotland it represented were the MPs and Peers sitting at Scotland’s parliament. They did so for their very own personal and political gain.
None of them were under any illusion that the people of Scotland wanted that treaty, yet, they abused their position of power to force it down the throats of the people of Scotland anyway. Just like they are doing today. How many of the so called “pro-independence” parties are talking about revoking the Treaty of Union and Act of Union with England? I hear none.
56 anti-union MPs was a mandate to end that darn treaty. Yet, those 56, then 35 and then 45 abused their power to continue preserving that treaty against the democratic will of the people of Scotland by keeping Scotland trapping in this toxic union.
Considering how many resources Scotland has, the blame for every single child and adult in Scotland below the poverty line lies on the lap of each and every single one of Scotland’s MPs and MSPs, as it is them who are ensuring the ransacking of Scotland’s assets continues at pace.
I do not believe it is “Westminster” who is playing the joke on us. It is our own MPs and MSPs who have been doing so, for their own personal gain, for the last 300 years.
The crown saw the treaty of union in 1706 as its way to ensure a supply of soldiers to England’s wars and also the way to secure control by the English monarch of the Scottish crown.
It is the treaty of union what has been securing the right of the Hanover line to Scotland’s crown since 1706. Because of this, I found rather hilarious those here who keep demanding that we stop looking at “old documents”! It is precisely that “ancient document” what entitles the current monarch to call themselves King, that not sovereign, of Scots. So I would happily say to them: “by all means, go ahead, ditch that old document that you have so much contempt for and ditch with it the right of the English crown to keep controlling Scotland’s”
The actual con here is that the English crown is empowering England’s part of the UK parliament to abuse, to oppress Scotland and to impose on it absolute rule. We see this with every single law, which is unfair to Scotland, that directly goes against the expressed democratic will of the people of Scotland, or that goes against the majority of the vote of Scotland’s MPs but is still passed as valid in that cesspit of Westminster, then rubber-stamped by the English monarch in what seems a direct breach of the Claim of Right and therefore the ToU, and then enacted by England’s government.
The monarch is not Scotland’s sovereign. We are. So who/what is empowering that monarch to continue rubber-stamping those abusive laws towards Scotland? That will be our own MPs and MSPs, who choose to swear allegiance to that monarch rather than to Scotland and to continue abiding by the Scotland Act, which parachutes an unelected representative of the crown to the middle of our executive cabinet so they can then proceed to hand control to the crown over Scotland’s legislative power thanks to a veto, given by that Scotland Act, over which legislation is debated in Scotland’s parliament chamber. That Scotland Act is empowering the English monarch to exercise absolute rule over Scotland and our MSPs are allowing that to happen.
It is therefore our own Scotland MPs and MSPs who are continuously legitimising the abuse and exploitation of Scotland as a colony.
The treaty is perfectly legal. What I do not think is legal is to use it as the excuse Westminster and the Crown have been using it as to treat Scotland as if it was another colony of the English crown. What I do no think is legal is to enable the continuous violation of the fundamental conditions of the treaty and then insist in looking the other way, like our MPs and MSPs have been doing, to avoid declaring the treaty void and null and risk losing their own privileges.
My problem with Alba’s strategy is that it is the exact same as the one pursued by the SNP. Both strategies hinge around treating Scotland as the subordinate of Westminster and as the property of the Kingdom of England for the sake of preserving the ToU and the privileges of the crown.
Both, Alba and SNP appear to refuse to treat Scotland for what it is: a sovereign state who entered a voluntary treaty of union and therefore can exit that treaty whenever it wants.
Both parties appear to refuse the recognition of the people of Scotland as the real sovereign of Scotland and instead choose to bow to the English monarch.
I found sickening watching the political fraud Sturgeon, as Scotland’s democratically elected FM and representing Scotland, bowing like a minion to the English monarch when it should be the other way round: England’s monarch bowing to Scotland’s sovereign: the people of Scotland.
I also found sickening YOusaf’s cowardice when, after claiming to be a republican, he almost lost his arse running to insult and humiliate the people of Scotland by sending the stone of destiny down south so the English king could sit his entitled arse on it.
For as long as Holyrood remains subordinated to Westminster and to the crown by means of the Scotland Act, anybody wanting to use that parliament to deliver independence will have to continue begging for consent. That consent will never be forthcoming, therefore this is a route that will not succeed.
We have been there, we have done that and it did not work. It is absurd we are pursuing the same again. It did not work not because Scotland did not vote yes, but because yes was not allowed to be seen as the winner, otherwise brexit and the continuous intervention of England’s warmongers in USa’s wars could not happen.
The exact same con trick will happen again if we go for the same route, so for goodness sake, let’s move on and let’s get out of this hamster wheel that is taking us nowhere no matter how fast we keep running.
I know we disagree on this point, James Che, but from all the history books I have read from when the time of the union was enacted and the decade after it, the belief was that the Scottish parliament was still represented by Scotland’s MPs and Peers. They believed they could reconvene the Scottish parliament at any time they wanted. If they did not do so was because they knew doing so would automatically invalidate the treaty and what was seen as worse for them, they would put at risk the right of the Hanoverian line to Scotland’s crown. This was a problem for them because most of those elected to “represent” Scotland in Westminster at the time were aristocrats which had an awful lot to gain financially and in terms of status and connections from being seen as in favour of the crown.
I believe the exact same remains true today. Scotland’s old parliament still lives in Scotland’s MPs, not Scotland’s MSPs for as long as they insist in keep subjugating Scotland to Westminster by abiding to the Scotland Act.
In my view, the only way the Scottish parliament can actually revoke the treaty of union, declare real independence or negotiate independence with the Kingdom of England, Scotland’s real partner, is if the MSPs ditch the Scotland Act and overrule Scotland’s MPs first.
But to do that, they require two things:
1. a mandate to do so by Scotland’s sovereign: the people of Scotland.
2. swearing allegiance to Scotland’s sovereign, not the English monarch.
If we do not see this mandate in the manifesto of any party in 2026, then none of them, in my opinion, will be really pursuing Scotland’s independence. They will be pursuing some variation of devolution or subjugation of Scotland to the English crown.
“Secession” of the “UK” is not independence. It is continuing to subjugate Scotland to the English crown and it is demoting Scotland from the sovereign state it is into a region of the Kingdom of England.
It is not the “UK” government nor the crown who Scotland has to negotiate its independence with. The UK government, just as the crown, are subordinates to the Treaty of Union and therefore subordinates to Scotland. The real partner Scotland has to negotiate its independence with is the Kingdom of England.
For this reason, every time I heard a politician talking about negotiating independence or a referendum with Westminster or the UK government, I immediately switch off because I know they are not really pursuing Scotland’s independence. What they are pursuing is the preservation of the ToU and the right of the English monarch to continue holding control over Scotland’s crown. In my view, they are acting as crown minions, not representatives of Scotland.
Alba’s strategy appears to be relying far too much on votes for the SNP in the constituency vote to create some form of pro-independence alliance.
The SNP has demonstrated for the last 10 years that it is not pursuing Scotland’s independence and worse, it has actively sought to deny the people of Scotland the opportunity to vote for it. It has also demonstrated it has no intention in establish any alliance with Alba.
So this strategy is doomed to fail and will not be anything more than yet another way to make us lose another 5 years of our time. 5 years when the opportunistic British state will continue to drain Scotland of its power and resources and when Starmer’s labour would have made huge inroads into selling Scotland bit by bit through the con of the free ports, would have privatised what is left of the NHS to secure a trade agreement with USA and will have us at the verge of another of USA’s neverending self-serving hegemonic wars.
Personally, I think that, if we are really seeking Scotland’s independence, we need to revoke the ToU and Act of Union with England. For this reason, I believe moving the attention from the GE to the HOlyrood election was a mistake, unless Mr Salmond intends to ditch the Scotland Act and gain a mandate from the people of Scotland to overrule Scotland’s MPs.
For as long as I do not see or hear any political party advocating for such thing, I will continue to be very sceptical of the real intentions of the so called “pro-independence” parties.
Scotland is as much the UK as England is, so the concept that it can negotiate independence with itself is absurd. For this reason, demoting Scotland to the status of a region of the UK so it can be seen as
* subordinated to the UK rather than above it
* seceding from the UK rather than ending it
* preserving the privilege of the English crown over Scotland rather than ending it when the treaty ends
*treating the English monarch as if they were Scotland’s sovereign rather than its own people
should be anathema to any political party genuinely pursuing Scotland’s independence and genuinely seeking to see Scotland as a sovereign independent state in full control over its territory, boundaries, assets, people and trade agreements.
