TRUE or FALSE? ‘The UN says Scotland is a colony of England’

What seems like an eon ago, before the 2014 referendum, I wrote an article on the lie that Scotland is a colony of England. It was in response to the use of the word ‘colony’ by the late SNP leader Gordon Wilson but it’s had an unexpected afterlife as I’ve been able to refer the occasional nationalist to it as they’ve repeated the misapprehension. Apart from a feeble ‘Well, they’re not exactly best pals in Belgium!’ or ‘Some of those examples are different’ I’ve never felt my argument has been seriously refuted. I don’t count being called a ‘clown’ by Wings’ supporter Lindsay Bruce, @RogueCoder250 on Twitter, in response to my latest reference to the piece.

My exchange with Bruce did elicit one interesting comment, by @AnnClaes3. This is the exchange up to that point:

I then asked her if she could provide me with a reference to the claim that the United Nations (UN) had described Scotland as a colony of England. At first this produced these two retweets

which hardly constituted proof of anything except that I now knew at least three people believed the claim.

On further pressing, I was referred to an article called Does Brexit vote underline Scotland is not a country, but a colony? by Alf Baird, a retired professor of maritime business. This is an opinion piece in which, in order to answer his own question in the affirmative, he cites (and provides links to) the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation and UN resolutions on decolonisation. I don’t agree with his argument and, for me, when he talks about

Occupation by settlers … substantial, focused, and rising occupation by settlers from the administering Power [he means England]

he sails perilously close to the position of ultra-nationalist group Siol nan Gaidheal (characterised as ‘proto fascists’ by Gordon Wilson, mentioned above).

However, to be fair to Professor Baird, he does not anywhere claim that the UN itself says Scotland is a colony of England.

I made a couple of further attempts to see if there was any truth in the original allegation. First, I searched Google as widely as I could using keywords like ‘Scotland … UN … colony … England.’ Nothing. Second, I clicked through to the UN pages mentioned in Baird’s article, checked them, and did a final search of the UN website (not an easy one to navigate, but I did at least make an honest attempt). Again, nothing.

If anyone knows I’ve missed anything, please tell me.

My searches did throw up some other references to the UN and Scotland, including

Scotland is the assault capital of the world according to UN stats on violent crime (Daily Record)

and

This Human Rights Day, new report to United Nations shows Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government must go further on human rights (Scottish Human Right Commission)

but I expect these are less welcome to nationalists than confirmation of the now apparently spurious claim that the UN says Scotland is a colony of England.

The three tweeters who have made the claim in the last week or so have just under 3,000 followers between them, not huge by Twitter standards but that’s nearly 3,000 people who have been exposed to, perhaps believed, and for all I know retweeted, the misapprehension that the UN say Scotland is a colony of England.

I have been kind enough to use the word ‘misapprehension’ about this allegation. But it originates somewhere and someone knows it’s not a misapprehension, it’s a plain and simple lie.

And this is how it goes. Falsehoods are planted in the fertile soil of social media. Some wither on the vine and are never heard of again. Others take on a life of their own and bounce around cyberspace until eventually becoming accepted as given truths by the unthinking.

I have no problem with people making contentious claims, of any sort, but they must be willing and able to substantiate them. And the rest of us must be willing to challenge those claims. If a case for independence is to rest on emotion, fair enough. Say so. But if you want it to rest on facts be prepared for people to ask if they’re true or false.

No welcome mat at No. 10 for Nicola – hurray!

So here’s yesterday’s SNP farrago.

The Scottish Daily Mail had an article headlined:

No. 10 ‘takes away welcome mat’ for visits from Nicola.

The online version has a slightly different headline but the gist is the same. The paper version was tweeted by Glasgow SNP councillor Mhairi Hunter as follows:

If you can’t read the small print it’s reporting a claim that henceforth the first minister will no longer have the relatively easy access she has had to Theresa May but will be expected to meet with Scotland Office ministers, led by secretary of state David Mundell.

Ms Hunter, no ordinary backbench councillor, is close to first minister Nicola Sturgeon and has been her election agent in the past. In tweeting this I am sure she was knowingly stirring the rich broth of SNP grievance, and sure enough the comments that followed her tweet came in bang on cue:

Another example of devolution failing like it was designed to! Tories not even placating Scots any more! May running scared! Meet Mundell??? [another Glasgow SNP councillor]

[and the same councillor again] Placated is all the country of Scotland has ever been! Each country should be treated equally/respectfully. Needs of each country different

It’s definitely time to get tough to [sic] much of being nice is doing us no favours they’re doing what they always do walking all over us

Time to simply withdraw from WM. “No taxation without representation”

Scotland’s leader being treated as a ‘colonial governor’ should be a wake up call to Scots. Sadly I fear some will welcome this stance.

Small minded and weak. The idea that @DavidMundellDCT is at the same level as the @ScotGovFM is just bizarre.

[Mundell]’s not her equal. Scotland is an EQUAL PARTNER, not a region! Hopefully she’ll tell PM to get lost. #IndyRef2 coming. 🙂

Elected leader of Scotland ‘offered’ weekly meetings with an appointed Governor and an unelected Lord? #Colonialism

They still think we are a colony, and should be treated as second class

And so on and on in the same vein. You can read the whole thread here if you must.

One subsidiary theme, as so often with nationalists, is that ‘equal partner’ claim, exemplified in this tweet

Scotland IS an ‘equal partner’. (What we were told before IndyRef to keep us sweet). You need to read the Treaty of Union.

Along with many other nationalist claims and myths, the notion of an ‘equal partner’ is unsustainable.

You won’t find the word ‘equal’ anywhere in the full Articles of Union and ‘equality/equally’ appear only in relation to a few matters of trade and revenues. Nowhere will you see a formula along the lines of:

A future hypothetical first minister and/or devolved parliament of Scotland shall be treated as an equal partner with the prime minister and/or parliament of the United Kingdom.

Here’s how it actually works:

Top level – UK parliament

          |

Second level – parliaments/assemblies of devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

          |

Third level, councils

          |

[And in Scotland] bottom level, community councils.

It’s quite simple. It’s a hierarchy, each level is below the one above. Scottish nationalists may not like it but it is the plain, simple and constitutional fact. The first minister is no more the equal of the prime minister than the leader of Glasgow city council is the equal of the first minister. The councillor would expect to deal mainly with the cabinet secretary for communities and the first minister should expect to deal mainly with the secretary of state for Scotland.

Theresa May, beset with so many challenges, not least of her own making, has made a rod to beat her own back through her early good will/openness/indulgence (you choose the word you prefer) towards Nicola Sturgeon. The last thing she needs now is the constant distraction of a grandstanding first minister, one keen to be seen with leaders of other nations, saltire and other national flag prominent behind the chairs at Bute House, contrasting with the two saltires she chose to display when May went out of her way to make the first minister her first significant visit after she became PM.

The first minister’s expectations have become too inflated (along with her salary, higher even than the prime minister’s). There’s plenty to do running the devolved government of Scotland, the ‘day job.’ Let’s judge her and the SNP on that, not on the grandstanding. Come to think of it, judging from the last three elections – Holyrood, councils and Westminster – perhaps people are doing that already. Good.

‘Nicola – free the Growth Commission 14!’

One of the best-kept secrets of the SNP is that their political philosophy includes the taking of hostages, hence this latest cry heard all over Scotland, from the leafy suburb of Govanhill to the disgraceful urban blight that is Morningside.

In case you think I’m perpetrating some outrageous defamation the hostages I had in mind were hostages to fortune.

They did it with their 2016 summer of love when, under the erstwhile leadership of Stewart Hosie they were going to have a campaign to ‘woo’ No voters. That one bit the dust along with Mr Hosie’s reputation and deputy party leadership.

Then with summer not even over they launched their ‘National conversation, ’ which may or may not have been the summer of love transformed. Apart from the usual online cyber warriors, no one from the party attempted to converse with me or anyone else I know about anything while the conversation was supposedly ongoing.

Scarcely had finger hit keyboard about that ‘phoney’ exercise (my finger, my judgement) when along came the ‘National survey’ (they do love the word ‘national,’ I wonder why?). The SNP claimed that an unbelievable 2,000,000 people, or 45% of the adult population of Scotland, responded to this survey. But they’ve published no results from it and apparently don’t intend to.

Finally, almost, and less than a month ago, Nicola Sturgeon was said by her spokesman to be ‘likely’ to reveal her plan for a second independence referendum ‘before the summer recess.’ That’s jargon for when the MSPs go on their annual hols, which they did on 1 July. Did I miss the plan, or was it yet another SNP Douglas Adams moment – ‘I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by’?

Four hostages to fortune, and all in less than a year.

But thanks to Ian Blackford, the leader of the SNP in the Commons (no recess there yet), I was reminded of another hostage to fortune, the party’s ‘Growth Commission.’

In an article headed ‘Prosperity will be key in battle for indyref2’ Mr Blackford is quoted in The Times today as saying:

We will win independence when we can persuade the people of Scotland that their economic future is better as an independent country.

This, according to The Times, differs significantly from his leader’s approach because:

she has not put the emphasis squarely on economic performance winning over voters as Mr Blackford has now done

(a high risk strategy perhaps for Blackford while the Murrells retain a grip on the politics and administration of the party, if they do).

Here’s the rub. Surely, if you were going to major on the importance of the economy in persuading people of the benefits of independence you’d mention, indeed place centre stage, a major current policy exercise to generate ‘measures to boost economic growth [and] the range of … benefits associated with independence’? [Quotes taken from the Commission’s remit, included in full in my previous sceptical post on the subject]

Yet there’s not a single mention of the Commission in the 640-word Times article.

Has the former investment banker rumbled the Commission for what it really is? Or has he forgotten about it? Or has it been quietly shelved like all the SNP’s recent hostages to fortune I’ve listed?

I think we should be told.

If nothing else there may be fourteen ‘commissioners’ marooned somewhere in a real or virtual locked room who need to be released from a project they thought they were undertaking.

Which is why I say, please ‘Nicola – free the Growth Commission 14!’

Footnote. My previous post on the Growth Commission was ten months to the day away, since when from the SNP … nothing.

Stand by for SNP government relaunch: 10, 9, 8, 7 …

Today’s Times has confirmation of a rumour that seems to have been bouncing around for a while, in their own words – Sturgeon set to relaunch government in autumn. SNP considers radical new policies. In a grave error of judgement, the paper’s editorial praises the move as ‘sensible’ and says that ‘the SNP should be applauded.’

Where do you start with this nonsense?

I’m confident in my judgement of ‘nonsense’ because The Times seems to have got hold of a list of the ‘radical new policies’ and the words squib and damp come to mind.

Let’s take the four areas (that’s all there are) one by one.

First, we have local government, where the radical policies seem to involve

1. devolving some unspecified powers and spending down from councils to equally unspecified ‘local communities’
2. sucking up some functions like road building and maintenance to ‘a nationwide body like Transport Scotland,’ i.e. to Transport Scotland itself since there is no other agency responsible for roads, and
3. making councils combine some back-office functions like HR to save money.

Of these, 1. is scarcely new as it was in the SNP Holyrood manifesto in 2016, 2. is hardly empowering anyone except the Scottish Government and its quango and 3. is old hat, councils have been doing it on a voluntary basis for years.

Second comes the bold heading ‘Climate change,’ which seems to boil down to household energy efficiency and diesel emissions, the first promoted in one guise or another for many years, the second coming after diesel vehicles have started to go out of favour anyhow. Meantime, in an apparently un-coordinated action the government finished a consultation on a draft ‘Scottish Energy Strategy’ at the end of May under which these sorts of actions should surely fall. Incidentally, that strategy was comprehensively trashed by the Energy Matters website, although being a serious endeavour, it would not welcome my description of their demolition job.

The Times’ short list then turns to ‘eye-catching’ welfare reforms exemplified by incentives to get women back to work after having children and ‘easing in-work poverty.’ This from a party that asked the UK government to hold on to devolved welfare powers for a few years more as they weren’t ready to take responsibility for them.

Lastly, the economy gets attention, and so it should, although whether potential incentives for exporters and ‘help’ (subsidy?) for manufacturers will make any difference is a moot point. On which subject it is relevant to ask, what’s happened to the conclusions of the party’s ‘Growth Commission’?

This is all feeble and mostly recycled stuff. Meantime, you will observe there is no mention of education or health, the two biggest areas of Scottish government spend. Perhaps the SNP think they’ve got those well in hand. I doubt if the people of Scotland agree.

This all demonstrates two problems the SNP face.

First, like most governments in power for a long time, they have grown stale. We knew that anyhow, but their rather sad list of allegedly radical new policies does nothing to dispel the conclusion.

Second, there’s what I’ve highlighted before as their ‘pinball’ tendency, constantly ricocheting around to find, or pretend they’ve found, something new to promote (or complain about). Even in their current short list, you’ll note proposals for one area (local government) that were flagged up last year, another (climate change) that has just been the subject of consultation, a third (welfare) they’ve declined to take charge of when they could, and a fourth (the economy) supposedly being dealt with by a separate ‘commission.’

None of this is going to set the heather, let alone the electorate, alight. It reminds me of those North Korean missiles that are launched to frenetic adulation and a roar of flames and smoke, only to go wildly off-course and crash back down on to the launch site.

Roll on 2021 and the next Holyrood election

Which is more grubby and shameless – that DUP deal or the SNP?

One of the advantages of having been around for much longer than many people currently working up a fine froth of indignation about the Conservative-Democratic Ulster Party (DUP) deal is that you’ve seen just about everything politics in a democracy has to offer.

That’s why I find SNP bluster and hyperbole at what I’ll henceforth shorten to ‘the Ulster arrangement’ ironic to say the least. Let’s take their response in descending order of significance.

From Nicola Sturgeon we have:

this grubby, shameless deal … sacrificing the very basics of devolution … The Tories’ excuses are simply empty spin … they once again plan on short-changing Scotland … the worst kind of pork-barrel politics … David Mundell and Ruth Davidson should … order Scottish Tory MPs to use their votes to put a halt to it … This total disregard of the principles of devolution will haunt the Tories for years to come.

Their new Commons leader Ian Blackford chips in with:

SNP MPs will demand Scotland gets its fair share of any funding that is going to Northern Ireland

and in a whimper from the sidelines his equally new deputy Kirsty Blackman declares:

Barnett funding for Scotland must follow.

Crumbs, the world must be coming to an end.

The truth of course is that any party in the situation in which the Conservatives have stupidly got themselves will try to make an arrangement with others so they can stay in government.

Far from grubby and shameless this arrangement seems to be fairly straight-forward: the Northern Ireland assembly (not the DUP) gets another £1 billion over two years for specific areas of investment in return for DUP support to the Conservatives on key votes at Westminster. It’s time limited and at £500 million a year it’s less than one largish Scottish council spends (Aberdeenshire for example has a net annual spend of £534 million) and is about 4% of what all Scottish councils spend in a year, or less than 1.6% of what the Scottish government spends (council figures here, government spend here p.164). For two years only.

There seem to be three nationalist objections to the Ulster arrangement.

First, that charge of grubby and shameless. It’s a moot point what a ‘grubby, shameless’ deal is in politics. Was it grubby and shameless for the SNP to support the Conservatives in the 1979 no confidence motion in Jim Callaghan’s government that led to Margaret Thatcher and eighteen years of Conservative government? Was it grubby and shameless for them to do deals with the Conservatives in Holyrood after 2007 so they could function as a minority administration? The truth is, these sorts of pragmatic arrangements happen all the time in politics and involve all parties.

Second, an objection they omit from their responses quoted above but they have articulated elsewhere – a purported abhorrence of the socially reactionary nature of the DUP themselves, exemplified by the first minister’s promise to consider offering free abortions in Scotland to women from Northern Ireland. As it happens, I agree that much of what the DUP preaches (and for many it is preach) is reactionary. I don’t like it. But the free abortions proposal is itself a ‘total disregard of the principles of devolution’ and of what the people of Northern Ireland have voted for. As for grubby and shameless, the DUP’s generous offer to reveal all the correspondence they’ve had with the SNP on cooperation since 2010 tells you all you need to know. Ironically, and for some amusingly, the whiff of an extra £1 billion seems also to have given Sinn Fein pause for thought in their opposition to re-forming the Northern Ireland executive.

Third, we have the perennial SNP tactic of grievance, what the first minister dresses up as ‘short-changing Scotland’ and what Kirsty Blackman dutifully echoes with her ‘Barnett funding for Scotland must follow,’ either a wilful or genuinely naïve misunderstanding of what additionality under the Barnett formula is about. It’s actually to do with additional money for the devolved administrations when the UK government spends more on a service in England that is devolved elsewhere. It’s not about additional money for everywhere else if one devolved part of the UK receives funding for a specific purpose.

In that respect, whatever the political motivation, the Ulster arrangement is similar to the City Region deals announced jointly between the UK and Scottish government for Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness, with more to follow. Those deals have already led to a UK government commitment so far of £600 million extra funding for specific projects (details in an excellent Scottish parliament briefing paper). As far as I know, that £600 million has not led to proportionate sums being allocated to the other parts of the UK.

As well as bluster and hyperbole, a charge of hypocrisy must be added to the SNP’s posturing on this subject. No matter how negatively they paint the Conservative/DUP arrangement, the last thing they want is another general election soon. The general election revealed them weakened on all political fronts, losing seats and votes to the three unionist parties. Whatever happened elsewhere in the UK, another general election would most likely see them lose further seats, with pro-UK voters (including ‘shy unionists’?) emboldened by a roll-back at last of what seemed an SNP juggernaut. Traditional unionists now know that Scotland is not a ‘Tory-free zone,’ those disposed to left-of-centre politics see a more authentically redistributive programme under Corbyn than the SNP would ever deliver, and the Lib Dems provide a home for many of those living in hope that Brexit will either be ultra-soft or not visible at all; in other words, there’s plenty of choice from all three pro-UK parties and they’ve all shown they can win seats in Scotland.

There are many aspects of current UK politics I find unsatisfactory. An indeterminate election result is exactly what it says. I’ve seen them before and doubtless I’ll see them again. But grubby and shameless? I think I’ll reserve that for the SNP’s so far ineffectual attempts to make separatist political capital out of a verdict that the electorate have delivered.

This was drafted before the separate statement by the first minister of the delay in pursuing her aim for another referendum. I may return to that subject. 

Talking Scotland down

To talk someone/thing down – to discuss someone or something in a way that makes them seem less interesting or attractive

– Oxford Dictionaries

I really struggle with this phrase and its use in Scottish politics. Its most recent manifestation was at first minister’s questions yesterday when Nicola Sturgeon responded to a question from the Labour leader about criticisms in an Audit Scotland report on Scotland’s colleges 2017. The first minister ended her answer with what she no doubt thought was a rhetorical flourish:

No matter how much Kezia Dugdale grasps around trying to find bad news to hammer the SNP she will not succeed in talking down our colleges or talking down Scotland.

As it happens, from scanning the Audit Scotland report I have a small degree of sympathy for the first minister. If my reading is correct, the colleges of further education have some real achievements to show as well as some major challenges. There is plenty in the report for both a government and an opposition to fulfil their parliamentary roles of governing and, well, opposing.

In other words, important as further education is, its state is no more or less than the everyday stuff of democratic politics. I expect government and opposition to pursue their cases robustly. I’m even resigned to each over-egging the pudding in any debate on the subject.

What I do find curious is the way in which the SNP’s argument, as so often for them, boils down to one thing – the opposition are ‘talking Scotland down.’

In my eavesdropping on debates in the House of Commons I cannot recall hearing a government minister of any of the three parties that have been in power in the last decade accuse the opposition of ‘talking Britain down.’ There’s plenty of hostility across the aisle in that institution. But it is based much more on political ideology than the simplistic notion that opposition is somehow making a whole country ‘seem less interesting or attractive’ (that dictionary definition of ‘talking down’).

The SNP’s use of the ‘talking down’ argument is both pernicious and dishonest.

First, it implies that their opponents are wilfully demeaning not only their own country but also otherwise blameless people or organisations within it; in this case ‘our colleges,’ in another recent example ‘teachers and pupils’ (when the government’s school policies came under attack).

Second, and again by implication, it says ‘We don’t do these things, we are the only true promoters of a positive view of Scotland.’ Well there’s a sort of logic to that in that they do choose to style themselves the ‘national’ party and frequently conflate themselves, wrongly, with the entire nation, a fallacy that recent electoral statistics demonstrate only too well.

Lastly, and I find this the most distasteful aspect of all, the argument suggests that the SNP’s opponents are somehow not patriotic. After all, who would go around criticising a whole country if they didn’t dislike and despise it? Except that’s not what they’re doing, of course.

Dr Johnson said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ In the hands of the SNP patriotism is the argument to wheel out when others fail, as they frequently do in defending their mediocre record in government.

Footnote. Hard on the heels of Nicola Sturgeon’s use of ‘Talking Scotland down comes the Leader of the Commons’ statement that ‘It would be helpful if broadcasters were willing to be a bit patriotic.’ No. It’s not their function.

Who is this Round and why does he object?

This image and an attached news item appeared on the STV website today.

For some reason, as the SNP’s fortunes have dipped, my will to blog has wilted too. I don’t think it’s the hot weather, more the fact that it all started to seem less urgent somehow.

The headline about ‘indyref2’ brought me back to reality with a wee jolt. They’ll never give up and the best we can hope for is that the common sense of enough people reduces their obsession to the eccentric minority sport it was not so long ago.

That will not happen, of course, without constant vigilance on the part of those who care, even on small matters. I was challenged this morning by a tweeter sporting an SNP logo to justify my claim that nationalism and the SNP are in decline. It wasn’t difficult – I cited recent elections and polls. I’m sure he (George or Terry – like many he seemed to have two identities) knew the truth. But it was all about trying to convince a naïve English woman who wanted ‘out of England’ that Scotland was a great place to live. I hope she saw my statement and the links I provided because it’s on a thousand little lies like George/Terry’s that nationalism thrives.

Anyhow, back to the first minister’s forthcoming revelation about her plans for another once-in-a-generation separation referendum.

What caught my eye in the STV news item was the text in small print below the headline:

The First Minister said she would listen to Scots following the general election.

This is where ‘Round objects’ comes into play, because I’ve been told twice within the last year that the SNP were listening to me.

The first was their abortive ‘summer of love’ in 2016 when they were going to reach out to ‘No’ voters to understand our concerns and persuade us that they really were the cuddly, civic and joyous fun party they claim they are and we know they’re not. Unfortunately that exercise was to be led by Stewart Hosie, who was reaching out somewhere else at the time and was despatched in disgrace forthwith from the party’s leadership cohort along with the summer of listening.

The second was their egregious ‘National’ Survey last autumn, in which they claimed to be listening again, this time to the whole nation. Like Hosie and his reaching out, the survey disappeared without trace, with not a word heard about the views of the laughably-inflated two million people who allegedly answered their questions.

And now we have the first minister saying she’d listen again. A cynic might say there’s too much damned listening, and not enough hearing and understanding.

Which brings me neatly to Round and why he objects.

If you heard the original story, you’ll know precisely what I mean. If not …

… it may be apocryphal but they say that Churchill asked for a report from some expert in the Second World War. As is the way of the civil service, it was seen and annotated by others before it reached the great man. In the margin against some particularly contentious point, someone had written ‘Bollocks!’ A more senior and discreet mandarin carefully inked the offending word out and substituted ‘Round objects!’ Against which Churchill in turn asked, yes you’ve got there before me, ‘Who is this Round and why does he object?’

And that is precisely my response to what is the SNP’s third purported listening exercise in a year.

Just like the others, it’s complete and utter round objects.