Of course Mundell would prefer a ‘no deal’ Brexit to independence. Even the best Brexit imaginable would be a national disaster for Scotland. Independence would be a personal disaster for Mundell and his ilk.
Just think what the dissolution of the Union will cost the likes of Mundell. The British state would be broken. The system of patronage which allows easy access to status and power for a privileged few would be massively compromised. The good days would be over. Especially for British Nationalists in Scotland. The trough would be very much smaller. Scottish Unionists like Mundell wouldn’t even be allowed in the queue.
Perhaps a select few might be found sinecures in the rump UK. But they would never be permitted anywhere near real power. The positions they enjoy at present depend entirely on their performance as faithful servants of the British state. They will take the blame for the failure of the British Nationalist ‘One Nation’ project.
Independence would mean the end of Mundell’s political career. He would find himself rejected by the people of Scotland even as he was snubbed by his former masters in the remnants of the British state. British Nationalists will be as unelectable in Scotland as Scottish citizens will be in England. Even with genuine reconciliation, it is unlikely that Scottish voters could ever bring themselves to trust those who have shown themselves so willing to sacrifice Scotland on the altar of British imperialist pretension.
Doubtless there will be a few theatrical conversions to Scotland’s cause among Unionists desperate to salvage something from the ruins of their political careers. But why would the people of Scotland give a democratic mandate to those who have treated them with utter contempt and exhibited such total disdain for democracy? How could we trust people who, having proclaimed the inevitability of Scotland failing as a normal country, would have a vested interest in working to ensure they were proved to have been correct?
I suspect, however, that being spurned by Scotland is something that Mundell would consider a trivial matter. Being scorned by the British state is what will really hurt. Independence will be a personal catastrophe for Mundell because, to the ruling elites of the British state, he will become just another Jock.
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Peter A Bell 
Peter
Even though I agree for Mundell and his ilk independence would be a personal catastrophe. I wouldn’t discount some electorates of Scotland choosing such people after independence (as would be their right).
Where Mundell (and their like) lose their power is that in an independent Scotland, never again will a party who only gained one seat in Scotland be put in power over Scotland. Never again would a sole representative (so untuned to the broader wishes of Scotland) such as Mundell be in such a position of power.
It is his ability to ride roughshod over the Scottish peoples because he enacts the policies of an English dominated elite…policies that the people of Scotland have no electoral mechanism to change. That is the truth of the colonial relationship writ large.
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P.S.
I hope you do a piece on Voting soon. Part of the campaign needs to be about informing YES of the safest way to vote…
AIM FOR 100% TURNOUT
Its not about forcing you to vote, its about removing the ability for someone else to take your vote. Hard to stuff a ballot if it is already full.
VOTE IN PERSON (avoid postal votes at all costs)
This usually gives the best chain of custody. The distributed small-scale of voting booths also protects the vote. It means that votes are distributed widely and it removes the opportunity for single point large scale “temptations”.
DIGITAL IS DANGEROUS
Anything that allows for single point large scale manipulation (that is possible to mask) is dangerous. Governments and hackers have already shown they don’t need to hack your system. They just manipulate traffic before it gets to your “safe” system.
EG:
China diverted the entire internet for 17 min in 2010
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/11/how-china-swallowed-15-of-net-traffic-for-18-minutes/
Wikileaks published the CIA hacking tools that had already leaked out to the broader IT and hacking community
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/?
I hope SNP have found a way of having any vote independent of Westminster and their mechanisms and vote tallying providers..Whether it is by calling the referendum by another name or any other mechanism.
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Does he sound like a man brimming with confidence?
On the radio this morning he sounded like a man watching a train coming at him that he can’t stop. He knows it’s over and he is just going through the motions. The fact that he had to take the Scottish parliament to the Supreme Court, shows how desperate he is. It’s the last act of a failed human being. He is a complete failure as a politician and a bigger failure at a human level.
When you hurt your own people because of a flag or a salary , then you deserve everything that’s coming. He is a soulless man without any moral compass.
He just happens to be the Scottish Secretary.
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They will be as popular in an independent Scotland as Communist party apparatchiks were after the Soviet Union. And all their friends down South will be ignoring their calls to do them a favour and sort them out with a job. I can even see ‘Scottish Lords’ being given the can from Westminster. It’s that instant, irreversible obscurity that so terrified them and the reason they cling so desperately to the precious, precious Union.
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Davidson and Mundell, and some editors and hacks at BBC Scotland should be given pariah status after we get independence. The destructive, poisonous nature of these people won’t be tolerated by myself and many others. How could anyone support these venal sociopaths who will lie, cheat and use any method to undermine those who attempt to build a better society in Scotland?
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I think we’re going to need a South Africa-style ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’. Not an enviable task.
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“I think we’re going to need a South Africa-style ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’.”
There it is right there. The ugly face of Nationalism.
You should be ashamed of that comment.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
At first, I too was a little taken back by the term. However your response was even more shocking to me
Peter never indicated what elements would require reconciliation and never indicated the issues were about physical violence. However, you nor I has any real idea of what will be discovered once people in Scotland actually get to see all the books.
Can you identify how an a act of collective forgiveness – an act designed to take all elements of the community forward together with a clean slate – is the “ugly face of Nationalism”?
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You should be aware that you are responding to a British Nationalist troll. Don’t expect a sensible answer.
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Why would I or any other Unionist for that matter need “collective forgiveness” for having our beliefs? Why should our democratic rights require reconciliation?
Asking us to do so in front of some official quango and be answerable for them is the shocking face of Nationalism.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
Thanks very much for your response.
The “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” was not about addressing peoples beliefs. It was about the actions people did in the name of such beliefs. I can not speak for Peter. However, when I read the term (which is a specific project) I understood it was never about attacking beliefs. Peter would need to confirm for himself if this is how he meant to use the term.
I hope that our communities still value that everyone is able to hold their beliefs – give their reasoning – and advocate their position…a right that does not stop at any vote or change. I hope this remains one of our rights in enlightened societies (RE: as in Post Age of Enlightenment) where we discuss and debate ways forward with each other. People fought for centuries to give populations this right to speak freely.
I am unclear as to why you see this term as a call for making the general public that either support Union or Independence seek collective forgiveness, rather than a term that is about how to address hidden illegal actions that come to light.
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Tom, “actions people did in the name of such beliefs”
Why should I, or anyone for that matter be held accountable to anyone else for any action that I took in supporting the Union? Do I have to explain why I wore a *better together* badge? Or what “actions” do you mean? As long as any actions I took were within the parameters of the law, it is nobodies business but mine.
As for what Peter meant, read his post… a “South Africa style….commission” is what he advocates.
Quite clear and unequivocal.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
The TRC was never a process that addressed every action of every person regarding SA apartheid. It’s primary focus was human rights violations…i.e “the actions people did in the name of such beliefs”.
If you are referring to the element where the TRC alsol provided a forum for others to express remorse. The events in South Africa are violent and oppressive and for some this was a useful mechanism. However there was no requirement for the general public to “explain themselves and their beliefs”. Happy to be enlighten if that is not the case and you have links.
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To add to my earlier advisory; you are not going to be enlightened by a frothing British Nationalist fanatic. The individual you are addressing is not a rational person. He will find in a simple greeting evidence of ‘evil’ sufficient to prompt yet another tedious venting of righteous indignation. You’re talking to a nutter. We keep him around so as to be provided with regular reminders of how demented the typical British Nationalist is.
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Thanks Tom. As I said, Mr Bell specifically pointed to the South African model.
https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc
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If you’ve seen the geacher-thing’s latest spittle-flecked outbursts you’ll understand what I meant by ‘nutter’.
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@Tom How would you have felt if after the 2014 referendum, all people who voted *yes* were ordered to appear in front of a panel and asked to explain themselves and their beliefs? Would you have been happy? It is a mechanism for control, a tool used by fascist right wing governments since time began. “You don’t agree with us? You soon will.”
It really is a shocking stance for anyone who preaches democracy to take.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
I left you a comment above on your earlier post that I think address the point you raise here.
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You may have noted the pant-wetting panic which engulfs British Nationalist fanatics at any suggestion they might be held accountable for their lies.
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Clearly, the repulsive geacher-thing doesn’t want independent Scotland to “bring about a reconciliation of its people” if this means British Nationalists owning up to their lies.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission-South-Africa
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You make jokes about the Holocaust, and now you compare Scotland in the union to apartheid South Africa? You lack any form of perspective.
If you and your ilk had any respect for democracy, any wish to reconcile our people, you would have respected the result of the referendum of 2014. Two faced doesn’t even come close. Despicable stuff.
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There you go Peter, you make my case with that statement.
” accountable for their lies.”
This is your vision for an independent Scotland? One that is going to make sure that those who were against independence are “held accountable?” One that will strive to ensure that the “good days would be over. Especially for British Nationalists in Scotland.” This is what you wish upon our country?
It is beyond your wit to understand that it is people like you that will guarantee that independence will never happen… the majority of people (and this was proven by the referendum) do not want a divisive society in which a huge proportion of our people are pilloried for their beliefs.
We want a stable, united country, whether independent or part of rUK, one where everybody pulls together for the common good, a common aim. I point your attention to Alan Knight’s post on this page:
” Davidson and Mundell, and some editors and hacks at BBC Scotland should be given pariah status after we get independence”
This is the future you wish for, that people who hold different views from your own is given “pariah status” In what form will this “pariah status” manifest itself Peter? Camps maybe for the dissidents?
And after the unionists are purged and “held accountable,” who will be next?
You and your ilk offer rancour and division. THAT is why you are failing in your quest.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
In response to the link you provided. Unfortunately this does not show the type of information you infer in your post where general voters are made to account for beliefs or their votes. It very specially shows only “7112 petitioners” with “849 were granted amnesty”. This data does not equate in anyway with the approx 1.5million votes for Apartheid supporting parties in the 1989 SA general election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_1989
The document does show that the actions it documented were limited (targeted) and rather than a single side victor justice, its final reported included faults on both sides.
In relation to your comments on the treatment of voters, I take it (and hope) you were being facetious. One of the great protections in a democracy is that your vote is secret. It is for you and you alone to know how you really voted. As I wrote earlier, I hope we will always be able to form and express our ideas in public life. This would by extension include advocating for those positions by the very means you mention. I.e. we agree: “As long as any actions I took were within the parameters of the law, it is nobodies business but mine.”
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You are trying to have a rational exchange with someone who thinks politicians being held to account for lying to voters amounts to Fascism. Have a wee think about that.
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@Tom. How about the people that chose to be vocal about their beliefs? Was there any “reprisals” against any pro independence bloggers or activists or politicians? Of course the wasn’t, and neither should there have been. But read what Mr Bell writes about some people being “held to account”, or Mr Knight with his take on some journalists and opposing politicians ” The destructive, poisonous nature of these people won’t be tolerated by myself” There is the word. Tolerance.
Is that the country you want to live in?
Finally Mr Bell tries to wiggle out by saying that it is all about “reconciliation”. Reconciliation by “holding people to account”? That ain’t reconciliation, that is fascism.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
It would be useful if you could support your original claim about the TRC. At present you are tying to build your arguments on a base point you have yet to support and in fact the information you did provide undermined your actual premise.
It is so important to avoid fallacy of equivocation otherwise we are always discussing in a field of moving goal posts.
Looking forward to your links.
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I’m uninterested in your single track argument here… I’m appalled at Mr Bell’s assertion that after a referendum, Scottish Unionists, British Nationalists, pro union journalists and “lying” politicians should be made “accountable” for their opinions. His views on what constitutes democracy are well known to be at odds with what democracy really means, his refusal to acknowledge and accept the democratic process of September 2014… now he now advocates a witch hunt post independence… that is a shocking stance to take and all in the guise of reconciliation? Do me a favour.
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@geacher (@samspoons)
If you aren’t able to justify your base assertion, its hard to see how the points you draw from that starting position are able to stand up at all. Sure your jump from TRC to a claim of “witch hunt” sounds horrific and amps up the emotion. However, if you can’t even substantiate the original point in this frame, its just random arm waving with foundations built on shifting sands rather than logical discussion.
I can understand how you got there but its just 3 fallacies of argument laid on top of each other and as long as no one questions any of the flaws, it sounds fine…but it all falls apart like a house of cards if you question any of the foundations.
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Whatever are you on about? You being deliberately obtuse? You are responding to my points withh bluff and bluster. On the pot…
Do YOU think that “British Nationalists, Scottish Unionist and *lying* politicians” should be “held accountable” for their actions after a successful indy referendum????
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“who thinks politicians being held to account for lying to voters amounts to Fascism.”
Mr Bell, you forget I am smarter than you are. You spoke about “British Nationalists,” “Scottish Unionists.” The vast majority of these people are NOT politicians.
And yes, holding -lying or otherwise- politicians to account by other means other than the ballot box IS fascism.
Ask Ms Sturgeon. She will tell you all about being held to account via the ballot box in losing 21 seats, 480,000 votes and two referendums.
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Finally should Alec Salmond (by your own criteria) have been held “accountable” by the Scottish Unionists for HIS lies after 2014? Y’know the ones I mean, the ones in in the White Paper On Independence? £6b from oil, automatic entry into NATO despite doing away with trident, in the EU in two years, currency union, milk and honey. Was that not a pile of lies? Or does your “accountability” project only apply to unionists?
No, Salmond was held accountable at the ballot box last year. The ONLY place it should happen. And you had the gall to criticise the odious Spanish Government for their treatment of the Catalan separatists? Double standards or what?
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