The border between England and Scotland runs from south-west to north-east, and therefore, under international law, would continue to do so into the North Sea, rather than jutting out perpendicularly as Scottish Nationalists assume. And that would put most of the oil in English, not Scottish, territorial waters.
Anyway, what right has one part of the United Kingdom - my country, which no one has the right to take away from me - to presume to declare UDI? If there is to be a referendum on the continuing existence of the United Kingdom, then it should be a referendum purely and simply of the United Kingdom, as a single whole.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That's an interesting take on international maritime law, David. Most experts in the field put the 'Scottish' reserves, even taking into account the north east direction of the border, as being around 90-95%.
ReplyDeleteAs for your second point, states form and dissolve all the time. No state is inviolable, and people can only be governed by their consent. I think most democrats would accept that the wishes of the people should come before the interests of the state.
That is the democratic principal which keeps the UK together currently and is what gives it its present political legitimacy. Were that situation ever to change, for example the Scots voting for independence (not the same as UDI), the only sensible and democratic course open to the UK government would be to accept that with good grace.
I stand by my view of the oilfields. Just draw a south-west to north-east line, beginning at the north-east tip of the border and stretching until you hit anyone else's territorial waters, and the point is made: the oil might be off-loaded in Scotland, but it's largely in England. I suspect that your "most experts in the field" are in fact "the SNP and its supporters".
ReplyDeleteI do not accept that any entity within the United Kingdom has a right of self-determination. That right belongs solely to the United Kingdom as such. Arguably, though not unanswerably, that would include the right of self-dissolution, in which case the situation would change accordingly.
But I'm not convinced that there is a right of self-dissolution, which would be deprive British Citizens (and there would of course always be people who voted No in a referendum, or what have you) of their country against their will.
There is no distinctively Scottish (or English, or Welsh, or Irish) ethnic group, there are only local cultural variations (striking though some of those are, but at least as much within Scotland as between Scotland and anywhere else in these islands). Neither Scots nor Gaelic is Scotland's predominant language. And so forth.
If South Dakota or South Australia has no right of secession, then I don't see how Scotland (or England, or Wales, or Northern Ireland) can have, with significantly less internal self-government, and with a Parliament existing only by and pursuant to an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in which Act the Soctiish Parliament's powers are cleraly set out and restricted. There is simply no doubt that the United Kingdom is the sovereign entity, and that the Crown in Parliament is its sovereign body.
Which brings us to the point that all of this is in any case academic. The Scottish Parliament has no authority to legislate for a referendum on independence, no British Government will ever introduce such a Bill at Westminster, quite possibly no such Bill would ever pass the House of Commons, and certainly no such Bill would ever pass the House of Lords (which rarely refuses Second Reading to a Government Bill, but which undoubtedly would in this case).
Add in the psephological near-impossibility of an SNP victory anyway, and the Union is perfectly safe.
Just because someone is an SNP supporter, it wouldn't make them wrong. Anyway, I think you'd struggle to fit Prof. Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University into that category. In any case, as I said, that 90%+ figure still applies even when the line continues its north-eastern trend.
ReplyDeleteComparing a country (Scotland) which has enjoyed a recognisable border for well over 300 years, and which has well a established civic society, with somewhere like South Australia, is so far off the mark it's barely worth discussing. If states remain fixed for all time with no right for internal groups to leave, how on earth do you explain the differences in the map of Europe between 1989 and the present day?
The ethnicity/linguistic argument is supremely irrelevant. Fundamentally, a nation exists if people believe it exists, and they then have an absolute right to seek out ways of expressing that politically if they so choose.
You are correct that the Crown in Parliament is regarded as being sovereign (one reason why there are no such people as British citizens - only subjects). However, the concept of the sovereignty of the people, where people are ruled only by their consent, is a powerful one, and one which would leave advocates of the crown in parliament looking distinctly Canute-like were it to express itself.
The Realpolitik is that while the Scottish Parliament can not declare independence of itself (lets leave UDI aside), it can hold a consultative referendum on whether independence should be negotiated. In the event of a positive vote for such a proposal, that is what would happen. The fact that Thatcher, Major and Blair - staunch unionists all - have conceded that if such a process were to be followed that no-one in Westminster or Whitehall would impede the process should tell you all you need to know.
Well, it says British Citizen in my passport. And Thatcher, Major and Blair can speak for themselves; it's hardly up to any of them any more, is it?
ReplyDeleteI say again, the Scottish Parliament has no power to hold a referendum (it wouldn't have a hope in hell if it tried to do so and the cost was challenged in court, where the status of the oilfields would also probably end up), it has no power to legislate on constitutional matters generally, no British Government would ever introduce either an Independence Bill or an Independence Referendum Bill, the House of Commons would certainly throw out the former and probably the latter, and the House of Lords would certainly throw out either. It's not going to happen, no matter what.
And I stand by the comparison with an American or Australian state, which is at least a state, just not a sovereign one. (If you prefer comparison with somewhere older for the snob value, then think of Bavaria, also not a sovereign state, though with markedly more internal self-government than Scotland has.) Whereas the parts of the United Kingdom, whatever else they may be, are not states, sovereign or otherwise.
Rather, the United Kingdom itself is a state, with various internal arrangements as its Parliament sees fit, a Parliament in which power has shifted decisively to the House of Commons, which has itself come to be elected by universal adult suffrage.
So the People is indeed governed only by its consent: The British People. For, in point of fact, there is no other, whatever anyone might "believe".
But I repeat that this is all academic, since an SNP victory is bordering on a psephological impossibility anyway.
While Thatcher, Major and Blair may be either going or gone, does it not tell you something that while every Prime Minister of recent times has opposed Scottish independence, not one of them has questioned the right of Scotland to be independent? In fact, the only senior politician I can ever remember postulating that it would be illegitimate for Scotland to leave the UK was Peter Mandelson, who was roundly ridiculed for his troubles (and by figures from all parties, including his own).
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that Holyrood has the power to declare independence, since as a creation of Westminster it very clearly doesn't. However, it is accepted by all mainstream UK politicians that it can hold a consultative referendum on independence, which would then be regarded in Westminster as a mandate for independence in the event of any 'yes' vote. Going about it any other way would be very messy indeed, but trying to pretend that any such vote carried no legitimacy at all would prove much messier still.
Westminster has legislated for the independence of many countries in the past, perhaps most relevantly Ireland. However, the fact remains that so doing is simply a recognition of what is by then the inevitable, and amounts to little more than a constitutional tidying-up exercise for the convenience of Westminster.
Britain is indeed a state. So were the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. So too once were Norway and Sweden together. On every occasion, while some might have frothed and fulminated about the inviolability of the state, pragmatism won out in each case.
One of the doctrines of Westminster Parliamentary sovereignty is that no parliament can bind its successors. The union between Scotland, England and Wales was ratified in 1707 following the Union of the Parliaments. If the choice were between repeal or having to suppress in some way a legitimate desire in Scotland for independence, who seriously doubts that Westminster, as indeed virtually every state faced with a similar situation has done, would plump for the former option? Yours, I suspect, would be a very lonely protest in Parliament Square.
1. Westminster politicians, not to say Scottish Unionist ones, have no principled objection to the Scottish Parliament's holding a consultative referendum on independence for precisely so long as it never actually attempts to do so, at which point the whole thing would be ruled 'ultra vires' by the courts;
ReplyDelete2. No British Government would ever introduce the legislation necessary either for independence or for a referendum on the subject, the House of Commons would probably throw out the latter and would certainly throw out the former, and the House of Lords would certainly throw out either;
3. The continued existence of the United Kingdom is a matter for the whole United Kingdom, and it is at least arguable that it could not morally be dissolved for so long as even one adult, non-insane, non-imprisoned British Citizen objected to that abolition of his or her country;
4. There is even less chance of any such legislation under a Scottish Prime Minister than under and English one, and there will be a Scottish Prime Minister very soon;
5. The view that much of the oil is in fact in English territorial waters has increasing currency in England, and talk of pressing this case militarily if necessary (after the manner of the Cod Wars with Iceland) cannot be dismissed as saloon-bar nonsense, so that part of any independence deal would have to be a split (probably 50/50) in oil revenue such as to demolish the SNP's economic argument;
6. An independent Scotland has absolutely no hope of admission to the EU, since, even if the remnant UK did not veto its application (which it would), then Spain or Belgium would certainly do so;
7. In view of all of the above, nothing could be more guaranteed to destroy the SNP than victory on Thursday, since no two members of it seem to agree about anything except independence, and since it is certainly so riven between a neoliberal intelligentsia and a Hard Left activist base that it could not possibly construct a programme for government, quite apart from the fact that it only conatins one serious politician;
8. An SNP victory is psephologically impossible anyway; and
9. After independence, are you going to demolish war memorials as the Estonians (no doubt among your models) are doing, and if not, why not?
I think we'll probably have to agree to disagree on most of these points, David. However, to respond to a couple of specifics:
ReplyDelete5. This can gain as much currency as it likes - it still won't alter the legal situation one whit. To that end, you might be interested in this letter from yesterday's FT:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/77b55164-f5a4-11db-a3fe-000b5df10621.html
As for military action, don't be so daft. Some union it is anyway if anyone could even consider such a possibility against what they claim to see as their own people!
6. The legal position, set out elegantly some time ago by former Secretary-General of the European Commission Emile Noel, is that either Scotland and rUK would be seen as 'successor states' and would therefore both remain in the EU subject to negotiations re budget contributions and representation in the Parliament and Commission; or neither would be members.
9. Now you're confusing me. These memorials commemorate the sacrifice which tens of thousands of young men and women made in the service of their country. Just you want independence, doesn't mean you have any less respect for that sacrifice...
Glad to accept you concession of most points. As to the rest:
ReplyDelete5. At least 40% of the oil is in English waters, so is over half the gas, and in any case you have surely never seriously imagined that the UK would ever have acquiesced to independence without a 50/50 split in oil revenue? Come on!
And I'm not talking about a war, I'm talking about a blockade. As there would be. Of course. Again, come on! What else did you expect?
6. Dream on! I don't think there's any serious doubt as to which the other member-states would recognise as the successor-state, not just of the EU, but of the G8, the UN Security Council, the UN itself, the Commonwealth, whatever.
And neither Noel (who is not there now anyway, and who wouldn't have decided these things even when he was still there), nor you, nor anyone else would ever get the "either both or neither" theory past the Spaniards or the Belgians in particular. One of the biggest problems with the European Court of Justice is that most of its members are just politicians with law degrees (if that) rather than proper judges, but even that ordinarily sorry fact might prove useful in this case.
All in all, you have no chance, especially since the UK is a net contributor to the EU's budget.
On the subject of Europe, the SNP would split to death over the undoubted refusal of the EU to reconsider the Common Fisheries Policy. If, that is, it hadn't already done so over the loss of an independence referendum or over the impossibility of forming a government out of so uttterly dispirate, and almost entirely unserious, a bunch.
If the SNP delivers independence this time, what will then be the point of the SNP? And if the SNP fails to deliver independence even this time, then what has ever been the point of the SNP?
9. Tell that to the Estonians, one of your models.
Erm, I conceded none of your 'points' - agreeing to disagree, to save you a tiresome consultation with the OED, tends to mean an offer to end a debate in recognition that neither person is likely to convince the other.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, I've got a zillion better things to do with my time than carry on a debate which is beginning to resemble the 'none shall pass' scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Apart from anything else, I've got an election, then a referendum to win. We'll see then who's right and who's not :-)
P.S. I note that in the Cod Wars, it was the country with fewer inhabitants than the city of Aberdeen which eventually won out. Mercifully, the people of England are in my experience far too wise, intelligent and fair-minded to ever throw their rattles out of the pram like you suggest.