George Galloway writes:
On Monday last week, I was in Coatbridge in Scotland,
‘gie’n it laldy’ as we say north of the Tweed, speaking to another packed
house, laying into the Scottish nationalists and the independence movement.
Then, in the feisty question- and-answer session, one of the small number of Yes voters present had clearly had enough. He got up and as he marched to the door shouted ‘Go home’ at me.
Then, in the feisty question- and-answer session, one of the small number of Yes voters present had clearly had enough. He got up and as he marched to the door shouted ‘Go home’ at me.
Now I’m used to being told to go back to Russia or Ireland
– ‘the famine is over, why don’t you go home?’ in the words of the loyalist
song – but where did he mean?
Dundee, where I was born? Glasgow, where I was an MP for 18 years? Bradford, where I’m an MP now? Westminster? He answered just as he was going out of the door: ‘Tae England.’
He didn’t wait for my response which was cheered to the echo. Which was that I’ll go wherever I like in these islands or anywhere else and speak my mind.
This was par for the course in Alex Salmond’s Brigadoon Scotland that the nationalists want to create – as anyone subject to the cyber-nat hornet attacks will know.
Dundee, where I was born? Glasgow, where I was an MP for 18 years? Bradford, where I’m an MP now? Westminster? He answered just as he was going out of the door: ‘Tae England.’
He didn’t wait for my response which was cheered to the echo. Which was that I’ll go wherever I like in these islands or anywhere else and speak my mind.
This was par for the course in Alex Salmond’s Brigadoon Scotland that the nationalists want to create – as anyone subject to the cyber-nat hornet attacks will know.
Some, as Nigel Farage found last year, are even driven out
of town – in his case in the back of a police black maria.
Like JK Rowling, I’ve been called quisling, traitor and much worse on social media, so clearly my message is getting through, which is that we have been together for more than 300 years in this union which has worked successfully for most of that time.
Like JK Rowling, I’ve been called quisling, traitor and much worse on social media, so clearly my message is getting through, which is that we have been together for more than 300 years in this union which has worked successfully for most of that time.
We’ve mingled, married, succeeded, failed, occasionally fallen
out, made up and got on. As equal partners.
So why divorce now?
I know about divorce, believe me.
It is never amicable, however reasonable the arrangements seem to be – the division of the record collection, the dog, the car – you can give everything, but the one thing you will never give is the right to continue to use the joint account and credit cards.
And that’s the nationalists Plan A. They have no Plan B.
So why divorce now?
I know about divorce, believe me.
It is never amicable, however reasonable the arrangements seem to be – the division of the record collection, the dog, the car – you can give everything, but the one thing you will never give is the right to continue to use the joint account and credit cards.
And that’s the nationalists Plan A. They have no Plan B.
They want to use the currency issued by the Bank of
England, the clue being in the name, and they believe the people who issue it
will allow them to – to keep using the joint credit card when they walk out the
door.
There will be no pound in an independent Scotland.
So what will it have. The euro? How’s that doing? The groat, based entirely on a commodity, oil, which will disappear by 2050?
In my lifetime, oil has been as low as $9 a barrel and as high as $156.
Who wants to mortgage their children’s future on a finite resource that is diminishing and whose value is incalculable?
Even the SNP’s ‘chancellor’ John Swinney admitted privately that if the oil price nosedives, an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to pay pensioners in groats or anything else.
If Britain’s so bad, how come Salmond wants to keep so much of it – from the Queen to the Bank of England?
If Scotland and Britain needs the EU so much, why should we risk not being admitted to it by the vote of even just one EU country out of half a dozen with separatist movements threatening their own states?
If we don’t get to keep Britain’s pound, and we won’t, and don’t get into the EU, Scotland would be stepping off an ocean-going liner and into a Para Handy Clyde puffer, put forth on to a cruel sea.
It wouldn’t be a very ‘canny’ Scot doing that.
There will be no pound in an independent Scotland.
So what will it have. The euro? How’s that doing? The groat, based entirely on a commodity, oil, which will disappear by 2050?
In my lifetime, oil has been as low as $9 a barrel and as high as $156.
Who wants to mortgage their children’s future on a finite resource that is diminishing and whose value is incalculable?
Even the SNP’s ‘chancellor’ John Swinney admitted privately that if the oil price nosedives, an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to pay pensioners in groats or anything else.
If Britain’s so bad, how come Salmond wants to keep so much of it – from the Queen to the Bank of England?
If Scotland and Britain needs the EU so much, why should we risk not being admitted to it by the vote of even just one EU country out of half a dozen with separatist movements threatening their own states?
If we don’t get to keep Britain’s pound, and we won’t, and don’t get into the EU, Scotland would be stepping off an ocean-going liner and into a Para Handy Clyde puffer, put forth on to a cruel sea.
It wouldn’t be a very ‘canny’ Scot doing that.
And there will be border guards and posts, if not wire,
because Scotland and England will have different immigration policies.
Scotland needs more immigrants, England, this Tory England, wants to shut the door on them. So you’ll have to pull up south of Gretna, and hand over your passport, before getting on your way.
If redistribution of wealth is what’s needed, as the SNP on Clydeside keep saying (though not I expect so often in their Angus, Perthshire and Banff and Buchan heartlands), let’s redistribute the wealth of 65 million people rather than five million (the wealthiest of whom would decamp south unless we promised not to touch their wealth. In which case, what would be the point of ‘independence’?).
Contrary to the claims of the cybernats, Scotland is not an occupied country. Rather, Scotland and England together occupied most of the world.
The Scots are not denied self-determination and could have voted at any time in the past century for independence and had it.
I was one of the leaders in the movement for Scottish devolution. It was right to set up a Scottish parliament and it is right that it will be given more powers.
What the SNP is proposing isn’t even proper independence, it’s the so-called devo max, with gunboats, and underwritten by the UK Treasury.
Scotland needs more immigrants, England, this Tory England, wants to shut the door on them. So you’ll have to pull up south of Gretna, and hand over your passport, before getting on your way.
If redistribution of wealth is what’s needed, as the SNP on Clydeside keep saying (though not I expect so often in their Angus, Perthshire and Banff and Buchan heartlands), let’s redistribute the wealth of 65 million people rather than five million (the wealthiest of whom would decamp south unless we promised not to touch their wealth. In which case, what would be the point of ‘independence’?).
Contrary to the claims of the cybernats, Scotland is not an occupied country. Rather, Scotland and England together occupied most of the world.
The Scots are not denied self-determination and could have voted at any time in the past century for independence and had it.
I was one of the leaders in the movement for Scottish devolution. It was right to set up a Scottish parliament and it is right that it will be given more powers.
What the SNP is proposing isn’t even proper independence, it’s the so-called devo max, with gunboats, and underwritten by the UK Treasury.
Recently, I spoke at a school in Ruislip in outer London,
cheek by jowl to RAF Northolt.
I recalled those midsummer days when our RAF came together to save us at a moment of supreme national peril. The Battle of Britain was fought by Brylcreem boys from all classes and every part of our land.
If we had flinched or miscalculated in those months, I’d have been speaking to them in German, or more likely not at all if our country had been over-run by the fascists.
It was our finest hour.
And we did it together, without a care for the differences in the twang of Suffolk or Sutherland. We were better together then and we can and must be again.
I recalled those midsummer days when our RAF came together to save us at a moment of supreme national peril. The Battle of Britain was fought by Brylcreem boys from all classes and every part of our land.
If we had flinched or miscalculated in those months, I’d have been speaking to them in German, or more likely not at all if our country had been over-run by the fascists.
It was our finest hour.
And we did it together, without a care for the differences in the twang of Suffolk or Sutherland. We were better together then and we can and must be again.
We will need to pull together as one mighty effort
employing every sinew of our strength.
As with the last, if this Battle of Britain is lost then they can bring the curtain down. At least on the ideals I and many others in Scotland and Britain still believe in.
I’ve now put my Just Say Naw message to thousands of voters across Scotland in more than a dozen packed meetings and debates.
My speech in Edinburgh was said by some to have been the speech that could save the Union. And I have more lined up in the run-up to the September vote.
Old-school public meetings, no quarter given. There’s a real appetite for it.
I’m not part of the official Scotland Together outfit, whose slogan ‘No, thanks’ will hardly warm the heather, never mind set it alight.
The cybernats and those brave enough to face me can say what they like, call me what they want, but I’m with J. K. Rowling.
Just say naw.
As with the last, if this Battle of Britain is lost then they can bring the curtain down. At least on the ideals I and many others in Scotland and Britain still believe in.
I’ve now put my Just Say Naw message to thousands of voters across Scotland in more than a dozen packed meetings and debates.
My speech in Edinburgh was said by some to have been the speech that could save the Union. And I have more lined up in the run-up to the September vote.
Old-school public meetings, no quarter given. There’s a real appetite for it.
I’m not part of the official Scotland Together outfit, whose slogan ‘No, thanks’ will hardly warm the heather, never mind set it alight.
The cybernats and those brave enough to face me can say what they like, call me what they want, but I’m with J. K. Rowling.
Just say naw.
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