Nemo dat quod non habet

Published by Tom

September 10, 2009

Alex Salmond promises British citizenship if Scotland becomes separate nation – Telegraph.

I support the SNP's campaign for Scottish independence. I have even been known to send Mr Salmond's party a donation. More English people now support Scottish independence than Scots. Let's face it. We have not heard a friendly word from north of the border since the Acts of Union.

I became an English Scots Nationalist one day in Stirling. I am an admirer of Sir William Wallace, a brave, proud man who would despise those modern "nationalists" who confuse a plan for EU parasitism with "independence". Near his memorial, I listened to a Scottish chav (I believe the word is "ned") explaining his significance to his toddler son. He spoke of the English to this innocent in blood-curdling terms. I watched the child's eyes as he drank it down and knew there was no hope. Forget shortbreads, tartans and crude provincial poetry. Scottishness is defined by hatred.

At least the idiotic father gave me a laugh. He was doing this in front of what he thought was the Memorial; the figure of Mel Gibson as Wallace which was standing near the visitor centre. I walked sadly up the path to the real memorial.

Scotland is one of my favourite places and I have valued Scottish friends, but I would lose nothing (and gain much) by its independence. It needs tourism
income, so I will still be welcome there. Something tells me my favourite distilleries
will be just as ready to sell me my tipple.

However Mr Salmond has no right to promise British citizenship to Scots after independence. No man can give what he does not have. If he rejects Britain, he must live with his choices, as Wallace would have bravely done. For that matter, if Scotland leaves an EU member state, it also leaves the EU. The United Kingdom, minus Scotland, would be perfectly free to veto its application for membership. I believe it should do so. Scotland begged for the Acts of Union. It was a failed state brought to beggary by the Darien Venture. It has been subsidised by England ever since. At the least, it should prove itself by 50 years of economic independence before it is even allowed to apply. During that time, a Scots passport should give no special rights in the United Kingdom.

Of the entire Scottish nation, only 163,000 are net contributors to Britain's budget. If Scotland opts for independence, those ladies and gentlemen should perhaps be offered British citizenship. The rest know what to do.

13 responses to “Nemo dat quod non habet”

www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlCAirPtvXD5aUuY52uAeC-6RylYeX23xw

September 10, 2009

Of course there is the approach of killing to birds with one stone.
Let Scotland be the successor state ( and just technically Britain and Mr Salmond’s valued British passport would still be valid ) and the rest of us leave.
This would mean we were out of the EU without having to negotiate or anything else troublesome like that.
The EU would have to play ball with us or we would close the ~~Scottish~~ British border and prevent the Irish using our roads as a free unpaid for subsidy for their economy.
Of course Scotland might have some trouble paying the EU subsidy that “Britain is committed to”.
However personally I think the unpleasant and very wide spread Anglophobia in Scottish society needs to be tacked head on, and could be by a Unionist government that wants to save the Union. Appeasement will just make Mr Salmond happy – David Cameron take note.

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JMB

September 10, 2009

Oh no, the Canadian “separatist problem” for the UK. Don’t forget that they should to take their share of the national debt. That might give them pause.

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jameshigham

September 10, 2009

Scotland begged for the Acts of Union. It was a failed state brought to beggary by the Darien Venture. It has been subsidised by England ever since. At the least, it should prove itself by 50 years of economic independence before it is even allowed to apply. During that time, a Scots passport should give no special rights in the United Kingdom.
Hear hear. But by then it would be the Disunited Kingdom, wouldn’t it?

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Andrew Scott

September 10, 2009

Thanks very much for your support (sincerely), although I suggest judging Scotland by the comments of our Neds is akin to me judging England by the antics of your world-renowned football hooligans. It will be better for both nations to be apart. We will no longer be associated with delusional military adventures and the rest of you can enjoy your holdays up here getting cheaper and cheaper as we sink to the lowly status you feel we deserve. Either way, we’ll be able to stop blaming each other for the mess as, most likely, we sink together.
Andrew Scott – http://lifesscience.blogspot.com/

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Tom Paine

September 11, 2009

A friendly word from north of the border! Thanks. What do you think of Mr. Salmond promising British citizenship though? Do you see how arrogant and offensive that is?

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Tom Paine

September 11, 2009

Scotland is not the only home nation united with England to comprise the United Kingdom. I guess we will lose the “Great Britain” bit from the title since the country would no longer comprise the whole of that island, replacing it with “England, Wales”. The modern connotation of “great” makes that sound arrogant (which it isn’t, as it’s merely comparative with Brittany, the “other” Britain) so that might be a good thing.

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Moggsy

September 11, 2009

I figure sharing the debts is a great idea.. also letting arsey Scot’s nats have the monopoly on Britain and British citizenship and particularly EU membership. They could have Gordon Brown too.
Thing is..
How do you tell if you are Scottish, Irish, Welsh or English if you can’t be bothered to nurse ancient grievances over possibly ancient propaganda?
Personally I am just a little mixed up on that one…

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Tom Paine

September 11, 2009

“Mixed up” is exactly right. There are no pure-blooded English, Scots, Welsh or Irish. My mother (and all my ancestors on the female line) are English. My father and all my known male ancestors are Welsh. I have Dupuytren’s contracture, which guarantees at least one Viking ancestor. I was born and grew up in Wales, but every house I ever owned was in England. I raised my family in Poland and most of my friends are Polish or Russian.
I prefer to be called English because I despise the nasty, petty nationalism I observed growing up in Wales. I may need a new designation soon though, as I rather despair at the reactionary growth of English nationalism, which I see as a formerly global-minded people lowering themselves to a pettiness previously reserved for football hooligans.
Frankly, people with nothing better to be proud of than their ethnic origins are pathetic. They are the precise moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan; losers to a man and woman. They should learn something, develop a skill, make a contribution that they are entitled to be proud of rather than rest on their ancestors’ laurels.
An author of a book about being Welsh said you could only tell if you were Welsh by your “cymreictod”; your sense of being Welsh. Frankly, if that’s the case, it’s an absurd thing to care about.
My test is simple. People who teach their children the same nursery rhymes and laugh at the same jokes, should all be in the same nation. If it were not for petty-minded, prehistoric (and ahistoric) nationalisms, the whole anglosphere could (and should) be one nation. Sadly, the addiction to victimhood of the “Celts” (their celtic origins are actually in doubt according to modern historians) is fragmenting our peoples further. Their choice.
As long as we don’t let them leech on us via the EU, rather than directly, Scotland leaving the UK will have the same economic effect as Slovakia leaving Czechoslovakia. Ask a Czech if he regrets that and he will laugh.

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Andrew Duffin

September 11, 2009

My passport say I am a British citizen, a subject of Her Majesty.
Regardless of the degradation of our country by Blair/Brown, I am proud of that and that is how it will stay unless I choose otherwise.
The posturing midget Salmond can go to blazes. How DARE he presume to interfere in this?

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Andrew Scott

September 11, 2009

Alex Salmond talks plenty rubbish, like most politicians. What everyone seems to forget is that after Scottish independence Scotland will not necessarily be run by the SNP, for long, if at all. With independence achieved there will be a fragmentation of politics into parties who will fight elections. Goodness knows, we may even elect Gordon Brown and Scottish Labour to run us (Joking – we are not so stupid as that, I think). At present there are only two routes to independence: 1) Voting for the SNP and all the good bad and ugly they bring and 2) Annoying the rest of Britain sufficiently that they kick us out. It seems we are making progress on both fronts. Thanks for your help. There are plenty of Anglophiles (like me) who support the SNP you know, we just want to live next door to you rather than in your garden shed 🙂 And we don’t want to go on daft foreign miltary interventions, or have Trident submarines, or have delusions of being a big important country like Britain (even though, increasingly, it is not). We just want to be a wee peaceful land of 5 or 6 million people, with friendly neighbours. Is that so mad? Our aspirations are to be like Ireland or Denmark, or Norway, or even little Luxembourg. Britain.s aspirations seem to be to pretend the Empire never ended. Unfortunately most of our fellow Scots currently don’t support those aspirations, but that’s democracy for you. I can live with being British. I’d just prefer not to be, sorry.
Andrew http://lifesscience.blogspot.com/

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Andrew Scott

September 11, 2009

I suppose as the “invading Scot” on the blog I should also try to answer another of the comments made by others: Of course Scotland should get its share of the UK national debt in any fair settlement, just as we would have our share of the British armed forces to barter with, so we’d have about 10% of the value of the Trident submarines that you keep up here which we don’t want but so many of the rest of you apparently do. These things are obvious. It truly, truly puzzles me deeply why there is so much opposition to Scottish independence in England if we Scots are really such scroungers and such a burden on you. The complex debate about how that argument really all works out is not a problem if we just let bygones be bygones, divorce in a negotiated settlement, shake hands and wish each other all the best for the future. Why so much nastiness and unpleasantness? I do know the unpleasantness comes from both sides, by the way; but believe me there is plenty coming from down your way headed up here. Having said all that, my own support for independence would probably melt away if Britain stopped trying pathetically to behave like a military superpower and started trying to address all the real issues that matter, like social fragmentation, inequality, fairness, justice and the need for maximum liberty within the necessary constraints of a civilised democratic society. Nations are human inventions, and as stated by others here there is little rational basis for their demarcations; but so long as the system recognises Scotland as a separate unit I’ll support attempts for us to break away and move down what I consider a more sensible path until the path that Britain is following changes radically. Of course, it’s probably all the mad Scotsmen that you let run things down in London that is causing the problem – I can only apologise for sending you Gordon Brown and all the rest 🙂 And be assured, that just as Tom Paine is an English Scottish Nationalist Andrew Scott is a Scottish English Nationalists. We should not be fighting when we agree about so much 🙂

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Tom Paine

September 14, 2009

As I would not allow Scots to switch their economic “dependency” to the EU, I am rather more in favour of “independence” than the SNP. I don’t know where you are hearing “so much opposition” to independence in England. I hear none. The door is open.
I am also of the opinion (frequently expressed here) that the UK should learn its modest place in the world. The only good argument I have every heard for “foreign adventures” is that it’s annoying some Scots (or at least you) into wanting to leave more quickly.
Explain me this though. The government that despatched our troops, ill-equipped and with an inadequately defined mission, to Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. was led throughout by Scots. I know Blair’s a “posh Scot” and many of you think that doesn’t count, but he’s a Scot for a’ that. Your “us and them analysis” seems a bit flawed there. I do not call it Scots warmongering, but it would be no more inaccurate than your insinuations.
One reason Salmond’s notion of continuing political rights for the Scots in Britain after independence is so offensive is that we would not then be able to expel Blair, Brown, Darling and the other rievers who have blighted our lives.
Scotland may have been economically dependent on England, but it has long been our political master. No doubt Scots understood the need to play an active political role to ensure their economic privileges were never revoked. I have had the government of my (and most of England’s) choice for only one-fifth of my life. The rest of the time I had one imposed (Labour) or “socialised”(Heathite Tory) by whingeing “victims” from Scotland.

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Andrew Scott

September 14, 2009

Yep. We’ve got plenty of foolish Scots – the ones we send down to rule you all. But come on, the vast majority of the UK voters are not Scots, the vast majority of parliamentary contituencies are not Scottish, so it’s a stretch to blame whingeing victims from Scotland for the people the UK chooses to elect to govern it. But I’m glad we agree on the UK’s need to “learn its modest place in the world.” I’ll leave the discussion with this crucial point on which we agree.

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