The Scottish Parliament will be debating an independence referendum bill in the next parliamentary year (a parliamentary year is a lot shorter than a normal year to accommodate their 2 and a half month long summer holiday).
The Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says that they expect the die-hard unionists in the Scottish Parliament to oppose the bill but they are confident of it being passed:
What I think is not right for the other parties to do is to try to deny people in Scotland the right to make that decision.
The Referendum Bill would give people in Scotland the right to decide. It is for the people in Scotland to decide that, not for any one political party. I think the other political parties are going to find it difficult to be roadblocks to democracy.
The LibLabCon are stuck between a rock and a hard place. All three parties support devolution in Scotland and the sovereign right of Scottish people to determine how their country is governed – the key principal in the Scottish Claim of Right signed by most senior Labour and Lib Dem politicians. How can they oppose a referendum to ask the Scottish people if they consider independence the best way to govern their country? When Gordon Brown signed the Scottish Claim of Right, pledging to put the interests of Scotland first and foremost in all his acts and deliberations, it didn’t say that Scottish people only had the right to determine the best form of government for themselves as long as they chose to stay in the union. And if they do support a bill for a referendum on Scottish independence, how can they then refuse the very reasonable demand for a referendum on an English Parliament?
The Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative position on independence and devolution is both hypocritical and unsustainable.
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Exactly – they supported the Scottish Claim of Right and so logically they should also support the Referendum.
However, in a divorce it is customary to allow both parties to have a say.
Which means that that they should not have a referendum on whether to continue with the United Kingdom without giving that same option to ALL the constituent nations of the (dis)United Kingdom.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:23 amI welcome the debate…..long over due
I would love this debate to be put on one of the many bbc stations now available for everyone in the uk to see
mainly just to let other parts of the uk hear some of the stupid arguements against this debate and let english people know the sort of arguements that will come your way when the english debate really starts
August 30th, 2009 at 11:35 amThe Biased Broadcasting Corporation telling English people the advantages of self-determination in defiance of the British government’s ban? You must be joking! It will, as usual, be up to the CEP and our members to make sure it gets in the news.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:45 amyour right wonkotsane…..probably a bit of dreaming on my part,re bbc,
devide and conquer springs to mind
August 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pmIf we, the people of scotland,are to get their say in a referendum then we need people from south of the border to write to our newspapers supporting a referendum for Scotland.
The Scotsman Newspaper, Edinburgh
The Herald Newspaper, Glasgow
Independence for England!
August 30th, 2009 at 9:10 pmI am sure the EU can get involved in the debate. It seems to me that there were hidden rules concerning devolution – you can only have devolution if you agree to stay in the UK!!
I hope this bill gets through and that an independence referendum goes ahead, and if it does the English Question will be forced to the top of the agenda whether politicians like it or not. Unionists will be foaming at the mouth, however they started the separation process.
August 31st, 2009 at 10:20 amIt saddens me that Scotland is so close to an independence referendum, yet England struggles to even get acknowledgement that it exists.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:01 pmGood debate going on here too/ http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/salmond-angles-for-referendum-on-scottish-independence-next-year/
September 4th, 2009 at 11:29 am