Therefore, the Claim of Right persists in Scotland and affirms the rights of Scots, including the right to declare that a government has forfeited its authority by violation of constitutional and civil rights. Sound far fetched? It was done in 1689 and it can be done today.
Under the English legal and political system, we will not get a fair or honourable hearing based on real legal principle or fact. Always, the colonising state, a history or perfidy behind it, stands on the absolutism of English law & pretends there is some legal argument to allow it to dismiss the fundamental provisions of the Claim of Right. Treaty law says otherwise.
Time to recall the Convention of Estates. Not the Three Estates, (legislative parliament) but the Assembly of the Communities of Scotland. And test its constitutional authority in international, not arbitrary, (‘anomalous’), elitist, English domestic law.
Rousing stuff, no doubt, from Sara Salyers via Liberation Scotland as seen on Facebook. The sort of stuff that’s sure to have the crowds cheering and the Saltires waving. Regarded more dispassionately, however, it all raises a multitude of questions without providing anything much in the way of answers. Take this, for example:
It was done in 1689 and it can be done today.
Really? Does the fact that something was done in 1689 imply that it can be done today? Does it imply that it would be something we would want to do in 2025? In 1689 people were being executed in all manner of imaginative ways for the crime of witchcraft. Could that be done today? Would we want to even if we could?
We surely can’t simply disinter something from the past and expect it to function as we would wish. It is one thing to state that the people of Scotland still have the right to “declare that a government has forfeited its authority by violation of constitutional and civil rights”. It is quite another to say that we can exercise this right. Or that we would want to.
Even if we could just dismiss a government, would we be wise to do so? First of all, who is ‘we’? It’s not ‘the people’ en masse. It is a select group of people. Who does the selecting? How is the selecting done? In 1689, these questions didn’t arise. Or at least, they did not loom so large. Back then there were men of station. Men - and it was almost always men - who had status acquired by birth. Or perhaps by having a particular skill. Everybody knew who the ‘we’ was. It was community knowledge.
Not so now. Today, we have democracy. The ‘we’ in our time is our elected representatives. Without a popular mandate, there is neither status nor authority. Although some expertise can still bestow status and authority, it is always subordinate to the authority of the elected.
Without a popular mandate, there is neither status nor authority.
This means that the ‘we’ that has the authority to dismiss the government is parliament - the assembly of elected representatives. Can parliament dismiss the government? In principle, I suppose it can. there is a procedure by which it can be done. But the constraints are such that it is nearly impossible to do in practice.
Sara Salyers’ answer to the problem is to create another ‘we’ by recalling the Convention of Estates or the Assembly of the Communities of Scotland. But wait! Isn’t that what parliament is? Isn’t it an assembly of representatives of Scotland’s communities (constituencies)? Presumably then, the Convention of Estates is not the existing parliament - which could be said to be the successor to the Convention of Estates. Presumably, Sara is talking about a separate entity. One which would have the power to dismiss the government but free of the constraints which make this all but impossible for the parliament.
This then would be a body that is not the parliament but which has powers greater than that of the parliament. The authority of the parliament derives from the mandate of the people as granted by way of elections. Whence the authority of the Convention of Estates? From where does it get its democratic legitimacy?
The Convention of Estates would seem to be some sort of pseudo-parliament lacking general legislative competence but with the power to dismiss any government which is in violation of constitutional and civil rights. Who would decide what constitutes such violation? Who would decide if the government was guilty?
Does this mean that the Convention of Estates would be an unelected pseudo-parliament with quasi-judicial powers? That sounds a bit scary to me.
The mistake being made here is supposing that reinstating the principles set out in the 1689 Claim of Right requires reconstitution of the machinery that existed back then. I would contend that the same effect can be achieved more speedily and with fewer and less intractable problems by reapplying those principles within the democratic institutions which have succeeded the ancient apparatus.
Those institutions - principally the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government - do not currently serve Scotland well. This is undeniable. But it is an extreme oversimplification to say that these institutions are just ‘not fit for purpose’. It is more accurate to describe them as being not entirely fit for all our purposes. Making them better fit for more of our purposes is a challenge. But it is surely less of a challenge than trying to replace them with replicas of 340-year old machinery.
Restoring Scotland’s rightful status as an independent nation need not mean remaking Scotland in the image of our pre-Union past. It need not be a case of out with the new and in with the old. We can adapt cleverly and adopt selectively.
If we're to be resurrecting old customs from that era, I can think of a few prominent politicians from the Southern reaches of our (dis)United Kingdom who might benefit from a "cleansing" by fire.
All kidding aside, you are correct in what you say Pete. The validity of some acts/customs/traditions etc, do not necessarily stand the test of several hundred years of time. On the other hand though, the declaration of Arbroath 1320, and the Claim of Right 1689, whilst ancient, are still held dear to us Scots. Many of us are rightfully angry at the continued subjugation of our country by a larger country/coloniser and unsurprisingly will be in favour of reaching out for any passing hope of deliverance. That is patently natural for those who are oppressed, and/or desperate.
Our "nobles" (and I use that term very loosely) conscripted us into this unholy union, and I fail to see any reason why our elected "nobles" cannot facilitate the reverse. Whilst our parliament may be an English creation, that does not mean it has to be owned by them in perpetuity. The parliament is on our land, the politicians are voted in by the Scots electorate, and it remains an English plaything, only as long as we allow it to be. A change in our attitude is long overdue. We need to stop using "CAN WE" and start using "WE CAN". It starts with your MFI or some similar directive being appended to the potential election of politicians to Holyrood. That, and a little bit of moral fortitude to finally stand up to our oppressors. Change IS coming. It may be a slow process but seeds have been planted recently, by Salvo, by the rise of the ugly right wing down South, by the dissension in the SNP over Swinney's "route" to independence, etc, that will hopefully bear fruit in the coming years.
I don't disagree. Not one bit.
Most folk will vote SNP1 and SNP2 and given Reform are splitting the vote the SNP will romp home in the 1st vote anyway. the list vote, well the SNP will just say who cares about the also rans....
Even when they try to form a government....they'll run to the Greens and look forward 5 years...
It saddens my heart that they can carry on like this.
I have had very little hope since 2014 and only Salvo initially then Liberation Scotland has lifted my mood. Your idea to ignore Westminster as an irrelevance is spot on but obviously ahead of it's time given the desire of the politicos to just ignore it and take advantage of the great remuneration for 5 years.... It's time will come. Hang in there Peter.