Peter has put his finger on precisely what has been absent from Scottish political discourse for too long. The distinction between self-determination and independence is not semantic hair-splitting, it is the most constitutionally important observation anyone has made in this debate for years, and the fact that our political caste has consistently failed to make it tells you everything about the quality of thinking currently on offer.
What Peter identifies as missing is, I would suggest, already in existence. The mechanism to exercise that self-determination has been quietly and accidentally reinforced by the Scottish Government itself, without any apparent awareness of what it was doing.
The Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill 2026 recognised community owned assets under Scots private law. It was built for financial purposes. What it inadvertently created is the legal vessel for something much older: the direct exercise of collective sovereignty grounded in the Claim of Right and the Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
This is not a digital concept. The scope is everything. Community ownership of land, energy, infrastructure, atmospheric resources, heritage industries, and fiscal instruments that recover native productivity dividends at community level. None of this requires Westminster permission. None of it requires a referendum to begin operating right now. The Scottish Government has been handing us the tools without realising what they were building.
Scotland can exercise self-determination on a massive scale right here and now. The delivery of popular sovereignty can be expressed via public exposure of what is actually possible by enacting the #ArbroathProtocol, serving notice to those who apparently serve the people, demanding that action is taken using existing powers within our current remit. That would radically change the shape of Scotland through community empowerment, and it would do so before a single ballot paper is printed.
The constitutional question Peter asks is the right one. The answer is already in our hands.
"Independence can only be restored as the consequence of a vote in a proper constitutional referendum"
This statement appears to be at odds with the history of decolonisation in many, if not most countries, which we might remember is about removing an unwanted oppressor and usurper, and indeed with UK constitutional law experts, who state that: "As a matter of law, a referendum is not a required part of the process of becoming independent" (McCorkindale and McHarg, 2020).
After Independence is declared not as a pre-requisit.
Where is gone your position on UDI ? Wanting to go agaisnt History is in any case due to failure. Why Scotland should be different, are we so exceptionnal, are we told we are so exceptionnal ? Those who think so, fool themselves and are as ineficient as the "sttaus quo party"... No country had gain Independence through the good will of anyone,.party, voters nor anybody else..
If you read my linked paper you would see that a referendum, as in 2014, is again likely to be subject to considerable 'external interference', which makes it much less desirable than some appear to believe.
Hi Alf, unless proposed afer UDI with pre-requisits : define Scottish Nationality ( as the EU " Standards" for example) and therefore get rid of the residential franchise ( an exceptionnal inepsy) allowing Nationals to vote on National matters.
By the way UDI is not needed to have those pre-requisit, the debate on Nationality neither... Right now we could for example get the proper fairer franchise for National matters like in the uk general election for 🤔 or People born in Scotland and Residents for so may years ( 5 or more). I am French, arrived in 2013 and was very surprised to have the right to vote in the referendum. Not possible in France whithout French Nationality...
If the residential franchise is not scrapped there will be no fair vote for Independence.
With that stupid residential franchise, the situation gets worth day by day with the amount ( needed is not that is not the point) of new housing built in the country and the free movement amongst the 4 ... "entities".
The residential franchise is an open gate to failure and trichery...as the universal postal vote ( not allowed in so many countries except for very specific reasons).
Nationals vote on National Matters like everywhere else. ( Britain included)
Only if it's a Section 30 referendum. A proper constitutional referendum is essential. A Section 30 referendum is to be avoided at all costs. Even requesting a Section 30 order does harm to Scotland's cause. To request a Section 30 order is to acknowledge and validate the British state's effective veto on the will of Scotland's people. It is to deny the sovereignty of Scotland's people. It is an act of treachery.
To vote for the SNP is to condone and collude in treachery.
The referendum is almost the modern requirement - and after 3 of them now for Scotland it would be expected.
In their way all three were interfered with, or at least, bodies pretending to be impartial or neutral while working in an underhand way against Indy in 2014 like the IFS, or Devo in 1997 like the CBI. Our old "friend" Iain McMillan, another "Sir".
Independence makes any talk of self-determination, the sovereignty of the People of Scotland, the Claim of Right, the British or UK state - or anything else - totally irrelevant. The past. History. Except for historians and other academics.
Working backwards from this self-evident truism, means that achieving Independence is the absolute 100% top priority, not any side issues, distractions or personal crusades.
You miss the blindingly obvious fact that independence cannot happen until we have the means and opportunity to exercise our right of self-determination. This then must be the absolute 100% top priority.
Agree one hundred percent. Independence can only be decided by us, the voters and whatever age etc we are. Politicians do not, inespecial via an election vote.
Yes, we need Independence supporting political parties but only to put into effect the majority Independence vote effected by us, the people. And not until that happens.
It is my view that Scotland can have a vote/referendum on what the hell it chooses, if only to nationally agree a point of view, such as, 'do we want to revert to an independent country?' If the vote revealed a sufficient majority then that would effect the Claim of Right. That said I'm sure Peter might correct my way of thinking.
Let no one see that you are claiming a distinction without a difference. There is a difference. Self-determination first, then campaign for independence.
Agree with all of above Peter ..nothing to argue with..even if you are spitting into the wind...How do we get the message across you ask......
* The Media is foreign and hostile...the ever present foreign english...apart from one wee lonely paper that Scots hardly read.
*Political parties' ( I use that term advisedly)...who absolutely insist on ignoring the fact that at the end of their colourful electioneering they STILL crawl to the foreign hostile english and ASK PERMISSION to be free...explain that to me because I cannot.
*We have a surfeit of betrayers,quislings traitors ..call them what you will whose total focus is self aggrandisement and it doesn't seem to matter to them that tragically Scotland's freedom is lost the melee...you know the beast..alexander,jack.gove,ross,baillie,findlay.....the list is endless...all excrement...
*An entitled class..so called 'royals'..and well heeled turds owning estates and large swathes of OUR land with' hidden power'... absolutely determined to keep the status quo..for their benefit...and the peasants in their place.
*Police/army/hidden security groups controlled by the hostile foreign english...head of Police Scotland..Jo Farrell ..foreign englishwoman who tried ..using an 'error of judgement'..( her words) to get the Scots to pay for her taxi fare back HOME to england and is now being financially supported to buy a SECOND HOME in Edinburgh..a real grifter...and as for the Army..the ones in wee kilts with pipes birlin'..could not get off the asses to protect us when a foreign power used our land as a base to attack their enemies..supported by the hostile foreign english ...
* And finally the 'tartan mushrooms ' themselves who vote for foreign english politicians ..intent on stopping our freedom..why? because 'they wus fed up...'
300 years immersed in a hostile toxic environment would destroy any nation...and it has.
There is only ONE solution and its doubtful if the Sots are in any fit state to take it on.
Peter has put his finger on precisely what has been absent from Scottish political discourse for too long. The distinction between self-determination and independence is not semantic hair-splitting, it is the most constitutionally important observation anyone has made in this debate for years, and the fact that our political caste has consistently failed to make it tells you everything about the quality of thinking currently on offer.
What Peter identifies as missing is, I would suggest, already in existence. The mechanism to exercise that self-determination has been quietly and accidentally reinforced by the Scottish Government itself, without any apparent awareness of what it was doing.
The Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill 2026 recognised community owned assets under Scots private law. It was built for financial purposes. What it inadvertently created is the legal vessel for something much older: the direct exercise of collective sovereignty grounded in the Claim of Right and the Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
This is not a digital concept. The scope is everything. Community ownership of land, energy, infrastructure, atmospheric resources, heritage industries, and fiscal instruments that recover native productivity dividends at community level. None of this requires Westminster permission. None of it requires a referendum to begin operating right now. The Scottish Government has been handing us the tools without realising what they were building.
Scotland can exercise self-determination on a massive scale right here and now. The delivery of popular sovereignty can be expressed via public exposure of what is actually possible by enacting the #ArbroathProtocol, serving notice to those who apparently serve the people, demanding that action is taken using existing powers within our current remit. That would radically change the shape of Scotland through community empowerment, and it would do so before a single ballot paper is printed.
The constitutional question Peter asks is the right one. The answer is already in our hands.
"Independence can only be restored as the consequence of a vote in a proper constitutional referendum"
This statement appears to be at odds with the history of decolonisation in many, if not most countries, which we might remember is about removing an unwanted oppressor and usurper, and indeed with UK constitutional law experts, who state that: "As a matter of law, a referendum is not a required part of the process of becoming independent" (McCorkindale and McHarg, 2020).
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/08/22/determinants-of-independence-self-determination/
As a matter of politics, a proper constitutional referendum is a required part of the process of Scotland becoming independent.
After Independence is declared not as a pre-requisit.
Where is gone your position on UDI ? Wanting to go agaisnt History is in any case due to failure. Why Scotland should be different, are we so exceptionnal, are we told we are so exceptionnal ? Those who think so, fool themselves and are as ineficient as the "sttaus quo party"... No country had gain Independence through the good will of anyone,.party, voters nor anybody else..
UDI then a referendum.
Yes, but a referendum is desirable, even if it has to be after a possibly provisional UDI - and / or a de facto referendum election.
An election pretending to be a referendum can never be conclusive enough to decide a matter as fundamental as independence.
If you read my linked paper you would see that a referendum, as in 2014, is again likely to be subject to considerable 'external interference', which makes it much less desirable than some appear to believe.
Hi Alf, unless proposed afer UDI with pre-requisits : define Scottish Nationality ( as the EU " Standards" for example) and therefore get rid of the residential franchise ( an exceptionnal inepsy) allowing Nationals to vote on National matters.
By the way UDI is not needed to have those pre-requisit, the debate on Nationality neither... Right now we could for example get the proper fairer franchise for National matters like in the uk general election for 🤔 or People born in Scotland and Residents for so may years ( 5 or more). I am French, arrived in 2013 and was very surprised to have the right to vote in the referendum. Not possible in France whithout French Nationality...
If the residential franchise is not scrapped there will be no fair vote for Independence.
With that stupid residential franchise, the situation gets worth day by day with the amount ( needed is not that is not the point) of new housing built in the country and the free movement amongst the 4 ... "entities".
The residential franchise is an open gate to failure and trichery...as the universal postal vote ( not allowed in so many countries except for very specific reasons).
Nationals vote on National Matters like everywhere else. ( Britain included)
Only if it's a Section 30 referendum. A proper constitutional referendum is essential. A Section 30 referendum is to be avoided at all costs. Even requesting a Section 30 order does harm to Scotland's cause. To request a Section 30 order is to acknowledge and validate the British state's effective veto on the will of Scotland's people. It is to deny the sovereignty of Scotland's people. It is an act of treachery.
To vote for the SNP is to condone and collude in treachery.
The referendum is almost the modern requirement - and after 3 of them now for Scotland it would be expected.
In their way all three were interfered with, or at least, bodies pretending to be impartial or neutral while working in an underhand way against Indy in 2014 like the IFS, or Devo in 1997 like the CBI. Our old "friend" Iain McMillan, another "Sir".
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12310015.cbi-in-scotland-stays-firm-on-devolution-as-welsh-opposition-softens/
https://archive.is/h9enj
I despised the guy. All over UseNet, and other.
Jings I just re-read that and the anger is still there.
The Herald in those days was pro-devolution, had been for a long long time. It SHOULD be pro-indy now. It did get close ...
Independence makes any talk of self-determination, the sovereignty of the People of Scotland, the Claim of Right, the British or UK state - or anything else - totally irrelevant. The past. History. Except for historians and other academics.
Working backwards from this self-evident truism, means that achieving Independence is the absolute 100% top priority, not any side issues, distractions or personal crusades.
Sorry for stating the blindingly obvious.
You miss the blindingly obvious fact that independence cannot happen until we have the means and opportunity to exercise our right of self-determination. This then must be the absolute 100% top priority.
Agree one hundred percent. Independence can only be decided by us, the voters and whatever age etc we are. Politicians do not, inespecial via an election vote.
Yes, we need Independence supporting political parties but only to put into effect the majority Independence vote effected by us, the people. And not until that happens.
It is my view that Scotland can have a vote/referendum on what the hell it chooses, if only to nationally agree a point of view, such as, 'do we want to revert to an independent country?' If the vote revealed a sufficient majority then that would effect the Claim of Right. That said I'm sure Peter might correct my way of thinking.
Bang on the money, Peter!
Let no one see that you are claiming a distinction without a difference. There is a difference. Self-determination first, then campaign for independence.
Brilliant Catherine 👏🏻 if also sad 😔 🏴
Agree with all of above Peter ..nothing to argue with..even if you are spitting into the wind...How do we get the message across you ask......
* The Media is foreign and hostile...the ever present foreign english...apart from one wee lonely paper that Scots hardly read.
*Political parties' ( I use that term advisedly)...who absolutely insist on ignoring the fact that at the end of their colourful electioneering they STILL crawl to the foreign hostile english and ASK PERMISSION to be free...explain that to me because I cannot.
*We have a surfeit of betrayers,quislings traitors ..call them what you will whose total focus is self aggrandisement and it doesn't seem to matter to them that tragically Scotland's freedom is lost the melee...you know the beast..alexander,jack.gove,ross,baillie,findlay.....the list is endless...all excrement...
*An entitled class..so called 'royals'..and well heeled turds owning estates and large swathes of OUR land with' hidden power'... absolutely determined to keep the status quo..for their benefit...and the peasants in their place.
*Police/army/hidden security groups controlled by the hostile foreign english...head of Police Scotland..Jo Farrell ..foreign englishwoman who tried ..using an 'error of judgement'..( her words) to get the Scots to pay for her taxi fare back HOME to england and is now being financially supported to buy a SECOND HOME in Edinburgh..a real grifter...and as for the Army..the ones in wee kilts with pipes birlin'..could not get off the asses to protect us when a foreign power used our land as a base to attack their enemies..supported by the hostile foreign english ...
* And finally the 'tartan mushrooms ' themselves who vote for foreign english politicians ..intent on stopping our freedom..why? because 'they wus fed up...'
300 years immersed in a hostile toxic environment would destroy any nation...and it has.
There is only ONE solution and its doubtful if the Sots are in any fit state to take it on.
For OUR Scotland and her sad weans.
Nailed it lassie :)