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Posted By: David MacVicar
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David MacVicar's points are very pertinent. In the first place, there can be no doubt of the constitutional legitimacy of the Calman Commission. It was set up by a majority decision of the Scottish Parliament, which - unlike the so-called European Parliament - has the power to inaugurate legislation within the bounds of its constitutional powers. The fact that the Commission, and its remit, are blatantly politically skewed is another matter. It is the will of the Scottish Parliament, as presently constituted, and that is how it would have to be viewed by the international authorities. The proposals it comes up with will be another matter entirely, and even then only if there are concrete plans for implementing them. Refusal to hold a referendum on independence would be a matter for reference to the international authorities, especially the Council of Europe and the United Nations. Return of powers to Westminster against the will of the Scottish people would be another classic case for international intervention, as would any other action that was clearly flying in the face of the expressed will of the Scottish people. This latter point - the clearly expressed will of the people - is the important one. All of the relevant instruments of international law - the Helsinki Final Act, the UN Bill of Human Rights, etc. - are quite specific that the right to self-determination is to be exercised by "peoples", not governments or legislatures, both of which can operate in a tyrannical manner. A refusal to allow the people to express their will, denying them the means to do so, is obvious contravention of the international norms - as in the case of the EU Lisbon treaty. So let's just wait and see what the Calman Commission comes up with. Nothing can be done on the basis of no information. If the portents are accurate, the whole thing will probably end in an expensive fiasco with no result. We were able to force the issue on devolution at international level because we had a mass of information and evidence of the will of the Scottish people to lay before the Council of Europe and others. For the next stage - more powers and/or independence - we need far more concrete facts, and the unionists are determined to prevent these from being brought out into the open. Discussion and controversy are not in themselves hard evidence, although they certainly indicate the existence of a movement that is gathering force. An occasion for international intervention will probably arise, although I doubt whether the Scottish case can now be considered under minorities legislation, in view of the existence of the Scottish Parliament and Government. All this will have to be considered in the light of developments, and acted upon, presumably by the new organisation that is presently under discussion to replace the Scotland-UN Committee that was so successful on the devolution issue.
Posted By: David MacVicar Posted Date: 04/26/2008
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Posted By: David MacVicar
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I am very interested in some comment on the legality of the UKs commission to Review Scottish devolution as headed Sir Kenneth Calman. The commission has the go ahead from the Scottish parliament but it is deliberately excluding the view of the elected Scottish government and the views of many resident in Scotland. The UK state has ratified the Framework Convention of National Minorities: Strasbourg, 1 February 1995, ratifying it in 1998. As a layman my interpretation of some of the ambiguous articles may not be correct however it looks to me that the UK state is in contravention of some aspects of Article 4. Paragraph 2 states: "2. The Parties undertake to adopt, where necessary, adequate measures in order to promote, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and effective equality between persons belonging to a national minority and those belonging to the majority. In this respect, they shall take due account of the specific conditions of the persons belonging to national minorities." So they must 'undertake...to promote all areas of political and cultural life' etc Mr Calman and Wendy Alexander are both on record stating that they don't think enough people are in favour of independence to warrant exploration of that viewpoint. Surely a constitutional debate must include all of Scotlands representative viewpoints or it is in contravention of the ratified agreement? I would love to hear the thoughts of Dr Wilkie on this thorny issue and any other feedback that you care to make. Is it not time that the Council of Europe made some public intervention?
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Posted By: David MacVicar
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I am very interested in some comment on the legality of the UKs commission to Review Scottish devolution as headed Sir Kenneth Calman. The commission has the go ahead from the Scottish parliament but it is deliberately excluding the view of the elected Scottish government and the views of many resident in Scotland. The UK state has ratified the Framework Convention of National Minorities: Strasbourg, 1 February 1995, ratifying it in 1998. As a layman my interpretation of some of the ambiguous articles may not be correct however it looks to me that the UK state is in contavention of some aspects of Article 4. Paragraph 2 states: "2. The Parties undertake to adopt, where necessary, adequate measures in order to promote, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and effective equality between persons belonging to a national minority and those belonging to the majority. In this respect, they shall take due account of the specific conditions of the persons belonging to national minorities." So they must 'undertake...to promote all areas of political and cultural life' etc Mr Calman and Wendy Alexander are both on record stating that they don't think enough people are in favour of independence to warrant exploration of that viewpoint. Surely a constitutional debate must include all of Scotlands representative viewpoints or it is in contravention of the ratified agreement? I would love to hear the thoughts of Dr Wilkie on this thorny issue and any other feedback that you care to make. Is it not time that the Council of Europe made some public intervention?
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Posted By: Alex McGlynn
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Dr. Wilkie: Sir in view of Brown’s now obvious intention of backtracking on the Scottish Devolution agreement, would it not be appropriate and helpful to re-call the Scottish-UN Committee? Having read the papers published on this site I can appreciate the pivotal role they, the Committee, played in forcing Blair’s hand and obtaining the devolution agreement. I am astonished at how ignorant I and others have been (the majority still are) at the sterling efforts of this body. Despite the traitorous actions of Blair, Dewar and others to neuter the Scottish Parliament they have failed and the election of the first Scottish centric government is the proof of that failure. There is now without doubt a rising swell of Scots who, having regained their self respect and confidence, now are calling for greater control of our country. Eight years of Labour controlled government in Holyrood have exposed the Labour Party as acting against the interests of those they purport to serve. I return to my main point again; is there not a function for the Scottish-UN Committee in ensuring that Brown is not allowed to backtrack. Indeed to ensure that the Westminster Government fully implements the requirements of the Council of Europe or go further to push for full independence. To make my own position clear I seek true independence for my country, therefore I have severe reservations about the SNP model of independence in Europe.
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Posted By: Dr. James Wilkie
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Scotland and Europe: Contribution by a correspondent who has been involved in the European integration movement for decades: The EU is only one of several European organizations, and in fact the likes of the Council of Europe and the Conference on Security and cooperation in Europe have done a good deal more than the EU to advance the principles of an open society. The great majority of the EU members are not out for an open society or any other ideal, but are there simply because they are financial net recipients. That applies as much to Spain and Portugal as it does to all of the 10 recent new members. As we know, there was never any idealism behind the fisheries issue: the French and others wanted access to UK waters, and invented the common fisheries “policy” later as the pseudo-ethical window-dressing rather than admit the disaster they had caused. And when the Spaniards joined they jumped onto the fisheries gravy train, largely at Scotland’s expense. That is the reality of what is going on right through the EU. I have had the experience of sitting in at a meeting of agriculture and fisheries ministers, and have seen how they make decisions on matters that they cannot even understand, because nobody will admit that neither they nor the civil servants involved have the slightest clue about what they are doing. As for a far-sighted, purposeful elite, there are no visionaries or idealists left. Very recently I was talking to a former cabinet minister who was then in a senior post in Brussels, and he was of the opinion (shared, I believe, elsewhere in Brussels) that there was nothing wrong with the EU that could not be cured by converting it into a normal international organization on an intergovernmental basis like NATO and all the others, i.e. without its present supranational powers. We have to be very wary indeed about committing Scotland to the present and intended level of integration represented by the EU, which is not run by an open society, but by a relative handful of political activists whose motives are more suspect because distance renders them remote from the ordinary citizens. It is the euro fanatics who get themselves appointed and elected to Brussels. After several decades of close acquaintance with the real European political scene from the vantage point of a Foreign Ministry I have seen all the pitfalls that face Scotland if we fall for an outdated European policy. What increased influence would a 5-million state have within a Union of 500 millions! If the democratic deficit is to be reduced, and justice and good governance guaranteed, it means that all government has to be carried on at the most “local” level at which it can be administered with reasonable efficiency. And we don’t need the EU for that purpose-the United Nations has long since laid down the requisite standards and oversees adherence to them. All this would be known if Scotland had not been cut off from the world for so long, and we need to increase consciousness of these facts. Comment on the government Expenditure and Revenue for Scotland Report (GERS) In a letter to the Herald, the leader of the SNP made extensive comments on the GERS report. Among other things he pointed out that: Gers was conceived as a political, not as a statistical, exercise. We know this because the original correspondence from the then Secretary of state, Ian Lang, was leaked some years ago-he wanted it to “undermine the other parties”, saying “this initiative could score against all of them”. The civil servants involved have several times tried to pull it back from its more blatant political exploitation by Tory and Labour politicians. The economist in charge, Dr Andrew Goudie, has noted that “Gers tells us nothing about the situation under independence”. The problems with Gers are twofold and obvious. It publishes a non-oil headline figure and takes no account of UK borrowing. Thus, it is used by the Tories to talk of subsidies or labour of black holes. The first is as ludicrous as taking the financial sector out of London finances while the second places the debate in an artificial context. The UK has a budget deficit this year of £34bn, a non-oil deficit of £45bn, and accumulated debt of £500bn. Gers is also two years out of date, and merely by adjusting for this year’s oil revenues, which have doubled to more than £10bn, and allowing for the UK deficit, the “subsidy” flows in 2007 from north to south. That is before making any other corrections-for example, the clear counting of English-only departmental expenditure as part of the Scotland total. The pre-budget report shows them rising from just more than £10bn to almost £12bn over the next five years. Nor should she pretend that it is running out-Labour’s internal policy documents suggest more than 30 years of supply. Of cause, there is nothing new about the Labour Party systematically and cynically under-estimating Scotland’s oil wealth. The secret papers, recently published from the 1970s, show that this is a long-established Labour tradition. In these papers was the private economic advice that an independent Scotland would be richer than Switzerland. In public, Labour politicians were comparing our economic prospects to these of Bangladesh. Norway, Ireland and Iceland: All three have lessons to teach us if we are open-minded enough to learn. One of these lessons is to use the strength of Scotland’s current budget position to improve our competitive advantage and generate growth and revenue for the long term. They pursue three very different social and taxation models but all three are among the top six economies in the world in terms of wealth per head. They also happen to be three of a handful of western countries running absolute budget surpluses. That has happened because they are economically successful.
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