Let’s be a normal country. Let’s not ask. Sign the Edinburgh Proclamation

How do we become a normal country again?

To become a ‘normal’ country – you know, where we have control of over our own affairs like the economy, defence (join Nato or not), treaties and associations (join the EU or Efta), energy, borders, relationships with other countries and the UN, these kind of things and more – to have the controls, freedoms and choices that countries like Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands take for granted, we need to leave the UK – the Union. 

Gold star for stating the obvious?

Of course, you might point out that we tried to leave the UK in 2014 and failed. But next time, oh next time, we’ll win. All we need is for the UK government to let us hold another referendum and we’d be off.

But is that really all we need? Would it really be the same as 2014? What if, next time, the British State imposed conditions before they ‘let’ us have another referendum? They could do easily. After all, they’re in charge.

What if these conditions were, say:

  1. Voters must 18 and over (not 16 and over as the last time)
  2. The winning margin must be 66% in favour of Yes, not 50%. Changing the UK is a big deal they’d say, so there needs to be a big majority in favour of change
  3. That 66% in favour must be 66% of the entire Scottish electorate and not just of those who vote. They’ve got form on this – in the 1979 referendum 40% of the entire electorate had to vote Yes, not just those who’d voted (we lost because of this)

Do you still think we’d win under conditions like these? If we complained that they weren’t fair, they’d sneer that we’re running scared. And if we did accept them, we’d get trounced, and that really would be it

No, a re-run of the 2014 referendum – even if one were ‘granted’ – is never going to be the way out of the UK. The British State will simply not allow it. We will never get out of the UK by asking nicely. There has to be another way. Luckily for us, there is.

We need to take our freedom.

Take, don’t ask. That’s what this website is all about.

Take, Don’t Ask

How? How do we simply take our freedom without asking the UK, or without holding another independence referendum? That just sounds like some weird crackpot nationalist rubbish.

I grant you that hearing this for the first time does sound either a bit optimistic or hard to believe, depending on your point of view. Whether you’re excited by the prospect or you’re rolling your eyes at another cunning nationalist plan, stay with me, read a bit more and see how angry you get – I don’t care whether you voted Yes or No – at the way Scotland’s been treated over the last 300 years.

I say stay with me because we need first to look at our history. Sorry, but you need to understand the bit of history that covers union with England before you can appreciate that we really can just take our freedom without asking.

Scotland’s union with England began on 1st May 1707.

Nine words. Just nine words to describe the worst day in our history and one of the most momentous events for the whole of Europe at the beginning of the 18th century: the union of governments of two of its ancient countries. Yet today, if they think about it at all, people shrug at the union, perhaps vaguely recalling something about an ‘Act of Union’ that brought about the UK.

The union of Scotland and England was a far-reaching event of huge significance. But it did not put the nation of Scotland out of existence, any more than it made England disappear. What it did do was shackle Scotland to a United Kingdom that was under the complete and utter control of England.

So what exactly is this union – the UK? Why did it happen? How did it happen? How was it defined? Why on earth did Scotland agree to it? And how do we get out of it by not asking?

Start here: How the union came to be

The Edinburgh Proclamation

If we want to actually be a normal country again, then we’re going to have to do something to make it happen. What about just signing the Edinburgh Proclamation as a first step?

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