It made for a nice bit of rhetoric for the largely English television audience but if taken at face value it implies that the SNP sees the vote on independence in Scotland as one which will signal the end of the United Kingdom.

It’ll be interesting to see if the SNP pursue this line to its logical conclusion.

Bearing mind that Northern Ireland is a Province, that Wales is a Principality and that whilst England is a kingdom there is only one of her - then the continuing use of the term “United Kingdom” for the remainder of the UK after Scottish independence is a logical absurdity and would be rightly held to ridicule

which does not mean that those who are determined not to recognise England won’t try it !

The words sometimes used from 1603 to 1707 ie before there was a United Kingdom were “United Kingdoms” which still is not correct
( they were only united by virtue of having the same monarch and therefore were not united , they remained quite independent of each other)

Surely the Union is question is the Union of 1707?
That other Union of 1801 is secondary .It is 1707 that counts and that was a national marriage entered into by two parties.
I suppose that if there were to be a referendum in Scotland only then this would provide the SNP with a license to negotiate divorce .
However , the other party to the marriage contract (England) would then be advised to seek independent advice ie independent from the British state which in no way could be deemed to acceptable as an impartial body .
Alternatively Engalnd could take her own advice.

Nor do I think your points in No. 2 invalidate what I said, which is that in any actual UK parliamentary bill conceding independence, it may be only parliamentary sovereignty that is bestowed on the Scottish parliament, rather than the principle of popular sovereignty being conceded. If this latter happened, it would add fuel to the demands for popular sovereignty for and in England.

1. You write -

‘the supposed sovereignty of the Scottish people’

There is nothing ’supposed’ about it -

‘The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law…I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all of the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done.’

SOURCE: MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1954 (1953 SC 396),

‘greater power can only be granted to Scotland by the UK Parliament and here there is potential for conflict. To take the extreme example, constitutional matters are reserved but it is hard to see how the Scottish Parliament could be prevented from holding a referendum on independence should it be determined to do so. If the Scottish people expressed a desire for independence the stage would be set for a direct clash between what is the English doctrine of sovereignty and the Scottish doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.’

SOURCE: ‘The Operation of Multi-Layer Democracy’, Scottish Affairs Committee Second Report of Session 1997-1998, HC 460-I, 2 December 1998, paragraph 27.

2. And further in the post -

’so if Scotland remained a monarchy, it might have to maintain the principle of parliamentary - rather than popular - sovereignty.’

To be perfectly honest, that is wishful thinking. The relationship between the people of Scotland and any monarch is clearly specified in the Declaration of Arbroath -

‘But after all, if this prince shall leave these principles he hath so nobly pursued, and consent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of England, we will immediately endeavour to expel him, as our enemy and as the subverter of both his own and our rights, and we will make another king, who will defend our liberties’

SOURCE: ‘The Declaration of Arbroath’ (1689 translation).

The issue of sovereignty was specifically excluded from the Treaty of Union of 1707. The Parliament of the United Kingdom has NEVER been sovereign - because of its locarion it has only been ASSUMED that it is sovereign -

‘Yet the Scots made a grave miscalculation. They thought of the treaty as a written constitution, and, even with all the concessions they had obtained, they would not have accepted that an omni-competent parliament had power to abrogate provisions which they fondly imagined to be ‘fundamental and essential’…But the theories of English constitutional lawyers prevailed, and the union has proved to have no more sanctity than any other statute. from time to time attempts have been made to appeal to the terms of union, but always without success.’

SOURCE: ‘Scotland: The Shaping of a Nation’ by Gordon Donaldson, page 58, ISBN 0 7153 6904 0.

The ‘Sanitization’ of Scottish History - http://follonblogs.blogspot.com/

Barnett, if left to work through would have seen the gradual convergence of pro rata redistribution. It was the politicians who topped-up and distorted the outcome: in Northern Ireland to buy peace through prosperity; in Scotland as cash back for votes.

Discounting oil, all parts of the UK are net beneficiaries of the tax and spend take except for the London & SE area net contributer, arguably the City State we all service so that it might since financial services were placed at the heart of our economy……

The N Ireland, Scotland and Wales are in a de-facto federation under the ersatz decentralisation that is devolution. England is governed directly from the centre. However, the UK cannot be a de-jure federation as Union and unitary are mutually exclusive.

On the other hand, a confederal “Union of the Isles” uniquely would accommodate Independence and Union in a win-win outcome for all our nations of families and friends and family of friendly nations.

Aye Ours,
Keith, frae Fife and Yorkshire, for Independence & Union

Fully agree that only a federal solution or independence are the only sensible answers to the West Lothian Question.

Independence though is the far more practical solution.

Bring it on!

An addendum to Barry’s point about the Holyrood Parliament not having sovereignty. Of course thats true, but Westminster does not have Scottish sovereignty either.

The sovereignty of Scotland lies with its people as attested by Scots Law:

‘The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law…I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done.’

- McCormick v Lord Advocate 1954 (1953 SC 396)

The principle was also defended by arch-unionist Michael Forsyth as Secretary of State for Scotland in 1997.

“We are sovereign within the Union and we can walk out any time we want”.

Of course that was just before the devolution settlement, but it was testament to the fact that Westminster did not - and still does not - hold Scottish sovereignty.

It may wish - or even legislate - that Holyrood has no powers to implement an Independence referendum but in practice, once the sovereign will of the people have spoken in Scotland it will be seen as powerless on the matter.

As one Welsh commentator pointed out, there was always a paradox at the heart of New Labour: it devolved power within the United Kingdom (including London) yet at the same time sought to centralise power within the party itself and exert an iron discipline in order to control events.

New Labour’s tardiness in responding to English concerns following the rejection of its proposed settlement for England, to me, reflects the low priority it has always afforded devolution.

I’m half-Scots by the way and white - but a look at my mother’s family tree reveals she is far from being a “Celt” - and her family have been in Scotland for hundreds of years.

Why is this “Celtic” myth never challenged? I think it’s exclusive and racist.