Scottish Government demands all UK State assets in Scotland outright and also a share in all other UK State assets!

Scottish reivers or Border Raiders in action

In a previous Blog article I reported on the submission which I put in on behalf of the English Democrats to the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords. The written submissions to the Committee have now been published on the Committee’s website.
 
Nichola Sturgeon MSP, for the SNP and the Scottish Government, has put in the Scottish submission. 

Whilst I think it would be sensible to see this document as a negotiating positioning document rather than the SNP’s final view on what they would be willing to accept, I think we can see that they are rapidly moving towards the point when not only will they demand many of the State assets of what is now the United Kingdom, but also will probably refuse to take any of the debt.

Click here to see the details>>> http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/6969.

What however does come out strikingly is the Scottish determination to not only have their own Scottish cake but to eat the English cake too!

Consider the following quotation from the Scottish Government’s submission:-

11. Following a vote for independence, the Scottish Government will negotiate with Westminster to agree a sharing of assets and liabilities that is fair, equitable and reflects Scottish needs and those of the rest of the UK. Assets already used to deliver devolved public services in Scotland, such as schools, hospitals and roads, would remain in Scottish hands. Physical assets located in Scotland and needed to deliver currently reserved services, such as defence bases and equipment, and buildings to support administration of welfare, tax and immigration, will transfer to the Scottish Government.

12. Assets located elsewhere in the UK will also have to be included in negotiations, as Scotland has contributed to their value over a long period of time. For physical assets like these, the equitable outcome may be to provide Scotland with an appropriate cash share of their value.

What we can now see here is that the Scottish position is that any UK State asset that is within Scotland should go to Scotland absolutely. Whereas any asset which is outside of Scotland is to be treated as being partly Scottish. 

Ironically Nicholas Sturgeon MSP says that this will be “a sharing of assets and liabilities that is fair, equitable and reflects Scottish needs…”. 

You have got to laugh!

UK - "PUNCHING ABOVE OUR WEIGHT": - BANTAM OR LESS?

UK - "PUNCHING ABOVE OUR WEIGHT": - BANTAM OR LESS?
For anyone interested in the defensive and offensive capability of the UK, which is a key part of the Unionist claim that together “we punch above our weight on the world stage”, this article is of great significance.

The authors state that, following the 2010 Defence cuts, we now have an army of 82,000.

This means they say:- "The reduction in the capacity of the British Army to deploy for war for more than a few months means that it will be unable to field more than 8,000 to 9,000 men on continuous operations, after the necessary time for recuperation and training are taken into account."

Also:-
"The RAF are now left with nine squadrons of operational fast jets and for continuing operations would be unlikely to field more than thirty offensive aircraft. Also, with the cancellation of the nearly completed Nimrod-4, the RAF lost its entire capacity for maritime patrol, leaving a dangerously reduced capacity to escort our nuclear deterrent submarines in home waters, or to conduct anti-submarine and surface surveillance operations. The Joint Harrier Force, which comprised the upgraded Harrier GR9s, was withdrawn from service and the Joint Strike Fighter order was reduced from 138 to 48."

On the Royal Navy:-
"The Navy surface combat fleet has been reduced to 19 frigates and destroyers, two thirds of them ageing ships, instead of the thirty two that the 1998 Strategic Defence Review considered the minimum for meeting the Navy’s commitments.

Finally, the arbitrary reduction of naval personnel to about 23,000 (excluding Royal Marines) will seriously endanger the manning of the fleet."


Here is the full article:-

UKNDA Commentary 4

DIMINISHED CAPABILITIES AND INCREASED RESPONSIBILITIES

Time for an objective defence review

By Antony Hichens, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon and Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham.

In 2010 the incoming Coalition government published a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR 2010) which resulted in significant reductions in Britain’s defence capabilities. The review came in the context of the post-2008 economic financial crisis. Government spending had risen under the previous Labour government, dramatically in the case of health, education and welfare. Almost the only area of government expenditure to fall as a percentage of GDP had been defence. Nonetheless, given the massive government borrowing requirement to bridge the gap between reduced taxes and still rising expenditure, cuts had to be made.

The stresses of Coalition government cannot have been helpful when it came to deciding just what to cut. Nor was a prime ministerial commitment to maintain expenditure on the massive health budget. The result was a range of cuts across the board, with defence cut yet again, despite having already halved its share of GDP over the previous 20 years. Bizarrely, the one area of increased government expenditure was foreign aid, doubling to 0.7% of GDP.

SDSR 2010, unlike the previous review in 1998, was certainly not a strategic defence review. Given the predetermined level of government expenditure, cuts were not made to support strategic choices but where they were most readily available. The situation was made more difficult by the scale of outstanding defence equipment plans which could not be accommodated, even within the existing budget. This ‘bow wave’, estimated at £38 billion, was not unique. It has been common for programmes to be overheated to allow for the uncertainty, technical delays and changes which historically have always occurred; the Ministry of Defence had become used to programmes being strung out over time, allowing budgets more or less to cope. But the very substantial thinning-out of the equipment programme now meant that defence companies were completing programmes more swiftly.

The Conservative government had left a similar legacy in 1997, but this time, with a Coalition government determined not to spend a penny more on defence than they had announced lest it affect the willingness of other departments to accept their own painful cuts, public outrage was stirred up about this ‘unfunded black hole’ to justify further deep cuts to defence funding.

Much has been written about Britain’s diminished military strength as a result of SDSR 2010.The list below is a brief summary:

Army numbers were cut from 102,000 to 82,000, with the fig leaf that the Army Reserve would in due course increase from 20,000 to 30,000 in partial compensation. There are serious doubts as to whether the Reserve will succeed in its recruitment target. The reduction in the capacity of the British Army to deploy for war for more than a few months means that it will be unable to field more than 8,000 to 9,000 men on continuous operations, after the necessary time for recuperation and training are taken into account.

The RAF are now left with nine squadrons of operational fast jets and for continuing operations would be unlikely to field more than thirty offensive aircraft. Also, with the cancellation of the nearly completed Nimrod-4, the RAF lost its entire capability for maritime patrol, leaving a dangerously reduced capacity to escort our nuclear deterrent submarines in home waters, or to conduct anti-submarine and surface surveillance operations. The Joint Harrier Force, which comprised the upgraded Harrier GR9s, was withdrawn from service and the Joint Strike Fighter order was reduced from 138 to 48.

Serious damage was also done to the Royal Navy. Although both the new aircraft carriers are to be completed – allowing one carrier to be operational at all times provided adequate trained manpower is available – the reduction in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) purchase will allow only one air group, half the size originally planned. Poorly handled attempts to convert the carriers to operate conventional catapult launched aircraft failed with additional costs resulting from the delay penalising the rest of the programme and precluding interoperability with US and French carrier aircraft. The surface combat fleet has been reduced to 19 frigates and destroyers, two thirds of them ageing ships, instead of the thirty two that the 1998 Strategic Defence Review considered the minimum for meeting the Navy’s commitments. No surface combat ships are currently on order and shipbuilding capacity has been so reduced that the replacement of any ships lost in action will be extremely difficult. Even the new Astute class of nuclear-powered hunter killer submarines has been reduced from ten to seven. Finally, the arbitrary reduction of naval personnel to about 23,000 (excluding Royal Marines) will seriously endanger the manning of the fleet.

More serious than the simple arithmetic is the lack of strategic coherence in a review which announced that none of Britain’s global influence would be surrendered. To this must be added the potential impact on force structures of any Scottish vote for independence. Even the sharply reduced numbers announced in SDSR 2010 are therefore still to be confirmed in SDSR 2015.

The Coalition government must now ask itself whether the diminished scale of military strength is appropriate for Britain’s circumstances and aspirations, or whether, five years after the start of the economic crisis, with signs, confirmed on 21 January 2014, that the cycle of growth is returning Britain to a more normal state of economic health faster than previously thought – and hence a more robust tax base – the whole question of what we should spend on defence should require a further, more fundamental, review.

SDSR 2015, promised by the Coalition in 2010, approaches. Is it to be another budget driven review that asks only on what we should spend an arbitrary sum or should the question be put the other way round? Should we determine a national strategy for the United Kingdom, derive from it a defence strategy and then calculate the force structure required to meet this and cost it? If the cost is then judged to be too great the strategic assumptions must be revisited but, if it is concluded that the military risks we now run are too great, we might have to face a return to spending a somewhat higher proportion of GDP on defence rather than continue to make wholly unreasonable demands on the surviving armed forces.

No government should spend more money on defence than is necessary. However, the way to determine what it would be wise to spend cannot come from plucking a figure out of the air in order to demonstrate that the MoD is among those departments that have played their part in diminishing the government borrowing requirement.

Britain is not alone in cutting defence spending in favour of more electorally appealing objectives. Our major western allies, other than the United States, on average spend even less than we do, averaging 1.6% of GDP. However, we are all dwarfed by the Americans. The USA, with five times our population, spends over ten times as much on defence – some 4.7% of GDP. With a population smaller than Europe as a whole it spends more than double the EU average. We now expect the USA to play the leading role in every step that the western alliance takes to protect itself against terrorism, dysfunctional states, and states that oppose us to the degree that war could one day break out.

Up till 1990 we thought it wise to spend 4% or more of GDP on defence. Yet the world has, arguably, become more dangerous, and certainly more unpredictable, than during the Cold War. There may now be a lower chance of a nuclear exchange, but the new instability means that the need for conventional defences may be greater.

What then is Britain’s defence and security strategy? Is it to be the most reliable and capable ally of the United States and thus in a position to seek that powerful country’s support when our own interests are under threat? Or is it, not necessarily in contradiction, to be one of two or three leading powers in the EU capable jointly of ensuring Europe’s ability to defend itself and protect its own interests even where they diverge from those of the United States.

America’s defence deployment is increasingly focused elsewhere as the power and ambition of China and others continues to grow. Can we be sure that the rising nations have the same aversion to the use of military force that we now have? Surely our spending should follow those priorities that are truly strategic, which only government can deliver?

Any British government has an exceptionally difficult balancing act to carry out today when spending the nation’s wealth. Health inexorably consumes more funding, partly because we continue to find more expensive ways of keeping people healthy and partly because, as a result, the number of older people requiring medical care is increasing. This problem is so large that, without reform of the way we fund health, the cost to the public purse may well overwhelm us, regardless of the collateral damage it does to defence and other spending. Few if any other nations attempt to fund health entirely from public funds.

We cannot tell the government where to spend the nation’s tax revenues, other than to insist that priority be given to those public goods that only government can supply and to point out that the reduction in defence funding over the years has been a political choice, not one dictated solely by an economy in temporary crisis.

There are those in government who believe that the UK still spends too much on defence. They argue that the British have had a view of their country’s role in the world that is outdated and cannot be sustained. Today, they say, it is ‘soft power’ that really counts. With less war fighting capability we can keep out of ‘bad wars’. However, how can we be sure that the world will not change for the worse? We are taking decisions now that will fix our defence capabilities for twenty years, far beyond the forecast horizon of any threat.

Our view is unambiguous. Soft power is important but demands an underpinning by hard power to be effective. We believe that Britain, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, cannot abdicate its proper role in global security. We should play an appropriate part in the American-led alliance if we wish to rely on America’s protection in a crisis. Only a proper strategic examination of the sort described above, and the willingness to face honestly and openly the cost of what we wish to do, can establish what that appropriate share is.

A very senior politician once told one of us in private that defence is not an electoral issue and the public does not care about it; he implied that the government would do the minimum necessary. There has been some increase in public criticism of where SDSR 2010 has left us as a nation, and as an ally, yet there is sufficient truth in that observation to make it necessary to appeal to any government to do what is right rather than what is politically advantageous in the near term. The only serious political threat to a government which fails to spend adequately on defence comes if it is in power when the music stops and Britain suffers a serious military reverse. Perhaps the politics of defence are better likened to a game of Russian roulette than to musical chairs. You can hold the revolver to your head, rotate the chambers – the more chambers you can afford the better the odds – and fire many times before it ends in bloody ruin, but the politician who is in power when the live round is fired will be remembered, at best as naïve and incompetent, but more likely as the man who risked national humiliation.

So let SDSR 2015 be a genuine strategic review. Let it do its work unconstrained by a pre-determined figure for defence expenditure. Let our national aspirations be quantified. Let the weaknesses which the missing capabilities represent be carefully considered. Let the best ways of spending as much as we do now, or a little more, be measured and laid out. Let us consider the need for a defence industry strategy. Let us have a national debate about where defence lies in our priorities. Is it really the first duty of government? One can be forgiven for believing that, whatever politicians say on that point, it takes a crisis for them to act as though it were so. Let us settle, for this generation at least, the level at which we should punch in the Western alliance, the role we should have in the leadership of the defence of Europe, the closeness of our alliance with the United States and our capacity to do things for ourselves when nobody else is interested. It would be surprising, but not impossible, for far-sighted strategists to conclude that what we now spend is about right. All we ask is that we take a completely honest look at defence needs, set out the range within which spending might reasonably lie and then explain why it is that we choose to position ourselves at a particular point in that range.

Do not ask, as one senior politician asked us, where we think the money is going to come from if the conclusion is that we should spend more on defence. It is a question of political priorities. Do we have to budget over £11 billion a year for foreign aid? Do we have to have a nearly free NHS instead of a co-payment system? Do we have to have such a generous level of benefits for so many people? Remember that Britain is one of the six richest countries in the world. Money can be found if there is a good enough reason for spending it.

Between now and 2015 let us look very carefully at the state of our defences and what the implications are for the long term strategy and security of this country. And let us always remember that if Britain does not continue to bear its fair share of the cost of the western alliance and the protection it brings, our special relationship with the United States will wither and die – and our guarantee of security with it. The need to increase our defence capabilities must also reflect the fact that America is now cutting its defence budget and its commitment to Europe and the Middle East. This is a fundamental change in the assumptions underlying SDSR 2010.

This Commentary has been prepared by the UKNDA panel of authors including Antony Hichens, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon and Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham.

UK to be Python-esque “dead parrot” after Scottish Independence?

The British Establishment’s increasingly desperate support for the idea of the "rest of the UK" (rUK) reminds me of (for the middle aged amongst us) the “dead parrot” sketch from Monty Python. I am reminded of the shop-keeper’s self-interested and ludicrous attempts to persuade his customer that the parrot is healthier than it seems! Here is the 'Python clip >>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

The House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, chaired by Jim Callaghan's daughter, Baroness Jay of Paddington. It has called for evidence for an Inquiry into the constitutional implications for the remainder of the United Kingdom in the event of a Yes vote on the 18th September.

The assumptions for the questions are that there will be a constitutional entity called the rUK. My view could be expressed as a mathematical formula:-

E + S = GB   therefore   GB - S = E 

(Where E = Kingdom of England, S = Kingdom of Scotland, GB = United Kingdom of Great Britain).

Below are my submissions to the Committee. What do you think?

Scottish Independence: Constitutional implications for the rest of the UK

I am the Chairman of the English Democrats, which is the only English party that is interested in such constitutional implications. We are of course interested in the constitutional implications for England. As English nationalists we call for English Independence.

The first point to make crystal clear in the event that Scotland goes independent, and I make this point, not only as the Chairman of the English Democrats, but also as a lawyer and practicing solicitor, that there is no automatically persisting entity known as “the rest of the UK”. This point rests on basic constitutional legal principles and derives from the nature and wording of the Act of Union in 1707. The relevant articles of which are stated as follows:-

"ARTICLE 1

THAT THE TWO Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall upon the first Day of May which shall be in the Year one thousand seven hundred and seven, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain;

ARTICLE III

That the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament, to be stiled, The Parliament of Great Britain.”

It therefore follows, as a matter of trite law, that in the event of Scotland becoming independent this must involve the repeal of the Act of Union 1707. This automatically means that the then new constitutional entity that was created by the Act of Union, namely the “United Kingdom of Great Britain”, will be dissolved. This leads to the automatic dissolution of the Union with Northern Ireland.

The Union with Northern Ireland is the residue deriving from early 20th Century Southern Irish independence of a Union which was created by the Act of Union of 1801 between the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Obviously therefore the Union so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, is with the United Kingdom of Great “Britain”. With the dissolution of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” there will be no automatically persisting Union with any then existing constitutional entity.

The position of Wales is different because Wales was fully incorporated into the “Kingdom of England” by the 1536 union legislation. That is why of course the Act of Union 1707 does not mention Wales because Wales is then encompassed within the term the “Kingdom of England”.

It follows that without new constitutional legislation the independence of Scotland leads to the dissolution of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” and of Great Britain’s union with Northern Ireland. It will thus give rise to the re-emergent “Kingdom of Scotland”, the re-emergent “Kingdom of England” and the “Province of Northern Ireland” with no current Union between England or Scotland (or the Republic of Ireland).

It is worth considering the above points carefully because the consequence of Scotland becoming independent isn’t just that Scotland technically would be classified as a new state, under the emerging body of what, for want of a better term, is called “international law”, but also that the Kingdom of England and the Province of Northern Ireland will also all be now States.

The Committee has asked for answers to specific questions.

1. Negotiations – Is the timetable of independence by March 2016 realistic?

Yes, I would have thought it was. It will impose an obligation on negotiators to get on with it promptly.

2. Who will negotiate for the remainder of the UK? To whom would they be accountable?

You will appreciate from my introductory points above, about the nature of the constitutional implications of Scottish independence, that there would not automatically be a single entity which is the remainder of the UK.

It is certainly not appropriate for anyone to purport to negotiate on behalf of England if not expressly and avowedly and legitimately mandated to do so. This will particularly apply to those British politicians who have expressly stated either their hostility to the English nation and/or their Scottish origins, such as David Cameron or William Hague, let alone anyone who is actually of Scottish origin, such as Gordon Brown or Alastair Darling.

The English negotiators should be accountable to the English Nation. It is essential that an English parliament and government be reconstructed quickly in the event of Scotland voting for independence so that there are proper lines of democratic accountability and legitimacy within England.

3. What impact would the timing of the UK general election in May 2015 have on negotiation?

It will clearly have a destabilising effect on the negotiations as it may well result in the replacement of the original team with a different team of negotiators and with a different government involved in the negotiations.

4. What happens if the two negotiating teams cannot reach agreement on an issue?

The answer to this question will, of course will depend on the issue. For instance if the issue was where the boundary between English North Sea oil and Scottish North Sea oil lies, then that could be adjudicated upon by the International Court at the Hague. If it was something that was within the giving of one of the parties but requested by the other, such as a role in the formulation of policy at the Bank of England that will not be capable of adjudication. Clearly the English team could simply refuse and the other team would not be able to insist upon it. If in fact on that item there is such a refusal then I suspect the Scottish negotiators will take the advice of the highly respected international law authority, Professor David Scheffer of the Centre for International Human Rights in Chicago and decline to accept any share of the UK’s debts.

5. Assets and liabilities and shared services. What legal principles should apply to negotiations on the apportion of assets and liabilities that are currently UK-wide?

Since all the participants in negotiations will be acting on behalf of potentially “new States” the negotiations are inevitably going to be without hard and fast rules and will be based on give and take. In principle all parties could walk away from the liabilities of the “UK”. So far as assets are concerned, that will either rest on satisfactory negotiations between the parties or will be based on who has physical possession.

6. What are the constitutional implications of maintaining services shared between Scotland and the rest of the UK (for example, the Bank of England and those services listed on page 364 of the Scottish Governments’ White Paper)?

Answer 5 above answers this question.

7. Parliament. What would the position of MPs for Scottish constituencies be from May 2015 to March 2016?

Until the dissolution of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” and Northern Ireland they would of course be members of the Union Parliament. Upon dissolution the Union Parliament itself will have to be reconfigured in accordance with the new constitutional situation. The same will apply to peers of the Union Parliament.

8. What impact would independence have on the House of Commons if MPs for Scottish constituencies left it in March 2016?

Clearly the balance of the parties would be shifted, but the point remains that the House of Commons constitutional position will be altered as Parliament will no longer be the Parliament of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” but rather only of the Kingdom of England which will also exclude Northern Irish MPs.

9. What impact would independence have on the House of Lords? 

The House of Lords is of course currently one of the two Chambers of the Parliament of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” and Northern Ireland. With the dissolution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain the membership of the House of Lords will be dramatically affected as it will only be appropriate for English peers to sit in the English Upper Chamber. The English Democrats position is that all members of the English Upper Chamber should be democratically elected by the people of England.

10. What legislation (or other measures) would the Westminster have to pass in order for Scotland to become independent?

The Act of Union of 1707 would have to be repealed.

BRITISH Government can't even look after the British

There is a recent and excellent article by Peter Oborne which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the 19th February.  Whilst unfortunately it still shows that the Peter Oborne is both still fixated on Britishness and he has fallen into the common layman’s error that there is such a concept as “British Law” (whereas in fact there is the jurisdictions of England and Wales, of Scotland and of Northern Ireland, together with Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, etc!)

The point that he makes so well is the blindingly obvious one that not only is the British Government uninterested, unwilling and, indeed, incompetent to look after the interests of England and Englishness, but it is not even capable of showing an interest in looking after British interests.  The sooner it is consigned to history the better!

Here is Peter Oborne’s article in full:-

The US has bullied our banks into handing over a billion dollars

Quietly and without notice, Britain has surrendered control over its trade with Iran

"Recently, a friend of mine purchased a small quantity of Iranian saffron from a Birmingham merchant for £30 over the internet. This transaction was legal according to British and international law. It did not contravene any United Nations resolution. He transferred the funds via PayPal, the international payments firm. The money was paid in pounds sterling. What happened next was outrageous. PayPal sent him a menacing email informing him that he was in breach of US law, and asked him to sign a form admitting that he had behaved illegally.

At this point my friend rang me in alarm. He is a British citizen, had done nothing wrong under British law, yet here he was being threatened by the United States as if he was a criminal. When I looked into the matter, I quickly discovered that my friend’s experience was the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is not just private individuals who are persecuted in this way by the United States. Private companies suffer from exactly this harassment, as do banks.

Without protest, Britain has given away control over its trade with Iran to a department inside the US Treasury called the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). This body monitors US sanctions by pursuing foreign companies involved in trade with Iran. It has already persecuted major British banks, including RBS, HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds. In total, these banks have paid out more than a billion dollars in penalties, even though they have done nothing wrong under British or international law.

The most significant example is the British bank Standard Chartered, which specialises in doing business in the Middle East and Asia. It felt obliged to pay an incredible $667 million to OFAC and other agencies. In fact, Standard Chartered was blackmailed by the US authorities. The bank was given a choice between being cut out of all business with the US, or complying with its sanctions regime against Iran.

I am certainly not saying that sanctions are wrong. Indeed, it is essential to stress that in Britain we do have our own sanctions against Iran, for instance against companies or state entities alleged to be involved in nuclear weaponry. But these have been agreed democratically, in the sense that they are open to scrutiny and criticism in and out of Parliament. In a system that relies on rule by consent, this gives them legitimacy.

What is deeply troubling, however, is the presence of informal, secondary sanctions which the United States has inflicted against Iran by bullying British banks. These might as well be secret. Bankers never talk about them. Parliament has not debated, or even discussed, these sanctions. They haven’t been announced, let alone agreed, by any minister. They are not government policy. And yet the United States has enforced an informal banking boycott of Iran, unilaterally imposed on Britain and other foreign countries.

The response of the Government is very troubling. In the normal course of events, one would expect ministers to defend very stoutly any company or individual prevented from going about their lawful business by a foreign power. But neither Downing Street nor the Foreign Office have lifted a finger.

It is important to stress that this supine approach is new. Contrary to legend, Margaret Thatcher stood up strongly against United States pressure. According to my colleague Charles Moore’s superb biography, the Reagan administration tried to stop a British company, John Brown, selling turbines to a Russian gas pipeline project that would supply much of mainland Europe. Mrs Thatcher probably disliked the idea as much as Reagan. But she was adamant that British companies should not be subject to American laws, so insisted that John Brown fight its corner. Her defiance worked. “Maggie Thatcher has made me realise that I have been wrong,” Reagan eventually acknowledged. A new agreement removed sanctions and allowed John Brown to sell to Moscow.

But that was Thatcher. We are talking now about Messrs Cameron and Hague, who show no such determination to defend British interests against foreign threats. Indeed, by a perverse irony, it is actually easier for a US company to trade with Iran than a British one under the Coalition. This is because the bank of a US exporter to Iran can process payments without threat from OFAC, so long as the deal has OFAC approval. The bank of a British exporter will be persecuted, even though it has the approval of the British Treasury.

Though most bankers refuse to talk about OFAC, one insider told me it operates like this. “OFAC tells the British bank that it will suffer consequences (for example, loss of a US banking licence, or blacklisting) if it doesn’t agree to a settlement. The bank must agree to cooperate with the authorities by ceasing all business with Iran. It must then pay a penalty stretching to millions of dollars. It is also made to promise not to reveal the terms of the agreement or the process that led to it – even though the US authorities can do so if they wish.

“This is like plea-bargaining. The case isn’t taken to court: presumably the banks judge that they will be penalised less if they settle with OFAC. And this threatening process creates an example for others, so it is no wonder that the rest of the banking industry falls into line.”

So far as I can discover, it is impossible for any British bank to evade this US sanctions regime. Even if the contract with Iran is written under British law, and specifically outside the scope of US jurisdiction, that seems to be no protection to any company targeted by OFAC. Any bank that has an operation in the United States, or makes any transaction in US dollars, places itself within reach of punishment.

The effect of this financial blockade is to ensure that the British banking industry cannot provide trade finance or money transmission services for entirely legal trade with Iran. Even medical or humanitarian goods can’t be paid for. Most banks are so terrified of the United States that they will close down the account of any customer who even has a connection with Iran. The flimsiest and most unproven suspicion is enough for banking facilities to be withdrawn. The boycott has been enforced by British banks, even though it is against British policy, because of American threats.

The same imbalance exists in other areas. For example, Tony Blair negotiated a treaty which gave the United States powers to extradite British citizens, which it frequently exercises, yet we are unable to do the same in return. The failure of British politicians to protest is extraordinary. Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary Hague speak out eloquently when the European Union is accused of intrusion on British sovereignty. But when it comes to the United States, they are completely silent – and this silence means assent.

Perhaps they are happy enough that Britain should be a client state of America, but unhappy to pool sovereignty with the European Union. If so, they should come forward and say so. One thing is certain. The current shameful and humiliating situation would never have been tolerated by a prime minister, such as Margaret Thatcher, who stood up for British interests. It is time that David Cameron started to behave more like the Iron Lady, and less like Tony Blair".

 
Here is a link to the original article>>>The US has bullied our banks into handing over a billion dollars - Telegraph

Re: English Independence gaining traction!

           Re: English Independence gaining traction!

The Independence campaign has moved on and up, now  that one of the leading English intellectuals, Prof Roger Scruton, has come out for English Independence. 

Click here>>>http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/pov .

Here is a transcript of what Prof. Scruton said:-

"In all the complex changes leading to the Scottish bid for independence the English have never been consulted. The process has been conducted as though we had no right to an opinion in the matter. It was all about Scotland and how to respond to Scottish nationalism.

As an Englishman I naturally ask why my interests in the matter have never been taken in to account. When the Czechs and Slovaks achieved their amicable divorce it was by mutual agreement between elected politicians. What is so different about Scotland that it decides everything for itself.

The Union of England and Scotland was formerly declared in the Act of Union in 1707 but it had been an emerging reality throughout the preceding century. In the conditions and conflicts of those days it was impossible for the two nations to regard themselves as fundamentally distinct. They shared an island, a religion, a language and a Monarch and both had its vows to the protestant cause. It is true there was a border between them and things one side of the border were not always replicated on the other. Scots law remains a separate system from the English. Styles of dress, architecture, popular entertainment and speech were for a long time quite distinct, in part because of the striking difference in climate and since the Reformation organised religion has taken a very different form in the two countries. The lowland Scots opting for the Calvinist and Presbyterian version and remaining largely hostile to the elaborate episcopal offices that appeal to the English. But the differences were less important than the history and geography that held the two nations together. It is true that the Union was resented by the Highlanders, many of whom had retained their Catholic faith, their Gallic language and their loyalty to the deposed Stuart Kings. The cruel suppression of the Jacobite rebellions, the forbidding of the tartan, the persecution of the Catholics and the expulsion of the crofters from their homes, all these things are well known and don’t cast credit, either on the English or on the Lowlanders, who principally benefitted from the Union.

Nevertheless during the years of Empire building merchants from both countries combined to reap the benefits of British naval power and to explore the far corners of the earth in search of profit and in their wake they brought the imperial government that they shared. Moreover empire building had to be backed up by military force. The Napoleonic wars sealed the Union between the Scots and the English who happily adopted Great Britain as the name of their united country.

Neither people could have survived the wars of the 20th Century had they not fought side by side and with total commitment to the Union. As a result of those wars however, the Empire was lost and an entirely new political landscape emerged from beneath the smoke. It is no longer possible for us to see the Union as it was seen throughout the course of the 19th Century as something natural and unquestionable. The enterprise that joined us has vanished. So too we hope have the military threats. Each nation is, for the time-being at least, wrapped in its own internal problems.

It can be said that the Scots are still reeling from the effect of Margaret Thatcher’s radical economic policies and her introduction of the Poll Tax. They are bound to ask themselves whether they have had a fair share of the prosperity that is visible nearly everywhere in the south of England and the English tend to blame the migrations that threaten to overwhelm them on a succession of Labour Governments by allowing mass immigration into England and refusing to confront the European Union’s commitment to the free movement of peoples.

The Governments of Blair and Brown seriously undermined the English sense of identity. At the same time through the creation of a Scottish Parliament they gave a new identity to the Scots. The effect of the Scottish Parliament however, was not only to ensure the Scots would govern themselves, but also to make it more likely that they would continue to govern the English. The Labour Party did not want to lose those Scottish MPs, since it was thanks to them and the Scottish vote that the Labour Party had achieved such a large majority in Westminster. Scots were disproportionately represented in the cabinets of both Blair and Brown. Tony Blair owed his position in the Labour hierarchy in part to the networks that had grown in that country. Elections to the Scottish Parliament showed that the Scots had shifted their allegiance from Labour to the SNP, but they still want the English to be governed by the Labour Party. Hence they vote to place Labour politicians, who they don’t particularly want at home, in Westminster.

As a result of this the English, who have voted Conservative more often than Labour in all post-war elections have to accept a block vote of Labour Members of Parliament sent to Westminster by the Scots. The process that brought this about was one which the Scots themselves were given the final say in a referendum from which the English were excluded. In other words the process of devolution has an air of gerrymandering. The effect of which has been to secure a Labour bias in the Westminster Parliament while allowing the Scots to govern themselves in whatever way they choose. And the process continues. In response to Alex Salmond’s bid for independence the people of Scotland have been granted another referendum, but again the people of England have been deprived of a say. Why is this? Are we part of the Union or not? Or are the politicians afraid that we would vote the wrong way? And what is the wrong way? What way should we English vote, given that the present arrangement gives two votes to the Scots for every vote given to the English. Should we not vote for our independence given that we risk being governed from a country that already regulates its own affairs and has no clear commitment to ours?

The Scottish economy is subsidised by the English, but this does not mean that England would be better off without Scotland. You give subsidies to your dependents because you depend on them. Subsidies are also investments which have returns in the long run but they more than justify the cost. On the other hand it could be that the Scottish economy has suffered from the Union overall. Boswell attributes to Dr Johnson the remark that “the noblest prospect that a Scotsman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England”. Johnson’s purpose was to ridicule the romantic adulation of the Scottish landscape which was all the rage at the time, except perhaps among those that have to live there. But he touched without intending it on the principle cause of Scotland’s economic problems which is the loss of human capital. Educated Scots have constantly taken Dr Johnson’s high road to England, carrying with them their knowledge and their energy and investing it outside the borders of their homeland. In just the way that the EU is syphoning away the young middle class from Poland and the Czech Republic so that our union served to deprive the Scots of some of the people that their economy most needs.

The security that we have enjoyed in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought with it a certain complacency in the matter of Defence. During the Cold War the Scottish land mass was absolutely fundamental to our strategy and our nuclear deterrent is housed in Scottish waters. And the Scottish air bases were constantly called upon to deter Soviet violations in our air space. Scottish regiments are at the forefront of our campaigns today and without them we would be much less capable of defending ourselves in a serious crisis.

In my opinion defence is the sole reason for thinking that the break-up of the Union might be bad for both our countries. The Union would have to replaced by a strong and committed alliance but I think this would happen just as the colonial administration of America transformed itself in time into the Western Alliance which brings the British and the Americans together and fighting side by side in every major crisis.


Suppose then we English were finally allowed a say in the matter. Which way would I vote? I have no doubt about it. I would vote for English independence as a step towards strengthening the friendship between our countries. It was thanks to independence that the Americans were able at last to confess to their attachment to the old country and to come to our aid in two World Wars. Independence is what real friendship requires and the same is true for those like the Scots and English who live side by side."

My recent appearance on the Daily Politics show to stand up for England!

After the introductory item,  Nicola Sturgeon MSP, the deputy leader of the SNP and the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, and Iain Stewart MP, the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes, and I are interviewed by Jo Coburn.
What do you think?

INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND OUT OF EU = ENGLAND OUT OF EU

The EU Commission President, Senor Barosso, has unwittingly confirmed that if either Scotland or England get independence from the UK then they are out of the EU!

On the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, 16th February, Mr Barosso made clear that an independent Scotland was a “new State” and so would be automatically out of the EU.

He was clearly unaware of the UK’s unique constitution structure because he was apparently unaware that in the event of the dissolution of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” all the constituent nations of the UK would also be “new States”.  Therefore by Barosso’s logic, we would all be out of the EU!  Not a result that I imagine he would relish!

So England can either get out of the EU through a dissolution of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain” either by Scottish secession or by our own English independence!

So thank you Mr Barosso.  Now we have a road map of two easy ways out of the EU maze!

This is what Senor Barosso said:-
“When asked about the Scottish referendum on independence later this year, Mr Barroso said he respected the ongoing democratic processes surrounding the  debate and said it was for the Scottish people to decide on the country's future.

But he added: "In case there is a new country, a new state, coming out of a current member state, it will have to apply and... the application and the accession to the European Union will have to be approved by all the other member states of the European Union."

He went on: "I don't want to interfere on your referendum here, your democratic discussion here, but of course it will be extremely difficult to get the approval of all the other member states to have a new member coming from one member state.

"We have seen Spain has been opposing even the recognition of Kosovo, for instance. So it is to some extent a similar case because it's a new country and so I believe it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, a new member state coming out of one of our countries getting the agreement of the others."

(Here is a link to the Daily Express Article about this >>> NO negotiation of freedom of movement says defiant EU President Jose Manuel Barroso | UK | News | Daily Express )