Trying to figure out WTF is going on John Swinney is right. You may want to savour that sentence as it's not a statement you're likely to hear very often. On one thing, he is correct, however. The 'strategy' outlined in what I have been calling the (Graeme) McCormick Resolution will not work. A de facto referendum might be made to work on some other issue. But it can never have the conclusiveness required of a proper constitutional referendum. A de facto referendum cannot be binary. It cannot be determinative (binding). It cannot be self-executing. It cannot have the impeccable democratic legitimacy that the formal exercise of our right of self-determination demands. The result will always be disputed. And that is not a sound basis on which to build a newly independent state. John Swinney is right to say that the McCormick Resolution (which I believe is more correctly called the Tweedbank Resolution) won’t work. But for all the wrong reasons. Or to be more precise, for none of the right reasons as set out above. The reason John Swinney gives for rejecting the idea of using the list vote as a pretend referendum is actually the least of all possible reasons. In fact, it isn't a reason at all. Lack of consent from the British state is irrelevant. No such consent is required. It shouldn't even be sought. Swinney mouths all the stuff about the sovereignty of Scotland's people that is obligatory for any nominally pro-independence politician. As he does so, he exhibits a remarkable dearth of self-awareness. We must accept that he genuinely doesn't see the contradiction inherent in proclaiming the sovereignty of Scotland's people while at the same time insisting we cannot exercise our inalienable human right of self-determination without permission from what for the purposes of the constitutional issue at least, must be regarded as a foreign government. If this grating contradiction is not explained by Swinney being devoid of self-awareness, then it can only be explained by rank hypocrisy or a level of stupidity belied by the fact that he is reputedly able to use cutlery. In fact, I have personally witnessed him doing so on at least one occasion. That's not the only nerve-wrending contradiction in Swinney's well rehearsed electioneering spiel. See how he boasts that "a vote for his party in 2026 would be a vote for Scotland to be an independent country" (The National) right after telling us that a vote for his party is a vote for yet another 'demand' for a Section 30 order. I don't know about anyone else, but my capacity for doublethink is tested beyond destruction by Swinney's double-talk. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about John Swinney's position is not the fact that it is riddled with contradictions. The crashing inconsistencies are merely another symptom of the thoughtlessness of it all. By which I mean absence of thought. I listen to Swinney talk about the most important issue facing this nation and I get the overwhelming impression that he hasn't thought about it at all. It's as if somebody reminded him just the other day that he'd need something about that indepence thing for the election manifesto and he was too busy to be bothered so he told his minions to just go with whatever it was we did last time. Swinney takes no account whatever of how circumstances have changed since 2014. He appears totally oblivious to all the thinking on the constitutional issue that has taken place in the intervening decade. His only idea is rinse and repeat. But without the rinse. It will shortly be eleven years since the sham independence referendum in 2024 and the only thing that has changed about the SNP's 'thinking' on the constitutional issue is that they now avoid the term 'Section 30'. The mindless Sturgeon doctrine has taken on the status of revered ideological dogma. It is simply not possible for any reasonably intelligent person to spend a bit of time considering the constitutional issue and conclude that the best - never mind the only! - way forward is by way of the Section 30 process. It just won't work! Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Peter A Bell, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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Wednesday, 6 August 2025
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